Austin

I never played actual AD&D (I started tabletop with 3.5 in the 00's), but from what I've read, and the stories I've heard, it definitely seems to me like RQ3 holds up better in the modern arena than AD&D. I started playing RQ with heavily homebrewed RQ3 around five years ago, and have been playing it on and off. Our game has been fairly lore-lite (very hack & slash/dungeoncrawl heavy), but after having played the numbers soup of Pathfinder for years, RQ3's grittiness was a breath of fresh air. The slow progression is satisfying, once you get there. But, I'm not sure I would have gotten there if RQ was my first RPG. Amen!

Pretty sure I had a hand in that. My bad, y'all. I'm super rambly and sometimes the jumps in thought are only coherent in my head. I think the versions of D&D I've played (3.5, Pathfinder, and 5e) have generally been more accessible to new players than RQ & other d100 games I've played or read. In particular, the 5e Player's Book is a beauty of simplicity in game design, for what my opinion counts. Pathfinder's core book is the most comprehensive I've played; if I had to pick only one RPG rulebook to play from, I'd pick PFRPG. They both benefit from their generic setting when measuring accessibility. Personally, I've always found RQ's "just roll under your skill on d100!" deceptive. Sure, that's the premise... and then adding in category mods, calculating specials, calculating crits, using the resistance table, etc.... None of it is complex, sure, but the game isn't "just roll d100!" in its more interesting variations. And I do think those complex variations are more interesting, and those are the games I'd rather play. I love that RQG starts with Glorantha upfront and center, and really hammers home what's going on. But there's a sacrifice for doing something unique. Comparing the most recent "main" books from each, RGQ's core and 5e's PHB, I like RQG more as a ROLEPLAYING game, but I think that 5e's probably the better roleplaying GAME.

That's fair. I rambled off a good ways. I was thinking more of the lore of Glorantha being a player barrier than the mechanics as I wrote my previous post. Jajagappa had a really good solution IMO to the Odayla adventurer question, but it's the type of solution that a new GM is unlikely to think up because of the lore knowledge needed. And it seems to me that's a common, intentional trend in RQG. I guess a way to think about it is: Would I give this to a group of 16 year olds who never played a tabletop RPG, or would I give them 5e?

I think that's a really good point. My perspective, for what it's worth, as someone comparatively new to Glorantha is that RQG feels more like it's written for the community than as a mass-market audience. There's a lot of depth and history and mythology to dig into, which absolutely will grip a portion of the mass-market RPG audience (like it has gripped me), but if you're not willing to do that work I think there really is a real barrier to new playgroups. Jajagappa also has a great point in describing all the different ways for a worshipper of Odayla to "progress," and I think it's awesome that one cult can be thought about so flexibly. The challenge here is that I--or another new or new-ish player/GM--probably would not have thought of it. Which is where the five, ten, twenty years of lore and experience with the game come in. But there's really no winning answer here. For me, one of the draws of RQG is that it starts with chapters of history and lore, and has character creation which binds the character to the world in the form of Runes and Passions. But that level of detail which is cool to me because at soul I'm a dusty academic is going to be a barrier to new players, especially new players of RPGs. When you compare RQG to D&D 5e strictly in terms of new player access, 5e is obviously easier. Proficient, stat modifier, do I have advantage/disadvantage? It's all about trying to figure out which set of design choices is best for The Market, and is best for Game Design/Balance, and is best for Simulating Glorantha. I feel like of those, RQG does the third best.

I do agree on that. It's great having those rules, but that's wayyy down the list of "Oo, I want this!" And as Davecake said, RQ2's Cults of Terror is a great example of RQ's history of offering villain rules in a way that would be usable for players. The point I was trying to make (and I probably just mucked it up earlier) was more "If you include rules like this, players will use them" than "Chaosium ought to write rules for player villains!" based upon my own experience in three or four different playgroups. For example, I'm currently playing in an RQ3 campaign set mostly within the Lunar Empire, as "problem-solvers." One of my fellow players has told me that, if he dies, he's interested in trying out a broo shaman of Mallia. Of course he's a Trickster initiate, so he might have just been messing with me...

Echoing Richard, I think literally every playgroup I've been in which lasted more than one session dabbled in Evil one-offs, or brief campaigns. And I'm pretty sure a few of those characters were drifting towards the depravities of Thed, to be perfectly honest. (Not recommending that degree of game.) It's sort of a blowing-off-steam thing. I feel like it's 100% fair to not plan a game for playing broo (especially Thed), but that is something that players absolutely are going to do, and something that playgroups are definitely going to experiment with. Though I suppose you could go digging into RQ3 if you wanted, for that. I seem to remember the Gods box having rules for humans becoming broo or something.

And some do have Rune Lords (according to the Bestiary) but which, RAW, are incapable of having CHA18. Best example is Tusk Riders (Bestiary 70), but which have a species max CHA 7. Broo are limited to CHA 14, and have Rune Lords of Thed; Great Trolls are limited the same way. IMHO I'll probably just errata this to "Human Rune Lords must have a CHA of 18" and handwave races w/o sufficient species max.

RAW, I think it does affect them. Sleep description: However, as a GM I would house-rule that only creatures which naturally sleep can be affected by this spirit spell. That might include vampires, if they sleep during the day on Glorantha. Skimming over the entry in the Bestiary, it looks like that weakness isn't included (but I might have missed it), so I would personally rule that they are immune. (A lore explanation might be something like they no longer participate in the Man Rune or mortality in the right way to need to sleep, so the spirit spell can't add that bond due to their magical nature.)

Yeah, I noticed that from the Bestiary. It seems like the game in general doesn't expect Attack% over 120% or 150% from adventurers. Coming from RQ3 it feels like a big change, where Ralzakark and the Crimson Bat had hundreds of Attack%. Speaking of the Crimson Bat, it still feels really weird to me that, RAW, an adventurer with Dodge 175% always avoids the Bat's Bite 75%.

Meaning that, in combat, you can never have more than a 5% crit chance and 20% special chance?

The "Terrors" section appears to be missing Harrek the Berserk?...

Did you get the white or the turquoise dice? In particular, I'm wondering how easy it is to read the turquoise ones at the table.

I figure you can still leave it as POW, and in most non-magical cases it operates in similar ways. Hopefully, that will give you the least grief when figuring out your other basic mechanics (apart from channeling), and will keep any players who are familiar with BRP at a certain level of comfort. Some of this does depend on which game you're using as a base. (Myself, I'm most familiar with a homebrewed version of RQ3, so a lot of my rules assumptions come from that beginning.) On the topic of setting, it really will just have to come down to what you think sounds most interesting. My two cents, though, is that unless you're going to remove the Big Three from your world it's wise to avoid the main story of the books. As I said before, one of my frustrations with Prophecies of the Dragon is that the players aren't really the main characters. I worry that RQG is going this way as well, with how major Argrath is, and how close the era is set to the Hero Wars. (Another example would be the LotR video game, The Third Age.) My gut reaction was to move into the future, but there's definitely eras without much written about in the (WoT) Third Age which could be loads of fun to explore. Artur Hawkwing's conquest comes to mind, or perhaps the chaos right after the Breaking. Or even the War of Power itself! Personally, I'm a fan of starting with stickpickers who slowly, through adventures and training, become terrifying, exceptional people. This is to some extent the case in the books, although a lot of the power of the Big Three is due to ta'veren/plot device. I've been playing a game like that for some years, and having an experienced character that started as a lousy peasant is incredibly satisfying. But, that game style takes a very long time and certainly won't be for everyone. I'd be careful about starting a party of Aes Sedai and Warders; no matter how badass the Warders are, I feel like to a conventional gaming group they would be outshone by what an Aes Sedai can do. For thinking of starting areas, I feel like the Accepted of the White Tower are, ballpark, in the area of a journeyman RQ3 sorcerer. A party of an Accepted or two, maybe a Soldier or Dedicated of the Asha'man, a minor noble from Andor or Cairhien, and a Borderlands soldier or algai'd'siswai new to his/her spears could be a fun game. I don't have much ideas in mind for how long someone can channel, but it should probably be a skill function too (in how I think about these things). After all, in Eye of the World Egwene starts with barely being able to channel a couple seconds, after minutes of focus, but the skilled and long-practiced Aes Sedai of the setting can channel for hours and hours (though not necessarily channel at max for that long). The end of Winter's Heart is pretty much the maximum use of the Power which is possible by any human, ever, I figure, and the players probably shouldn't reach it. (IIRC, WoT d20 modeled the Choedan Kal by adding +6 levels to every spell slot used through them...) Any half-decent idea I can think of for channeling stamina is ending up with a lot of gross bookkeeping. Fatigue Points, CON rolls, etc. How I was thinking about using this Channel skill, though, is sort of like this: Damer Flynn's player knows that he can learn to channel (he has a POW of 14, and rolled under POWx3 during character creation), but it takes the events of play to convince him to go join the Dragon's new Black Tower. It's revealed in-game that he can learn, so he spends some weeks training with some of the Dedicated, and acquires the Channel skill. This starts at a base of 05%, or maybe 1d6+Magic category mod, or maybe a flat 10% to make things simpler. He continues training, until he reaches Channel 40%. At this point, he can open himself to saidin (with a successful Channel roll) and safely fill himself with 4MP. If he wants to hold more MP, up to double allowed by Channel%, he will have to make Overchannel rolls. (Fortunately he's very good at this, since M'Hael is always driving the Soldiers to channel more.) If he wants to hold less--say, he just needs a 1MP weave of pure Fire to heat water for a bath--he's free to choose to seize fewer MP of saidin. While his POW is still 14, this reflects the final cap on his Channel, 140%. He will never be able to learn Channel higher than that (though he could seize up to 28MP, with Overchannel rolls). The most accurate modeling of the books onto a Channeling collection of skills seems, to me, to be something like a nasty function based on a "Channel Stamina" skill or something, which is rolled with penalties based on how much of the Power you're using, out of how much you can safely use. So, using 3MP out of 14POW would let a caster basically go all day, but Overchanneling 20MP out of 14POW would quickly apply increasing penalties to this "Channel Stamina" skill. But, as I said--ew, the bookkeeping. I really don't know if that's the best idea for a tabletop game. I would play it, but that's entirely because I'm a huge WoT geek, less because that sounds like a fun system. Enjoy! The last three books are really strong. The Gathering Storm is my personal favorite volume, and in general I think Sanderson closed the series really well. IMHO, much as I love the series, there really is kind of a middle "slog" between Lord of Chaos and Crossroads of Twilight/Knife of Dreams, even with some really cool parts (like the climax of Winter's Heart).

I've actually tried homebrewing this before, a long time ago. No real useful notes--most of them in my head--but I hope some thoughts will be helpful. A really, really big challenge with homebrewing up a BRP version of WoT is figuring out a balance between "This really feels like the books!" and "Oh, this game is incredibly unbalanced." After all, in the novels there's really nothing scarier than a well-trained Aes Sedai or Asha'man with an angreal. A powerful channeler, unopposed by other channelers, can level a city without an enormous effort. That doesn't make for a balanced game (although, if all the players are OK with it, it could still make for a fun game). Figuring out a balance between what channelers and non-channelers can do is the tricky part. After all, the Cairhienin minor lord who is a skilled and cunning politicker should feel just as useful to the party as the Aes Sedai. Personally, I also think that a thorny problem is setting. Even disregarding the danger of having the player characters overshadowed by the ta'veren heroes of the Third Age, the dangers of male channelers and the extent to which WoT fans are often lore-nerds (I am, anyway...) makes it tricksy to find meaningful space to play. That was one of my frustrations with the WotC campaign for WoT d20, Prophecies of the Dragon. When I was trying to figure out my homebrew, I was setting the game within the Fourth Age, a few hundred years after Tarmon Gai'don. My general themes I wanted to explore were the increasing use and development of steam tech and firearms interacting with established Aes Sedai magical and political dominance (sort of like how Sanderson's Era Two books of Mistborn do) and how Andor and "New Manetheren" (the Two Rivers and Ghealdan, with other bits, set up by Perrin's descendants) interact since Elaine is probably still alive at that time. A lot of my ideas for WoT Channeling rules derived, in greater or lesser part, from the d20 rules and from Sandy Petersen's Western Sorcery rules. I was thinking to write the system basically as a nightmarish mess of different skills to work on and master, with increased ability to manipulate weaves and the different general elements as the channeler progressed. My thinking was to have a set rule that at character creation a character is a wilder on a POWx1 roll, and is able to learn channeling on a POWx3 (Or, by GM fiat). I was thinking for all characters to have POW, and to have MP/PP/whatever, and that there should also be other abilities that could be learned, not just channeling. Wolfbrothers, Dreamwalking, and maybe some funky abilities tied to being a swordmaster (since the different techniques and styles play a major role in the story, and I'm just a sucker for bad-ass pseudo-magical swordsmen). It's definitely possible to invent non-canon magic/pseudo-magical abilities--after all, some things which were once lost may return as the Wheel turns! I was thinking maybe that a character who can channel could assign points equal to their POW to the five elements, maybe with a free point in their gender's element (Water & Air for women, Fire and Earth for men) and everyone gets one point in Spirit. They probably wouldn't have to assign points right at character creation, but I never made that decision. Each point represents 10% they can learn of the five element "skills." Per 10%, they can use a 1MP of that element in creating weaves. Each element has a cap based on those assigned points because every channeler has natural strengths and weaknesses. Overchanneling would probably have been going past those mastered amounts. Perhaps someone with a fully mastered Air 5 (50% Air skill) could safely use 5MP in the Air portion of a weave, or could overchannel up to Air 10, with risks. Specific weaves would have been skills, too, although just using/creating the element might have been possible just with that element's skill. I'm not saying these are rules you should use, or that these are rules ideas that don't have issues, but this is kind of where my general thoughts were going. I think a big part of making channelers kind of more fair is having it be this mess of different skills to spend a lot of time training and mastering. It's rather lore-friendly too! After all, the process for becoming an Aes Sedai often takes decades. (While it's less time for the Asha'man, they also do some incredibly dangerous forcing. I don't know how to model that, but it could be useful to keep in mind. After all, player characters are pretty likely to end up in dangerous situations and doing more than is safe.) I like your ta'veren points, mainly because of how they shift between the GM and players. That's a great way to model characters who are central to the Pattern, without giving too many freebies. A lot of my thinking has been for players who aren't ta'veren, but that's a pretty cool mechanic. Another benefit of the skill-overload approach could be a multichannel skill, for modeling those Shield v. Shield fights. One weave trying to shield, the other trying to cut the enemy's shield. The simple truth is that a lot of weaves, going pretty strictly by the books, won't allow any sort of resistance save. It's part of why Aes Sedai are so frightening (and the Asha'man, unbound by the Oath Rod, even more so). Unless the target is a channeler of the same gender, odds are an alpha-striking weave is just going to happen. I would probably go with this (because I'm too big a fan of the books) but honestly, there should be some sort of resistance save, or maybe a DEXx3 chance to dodge Arms of Air, or whatever. It's better, more fair game balance, which is more likely to cause Maximum Game Fun in the long run. I like the notion that grasping the Source basically just fills the character up to their POW with MP. It makes sense. Personally, I might model that with a basic "Channel" skill, which is capped by POWx10 % (ex. POW 16 = Channel 160%), then maybe the same Skill%x2 rule as above for maximum MP a character could hold, even while Overchanneling. Perhaps the Overchanneling Failure table numbers could be affected by the method of overchanneling. Ex: Nynaeve has Earth 20%, and Channel 180%, with POW 18. She wants to lift a boulder, so has to overchannel to Earth 4. This is still 4MP (or maybe 6MP, doubling the MP for overchanneled elements?...), which is less than her Channel% restricts, but she still must roll to Overchannel more than natural capacity (Earth 2) allows of the element. If you ever end up with a Rules doc for this, I'd love to read it. WoT is one of my favorite series. And bugger, now I want to actually try codifying my version... Too many project ideas, too little focus!

I figure we'll have to wait and see what a more full picture of RQG Sorcery looks like. IIRC the RQ3 Apprentice/Journeyman/Adept/Magus growth isn't in the new edition (nor are familiars in the same sense, as Phil mentioned), but maybe something regarding how many Runes the RQG sorcerer has mastered would provide an ad hoc way to model it. Say, three elements and two Techniques, or wherever you want the breakpoint to be. After all, a "Rune Master" should be measured by how they've mastered runes, right? Unfortunately, I don't see a way that logic works regarding Shamans. RAW, Peace definitely seems to obliterate Shamans and Sorcerers unless they're also a Rune Priest of a cult. Ex, a Lhankor Mhy Rune Priest & Sorcerer, or maybe a Shaman of Daka Fal. (I believe his is one of the cults which notes that Shamans serve as Rune Priests, and I would personally rule that this makes them a Rune Master, but there's definitely an argument that it doesn't.) As a potential GM, I'd make up some breakpoint and say "Here's the line where you're a Rune Master, for effects that target or exclude specifically them." It's not really RAW and a little lore-bending, maybe, but seems the most fair in terms of game balance. (Apart from the question of if spells like Peace should really be available in the first place...) I'm really looking forward to seeing a Malkioni Sorcery supplement somewhere down the line (like years and years and years, I assume). As written I'm personally not a huge fan of RQG's sorcery, but I love the conceptual work behind it. I bet we'll be able to find a more definitive answer then. But you still can't increase your CHA above species maximum. I think the issue with CHA 18 isn't that it's difficult for humans to reach, but that some species (like Great Trolls and Tusk Riders) literally can't acquire that much CHA. Max CHA 14 (2D6) and 7 (1D6), respectively. I feel like a quick house-rule of "CHA 18, or species max" could suffice as a patch, but it does seem to me like there's an inconsistency in how the CHA requirement is being applied.

That would be cool, especially with the YGMV principle. I bet there's a lot of neat "Varying" Gloranthas to explore. I know the game I've been playing in varies, hard. I can also see myself trying out writing up some content/adventures. Been brainstorming a thing with a Vivamort cult rebelling against the Red Emperor for a while now...

That's a cool idea. I feel like what would be useful rules for you depends a bit on what sort of game you'll end up playing. The "adventurers actively going out into the world" concept clashes in my thought with what it seems the Sedalpists are. I'm imagining a sort of Indian or Tibetan Buddhist monk, seeking abstraction to separate himself from the world. (I could be totally wrong in that regard.) So it seems to me that the first thing to determine would be what sort of game you're trying to play, and then see how the Sedalpist mystic character concept melds into that. If you're still going with the dominant game concept (adventuring in the world), I figure there's still plenty of space to try a mystic, RP-wise. Someone who wants to separate himself, but keeps getting drawn back in through community connections, and demands. A sort of constant tension between seeking enlightenment and helping others pursue it. Rules-wise, I figure you'll have to expand on the RQG Sorcery as written. IMHO it feels pretty incomplete (but I'm used to a massively houseruled & overcomplex version of Petersen's rules, so grain of salt). Mechanically, it makes sense that movement toward enlightenment could be represented through increased growth toward the Man rune, and maybe the Stasis rune as well. If there's a Law rune, perhaps acquiring % toward that would make sense, representing complete mechanistic understanding of the world, sans the control of it implied in Mastery (which also has all sorts of theistic implications, I think).

I don't, actually! Or anything else on the list, actually. May be interested, though UK -> US shipping could be gross. Though I've played one of the adventures out of "Daughters of Darkness." I remember it being fun. (Then again, I was on the players' side of the GM screen...)

Wonderful. Love me some hard copies, easier for me to browse. Sourcebook, RQG... many things to look forward to! Thank you, everyone.

I'm a relative newbie to Glorantha/RQ, and I'd love to be able to figure out more about the world through fiction instead of trying to bludgeon myself with RQ:G's background or the Guide. On a related note, will we ever get a hard copy run of the Gloranthan Sourcebook?