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14 hours ago, ArtsyAlraune said:

ahh, hello! My name is Megan (or Meg, or Artsy, or Alraune, whatever) and I'm skittishly poking my head into Glorantha's online communities, after trying and failing to pull my friends into this interest.

 

Hello 

 

14 hours ago, ArtsyAlraune said:

I'm considering looking into learning how to play Runescape, even though I'd have to play online, but I'd be just as pleased to read up on and chat about the lore and stuff. 🙂

Yep, we are all doing so... well good luck in your dice rolling and welcome!

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... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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On 6/25/2021 at 8:21 AM, ArtsyAlraune said:

ahh, hello! My name is Megan (or Meg, or Artsy, or Alraune, whatever) and I'm skittishly poking my head into Glorantha's online communities, after trying and failing to pull my friends into this interest.

Welcome aboard! We are very friendly and helpful here.

On 6/25/2021 at 8:21 AM, ArtsyAlraune said:

I picked up King of Dragon Pass on Steam in 2018 and was absolutely, immediately obsessed. 

Sounds as though you'll fit in just fine.

 

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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On 11/4/2020 at 8:43 AM, Ialda said:

...

English is not my primary tongue so I hope to be able to avoid any critical misstep and ending up as the crimson bat's next meal 😤

Your English is fine!
I daresay it's better than some of us natives who sometimes get kind of sloppy with it.

Anyhow, welcome!

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On 6/16/2021 at 11:44 PM, Amontillado said:

Hi all,

I just landed in the Chaosium Discord within the past week and decided I should also have a presence here. I'm just dropping in to say hello. Or, hello again I suppose.

Welcome to the Mi-go house, pull up a chair and have a broo...

The nice thing about a "forum" (as opposed to Discord or FB or the like) is how the knowledge here tends to accumulate.

 

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On 6/25/2021 at 12:21 AM, ArtsyAlraune said:

ahh, hello! My name is Megan (or Meg, or Artsy, or Alraune, whatever) and I'm skittishly poking my head into Glorantha's online communities, after trying and failing to pull my friends into this interest.

I picked up King of Dragon Pass on Steam in 2018 and was absolutely, immediately obsessed. By the time Six Ages came out I had already switched from iPhones to Androids so I had to wait on the edge of my seat for the Windows 10 port. I snapped it up and I'm still replaying it. It wasn't until this year that I realized the games' setting has such a long and deep history!

As for my nerd cred, I got into RP in the 00's, roleplaying Fire Emblem characters with a friend in MSN Messenger, before moving on to PBP roleplays on forums and roleplaying in MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2. In college I started playing Vampire: the Masquerade v20 and D&D 4e, and today I still play VtM, as well as Blades in the Dark, both online in voice calls via Discord, and D&D 5e in meatspace on the weekends, where I often paint miniatures and stuff during the games (but it's ok, I can multitask!)

I'm considering looking into learning how to play Runescape, even though I'd have to play online, but I'd be just as pleased to read up on and chat about the lore and stuff. 🙂

Hello, and welcome!

So, lemme give you a quick overview... 

... errrrr...  make that a "compressed" overview, but mebbe not so quick...


===

TL;DR --

You want to get the Glorantha Sourcebook.  It's pure lore (no game-mechanics), but still very useful for roleplay.  It'll give you tons of material whether you game with it, or not.

You may ALSO want to get the (massive, and rather daunting) Guide to Glorantha (2 oversized volumes; roughly equivalent to 4 regular hardcover game-books).  It's more of an encyclopedic overview of the entire world;  less "lore" and more the simple "facts" of the setting, the "view from 30,000 feet" so to speak.  More than any other work, it's the "definitive resource" for Glorantha.  Like the Sourcebook, it's free from any game-mechanical bits; and even less apt for the "daily adventurer" sort of perspective.  Nonetheless, the ultimate in Gloranthan geekery.

For actual gaming (tabletop, dice and paper) at this point in time -- June 2021 -- you have no less than *FOUR* different RPG's you can buy, each set in Glorantha:

  1. Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha -- the flagship of Glorantha
  2. RuneQuest "Classic" edition -- the "golden age" game from the late-70s / early-80s, remastered via Kickstarter
  3. HeroQuest Glorantha -- a more pulpy/heroic RPG, in the new "narrative" tradition of RPGs (i.e. less crunchy-simulationist than RuneQuest).  About to become unavailable for legal reasons (sale of the name "HeroQuest").
  4. 13th Age in Glorantha -- Glorantha for the D&D-variant "13th Age" RPG.

Any (or all) of these would be good choices... depending more on your own tastes than any intrinsic "better" or "worse" between the games.

We now return you to your previously-announced "not so quick..."

===


The original Glorantha publications were actually board-games:  White Bear, Red Moon  was closely followed by Nomad Gods (a 3rd was planned, but never released).  These were old-school tactical/strategic "wargames" (played on a hex-map with little counters / chits for the pieces); clash-of-armies stuff, not "adventuring" or role-playing.  Nevertheless, they had a remarkable amount of world-building & lore included.

Then Greg Stafford (creator of Glorantha) got an early copy of the brand-new game "D&D."  Shortly after that came RuneQuest (RQ), which in turn was shortly followed by RQ 2nd edition (RQ2) ... which was, more or less, a "fixed version" of the first edition (they're very similar, except in a few minor details).

All this was the mid&late 1970s; that, on through the mid-1980s, was the "golden years" of Chaosium & Runequest. The same core game-mechanic, a skill-centric roll-low on d100 (christened "BRP" (Basic Role Playing)) was licensed and used for RPG's for Elfquest, Elric & Stormbringer, Ringworld, and (most famously) Call of Cthulhu, as well as in-house (not a licensed IP) RPGs like "Magic World," and a d20-BRP variation powering King Arthur Pendragon.

There followed some decades of ups and downs; of licensing to various companies; of the IP's for "Runequest" & "Glorantha" being separated, and separately-pursued, etc.  Gradually, however, Chaosium's fortunes were fading; a sorry fate for a storied company.

Two very-notable events for Gloranthaphiles in this time were:

  • (1) In 1998, Moon Design Publications was founded by RQ/Glorantha fans.  They began by bringing old, mostly-RQ2-era content back into print in compiled form, beginning with a 4-volume "Gloranthan Classics" set, covering 6 major Chaosium works but also drawing from innumerable minor one matching those 4 themed volumes.
  • (2) In 1999, Greg Stafford (creator of Glorantha) forming a new company (Issaries Inc (Issaries is Glorantha's main god of communication & commerce)) and working with notable game-designer Robin Laws, & MDP (#1 above) to publish an all-new RPG (Hero Wars) for Glorantha.  Later editions were re-named HeroQuest, and a setting-free version of the rules was also published for non-Gloranthan of roleplay.  This is a totally different RPG, more pulpy and narrative-oriented (than the crunchy & gritty RuneQuest rules).
  • (But now (2021) the "Heroquest" title has been sold to another company, so in just a few weeks(!) all Chaosium/Glorantha "Heroquest" titles will go away forever -- if you want 'em, buy 'em QUICK!!!   HOWEVER, the core game-mechanics and product-line are continuing at Chaosium, re-branded as "QuestWorlds," and there's some hope that the HQ:Glorantha content will return under the new QW brand (eventually).)


Fast-forward to 2015 -- The Return of the Great Old Ones.
Though long uninvolved with operations or management of the company, Greg Stafford & Sandy Petersen (gah, tyvm Jeorg!) retained a controlling interest/ownership in the company.  In 2015, they asserted their interest and announced that they would be directly managing Chaosium once again.  Right after THAT, they brought aboard most(all?) of the Moon Design team as senior management for Chaosium -- and as part of the ownership team!

Late that year, Chaosium launched a US$30K Kickstarter to "officially" re-print RQ2, and all the old RQ2 supplements.  Although many of the supplements were available as "Gloranthan Classics,"

  • the core rulebook was NOT
  • the master-files for printing those "Classics" were less than optimal
  • Chaosium was in serious need of cashflow.

That kickstarter was a smashing success -- almost 7X overfunding (over $US206K on the 30K ask). 

This in turn became a big part of their "RuneQuest Next" project:  love for the RQ2 ruleset having been financially proven, RQ2 became the core chassis upon which they built the new (current) edition of the game, and easy backward-compatibility to the RQ2 supplements a key design goal.  The current edition, "RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha" (RQG) is -- by far -- the most-Gloranthan core rulebook of ANY edition of RuneQuest.

That brings us up to the modern era, with just one more element worth mentioning -- "13thAiG."  Two of the main D&D designers for 3rd & 4th editions (Jonathan Tweet and Rob Heinsoo) had previously created "13th Age" (13A) the d20 rules they WANTED to make, unconstrained by WotC's need to keep it more D&D.  They were also longtime Glorantha fans, and licensed the rights to do a 13A version of Glorantha, "13th Age in Glorantha."  That kickstarter had launched in 2014, but the "Return of the Great Old Ones" occurred before they fulfilled it; Chaosium got more-directly-involved, and now distributes the game (it was this kickstarter, BTW, that funded (as a Stretch Goal) the acclaimed Glorantha Sourcebook, featured in the TLDR above).
 

Hope you were taking notes, the Quiz is on Friday (not to be mistaken for @Qizilbashwoman).

Edited by g33k
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On 6/25/2021 at 12:21 AM, ArtsyAlraune said:

ahh, hello! My name is Megan (or Meg, or Artsy, or Alraune, whatever) and I'm skittishly poking my head into Glorantha's online communities, after trying and failing to pull my friends into this interest.

I picked up King of Dragon Pass on Steam in 2018 and was absolutely, immediately obsessed. By the time Six Ages came out I had already switched from iPhones to Androids so I had to wait on the edge of my seat for the Windows 10 port. I snapped it up and I'm still replaying it. It wasn't until this year that I realized the games' setting has such a long and deep history!

As for my nerd cred, I got into RP in the 00's, roleplaying Fire Emblem characters with a friend in MSN Messenger, before moving on to PBP roleplays on forums and roleplaying in MMORPGs like Guild Wars 2. In college I started playing Vampire: the Masquerade v20 and D&D 4e, and today I still play VtM, as well as Blades in the Dark, both online in voice calls via Discord, and D&D 5e in meatspace on the weekends, where I often paint miniatures and stuff during the games (but it's ok, I can multitask!)

I'm considering looking into learning how to play Runescape, even though I'd have to play online, but I'd be just as pleased to read up on and chat about the lore and stuff. 🙂

Hey Meg!

Welcome to WallyWorld! 😁

As you can see, we're a pretty welcoming bunch of Uzdo [Runequest's 'dark trolls'] so feel free to ask about anything you happen to wonder about.

One very slight warning: just like every game board out there with a devoted fanbase you will often find us digressing into 'canon-this' or 'not-canon-that'. Don't worry about it. Runequest /Glorantha has a lore base easily deeper than most other milieaux out there. There have been several editions of the game and several interpretations of this or that subject within it and a major part of the RQ Renaissance brought on by the new RuneQuest in Glorantha edition has been gathering and sorting much of this lore into a more cohesive narrative.

You only need to know The Two Big Rules:

1. Maximum Game Fun. If it's fun and you want it at your table, knock yourself out and do it.

2. It's YOUR Glorantha Now. For all our canon chatter, we all know that no game survives contact with player characters as written. Don't let 'canon' sink your fun!

I look forward to hearing you around the board.

Respectfully,

CRH Jr.

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

Hope you were taking notes, the Quiz is on Friday (not to be mistaken for @Qizilbashwoman).

Speak Her name and she appears

For the fastest intro, grab copy of one of the versions of the game. The Glorantha Sourcebook from https://www.chaosium.com/ is available as a hardcover or PDF (the former comes with the latter) and is pure lore. Runequest Glorantha is a solid, if extremely Orlanthi-focused, gaming alternative. I also really like the very rules-light older HeroQuest Glorantha for its simple introduction and the basics of how the overall world "works", although it's not heavily supported.

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  • 2 months later...

Hello! I'm Badder, also know in real life as Mike. I have been interested in RuneQuest for years and with the help (Thank you all!) of this forum I found an online group to play in. I have Game Mastered several games in the past because that was the only way I could enjoy them. 

(Edit: thanks to the lfg thread post by lordabdul I was able to find several RQ games!🤯😱)

Greetings to you all! :20-combination-communication::20-condition-luck:

Edited by Badder
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On 9/16/2021 at 5:25 PM, Badder said:

Hello! I'm Badder, also know in real life as Mike. I have been interested in RuneQuest for years and with the help (please) of this forum I hope to find an online group to play in. I have Game Mastered several games in the past because that was the only way I could enjoy them, hopefully the internet will provide. 

So if you see any postings out there for RQ (or even other Glorantha games) please drop me a reply.

Greetings to you all! :20-combination-communication::20-condition-luck:

Hello, and welcome!

As I recall, there's a FB group oriented toward finding RQ games/players...


 

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  • 4 months later...

Taking things slowly. I just learned there was a socializing section in the forum.

If you check the profile, I joined in 2019 when I suddenly noticed Runequest was back in Chaosium's hands, but I was quite busy at the time, so only three weeks ago, as I started changing my MRQ game to RQ:G, I started reading the forum, followed almost immediately by knee-jerk posting. Old habits return fast, helped by many familiar names from a quarter century ago.

Main interests here are Glorantha and Runequest. If you search for Jose Ramos (not to confuse with Doyle Ramos-Tavener, who is a totally different person) in the old Glorantha Digest you can find my old posts and under that name a few contributions to paper zines in the 90s.

I left when Hero Wars started. A personal aversion to Mr. Laws' game style. Which surely makes me a grognard (I have wargamed far longer than roleplayed, both cardboard and miniatures). 

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So, with a 2  years delay, welcome back among us.

2 hours ago, JRE said:

I left when Hero Wars started. A personal aversion to Mr. Laws' game style.

Same for me. This was why I continued with RQ3, completely skipping the Hero Wars/Quest period, and jumped in the RQG wagon.

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On 6/25/2021 at 12:21 AM, ArtsyAlraune said:

... after trying and failing to pull my friends into this interest.

...

Apologies for the necromancy, but...
In case you hadn't noticed, the RQG Starter Set is out... and it's really good.

Given the limited scope of a box-set, you might be able to get your friends to play through the 3 adventures there; you could probably fit in a bit of extra side-questing &c, if you wanted (there's a whole mini-sandbox in the box-set, too!), via any/all of:

  • The "Broken Tower" Quickstart (which could be its own entree to RQG; an even-smaller bite than the Starter Box)
  • Jonstown Compendium offerings
  • Your own imagination & the sandbox in the starter-box


FWIW and all that... (and good luck!)

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On 2/17/2022 at 3:50 PM, JRE said:

Taking things slowly. I just learned there was a socializing section in the forum.

If you check the profile, I joined in 2019 when I suddenly noticed Runequest was back in Chaosium's hands, but I was quite busy at the time, so only three weeks ago, as I started changing my MRQ game to RQ:G, I started reading the forum, followed almost immediately by knee-jerk posting. Old habits return fast, helped by many familiar names from a quarter century ago.

Main interests here are Glorantha and Runequest. If you search for Jose Ramos (not to confuse with Doyle Ramos-Tavener, who is a totally different person) in the old Glorantha Digest you can find my old posts and under that name a few contributions to paper zines in the 90s.

Welcome back, Jose! I still have very fond memories of that play-by-email game in Kustria. I had no idea that it was you hiding behind those letters.

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Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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On 2/18/2022 at 6:53 PM, Joerg said:

Welcome back, Jose! I still have very fond memories of that play-by-email game in Kustria. I had no idea that it was you hiding behind those letters.

Thanks Joerg,

I was trying to keep personal matters out of the threads. Until I discovered this thread. 

That PBEM campaign was one of the highlights of my stay in France. I should reorganize all that work of Safelster and update it.

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  • 2 months later...

Heya 🙂

 

I joined this site as I was exploring the net in search of informations about Runequest. Its magical, spiritual content, and heroic antic adventures always made me dream.

 

I've recently started to GM some games, which are home-made, based on existing ones, such as Shadow World or even Dragon Ball.

 

And I played numerous games, among those : Champions, Bloodlust, Runequest. 

 

I'm also interested in joining some online pbem, pbp, roll20 games. Who knows.

 

Warm regards and have fun in your games!

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