Monty Lovering

There is that as well. I suppose if it’s Move is 6, that’s 1.5m/s. So with a door of 1x2m, a large elemental of 81m^3 would take 27m to move through the door if it was open. If there was a 3mm gap around the door then instead dividing 81 by 2 and that by 1.5, you’d be dividing 81 by 0.018 by 1.5. Which is 3,000 seconds. 50 minutes. And Rune Magic lasts 15 minutes. LOL. Even with Extension, the elemental would take sooooo much damage in the 200 melee rounds it would be pointless.

Great thread. I've done some work on the Marches as I find the area very interesting. My Glorantha is a bit divergent so not everything may fit more canonical campaigns, but this is an example:

My theory is that Glorantha is actually a massive online multiplayer rpg game Kinda like my one: PCs are NPCs in a massive multiplayer online game in the future where NPCs have AI. Illumination is realising this.

Can water elementals fit through tiny gaps? As they can be damaged I feel they have more substance than water itself and therefore cannot fit in through as tiny a space as water can. My players recently got trapped in a room with only one exit, namely a very sturdy door which cannot be opened from inside. Some of you may recognise the scenario but I'll not say which to avoid spoiling the fun. They had run in there because they were running from water elemental. The size of the water elemental was considerably greater than that of the room, but I decided that the water elemental could not 'squeeze' in through the edges of what was meant to be a very sturdy door, as let's face it, it would not be MGF to potentially kill a few players. But in normal circumstances I might have decided otherwise. What do you think?

For me it's all about a few things: Stirrups. I cannot be arsed to have bronze-ish authenticity down to no stirrups. So one-handed lance at the charge is a thing, which it wasn't really without stirrups. Not entirely sure whether the rules for charge would apply to two-handed weapons without stirrups either. The animals neck. A bison carries it's head low and has compact horns. A rider could swing a two handed weapon and not endanger their mount. A rhino carries its head low, and although it will have a sticky-up horn it's probably safe from the sweep of a two-handed weapon as it is far enough away from where the rider will sit. However, some two-handed weapons will be useless against target on foot. Imagine swinging a great sword at foot targets from a rhino's back. Other mounts have high head carriage (extremely so in the case of the high llama), and some additionally have horns. With these, a two-handed weapon can be used one side or the other in a melee round but not both, and cannot be used against a target directly in from or on a front diagonal as the neck and or horns is/are in the way, unless it's a thrusting weapon in which case frontal or front diagonal attacks are possible. The dagger axe is vastly over-powered IMO. It's a great axe with a point on the end and a very small bit. 2d6 damage. It can be used two handed against targets on one side or the other in a melee round, including those to the front or front diagonal. If the high llama has a pillion passenger, this is how they do it. It can also be used one-handed like a polo mallet or a lance. That's how a rider would use it. Same skill.

There's a big difference between using a pole weapon two-handed when mounted, and a bladed one, I totally agree. I'm not aware of any evidence bastard swords (by which I mean "swords intermediate between a 'pure' arming sword and a 'pure' long sword") were developed for cavalry use. Arming swords had been used for centuries from horseback on foot targets before anything you could call a bastard sword arose. The adoption of the spatha by cavalry was definitely because they were cavalry, as the gladius was not very useful from horseback. The longsword itself (terminology with swords is dreadful wooly, I use current usage, "a sword with a hilt suitable for two hands with a blade somewhat longer than an arming sword which was still a useful single-handed weapon") was definitively NOT intended for cavalry use two-handed. It arose as a response to improvements in armour and was secondary weapon used primarily two-handed on foot, with the 'half-sword' grip being best against heavily armoured opponents as it effectively uses the sword as a spear, but only used one-handed when mounted.

And this ^^^ is immersive and sincere and knowledgable. Wouldn't dream of denying it. I would also want to know why someone would want to play a dragonewt or elf or troll. I'm fine with character ideas as long as they are not basically treating the the non-human character as some kind of rubber suit with a zipper down the back. You want to be a troll? Play a troll. Etc..

I am extrapolating the way I have seen guys play female characters. There's a tendency for them to end up like a grown-up version of Mathilde from 'The Professional' in which Leon did not die and trained her, with various tropes added (on top of beautiful & deadly, men-hating, overly-sexualised, perpetually under-dressed, with even more offensive depictions of sexual orientation or kink). Someone could take that forumla and make a BG character a joke. The girl in my PC group has it judged perfectly. Probably plays to her cult's 'type' better than the other people round the table, and she actually 'read ahead' and chose BG as I was not offering that as an initial option given where the campaign started, but as she was like "I wanna be BG", I was cool with changing that. I should say I am thinking when I was a teenager. With my current group, most of them played women in the last (Pathfinder) campaign but in a kind of they just happen to be female way that wasn't offensive. Maybe now as an adult playing with adults and with RPGs having matured a bit, let alone other attitudes, it would be different. But my first question to a guy wanting to play BG or Vinga would be, why?

Eh, well I have two teenage (15/16) girls in my player group. So Uleria is the goddess of seamstresses and seamsters... if they read Pratchett they'll get the joke and will therefore old enough to, but I'd still not play it as the canonical cult as, just no. Inappropriate. And broo... even without minors at the table I'm not overly enamoured with their method of reproduction. Something that could actually be genuinely uncomfortable for people with good reason doesn't fit in. So, IMG, being broo is a parasitical disease. Broo are asexual and produce eggs internally. These hatch into larvae that migrate to the digestive tract. Unless the broo regurgitate the larvae, they are consumed from within, the larvae pupating and then erupting from the broo as an immature broo, often killing the host. They will carry certain characteristics of their host. So broo are rather driven to get rid of the larvae, which they do by capturing substitute hosts, which they then vomit the larvae into. They then grow inside their new host's digestive tract. As they grow they will slowly change the host's behaviour to allow the developing larvae the maximum chance of survival; male hosts will become gluttons, which can explain the distention of the abdomen characteristic of broo parasite near pupation. Female hosts will stop menstruating, for similar reasons. If the host is threatened they will flee, either seeking out broo (broo will recognise the host as such), or hiding away apart from raids on local habitations for food. Eventually the larvae will pupate and seven days later drive the host to seek solitude so they can erupt from their abdomen in safety. As with instances where a parasite develops inside a broo, the broo will take certain characteristics from the host, but basically it will be an anthropoid with horns either of a goat (if a human, elf, troll or dwarf was the host) or of the host species (although hornless broo are known from instances where they, for example, parasitise predators), but always unmistakably broo unless Chaos says otherwise. My immature imago broo are nasty and fast, quite capable of severely injuring or killing the unwary and unarmed who get in their way when they seek isolation were they predate on anything they can kill. They kill, eat and sleep and reach adult size with a year if there is enough food. This nicely avoids the rape-y aspects of canon broo, and fits in well with their Malia focus. It also means if broo raid small settlement and infect all the men, women and children there, they will then go on with their daily activity until they all gather together in a barn or some such whilst the larvae within pupate, all emerging within a minute of each other. Which gives wonderful scenario for PC's. And yes, of course I've seen Alien/s.

One of my current players is a very axe-solves-problems Babeestor Gory (sic). She's sixteen. Has actually transitioned from Pathfinder to RQ better than most of the (much older men including her dad) players after I took over as GM at the end of a PF campaign. But, yes, I think that guy's should normally not tread there unless they are going to play with sincerity rather than as some kind of parody.

Is the crucification-stops-ressurection thing actual canon? Obviously doesn't work here on round world, button the lozenge?

I think the imagery of women is pretty OK in Chaosium’s RQG publications. I mean, look. Women wearing practical clothes or armour and standing like people. As opposed to what the hell and tilt hip. Yes there are bare chests which means bare breasts with women. But most cultures didn’t sexualise bare breasts in the way the West has sexualised them to the extent they are regarded as sexual display no matter what the context. As far as boob plate goes, the number of female warriors in periods where hard metal breast plates were a predominant for of armour was low. In periods where reappraisal of graves identified as warriors is leading us to believe there were noticeable numbers of female warriors, the armour of the period (for example, maille) would be largely indistinguishable between male and female warriors. In modern settings where women are fighting in hard contact fight sports it’s not a thing for the reasons already stated. IMG there’s no size difference between male and female humans so in many cultures women warriors are commonplace. I think the only obviously female ‘armour’ IMG is the gold ceremonial armour d’amour of priestesses of Uleria. And everyone who grew up with Star Wars knows exactly what that looks like. 😜

I vacillate between the cosmology and mythology being just as scientifically accurate as it was in the Bronze Age world (it’s a world mundane as ours but with the addition of magic, a real after life, and the ability of people to be apotheosised by gaining vast magical power), and Glorantha being a computer simulation of such advanced scale the background characters are self-aware. And it’s only gods and hero’s who are ‘real’, albeit 12 year olds playing online from Milwaukee. I’ve just got in my mind this grand reveal after a five year long campaign where they gain access to some kind of feed in the Clanking Ruins where they can see the webcam feeds of actual players...

Problem with the theory of Runic attraction is that without the use of magic, an Orlanthi priest and and Erithean priestess hit the ground at exactly the same time if you push them of a cliff together. Source; God Leaner scroll 67BD, “On the nature of falling”, Lhankor May library at Jansholm.

Dogs can differentiate between sheep, horses, cattle, rabbits, birds... so if it's in an environment where the creature is known, it'll know what it is. Doesn't;t need to see one. Their counting is rudimentary. My bitch knows she has puppies. She has no idea how many. When we change the bedding in the whelping box and have out all the puppies back in the fresh whelping box she will check the blanket we put it in unless we wave it in the air and show her there are no puppies in it. But if a dog gets to use non-dog language on a regular basis then it can learn a lot. https://www.theverge.com/21557375/bunny-the-dog-talks-researchers-animal-cognition-language-tiktok Bunny recently came up with "I dog", and then the next day asked "Why dog?".

They don't have INT, they might understand something but replying? A dog will sit but won't be be able to tell you a party of 5 Llama riders passed this way five hours ago. But 'Llama riders pass since last sleep'? Maybe.

I agree. In fact, I'd say that 95% of NPC - all but star NPCs - can be boiled down to maybe six stat sets if you allow 'low, average, high' values for physical and magical characteristics, and then maybe assigning 25 or 50 or 75 or 95% in chosen weapon skills and adding spells to suit. PCs will neither or care trollkin 7 has an INT of 3 and a CON of 12, but trollkin 3 has INT 10 and CON 2...

I know nothing about Google sheets so couldn't say but the formulas in it are pretty basic. Good tip about the filter I will try it. Ta!

Here is a finished version of the battlesheet I have been working on. It caters for most hit location tables (in various tabs), and allows a GM to run a group of NPCs in an efficient and easy fashion if you know even a bit of Excel. There's also no reason why it can be used by players. Just plug in characteristics into the salmon-coloured cells and the black cells will automatically calculate. The cells for current HP will change colour to indicate disablement, unconsciousness, impending death or death. There are helpful notes on the sheets to help you get going. Enjoy! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ob8QT4SovIo9MRcjhBy71ncu_4s33rLr/view?usp=sharing

OK, here's the updated version. Available to download here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_Rgo-diPcwXW5iZnN6xUzjHrd4A_S6dj/view?usp=sharing Lots of changes based on feedback. Current HPs now change colour according to the amount of damage, there's less white space, etc. You can use filter to remove the un-needed lines. The light red highlight cells need input, the black cells with white text auto calculate. Be good if people can give me more feedback.

I’m going to share the next version. This is only envisaged as a digital version to be used on a second screen for VTT or as a laptop on the side for IRL. So thus the landscape format. resurrected duck got me to thinking and I’ve reduced the width by compacting things which means magic is not below but next to weapons stats reducing the row count.

Game Master's Battlesheet So a while back I realized that some DMs playing AD&D in its various incarnations were using an Excel spreadsheet to track NPCs in combat and I thought that this was a rather neat idea. Finally got around to working on one for RuneQuest last night. Below is the block that would exist for each character. Orange cells are calculated by the sheet, MPs and HPs are in yellow cells and the pale highlight is for cells you need to put values in. The column on the far left is designed to allow you to filter extraneous information; each NPC would have a number and the combat important values would be 1a, others 1b, etc.. I have used obvious abbreviations where necessary, and for the column for noting damage have used 'Dam' as some people will insert how much damage has been taken and others how many HP are left. A few calculated cells you'd have to delete in the blocks for weapons to remove MSRs for missile weapons and missile weapon SRs for melee weapons, etc. This is actually a 'fork' of the one I will be using as I have various hellish homebrews, but I thought it would be nice to offer to make this available to people in a standard RQG format. But is anyone interested and what feedback do you have? Having done the donkey work and remembered how to use IF functions it would be simple to add non-bipedal hit locations. Would this be better in different tabs or shall I have a stab at adding non-biped columns to the same tab?

They do! I'm just setting up in Roll20 to run Borderlands so this is great. Thanks for your hard work!!

I think the shorter version ("You wouldn’t like me") is probably enough.