Kloster

7 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

What year was that made?

The only "The Horsemen" that I am finding is about a detective.. blah blah.. murdered wife... blah blah....

1971, by John Frankenheimer, with Omar Sharif, from a Joseph Kessel book

5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I mean, if you initiate to a lot different subcults then that's gonna be a lot of possibly conflicting duties and obligations. Even if they don't conflict, you're gonna have a much larger time commitment than someone in only one or two.

IIRC, membership to numerous subcults does not increase your time commitment, nor your tithes, because those are by cult, not by subcult.

5 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Also there's a point to be made that there aren't really that many subcults in RQG; Golden Bow and the two Orlanths are the only ones I recall off the top of my head, nothing like the sprawling mass that we got from HW (in fact, most of those can probably be considered to be individual Rune spells - you pray to a specific name or son or servant or whatever specifically to get each spell).

IIRC, Orlanth has 4 (Adventurous, Thunderous, Rex and Vinga), but true for the other points.

In fact, except for 2 handed swords, everything you just describe already existed in bronze age earth.

True. I just did it.

Before I switched back to RQ3 combat (and moves per SR), I did the non engaged moves in the reverse order of the SOI (We do the SOI in ascending INT order, INT being in this case a measure of quick thinking).

7 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I'm sure it can be really scary though - not just the cold, but trolls and ice demons abroad.

Completely true. The cold in itself is enough to make hunting dangerous, some of the game can also be, but trolls and demons add another layer of potential troubles.

14 minutes ago, Ladygolem said:

Which begs the question: why don't they hunt in warmer weather?

Because you need food all year long, you hunt all year long, including cold weather. Meat is difficult to keep for long duration, and you need bones, skins and sinew for making clothes and tools. It is also possible that some game can only be hunted in winter (migrating species) and are needed for such or such reason.

6 minutes ago, Stephen L said:

Me, I'm SIZ 13 Size and Weight.  And I'm pretty average in real life.

I hadn't noticed I am so unaverage: 15 as Height and 16 as Weight

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

And to emphasise, further back too. The full cult writeup of Ernalda (Book 5 of RQ3, 1984), had no restrictions on the gender of Ernalda initiates. Only women could be priests, but Gods of Glorantha introduced Acolytes who could be men, RQG call them Godtalkers.

IIRC, Acolytes were in the rules (at least in the Deluxe box), along with Ernalda cult. By the way, Oriflam's french edition replaced Ernalda's cult by Orlanth.

53 minutes ago, Joerg said:

The French RQ3 went for a lot more risque depictions - not sure whether aimed at a more mature or at a rather more immature audience, but with aesthetics similar to the adult French comic books,

Completely true. The cover by Hubert de Lartigue, and the illos by Guillaume Sorel, Thierry Monter and Alain Gassner were frankly adult. At time of printing, most french RQ players were quite old (25 to 35). The youngster played Stormbringer (with same artists), and some pics were interesting, to say the least. I remember having read on the RQ mailing list a post by an avid australian RQ player that wanted to have it, just because it was the prettiest RQ version to time (his comment was that french RQ players were very lucky). An avid US chaosium collector told us he 'can't read French so I can't say I've done more than look at all of the cool art they did for the books, which is mostly different from the art used in the US, UK, etc.'. Of course, the look and feel is not canon anymore, but it is still nice.

For those who want to know what can mean 'more adult', I refer you to P 2 and 3 of Tatou #9 (Oriflam in house mag).

1 hour ago, ffilz said:

People can be wrong about what a given probability actually is, but people can't be wrong about their preference for how a particular way of determining what the probability of success is. Someone isn't wrong for liking changing the multiplier for harder (or easier) tasks. I understand probabilities pretty good and I love it. I also like additive modifiers just fine too. And yes, additive vs multiplicative do different things. Different parts of the game system are doing different things.

Completely agree here.

I haven't seem the movie, but if it is half as good as Joseph Kessel's book, 'The Horsemen', by John Frankenheimer could describe a grazelander community. It is about Azaras, in Afghanistan, but they are the grand-grand ... grand sons of Genghis Khan's Golden horde, and it shows.

On 1/17/2021 at 7:40 PM, Psullie said:

For me it is all about style. Magic is Glorantha's technology. If you were to run a modern day game you'd say Ford Mustang, not just car when the detail adds to the games experience. Same in RQ, dropping in the magic adds to the sense of other place that you want to convey. This is often followed by the question, 'is that unusual?' if the answer is no, then as a GM you have highlighted that this isn't Kansas and our rules don't apply. 

Completely agree here. But I think most of this 'technology' is achievable with creative use of the current Spirit magic spells (like disruption for rodents killing, or slow for catching a cow, like we discussed recently). A few others may be needed, but not much. I think the rest is rituals and habits, but not necessarily magical.

According to RQG p52, if you increase (or decrease) the SIZE of x for extra height range, you should lower (on increase) it of same amount for weight range. A 13 SIZ character is supposed to be 76 to 80kg and 175 to 178cm, but he can be fat and be 86 to 90kg (SIZ 15) and 166 to 170 cm (SIZ 11). Your proposal goes further and is more precise. Is it interesting, yes. Is it worth it, I don't know. It depends on the level of details you want in your game.

11 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Maybe better to do a resistance roll against a difficulty, so if you want a challenging INT roll, then roll resistance against 13, 15, 18 etc.

Seems to me a good idea. I need to test.

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Yes, I know, I'm suggesting using the same mechanic as a replacement for POW×5, INT×4, etc. I appreciate that it is off topic for this thread though.

Off topic, perhaps, but very good proposal nonetheless.

In that case, I misunderstood what you meant.

26 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Agreed. At times I've felt like a haruspex looking at entrails when trying to understand RQG's rules, but the official Q&A threads have been useful. And these days the response time is very fast.

Yes. The real problems is for new players/GM, that will not automatically go to a Q&A thread on a forum: They buy and try to use the rules as they (try to) understand the rules, especially when they are not native english speakers (most of my players don't speak english, and are thus unable to search this forum).

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Skis and skiing is pretty high-tech (period, but specialised),

As far as I remember, archeological examples of skis appear 5000 to 6000 BC in Russia and China. They are perfectly OK for a bronze age setting.

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

The only problem I have, is that RQinG needs a lot of reading and internalising, so you understand the rule (not just know it superficially).  Then you’re able to use the intent behind the rule to easily make sensible decisions in a wide range of contexts.

In fact, for me, even with time, internalizing (as you said), it is difficult to understand what the authors wanted.

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

The rules, for me, don’t have the *clarity* of RQiii.  Of course, RQiii was a long time ago, and I’m probably viewing it with rose-tinted glasses.  Maybe it never had the clarity I claim.

For me, RQ3 is still the golden standard of readability and clarity.

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

• Is rule clarity in RQinG actually an issue, or am I just amongst a small band of whingers? 

Sometime it is, but mostly not. Some cases are really problematic, but most are not.

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

• Is that clarity achievable?  Is that a rules rewrite, an official errata, or the web based services we’ve now got?

Yes, it is, and I think an errata would be sufficient. A document that summarize all the changes and clarifications (like pxxx, replace A by B).

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

• Is that clarity practical?  E.g., we could have a rules rewrite, but at the expense of a pipeline of supplements.

If done through an errata, yes. If it requires a full rewrite, no.

4 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Also, this very much isn’t a gripe about Chaosium’s approach, or the quality.  I am delighted that we have the game we got.  I am delighted that we got it when we did.  If the price of clarity is the loooooong wait we had for RQiii, then releasing RQinG when it was published is *much* more important than endless polishing and losing momentum (for this whinger at least).

Fully agree.

4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I don't think I have ever seen a game that is this good in all the other aspects while having this poor consistency and rules-editing.

Same. The sheer fact we needed pages and pages of discussion about how we should understand the wounds rules is proof there is a problem.

4 hours ago, Godlearner said:

I am "cruchy" kind of guy when it comes RPG rules. That is why I still play with mostly RQ3 rules with RQG and RQ2 stuff added in.

You're harder than I am. I'm also on the crunch side, but I now use RQG with RQ3 replacements.

2 hours ago, Stephen L said:

I wouldn't like to have come across as rude!

You were not. The points you raised are valid and you were polite.

2 hours ago, Stephen L said:

Also I should point out that it's possible that RQinG is no less well well explained that RQiii or Pendragon.  It's just that I read the others at an age when I was quicker of understanding.

I think you are not alone here in that age position, but nonetheless, RQ3 (that I love) and Pendragon (that I don't like) are far better written and explained.

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Whet else is there?

The nicest, prettiest RQ version ever.

1 hour ago, Psullie said:

Clarity is important if you want to attract new players and encourage others to write content. I actually found RQG easier to fathom by not importing any baggage from earlier editions, but some sections really do need examples. 

Completely agree here. I had some problems with new players that were completely unable to understand some rules, so it is not (only) a problem of rules changes, but also a problem of writing and examples.

45 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

The issue is, while you can boil down the rules to a few oversimplified bullet points which get the idea of the game across well enough, the rulebook itself does a poor job at making things as clear as that. Yes, the rules may be clear once you know them, but the OP is saying that picking the rules out of all the text and fluff is difficult for someone without a lot of prior experience.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult even if you have a lot of prior experience. In some case, it is even more difficult if you have some prior experience.

2 hours ago, Jape_Vicho said:

I always envisioned a giant open dragon mouth devouring the whole temple, as the dragon is said to measure several km. I wonder how did any of the orlanthi survive this, if they expected it they could have prepared some teleportation, but if they didn't I can't really imagine how did they avoid being eaten too.

I think 'Guided Teleportation', available to Orlanth Rune Lords, is the answer. No range problem, reusable, transports you to an Orlanth safe place.

6 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I kinda agree - MP sacrifices give pretty good bonuses compared to sacrificial animals or actually valuable goods, while still having barely any cost to the worshiper. This tilts the entire system - no-one in their right mind should sacrifice anything of value when MPs work as well or better and at essentially no cost.

This is part of a wider issue with MPs - they're supposed to limit what you can do with magic, but don't really because of speedy regain and easy access to storage. 

To increase the value of the sacrifices, I play that the roll has to be below the skill value plus modifiers not counting the MP to earn an exp check. But the full value is used for the success and the result of the worship roll.

17 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

I want a second edition with better rules editing. I don't think anyone would say that RQG is a polished product rules-wise.

Considering the number of correction and clarification, this would be a third. I would buy it.

18 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

But yes, definitely an errata collection - the QA contains everything from "actually change this rule to the exact opposite" to "if you want to change things about the world, you can!" It's not particularly navigable or information-dense. 

Or - wild idea! - make sure that the Starter Box is properly edited and then build on that. The whole point of publishing a starter box is that it should be accessible without decades of RQ knowledge that you need in order to interpolate what a rule is supposed to mean.

Agreed.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

I know it's not ideal, as there are plenty of people out there who don't read the forum and aren't as comfortable with figuring this stuff out themselves. I have been in gaming groups where people will argue viciously over the rules, so I appreciate that having clear and correct printed rules is important.

Completely agree here. This is also why I am requesting an official errata. A Q/A thread is of course good, and I am not denying the Well's usefulness, but the sheer value of a clear rule or an official correction or clarification in an offline document is invaluable.

3 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Another thing that I wonder about is whether the gods and spirits benefit from larger MP sacrifices. Because if they do, then a culture that said "screw it, we won't just sacrifice 2 MPs at holy days, we're going to do 10 MPs instead, and as often as we can!" would actually feed their god/spirit into higher strength at a very marginal personal cost.

Frankly, I don't know if the gods benefits of it. I just said they like it. If they do, that may explain how Sartar, that is much smaller in size and population than the Lunar empire, can have such results. A better 'Got mit uns' in effect, so to speak.

5 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Maybe they haven't read the rulebook that says you can do that???

Agreed, but the gods nonetheless like to receive more MP, and the priests should at least teach that to childrens, so I expect NPC (at least the religious ones, but in Glorantha, that means a lot of people) to spend more than the 1 or 2 mandatory MP. My characters have always spent more MP than what was necessary to go to 100% (I usually go to about half available MP, keeping the remaining ones in case of problem), and I assume that NPC have also the same kind of behavior. The bonus to Worship roll is just a side effect of the gift to the god, not a goal in itself. The 5 to 6 MP added to the temple and High Holy day (or even Holy day) modifiers are sufficient to push the score of a standard Joe Farmer above 100% naturally, meaning a 95% roll.