2019 RQG releases?

[Bill the barbarian]

8 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I'm still not quite sure why Chaosium isn't going with "Deities of Glorantha", or some other equally shorter title. Unless they really like the alliteration...

Well lordabdul a quick look at the TLA (three letter acronym) that Deities of Glorantha creates might be a reason...

7 hours ago, Brootse said:

I'd prefer an even more precise name of Gods and Goddesses of Genertela between West and East plus Ygg and Elder races' Gods and Goddeses, or GaGoGbWaEpYaErGaG.

Yeah, why? Enquiring minds want to know... Huh, why?

Cheers

Edited August 29, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[PhilHibbs]

15 hours ago, g33k said:

I don't know if you've followed this specific news, but "GoG" is now "GaGoG" -- Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha, 100 Cults in long-form write-up -- and is planned as a TWO VOLUME set...

The latest I've seen from Jeff is Cults of Glorantha.

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

The latest I've seen from Jeff is Cults of Glorantha.

Ooo, COG, the Mostali in me likes this!

[g33k]

Let's go with Cults of Central Genertela, omit the minor letter, and Chaosium can have "the best CCG ever!"

 

[Lordabdul]

Can't wait for the follow up book, "Cults Of Central Kralorela".

[g33k]

...

It may be time for us to stop "helping" Jeff.

Before he inflicts Fonrit Under Balazar And Razalkark on us.

[Bill the barbarian]

37 minutes ago, g33k said:

Let's go with Cults of Central Genertela, omit the minor letter, and Chaosium can have "the best CCG ever!"

 

Collector Card Game?

Everyone else:

I am so sorry I started this, my bad or IassIst,mb, for short.

[Lysus]

2 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Can't wait for the follow up book, "Cults Of Central Kralorela".

Cults of Central Ralios? 

[Bill the barbarian]

32 minutes ago, Lysus said:

Cults of Central Ralios? 

The temples suck, but the tunes, man, the tunes!

[davecake]

The Gencon preview says Gods of Glorantha on the cover, and Cults of Glorantha on page 1. So if you were hoping that it would clear up the confusion, it won’t. 

I personally think of it as being roughly Cults of Central Genertela - it’s got the great majority of what you need for play that area fully detailed, and the only obvious outlier would be Ygg, who can be justified as a major god of the Wolf Pirates. A few cults will come out in settings books (eg Pavis and Flintnail), and the remaining Lunar material could be among them. 

For Western Genertela we mostly just need Malkionism done properly (both rules and philosophy wise), most of the cults needed are just variations. For the East generally we need Mysticism beyond Illumination, including martial arts cults (which may not be strictly mystic, but like the Lunars are strongly mysticism adjacent), and while there are a lot of Eastern only deities many can be written up as variants.

Carmania might be best done as part of the West, though it also obviously overlaps with Lunar material. 

Pamaltela we really just need to do it. A bit more engagement with the existing shamanism rules would be good for the Doraddi, but there aren’t any big barriers. As soon as it becomes a priority it will not be that hard. I think this is only likely to happen in HeroQuest Pamaltela material drums up interest. 

[Aubrey the Malformed]

Any idea when actual adventures will come out?  While stuff like GoG is great, an RPG stands or falls on its adventures. 

[Joerg]

41 minutes ago, Aubrey the Malformed said:

Any idea when actual adventures will come out?  While stuff like GoG is great, an RPG stands or falls on its adventures. 

October 10 will see a (free) preview on the Pegasus Plateau scenario book as part of the We All Are Us memorial rpg initiative to honor Greg Stafford.

 

I never understood the over-reliance on fully developed adventures. A good sandbox approach with encounters to pick offers me a lot more playability than a bunch of pretty linear scenarios with in the end the same encounters, only slightly different context.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no scenario as written survives contact with the players.

When writing a scenario for other people to GM, I hem and haw to cover a couple of the most likely consequences of a scenario obstacle, fully aware that any poor GM having to manage me as a player in that situation is going to face yet another approach.

And that doesn't cover players letting their characters do things way outside of the character's cultural and personal behavioral norms or patterns (or sticking to the situationally inappropriate ones).

[Brootse]

42 minutes ago, Joerg said:

No plan survives contact with the enemy, and no scenario as written survives contact with the players.

Well said.

[Qizilbashwoman]

45 minutes ago, Brootse said:

Well said.

they always get real suspicious of like some f*in barrel on the docks instead of like the broo slavers badly disguised with tall hats moving kidnapped children in boxes.

they then spend the next hour of real time investigating the barrel, which you mentioned in passing because IT IS THE DOCKS. then they hunt down the owner of the barrel, so you obligingly make it stuck on the docks in the first place because the badly-disguised broo! have bought out all the storage space in the place it was supposed to go. a broo answers the door, badly-disguised, and they give it the barrel of garum sauce.

now satisfied, they go to the inn to drink. and you have a headache.

On 8/29/2019 at 3:02 PM, Bill the barbarian said:

I am so sorry I started this, my bad or IassIst,mb, for short.

Ralians And Listaguj, Zzaburites, Kralorelans And Zistor, And the Rest are Krjalki

Edited September 25, 2019 by Qizilbashwoman

[Aubrey the Malformed]

RQ scenarios in the past have pretty much all been sandbox in style.  They have also, by and large, been the main ways in which detailed setting material has been presented.  Without the scenarios, from an RQ perspective there wouldn't be much setting.  Nice histories of the Lunar Empire or detailed cult descriptions don't really cut much ice if you don't have somewhere to play a scenario, like Pavis or Sun Dome Temple or Snakepipe Hollow.   Most background setting material presented recently has been so high level and broadbrush as to be very hard to use, or not really focused on what you might need to build a scenario at all (Gloranthan Sourcebook, I'm looking at you).  I get some people love all that stuff and, to a point, so do I.  But I want to play RQ, not debate the finer points of Gloranthan mythology.  Personally, I'd like more than having to reread old supplements from the 1980s, which we all played decades ago anyway, I'd like some new stuff.  I'm also busy and don't have much time, so it would be nice if professional scenario writers could give me something to work with rather than having to do it myself, probably to a lower quality.  I get a little concerned sometimes that the ordinary punter who plays RPGs every couple of weeks with his mates (when our wives don't find something else for us to do) gets a little bit forgotten in the enthusiasm of the Glorantha scholars at Chaosium.  I'm not complaining, I'm loving that RQG has come out, RQ(2&3) was my favorite game in the 80s when RPGs were in their heyday....  But RQG scenarios are still thin on the ground, and in the end are the lifeblood of any system that either mean it gets played, or not.

[Lordabdul]

A "fully developed adventure" doesn't have to be a railroading exercise with a detailed narrative structure. Actually, good adventures (excluding the ones written for specific situations, like intro adventures or convention scenarios) are indeed written in a sandbox-ish style. Take any investigation based scenario, for example (pretty much anything from Call of Cthulhu). It's totally foolish to try and write it as a linear adventure, but I wouldn't call it a "sandbox" either -- Masks of Nyarlathotep surely has a sandbox aspect to it, but it also has a strong narrative spine. Snakepipe Hollow on the other hand is pure sandbox: a dungeon map, some encounter tables with a few story hooks, and that's it.

So yeah, bring on the adventures. The short linear ones for running intro games. The big non-linear ones with a strong narrative spine. The pure sandbox ones. I want them all.

[Nevun]

On 8/29/2019 at 9:52 AM, lordabdul said:

I'm still not quite sure why Chaosium isn't going with "Deities of Glorantha", or some other equally shorter title. Unless they really like the alliteration...

Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it.

[Qizilbashwoman]

34 minutes ago, Nevun said:

Doesn't really roll off the tongue does it.

I still vote for R.A.L.Z.A.K.A.R.K.

[Bill the barbarian]

30 minutes ago, Qizilbashwoman said:

I still vote for R.A.L.Z.A.K.A.R.K.

still confused, why?

and again so sorry for having started all this silliness. (sigh)

[Qizilbashwoman]

4 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

still confused, why?

and again so sorry for having started all this silliness. (sigh)

there was a series of jokes about the name? so I took it to its (il)logical conclusion, Ralians And Listaguj, Kralorelans And Zzaburites, And the Rest are Krjalki? humor. literally just a thread of humorous alternative titles like DOG, FUBAR, COCK, GaGoGbWaEpYaErGaG.

Please note I added Actual Canadian Humor. Listuguj is a Miigmaw First Nation in the Maritimes.

[Beornvig]

On 9/25/2019 at 11:05 AM, Aubrey the Malformed said:

RQ scenarios in the past have pretty much all been sandbox in style.  They have also, by and large, been the main ways in which detailed setting material has been presented.  Without the scenarios, from an RQ perspective there wouldn't be much setting.  Nice histories of the Lunar Empire or detailed cult descriptions don't really cut much ice if you don't have somewhere to play a scenario, like Pavis or Sun Dome Temple or Snakepipe Hollow.   Most background setting material presented recently has been so high level and broadbrush as to be very hard to use, or not really focused on what you might need to build a scenario at all (Gloranthan Sourcebook, I'm looking at you).  I get some people love all that stuff and, to a point, so do I.  But I want to play RQ, not debate the finer points of Gloranthan mythology.  Personally, I'd like more than having to reread old supplements from the 1980s, which we all played decades ago anyway, I'd like some new stuff.  I'm also busy and don't have much time, so it would be nice if professional scenario writers could give me something to work with rather than having to do it myself, probably to a lower quality.  I get a little concerned sometimes that the ordinary punter who plays RPGs every couple of weeks with his mates (when our wives don't find something else for us to do) gets a little bit forgotten in the enthusiasm of the Glorantha scholars at Chaosium.  I'm not complaining, I'm loving that RQG has come out, RQ(2&3) was my favorite game in the 80s when RPGs were in their heyday....  But RQG scenarios are still thin on the ground, and in the end are the lifeblood of any system that either mean it gets played, or not.

 

On 9/25/2019 at 1:05 PM, lordabdul said:

A "fully developed adventure" doesn't have to be a railroading exercise with a detailed narrative structure. Actually, good adventures (excluding the ones written for specific situations, like intro adventures or convention scenarios) are indeed written in a sandbox-ish style. Take any investigation based scenario, for example (pretty much anything from Call of Cthulhu). It's totally foolish to try and write it as a linear adventure, but I wouldn't call it a "sandbox" either -- Masks of Nyarlathotep surely has a sandbox aspect to it, but it also has a strong narrative spine. Snakepipe Hollow on the other hand is pure sandbox: a dungeon map, some encounter tables with a few story hooks, and that's it.

So yeah, bring on the adventures. The short linear ones for running intro games. The big non-linear ones with a strong narrative spine. The pure sandbox ones. I want them all.

As a long suffering RQ GM, like almost 30 years, at this point, someone needs to listen to these guys.  We need more, and a LOT more adventures.  

The tendency amongst the Chaosium folks and the Glorantha grognards seems to be to go down rabbit-holes within the context of individual publications, and even moreso in the overall publication schedule.  I can certainly understand why publishing a new GoG is sort of necessary for the newbies, but it doesn't do much for us old-timers.  I know more than I need to know (more than one should be allowed to know) about Orlanth and Humakt and Krarsht.

So please, for the love of all that's holy, make more Pavis & Big Rubble / Borderlands, and make more Apple Lane/Snake Pipe Hollows.  

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Beornvig

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, Beornvig said:

As a long suffering RQ GM, like almost 30 years, at this point, someone needs to listen to these guys.  We need more, and a LOT more adventures.  

I made the decision to run The Rattling Wind on Saturday (against my usual style of taking a few character- or setting driven plot hooks and create a scenario from there). It is possible that my three decades of abstinence from running a published scenario as written is at fault, but I felt quite out of control of the game as the first encounter of the characters with the antagonist cut short my experience of GMing a duck player character. (The character's fumble on a dodge roll and the maximum number of damage dice rolled really created a mess of a duck burger.) My hopes for better diplomacy in the later part of the scenario were crushed along with that...

 

27 minutes ago, Beornvig said:

The tendency amongst the Chaosium folks and the Glorantha grognards seems to be to go down rabbit-holes within the context of individual publications, and even moreso in the overall publication schedule.  I can certainly understand why publishing a new GoG is sort of necessary for the newbies, but it doesn't do much for us old-timers.  I know more than I need to know (more than one should be allowed to know) about Orlanth and Humakt and Krarsht.

So please, for the love of all that's holy, make more Pavis & Big Rubble / Borderlands, and make more Apple Lane/Snake Pipe Hollows. 

It doesn't help if scenarios get rushed just to hit a deadline. Mongoose was good at keeping deadlines and publication schedules, but quality control suffered badly.

The downloaded pdf has a number of kinks that some additional lectoring or playtesting might have caught. I recognize that the publication was under a similar deadline pressure.

But yes, by all means we should have more convention-usable scenarios. Two or three scenes, sufficient fluff to get the game going, and advice to the GM how to employ the encounters. With regard to the number of scenes, the scenario hit the comfortable region, although the sense of urgency that arriving on the night of the next encounter brought cut short the players' chance to get to meet the Farfield NPC protagonists and their secrets.

[deinol]

If the Adventure Book in the GM Kit, and the free adventure just released, it looks like the future of RQG adventures will be quite strong indeed. I'm not running the Apple Lane adventures, but it's helping me with my Eleven Lights game by giving me baselines to compare to where tribal leaders and warriors are concerned. Maybe they'll my Red Cows will get to visit Apple Lane at some point, it's not too far away. Looking forward to Pegasus Plateau.

[Crel]

8 hours ago, Beornvig said:

As a long suffering RQ GM, like almost 30 years, at this point, someone needs to listen to these guys.  We need more, and a LOT more adventures. 

I'm largely in agreement with you on this, and I think/hope that the Jonstown Compendium will help alleviate this problem. Apparently there's two books of adventures in the pipeline, Pegasus Plateau (which Rattling Wind comes from) and a book focusing on the Smoking Ruins. But a system which doesn't publish something each year is, potentially, a system in trouble.

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

I'm largely in agreement with you on this, and I think/hope that the Jonstown Compendium will help alleviate this problem. Apparently there's two books of adventures in the pipeline, Pegasus Plateau (which Rattling Wind comes from) and a book focusing on the Smoking Ruins. But a system which doesn't publish something each year is, potentially, a system in trouble.

Sort of.

Back in those days, third hand publishers like Judges Guild or Complete Dungeon Masters (e.g. https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/46468/halls-dwarven-kings) took up the slack, statted for "both" popular game systems (RQ and ADHD).

A system receiving attention by additional publishers signals strength. The Jonstown Compendium provides a legal platform allowing RQG modules without the legal uncertainty of the mid eighties.