Austin

I imagine I'd allow this too, at least for the priest of Issaries (not sure I'd let him trade a castable combo to someone else, but just need more thought there). It seems cool and flavorful. How would you rule the interaction between Extension and a traded spell? The person who traded a spell only gets those points back once it has been cast, but what if it's cast and Extended by the caster? Does the person who traded the spell not get it back until the Extension is up or the spell canceled? (Going off of Rune Fixes, where Extended RPs don't come back until the effects of the spell end.) I'm not sure I like that, but some traded spells could reasonably be assumed to take a very long time to be returned anyway (like trading a Shield 2 which would presumably just be being saved for emergencies), so...

I like the omnibus idea, though I'd hope for RQG stats rather than RQ2 (even if the rest of the text is basically the same). Soft or hardcover, it'd be a nice reference book to go meandering through. I personally don't have much interest in PDF copies or the packet-y bundles.

That's super cool. Regardless of if OP uses that, I might steal it. 🤩 For the shamanism route, the taboo "Never put out a fire" seems on-character, not to mention horribly disastrous. I hadn't even thought of shaman, but there's definitely some fun there. I'd just like to point out that if the pyromancer/maniac is a Lunar sorcerer, s/he gets access to the Moonburn spell... 😏 I don't know how your player wants to play it, but every pyromantic character I've ever seen has, at some point, become a cackling maniac launching fireball on mere whims. Might not fit your campaign as well as the LM Philosopher, though.

You could sidestep this and see if she wants to play a Newtling.... They're lizardy, right? Right?

I feel like the simplest answer is just that an adventurer can only cast a spell from one pool's points. You've got to choose to channel Orlanth's power, or Odayla's power, or Ernalda's power, etc. It's not about his knowledge of spells, but about who's giving the spell to the adventurer. At least, that's the explanation I'd roll with for that ruling. I'd include this for casting the oddly stackable spells too. No stacking Extension from Ernalda and Shield from Orlanth. Everything in a spell has to come from the same god because you can't cross the streams, mix the divine mojo, etc. Though maybe the God Learners could...

Follow-up question: if you have the same spell from two different RP pools, can you stack points from those pools together? (My gut reaction is no, stoppit you munchkin-ing schmuck.)

Berserk & Fanaticism effects can be interesting, especially on large, single opponents. It makes their attacks way, way scarier but also makes it easier to take them down. (Mayyy be speaking from experience getting clobbered by one recently...) It keeps combat scary, but also can make it easier. It's a cool spell because it also sort-of debuffs PCs.

This is also a good approach for players, too. I'm more experienced than most of the players in my party, and I try to encourage or follow along with their shenanigans as often as doesn't feel suicidal (or wait til it reaches the point of whole-group frustration, like the guy with loot-grabby hands...).

Challenge Rating. I know it from D&D 3.5E and later Pathfinder. Ideally, a creature of CR X (or multiple creatures, adding up by some arcane bullshit to an Encounter Level of X) is a good average-difficulty encounter for four characters of level X.

What are your suggestions then, for how such a system should start? Lend us your experience.

So we've got Arkati Kama Sutra, and A Song of Moon and Dragons. Awesome. Get on it Chaosium!

There's definitely hope . I'm 26 next month, and I'm the oldest player in our group (youngest just turned 18). A friend of mine got me into RQ about five years ago, back in college, since his dad taught him the game and he found it more fun than Pathfinder (our go-to at the time). That being said, as someone who wants to work on learning to GM having some solid guidelines for designing encounters would be amazing. It makes sense to me that they might not be in the "core book" (since IMO it seems designed more as a plus-size player's guide than a core book), but if there isn't some guidelines on that topic in the Gamemastery Guide I'll be disappointed. I was hoping for something vaguely like CR in the Bestiary, but haven't given up hope yet. Jajagappa makes a great point about scorpionmen. Poison can be really nasty, really quick. One normal hit can take out a player, depending on the scorpionman's POT. Spirits are usually interesting, but they really let only certain members of the group shine. But, they're probably a safer encounter for beginning adventurers than full combat, I think.

Bouncing off of this, another idea... The Conrad Principle: When the stakes are high, always give the player a roll. Even if the only way out is a 15% Divine Intervention, or they need an 01% Critical to grab that vine dangling from the cliff--let them roll! It helps players feel in control, and after those times they succeed everyone involved will remember it. Heroes always have a chance to be lucky. Best example I've got of this is letting a bard (this was in Pathfinder) roll a d100 on his Charisma x1 to not get killed by a crit surprise attack from around a corner (the party wasn't being terribly stealthy...). His HP would have dropped to negative Constitution (the point of immediate death), but then his spirit managed to lasso himself back into his body with his whip. Horribly rules inappropriate, but a great moment at the table, which made that game one of my favorite campaigns I've GM'd.

Borderlands & Beyond is great, and still has copies in dead elf, if you're like me and enjoy having a book to riffle through. (Would love a physical Pavis & Big Rubble for under $100...) The easiest solution to this, though, is probably to check out the scenarios at the back of the book in the new Gamemaster Screen Pack, since that's intended for beginning adventurers. I've only read one of the scenarios--the dragon one because c'mon, dragon--but it looked pretty solid. I forget who said it, but one of the pieces of advice over on the Gamemaster thread made the good point to be careful about big bad boss monsters. A human-sized, higher-skilled opponent is a better match to the party (maybe with better gear & some spirits, too?) than one larger a lot of the time because of how damage modifiers work. That's what makes a lot of animals so nasty (Hellooo, bison charge attacks...). Another important factor in weighing combats is action economy. It's less significant in RQG because of the new parry rules, but one dude versus the party eventually is just going to run out of parries, dodges, etc and start taking hits. I've been playing a sorcerer-knight in full plate (RQ3, where bronze plate is 8AP, +1 for cloth layering, +armoring enchants) and depending on the gear and numbers you use in your game, it is possible to reach the point that average damage doesn't do a lot. But it's always going to wear someone down. A boss who only can either heal or attack is in a tight spot. Our game's pretty heavy on dungeon crawls. My experience with it is that keeping encounters frequent but combat encounters sparse is the most fun. The most fun encounters for me are ones with a mix of opponents doing different stuff. A dark troll leader accompanied by four or five trollkin is pretty classic, and a solid fight for beginning adventurers. (Though, might need to beef them up a little since RQG starts at a pretty serious power boost from previous editions, to my perspective. Probably just better gear, not skills.) As for treasure, I've found that most often there will be a few coins, a few fancy things to loot, and that most often the opponents' gear is the best thing to get. Right of conquest, etc.

I do honestly think the OP has a point here. I agree with others that the OP post was... a bit belligerent? but I did raise my eyebrows a bit at some of the content in the book. Now, I want to remark that I do not think RQG is pornographic, and I do think it is done tastefully, and in a way which at least feels aesthetically representative of ancient cultures. (At least, of the Classical Greece that I've got some small expertise regarding. Hard to say for sure for me if it represents the Bronze Age, since Glorantha's seems more honestly a "Bronze" Age to me when compared to Earth.) The art throughout is beautiful, and it's a huge part of why I like RQG. I haven't felt so excited about an RPG's presentation since the ostentatious spell-tome aesthetic of D&D 3.5, when I first started playing. However, if one of the goals of RQG is to spread itself to a wider, newer audience, I do think this art holds it back in that goal. It doesn't matter how stupid or parochial or patriarchal or subjective the opinions are, but a book with nudity (at least in the American market) is going to find less audience than one without. I struggle to imagine the game store in my area leaving RQG just laying out on shelves for people to browse through, when I ponder it, because some little kid will see a titty and some mother will start shouting and it's just not worth the trouble. The distinction here isn't the content. The content, honestly, isn't important. What matters is the context. The Venus de Milo is in a museum--therefore it's Art. A statue in the center of the town park, or a college campus, is set up specifically to say "This Is Art." Because of the legacy of the eighties and gaming's reputation (thank you Dark Dungeons...) nudity in a gaming book comes across as smut. Not because of the quality or sensitivity (or lack thereof) but because it is in an RPG book. I reckon that we can all more or less agree that RQG more or less doesn't involve content we believe is upsetting. I don't think the conversation about what is/isn't appropriate is productive, but I do feel like a conversation about what aesthetic choices will best help RQG grow is productive. Maybe I'm totally wrong about the American market--I'd certainly like to be mistaken. But I don't think I am. Reminds me of a certain book which was only hinted at within a certain game by a certain Ken Rolston... "The Lusty Argonian Maid," I believe it was called. Careful--I'm not sure this is a promise Chaosium can keep!

So true. I'm currently playing in a long-term Lunar campaign. IMHO Glorantha is at its coolest when the setting steps away from Orlanthi=Good, Lunar=Bad into actual culture clash and wars. Just because the setting privileges the Orlanthi as heroes doesn't mean the Lunars (even when fighting for standard Lunar things) can't be heroic.

I haven't had issues as significant as you, but I recall some loading and viewing lag when checking out the map PDFs. I think I experienced this on more than just the Colymar Clans map, but I'd need to double-check.

I know I've definitely felt paralyzed to add or change Glorantha, even when I've felt like the idea has merit. In part, this is because the Guide exists (even though I don't own it/haven't read it). There's a mixed bag of "oh cool, so much content!" and "oh jeez, I'll never be able to fit my site-based adventure into it" for me. I reckon advice from non-design GMs encouraging YGMV is good. As for my contribution... The Conrad Principle: Read your adventure material more than once. If time allows, multiple readings will let you internalize the NPCs and story. This in turn lets your adventures play more fluidly, without need to pause the action to review a room or NPC's description. I've found about two full readings before the adventure's first session is the right amount. This lets you know the story and the greater context of each scene and site. I usually skim what content I expect to play just before the session, too.

This point has some merit, but I must ask: Is this reflected in the text of RQG? Without searching, I can't recall anything describing such. For many cults--especially the big ones like Orlanth and Ernalda--those enemy clans would be worshiping at the same time, since holy days are only certain days. Are enemy clans really a big concern on holy day worship? Of course, this doesn't impact a broo raids, evil spirits attacking, etc. On the note of cows, do the Orlanthi religions have specifics of what's required for animal sacrifices? Ex. in Hesiod there's the story that Prometheus talked the gods into accepting the inedible portions of the sacrifice, turning a sacrifice basically into a nice meat dinner for the humans. Is this the case in Dragon Pass, too?

Drawing the Runes could be a neat aspect to play with, fluff-wise, or as the foundation for a homebrewed school of sorcery. I'm thinking something kinda like AonDor (spelling?) in Brandon Sanderson's Elantris, where the Elantrians use magic by sketching Aon runes in the air. (Pic is some of the Aons used.) Might be hard to put to tabletop as a sorcery system, but some food for thought (for me, anyway). Modular systems are super cool, but I've found they tend to be clunky in use. But I can totally see a warrior making a quick cross while casting Bladesharp, or finishing an Ignite spell with the dot at the center of the Fire/Sky Rune, as part of the casting description.

Looks like simple writer oversight. Good spot. I'd go mention it over on the Tribal Edit thread.

On the contrary, I see this working perfectly! "Excuse me, it's the Red Moon, not the Bloody Moon. Freaking barbarians. Don't you know it's 1625?" (Yes yes, it'd be some Wane number but I can't be arsed.) On a less humorous note, I'm a bit confused here. I'm looking back at my PDF of the core, "Replenishing Rune Points" on p.315, and it reads to me like you've got to be participating in one of the cult activities listed to replenish RP. Sanctify just seems to make a "temporary temple" (but I also don't understand how long it lasts?). I feel like I'm missing something really obvious in this. And I'd love to see some weird sorcery/Rune Magic shenanigans, when we get a proper Lunar supplement! They are the religion of breaking the rules after all! (So who knows if the Core even matters to them...)

That's hardly charitable--if one of my players spent 24 hours dancing in a cave, I'd definitely give him a bonus at the table! 5, maybe--mayyybe, if he asked nicely--a whole 10%!

The issue isn't the variety of options which exist, but the options which exist within RQG. The Prax Homeland focuses mostly on the animal tribes, and the Lunar Tarsh Homeland is focused on... Tarsh. The only Lunar cult offered in the Core is the Seven Mothers. I think the point g33k was making is that RQG doesn't support the Lunars as well as Orlanthi. But OP's blog link indicates he'll just be using Lunar Tarsh adventurers with a soldier occupation, so options aren't super important. I'm guessing there won't be character creation (it is a Con game, after all). Does sound like a cool premise. Hope the game works out well!

This makes sense to me. I figure you can still snap out of it to parry and dodge, just because that's the simpler game design answer. Reduce it to one way to augment casting in-combat, and can always stop to parry/dodge, but lose your round(s) spent in the augment. If you wanted to complicate it, I feel like it'd be on-flavor (though IDK about realism & doable on Earth) to have adventurers singing battle hymns to augment casting while in melee, and still ducking, weaving, etc. But that will end up with a more complex, possibly more representative ruleset. I like the idea of the simpler one better. How would you do the ritual time spent with Meditate for spells and prep longer than two rounds? I feel like the tables have to start with the augment bonus, at the very least.