Lordabdul

IMG I would not use flags, except maybe for very well organized/intellectual states or cults (like Issaries, or western nations). For the rest, the style and decoration of the ship should be enough to identify it, although that requires good knowledge. Some ships would be super easy to recognize, like Waertagi ships or Dwarf city-ships, but even a Wolf Pirate is easy to spot given the big wolf head on the prow, and the general mean-looking people on board. The Guide shows a bunch of ship designs for reference (one might note that none of them seem to have flags) on p.466-467. It feels to me like with the recent reopening the seas, it's probably been just a big mess of various boats and ships doing whatever they want/can for the past few decades. If your Hero Wars has a maritime warfare component, that might be the event that necessitates better identification between factions and, therefore, flags on ships. Otherwise, maybe big ports like Nochet impose that kind of thing to help with administrative upkeep, and it spreads from there, with ships keeping their flags up even when away from Esrolian shores.

p88 (underline mine): "A permanent Bladesharp 2 spell has been bound into it (+10%, +2 damage), and any wounds it causes poisoning as if from Wyvern Venom of POT equal to the damage suffered." Should be reworded a bit, maybe "..., and any wounds it causes gain poisoning...". Next sentence: ". For example, someone suffering 7 points of damage after any armor and magical protection suffers an additional POT 7 does of wyvern venom." I suppose that should be "dose". Next table entry: "...honeycombs worked into décorative patterns." Should "decorative" have an acute accent? (looks like it was written by some francophone person ) Finally, whoever came with those teeth for entry 19 has a severely twisted mind, and I applaud them.

Fair enough -- you can ignore half of my 5th bullet point, then. And thank you very much for clarifying Chaosium's position on this! I believe the other points I made are still valid, and small corrections to the text and/or map would greatly help comprehension.

Awww. Thanks

I second adding a scale and more labels on the Woods of the Dead map. This map actually has a couple more issues, I think: Isn't there a missing town/village drawing under the Amadhall label? As it is, it looks like "Amadhall" is the name of a valley (like the Valley of the Chalk Man), but AFAIK it's the name of the Amad tribe centre. Maybe it's both, I don't know... There are mentions of the "Herongreen Road' in the text but I'm not sure what it is... the King's Road and Pavis Road are marked, the road leading to Alone is the Dusk Road... so I don't know where that Herongreen Road is? (again, road labels would help). It looks to me like it's another name for the Pavis Road? It's not clear to me either where the Herongreen Wall is. It might be good to draw it on the map. The Big Stones Crossing is not found on the map, nor does its description say where it is.... starting the description with "Here, ..." is a bit funny as a result. I assume it was supposed to be marked on the map. Between this and the missing Amadhall village, I wonder if the PDF map is not the final map? Or maybe the crossing was supposed to, instead, feature on the Black Rock map on p89? (since I think it's right next to Black Rock village) The High Rocks are another example where it's not super clear where they are. It's only mentioned that they are "in the north" (of the woods I assume?). FWIW, it's not quite consistent with the map in The Coming Storm, which shows High Rocks on the other side of the Dusk Road, very close north-west of Highwall Inn. I understand that not all listed locations need to feature on the map, but those that don't should have a precise description. This is the case for example of Highwall Inn.

@Jason Durall are there going to be updates to both books to have more detailed credits? I think this is often useful for following authors, doing Gloranthan archeology, etc. Thanks!

I think bullet point 3 is for the cases where you somehow roll unopposed. If you sneak behind someone and attack, you use your full >100% skill. That 3rd bullet point explains the benefits of this because it's not always obvious to players what's the point of roll a d100 under a number greater than 100.

Sure, feel free to make a new thread for training house rules

Most people here often go "what would RQ3 do?", but I'm more of a "what would GURPS do?" kind of guy, so, I would do something like: +20% to defense (parry/dodge) if you step back by some distance (say, 1 meter). +30% to dodge if you dive to the ground, ending in you being prone until you can get back up next turn. (I haven't thought about this much or tested it at all so take it with a whole basket of salt) I also mused in the past about rules where SIZ differences between opponents modify attack/parry/damage rolls,, although I'm not happy yet about their balance of crunch vs. play fluidity. A "Build" secondary stat like in CoC might help tremendously here, removing annoying SIZ-score comparisons.

Well if you want to be absolutely strict about this, then on that same page I linked, there's an errata for the 1st printing of RQG. There's also an errata for the Quickstart on the Quickstart page.

In another thread about the possible addition of the Luck and Fate Runes to the game, some people were musing about a Rune-based mechanic for rerolls and other meta-game stuff. It has the advantage of gaining a Gloranthan flavour. The thread title is about "overpowered opponents", but the OP is really about fighting big-ass creatures like dinosaurs. As per RAW you're supposed to be able to parry a charging dinosaur with your sword, but I find this ridiculous. It's these kind of situations where using Dodge should be beneficial somehow (ideally with slightly different rules that make it so), as it makes the scene more believable to me. If the PC is facing another humanoid in melee combat, however, I agree that Dodge would rarely be used, except for special situations (like dropping your sword/shield, having it destroyed, or somehow being disarmed or unarmed).

There is certainly a delicate balance between explaining too little and explaining too much, as countless of horror/sci-fi movies and TV series have showed us (for good or bad). But I learned that the level of subtlety required to get a satisfying RPG adventure is far below the level of subtlety required to get a satisfying screenplay or novel. When they're "in the heat of the action", the players just pick up less hints than they would with a passive, crafted narration. To me, a "problem" gets turned into an opportunity whenever, well, you think it's fun, or whenever you actually find the right idea (in the meantime, you can just wave mysteriously from behind the GM screen, stroking your chin, saying "that is an interesting question, isn't it?", and giving your best GM poker face... I believe I'm pretty good at the GM poker face by now...). My earliest realization of this was, I think, when I was watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer in high-school. After the first couple seasons, me and my friends were joking that, surely, the city police and city officials must, by now, have realized that their crime and death stats are completely out of whack. Of course, barely a season later, the shows comes up with a season centered around the fact that the Mayor is in on it. I imagine that the writers had very similar discussions on the topic, and just decided to lean into it. So as a GM I do the same, and lean into what the players give me.

I agree that most players (at least most of my players!) would indeed do something stupid. The adventure's text could be simply revised with a warning to GMs that such an encounter is potentially deadly if things go bad. So do you think players would do that? If things go bad, they could indeed throw some food to the dinosaur to de-escalate things, or any variety of things, before the first trampling attack occurs. In my experience, my players have issues with sacrificing things or retreating, so there's a chance it doesn't happen and someone gets hurt badly. But they have learned to live with those consequences The dinosaur might run away after maiming one or two PCs, leaving the others to scramble for healing spells, or asking around for the nearest Chalana Arroy temple. I might make for a good "we can laugh at this now" story later although some other kind of player might get annoyed at being hurt or killed by a side encounter.

Yep, correct. Yeah but at that point, the coach (and their team) are more there to provide and enforce a well structured training schedule, general fitness maintenance, nutritional programs, and so on than, you know, actually teaching the athlete how to play soccer/skate/run fast/whatever. At best, a coach might provide high level tactical training and team-building (for team sports), or whatever, but it's not so much just a matter of walking up to the nearest sport club, flashing some money, and say "hey train me for 3 months, please". You have to hire that coach from that other country that trained so and so successfully. In Glorantha, it would be about seeking that one Rune Lord from that one temple, or something. At this point, it's not rules driven but GM/story driven. MGF. Do whatever works for you!

(shameless plug) And we mentioned how that might happen in episode 2 of Wind Words! (stupid joke) Now mockpork is all good, but when there's indeed some human meat snuck in there and it's coming from a guy named Hank, is that called Hank Mockpork?

There have been two "Rune Fixes" documents so far, available here (but nothing on the topic of this thread AFAIR). The Well of Daliath's RQ Q&A is also as close to an official errata as we get after the Rune Fixes.

Given that being trained implies that they "can't do anything else during that season", it means to me they don't have time to be teaching. So nope, they can't do both. I think complexity here is fine because it adds one more roll sometimes between adventures. Adding complexity needs to be managed less closely here than during actual play (especially action scenes). YMMV of course. Thanks for sharing! Frankly, I think it could be polished and bit and published in an RQ Companion book or something. FWIW I would have instinctively gone with rules that improve your chances at the experience gain roll (rolling above your stat), and not with bonuses to the actual percentage gain roll (d4/d6). Maybe that would result in less "fiddly" results? Experts and master do train, yes, but I think the 75% rule doesn't mean you can't train anymore -- it means you can't train under another master. 75% is basically when the student becomes the master. It's when you leave your dojo and go make your own school. It's when you stop reading books on philosophy and start writing your own theories. It's when you leave <famous scientist>'s lab and start your own research. This is somewhat modeled with the "Experience Between Adventures" rules on RQG p416: you can select up to 4 occupational or cult skills, and get experience checks in them, even if you didn't get a check during an actual (played) adventure. This indeed models people continuing to practice (and train) their main skills during the rest of the season.

AFAICT, the stats in The Gray Crane are merely based on the stats from the RQG Bestiary, so if anything, your problem is with the Bestiary, not this particular adventure. And the adventure merely suggests a dinosaur encounter being possible given the location -- it doesn't have to happen. But yes, I've already said we're missing good rules for combat against big/giant foes. I also miss having official tactical options like getting Dodge/Parry bonuses if you give up ground and/or roll on the ground, vs standing your ground against an opponent. This would definitely help in desperately dodging a dinosaur slam. One thing to consider is that this very deadly attack only happens if the PCs are close to the creature. I assume that being 5 meters away from an angry tiger wouldn't give me more than 20% chance of surviving either. Even if I don't act "reasonably" (trying to befriend the animal, keeping my distance, etc), I would still probably act "unreasonably" while considering the situation -- which means attacking the deadly creature from a distance, trying to trap it, etc. Some people like to wrestle crocodile and bears, but most people just shoot them from a distance, or setup traps 2 days prior.

Funny that your Glorantha does it completely the other way around from what @jongjom and @jajagappa suggest (loud wailing trolls, whimpering trollkin). Both make sense to me.

I really like this! Thanks I often find that past a given level of "backstory complexity", the players start getting lost -- they misunderstand what's going on, miss it, or worse. These are the types of adventure where, at the end, I talk with them about all the stuff they missed and what really happened behind the scenes... which happens often But there's a fine line between " oh wow so that's what was going on!" (similar to rewatching a movie and catching things you missed the first time) and "so it really didn't make any sense because they're mad/alien/whatever?". They love the first one. They don't love the second one so much, although they're OK with it when it comes with truly alien motivations (Delta Green Mythos monsters are very much of this type... it's fine that the Mi-Go don't have methods and agendas that can be understood). But there's also a fine line between something that looks alien in one scene (like the Hound attack example, or an encounter with unfathomable Mi-Go scientists), and a whole background story of alien things that don't make sense (i.e. a collection of events and encounters that can't be pieced back together... again, Delta Green makes aliens weird on a per-scene level, but generally they have one "understandable" goal over-arching each scenario). As far as human NPCs are concerned, I always try to make them have some kind of sense. There's method in madness, as they say. The logic may be strange and skewed, but there's a logic. It makes for more interesting villains, and it also gives me guidelines to make the NPCs react to the PCs' actions -- if I can't understand the mad cultists' motivation and logic, then anything can happen and that doesn't help me improvise. Half the time, though, I make up random stuff based on this framework, and then the players poke holes in that, and then I need to write more material between sessions to plug those holes, and then they poke more holes, etc. This push-and-pull kinda helps coming up with schizophrenic motivations, sometimes. So back to Mythos tomes: yep, they're in various libraries and other similar places. And yeah, it's very possible that my players start asking questions about this. What I would do is, first, see if they're genuinely interested in pursuing this line of thought, or if they just want to joke around. If they want to pursue this, that's when my "in-between sessions writing" kicks in. I would probably: Establish that many libraries have Mythos tomes in a restricted collection, or even in the back room, as these are items that are in restoration, being studied, or just considered too rare/fragile for public access. Do you know what's currently in the non-public areas of the Oxford University Library? Heck, do you even know what's in the public area? Are cultists expected to regularly check all the libraries around the world to check when an item of interest shows up? It might be years between the item being acquired by a library, and a cult attempting to steal it. There's a big difference between 1920s and modern times here. Assuming most cults have internet access and computer skills, they might have automated crawlers that notify them when an item of interest shows up in a public collection listing. In the 1920s, such automation is impossible, and they can't travel around the world all the time to check all the inventories, so they would only get wind of it by chance, or if they purposefully pay informants to keep them notified. That's an adventure seed right there! Mythos tomes in public libraries might be a minority. They might be most often in private collections. See the Ninth Gate movie. As Mythos tomes start showing up in libraries at the beginning of the 20th century, cults might see this as a viable way to acquire forbidden knowledge, and, indeed, the 1920s and 1930s in particular might see increasing break-ins at universities and libraries around the world. This, coupled with the scholars' realization that these books are more than what they seem, might lead to the formation of various counter-Mythos organizations... Bookhounds of London, The Armitage network, Delta-Green's precursor P4 division of the OSS, whatever you want. Suddenly there's a secret warfare between these people and the cults, and the Mythos tomes move away from the public areas of libraries before the start of WWII. By the end of the war, these books are locked in private vaults, government vaults, or whatever else. So.... sounds to me that, instead of treating this as an unfortunate plot hole that needs to be kept for the sake of the genre's tropes, it can actually be an excuse to write a decades-spanning campaign!

Yep, I had something similar in mind when I was talking about "extending the rules": a 2-tier penalty across weapons in the same category vs weapons in other categories. We could take it to another thread if people wanted to explore this more, but frankly I don't really need this kind of house rule yet (I don't even have an ongoing RQ game at the moment). There are a lot of those, yes. For all the incredible goodness and flavour that's packed in every page of the RQG rulebook, the production of this book has been quite fast, especially compared to its size and scope... as a result, there's a bunch of small/medium mistakes or wording problems that have to be cleared up in Q&As (and compiled on the Well of Daliath for reference). I've been crossing my fingers super hard for the past year that there will be an RQG 1.5 at some point, or something like that. Posting in the Core Rules Questions thread is usually the way to go, but Scotty's link indicates parts of your questions have already been somewhat answered... although Jason's answers were a bit confusing to me so it might be worth it to ask for clarifications. That said, as someone already pointed out, the authors are very much "sure, why not" type of GMs, more interested in story and worldbuilding than in precise, strictly defined gaming rules. It's frustrating for the rules-lawyers and tacticians out there, but there's a 50% chance the official answer is "handle it the way you think is best and most fun".

Is it a problem? Study groups are a thing, and they often indeed help. Well, except in the TV show "Community" where they're obviously totally useless. There's a difference between being good at something and being able to teach. Sadly, RQG doesn't have rules for this (there's no Teaching skill) so one would have to use house rules (I have a few ideas there). We're talking about characteristics, here, but remember that for any other ability, training is capped at 75%.

It might depend on the characteristic but usually everything starts with temples. Raw DEX or STR might be trainable at Babeester Gor or Humakt temples as part of athletic or martial training, while CHA might be trainable at Ernalda temples. I personally make INT trainable, obviously at Lhankor Mhy temples. Some characteristics might also be trainable by lone teachers, like the usual western trope of the isolated mysterious martial arts teacher living at the top of the mountain or something. Chasing down such a teacher is probably more a matter of roleplaying than anything... but it might be cheaper than a temple. If the stat increase is done by research, not many people might be able to huddle around the research material. If it's done by actual training, it would depend on the situation but unless you've got a party of 12+ PCs, I wouldn't worry about whether a teacher can train 2 people vs 4 people. I agree with the many people who say it's ridiculously overpriced. But the rules only say "usually" -- so the price is not fixed. Besides, I think this is the price a temple charges, and a lot of that money might be split between multiple teachers, along with a heavy tax going to the temple organization (so nope, the teachers wouldn't live like kings, but they're probably fairly wealthy priests or other ranking people in the temple). Like I said, a harder to find lone teacher might be much cheaper, but require a whole adventure to find. It seems to me game balance would have been better achieved by re-using the almost-universal BRP mechanic of somehow rolling over your current score to see if you can increase it (which is a mechanic that is used for "research-based" stat improvement). At least it would have made things more consistent. That's maybe a question for Jeff's RQ Q&A thread.

No, next year It might be just a couple Runes used for new gameplay mechanisms, a bit like the Magic Rune for Sorcery (which I believe you can get, but doesn't have any inspiration mechanics?). For example, the Luck Rune affinity might be used for some Luck mechanism similar to the CoC one, but with a Gloranthan spin.

I think the point of this "Keep it RQG Focused" guideline isn't to say we can only ever talk about RQG. I think the point is to only talk about RQG (it's the "default" version now) unless the OP specifies some other version(s). In that case, if the OP specifies they're looking for info about RQ3, or MRQII, or a combination of versions, or whatever, then keep it focused to whatever that is.... The root problem is that too many times someone asks question about an RQG rule, and the first 10 replies have (1) a mention of how that rule used to be worded differently in RQ2, (2) how that rule was "better" in RQ3, (3) how someone has a house-rule for that, (4) how Mythras actually has this house rule but with more options. It not super useful nor welcoming to new players.