Glorantha Second Age

[smiorgan]

On 20/4/2017 at 2:26 PM, Mugen said:

Combat system was poorly explained, to say the least, with an example that was not in line with the published rules. Notably, the example required two attack rolls, the second being compared

Yes. That story is hilarious. Actually, if you play by the example (with the two attack rolls) combat works just fine. You may not like it, but it works. I can say that because I played a few sessions that way.

If you play by the rules as written, though, the Attack and Parry table makes no sense at all! For instance, the entry for Attacker (Failure) / Defender (Failure) is "Attack succeeds as normal". Hilarious.

The two attacks rule had evidently been edited out at the last minute without thinking of the consequences. At least this is what I stubbornly think.

Because Matt Sprange was vehemently denying it on the Mongoose forum, and instead proposed an evolving series of alternative "clarifications".

I think I still have a clarification document from Mongoose... Found! I must post this excerpt because it is hilarious:

Q: Matthew Sprange said on the forums that you can
react to a failed attack roll. Is that true?
A: Officially, no – there is no provision for that in the rulebook.
As an optional rule, sure, you may find some use for it. The
combat tables allow it out of a sense of completeness – this is
a kind of ‘placeholder’ for us, allowing us to introduce new
rules in the future. For the basic rulebook alone, however,
there is nothing ‘official’ to permit this. What you do at your
own gaming table is up to you though!

 

 

Edited April 21, 2017 by smiorgan

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, smiorgan said:

...snip...

 

 

You didn't archive the whole forum did you?

SDLeary

[Mugen]

8 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Yes. That story is hilarious. Actually, if you play by the example (with the two attack rolls) combat works just fine. You may not like it, but it works. I can say that because I played a few sessions that way.

If you play by the rules as written, though, the Attack and Parry table makes no sense at all! For instance, the entry for Attacker (Failure) / Defender (Failure) is "Attack succeeds as normal". Hilarious.

The two attacks rule had evidently been edited out at the last minute without thinking of the consequences. At least this is what I stubbornly think.

Because Matt Sprange was vehemently denying it on the Mongoose forum, and instead proposed an evolving series of alternative "clarifications".

I think I still have a clarification document from Mongoose... Found! I must post this excerpt because it is hilarious:

Q: Matthew Sprange said on the forums that you can
react to a failed attack roll. Is that true?
A: Officially, no – there is no provision for that in the rulebook.
As an optional rule, sure, you may find some use for it. The
combat tables allow it out of a sense of completeness – this is
a kind of ‘placeholder’ for us, allowing us to introduce new
rules in the future. For the basic rulebook alone, however,
there is nothing ‘official’ to permit this. What you do at your
own gaming table is up to you though!

Yes, I remember that...

I have to say I was actually pretty pleased by the combat tables in the last playtest document (which, if I remember well, was edited by Kenneth Hyte). They looked a lot like those in the published book, except when the attacker and defender had the same level of success, the outcome of the attack differed depending on who had the highest roll. For instance, in case of a parry, the damage reduction was either equal to weapon's AP or twice that amount. I also don't think a failed attack roll could lead to a successful attack.

As a matter of fact, I'm not against the idea that a failed attack could deal damage if the defender makes a poor defense roll, or doesn't even try to. But the damage should be reduced to the minimum possible roll value.

[Pentallion]

On 4/20/2017 at 1:20 PM, JonL said:

This kind of got lost in all the edition warring earlier. I'd like to not only reiterate but broaden it further. For those of you who played it, are some things about the Second Age as a setting made for particularly good game experiences for you? Somebody mentioned enjoying Blood of Orlanth, that's a very Second Agey concept from what I read about it. What are some things that the Second Age brought to your table that you wouldn't have experienced otherwise?

God Learners and raping the Hero Plane.  Was all very fun.  Everyone wanted to play a God Learner.   And not a nice one either.  It was like suddenly being able to play Melniboneans in Glorantha. Somewhat religious zealot Melniboneans, but definitely Melniboneans.

Edited April 22, 2017 by Pentallion

[smiorgan]

13 hours ago, SDLeary said:

You didn't archive the whole forum did you?

SDLeary

Nope. The snippet I quoted is from an official PDF from Mongoose, well after the game came out.

As for the infamous playtest forum, it disappeared overnight after a somewhat heated exchange.

 

[smiorgan]

8 hours ago, Pentallion said:

God Learners and raping the Hero Plane.  Was all very fun.  Everyone wanted to play a God Learner.   And not a nice one either.  It was like suddenly being able to play Melniboneans in Glorantha. Somewhat religious zealot Melniboneans, but definitely Melniboneans.

Very true. The setting was fun. It may not have been canonical, but playing those rationalist imperialist Spanish Melnibonean-Numenoreans intent on destroying the very essence of mythical reality was definitely a plus.  Plus, they were clearly the good guys, given how desperately rotten was the opposing multi-level marketing Ponzi-scheme mystic Dragon Empire.

[Noita]

49 minutes ago, smiorgan said:

Very true. The setting was fun. It may not have been canonical, but playing those rationalist imperialist Spanish Melnibonean-Numenoreans intent on destroying the very essence of mythical reality was definitely a plus.  Plus, they were clearly the good guys, given how desperately rotten was the opposing multi-level marketing Ponzi-scheme mystic Dragon Empire.

And this is how I will from this point onwards describe what the second age was like...

[SDLeary]

9 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Nope. The snippet I quoted is from an official PDF from Mongoose, well after the game came out.

As for the infamous playtest forum, it disappeared overnight after a somewhat heated exchange.

 

Yeah, I remember. I was hoping that you had it though, because I missed most of that exchange before things vanished!

SDLeary