New design notes - Sorcery!

[Mankcam]

I like it that thd Grey Sages of Lhankor Mhy are now Sorcerers.

RQ2 presented them very well as being a collective of loremasters, and I always felt that they must of had a scholarly-driven approach to Rune Magic, as opposed to a faith-driven approach.

RQ2 Rune Magic was broad enough to encompass several approaches to the magic. Most was faith-driven, but it could also conceivably be scholarly-driven (ie: Grey Sages,, Dormali, Goldentongue Merchants, Mostali etc), and also perhaps even intution-driven ( eg: Eurmali, Telmori, Dondandi Performers, Aldryami etc). It was not written like this, but open enough to interpret like this.

When I purchased RQ3 I discovered that a scholarly magic system (Sorcery) exists separately from Divine Magic; yet no indication that the Grey Sages used Sorcery.

Then the RQ3 GoG Box confirmed that Grey Sages used Divine Magic, which kinda felt wrong to me.

I'm glad CRQ4 looks like correcting this 

Edited August 27, 2016 by Mankcam

[MOB]

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

I like it that thd Grey Sages of Lhankor Mhy are now Sorcerers.

...

Then the RQ3 GoG Box confirmed that Grey Sages used Divine Magic, which kinda felt wrong to me.

Like the Aeolians, Lhankor Mhy sages use both rune magic and sorcery magic

[Noita]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

 

In some cases, I get the feeling people are proposing favorite rules mechanics - in a vacuum - rather than think about what the sorcery rules are trying to model.

Take my house rule damn it!

[smiorgan]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

Semi-freeform in use does not model how I see Gloranthan sorcerers actually work. They aren't "winging it" - they use extraordinarily complex formula, like giant mathematical formulae. An individual sorcerer can develop new formula (and not just choose from a spell list), but it takes time and research.

In some cases, I get the feeling people are proposing favorite rules mechanics - in a vacuum - rather than think about what the sorcery rules are trying to model.

In all honesty no, I'm not proposing favorite mechanics in a vacuum. I propose what I would like to see given the way I'd like to imagine Malkioni sorcerers given my limited knowledge and appreciacion of Glorantha.

The middle way I proposed with with sorcerers preparing custom designed spells in advance was precisely not "winging it" but applying to specific incantations the fundamental principles of runes and techniques which they understand rather than learning by rote spells transmitted by tradition.

Forgive me if I quote myself and note the last line:

20 hours ago, smiorgan said:

One middle way that I like between on the spot improvisation and innovation by research only is keeping the spell free-form but have the sorcerers prepare them in advance rather than in the middle of the action. The sorcerer need first to prepare a spell by combining the rune and technique and committing the magic points in advance, you might say it takes several minutes if not hours. Then when the sorcerer has the spell prepared it can be unleashed as a matter of strike ranks...

[...]

Designing your spells in advance would fit the rationalist intellectual mindset of the sorcerer AND be way more fun than the fricking lantern..      

And let me say one thing, Jeff. I've been a Chaosium customer and fan for ages, I have reams of Chaosium product at home, I've even been a supporter against reason (when they did not so well polished monographs). I've been an Issaries and Moon Design customer. I've bought the Hero Wars boxed set with the ugly maps and the spandex Orlanth, I've tried to make sense of Thunder Rebels and even converted some stuff to RQ. I'v ordered the beautiful Gloranthan Classics reprints from Rick Meints and played with gusto with them.

I've been a backer of RQ Classic, I'm an almost sure customer/ backer of the new Rune Quest. I like 95% of what you guys are doing, and the remaining 5% I understand. And if I'm not super-enthused of the sorcery rules and I like to say what would have made me even more happy, what's the harm?

You are re-building an extremely cool company. If you and the other guys were a tad less defensive it would be even better.

 

  

 

[jongjom]

18 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

You are re-building an extremely cool company. If you and the other guys were a tad less defensive it would be even better.

Just as well that I'm not in control of responding here for Chaosium (my pre-morning coffee and end of grinding day comments might be..err, 'defensive').

Two thing I keep in mind: one they probably have been through a year of grief (to put it mildly: would probably knock some of the joie de vivre out of you) and two that we're talking to a lawyer about rules

[smiorgan]

4 minutes ago, jongjom said:

Two thing I keep in mind: one they probably have been through a year of grief (to put it mildly: would probably knock some of the joie de vivre out of you) and two that we're talking to a lawyer about rules

I can understand this and also that they are rightly proud of the hard work, intelligence and passion they put into Chaosium, 

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

 

I've been out of the Gloranthan loop for a long time, but It feels like the west is finally opening up & making sense in Glorantha. 

As a scarred RQ 3 user back in the day , the west was completely broken for me on many levels. The  weird medievalist idea, and the inaccessble sorcery rules. When we were finally presented with sorcery NPC's in strangers in Prax (Arlatan, the troll sorcerer etc) they appeared to be overly complicated to run with all the extra book keeping. Could be interesting to see these characters revisited with these new RQ4 sorcery rules? If memory serves they were interesting characters 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sayerson]

Ultimately, it seems like the chaosium is treading a perceived line of fanbase and commercial failure/ success stress. With that, there needs to be deciding factors that they have to stick with, as nothing is ever well designed by a committee. While some things may be liked by a lot of people and some things won't be liked by some, ultimately, it is chaosium's decision on what is in the final product. 

With the team they assembled, I can tell that they are as big a fans of their game as most here are and are actually invested in its success. With people that care about the game as much as these guys, it won't be a middle of the road release with the same 'let's throw a new variant spin in and make it work regardless, even if the play tests of it showed it failed'

it won't be because they won't let it. What fan of RQ would? 

My two clacks.. Along with "YGWV" about sums up things for this grognard. That and 'no friggin physical runes'. 

Besides, I haven't heard about spirit combat yet. 

[Mankcam]

The idea of Sorcery having some form of free-form Magic seems to fit, especially as a backup to their easier performed formulaic spells. It appears nowhere in canon, but given the small canon we have (in comparison to the Orlanthi vs Lunars focus), then it seems like something the God Learners would have stumbled upon in their experimentation.

So yes of course many people may have been hoping to see some form of that, especially now that the building blocks for such a system are in place (ie: Rune + Technique). I cannot see how it would harm the setting, especially if free-forming Magic was much more difficult to perform or empower ( eg: usual MP cost x3 or x4 perhaps), or even a detrimental risk to the caster ( increased fumble chance perhaps), a trade-off for not worshipping a deity to receive the magical benefits.

So I guess it's only natural that good influences from other systems have crept into people's minds since the mid 1980s when RQ3 Sorcery came out, and games like 'Ars Magica'and 'Mage: The Ascension' do influence any thoughts on the subject. Even Stormbringer's 'Unknown East' magic which was redesigned as MagicWorld's 'Deep Magic' was a good example of free-form Magic.

I don't see how it will affect the setting just as long as it remains difficult to perform, thus providing a reason to learn formulaic spells through the Schools.

However it's not a big issue for me, as I suspect I can easily house-rule it if I want to go down such a path in my Gloranthan games. 

From the disclosed design notes it does sound like a very Gloranthan version of Sorcery and I am willing to give it a shot, as pretty much all the recent Gloranthan supplements have been great.

I really feel that the current design team has been the best thing for the setting since the RQ2 Gloranthan material and RQ3 'RQ renaissance' material. 

So with that in mind I'll reserve judgement until I have the CRQ4 books in my hands, but overall I am pretty optimistic about all this 

 

Edited August 27, 2016 by Mankcam

[Jeff]

8 hours ago, Mankcam said:

The idea of Sorcery having some form of free-form Magic seems to fit, especially as a backup to their easier performed formulaic spells. It appears nowhere in canon, but given the small canon we have (in comparison to the Orlanthi vs Lunars focus), then it seems like something the God Learners would have stumbled upon in their experimentation.

So yes of course many people may have been hoping to see some form of that, especially now that the building blocks for such a system are in place (ie: Rune + Technique). I cannot see how it would harm the setting, especially if free-forming Magic was much more difficult to perform or empower ( eg: usual MP cost x3 or x4 perhaps), or even a detrimental risk to the caster ( increased fumble chance perhaps), a trade-off for not worshipping a deity to receive the magical benefits.

So I guess it's only natural that good influences from other systems have crept into people's minds since the mid 1980s when RQ3 Sorcery came out, and games like 'Ars Magica'and 'Mage: The Ascension' do influence any thoughts on the subject. Even Stormbringer's 'Unknown East' magic which was redesigned as MagicWorld's 'Deep Magic' was a good example of free-form Magic.

I don't see how it will affect the setting just as long as it remains difficult to perform, thus providing a reason to learn formulaic spells through the Schools.

However it's not a big issue for me, as I suspect I can easily house-rule it if I want to go down such a path in my Gloranthan games. 

From the disclosed design notes it does sound like a very Gloranthan version of Sorcery and I am willing to give it a shot, as pretty much all the recent Gloranthan supplements have been great.

I really feel that the current design team has been the best thing for the setting since the RQ2 Gloranthan material and RQ3 'RQ renaissance' material. 

So with that in mind I'll reserve judgement until I have the CRQ4 books in my hands, but overall I am pretty optimistic about all this 

 

As an avid player of Ars Magica and Mage, I certainly was influenced by them. But I'm rejecting using free-form sorcery (at least for mainstream sorcery as represented in the core rules) for a variety of reasons. First, because I don't think that it is a good fit with how I envision Malkioni sorcery. Gloranthan sorcery uses complex logical formulae that must be mastered precisely in order to be used. That's the skill roll - your likelihood to precisely channel one's psychic energy through the loci of the formula in exactly the right order, manner, and combination. Someone with little psychic energy might master the formula perfectly, while someone with vast psychic energy might have to rely on ceremony and sympathetic magic in order to reproduce the formula.

Second, because in playtesting it ended up overpowering the other characters - it is worth observing that in Ars Magic and Mage, you all play hermetic mages who all use the same basic approach to magic (yes there are hedge wizards and so on, but they are set up to be inferior to the hermetic mages). In RQ, there are those who focus on their Rune cult, those who follow a shamanic path, those who practice sorcery - and those who have begun on the path to Herodom. The first three approaches need to worth together without eclipsing each other (of course it is ok if the Herodom ends up eclipsing everything else) - in both effect and play.

That's not to say that there aren't "sorcerous traditions" elsewhere in Glorantha that might use freeform sorcery, but that's not the approach taken in most of Genertela. The God Learners weren't improvisers - they carefully studied the relationship between the Runes (by carefully researching the Monomyth) to create remarkable and unique spells. They often cast these spells in large working collectives of sorcerers (in order to dramatically increase the amount of intensity they could add to a spell), and using combinations of time, place, and component bonuses - PLUS liberal use of ceremony augments - in order to have a decent chance of casting unique (and extremely powerful and demanding) spells like Summon Tanien or Switch Goddess. This is the sort of stuff I am trying to model.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Jeff
Added explanation to what is a formula.

[Mankcam]

It does help to know where you are coming from with this, and I can see a big rationale for ensuring one magic system does not eclipse another. 

I do note that free form sorcery isn't entirely ruled out, but it's not the default option being modelled. Makes me think that Brithini may know a trick or two about this, or possibly some exotic sorcery from the Pamatelan continent may have some concepts like his.

I do like the sorcery system you are modelling, it feels deeply entrenched in Glorantha, and not just additional system for the sake of novelty. I can pretty much live with this. 

Thanks for sharing these insights Jeff, it all sounds pretty good to me!

Edited August 28, 2016 by Mankcam

[Atgxtg]

Am I the only one who dislikes the fact that  the Grey Sages of Lhankor Mhy are now Sorcerers? It's a big change from how Dragon Pass was in the past. Before, sorcery was considered foreign and dangerous. Now, Lightbringers are doing it. To me that's just wrong. 

[Jeff]

Lhankor Mhy cultists learn spirit magic or sorcery, depending on the traditions of their temple and/or personal preference. In RQ2, LM's spirit magic sucked, to put it mildly. Given the involvement the LM cult had with the God Learners, Greg and I concluded that sorcery is as much a tradition for the LM cult as spirit magic. The cult teaches spells like Memorize, Reveal Rune, Logician, Geomancy, Identify Otherworld Entity, etc - all very helpful in accumulating Knowledge (and far more relevant than Detect spells). It also gives a strong incentive for LM adventurers to be seeking forbidden knowledge, playing around with God Learner secrets, looting the libraries of long-dead sorcerers, etc.

As an aside, I love the LM cult and would absolutely love to do a campaign set around a LM library where the characters are all trying to get their hands of forbidden tomes, investigate the "Secret Collection", and try to reconstruct some God Learner secret that can exists within the library.

[Atgxtg]

Not thrilled with that approach. 

Well, at least you didn't give Orlanth the Chaos rune. 

[jajagappa]

41 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

the Grey Sages of Lhankor Mhy are now Sorcerers

Personally I like it and think it makes far more sense - particularly in line with the myths and stories associated with the West where Lhankor Mhy clearly came from.

42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It's a big change from how Dragon Pass was in the past

Well, it's been established since at least 2001 when Storm Tribe was released and the subcult of Torvald was described, and reinforced in 2009 when Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes came out, so not new by any means.

[metcalph]

Given that Lhankor Mhy's father happens to be a certain, Mostal (Cult Compendium p159 repeating information already published in Cults of Prax), it would be more of a surprise if Lhankor didn't have anything to do with sorcery.

[Mankcam]

5 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Am I the only one who dislikes the fact that  the Grey Sages of Lhankor Mhy are now Sorcerers? It's a big change from how Dragon Pass was in the past. Before, sorcery was considered foreign and dangerous. Now, Lightbringers are doing it. To me that's just wrong. 

I always felt that even though Grey Sages had Rune Magic in RQ2, the cult description presented them as lore masters and such, and I always envisioned them as a keepers of wizardry as well as general lore. When RQ3 came out with Divine Magic and Sorcery Magic, it kinda felt wrong to me that Grey Sages were not involved in Sorcery. I always felt that they may have known one or two Divine Magic spells based purely around worshiping Lhankor Mhy, but would specialise in Spirit Magic and Sorcery.

The Grey Sages being the 'wizards' of Orlnthi culture feels more in keeping with the cult presentation, and I always felt that they would take an academic approach to their magic rather than a faith driven approach; so I'm glad it's gone down this path.

Edited August 28, 2016 by Mankcam

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, jajagappa said:

Personally I like it and think it makes far more sense - particularly in line with the myths and stories associated with the West where Lhankor Mhy clearly came from.

Well, it's been established since at least 2001 when Storm Tribe was released and the subcult of Torvald was described, and reinforced in 2009 when Sartar:Kingdom of Heroes came out, so not new by any means.

It's like Vinga and Emal. So yeah, it "new". 

[Atgxtg]

36 minutes ago, Mankcam said:

I always felt that even though Grey Sages had Rune Magic in RQ2, the cult description presented them as lore masters and such, and I always envisioned them as a keepers of wizardry as well as general lore. When RQ3 came out with Divine Magic and Sorcery Magic, it kinda felt wrong to me that Grey Sages were not involved in Sorcery. I always felt that they may have known one or two Divine Magic spells based purely around worshiping Lhankor Mhy, but would specialise in Spirit Magic and Sorcery.

The Grey Sages being the 'wizards' of Orlnthi culture feels more in keeping with the cult presentation, and I always felt that they would take an academic approach to their magic rather than a faith driven approach; so I'm glad it's gone down this path.

Perhaps, but it doesn't fit in with Orlanthi culture. Now sorcerers are an accepted part of the Lightbringer pantheon. What next, are they illuminated, too? 

[MOB]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Perhaps, but it doesn't fit in with Orlanthi culture. 

Aren't the Aeolians an Orlanthi culture with sorcery?

[jajagappa]

41 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

What next, are they illuminated, too?

I guess you haven't met Argrath and his warlocks yet. :-)

[smiorgan]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

As an aside, I love the LM cult and would absolutely love to do a campaign set around a LM library where the characters are all trying to get their hands of forbidden tomes, investigate the "Secret Collection", and try to reconstruct some God Learner secret that can exists within the library.

Great scenario / campaign idea. I'd play in it.

[MOB]

8 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

Great scenario / campaign idea. I'd play in it.

Here you go! http://rpgreview.net/mob/thegettingofwisdom.htm

[jajagappa]

7 minutes ago, MOB said:

Here you go! http://rpgreview.net/mob/thegettingofwisdom.htm

I love that scenario! And particularly the Ex Files.

[Noita]

I love the sages now. Plus isnt knowing sorcery how you know your enemies?