Divine Intervention and Devotion

[Martin Dick]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

very unlucky guys then ! 10 ? 20 ? or more runelords, 1 success, ouch

but I think, for DI , our glorantha and how we manage it may vary :

that is both gameplay and roleplay mechanics and how we see the initiates power

the initiate takes the power of a "not conscious" (or at least "not enough conscious")  god then it is the (player)character who decides what happens (if the dices are ok) ==> it is a question of spell and magic

the initiate asks for the power of a "consicous" god then it is the god who decides what happens (if the dices are ok... or not )==> it is a question of prayer and religion.

and the cursor of each roleplay table is more or less between these two limites

 

of course personaly I prefer the second option, and it seems (at least to me) that it fits with the texts I understood, but that's true too that the first option fits too with the same texts (just the sun domers should change their dices 😛 )

A question of taste !

 

 

It doesn't really matter whether the god is conscious or unconscious, what matters is if you are aligning yourself with the type of behaviour that the god approves of, Humakt won't/can't answer a DI for a resurrection, Chalana Arroy won't/can't answer a DI for an earthquake to strike the enemy etc. I agree with Soltakss 100% that Storm Bull is not going to grant a DI to teleport away from Chaos.

In the Sun County example you quote:

"Yelmalio had been shamed by the defeat of his haughty templars and so had chosen not to answer their pleas for salvation all day. His heart was turned by Yamsur's request for the Light Son asked not for his life, but only to have his ashes safely interred."

So they aren't really relevant to the question of whether they made DI rolls, as they weren't asking for something that Yelmalio can/will grant. To be honest, the whole teleport 10 people by any God seems a bit out of kilter for any god who isn't Orlanth/Mastakos or the like and even the resurrecting the dead thing is a bit weird. 

For a DI to be successful, the first hurdle that needs to be crossed is that it is something that the god can/will grant. Once that hurdle is crossed, then you can talk about POW and points in rune pools and the like.

The point I was making about failing their devotion tolls, was that they all chose to fail their devotion rolls (except Yamsur the Splendid who then got unlucky (for the Sun Dome that is and made his DI) just like a PC can choose to ignore a passion. The two options to my mind are

1. Gods only care about your POW and how many points you've sacrificed to them (though that makes the difference between a Rune Priest and a Rune Lord a bit strange as they have the same level of POW (possibly higher for a Rune Priest) and will have similar rune point pools) when deciding whether they will answer a DI. 
2. The Gods care (for some meaning of care) about the strength of the relationship between them and the worshipper, with POW and rune points in your pool being an important factor in whether they answer but not necessarily the only one.

If we go with this second option, then it would make sense to consider adding Devotion in the mix (not necessarily as an augment as this has some weird consequences) as Passions are an important part of the game now and a high Devotion to your god fits in well.

As you say, which one you choose is a matter of taste, but I actually think that including Devotion and possibly a relevant Rune is actually more about prayer and religion than option 1

[Rodney Dangerduck]

Interesting thread so far.

I lean towards not using Devotion as an augment for or alternative to D.I.  It is already an extremely important skill - just ask my Wind Lord wannabee who has been stuck at 85% Devotion Vinga for over a year real-time and Glorantha time. 

In a way, it already factors in to D.I. due to the Devotion requirements for Rune Levels.

[Dr. Devici]

2 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

To be honest, the whole teleport 10 people by any God seems a bit out of kilter for any god who isn't Orlanth/Mastakos or the like and even the resurrecting the dead thing is a bit weird.

I interpreted it less as a direct teleport, and more that your god is breaching the veil from their own realm directly into time, dragging you back into their realm, and depositing you somewhere that is both safe and easy for them to reach, with both criteria being satisfied by a sanctified temple to the god.

[Joerg]

DI used to be a weirdly variable one-use spell, transferring a portion of the petitioner's soul into the realm of their god in case of success, and leaving behind a rune magic effect in the world of the living, hopefully for the petitioner to enjoy.

Devotion is a passion, and starts at 60%. I don't think that anybody thinks that three out of five petitions for a deity to intervene are answered...

Allowing Devotion to augment the petition sounds fair. Placing all the soul drain on the current POW score, or POW + unspent rune points for rune levels, makes DI pretty fatal for all but a few lucky D10 DI rune lords.

With the caveat that at least one rune point or point of POW is permanently lost regardless of the rolled result, I might be willing to roll a D20 in case of a successfully augmented DI and substract that number from the D100 roll to determine the loss in POW and rune points. This may result in some rather cheap DIs, but will also increase the risk for a complete premature ascension of the soul to the deity.

I might also accept Worship <deity> as the augmenting skill. Usually that should be lower than Devotion, but you never know how players may roll for their skill raises.

Altruistic DI - on behalf of companions - will leave an effect regardless whether the petitioner survives the successful invocation.

 

A very special kind of munchkin might use a string of augmented DIs to avoid the route to judgement by Daka Fal to join their deity... If the charcter is an oath-breaker, this might be desirable.

[Akhôrahil]

12 hours ago, Dr. Device said:

I interpreted it less as a direct teleport, and more that your god is breaching the veil from their own realm directly into time, dragging you back into their realm, and depositing you somewhere that is both safe and easy for them to reach, with both criteria being satisfied by a sanctified temple to the god.

For an adventure seed, the PCs could end up dumped in some Hero Plane and having to improvise-quest their way back to the mundane world.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Akhôrahil

[Arcadiagt5]

I would probably pro-rata it. Allow the augment, and divide the final result by the adventurer’s POW. So on POW10 and a normal success on the augment, 1-3 - lose 1 POW, 4-6 - lose 2 POW, etc. 

Rune Lords continue to roll 1D10 but lose what they roll - that’s the price of guaranteed success. 

Rune Priests work like Initiates, but use RP + POW as the divisor & spend from RP first. 

[Kloster]

If I were to use Devotion as a modifier for DI, I think I would use the skill as an augment, and use the result of the augment roll as a negative modifier on the DI roll: For example, a Special on the Devotion (Deity) roll would normally give a +30% on the augmented roll. That way, I would apply a -30 on the D100 under POW (or POW+RP for priest) roll. It is thus still possible to loose everything because (for humans) you can not have more than 21 POW and 21 RP, and the max modifier is -50. For Rune Lords, I would probably don't change anything (straight D10), but the augment result divided by 10 is a possibility.

[Arcadiagt5]

4 minutes ago, Kloster said:

If I were to use Devotion as a modifier for DI, I think I would use the skill as an augment, and use the result of the augment roll as a negative modifier on the DI roll: For example, a Special on the Devotion (Deity) roll would normally give a +30% on the augmented roll. That way, I would apply a -30 on the D100 under POW (or POW+RP for priest) roll. It is thus still possible to loose everything because (for humans) you can not have more than 21 POW and 21 RP, and the max modifier is -50. For Rune Lords, I would probably don't change anything (straight D10), but the augment result divided by 10 is a possibility.

I like this idea better than my own thought. 

[PhilHibbs]

14 minutes ago, Kloster said:

...For example, a Special on the Devotion (Deity) roll would normally give a +30% on the augmented roll. That way, I would apply a -30 on the D100 under POW (or POW+RP for priest) roll.

So a roll of 30 or under would cost just the original 1 RP?

What about Rune Lord DI?

Edited August 30, 2021 by PhilHibbs

[Kloster]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

So a roll of 30 or under would cost just the original 1 RP?

Yes. I can't see that rule being able to increase POW or RP, so any roll brought to zero or less would be treated as 0 and only the original RP is lost.

[French Desperate WindChild]

17 hours ago, Martin Dick said:

It doesn't really matter whether the god is conscious or unconscious, what matters is if you are aligning yourself with the type of behaviour that the god approves of, Humakt won't/can't answer a DI for a resurrection, Chalana Arroy won't/can't answer a DI for an earthquake to strike the enemy etc. I agree with Soltakss 100% that Storm Bull is not going to grant a DI to teleport away from Chaos.

In the Sun County example you quote:

"Yelmalio had been shamed by the defeat of his haughty templars and so had chosen not to answer their pleas for salvation all day. His heart was turned by Yamsur's request for the Light Son asked not for his life, but only to have his ashes safely interred."

So they aren't really relevant to the question of whether they made DI rolls, as they weren't asking for something that Yelmalio can/will grant. To be honest, the whole teleport 10 people by any God seems a bit out of kilter for any god who isn't Orlanth/Mastakos or the like and even the resurrecting the dead thing is a bit weird. 

For a DI to be successful, the first hurdle that needs to be crossed is that it is something that the god can/will grant. Once that hurdle is crossed, then you can talk about POW and points in rune pools and the like.

The point I was making about failing their devotion tolls, was that they all chose to fail their devotion rolls (except Yamsur the Splendid who then got unlucky (for the Sun Dome that is and made his DI) just like a PC can choose to ignore a passion. The two options to my mind are

1. Gods only care about your POW and how many points you've sacrificed to them (though that makes the difference between a Rune Priest and a Rune Lord a bit strange as they have the same level of POW (possibly higher for a Rune Priest) and will have similar rune point pools) when deciding whether they will answer a DI. 
2. The Gods care (for some meaning of care) about the strength of the relationship between them and the worshipper, with POW and rune points in your pool being an important factor in whether they answer but not necessarily the only one.

If we go with this second option, then it would make sense to consider adding Devotion in the mix (not necessarily as an augment as this has some weird consequences) as Passions are an important part of the game now and a high Devotion to your god fits in well.

As you say, which one you choose is a matter of taste, but I actually think that including Devotion and possibly a relevant Rune is actually more about prayer and religion than option 1

I like your point

the only remark I have then is about what could be the power a god is able to provide:

from my persperctive, a god is able to make "more" than what the "spells" it provides. It can do, what it can do, and, in the great compromise (aka now) it can do what it already made (I didn't remember where I saw it but Jeff used "patrern" and it is for me a great key word)

In our example : is a light god able to travel very quickly (not instant) ? probably it can move at "light" speed. So I consider that is fine for me to see Yelmalio "bringing" his follower in its "house" the old temple as described

Should Yelmalio able to "turn off" the light ? I would say no because, even if I consider a light god (for example Yelm) is able to manage light, this one, this Yelmalio is famous for its pattern "always light, even if there is no more light"

but the "I" here is the GM, the one who knows the background, who knows the myths, etc.. So the one who plays the god as any other npc.

and then, poor gm like me are less favoured by the gods than others (gm or players) because they know less than others.

An option may be to ask the player: "you ask your god to do this thing but tell me, when it already did it ?" and the table togother, PC and GM, create a best background

[Kloster]

2 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Yes. I can't see that rule being able to increase POW or RP, so any roll brought to zero or less would be treated as 0 and only the original RP is lost.

Another possibility is to treat said 'below 0' roll as 1, because the minimum rollable result is 1, but I prefer 0: Your devotion so much impressed your god that he thinks the original offering is sufficient.

[PhilHibbs]

2 minutes ago, Kloster said:

Another possibility is to treat said 'below 0' roll as 1, because the minimum rollable result is 1, but I prefer 0: Your devotion so much impressed your god that he thinks the original offering is sufficient.

I'm already uncomfortable with Devotion more than doubling the chance of success, without a fifty-fifty chance of zero cost on top.

[French Desperate WindChild]

8 minutes ago, Kloster said:

but I prefer 0: Your devotion so much impressed your god that he thinks the original offering is sufficient.

but your god need energy to open the channel to the mundane world, that's the great compromise, so for me you need at least a match to create a big wildfire or a little firecamp.

[soltakss]

The thing about divine Intervention for Initiates that annoys me the most is that an Initiate with Devotion (Deity) 90%, Loyalty (Temple) 90% and POW 10 has half the chance at Divine Intervention as a new Initiate with no Devotion (Deity) and POW 20.

The other thing that annoys me is that for Initiates it is very unlikely to succeed, even if you add your Rune pool to the chance of success.

By the way, I would definitely add an Adventurer's Rune Pool to their chance of success at classic Divine Intervention.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

but your god need energy to open the channel to the mundane world, that's the great compromise, so for me you need at least a match to create a big wildfire or a little firecamp.

Don't forget you start the DI procedure by permanently spending a RP. This is roughly equivalent to spending a POW. In fact, it is equivalent if you spend said POW to compensate for the loss of the RP.

[Squaredeal Sten]

Seems to me that making divine Intervention much more likely to happen and much cheaper is a substantial change to the nature of the game and of the world.  Likely to produce a substantial change to the nature of play, too: Much less cautious if the players feel bulletproof. 

Because passions start at 60%, if devotion is a passion then that's a really substantial thing given in character generation, even before the player can role-play any acts that align with the god. 

And at rune lord level, when you mix the original 1D10 POW cost with changes that make DI very likely and the likely cost more like 1 POW, you have made the character a cartoon superhero.

For me, the questions would include;  Do I really want to GM a campaign in which the adventurers can never die, and know that from the beginning?  Am I such a killer GM that I need to find a way to immunize the players from myself?   What's the effect if i extend this rule to the NPCs -  I have now made unkillable Bad Guys?   Do I want to make a change in the nature of religion in RQ, from a transactional relationship with the gods (very bronze age) to a personal relationship (very protestant reformation)?

[Shiningbrow]

12 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Seems to me that making divine Intervention much more likely to happen and much cheaper is a substantial change to the nature of the game and of the world.  Likely to produce a substantial change to the nature of play, too: Much less cautious if the players feel bulletproof. 

Because passions start at 60%, if devotion is a passion then that's a really substantial thing given in character generation, even before the player can role-play any acts that align with the god. 

And at rune lord level, when you mix the original 1D10 POW cost with changes that make DI very likely and the likely cost more like 1 POW, you have made the character a cartoon superhero.

For me, the questions would include;  Do I really want to GM a campaign in which the adventurers can never die, and know that from the beginning?  Am I such a killer GM that I need to find a way to immunize the players from myself?   What's the effect if i extend this rule to the NPCs -  I have now made unkillable Bad Guys?   Do I want to make a change in the nature of religion in RQ, from a transactional relationship with the gods (very bronze age) to a personal relationship (very protestant reformation)?

Thank you!

I've been reading through all of this thinking "but, do we really need to have players given this relatively cheap way out?"

RQ is supposed to be deadly. That's been one of its selling points (compared to many other RPGs)... why nerf that?

[Shiningbrow]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

The thing about divine Intervention for Initiates that annoys me the most is that an Initiate with Devotion (Deity) 90%, Loyalty (Temple) 90% and POW 10 has half the chance at Divine Intervention as a new Initiate with no Devotion (Deity) and POW 20.

The other thing that annoys me is that for Initiates it is very unlikely to succeed, even if you add your Rune pool to the chance of success.

By the way, I would definitely add an Adventurer's Rune Pool to their chance of success at classic Divine Intervention.

When a Rune Lord does a DI, and loses the RPs (after the initial), they can be replenished as usual.

Would I be correct in presuming that for Initiates, that wouldn't be the case? Lost RPs are permanently lost?

[Kloster]

29 minutes ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

And at rune lord level, when you mix the original 1D10 POW cost with changes that make DI very likely and the likely cost more like 1 POW, you have made the character a cartoon superhero.

In fact, this is already the case, because a Rune Lord uses a D10, and most probably has more than 10RP. The permanent cost is for him the 1st RP, the others being recovered at the next worship(s).

14 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

Would I be correct in presuming that for Initiates, that wouldn't be the case? Lost RPs are permanently lost?

No, they also are recovered as usual, but the initiate rolls a D100, which means the possibility of loosing all his RP and some or all his POW (and to fail if the roll is above POW+RP).

[Shiningbrow]

If I were to come up with a 'fix' for this problem (and, frankly, I don't see it as a problem in need of a fix), I'd probably make DI a 3-pt One-use spell... as well as the usual roll under POW option for when you don't have a DI handy.

3-pt is equivalent to Resurrection and (Guided) Teleportation (and Sunspear/Thunderbolt), or a big summon of a cult spirit. However, those aren't One-Use, and thus the loss of the POW/RPs is worth the randomness factor involved.

And, for this One-Use, it's paid in advance, and the 'knowledge' is lost.

[Shiningbrow]

12 minutes ago, Kloster said:

In fact, this is already the case, because a Rune Lord uses a D10, and most probably has more than 10RP. The permanent cost is for him the 1st RP, the others being recovered at the next worship(s).

Plenty of other superheroes out there... and nemeses...

Rune Lords are supposed to be favoured by their gods, so I don't see a problem with it. It just becomes something for the GM to come up with appropriate counters for.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

If I were to come up with a 'fix' for this problem (and, frankly, I don't see it as a problem in need of a fix), I'd probably make DI a 3-pt One-use spell... as well as the usual roll under POW option for when you don't have a DI handy.

It used to be a 1 point, one-use, stackable Runespell in RQ2. Priests could get it to give them a 10% chance of success per point spent. I can see that working for RQG, where someone sacrifices for Divine Intervention and rolls 1D100 with the following POW cost. Priests/God-Talkers might have a reduced POW cost.

1D100	POW/Rune Pool Cost
01-05	0
06-10	1
11-15	2
16-20	3
21-25	4
26-30	5
31-35	6
36-40	7
41-45	8
46-50	9
51-55	10
56-60	11
61-65	12
66-70	13
71-75	14
76-80	15
81-85	16
86-90	17
91-95	18
96-100	Fail

 

[Dragon]

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

For me, the questions would include;  Do I really want to GM a campaign in which the adventurers can never die, and know that from the beginning?  Am I such a killer GM that I need to find a way to immunize the players from myself?   What's the effect if i extend this rule to the NPCs -  I have now made unkillable Bad Guys?   Do I want to make a change in the nature of religion in RQ, from a transactional relationship with the gods (very bronze age) to a personal relationship (very protestant reformation)?

I definitely see the issue with extending this rule to the NPCs. And all rules really should extend to the NPCs. If initiates can DI so successfully, then how does anyone actually die in a major battle? Three or four deaths required before, to pick a character name, Vasana actually dies while defending the temple? The party comes up with brilliant tactical plans and defeats a gaggle of broo, and one third of the broo are whisked off by Thed to fight another day? Maybe you can suggest Thed doesn't like those weakling broo getting to live again, but then my example would simply change to defeating a file of Silver Shields or Granite Phalanx.

In my game, a certain Rune Lord of Yanafal Tarnils who murdered the husband of one player character was confronted after a year of effort (6 years after the murder, but 1 year after the PC learned who had committed the murder). After hours of preparation by the PCs and a few rounds of combat, the Lunars had lost a couple initiates and a rune priest of Seven Mothers was unconscious (but alive). The characters were sorely disappointed when Yanafal Tarnils intervened at the Rune Lord's request to whisk the living away to the nearest temple. But the party could continue on to the prize both parties were trying to recover.

IMHO such encounters should not be commonplace. With too much chance of DI, they would be.

[PhilHibbs]

6 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Seems to me that making divine Intervention much more likely to happen and much cheaper is a substantial change to the nature of the game and of the world.

Yes and no. It changes the game, but not the world. Glorantha is Glorantha whatever the game system is. Extrapolating the world from the rules is the wrong way around.