Questbird

Correct. Moorcock's work was very much about the conflict between those forces shaping the multiverse. But it is useful for any system which has Good and Evil or Light and Dark (eg. Tolkien, The Dark is Rising), especially since there is a more life-centred Balance option too. I still use the system in a more gritty Swords and Sorcery setting, just because I quite like it rather than because it's especially fitting.

As a follow-up to this thread I admit I have been quite impressed with the DCC Lankhmar adventures, in spite of low expectations. I have run Violence for Votishal and am in the middle of running (using Elric! rules, not DCC) a somewhat changed version of Unholy Nights in Lankhmar. They certainly have the Lankhmar feel, moreso than most TSR or Mongoose Lankhmar adventures I've run. (I've got, but haven't run, some Savage Worlds Lankhmar modules too).

[I posted this years ago on another site, which I recently noticed had disappeared into the vortex. I recovered it from the Wayback Machine and thought I might as well post it here. It's not exactly a Glorantha post, nor exactly RQ3 but it concerns adapting the River of Cradles/Zola Fel setting.] (Originally published July 24, 2011) In the latest of my Nehwon Campaigns, I used an adventure campaign called ‘Troubled Waters’ from the Runequest ‘River of Cradles’ supplement. In this post, I’ll talk about how I adapted this adventure for Nehwon. Glorantha Glorantha is the main game world setting for the game Runequest. I am no expert on it but it is quite a different place from Nehwon. Magic is commonplace; most people know a few spells. The influence of the gods is powerful, and forces from mythology have shaped (and continue to shape) the world. Everyone believes. As in Nehwon there are many gods and none is all-powerful; each commands a relatively limited sphere. Glorantha has all sorts of non-humans and a powerful, Chaos-worshipping empire of humans, which comes into conflict with barbarian cultures at its fringes. So far so un-Nehwonian. The River of Cradles This is a campaign setting from the times when RPG supplements were made with real love, which is one reason I wanted to use it. The Runequest game system is not so different from the Elric! rules I use in Nehwon, so no problems there. The River is in a fertile valley between arid grasslands and wasteland. There are many detailed human and non-human cultures in the area, including river folk, farmers, various barbarian tribes, newtlings (small lizard-like bipeds), and city folk and garrisons of the conquering Empire army at the top of the river. The maps are gorgeous and the detail is great. The campaign itself is interesting, if a bit linear (you travel up the river, so it couldn’t really be otherwise). I played it over ten sessions with two players who ran an exiled Quarmallian and an outcast from Klesh. Where in Nehwon? Because I knew this setting would be quite different from the norm, I wanted to place it carefully. I put it in the south of the Lankhmar Continent, draining from the southern Mountains of Hunger to the Sea of Stars. To the east are the Jungles of Klesh and to the west are the Quarmall Barrens. Leiber doesn’t really describe this area (perfect!). Fafhrd and the Mouser passed it to the south in Trapped in the Sea of Stars. Other questions to resolve What about all this magic and gods? The campaign did assume a lot more magic in the hands of characters and opponents, and more ‘godly’ powers. I toned both down but left the essentials. For example, a river god plays an important role in the adventure. I allowed it as a local effect (local to the river) and justified the extra magic because the area was closer to Godsland. It helped that the characters were both sorcerers of different traditions(1) and from areas considered quite outlandish for a mainstream Nehwon campaign. I took a similar attitude to the various intelligent non-humans around. Leiber after all had mermaids, Ice Gnomes, and invisible princesses. How about the ‘evil empire’? How come Fafrhd and the Mouser never heard of it? No problem. It’s a recent development, and not really a huge empire, founded by a band of fanatical ex-slaves of Quarmall, confined mostly to the Mountains of Hunger between the Jungle of Klesh and the Great Southern Swamp. That works for my geography. Think of the Incas, who controlled a huge narrow empire from Ecuador to northern Chile in the late 15th century. Only not so huge. Something like that anyway. In any case, though the Empire’s military presence was visible in the campaign, it was not a major factor. How did it work out? Pretty well. The setting is a long way from Lankhmar, though even a typical Lankhmart rogue could have been used there. The only real changes I made while running it was the magic reduction and some setting adjustment as described above. Was it still Nehwonian? Yes, I think so. My campaign is a hodgepodge in any case, but what I love about Nehwon is that it is a land made for adventure and strange happenings. It is consistent in the broad view but sketchy on the specifics. This little corner fits nicely into my campaign. My players also gave it an interesting subplot of faith vs. skepticism, which Leiber might have appreciated. Having said that, I don’t think all Gloranthan RPG settings would transplant so well. Some things just don’t translate that well to a Nehwonian setting. 1) In my campaign, Quarmallian sorcery is a combination of sneaky mind control powers and dark wizardry. Kleshite sorcery is more nature-focused.

I have the old 'Curse of Cthulhu' campaign (3306, ISBN 0-933635-74-5) which is the same campaign with some expanded bits. I started running this campaign in 2004, did a few sessions, and resumed on and off between 2014-2020. I played the two optional adventures ('The Case' and 'Wail of the Witch') and four parts of the campaign proper: 'The Dreamer', 'The Thing in the Well', 'Castle Dark' and 'Sands of Time'. I documented the later adventures on my Obsidian Portal page.

Roll20 has support for both Magic World and Elric! character sheets

If I have a point to make, I try to make it once. However recently I've been posting less because I'm not playing any BRP games at the moment. I'm only playing online still and the few games I am playing aren't BRP*. I feel I have less to contribute here currently, but I'm sure the wheel will turn eventually. * As we are in Alastor's Skull Inn I can reveal that I'm playing a couple of D&D5e games and refereeing Coriolis: The Third Horizon, but even those sessions have been a bit thin on the ground recently.

One BRP way you could use is Fatigue points (optional rule on BGB p.20 and p.32). Crunchy way is that you have a maximum FATIGUE of (STR+CON). You normally spend 1 Fatigue point per combat round. You could add a Fatigue point per injury sustained, or per hit point of damage if you want a rapid decline. When your Fatigue goes negative, you suffer "-1% penalty to all skill, characteristic and resistance rolls for every negative point of fatigue." When you reach negative your maximum Fatigue you are incapable of action. Simpler way is not to have Fatigue points at all. After CONx3 rounds of combat all skills become Difficult. After CONx4 rounds you need to make a Stamina roll to even attempt a physical skill, and all skills are at ¼ normal skill rating. At CONx10 rounds you need to make a Difficult Stamina roll to complete any action and the maximum skill level is POWx1. You could adapt the penalties for the simpler way to relate to wound level. For example, wounded but less than half HP could use the CONx3 penalty, half or more HP could use the CONx4 penalty; majorly wounded or down to 1-2 HP could use the CONx10 penalty.

I like the simplicity of that. Shields have a lot of advantages in these games but it shouldn't be necessary to 'sell' them to players. So many historical cultures used shields; there must have been an advantage for doing so.

The 'Troubled Waters' campaign in River of Cradles was a great introduction to the whole Zola Fel region (though I didn't run it in Glorantha). My players did that whole campaign and one adventure from 'Shadows on the Borderlands' (the Dyksund Caverns). They started the 1st adventure in Borderlands after that, but they didn't care for Duke Raus and his Lunar connection, so they left his service at Horn Gate.

The cost is not only measured in money for those supplements; the GM must also read and synthesise all that material, which takes time. Hopefully the time invested is paid back by the immersiveness of the setting in play.

Yes! I ran that one for my players. I got it out of 'The Best of White Dwarf'. I set the town in Nehwon up the Hlal from Lankhmar, near the Mountains of Darkness. It was a really atmospheric town in decay, and the way it was introduced over those 5 or 6 episodes was really good. It was AD&D but it would suit a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay vibe too (or any dark fantasy really). One of my favourite fantasy cities.

Yes it uses a dice pool system of Attribute + Skill dice with a target of 6. For BRP you would use skill checks and opposed rolls. If you are using dice checks you don't really need cards as an additional randomiser. Yes, they are similar to the Mythras combat actions cards, just showing the options available for each crew station. I suppose it's because ship-to-ship combat might be rarer than personal combat (though in my game the opposite has been true). I don't use them.

The science-fiction game I've been playing is not M-SPACE unfortunately, but Coriolis: The Third Horizon. It has a pretty good space combat system which I won't detail here in this BRP thread, but I will mention some of the points which make it work, and which might be translatable into M-SPACE or another BRP variant. The game is built around a group which owns a spaceship, so there are shipboard roles for all the PCs. This is achieved by having a small set of generic and transferrable skills in the game. Eg. PILOT is for all types of vehicles, including spaceships. RANGED COMBAT works for small arms and ship's guns (so your 'grunt' can also be your gunner). TECHNOLOGY allows you to be a shipboard engineer and an electronics tinkerer. And DATA DJINN (the game's hacking skill) is also used for sensor operation (I usually allow some bonus from OBSERVATION, the game's 'Spot Hidden' skill too). There's also COMMAND skill which is used quite ingeniously to make others' skill rolls easier, if they do what you 'command' them to do. So nearly all the PCs will have some role in a space combat, depending on their skills. I think something similar happens with the Star Wars game Edge of Empire. It's important from an RPG point of view to have as many players engaged as possible during a space battle. Each turn your engine generates Energy Points (EPs) which your Captain allocates between the various shipboard roles. Usually there are plenty to go around but sometimes you might want to particularly emphasise one area, eg. evasive action. Then each role gets a chance to do one action, in a specific order, which uses up some EPs. A lot of the ship's capability comes down to the skill of the crew, and good choices of actions and tactics. Distances are abstract, expressed in distance from the enemy ship. The relative range can be altered by fancy PILOTING rolls on either side. Some weapons are more effective at different ranges. This system works fine with two ships, maybe gets a little awkward with more (but I've run it with 3 no problem). Like M-SPACE the ships are composed of modules, some of which have certain effects in combat. Ships can also have special enhancements and flaws like turbo thrusters or a flaky computer, which can influence their performance in combat. Ships have Energy Points and Hull Points. Some weapons affect either, or occasionally both. The ships in Coriolis don't have 'energy shields' like in Star Wars or Star Trek.

A lot of Antarctica is below sea level, corresponding with the 'Atlantean' bits of your map @svensson So if something does happen to the ice, eg. the Thwaites "Doomsday" Glacier, we could get closer to the 'Atlantis' version above pretty quickly.

Nice map, but also a contemporary possibility in the real world.

I don't think your attack roll is reduced on each roll with this spell. It is Parrying which is reduced each time you do it. This spell basically lets you attack as many times in a round as you have DEX, until you fail -- which is beyond the abilities of a Master warrior. But it's magic, innit?

"Maces halve the AP of mail". I like this simple rule. It's easy to remember and apply to all BRP games.

Yes, pretty much. I've just used roll20 since the pandemic, to play D&D5e and Coriolis: The Third Horizon. The GM constructs screens which have layers, a bit like a limited Photoshop. There's a map layer, a tokens layer and a GM overlay layer. The map layer has the graphic -- your .png file and you can add a grid if you want. It's kinda zoomable too by anyone. The token layer is where you put little moveable images, like how you would use miniatures. Players can control those if the GM gives them that ability. Then the GM layer is where you can do things like have GM-only visible things like notes about the map, or have blocks of greyed-out shaders which make parts of the map invisible to players.

Virtual Table Top Things like Roll20, Astral etc. Usually a set of tools which let the gamemaster display shared maps or images with tokens that the players can control, as well as zoom-like chat and videoconferencing. There's also usually dice rollers and interactive character sheets to make the bureaucracy of running a game a bit smoother.

There are some diverse collections by a mob called Heroic Maps at https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/5371/Heroic-Maps . I've used them for sci-fi games but there are plenty of fantasy options too. Not free though. For dungeons and locations, there are some fantastic isometric view maps in Trilemma Adventures https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/286792/Trilemma-Adventures-Compendium-Volume-I . They look interesting, and 3d-style maps is something you can use more easily on a virtual tabletop than face-to-face. I'm all for pushing the strengths of virtual gaming when you are using it. Just my 2c. I'm sure there are other good sources too.

I finally saw the movie and allowed myself to read this thread 🙂 I really enjoyed it. I was surprised at how similar some scenes were to the Lynch version. Probably because those scenes were well-described in the book. I loved the ornithopters and the rendering of Arrakeen. I did find the music a bit too loud at times (though I saw it in IMAX, so it could be just that it was turned up to 11) and overwhelmed the dialogue on at least one occasion.

And for non-BRP but still Chaosium there's also Würm

Yes I have several of those games. I think I already have enough material from all of them to make a setting and game. Just haven't done so yet. And I have to bring my players along too.

Systems like this work quite well for modern or sci-fi settings, or perhaps large medieval cities where goods themselves are not in short supply but maybe finance is, and where there are different 'classes' in society. Where goods are handcrafted, prized and bartered, society doesn't need 'wealth levels'. Ray Turney's Fire and Sword (available on this site) has an abstract wealth system, and he has provided some excellent design notes about why he chose to use it: -- from Designer's Commentary on Fire and Sword, p.8

The science-fiction game I am playing is Coriolis The Third Horizon: Moderately hard science fiction -- well its a bit softer and star-warsy, with handwavy artifical gravity etc. Set entirely in a future Solar System -- a set of interlinked systems, but at least of stars we know (not Sol). I wanted a constrained physical space for my sci-fi campaign, so I still got that. which is not filled with horror and Cthulhoid monstrosities -- There's some space horror but no Cthulhu. The horror is more general uncaring universe stuff. but (possibly strange and Vancean) flourishing human societies in space. -- Check, true dat. No interstellar drives (except long-departed generation ships) -- Check, true dat, but there are interstellar portals created by an ancient and probably alien civilisation. But hey 2001 a Space Odyssey had that, and no one is saying that isn't hard sci fi. No aliens (except for the genetically adrift human inhabitants of future interplanetary society) -- Almost true. No live aliens.. Probably no psi-powers, though I don't mind technological or biological enhancements. Hmm, there are psi powers. I'm still enjoying running this game even though it hasn't exactly met my criteria. It has a great background, a human vs. human universe instead of human vs alien. The science is not totally off, eg. wormholes and generation ships vs FTL. It has a constrained area so that you probably have to return to places you've been. It has pervasive religion, which elevates any sci-fi game I think. Ruleswise, it's a simple system which suits online play.