How Do You Use Your Books GMs?

[harmaa.alue]

Hey y'all first post here! And first post on a forum in more than a decade 🫠

With RQG's range of books available and the breadth they cover I'm really curious how the GMs among us use them, I am only just dipping my toes in with the starter kit atm and have been recommended multiple initial books to buy.

Usually some combination of GM Screen + RQG Rules or GM Screen + Glorantha Sourcebook or simply the slipcase

But for books like the RBM, Prosopaedia, the Guide to Glorantha and the Cults books; how have you integrated them into your game running?
Or if you're a player and also have them, how do you integrate them into character creation and roleplay? :))

Really curious to see how this community, which clearly has a love for such a unique setting, uses the books!

 

Edited yesterday at 11:45 AM by harmaa.alue

[Beoferret]

4 hours ago, harmaa.alue said:

Hey y'all first post here! And first post on a forum in more than a decade 🫠

Welcome!

 

4 hours ago, harmaa.alue said:

[...] for books like the RBM, Prosopaedia, the Guide to Glorantha and the Cults books; how have you integrated them into your game running?
Or if you're a player and also have them, how do you integrate them into character creation and roleplay? :))

Really curious to see how this community, which clearly has a love for such a unique setting, uses the books!

Good question. Sticking strictly to direct use (i.e., what's been or will be used for the gaming table):

I've used the RBM to provide inspiration for a magical item (part of a tribe's regalia), by basing it's powers on a listed spell. Haven't actually ran the adventure it's used in yet. CoRQ: The Lightbringers has provided a player of mine with a more in-depth understanding of his character's god and me with ideas for another player whose character is a shaman of Kolat. 

Personally, I got the most use out of those books in drafting an adventure I ran at Chaosium Con '24. The session was set in the Fonritian/Banamban city of Goan (on the southern continent of Pamaltela.) I made extensive use of the Guide to Glorantha to help build the setting, including background, an understanding of Goan's politics and social tensions, a sense of how the city was physically organized, what was in the markets, etc. The Prosopaedia gave me some more info on Fonritian and Doraddi gods too. I then used the Guide, the Prosopaedia, as well as CoRQ: The Lightbringers and CoRQ: The Earth Goddesses to help draft the pre-gens for the session (two Doraddi travelers, a Fonritian slave soldier, a Wolf Pirate, and a devotee of Babeester Gor.) And actually, I use the RBoM too, to help in crafting a new rune spell for one of the pre-gens.

[jajagappa]

5 hours ago, harmaa.alue said:

Hey y'all first post here! And first post on a forum in more than a decade 🫠

With RQG's range of books available and the breadth they cover I'm really curious how the GMs among us use them, I am only just dipping my toes in with the starter kit atm and have been recommended multiple initial books to buy.

Welcome back!

As a GM, I mostly need: RQ Core book, occasionally RQ Bestiary, Weapons & Equipment, Glorantha Sourcebook, Red Book of Magic. And since I run campaigns in Imther, I need my own Edge of Empire book. 🙂 

(If I was currently running in Dragon Pass, as I have in the past, then I'd want to use: GM Screen pack, Starter Set, Glorantha Sourcebook, forthcoming Dragon Pass book, and Lightbringer and Earth Goddesses cults books. I've run Smoking Ruins, so have used that as well.)

As a Player, I mostly need: RQ Core book, Weapons & Equipment as needed, relevant Cults books.

As a JC Author, I need it all! 

Edited 18 hours ago by jajagappa

[Rob Darvall]

At the table:

• Core rules 
• Weapons and Equipment
• Bestiary
• Red Book of Magic
• Prosopaedia

Hard copies on the table for player reference. PDFs with copious bookmarks, comments, cross-references, and hyperlinks, on the laptop for me (it gets a bit laggy though).

I also keep the Gamemaster References booklet to hand.

In Planning:

EVERTHING I own including the 1996 MIG which lets me find obscure lore in OOP sources.

• Armies and Enemies of Dragon Pass both for story elements and illos
• Six Paths for session 0 / chargen and some plotting
• The Book of Doom when I want stuff my players can't meta
• The Six Seasons series for fast mechanics when combat is less important and for easy-to-use NPCs.
• An ancient copy of Bushido and some homebrew to make the Battle roll shorten mass combat
• Plunder, Trinkets, etc for loot bags (and sometimes scenario ideas/maguffins/plot hooks)
• Relevant cults books
• And obviously any source material for the scenario setting including The Guide, The Soucebook, and The AA Atlas (free IIRC).

BUT I really enjoy both having and using stuff I've been collecting since the early 80s. I am by proffession a storyteller (live theatre) and enjoy creating them as much as using them. 

Realisticly, I know folk who are running games perfectly well with the Core Rules and either the Starter Set, The Gm Screen (a very good investment as it's really another starter set with a screen thrown in), or Pegasus Plateau. And I've heard of people just playing the starter set with its pregens.