Cult Rankings

[Rob Darvall]

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

What makes them work is necessity. The Sun Dome temples early on learned that disciplined masses of spearmen could outperform tribal militias, horse thanes, arrays of levies led by Sun priests, mobs of trolls, etc. Sure they aren't better than the best units that Sartar or the Lunar Empire can muster, but they are better than MOST units. 

So is this in any way dependent on their God? Or is it a skill any culture could learn?

[Lordabdul]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

Almost always they start with a culture, then a background, then pick the Runes that appeals to them, then pick an occupation - and only then pick out a cult that would work for them.

Of note, I think this is possibly a very Gloranthaphile approach. The newbies in one of my campaign, and the newbies for which I've GMed some one-shots, of course know almost nothing about Glorantha (by definition) so they don't tend to start with the culture. It's not like they go "I'd like to play some sort of Minoan erudite, is there anything like that in that bronze age world of yours?" and I go "oh sure, that sounds Esrolian, so let me tell you about Nochet". Instead they start with the gameplay experience they want (a scheming merchant, an angry scholar, a shy healer, a warrior poet, etc.) and so we figure out what cult and homeland fits that. And sure, occasionally, someone will start with the culture, because in my 10min overview of Glorantha they pick up on, say, the Praxian Nomads or whatever, but that's the minority in my (arguably limited) experience. I think it's important to keep in mind because it's not always clear to a Glorantha-newbie GM what gameplay role(s) a cult is able to fulfill, and so without clear guidance about that it's not always easy to give the best first experience to the players either.

[Jeff]

12 minutes ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

Of note, I think this is possibly a very Gloranthaphile approach. The newbies in one of my campaign, and the newbies for which I've GMed some one-shots, of course know almost nothing about Glorantha (by definition) so they don't tend to start with the culture. It's not like they go "I'd like to play some sort of Minoan erudite, is there anything like that in that bronze age world of yours?" and I go "oh sure, that sounds Esrolian, so let me tell you about Nochet". Instead they start with the gameplay experience they want (a scheming merchant, an angry scholar, a shy healer, a warrior poet, etc.) and so we figure out what cult and homeland fits that. And sure, occasionally, someone will start with the culture, because in my 10min overview of Glorantha they pick up on, say, the Praxian Nomads or whatever, but that's the minority in my (arguably limited) experience. I think it's important to keep in mind because it's not always clear to a Glorantha-newbie GM what gameplay role(s) a cult is able to fulfill, and so without clear guidance about that it's not always easy to give the best first experience to the players either.

Most of my players are not Gloranthaphiles. The main difference is that I simply what everyone through the character generation process in the core rules and usually do that collectively - which means, pick a culture first, then do a family background. If they have a strong and defined idea what they want, we steer it that way, but most don't have a particular idea beyond "I want to play a warrior type or I want to play a noble woman or an aged veteran down on his luck" and so on. Once they get past the family background and the Runes, it becomes really clear what kind of occupation and then what cult would work best for them. The Zebra Rider with a strong Fire Rune and a strong Man Rune got to chose between Yelmalio ("that's the god of Light in the Darkness") or Pavis, and picked Yelmalio ("I don't want to be confined to one city!"). The Pol-Joni with the strong Death and Air Runes debated between Humakt and Orlanth, but her background made it easy to chose the god of Death and War over Storm and Adventure. And so on.

[svensson]

THANK YOU, JEFF!

If you go through the process as written [Homeland - Family - History - etc.] instead of cherry picking or skipping bits, it's almost like your character comes awake before your eyes. As the character begins to form you apply some preferences ['I want to be a thief or smuggler' or 'I want to be a warrior'] and by the end of the process you have a fully developed character that goes way beyond 'Human first-level fighter'.

If you're a Gloranthan grognard, you have a more definitive idea of what you want, but newbies don't really have to have a solid idea. Choices are presented organically in the creation process.

It isn't about 'power', it's about process.

Edited June 1, 2022 by svensson

[Akhôrahil]

7 hours ago, Eff said:

Well, yes. I don't think it's quite that bad yet, but I do think being able to explain from the book what cults do and what you're getting into is good as a  communication method. 

No, I agree, it’s nothing like that. My default position is that in a game like RQ, balance isn’t critical, but niche protection is. A Yelmalio warrior should accept that someone worshiping the actual God of Death will be better at fighting in most situations. But not in all situations, because in that case, the niche is gone. The Yelmalian might reasonably expect to be better at fighting Darkness, better at surviving a defeat, and so on. But in actual case, perhaps the only situation where the Yelmalian has an edge is fighting in darkness (because of Catseye). That might be too small a niche, and any Yinkin worshiper is likely to be better at that.

[Rodney Dangerduck]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

got to chose between Yelmalio ("that's the god of Light in the Darkness") or Pavis, and picked Yelmalio ("I don't want to be confined to one city

In other words, they found one of the few cults worse for a PC than Yelmalio.

 

[Rob Darvall]

28 minutes ago, svensson said:

THANK YOU, JEFF!

If you go through the process as written Homeland - Family - History - etc. instead of cherry picking or skipping bits, it's almost like your character comes awake before your eyes. As the character begins to form you apply some preferences ['I want to be a thief or smuggler' or 'I want to be a warrior'] and by the end of the process you have a fully developed character that goes way beyond 'Human first-level fighter'.

If you're a Gloranthan grognard, you have a more definitive idea of what you want, but newbies don't really have to have a solid idea. Choices are presented organically in the creation process.

It isn't about 'power', it's about process.

Yep.

We did that. Our Yelmalian is an excellent nightwatchman and scout.

What he is not is a phalangite. Because the Yelmalio mythology does not support that beyond 2 handed spear gifts. In fact our 2 handed spear specialist is our Wind Lord (a status he achieved through the sacred time process).

Equally our Waha worshipper is restoring his clan, as the process and mythology indicate.

Far from being about power my questions are all about process. Not just the mechanical process but also the Gloranthan ones.

How does the god of tenacious underdogs and light-in-the-darkness empower the Sun Dome regiments? If it's his tenacity (my preference) what rules mechanisms transfer that from him to his worshippers? 

As I've mentioned before, I chase this detail because the gods define Glorantha. 

[French Desperate WindChild]

you're right @svensson (even if I change my creation process  to "allow" more variation than what is proposed in the default background.)

 

however @Rodney Dangerduck shows a true problem with the Snakepipe Hollow example.

now is it really a cult issue ? for me no. It is an issue, clearly

 

we are in tunnels and caves without natural light . What was the light sources ?

Torches ? What kind of ennemies (GM) , able to fight in darkness, don't try to put the torches out ?

No light ? our humatki has -75% to fight, when troll and yelmalian shouldn't, so 8mp with sword transe, just to overcome the penalty.

What ? Magic... oh Yelmalio is usefull then

 

how much time should last the exploration ? 15 min ? 30 min ? more than 2 hours ?

mmm after two or three fights our humakti will have no more runepoints... or maybe burn it with extension .. then unable to change strategy if other spells are needed (what ? there are undead and you are no more able to chase them ? you a humakti duck ?). Who will heal and save the party ? probably this too weak yelmalian as he didn't use his specific runespells, so useless !

 

and then is our duck able, with its ridiculous wings to peak a lock or deactivate a trap, letting the others covering his back  ?

Or will he proudly scan (so do nothing, because nothing-gm will happen) to let a partner succeeds this step and get the focus ?

what about this cave where opponents can fire arrow (or acid) from overhead, where no sword can hit ?

what about this darkness altar, giving some help if a "pure" troll (no stranger cult) is able to worship the Mother ?

what about this relic, lost centuries ago by some light worshippers ? Will the sun dome leaders be proud of the the yelmalian and honor him ? or congratulate this f@! winged... thing, unable to fly ?

 

of course any of my examples could be debatable, but the sense is here. GM could do a lot of things to solve the issue

 

I mean, rpg are social and supportive gaming

Players would have pleasure to overcome the difficulties with the role they want to explore, whatever statistics are provided

GM would have pleasure to "play" the main goal of a GM:  organizing, diversifying encounters to let everyone become a hero, or, better, part of a heroic group (or anti hero, or anything players want to "be"). the scenario provides a script, helpful to have a good session. Helpful, not mandatory to follow without any divergence.

 

of course it is only my taste. Of course sometimes I fail, as a player or as a gm.

yes I understand that new players and GM (I mean, not new in glorantha, but new in rpg) may need help to see what they can do on a table, and how it is different from these inapropriate named "rpg" computer games.

[Eff]

Of course, if the process is strictly picking Runes before considering cult, you can end up with someone making foolish decisions like picking Water or Moon or Stasis on the basis of "This is the kind of personality I want this character to have" and then having a somewhat foreclosed set of options when it comes to cults, like with said Pavis Survivor having a choice between Yelmalio and Pavis. I wouldn't know, because when I've done character creation with a Gloranthan neophyte, they've done the process holistically in order to produce the kind of character they wanted to play and went backwards and forwards to try and represent this character within the options available. 

[Martin Dick]

13 hours ago, Eff said:

The main thing I want to unpick here is "social status". What does that mean/should that mean in terms of Runequest play? To borrow a bit of game design jargon, are there verbs peculiar to these high social status cults, ways in which playing them unlocks abilities to alter the world? Or should we think of this mostly in terms of gratification- these are cults that will give you a synchronous sense of yourself as an important person in the fictional setting? 

It's basically the rulers, so if you want to be part of the ruling class with your character (and take the Noble occupation), then that's going to be easier to make work with a character who's in the Great category as opposed to the Okay. Or as you say, in a Praxian clan, a Waha initiate normally has more ways to alter the world (opinions/policy of the clan) than an Orlanthi and vice-versa in a Sartarite clan, where who's going to listen to the local butcher about what we should do about those damn Grey Dogs. Which is not to say that it wouldn't be fun to play a Waha initiate in Sartar who was aiming to become the clan chieftain, but it  would be a real challenge for a beginner who was just looking to be a noble thane of the clan.

[Martin Dick]

14 hours ago, Eff said:

And of course, a cult like Teelo Norri is so difficult to place in an agentic mode that I've characterized it as "not for play", which is apparently contrary to the beliefs of the designers about what cults are appropriate to play. So maybe thinking in these terms is just inappropriate generally for Runequest, hahaha!

The one way I thought that a Teelo Norri character could work, would be in the role of Tripitaka in Journey to the West, with a range of Seven Mothers companions who are required to protect and obey them and them being naive and idealistic and of course always wandering off in to trouble. But it would be a pretty difficult cult to play in most campaigns.

[Martin Dick]

14 hours ago, FlamingCatOfDeath said:

Have you seen the GaGoG write up for it? I would be fascinated to hear about it if you have, I have never understood what magic the social worker cult would give, and I would love to find out. (I assume that the cult is manly appropriate in a dedicated social worker campaign)

No magic at all, everyone is a lay member and it provides no training or skills. All the priestesses of the cult are actually priestesses of other Lunar cults usually other Seven Mothers

[JRE]

The last player creation, with two moderate Gloranthaphiles with no experience of RQ:G, started with location (Pavis), time (1616) and expectatives (a few seasons in Pavis getting familiar with the characters and reacquainted with the setting, and then they will decide where to go).

As the main focus will be exploration and culture experience (the mentioned Vancian narrative), they decided to have a talking character and a fighting character-bodyguard, and it was clear who would take each. Then came a discussion on changes in RQ:G, then cult (as cult affects a lot the ideal runes), looking for neutral deities in the Hero Wars. Issaries and Humakt. 

Runes came afterwards, then stats (point purchased) and finally skills. Family past history and background was all player driven, with some reminders of historical events to consider. At that point the Humakti decided to try a Durulz, and that forced a big revision, from the runes forward, which made the aspiring herald change his mind and become a wannabe Herodotus / sorcerer and get also a LM initiation, some rune changes and a big skill exchange. Philosopher was used as Historian analogue.

No rolls in player creation.

More consideration on family history and childhood, including a good reason to leave Duckpoint in 1613 or Nochet in 1615. 

We will see if it lasts. There are some disagreements on where to go once they make too many enemies in Pavis (they count on it). As time is tight initial activities will be based on the RQ3 Renaissance books, as they are not familiar with them. So I see a visit to Garhound, some cultural exploration in Sun County, and problems with thanatari in their future. Borderlands and Big Rubble will be used only as background, as they and Griffin Mountain have been overused already. Waiting to see what Ian comes with in Pavis, though I have all the Tradetalks. 

[icebrand]

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

But to the RQ design team, these cults have the spells and abilities they should have.

I'm curious, why did you guys add runelords to babeester gor? 

They (and humakti) are pretty much unstoppable in melee due to the trance spells (this is new to this edition, since the Big % boosts were not nearly as good back in RQ3). 

Is this intended? Am i to believe that the average stormbull or orlanthi just gets murdered if they try to fight a cultist with trance? This is very different than the Glorantha we used to play in!

14 hours ago, Jeff said:

I don't think any player I have gamed with ever picked a cult because they were trying to figure out which was most effective

I don't know what to tell you, i don't think thats the problem, but a byproduct. Let me try to explain how i feel about this:

Lets say we are playing a supers game.

The characters are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Green Arrow, Comisioner Gordon, and a teen that works at mcdonald's (he has no powers).

You say that playing teen that works at mcdonald's (he has no other powers). And i'm not arguing that, what's fun is fun, it would be like arguing if red is better than blue.

Some people will find the teen not fun. Others will find Lois and Gordon (and even Green Arrow) too underpowered. Some others will spend hours trying to figure out if Batman or Superman is the best.

Again, fun is relative, and where we draw the line is subjective.

11 hours ago, Dissolv said:

One group I GM has a Humakt duck, who is probably hands down the most powerful in combat (if his Rune points hold out), but when push comes to shove the group prefers mass buffing a Storm Bull

Because it doesnt matter how powerful the duck actually is, he relies on a gimick (Sword trance), a clearly broken runespell that literally trivializes the whole character sheet.

Duck vs duck? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

Duck vs human? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

Duck vs allosaur? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

The only viable counterplay is dismiss magic, and the dismiss magic meta is awful.

11 hours ago, Dissolv said:

It is the clever players who work the scenario and the campaign to avoid such events, (or be on the right side of them!) as much as possible, who thrive.  Even in combat, clever play is vastly superior to a stacked character sheet. 

This is faulty logic, akin to "My adventurer doesnt need social skills because i'm charming and can convince the GM".

You know what's better than clever play? Clever play with a stacked character sheet.

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

The Zebra Rider with a strong Fire Rune and a strong Man Rune got to chose between Yelmalio ("that's the god of Light in the Darkness") or Pavis, and picked Yelmalio ("I don't want to be confined to one city!").

"Even yelmalio looks good if you compare him to pavis!"

 

[Martin Dick]

7 minutes ago, icebrand said:

You know what's better than clever play? Clever play with a stacked character sheet.

YMMV, but in 45 years of roleplaying, apart from maybe the first year, I've never found that to be the case, why do you need to do clever play if you have a stacked character sheet and can just bulldoze your way through the opposition.

[icebrand]

4 minutes ago, Martin Dick said:

why do you need to do clever play if you have a stacked character sheet and can just bulldoze your way through the opposition.

Because you are playing RuneQuest and understand math?

[JRE]

I have to agree with Icebrand that playing with RQ3, and specially the possibility of the enemy scoring an impale or, gods forbid, a critical, made players aware of mathematic probability in a way that D&D or even Traveller did not.

Which means even powerful characters will minimize the length of combat and use any trick that will keep the opponents from rolling against the PCs, and decreasing their skills as much as possible when they get to roll. It was good sense in RQ3, and it seems less significant with the skill reduction for high combat skill in RQ:G.

A 150% dagger, 120% Dodge PC would still ambush a trio of trolkin with spirit magic up if he can, just to avoid giving them the opportunity to roll that 8% Impale, 2% critical chance with their 40% spear more than once or twice (. Now it is 5% hit, 1% critical, so the pressure is much less.

I prefer players that are less trigger happy, so it is likely we will keep skills unreduced, partly because we have played that way thirty years, but also because I want players to take combat seriously.

[icebrand]

21 minutes ago, JRE said:

I prefer players that are less trigger happy, so it is likely we will keep skills unreduced, partly because we have played that way thirty years, but also because I want players to take combat seriously.

Yeah, i fear the system evolved and some legacy features don't work as well with it.

Rq2 has skills over 100% reducing the opponents *but* only runelords could go over 100 (and if they became lord+priest they couldnt increase skill any longer)

The % increase magic was límited to +20% weapon enchant, Morale (very situational) and fanaticism (which had plenty counterplay with demoralize and "beating the crap out of the guy who can't parry"

RQ3 came along with huge % increases (Berserker, uncapped spirit magic, Axe trance, etc) but your skill didnt reduce the opponents and once above 100 it wansnt that big of a deal (heck a 150% character fighting a 100% character in RQG has better odds than a 300% character fighting a 100% character in RQ3). 

Then RQG went back to %over 100 reducing opponents, but left all the RQ3 magic as it was, an even added sword trance for humakti... All this stuff males RAW painful to play if you care about fun combat tbh.

[JRE]

Just to show how it matters, in the simple example, in RQ3, if the trolkin attack 3 times there is a 5.9% chance of a critical, and a 16.2% of a special or more, with no critical (we will ignore normal hits as dodged or absorbed by armor/magic). If they can attack 9 times before being dispatched there is a 16.6% of a critical or more (1 in six) and a 36.2% of a special or more.

In RQG the critical chance in three attacks is 3%, and 8.6% in 9 attacks, but the special is absorbed by the critical. Much less dangerous, specially as the dagger now is interesting for parry purposes, even for a critical. 

If you are unarmored and did not have time to cast magic, then the difference is huge, but I am sure those who are interested will have already an idea of the odds. 

I assume it is part of the underlying idea that players are capital H Heroes once they are in the 100+ range, so those three trolkin should be a minor threat, not a medium one for a single character. But in my opinion that will make combat plentiful, simply because the risk factor is less, and GMs will be less afraid of including filler combat scenes. 

RQ3 had a big advantage when you outnumber your enemy. Players also benefitted from this (three PCs could tackle a weapon master, even if they were bound to suffer wounds). Now, although not at the level of D&D, highly skilled characters (or artificial skills such as the Trance spells), whether PCs or NPCs, create a gradation of power levels.

As I said above, I can understand the rationale behind the change, but that is not the game I want, and I think there are some contradictions between the designers declared aims and the results. 

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

I'm curious, why did you guys add runelords to babeester gor? 

They (and humakti) are pretty much unstoppable in melee due to the trance spells (this is new to this edition, since the Big % boosts were not nearly as good back in RQ3). 

Is this intended? Am i to believe that the average stormbull or orlanthi just gets murdered if they try to fight a cultist with trance? This is very different than the Glorantha we used to play in!

It is intended. 

2 hours ago, icebrand said:

 

 

I don't know what to tell you, i don't think thats the problem, but a byproduct. Let me try to explain how i feel about this:

Lets say we are playing a supers game.

The characters are Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Green Arrow, Comisioner Gordon, and a teen that works at mcdonald's (he has no powers).

You say that playing teen that works at mcdonald's (he has no other powers). And i'm not arguing that, what's fun is fun, it would be like arguing if red is better than blue.

Some people will find the teen not fun. Others will find Lois and Gordon (and even Green Arrow) too underpowered. Some others will spend hours trying to figure out if Batman or Superman is the best.

Again, fun is relative, and where we draw the line is subjective.

Because it doesnt matter how powerful the duck actually is, he relies on a gimick (Sword trance), a clearly broken runespell that literally trivializes the whole character sheet.

Duck vs duck? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

Duck vs human? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

Duck vs allosaur? 95% to hit, <1% to be hit

The only viable counterplay is dismiss magic, and the dismiss magic meta is awful.

This is faulty logic, akin to "My adventurer doesnt need social skills because i'm charming and can convince the GM".

You know what's better than clever play? Clever play with a stacked character sheet.

You are clearly playing a different style of game with different player expectations than the game designers. That's fine, but for me,  I think further discussion is pointless. 

 

[icebrand]

5 minutes ago, Jeff said:

It is intended. 

Do you have any advice on how to play against it?

When my players use it i feel i'm misplaying unless i dismiss it, and then the game revolves around who has more RP; also dismissing it every time it gets cast gets old and doesnt feel satisfactory, i feel it's a lose/lose situation (to the point i had to forbid the spell).

10 minutes ago, Jeff said:

You are clearly playing a different style of game with different player expectations than the game designers.

I don't know what to tell you since march '21 we played published scenarios exclusively; im not privy to the design team expectations, but i can't believe they are THAT different? 

[Lordabdul]

11 hours ago, Jeff said:

Most of my players are not Gloranthaphiles. The main difference is that I simply what everyone through the character generation process in the core rules and usually do that collectively - which means, pick a culture first, then do a family background.

We go through the character creation in order of course, yes, but that doesn't change the fact that some of my players are the kind who, whatever the game, have an idea in mind as soon as they've heard the elevator pitch of the campaign. So each step of character creation is about guiding them into realizing this idea. This also means that rolling characteristics in order generally doesn't work for them either, so they either roll and redistribute, or I give them a flat amount of points (that's valid for the other BRP games we play) (of course I've got other players who love going with the dice)

My experience is even more anecdotal than yours, but my main point here is that reverse engineering homeland and cult choices based on a player's idea is a valid and probably not uncommon way of creating characters. As written, some cults are pretty easily grasped by newbie GMs, who can therefore make the connections (Storm Bull, Ernalda, Lhankor Mhy, Issaries, etc.), other cults have lots of overlap with unclear ways to figure out which one is best for a given desired gameplay experience (the Odayla/Yinkin/Foundchild trio), and yet others got me scratching my head until I dove into more Glorantha material (Argan Argar, Engizi, and to some extent Daka Fal).

[Rodney Dangerduck]

3 hours ago, Ludovic aka Lordabdul said:

(the Odayla/Yinkin/Foundchild trio)

Probably for another thread, but these seem to be three hunting cults that are mediocre at hunting, though they'd be effective if combined.  And how they fit in mythically / culturally is fuzzy to me.  For example, Bear's Strength is awesome for a warrior, one of my Vingan's favorite spells (she's also in Thunderous) .  I'm not sure how it helps a "hunter."  Hopefully GoG will elaborate.

[Baron Wulfraed]

4 hours ago, JRE said:

Just to show how it matters, in the simple example, in RQ3, if the trolkin attack 3 times there is a 5.9% chance of a critical, and a 16.2% of a special or more, with no critical (we will ignore normal hits as dodged or absorbed by armor/magic). If they can attack 9 times before being dispatched there is a 16.6% of a critical or more (1 in six) and a 36.2% of a special or more.

For fairness -- how many fumbles might that trollkin encounter during all this, to its detriment?

[FlamingCatOfDeath]

This is me horribly misreading the rules ignore this post

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

For example, Bear's Strength is awesome for a warrior, one of my Vingan's favorite spells (she's also in Thunderous) .  I'm not sure how it helps a "hunter."  Hopefully GoG will elaborate.

~~If you are a spear hunter (as in you throw it) it makes you more likely to fell your quarry, and in Glorantha there is always the risk of running into a monster while hunting so spells to help survive those encounters make a lot of sense.~~

 

1 hour ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

Probably for another thread, but these seem to be three hunting cults that are mediocre at hunting, though they'd be effective if combined.

~~They are associate cults so they can learn each others rune magic (Page 283~~

Edited June 1, 2022 by FlamingCatOfDeath
Clarification