Rodney Dangerduck

Greg sometimes said that there are no "good guys" or "bad guys" in this struggle.  As @jajagappa said. "We are all us".

3 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

I do really like the ides that in order to use your sword to attack the guy with a pike,  you first have to get past that pointy thing on the end of the pike.

Which i note is used by one pf my favorite non-FRP games, Blood and Plunder.  So it's not an exotic thing to have in the rules.

 

 

A good compromise is to use the full SIZ + DEX + size of weapon for the first round of combat, then fall back on just DEX for all subsequent rounds.

On 5/21/2020 at 4:16 AM, Aprewett said:

You can also add to that the Intelligence stat. How quick you can think under stress, analyse your opponents tactics, weak spots. So many gamers think it’s all about speed, but it’s only part of the equation.

Once you are engaged in combat swinging your weapon it's too late to think.  However, planning ahead "if those two guys attack me, I will do XXX..." applies.

Arguably, one could penalize high INT characters in combat.

56 minutes ago, soltakss said:

Don't worry, Secrets of Dorastor has more men than women warriors

Hmm, probably not a big help!  One reason I've noticed the trend is that my Vingan is looking for reasonable, preferably warrior-like single men to bed.  The pickings from the scenarios we have run so far (haven't done "The Pack Train" yet) are extremely slim, close to non-existent.  By contrast, our randy Storm Bull has no shortage of good female options.  :-(

On 5/15/2020 at 3:47 AM, MOB said:

Anla Renekot, proud Orlanthi Rune Lord, powerful and strong.

I gotta say I'm getting a bit tired of "every significant (human) warrior you meet is a woman" theme.  And I'm running a Vingan!

Does make me think about some of the classics, like Conan and LotR where much was reversed.

This campaign would be suitable for players from most any culture, though Esrolian, Sartar, or Lunar makes the most sense.

When Harrek the Berserk sacked the City of Wonders, the "official" line is that his pirates killed everybody.  Later, others performed a hero quest to resurrect everybody.  (Sorry, don't have the references handy, but I believe this is canon)

But, some young, soft-hearted PC (mine) who was there in her RQG background, was shocked by the slaughter, and saved one woman and child, later smuggling them out of the city.  She killed one pirate, who was probably about to do something unforgivable, while doing this.

Somehow, this act of mercy has corrupted the hero quest, (or maybe the dead pirate's soul did?) and the something "ain't right".  To make things right, some heroes must find and kill that woman and child.  Or, if you prefer, your heroes must protect her from those who seek her death...

In our extremely non-canonical Lunar focused campaign, one of my PCs became a Yanafal hero.  She was originally from Talastar, just outside Dorastor.  She hated chaos : it had destroyed her family and village, driving her onto her eventual path.  She also knew of Hospitality and some of the Storm Tribe myths and customs.

There was a very testy negotiation / meeting between her and Kallyr, that only went peacefully because of the Code of Hospitality, aided by a Chalana Arroy claiming protection over Kallyr.  (Kallyr had overextended herself as usual and gotten captured).

I don't see why Tarshites will have forgotten their past traditions so quickly.  Whether they keep to them is another question.

1 hour ago, lordabdul said:

"Duplicity" was the name of the dinosaur. Part of a trio of dinosaurs owned by a Lunar general, named Felicity, Duplicity, and Trinity.  

That's a false legend.  The real names were Monogamy, Duplicity, and Menagery.  🙂

An interesting twist to RQG, which I don't remember from RQ2, is that if a character takes damage, spell casting is aborted.  It makes SR matter, and adds tactics.  E.g. Bad guy is pumping up their Befuddle to get through your Shield, do you cast Bladesharp and delay your attack, or do you swing early and try to interrupt their spell casting?

Whether these tactics are worth the added detail and complexity may vary from group to group.

As for PCs lack of agency compared to the big heroes, yes, that is a potential problem.  Various scenario writers (thanks Nick!) are doing their best to help this.  IMO, which I doubt Chaosium will follow, the best approach would be for Lunar Assassins to finally succeed and kill Argrath.

"Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to"

34 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

I haven't watched Torchwood, but wow. Did they resurrect Humakt?

They eventually performed rituals to replace Humakt with a "new" one.  And the new one could have been a troll, dwarf, Yanafali, or something chaotic, which would have had great repercussions.  Turned out he was replaced with one of our overly-powerful-time-to-retire Humakt (female) PCs.

Many of our great campaigns involved Lunar PCs, and were inspired by TV or Movies or Current Events.  Which, IMO, often do fit in better with the more "modern" feel of the Lunar Empire compared to Sartar.  They typically involved fixing the bad deeds of various Lunar conspiracies.  Yolanela featured prominently!

1.  Some goody two shoes had killed Humakt to "free the world from Death".  See Torchwood, Miracle Day.
2. Corrupt Power-grubbing Danfive Chancellor had taken over the government and had killed / imprisoned the two main candidates for Emperor.  A mix of Putin and Richard III.
3. A "Rune Chef" competition for a powerful ancient artifact, mixed with a nasty "Anister - Tark" Dart War.
4. Military duty patrolling the Dorastor Marches.  A mix of combat, scouting, and dealing with inept or corrupt Lunar Bureaucracy and jealous rivals.

1 hour ago, David Scott said:

Although Shield isn't a common Rune magic, it doesn't actually say what runes it requires: RQG 339

Quote

Rune varies depending on cult

and using Associate cult rune spells supports rune vagary: RQG 283 (my emphasis)

Quote

This Rune is often different from the Runes of the initiate’s primary god.

I'd let them use their Earth rune.

It, in effect, does say what runes would be required.  Orlanthi would cast Shield with Air or Movement, would they not?  While a Humakti would use Death or Truth, etc...

When an Ernaldan goes to cast the Orlanth provided Shield spell, they must use Air or Movement, which is indeed "different from the Runes of the (Ernaldan) initiate's primary god".

If Babs Gor provided Shield, I agree with you, that would be cast with Earth (or Death).  But she doesn't.

That said, a nice GM wanting to help out the Ernaldan might allow Earth.  No big objection.  But why not give her a reason to work on some other Runes?  IMO, bending the rules to allow characters to always use their primary runes (or Passions) just makes for more one dimensional, more boring characters.  YGMV.

Also note that casting the Husband's spells may require using his Runes.  That Shield spell from Orlanth requires using Air or Movement.

I disagree that 80% is "twice as good as" 40%.  Is a .400 baseball hitter "twice as good as" a .200 hitter?  Absolutely not.  The .400 hitter is a priceless top tier Hall of Famer, the .200 is crap at the infamous "Mendoza Line". 

1 hour ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

except some trolls are demonstrably not, such as the hot trolls and possibly the ice trolls.

Hot trolls!  You mean like in the ZZ Troll hit, "Sharp dressed troll"?  🙂

8 hours ago, Crel said:

Personally, I'd avoid letting an adventurer initiate into three or more full cults because I feel in-world like their attention and devotion would be being split too widely

Be sure to constantly hit them up for tithes and their presence at worship ceremonies.

I ran a naval campaign focused on the Sweet Sea, which, in our timeline, had recently opened.  The PCs were Lunars sailing out of Harandash on "fisheries patrol", while also discovering new islands and fending off mysterious rivals from Charg.

Naval Flags in specific never came up, but we had Vexilla.  I assume the ships would have flags of the Goddess in our case.  Maybe this?

Ships had Wyters.  We had a Sorcery Spell called "Firerain" that would quickly destroy any ship without.  (Haven't read the RQG Sorcery Rules but I bet they have something similar)  I could see 50 people on shore, the shipwrights, commanders, land forces, clerks, contributing to the wyter even if the crew is much less than 50.

We had fun.  The most fun was when the players got totally bored with "fisheries patrol" (as was intended) and started stirring up trouble.

Certain boats were known as being faster, stealthier, tougher, or, on the downside, slower or crappier.

Very good question!  I would tend to say no, because Arrow Trance (if I recall correctly) does not let you use attack with your bow in melee.  No melee at all, you must **shoot** arrows. Nor does it give you +lotso% with your Bow attack and parry.

Therefore, by analogy, Axe and Sword Trance force you to attack in melee with your weapon. No missile fire. And no +lotso% to your thrown weapons.

Just had an idea for combats.  IMO, too many Big Dramatic Combats are decided too quickly by a lucky Crit.  Just happened to our group, the Big Bad Lunar RuneLord went down in one round.

Fire and Sword had a spell called "Cushion Impact" that kind of gave you one extra chance, took some of the luck (good and bad) out of it.

In any "Extended Duel" type of thing, I might go with a special rule that the first crit against each participant is downgraded to a normal hit.

10 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Yeah, compared to older editions, RQG really punishes people trying to learn new knowledge skills

Yes.  Our GM noticed, and occasionally just hands out increases based on experiences.  "You visited an ancient Ernalda temple, everybody gets +5% Ernalda Lore".

Otherwise it's pretty hopeless for scholars.

Also, in a work this long, please put in useful PDF Bookmarks for easier navigation.  Thanks!

@Jeff How do they start with 90% Devotions?  The best any of us started with was 70%, after the freebie +10% add.  Are we missing some rule?  We did go with mainly random background rolls.  If you get to chose all the +10% options that might matter, but, as Nathan Hale noted, your parent can only die heroically once. 

This is getting away from "design decisions", so willing to discuss more in another thread.

🙂

17 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Simple - because a lot, arguably most, of the cool bits of the game start taking place once the characters are Rune Lords, priests, and shamans

No disagreement.  However, with the 90% Devotion requirement for Rune Lord, most players will need 3-6 years (Glorantha time) to get there, without some big assist from the GM.

To go from 80% to 90% requires, on average, 3 successful rolls to increase, each at 20% or less chance.  That's ~3 years.  And many PCs start at 60% to 70% Devotion, requiring another few years.

Our group has switched back to RQ2 +5% for successful checks, and liberal rules for obtaining Devotion checks 

On 4/26/2020 at 6:23 AM, Joerg said:

Trolls have a society built on intimidation. Fear is a manifestation of the Darkness rune, much like Madness is one of the Moon rune and overbearing arrogance of the Fire rune.

And being a boastful blowhard is a manifestation of Air.  🙂