Carew

29 minutes ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

well.. it's just for being able to decapitate or dismembered people...

at any rate Major Wound has a complicated table, I though this might, in fact, reduce the complexity...
instead of running the Major Wound table, run the localisation table. Then apply the Location effect.. same difficulty really!

Not its not complicated. I roll d00 and look up the result. Your adding extra steps and things to track. Nothing wrong with that but it seems to me that if you want localization then use the hit location rules or play Mythras or RQ. Your trying to fix things that are not broken. You've got a whole lot of posts changing stuff in the magic systems too but without having tried any of it in play. Surely its better to try things and change them if they don't work, rather than thinking they won't work or need to be improved before trying them?

Why make things so complicated? The whole point about the major wound table is that it is fast and fun. This just adds more rolls and more book keeping. Your game obviously, but this just seems to me to be adding stuff to the rules for the sake of it. If you want more 'realistic' simulation then stick to Mythras or Runequest.

31 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Legend is its own thing and not under license from Chaosium or Moon Design Publications. Mongoose was perfectly entitled to take their work, remove from it those elements that were derived from RuneQuest or Glorantha and give it its own name, and then do with it as they see fit. Legend is not RuneQuest or BRP or Call of Cthulhu, and nor does it purport to be.

If Mongoose wants to do a OGL of their original work, that is not our issue or concern. My post is only to remind folk that the MRQ OGL has long since expired and not to rely on it. 

Thank you! This is the clarification I was looking for. It is appreciated.

20 minutes ago, Travern said:

 

@Jeff can answer questions only about Chaosium's intellectual property, and even then, there's going to be legalese involved.  Opining about whether or not Mongoose's Legend is acceptably OGL could risk legal exposure to Chaosium if any of this—Lhankor Mhy forbid—winds up in court.  Only Mongoose can publicly state that Legend is an original work and not derived from their RQII SRD (to which Chaosium then may, or may not, object).

Fair enough. I won't bother with my modest plans if there is no straight answer available. Seems the safest way. Mongoose don't look to be interested in Legend anymore and no straight answer from either when I asked this question on the Mongoose forum and no straight answer here. Back to Pathfinder perhaps.

19 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

No, this post didn´t come out of nowhere. 
Chaosium Inc. has send a warning notice to the developers of said "Open Cthulhu", and it has to be made clear that Chaosium Inc. cares about its legal rights. 

"Open Cthulhu" is the attempt to rebuild "Call of Cthulhu" as an open RPG, with copying as much as they can get away with from Call of Cthulhu. 

There are already to many d100 systems and Cthulhu RPGs around, we don´t need more d100 Cthulhu RPGs. There is a fine one already. 

This is first I have heard about any Open Cthulhu. I am not really a player of the Cthulhu games so to me, this post comes out of nowhere because it doesn't mention anything about Open Cthulhu.

Whats frustrating is this post comes out of nowhere, answers lots of hypothetical questions very clearly and raises still more. A couple of people ask for an answer about Legend and get an answer that's evasive. Legend has been around a number of years. They must know what the position is. All want is a straight answer. If that answer is 'hey! there are some legal issues that mean it's a bit unclear but we're working on it', I will live with that. But the answer is not clear and I don't speak legaleeze.

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I guess it's a much more murky case than Open Cthulhu

What is Open Cthulhu?

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To be clear, I think that Jeff is intentionally speaking in Legaleeze. Re-read the OP again. It appears emphasis is on Titles, and not on other things.

Well I wish he wouldn't. If someone asks a straight question, it would be more helpful to have a straight answer. He started it it all off with his OP, and he gives straight answers there, so he should so the same with the question about the Legend OGL.

2 hours ago, albinoboo said:

Legend is no longer listed as OGL by Mongoose.

I just checked with Mongoose and they don't seem aware of any change so maybe it is still OGL but just not visible?

41 minutes ago, albinoboo said:

Legend is no longer listed as OGL by Mongoose.

Oh! That's news. I wonder when that happened?

5 hours ago, Jeff said:

To the extent someone has made an original work that is not legally derivative of Chaosium's IP, of course they have the right to do with it as they will, including issue a perpetual OGL. That's the WotC OGL - WotC owned D&D outright and could do with it what they wanted, including issue perpetual third party licenses. However, Mongoose's license for RuneQuest was limited in duration. You can't license to others more than you actually have. So when their RuneQuest license was terminated, any licenses they issued under that license died with it.

So to be clear then, the Legend OGL is fine as far as Chaosium is concerned? A simple 'yes' will do. If its a 'no', then an explanation would be good.

I too would like to know this. I am a Legend fan and have thought about releasing some of my own things for Legend using the OGL as Mongoose seem to have stopped bothering. It is important to have clarification I think. Is there an official answer?

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That's just as arbitrary as any other limit. 

Well, I always thought that arbitrary meant that a decision was based on a whim rather than a good reason. The INT cap in mrq makes sense (more than a CHA cap, but I guess that works too) and is making a game system reason for the cap. So in that sense its not arbitrary at all. Someone thought about the cap, looked at the math, put a system in place and explained the system. Like PhilHibbs said that seems to be the opposite of arbitrary.

But yeah, I guess its how you want to run your game.

I agree, its too slow. If this is an error from the older version, why was it not corrected? There seems to have been a lot of this carrying things over from the old days without bothering to check and see if they were broken to begin with or would cause problems with new rules. It does not look like the designers did any of that properly.

In Mongoose Runequest 2 and Legend, common magic is capped at INT divided by 3, so if your INT15 the maximum Bladesharp you can get is Bladesharp 5. This avoided arbitrary limits and tied the spell magnitude to the characteristic. I like this approach best and will be using in my games.

Well, I have read through the magic and combat chapters in RQG and also looked at the many question topics on the Runequest forum on this site. The combat rules looks to have a lot of inconsistencies and inaccuracies and the whole strike rank thing is far more complicated than we like. It is a bit troubling that the game designer says something different to what is in the rules or seems to interpret the rules differently. I will probably use Mythras as our basic system and then just use Glorantha cults and local color with some of the history. We may use Hero abilities from Legend too, because some of those are quite cool, and I might make them a cult gift or something.

Thank you for all the helpful advice.

This is really helpful Jajagappa. Thank you for this background. We will use this for her character.

I will look at getting the Glorantha sourcebook too which seems to be thing thing we need. I may also look at the older adventures someone else mentioned. I have heard of Griffin Mountain so that might be a good place to start.

28 minutes ago, 7Tigers said:

New comers should also start by reading what is available online:

https://www.glorantha.com/glorantha/

Thank you!

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My mental picture of Ralios is of a swords-and-sorcery version of medieval Italy. Lots of dueling city-states with rulers who don't last very long owing to some court intrigue or other, plus Arkati wizards with their own agendas, who also may or may not last very long. Assassinations are commonplace. Nevertheless, the trade around Lake Safelster makes the area rich and full of merchants. Your player's character would quite easily have the philosopher background, with a specialization in refuting the arguments of heretic Arkati (there are lots of Arkats...sadly the cult has never officially been worked up in the Ralian context AFAIK). That deep philosophical background won't matter in Sartar, as there are very few Arkati around to debate with, so you can just hand-wave it. The PC should be confident in her *secret knowledge*, however, and would probably view the Sartarites as illiterate barbarians. Perhaps she offended a rival sect and there are other Arkati coming after her?

This sounds really cool, but is also really frustrating too. I did a search in my RQ pdf and there are mentions of Arkat but not who he (she? it? they?) is, or were, or what they really did. Is this Arkat a god or a hero? I cannot tell from the RQ book. So this cool idea is now a really frustrating cool idea because there's all this deep Glorantha backstory that isn't covered anywhere except in maybe wikis and this humungous and humungously expensive Glortantha guide. Its like you've got to be a Glorantha expert to even start playing unless you want to make shit up and find out its wrong, or doesn't fit later. Unless your characters are all Sartar people that is.

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Mongoose Publishing published a book about Ralios, but it is focused on the Second Age (the previous one). The old Genertela book by Chaosium also had a section about Ralios, but it must be hard to find nowadays. Other than that, the next best info on Ralios is in The Guide to Glorantha, but that will be too much for your player. 😯

Also what is the Second Age? It is mentioned in the RQ book a few times but there is no real information on it. I cannot find the Ralios book on the Mongoose website either and someone said that all the information in it is now wrong. Why is it wrong?

Maybe I am thinking too much about all this, but we just want to be able to understand Gloranrtha a bit more, and my player wants a sorcerer character that fits with the world and has some kind of back story like the Sartar characters. All this history and stuff scattered everywhere in different books (some of which seem to be wrong anyway) just makes it all really difficult. Sorry to be sounding negative! Just want to have a fun game!

28 minutes ago, g33k said:

Also, if you're playing RQG -- and liking it, mostly -- but decide you also really like "luck points" (or any other bits of Mythras, just making an example of that one)... simply add them into your RQG game!  You may want to bump the opposition a bit, or not, to suit tastes at the table...

All the different flavors & variants & subsystems of BRP play well together, with only minor adjustments.

Similarly -- but more substantively -- RQG rules for Runes could be added into Mythras...  "MythRQG" ?

We've yet to play but have started making characters, and already hitting some issues. One character wants to be a sorceress from this Ralios place, but there's no detailed character guidance like for Sartar characters, so not sure what to do. My players do like luck points so they'll probably go in, and the combat system too, which we have used since Legend. So it may be that we use the background and some of the spells maybe, but more or less use Mythras. I don't know yet. I have been reading the posts on the Runequest forum here and there seem to be lots of gaps in the rules and confusing rulings around magic and combat so may be better to ignore RQG system altogether. We will try an adventure and see how it goes.

11 hours ago, Thyrwyn said:

There is nothing official on that front, as of yet. Sorcery in RQG is all about being prepared and having your spells cast ahead of time. casting sorcery in combat is.... challenging. More detailed sorcery rules are coming, we just don't know when.

Dungeon crawls are challenging to run and set up in RQG - or any version of RQ - but it can be done. You'll need to make sure that your characters have access to a lot of magic points beyond their own: spirits, storage crystals, or enchantments - something. Every combat will drain magic points and everyone will need to be fully healed between fights or your PCs won't make it more than 3-4 rooms before turning into a TPK. Die rolls are everything in RQ - especially for beginning players and characters. Criticals and Specials can happen at any time, to anyone. One lucky hit from a trollkin can kill anyone - even a well-seasoned adventurer or hero. 

In D&D, AC and Hit Points mean survivability. That isn't nearly the case in RQ. HP are (effectively) constant, and your armor can only get so much better than it is for starting characters. In RQ the big determiners are magic, numbers, and skill level - Rune Magic especially. Rune Magic is the big trump card, and be very careful  (as a GM) when you decide to have your antagonists start throwing it around; even Spirit Magic can turn the tide of fight in a hurry - there aren't a lot of fireballs or area affect spells, but the buffs available - even to starting PCs and enemies - are much more powerful than low level spells in D&D. 

Being outnumbered in RQ is deadly, especially when skill levels are low and success or failure is essentially a coin flip. AC isn't passive - PCs need to actively defend themselves by parrying or dodging - being outnumbered limits their ability to do so, as your chances decrease (-20%) for each subsequent attempt each round. So if your PC is facing 3 trollkin and you try to parry them all, you're third attempt is at -40%. Doesn't happen in D&D.

Skill level - this one is harder to wrap your head around. The more frequently you want to throw combats at your party, the lower you need to set the enemy's skills. The more enemies you throw at them in a given fight, the lower you'll need to set their skills. Don't be afraid to mix it up - 1-2 skilled enemies and bunch of scrubs can work well, but if a skilled opponent can gang up on one PC with scrub support, that PC will be in trouble. For tough fights I generally set the skill level of my antagonists on par with the party average; for hard fights I'll throw in a champion antagonist or two that is slightly better than the party's best fighter. But those fights will drain party resources very quickly. For easy encounters, or crawls, I'll keep enemy skill levels around the bottom of the party's combat abilities. 

Remember that enemy spell use will affect all of those benchmarks - so factor that into your thinking. For crawls, make good use of creatures and monsters that don't cast spells - they're easier to balance and the combats are generally faster to run.

Last thing: Damage Bonus - not a big deal in D&D, devastating in RQ. Sure, starting humans have +1d4 or +1d6 - a slightly above average great Troll can have +3d6. Big, strong creatures can do more damage because of their SIZ and STR than the base damage of their weapon. A PC that fails to dodge or parry against a Great Troll is in for a very bad day - even a successful parry might mean trouble if the PC doesn't have any defensive spells up yet.

There's a good section at the beginning of the Gloranthan Bestiary (available in pdf) that addresses some of this, too.

 

Thank you Thyrwyn. As I said, we're familiar with BRP as we've just finished a home-brew Legend campaign and have played some Mithras too. Magic is obviously really important and everyone has it so that will take some getting used to but for the other things you mention we've learned sometimes the hard way! That is goods advice on the skill levels for encounters and I will remember that. Thank you again.

Thank you everyone.

Where can I find more detail on Ralios? My player wants to control the elements, so we're looking at spells to help do that.

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The personal experience of the sorcerer might be tied up with the last stages of Argrath's Circumnavigation at Harrek's side, and she might have a character tied in with Argrath's warlocks as a result.

I see mentions of all these in the RQG rules but as I said, I'm new to Glorantha and I don't know what a lot of this is supposed mean or signify. There is a HECK of a lot of stuff to take in to understand it all.

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Basically, some brain-storming and a crash course in Ralian events seems to be what you might be facing. Interested?

Thats a kind offer and thank you, but I don't want to start getting into all this deep Glorantha stuff at this stage. Is there a Ralios book or supplement I can look at, or direct my player to?

Having gone through about two third of the rules, this is what I'm finding difficult (and so are some of my players). Its all very cool, but there's all this deep backstory that is really tough to absorb if you want to get a character that feels right, and if you want a character that isn't a Sartar character, but comes from somewhere else, then your screwed on your backstory. My player's rationale is she's an elemental sorcerer from far away travelling to find a certain spell to free her captive sisters. She has met the other characters as part of a caravan which was attacked before play started, and then we shall play the quickstart adventure and see where that goes. But the game seems to want to force all the characters to be from this one area with this common background and it doesn't accommodate for different wants from players too much. I could say to my player that she needs to make a Sartar character that follows the backstory, but we've done that in other campaigns for other games we've played and it doesn't go down well. We like to sandbox with diverse characters.

Hi. Found this forum because of Runequest Glorantha, but I've played Mithras before after playing Legend, so its good to see that Mithras and Legend are both supported here. We're starting a new Runequest Glorantha campaign and using those rules, but I wanted to know how compatible Mithras and Legend adventures will be with RQG because I don't really know how to start a Glorantha campaign. I thought I might try some of the Spider Gods Bride adventures, which is Xoth, but also thought I might try some of the Quests book adventures from Mithras but set in Glorantha. Will that work? Not sure.

Also, I have two players who have played in my Legend and Mithras campaigns who are now going to try RQG. The combat system for RQG looks different but also faster. Passions I know from Mithras, and they seem similar. My question is, do I use Runequest for my campaign or Mithras rules? Read through the RQG rules and not sure which way to go but the background rocks, so would like advice from the experience people here.

Happy gaming!

Hello. New to Glorantha but not new to BRP games having played some Legend and Mithras. Just got the RQG rulebook and getting to grips with the system. My friend has  Glorantha 13th Age and there's a real difference in how that plays to BRP and in how Glorantha is presented. I'm setting up a campaign for others new to Glorantha now, and using the free scenario you can get but with our own characters. We are using the RQG rules for characters but one of them has read that you can play sorcerers from some place in the west and she really wants to do that. She played in sorcerer in my Legend campaign (which was using Xoth) and likes that style of magic. Where can I get help on background and a generator like that in the rulebook but for these western places? I did some looking around and she wants her character to be from Ralias but I can't find much more than that.

Also, what tips would you give a GM new to Glorantha? I read a bunch of threads on RPGnet about starting small and that's good advice, but I'm talking more about how to structure adventures and things like dungeon crawls. Some of my players are Pathfinder and D&D5 players and need something like that to get into the game.

So thank you and looking forward to this gaming! Only took me 20 years to finally give Glorantha a whirl!

New to this forum, but been playing Legend for some time, then Mithras, now getting ready to try out the new Runequest Glorantha. Never played in Glorantha before, but my friend has 13th Age in Glorantha and we had a few good sessions, so thought I'd take the plunge.

So "Hi" to everyone and happy gaming.