Hteph

I was playing with a limit ages ago, a bit inspired by Talislanta I guess. The rationale was that a magic item had to be attuned to a chakra-equvalent with some rules around it. Think I found five or seven a good number as there is a high magic world where I like the players to have a fair amount of trinkets to play with.

I do understand the “need” for the M2, it is just the hockeystick shape thats jars me a bit, I mean it is not difficult to memorize, but it is another one, and a more natural progression would make that easier. And as you say the diminishing return in probability is really glaring. I have been shopping around for a system to use for a superpower-centric campaign with scalability, crunch and freeform at the same time and your work on the SRD has really made me root for QuestWorld.

I didn’t like them at all, but to each their own 😜

While I admit it is his prerogative to ignore the in-house discussion boards, I still wont touch FB with a stick so if this is screaming into the void, so be it.

So far the only thing I found is that I would really really change “Bat Wing” into “Wings of the Bat” as it is a very specific pair of wings and not to be mixed with any bat hsunchen and similar...

Yeah I must have misunderstood something, because it looks fine when I get further in to the book, so pay no attention to me, I sit here in the corner wearing a “dumstrut” (whatever that is called in english)...

Got the same frakked font on my iPad which I hardly can install a font to ... I believe ...

At first I thought it was a typo and it should be 2M instead, but that made even less sense...

Can we talk a bit about degrees? 5, 10, 15, M, M^2… The thing that itch is that 0-3 is a linear progression and then there is a exponential jump. Is that really a good model? For practical reasons I’m in favour of the resent rounding to nearest 5 (although I found the base 3 model more mathematically sound). But I think this is the reason for the “corner” in this function. Perhaps a 5, 10, M, M^2, M^4 is to powerful and 5, 10, 15, M, 5M is lacking in ooomph. Perhaps a modified fibonacci of 5, 10, 15, 5M, M^2 ? It certainly would make my brain itch a little bit less, and it is a natural progression and subsequent fifth degree easy to calculate and within the sane realm. (I added the ^ because it made the number series a bit easier to read)

I would go for the RQG as it has some improvements over RQ2 (there still are warts, but fewer) and all the old material is compatible (the conversions needed are so small I don’t think they matter in actual play) sometimes it needs additions of the new stuff around Runes and Passions, but only for VIP NPC.

I think that makes a much better story and has the advantage that it highlights the difference between our “scientific” powered world and the “mythic” powered Gloranthan. In general I like answers that is as un-science as possible, because it breaks the all-to-common way to extrapolate like “if a spell do THIS, then LoGICaLLy it be like this” among a certain sub-set of gamers. Glorantha is logical, but not your mundane world logical! When players let loose of their everyday fluid mechanics and newtonian movements and starts to talk about interaction with the water spirits and appease the local river goddess before they cross the river, then you have achieved immersion! So if I would probably interpret an attack with Steal Breath that it has removed the life giving movement-air’s [choose one: spirit, essence, divine spark] and left the lungs full with turgid “dead” air (and in an volume around them). The volume is more or less immobile but is constantly under attack from the “living” air around it. Move away and some heavy coughing should solve the problem, but there is a risk to pass out before that if the spell is maintained. Destroy Earth would perhaps be like flimsy ash powder, water like thick oil or jello etc. I try to figure out what core values elements like Darkness and Sky would be and get destroyed, but I can’t come up with something right now.

I’m not an fond of the Trickster as a source random Evil stuff without context, that is what has polluted the Loki myth. To me the Trickster is a role of dissolving fixations, balancing, and unexpected revelation (pain is an excellent teacher). That Trickster stuff may seem evil and senseless for those who are at the receiving end and get none of the benefits is true, but here I think we should take a more ... holistic view and try to discern why and how on a higher level. I would also say that saying Trickster is one step from (Gloranthan) Chaos is fundamentally wrong (and tell that about ZZ to a Troll to her face and you will have a fun time).

The danger with players is that they will use everything that is not explicitly restricted. I was suprised by the inclusion of Sorcery in LM (that was a HW thing to me) and more so at the choice of spells, but saw that mostly as a thing for the GM’s evil NPCs (all sorcerous things are evil). Pruning it may be good, especially when “the elusive tome of sorcery and Malkionism” is conjured into existence.

Also the role of Trickster is to upset complacency, to induce fear of the unknown and poke hole in the hubris, so that you are prepared when the unexpected arrives at your door. Sooo ... the Trickster made all your beer go sour the day before the drunken orgy and in the search for him you come upon the Krjaki hidden under the midden waiting to despoil your fertility rite. Coincidence? Maaaaabbyyyyy..... The Imp may be known for all its bad stuff, just because the good consequences are in the long term, two steps removed from the actual short term damage. Perhaps it is just to poke and test vigilance in preparedness for the “real” problems to arrive, to find the weakest link before it bursts in a more dire situation. So I would gather “harmless” curses and annoying damage and hurts is actually for your best, but in difference to Orlanthi culture where Erumal has been internalized (and weaponized), in the Wastes the trickster role is more outsider and enemy-like.

I thinl Storm Bulls are fine to bring to a cattle raid, or fine may be the wrong word. They probably will insist on getting along, will not atke anything serious and spout inappropriate advice ( along the “here little brother, lets show how a real man do the work” way, completely missing the point), treat any combat as a wrestling match on the fair ground (no chaos, so it must just be for fun) and getting too friendly with the cows on the way home and then drink all the beer at the victory party. They have a mythological connection through blood and action to the traditions of Orlanthi that Babeester Gori and Humakti lacks that (personal opinions aside, no one is a programmed automata (well except Mostali, but leave them out of this), there probably are BGs and Hs enjoying a cattle raid somewhere) makes them failing to see the point of the cattle raid. BGs may even be violent opposed to a cattle raid (except if it is to liberate cattles from an abusive clan, and boy do that have potential to go wrong. ( I see here an Erumali, use of Lie and Babeester Gore on a cattle raid)

I dubble up on that and says FB is actually the opposite of a accessible and useful place for discussion and development. Use of Github is excellent for me, but I imagine that it can be as bad as FB for those who are not Devs. So I wish the frakking in house board could be the center piece for this very interesting topic!

”Big A” has never interested me the slightest and neither has the cataclysmic Hero Wars, to me the small peoples interaction with myths and gods is much more interesting (with adventures to keep the interest up for everyone else. That said my interpretation of the conflicting and multiple images of the Big A collective is that it is actually an effect of to many creative heroquests performed, the history is rewritten and tampered with so many times from the future that it is like a walking multiple exposed photography. So people have done the various things that needed to be done and then it all got braided into this ... entity. The bad things is effects of HQs gone horribly wrong and not successfully fixed in Arkati re-heroquests. So what is the idea with that personal interpretation, well, the players can do the adventures and stuff that are retroactively folded into The “Big A” myth. They can accept it and become a member of the collective or start fighting it If they want that (perhaps even saving the Lunar way by accident). Not that I believe I will ever have the opportunity to GM a campaign of that length and heft again.

And "a necessary part of the universe" is describing a lot of things that someone could hate and fight against. Death is necessary, but fight against murder and terminal illness feels pretty ok. When the lie is difficult to actually refute, it is often so general it is toothless in application. Craft lies that are applicable in the short term local situation and accept that it will go away sooner or later.

I have never liked the Vampires so I have used various fan made Vivamort cults and my own tweaks, but Vampires have never been center stage in any RQ campaign that I have run or played in. But in general my Vivamort has always been centered around a myth of hubris and stealing death and then losing it to Humakt (making it a dark reflection of Erumal) with a long list of small myth where Vivamort loose to all kinds of Gods and in the end overcoming extinction by becoming the opposite of all losses. Kind of that jerk who says "you can't sack me, I quit" and then having revenge fantasies and living in their own reality .... or some variant of this.

Yep, but remember, we was soooo much behind up here in Scandinavia, the "Bronze age" was still in full strength while the Mediterranean was well into the "Iron age" so when the author wrote about the Bronze age Vanir it could be quite "recently". Interesting with the Devas/Asuras, never made that connection myself.

Yepp, and thats the reason I dislike to use Loki as a example of a Trickster, because we know that the major part of the Norse mythology is lost. What is left is obscured by what Snorre made up himself and other christian priests willfully misunderstood and wrote down. A essay ( I sadly have lost ) tried to glean a bit of the origin of Loki, the connection to spiders and fate, probably in an even older bronze age mythology. The connections of how seeing the strands of fate makes the trickster do things that seems illogical and contrary to the outsider, but avoids tangling the strands or snapping essential lines. That is the interesting stuff with Tricksters, and is much more apparent in those Trickster mythologies that not have been as mangled as Loke, or Lokkes as is closer to how it should be pronounced if I remember correctly.

I did a dive into agricultural yields while working on a “better medieval agricultural boardgame than Agricola” and I went totally bonkers on the units alone 🙂

But by calling Erumal ”Trickster” and not destroyer, or deciver or the devil, you have to draw upon what the Trickster are. And that is not a general pain in the ass when looking at it objectively, the pain is the purpose of the Trickster, but either a side effect or the a necessary tool to achive a important rebalance or opening a new way. Often the cost of this is payed by the Trickster too. So by calling Erumal the Trickster and not the Joker there is a heavy mythic baggage addet to it. More so than any other “character class”. Playing an Erumalite is playing a facilitator of the impossible, breaking rules by necessity and breaker of stagnation. if it happens in a fun way, so much better. i think Greg had a purpose calling Erumal the Trickster, that is a bit wider than, slapstick comedy at the gaming table (but including that too).

I had to improvise on my feet and needed to stress that it wasn't a normal human corpse because they had started to barking up the wrong tree.

Double post