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Stephen L

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Stephen L last won the day on November 12 2022

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  • RPG Biography
    Roleplaying since the early 80s. A Runequest in Glorantha fan
  • Current games
    Runequest in Glorantha, a Colymar campaign.
  • Location
    Woking UK
  • Blurb
    Physicist, mathematician, erstwhile academic, musician, writer, but always return to roleplaying and Glorantha. And now the kids are old enough...

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  1. I liked RQiii, and enjoyed playing for many years. However, it didn't love it as I did RQ2. For me, RQiii fixed a few irksome things with RQ2, but I thought was slightly over the top, many things that didn't need changing were. But the New RuneQuest in Glorantha is exactly what I hoped RQ2 was going to be, it fixes the odd thing that didn't work so well, and polishes everything so that it really gleams, so for me, it's definitely the way to go. However, if you like RQiii, then RQ2 is a really good system, and much to be recommended. RQ leapt out fully formed and good from the start (I've heard that RQ1 and 2 are very similar), and if I wasn't lazy about house ruling the odd bit here and there I'd probably have stayed with RQ2 rather than RQiii. (But the settings and adventures for RQ are awesome, TrollPack, Pavis, and my favourite Balazar, just amazing, and work RQ2, RQiii and RuneQuest in Glorantha). But all very much my own opinion.
  2. At the risk of derailing the thread into a large language model (LLM) discusion. Nope, it hasn't occured to me to use an LLM as I wouldn't have expected a LLM to have enough training material to be too useful in this domain. And if it *did* have enough training material, I'd worry about the ethics/copyright of said training! A link to LLM applied to Gloranthan Lore: https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/18485-chatgpt-is-pretty-well-versed-in-glorantha/
  3. So I’ve had a look at the movement rules presented in Griffin Mountain, and cross checked against the distance travelled in the Core Rules, and come up with the following table: Balazar Movement Table Terrain Travel (move 8 walking) (move 5 walking) Type km/day miles/day Hex/day km/day miles/day Hex/day Clear 16 10 2 10 6 1.2 Hills 10 6.25 1.25 6.25 4 0.8 Mountains 4 2.5 0.5 2.5 1.5 0.3 Forest 10 6.25 1.25 6.25 4 0.8 River (crossing) -3 Along path x2 Searching x1/2 Pursuit x2 Mounted x1 1/2 (River crossing is a penalty to km/day) Given a Balazaring campaign, the adventurers aren’t in general, weary very heavy armour, so I’m not too worried about journeying in armour. But, I wonder what other people do for the dos and don’ts of wearing armour on the trail… Reduce the distance travelled? Ride rolls (Con rolls for those on foot) otherwise sore – penalties applied to Agility skill rolls. Insist on wearing light armour, and what is light, 3-4 points, or half usual Enc limit? Or does that all just get in the way of the fun, and don't really worry about it. Which is probably what I’m tending towards.
  4. Thanks - those are very encouraging words! I vaguely considered it, but assumed it would be quite a lot of work. My main aim is to support the community. One of the things I have always liked about RQ is that the "monsters" were not identikit, and a horde of trolllkin is not the same as D&D faceless orcs, so anything I generate for my campaign, I share - I'd like RQ referees to have a resource that supports this variety. I am quietly pleased though, that the auto generation manages such a good job, a few recent tweeks just means it generates some really plausible NPCs. However, oneday perhaps I will sort out a format that would work for something publishable. The code's c#, so integrates easily with word, if I could get a template sorted...
  5. I am planning to be running Rainbow Mounds fairly shortly. It’s quite nostalgic, because I ran the original, not long after its release, not quite (but almost) the first scenario I ever ran as a referee, and have never returned to it since. I very much like the update to it in the Starter Set. I’ve never quite understood how the entrance worked. From the description “Giant’s Table is a double ‘T’ formation, the cave mouth lying between the upright legs”. Which made me imagine that the entrance went down. But clearly the entranceway is into the cliff face, running horizontally. I suppose that might mean the table was against the cliff. I don’t know why, but I’d find it slightly disappointing if the table were not free standing, so I was thinking of having the table at the top of the cliff, and the cave entrance at the base of the cliff. Perhaps the cave is actually at the bottom of a narrow, but deep chasm, which runs between the legs of the table, which might be impressive. My campaign, being in Balazar, needs one or two tweaks to the hook, but not so very much.
  6. Updated to version 2.2 to add loads of baddies - Newtlings, more Trollkin (skirmishers/bandits), Mammoths and Skeletons: https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/851-npc-squads-txtzip-npc-squadspdf/
  7. Don’t forget that the 7 Mothers write up is appropriate for a worshipper in Prax, so there’s a natural emphasis for stuff that useful to stay alive when everyone else hates you, and are only stopped from killing you by fear. For such frontiers folk the "mundane" stuff is probably dominating the locals. I would imagine the cult in the Lunar heartlands would have a different emphasis. Perhaps a bit like the Romans populating their frontiers with veterans, I'm not sure it would be valid if you extrapolate their cults and beliefs to the Roman heartlands. However, for me, it also has the excellent side effect of making the cult really fun to play (and be a cool adversary for the GM). And, if you can suspend your belief, I'm not ashamed of having roleplay fun as good metric. Playing someone who is exclusively a potato farmer (and no bow, let alone other strings to it) would be rather boring (well in my campaign). Which also might be the real root cause for the argument about potatoes in Glorantha in that other thread…
  8. Although I'm pretty sure that's a photo of Xivert castle in Alcala de Chivert of Castellon Templarios of Spain: https://megaconstrucciones.net/en/xivert-castle/
  9. Stephen L

    Londra

    Londra of Londros was born in 1598, as corrected in a later issue of Wyrms footnotes
  10. Probably way to late for this old thread, but there's probably some good material to be gleaned from Jeff's White Bull campaign. It's a while since I listened to them, but I vaguely remember some useful Argrath stuff from the early episodes (episode 11 maybe) Perhaps the episode list will help. For those is a rush, you can watch at 1.5 times speed... There are some great ideas and themes to steal...
  11. Quite likely so. However, what is important is the perception of the cultists in the scenario, and as far as they're concerned, their temple has been sacked, their high priest killed, and the Wyter driven mad. I don't think it implausible that they don't have high expectation of freedom of worship elsewhere in Sartar, and are probably too scared to leave. Doubtless there are 7 mothers cultists who've left Jonstown, to lie low with relatives somewhere quieter, or fled northwards. Noting, though, refugees on a significant scale rarely receive a warm welcome, especially in troubled times, and indeed where the authorities are worried about possible local Orlanthi uprisings... So we're left with the rational behind those cultists who've remained in Jonstown. That all makes sense. Actually it was about a year after the dragon rise in my campaign that I ran the scenario. I was surprised how few changes I felt were needed, it all worked fine... I just have the cultists being rather timid, and taking a long time to make it to the temple to try and worship, which is what (eventually) woke the Wyter. But the feeling of impermanence in Kallyr's Sartar, which never really feels like a long term solution, helps, since the atmosphere in Jonstown one year on isn't that different from immediately after liberation, the expectation (shared by the players) is that the Lunars are gathering their forces northwards, to shortly sweep away the rebels.
  12. I ran this scenario last year, and had a great time with it. Half my group were new to role playing, let alone Glorantha, and as we're still going as a group, I think it that means it was a success. Funnily enough, I almost never use a scenario as written, they usually need all kind of tweaks/rewrites to fit the narrative of the campaign, but this slotted in really easily, and I ran as is, almost a first for me. It did take some amount of prep, but that was just very careful reading and making notes (and a dramatis persona list, noting page numbers for reference). I've re-read your e-mail and personally don't see the inconsistencies in the original, but I might just be misremembering, it was last year, and my memory isn't the best!
  13. Many thanks for the suggestion, though I did see on RPGgeek that she is unwell, and there is an appeal... https://rpggeek.com/thread/3178435/gofundme-jennell-guillain-barre-syndrome
  14. Ah yes thanks - there's a bit on the Jonstown compendium that's worth investigating (should have looked first...) I see also the Back To Balazar might be releasing a 1625 update soon... https://www.backtobalazar.com/balazar-1625/
  15. My Balazaring campaign might be shortly winding up at Elkoi, and I wondered about good images for both the citadel and also for personalities. I’ve the original Griffin Mountain (with generally rather good artwork, but very sparse) and the Gloranthan Classics reprint (which has more art, but the additions are of varying quality). Elkoi is obviously based on the ancient Mycenaean citadel of Tiryns, so good images on the web. So far I’ve found these: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/396387204699687861/ https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/1050675788052494226/ And for the Magaron (which might fit Elkoi, with it pretence at civilisation, Trilus and Dykene would be more rustic): https://blog.stephens.edu/arh101glossary/?glossary=megaron https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/611715561859426457/ For characters, there are the excellent one of Hacyon Var Encorth in the original, and a not bad Queen Jocestis in the reprint. If the party opt for the grand entrance, there might be a feast with the royals, in which case I imagined Hecis might be persuaded by her father to dance, a la 7 veils: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/523613894170933848/ If anyone has any links for any other characters, or an ancient feast with the royals, that would be amazing! Perhaps for Euryptus the bold: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/aR1APL As an aside, as a kid, when Griffin Mountain first came out (yes I’m that old), I had a fascination with floor plans of historical sites, so I realised that Elkoi was Tiryns. I had assumed that Dykene was one of the Troys (which isn’t such a good match, now plans are easier to come by, with the invention of the web: squinting and not looking too closely it’s a tiny bit like Troy IV). The young me was convinced Trilus was Mycenae, but now, looking at it, the plan of Trilus bears no resemblance to Mycenae. Was the young me just fooled by the similarity of the Lion gate? Or had I found a real-world source and I have just forgotten with the passage of so much time. After all, it’s not so many years now before it will be the 50th anniversary of its first publication. And wouldn’t some fan generated art be a fantastic way of celebrating such an anniversary…
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