Mankcam

.

Great reviews here MOB!

Just downloaded a copy of the RQG core book. Yep this looks great. Very much an update to classic RQ. Can't wait for the print copy release to really take a good look. I'll buy a print copy of this book, then wait and also get the three-book slipcase edition that includes the GM book and the Bestiary. Going to look nice on the game store shelves (and in my bookcase!)

Just because it has some grim elements, doesn't mean LOTR isn't overall hopeful. Although that sense of hope certainly sits side by side with melancholia at times, including the final chapter. Overall Tolkien's Middle Earth Legendium is a mixture of heroism, hope, and tragedy. The tragic elements really come through much more in The Silmarillion, and the Histories of Middle Earth, etc although LOTR itself often doesn't place the same emphasis on deep tragedy, except for Gollum, that figure remains quite tragic. But the point I was making is that it would be hard to categorise LOTR as a 'dark fantasy' as opposed to 'high fantasy' or 'classic fantasy'. Although this in itself is a bit off-track from the initial query regarding whether Glorantha can be a dark fantasy. I would pose that Glorantha is a 'gritty fantasy', which can be quite dark in some areas, if one wants to follow that path.

Yeah I get that, but LOTR is not Dark Fantasy because of opposition and death/conflict, that's just Classic Fantasy which isn't aimed at children. However if we are talking about Tolkien's Legendium then that certainly does get a bit darker and melancholic, especially with Turin and the Histories of Middle Earth etc.

Depending upon what you want, Glorantha can easily be presented in a much darker sense than core books suggest. I tend to watch HBO ROME to get in the flavour, it really drives that ancient vibe home. Laws were harsh in ancient times, and daily life was a struggle, especially outside of the cities. City life could be a hassle as well, such as not walking at night in certain regions You can easily add weird and unusual (sometimes confronting) parts to temple rituals and rites, as well as sometimes harsh initiation challenges etc. Gaining new spells should have things like this as well, in addition to base POW cost etc. The Elder Races are quite disturbing, as they are very alien to humankind. The Uz are the closest, and they fill the bill as Orc and Hobgoblin stand-ins. The Mostali are very mysterious and regimental, they have an oddness to them that is nothing like D&D or classic fantasy Dwarves. The Aldryami are also very alien, basically they are intelligent plant-life that takes a humanoid form. So the alieness of The Elder Races works well as an oddness to the setting. I like to present these differences in a slightly unsettling fashion, otherwise it could easily become very 'gonzo' with Elder Races. The villains can be very dark. Broos spring to mind - raping anything they can and spreading their seed, filth, and terror everywhere for no other reasons that they are creatures of Chaos. The Thanatri Cultists are also very dark and odd, with their gruesome head-collecting magics and such. Between Broos and Thanatri you can easily come up with a disturbing game.

Well those analogies are very broad, and well..incorrect Yeah they work in the fact that D&D is from USA and very shiny, whereas Warhammer is from the UK and very 'muddy'. But that's about it. Tolkien was a Brit, and Lord of the RIngs is pretty hopeful and shiny. Perhaps the main famous fantasy novelist ever. Same goes for Lewis's Narnia (if not a bit childlike).So two big Brit names not involved in the dark grime and mud. And not all American stuff is John Wayne. George R.R.Martin is an American, and A Song of Fire and Ice gets very mature and dark at times. Frank Herbert was almost just as dark, and he was an american sci fi/fantasy author. Also Howard's CONAN series was just as much about a rogue-almost antihero.

Yeah that's what we initially did after a year or so of playing RAW. I met a few other people who also did this. As a GM I thought it was a good idea. Although after a few years of play, I think it was just simplier to combine the skills. Players liked it, and the GMs I knew didnt worry either way, so after a while it became common common practice for us. I have read elsewhere that others did likewise, it seems like a common houserule to me. Having separate attack/parry skills that train up at the same rate works for me, although many players often prefer just having a combat skill that covers both. We also combined a few other skills, it wasnt just combat. Move Quietly, Conceal Object, and Hide got rolled into a Stealth skill; Climb and Jump got morphed into an Athletics skill (I think I may have initially called it Physique). It just felt like separating these was a bit tedious at times. This had nothing to do with MRQ, we were doing it before MRQ and the BGB. These days I dont mind either way.

All good points. I think the player buy-in regarding Runes and Personality is a good thing. It is a feature of the setting, and helps define that the game is set in Glorantha. I regards to Runic Inspiration I think the point is to let the dice help you decide, so any roll should have a chance. Otherwise you would just decide. Theres no reason that you can't do that either. If you wanted to provide more player excitement regarding the Rune Bonus, then you can easily replace the flat +20% with CoC 7E's bonus/penalty dice where you roll an extra D1O and count the best score (just like D&D 5E's Advantage/Disadvsntage rules). I can see the merits of flat modifers for general circumstantial modifiers, but if you use Bonus Dice for Runes then it'll certaintly add a fun flavour to the situation. (Mathematically it is more variable than the flat bonus however) I may possibly do that with Runes, as my players are used to doing that with the CoC 7E Stunts.

I been playing RQ2 since 1985, and RQ3 since 1987. Thats over 30 yrs of RQ, so I guess I am also part of the Old Guard. Not that I usually identify with such. And like many of this apparent group, we houseruled combined attack/parry skills (after about 5yrs of playing them RAW). So this is not an issue of Old vs New. There is nothing radical here. Its really just common sense in a game system, and its the most common house rule I have seen with RQ players. Glad that Jeff has worked it into RQG. Certainly works for this Old Guarder!

I love these Runes rules, they are done well and finally we actually have 'real' rules for Runes In my BGB/RQ3 homebrew I did something similar - I used Runes as a casting % for Divine Magic, and also allowed it to use Complimentary Bonus rules. So these new official rules are more or less in keeping with that concept, and my players will not have any problems adapting to them whatsoever. Also the artwork in RQG looks gorgeous, its going to be a nice book on the shelves!

I actually agree with pretty much everything you wrote here, except I dont find Fate Core to be anything like RQ just because it has skills - perhaps its similar to White Wolf Storyteller, but with a more streamlined narrative focus. But yeah Fate Accelerated is definately more in the ballpark of HQ. So this sounds great that other genres are being considered for HQ. I know there will not be a focus on such while RQG rolls out, but I am really happy to see more genres are being considered for HQ rather than just HQG.

.. Still reading the hardcover version and taking it in. Regarding your initial ideas, I like the notion of perhaps simplfying damage in Advanced Combat by ruling no need for 0 point wounds - just exceed the Toughness value to do damage. I also like the ideas of Motivations being in the core rules.

With RQ3 we house ruled the same attack % and parry % for weapons way back in 1989. Just seemed to work better for my group at that time. So its probably been a common houserule across the board.

I perhaps meant that HQ may benefit from having a new well produced core book sitting alongside HQG. I see HQ more as a FATE rival than anything else, and would love to see a wide range of genres portrayed with it. Previously RQ and HQ were quite different. However from the recent previews it feels like HQG and RQG are covering similar territory. Not only Glorantha, but the flavour of the PCs. RQG is having a starting default of highly proficient player-characters, in much the same way that HQG does. I do like how the recent HQG supplements have been almost systemless, which will be good if one prefers to run Glorantha with RQG instead of HQG. I just wish HQ had a few more genres to show it off. Its a very innovative system for storytelling.

Although I prefer that cover homage to RQ2, I can certainly understand your creative reasons for not going with that. The stat vs base chance debate prob will never resolve. Guess thats an issue with redesigning a legacy system, choosing which route to take or return to. Can't make everyone happy. But yeah, lets not waste time on that since the horse has already bolted. Everything else seems spot on for what I would want in a new edition of RQ, and in fact it looks like exceeding my expectations. Thats also great news regarding a form fillable character sheet. Excellent!

I think the artwork is excellent. Captures the ancient flavour of Glorantha, yet looks very fresh. Its going to be a beautiful edition.

Just not my thing I guess. I kinda like the sense of achievement of getting average characters up to expert level. Nothing against starting characters at higher proficiency, although it seems like that should be an option rather than a default. I can understand an adversion to zero-to-hero however, as starting as a beginning dirtcrawler isnt a great default either. RQ2 was a shocker in that regard! Yes it had its charm, but every character begining as a kid who could barely swing a small cudgel was no fun at all. Death at the hands of every trollkin band! The BGB was quite useful in that way that you picked how seasoned you wanted characters to be at the start of a campaign. That was a winner for me. Anyway these pregens are pretty cool. That 'Gloranthan Laura Croft' particularly stands out!

Loving most of the things I'm seeing in the RQG previews. Character sheet looks good. I think I may have preferred the Hit Location Figure to look similar to the RQ3 one, but that's about it. I would have preferred Skill Categories to be stat+stat, but that horse bolted a long time ago. As far as the character sheet goes, everything looks pretty good. Except I still greatly prefer the cover of the RQG Quickstart to the RQG cover that we have been shown. The RQG Quickstart just feels right sitting alongside RQ Classic, and I think it resonates as being the same game line. The new cover is cool, but I would have preferred that picture early on in the book rather than on the cover, it just doesn't feel right to me. Ok that was my lone voice in the wilderness that had to get that out. Everything else looks really cool and I'm putting some gold coins aside to ensure I can get this pretty close to publication. PS: A form-fillable version of the character sheet will be pretty desirable from the get-go. I think that should be a priority, as it really helps keep the sheet looking neat, and many gamers like things like that.

Yes now the RQG is coming, I definately think its time for HQ to unshackle itself from Glorantha. I want HQ to do a contemporary cheesy action flick or something that D20 Modern would have tried!

I like the pre-gens, but I don't really like to start off at that level (although I didn't like RQ2 dirtcrawler start all that much either), so I tend to have beginning characters in the average proficiency range if possible. However if I run RQG I will just have to remember that the characters need to be experts before attempting any official scenarios, otherwise I'll be looking at a few TPK situations Also that Lhankor Mhy follower was interesting. Quite high combat skills, I always felt that they were more indoor Sage types. Yes there were those adventuring scholars but I didn't think their combat skills would have been that high. I like the artwork, you can really see the ancient world flavour of the characters. I'm suprised how D&D ish it looks, however that is not a bad thing if it gets people to try the system out. I think the RQG book is gonna look pretty good

I just received my copy down here in Australia - thanks to a prompt from Paolo, heh heh The book is great, very impressive in hardcover format, great production standards. I have the original softcover copy, but it's been in my reading pile for over a year or more now and I am just starting to get around to it. However I tend to put my hardcover books in my bookcase, so this new version of RD100 is more handy for me to read bit by bit. As I have remarked elsewhere, the more that I read it, the more that I see it is actually quite an innovative take on BRP and I can see influences from more narrative games coming through. I do find I have to read through many passages a few times before I soak it up. But once I get time to reflect on it I find the rules quite cool. Feels like good old BRP, with some cool twists here and there, some of which is along the lines I was trying to homebrew a little while ago. I really like what has been done with trimming down the skill list, yet losing nothing regarding individualisation. I once made up a BRP character sheet using Skill Categories as the main Abilities (Primary Stat + two Secondary Stats at half value). This made the sheet so much more simple, and I allowed for drop down skill specialisation. So RD100 is different to this, but the concept is similar how it presents 15 core skills, which can be further specialised with various skill traits. Personally I would probably use very individual names for those skill traits to provide more flavour, and I can see from the sample character sheet that this can happen. Anyway I think this is really a great feature of the game, as it keeps the character sheet simple, yet also allows for a wide range of specialisation. Having one core Powers list was also a smart move, and providing different approaches to them. Lots of other generic rule sets do this, and I think it is a good idea. It's the building blocks that you use when designing setting specific magic/powers systems, and the sample approaches provided give good ideas on how to do this. The way conflicts are handled is also quite good in the fact that you can have simple rolls or you can turn social rolls etc into a version of the combat system, using Resolution Points. I also like how there are two combat systems, a quick simple one (also using Resolution Points), and a more expanded traditional style one for more dramatic scenes, major villains, etc. Great stuff. I also think changing the term Life Points to Exertion Points was a good idea, otherwise it is too much like the classic Hit Points (well these are Hit Points, but not exactly how they are in classic BRP, they are more to do with stamina and momentum than a measure of health/body capacity) Even if my current troupe is reluctant to cross over from classic BRP, they will be getting exposed to many of these techniques as I'll plug them into my current BRP game. In recent years I have moved into games like HeroQuest and Fate Core, yet still love BRP - so I think its great that I now have a way of doing some of this style with BRP if the situations and pace of the game will benefit from such. So no doubt once RQG comes out I think I'll be using some of the RD100 techniques with it. However I am also looking forward to starting out some fresh characters at some stage and running RD100 RAW to give it good test run. This is a really good version of BRP that I'm recommending to others. Plus the hardcover version looks great! I hope to see more RD100 products in future!

Yes I when down to the local post office and picked it up yesterday. I sent you a PM via Ulule, thank you. Greatly appreciated Paolo

.

And there is no reason not to stay with Mythras either. The Mythras line of games is quite good, and there are some things I prefer in Mythras over classic BRP. I am also proud of how the DM consistently puts out great products and settings. It just doesnt include Glorantha these days, thats all. BRP in Glorantha is RQG, I can live with that. Plus we can homebrew what we like or even use another BRP game if we want. Its the Gloranthan content portrayal that I'm impressed with.