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I came across it on the "Playing Runequest" page: https://www.chaosium.com/playing-runequest/. Played it through once. Personally, I think it has the potential to put people off as much as it will excite them. A final fight (for the path I took) that went 8 rounds before anyone took any damage, and an unparried slash didn't decide it, the fumbled CON roll a round later did. Woo.

Also, there are errors in its adaptation.

At one point, in one branch at least, you have to roll against Vasana's Reputation, but that stat has been elided from the truncated character sheets provided with the web-experience. Being other-than-a-newbie, I knew I could look to the free downloads of the starter set character sheets to find it, but total neophytes probably wouldn't have that knowledge.

There remain references in the web text to looking things up in a Starter Set book, which not everyone has.

It's entirely likely that Vasana's combat skills go over 100, and there's no mention of how to deal with that; including the mechanic would have the potential to shorten the critical fight to a non-tedious length.

Why does Vostor "always parry with his Kopis", when he's better with his shield, which has more HP, and won't deprive him of his primary means of attack if it is broken? If it's because it's all hacked about from a previous fight, it should say so, and how badly, in order that when his weapon arm is maimed he doesn't get better at defending himself. (I mean "as good at defending himself as he always orter've been"). 

And, as ever, when writers get too "purple", the numbers don't match the flavour text. Honour is by no means Vasana's best weapon; it's her third best Passion and equal-fourth with a load of other things in general. Her best weapons are her sword and her religious Devotion, and the text should reflect that, since Passions are a reflection of the character's attitudes. But someone came up with a story involving an Honourable Duel, so Honour had to get attention.

Could do better.

If you're going to expend magic to improve your ploughing capacity, it's probably more cost-effective to yoke a few Talosi. Dem Earth Elementals can plow gud!

Issaries doesn't need to give His worshippers Shield: they have Spell Trading to get it (one use...) from their friends...

On 4/13/2019 at 2:11 PM, svensson said:

Oh and about those pre-gen characters...

My first reaction to them was 'Damn! Why aren't half of these 'toons Rune Priests already?'

In previous editions you'd be lucky if your main weapon attack was 60% at age 21, but in RQG you can easily generate a Rune Lord in character generation if you knew what to focus on.

In RQ2 and RQ3, there was a certain pacing to an adventurer's life. You generated as an Initiate, usually with low-ish skill levels. You then adventured until you made it to Rune Lord. At that time the cult's time and monetary demands would seriously erode your time. When you adventured at that point it was usually for cult goals, not your own. By the time you hit Rune Priest or Rune Lord-Priest, the cult requirements were such that it was just about retirement time. RQG has flipped that pacing on its head and I'd need to play a character to the point of reaching the upper tiers to see the effects of that on a given career.

The pregen characters have some pretty handy stat rolls, but otherwise aren't very exceptional. It's not that easy to produce a Rune Master level character at start: the first hurdle to Rune Priest level is the 18 POW plus 5 Rune Points (meaning you have to generate a 20POW character and sac 2 points for RP). You have to get lucky if your GM wants any randomness in stat rolls. Rune Lords are pretty hard. 5 relevant skills at 90 is, I think, pretty much impossible at-start and then you have to have CHA 18 as well. And  for most cults you have to have been an Initiate for more years than your character has been an Initiate at game-start.

You can get very close, though, and the starting level for PCs in RQG is much more like 'acolyte' level in RQ3, intentionally: the Hero Wars are upon us, after all, and the intent is for the PCs to be Hero-candidates, at least.

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Meh.  Particularly the snark "...excellent ways to cheat your players..."  Classy..

Whatever. Yes. Cheat. You see the poor rules that make no sense and use them to make otherwise unexceptional foes dangerous. Exploiting poorly designed rules isn't big or clever.

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Yes, they lack verisimilitude, but EVERY melee combat system rationalizes granularity and detail for playability. 

 How does it make any sense that a 100% grapple vs 100% weapon parry skill the usual result will be the grappler succeeding in seizing the limb of the parrying weapon without being harmed? That's not making an abstraction for ease, that's just cobblers.

4 hours ago, styopa said:

Feel free to write a detailed PhD discursus on the details of grappling, wrestling, locks, pins, throws, holds between humans (be sure you cover not just two combatants, but up to a dozen-man scrum), and then make sure it comprehensively ALSO includes physiologically reasonable approaches for everything from individuals of SIZ 1 up to SIZ100, kraken tentacles, animated vines, a clasping dragon claw the size of a barn, constrictor snakes, and giant centipedes, not to mention combatants with everything from a single arm to eight.  I'm as sure it will be interesting (I'm a bit of a realism/simulationist geek myself...I actually TRIED to play Phoenix Command), as I'm sure nobody will play it.

Exactly. However, it is no less 'realistic' to run a game where nobody grapples than it is to run a game where grappling is so much more potent than it ought to be against weapons.

4 hours ago, styopa said:

FWIW a parry with a WEAPON I'd almost always treat it as an opportunistic attack against the grappler, but using their parry skill (I'm still in the benighted ancient RQ3 system where they're different; this is the same approach I use to parrying natural weapons like bites and such, except the counter doesn't have to roll a location).  If someone with a SHIELD is trying to parry an incoming grapple?  Seems pretty obvious that their only choices are - 1) STRIKE with the shield as a weapon and hope the opponent is hurt enough to drive them off, 2) dodge, or 3) let them grab the shield, pull it away, and try to murder them with the weapon in your other hand.  The dynamics of which of those make sense change extraordinarily if one is faced with more than one opponent, of course.*

Probably a much better approach than the RAW of RQG.

39 minutes ago, svensson said:

In RQ2, or 'Classic RQ', mounts had 4 training standards: untrained, riding, cavalry, and war-trained. An untrained animal was unbroken and would not accept a rider. A riding animal would take a rider, but you'd need to make Ride checks every round in combat or you'd lose control and the mount would hare off on its own whim. A cavalry mount was used to rough feeding, hard trail use, and desensitized to battle. It wouldn't attack, but it's a stable platform to fight from. A war trained mount would attack at the rider's command.

So if it were my table with the pre-gen NPCs, Vasana's bison would be 'cavalry-trained', Harmast's zebras would be riding trained, and Vishi's High Llama would probably be war-trained.

See the character descriptions in RQG and the discussion on mounted combat in RQG pg. 219.

That's exactly how I'd see them, too. And the Tuskers of the half-trolls would pretty uniformly be war-trained mounts.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

 The existence of stolen dwarven apparati also open up for this (Or, in my opinion - Openhandist Quicksilver Dwarves from Greatway who travel and are paid handsomely for their expertise, but guard it jealously, YGWW), as does spells provided by alcohol-related deities.

I'd reckon the presence of Alchemy as a craft/art/knowledge increases the probability of 'proof liquor' being a commodity in Glorantha. Whether Dwarven or from the humans who know the techniques...

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Speaking of, what's the status on potatoes in Glorantha?

I don't see why they wouldn't exist... There's a decent (and increased, I imagine, after the Opening) trade around the world. All the nightshade-relatives have a place, I reckon, and would have been propagated widely.

4 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Lastly, one of the reasons why alcoholic beverages are so widespread and were for much of history consumed daily and regularly, is partly because they help prevent diseases that could otherwise lurk in ordinary water. Are there any Gloranthan associations between "alcohol"-deities and, say, protection against diseases?

"Don't drink plain water! That stuff'll kill ya!"

Even if the yeast wasn't strong enough to sterilise water itself, dirty water often won't support yeasty brewing, so it's a test for potability (and the brewers would seek out clean-enough water, so brews would be largely safe). Teas and other boiled beverages serve a similar hygienic purpose.

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

So, where would I verify this please? Given that it is definitely in the RQG rules on page 258, where is the errata that changes that?   Are they planning a reprint?  Presently there is no Detection Blank spell.

It's in the thoroughly inadequate "Runequest Core Rules Questions" thread. I think. It came up out of a looooong thread about Countermagic. Believe me or not. I could care very little less.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Good point.  I forgot that spell exists.  On the other hand, would you really spend one of your tiny allotment of divine spell points for that?  Detect Enemies is far more economical.

If you're an Examining Priest, checking whether someone is fit to join the Cult, you absoulutely would, since your allotment of divine spells is greater than 'tiny', you can get them back pretty often and you may well not know Detect Enemies, no matter how economical. If you knew DetEn, sure, you'd consider using that instead, since it does the same thing.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

Or they whisper the spell under their breath and do any hand gestures behind their back.  It would be one of those times when a matrix under one's clothes would be valuable as that requires only the MP to activate. 

Magic is visible, not just the casting of it. If you cast a Countermagic or Shield, expect to glow or shimmer, or something. There's a thread about that going on somewhere today, I believe.

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

If detect enemies were a personal spell it would be next to useless.  How could you avoid an ambush with Detect Enemies if you don't know the ambushers personally if Detect Enemies were so personal as to require that?  Furthermore, clearly if a character has any positive passion towards their deity or temple, then a sleazy illuminated infiltrator is a threat to both.  I'd even say that if the institution is on the land of people you owe a loyalty towards (such as being on your clan's Tula) then an illuminate will detect as an enemy.

You're defining 'personal' the wrong way. What the spell detects is Enemies who wish you harm. That's why it's personal. It doesn't detect them if they only wish harm to the person next to you, or to your Uncle or to the Tribal King to whom you are loyal. You don't even have to know they exist if they wish you harm (for whatever reason, which might include reasons that mean they don't need to know of your specific existence yet). It's personal from that direction. If you're being ambushed, it'd be a particularly focused ambusher who could close down the 'want to harm' list to only the people at whom they're actually aiming; the vast majority of participants in most ambushes will wish general harm to the whole party ambushed. Even an assassin aiming to strike down a specific person in a group will wish harm to those who impede them, or might impede them; it's probably a talent of successful assassins to be able to contain their ill-will so that a bodyguard's Det En won't ping them (which is why a good bodyguard might use an Extended Find Enemy cast on the principal).

I really wouldn't encourage the use of grapple rules. Not in any RPG I've ever played. The problem is, grappling against weapons isn't easy, or simple, and requires fine judgement of something that most combat rulesets for RPGs don't handle in any detail, if at all: fighting distance. As a result, grappling rules are largely oversimplified and hence... lacking in verisimilitude.

For example, in the RQG RAW on grapples, "...a parry with a weapon means the weapon arm was caught instead..."; similarly with shield parry. So the only defense is Dodge, or hope the grappler misses (or you roll a 'better level of success') . Which vastly overstates the ease of grappling someone armed: if they succeed with their parry, the grapple should at least fail to grasp (though probably, for consistency, not invoke damage to the grappler), in the same way that an ordinary weapon hit countered by a successful parry will often cause no effective damage to the target; call it being kept at distance.

But yes, the grapple rules, flawed as they are, are excellent ways to cheat your players of their hard-earned superiority. Or to encourage WWE-esque grappler builds.

1 hour ago, Tindalos said:

I'm surprised by the presence of both Engizi and Oslira. While I'm all about differences, I hadn't realised there was that much difference between the two river cults. This sounds interesting.

Given the presence of both, I'm a bit surprised by the absence of Zola Fel, given her Cult has an extant deep writeup (and impact on the player experience) in 'the canon'.

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

RQ3 did not have RQ2's Multispell, instead it was a sorcery skill. RQ3 did not have an equivalent of RQ2 Multispell.

Ah. It was RQ2 that had Multispell as a Divine spell, and that was what I was remembering: the only way to combine Spirit Magic casts 'on the fly'.

28 minutes ago, Kloster said:

The link spell condition on enchantment specifically creates 1 big complex spell (RQG p251, RQIII magic book p56), this is why I understand that 4 linked would count as a 4 MP spell. I agree with you for the wound count (and thus for healing and first aid).

On an Enchantment, yes I think it should be read that way. But Multispells are not an Enchantment. Nor are their 'payloads'.

As I remember RQ3's Multispell, it specifically treated Disruption as separate spells with separate rolls for location affected, which makes the difference explicitly stated in RQG that multispelled Disruptions stack their damage into one location a significant one.

37 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

• Scenario book, at least 128 pages
• RQ Starter box set

Can you tease some more on the Scenario book and the Starter box's content?

Pretty please?

With sprinkles on top?

6 minutes ago, Crel said:

And this inadvertently highlights another great point--how and why particular things are dangerous changes a lot. I never played a game high "level" enough to worry about Multispell 4, so that much Disrupt wasn't something in my mind!

Given that d3 average 2 per die, and 6 points is most human locations taken out, you need to worry about Multispell-2, which is within the reach of all starting characters, and any Initiate NPC with 2 Rune Points or more.

Of course, Countermagic-3 or Shield-1 will stop an un-boosted volley and be there to interfere with the next one.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

It was 10 rounds in RQ2 and we buffed up anyway. If it takes 3 rounds to buff up, then some spells will last for 7 rounds of combat, more than enough, normally, to get the benefit.

The buff sequence for Korgo was at least 7 rounds of casting in RHW's post. But sure, most actual fights don't last 7 rounds. You aren't going to be doing much 'buff-then-sneak' maneuvering in those few moments, though.

2 minutes ago, Kloster said:

It is possible (with RQIII as with RQG) to perform the disruption shotgun effect with an enchant and a link, but each of the attacks have their locations rolled separately. It is nonetheless very efficient because 4 simultaneous disruptions are more interesting than 1 disruption boosted by 3 MP, use the same number of MP and take the same time to cast. The way I read RQG multispell (but I may be wrong), 4 disruptions linked by multispell count as 1 MP for overcoming countermagic (but I may be wrong), but all the damages are rolled on the same location, rapidly removing said location.

That's how I read RQG's multispell, too. I wouldn't consider the spells so simultaneous that a Countermagic-1 would stop them all, though. The first one would be stopped by it and blow it down for succeeding Disruptions. Also, I'd say each Disruption would be a separate wound for First Aid purposes.

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

1. Enralda

Just in case that's an export from the chapters list of the manuscript, thought I'd point out the typo... 

But more great news, Jeff. Thanks.

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

Heroquesting will likely be about a third of the GM Sourcebook. 

Woohoo! Hurrah! Caloo! Calay!

Oh, there's one thing I noticed there that makes me fear Crel is right...

Quote

HeroQuesting: this section has grown so much that it may be published in a separate book from the Gamemaster Sourcebook. 

I have to implore the creators to put the basics of this (at least) in the Gamemaster Sourcebook if that's a product out before the HeroQuesting book. Hero Quests have been brought so much to the forefront of the game world now that we GMs would be greatly assisted by some guidance on how characters and their stats fit into the experience. The concept of 'write them as you go' is intriguing, too...

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Chiming in on this rather RQ-mechanical discussion: If your Red Cow character has gained the "Hate Chief Broddi" passion for some previous hostile interaction between these two, will that person register as an enemy of Broddi every time the spell is cast, or does it only register when said character is prepped and ready to perform a kinslaying?

In my (personal, current) interpretation, yes, that character would register as an Enemy if Broddi cast Det Enemies or anyone else cast Find Enemy with Broddi as the target. It's a reason why just being detected as an enemy isn't reason to just pre-emptively geek the detectee...

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

In my reading of said spell, it reacts to "killing intent". The two guardsmen half-dozing before the entrance to the holiest section of the temple aren't enemies as long as they are blissfully unaware of the breaking and entering party. Two other guardsmen already in pursuit of the party on the other hand are actively inimical. Yet another group of guards waking up to an alarm chime stepping up prepared to take on any intruder might register as they radiate a general readiness to get violent with everyone out of their place.

 I'd say it certainly does that as well.  For my money, the dozing guards would only register if either of them Hated or was Hated by the subject of the spell. The other sets you mention would definitely register. The ones on stand by playing cards wouldn't have registered until they heard the alarm. I don't see unconsciousness as a barrier to being detected, but it might be... I'd have to think about that.

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

In the case of the Disease Master detected by the Arroyan, the person might be glossed over by the spell as long as he doesn't mean to harm the Arroyan personally, but any disease he carries might register on the Arroyan enemy radar.

I don't think diseases are entities the Detect Enemies spell is meant to latch on to, personally. Maybe Disease Spirits; I'm not sure... I'd think that the spell would detect incomplete creatures like Undead (if the subject of the spell is Humakti, say), but I'm not confident that it would detect predatory animals aiming to lunch on the subjedt: they're not 'enemies' per se... though you could say the spell would consider them enemies... I think the enemy would have to be manifested if they were a spirit, to show on the spell, or Detect Enemies becomes a cheap Detect Spirit. Though you could say the same about Detect Undead... 

Pretty much all spell casting has obvious special effects. Weapons glow, people glow, eyes glow. Most of the descriptions I've ever seen proposed have been auditory or visual effects, rather than olfactory or tactile. Probably because part of the metagame purpose of the sFx is to make it apparent who is causing the effect, and most creatures' sensoria aren't good at localising smells in dynamic environments. There's definitely a place for such effects being there as secondary 'flavour text' though..

With figures you don't need a grid for facing (which determines flank/rear); the figure tells you, if the situation doesn't make it apparent. Since RPGs are not competitive games, you don't need 'quarters' painted on the figure base, either; marginal positionings are a judgement call by the ref, rather than a call for a straight edge and a protractor/template.

6 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

But I get the sense that most RQ GMs handwave those rolls, at least some of them. Maybe you roll for the Rune Lords, but the cannon fodder (the squads of trollkin) might need to have that magic in place just so that they're a proper challenge for the PCs. So the GM skips that part of the process to keep the game moving and interesting.

I think you could more handily ignore the Rune Masters rolling-to-cast most of the time, since their magic is going to tend to be the more reliable. For mooks, it would be less of a deviation to 'assume average' (so of 10 7-POW Trollkin slinger shots, 3-4 will have Speedart on them for example). But I don't think the PCs should ever be 'let off' rolling casting chances, so I'm back to encouraging rolls for the Big Bads too.

One useful skill as a GM is to be able to roll dice to resolve 'incidental' things while you're describing what's going on anyway, and then to seamlessly weave the result of that/those rolls into your narration of events that transpire. Helps to have easily-legible dice...

I s'pose it's an obvious progression from 'terrain feature' to 'celestial feature'...

Thanks for being creative, Joerg, and explaining the evolution of your idea!

2 hours ago, Joerg said:

The giant baby is an incarnation of the Blue Moon Goddess. AFAIK she is the first female giant reported in a cradle.

Killing or obstructing this Blue Moon mission might have weakened the Lunar Way. On the other hand, raising the baby in Glamour might have been something to the greater glory of both moons.

Baby Blue Moon? Wow. Where'd you find that nugget?

2 hours ago, EricW said:

Illumination specifically allows people to hold contradictory passions.

I didn't know Passions existed before RQG, and there's been no official treatment of Illumination in that incarnation of Glorantha yet, as far as I'm aware. The way I read Illumination, I feel an Illuminate could give up any Passion(s) they had previously held, once they attain Enlightenment.

2 hours ago, EricW said:

For example an illuminated disease master healer, like the Gbaji worshippers who secretly spread plague then “cured” the plague they themselves had spread, could love Malia hate Chalana Arroy, and love Chalana Arroy hate Malia all at the same time.

What does a lightbringer see when they cast “detect enemy” on an illuminated healer who is also a disease master?

To be clear on how Detect Enemies (DE) works: you cast it on yourself and it detects 'valid targets' within range, or you cast it on a specific valid target and it lets you track their location. Find Enemy only works in the first mode, but you can cast it on someone else, and use them as the origin for the range, and the reference for whether someone within range is an enemy or not.

In my Glorantha, if an Initiate of Chalana Arroy cast DE within range of anyone who had the Passion "Hate (Chalana Arroy Cultists)", it would detect them as enemies whether they were Illuminate or not, or whether they also had the "Love (Chalana Arroy Cultists)" Passion. If the Disease Master (who's Cult crops up as a "Hate" on the Cult Compatibility Matrix for Chalana Arroy) were not Illuminated, that, too would be cause for the DE to 'ping'. But Illumination masks Cult affiliations, so being Illuminated would protect a Disease Master who did not "Hate (Chalana Arroy)" from being detected by the spell as cast by a Chalana Arroy cultist.

1 hour ago, scott-martin said:

This is one of the spells I'd love to see RQG integrate more closely into the Passions mechanics. It's a whole lot easier to simply scan all character sheets in range and return all relevant Hates . . . personal, situational / transactional (a potentially rich area of the rules), cult / homeland. Basically a way to weaponize ye olde Cult Compatibility Table. 

My suspicion is that if Illumination can fool Sense Chaos it also blanks binary "yes/no" empathy magic. Fortunately Mindspeech /Mind Link is off the books.

IM (RQG) Glorantha, Passions do indeed serve as indicators of Enmity for the purposes of Detect/Find Enemy spells. Anyone in range who is a member of a "Hate [Group/Individual]" set, or has a Hate Passion that includes a set the caster/subject is a member of will register as Enemy, even if they are unaware of the caster/subject's existence. I'd say the same would apply if any of their Cultic relations were 'Hate' too. Illumination obscures Cult membership, though, so that element of the Detect would be defeated by Illumination, as would registering because the caster has a "Hate (Chaos)" Passion because Illumination obscures that element of your nature. 

Edit: It also, IMG, naturally includes anyone without any moral/prejudicial attitude who simply merely has the intent of inflicting significant harm on the caster/subject.