Austin

8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I ran a story arc nominally called "Colymar's Vision" where the adventurers were sent by Queen Leika to Colymar's Lookout to gain a new vision for the tribe after Prince Kallyr's disastrous LBQ and the subsequent bad omens.

I'm glad to see that some other GMs are thinking of their campaigns in terms of "story arcs." I do so as well, although we've not completed the first one yet. I intend to end the arc around the Fire Season 1625 defeat of Argrath's Praxian horde. Not sure how I'm going to do it yet; IIRC canon is Lunar madness spirits but I kind of want to use the Bat because my players are familiar with it and hopefully it'll inspire its well-deserved fear and terror.

My long-term goal is to slowly shift into a freeform sandboxy thing set in Prax and the Big Rubble once my players have learned enough about the region through story stuff that I can go to them and say "Hey, what do your adventurers want to do?" without blank stares, without needing so much use of questgivers.

10 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Our game is set in Pavis and The Big Rubble. I wanted to present a "classic" RQ experience and the Rubble seemed like the right part of Glorantha to transition D&D players into RQG.

What material have you been running? Old RQ2 stuff? 

Also, I feel like thus far the expected IRL time of an adventure is about one session. Does that feel accurate to other GMs? Remembering the length of the Broken Tower, Cattle Raid, Defending Apple Lane, etc.

In my campaign that's very much not been the case, but I feel like my group's norms and the material I've chosen has been the cause, rather than a design expectation within RuneQuest.

I haven't done the full munchkinning yet, but do note that the Family Histories section is either roll or choose an event from the lists. In particular, this could get an adventurer's Battle skill up quickly if we're trying to figure out how close an adventurer can get to Rune Lord from the start of play.

@Sir_Godspeed's comment is where my mind was going with "Ultimate Power of Shaggy." It's a meme/internet joke which was going around about 3 months ago? Basically, Shaggy being stronger than Superman, Thanos, Goku, Saitama, Harrek, Jar-Eel, Bugs Bunny, etc as a gag.

I'm not sure how to tie that into the sheep magics (although I really like @jajagappa's suggestions!) but maybe something you could homebrew for the Shaggy-trickster stuff would be based on Hallucinate, but combined with another Rune spell--or maybe phrased as a heroquest or other sub-cult secret--which lets his hallucinated reality become temporarily real for others. Basically letting your son pull the whole "unleashing my real power, but only a little" gag the joke's based in.

For reference,

16 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

For Example, we completed Snakepipe Hollow (The Classic Write-up) in just about 5, maybe 6 hours total gaming together over two sessions. Snakepipe Hollow was absolutely amazing with RQG, we ended up experiencing more as players than we EVER EVEN KNEW EXISTED, and we have done that specific adventure/area every time we play a glorantha campaign pretty much

Okay wow, y'all must have really hauled ass then, cuz from what I recall of that module (I've skimmed/read it, but not played it) it's quite extensive. It sounds like your milieu is much better at staying focused and working through rooms than mine is . The biggest adventure I recall playing was an adaptation of the AD&D adventure Lost Shrine of Tamoachan, which I believe has a similar map-size to Snakepipe Hollow (but I don't have either module in front of me) and that took us like six weeks of 6-ish hour sessions.

God, I wish we could get back to sessions like you describe. I loved them, but our group's having trouble finding a new schedule which works.

19 minutes ago, Marty Jopson said:

If a game system works in such a way as to have the possibility of character death by cow - well I call that a fine system that shows a true reflection of the cow. 

Sheep are much better. Thick as two short planks and cuddly. 

Careful what you wish for--in my game, I had a player panic some sheep and stampede them into their enemies.

Fear the grass-chewers! Gnash thy teeth and despair!

24 minutes ago, Marty Jopson said:

We just ran the Rohan campaign for One Ring and everyone is thoroughly sick of horses. Cows will make a nice change. 

3 minutes ago, Jeff said:

He was both horrified and filled with excitement - "I might be killed by a cow! This is so awesome!"

One of my favorite lines from KoDP is "Their cow magic doesn't hold a candle to our cow magic!" It's become a bit of a meme in our group. The game does a really good job emphasizing how important cows and other Bronze Age stuff is in Glorantha, in conjunction with putting the weirdness (like ducks!) front and center.

3 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Crell started a thread-drift which sounded interesting enough to continue and give him credit for.

This makes sense. Thanks for the initiative

23 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

We started our 11L campaign almost right after RQG core rules came out. Our GM loved the campaign since he got it and we really wanted to try the need rules on. Very little houseruling so far. Absolutely loving the game ane the new power levels. We don't even have a single RuneLord or Priest yet, though some are incredibly close right now. We play weekly, probably taken 3 months or so of sessions off around the holidays, so 12 or so less. I don't wanna do math right now. Lol.

And made it through seven game years, wow. So that's close to a game year per month of IRL playtime, if you handle the numbers a bit roughly. My game's been going since about November and we're still in our second season of game time, Fire 1625 (I started a bit before the Dragonrise, right after Argrath conquered New Pavis). Our weekly game ought to go three hours, but usually plays closer to two between late players, random chitchat, catching up and so on.

Aaaand I tend to let the adventures drag themselves out unnecessarily through split parties, excessive hijinks, sudden side-quest opportunities, and so on. So that's slowed the game down quite a bit as well. Still, I don't think I've ever played an RQ adventure in one session, even back in my old game where we'd play consistent 6-8, sometimes 10-hour sessions.

12 hours ago, soltakss said:

By the way, many apologies for completely threadcrapping the Detect Magic thread.

As someone with at least twenty fewer years of RQ experience than most folks on this forum, I love when threads get derailed. Gives me material to steal for my own game .

2 hours ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

We have been playing through about 7 years of game time

Sorry to derail the thread, but how long have you been playing that game IRL? Has it all/mostly been RQG? Have you been using the "adventure per season" model?

Just curious.  I'm not familiar with many actual long-running games of RQG.

10 hours ago, Marty Jopson said:

What is the best source of background fluff for the players to convince them? The Glorantha chapter in the rulebook? First chunk of The Glorantha Sourcebook? Both of which are very dry. Is there any fiction to throw at them? What is in King of Sartar? The old Griselda tales are all set in Prax, is there any point in digging them out - and how do they read 30 years after the fact? Is there any good fiction set in Dragon Pass?

As others have noted, your best bet is trying to get into the game itself. For actual things to read, I suppose I'd try starting with the Rune Cults chapter, as it blends game stuff and fluff stuff somewhat well.

As you note, the Sourcebook is somewhat dry. This is my take on most Gloranthan fiction as well. I've not read Griselda, but to my knowledge it's the only text which can really be considered fiction in the common sense. King of Sartar is... interesting? But it'll really depend on your player's taste. If they enjoy or would enjoy something like Herodotus or Thucydides, they might find it interesting. Ultimately I don't think KoS is very good, and I find that most Glorantha material has a high barrier to entry from the "what's the fluff" perspective because it's usually presented from a gnomic, intentionally-contradictory stance.

While there are valid reasons for this, I think it's a serious weakness of the setting. There's nothing like Lord of the Rings, or Dragonlance, or the Drizzt books, or Warhammer 40k's Black Library, or even semi-historical narratives like I, the Sun for your player to whet their teeth on. So to answer your last question--no, I don't think there's any good fiction set in Dragon Pass.

Thus, immersion's probably your best bet. However, if you want alternatives your players could explore solo, I would recommend the video game King of Dragon Pass, set around 1300ST if I remember right, around the founding of Sartar. It's usually cheap (I picked it up a couple months ago for like six bucks on Steam) and does a good job building the setting and immersion through its gameplay. Some of the reading which comes across dryly (like some myths) are improved by giving the reader stakes in the reading. For example, remembering a detail so that you'll be able to play out a heroquest correctly.

I'd also like to see more gear, market rules, etc. For example, if barding's a thing (something I know one of my players will ask the moment he gets a mount), what does it cost? Does armor cost different for non-humans? Can you pay to refit, how much? etc. How often do the Chalana Arroy or Lhankor Mhy cults offer up alchemical goods for sale? Healing salves, antidotes, and so on. What does it cost to have a master in Ride train your mount from a cavalry beast to a war beast?

32 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

In this case, you will have to prepare scenes where the herder gets to outshine the fighters with his abilities in order to balance the "hero time" of each character.

My favorite moment involving this: my players were planning how to defend a village from an oncoming raid by trolls. So the herder hides in the sheep corral, and when the trollkin charge the villagers + adventurers, he used Herd (and his Praxian hound) to stampede the sheep from their flank, breaking the charge.

So yeah I wouldn't say it's impossible to keep up with Warriors; it just might require extra creativity.

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

Wise, perhaps, that depends on your campaign and how it works.

This is the biggest thing to highlight. It depends a lot on the campaign. I really like the spread of occupational choices but, honestly, I really do think that the sub-optimal ones--like Farmer, Herder, Fisher, etc--can be risky. I run a pretty hack & slash campaign, and I feel like one of my players, who's playing a herder of the Bison Tribe (worshipping Waha) is frequently outshined by other party members, particularly because our game's quite combat-heavy (which I'm working on training them out of, a little, but that's taking time). Now I do think he's more amused by this than annoyed, and he ends up providing a sort of foil to the heroic warrior nonsense going about so it works for us.

One of the other campaign-centric things to keep in mind is if you'll be playing centered on "keep my tula safe" as Shining and Jaja implied. I do feel like "adventurer" is an occupation (of sorts) in Glorantha, even if that's not the case in a majority of Gloranthas. In a campaign more centered on "we're adventurers doing stuff" those "everyday" occupations are, IMHO, likely to provide less fun.

My biggest want (and I suspect the #1 for most others) is definitely heroquesting rules. IIRC it's been stated that the GM's Guide will have them, finally.

Rune metals have an appendix in the adventures book in the GM Screen pack, but I wouldn't mind that being extended a bit. I really like the weird abilities some of the metals get, and I feel like there's room to add more metals or to expand what's written. For example, tin doesn't have any enchanted properties, nor does bronze.

I'd also enjoy seeing the enchanting rules expanded. On p.250, it's noted that other enchantments than those in the Core exist, which both are not a cult secret and which anyone can perform if they know the procedure. Similarly, I'd love to see more rituals/crafting processes like the Staff of Flight on p.201 of the Bestiary (though I imagine that one, and similar, are cult secrets).

I don't know if we'll see Illumination; I kind of think it might be in GaGoG instead of the GM's Guide. I don't recall any recent information confirming its location one way or another.

I'd love to get more in-depth sorcery rules, but I don't think we'll see them in the guide either. That feels like that's probably a full book on its own.

For character generation, I'd love to see a point-buy system like we've seen for various editions of D&D (I know other games use them, but D&D/Pathfinder's is the only one I'm familiar with).

I think rules for building strongholds, founding temples/clans, that sort of thing could be really fun.

Rules for combined magic would be great. In particular, I'm thinking of Argrath's warlocks of the Sartar Magical Union referenced at the end of the Glorantha Sourcebook (IDK a page number at the moment), and what process the Lunar colleges use. I feel like it's probably something involving collective wyter-magic but that's entirely inference on my own part. In either case, I think adventurers being able to become one of these combined units would be really exciting.

15 minutes ago, soltakss said:

It is described as given +2 APs per point, so I'd apply that to SunSpear, even if SunSpear normally ignores armour (can't remember if it does).

Normally does, but yeah I agree that's how I'd play the spell. I'm more trying to make a comment on RHW's phrasing because

16 hours ago, RHW said:

Each pt of the spell adds 25% to Resistance checks vs Light or Fire related spells (Such as Sunspear)

is technically inaccurate since Sunspear isn't in that category of spell.

Like I said though, due to the AP boost this is more a proofreading thing than a "It doesn't work! fhdiaofnrjaln" thing.

Could you elaborate a little on obsidian as a Rune "metal" in your Glorantha? In particular, I'm curious if you play being able to forge it into certain items--particularly large ones, like swords or armor--and if it has special properties when enchanted like the other Rune metals.

Also (and this is more finicky than important IMO) you note Resist Fire giving a bonus to resistance against spells like Sunspear, but Sunspear doesn't have to overcome POW. I describe this as not super important because I feel the spell would just apply its AP against Sunspear instead (even though magical protection usually doesn't apply).

20 minutes ago, gochie said:

Ah I see. Pretty sure I understand sacrificing Rune Points for Divine Intervention as non-reusable - Your God keeps them as if they were POW.

That definitely feels reasonable to me. However, RAW, "Any Rune points spent in divine intervention are replenished normally." This is only explicitly noted for the priest, but some portion of the priest's text seems implicit in the RL's text as well. The full DI text for RL's reads:

Quote

When a Rune Lord checks for divine intervention (see page 272), they roll 1D10 rather than a D100 to determine if the intervention occurs, and to determine how many Rune points are lost.

Because of the direct tie with their god, Rune Lords may even call upon their god after death, calling for one favor, as described in the section on Rune Lord—Divine Intervention.

Nvm, it's noted explicitly on p.273 that RL's get RP back too:

Quote

When a Rune Lord appeals for divine intervention, their god always answers. Unlike initiates and Rune Priests, Rune Lords roll 1D10 for divine intervention. They lose unspent Rune points and POW equal to the number rolled in return for divine intervention. Rune points are always taken first, then POW. If a roll is low enough, sometimes only Rune points are lost.

As with priests, any Rune points spent in divine intervention are regained normally (at the next Holy Day, etc.)

I feel like this is a design choice so that Rune levels don't suddenly "un-initiate" by perma-losing all their RP in a divine intervention, even if it does open up some exploitable space for RLs to raise their characteristics. Still, I don't feel overall that exploit's too vicious, and it's not something I'm personally super worried about.

4 minutes ago, gochie said:

Where does it say you can sacrifice POW to increase other stats? Did I miss that somehow?

It's more like effectively saccing POW than an actual one-to-one relationship. On p.272, a Divine Intervention can be rolled to increase a characteristic by one point, up to species maximum. Rune Lords roll 1D10 for DI (p.280), and it's implied that they lose Rune points first, just like a priest. Likewise, I take it as implied that a RL's RP spent on DI comes back normally just as it does for a priest (on p.278).

Hope that helps.

5 minutes ago, Kloster said:

No, there is a duration of 1 season on the training.

Increasing characteristics through training or research requires "two full seasons, during which no other training or research can take place." (RQG p.418) So kinda prohibitive, IMO, since IIRC you don't get occupational experience during that time either.

11 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As moonbeams stream from the moon, it just converts them to mps much like the Twinstars spirit magic spell Benison.

What is this? Source? (Not trying to be querulous, just curious. )

Also, it's worth noting for the conversation at large that the pre-gen characters vary from 98 points (Vasana) to 103 points (Vishi Dunn). This presumably includes Elemental Rune bonuses.

So I was thinking through a point-buy system a little, and while I don't feel I'm competent to create a scaled one--a system in which higher characteristics cost greater and greater points--here's what's currently bouncing around in my head.

92 is noted as an important metric in the book for adventurer creation, giving +3 points if you're at or below that point in total. So we'll start with 95 points. Reduce the minimum score in each attribute ([3x5]+[2x8])=31 to get a total of 64 points to distribute as the player wishes on a one-for-one basis. Finally, no characteristic generated this way can exceed 18.

Unfortunately I don't think this is a great system because of the degree to which it is gameable. For example, pretty much every character built with this is gonna have at least either 15 or 17 INT (depending on if they anticipate a starting primary Fire/Sky Rune), and probably POW as well. But if you like point-buy systems, maybe this is a place to start.

13 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

Also a Humakti with INT 20 (rolled 18, Fire dominant) can take "increase a raiseable characteristic" for 1 geas and get INT 21. He can then take "increase a non-raiseable characteristic" for 3 geases and get it to 22.

I don't think that's right. I think "raiseable characteristic" means any characteristic which is able to be raised by normal means. So raising SIZ or INT would require 3 geese. I feel like there's no issues with the geese raising characteristics above species max, though.

1 minute ago, Anunnaki said:

Which simply means you need more STR!

HULK TANK!

Also a bit torn because 1) Damn, got rid of the exploit and 2) Good, they got rid of the exploit.

New optimized armor (maybe, unless I misread crap again?) for STR 15: Full helm (ENC 2) with leather hood beneath (ENC [2]), Plate vambraces (ENC 2), Heavy scale hauberk (ENC 3) with quilted linothorax beneath (ENC 1), Plate greaves (ENC 2) with leather pants beneath (ENC [2]), for a total of ENC 11. AP 7 in head and chest, 8 in abdomen (if you can stack hauberk, linothorax, and pants--I see no rule against multi-stacking if you've got the ENC...), AP6 in arms, AP 7 in legs.

In any case, heavy scale hauberk + quilted linothorax is just plain better than segmented bronze plate. AP 7 ENC 4 v. AP 6 ENC 5. Substantially cheaper, too. 85L v. 300L.

Should be noted that while the chart does not mark it, the entries for leather hood and quilted linothorax on p.217 each state they can be worn beneath other armors.

12 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

If STR, CON (and if possible, SIZ) become 'dump' stats (ie, not so crappy you can't pick up your sword) and try to get high in INT (21 is best, for the extra +5% on lots of categories), we know the CHA needs to be at least 18, and so should POW...

(Moved from characteristic generation thread because felt like we were moving into Egregious Munchkinnery territory )

STR's important for making up your ENC. CON's important for HP, so it doesn't factor into skills but is far from a "dump" stat. I think SIZ can be a "dump" stat, more or less. You want STR+SIZ to be 25+ for the 1D4 damage bonus, and SIZ 13 gives a bonus Hit Point (but reduces Stealth by 5%, which is kind of whatever?). That 1D4 can often be the difference between getting through armor or not.

I don't think you can get more than 20 INT in RAW chargen. Fire/Sky as your highest, use some of your +3 points if under 92 to get to 18 then the Rune buffs to 20. (Those +3 can't go above 18, as Phil pointed out to me earlier in this thread.) So, I'd settle for aiming for 17+ INT.

Ironically Rune Lords don't seem to have a requirement on POW, or RP built up? Although as a GM I'd rule they have to have at least 5RP like priests, but I don't think there's a requirement present in the text. I'd say optimally, you want a minimum of 5 POW. At 5, you get the 1D6 Spirit Combat mod w/ CHA 18, but don't take the penalties to all of your skills. Of course more POW is generally better, but as a Rune Lord you resist with POW 21 at all times so that's pretty great.

If you want to be as heavily armored as can be, you want STR 15: Closed helm (ENC 2), Plate vambraces (ENC 2), Segmented plate (Chest&ab, ENC 5), Plate greaves (ENC 2), a weapon (usually ENC 1), and a Large Shield (ENC 3). You can wear leather underneath all locations for an additional +1AP at no ENC increase. This combo results in 7AP in all locations, plus an HP16 shield to parry with. If you've got STR 16, pick up a few darts to clip to your shield (2 darts for ENC1) to get a quick ranged attack.