Any news or rumors regarding more material for 13th Age Glorantha?

[spequlator]

I guess the title says it all. Does anyone know if there are any supplements planned or bubbling under for 13th Age Glorantha? I think the setting book is of such high quality that it would be a great shame if we won't see any supporting material published. There would be so much to draw inspiration for many kinds of scenarios as well as for new classes, cultural backgrounds and races.

[jajagappa]

Aside from occasional articles in the 13th Age magazine Escalation, I've not seen or heard of anything else new. 

[Rick Meints]

We are entirely dependent on freelance writers submitting projects. At this time no freelance writers have been submitting us any projects.

[AndreJarosch]

Material for 13th Age Glorantha: 

"13th Age Glorantha"

"Next Valley Over" (13th Age Glorantha Demo Scenario)

"Escalation # 5 - 13th Age Glorantha Special" (Fanzine)

"Skyfall" (Escalation Special # 1)

"Under Pressure" (Escalation Special)


And i think... thats about it. 

[spequlator]

11 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Material for 13th Age Glorantha: 

"13th Age Glorantha"

"Next Valley Over" (13th Age Glorantha Demo Scenario)

"Escalation # 5 - 13th Age Glorantha Special" (Fanzine)

"Skyfall" (Escalation Special # 1)

"Under Pressure" (Escalation Special)


And i think... thats about it. 

@AndreJarosch Yeah, of those I'm aware of. I used the ready made characters from Skyfall/Under Pressure for Horn of Snakepipe Hollow scenario (just had to adjust the difficulty level a little) and if my players are interested in some more I think I'll run Under Pressure next.

[spequlator]

13 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

We are entirely dependent on freelance writers submitting projects. At this time no freelance writers have been submitting us any projects.

@Rick Meints Thank you for responding. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but it seems that at the moment Jonstown Compendium rules only allow publishing content for RuneQuest: Glorantha and HeroQuest? Any possibility/plans for extending the program to cover 13th Age Glorantha, too? That might give aspiring content creators an easy way to get some experience and confidence towards creating material they would feel comfortable submitting to your people.

[Rick Meints]

11 hours ago, spequlator said:

@Rick Meints Thank you for responding. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but it seems that at the moment Jonstown Compendium rules only allow publishing content for RuneQuest: Glorantha and HeroQuest? Any possibility/plans for extending the program to cover 13th Age Glorantha, too? That might give aspiring content creators an easy way to get some experience and confidence towards creating material they would feel comfortable submitting to your people.

We publish 13th Age Glorantha under a license that does not cover Community Content.

[g33k]

11 hours ago, spequlator said:

... Jonstown Compendium ... might give aspiring content creators an easy way to get some experience and confidence towards creating material they would feel comfortable submitting to your people.

AFAICT, the Escalation fan/web 'Zine serves this purpose, at the moment.

Escalation is already the resource for 3 of the line-items in the 13G list-of-content above, so it's a natural place to do something similar with new content.  I don't see that a DTRPG "Community Content" program is dramatically better, in this regard ...?

https://escalationfanzine.blogspot.com/

 

25 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

We publish 13th Age Glorantha under a license that does not cover Community Content.

Am I correct that the use of the 13A core rules, involvement of Pelgrane, Heinsoo & Tweet, all make the situation more complex?  Chaosium AFAIK isn't the only entity, isn't free to just "do whatever they want" with the 13G property, and figuring out how to fairly treat all the stake-holders is a non-trivial thing to resolve (not that there's a ton of cash involved in Community Content, but "cash" isn't the key point:  treating IP's without due care tends to "dilute" future claims; so it can be critical to get that "fair treatment" right, right at the beginning).

all of which isn't meant to take away from the fact that IT'S ABSOLUTELY AWESOME that those fine gents cross-fertilized between 13A & Glorantha -- it IS awesome!  It's just... well... "it's complicated."

 

Fans need to just deal with having "it's complicated" be where that situation is resting, for now.

 

EXCEPT... well, Mr. Meints did kinda helpfully say what  could  happen right now:

On 2/11/2020 at 9:14 AM, Rick Meints said:

We are entirely dependent on freelance writers submitting projects. At this time no freelance writers have been submitting us any projects.

But again, that's on other people... not the publishers.

Plus, as noted above, Escalation..

 

SO there's 2 clear paths forward... just nobody walking them, right now.

 

 

[MOB]

On 2/12/2020 at 5:53 PM, spequlator said:

@Rick Meints Thank you for responding. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but it seems that at the moment Jonstown Compendium rules only allow publishing content for RuneQuest: Glorantha and HeroQuest? Any possibility/plans for extending the program to cover 13th Age Glorantha, too? That might give aspiring content creators an easy way to get some experience and confidence towards creating material they would feel comfortable submitting to your people.

As Rick noted, because the 13th Age rules are not owned by Chaosium/Moon Design, 13G wasn't initially included in the Jonstown Compendium.  Rather than delay its launch any further, we wanted to get the Jonstown Compendium resource up and running for a while before looking at taking such a step, which would involve modifying the agreements we have with all the involved parties (Chaosium/Moon Design, Fire Opal, Pelgrane Press, OBS).

Edited February 13, 2020 by MOB

[GAZZA]

And this is basically what kills 13G for me. I bought 13A just to play 13G, but with essentially nothing outside the core book it's never going to get played. Yes, of course I can convert stuff, but that's what I pay money for supplements for - for someone else to do the legwork. It is especially disappointing whenever you have a book that references upcoming books only to discover that these will likely never see the light of day.

RQG is not immune to this; it's been 2 years and we still don't have the gamemaster's guide that is referenced in the main book. The only real reason that's tolerable is because I have enough older/different edition RQ stuff to fill in the gaps without full scale conversion.

[Richard S.]

3 minutes ago, GAZZA said:

RQG is not immune to this; it's been 2 years and we still don't have the gamemaster's guide that is referenced in the main book. The only real reason that's tolerable is because I have enough older/different edition RQ stuff to fill in the gaps without full scale conversion.

Two years? Has it really been that long already? Wow, feels like it came out yesterday.

To be completely fair to RQ, we have gotten several progress reports on the state of upcoming books, and they have an incredibly small team for Glorantha stuff in general. It has been a while though, yes.

[GAZZA]

I'm rounding up for dramatic effect, and yes - it's good to know that we're still getting stuff for RQG. But I'm one of those guys that lived through the RQ3 "Renaissance", and long delays ... spark painful memories.

Of course I'm not intending this to come across as entitlement (though I realise it comes across that way). Nobody at Chaosium owes me anything. I'm just noting that it's hard (perhaps prohibitively so for new RQ GMs) to get a campaign going based on what's been released so far, which is unfortunate.

[Newt]

In addition to the stuff pointed out above, there's also The Beard of Lhankor Mhy. An adventure for 13th Age Glorantha by Guy Milner in Hearts in Glorantha #7

On his blog there's his update version of Gringle's Pawn Shop and Sting of the Scorpion Queen adventures, as well as general commentary.

• Guy Milner's Gloranthan Stuff on his Burn After Running Blog.

 

[David Scott]

No one has mentioned: 13th Age Monthly -  #9 - Mounted Combat

Praxian Mounts: Bison, Bolo Lizard, High Llama, Impala, Rhinoceros, Sable Antelope, Unicorn

https://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/mounted-combat/

It's only £1.95 (also available in Monthly Volume 2)

[spequlator]

On 2/21/2020 at 5:44 PM, David Scott said:

No one has mentioned: 13th Age Monthly -  #9 - Mounted Combat

Praxian Mounts: Bison, Bolo Lizard, High Llama, Impala, Rhinoceros, Sable Antelope, Unicorn

https://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/mounted-combat/

It's only £1.95 (also available in Monthly Volume 2)

Thanks for mentioning this one! Bought it right away.

[Melfast]

The 13A Bestiary 2 has an appendix that coverts it's creatures to be used in 13G. That expands your options in terms of both building adventures and converting adventures. 

-- Melfast

 

[Quackerjack]

On 2/21/2020 at 2:42 AM, GAZZA said:

And this is basically what kills 13G for me. I bought 13A just to play 13G, but with essentially nothing outside the core book it's never going to get played. Yes, of course I can convert stuff, but that's what I pay money for supplements for - for someone else to do the legwork. It is especially disappointing whenever you have a book that references upcoming books only to discover that these will likely never see the light of day.

RQG is not immune to this; it's been 2 years and we still don't have the gamemaster's guide that is referenced in the main book. The only real reason that's tolerable is because I have enough older/different edition RQ stuff to fill in the gaps without full scale conversion.

Dude, as I've mentioned on another thread, it is dead easy to convert RQ or 13A to 13G. Even I can do this. Just take the classic RQ stuff. Even if your players have been through it, you can use that as "history".

[GAZZA]

Not dead easy. It can be done, sure - I've converted Champions supplements for D&D before, you can convert anything if all you're interested in doing is keeping the story and redoing all the mechanics, and 13AG is not the least bit mechanically compatible with RQ - you could easily convert D&D supplements to 13AG (because 13AG is essentially just reflavoured D&D - it's what is known as a D&D Heartbreaker), but with RQ supplements you are going to have to basically say, "Right, so this guy has 100% Sword Attack and knows Heal 4... I guess I'll make him an Orlanthi Warrior" or whatever.

At which point you are at least going to wonder, however briefly, if you wouldn't rather just play RQ instead.

For all its faults RQG is a lot easier to use with older RQ material (you can for the most part do no conversions at all) than 13AG will ever be, so you have to be really impressed with 13A mechanics to want to use RQ material with 13AG rather than RQG. Which, if you do, great! I bought 13A, and 13AG, they have my money, I'm a "supporter" in that sense, and if they were ever going to publish more material I'd recommend it as a valid alternative to RQ.

But it doesn't seem as if they are, and if the best argument for 13AG is "well you can convert old RQ stuff over" then that's kind of a terrible argument, because taken to its logical next step you could do that with just 13A (no need to buy the Gloranthan supplement), or - frankly - D&D4 (or any version of D&D, but D&D4e is essentially identical mechanically to 13A). If you're going to publish a new system for playing in Glorantha, you cannot reasonably expect your customers to purchase unrelated material for a different game system published by a different company in order to flesh out your game.

And 13AG needs fleshing out. The authors themselves tentatively admit this with their references, within the book, to forthcoming supplements that (it appears) will not see the light of day. To be perfectly blunt, RQG needs a lot of fleshing out too - 2 years and no gamemaster book, no cults book... it's not a good look for a system that has been as historically plagued with delays and cancellations as RuneQuest - but Chaosium do still have the rights to RQG and presumably will eventually publish more material for it.

I don't hate 13AG by any means. It's a decent first book for a game, and it even includes some Hero Questing stuff (which is more than any version of RQ ever has, despite it being a core part of the setting). It was clearly written by people with a love of the setting. In a parallel timeline where RQG wasn't published and they retained the rights to publish their intended supplements, I would absolutely be strong supporter. But unfortunately we don't live in that timeline, and I couldn't in good conscience recommend 13AG to a starting GM that wanted to get into Glorantha for that reason; the target audience has pretty much shrunk to 13A fans that are also Glorantha fans, which is by definition a smaller subset of people than just Glorantha fans in general.

By all means if 13AG is your bag baby, play it and love it! I certainly intend to steal bits from it, and I'm not regretting the purchase. And to be absolutely clear, there is nothing I would like more than to discover I am wrong about future 13AG supplements and if they appear I will almost certainly buy them. Can't really say fairer than that.

[Quackerjack]

Thanks for engaging on this, Gazza. I'm going to try and reply in a way other than "You MUST like 13G!"

Reasons to play 13G over RQ:

1. Moar powerrr
2. Faster, simpler combat (of course, many prefer full-on RQ crunch. I get that.)
3. Setting flavor crystals (robust trickster, earth priestess, hell mother classes, for example)

If these 3 things are desirable to you, then conversion is simple. You just don't care whether the opposition's sword skill is 100% or 110%; the idea is to provide a similar experience. 

Reasons to play 13G over D&D:

1. Classes specifically created for Glorantha

I don't know enough (anything, really) about D&D4 to comment on mechanics. Will take your word for it. 

As it happens, I am trying to finagle a way to get my players into Vault of the Drow in Glorantha (will probably be on some bizarre hero plane). Had some good times there back in the day - using RQ rules, funnily enough! Actually, a mashup of RQ and ICE's Arms Law ... 

 

 

 

 

[soltakss]

Reasons to play 13th age Glorantha with RQ:

• There is already a conversion of the classes
• You can play it with Classic Fantasy

 

[Quackerjack]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Reasons to play 13th age Glorantha with RQ:

• There is already a conversion of the classes
• You can play it with Classic Fantasy

 

Just skimmed the doc. You did a lot of work!

Going to give this some thought ..

[GAZZA]

12 hours ago, Quackerjack said:

Reasons to play 13G over RQ:

1. Moar powerrr
2. Faster, simpler combat (of course, many prefer full-on RQ crunch. I get that.)
3. Setting flavor crystals (robust trickster, earth priestess, hell mother classes, for example)

If these 3 things are desirable to you, then conversion is simple. You just don't care whether the opposition's sword skill is 100% or 110%; the idea is to provide a similar experience.

This is very much a "have your cake and eat it too" deal though. Your argument for "it's easy to convert" is "if you like 13AG you can convert", more or less - you even specifically point out that you're not really converting so much as reinventing (which again, I never said you couldn't - just that "dead easy" means something like "13 STR here is 16 Muscles there, 99% Sword attack here is +6 to Sword there, or whatever - not "99% sword and some other good weapon abilities, hmm, closest class equivalent is an Orlanthi warrior, even though he's a Yelmalion, but near enough, let's arbitrarily make him level 6").

The thing is, if you accept that, then "classes specific to Glorantha" is no longer a selling point over D&D4e, since you could just do that there as well. ("99% sword and some other good weapon abilities, let's make him a Fighter and give him some appropriate feats").

In any case I'm really not ragging on 13AG. I'm even (as of yesterday) going to be playing in a 13AG campaign. But my initial point - more or less, that if you are getting into Glorantha and are confused about whether to go the 13AG or RQG route - still holds: all else being equal, 13AG is a dead system and RQG is not. As 13AG will not be getting any new material, if you find yourself wanting to play outside the quite narrow boundaries laid out in 13AG (for example, you want to introduce a western sorcerer, or explore illumination, or do something in Kralolera) then you'll have to convert that even if RQG eventually publishes fully fleshed out supplements for these.

But that's all else being equal. If you're familiar with/a fan of d20 based systems, and you don't really mind converting (or you're fine with inventing your own stuff), by all means 13AG is a perfectly reasonable game and - lest it seem I'm damning with faint praise there - it is also a game that showed a lot of promise before being cut down in its prime. I would have been perfectly happy to live in a world where the supplements mentioned in the 13AG core book were actually still on the table or already out, and I would prefer a world where both 13AG and RQG were live systems.

[Quackerjack]

I find class-repurposing (ie changing a D&D4 class to suit Glorantha) much more challenging than adventure-repurposing. That may be a personal preference.

Similarly, I have a hard time coming up with plot and characters. I find it very easy to replace the River of Cradles monsters with 13G analogs (heck, I did it with FATE), but I could never in a million years write that scenario. Again, this may be a personal preference. 

Like you, I would rather see lots of new material for 13G than not. I'm really just trying to encourage you to: 1) plunder existing plots, and 2) enjoy what there is of 13G. Which you already do. 

Hmm, I see that I have failed my Systems roll again and have inadvertently quoted a blank space. :p

Quote

 

 

[AndrewTBP]

Right now I'm converting Gloomwillow's Hollow from RQ:G to 13G hot off the PDF. Once I've played it, I'll upload it for everyone to see. 

[g33k]

On 5/7/2020 at 5:18 AM, Quackerjack said:

... As it happens, I am trying to finagle a way to get my players into Vault of the Drow in Glorantha (will probably be on some bizarre hero plane) ... 

Uhhh ...

drow?

Scary, matriarchal Dark folk?

 

I ... think you may find a fit in Glorantha ...

Edited May 14, 2020 by g33k