Arkat

So, even if all pre-current-edition-of-RuneQuest material is thrown out as no longer canon, there are NPCs in Pegasus Plateau, Smoking Ruin, and the GM Screen Pack who are... An initiate of Eurmal and lay member of Humakt An initiate of Ernalda and Issaries An initiate of Ernalda and Donandar A priestess of Issaries and an initiate of Yelmalio An initiate of Humakt and Vinga A rune lord of Humakt and initiate of Orlanth An initiate of Black Arkat and Argan Argar An initiate of Barntar and lay member of Lhankor Mhy An initiate of Uleria and Ernalda An initiate of Uleria and the Seven Mothers An initiate of Issaries and Lhankor Mhy An initiate of Ernalda and lay member of Issaries An initiate of Eurmal and lay member of Issaries An initiate of Orlanth Thunderous and lay member of Ernalda An initiate of Ernalda and lay member of Orlanth ... And others, including elves and trolls who are initiates of Aldrya/KL as well as other deities. It does not seem particularly rare.

The Paranoia game actually already came out a couple months ago on the Epic store. It got very little fanfare or attention -- I didn't know about it until yesterday -- and reviews were not great. Apparently earlier this month it was quietly pulled from the only place that was selling it, and its store page was deleted. No one has said why.

I had actually forgotten about that. Has it been recently re-confirmed that the Fonrit book is going to stay HQ? I fear it may meet the same fate as the Nochet/Prax/Big Rubble/troll books and quietly be shifted over to a Runequest supplement, especially since non-Dragon Pass-adjacent supplements are apparently in the planning stages for Runequest (per chatter in the unofficial Chaosium Discord and, I think, some videos of convention talks).

Yeah, this (and the time period change) is what makes me sad about every single Glorantha book becoming a Runequest book*. I get that RQ sells much better and it makes sense from a publisher's standpoint, but I don't like and am never going to play Runequest, so every big stat block and spell description takes the place of something that could have been more interesting to me. It wouldn't be as bad if the crunch was only in addition to all the fluff, rather than in place of it, but I really doubt that's the case. (e.g. Jeff recently stated that the Gods book will have the definitive Eurmal cult write-up at such-and-such a word count... but if I recall correctly, the word count he cited was something like 2000 fewer words than the HQG write-up.) *Except maybe a third Red Cow? I wouldn't be surprised if that was the last-ever Gloranthan HQ release...

I'm not sure I can explain it well; I think a lot of it is just a strong personal preference. I know it's not the case for everyone, but I personally find picking between short-term success and long-term advancement a very irritating choice, rather than an interesting one. It can also lead to very different levels of advancement for different PCs depending both on their natural tendency to spend/hoard points and on how well they roll. (See the opening post of this topic.) Of all RPG experience systems with which I have familiarity, it is probably my least favorite.

I mean, why not just use the symbol for each mastery, e.g. 3WW / 3MM? Players can only begin with a single mastery on an ability, and most characters aren't going to get more than two masteries, maybe three, unless you run a really long time, so it's not going to get too impractical or silly-looking. I get not wanting this to be the official position, if the system theoretically allows you to keep gaining masteries forever, but practically I think it works. I personally found the notation confusing when I was first reading over HQ, too, so I just... wouldn't use it.

Is this going to be the only system presented, or is it just the default among several possible options? I know there's plenty of people out there, myself included, who really dislike systems where hero/action/fate points and experience/advancement are the same resource -- though it's no trouble to house rule, e.g. "Unspent HP disappear at the end of a session, and you get an increase package at the end of every third session," so it's not a huge deal. Just curious.

It is definitely not 4th edition D&D; nor is it 3.5. I'd say it's more of a 3.75 than Pathfinder is (the core of which I'd rate as a minor change to 3.5, as 3.5 was to 3.0). 13th Age does borrow a few elements from 4e that old-school D&Ders freaked out about, like the division between at-will / encounter / daily powers (in the case of 13th Age, for spellcasters only), a resource to heal yourself without relying on a cleric, and trying to give fighters and rogues more interesting combat options (but, alas, I think 4e did better with both -- and also alas, there's not much of that love for barbarians and paladins and rangers). You can always check out the SRD, if you want to see for yourself: http://www.13thagesrd.com/