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We now have the protagonists defined: five members of the Saliorson household of the Osmanning bloodline of the Red Cow Clan of the Cinsina Tribe. They all participated in Starbrow’s Revolt and have now fled to Pavis to avoid the repression. The year is 1615. We have the two hunter brothers Gaios and Salion, one an Odayla initiate and the other a Yinkin. Their cousins, the Orlanthi farmer Dangsarle, and his brother the Orlanthi redsmith Gaar. And finally their cousin, the Orlanthi farmer Antip. But let me describe the session from start to finish. After personal presentations (most of us had never met before) the session began with a few general words from me on Glorantha. I then explained the undefined player characters’ general situation and decision to seek employment with a settler duke in Prax. Mercenary Captain Daine then presented his map of Weis Domain and held his briefing. At this point we began the character creation process. Everyone was informed that this would take the entire session. I had prepared a family tree with named grandparents and parents, and ten or so empty spaces where the players could write their names (as the characters were still unnamed). On this family tree they selected their significant ancestors. We then rolled for their histories. I had prepared a few random tables for early years, as my campaign takes place ten years earlier than assumed in the rules. I really enjoy the family history part of the character creation process, but I think it would be even more fun if it had even more impact on the characters. There is a chance of getting a passion or some reputation, but in our case, that only happened to one character. I’d prefer if every character always brought at least one thing from the family history to the character sheet. As I’ve already adjusted the family history process to handle earlier years I might do something about this too. One idea is to make “A normal year.” give +10% to one of the ancestor’s occupational skills. The rest of the character creation process went smoother than expected. We skipped skill category modifiers and other attributes. I’ve added those to the character sheets after the session. The players were a little afraid of making bad choices regarding occupations and cults. I tried to reassure them that as long as they didn’t pick something they really didn’t think sounded fun, it would be alright. Spell choices were also a cause for some worry about picking something they’d come to regret, but I tried to advice them, and offered them the option of changing something after the first sessions when they’ve learnt more about the game. Everyone in the group expressed satisfaction with this session. Some were a bit overwhelmed with all the information they had to take in. I had prepared a leaflet with cultural background information for them to take home, which they did. I stated several times that they did not have to read anything at all in order to be able to play. Everything in between sessions is totally optional. I offered an invite to the Kanka site, and two players have joined so far. Next session we will probably start with questions, finishing up anything left on the character creation, and then continue with Scouting the Lands, the first mission from Duke Raus.

We started this session with a few minutes spent on completing the adventurers. Dangsarle had his iron ingot made into plate vambraces and Gaar decided his bronze products also were vambraces. One Orlanthi had to choose subcult (Adventurous) and two adventurers had to make a few adjustments to their characteristics. I also asked the players to think about whether or not their adventurers have wifes and/or children, and decide at the start of next session. Then we were ready to go. I've hidden the campaign journal below as it contains spoilers from the Borderlands campaign. The combat lasted approximately four rounds. I use a running Strike Rank system instead of the RAW turn based, and I think it worked well. What I need to do better is to prepare better stat blocks for the enemies, to mark off hit points and stuff from. But in general, I’ve discovered I’m not as concerned about the details as I was thirty years ago. I feel I am confident in my ability to create a fun and exciting game experience, and to do that I don’t need to know if the Tusk Rider is brought to -4 or -5 hit points in its left foreleg. It’s enough if I pretend to know. We did experience rolls, and one player even succeeded with a POW gain roll, after having cast Disruption. I’m now contemplating how to time the coming scenarios in the campaign. I need to make it possible for the adventurers to attend the holy days in Horn Gate. The room where we play has a big screen behind me. Should I use it? How? I don’t have any immediate ideas - a slideshow of mood images maybe? I’m afraid it would be distracting.

I played RQ3 back in the 1980-ies. I remember running Apple Lane and Trollpak. I also remember the PCs all died when they attacked a Dream Dragon on their way to Pavis. I returned to Glorantha with the new edition and ran a play-by-forum game for awhile. We ran through the Apple Lane scenario of the Gamemaster Screen Pack, and I was hooked. Having found five interested players I've now decided to start a new tabletop campaign. We will play by the new rules, but I've decided to run the old Borderlands campaign set in 1615. As some of the players are new to rpg:s and almost all are new to Glorantha I decided to reduce the number of variables and make them all Sartarite exiles from the Red Cow clan. They will be siblings or cousins, and we will generate their family history together when we meet for our first session tomorrow. I decided on the Red Cow to leave open the remote possibility of having the PCs eventually return to their homeland to run through the Eleven Lights campaign. The probability of the campaign lasting that long is low, but one can dream. The campaign starts ten years earlier than the standard RQ:G-campaign, so I had to rewrite parts of the family history section. With help from the BRP forums and some Glorantha blogs I added events for earlier years. I also decided to replace the personal skill bonuses with added language skills, in order to make the characters be able to communicate in Prax. My plan for the first session is a short intro talk about Glorantha (bronze age, runes, gods etc) and Runequest (skills, deadly, etc) followed by Daine's Briefing. After any questions, we'll do the actual character creation. That might take the entire evening, we'll see. I use Kanka.io to store my information. I've also prepared a Discord server. At the first session we will talk about our attitude to online activities between game sessions.

I am thinking about taking RQ2 scenarios and updating NPC stats to RQG. If we cloud source it we can get some real traction. I know RQG is great but the old scenarios were awesome. As a group we can pick a starting scenario and then divvey up the NPC'S. Then we can all use them with our groups. Whats your thoughts. We could do it all in a forum thread.

A weird question, perhaps I've been pouring over the RQG rules for a while now, and it suddenly occurred to me I have no idea if facing or positioning matters during combat? Does it? I don't remember coming across this at any point. But there are so many rules I've been soaking in I might have missed it!And, specifically, if I'm engaged with Enemy A, and Enemy B comes up behind me, am I allowed to turn and parry against Enemy B?Does engagement "fix" facing to some degree?Are there limits on how much one can turn (or turn to parry) when engaged?

In celebration of Runequest Gloranatha: Quickstart Rules and Adventure coming home with ENnie Gold (and because I'll be running the Quickstart at a local convention at the end of the month) I decided to take the Pregenerated Player Characters and build little booklets for each PC. I just uploaded them over in the files section under the "Fantasy Other" Category. (There doesn't seem to be a RuneQuest Glorantha category yet.) Each booklet contains the relevant Rune Descriptions, Rune Spells, Spirit Magic Spells, and short descriptions of the respective PC's cult, as well as all the other information contained on each of the PC's character sheet from the Quickstart. My design goal was to build a little booklet which would allow a Player to flip through the booklet and find the relevant information for a specific rule or topic on a given page. I'm a big fan of the A5/8.5x5.5 format at the gaming table. They take up less space, you can hold them in your hands easily when flipping through them. The PDF is in a A5 format. You can print the PDFs using "booklet" formatting and get a 20 page doc on five sheets of paper. (There's a short table of contents after the coverer page. The whole idea is to make an easy to use, easy to access document for someone sitting down to play RuneQuest Glorantha for the first time.) The pages were built in A5 format. But you can easily print them in 8.5x5.5 format with only the slightest shrinkage to the text and no real effect on presentation. These is a format that i came up with for myself, of course. Which reflects my own thinking and design principles. But I hope people might find them helpful for getting new demonstrations of the game up and running. I haven't done a final proof on these yet, so if you notice anything askew, please let me know! Thanks! https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/642-rqg-vasana-quickstartpdf/ https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/643-rqg-sorala-quickstartpdf/ https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/639-rqg-yanioth-quickstartpdf/ https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/640-rqg-harmast-quickstartpdf/ https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/641-rqg-vostor-quickstartpdf/

In the description of Spell Trading in RQG we find: This phrasing suggests the trade is made between two priests. Yet the spell seems to be available to Initiates of Issaries with no qualifier. Looking back at Cults of Prax I find that the spell is listed for Priest, not Initiates. I assume this spell is reserved for Priests of the Cult? I am specifically asking because in RQG the regenerated character Harmast has the spell, but he is an initiate.

Paraphrasing @Jeff - this thread is about the RuneQuest Glorantha Gen Con 50 Preview edition... Moving this over from https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/6661-runequest-rules-at-gen-con/ so we don't have to wade through unrelated stuff: @Atgxtg said and was seconded by @GamingGlen and @styopa Here are the stages of character generation: Homeland gives you your Religion e.g. Orlanth Pantheon. Suggested Occupations e.g. Hunter. Priest and common cults e.g. Storm Bull, Seven Mothers. Aslo starting Passions. Family history is optional and there's also a shorter version. If you skip it you get to automatically add up to three additional Passions, a boost to a passion of your choice and a small boost to another. Remember that the Pendragon system has its roots in Greg's attempts to write Glorantha the Game. Rune Affinities - pick your runes and get bonuses to them for your homeland. Characteristics - You get mods to these based on your Homeland and runes. It's the usual 3D6 for STR, DEX, CON, POW, and CHA, and 2D6+6 for SIZ and INT. There's advice on altering this using your own system. Secondary characteristics are derived as before Damage Modifier, healing rate, magic points, strike rank etc from familiar tables. Skills category modifiers, the same with RQ2 style 5% steps (skills are NOT in 5% steps you can have a skill of 62%). Homeland gives base %. Occupations - Give you your Homelands, Standard of Living, Base Income, Cults, Favored Passions, Ransom, Equipment including weapons were appropriate. Cult - gives you Cult runes, Cult Starting Skills, Special Rune Magic, Cult Spirit Magic, Favored Passions, appropriate notes and Associated Cults. Personal Skill Bonuses - lets you personalise your character e.g. +25% to any four skills and +10% to five more skills. Other Information - as above, you can get more reputation from Heirlooms etc. And there's an addition experience section.