g33k

This is cutting a bit too close to the bone, Joerg. You're asking for the uncomfortable topic to go elsethread, and then explicitly invoking it, in the same post.

"Order of the Blackened <no! bad g33k!>" ???

The quoted official material appears to say that (officially) Lascerdans are extinct. Is that so, or my mis-reading?

In another thread, Jeff just confirmed this. It's currently 3rd in the queue; NONE of the products have ETA's/dates attached. Vagaries of artists and authors & other publishers' banes being what they are, it's always possible that it will come out in a different order than 3rd; but it's where the smart money goes today.

Back in my RQ2 days, I liked the separation of Attack and Parry. It matched my own martial arts experience: while I might generally be about the same skill as someone else, I'd find it easier (or harder) to manage to get a blow past some people's defenses. They were worse (or better) at parrying. Similarly, they might be a bit better (or worse) at getting through MY defenses -- better at attacking. Now... if they were harder to hit, AND harder for me to block... well then... they were better than me, and my calling them "about the same skill" was just vanity on my part. 🤫 HOWEVER, RQ2-style skills, with completely decoupled Attack and Parry, can lead to absurdities like someone with 90%Attack and only Base skill at Parry. I've seen some arguments to that end on this forum, and found them... unconvincing. The 2 skills should REALLY remain somewhere close to parity, and should mostly go up together (barring spells like Parry or Bladesharp). The obvious and simple solution is to make them a single skill. Which, frankly, suits my desire for elegant and simple rules! OTOH, it leaves me with this gap where my experience doesn't match the RAW. It leaves me wanting something like a non-heroquesting "gifts" system. "Minor Gifts" or some such... "Skilled Defender" = Choose "Dodge" or "Parry." Treat one as if your skill is 1.2X your written skill. "Knack for Languages" = When rolling an experience-check, you gain 1% to the skill on a failed roll! "Eye for Beauty" = when evaluating art/etc, when Dressing To Impress, when creating or looking at any display... treat any relevant skill as 1.2X the written skill. etc... Of course, THAT leads to issues of how-many-gifts, what about anti-gifts / minor-geasa, quirks/flaws... a whole new subsystem. NOT great for "my desire for elegant and simple rules!"

Full stop there. HARD stop. RQ is a game, an RPG set in a fictional world. There is no "truth" here. And particularly, in a forum where virtually every poster comes from a different table, a different Glorantha... anything resembling "truth" at one table has no presumption of a similar resemblance at another table. Your table's "truth" has zero validility at my table, and vice versa. Moreover (as noted above, but worth repeating) RQ is a game. It's about having FUN. By all means, let's _DO_ have emotion (specifically, MGF & enjoying the game and friends 'round the table) get in the way of "truth." (edit to add: "<something something>, BUT <something else>" is a notably-problematic rhetorical maneuver)

+1 to Bill the Barbarian's request. Glorantha has some VERY uncomfortable parts, particularly in regards to sexuality. The whole unicorn/virgin thing is lifted AFAIK straight out of early Christianity. It sits kind of... oddly... in Glorantha's pagan mythology & often rather freewheeling sexuality. There's also some frankly-outdated & regressive "1970s" points of view interspersed with the broadly enlightened and forward-thinking setting. I'm generally and vaguely in agreement that, from a story-telling & game-mechanical perspective, "geasa exist to be broken" (the same way Champs/Hero "Disadvantages" are supposed to be leveraged by the GM to cause problems for the PC's, "Flaws" in Ars Magica likewise, etc etc etc). At the same time, I'm rather sharply in agreement that it's never OK to inflict rape on a PC without extensive pre-negotiation (and likely use of some "safety tools"). Just saying "then don't play that character-type" is... kind of blinkered, and rather petty. The Unicorn Riders' virginity is a horribly entangled issue. Perhaps an alternate geas might be a good way to get away from this rather prickly tangle? "Always help a woman in need." The Yelornan's Green Age quest could involve some such aid to a woman... Other suggestions?

Oh yeah, you can definitely increase the simulationist crunch, if so inclined. Personally, I don't want to increase the complexity that much; I don't want to get into yet more bonii / penaltii rules. I may dial back to "less than half move" and still attack (unless a charge), just resetting the default breakpoint; same complexity. I doubt my players will even notice, none are as rules-geeky as I.

I'm unconvinced; you seem to be implying more cognizance and combat-savvy than I'd expect from a wild animal... going for the flat of the blade??!? A haft is still a heavy piece of hardwood; even not striking the weapon-head, it's still roughly a d8 Quarterstaff! I agree that a knife, even a shortword/handaxe, puts the weapon-bearing hand and forearm in reach. Granted, the haft is less-damaging than the head. But particularly a thrust, like a spear... I wouldn't expect a beast to let the nearest bit get close while it reached around to the bit behind! Obviously, almost any weirdness could crop up in a wild melee. But an out-and-out "parry" is -- mostly -- an intelligent trained response. I've seen a cat try to claw at objects, you're right -- they do use their paws that way. But when I see cats actually FIGHT, they mostly go for each others heads/shoulders (with a rear-leg rake if they get 2 good clawfulls at the front). I've seen a sort of "guard pattern:" one paw high/wide, threatening and possibly doing a series of fast swipes, sort of interdicting a vector-of-attack & threatening a Big Hit if ignored. But preferentially striking each others paws, "block" style? Not much, not really. Sometimes a cat will get a claw "stuck" in their foe; the victim doesn't even use a paw to knock the (static, unmoving) limb off them. I have been known to "kitty duel" if the cat seems like it's in WildBeast mode -- my speed vs. theirs -- to go for a lightning-fast tummy-pat, paw-tap, jaw-scritch, etc. If I've mis-judged the cats mood, it leaves; but often it stays to play a game for a minute or several... (and yes, it gets me scratched sometimes; not all cats play that game with velvet paws! (I figure it's my fault if I get hurt, not theirs). And sometimes instead of bloodsport, it turns out the cat was into cuddles&scritches&purring; and that's good, too! (The one cat who liked to purr & nuzzle WHILE ripping at me and drawing blood... OK, that was a bit creepy...)) They are clearly treating my hand as the "attacker" (they ignore everything past the wrist (except an occasional claw/claw/bite&Rake, when I've been REALLY slow...)). They'll nail a finger if they get it, but what they're aiming for is the whole hand. But the closest I've seen to a "parry" (from "duelling" a dozen so so cats (not all cats are interested & willing; and some don't see the "game" in it)) is more like a "trap" from martial arts -- a hook-and-draw-in motion (taking advantage of those curved, ripping claws), not so much "blocking" my finger as trying to grab it to bring the "body" of my hand in for the kill... === I haven't seen as much of bears -- never owned one, pet-sit one, visited other owners, etc -- but from what I've seen they too do little to "parry" -- when they reach out a paw in a fight, it's to HIT (or to threaten). Bears will swipe, but not really paw-v-paw "parry" -- a meaningful blow is to the head/body, not an opposing paw. They mostly try to hit PAST the paw, and defend by biting an incoming paw (Paw meets Jaw is usually worse for the bitten paw!). If an animal was intelligent -- awakened, or with a Spirit inside -- then all manner of good tactical and strategic options open up, including parries. Even a good trainer might be able to elicit non-instinctive combat mannerisms. But for wild animals, I'm gonna stick with my "mostly no parries" rule, unless I see pretty convincing arguments (or video?) otherwise. I can probably find youtube vid to support most of my points, if you'd like.

Shadowcats are doglike in their trainability. I'd allow a well-trained dog to do a scout-and-report, within limits. As Soltakss says, limit it to INT "tricks," if they're complex, dangerous, or otherwise difficult-to-train. I'd let it do a "Trick" on any relevant roll -- Beast Rune, animal-handling, animal-lore, etc. In-game, you've established that "scout-and-report" is not one of the Tricks it knows; if Nathem is a Player's character, I'd allow him to work on training his shadowcat to do this (I'd expect it to take months of dedicated effort; at least 10 training sessions every week for at least 2ish hours/session (normally I'd do 1h sessions, but not for outdoor/exploration tasks).). Use communication via Beast Rune (or spell) for other things. On the ordinary success achieved in-game, I'd probably have been a bit more generous, but I'm gonna call that a simple difference of opinion, not that your choice was "wrong." I'd have had the Alynx understand Nathem wanted it to go "look around out thata-way," and rolled 3d6ish for 10-meter range-increment it went (30m-180m(ish)) & a bit of randomizing for precise direction and for straight-line vs meandering. Without a trained Trick, I'd default to the cat only having 2 reports available: "Found some prey - lets go hunt!" (n.b. cattle are not valid "prey") or "oh HELL no -- that's dangerous. don't go hunting THAT way!" === About those "limits" (within which a critter's scout-and-report are limited): the most-limited bit is the "report" of course. How well do you read the animal's body-language? How sophisticated is its mind, how much can it grasp, to even attempt to convey? I would call for a separate roll to UNDERSTAND the report. I'd disallow any "count" info beyond one/some/lots... and any particularly-scary-to-the-animal threat might register as "lots" of threat, regardless of count! It can't really convey species, etc. That said, wild animal groups have been documented with different threat-signals for "hawk" (animals take cover vs threat from above; large-enough ones only "take caution" and don't take cover) & "poison snake" (animals look at the ground, avoid dense undergrowth) & "Big Cat" (animals look for trees to climb, avoid big-cat-cover), etc. I'd allow them to also specifically be able to signal "human" and maybe 1-2 other specific creatures (hounds can be trained to hunt specific species). Complex situations are beyond their ability to convey. A mixed party of humans & trolls, mounted on bison, bolo-lizards & beetles, with packs of hounds & trollkin? Your report will translate roughly as: "It's a booshgobbldyfrake. Big one. Let's run away." === IIRC, Nathem's shadowcat does NOT house any allied-spirit / etc. So it's an ordinary beast. As others have noted, a spirit will give it a mind, make it effectively an NPC like any other.

I mostly don't allow animals (ordinary non-sentient beasts) to "parry" as such. I do allow a dodge. After you hit them once or twice, they figure out that the hitty-thing hurts. If it hurt a LOT, they'll try to dodge. If it only hurt for 1-3(ish) HP's of damage, their version of "Parry" is to BITE it, like it was the swipe of another animal's paw, or something. In the wild, this is a very effective strategy. However, this amounts -- more or less -- to sticking their head in the way of the Adventurers' weapon. 😨 Granted, they meet the blow fangs-first -- and the sakkar, IIRC, has some pretty serious fangs! -- but it's generally not a winning strategy vs. armed humans carrying weapons to get through the armor of human foes...

"RAW" is a broadly-used internet'ism for RPG's; most places I've seen, that delve into rules-analysis vs HRs (House Rules), use the RAW acronym. "MGF" is something I've seen elsewhere, but not as much as I've seen it here on BRPCentral. Sometimes I read it as "Maximum" sometimes as "More" -- after all, you're tuning your game to be More and More fun, it doesn't just MGF straight to infinity & beyond, does it? I also sometimes (intentionally mis-)read "G" as "Gloranthan" when some very-Gloranthan element front-and-centers as the Fun! fwiw & all that other stuff.

This is all good stuff... but at the table, when my player sits down to make a new adventurer whose ENTIRE FAMILY is from cities (Boldhome, Wilmskirk, Jonstown, Clearwine, whatever...) then I need the family backgrounds & available skills to reflect that. Dunno... maybe just do an ounce-of-common-sense approach; but the basic skills &c from an urban upbringing will be different from a pastoralist upbringing...

Can't really add to Jeorg's list, but I have a slightly different perspective... I'd say it's NOT worth it if you just want ready-to-use subsystems to yoink out of RQG and plop into your own FrankenBRP. OTOH, if you're willing to reskin some of the mechanics into new setting-conceptual frameworks, cultural nuances, etc... then yes, it has a fair bit to offer. RQG's new Rune rules look to be VERY re-skinnable to other fantasy settings. You may not have a Harmony Rune, or an Air Rune, but so long as you have fundamental magical principles that people can affiliate to, the RQG rules for rune-affinities and Augmentation look worthwhile. I'd put this item at or near the top of the list. Character-creation in RQG embeds the PC deeply into the world, with 2 generations of family history, giving you deeply-held passions and loyalties (and skill-boosts, occasional treasure, etc). It'd be a fair bit of work to re-skin all those years of Gloranthan history, re-populating the cultural events with events from your own setting; but IMHO it's worth some effort, if you'll be making more than a single party of PC's. This is the other Big Item of things you'd get that aren't likely to be in your existing BRPbookshelf. I think all the rest of Joerg's points just get my Internet Nod -- yup, uh-huh, agree (or any disagreements are minor/trivial, & clearly a matter of preference rather than correctness).

As per the above, in the RQ2 line. Easily upgraded to RQG. Nochet is coming. Urban, matriarchal, soft power via politics & trade & arranged marriages &... Yes, and blackmail, assassination, etc. Casino Town & Holy Country. Updates are coming for Pavis&Rubble, for Sun County. Trollpak is coming, both the RQ2 Classic (via RQClassic KS) and an all-new, likely RQG set. They had to start somewhere. Given that this IS the edition that (finally) centers on the Hero Wars, beginning in Dragon Pass seems utterly sensible; and the core book was ALREADY big, I'm not sure I see addung more cultures / backgrounds / Cults / etc as a smart move. One omission that I think hurts a bit is not (or at least, not sufficiently) highlighting the "urban Orlanthi" of Boldhome/etc. The city/country dichotomy is substantive! I would expect a brand-new Adventurer from a family settled for generations in Boldhome to be rather different from one whose clan has been on the Stead since the time of Sartar himself...

When gaming, I like to keep my not-in-use d4's on the floor. It keeps the players from retreating so readily.

1st off ... If any rule seems nonsensical or otherwise non-fun, then eliminate or HR it. That is the Officially Correct Way to play RQ: according to MGF over RAW. That said, I'd pause before Just Doing It. Moving up-to (but not more than) a "half move," and still get your full melee-round worth of attack, is a common RPG rule, IMHO for good reason. It's sensible: given the notion that a full melee round is an abstraction that, if filmed, would consist of a series of feints, blocks, footwork, and sundry other bits of setting-up your attack without getting killed... if you have spent MORE THAN HALF the round moving, you cannot credibly perform those necessary bits of setting-up your blow. This is the cut-off that many find reasonable; given the kinds of abstractions involved in a "melee round," the limit of "half-move" is popular. Honestly... I personally find it over-generous (I think if you've moved as much as a half-move, it leaves you less build-an-attack time (barring a "charge" or a "move-by" or the like)). One could instead have the unreasonable "you can fight OR move in a melee round, not both." One could instead have the unreasonable "on any given round you may full-move and/or full-attack without any restriction or interplay between moving & attacking; you may do ALL available options." One could instead have a realistic-ish (and very complex!) sliding scale of increasing movement causing increasing combat-penalties. Or you could (as RQ does) simply allow partial-move-and-attack... and then must pick some degree of "partial move" that still allows an attack. The thing about allowing that 5/8 move you propose, instead of stopping at 4/8 per the RAW: why not allow 6/8? Or 7/8? Should everyone cut back to 3/8 instead? Or even 2/8? Which arbitrary abstraction do you pick? Which is the most fun at your table (recalling that for some, the limits and the risks and the simulationism is part of the fun, and for others it's not).

<drools> Jeff... you are *SUCH* a tease !

Incredibly so, I think. You're giving the feedback that the "grognards" cannot give -- that of being entirely new to RQ.

Oh yeah. IIRC, the /only/ advantages the mounted guy has is straight-line top speed, and mass/momentum in a charge... But that very momentum works against them in actually catching someone on foot! A human who jinks and weaves can evade a pursuing horseman for a l-o-n-g time. OTOH, it's seldom a 1:1 contest... people fleeing on foot from mounted pursuers cannot just dodge the nearest foe, or they'll quickly be surrounded. Plus, if the pursuit has longspears or the like -- let alone lasso's, bolas, etc... Bows... Even a mace or the like, to throw... Is likely to knock down anyone fleeing on foot. Then again... if someone on foot can get into a dense forest, with close-set trees and/or low limbs, etc ... I'd see the advantage going strongly back to those on foot. I haven't seen the CoC7 chase rules. How robust are they, vs. considerations like these?

<nods> <applause> Exemplary work on Odd Soot. You've hit a very high mark in terms of rich flavor & evocative atmosphere.

The login persists, for at least a while... @Trifletraxor? Do we mere mortals have a way to adjust this? Or could you increase it, pretty-please with a Broo and a Shoggoth on top? I try to dip my toe in regularly; I think that keeps my Cultic Login Credentials live (or at least animated) until I forget for a while and they fade back into the Dreamlands... Then I wake them up again (or am I going back to sleep ... ? ahhhhh... the butterflies and caterpillars are so confusing). But yeah. Dunno WHY I experience the minor passwd-challenge as so challenging, but I second David's sentiment.

*BLAM!* "You're despicable!"

Perhaps just say your prayer is answered by a Saint (no matter whether you call upon the saint, upon Jesus, or upon the Father in Heaven), UNLESS you roll a Crit... In which case the limitless power of the Almighty gives you a Big Reply (again, without regard to whether you ASKED for the Almighty to step in). As Loz says, it's all God's power... Isn't it really up to God (the roll of the dice, unless the GM steps in) whether He answers directly, or has one of His saints do it? This gives the RP'ing "I feel more comfy chatting with my local saint" effect, as relevant to a PC concept. It eliminates the mechanical incentive for Praying Big, when the PC is too shy/humble, but the PLAYER sees no reason to go for the Little Prayer.

The RQG core is for gaming. Only bronze the Guide if you are being chintzy... Most of us are having ours photoengraved onto gold-leaf scrolls.