Runequest 3, house rules, Borderlands and questions

[BWP]

7 hours ago, lordabdul said:

That's... a.... really selfish take on reading RPG books in my opinion

How is thinking that a rule will cause problems is "selfish"?!

Let's play a mind-game.  Let's suppose you're reading a manual on electrical repair of small appliances, and you come across a section that says:

"First, fill your bath-tub with water.  Now get in the bath-tub.  Now plug in the device you want to repair into an active electrical outlet.  Now start stripping the wires."

Do you think it would be "selfish" if you think to yourself "you know, I don't think I like these instructions, they may lead to a situation that I will find undesirable"?

When you read rules, you evaluate them within the context of what else you know about the game, and make a decision about whether those rules are compatible, incompatible, easy, difficult, or whatever.  That's just ... normal.

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, BWP said:

How is thinking that a rule will cause problems is "selfish"?!

Thinking that a rule causes problems is not selfish. Thinking that the logical conclusion is "the rulebook is wrong, the authors are stupid/didn't think this through", however, is, in my opinion.

Edited December 6, 2019 by lordabdul

[BWP]

Wow.

 

[David Howard]

On 11/24/2019 at 6:39 PM, BWP said:

For me, one of the fun things about creating a character in RQ3 is the diversity.  RQG, as currently presented, has really squashed that hard. 

Agreed! I personally don't care for Glorantha at all, and I've always created my own setting with every previous edition. Glorantha is so hardwired into RQG that the rules as written are practically useless to me.

[Joerg]

19 hours ago, David Howard said:

Agreed! I personally don't care for Glorantha at all, and I've always created my own setting with every previous edition. Glorantha is so hardwired into RQG that the rules as written are practically useless to me.

Depending on the amount of world-building you put in in defining your setting, picking and choosing elements from Glorantha for your world-building is always a possibility.

The "what your parent/grandparent did" part needs to be redone for your own setting, of course. But it is a good exercise to create your setting, asking about major incidents in the recent past and how your community would be involved.

Using the runes in another setting can be done easily. For my homebrew RQ3 setting, the runes were the major constellations or objects in the sky.

Creating your own set of deities, with slightly different powers for e.g. the storm giants aiding the earth-and-stars pantheon of the previous folk enslaved by dreadful über-sorcerers is not that hard. Quite a bit can be inherited. You need your own names and interactions of those deities and mythical monsters and other baddies. My RQ3 setting had Chaos as a corrupting intruder similar to Pern, and the existential threat as the ousted but not quite gone über-sorcerers of the past. And it had other evils or at least defense-aganst-destruciton-weakening entities or magical methods.

 

RQG doesn't have the nice world-building guidelines that RQ3 had. Not yet, I guess. The text exists, and it is as relevant to Glorantha as to any other setting, so I expect it to re-surface as advice to the GM.

Doing your world-building around such elements may limit your freedom a bit, but so does every attempt at world building that has to go with a magic system (or several).

[Mugen]

21 hours ago, David Howard said:

Agreed! I personally don't care for Glorantha at all, and I've always created my own setting with every previous edition. Glorantha is so hardwired into RQG that the rules as written are practically useless to me.

My history with RQ3 is similar to yours, I think.

At first, I really tried to play in Glorantha, and bought everything that was available in French (that is, essentially Gods of Glorantha and Genertela). But I failed miserably to capture the essence of that world.

But I loved the rules, and didn't want to give up on them. So, I created a setting that was built from the ground to be compatible with RQ3. Among other things, the cultures followed the d8 table : 1/8th were primitive, 2/8th were Nomad, 3/8th were Barbarian and the rest were Civilised...

Nowadays, there are a lot of rules from RQ3 I can't stand anymore (Skill bonuses, Strike Ranks, for instance) and others I never really used (Fatigue). But my hopes for RQG was for something closer to RQ3 than RQ2 or Mythras while also being simpler.

[Kloster]

In a similar way, I am playing and GMing RQ since close to 40 years: I have always played in Glorantha, but before RQG, I had never GMed in Glorantha. I have used RQ3 for 1 home campaign in Rome, 1 Vikings campaign, 2 Land of Ninja campaign, 1 SF campaign (with some psi powers built along the rules for lunar magic).

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

Nowadays, there are a lot of rules from RQ3 I can't stand anymore (Skill bonuses, Strike Ranks, for instance) and others I never really used (Fatigue).

Frankly, if missing, RQG would have been completely different, and much less interesting for me.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

But my hopes for RQG was for something closer to RQ3 than RQ2 or Mythras while also being simpler.

My own tastes would have been to start from RQ3, not RQ2.

[Godlearner]

On 11/10/2019 at 1:21 PM, weasel fierce said:

* I am leaning towards Runequest 3 since I feel it fits the best balance of things I want (robust rules without too many options to overwhelm the group, multiple character creation options, rules for a ton of critters and gods etc.). It's also the one I am the most comfortable with, and since I'll be running it for a fairly large group, that's going to be important. 

Though as most people no doubt do, I am of course intending on borrowing from here and there.

If you and your players have played with this system, its a good choice.

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* Divine magic bugs me a bit though. I feel that it's too limited in 2 and 3, but I also feel like RQG gives too much, too soon. Have anyone adopted a middle ground? 

I was pondering making it easier to regain spells for initiates (something that both the never-released Adventures in Glorantha and Roleplaying in Glorantha does) but I don't want to undermine what makes priests special either.

 

I went with the rune pools, but discarded the holiday system of regaining points. Use 1 day of praying to regain 1 point. Makes a good balance, at leas tit does for us.

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* 2nd edition scenarios give out a LOT of coin, but prices are all over the place across editions. Even from 2 to RQG, it seems you'd run into some challenges. Is there a reasonable rule of thumb out there to convert money amounts or do people just not worry about it? 

Stick with one or the other. I use a simple 1 = 10 conversion 

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* To avoid quite as many limbs flying off, the rule will be that limbs are severed if you take double hit location damage in a single blow, not from accumulative damage.

* Spirit magic will probably work as in 2e (it just works, unless there's a resistance roll). Last time I ran RQ, we adopted that for spell casting outside combat and honestly, nobody found the dice rolls to be adding much to the game. 

 

Yeap, also kept spirit spells lasting 5 minutes instead of 2 as per RQG

 

[Godlearner]

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Nowadays, there are a lot of rules from RQ3 I can't stand anymore (Skill bonuses, Strike Ranks, for instance) and others I never really used (Fatigue). But my hopes for RQG was for something closer to RQ3 than RQ2 or Mythras while also being simpler.

Two things to get rid/change from RQ3 are Fatigue and Sorcery (RQG sorcery is slightly better IMO, but not by much)

[Kloster]

28 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Yeap, also kept spirit spells lasting 5 minutes instead of 2 as per RQG

Same. I feel the 5mn/10mn/15mn of RQ3 more interesting. I also noticed that with the RQG rules, but the old durations, players used more magic, because they are not afraid of having their spells expire before the end of use (especially with combat).

27 minutes ago, Godlearner said:

Two things to get rid/change from RQ3 are Fatigue and Sorcery (RQG sorcery is slightly better IMO, but not by much)

RQ3 fatigue works, but is far too bookkeeping. RQ sorcery works well (and I like it), but is a bit bland. RQG sorcery is interesting, but far more complicated (but I like it).

[Godlearner]

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RQ3 fatigue works, but is far too bookkeeping. RQ sorcery works well (and I like it), but is a bit bland. RQG sorcery is interesting, but far more complicated (but I like it).

As I have said in other threads, my beef with it is Free INT concept primarily. RQG version is more interesting and fits Glorantha better overall, but some of the mechanics .... well, don't get me started.

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, Godlearner said:

As I have said in other threads, my beef with it is Free INT concept primarily. RQG version is more interesting and fits Glorantha better overall, but some of the mechanics .... well, don't get me started.

To me, Free INT is also a major concern, but so is the need to develop an individual skill for every different spell (even though Intensity, Range and Duration are gone). IMHO, knowing some Fire-based spells should give a bonus when learning a new Fire spell. But it's a complaint I can also make for weapon skills.

Edited March 29, 2021 by Mugen

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

To me, Free INT is also a major concern, but so is the need to develop an individual skill for every different spell (even though Intensity, Range and Duration are gone). IMHO, knowing some Fire-based spells should give a bonus when learning a new Fire spell. But it's a complaint I can also make for weapon skills.

RQ3 had skills for weapon categories, but for individual sorcery spells. RQG has skills for individual weapons and individual sorcery spells. It is thus more coherent. Perhaps you should go back to weapon categories (I did it) and create spell categories?

Edited March 29, 2021 by Kloster

[Kloster]

5 hours ago, Godlearner said:

As I have said in other threads, my beef with it is Free INT concept primarily. RQG version is more interesting and fits Glorantha better overall, but some of the mechanics .... well, don't get me started.

I have no problem with spirit magic restraining sorcery capacity (and I like creating spirit using sorcerers, even if I know I diminish what my characters can do), but I dislike sorcery spells reducing it. For me, the concept of free INT is correct, but the sorcery spells you know should not reduce it: With this, the more sorcery you know, the less it is effective.

[Mugen]

13 hours ago, Kloster said:

RQ3 had skills for weapon categories, but for individual sorcery spells. RQG has skills for individual weapons and individual sorcery spells. It is thus more coherent. Perhaps you should go back to weapon categories (I did it) and create spell categories?

Yes, that's one of the possible fixes I have in mind. Runes seem like a natural fit for those categories.

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Mugen said:

Yes, that's one of the possible fixes I have in mind. Runes seem like a natural fit for those categories.

In that case, it could be a possibility to use the score of one of the runes used in the spell (as for rune/divine magic). I have not yet decided to go that way, and am using sorcery RAW (for now).

[Mugen]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

In that case, it could be a possibility to use the score of one of the runes used in the spell (as for rune/divine magic). I have not yet decided to go that way, and am using sorcery RAW (for now).

I'm  not keen on using runic influences here, as I think Sorcery should primarily be based on skills.

That's an idea I had back in the MRQ1 days, but never made into a real ruleset : use Runic Magic skills as a base, and put Sorcery Skills on top of those. Not very different from the RQG Runes & Techniques, in fact, but with R&T as skills.

[Kloster]

7 minutes ago, Mugen said:

I'm  not keen on using runic influences here, as I think Sorcery should primarily be based on skills.

That's an idea I had back in the MRQ1 days, but never made into a real ruleset : use Runic Magic skills as a base, and put Sorcery Skills on top of those. Not very different from the RQG Runes & Techniques, in fact, but with R&T as skills.

It could work.