Rodney Dangerduck

Sung by the poets as "rosy fingered Dawn".

Everybody routinely ignores drawbacks or restrictions on other cults. Because of MGF. Why enforce them for YT?

I disagree overall, from a dramatic perspective. Obviously there are rare crits to the head that end things. Often, IMO, in a terribly disappointing manner. Round 1, Fenrir crits Thor to the head, Ragnarok is over. Who would watch that movie? In general, RQ Combat is tense and cinematic because there are many many rolls, and, eventually, some combination of rolls will be important. For example, just last session, I fumbled a parry and my opponent rolled a special. That was scary! But he rolled poorly on damage, hit an arm, and I had up Shield 3 and Prot 4, and, by the grace of Vinga, I lost 4 HP from a 5 HP arm. If he rolled just a little higher on damage and hit the head or chest, I go down. Next round his Ally Spirit dismissed the Shield. Things got tenser... We both called upon our Devotion <Diety> for Inspiration. More die rolls, more tension. Our Ernaldan cast Healing. Our awakened shadowcat recast Shield on me. More die rolls, more tension. This is what I'd like to see in a "non Combat System" - more die rolls, Inspiration and augments, and help from your fellow party members. Not just "roll your Charm". I agree with @radmonger that Spirit Combat might be a good baseline.

We've had a few "Dance Offs" (or similar), and several Bargaining battles. Adding in Passions helps make them a little more interesting, but, frankly, they are still pretty "meh". And most of our scenarios end, ultimately, in combat. I'm thinking that one improvement would be that on a tie result, don't simply go with the higher roll. Unless you are in a hurry and it isn't an important scene. Ramp things up. Allow another Inspiration, even it technically illegal. Even better, allow a different PC to augment: "Pairs Dancing". That gets the others involved and interested. Or the sexy PC flirts with the opponent and sneaks a peak at their hole card. My female character occasionally serves as a "Booth Babe" to aid our Issaries merchant. (sorry, a bit sexist, but we are all older guys from Silicon Valley and completely used to this situation; in other groups this might be an issue). I agree with Jeff that this probably isn't worthy of making up a whole new rules system. Just follow the existing RQG rules and ramp them up with a little creativity.

We've mainly been on the other side, as a primarily Colymar / Taraling group of PCs. The Malani have been significant though. One of our PCs, a Humakti with a complex backstory involving fleeing Boldhome, was adopted by the Malani. She still visits the Malani for many of the High Holy Days. In an early adventure, we entered their territory and were gracelessly allowed to continue by a haughty band of Humakti who were very dismissive of our capabilities, especially my small female Vinga worshipper. Grrr... During Kallyr's Wake, the corrupt evil Mayor of Boldhome charged our Humakti with the murder of his son. The facts are unclear(b). Sarostip stepped in and offered single combat to prove her innocence. Unsurprisingly, she was found innocent. Much later, Valior's clan raided and captured a few border steads of the Taralings. Cattle were stolen, no biggie. Six Taralings slain, a biggie. Seviros, the Taraling clan chief(a), was slow and ineffective to respond, and by the time Leika sent forces the contested steads were well guarded by dozens of Sarostip's elite Humakti. She wisely decided on jaw-jaw, not war-war. My foul mouthed PC ranted about "those asshole <CENSORED> Malani", eventually drawing a strong rebuke from our Humakti. I then settled for harassing the occupiers by dropping cow-pies from hippogriff. That was very cathartic! Our cooler headed PCs negotiated. Sarostip was honorable enough to pay weregild. He kept the steads. My PC, and our Issaries, flew off to talk with some friends at the Cinsina tribe(c) in an attempt to break up their alliance with the Malani. No luck. So, it's kind of a limbo. A very peaceful non-deadly Donbass situation. After the Battle of Sword Hill, we noticed Argrath in discussions with Leika and Valior, presumably about this. Sarostip, to our Humakti, has recently said some complimentary things about my Vingan, which have been passed on. Kind of like Harry and Ron communicating via Hermoine. My PC is starting to like, or at least respect, Sarostip. (a) Our Wind Lord leader PC will likely become Taraling Clan chief shortly. (b) A definite he said / she said me too story. (c) I befriended them by "killing" a Telmori and Dire Wolf, single handed, on the Great Hunt. Though actually, there's a story there, she took pity on the wounded Telmori and let it live... Apple Lane cows are also getting some Red Cow genetic material, the old fashioned way.

Absolutely. One only look at the Lunar Pantheon, where Issaries becomes the female Etyries with no mythical disasters. Who are the toughest badass Humakti in Sartar? That PCs would see as role models? Sarostip and Naimless. They can use whatever preferred pronouns they wish, nobody is going to argue with them!

Casting Fanaticism on either yourself or the opponent will quickly end any hit/parry tedium.

This is an excellent idea. Especially as they really should be separate skills anyhow.

BTW, that's very poor rules writing. Double negative, bad. And, not definitive. So, it's "intended" to be used from a mount. But can you use it on foot? Some rules lawyer munchkin will try it. "A lance may only be used while mounted" seems much better IMO. Any catches???

I would like to give this post by @soltakss all of my remaining BRP "likes" for 2021. He's got it exactly right in all aspects of his post.

When one of the PCs in melee fumbles, rolls hit nearest, kills her, and is cursed forever, I hope she feels guilty.

More serious answer. Ernalda wants mythic proof that the candidate is fertile (that's one of her runes) and female. Using "female" in the traditional sense. Laying the egg and hatching it is proof. Finding somebody else's egg and helping hatch it could be done by an infertile female, a "traditional male" and possibly even by an undead or a dwarven machine, depending on the exact details. Not proof.

You get eaten by an Earth Elemental, then sacrificed to one of the Gor sisters.

I do wish that the consequences for failure were more "similar" for Runic Inspiration and Passion Inspiration. As it is, you definitely have to look it up, because few can remember all the fiddly details. And it doesn't make that much sense to me why they are so significantly different. It's very good that the benefits of success (+50, +30, +20) are always the same, for a simple augment or either form of Inspiration.

In RQG, Yelmalio is not associated with any of the other Orlanthi cults. Just Ernalda, everybody loves her. 🙂 And "friendly" to CA. Should the "main Solar deity" of the Sartarites be more connected to the cults most Sartarites worship? This makes recovering rune spells awkward too. Will there be an updated cult compatibility chart for the Sartar branch of Yelmalio?

I have noticed that, over time, our two main fighters (I am one of them) have become much more conservative about using Inspiration in the "big fight". The consequences of failure are significant.

Why the need to use closely related weapons at character creation? In general, 1. Pick a one handed weapon. 2. Pick a missile weapon. 3. Maybe pick a two handed weapon or lance or dagger. Done.

I'd argue that that's a bad GM. Unless you like endless fiddly rules and calculations, just change / fudge the weapon. MGF. "You find this magic kopis, er, ahem, I mean, you find this magic broadwsord..." One of the published RQG scenarios has a piece of iron armor that only fits a SIZ 18 character. In most groups, that is nobody. Realistic, but, Terrible, Horrible idea.

Dumb question: why does this matter? Do you have lots of characters who carry kopis, broadsword, and shortsword? If so, why? I can see carrying two broadswords in case one breaks, and backup daggers, but mixing up types of 1H swords seems strange.

Except, in RQG you do learn to attack with a sword separately from how to defend with shield. The new rule is inconsistent. And makes spells like Bladesharp and Sword Trance a confusing mess.

<sarcasm> Yes, good idea, as we all know that Humakt is weak in combat, and needs more spells and special abilities to make it effective. </sarcasm>

I'd check out Bless Thunderstone as a baseline, then adapt for the vorpal sword

At some point years ago (on Earth, not Glorantha) there was a Vinga myth of her rallying the women and helping guard the Stead, with some competition and rivalry with Yelmalio. Not sure if this still applies or how this should fit in.

We let players assign 92 points worth of stats. Then add 6 (3 from runes) in accordance with the rules.

I agree on most of his overall points, but disagree that "Glorantha fans get lost in the minutia of the mythology" because of our "modern" perspective with too much emphasis on facts. Ancients also had no problem getting lost in minutia. Consider early Christians and the details of The Trinity.