New Game, Who Dis - The Glass Cannon plays RuneQuest

[MOB]

The Glass Cannon Network are launched headfirst into the newest edition of the classic mythic Bronze Age RPG - RuneQuest! They've gotten a sneak peek of the upcoming starter set and dived right in. The amazing cast includes Noura Ibrahim, Tanya DePass, Connie Chang, Matthew Capodicasa and Troy Lavallee as the GM.

Here's episode one:

 

After a fight in the merchant's quarters, the roving band of mercenaries are heading to JAIL as our journey into RuneQuest continues with Troy Lavallee, Tanya DePass, Connie Chang, Noura Ibrahim and Matthew Capodicasa!

It's part two of The Glass Cannon's RuneQuest game! They're playing one of the scenarios in the forthcoming RuneQuest Starter Set.

 

Mernyr's Landing has a scorpion man problem and it's up to a ragtag band of mercenaries to stop them! Join Troy Lavallee, Tanya DePass, Connie Chang, Noura Ibrahim and Matthew Capodicasa for the thrilling conclusion to their RuneQuest adventure.

It's the third and final part of The Glass Cannon Network's New Game, Who Dis? intro to RuneQuest.

The Glass Cannon are playing one of the scenarios in the forthcoming RuneQuest Starter Set.

Sign up with this link and by Issaries, you'll receive an email as soon as the RQ Starter Set is available to order!

In the meantime, don’t forget to use code RUNECANNON to get 10% off everything at Chaosium.com.

 

Edited September 28, 2021 by MOB

[Shiningbrow]

I've almost finished the last episode, so while it's buffereing, I'll just type this...

Someone (looking at you, @lordabdul or PhillH), should point out their terrible use of Rune Magic - ie, not using up the Rune Points... would have seriously affected large parts of the adventure (I think Connie burnt through about 6 or more...).

As well as the lack of rolls for spirit magic (which they were at least doing in the first episode).

Edited October 2, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[AndreJarosch]

2 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

I've almost finished the last episode, so while it's buffereing, I'll just type this...

Someone (looking at you, @lordabdul or PhillH), should point out their terrible use of Rune Magic - ie, not using up the Rune Points... would have seriously affected large parts of the adventure (I think Connie burnt through about 6 or more...).

As well as the lack of rolls for spirit magic (which they were at least doing in the first episode).

Sometimes you DON´T Use all your Rune Points or even all your Magic Points for Spirit Magic. 
You never know what dangers might come right after you won THIS fight. Maybe you will need you Magic for an even greater thread?

[Bill the barbarian]

1 hour ago, AndreJarosch said:

Sometimes you DON´T Use all your Rune Points or even all your Magic Points for Spirit Magic. 

I would suggest that if one was saving RPs and MPs, heals and heal wounds would be your friends here. Escape spells (and this can be spells you would never consider escape spells) are great reasons to save RPs and MPs. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Bill the barbarian

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Sometimes you DON´T Use all your Rune Points or even all your Magic Points for Spirit Magic. 
You never know what dangers might come right after you won THIS fight. Maybe you will need you Magic for an even greater thread?

😕

The GM (and perhaps the players) seemed to be using MPs, instead of RPs for Rune Spells...

One player had 3 RPs, but cast about 5-6 points worth of Rune Spells... (and that's ignoring the durations... But I can understand fudging for first-timers).

[Lordabdul]

11 hours ago, Shiningbrow said:

Someone (looking at you, @lordabdul or PhillH), should point out their terrible use of Rune Magic

Hah, I didn't pay attention to that actually. I was already busy shaking my head at the confusion over strike ranks, the addition of the bison charge's bonus to the Lance damage, the needless complications with language skills, and so on. And I want to make it clear I'm shaking my head at RuneQuest, not at the Glass Cannon crew. When you combine these mistakes to the many times Troy is doubting himself, it reinforces my opinion that RuneQuest is too complicated for its own good, especially in today's gaming market. I'll be over there waiting for a "CoC 7th ed. treatment" to RQ rules.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

I watched the first one and am finding it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the others. Continually saying how hard the rules are, and then making it obvious that no-one seemed to have done much actual reading of the rules beforehand seemed weird to me, but I find that in  a lot of streamed games. If I'm running something new I make sure I know it fairly well, and if I were streaming (which thankfully I'm not) I would be making even more certain I had a decent grasp of it.

Also I got a bit annoyed at the constant "oh here's some names and words that don't mean anything to me so I'll just dismiss them" thing.  Either take time to explain stuff or don't mention it until later. 

[AndreJarosch]

7 hours ago, d(sqrt(-1)) said:

I watched the first one and am finding it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the others. Continually saying how hard the rules are, and then making it obvious that no-one seemed to have done much actual reading of the rules beforehand seemed weird to me, but I find that in  a lot of streamed games. If I'm running something new I make sure I know it fairly well, and if I were streaming (which thankfully I'm not) I would be making even more certain I had a decent grasp of it.

Also I got a bit annoyed at the constant "oh here's some names and words that don't mean anything to me so I'll just dismiss them" thing.  Either take time to explain stuff or don't mention it until later. 

I have watched all three videos, and i am feeling quite different than you about it: 
Yes these GM and players are "professionals" and if the purpose of these videos would be to entertain us and show to us how smooth RQ is then yes, i would agree with you that the GM should have studied the rules much more closely, and that the players should have at least read the introductory part of the Glorantha booklet and all of the rules booklet. But IMHO these videos intention is not to entertain us or to show how smooth all the details of the rules work, but to show us how a group of D&D-players, all of which are totally new to RQ, would run this box. 
They would not "get" all the names, they would make mistakes by interpreting the rules wrong, because they haven´t read them not closely enough, etc. 
But if they have FUN playing in Glorantha, they might be intrigued to read more about Glorantha, and "get" more next time. If they have FUN playing with all the features RQ has, that are not present in D&D, they might actually read the rules booklet of the box. And if more than one person on the gaming table has read the rules booklet it is far more likely they catch any mistakes they had made playing the first adventure and continue with the new attained grasp of the rules. 

For me this videos was very nice, because all the players as well as the GM were enthusiastic in their roles. And i think they liked (parts of) the setting, and they seemed to like (parts of) the rules system. And having fun and being interested in the world you play in, as well in the game system you are using, counts for me as: goal archived. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by AndreJarosch

[Shiningbrow]

13 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Hah, I didn't pay attention to that actually. I was already busy shaking my head at the confusion over strike ranks, the addition of the bison charge's bonus to the Lance damage, the needless complications with language skills, and so on. And I want to make it clear I'm shaking my head at RuneQuest, not at the Glass Cannon crew. When you combine these mistakes to the many times Troy is doubting himself, it reinforces my opinion that RuneQuest is too complicated for its own good, especially in today's gaming market. I'll be over there waiting for a "CoC 7th ed. treatment" to RQ rules.

Well, I've never been a fan of the SR system... The lance damage certainly should have been clear (but not having the set in front of me, I can't comment on clarity**), and I can see why they'd do language the way they did... (again, I don't know what's in the box).

(ETA - but if it's the same as the RQG, then yeah, that's a problem!! Should have Vasana's 1D4, not the bison's *charging* DB)

Personally, I'd love to do a YT series for RQ... Like a character creation series, as someone who actually has a fairly good grasp of the rules and setting (although, far from perfect). I've seen a couple, and the "I'm new to this, so I'll probably make mistakes" frustrates me.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[AndreJarosch]

1 hour ago, Shiningbrow said:

(ETA - but if it's the same as the RQG, then yeah, that's a problem!! Should have Vasana's 1D4, not the bison's *charging* DB)

IMHO this is clearly not a mistake by the rules, but by the players: 
The name of the weapon "lance" says it all: This is a weapon not intended to be used apart from the back of a mount*, that would be called a two handed spear. 

*show me a story where Lancelot of any Knight uses his lance in hand to hand combat. 

[Lordabdul]

7 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Yes these Gm and players are "professionals" and if the purpose of these videos would be to entertain us and show to us how smooth RQ is then yes, i would agree with you that the GM should have studies the rules much more closely, and that the players should have at least read the introductory part of the Glorantha booklet and all of the rules booklet. But IMHO these videos intention is not to entertain us or to show how smooth all the details of the rules work, but to show us how a group of D&D-players, all of which are totally new to RQ, would run this box.

Well they're far for being "D&D players" -- they play a lot of other games and, in some cases like Tanya, they also design other games. But the lack of familiarity with the rules here tells me that either (1) somehow the game was rushed too much (maybe they received the Starter Set material later than planned, or they had conflicting schedules, or whatever) or (2) they realized that RQ required way much preparation than the other "New Game, Who Dis?" games they've tried. I could totally believe that they went "well pretty much all the games we've played so far required a couple days to digest" and then when faced with RQ it was "oh shit, no, this would have required at least two weeks, woops". Which, again, goes back to my opinion that RQ could benefit from being simplified. Only the RQ2/3 grognards would complain about it.

On a more personal note, every time my group tries a new game, none of my players have the rules. As the GM, I'm the one who teaches them the rules during session 0 and 1. It's nice to know that other groups out there have players who do homework, but that's just never been my experience except for one or two edge cases. So it seemed natural to me that the players didn't know the rules very well here.

[Lordabdul]

7 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

IMHO this is clearly not a mistake by the rules, but by the players: 
The name of the weapon "lance" says it all: This is a weapon not intended to be used apart from the back of a mount*, that would be called a two handed spear.

Haha no, this is a mistake of the character sheet IMHO. If I wonder what I'm going to attack with, I look at my character sheet under the weapons list, and pick what looks cool. The lance with the giant damage roll looks definitely cool. There's no caveat, asterisk, note, or anything. The burden of knowing what a "lance" is exactly (in the real world and in the world of this game, and whether the two match) is not on the player. There should be an asterisk with a footnote saying "includes Bison charge damage bonus".

Edited October 3, 2021 by lordabdul

[AndreJarosch]

17 minutes ago, lordabdul said:

Haha no, this is a mistake of the character sheet IMHO. If I wonder what I'm going to attack with, I look at my character sheet under the weapons list, and pick what looks cool. The lance with the giant damage roll looks definitely cool. There's no caveat, asterisk, note, or anything. The burden of knowing what a "lance" is exactly (in the real world and in the world of this game, and whether the two match) is not on the player. There should be an asterisk with a footnote saying "includes Bison charge damage bonus".

Maybe it is needed in a country where it has to be stated on a take away coffee cup that coffee is hot. 😉

(This reminds me one one scene of "The Gamers" where a Balista is used in a bar. Powergamers will do that...)

Edited October 3, 2021 by AndreJarosch

[Rodney Dangerduck]

1 hour ago, AndreJarosch said:

IMHO this is clearly not a mistake by the rules, but by the players: 
The name of the weapon "lance" says it all: This is a weapon not intended to be used apart from the back of a mount*, that would be called a two handed spear. 

BTW, that's very poor rules writing. 

1. Double negative, bad. 
2. And, not definitive.  So, it's "intended" to be used from a mount.  But can you use it on foot?  Some rules lawyer munchkin will try it.

"A lance may only be used while mounted" seems much better IMO.  Any catches???

[Lordabdul]

1 hour ago, AndreJarosch said:

Maybe it is needed in a country where it has to be stated on a take away coffee cup that coffee is hot. 😉

...or for people whose language has the word "lance" verbatim, but it means "a generic long thing with a pointy thing at the end", and encompasses everything from javelin to pike to everything else that looks like that. Not that any of the players of the Glass Cannon are francophone, but just sayin'... I don't think RQG should expect players to know bronze age weapons any more than a space travel RPG should expect players to know basic astrophysics concepts, or any modern military RPG should expect players to know which automatic weapons require a tripod or not. It's weird to me that you would argue against a simple note that makes things clearer. The Starter Set is supposed to lower the barrier to entry. That's the entire point of its existence.

(and btw in RQG you can use a Lance while on foot)

Edited October 3, 2021 by lordabdul

[AndreJarosch]

2 minutes ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

BTW, that's very poor rules writing. 

1. Double negative, bad. 
2. And, not definitive.  So, it's "intended" to be used from a mount.  But can you use it on foot?  Some rules lawyer munchkin will try it.

"A lance may only be used while mounted" seems much better IMO.  Any catches???

The definition of "lance" was written by ME, and it´s not a quote from any RQ book. 

[Beoferret]

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

Haha no, this is a mistake of the character sheet IMHO. If I wonder what I'm going to attack with, I look at my character sheet under the weapons list, and pick what looks cool. The lance with the giant damage roll looks definitely cool. There's no caveat, asterisk, note, or anything. The burden of knowing what a "lance" is exactly (in the real world and in the world of this game, and whether the two match) is not on the player. There should be an asterisk with a footnote saying "includes Bison charge damage bonus".

Someone should note this in the corrections thread.

RQG lances are - I'm pretty sure - modeled on the xyston or kontos. Essentially they're longish long spears or shortish pikes, whichever formulation you prefer. As a weapon being used aside from a charge, they're supposed to be treated as a long spear wielded one handed (see RQG rules, pg 219). I'd allow that for dismounted combat too, but would allow them to be used two-handed ('cuz that seems kinda real.)

Anyhow, I hope their difficulties didn't dissuade some people from giving the game a chance.

[Shiningbrow]

8 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

BTW, that's very poor rules writing. 

1. Double negative, bad. 
2. And, not definitive.  So, it's "intended" to be used from a mount.  But can you use it on foot?  Some rules lawyer munchkin will try it.

"A lance may only be used while mounted" seems much better IMO.  Any catches???

"A lance is designed to be used 1-handed from a mount when charging. It can also be used 2-handed as a spear when not mounted. When charging, use the mount's damage bonus instead of your own".

[Shiningbrow]

9 hours ago, lordabdul said:

There should be an asterisk with a footnote saying "includes Bison charge damage bonus".

As per my above, I'd make it the player's DB (1D4), with the asterisk to adjusting to mount's as required... Because, people often ignore (or don't notice) such things, until they need to.

Another option would be to have 2 lines in the weapons box - one for mounted and charging** (and 1H), the other for grounded (and presumably 2H).

 

** - If you don't add the charging line, some people will presume it's always.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Shiningbrow

[Rodney Dangerduck]

2 minutes ago, Shiningbrow said:

...

Another option would be to have 2 lines in the weapons box - one for mounted (and 1H), the other for grounded (and presumably 2H).

This is an excellent idea.  Especially as they really should be separate skills anyhow.

[d(sqrt(-1))]

I have to say that I did watch their Call of Cthulhu 5 part playthrough and really enjoyed it - they had the rules down mostly and the GM was very good at evoking the right atmosphere.