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Children in Glorantha


Mythforger

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Hello everyone,

I am looking into a very specific topic. My daughter is now ten years old, and after a few experiences with other rpgs, i want to introduce her and her friends to Runequest and Glorantha. The plan is, to let them play a band of children who go on fantastic adventures together. Think Goonies in Glorantha.

But how do i do that? What would the stats of a kid in the system be?

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

Wich gods would look after the little ones?

Where would you place such stories in the world?

I am thankful for any ideas and help i can get for this little project.

  

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To be honest, I would use QuestWorlds, as it is more kid-friendly. By that, I mean that it is great at putting concepts into play, the underlying system is very easy and the resolution of combat is less bloody and extreme. So, no chopping off limbs and such like.

But, if you used RuneQuest, I would try and make it less about combat and more about other things.

1 hour ago, Mythforger said:

But how do i do that?

Use a cut-down version of the rules.

Roll 1D100 beneath the skill, maybe have Special or Critical rolls, but don't assume you have to. Keep the maths as simple as it needs to be, so if your daughter can do mental arithmetic in her head and can work out what 1/5 or 1/20th of a number is, then use them, otherwise use a table for lookups.

Don't get hung up on tables and rules, play it as freeform and loose as you can.

1 hour ago, Mythforger said:

What would the stats of a kid in the system be?

Lower STR and SIZ, the other characteristics might be the same.

For ten year olds, you might want to use 2D6 STR and 1D6+6 SIZ. 

1 hour ago, Mythforger said:

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

Maybe. If they are Orlanthi then they might have the Air/Storm and Earth Runes. You might just give them a basic amount with no adds.

1 hour ago, Mythforger said:

Wich gods would look after the little ones?

Voria looks after girls and Voriof looks after boys, among the Orlanthi. For Praxians it might be Waha or Eiritha, but this is before initiation so might be a spirit instead. among Lunars it would be Teelo Norri.

1 hour ago, Mythforger said:

Where would you place such stories in the world?

Anywhere really.

Kids at the edge of clans are always good for adventure material. 

You could have mysteries to solve, friends to make, kids to rescue from harm and so on. Pushing boundaries might be a good idea, peeking in on the older kids as they prepare for initiation, drinking things they shouldn't, going to forbidden places, that kind of thing. Kids could become thieves or beggars, living off their wits in a city like Pavis or Nochet, being tempted by street gangs.

What I wouldn't do is to make it about violence. Kids should not have any skill in combat except a base skill, they should not own a weapon or use one, they should resort to violence as a last resort, except for the occasional bout of pushing, wrestling or a punch or kick. In any case, nothing should be lethal and everyone should get better with a bit of tender care. 

Monsters should be scary if they are big and scary, not because they do terrible things. If kids are brought up on Fairy Tales, then a troll that eats up little kids might be OK to use, or a man who kidnaps kids and forces them to steal. 

Make sure you have a way to defuse tense situations, maybe not an X-Card but something that the kids can use to say they don't want to go down a certain road.

But, kids are great for roleplaying. I ran a HeroQuest game with two little kids and their dad and we had an absolute blast.

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Great response, thank you. I plan to write a special version of the rules. It will use one d10 instead of the d100 to role. Should be easy to grasp. There will not be all of the skills on the sheet. Just what the kids need to be kids. Combat might not even be an option at all. And if so, it is about running away or playing a trick on a monster.

I just had the idea to give every group a spirit that protects and guides them. Maybe something they could build together. Would such a thing work with the canon? 

Also i would implement a luck mechanic, like the one in Pulp Cthulhu. Or some kind of special divine intervention.

Edited by Mythforger
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There is a campaign book for HeroQuest where characters start as kids or teenagers: Valley of Plenty👈  Check it out.

Also a friend of mine ran a short RQ3 campaign where the PCs started as kids. It was a ludoch campaign though. 🧜‍♀️  Here you can read the rules he used for playing kids (it's in Spanish).

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2 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

Wich gods would look after the little ones?

Where would you place such stories in the world?

runes : I would say no or few but in fact, you don't care : as kid they are not yet able to use their rune, that is the purpose of adult rites (= no rune spell, no rune augment for kids) the only point could be a scenario hook : one kid's rune "wake up" and create an accident and the kids must repair it.

gods : mainly their parent's gods but also Voria (everywhere ? except darkness ?) and probably the lead couple (like Ernalda the mother / Orlanth the father). Of course is there is a great destiny for one kid character, the god associated to the destiny.

where : anywhere you (as gm) know the place. You can decide that :

  • the sartarite clan has no issue with lunar (or not visible),
  • the praxian clan does not face chaotic things,
  • the red lands lunar family is not raided by pentian,
  • the westerners village is not directly impacted by a local war,
  • elf forest without raid from human / troll / dwarf,
  • troll cave without raid from human / elf /dwarf
  • etc...

Probably some issue with dwarves as I never seen any dwarf kid.

and I add passions :

love family : 80 (children) 60 (teenager)

hate autority : 80 (teenager) I may be influenced by my sons...

clan loyalty: 60 (all)

curiosity : 80 (children)

 

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7 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Lunar Youth who have to report and stop treason and sedition among the teeming masses of the insulae of Glamour? 

Okay, maybe not...

Be careful what you wish for.

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If you’ve already roleplayed then you’re best placed to judge how to take things.

My kids are old enough to enjoy roleplaying, but I threw them straight into the broken tower, and they loved it.  I had spent ages agonising over how to introduce them – the simplicity of Pendragon was very enticing, but in the end, I plumped for Glorantha, because I though the magic would be a big pull – the idea that their adventurer has special powers has been something the kids really like.

I’ve not simplified the rules at all, and the kids haven’t had a problem. 

They’ve played usual starting age adventurers (21), which wasn’t an issue.  (Ironically, when I refereed for adults, I usually started with one or two adventures as coming of age, either as squires or something that marked them out before they were initiated).

I was worried about the violence, and we have glossed over some of the more gruesome moments.  But it’s not been worse than, for example the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings (which the kids have loved).

The kids have liked combat, or rather action.  They like planning things.  They don’t like too much talking.  Negotiation or arguing with people is fine if its brief, but if it’s an end itself, it gets boring.  Obviously, as parents, we’re very keen on a strong moral compass of doing the right thing, and evil must be fought, so combat isn’t casual, but it has been an element, and one that’s worked well.

Scenario ideas.  You could try the Lost Valley in the Smoking Ruins, or Renekot’s hope in Pegasus Plateau are excellent settings.  The Pegasus Plateau scenario might work really well, and you could ideas from some of the other scenarios in either book.  Whilst the combat of Grove of Green Rock might not work, something based on the reseeding of an elvish forest might be a great idea.

However, the children have most enjoyed home brewed scenarios.  They loved a scenario immediately following the Dragon Rise, where they rescued the prisoners from the Lunar Manors.  They were very engaged planning how to rescue the prisoners, and then, when the Lunars just wanted to escape, and set fire to the buildings as a diversion, fighting amidst the flames was very atmospheric.  Obviously, you’ve got to be careful.  Heroically rescuing people from the flames works well, but human immolation would have been a bad way to have gone!

The last adventure has been rescuing a tribe of Hadrosaurs from complete extermination by Spinosaurs went down really well.  But I’ve posted elsewhere..

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/12041-gloranthan-campaign-ideas

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Nice ideas, but not what i am looking for. I want to build a game about children in Glorantha for children. I need to simplify the rules, because i want it to be playable for ages six and up. There can not be any violence or horror themes. Plots evolve around meeting strange and interesting creatures, solving mysteries and so on. 

I might have a combat skills like dodge and wrestle, but no murder skills what so ever. 

My problem is, that i do not know, how to portrait children in Gloranthan society. And even less i know about how to do it in a way, that children can understand what they are doing.

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2 hours ago, Mythforger said:

My problem is, that i do not know, how to portrait children in Gloranthan society. And even less i know about how to do it in a way, that children can understand what they are doing.

I would really recommend taking a look at “Valley of Plenty.” I’m sure a smart chap like you can add RQ rulesy bits to the essentially systemless HeroQuestWorldWars stuff in that book, and it is all about portraying kids growing up in a Horse Orlanthi clan and having child-friendly adventures.

Bits of “Six Seasons in Sartar” might help, too - it has tips on RuneQuest character generation for not-yet-initiated Sartarite youths, and is in a lovely self-contained setting (isolated traditional Orlanthi living in a remote valley, cut off from the world). But it’s not about childish adventures, it’s about coming of age, so it isn’t really what you’re after. (Although there’s a lot in that book that would be really helpful for running clan level hijinks, with baddies skulking around the woods, lurking in secret places or marching right up to the chieftain’s hall; you’d just have to come up with your own kid-friendly adventures in a beautifully detailed and highly approachable clan setting)

Both books are among the best-rated titles on the Jonstown Compendium.

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2 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Nice ideas, but not what i am looking for. I want to build a game about children in Glorantha for children. I need to simplify the rules, because i want it to be playable for ages six and up. There can not be any violence or horror themes. Plots evolve around meeting strange and interesting creatures, solving mysteries and so on. 

I might have a combat skills like dodge and wrestle, but no murder skills what so ever. 

My problem is, that i do not know, how to portrait children in Gloranthan society. And even less i know about how to do it in a way, that children can understand what they are doing.

I fear it may be difficult -- even 2nd and 3rd editions had a base age of 15, and that was already the transition into "adult" status in many ancient cultures.

You might have to allow for some combat skills -- thrown rocks are likely common, and even slings may be familiar (used for hunting squirrels and rabbits, say). Unlikely to be "murder skills" if you take into account the penalties for SIZ and STR -- I'm presuming you'd use something closer to 1D6+6 for size of children (and you'll have to add some rules to account for growth to adult size over time -- maybe roll adult size 2D6+6, but then interpolate down by age difference [assume full size obtained at age 18?]; similar for STR). Might have to allow for small knives even (I owned a hunting knife in the 6th grade -> 12 year old, and had pocket knives as a 10 year old -- which leads to the fact that the local kids attempted to make bows and arrows using branches cut from trees or found in the woods; sure they had no effect unless one got hit in the eye...).

Based upon my childhood -- we hardly had more than a 1mile radius from home in which we wandered. 2 miles at the extreme, and that was on city streets, not wandering over farmlands and deep into the woods.

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4 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Lunar Youth who have to report and stop treason and sedition among the teeming masses of the insulae of Glamour? 

Okay, maybe not...

A group of Pelorian street urchins looks like it has potential IMO. 

 

Also IIRC malkioni zzaburi are chosen when they are children, younger than 6 I think, so if they like Harry Potter, a kind of magic school adventure in Seshnela can be quite cool. They could have some basic knowledge of sorcery and acquire more as the campaign progresses. 

Edited by Jape_Vicho
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1 hour ago, Nick Brooke said:

I would really recommend taking a look at “Valley of Plenty.” 

I agree as well.  Ignore the Questworlds/HQG aspect (which is relatively minimal).  This is a campaign of children in Glorantha and continues through coming of age.  I honestly can't think of a better storyline for what you've described - and it's a really well developed, well made work.

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8 hours ago, Mythforger said:

But how do i do that? What would the stats of a kid in the system be?

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

Wich gods would look after the little ones?

Where would you place such stories in the world?

For several decades now, this has actually been my go-to for introducing new players to Glorantha through RQ3 and HQ -- I haven't tried it with RQG yet -- but almost always as a 1-on-1 scenario.  With new players I find Gloranthan interpretations of classic fairy tales work great, and my favored one is a riff on Jack and the Beanstalk

I haven't worried much about reducing stats, but slightly reduced STR and CON seem in order.  The times I've played with younger players, they've always wanted to play characters older than themselves, so I haven't had to model very young children.  As I mentioned above, I haven't tried this with RQG yet, so I haven't dealt with Rune Affinities, but I'd assume that those are already emerging in their behavior (Runes actually seem like the simplest game concepts for players to wrap their heads around).  Keep the skill lists and levels restrained for simplicity, but make sure they have at least one clear specialty -- maybe on par with a Humakti or Yelmalion gift, but without the geas.  No formal initiation into a particular cult -- that's part of the introduction to play, so the player can discover them at the same time the character does.  I've generally started this scenario in Sartar as a jumping board to explore other parts of the world, but I also started it in Teshnos once, which was probably my favorite.

The player character has been charged by a parent to take goods to market for the first time on their own.  Usually a cow to trade, but maybe a bundle of the season's furs.  On the way, they encounter a monster with a sack over its shoulder -- sometimes a troll, sometimes a dragonewt, always with a struggling princess in the bag.  A fight ensues (because who isn't going to try to rescue a princess in a bag from a monster?), escape is made to the nearest village, followed by the indignant troll/dragonewt demanding the return of its legally-purchased slave.  Wait!  These things can talk?  They have legal recognition?  The ensuing parley invariably results in the young PC surrendering the trade goods in restitution and to purchase the slave (because what human village is going to allow a troll or dragonewt to keep a human slave?), and together they return to the homestead.  The parent is rightly furious at: a) the loss of family fortune, and b) another mouth to feed.  Both the youth and princess are turned out to fend for themselves, but the princess bears a personal possession that's a clue to her inheritance, if only she can get there somehow...

Along the way, they meet Sun Dome Templars, talking animals, dark swamps, etc.  Mix and match with other fairy tales, and incrementally add more mechanical features of daily life in Glorantha.  I have some Gloranthan ideas about Red Riding Hood I've wanted to try out.  Above all, though, play fast and loose with the canon initially; over time you and your players will either realign the characters with the canon, or the canon with the characters.  Cater the game to your players' interests to keep them playing, and let them direct the exploration of the published material.

!i!

Edited by Ian Absentia
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4 hours ago, Mythforger said:

... I want to build a game about children in Glorantha for children. I need to simplify the rules, because i want it to be playable for ages six and up ...

Hmm.

Counting to 100 is a K/1 curriculum (typically 5 years old and over), so I'm not sure you need to simplify this.  I started playing RPGs with my eldest when she was 7, and didn't "simplify" the rules at all.  I did need to do the mechanics of character-generation, and she got a bit of help at first with "navigating" her character-sheet, but she was doing it entirely on her own before the end of the first session.

FWIW ...

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4 hours ago, Mythforger said:

I need to simplify the rules, because i want it to be playable for ages six and up.

Yeah, that's where I leaned into HeroQuest when my son was 5.  Dead simple.  But, no HQ/QW, understood.

4 hours ago, Mythforger said:

My problem is, that i do not know, how to portrait children in Gloranthan society. And even less i know about how to do it in a way, that children can understand what they are doing.

Ah, this is where Rune Affinities are your friend!  In fact this is why they're every player's friend.  Generally speaking, children will be children, and will learn the mores of society as they come of age -- that bit can evolve during play (see my comments above about revealing and conforming to canon over time).  But Runes describe a character's spiritual passions.  That's how Glorantha manifests through its people, and it's one of the easiest things for new players to grok. 

  • Your spirit is dominated by Water, and Water generally behaves like this...
  • Your spirit is complemented by Fire, and Fire generally behaves like this...
  • Your spirit is rather deficient in Air, and Air generally behaves like this...

It's a daily horoscope to guide your players through general Gloranthan behavior.

!i!

Edited by Ian Absentia
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7 hours ago, Mythforger said:

... I plan to write a special version of the rules. It will use one d10 instead of the d100 to role ...

You may wish to consider Pendragon for the core rules (it's got a d20 instead of a d10).  The concepts behind it are VERY similar to BRP/RQ, just treating the d100 as a granular increments-of-5 d20; it's actually considered a close cousin, mechanically.

Much of the heavy lifting on this was already done by David Dunham for his PenDragon Pass campaign -- https://www.pensee.com/dunham/pdp.html

 

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8 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Hello everyone,

I am looking into a very specific topic. My daughter is now ten years old, and after a few experiences with other rpgs, i want to introduce her and her friends to Runequest and Glorantha. The plan is, to let them play a band of children who go on fantastic adventures together. Think Goonies in Glorantha.

But how do i do that? What would the stats of a kid in the system be?

Use trollkin stats, if you really want to play a game of attrition with child characters.

On the whole, I would say don't go too deeply into the rules. Use skills, use broad skills for anything not inside a speciality. Use passions.

One thing children don't have is magic of their own. The ability to wield magic is more or less a proof of functional adulthood in Glorantha, making certain child prodigies like e.g. Harsaltar, the eight-year old Humakti hero son of the last Prince of Sartar prior to the Lunar occupation in everything but his physical body an adult.

Getting your runes is getting you magic - a mark of adulthood. Children don't have these.

 

Even though you are not incorrect about the price of Valley of Plenty, I would still point you there for a workable example of doing a goonies or Enid Blyton style game with children as characters.

I would note that a lot of children's play is pretending to be an adult, and that is a form of roleplaying, like playing house. Or robbers and deputies, or however your antagonistic boys' game is called. Children are primed to play the role of adults - young adults, usually.

That goes against your goonies idea, but having children play freshly initiated new adults is quite age appropriate even if the children are younger than their characters by a few years. It's one thing they aim to be.

I did play such a family game with a 12-year-old and his 14-year-old sister, giving them young adult characters, in a rural Sartar campaign. The players were quite comfortable with playing these slightly-older-than-themselves characters.

Quote

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

No, IMO - those runes, and clan tattoos, etc etc come with adulthood initiation. Which may be initiation to the main adult deity for some initiands, and for many others the start of their orientation into their future cult.

Quote

Wich gods would look after the little ones?

The Orlanthi have Voria as goddess of innocence and children, but hers is not any form of protective magic - she is the embodiment of new life. There is Voriof the shepherd who doubles as a boys' deity and role model, but no magic for non-adults Shepherding magic happens to be fairly adept at finding and herding uppity children, though.

The Ancestors and the Wyter(s) are looking out for the little ones, as do household spirits and spirits of the place. The latter aren't necessarily friendly.

Quote

Where would you place such stories in the world?

I have a character backstory with episodes of childhood adventures situated in the City of Wonders for early childhood and in the city of Karse for teenage years, the former being an almost dreamlike environment with magic everywhere, the second with a theme of street gangs of underage children as a sort of training ground for the street gangs that the young adults have.

This was a bit of a (narrated, not played) thieves' campaign, but a bit of Oliver Twist can be mixed into that if you want orphans or at least quite abandoned children in an urban environment. The City of Glamour is a good place for such adventures, too, but the Lunar Way may be too creepy to play with children.

There was also a game in one of the old Glorantha mailing lists where the characters were children of the Patroma family in Pavis, IIRC. Searching https://glorantha.steff.in for Patroma should eventually point you there.

 

Enid Blyton's Famous FIve stories are about a group of children with way too much agency or self-determination all too often meddling with the adult world. Privileged, with superior education happening to them between their numerous adventures.

Quote

I am thankful for any ideas and help i can get for this little project.

Get up to date with young adult literature and other art forms, both modern and the classics (like the Goonies). There are many examples of (typically way too capable) children in an adult world, whether Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, the Famous Five, Wesley Crusher, Jake Cisko, the Red Zora and her gang, Pippi Longstocking, Michel from Lönneberga, Ronja Robbers' Daughter, or whatever.

 

You may want some form of combat rules to deal with physical interaction between children, but you probably don't want to inflict the crunchy RQG combat damages on the players.

You can have Peter Pan moments of heroquesting in an alternate reality, but those quest experiences should be transformative, and probably lead into a (possibly premature) adulthood initiation. A bit like the cadet rank given to Wesley Crusher.

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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5 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

Ah, this is where Rune Affinities are your friend!  In fact this is why they're every player's friend.  Generally speaking, children will be children, and will learn the mores of society as they come of age -- that bit can evolve during play (see my comments above about revealing and conforming to canon over time).  But Runes describe a character's spiritual passions.  That's how Glorantha manifests through its people, and it's one of the easiest things for new players to grok. 

  • Your spirit is dominated by Water, and Water generally behaves like this...
  • Your spirit is complemented by Fire, and Fire generally behaves like this...
  • Your spirit is rather deficient in Air, and Air generally behaves like this...

It's a daily horoscope to guide your players through general Gloranthan behavior.

!i!

I agree with everything you say about the runes forming the character, but the runes are formally and magically bestowed on a person on the occasion of their adulthood initiation (which is about US driving license age).

It is true that the character of a person manifests already before initiation, and that some form of tentative runic association could be defined, and possibly cemented during play. But I repeat - having any form of magic is being functionally an adult, regardless whether there was an official initiation or not.

This gets tricky if your player characters come from a species with intrinsic magic.

 

I wonder whether or rather how much "imaginary friends" could be something like Gloranthan illusions - a temporal reality similar to the Hallucinate trickster spell, giving each child something like an allied spirit with limited interaction potential but the occasional fantastic boost for an action. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8OKxZtJX5M is a short film exploring this possibility from the perspective of an imaginary friend.

 

Telling how it is excessive verbis

 

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13 minutes ago, Joerg said:

I agree with everything you say about the runes forming the character, but the runes are formally and magically bestowed on a person on the occasion of their adulthood initiation (which is about US driving license age).

Perhaps in a game about children and for children this could be treated more fluidly.  The values would be lowered somewhat, and perhaps they're more changeable until a formal initiation cements them into an adult personality.

13 minutes ago, Joerg said:

But I repeat - having any form of magic is being functionally an adult, regardless whether there was an official initiation or not.

I tend to agreed with you here.  Allowing a magical familiar helps get around that.  I'm also a fan of giving every character a "special ability" that may functionally mimic magic.

Also, see my comments about playing fast and loose with canon until new players "get" the game world.  If the players want or need magic to have fun and keep playing, let them have magic.  But by all means make it the inexorable pathway toward adulthood.  Just like having a troll roll you for your father's cow was.

!i!

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My concept for magic is that the children could befriend smaller spirits. That spirit could use some spells for the kids. I think i would build it up like a passion. Do something nice for the spirit, it might help you later. If you are very nice to the spirits, you could end up with your own little PokeSpirit.

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13 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Nice ideas, but not what i am looking for. I want to build a game about children in Glorantha for children. I need to simplify the rules, because i want it to be playable for ages six and up.

My youngest player started at 7yo. Plays with the full ruleset and I just run Lines and Veils where his cousins (ranging from 8 to 21) and middle aged uncles engage in narrative stuff beyond him. One of his cousins is my daughter, another my neice. Neither have had a problem with the full ruleset. If anything it's the middle aged uncles who avoid the combat. My then-15yo neice plays a BG who ritually eats the livers of evil-doers (this will have repercussions later in the campaign). It is a game of make-believe and kids are very good at those. The rules are not too complex, it's the narrative where things may become challenging.

My adult-aimed child campaign based in the Far Place does exactly as you do in befriending lesser spirits, having local "spirit quests" which don't have world shaking consequences but do get the kids questing. Then too, they all have work to do around the stead which improves skills. EVERYONE learns sling. It keeps wolves off the sheep, it give you something to do while watching wool grow, it lets you have contests with other kids, it helps teach them hunting skills, and it's cheap.

And the nasties can still lurk around the edges. The kids become the early warning system. As one long time Gloranthaphile once said "...their job is ... to run ... yelling 'Poss' at the tops of their shrill little voices." That way the adults come and do adult stuff, away from the view of the players if needed, and your players get involved in the wider clan business and have 'serious' adventures.

And it really is worth investing in Valley of Plenty.

Edited by Rob Darvall
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18 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Hello everyone,

I am looking into a very specific topic. My daughter is now ten years old, and after a few experiences with other rpgs, i want to introduce her and her friends to Runequest and Glorantha. The plan is, to let them play a band of children who go on fantastic adventures together. Think Goonies in Glorantha.

I ran a game set in New Pavis around the time of the start of the Lunar Occupation where the players all started as kids.  There were various "gangs" of kids in various parts of town, and even newtling "kids" who are new bachelor newtlings who hang around the docks.  The kids have a trade network for the various odd pieces of junk they find where they barter their toys for other toys or favors, even setting up seven-stage barters where they need to get person A to trade object A to person B so that person B will trade object B to person C etc. ending with then getting the thing they want.  It was all very NPC driven, and the point was that the NPCs grew up with the player characters and remained local fixtures, making the players feel more invested in their city and its people as they gradually grew into adults.

18 hours ago, Mythforger said:

But how do i do that? What would the stats of a kid in the system be?   

Kids have:  Starting Con & Pow=Maximum rolled.  Int, Dex, Cha= 2 points per year until rolled maximum is met. Str & Siz =1 point per year.

When players have kids I use the following system to determine their stats

Roll D6.   1=Roll a fresh stat.  2=Take worst of Mother or Father's Stat.  3=Take average of Mother and Father's Stat. 4=Take Mother's Stat. 5=Take Father's Stat. 6=Take best of Mother or Father's stat.

19 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Would they have allready affinities to runes?

Yes, but these will be lower.  They will increase their rune affinities as they grow with encounters and at least 1 mandatory improvement roll per year.

19 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Which gods would look after the little ones?

Voria, Teelo Nori, Heler, Yelm the Youth, Trickster etc.  Children will seldom be more that lay members of any cult.  Richer families may pay for their kids to learn simple spirit healing spells.  It is likely that local priests will also be talent scouting the next generation to spot potential new initiates for their deity.  Some kids may be chosen for an early initiation if they seem especially gifted.

19 hours ago, Mythforger said:

Where would you place such stories in the world?   

My little Pavic street rats had recently lost their fathers when the Lunars invaded, as they were defending the walls.  One of their mothers became ill, and the kids had to figure out how to get healing for her when the Chalana Arroys had fled the city.  They also had to figure out how to cover their rent so that they wouldn't save their mother but lose their house.  This led to them taking odd jobs such as gathering dog poo for the tanners, carting water, running messages between shops.  I also had a combat rule that kids would fight, but whoever took a point of damage had to make a Con x5 roll or burst into tears, thus losing the fight.  They lived in terror of the "big kids", who would often chase them and beat them up and steal their best things.  Eventually the kids reasoned out that their mother must have some sort of connection with the Elves of the Garden due to her cultivating Narl Flowers on the roof, and so they made a big dangerous pilgrimage to the Garden to seek out their help.  They were accosted by a curious Griffin, got into a fight with an opportunistic trollkin who thought they might be easy pickings, and were chased into the garden by mean Praxians who would definitely taken them as slaves.  The elves however quickly found the children and after questioning them discovered that their mother was indeed a good friend of the Elves, and so sent the children home with the medicine their mother needed.  This was just 1606.  They went bartering in Sun County, got involved with local thieves, helped save an injured trickster, and all sorts of mischief.  it had a somewhat Tom Sawyer aspect to it, but of course it was set in a dusty bronze age frontier town on the edge of a dangerous and exciting no-mans-land.  

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