Lordabdul

In addition to our regular episodes of the God Learners podcast, we have started the "Glorantha Initiation Series", where we interview people who are new to Glorantha (we define "new" as anybody who discovered it since RQG was released). We want to know how people discovered the setting, what they like about it, what they're struggling with, and what they recommend for others interested in it. The first episode was released last month, with myself in the interviewee spot! I probably had a rather unusual path to Glorantha, with several "false starts" before it stuck... Today we released the second interview, with Russano Greenstripe. He talks about bringing Glorantha to D&D, finding inspiration in the Guide, and struggling to convince people to play RuneQuest. Check it out! @Joerg and I hope you will enjoy these discussions! I think that many Gloranthaphiles sometimes forget what it's like to be new to all this, so hopefully these interviews bring a bit of insight. We will be releasing them monthly, in between regular episodes.... we already have a dozen such interviews recorded! Thanks a lot to those who volunteered.

Meta-take: instead of trying to figure out whether the animal/creature/NPC has any sentient capabilities for intending harm, or trying to figure out how the spell works, just figure out if you, the GM, intends to attack the PCs with that animal/creature/NPC at some point in the current scene (including having already done that but managed to stay hidden!). If the answer is yes, then that animal/creature/NPC shows up with Detect Enemy 😄 (so in the case of the snake: has the GM given up and the snake is fleeing? Then it doesn't register. Is the GM keeping the snake around for some jump scare later? Then it does register) Unless your players are rules lawyers who love arguing about that kind of shit, or you're an old-school confrontational GM, there's no point trying to be nitpicky with words and definitions and what not. It's called "Detect Enemies" and everybody knows what it's for. "We'll know it when we see it", and all that. The last thing you want is for a player to have paid good money to learn the spell, only to realize it's not as useful as they thought. Or to bog down the game going into a debate. Or both. When in doubt, lean in the player's favour -- it's just easier and in good spirit. If you still want to mess with your players (and oh boy do I love to do that), there's still some stuff to do. First, the spell is Ranged, so it doesn't detect anything beyond 50 meters. Have evil entities and assassins stalk them out of range -- which makes sense to me, as many people and creatures would know that most/all Spirit Magic has that range, so it's a good idea to hang back that far. Second, it doesn't work through earth or stone or metal, so put the snake in the deck below behind the engines, burrow in the ground, or that kind of stuff. Last, the spell only gives the "approximate direction and distance from the caster". Remember Aliens? When the marines have these motion detectors that, well, give the approximate direction and distance to any nearby xenomorphs? Yeah. Good times. Do that!

The Journal of Runic Studies #26 is out! Early reviews of the RuneQuest Weapons & Equipment book, news of Elfpak, Gloranthan blog and miniatures round-up, where to build your village, and more! I keep seeing the number of subscribers and visitors growing, so thanks to everybody reading it, and especially the few people who send feedback, corrections, or just a simple "this is nice"!

Yeah that's my current understanding of it too -- I don't know if it's correct, but it took me a while (and several chats on Discord or here) to wrap my head around Daka Fal. I don't think it's a very well explained cult in the book, but thankfully Scotty has been very helpful with info on it in the past. My best guess is that the "Daka Fal shamanic tradition" is really a bunch of methodologies and rituals and stuff for worshiping ancestors, and that's mostly what these shamans have in common. They share tips on drum tuning, cool dance moves, and nice smelling spices, so to speak.

Yeah I almost always forget this. And then I remember again and things make a lot more sense.

The Journal of Runic Studies #25 is out! Advice for new Glorantha gamemasters, new Jonstown Compendium releases, LOTS of comments on Jeff's latest notes, a whole bunch of RuneQuest mentions around the web, and some ancient warfare expertise, and more!

Episode 6 is out! Jonstown Compendium authors Neil Gibson and Jon Webb join us to talk about GMing RuneQuest Glorantha! We share tips to handle the system’s complexity and speed up combat, tell game anecdotes, and generally agree on too much stuff.

To me it mostly has to do with the tropes and stories I'm telling in a game. I'm trying to think about any sort of Bronze Age legend or epic movie or whatever is the source material I draw inspiration from for my games, and none of them feature birthday celebrations as far as I can tell. There are celebrations for the birth of a baby, there are omens and divinations made about it, and someone might reference it for good measure ("I was born on a Windsday in Storm Season, and the shaman said that Air spirits gathered around my mother to give her a second breath... these spirits are now with us, I can fell them, brother, so come with me to fight, this is a good day!"), but that's pretty much it. So for me there's no birthday celebration, but it's very possible someone knows (at least roughly) when they were born.

The Journal of Runic Studies #24 is out! Some great Jonstown Compendium books available in POD, a LOT of annotations to Jeff's posts about Aeolians, broos, and honour, a miniatures roundup, and more! By the way, thanks to those who send us feedback, it's always greatly appreciated! And we have now passed a hundred subscribers to the email version of this newsletter! More information here.

IMHO Broos are as much "people" as you present them (or not) in your game. And they're treated as such (or not) based on how the Adventurers and NPCs treat them. It's not very interesting to me to ask "are Broos people?", but it is definitely interesting to ask "so what kind of cool stories have you gotten out of Broos?". It seems to me like you get a lot more interesting stories by treating them as beings capable (at least on occasion) of complexity and nuance.

Hehe 🙂 A little quick half-assed math: Jesters in tribal houses: about 1 per tribe, plus a couple more for the Prince, including a few "black ops" operatives: 30 Entertainers: hanging out with the Donandar performers and other public speakers and such: 15 Other types of artists: poets, painters, engravers, etc. who are empowered by the local Eurmal temple to challenge the status quo and do weird modern art that makes conservatives angry (remember that Narres Runepainter is an Eurmal initiate in the Starter Set): 55 Thieves, con-artists, and miscellaneous "covert" Eurmalis (most of them part of the criminal underground): 25 Eurmalis maintaining what I think is pretty much the only "proper" Eurmal temple in Sartar: 10 Random troublemakers and miscellaneous weirdoes: 10 Feel free to tweak the numbers up and down, add/remove categories, and then unleash trouble upon your PCs when they visit the city 😉

Is your math correct? The Guide says Boldhome has 11k people. This. I'm still struggling to figure out what "socially active" Eurmali people do and how, but one possible way to think about it is to compare them to modern satirists like George Carlin and John Oliver and so on. They come around, mock leaders and rituals and traditions and such, all the while providing insightful commentary. So some people are all up in arms about these outrageous or even sacrilegious claims, while others are, like, "well, no, wait, they've got a point". And as long as the latter is sizable enough compared to the former, the Eurmali continues their job as a comedian. And of course, the rest of the audience just laughs at the jokes, maybe not really grasping the subtext to that farting-Orlanth bit. Of course, there are other Eurmalis. IMG the covert ones are mostly scammers and thieves and such, and the bonded ones are basically either jesters, or "black ops" operatives. Funny enough, all of them, whether comedians, jesters, or black ops, can and will be used as scapegoats.

The Journal of Runic Studies #23 is out! Episode 1 of our new initiation series, playing a RuneQuest SoloQuest in your browser, a teaser for the equipment guide, Praxian milk, ducks, and more!

That's a valid way to do it. That is NOT a valid way to do it. IMHO the complement of a Passion is not the opposite of that Passion. The complement of a Passion is indifference, or another unrelated Passion stepping in. If you have Love at 80%, it doesn't mean you actually Hate that person 20% of the time. Leika Blackspear doesn't have bodyguards with Loyalty 80% just so that they can stab her in the back 20% of the time. It respectively means that 20% of the time, Love or Loyalty just don't factor much in how a character behaves -- they behave a certain way for other reasons than Love or Loyalty.

Passions like Loyalty can also often be used to appeal to someone. And that's exactly what you would do with a low Passion: you don't have a strong enough connection to that patron or boyfriend or whatever to *really* motivate you so you don't augment with it, but you definitely ask them favours. The low score would therefore work as intended, more or less. Anyway, like I said, I explored all this already, including house rules to mitigate the chances of success in some situations. I can share more in a PM if you're interested.

On the topic of low percentage Passions, there is indeed somewhat of a blurry line between "I did a mission for this Issaries merchant and now he's one of my contacts in Jonstown" and "I've got a 60% Loyalty Passion with that Issaries merchant". I explored various avenues for starting Passions at, say, 20% and raising them slowly over time, and figuring what good (mechanically speaking) these are with such low scores (although I'll remind people that you probably roll on skills that are below 60% on a regular basis... but anyway). I eventually abandoned the idea, figuring that you take a Passion when you make a conscious decision about your character -- taking a vow, making a commitment with a Temple, pleading allegiance to a King, swearing yourself into service of a patron, etc. It doesn't even have to be something that happens in-game, it could just be a meta thing to represent how the player wants the story to progress. But I figured playing it as RAW seems simpler anyway. By the way, we raised that question in the aforementioned God Learners episode, so that's a good reason to listen to it 🙂

I searched "1D6%" in the two published adventure books and didn't find any example of that. There are only a couple examples of "if you act dishonorably, lose -1D6% Honor". Can you actually give us some book and page references? And yes, failing a Passion roll should NOT generally lead to losing points in that Passion, as per RAW. That's only on Fumbles. Passions are supposed to support roleplay. The scores go up and down because the players are playing along or against them. The scores should follow what the players are already doing, and then provide a positive feedback loop that lets them get bonuses for continuing to act that way. Not the other way around! If it feels like Passions are getting in the way, it's probable that the GM or player are handling them "the wrong way". Episode 3 of the God Learners podcast has @David Scott as a guest to share his experience playing with Passions and Runes in RQG:

My 2 cents: FWIW I don't make players roll when there's no time pressure. For instance, if they're casting magic before a big negotiation meeting, or buffing up their weapons and armour before a combat encounter, it "just works". I don't need to track when exactly these spells started taking effect at the Strike Rank level. This is a majority of magic casting I've seen in my campaigns and one-shots so far. I do make them roll if they are casting in the middle of an action scene. It's kind of important to know if that Protection spell is going up before or after the enemy has fired an arrow at them or whatever. So effectively what's "added" by having them roll to cast the spell is more excitement and suspense. The same way some people might ask what's "added" from the crunch of dealing with hit locations. Well... not much if you don't care about hit locations. Or more excitement and flying limbs if you like that. Of note, rolling to cast a spell also adds a reason to prepare mentally before going into a big action scene. It's a big narrative trope in epic/ancient stories that heroes would pray or meditate before going into battle. It might depend on your reading of the Meditate skill rules, but the way I interpret it, if you do it it can provide a bonus to some of your magic rolls, which can often give you the max 95% of success. So the rules also provide mechanical incentive to behave like the heroes of ancient stories that RuneQuest and Glorantha try to emulate. And that's what good mechanics do. I haven't played earlier editions but my understanding is that CHA was mostly a dump stat. Not only does this make CHA quite important, it also sort of makes sense when you consider that Spirit Magic is about being buddy-buddy with little spirit helpers. Using POW for that would be more about forcing them to help you I guess? I suppose we could argue either way but in my head it sort of works. And also, again, the ancient epic stories have charismatic Kings and war heroes, so it makes sense to make CHA more important. Just as others have mentioned, I also play it where you can always sacrifice POW and get more Rune Magic (not like I have run into it yet... my players' characters aren't that powerful yet!). First, it's not like gods are going to say "nope, I'm good, no more POW, thank you". Second, sacrificing POW is about reinforcing the connection to your god. And casting Rune Magic is about channelling your god's stories through you. The stronger your connection (i.e. the more POW sacrificed), the more options you have to channel your god. In addition to joining other cults to get more Rune Points, you can also sacrifice POW into enchantments, which you get access to when you become Rune Priest or Rune Lord. These enchantments can hold both Spirit and Rune Spells, and can therefore provide a few more points past the CHA limit. But I think reaching that CHA limit takes a long time anyway unless you're very nice to your players, or run short adventures.

Thanks 😄 There will be more indeed! Thanks too 😄 Yeah my remark was more of a joke than any indication that I'm unhappy with that aspect of Cults of Prax (which I'm not). I definitely agree with some of your points, but honestly I haven't thought or researched this particular topic enough to say more. But thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

The Journal of Runic Studies #22 is out! The RuneQuest Starter Set is finally out, Chalana Arroy high healers can get really scary, some cool art and pictures, some historical bronze-age videos, and more!

Ouch. That wasn't clear. Like others in this thread, I went by the (clearer and simpler to me) rule under the "This means that an adventurer..." example, which states that you either attack and defend, or cast spells and defend. Are "offensive spells" any spell that triggers a POW vs POW? That would mean that spells like Create Fissure (right under your enemies) is OK to cast while attacking the same round.

Here's a picture to liven up the thread 😄 If you're new to podcasts, here's a "how to" page. By the way, people, don't forget that we also post occasional fiction, lore, or articles on RuneQuest rules. For instance, here's a small collection of local spirits, and here's part 1 of a 3-parts series on experience checks in RQG (all 3 parts are available). You can subscribe to our RSS feed directly, or subscribe to The Journal of Runic Studies, our weekly newsletter.

If someone offers you herdman milk, politely decline and slowly back away.... But yeah in my Glorantha, Morokanths are just as omnivore as any other human tribe, give or take a few differences. Otherwise the whole Waha covenant doesn't make sense to me.

A single die roll, with a few augments (especially as a group roll) and a bit of roleplaying can already fill up a 5 minutes scene or longer. Although arguably I tend to be a fairly expansive GM who, as a result, makes everything longer than it needs to be. Use opposed rolls, or required number of successes, or both, and it starts being a much longer scene. Say, 20 minutes or more with good roleplaying. Combat takes longer because it's not only crunchier (you need to look up tables, measure distances, count down Strike Ranks, roll for damage, look up more tables and more rules, and so on) but also because everybody in the party is a full participant in it. Compare that to one or two PCs in the party bargaining with an NPC, while the other PCs are hanging in the back. There are way less people rolling dice, even if you made a super crunchy bargaining system, so it will always take less time than combat (unless it's a combat with only 1 or 2 PCs involved too). That's good because you have several players not involved in the scene and you don't want them bored for half an hour. I guess two things come to my mind: Don't make other scenes longer. Make combat faster. For example, don't count down SRs: write down the "needed" SRs or track them in Roll20 or on the Infinity Engine SR tracker or the upcoming Starter Set tracker. Make players roll D100+D20+Damage in one big roll. Remind players who's next after you're done with the current PC ("Vasana, you're up. Yanioth, you're next"). Use the 3 second rule ("if you can't think of what to do in 3 seconds, your character is in a defensive stance and observing the scene"). And so on. It's possibly a false dichotomy to try and compare a combat scene with a non-combat scene. It may be better to compare time spent in combat with time spent outside of it overall. If you fought a band of trolls for 40 minutes, but then in the other 2 hours of the session you traveled to two different places, had another encounter where you intimidated the bandits and got them to back down, struck a deal with a clan chieftain, got a new mission, bargained for a magical item, hired mercenaries to accompany you, met those bandits again at the market, and are now looking into how to ransom a troll back, then I'll say there was a lot more important stuff done outside of combat. The question isn't "should the meeting with the clan chieftain last 40 minutes to make it feel as important as combat?". The question is "were the players shaking in their seat at the thought of failing one of those 3 rolls in the chieftain's hall?". Failing a roll or two in combat might be nasty, but there's always Healing spells... usually. Failing a roll or two in the chieftain's hall might affect the entire course of the adventure. Or of the world! There are less rolls, but they can carry more weight.

This is pretty much how I run most non-combat scenes, but in a very ad-hoc/organic way, instead of any formal structure like you have here. In particular, if a player rolls a special/critical success, I frequently give them what they wanted to achieve and add "you can get one/two additional goals" (depending on success level), kinda like what you have here but in general with any scene. So a critical Move Quietly roll might let them explore a few extra rooms in the cave complex, or stay longer in one room to witness a full NPC conversation. When you add the optional Insight check to know what the NPC thinks or wants, that's usually prompted by the player in my games -- like I said, it's all organically handled. It works well when you have players who think about the story first ("I want to do <X>") and mechanics second ("ok so <X> might be a roll of <Y> or <Z>... I could augment with <Blah>"). Formally structured mechanics are good for those who go the other way around, looking at mechanics to figure out what course of action is available to them in a situation. The mechanics used for whatever the players want to achieve depends on the scene: When the scene needs to be short, and one roll is appropriate, a simple success on the player's part is enough for me. The Resistance Table is also good for short, one-roll scenes, where an opposition needs to be taken into account. But it's pretty uncommon for me to use it. When the scene is a bit more complicated and there's an active opposition, I do opposed rolls. With ties, it can get exciting and go to new places, especially since I started getting better at handling those (see my blog post here on that). I ran a scene last week during a harvest festival where Earth priestesses control snakes to clean up granaries and other food stores before they get filled for the winter. As rats and pests flee from there, kids compete to kill as many as possible to be crowned "Rat Killer King" of the festival. By the time only one player was left in the competition we had gone through 4 rounds of opposed rolls, each with a different ability roll, plus various augments. It was pretty exciting. To make things more interesting, I very rarely add some kind of required number of successes (as opposed to opposed rolls which go until one beats the other). It can be a fixed number, or it can be a number derived from each opponent's stats (CHA, INT, POW, whatever) like in Mythras and other D100 systems. You can count them in your head or make a pretty "clock" like in Blades in the Dark. The effectiveness of this depends on how much tactical choices the players have. If it's just "roll and count your successes until you've won", it's just not worth it. So you have to offer them options, like "sure you can do this, it will give you +20%, but you run the risk of....". Sometimes it feels a bit like designing a new sub-system on the fly, but most of the time you can just remix existing mechanics. The last one is really what combat is. You make opposed rolls and cause attrition on some pool of points derived from stats. Combat has actually multiple related pools of points (hit locations, weapon/armor HP) so if you want to get reaaaally crunchy, you could also do several pools too. So for instance Bargain would deplete a different pool from Intimidate. (I think Mythas Companion's social conflict rules have this? Can't remember) But that's way too crunchy for me so I wouldn't do this personally anyway. I think what people really want when they say they want non-combat systems is that they want something that's as exciting as combat, not necessarily as crunchy. Adding crunch to these other situations might not necessarily make them as exciting, but YMMV.