Passions and Runes in Play

[Eff]

So, when it comes to Passions, I'd say that there are three interrelated factors that have come up:

-Players tend to fish for ways to make their best Passions apply to the situation for Inspiration.

-Passions serve as markers of the character's relationships and so tend to proliferate on the character sheet.

-Passions as an expression of psychology are framed in a way that makes characters feel less like an ordinary human being in how unpredictable it is they'll actually care about something and how inconsistently volatile their emotions are.

I say factors because I'm not sure all of these are problems on their own. I think that together they create a kind of knotty problem where players are likely to have a broad but somewhat shallow arsenal of Passions, meaning that it's as natural, maybe more natural, for player characters to use their Passions in situations where their life isn't at risk, because the consequences are pretty bad for failure, and to focus on squeezing as many Passions into a given situation as they can.

And I think that for me, going once again back to that KAP well, Passions are most interesting when they are things that genuinely define a character and when they come up in high-tension situations because of that definition. Can you do that in RQG? Oh, sure. I could play someone with Loyalty (Argrath) 70% or 80% and have them brag constantly about how "Me and Prince Argrath... we're like this" and crossing their fingers. I could effectively ignore the Passions left at 60% on the sheet. I think RQG might be a better game if it was more encouraging of the latter condition, in terms of seeing Passions as something more than a mechanical option.

One thought I have been sketching out is the idea that you have a default "Passionate" rating, perhaps related to your Air Rune, which is used for things like Loyalty (tribe) and Love (family) when characters don't have that as a centerpiece. These Passions are very limited in augmenting use- possibly they all share a single "slot" for using them for augments- but they are rolled when the focus of the Passion is relevant, to help shape how your character reacts, or as a typical ability.

And then you have your primary Passions, perhaps two or three or four, which have their own rating, and they are the things that are central to your character's personality and expression. And they are higher than your "Passionate" ability, and can all be used for augments separately, and the negative effects for failure are more varied- failing the roll always causes a bad consequence for you, but the risk is less centered on "you're ineffectual for x time". But at that point we might well be getting far away from the BRP assumptions.

[Eff]

As far as adjusting Runes within this sketched approach, I think that they get further away from BRP! I might even replace or derive characteristics from them directly. But I think that ideally everyone should have a rating in every Rune that's on the character sheet by default. Everything is made of everything, in Gloranthan lore terms, for one thing, and for another thing, it allows you to reframe Rune values so that you can differentiate between "Grrr, I'm a Storm Bull and I despise the part of me that's connected to the bloody Red Moon!" and "I was completely neutral on the Moon Rune because there's only so many points you have to spend."

And I think this is valuable for dramatic purposes.

What I would also do is perhaps derive positive and negative traits from the Runes, like Passionate in the previous post coming from Air, and so you might (sticking to Elements) have something like this:

Dark 55% - Cruel 55%/Patient 55%
Water 75% - Mercurial 75%/Adaptable 75%
Earth 40% - Ruthless 40%/Pragmatic 40%
Fire 60% - Arrogant 60%/Insightful 60%
Air 50% - Reckless 50%/Passionate 50%
Moon 30% - Impractical 30%/Intuitive 30%

And then you could adjust ratings within these pairs, but you would also tie them to other aspects of the character, such that they are what drives most of the character's actions and capabilities- having a high positive Fire trait should make it very easy to take actions that require reasoning, but it normally comes with a high negative Fire trait that limits your ability to trust other people's capabilities. Or something like that, this is very sketchy. 

And then the core Rune is what powers magic, and whenever it improves, both subtraits improve, so while you can choose as a player (and as a character) how you can express the contradictory aspects of your Rune, attuning yourself to it makes all these aspects stronger, and making you simultaneously more powerful and more constrained as you move away from the Middle World- until you start experimenting with mysticism.

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Is it a problem to be an humakti or a yelmalian and have geas ?

No, because you choose to be Humakti or Yelmalion. Note that I don't like the fact that you now roll the gifts and geases.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

Or a shaman with any taboo ?

Same, you choose.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

That is the same for me with runes or other. That gives advantage (as gifts) but may "force" you to do things (as geas), when the advantage is powerful (aka 80%+ of success)

note that noone say you "must" have runes 80+, you can stay below, can't you ?

No, because you don't choose the Passions rolls (and associated EXP rolls).

[Aiun]

Hi, I'm "the player" from Eff's game.

Personally, I love coming up with complex character personalities and inhabiting them. Thus, I'm not asking an RPG system or setting to constrain what kinds of personalities are playable. (Probably, RQG does not actually do so, although its ability to represent personalities in terms of Runes has limits.) On the other hand, if I invent a personality and the setting is rich enough to have something to say about it - providing likely niches or roles, excluding others, illuminating character history and possible futures - that can be quite fun indeed.

I was able to a lot of fun playing Topi, legendary jeweler of Rhigos and geographically unlikely Entekos initiate, in part because I had a great GM who was willing to work with some outlandish ideas I brought in (and match them with some of her own.) The outlandishness includes Entekos using her knowledge of the Jernotian Way to broker a kind of cosmic peace between Sedenya and Orlanth, through Vinga and Etyries. There is much cosmic trickiness here, and it was long before the point when I introduced one of Eff's fanfiction characters from a very different timeline as a potential spoiler of this compromise that we transitioned away from the RQG system and made this question, on a mechanical level, moot for our specific game.

With that said, the Harmony Campaign is still an attempt to be a Glorantha, if a unique one (aren't they all?), and we are constantly asking questions like: what does the Air Rune mean, actually? (Mostly, I couldn't stop asking.) And part of that is because this carried on being RQG for quite a long time, and we tried our best to fit a character who was passionate but not hotheaded, this starry-eyed ideal-chaser who loves often and hates less than I do, onto a character sheet. (But it's also partly because of exploring other implementations of Glorantha, notably 13AG, where players "narrate" runes for story purposes.)

We ended up with an understanding of Air that may or may not fit in other games, as being multifaceted. Topi represents the Entekos Air/Harmony "facet," and there are more hotheaded, etc. facets that are possible, but they are not in the ascendant post-Windstop. Eff played a very interesting cosmically-minded Kallyr who fit this very well and deepened my understanding of what Air means in our specific campaign.

Part of the initial impulse in this refinement (or redefinition?) was admittedly to sidestep the 80% rule for the Air Rune, because it was more fun, for a one-on-one campaign of this nature, if my character WAS in alignment with her rune and her goddess, without having to change the personality I'd come up with. And we have been playing that out as at-the-table mythopoesis, and it's fun, so I consider it a successful choice.

I do like a lot of Eff's mechanical suggestions and find them interesting, and maybe we'll try something like that in some future campaign that's more mechanically heavy.

[SevenSistersOfVinga]

10 hours ago, Aiun said:

if my character WAS in alignment with her rune and her goddess, without having to change the personality I'd come up with

I find strange, but at the same time really common, that people are not aligned with their Runes.

Runes should be vague, yes (that's such a libra thing) but also I feel like if a character is the brainy kid that stays inside to read and is afraid of heights it's much more likely to end up following a god that represents all that.

Instead of ending up as part of the storm bull because the dual sword build really shines with Berserk.

 

I agree with you here, the problem with +80% and mind control is only a problem if you consistently play the character one way and have runes that represent another. 

If the personality and the runes match, then you only feel bound by the +80% if you are doing something out of character. (The Humakti with 90% honor lying to get a discount should feel ashamed, maybe do it anyway but then complain about his honor while he chases the avatar)

[French Desperate WindChild]

12 hours ago, Kloster said:

No, because you don't choose the Passions rolls (and associated EXP rolls).

That is the point I don’t understand

how many times the GM decides player must roll this passion/rune versus player decides to use passion/rune. from my perspective 90% of passions rolls and about 100% of runes rolls are players decision

if all situations in a campaign are focused on one passion that may be an issue, I agree. But for me it is not a rule issue it is a campaign issue

I may have some bias ( because my house creation process ) but it seems to me that even as raw players choose themselves the runes and passions of their characters ? They decide what/who they play

 

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Eff said:

-Players tend to fish for ways to make their best Passions apply to the situation for Inspiration.

So, Players should not mind when those same Passions drive their behaviour.

They can't use Passions to gain skill bonuses and then complain when they are asked to behave according to those Passions.

It is a two-way street.

12 hours ago, Eff said:

-Passions serve as markers of the character's relationships and so tend to proliferate on the character sheet.

So, Adventurers should act according to those Passions.

There is no point having Loyalty (Argrath) and then undermining him by going against his decisions all the time, for example.

I would reduce Passions if an Adventurers started doing that, or I would introduce conflicting Passions.

12 hours ago, Eff said:

-Passions as an expression of psychology are framed in a way that makes characters feel less like an ordinary human being in how unpredictable it is they'll actually care about something and how inconsistently volatile their emotions are.

So, Adventurers should act according to those Passions.

There is no point having Brave as a Passion and constantly avoiding any fighting, for example.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

how many times the GM decides player must roll this passion/rune versus player decides to use passion/rune. from my perspective 90% of passions rolls and about 100% of runes rolls are players decision

From what I have seen, most (not all as you described) rune rolls are decided  by the player, not by the GM, but for the passions, my experience would tell about 50% for each.

1 hour ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

I may have some bias ( because my house creation process ) but it seems to me that even as raw players choose themselves the runes and passions of their characters ? They decide what/who they play

If you create RAW, the player choose most of the values of the runes (in fact, they choose everything, but some modifiers are coming from background/history), but choose nothing about the passions (except the default ones that comes from cult and homeland).

[JustAnotherVingan]

9 minutes ago, Kloster said:

If you create RAW, the player choose most of the values of the runes (in fact, they choose everything, but some modifiers are coming from background/history), but choose nothing about the passions (except the default ones that comes from cult and homeland).

RAW the game says (RQG p29)

You may choose the event or roll a D20 to get a random result.

I'd prefer the player roll to avoid having too many grandparents/parents eaten by the Crimson Bat or PCs who fought with great glory in every battle but if a player said "I hate that result, can I reroll?" I'd allow them to, just as I allowed my players to select some evnts that were important to their idea of the character.

[French Desperate WindChild]

39 minutes ago, Kloster said:

my experience would tell about 50% for each.

In this case yes that is, for me, too much. but that is more a table issue (I don’t know why so I don’t advice anything) than a rule issue

when you see the white bull campaign that absolutely not 50/50 and that s fine I think

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

RAW the game says (RQG p29)

You may choose the event or roll a D20 to get a random result.

Correct.

2 hours ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

I'd prefer the player roll to avoid having too many grandparents/parents eaten by the Crimson Bat or PCs who fought with great glory in every battle but if a player said "I hate that result, can I reroll?" I'd allow them to, just as I allowed my players to select some evnts that were important to their idea of the character.

Same for me.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

In this case yes that is, for me, too much. but that is more a table issue (I don’t know why so I don’t advice anything) than a rule issue

Agreed.

2 hours ago, French Desperate WindChild said:

when you see the white bull campaign that absolutely not 50/50 and that s fine I think

White Bull campaign is fine, but not RAW.

[Eff]

6 hours ago, SevenSistersOfVinga said:

I find strange, but at the same time really common, that people are not aligned with their Runes.

Runes should be vague, yes (that's such a libra thing) but also I feel like if a character is the brainy kid that stays inside to read and is afraid of heights it's much more likely to end up following a god that represents all that.

Instead of ending up as part of the storm bull because the dual sword build really shines with Berserk.

 

I agree with you here, the problem with +80% and mind control is only a problem if you consistently play the character one way and have runes that represent another. 

If the personality and the runes match, then you only feel bound by the +80% if you are doing something out of character. (The Humakti with 90% honor lying to get a discount should feel ashamed, maybe do it anyway but then complain about his honor while he chases the avatar)

Well, for me the question is kind of broader. Are all Air entities like Orlanth? Is Inora, for example? If I'm playing an Inora worshiper, or a similar kind of entity that exists more towards the edge of a Rune, (Hwarin Dalthippa as a Moon example, Babeester Gor as an Earth example so strong earlier games had to create a specific Rune for her and her aunt to make them part of the system, etc.), can I play someone in touch with their god and their Runes at the same time? I guess one answer to this is that these kinds of cults are not meant to be playable, of course. 

[Eff]

Just now, Eff said:

Well, for me the question is kind of broader. Are all Air entities like Orlanth? Is Inora, for example? If I'm playing an Inora worshiper, or a similar kind of entity that exists more towards the edge of a Rune, (Hwarin Dalthippa as a Moon example, Babeester Gor as an Earth example so strong earlier games had to create a specific Rune for her and her aunt to make them part of the system, etc.), can I play someone in touch with their god and their Runes at the same time? I guess one answer to this is that these kinds of cults are not meant to be playable, of course. 

Fire is possibly the most egregious example of this- the description of the Rune in the corebook is suited for Yelm and Yelmalio, but imagine describing Lodril or Shargash in terms of chasteness and purity! 

[Baron Wulfraed]

19 hours ago, Kloster said:

No, because you choose to be Humakti or Yelmalion. Note that I don't like the fact that you now roll the gifts and geases.

<blink><blink>RQ2: Humakt geases were always D% roll (Cults of Prax [Classic reprint], page 37). My GM of the time used a D10 for the selection of the gift. Yelmalio (page 57) explicitly says "Roll" above the 10 available gifts (so using a roll for Humakt makes things consistent), with the geases, again,  being on a D%

 

[JustAnotherVingan]

56 minutes ago, Eff said:

Well, for me the question is kind of broader. Are all Air entities like Orlanth? Is Inora, for example? If I'm playing an Inora worshiper, or a similar kind of entity that exists more towards the edge of a Rune, (Hwarin Dalthippa as a Moon example, Babeester Gor as an Earth example so strong earlier games had to create a specific Rune for her and her aunt to make them part of the system, etc.), can I play someone in touch with their god and their Runes at the same time? I guess one answer to this is that these kinds of cults are not meant to be playable, of course. 

A person isn't defined by just 1 of their runes.

To take your earlier example about Trickster and Donandar having a high Illusion rune means the character enjoy tricking people, fooling their perceptions.

A Donandar inititate also having a high harmony rune does so to amuse people, a Trickster initiate having a high disorder rune does so for their own amusement or profit.

[Eff]

5 minutes ago, JustAnotherVingan said:

A person isn't defined by just 1 of their runes.

To take your earlier example about Trickster and Donandar having a high Illusion rune means the character enjoy tricking people, fooling their perceptions.

A Donandar inititate also having a high harmony rune does so to amuse people, a Trickster initiate having a high disorder rune does so for their own amusement or profit.

The rolls and the entwined roleplaying are being made with single Runes at a time, however, and not against a kind of "God rating". So if I make a character who follows, say, Lodril, how do they interact with their chaste, intellectual Fire Rune if they behave like a rough-and-tumble, sensual person? Should they have a low Fire and focus almost entirely on Life and Disorder?

[JustAnotherVingan]

18 minutes ago, Eff said:

The rolls and the entwined roleplaying are being made with single Runes at a time, however, and not against a kind of "God rating". So if I make a character who follows, say, Lodril, how do they interact with their chaste, intellectual Fire Rune if they behave like a rough-and-tumble, sensual person? Should they have a low Fire and focus almost entirely on Life and Disorder?

They'd probably focus on the idealistic and perceptive aspects of Fire/Rune rather than the pure and chaste. 

[Eff]

Just now, JustAnotherVingan said:

They'd probably focus on the idealistic and perceptive aspects of Fire/Rune rather than the pure and chaste. 

The player or the character? Because I don't really think that idealistic or perceptive are things that are by default associated with Lodril if you pick up a Gloranthan text where the big lug is described. And you could define chaste and intellectual in ways that fit Lodril, of course. I'm just having difficulty understanding how having a high Fire rune makes you better at tuning in on Lodril's divine wavelength. Or Oakfed's. 

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

If you create RAW, the player choose most of the values of the runes (in fact, they choose everything, but some modifiers are coming from background/history), but choose nothing about the passions (except the default ones that comes from cult and homeland).

It's being rather dismissive to say they "choose nothing" given that they do choose ones from homeland, cult, and occupation.  And since the player is allowed to choose any background event they wish (p.29 in bold: You may choose the event or roll a D20 to get a random result), they can fully determine which way their character leans in regards to Passions.  And even if they do roll randomly and hit an event which includes a Passion, it's up to the player and GM to work out whether they do take on or keep any identified Passion.  (And a GM who does otherwise is being a jerk.)

Personally, I like them both as player and GM as they get you to think more about how this character acts.

40 minutes ago, Eff said:

So if I make a character who follows, say, Lodril, how do they interact with their chaste, intellectual Fire Rune if they behave like a rough-and-tumble, sensual person? Should they have a low Fire and focus almost entirely on Life and Disorder?

Fire burns, consumes, reveals, warms, purifies, etc.  The more it stands in isolation from other Runes or solely with the Truth Rune, the more I'd likely play it as either aloof/chaste/intellectual (Dayzatar), noble or judgmental (Yelm), or purifying/fanatical (Enverinus/Oakfed).  But to get the sensual person with Fire, you could add in Earth, Darkness, Moon, either Disorder or Harmony, or Life Runes.  To get an enigmatic character with Fire, add in Air, Moon, Movement, Illusion.  To get the destructive fire, add in Death, Disorder, Darkness, Air, or Movement.  The short synopses of the Runes offer some interpretations, but if you can express how Fire works for the character, then I think you just go with that. 

[Kloster]

2 hours ago, Baron Wulfraed said:

<blink><blink>RQ2: Humakt geases were always D% roll (Cults of Prax [Classic reprint], page 37). My GM of the time used a D10 for the selection of the gift. Yelmalio (page 57) explicitly says "Roll" above the 10 available gifts (so using a roll for Humakt makes things consistent), with the geases, again,  being on a D%

I've never had an Humakti when playing RQ2, so yes, I believe you. With RQ3, gifts were chosen and there was a linked geas.

[g33k]

23 hours ago, Eff said:

... What I would also do is perhaps derive positive and negative traits from the Runes, like Passionate in the previous post coming from Air, and so you might (sticking to Elements) have something like this:
Dark 55% - Cruel 55%/Patient 55%
Water 75% - Mercurial 75%/Adaptable 75%
Earth 40% - Ruthless 40%/Pragmatic 40%
Fire 60% - Arrogant 60%/Insightful 60%
Air 50% - Reckless 50%/Passionate 50%
Moon 30% - Impractical 30%/Intuitive 30%

And then you could adjust ratings within these pairs, but you would also tie them to other aspects of the character, such that they are what drives most of the character's actions and capabilities- having a high positive Fire trait should make it very easy to take actions that require reasoning, but it normally comes with a high negative Fire trait that limits your ability to trust other people's capabilities... 

I had actually been thinking of some mechanics very-very-much like that.

I think the added level of crunch & record-keeping wouldn't be to many folks' taste, however.
 

Still, I agree the idea has some merit !

[Rodney Dangerduck]

One thing the Passions might miss on is mirroring actual player role playing, not simplistic "I've got this Rune therefore XXX" roleplaying. 

My current character, the youngest daughter, is very much a show off / daredevil type.  She should have some sort of "Reckless" passion. 

Another PC consistently roleplays as "Hard Drinker".

Various groups can come up with Home Brew rules to deal with this.

[JRE]

I would say that most RQ players fit one of three molds. The first one emulates the god, as a kind of archetype / character package. The second sees the archetype and decides to go against it as a way to be special. And the third one plays as illuminated from the first minute, maximizing apparent benefit (with the benefit depending on what is the player's turn-on, whether lethality, power, magic, riches...). All three have their advantages and disadvantages, so do not take this as a preference for a playing style.

The first one will play the runes and passions as intended. The second one will have some problems, unless they tune down the role of runes, though passions may be a way to balance the behaviour out. They probably welcome the inner turmoil coming from passions and runes.

The third one will quickly maximize runes and passions for the game benefit, while probably ignoring them in most situations, so they will probably be the cause of most conflicts between player agency and runes / passions at the table. 

In brief, it lies between exploring the world, exploring the character(s), and exploring the game. And all mixes of them.

For this situation, runes are ambiguous enough, specially the elements, to be flexible. Powers are more evident, as the duality and opposition makes it easier to categorize. However I consider extreme rune affinity to be quite clear to anyone that meets the character, in Glorantha, and to be accompanied with small magical effects as soon as you get to the extremes. The runes were the easiest part of the conversion, as any player that has been run for some time will be evident for the exremes, and for others the difference between 60 and 65% is not so critical. The conflict just generates stories more easily. 

So, low passions and high runes for us, with passions seldom used, mainly due to the low values, and runes sparingly. We are still considering how to pair traits with runes, so you can rule the chaste / lustful trait pair by focusing on the Fire rune, the Earth rune, or even possibly the pairs Truth / Illusion or Life / Death. You can be a lusty solar, if your fire is not linked to it, but your Life. Or a chaste sage, even with high Earth, because it is your Truth that governs it. Extra work, but it avoids the simple stereotypes, or the cookie cutter characters. Still a work in progress, as we discuss this by e-mail

[Susimetsa]

Passions and runes quickly become a very complex web. For my latest character, a Narri clan Entertainer of Donandar, I found it relatively easy to write his personality around the runes. I did not include the passions and hates etc., but they were pretty straightforward (own clan, religion, hated foreign cultures).

"Cimrien’s mood may swift quickly from almost morose silences to joyous dancing and playing (Water rune). His travels and experiences have made him somewhat cultured – he often takes a wider perspective on issues and consider long-term goals rather than immediate gains (Earth rune and high Int). But he also carries with himself the same practical approach to the world as his mother did (Earth rune). The unpredictability and passion of his fellow Sartarites still exists (low Air rune) somewhere within him, but he is unlikely to succumb to physical outbursts (weak Str, Con). He prefers to talk himself and his loved ones out of tough situations, but rather than relying on logic and truth, he is more likely to appeal to emotions and adjusted truths (Illusion rune). However, his white lies are rarely intended to hurt anyone and he generally seeks the best for everyone (Harmony rune)."

[PhilHibbs]

The 80% rule should absolutely be 85%, it's tradition.