g33k

quaaaaaack!

Wikipedia states that "Sophisticated Games" holds the license to create Middle Earth "board games." Wikipedia also states that C7's 2011 TOR was produced "in collaboration with" Sophisticated Games. (this strikes me as not the sort of content likely to be wiki-warred , sabotaged, or just written in ignorance; so more likely correct than not; but as with all things Wikipedia, grains of salt are mandatory) C7 states they were unable to agree on new licensing terms with Sophisticated games. Does this clarify your balrog? Also: balrog -- FLEE, you FOOLS!

Pretty sure the axes here about are kept permanently Bladesharp'ed, for instant deployment.

Well, Chaosium's new edition of RQ adopts some of the same mechanisms as "Passions," but reskinned for Glorantha. "Hates Trolls" & "Fears Dragons" & so on. In the general case, "Loves <X>" or the like. Also "Loyalty: <X>" and "Devotion <X>" and so forth. It also makes Runic affiliations into such Traits; Runes as descriptors of personality and behavior, e.g. "Air" is associated with being proud, and with being violent. So meekness and humility, or any sort of "turning the other cheek," is a challenge for PCs strong with the Air Rune. Some runes are paired with an opposite (e.g. Harmony/Disorder, Fertility/Death), in that raising one lowers its opposite; others are not. It may be worth studying RQG for more exemplars & inspiration of ways to use this notion...

Some players really want to get the ruebooks, so anything utterly out-of-print becomes a barrier; and if it's rare and/or expensive on the used market, a prohibitive barrier. If it can't be readily and reasonably had on Amazon, some won't even consider it. Me? I'm with you -- if it's on my shelves and I want to run it, I'm good! But if my players want copies of some of that older stuff (and some of them do) it can be a problem. Some of the older books aren't really very sturdy these days, to be loaned-out by turns so everyone gets a shot, passed around as the sole table-reference, etc ...

I believe (but do not know for a fact) that this is one of those old-school "small publishers" of gaming -- the author/designer IS the company; a sole proprietor. What he makes from gaming books, the company makes; and vice versa. I don't know if he hires any freelancers, nor do I know that he does not.

About 95% 😉

Something that would be a worthwhile endeavor (Jonstown Compendium, maybe? Or just a fan collaboration here...) would be to extend Family-Background Tables in several ways... Go 25-30 years back, making Background Tables to create RQG PC's for play in RQ2/RQClassic era of Glorantha. Create other-culture backgrounds (I know these are coming, but they look to be quite a ways out...). Create Elder-Race Background tables (with similar detail to the humans (also likely to be coming; but AIUI even further out)).

So they are "exiles (wink, wink)" not EXILES... if I understand correctly? 😉 😁

prawn:shrimp ~= shrimp:krill

I think they are niche-within-niche: alive, with a few hardy fans for whom it's their Goldilocks Game; & some occasional ones (who mostly play with Goldilocks GMs); but not "thriving" in any business-y / income-ish sense. Nobody is making a living, I'd guess; even the main author / publisher probably has this as a passion-project / side-gig. At least, that's my guess.

Dunno... Some spirits offer worship; it's not clear to me that canon is clear on whether Wyters always/often/occasionally/never offer worship. And when it comes to anything regarding a PC, of course all the norms are subject to one-off exceptions. YGWV

There's the clan / town / etc (cultural/social) loyalties; you have given several viable options for why those bonds may not apply. But what about Cult ties? A PC without Cult bonds is a PC without rune-level spells (not everyone wants to pursue the Shaman and Sorceror paths). And frankly, most Cults will want to see their members rejoin the culture as well, the society where they were raised. I don't really see Orlanth having a Storm Voice who is an exile/runaway/etc from his clan, or Babeester Gor an Axe Maiden who isn't protective of Earth temples & Earth Priestesses and Earth-Cult towns, etc... Of course, there are ways... Humakti have severed all bonds except those with their God. Eurmali tend toward exile. Lunars may go abroad, not as "exiles" but to Lunarize in advance of the Empire's arrival. But if you're asking -- without really asking -- how to do the "standard-type" murderhobo... not really in Glorantha, no. Except as an agent of Chaos, of course!

Well, it's now attested by multiple people here on Chaosium's "official" forum. If it was just one person... I could understand someone optimistically misinterpreting something... hell, if I had been there, it could have been me misinterpreting something !!! But it's at least 2-3 people... it's in multiple threads... and Chaosium staff is NOT jumping in to say, "no no no, you misinterpreted us!!!" I'll wait a couple of days for Dragonmeet + travel + exhaustion on Chaosium's part, before I rank it above about 80% likely. 😉

Does the game have something to force the Kzin PC's -- particularly rite-of-passage Cubs -- to play to the "Scream and Leap" mentality, aggressiveness, lack of curiosity, etc? Or are they just humans-in-fursuits (with Kzin stat-boosts)?

Given that this is a brand-new, just-announced product... with (looks above) exactly ONE person so far on-board... Well, Chaosium getting the marketing materials ready seems just a tad premature. Once there's a PRODUCT (like, at least a completed draft being playtested) I might expect them to think about the product-page. Honestly, I agree with both @rsanford AND @Qizilbashwoman -- a little precis in the thread WOULD be good (thank you @Joerg!)... and the info IS available online, for someone to look it up themselves. So, having done a bit of looking-up-myself... I see that it's essentially a modern-era Urban Fantasy (1st novel set in 2012), crossed with a police-procedural. In the meantime, for interested parties... A QUESTION (that I haven't been able to pin down from a cursory check of Wikipedia, Goodreads, etc) : is this a hidden-supernatural "masquerade" setting? or is the reality of magic / etc a more or less well-known fact of everyday life?

We also have an issue of "how much realism" we want to model. With swords, you're sometimes taught to parry with the flat: you want to preserve the edge from getting notched; I could see the argument that catching a ghoul-arm with the flat of the blade -- just to guide the blow to being a miss -- isn't likely to damage the ghoul. If it's a "natural weapon" I could see actually trying to override the training, because "parrying" with your edge does similar damage as a strike does; but consciously overriding your training is a good way to become too slow on a parry... so, maybe not. 😉 OTOH, maces &c don't really have this feature; nor spears (and other pole-arms). I might consider a special rule for parrying vs. unarmed / natural-weapon attacks. I really wouldn't consider full damage, however, because a parry and a strike really are different... One is self-defense and just aimed at not getting hit; there is no intent to optimize the impact, etc. The other is aimed at doing damage, optimizing impact. There's often some "snap" at the final moment, you're trying to get maximum momentum at the point of impact. But again, the question becomes -- how much realism do we want to model??? Do we really want different rules for parrying manufactured weapons vs. parrying "natural" weapons?

... I'm OK with that.

WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION IS KEY!!! Now let's go redistribute some wealth from Sedenya's temple in Glamour, to Ernalda in Nochet and Orlanth in Boldhome!

AFAIK, Chaosium doesn't really DO the "big announcement" early-on, these days. But I can go see various discussions online, in various forum & social-media sites, about HQ and QuestWorlds & an upcoming OGL-ish project; and I can see the same idea being vigorously denied for BRP. I can see folk at Chaosium discuss their own internally-developed OGL for HQ and the "QuestWorlds" project. It is obviously, visibly, a Thing that is happening within Chaosium. Equally obviously, equally visibly, it Is Was Not Happening for BRP. Until now. <does happy dance>

For me, the doubt is two-fold ... First part comes from the venue: Con events are often earliest-access info, sometimes so early that the projects don't pan out at all (lookin' at you, BRP Noir Game). Second comes from Chaosium's recently-articulated stance "Just a reminder there is no OGL for BRP, RQ, or CoC" (see the thread of that name (updated by Jeff just 6ish weeks ago! ) ) So, I'm really pleased to think Chaosium has reconsidered, and is going back to produce a fresh "BRP" product. But they haven't made such info available outside the limited-release Con environment, so my optimism is ... tempered.

No... once I've got a permanent +200, I should be splitting my roll +100/+100 and getting TWO boons from the temple. (I won't bother asking, I'll just do it. No need to bother my overburdened GM with such petty details, when the rules already cover this). (ok, NOW we're getting into some hardcore egregery! See what you've done, Bill? I hope you're happy! I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY!!! 🤡 )

OP quotes the rules. I haven't looked it up to verify <Bad pedant, Bad!> <insert Dobby self-punishment GIF> .

TYVM for the reply, Rick! As others, I will keep my hopes up that "on hold" just means "on hold" and not "cancelled;" I too am eager to see this project! Maybe Mr. Spivey's other commitments are such that he cannot really do the deep immersion that a setting-bible needs, or somesuch reasoning; which is fine and understandable, and I expect he (and others at Chaosium) will be doing other gaming stuff, so it's not like we aren't getting games! Keep on keeping on... with our thanks!

But... it says "cumulative" there, man! Right there. Is there ANY other thing that could be "accumulated" into a "cumulative" total, than the permanent +2 and this roll's +5, making a "cumulative" +7? I mean... this is a professional wordsmith, who has -- presumably -- been exposed to Strunk&White's "Omit Needless Words." They already have plainly stated the 20:1 per-roll bonus & the 50:1 permanent bonus; but SOMETHING else is going on... something ... <lowers voice ominously> ... CUMULATIVE. 😁 (just munchin' away here. My my MY, but this is yummy RAW ! ) (looks askance at some of the River Voices char-sheets, and stories of the campaign, and wonders why soltakss -- of all GM's! -- is being so parsimonious with a little +2% on a one-time roll ...)