Lordabdul

Interesting that Jeff's map puts it down around Clearwine when the RQ3 book says it's 32km north of Apple Lane... I guess that's why we're supposed to take everything between RQ2 and RQG with a grain of salt 😅

I had a quick look at the first one (Khochaz) to see how conversions would work, since I never tried it myself, and I have some questions: Why did you lower his Protection 2 down to a Protection 1? I believe the 1H heavy mace damage would be 1D8+2+1D4 (not 1D6)? How did you get SR 9 for the sling? It's SR 2 from DEX (there's no SR modifier from SIZ for thrown weapons I think), so it should be SR 2 if the sling is loaded, SR 7 if it's unloaded? Shield damage is, I think, missing the damage modifier? It should be 1D4+1D4?

I would second that sentiment. The few old things I tracked down look nice on my shelves, but I frankly haven't reached much for them except for the occasional smelling (smelling old books is awesome... don't look at me! it's perfectly normal!). The only "older" things I tracked down that I actually think will be helpful in practice are the four "Glorantha Classics" reprints/compilations (available in PDF via Chaosium) (although I'm still missing one). Still, sometimes old things just give you ideas, so it's worth flipping through fanzines and such. It's not so much the material itself, and more about getting your brain going.

When eBay is not being helpful, I usually turn to Noble Knight and AbeBooks. In this case, Amazon and Wayne's Books also have relevant stuff, for what it's worth, but I never bought used books from either so I cannot vouch for that.

The one that's etched forever in my memory is from the cover of the Arkham sourcebook! (although I also have a soft spot for the ones from the Keepers of the Faith in Delta Green: Countdown... they are more on the zombie-side though)

Yasssss!

If I remember correctly, Chaosium announced at last year's Kraken convention that they were working on a new edition of Gaslight, along with a Gaslight campaign called "The Curse of Seven" or something like that. A Dreamlands book was in the works too. @Runeblogger might know more.

There's an argument to be made for giving regular skill check bonuses when there is little pressure. It's not necessarily obvious how the game designers thought of it, but since a bunch of skills are meant to be used "in action" (i.e. you have minimum time, there's stuff happening, etc.), I usually assume all skill levels are, without modifiers, your level for doing things also "in action". So when a character is doing their daily grind at the day job, unless there are specific circumstances, I would give a +20% to +30% on a roll.

He's going to do the cover illustration for the recently crowdfunded French version of the RQG slipcase set.... I'll post pictures when I receive it (some time in autumn 2020)

I did GM a couple of adventures for my group last year -- the books were so gorgeous I had to! They wanted to play pirates, however, so we were in the Atabean Sea the whole time (using the "Pirate Nations" sourcebook). It was quite fun, and I liked the resolution mechanics, the world, and the flavour of magic. The only problems we had were: 1) For a game called 7th Sea, I found that a lot of the published material actually focuses more on "3-musketeers"-type swashbuckling action, and less on nautical shenanigans. I was especially disappointed by the very vague naval battle rules, but thankfully there are some pretty well designed optional/house-rules available on DTRPG. 2) My players wanted to play, like, actual pirates, i.e. "bad guys" (or, at least proper scoundrels... not "scoundrels on a character arc of redemption"! That's bullshit! ). The rules assume you're playing the "good guys" ("Heroes"), so we also had to tweak the "Corruption" rules to let them have their plundering and pillaging fun. I got a copy of FATE's Scum & Villainy late in the game and I tried to adapt their rules for "Consequences" to replace the "Corruption" ones, but we didn't quite get to test them out (FYI, those rules basically codify a bit how doing bad things attract worse things onto you... something I can do somewhat instinctively as a GM, but I thought it might also be fun to put a couple numbers and dice rolls on it).

If I were to modify the sorcery rules a bit (and I would definitely want to), I would want to strike a balance between "you gotta learn each spell as a separate skill" and "all spells are based on runes/techniques, so you just spend points in runes/techniques and all your spells go up". The way I see it is very similar to how musicians work, for instance. You can learn a specific song very well (spending points in the specific "skill" for that one song), but you can also build up a repertoire of techniques (e.g. finger picking/tapping/bending on guitar, ghost notes/double kick/snare roll on drums), and build up a repertoire of styles and structures (chromatic/pentatonic/blues scales on guitar, shuffle/funk beat patterns on drums). When you couple that with some general "musical sense", which is a mix of innate sensibility and musical culture, you can, in absence of any particular skill for a song, just "wing it" and play along a lot of songs just based on your mastery of styles and techniques. In magical terms, and more specifically RQ terms, the "general magical sense" might be CHA or POW, styles/structures/techniques might be similar stat scores for each rune/technique, and then spells are like specific songs. So even if you don't have any points spent in a particular spell, you would get stat bonuses from your CHA/POW, and from the runes/techniques involved in the spell, effectively giving you a potentially viable default score in that spell skill... no idea yet if it would be the total, average, or lowest of those stat bonuses, I'm really thinking out loud here. But the goal here is that you would be able to improvise spells based on your "academic/theoretical" understanding of sorcery, although that wouldn't compete with someone who studied that same spell specifically. I might even come up with "crude vs refined" forms of each spell, or somehow make it so that people who master a spell well enough can better control its effect and/or its form... like, for instance, a success under half the skill ("hard success" in CoC terms) might let you cast the more "refined" version of the spell or something, which means maybe you don't need to gesture/talk to cast it, or something.

RuneQuest is the grand-daddy to all BRP games (including Call of Cthulhu). If you're familiar with CoC rules, you'll find that RuneQuest is a crunchier and more combat-oriented version of the same rules. RuneQuest, in its latest incarnation, is completely tied to the world of Glorantha (which means it's awesome). HeroQuest's latest version is also tied to the world of Glorantha. It's a completely unique system that is very high level (i.e. not crunchy at all, there's not too many rules), and that is biased towards the narrative side of RPGs (it's one of the very early pioneers actually). To make a very approximate one-sentence description of the difference between the two, I'd say that in RuneQuest, you go where the stats and the rolls lead you, and from that a story emerges, whereas in HeroQuest you try to tell the story by using the stats to make it go forward. RuneQuest is old school RPG with miniatures and stat blocks, HeroQuest is improv-drama with 1-page character sheets. Pick RuneQuest if you like crunchier systems, grittier play styles, or tactical combats. Pick HeroQuest if you like adventures to feel like myths and legends, higher-power games, or non/less-combat-oriented stories. Of course, ignore both games if you're not interested in Glorantha (you could use either system on their own, but frankly there's enough generic or reusable systems out there that you don't need the extra work in my opinion).

Can't wait for the follow up book, "Cults Of Central Kralorela".

That aligns pretty well with how I view sorcery, yeah. As mentioned before, it's basically the Ars Magica fantasy of "wizards as alchemists", who spend most of their time indoors, in their mysterious tower at the edge of the village, only occasionally coming out to provide a few services to the farmers and merchants in exchange for some mana or other resource. To that degree, I think the critically important innovation that Ars Magica brought to the table is popularizing the "troupe play" as a way around the fact that, indeed, such wizards don't make great adventurers -- they don't do much "in the heat of the moment" because it's all about preparation, work, research, etc. When they do cast something on the spot, the only reason they have such amazing spells is because they spent the past entire year pre-casting those spells with the right rituals, on the right days, using the right ingredients, etc. And that's why you only play your wizard once every 4 adventures or so in Ars Magica (the rest of the time you play their servants/bodyguards/messengers going out on missions for them). I'm really hoping for a future RQG sourcebook on sorcerers, and I'm really hoping it takes Ars Magica's angle and carries it forward some more. But as they stand, in my opinion, the RQG RAW on sorcery only need a few tweaks, some extra elements/bonuses/MP rules/etc., and a whole bunch of cultural/RP flavour to achieve that fantasy (but that's a whole different game than RQG is right now, so that's probably why Jeff is hand-waving it a bit from the current Dragon Pass-centered editorial line)

"Colymar Tribe? Huh.... I heard all they have in the Colymar Tribe are morons and cows. And you lot don't look like cows!"

I think it is -- in the HQG book, "devotees" are the ones that receive gifts and geases from their deity (for instance, Humakt devotees, HQG p166). Sounds like Rune Priest/Lord/God Talker to me.

I'm still not quite sure why Chaosium isn't going with "Deities of Glorantha", or some other equally shorter title. Unless they really like the alliteration...

My understanding is that the way Fate Points work are basically an attempt to solve the problem of more traditional point-based flaw systems. When you get points at character creation for taking a "Arachnophobia" flaw, it's usually a set amount of points vaguely based on the world. Later, in play, it may have been overpriced (because there are barely any spiders in this world or in this particular campaign), or underpriced (the whole campaign is based on fighting the Queen Of Spiders). If, instead, you "get the points" based on the "effective annoyance" of having this flaw, it's arguably more "fair". As such, it's not really metagaming, it's just a game mechanic that differs from other games' mechanics because it tries to be a better mechanic. So if a character has a celibacy flaw/geas/etc., based on the game mechanics and the world and the particular campaign, it may or may not be a big deal.

I think new Keepers can continue past the Starter Set with Doors to Darkness, a collection of scenarios designed for them (so between that and the Starter Set, that's bound to keep them busy for several months!), but after that you're right, it's either big behemoth campaigns, or looking into 6th edition books. But AFAICT, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is also quite complex (mostly because the text is quite short and there's a lot left for the GM to do), and Unseen Masters is just a collection of separate scenarios, not a campaign. I'd love an updated SoYS though!

So yeah, good job from @Qizilbashwoman with the correct math between initiates and lay members. As for 16 year old RQG characters, in addition to "Playing Inexperienced Adventurers" (p.25), which makes you skip some personal background and skill points, I would also decrease a few other stats to model the lack of several years of intense life experience (remember, default RQG characters have battle experience and stuff): Primary/second/third runes at 50%/30%/15% (so that you're just at the age where you can join a cult, with a 50%+ rune affinity) I might decrease occupation skill bonuses a bit, but maybe RAW are fine given that you probably learn the bulk of it between 10 and 17 years old? No cult or cult magic (since the point is to join a cult in game) After that, I imagine that many adult initiates, having non-adventurous lives, don't level up as fast as PCs and so, when they're in their early twenties, they wouldn't be as strong as your default RQG character. They might only have 1 or 2 rune spells instead of the usual 3 for adventurers, for instance. Plus, getting additional Rune Magic points after the first one requires a full week of meditation and prayer at your deity's temple, something that the average farmer might not be able to do because they're so busy all the time... their little free time might be already spent helping with Holy Days preparations, and performing rites to replenish whatever little magic points they spent for the occasional (couple times a season at most!) spell cast. Having everybody be initiates What was the reasoning for going with Hiording instead of the Red Cow?

Nice, thanks for the info (I'm thinking of getting a printer for, mostly, minis and custom LEGO pieces). Is there a chance you'd talk to Chaosium about making the 3d blueprints publicly available? (feel free to sell them, if possible!)

That's pretty cool @Ochoa ! Unless I missed some earlier messages, I don't think you described your setup (printer, material, modeling process, etc.). Could you share that? Thanks!

Yes, and you're not alone with this being confusing and problematic... See also this thread. I'm personally planning on only using the "initiative system" parts of SR, and fudging/house-ruling the "point allowance" parts (which, AFAICT, are OK except when it comes to melee weapons, because their SR stat is biased towards the "initiative" part). The way I interpret the rules is that: Vasana has DEX SR 3 Demoralize is a 2 points Spirit Magic spell so (without any boosting), spending 2 magic points means SR +2 So Vasana casts Demoralize at SR 3+2 = 5 Seems to me RAW are correct. Am I missing something? Edit: oh I just read @prinz.slasar's footnote, I missed that the first magic point is "free" for SR. That's easy to miss

"You'll know when we're there, because we will be there!"

Finally finished watching it! It took me a couple sessions since the beginning was pretty slow and I was getting a bit bored. Once it gets started with the shadow-people it's pretty fun, though -- the production values are insane (see what I did there?) and the roleplaying is, as usual, quite solid. It was just difficult to watch at times because they got so many basic rules wrong... it felt that only Ashly actually read the starter rules and remember any of it. The most interesting thing, of course, was hearing them use so many "D&D-isms" which, in turn (I think) contributed to getting some of the rules wrong, because they were reverting to their old D&D habits and mixing them with CoC mechanics.