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Ian Cooper has published some notes from Saturday's Impromptu Con on Discord. As not everybody is on Facebook, I have cut and pasted the posts here. Note that the bolding comes from me, not Ian- and my comments are in italics First up, what was discussed in the first session on the QuestWorlds rules: * We started with a goal to extract just the rules text from HQ Core for the SRD * Once done, the pared down text revealed issues around use of game terminology (failure and defeat) that we needed to correct. * Marginal, minor, major and complete have always been an issue because they implied you only get the prize on complete. Should be you always get the prize but price, or what else you get varies. * We wanted to offer consequences (penalties) on a partial success (marginal) as an option to the GM (exhaustion etc.) * Masteries remain difficult to explain and it takes time for folks to 'get it' if they don't have the option to play with someone who has mastered them. * We moved to "counting successes" over "bumps". A mastery is a success, a success on your roll is a success. Most successes wins, and highest roll if tied. Difference in successes is degree of victory and used to determine tally in a sequence, hint as to consequences and benefits etc. Zero degrees of victory is a partial success - you get the prize, but there is often a cost. * We factored out the common part of all 'long' contest types - a sequence of contests and just note the different methods of tallying relative position: First to Five, APs, Penalties. Long Contests became Sequences and Simple Contests just Contests. Core Rules book will be first. Will have lots of advice on how to be a player or GM in a storytelling game (including ideas like scene framing etc for the GM). Hope is to keep rules clean for easy reference and have extensive examples. Examples and art main work oustanding. SRD is close to final, please promote the SRD in appropriate forums so that we can begin to slowly build buzz around the engine again. Next [was] the session on genre packs. Second book will be about writing genre packs and adventures. It starts with, but goes beyond the advice in HeroQuest about genre packs. Three example settings: * Pioneer Space: Patrolmen and Free Traders on the frontiers of space, rooted in 50 and early 60s S, Heinlein, Norton etc (think valve powered machines, fixed phones in retro '50s style) * Age of Miracles: 70s NYC Superheroes. Disco and Vigilantes (much lower power level than Cosmic Slop) * Brave New World: Renaissance Fantasy, exploring a Hollow Earth Each also used as an opportunity to discuss high-tech, supers, and magic Then we will have more advice on writing adventures including advice on relationship maps etc.(using those relationship maps as enabling sandbox play) (including excerpt(s) from Robin Laws' Sharper Adventures in Heroquest- which is absolutely essential read for Narrators- Pdf on Chaosium website) We plan to also cover "templates" to let you easily create archetypical characters from a genre. Sort of a cross between 100-words and PbTA playbooks. Followed up by three settings: Doc Vandal: 1930s Pulp from Dave Robinson (who has written a few novels starting the title character} Cosmic Zap: Cosmic level superheroes from Ron Edwards (think Jack Kirby's 4th World work for DC and the Eternals} After Thought: STL SF from Sean Hillman Finally we had a brief discussion of QuestWorlds Glorantha might look, but speculative at this point. Baseline: HeroQuest Glorantha but use the Core Book for rules, this is just another genre pack. Background, keywords, cults etc all work. Magic: A few changes. Feedback has shown us that whilst experienced Gloranthans love the flexibility, new players can find the freeform magic daunting. Plus 500lbs gorilla in the room, RQG Some early thoughts: * No more thresholds i.e. 1W for initiates, 10W for devotees; use 'flaws' for the price you pay in time, restrictions etc. instead * Lay Members: Just have one rune (elemental) and Worship Pantheon * Initiates, Spirit Society Members, Sorcerers: up to three * Devotees, Shaman, Mage: (may be up to 5, including magic system etc) Basic Magic: Same for all, not an exception for animists. Prayers, Charms, Spells but augment-only Rune, Spirit, Sorcery: Pretty much what we have now - can be used directly: but... Freeform is hard, so we may have **optional** one-sentence decriptions. We may lean on RQ magic for some of these. So perhaps: Bladesharp - Makes an edged weapon unnaturally sharp. Protection - Provides magical armor against all physical attacks Both of these just augment a fighting skill or for Rune Magic Shield - Provides magical armor against physical and magical attacks We'll also provide general advice that magic is usually here, now, against that group and more needs a ritual. This is really 'early design thoughts' so you can have your say. We don't want to block folks improvising magic here, but the concern that providing suggested spells hampered creativity needs to be offset against the lack of yardstick and the fact that anyone picking up an RQG book will naturally look to the magic there and question how to facilitate that in QWG (this is partially informed by discussions with players with D&D backgrounds and had not played Runequest) Ian also discussed the for the credibility test for use of abilities- the credibility test would be different for the 1970s supers setting than for the Cosmic Slop supers setting. There was a discussion on the appeal of retro settings to a younger audience. Ian takes the view that QW's game engine is well suited for pulp adventures and also stressed that the racism and sexism of the pulps would not be a part of the genre packs. He saw the genre packs could be shorter books/ PDFs say 30-60 pages, possibly at a paperback size (ala the original Hero Wars books) . People with anime/ manga backgrounds- please let Ian know if you're interested - the writers he knows are not knowledgeable enough (as far he is aware) Hope that helps folks- I'm playing in Ian's Coming Storm/ Eleven Lights campaign online where Ian is testing the new rules. I'm ethused by the changes. Andrew

Hi Glorantha community! I and my friend J-M started a little video series about Glorantha, our favorite fantasy game world a few months ago and released through he and his friends little organization Iconic Production (https://iconicproduction.wordpress.com/). We just did our fourth episode (we record live on YouTube for Patreon patrons on a Saturday) and it will go live for public consumption this coming weekend. The episodes can be found on YouTube (playlist link added below). We hope to spread our love of Glorantha, which, if you are here reading this, you probably already have. We look to bring in new fans and provide thoughtful discussion for old time fans. If you have someone who is wondering what it is all about, I hope we can help. We discuss Glorantha in the context of all the official systems currently supported as well: RuneQuest, Questworlds and 13th Age Glorantha. We do this because we love Glorantha and Greg Stafford's vision, Chaosium for carrying on that vision with so many amazing authors, artists and contributors, and the wider Glorantha community which has kept Glorantha growing with Fanzines, Cons, Freeforms, homebrew rules, websites and now the Jonstown Compendium. This is our modest contribution, and if we can bring in a few more people to love the world like we do, then we think that is a job well done. Check it out and tell a friend! I try to be very responsive in the YouTube Comments section too, which has attracted a lot of awesome interaction (very much the exception to the rule of "never read the comments"). Keep gaming. #WeAreAllUs )

I wrote a blog post about Genre emulation in QuestWorlds inspired by Panda's Talking Games podcast episode. How much do you feel that you can bend the QW basic core system for some specific genre? It will be interesting to see what kind of extra rules and ideas the upcoming QuestWorlds based games will introduce. Any spoilers from the designers?

Five Weeks until Glorantha Games 2020: Glorantha at Home Glorantha Games 2020: Glorantha at Home takes place on Saturday, October 3rd. We are looking for Game Masters to run scenarios set in Glorantha using RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, QuestWorlds (HeroQuest), 13th Age Glorantha, and RuneQuest Classic. Plenty of slots open and we definitely need more GMs and more games. Let us know if you want to be a GM and send us your scenario. https://warhorn.net/events/glorantha-games-2020

Unboxing in the Nook: Valley of Plenty by Shawn and Peggy Carpenter and published by Chaosium, Inc. https://youtu.be/HdT7Fzfk3-4 #reviewsfromrlyeh #rpgreview #rpgreviews #rpg #fantasy #Chaosium #RuneQuest #JonstownCompendium #JonstownJottings #UnboxingInTheNook #HeroQuest #QuestWorlds #Glorantha

I've found a few blog entries by Ron Edwards, and I found a few videos of his on Youtube, but does anyone know if there is a text of the game anywhere, or if there is a timeline for it to be released? Is anyone else making or thinking of making a QW Supers game? I just thought I should ask.

Peggy and I have begun work on our first non-Gloranthan QW project. It's something a little strange and different, but we're hoping folks will like it! Work is still progressing at pace on Lances at Dusk, the 2nd book of the Jaldonkiller's Saga, too. We're trying to make the best of my current job situation and the pandemic. The challenge leads to the solution, and all that!

Valley of Plenty for sale! Click the link if you are so inclined. POD will be available as soon as we receive our proof copy. Valley of Plenty is a campaign source book for Glorantha written for the QuestWorlds rule-system. It is completely compatible with HeroQuest: Glorantha and easily adaptable for use with RuneQuest: Glorantha. The lovingly detailed presentation of the Dundealos tribe’s culture and community is system agnostic. Valley of Plenty is the first book of The Jaldonkillers Saga, a grand campaign that follows the careers of a band of player characters through the destruction of their tribe, its reconstitution in exile, and the effort to reclaim its lost lands and glory. The saga begins in 1602 and stretches to the Dragonrise and beyond. It is intended as a vehicle to support the development of characters from childhood to Herodom in a fluid but consistent setting, in which players can experience adventures ranging from slice-of-life challenges to world-changing conflicts. This book details the adventures of a closely-knit clique of youngsters, the Wildlings, from their early childhood through their adulthood rites. Along the way, GMs and players learn about the culture and community that produced the Wildlings in a natural, organic progression. Neither the GM or their players are forced to drink lore from a firehose. Valley of Plenty features: Detailed description of the Elmal worshipping Dundealos tribe and the Horse Orlanthi Learn the a Non-Orlanthi Sartarite culture by beginning play as a Dundealos child Alternate rules for creating child characters Organic development of PC community and family relationships Adventures with escalating risks based on character age Elmal-oriented adulthood rites of the Dundealos Cult descriptions for Elmal, Redalda, and Drogarsi from a non-Orlanthi perspective New shamanic tradition write-up, including spirit societies New cult: Andred Extensive player handouts based on character age 7 scenarios and 6 additional scenario seeds Buckets and buckets of frogs! Potential triggers in Valley of Plenty include: The interlude charts refer to the deaths of parents and/or siblings. If this is problematic, replace those results with ones of your own. The Manhunt episode revolves around a young boy who is kidnapped to be sold into slave labor. Player characters could face this threat as well. Note that the boy and PCs are in no danger of becoming slaves, but the threat is there.

There have been a lot of questions about QW character creation on the various Glorantha related FB pages, so I wrote up a step-by-step walk-through and posted it to my blog. If you're interested, you can find it here: https://dscarpenter.wordpress.com The character I use in the example isn't Gloranthan. She's an Operator that will feature in a small project I'm working on. I think it's still useful for Gloranthan players, though, and demonstrates that QW can handle any genre.