Beoferret

Are there still plans to release some sample non-human pregen characters on the Chaosium site? If so, would that happen on Nov 10th or at some other point in the future?

Very cool! Thanks for the head's up. I wonder if he'd be willing to rework a story or two for Chaosium. He is a roleplayer (I think D&D 3.5).

Have any of you ever used CoC to run scenarios based on any of Laird Barron's stories or otherwise tried to incorporate aspects of his work into your gaming? Some of his tales seem to be begging to be turned into a game session - I'm especially thinking here of "Blackwood's Baby," "The Men From Porlock," and "Bulldozer." And the malevolent forces he imagines seem to fit right in to a mythos-like world, e.g., the creature/demon known as Belphegor and the cult surrounding the Children of Old Leech. Lots of inspiration in his work for Jazz Age or modern campaigns - to my mind at least.

Just noticed this post. Tiger Lung is awesome. The stories in the book include a lot of Glorantha-like material, especially related to shamans and the spirit world: a spirit summoning gone wrong; venturing into an ice cave to deal with more spirits (and an undead relative); hyenas led by the above-pictured Telmori-esque, werehyena. If you can get your hands on a copy of this book, do it. It's a snapshot of a stone age Glorantha.

Love the cover image!

The Glass Canon live play sure made it seem like something had been put together. The third episode (with all the combat) in particular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9L7mjprAiU

So, with the starter set nearing release, we might see an uptick in new players and GMs coming around the forums and/or poking around online for helpful resources. And it seems to me that we can play an important role in welcoming new RQers and easing their path to Glorantha so that some of them stick around for the long haul. With that in mind, does the collective hive mind of RQ veterans have suggestions for new GM's? Specifically I mean in regards to the following: a) places to set a campaign or short series of adventures (keeping in mind different playstyles and gaming preferences); b) Chaosium published adventures that are immediately suitable for new RQers or could be with a few GM adjustments; c) Jonstown content adventures that are immediately suitable for new RQers (or could be with a few GM adjustments); and d) general useful resources (online or published). Are there particular links or reviews that can accompany any of the above? What are the pros and cons of your suggestions, in a sentence or two? To give you all a better idea of what I mean, let me start: a) Adventuring Areas: - for a small starting place (with room for PCs to experience several types of adventures, including dungeon crawls, and easily travel to different parts of the world, when they want to): Renekot's Hope in The Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories. - Pro: easy to master home base with some interesting NPCs and room for multiple types of gaming, including heavy on the social interaction. Con: GM will have to flesh out adventuring areas, such as The Ruins or the Broo Catacombs, on their own. - for a large, open wilderness frontier zone: Balazar. - published material: Griffin Mountain (Classic RQ content; will need some basic conversion and updating). Online resource: Back to Balazar website - non-canonical, but well thought out updates to material, resources to aid playing in Balazar, etc. b) Official Adventure: - The Broken Tower - (quickstart rules) - Pros: Introduces players to a number of key concepts in RQG play (spirits, ransom, clan/tribal rivalries, fightin', and a chance to start their own cult). Cons: Has been critiqued as being a little railroady (easily adjusted.) Easy to find live play examples or reviews online, incl Jajagappa's: - Defending Apple Lane - (GM Screen Pack) - Pros: Fighting enemies that act tactically and rationally, but who are bad news; possibility of creating social connections in area; use of social rewards as well as treasure; connections with other published scenarios. Cons: Possible TPK, if PCs follow tusk riders to their hideout and try to take on Redeye w/o significant preparation. Again, easy to find reviews and play accounts online. C) Community Content/Jonstown Compendium Adventures - (I admit that I have only read through a couple of these.) - Stone and Bone - Fightin' in Prax, shamanism, Chaos. Pros: Action and social interaction. Easy to pair with other Praxian adventures (say on a trek to Pavis), including "The Pairing Stones," in Pegasus Plateau. D) Resource - - Treasures of Glorantha: V1 - Dragon Pass - Jonstown Compendium. Pros: Some cool items and good essay on treasure among the Orlanthi (including expected tithing and the importance of gift exchange with local elites.) Cons: Players from some other games may be underwhelmed and put off by the social side of treasure seeking (should the GM use it.) The point of this being, again, to recommend adventures and resources that new RQers can pick up and use with little modification and/or a lot of veteran guidance. Anything able to also introduce folks to more aspects of RQG and Glorantha without massive lore dumping is even better. Apologies for the long post and thanks to everyone who can contribute to the thread.

This is some good advice. Doing any of this could also give players a more visceral and dynamic sense of what combat can be like. I'd also add grappling or throws. Another idea might be to adopt the two-weapon fighting rules to incorporate a kick (to knock an opponent off balance or away) followed by a weapon strike (or running away). The risk to the last being that your kick might get parried with a sword!

A fair number of newcomers might actually be more comfortable with making characters who are unattached to a particular community. But that would (I agree) kinda undermine a big part of what makes RQG special. One possible compromise would be to offer an abbreviated character creation system that was just for Sartar as a downloadable file. Have it include a very abbreviated history (how did you survive the Great Winter, etc.) and maybe a table of minor events that a PC dealt with as a kid. But that a) might still be too long, and b) cut too much into what the regular rulebook does.

Whoops! I think I had two thoughts in my head and combined them when I wrote that. So ... garbled. That's my excuse and I'm standing by it! If only things could just be shipped via moonboat, it'd all make sense.....

Someone should note this in the corrections thread. RQG lances are - I'm pretty sure - modeled on the xyston or kontos. Essentially they're longish long spears or shortish pikes, whichever formulation you prefer. As a weapon being used aside from a charge, they're supposed to be treated as a long spear wielded one handed (see RQG rules, pg 219). I'd allow that for dismounted combat too, but would allow them to be used two-handed ('cuz that seems kinda real.) Anyhow, I hope their difficulties didn't dissuade some people from giving the game a chance.

Fair point. But I'm pretty sure the container ship that we were told was carrying the shipment for the U.S. arrived, docked, and is back across the Pacific at this point. Hell, it might be back off the coast of California by now. I checked the ship tracker (that was linked to in another thread) every couple of days and that sure seems to be what happened. I'm making the assumption that the shipment was unloaded, since there was at least one day where the ship was docked, and then sent on their merry way to Minnesota. Not long after (maybe a week or two?), Gen Con convened.

So, the RQ Starter Set shipments have arrived in Australia and the U.S. (obviously). If they're in the U.S., I'm going to assume that they also arrived at the Canadian warehouse. They're probably at the warehouse in Europe too (making a big assumption here), if only taking shipping times into account. My suspicion is that the main hold-up is Britain, which has been experiencing a lot of problems getting imports processed and then shipped throughout the country. Despite the spoiled 8 year old in my head stomping his feet and yelling "but I want it now!", I think waiting for the simultaneous release from all warehouses is a good idea.

Big question: have you noticed any changes to the rules? Do they just incorporate the material from the Rune Fixes/errata? Clarifications of rules that folks found confusing before? Anything that looks to be new?

"It's probably going to be a couple more weeks before it releases worldwide." 😭 It's for the best. I just need to remind myself that every morning - otherwise there'll be a daily anguished gnashing of teeth, weeping, and rending of garments.

We're just far enough apart that doing any sort of regular training isn't going to work (though I did practice a few times with my buddy when we lived in the same town.) At the risk of sounding trite, Wulfraed, I'm sorry to hear about your health issues. I sincerely hope the chemo works in the end and that it's not too hard on ya in the meantime. I'm a devout atheist, but times like this make me wish we really did have access to a Chalana Arroy-type force.

I have a friend who teaches Wing Chun kung fu and who knows staff work. I'll ask him what he thinks. My only martial arts training has been kendo. Been jonesing to learn some longsword and/or sword and buckler! Not enough time though and no one near me with whom I could practice.

That's an interesting idea.

A need? I suppose none, aside from my weakened, but continuing feeling that the 1/2 skill penalty of going from a broadsword to a shortsword is a bit much. That aside, I'd say that any character from an occupation that could reasonably be called on to fight (if only in the tribal militia) should have at least a little training in: 1. Spear (either 1-H or 2-H) - that's going to be the most common weapon all around, regardless of cult weapon affinities 2. At least one of trained skill with some type of sword, mace, or axe (more room for cult and cultural specialization here) 3. Shield 4. a missile weapon, like you suggest 5. Dagger 6. At least one unarmed fighting skill - wrestling would probably be the most common, at least among Sartarites. Even if they're all at low levels, these seem like they're pretty necessary (and justified) for most characters, let alone ones who are combat specialists.

Thanks for the input everyone! To answer Rodney's question ("Why does this matter?), I've been bothered by this since it a) seems like too much of a penalty for using a number of closely-related weapons, and b) since it means you have to sink more skill points into closely-related weapon skills, during character creation, in order to use them with any degree of effectiveness (or so it's seemed to me), points that could be used for other skills. Does it come up much in play? For me, no - but I've only run a couple of games sadly, so my sample size is depressingly small. Baron Wulfraed and Rob's points about the physical particularities of each weapon and how it's used/trained (how a particular style is embodied, as Rob put it) seem pretty important to keep in mind and a good reason to stick with RAW. It's still very tempting to switch to skill in category (e.g., 1-H sword, 2-H axe, etc.) for gaming ease. Gotta think this over a bit more. Thanks again all.

One of my biggest issues with the RQG combat system RAW is the idea that your weapon skill is linked to one specific type of weapon (e.g. broadsword) and that you're only half as good with any other weapon in the same category (1-H sword, for instance). This has always struck me as excessive. While I understand familiarity with one specific weapon doesn't mean you're 100% as capable with a very similar one, the current RAW just seem wrong. I'm thinking of simply saying that a character may specialize in say kopis skill, but that they're only at a -10% (maybe -20%) penalty to use any other one-handed sword and at half skill when attempting to use a two-handed sword without specific training. This strikes me as more closely resembling what I'd expect in reality, while also freeing up some skill points to go into non-combat skills (during character generation, at least). What do you all think? I'd especially love to hear opinions from folks who've actually trained with weapons, especially (but not exclusively) any of the HEMA disciplines. Am I just bothered by nothing here or am I actually on to something?

Jeff, this still leaves me with some basic questions: 1) Could a Chalana Arroy healer (without fear of divine retribution) still pick up a shield - or a staff, say - to protect an injured person, using the item in a solely defensive manner to only parry blows directed at that person? Or would they just have to jump in between the combatants, effectively using their bodies as a shield to protect the injured party from further harm? To my mind either way would still be in keeping with CA precepts as I've understood them up to now. And either way seems like a pretty dramatic moment in a combat situation! 2) While the CA cult does not teach weapon skills (understandably), wouldn't most people have learned at least a taste of the fighting arts as a kid, i.e., before they've realized their calling as a healer? And, more to the point, is it possible for someone who starts out as a warrior to eventually find themselves drawn to Chalana Arroy? A follower of Orlanth Adventurous, for instance, who's become sickened by all the violence and killing in the world and who feels compelled to take the healer's path in response. Seems like an interesting character to me, especially if they still have some of their old Passions that call for something other than a healer's touch in some situations (e.g., Honor).

That all makes a lot of sense, especially how the setting and character gen could mitigate against organized play (at least as it's generally conceived of.) As a thought experiment, here's a "what-if?" though: the first session includes a modified character gen session. What I mean is a set-up where players a) pick from a number of partially statted-out pre-gens that are drawn-up according to occupation, then b) choose their cult, with each partial pre-gen being given a couple of predetermined options (including the skills, skill bonuses, and maybe 1-2 passions,) and finally c) being run through a truncated family and character history process. What do you think? I'm not sure how one would work homelands into it - maybe keep them limited to just one (maybe two)?

By any chance, are there any plans to put together an organized play campaign for Runequest? Does anyone think that something like that makes sense for Runequest? I ask while having no idea how successful the Call of Cthulhu organized play games have gone in the past.

It's just very good to know that: a) the starter sets have been printed, b) they're actively being shipped, and c) they'll be available for purchase well before Christmas. Keeping all that in mind, it's much easier to be patient (do we have any other choice?). My main question is if Chaosium made sure that the captains of the ships in question performed the proper rites to Dormal!