Lordabdul

Yeah I think your alarm bells are calibrated ok and it was just a false positive. There is a few precedents for old editions' text making it into the new one. Yeah that's what I was thinking when I was checking the first half of the book. It would have been simpler to state special attack abilities in each creature. It doesn't seem to me like it would add much text to the book because the number of entries that fall under the general rule p8 seem pretty small.

Yes it might be late 🙂 As per my original comment: the "multiple attacks happen simultaneously" is only, I think, for creatures that are already specified as having multiple attacks per round. So the way I understand it: No combat notes: the creature follows the usual rules. Combat note about having multiple attacks per round: these multiple attacks are simultaneous (the "if so..." of the rule p8). Combat note about having multiple attacks per round but with a specific rule for how to play those attacks: just follow the combat note (the "unless specified otherwise" of the rule p8).

Yeah the giant's special attack is really a special move -- and it's a single attack anyway so I don't know if it qualifies as an RQ3 holdout. The Huan-To (and the couple other monsters I've found with this "3 SR apart" special rule) is kinda weird... If I understand this correctly, Biting by itself would be done on SR7 (as per the table), Biting after a sword attack would also be SR7 (sword's SR4 + 3), and Biting after a claw attack would be SR10 (claw's SR7 + 3) ? Another instance of "RQG has many special cases and special rules".

Ah yes -- that one also seems to be missing a combat note about being able to attack twice every round, once with each arm (so on SRs 1 and 6). It really feels like that's how it's supposed to played IMHO. Add it to the Missing Combat Notes thread! 🙂 I don't know what the problem is with the Minotaur? It can attack with a melee weapon (Great Axe) or with a natural weapon (Head Butt). Again, that's similar to baboons with their spear and bite, or humans with their sword and kick. I think you just go with the normal rules there, no?

On the other hand, I don't know why some creature entries like the Wyrm feel the need to specify that "it can attack once per round".

For reference, this is the following text: Many creatures can attack more than once in a round: if so, unless specified otherwise, the creature uses both attacks at once, instead of working under the guidelines for two-weapon combat shown in the Combat chapter of the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha rulebook. I didn't pay much attention to this bit of text personally. It says "many creatures can attack more than once in a round", which I understand as "there's a lot of dangerous critters in this book, look out for them". Then: "if so, unless specified otherwise...". The "if so" here tells me that for those creatures who do attack more than one in a round, they will do those attacks simultaneously, instead of one attack after another by adding SRs. But this is still only for those special dangerous creatures. It doesn't mean to me that it's for all creatures in the book. So now let's hunt for any creature that is specified as being able to attack more than once in a round: Gorillas, Gobblers, Sea Trolls, some Dragonsnails, Huan To, Jack'O Bears, Scorpion Men, Walktapi, and so on (I stopped searching after the Chaos Creatures chapter). The "unless specified otherwise" refers to things like Sea Trolls, Huan To, and Jack'O Bears: they don't do simultaneous attacks as per the general rule, they specifically use 3SR intervals for at least some of their attacks. So I think that rule on p8 is perfectly fine.

Oh nice! Thanks. For some reason my PDF search missed that one.

That's a link to the wiki... I was asking where the wiki got it from, i.e. a proper citation from a Glorantha publication?

This is getting quite French-centric so I find it funny that this is getting discussed in English 😄 But that last sentence is extremely insightful. Just consider: Aventures au Paradis Aventures en Enfer Aventures dans les Enfers Aventures a Asgard Aventures en Europe Aventures au Pole Nord Aventures dans le Nord-pas-de-Calais Aventures sur Mars Frankly... I mean... just take a pick as to which particle would apply to Glorantha 😄 One thing seems clear to me: using "dans Glorantha" sounds weird because I can't find any other precedent of using "dans" without a particle "le" or "la" or similar afterwards. Using "a Glorantha" or "en Glorantha" might have aligned better with how it works for other places.

Where did the wiki get its date of 1598? It cites the Sartar Companion as its source, but I don't see any birth date for Londra in that book.

I didn't understand this statement about "no parry or dodge" since, AFAICT, you always get parry and dodge (at -20% cumulative) in RQG? I don't know RQ3 but it looks like it might have been Scotty still playing with these old rules: (emphasis mine) So I think with RQG you can attack as many times as you can (split attack and/or special monster ability), and dodge/parry as many times as you want (at a cumulative penalty), right? Yep. This creates a weird disconnect for me sometimes. Oh good investigating! So the average Baboon has SR (1+2+2)=5 (instead of 6) with a short spear? And unarmed attacks are (1+2+4)=7 (instead of 8 ) ? Personally I wouldn't, by default, allow attacking twice per round with both hands, for the same reason I wouldn't allow humans to roll for punch twice per round because they have two arms. You need a >100% skill in unarmed combat and then you can split the attack. Some monsters may have some special ability that lets them do multiple attacks without splitting skills, but Baboons don't have that AFAICT. Baboons therefore could attack twice with a spear if they have a good skill (SR5 and SR10), but they wouldn't have enough SRs to attack twice with unarmed attacks. For a spear attack followed by a claw attack in the same round, I may be OK using the dual-weapon rules (but with the second weapon being an unarmed attack... I would ignore the bits about off-hand attacks though since that doesn't apply to punching/kicking/biting IMHO). So a human could do a Spartan-kick move where they strike with a sword or axe and then do a knockback with a kick... but it's likely they don't have enough SRs. The average Baboon, with his high DEX and low SR spear, just barely has enough: SR5+SR7=SR12. But he doesn't have enough to do a claw attack followed by a bite in the same round (SR7+SR7 goes above the 12 SRs). That's fine, especially since I may rule that biting requires grappling first anyway. Combat notes are super helpful for newcomers, yes, so that would be awesome!

Nope, Barbara lost her head. Psullie didn't say there was not perceivable gap -- just that it doesn't mean there is always one 😉 Which I guess is another way to say "between SR5 and SR6 there might have been just a split second, or there might have been 10 seconds".

The Q&A thread here on BRP is a special threads: Scotty regularly "prunes" it and moves all the questions and answers to the Well of Daliath website. So you may vaguely recognize some of your questions over there, although of course Scotty heavily edits and trims these questions to keep the WoD pages minimal and more easily parsed. SRs are just weird. Some people are saying "SR is simply a method of determining order of action" because they want to avoid people from going down the road of RQ3/MRQ/Mythras which evolved the SR system into a full blow action economy system, where each SR is one second and you have to reason about it as a time partitioning thing where actions take a certain number of seconds (SRs). So.... well... don't go down that route with RQG (otherwise rules stop making sense and you have to replace some rules with other editions' rules... which some people do). So, for example: an aimed blow happens on SR12. This does not mean that it takes everybody 12 seconds exactly to aim, and that the strike happens in a split second just before the start of the next round! It just means that everybody who tries to aim will invariably strike after anybody who is not trying to aim. Two opponents might strike at each other one way on SR3 and then the other way on SR12. This doesn't mean there's a large "time gap" between the blows either... they might "in reality" happen just one after the other. SRs are just a way to order things, and the "distance" between the SRs doesn't mean anything about time elapsed. It's just to figure out order. Does that make sense? Now back to your example: determining order doesn't exclude acting twice. Someone with a high weapon skill might split their attack and attack twice. An archer might have time to lose an arrow twice. So you need to determine the order of each of these actions (SRs determine order of action, not order of players playing). So I think you did it right: if the archer can attack on SR 6 and SR 11, then that's what they do. It's just that these numbers don't represent seconds elapsed -- they represent a vaguely plausible order for when this archer attacks while other people are doing other things. Does that also make sense?

I haven't played superhero BRP, but I've played superhero with a few other systems... and invariably, when you go to those games' discussion forums, you'll also see people saying it breaks down completely when doing Superhero style stuff. It's just what insanely powerful characters do to any system: they stretch the limits and things break down. The only systems that don't break down are the ones that don't have anything to break down, such as super-light narrative systems. I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you know BRP very well, if you have players who are not rules lawyers or minmaxers, if everybody's got buy-in with the superhero genre, it's going to work fine.

Don't forget there's a Weapons & Equipment book also in the pipeline.

A few months ago somebody was lamenting the disappearance of the boxed sets of his youth, and I had indeed replied that they have been back in full force as starter sets (I have most of the starter sets pictured in Rick's photo, plus a few ones like Traveller and such). It is indeed interesting to see these kinds of trends coming and going from one decade to the next. Who knows what we'll be buying by the time 2030 rolls around! Like I said at ImpCon2 it's really cool to see you people check out the competition for these kinds of things! YES I HAVE NOTICED 😭 I have to put the CoC Starter Set box on a specific shelf that is taller than the other shelves... 😅 My old French Edition Masks of Nyarlathotep boxed set is about the same size, and goes on that same shelf. Of course I have other problems, such as the difference between A4 and Letter sized books (French vs English books), which is where that shelf is also useful, but I think I don't have that problem with any other boxed sets I own. This may be good to keep in mind for people who use good ol' IKEA Billy bookcases to store their books. The way IKEA sizes up these shelves, you basically have 6 shelves vertically. 4 of them can be tall enough for "normal" books, 1 is slightly taller (for the CoC Starter Set and French books), and 1 is smaller (for all the smaller books like FATE, Mork Borg, the Yellow King RPG, even the old Hero Wars books or King of Sartar).

We'd need access to it to play with it before giving feedback 😉 My first reaction was "oh, landscape orientation?". I'm used to stat blocks, with a more compact layout. But I guess that could work too depending on how you usually organize your screens and windows. My next reaction was how "full featured" this seems to be. This may be good for a big bad evil NPC, but I think for the vast majority of combats I would use only a third of what you have there. But if you say you can hide the bottom half, for example, that's pretty good, and solves some of that, for when you just want the party to fight a handful of scorpionmen or wild animals. Nice work!

I'd say it depends on the people. Those who serve as thanes on the tribal militia or tribe king's personal retinue are bound to have stronger tribal identity IMHO. The same goes for people who belong to cults or guilds or occupations that operate more at a tribal level than a clan level (most scribes, merchants, or mercenaries, and cults like Babeester Gor/Maran Gor/etc). Other people, like simple farmers and fishermen, might have a stronger clan identity, and, in some cases (like the Dinacoli in the 1610s), might voice their disagreement with the tribe, kinda like 2010s British people with the European Union. The people of Harlan County in the TV series Justified will think of themselves as belonging to a bloodline first, county second, Kentucky state third, probably. But an FBI agent or US Army soldier from X-Files or Homeland or whatever would probably feel like an American first? It frankly could go either way in anybody's given campaign. My own take after thinking about it for 30 seconds would be that: Jomes Wulf will remind everybody that he can keep the Telmori in check when nobody else can. The Telmori are reckless and savage, they were allied with the equally reckless Kallyr Starbrow. They need to have someone keeping an eye on them. Wulfsland may be populated with Lunars, but a lot of them just want to have a simple life as retired soldiers turned land-owners. They're not going to make waves if nobody comes looking for trouble... if somebody does, remind them that they're all bad-ass veteran soldiers. Worst case, they can negotiate freeing the Maboder thralls they have in tow. The leftover Maboder people might make moves toward Wulfsland, but many people might come down on them, reminding them that (1) most people have bigger problems than Wulfsland and (2) these adopted Maboder people gave oaths in return for adoption. A few Maboder may not listen and still cause trouble, which will surely give a few chieftains a headache. I can't remember if Wulfsland is an official tribal member of the Jonstown confederation and/or the Sartar Kingdom? If so, then yeah. Either that, or they have their own tribal manors and the old Maboder ones when to somebody else (maybe the Dinacoli... they're big and rich, and may want more buildings than the other tribes because they're show-offs). I think that it sometimes gets destroyed if the community was itself destroyed in a violent way. For example, the Telmori might have set it on fire, or drowned it, or killed is animal host, or broken its item, or whatever. Other times, especially for "portable" wyters (like the Black Spear), survivors of the community run away with it... it loses some of its power, and becomes a weaker wyter of a smaller community. Other times, it's the reverse, and a smaller wyter becomes a bigger wyter... for instance, the warband wyter of a tribal militia might become the wyter of a new clan when an entire tribe gets massacred and the survivors gather around somebody who can lead them to safety.

I agree but I do think these books undergo some kind of "uncanney valley" of relevance in the middle. At least, that's how many of my gamer friends saw Cthulhu Now in the early 2000s... it went from "modern days sourcebook, yay!" to "outdated modern days sourcebook, meh" to "is Chaosium going to ever update this thing?" to (nowadays) "oh cool, a sourcebook to play in the 90s, great!". One other thing might simply be that writers prefer to play with historical events better -- when it comes to "epic campaigns" (which is what we're talking about here) it gives a meaningful and thematic backdrop to investigators running around and blowing things up. The lead-up or middle or aftermath of WW1/2 or the Vietnam war, the struggle for independence of British colonies, the rush of archeological work into Egyptian landmarks, the exploration of yet-unknown parts of South America or Central Africa, the first expeditions to Antarctica, the Orient Express, etc. These are all great for the kind of world-spanning campaign we've come to love from Chaosium. In comparison, it's hard to do that with modern day events, mostly because of the "too soon" factor. I'm just theorizing here though. I personally tend to play with big historical stuff when making historical adventures, and I tend to keep things "quiet" with modern day adventures. As a result, my 1920s campaigns have this "epic" pulp feel, while my modern day adventures have a more gritty, conspiracy-ladden structure. The PCs might travel across the continent, but it's more like The Ninth Gate or True Detective, and less like Indiana Jones. It could be a lack of imagination on my part though, or a simple consequence that a vast majority of my modern day CoC gaming was Delta Green, or heavily influenced by Delta Green. Now if we drop the "epic" (or at least drop what I think it means), then yeah that's definitely more possible IMHO. This "youtuber" is Sandy Petersen, the original author of Call of Cthulhu 😄 (and author of "Petersen's Abominations", of course). But yeah, I do agree with his arguments, to some degree. The main reason I play in historical settings is either (1) I'm lazy and playing a published scenario or (2) I want to play during historical events (as mentioned above), which means I've been a bit anywhen between late 19th century and mid 1950s (I'd love to do some Dark Ages and Invictus at some point!).

Yep, no problem. Thanks for considering it!

Yep, Delta Green is my go-to game for modern horror, although they tend to have many different scenarios, and not really big campaigns like Chaosium. Of course, the recent release of Impossible Landscapes invalidates this statement 😉 As for the OP's question, my guess is that "historical" settings (1920s/1930s) are more popular because (1) they're the "default" setting for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu, and (2) they don't get ridiculously outdated after a few years like Cthulhu Now did. So if you need to update a campaign to be run 10 years later, you might as well update a campaign to be run 100 years later... By the way, for those who prefer to stick to the 80s/90s to avoid the internet/cell-phones/etc., I've got a few tips: Approach these gadgets the same way as you approach weapons. Your investigators want to get Tommygun and some sticks of dynamite? Big whoopdidoo, it won't change much when faced with a Spawn of Shub-Niggurath. Give it to them! Let them blow themselves up or get in trouble! It's all fine, it doesn't "ruin" the adventure, it makes it more exciting. In the case of internet, it can give the players information similar to some journal found under someone's pillow or something: roll for SAN and lose a point! It's really freaky! Also: there's a LOT on the internet, and unless the roll is really good, there will be a LOT of irrelevant or misleading information to sift through. Do the investigators have 3 weeks to spare to do that? I bet not. So time to get off the computer and do some good ol' detective work. For cell-phones, it's all good too. Are the players really going to split the party and text each other? Probably not (don't split the party! 🙂 ). So who are they gonna call? Some family or friend NPC? Sure, but are they going to get there in time to save them from the Deep Ones? And even if they do show up in time, do they go insane, get horribly injured, get captured, get killed? Did the players just "ruin" one of the only good friends they still had to remain sane? (see also: Delta Green's "Bonds" system to recover SAN). If they call the cops, are the cops going to believe them? If it's not an emergency, are they going to send somebody only in a day or two? If it's an emergency, are the on-duty cops going go insane/get killed/etc? What can these cops do with their guns that the investigators can't do with their own guns? Did the investigators just used cops as meat shields and got them killed? Roll for SAN! And get called in for further questioning! Your game just got more interesting. What about cell-phone movies and pictures? Well, it's a fake obviously. Duh. Have you seen this latest deep-fake technology stuff? Did you see the guy who redid the special FX from that two-years-old movie in his bedroom, and it looks better than what Hollywood spent millions on? Etc... Also: nice way to attract the attention of the bad people who _do_ know it's not a fake! Find your home vandalized and husband missing. Roll for SAN! Your game just got more interesting. Sooner or later, you'll run into a dead-end. When in doubt: add some conspiracy elements! It happens with every storyline that lasts long enough. The mayor is in on it (Buffy). The government has a secret organization dealing with these things (Delta Green). The Facebook algorithm eats your pictures somehow because Mark Zuckerberg is a Grand Priest of Nyarlathotep (that would explain things!). Whatever you can't deal with, in the end, it's a conspiracy! Your game just got more interesting. Roll for SAN. I hope this helps!

Good thing @PhilHibbs has got you covered if you're into spreadsheets!

I assume it's an error in the Q&A. The Red Book of Magic (p64) also mentions POWx5 for both Rune and Spirit spells.

My short naive two cents are: People who have parents who went on to become gods are just normal people, unless they were sired after their parent became a god (but that's hard since they generally disappear from the mundane world at that point). But surely the wheels of fate have something in reserve for them. A woman could heroquest into the God Time, get pregnant from a god/goddess/creature/whatever (the God Time is weird like this), and come back to the mundane world, giving birth to a demi-god. Heck, maybe a man could even do it, coming back from the God Time with a baby in his arms.

Or, rather, time consuming. Wizards always play the long game. Which is why full-time wizards are not very playable IMHO (in addition to being somewhat of a premise rejection of Glorantha) unless you do troupe play or shared characters or some other gameplay trick. Part time wizards like sages are more viable. But it's not that expensive compared to a "normal" character who spends their POW in enchanted items and Rune points. A Bladesharp 4 item or a bound elemental spirit is also going to cost around 4 POW. Thankfully, POW points in Enchantments don't have to all come from the enchanter. It's probable that inscribed sorcery spells are the same. It helps to have a community to support you.... or some servitors or slaves or prisoners if you're an evil sorcerer in a dank tower.