BlindPumpkin

I might have missed it, but I don't think I've seen anyone recommend the simplest solution yet in the thread: RQ6/Mythras style Locationg Warding. By RAW you can only do it against missiles in RQG, but extend the benefit to ANY attack against the covered location and bam, a simple solution that makes shield extremely useful and doesn't require any further tinkering with advancement rules and skill numbers. It's the most obvious and practical solution in my opinion, and I have a hard time thinking why this ISN'T the core way shields are handled. It's always a little awkward when you hit someone's left arm after they missed a weapon-parry and the player goes "but isn't my large shield covering that location?".

It's always been my understanding that the beast-riding nomads of Prax mostly resided in the wastelands to the east of Prax, trading and raiding on the borders of Pent and Teshnos and mostly visiting Prax for religious and military reasons, with a few clans actually staying permanently west of the river. The description of Praxian characters in the RQG core rulebook makes me think otherwise though, and it seems to imply most Praxians actually live in and around Prax, and mentions the wastes more as a region where clans are exiled to as opposed to being the major area where nomad clans reside. Was this simply a way of focusing adventurer creation in and around Dragon Pass (so most Praxians still live in the wastes, but PC Praxians are from Prax), or does it mean the new chaosium canon redefines the beast-nomads as living mostly on the plains of Prax itself?

I believe its usefulness will be expanded in the upcoming GM guide, with the skirmish and mass battle rules. It is probably intended to be used in a similar way to the battle skill in Pendragon, a general ability for gauging both leadership and tactical/strategical skill.

Wow, thanks for the find. That pretty much answers it, then.

I've been thinking about this and rereading the rules on holy days and worship rituals. I think I'd go with RQG RAW when determining what consists as a holy day. The book makes it pretty clear that a worship ritual is intended to be an involved, day-long affair, lead by a rune priest or god-talker at a shrine or temple. This is clear both in the description of worship rites, and in the explicit example of an adventurer regaining her rune points during a holy day. The book further states that holy idols stay safely hidden away from public view "most of the year" and is only taken out and displayed during worship rituals, which seems to imply that weekly rituals are not the expected norm for most cults. Now I'd argue the frequency of such rites varies greatly from deity to deity, obviously. The book explicitly states Clayday as being a minor holy day for Ernalda (and I believe she is the only deity with a weekly holy day in the rulebook) so it is possible that some or many or all settlements with Ernalda worshipers would hold weekly rituals, but no weekly holy day is given to Orlanth. I believe this works especially well when taking game balance into consideration: Non-adventuring worshipers of Ernalda would have rune spells related to blessing their crops, maintaining healthy pregnancies, dealing with livestock, etc. They would be praying for good blessings and favors frequently in those areas, as those are their daily activities. Orlanthi magic is almost entirely focused on battle and warfare, and that is powerful magic indeed. No one is going to be munchking their way around this- there is no way to regain Orlanth rune points weekly if we follow holy days by RAW: Orlanth has no established weekly holy days, and participating in Ernalda rituals only regains Orlanth rune points during High and Seasonal Holy Day rites. Of course this is all easily ignorable, and if you want to give weekly minor holy days for other deities in the core book then for all intents and purposes go ahead, just keep in mind the rules implications of changing such things and it should be fine.

What lead to the decision of changing the rules on higher rolls breaking ties during opposed contests in case of same level of success? I remember it being in the first printing, and then later changed, but I don't remember seeing an explanation on the reasoning behind this change. I imagine it was to make ties a more frequent result, which can lead to interesting situations and stand-offs; was that the reason?

50s-60s european Sword & Sandal movies and the hollywood period epics that inspired them are my go to Bronze Age cinematic inspiration, especially the ones with Kirk Douglas (Spartacus, Ulysses, The Vikings). I really, really enjoy the HBO series Rome, as some have previously recommended also. It does a great job of portraying how gods and religion took part in the everyday life of ancient mediterranea, from nobles to slaves to soldiers. Can't think of better inspiration for Tarsh. Yes! Korean and Chinese cinema is GREAT inspiration for ancient warfare if you take the time to look through it.

In my games Sartarites don't "go to church", the clan IS the church; their culture and way of life itself is already based around their gods and their way of life is already exceedingly social and they demonstrate their devotion by simply living their gods preferred lifestyle. If you believe they should put aside a day every week to be exceptionaly pious, then that is a fine interpretation of minor holy days. In my game I see worship rituals more as exceptional, involved events where worshipers specifically ask for blessings from their gods, and minor holy days as days when rituals are not expected, but welcome by the gods. Also I don't usually like drawing parallels to abrahamic worship practices, since Glorantha is based on something completely different.

Ha! That is an interesting point. I will enforce the "no moving and shooting" rule more strictly from now on then, to further illustrate the advantages of using a different ranged weapon.

I think that could vary depending on wether or not you think a full, day long worship ritual is required for one to reap the benefits of a worship roll. Consider this: maybe the village doesn't get together every Clayday to perform a full-on worship ritual, but if a villager for some reason is looking to get some special blessing before the next holy day, or the village is under unusual duress and is in urgent need of their god, the priest may hold a ritual during a day of minor yet some significance to their deity, a minor holy day. I think both interpretations are valid.

I share your sentiment. I feel that in trying to give too much mechanical depth to the rune magic system they ended up making it all way too gamey. It is usually assumed that the game rules are there only for the players to interact with the world through their adventurers, and not that the whole world is running under those mechanics like a video game, but that is the impression that RQG gives me when I see rules for mundane worshiping being stated out like this. I preferred the more abstract handling in RQII, and also the lower incidence of rune magic in general in that edition, but that is a completely different matter. A weird quirk related to minor holy days that I've noticed is that, if you can only effectively roll worship on holy days, then why does a minor holy day give you a bonus at all? If you'll always have at least the +10 bonus from a minor holy day then why not just bump worship to 15 base instead of 5 base? I feel minor holy days shouldn't have a bonus at all, that people pray every week precisely because of the lower odds.

I remember in RQII there was a rule about adventurers not being able to shoot while moving, but does this apply to RQG also? The following situation arose a few times during play, and every time I'm a little unsure on how to handle it. Considering adventurers ARE able to move and shoot in the same round, this is how I do it: Declaration of intent: I tell a player he is being rushed by an enemy trying to close into melee range with him, he states that he will try to shoot the enemy, then walk backwards while readying another arrow, and if possible he'll shoot again. So lets say his shortbow SR is 2, and the enemy has a shortsword SR of 7. Since he had his shortbow readied at the start of the round, I rule that he lets off a shot at SR 2, then moves back while readying his second arrow (combining the 4 SR cost of moving his maximum movement while attacking, and the 5 SR cost for readying a weapon, using the highest result), and will be able to let off another shot at SR 9, while the enemy will use all his MOV points to close in. Next round he can't use his bow anymore since he's effectively engaged in melee. He will need to ready a melee weapon, so the enemy (if still standing) will definitely get first shot at him. Is this the right way to do it? I've been thinking, by reading over the combat chapter again, that maybe I should apply the costs for movement before any attacks are made, so the first shot would be at SR 6 (4 MOV + SR 2 shortbow) then he'd apply the 5 SR for readying the bow separately from movement, and not be able to shoot again until next round. How would you guys rule it? Edit: Apparently there IS a rule that adventurers can't shoot while moving in the rulebook, which I missed, although this does raise some questions as some of the examples imply you can in fact move and shoot in the same round.

Well that's rather ironic. I really dislike MRQ, but I agree with everything styopa said: a lot of you are blinded by personal truisms. There's no objectivity to any of this, if someone likes the parts of the mongoose material then that's their thing, and they should be able to voice their wishes for further expansion of those themes without hearing a "Begone, heathen!" . I completely agree that ignoring everything about MRQ is the definition of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and I can't even remember anything I particularly liked about it. It just kills the potential for engaging discussions when people get immediately defensive about it. Also, a bit off topic, but that post was horribly rude; let's try to keep civil when discussing an imaginary world we use to play pretend with dice.

In RQII I remember a lot of NPCs, especially people like farmers and villagera, specifically having Lay Membership, and most of the Initiates, which were indeed pretty common too, had either no spells or a couple points into very specific craft-relared spells. Of course a lot of the NPCs deviated from this, being powerful initiates with powerful magic, but those were usually rival adventurers and wandering warriors or important local figures, usually priest guards. That is a significant change from previous editions, where not every NPC was an initiate, and those who were had usually 1-2 points for rune spells related to their own crafts, which they would usually get from their priest. Again, I'd like to reinterate that I'm not in any way saying that your interpretation is "wrong", just that it is very different from earlier editions, which seems obvious to me but a lot of people seem hesitant to say so. There seems to be a sort of defensive "it's always been like this" stance, which I noticed when looking up topics with similar discussions. Either way I think that until we get an official answer to this, in the form of NPC creation rules (or even after this, since we can just ignore those rules too) we can all just play our prefered version of Glorantha, especially since it's very easy to convert older modules to this new edition -which aside from this oddity we're currently discussin has impressed me a lot- so it's not like this is a problem with the system in any way.

I don't think that argument justifies it, in my personal understanding of the setting. Lunar invasion of the lands has been a thing since the very first edition, and in the same edition you had explicit entries telling you the vast majority of people were lay members, and that the normal non-adventurer Initiate would probably have on or two points to spare for the season to use specifically on getting divine favors related to his craft. It explicitly states that the gods do not have the time nor the will to listen to every one of their followers, but only the most devoted get any kind of special atention. I'm not saying that every adult having rune magic ruins the game or anything, but that it establishes a very different tone to the setting. It's the difference between an adventurer ending a bar brawl by casting lightning and aweing those around him, by showing them their god favors him without a doubt; and the adventurer casting lightning and and everyone else in the brawl either ignoring it or doing the same. If the latter is more interestint to you, that's fine, but I think it's undeniable that it is a very different world than the one presented in previous editions.