Translating Characters from RQ3 to RQG

[svensson]

Alright, so most of RQ3's material is dated between ST 1615 and ST 1620 or so. Most of us Gloranthan Grognards have characters we've played in campaigns around that time frame. Has anyone brought their characters' stories forward to the post-Dragonrise era?

I don't mean 'did you convert them to RQG stats'. We have a conversion guide for that. But has anyone taken the character they played in the River of Cradles campaign and brought it forward to 1625 Sartar?

How did that story work out?

This isn't some big philosophical thing, I'm just curious.

[Bill the barbarian]

Tell you the truth I am doing the exact opposite, I am running straight up RQ G characters (small party, and I tell the players to not min/max, it would only result in OP parties) in RQ3 and 2 modules with very little need to modify. Passions, Runes, for flavour, but I don’t need to roll augments for NPCs and can hand wave if needed. A few alterations and it works just fine. I would imagine that the RQ 3 characters going in the opposite direction will be a little underpowered as well as needing passions and runes and Rune Points.

Edited March 3, 2022 by Bill the barbarian

[JustAnotherVingan]

Sadly I had to get rid of almost all my old RQ stuff about 20 years ago. Probably the worst consequence of my divorce 😄

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

But has anyone taken the character they played in the River of Cradles campaign and brought it forward to 1625 Sartar?

Yes, we did this in two campaigns.

The first moved from a multi-GM, multi-area campaign to a single GM campaign that started off in Dorastor and then became a very political campaign in Dragon Pass and Balazar. The Adventurers basically carved their way into the Hero Wars. They took out Argrath, as one of the Adventurers saw him as a rival, then they took out Harrek, as he was Argrath's mate. One of the Adventurers became King of Dagori Inkarth, "Great, I've made it! Hang on, King of a Matriarchy? Oh, damn!" and another became King of Greater Balazar and adopted son of the Red Emperor.

The second campaign took the Adventurers from being members of a Pavic Street gang, to becoming River Voices, restoring the Boat Planet and sailing it to the Sky, instigating the Cradle journey and escorting it to Hell, founding the White Bull Society, with them eventually bringing back Pavis, Tada, Genert and Orlanth, culminating in Mello Yello becoming the Dragon Emperor of Dara Happa.

Both campaigns really used the Hero Wars Timeline from King of Dragon Pass, but in a very loose way. Both campaigns interacted with the major NPCs, in particular sidelining Argrath, but they both managed to be at a similar political level to the main participants.

[svensson]

1 hour ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

Sadly I had to get rid of almost all my old RQ stuff about 20 years ago. Probably the worst consequence of my divorce 😄

Been there. Sold that stuff. I feel ya, I really really do.

 

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Tell you the truth I am doing the exact opposite, I am running straight up RQ G characters (small party, and I tell the players to not min/max, it would only result in OP parties) in RQ3 and 2 modules with very little need to modify. Passions, Runes, for flavour, but I don’t need to roll augments for NPCs and can hand wave if needed. A few alterations and it works just fine. I would imagine that the RQ 3 characters going in the opposite direction will be a little underpowered as well as needing passions and runes and Rune Points.

I would say that Runes can be handled based on two criteria: the cult[s] the character belongs [you have to have at least one of a deity's Runes at 50%+] to and previous campaign events. Passions would entirely be governed by previous campaign events.

If the character was a Rune level in the old game, make absolutely sure that they meet the requirements for RQG, even if you have to bump up several criteria to do so. The character did the work in the old rules and shouldn't be penalized because the newer rules and environment is up-gunned.

[svensson]

@soltakss

I SO hope you left Mello Yello as hopeless as he was in Sun County. Dara Happans having to answer to an Emperor who only has a Firespeech of 5% is just too funny.

And that's not even getting into 'shaved, tie-died monkey with a sharpened stick' aspect of it!

Edited March 3, 2022 by svensson

[Bill the barbarian]

5 hours ago, svensson said:

If the character was a Rune level in the old game, make absolutely sure that they meet the requirements for RQG, even if you have to bump up several criteria to do so. The character did the work in the old rules and shouldn't be penalized because the newer rules and environment is up-gunned.

Correct!

[Ian Absentia]

13 hours ago, svensson said:

I don't mean 'did you convert them to RQG stats'. We have a conversion guide for that. But has anyone taken the character they played in the River of Cradles campaign and brought it forward to 1625 Sartar?

How did that story work out?

I may have scored something of a Gloranthan hat trick with my RQG character.

He started out as background fluff for a RQ2 character, the kid brother back home who might turn up as a follower.  He was later statted up as an exercise in character creation as the game transitioned into RQ3, slightly more mature and as a possible backup if my primary character was lost in play, but he saw a little action as the GM's NPC in the role of a young Sartar exile turned to banditry.  Years later, I aged him further for use as the primary NPC antagonist in a HQ adventure I was running, by this point the leader of a notorious bandit gang on the lower Zola Fel after having been outlawed from Sartar years earlier.  When creating a character for a RQG campaign where the GM informed me that we needed an up-and-coming potential thane, I dipped back into this well and had him return from Prax to bring his coming-of-age cycle full circle, the war having wrung a lot of the youthful rebellion out of him and turned him into a responsible leader.

The only iterations I was missing were RQ1 and Hero Wars.

!i!

Edited March 3, 2022 by Ian Absentia

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

I may have scored something of a Gloranthan hat trick with my RQG character.

He started out as background fluff for a RQ2 character, the kid brother back home who might turn up as a follower.  He was later statted up as an exercise in character creation as the game transitioned into RQ3, slightly more mature and as a possible backup if my primary character was lost in play, but he saw a little action as the GM's NPC in the role of a young Sartar exile turned to banditry.  Years later, I aged him further for use as the primary NPC antagonist in a HQ adventure I was running, by this point the leader of a notorious bandit gang on the lower Zola Fel after having been outlawed from Sartar years earlier.  When creating a character for a RQG campaign where the GM informed me that we needed an up-and-coming potential thane, I dipped back into this well and had him return from Prax to bring his coming-of-age cycle full circle, the war having wrung a lot of the youthful rebellion out of him and turned him into a responsible leader.

The only iterations I was missing were RQ1 and Hero Wars.

!i!

NICE work.

My big ambition is to bring my Rhino Rider, Grettir Sharpwind, into RQG and finally[!] get him to Wind Lord of Orlanth. I played the character in RQ2 and by the time we were done, I was the only initiate left in the party. And the last frikkin' skill I needed was Sword Attack. When the campaign ended I had THREE sword styles [Broad-, Bastard-, and Greatsword] at 85% each and STILL could never get any of them to ding over to 90%

[Bill the barbarian]

2 minutes ago, svensson said:

My big ambition is to bring my Rhino Rider, Grettir Sharpwind, into RQG and finally[!] get him to Wind Lord of Orlanth. I played the character in RQ2 and by the time we were done, I was the only initiate left in the party. And the last frikkin' skill I needed was Sword Attack. When the campaign ended I had THREE sword styles [Broad-, Bastard-, and Greatsword] at 85% each and STILL could never get any of them to ding over to 90%

So, will you be bringing that bastard sword along as a strange artifact?

[JustAnotherVingan]

1 hour ago, svensson said:

NICE work.

My big ambition is to bring my Rhino Rider, Grettir Sharpwind, into RQG and finally[!] get him to Wind Lord of Orlanth. I played the character in RQ2 and by the time we were done, I was the only initiate left in the party. And the last frikkin' skill I needed was Sword Attack. When the campaign ended I had THREE sword styles [Broad-, Bastard-, and Greatsword] at 85% each and STILL could never get any of them to ding over to 90%

I do remember one of my players had a character with a lisp called Ronald the Rhino Rider. Hey, we were kids.

[svensson]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

So, will you be bringing that bastard sword along as a strange artifact?

I'll either transfer the skills to Shortsword or just skip it on not worry about it.

[soltakss]

On 3/3/2022 at 9:32 AM, svensson said:

I SO hope you left Mello Yello as hopeless as he was in Sun County.

He was a PC, so was not as weak as before. However, the Player doesn't really get Experience Rolls, so generally didn't bother to roll them, which meant that he was not particularly powerful.

On 3/3/2022 at 9:32 AM, svensson said:

Dara Happans having to answer to an Emperor who only has a Firespeech of 5% is just too funny.

And that's not even getting into 'shaved, tie-died monkey with a sharpened stick' aspect of it!

Unfortunately, the campaign stopped at that point, as the Players unanimously agreed that they weren't going to top that.