GAZZA

Honestly @lordabdul that's fair. The main counter argument is the Cradle scenario which requires going back to RQ2, so I'd fully concede it's a fairly weak argument (especially as it does contain Argrath, after all). Certainly it's monstrously unfair of me to discard all the post 1625 stuff as rubbish when I've never even read it. (I'm not actually saying it's rubbish you understand - I'm saying if I said it was - I have absolutely no doubt it's excellent in fact since if Chaosium are good at one thing, it's making excellent scenarios).

The main reason I prefer 1613 is sheer inertia. I have a lot of older RQ material that is set around that period, and while I am generally a fan of many of the changes RQG has made to the rules, I really do want to play that old stuff!  On the other hand I'm not at all bothered whether or not Sartar is liberated on the time frame that the "metaplot" gives - it's bad for the poor Sartarites, I guess, if they don't end up getting liberated until 1630 or later because my less-powerful-than-Kallyr-and-Argrath PCs have to do all the heavy lifting instead, but it's absolutely fine for the game as a whole.

But just about any date would have this issue one way or another. I mean I could instead complain that the God Learners got to do all the cool stuff centuries ago, or that Arkat got to do all the cool stuff against Gbaji. You have to start somewhere, and I have nothing against 1625 per se. Sans all my existing material I'd be more than happy to play then, and should this campaign eventually end (or at least catch up) I will certainly consider incorporating the new material.

I know that there's nothing concrete, except more or less that the gods supplement is next, but I have some specific questions:

• Is the GM guide next after that? When we will get Hero Quest rules?
• Suppose we want to play dwarves, or elves - is there any plans for that beyond the very sparse stuff in the Bestiary? Will we be getting the equivalent of RQ3 Elder Secrets ... ever? Is there anything planned in the GM guide, or will this be left to a later supplement? (I already assume trolls will be in a separate supplement, which is fine - I'm a big fan of the Uz - but the Aldryami are more or less playable, and Mostali can be as well in some circumstances).

I don't need something like "the GM guide will be out for Xmas 2020" or anything, but it would be good to know if I can expect it by the end of, say, 2021 or so, simply to make plans. If it's going to be delayed indefinitely, I can make arrangements to adapt older material or fan converted stuff, but I consider that to be very definitely my least preferred option. I strongly suspect the answer to my questions is, "nobody knows, sorry" - which is fine, but I thought it was worth asking, as I can't find anything on Chaosium's website that has anything more promising than "coming soon".

13 hours ago, Jeff said:

I disagree with virtually every point you make here. Pretty much everyone in Sartar would agree that Elmal and Yelmalio are the same deity or aspects of the same deity. The revelation that Elmal is Yelmalio ended the in-fighting among the Elmali, which killed one Prince of Sartar, and badly weakened the kingdom of Sartar. The establishment of the Sun Dome strengthened Sartar, and Yelmalio pikemen died for King Tarkalor at the Battle of Grizzly Peak.

I have found that simply ignoring the whole existence of Elmal is a surprisingly valid strategy for dealing with the confusion.

17 minutes ago, allenowen said:

Nevertheless, game balance is overrated. I do think D&D players are too concerned about game balance. Sorry that made you want to mock me.  

"Game balance is overrated" is a very dismissive statement, but I wasn't mocking you. I was mocking the idea that D&D could ever be considered a bastion of game balance - if you ignore D&D4e (and virtually everybody did) D&D is a pretty good example of the opposite. I'm not even knocking D&D here - I'm just saying that anyone that offers up D&D as an example of a game designed to be balanced is mistaken. D&D is where we get the term "Linear Fighters, Quadratic Wizards" from. Whether or not a given warrior cult has access to a specific Rune spell such as Shield is really not on the same scale as D&D's balance issues - RQ is much better balanced than D&D has ever even aspired to be. (Which is not to say that I disagree with the posters suggesting Shield should probably be allowed to Yelmalions - or even as a generally available spell - this new Rune Point economy is testing Rune magic more than previous editions I think).

"Overrated" is a subjective term, but if one feels game balance is entirely irrelevant, then there's basically no point to (e.g.) spells costing different numbers of points. Make Shield block an infinite amount of damage and magic for a single point. Give it only to players that pay the GM's mortgage or something.

Of course that is an extreme position, but the point is that game balance does matter - obviously you can disagree to what extent it does (there's a human GM, so flagrant abusives can be disallowed, and there are human players, so flagrant disabuses can simply be avoided as not-fun).

3 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Which Summon spell?

Spirit magic version, Summon (Entity), RQG pp 265.

48 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

This mix of "stackable spells", boosting with MPs, custom spells that have MP-based spending, across two (excluding Sorcery here) magic systems (and excluding duration considerations!) is a major source of confusion, as far as I can tell. I know I was confused about all this for at least a few months. I wish these mechanics had been cleaned up and unified around fewer standard concepts.

Indeed. I'm still not sure how Summon is supposed to work. I'm treating it as a 1 point spell that you boost with MPs, but I'm not under any misapprehension that this is anything but a house rule on my behalf (albeit one based on the RQ3 version of the spell).

Yeah I never got the hate for RQ3 fatigue myself, especially in this Brave New World where we're told that Sword Trance isn't a problem because of "reasons". My game is currently RQG (with significant house rules for experience checks but otherwise more or less RAW), but I've had to dip into RQ3 a few times for elder race stuff and more spirit variety.

I could not agree more with @Ian Absentia ; the 1621+ setting strikes me as very "Elminstery" (by which I mean that k00l NPCs get to do all the interesting stuff - you got to have PCs on the Cradle, IMHO, and Argrath - honestly by the time my campaign gets there I am totally fine if the PCs have killed him, Kallyr Starbrow, and every other scene stealing NPC).

1 hour ago, Tindalos said:

Either that or most people had no idea about herding animals until near or soon after the dawn.

"Before" and "after" might be a bit nebulous before Time.

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

Ultimately that's what the god learners did and it didn't turn out well.

I'd say it turned out very well. Pretty much all the God Learner experiments did in fact work just fine. They were eventually punished for "cheating" but I think the only possible conclusion from the God Learner research is that they were right. They obviously missed some of the subtle traps that led to their demise, of course.

And I say "they were right" advisedly. It is entirely possible that what they did doesn't work any more.

1 hour ago, allenowen said:

"Game balance" is overrated. Too D&D, too video gamey.

The idea that either video games or D&D represent game balance is hilarious.

14 hours ago, Crel said:

Did they replace it with Ban, in RQG? Or was Ban also in previous editions? This is the first edition I've gamemastered, or read material of to a significant degree. Ban is basically an excommunication from a particular temple.

To an extent does that not raise the question? If it requires a (3 Rune Point) spell to sever an initiate from a mere temple (which is something I would have thought you could achieve via more temporal means, honestly - just have the bouncers eject the sucker), why no similar spell to sever an initiate entirely?

I understand that it's between the initiate and the god, but a priest is a designated representative of the god, empowered to a certain degree to act in the god's name within Time. Corrupt priests Excommunicating unreasonably? Sounds like an adventure plot to me.

That said I hadn't noticed Ban, to be honest.

11 minutes ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

the mechanic is already given, the pc stops sacrifice pow / magic expected from an initiate and is no more an initiate

You are never required to sacrifice POW once you become an initiate. You probably will, especially if you're a PC, but you're not required to. And it is far from clear to me that a lay member isn't saccing MPs at worship ceremonies.

I'm not just being obtuse here. In previous versions of RQ this was not an open question: a priest cast Excommunicate on you, and bingo bango bongo you were no longer an initiate (with possibly exceptions for illuminates). That spell no longer exists in RQG (along with other staples like Spellteaching) so the process is no longer defined.

And I'm sorry to keep harping on about this, but we don't know what spirits of reprisal are in RQG. So at best we know what happens when you leave and immediately join an associated cult (and that's with my generously assuming that's what it means to "transfer" - because transfer isn't defined either). We don't know:

• What happens if you leave cult A, bugger around godless for a while, and then join associated cult B. Do cult A's spirits of reprisal (whatever they are) stop? Is there a maximum time that can elapse before this would be true? Do spirits of reprisal ever stop normally for "leaving a cult" infractions?
• What happens if you join associated cult B while still being an initiate of cult A, and then subsequently decide you can't be buggered doing cult A's tithing any more. Do you get spirits of reprisal then? Is there a minimum or maximum time that can elapse while you are a member of both that will change the answer to that question?

Are these critically important questions? Of course not. All I said was that I hoped this sort of thing will be defined better in the Gods and Goddesses book, in addition to legions of cult writeups that I will likely never use (but, lest anyone take that the wrong way, I have absolutely no problem with existing since I realise that the authors of RQG are not working solely for my benefit). And if I'm being honest I will actually be surprised if these concepts are defined better in the gods book, if for no other reason than that it would appear I am the only one that thinks such rules would be at all useful.  (But also because if they took the time to remove Excommunication then they likely did it because they no longer thought it was necessary).

Interesting. I was under the impression that once you sac POW to a god, you're no longer following the Mostal way (as RQ3's Elder Secrets says that non-apostate dwarves can't learn spirit magic or rune magic; Flintnail offers both, though that is from Pavis and Big Rubble which predates RQ3's decision that dwarves use sorcery).

So if I'm understanding correctly, Flintnail isn't actually a cult in RQ3+, it's more like just a bunch of dwarfs following a dude with the Openhandist heresy. I was not aware there were listed Flintnail dwarfs that have been around long enough to prove they're not aging (so I'm glad I asked).

Fair enough, I'll have to make a few changes but that will work out fine.

Why don't we need mechanics? We have mechanics for joining cults, surely we can have mechanics for leaving them? (And I suspect we will, once we have the full write ups that include the spirits of reprisal).

You are always free to ignore mechanics (I do it all the time!) but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have them.

1 minute ago, g33k said:

I'm gonna just assert that transferring to an "associate cult" is easy.  You are free to make it harder or more complicated, if you want (YGMV), but...

The RAW explicitly address the topic.  They say that the  disincentive (Spirits of Reprisal) do not apply.

We know:

If you leave a cult, some undefined concept called "spirits of reprisal" will bash you.

We also know:

EXCEPTION: If you transfer to an associated cult, then the spirits of reprisal won't bother you.

It is exceptionally strange to me to hear people say that because the exception applies, the rule needs no further definition. I do not believe one can reasonably discuss exceptions to a non-existent rule.

I've been assuming that the Flintnail cult in Pavis consists of apostate dwarves, as they appear to have abandoned the Mostali way (ironically since Flintnail himself was a Mostali, not a dwarf). Am I incorrect to have done this?

2 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Good news: as per RAW, you can do that. The rules in "Leaving the Cult" state, about the spirits of reprisal: "These spirits do not come into action when initiates transfer to an associate cult". And of course, Yinkin and Orlanth are associated to each other.

Except that "transfer to another cult" is never defined. Perhaps you consider that this is identical to the requirements to simply join the associated cult directly, but that isn't necessarily true. For example, children of Orlanth initiates get into Orlanth without having to pass any test; it may well be true that this is the case for "transfers" as well, or it may be that you need a harder test as you also have to convince your existing priest that you should be allowed to leave - the point is, it's not very clear. It's not as if RQG started this problem in any way - I literally have better mechanical support for getting illuminated in RQ3 than I have for transferring to an associated cult - but hopefully RQG can address this with something more than a throwaway line. I'm not saying that the rules on leaving cults need to be as extensive as the rules on joining them, but they should be more than just an off hand reference to undefined spirits of reprisal and an undefined "transfer" mechanism.

2 minutes ago, g33k said:

But this is explicitly RQ3, and AIUI the default is +3 SR's.

Indeed, my bad.

33 minutes ago, davecake said:

So if you ever met traders, they were 100% ogres... 

Math checks out.

20 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Note that it seems to me a lot of those NPCs with multiple cults are people in positions of power... just going down half of your list, I think that I vaguely recognize captains, nobles (or former nobles), and most of the NPCs that are in the inner ring of Clearwine.

Well, PCs are by definition in positions of power - they are the only individuals in the entire game with individual agency. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that wants their PCs to (eventually) be the people in positions of power, either supplanting those currently there or creating new positions. NPCs are not who the game is about, after all.

More generally I can only repeat what I said before - joining multiple cults is, in many ways, a sub optimal choice from a min-maxing point of view. Certainly you hit a massive diminishing returns there after even the first cult, let alone the second (to say nothing of the fact that RAW it's not possible to become a Rune Priest or Rune Lord if you're already an initiate of 3+ cults).

I sincerely hope the Gods book has some rules for leaving a cult ("benignly", that is - obviously you can get yourself excommunicated, but it shouldn't be harshly punished to move from, say, Yinkin to Orlanth, or Seven Mothers to Yanafil Tarnils, etc.). RQG mentions spirits of reprisal but none of the short form writeups have any details for those (I of course can use older material, but that's not ideal), and it also hand waves mentions you can avoid them if you "transfer" to an associated cult (without actually mentioning how one goes about doing that).

2 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

If you don't always succeed, then some characters should be better at some things than others. And I really wish the Rules Questions thread was handled better than it is - it tends be defensive, not acknowledging actual issues but coming up with some handwave instead, and not always even care too much about how the rules are actually written and just make up rules as they go along (like how Jason is trying to tell us that you can't cast multiple Spirit Magic spells in a round, even though the rules clearly support this).

Or giving multiple options for house ruling.

Honestly I consider the "Core Rules thread" to be essentially the equivalent of WotC's Sage Advice: basically just one person's house rules that I need not pay any particular attention to and has no particular authority. If it makes it into a Rune Fixes I'll pay attention, otherwise if it's just talking to fellow GMs and players about how they would handle stuff, then that thread contains far inferior opinions to people such as @Akhôrahil, @soltakss, and others.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I admit that I see the argument that Criticals/Fumbles are largely at parity, and Specials are less-intense result, so inflicting a "Special" of Knockback shouldn't be as severe as a Fumble result... so I can see "softening" this result ...  but then we're back into HR / Spot Rule territory.

That ship has already sailed, cast Open Seas, and circumnavigated the coast though.  Extrapolating a fumble to a core rule for a non fumble is itself a house rule.

Personally I'd say +5 SR is fine, as that seems to be the default in RQG for "extra stuff" (changing intent, firing multiple arrows, or whatever).

Sorry, you've lost me. You're saying that 1M% can't special any more? But 20M can?

27 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

I am not a mathematican, and our group has no problems with these skill levens, since noone has skills over 100% (yet), except when using augments.

Maybe we should adapt the rules about masteries from HeroQuest?

Instead of 
95%   100%   105%

It would be 
95%   100%  5M%

For instance: 
a 150% attack Humakti is fighting a 90% attack Yelmalian

In RQG RAW it would become
100% Humakti vs 40% Yelmalian

If we adapt the HQ rule it would be
50M% vs 90%

The M means: No fumbles possible, a fail becomes a success, a success becomes a crit, a crit is still a crit

Mathematically, that makes it a big difference between 99% and 101%. At 99%, you have a 1% chance of fumbling, a 4% failure chance, a 70% chance of success, a 20% special chance, and a 5% critical chance. At 101% (or 1M) you'd have 0% fumbling, 1% failure, 4% success, 70% special, and 25% critical (assuming you meant that a success becomes a special, otherwise it's even worse). That means that 101% will utterly dominate a 99% opponent even though they are only 2% higher.