Massive YGMV

[Squaredeal Sten]

I just had a massive Your Glorantha May Vary (YGMV) event:

I was running Black Spear. and along about page 136, the party's healer used the Board of Nails (acquired about a RW year ago in a minor heroquest drawn from King of Dragon Pass, considerably earlier in my campaign)

Spoiler

on Argrath!

This not only short circuited most of the rest of the adventure, but also implies serious changes to the future history of Glorantha..

Does anyone else have an unplanned YGMV story that tops this one?

Do you agree that it implies serious changes to the future history of Glorantha?

[Rodney Dangerduck]

What is a Board of Nails?  My google-fu comes up empty.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Rodney Dangerduck

[Squaredeal Sten]

Board of nails removes "bad thoughts".  I have treated it as generally restoring sanity.  For instance after madness rune magic, or  after fear shock. 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
Fear shock

[Nick Brooke]

Sane Argrath is arguably more dangerous than wasted Argrath.

[Akhôrahil]

Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

[PhilHibbs]

4 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Board of nails removes "bad thoughts".  I have treated it as generally restoring sanity.  For instance after madness rune magic, or  after fear shock. 

Is his state of mind "bad"? Is it a result of trauma, or is it a result of his deliberately chosen path?

5 hours ago, Rodney Dangerduck said:

What is a Board of Nails?  My google-fu comes up empty.

https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Board_of_Nails

"Helps keep our farmers from becoming too unhappy". I remember getting that in a game, and thinking "Nail Boarding will continue until happiness improves". So you could go a number of directions with this one...

[jajagappa]

8 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Board of nails removes "bad thoughts". 

The little quote on the King of Dragon Pass wiki says "The Digging Stick people said it would ward off bad thoughts..."

I might well have interpreted Argrath as the "bad thought" and had the Board of Nails drive him off!  And then they have to find him again...

OR if the "bad thoughts" are driven out of Argrath, where do those bad thoughts go?  Too bad they aren't constrained any longer by Argrath...

Edited August 13, 2022 by jajagappa

[Squaredeal Sten]

5 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Is his state of mind "bad"? Is it a result of trauma, or is it a result of his deliberately chosen path?

https://kingofdragonpass.fandom.com/wiki/Board_of_Nails

Well Nick's adventure hypothesizes that the root of his probles is a result of childhood trauma.  At least as I read it.

We're talking about a fictional character here, the original author has passed away, and YGMV.  But since I ran that adventure consistency indicates I should not ignore it.

I'm interested in Nick's thought that a sane Argrath would be more dangerous.

[Nick Brooke]

OK. In Black Spear, Argrath has kinda gotten lost in his shamanic venture to encompass everything (man). Your adventurers bring him back to reality, they ensure he fails his mystical aspiration, they re-focus him on his mission to fight the Hero Wars in Dragon Pass. I don’t mind whether they do it with a bed of nails, or a whip, or a spear, or a harsh talking-to. You’ve ended the scenario exactly as expected, and your adventurers have made themselves complicit in Argrath’s future misdeeds. I don’t honestly see how your Glorantha has varied. But YGWV.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Nick Brooke

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

I don’t honestly see how your Glorantha has varied. But YGWV.

Maybe their Vary varied.

YVMV

[soltakss]

15 hours ago, Squaredeal Sten said:

Does anyone else have an unplanned YGMV story that tops this one?

Soltak Stormspear (Who he?) had a Cloak of Cat Hair that swirled around him impressively when he was in any wind, but left him unaffected by said wind. He was on a HeroQuest where a particular item was held in the Cave of Winds, where Hurricane-force winds whipped around it like a Tornado. I looked into the room, the GM looked at me, said "Sh*t, I forgot about that", as I calmly walked into the cave and took the item, my cloak whipping around impressively. And, for those GMs who said that they would have had the wind rip it away, that was specifically mentioned in its description, so stop nasty GMs.

[Nick Brooke]

I’m getting powerful Squirrel Girl vibes, as so often happens at these moments. It’s good to embrace your niche.

Edited August 13, 2022 by Nick Brooke

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Soltak Stormspear (Who he?) had a Cloak of Cat Hair that swirled around him impressively when he was in any wind, but left him unaffected by said wind. He was on a HeroQuest where a particular item was held in the Cave of Winds, where Hurricane-force winds whipped around it like a Tornado. I looked into the room, the GM looked at me, said "Sh*t, I forgot about that", as I calmly walked into the cave and took the item, my cloak whipping around impressively. And, for those GMs who said that they would have had the wind rip it away, that was specifically mentioned in its description, so stop nasty GMs.

I think my Cave of Winds would have had a chasm where you need a wind or storm to carry you across by design. Does that cloak allow select winds to ignore its presence?

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

Soltak Stormspear (Who he?) had a Cloak of Cat Hair that swirled around him impressively when he was in any wind, but left him unaffected by said wind. He was on a HeroQuest where a particular item was held in the Cave of Winds, where Hurricane-force winds whipped around it like a Tornado. I looked into the room, the GM looked at me, said "Sh*t, I forgot about that", as I calmly walked into the cave and took the item, my cloak whipping around impressively. And, for those GMs who said that they would have had the wind rip it away, that was specifically mentioned in its description, so stop nasty GMs.

I love this stuff - myths and fairy tales don’t seem intent on giving the protagonist a balanced challenge, it is rather about having the tools to overcome it. If a player can completely short-circuit an encounter, awesome.

My personal favorite, from Scion: We’re about to enter the Labyrinth on Crete, and some us feel uncertain about navigating it. That’s when one player says ”I have the Ariadne’s Thread artifact, that should work, right?” (She had bought it at chargen and never used it yet.)

(Similarly, my character could summon a bunch of Spartans, so when we were attacked by Persian Immortals…)

Edited August 13, 2022 by Akhôrahil

[Nick Brooke]

(the Spartans were utterly defeated by them?)

[Akhôrahil]

3 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

(the Spartans were utterly defeated by them?)

Bought us quite a bit of time for being grossly outnumbered, actually. 🙂

[Darius West]

On 8/13/2022 at 12:38 PM, Squaredeal Sten said:

I just had a massive Your Glorantha May Vary (YGMV) event:

I was running Black Spear. and along about page 136, the party's healer used the Board of Nails (acquired about a RW year ago in a minor heroquest drawn from King of Dragon Pass, considerably earlier in my campaign)

So, lemme guess, you let the party healer (of all people) hit Argrath with the Board of Nails, and likely killed him or something, right?  You didn't let him use his hero powers to GTFO, with parry, dodge or Guided Teleport or any number of other potential saves.  You didn't have Argrath's Humakti bodyguards slaughter the healer for trying to assassinate their liege either I bet.  Here's a useful rule of thumb.  Heroes can't be killed except by other actual declared Heroes, or Superheroes, or by overwhelming numbers of mooks, or major league Chaos monsters like Cwim or the bat.  If you try to assassinate Argrath, he will avoid the blow like a Chanbara hero and decapitate the assassin, declaring "This is how we deal with assassins with no respect for life".

But hey, if you want your players to get away with murder, let them pay the price.  The Lunars regroup, crush the internally divided Sartarite clans, and roll over the Holy Country and Prax too.  Soon thereafter they use a hybrid Mostali ritual to raise the Block, there being no Stormbulls left to defend it, and Wakboth is freed because fundamentally the Lunars were always a Chaotic conspiracy to destroy the world, and Wakboth is the Sacred Utuma they have chosen to do it with.  Glorantha is destroyed in S.T. 1630 and there is no-one left alive to record it as the lozenge dissolves back into the cosmic chaos void like a popped soap bubble. 

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Joerg said:

I think my Cave of Winds would have had a chasm where you need a wind or storm to carry you across by design. Does that cloak allow select winds to ignore its presence?

No, it ignores all winds.

As the GM said, he forgot I had the cloak.

As a GM, I don't write scenarios specifically to penalise one Adventurer who has something that could cause problems. Instead, I like to make the Adventurer feel good for being able to overcome the obstacle.

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

I love this stuff - myths and fairy tales don’t seem intent on giving the protagonist a balanced challenge, it is rather about having the tools to overcome it. If a player can completely short-circuit an encounter, awesome.

Exactly, as a GM, I think it is awesome.

11 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

My personal favorite, from Scion: We’re about to enter the Labyrinth on Crete, and some us feel uncertain about navigating it. That’s when one player says ”I have the Ariadne’s Thread artifact, that should work, right?” (She had bought it at chargen and never used it yet.)

Perfect.

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

Here's a useful rule of thumb.  Heroes can't be killed except by other actual declared Heroes, or Superheroes, or by overwhelming numbers of mooks, or major league Chaos monsters like Cwim or the bat.  If you try to assassinate Argrath, he will avoid the blow like a Chanbara hero and decapitate the assassin, declaring "This is how we deal with assassins with no respect for life".

You play a very different style of game to me.

In my games, there are no Untouchable people, no NPCs who cannot be killed, or who always avoid being defeated.

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

But hey, if you want your players to get away with murder, let them pay the price.  The Lunars regroup, crush the internally divided Sartarite clans, and roll over the Holy Country and Prax too.  Soon thereafter they use a hybrid Mostali ritual to raise the Block, there being no Stormbulls left to defend it, and Wakboth is freed because fundamentally the Lunars were always a Chaotic conspiracy to destroy the world, and Wakboth is the Sacred Utuma they have chosen to do it with.  Glorantha is destroyed in S.T. 1630 and there is no-one left alive to record it as the lozenge dissolves back into the cosmic chaos void like a popped soap bubble. 

Or, the Adventurers right the wrong they did and take Argrath's place, or fight the Lunars themselves.

I use the material from King of Sartar as a guideline, not as a steamroller that cannot be stopped.

As I said, we have different game styles.

 

[soltakss]

12 hours ago, Nick Brooke said:

I’m getting powerful Squirrel Girl vibes, as so often happens at these moments. It’s good to embrace your niche.

Of course, your playstyle is much better than mine, or the groups I have GMed and played in.

After all, munchkins like us wouldn't have enjoyed playing in campaigns that lasted 10 years, or a weekly campaign that lasted 15 years, would they?

I wish that I could play ever so serious games that last for a few months, rather than fun games that last for many years.

[Akhôrahil]

8 minutes ago, soltakss said:

In my games, there are no Untouchable people, no NPCs who cannot be killed, or who always avoid being defeated.

"No matter how subtle the wizard, a knife between the shoulder blades will seriously cramp his style."

[PhilHibbs]

On 8/13/2022 at 5:29 AM, Squaredeal Sten said:

Board of nails removes "bad thoughts".  I have treated it as generally restoring sanity.  For instance after madness rune magic, or  after fear shock. 

4 hours ago, Darius West said:

So, lemme guess, you let the party healer (of all people) hit Argrath with the Board of Nails, and likely killed him or something, right?

Er... I don't know where you got that from. "Removing bad thoughts" is not the same as "killing".

[jajagappa]

7 hours ago, Darius West said:

and likely killed him or something, right?  You didn't let him use his hero powers to GTFO, with parry, dodge or Guided Teleport or any number of other potential saves.  You didn't have Argrath's Humakti bodyguards slaughter the healer for trying to assassinate their liege either I bet.

Well, as the OP noted, this was the Black Spear material, so Argrath is not exactly in normal state of mind, nor accompanied by any companions.

[PhilHibbs]

So in summary I'd say if you want it to be a massive YGWV, then go for it. Change Argrath substantially, and go with it. If you don't, if you want to keep it on track with the canon timeline, then the Board of Nails just revived him from his stoned stupor and got him back on track.

[Squaredeal Sten]

34 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

So in summary I'd say if you want it to be a massive YGWV, then go for it. Change Argrath substantially, and go with it. If you don't, if you want to keep it on track with the canon timeline, then the Board of Nails just revived him from his stoned stupor and got him back on track.

Oh a stoned stupor is not necessarily "bad thoughts".  It's

Spoiler alert

The personal hell part and the chaos incursion that qualify as that.

And if you remove all that, what track is he on?

And yes, the future history is written so much according to the great man theory of history, that I think it will very likely change. Given the interpretation of Argrath in Black Spear.

Edited August 14, 2022 by Squaredeal Sten
And yes...

[Squaredeal Sten]

10 hours ago, Darius West said:

So, lemme guess, you let the party healer (of all people) hit Argrath with the Board of Nails, and likely killed him or something, right?  You didn't let him use his hero powers to GTFO, with parry, ...

No, completely wrong.  It was the healer, all right.  Who healed both his body (that was the easy part) and his mind (which was the YGMV part).  And then they summoned him for Leika.