Austin

23 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'm perfectly happy informing people about what is canon and what is not, especially when that is tied to specific questions. 

I know. And I do appreciate it, sincerely, when you're able to take time and share information with us. I'm aware it's not a trivial task.

My comments are equally emotional responses, as much as they are rational statements. Perhaps heavier on the sentimental side; I experience frustration when I ask a question, and someone just goes "Oh, YGMV. Easy, you don't have questions anymore, right?" That's part of why I, and people like me, want to have things written in stone.

Another complication is this expectation that because Glorantha is detailed, Glorantha is detailed. It's a setting which invokes the anal-retentive detail-hound in me. Which is something I enjoy! But I suspect I often assume more information exists than actually does, simply because of the already-large quantity which is published and unpublished alike.

6 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Work continues on it (I should know as I have weekly meetings with status reports from the team). But we are making no announcements until we are authorised to do so.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm happy hearing that it exists, and is still being worked on. That's good news to hear.

45 minutes ago, Pheres said:

In other games, based on novels or movies, we generally know this things by reading or watching the novel/movie, but in Glorantha, there is not such thing.

Something like Forgotten Realms' Drizzt novels, or Warhammer 40K's Black Library would be really cool to read. The main fiction I'm aware of is the Griselda stories from the 80's (although I think there's other stuff out there?).

The Rough Guide to Glamour has some short stories/fictive elements too, which are pretty good. Much more accessible than things like King of Sartar.

The Queen's Heir by John Boyle began life as a Glorantha novel, although the setting was moved to a Fantasy Earth Bronze Age instead. I don't know the story behind that. I haven't gotten to it in my reading stack, but if you're looking for a novel which already exists to point your players to, maybe that's a place to start.

11 hours ago, Nevermet said:

I mainly want to know what is canon because I want to know when I am diverging from it.

This is a huge piece of it for me, too.

16 hours ago, Virane said:

I always find this conversation interesting, and I do have a bit of an issue with the assumptions a lot of folks project with YGMV/YGWV.

I think it's important to not just handwave that statement happily all the time. For some people, that's awesome. They LOVE the idea! It's freeing! It's amazing!

And good for them!

But for other folks, their brains may not work that way. They would prefer to have a concrete world provided to them - and no judgment should ever be applied for any reason to that desire.

It's neither better nor worse, just different.

Seconded.

I know I can change whatever I want for my campaign. But I want to be able to use new books that come out. If I've YGMV'd unintentionally, there's little to getting new material Chaosium publishes if my goal is to pick up published adventures/campaigns for ease of use at the table. To some extent, the "You can do whatever you want! Wonder of YGMV!" line of expression is tiresome because that's what the customer's paying for when they buy an RPG supplement. Someone else to do the hard work of worldbuilding, so we can sit down and just play.

I'm fortunate, in that I can afford to expend a good bit of time and energy in writing my own content and muddling through these sorts of things, trying to figure out what the heck the timeline is, etc. But there's not a lot of people who can do that - and sometimes I feel other commentators don't understand that.

5 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Ah yes, I have not read that yet, is it the same as the RQ 3 write up?

No clue, sorry. I don't have Elder Races or the RQ3 Glorantha bestiary, just the core box, and only lately been acquiring some of the later books for collection/reference purposes.

25 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

would that be the first official write-up for Dragonewt magic and Dragonewt cities? I hope it's going to be as trippy as they promise ("mind-bending limits of mortal reality"). Or have Dragonewts been covered before?

Do you count the dragonewt magic described in the Glorantha Bestiary?

Though, I imagine there would be new, strange elements with a whole city of dream-reality bizarro shenanigans.

7 hours ago, Glorion said:

PS, what does RAW stand for?

RAW = "Rules As Written"

6 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

You do not need full character sheets for NPCs, generated using the current edition of the rules and carefully balanced against your players' characters: RuneQuest isn't that kind of game.

For what it's worth I do actually enjoy playing RQ in that simulationist way. But when you're learning the game, that type of thinking isn't worth the brainpower. For me & my players the simulationist "fully compiled stats & details, finely tuned and organized for plausible opposition" is a large part of our fun. It can definitely be boiled down to be more simple, and that approach is okay too.

8 hours ago, GeneralMayhem said:

Is converting magic from older editions a hard task?

Depends on how much you care about mechanical/mathematical gubbins. I converted statblocks from "The Temple at Feroda" to RQG, and there was more fiddling required than the conversion guide or Chaosium's marketing suggests. If you'd like to see the conversion, search the forum for "Feroda" and you should be able to dig up the thread and the file. I converted from the version of the adventure in the Glorantha Classics Pavis & Big Rubble PDF.

Soltakss's notes on Rune magic are good. I might include the common spells when calculating the Rune point pool, or estimate total POW sacrificed on special spells, but I'm a tinkerer and don't like to be satisfied with what I'm told.

The most notable change for converting old adventures IMO is the change from using INT to CHA, for how many spirit magic (battle magic) spells can be stored. This in particular shows up as problematic with foes like broo and tusk riders who, in RQG, have inherently low CHA.

That said, if you don't care about the math you could play old adventures without trouble. And in addition, I don't think you should care about the math. It's probably not worth it, especially if you're new to the game. Play those broo with oodles of spirit magic and CHA 4. Play that Rune Priest with way over their CHA in Rune points.

The primary problem I can imagine is player dissatisfaction that the antagonists of old adventures aren't restricted to the same rules that the players follow.

10 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

I did that. 
>.>
<.<
But yeah, probably don't.

Then we're probably the same flavor of masochist. It's on my own Bingo card, anyway.  

9 hours ago, seasparrow said:

I feel that there is some sort of hidden Bingo Card for new Glorantha fans, and I am wondering what the next few entries are for me to check off and then win this cool game? Pretty sure one of them, at least in the age of COVID 19, is for me to GM an online game, but beyond that I am stumped.

Read the Guide to Glorantha cover to cover?

Note: I don't recommend actually trying that. Is joke.

Edit Addition: Ooh, play King of Dragon Pass. That one's not a joke! Solid game, really holds up considering its age. I played it last year and had a lot of fun.

3 hours ago, Jeff said:

Yep. There are some jokes that need to be retired for extreme old-age. 

"Heroquesting next year!" ?

1 hour ago, Diana Probst said:

You're my favourite TWICE.

Let us know if you have any questions, want us to appear in interviews, or can solve any major plot problems in your upcoming Clearwine Slum Saga.  Especially the last one.

I resolutely deny any and all rumors about a Slum Saga work-in-progress.

After all, the correct and proper way to tell a story is in dactylic hexameter. If I wanted to write "Sagas" I'd go sit in a hut and be alone and drunk for nine months.

Hrm.

Maybe sagas are my One True Genre after all...

On 8/10/2020 at 6:16 PM, Diana Probst said:

Is anyone here the proud (or ashamed) writer or owner of a review site, or a blog/podcast?  We'd love to fix you up with a review copy.

I would, but I already ordered one.  Will have to remember that next time.

2 hours ago, redmoongoddess said:

And then there's the fact we're getting books like this one, that we had no knowledge or news of beforehand until right before it came out, while books we've known about for years are still being delayed in favor for more books about an area already well explored.

Alternative interpretation: Jonathan Tweet clearly likes YGMV/YGWV (as you can see in 13G). He's also a major game designer, who can probably work on nearly anything he wants. It feels to me like Tweet probably pitched the book to Chaosium, then they went "Ooh, that's cool—do that."

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

There's no multiple cult joining in the Adventurers chapter

It's in the Rune Cults chapter. Page 275, "Membership in Multiple Cults".

On 8/8/2020 at 8:01 PM, svensson said:

some of the best maps in gaming. And hands-down the BEST interior building /cave /dungeon maps.

Sorry for the thread-drift, but what makes the maps so good? JW.

Enjoyed the episode! Quick note on POD/Electrum - those of us who were already in the POD process didn't lose approval when the policy change was made, which is why Treasures became available on POD, and why Dregs of Clearwine was able to release simultaneously on PDF & POD. Moving forward I doubt there will be any more simultaneous releases, unless someone makes a book the Chaosium folks really want a hard copy of right away.

8 hours ago, svensson said:

Any plans on bringing back Armoring Enchantment in RQG?

The Conversion Guide says 'currently unavailable', which might imply that it will be at a later date. Or not.

A character in the title adventure of The Smoking Ruin has an item with boosted APs from an Armoring Enchantment (page 42, not naming whom to be spoiler-free). However, when I asked Jeff in a conversation on the FB group why this was the case, he stated that this is an error in the book, and that Armoring Enchantments will not be returning.

I presume this is the case as well with Strengthening Enchantments.

3 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I think it is probably the best version of RQ, but has a lot of flaws, badly-designed rules and internally inconsistent parts.

Without getting into the weeds, that's a good summary. If you'd like the details, Tman, there's plenty of 'em in recent threads to gawk at.

By the way, another useful resource is the collected errata at the Well of Daliath website. It's not always helpfully phrased, but it's a good starting point when you have rules questions. The errata's mostly a collection of the posts in the "Core Rules Questions" thread, organized by book and chapter of the rulebooks.

4 hours ago, tmanmerlin said:

I'm enjoying the RQG core rule book, but I have to say the magic system is not so clear.  Spirit, Sorcery, and Rune spells.  Magic points and Rune points and Power.  A lot of moving parts.  I wish there was a straightforward guide to the mechanics of the combat and spells for the RQG edition.

My suggestion, for starters, is just ignore the Sorcery chapter. It's explicitly incomplete, and makes life easier if you're just starting out with the game to avoid it. If you've got a player who gets attracted to it, let them do the work of learning the system.

You have two main magical resources: magic points and Rune points. Rune points are used for big spells from the gods, and magic points are used for little spells that pretty much anyone can learn. Sometimes, a Rune spell also requires you to spend magic points, but it'll be noted in the spell description. An example is the common Rune spell "Heal Wound," which heals hit points equal to the magic points spent. Your magic points come back over the course of 24 hours, but Rune points only come back when you worship your god.

4 hours ago, tmanmerlin said:

Here is an additional simple question, if you are casting a magic point spell, and it is resisted, does    the caster use their power before the spell is started, or do you take the spells cost off your power for the cast/resist roll.

You always resist spells with your POW characteristic. You always use your POW characteristic to overcome someone else's POW, if that's required to affect them with the spell. In general, if the spell's going to harm them, you need to overcome their POW. How many magic points you have doesn't matter for resisting spells or casting spells on others. It also doesn't impact your casting percentage. There's multiple exceptions to these rules (for example, shamans operate a little differently), but don't worry about them while starting out.

Let's assume I'm playing my Odaylan adventurer, Kali Stormwalker. He has 14 POW, and knows a bunch of different spirit magic spells and Rune spells. If I want to cast a spirit magic spell, I say what spell I'm casting (statement of intent), then say that I'm acting on the appropriate strike rank. This is my DEX SR, plus 1 SR per magic point beyond the first in the spell. I know, that's an awkward phrasing 😕. On that strike rank, I roll my POW×5, or 70%. If I roll under, I've cast the spell successfully, and I reduce my magic points by three to 11. If I fail, I don't touch my magic points. Then if I need to overcome the opponent's POW, my GM will call for me to roll a D100 on the resistance table (and will sometimes ask to double-check what my POW is, cuz I'm a greedy bugger and tend to sacrifice it wantonly for extra Rune points), and he'll compare my 14 to the opponent's. I tell him my roll, and he tells me if I overcame their POW or not.

To cast a Rune spell, you need to roll under your appropriate Rune affinity. You might still need to overcome POW if you're trying to harm someone. If you succeed, you mark down those spent Rune points. You don't have to worry about rolling POW×5. Rune spells are cast on strike rank 1. You can do other stuff after, but you can't cast more than one Rune spell in a round, and you can't cast other magic in the same round you cast a Rune spell.

For example, if I'm casting the Sleep spell I recently won from a ghost on an enemy troll, I declare that I'm casting Sleep. Sleep's a three-point spell, so it takes place on my DEX SR +2 strike ranks. I roll a 45 to cast, comfortably under 70%. Then I roll to overcome my opponent's POW, and roll an 88. My GM informs me that, no, I did not succeed, not by a long way.

The next round I decide "Screw this, I'm just going to smack the troll." So I declare that I'm casting one of my Rune spells, Bear's Strength, then charging. On SR 1 I roll against my Beast Rune 85%, and succeed. I mark off 2 Rune points, leaving me with 7 remaining. My STR characteristic doubles, and I charge the troll with my broadsword, planning to hack them to pieces.

13 hours ago, Jakob said:

I love BRP, but I most confess that I also really like the notion of assymetrical rules - not so much the mooks thing, but rules that think about how adversaries and NPCs of all power levels can be run in a simplified way that is appropriate to the fact that, as opposed to the PCs, they are not the protagonists of the story.

This is what I had in mind when I asked the OP - mooks was just an example rule I'd actually seen.

3 hours ago, Bohemond said:

Any word about the long-rumored Prax PaK?

I think that was @David Scott's purview?

I've heard no rumors in a while.

I've been wondering lately, how many BRP-family games are out there which use an asymmetrical take on player characters and NPCs? The only thing which comes immediately to mind is Mythras, which seems to have a "mooks" sub-system of some sort (I'm honestly not very familiar with Mythras, but it was something I noticed when reading through Shores of Korantia).

I know PC/NPC symmetry is historically "feature, not bug" for BRP, coming out of RuneQuest where you could hypothetically play anything in the monsters section. This is an approach which D&D has broadly taken too, in the editions I'm familiar with (3.5/Pathfinder and to some extent 5E). Here, I'm thinking of "symmetrical approaches" as meaning that player options and gamemaster options for how a character interacts with other characters and the game world are broadly similar. A good example of this symmetry is to page through the RQG Glorantha Bestiary or the Gamemaster Adventures book and see the pages of full statblocks. D&D 3.5 did the same, although I think 5E breaks that mold slightly (in particular, I'm thinking of how players have spell slots, and how spells seem organized as actions/options for monsters).

For asymmetric examples, I'd point to 13th Age (based primarily on my skim of 13th Age Glorantha and not a chance to actually play it) as the most likely game people on these forums may be familiar with. My recollection is that each monster basically has a physical and a mental resistance players need to overcome, and a handful of abilities which each use the monster's physical attack or mental attack and do varied damage, or maybe have a bonus effect.

I think an advantage of asymmetrical design is that it's usually designed to reduce the mechanical burden on the gamemaster. BRP tends to have increased mechanical burden, both in creating antagonists, and in playing them, due to its simulationist elements - things like hit locations, wanting full characteristics for NPCs, and so on. Those aren't necessarily bad design choices, but I'm curious if other ways have been tried.

One idea I've been mucking with in my "if I ever made my own D100 game" notes file is minor wound and major wound damage thresholds, with predetermined effects. For players, there'd be hit locations and some randomization for what sort of wound was inflicted, but for antagonists it'd probably be a default, maybe with a D6 chart tacked on in case the gamemaster wants to implement variety. I'm curious in particular if a similar idea has been implemented before, and if it was effective.

36 minutes ago, g33k said:

To make that clearer:  would you (please!!!) include  at least one such place -- already well-developed -- to make it utterly clear that "YGMV" should explicitly be applied even to well-developed canon.

Ooh, I like that idea.

On 7/31/2020 at 6:14 PM, lordabdul said:

I do! Which is why you need to make plushies of the little fella!

(Chaosium people: a Crimson Bat plushie! When?)

Well now I want both of those things! And I'm not nearly crafty enough to make one for myself.

Drat.