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.

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I loved Paranoia! Great game! So, I would love to see this come to computer gaming. 

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/03/08/cyanide-to-adapt-pen-and-paper-rpg-paranoia-to-pc/

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.

3 minutes ago, JonL said:

There's the Fonrit HQ book in the works as well. If it sells well, we might see more HQ books exploring corners of the Lozenge at some remove from the Hero Wars action in and around Dragon Pass.

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).

2 hours ago, JonL said:

Where I feel the loss most acutely is the Gods book being re-directed. The thing that would have otherwise been most useful to me has its utility (to me) most degraded, with so much word count devoted to crunch like associated cult spell lists & skill training opportunities rather than setting info, Runic associations that aren't on the RQG character sheet replaced and so on.

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...

22 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Why don't you like that? I'm not opposed to that view, just curious as to the reasons why you dislike that.

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.

16 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

Our current SRD model for hp and experience has changed. A summary would be: GM awards players up to 5HP in a session for overcoming obstacles, good role-playing etc. They can spend them, or turn them into XP if unspent at the end of the game. Once you get 10HP, you can buy a package of increases.

It's modeled on the system in Prince Valiant (with the added HP twist).

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.

5 hours ago, styopa said:

Ew, that's too bad.  Most D&D players will tell you "it's ok, but it's not D&D".

I'd even considered getting it to sort of ease my local 5e hardcore groups into a little more substantive setting...not sure I'd bother.  If it's 4 they won't even consider it.  I'd love it if someone clarified that it was a 3.X variant, as a number of the groups do still live in the Pathfinder ecosystem which is about 3.75.

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/