Mankcam

Excellent update; I'm looking forward to this Praxian book!

The pictures of Steads in 'Pavis Gateway To Adventure' (p61 and p110) are likely influenced from the Steads back in Sartar, so they certainly provide us some ideas to go on until the next Sartar publication comes out. I imagine the building materials vary and such, but the concepts will be more or less the same. There are also depictions of Steads in 'Sartar Kingdom Of Heroes'. On p327 it shows Snorristead (described as a typical Orlanthi stead). The design for this stead is a wooden longhouse. It does have a tiled roof however, and a hearth in the central area. The description also states that the longhouse is surrounded by several other sheds and a stone wall, which I now presume may be in square formation (Earth Rune), although it is not specific in this regard. There are also various pictures of Steads and larger settlements in the 'Sartar Companion' which show a collection of longhouses, but these don't seem to be following any Earth-Rune influenced format, they are enclosed in round wooden walls/palisades (ie Hillhaven Village p199). It should be noted that other Runes are used to influence building structure. For example, the Jonstown Library is Y-shaped, which corresponds to the Truth/Knowledge Rune. If the OP is after further supplements, I would suggest getting 'Sartar Kingdom Of Heroes' and 'Sartar Companion', and after this possibly get 'Pavis Gateway To Adventure'. It will be good to see what information is published in future supplements.

Yep, I totally agree. Dinosaurs are certainly not a 60s/70s craze; rather they have been in vogue for over the past century, and probably will continue to ignite imaginations well into this next century. Dinos are always cool

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I stumbled across these episodes on You Tube and thought they may be of interest to those of us interested in the ancient world. Some great ideas for informing analogies for Glorantha and Thenela: Secrets Of The Ancient Empires: The First Cities Secrets Of The Ancient Empires: The First Armies

Same goes for me. RQ2 is presented clearer in my opinion.

Actually, thematically at least, this is somewhat consistent with the building descriptions in the old RQ2 Pavis box. Many houses in New Pavis are square ( earth rune influenced) with stone or brick walls around an inner hearth/fireplace, and they have roof tiling where they can afford, with poorer structures having reed roofs. Given that these buildings are the homes of the descendants of the Sartarites who recolonised the region, then many of the housing designs are Orlanthi/Heortling in nature, and adapted to a new environment (ie: poorer residences having reed roofs whereas they may have used thatch back in Sartar). This means the Orllanthi settlements were certainly not originally envisioned to be direct analogs of Celtic/Saxon villages or Viking Long Houses, well not all settlements in any case. I like how contemporary Gloranthan depictions have returned to these original ideas and used them as reference points to further elaborate upon.

Are dinosaurs really a 1960s/1970s craze? Jurassic World begs to differ

Out of the contemporary systems, I really like the stat + stat for skill base chances, and the fact that the skill list has been trimmed. Passions or Personality Traits are a good addition. These are things I would like to see remain in some form in a new edition if possible. However I don't mind if Combat Order is on the table for review. The current RQ6 model does work quite well and it is more or less consistent with BRP BGB, except it also takes ENC into consideration as well as weapon length; it was a good revision in itself. Despite such, there was an interesting flavour to the old Strike Rank model in earlier Chaosium editions of RQ. I really liked that it felt very different to how combat order was calculated in other RPGs. I would certainly be enthusiastic to see a revised version of the Strike Rank system in the new RQ, and it probably would be good if it can be used with the RQ2 stat block considering the popularity and availability of RQ Classic and the Gloranthan Classics. I really liked the Strike Rank model from the earlier editions of RQ, however it was a little cumbersome for the GM at times in regards to record keeping, especially if there were a large number of combatants. Not sure if newer audiences will think it's worth the hassle unless some of it can be streamlined. It will no doubt be a challenging revision, but I think it could be worthwhile for the new edition.

I liked the 10 strike ranks in RQ3 much better for some reason. Not sure why. However I felt that I preferred the way they were presented in RQ2, and I really like the actual RQ2 Strike Rank chart. Again, I'm not sure why.

Apple Lane is iconic, maybe you can have it both ways and keep with canon: In the Dragon Pass Gazetter, Apple Lane was located as a trade village between the Colymar and Malani Clans, between Runegate and Jonstown. However it also goes on to say that the famous Pawnshop has now been burnt down by the Lunars (perhaps Gringle was a Sartarite conspirator?). You could easily have the wily old Gringle relocating his Pawnshop beyond Sartar somewhere in Prax, either at a listed location or you could easily make up a new settlement of that size without affecting anything. It would likely be on the Pavis Road between Sartar and Pavis, or at at riverside settlement down the Zola Fel in the vicinity of Raus Fort. It would need not to be too isolated, as Gringle would need to be situated on a trade route for his business. However it will have been a step down from where he was previously in Apple Lane. You could play the Apple Lane scenarios pretty much as written, yet have a reason why Gringle's Pawnshop is elsewhere. You could rename the Tin Inn, but if the players were none-the-wiser you could just keep it as is if you wanted. I would not call the setting Apple Lane, but the scenarios 'Gringle's Pawnshop' and 'Rainbow Mounds' could be transposed to any small village settlement. The great thing about rpgs is the wiggle room you have locating a good little sandbox setting like this almost anywhere

I don't think there is anything in the BRP BGB, but the Fatigue Levels in RQ6 lend themselves pretty well to this kind of approach. As a quick house rule for BRP, I previously used to say that stun damage could be recovered at the end of a scene at the rate of 1Hit Point per 2 Power Points expended. Perhaps first make a 'Rally' roll ( CONx5%). This worked well for fist fights and small bludgeons and such, damage dice D6 and under. It could also work for impact of any damage you decree to be 'stun' rather than lethal. I remember that the recovery roll had to be made at the end of that scene, otherwise the stun damage became standard damage that would only be recovered in the usual manner such as First Aid and Natural Healing. If you actually use the old Fatigue Points at all, you could always just make Stun Damage reducing Fatigue Points rather than Hit Points.

I'm uncertain if portraying the 'Sartar People' as 'Anglo-Saxon-esque, but with odd South Pacific Islander & Viking bits of culture' would be the best description. It has been suggested to use ancient Thracians as a core, with broad strokes of Gallic, Mycenaean, mixed with some Saxon & Viking flavour. The Viking flavour comes through more in mythology. I think the ancient celt vibe should be much stronger than later celtic influences however. Searching online for depictions of ancient Thracians and Myceneans, then throw in liberal doses of ancient celts like Gauls and Haltstatt Kelts. Google images is great for this,and will help set the scene quite well for your players. It may be difficult to see all these influences from the RQ2 rule book alone; it is more how Heortlings have been depicted in more recent publications. The Middle-Eastern vibe could work well for Pavis, and I used to describe the Pavic streets looking like ancient Jerusalem . To an extent I based Old Pavic peoples from the Yiddish peoples of biblical times. You could also look at some influences from the ancient Palmyrene Empire. Given that many of the New Pavic people are Heortling in origin, I tend to base a lot of their presentations from the Galations. The Elder Races evolved to be quite different from their presentations in the RQ2 rulebook. They are quite unusual in their behaviour and outlook, very alien at times. Dwarfs were depicted akin to Tolkienesque Dwarves in RQ2 publications, whereas the Mostali are now much more like a something out of Brian Froud's feverish imagination, almost like 'dwarf-goblin-dystopians'. The RQ2 rule book illustrations of Elfs were also very much like Tolkien's high fantasy Elves, whereas the Aldryami are more 'planty' in the organic sense, like a cross between pagan 'green wicca folk' and Ents. In fact, some are practically sentient plants and trees. The Trolls in the RQ2 book looked like humourous goblins (I am seeing that pic of Goobag), whereas The Uz are now more like a cross between Orcs and Klingons, and can also be quite intelligent. All the Elder Races can be very hostile to humans at times, so they are quite different to classic high fantasy versions of these races. I am only pointing this out if you introduce the players to Glorantha using solely the RQ2 illustrations, then it may be difficult to present other more recent products in the same setting. The RQ2 source books are great however, and Pavis & The Big Rubble and Borderlands & Beyond are titles that most of us here would recommend for Glorantha. Most of your pitch is a pretty good sell however, and using Dragon Pass and Prax is always a great location for a RuneQuest rumble, regardless of edition.

This looks very interesting I see the pdf is out already, so I'm wondering when the print copy will be available. It's not what I'm after at the moment, but I know that I'll want to grab the pdf + print copy at some stage

Well I guess it is a grey area, as legal frameworks greatly vary around the world in any case. However I try to be mindful of not revealing everything regarding published material. It's quite tricky at times, given the organic and creative nature of our conversations here, and I try to do this more out of respect to the authors rather than any potential legal complications.

I love the fact that David has used the G2G picture of The Block & Prax as a backdrop; very evocative!

Actually I was just discussing this with a friend that it would be pretty easy to use a rule like the RQ6 task rounds mechanic for extended contested rolls if you want to add more drama to a situation. I also stumbled across the concept in an earlier thread, so it's probably being used by a lot of GMs already. It's difficult to elaborate on it further without disclosing the actual rules mechanics, but it's certainly worth looking at the concept of task rounds from RQ6 Crafting and using this with opposed rolls for dramatic scenes. The other solution would be to decree that differential rolls replace opposed rolls in dramatic situations, but this may be cumbersome as you would need to have a list of specific effects able to be used for successful rolls, just like in a combat scene- I'm not saying it cannot be done, and I can see it working for particular situations that the GM may want the spotlight on. However I think I prefer using task rounds for opposed rolls would not involve GM prep at all, and would be a simple way of building the drama and tension, and it is consistent with mechanics already in the book.

I am using RQ6 as a base system these days, which allows me to use Legend and OpenQuest/Renaissance supplements with ease, and it's reasonably simple to port Call Of Cthulhu and BRP BGB games as well. The whole BRP line is very hackable. For example, Amazing Adventures attracted me but did not have the meat on the bone I was looking for, and I had given up waiting for Pulp Cthulhu. So I am now running Pulp Era characters built from RQ6, using a tweaked version of the Stunts from BloodTide for that cinematic pulpy experience. Because it is Pulp, I use a Mooks system as the default combat system and switch to RQ6 combat when using major villains or if I want the combat to be particularly dramatic. I'm running Call of Cthulhu scenarios with a pulp touch, so we are slowly working our way through The Masks Of Nylarthotep at present. It's all great fun, and it works well, no issues with playing a bastardised hybrid like this, which would be a nightmare to do in many other rpg systems. But I understand why the OP is frustrated, I would rather wait for more official games to come out to do what I'm after (where are you Pulp Cthulhu?), but at the end of the day there isn't many issues mixing the BRP family of games together

As far as I know, the Bolo Lizard is a fantasy creation specific to Glorantha, but for an analogy we seem to be in the right place using ornithischian dinosaurs, which are obviously the inspiration for Bolo Lizards in the first place. For a quick reference I'ld just place Bolo Lizards somewhere between a large pisanosaurus and a small camptosaurus, and showing both of those pics to players will give them an idea of the concept. If I was an artist I would use those dinosaurs as reference and come up with something of my own, perhaps add frill-necks and such (perhaps even a mane) or some other unusual feature to make them distinctly fantasy. But for quick player reference I'ld use those dinosaurs above.

I kinda always envisioned Bolo Lizards along these lines (this beastie would certainly be a fast runner, and it fits the silhouette of the Bolo Lizard counter from Nomad Gods ):

I always thought they were more like reptilian dinosaurs as well (hence the name Bolo 'Lizard'), but perhaps they could have some bird-like features or some other unusual traits to make them stand out. This may be a good compromise:

I envy you. Living down here in Australia we never find any architecture older than 200 years or so. I'ld give anything to go visit a castle or stay in a medieval township at present. Enjoy the UK!

I don't mind using a simulationist set of rules, although primarily for dramatic combat. At other times, especially non-combat, I use a heavy narrative focus, even if there are occasionally skill rolls required. I agree that narrative focus is the whole point of roleplaying otherwise we might as well be playing an MMO, but combat can be the part of the game that allow simulationists rules to shine. But only for importanty combat scenes, otherwise I tend to use Mook rules to gloss over general action scenes. So I think the key is in shifting focus between both narrative and simulationist elements at times

I stumbled across an interesting rpg article on the importance of narrative elements over simulationist elements Personally I like a healthy mix of both Article is by John Wick, rpg author of 7th Sea and Legend Of The Five Rings amongst others. In one part he speaks highly of the influence of many Chaosium related rpgs and in particular of Greg Stafford as well. I just thought the article may be relevant to this community and would be of interest: http://johnwickpresents.com/games/game-designs/chess-is-not-an-rpg-the-illusion-of-game-balance/ cheers