g33k

Oh, lest we not forget: draughts/checkers is another game believed to be descended from a very ancient game (or games)... Plato alleging it came from Egypt! (according to that font of perfect wisdom*, Wikipedia). * At leas, that's what Eurmal teaches.

So I'll just add this little bit... Much as I love me some good ol' antiquarian games, and real-world references/inspirations for Gloranthan cultures/etc... I'm underwhelmed by directly-lifted verbatim copies. That said, I think I see a way to render Senet into a VERY Orlanthi-flavored game, and will think a bit about how to tweak the rules...

Given a background of pits-in-the-ground and seeds for pieces... and a game-play that can trivially be interpreted as sowing the seeds & harvesting... and occasional evidence back an extra 1000-2000 years before the "solid" evidence 1300 years ago... There are some wild-eyed speculations that it may date from the early days of agriculture itself, over 10000 BCE.

I'll add Mancala to the list. It's a fun game, of uncertain antiquity (at least 1300 years). It may be much, MUCH older, though -- fist-sized pits in the ground, & seeds or stones, make a good set-up for play. Not exactly perfect material for the archeological record! There are a lot of variations... hundreds? It's a "family" of games, say the scholastics who scholasticize about such things. It is widely played to this day; including its variations, it's actively played worldwide, and may be the oldest game in continuous play. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSJk6CYsf6c

Also -- the exception to every rule: Eurmal. Priest... God-talker... yeah sure. Even for PC's.

Puss in Sandals of Darkness?

hm. Well, the gods have some awfully incomprehensible agendas, from our Middle-World perspecyive.. I can see, I suppose, how a spirit might be the Rune Lord that a god needs... maybe. I'm disinclined to it as a PC concept, but I'd be willing to listen to persuasion. I'm more strongly disinclined to the Priest role, for largely the same reasons I don't like a spirit as a God Talker.

Common sense says no. A God Talker is part of interpreting the god(s) to Middle-world people; I think it takes being in your own body to have the perspective to do so. YGMV. (I can imagine an exception made for an Allied Spirit who is also an Ancestor-spirit, and maybe is homed into a Herd-Man body.... maybe...?)

No "maybe" about it!!! Chaosium -- make it so!

But when you slow it down, 60fps gets twice as many flicker-of-an-eye details... Why stop there, though? Why not aim for ultra-high speeds? 120fps? 500fps? I mean... there probably should be something worth seeing, if you're gonna bother adding this to your game...

Duckweed is a specific group of plants (family Lemnaceae or Lemnoidiae). This family does include the plant(s?) called "water lentils" -- which is NOT a "lentil" in the legume sense of the word (legumes are Fabaceae). https://wholesalewaterlilies.com/products/duckweed-lemna-minor-good-turtle-koi-food https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2015/04/13/Could-Lemna-water-lentil-be-the-next-big-plant-based-protein

Something like 18fps -20fps was usually the aim, near humans' persistance-of-vision limits. Down around 15fps(ish) many (most?) folks begin seeing the sequence-of-stills effect. I suspect the manual crank system won't work correctly above 25-30ish fps: the moving pieces, spring-loaded, lever-armed, counterweighted... they have certain operations that go no faster than they go, no matter how fast you crank. Back in the days of typewriters -- back in the days of manual typewriters -- getting the mechanism jammed was a real thing. 175ish wpm was the manual record, 220ish wpm is the record for an electric typewriter, and I presume the innards of the old cine-cam would have a similar limitation. But I don't actually know for certain. Also, humans driving a crank near their own limit will tend to get uneven rates, speeding up and slowing down. A nice even pace is best. Newer machines could, in principle (dunno if anyone ever built such) use a suite of internal springs/gyros/etc to store the human cranking and output a smooth framerate, but AFAIK such technology didn't exist in the 1920's... except it probably did, on Eorthe! 😉

Almost certainly; in fact, it's challenging NOT to ... When you see those old movie-cameras with a hand-crank, that crank is almost always providing 100% of the mechanical power driving all operations (mainly advancing the film, but also winding the springs and then actuating the shutter).

I think we need to give Ellie a pass on this: she works for Chaosium, but in a junior role & Jeff has already chimed in... and it's an "incendiary" topic. Unless she prefers to comment, of course. But while we're on the topic... how many (other) regular users here identify overtly/publicly in this space as women?

You seem to be stretching beyond the confines of gaming, here...? I can't quite tell. But lets get back to gaming. You're saying that a woman who wants to play a female adventurer has to be less-good at it, in an absolute games-mechanical way. Notwithstanding CON (which is a boring, passive stat) or INT (which is a boring, statistical-advantage long-run stat (except for sorcerors)); at least POW gives good magic... but what if they want to play some stabby-bashy type? Here, sweetie... have some magick. It's just as good, even better! Really! Everybody realizes that male power-lifters will lift more than female power-lifters, that the STR difference exists. In the real world. You get incendiary by blithely asserting "hey, that's just how it is" and -2'ing the women who came to the table inspired by Xena and Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel and She-Ra. Take your -2 and stick it... well, let's keep it polite, shall we? But you're telling the PLAYERS that they should just suck it up, because "hey, that's just how it is." But dude. Plant-people elves, and mechanistic vat-grown dwarves, and humans made out of runestuff. Flying miles-long dragons. A Lozenge world. And you think -2'ing the likely choice of half the PLAYERS "buhcuz sim-u-LAY-shun!" is a good argument? It just sounds... petty. Silly.

Wait. Why are none of you listing "Run Away!" as a key skill???!? You don't have to be faster than the Ghast that's chasing you, you just have to NOT be the slowest one in the party...

On the gendered variation on INT ... Data does not support this in any meaningful way. As noted, the "average" IQ difference ("g" or "general intelligence") is low enough to be statistically insignificant, and most "IQ" tests are so inaccurate as to regularly return results for the same individual with far greater variation. Some researchers say they feel the evidence supports higher INT for men; other researchers say it supports higher INT for women; others say the evidence supports no difference. There is some differences in specific tasks -- men seem to be better at spatial rotation, women at spatial memory. Women seem to have better "emotional intelligence" and this can particularly show up in social situations such as friends visiting/socializing. Does anyone really want to try to encode all that (and more, similar, minutia) into RQ-ish rules???? If so... I'm not sure if that makes you a sadist, or a masochist...

Humans are made up of Periodic-Table elements; of DNA, by way of evolution. Gloranthans are made up of Runes, created by their various gods (and dragons, etc). The more I think about it, the less I think there is ANY basis to presume human-style sexual dimorphism. Under the RAW, that I can see, there is zero support for believing this has any merit.

Excellent points! Also, I wonder: How many groups play character-generation purely by RAW? I've observed a lot of HR's reported on the rolls for stats...

This idea used to be a thing, back in the archaic years of RPGs. Simulation uber alles, STR penalties for women, etc... Most of the hoary old propositions were there in the OP. It was part and parcel of why most women didn't play, wouldn't play. Ultimately, we play to have FUN, and "simulating" this aspect of sexual dimorphism isn't really fun (for most people). So it's not worth "playing" a game with this "feature" -- it's a bug, in that is interferes with the primary goal of the game. Pretty much the only way I could see this working is by women (and hence female-centric Cults like Ernalda) getting a serious POWer-up. POW = 4d4+4 ??? Something active, PC-ish, not just CON to survive trials and tribulations...

But I've also seen "modern media" show dragons exhaling an extended, multi-second blast, during which the head waved back and forth, covering a 90+ degree angle of fire... Maybe one claims "dodging" into a shallow depression, or behind an obstacle, such that you escape the brunt of it. But only a small portion (the very edges) of such broad target areas allow one to dodge entirely away... OTOH, the RQG-specific details are AFAIK kind of sparse...

Humakt's own truth. SWIMMING in it.

Historically, there have been some. D101 Games is AFAIK the most-recent 3rd-party publisher. I expect we will see more.

Somebody had too much time (and POW) on his hands Errr... ribs.

2 choices, really (IMHO)... Narrow-focus on the cattle raid and the issues around it (iirc largely non-Lunar?), leaving all the broader setting stuff for another time Give an outline of Sartar/Lunar relations, which would have to include the Dragonrise I think you need to gauge your own table to see what's going to sell.