GAZZA

Although I do recall an old White Dwarf review of it (I think - and yes, that dates me terribly, I bet a lot of gamers don't even realise that White Dwarf used to be, in essence, mainly a D&D zine) that said it didn't really matter that the Kua Toa and Drow were at odds when both groups were trying to kill you. But those were the days, really - you came to the table with half a dozen characters and hoped it would be enough. I never really liked high lethality RPGs, probably my favourite genre is 4 colour super hero games for that reason (which makes my love of RuneQuest "what's your arm on now? - it's on the ground!" lethality strange, but I am a complex person. ).

So just to clarify, the proposed Simp G is: If at least one score is 79 or less, do nothing. If both scores are 80 or higher, find X such that X = Lower Skill - 50, and then reduce both skills by X. Just checking the math here.

I think you can probably assume "all" Orlanthi are at least lay members of all the Lightbringer cults, at least in Sartar. Lay membership doesn't really mean much. Of course you have plenty of dual initiate+ relationships in that list too (which I'll take your word for; I have no use for the current published adventures as my campaign is 10 years behind that and I understand they reasonably enough build certain things like "Sartar is now free!" into the setting).

What surprised me was how few cults grant any sort of Read/Write. In RQ3 that was a standard Initiate occupation skill and, often, a requirement for Priest status. I'm not by any means suggesting this is wrong - heck, I can see why you don't want Storm Khans running around quoting whoever the Gloranthan equivalent of Shakespeare and P G Wodehouse are - but it did surprise me as a change (even somewhat more civilised deities like Yelm don't give it as a cult skill - you need to be in a specifically knowledge type cult such as LM). It has meant that when my group were signing the Lunar documents to be able to register themselves to be allowed to go into the Big Rubble and hunt for the gorp geyser that they all just marked it with an X and had to take the Lunars' word for it as to what it said; similarly with the contract they just signed with Duke Raus. I wonder if that was the case back in RQ2 days when these supplements were published.

I mean, that kind of sounds like you should just say that "all" trolls are lay members of Kyger Litor, and leave the initiate status out of it (especially in RQG where they seem to conflate the two concepts a lot) except for those who want to go on to Rune level (eventually); so you're a ZZ initiate and a Kyger Litor lay member, no muss no fuss. I actually think two cults is fine for PCs - even underpowered in a lot of cases if you choose two weak cults compared to one strong one - but if I'm using trolls and elves are counter examples to the "it's mostly just one cult" suggestion then intellectual honesty requires that I find a way to make that work mechanically, and lay membership (which was a big deal in RQ2, a basically non-existent deal in RQ3, and ... sort of half and half in RQG?) seems at least a way to resolve that. As a bonus you could also say that "all" humans are lay members of whatever Daka Fal would be if you stripped out the Grandfather Mortal nonsense and made it just an ancestor worshipping cult.

So what does this mean when (e.g.) converting old material? Do we just dump the Kyger Litor status for an initiate of ZZ/Gorakikki/AA, and assume that it's covered by "communal worship"? Is this the sort of thing that will be clarified in the Gods of Glorantha book, or will that push it out to four volumes instead of three?

In Glorantha? Heck if I know. In RuneQuest? Well, we don't have proper write ups for RQG troll and elf gods yet, but certainly humans are not all Daka Fal initiates (thank goodness! Daka Fal hates everybody, and very few cults can be combined with it for that reason, including all the typical PC gods like Orlanth and Humakt). In previous editions a troll sacced POW to both Kyger Litor and Zorak Zoran (or whatever), these are not exceptions in any rules sense to having any two cults (they both require a point of POW, they both require tithing, they both require time ... functionally identical to a Foundchild/Yelm combination). And if you want to join the cult of Pavis, well, in RQ3 that would be treated as a City God (I assume; I know of no complete Pavis cult writeup for RQ3, certainly not in River of Cradles) which still costs you a point of POW, 5% of your time, and 1% of your income (so certainly less than a "full" god, but not inconsequentially less), while in RQ2 (c.f. Pavis and Big Rubble) you have essentially the same initiation test as for any other cult, you aren't allowed to worship anyone other than Pavis and "friendly cults" (which if we are using Cults of Prax terminology is not a big list at all, though I would assume many GMs would interpret that as "not hostile" rather than "friendly"), and there is nothing suggesting your cult requirements are any different to any other cult (unlike the City Gods reference in RQ3). Now, of course, you are free to say that this just means the rules are wrong/incomplete - which is fine, of course, but RAW say that two cult membership is very common amongst non-humans and, if there are very many Pavis citizens, not really uncommon amongst humans either in previous editions; given that it seems a little harsh to come down on players for wanting to do what NPCs clearly do as a matter of course. You could quite reasonably argue in fact that a lot of current cults ought to just be subcults. I am not convinced that a "Lightbringers" cult akin to the Seven Mothers would be a terrible idea, given that Orlanth gives you most of the good stuff anyway via associated cults. Certain combinations of deities get you very little extra in the core rules, often because the various cults are not remotely balanced in terms of mechanical utility (nor are they supposed to be, I hasten to add, but that's still a bit of an unwelcome surprise for someone who picked Odayla instead of Orlanth and then realises just how many fewer Rune spells that opens up). The subject of multiple cult membership is one that I don't think is really dealt with well in RQG (or in previous editions of RQ); you don't really get double the power for joining two cults that you get for joining one, but you do have double the responsibilities. Yes, I suppose technically you can get an extra CHA worth of rune points, but by the time most PCs have "filled up" their first lot there I suspect some sort of Hero Quest extension to that limit is going to be more common than joining another cult just to get a few more points of Heal Wound or whatever, especially since it's a lot easier to refresh Rune magic that it ever was before and I would argue that 10 Rune Points is possibly equivalent to 30 points of RQ3 Divine magic just out of flexibility.

I mean, all this works from the assumption that the player in question took a second cult for power gaming or whatever, but that's not always the case. Consider my own campaign, which recently had the Master Hunt. Of the four PCs, one was an Odayla initiate and the others were Humakt, Yelm, and Storm Bull. I had a mini hunting scenario prepared, and as written it would have sidelined 75% of my players. To keep them involved I created some NPCs, but I also offered the option for the other three, if they wanted to, to initiate to Foundchild (it was in Prax) and participate directly. The Humakt and Storm Bull players didn't want to do that (so they played a couple of the NPCs through the hunt), but the Yelm player did. The point is, a lot of the times players join new cults isn't going to be because of the phat l00t. It's going to be situational, like joining a spirit cult, or joining the cult of Pavis or Flintnail, or I believe there's at least one published scenario where the players can find what is, essentially, the remnants of a forgotten goddess and revive her by saccing POW. It's not as if "2 cults" is particularly rare in published scenarios; even going back to RQ2 most trolls had Kyger Litor even if they were also Zorak Zoran, Argan Argar, Gorakikki, or whatever. Most elves have Aldrya even if they are also some Solar or other cult. Plenty of published chaotic NPCs have Primal Chaos in addition to Malia, Thed, Thanatar, or whatever. Basically I don't think a player that wants to join another cult is necessarily doing so for simple acquisition of m0ar stuff. Perhaps if it was easier to leave cults this wouldn't be as big an issue, but in many cases you get pretty severely punished if you chose Odayla on a whim as your first PC and then realised how much weaker it was than Orlanth Adventurous, or if you decide that the whole Humakti obsession with death doesn't fit your still-a-warrior-but-not-that-grim concept that has evolved and want to go with a kinder, gentler warrior cult like Zorak Zoran.

I dunno, I'm wondering how many extra mortgages I'm going to have to take on the house to buy 3 volumes of gods when all I really want is Hero Quest rules.

Eh. I would say, "things don't really work like that" in Glorantha. Trolls are not a unified species - some trolls are good blokes, some trolls would eat you as soon as look at you, and some trolls are nicking your children for light snacks. One evil band of Uz doesn't make all Uz evil, any more than the Lunars mean that all humans are chaos worshipping cultists. About the only elder race that might be considered somewhat unified as "bad guys" would be the Mostali, and even then it's more a case of "they don't get on with anybody" rather than "they are actively trying to kill everybody". Plus, the heresies of the Mostali mean that even the dwarves are not a unified species. So go nuts, make the Drow into Uz for the purposes of Glorantha, perhaps with some of the fungus Aldryami as well. If you want to really hammer the point home that not all Uz are like that, then use Uz for the Kua-Toa and so on as well (I believe the D series has some sort of underdark war between the Kua Toa and the Drow, though it's been a while since I read it).

Or just initiate into Humakt first, I presume. He's the god of severing, not the god of never making any new connections.

Anyone ever play the game Continuum? I love me a good time travel story, but that was about the only game I ever thought captured something properly playable (as opposed to just treating time travel the same way as space travel - exotic settings, but no causality issues).

I think Elmal is probably at least an associated cult to Yelmalio (there are several Gloranthan scholars that would argue it's actually the same god, in fact, but that smacks of Jrusteli heresy to me ) so I imagine they'd be fine. Elmal worshippers at a Yelmalio temple couldn't learn any fire based spirit magic, and Yelmalio worshippers at an Elmal temple probably can't take on any more gifts and geasa (although maybe they can, I haven't seen an official Elmal write up and it seems possible that when we have one, they might get the Gift/Geas treatment as well, similarly to Humakt and Yelmalio), but just a straight up "refresh your Rune Points"/"sac for Divine magic"/"do whatever you have to do in Hero Quest" is probably fine. Note that Yelmalio is not an enemy diety even of Orlanth; he's definitely a rival (which is why Wind Lords and Light Sons have all the riddling stuff) and not exactly a best mate, but even on the Hill of Gold Orlanth was comparatively merciful (I mean, he's still a barbarian god, but he fell a long way short of tearing out the poor bloke's heart like ZZ did).

And you could have the final module (where you face Lloth) as a Hero Quest too, if you were so inclined. A lot of older D&D adventures can be adapted, and can often be had fairly cheaply. Against the Giants (which if I recall correctly is part of the same series as the Drow modules) could be run with trolls instead of giants too (Argan Argar types, say, with the Zorak Zorani in the Drow series).

Right now we're playing on Roll 20 if at all. There's no table. There's a fully functioning computer that is enabling the players to play - so they have plenty worse distracting possibilities than just checking in on their Universal Paperclips game on their phone.

Awesome, exactly what I was looking for! Thank you @Crel and @soltakss.

So my players offed Oll, the ancient priest of Pocharngo and Primal Chaos (see River of Cradles) last weekend, but not before three of them were afflicted with Doubt (meaning that they have a 5% worse chance to cast any Rune magic). It says that removing Doubt requires either divine intervention (a risky prospect at the best of times, given they're only initiates) or a Hero Quest. What sort of Hero Quest would be recommended to do that? I was thinking it might be thematically appropriate to do a Cleansed One Hero Quest (as they are river voices of Zola Fel, and have been offered initiation); the myth itself, as far as I can see, cleanses Chaos but it seems reasonable it could remove a Chaos inflicted penalty as well. Does this seem appropriate, and if so does anyone know where I might find either ideally a write up of such a Hero Quest (in whatever system, I can convert) or at least a detailed myth that I can use to break into stages. (Actually I could do with some sort of Hero Quest Design Guide; there's one in 13AG but I'm not sure it really works for the sorts of things RQ seems to suggest you can get from Hero Quests). I guess I can wait for the game master's book, it's only 5% and nobody has hassled me about it yet, but I like to be proactive about these things.

Is it possible to Hero Quest and participate in events that took place after the God Age? For example, could you Hero Quest and join Paragua and the nomads in defending Robcradle from Pavis and his army in the Too Tall battle? Or fight alongside Arkat against Gbaji? If you can, what important differences are there compared to the usual God Age Hero Questing? For example I presume you can't bring back Balastor's Axe, or a facsimile, even though you might be able to bring back a variation of Death if you quested on the God Plane and followed a Humakt myth. (I mean, I presume you can do that - I really don't know a lot about how Hero Questing is supposed to work, though I've run a few Internet published ones over the years, but of course everyone seemed to have their own ideas there). Specifically how it can work in RQG, I presume (though I haven't played or really even read Hero Quest, though I do own not only Hero Quest but Hero Wars too) as a lot of the mechanics about what you can get out of it I suspect will be quite different.

I wish you luck. I'd offer to let you join our group, but we play at about 1930GMT+0800 or so Saturday nights till about midnight, and I suspect that would be a very uncomfortable time for you to make weekly sessions. However I'm sure there are more US RQG players than there are in Western Australia, so hopefully someone will be able to help.

Never really thought it that way, but sure. I guess what I meant was that complicated formulae are not the problem they would have been in the past, when machines can do the math.

Eh, honestly, we play with tablets and Roll 20 so much nowadays that this isn't so much true any more. YMMV.

As long as you're happy to ditch specials and criticals, then just roll d100 and add your skill to convert BRP to a roll over system seamlessly. If you're not willing to ditch specials and criticals, then I'm not sure how roll over is any easier than roll under to be honest, as you'd still need some way to calculate margins of success and whatever rule you use could, presumably, be applied to either.

I think that's a highly optimistic way to interpret it, rather than "this is another example of confused rulings and poor editing" :). YMMV of course.

The "mechanic" in RQ3 River of Cradles is that you get 1d6-1 added to it when training instead of 1d6-2. Not exactly a deep mechanic.

Well, assuming you discount bullet point 3 that is.