how would you run a king of dragon pass campaign

[Elcid321]

I've been thinking about this from some time, and i know i'm not the only one, but it think that king of dragon pass would be an excellent campaign idea, and probably would be an excellent way to introduce players to runequest, but the problem i find is how.

as we may know, in KoDP, the player controls directly the clan, while in runequest, the characters play as individuals (although, still members of the clan).

so i got thinking, how would you run this situation?

[Grievous]

Of course, there's many ways you could go with this, but a few suggestions come to mind. If you want to focus on the entire clan's story, it's probably best to play as members of the clan ring. This will be a more political game. If you want a smaller slice of action, focus on one of the clan's settlements outside of the main one (you could be the settlers that set that place up). This type can include a dash of politics, but also veers more on the adventuring side as players tackle local issues. A third suggestion would be to play the chieftain's huscarls. This will put the players in the middle of the clan's affairs, but doesn't necessarily give them political control over those issues (however it will certainly give them opportunities to influence the execution of those affairs, as they get sent on missions by the chieftain and the clan ring). 

[Nick Brooke]

@Jeff may be able to advise (if he has time): the Seattle Farmers' Collective Taming of Dragon Pass campaign he played in in the nineties, which I think was run using PenDragon Pass rules, was a tabletop RPG precursor to David Dunham's King of Dragon Pass computer game. I understand it combined player character heroes with clan management / economic rules and the usual Pendragon-style generational play.

(To the extent I have got the story wrong, that only shows how useful it would be to get his input)

[Jeff]

The prototype for what became King of Dragon Pass was our Taming of Dragon Pass game back in the mid-1990s. We used Pendragon Pass - basically a precursor to RQG which used a mash-up of RQ with Pendragon. If I did it again, I'd bring in more elements from RQG (Runes instead of Traits, etc), and who knows, maybe I will do it again or get David Larkins to work on it.

[Scorus]

One somewhat related thing that I've considered was organizing a group of players to each play one of the Colymar clans, with other players playing the Queen, the Earth Temple, and possibly others. Sounds more like a political LARP but it could be useful to our various games to be able to go to another player and say "This happened, what would the Orlmarth reaction be?"

[jajagappa]

38 minutes ago, Scorus said:

Sounds more like a political LARP but it could be useful to our various games to be able to go to another player and say "This happened, what would the Orlmarth reaction be?"

I've done that in my HQG Colymar Campaign where I've had each player take a faction leader among the Orlmarth.  Sometimes they are on the clan ring, sometimes not, but they can react to certain orations by the PC's, push their own agendas, etc.  

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, Scorus said:

One somewhat related thing that I've considered was organizing a group of players to each play one of the Colymar clans, with other players playing the Queen, the Earth Temple, and possibly others. Sounds more like a political LARP but it could be useful to our various games to be able to go to another player and say "This happened, what would the Orlmarth reaction be?"

Possibly only tangentially unrelated, but it might be fun to have a mixed face-to-face/play-by-post game where the main group's characters are thanes and inner ring members of their clan, doing the usual adventures and politics in semi-real time. But the play-by-post people are playing the inner ring "NPCs" from all the other clans. Occasionally, they could show up in a "real" game if the main PCs temporarily ally with them for a specific adventure, or visit for a diplomatic meeting.

[Elcid321]

thanks for all the answers, and i will take them into account, but do you know of a book that has some info of pre-sartar dragon pass? you know? a book with a list of possible clans and stuff like that? right now i'm reading Sartar: Kingdom of heroes

[AndrewTBP]

Have you looked at the King of Dragon Pass wiki? 

https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_Dragon_Pass_Wiki

In particular, there's a list of all the clans, 

https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Orlanthi_Clans_in_Dragon_Pass

[Lordabdul]

12 hours ago, Elcid321 said:

thanks for all the answers, and i will take them into account, but do you know of a book that has some info of pre-sartar dragon pass? you know? a book with a list of possible clans and stuff like that? right now i'm reading Sartar: Kingdom of heroes

If you have the RQG Gamemaster Adventures book, or the Glorantha Sourcebook, there are historical summaries of the Grazelanders repopulating Dragon Pass, followed by what became the Colymar tribe and what happens (in large strokes) during the first few generations. This includes a few passing mentions of how the Colymar started splitting up and how other early tribes got created.

10 hours ago, AndrewTBP said:

Have you looked at the King of Dragon Pass wiki?

That wiki is especially nice because it lists all the events and missions, so you can use those as scenario seeds almost directly.

Edited December 2, 2020 by lordabdul