RuneQuest Glorantha Gen Con 50 Preview edition

[Rick Meints]

I have to keep reminding myself that up until 2007, Basic Roleplaying was a SIXTEEN page booklet with two purposes. It was meant as an introduction to the Chaosium D100 system and to also introduce people that had never played an RPG to what RPGs were about. It stayed that way for over 25 years until the Big Gold book came out 10 years ago, that's when it changed into a 350+ page stand alone rulebook for all sorts of genres. By 2007 Chaosium was no longer the publisher of RuneQuest, Stormbringer, Elfquest, Superworld, Ringworld, Pendragon, or Nephilim (most of those came in boxed sets initially and included a copy of the 16 page BRP). By 2007 Chaosium was mainly a Call of Cthulhu RPG and fiction book publisher. 

[10baseT]

Myself, the RQ versions don't matter so much. They're all similiar enough to make it work... and since i GM, my players dont really care. they just want to play. What really excites me, is the new content. That's what i'm really looking forward to. New content,  continual support and steady releases of scenario packs and campaigns. (I'm am excited for RQG as well).

[hkokko]

Glancing thru the GenCon Preview set. Glancing again. Fervently looking. Where the chaos are my eyeglasses....

There ain't no monsters innit... Whimpering: Can it be true...

Sure somebody might have mentioned that they will not be there.... 

In the morning I will have to get my eyeglasses and check every page where they are hidden, now too late and too tired...

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, hkokko said:

There ain't no monsters innit... Whimpering: Can it be true...

They are in the Bestiary. This is a preview of the rules. I'm pretty sure they had a copy of the Bestiary at Gen Con to look through..

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, hkokko said:

There ain't no monsters innit... Whimpering: Can it be true...

Sure somebody might have mentioned that they will not be there.... 

It is true.  As @David Scott notes they are in the Bestiary.

It was mentioned.  "The products scheduled for 2017 release are the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha core rules, a Gloranthan Bestiary, and a scenarios book..."

See: https://www.chaosium.com/blog/rqgnew-runequest-edition-to-be-known-as-runequest-roleplaying-in-glorantha/

[7Tigers]

Speaking of Gencon, any news about the panels' video?

Edited September 22, 2017 by 7Tigers

[Jeff]

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

They are in the Bestiary. This is a preview of the rules. I'm pretty sure they had a copy of the Bestiary at Gen Con to look through..

We are doing a complete Bestiary and releasing it at the same time as the core rules. No reason to add page count to the core rules just to add an incomplete list of monsters.

[soltakss]

On 9/23/2017 at 7:57 AM, Jeff said:

We are doing a complete Bestiary and releasing it at the same time as the core rules. No reason to add page count to the core rules just to add an incomplete list of monsters.

Complete as in the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary with additions from Anaxial's Ark?

[hkokko]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Complete as in the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary with additions from Anaxial's Ark?

With all of the stuff from Anaxial the printed one and Anaxial's Annex in the net? 

[Joerg]

Since RQ3 had the standard monsters in the DeLuxe box in a separate booklet, the stock monsters in Anaxial's Ark are required in order to have creatures for standard situations. I don't think that we need ready-to-use stat blocks for all the different kinds of antelope or bovine in a print product with limited space, although descriptions, habitat, typical tactics, special abilities and other peculiarities in the text would be nice. At least I prefer to be able to create individuals following a "cookbook" on the fly. In a simulationist game like RQ, sample stats or at least rules for typically hunted beasts (fowl, squirrels, hares) could be useful, too. Not that one has to play out every hunt, but there may be situations where survival or the result of a ritual great hunt may require some such information.

Gloranthan oddness is a must - whether Rock Lizard, Adryami, Uz, Durulz, Rubble Runner, Walktapus, a guide to Broo (re)production (with reference to the antelope/bovines/small prey section, and optionally some predators as well). How to use a divine or spirit beast, or a minor deity.

Denizens of the spirit world and how to deal with them should be somewhere in the Creatures Book or the rules.

 

[soltakss]

5 hours ago, hkokko said:

With all of the stuff from Anaxial the printed one and Anaxial's Annex in the net? 

I forgot about Anaxial's Annex, do you have a link?

[hkokko]

25 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I forgot about Anaxial's Annex, do you have a link?

Hmm. It seems to have disappeared. You can find almost all if not all creatures from it in a few posts on notesfrompavis.wordpress.com and search for anaxial annex with stndard web search tools. Original seems to have gone to the other world

[7Tigers]

You can find it at least here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071011093038/http://www.glorantha.com/hw/creatures.html

Quote

 Creatures cut from Anaxial's Roster due to space constraints (by Jamie Revell and Greg Stafford):

    Creatures of Above
    Domesticated Animals
    Wild Predators
    Creatures of Below
    Unnatural Creatures
    Embodied Spirits
    Aquatic creatures -- preview of Triolina's Children

 

[7Tigers]

And possibly the more recent & complete one (26th March 2008) at Jamie Revell's old site:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080512084559/http://www.ttrotsky.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/annex/

Edited September 24, 2017 by 7Tigers

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

I forgot about Anaxial's Annex, do you have a link?

The original is still available here:

http://www.glorantha.com/docs/not-enough-room-in-the-ark/

[BWP]

On 8/27/2017 at 8:58 PM, David Scott said:

You manipulate spells using free INT (INT minus spirit magic points and spells known in memory) and Intensity, Strength, Range and Duration - there's a table for each. 

Just curious -- are there "standard" methods of increasing Free INT (other than "forget stuff")?  IMO one of the problems with RQ3 Sorcery was that to be "powerful" (in even a generic fantasy sense, not just Glorantha) a sorcerer needed a lot of Free INT available, and there weren't any obvious ways of getting more than you start with -- except maybe through Familiars, and even that was not an especially easy path (bordering on impossible).  IMO if the Sorcery rules are to "work" then this sort of issue needs to be addressed with clarity.  I seem to recall that various unofficial fixes like Sandy's "Saints" system offered solutions in this direction, but I gather they're all ex-Saints now so wondering where we will be at.

(Not that I'm suggesting that increasing Free INT should be easy, just that there should be an identified process (or more than one process would be even better).

 

[David Scott]

2 hours ago, BWP said:

Just curious -- are there "standard" methods of increasing Free INT (other than "forget stuff")

Yes. Although to play a sorcerer I would always suggest starting with an INT of 18 and making sure you have you have Fire/sky as your primary rune for +2 INT so your starting INT is 20.

There is also a spell that increases INT Enhance INT and therefore Free INT of the target.

For the Malkioni, you get a bonus by obeying school cast restrictions. Break them and you loose them forever. Lunars spell point costs vary by moon phase so they can get up to effectively double Free INT on the Full Moon and half at Dying/Dark phases.

I suspect other schools (not detailed in the core book) have similar techniques, but Enhance INT would normally be the first port of call.

 

[Psullie]

Sorcery is staring to sound very interesting...

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Psullie said:

Sorcery is staring to sound very interesting...

Sorcery was always interesting its just that the rules previously sucked. RQ2 absent, RQ3, not really Gloranthan. It wasn't until we found things like the Xeotam Dialogues that we understood fully how to implement a true Gloranthan feel. Pavis: GtA really let us set the scene for sorcery, then the Guide and now RQG. You'll be able to play sorcerer from the start - my players leapt at that.

[Mugen]

On 10/10/2017 at 3:18 PM, Psullie said:

Sorcery is staring to sound very interesting...

If you like having to develop one skill per spell, and your power based on how many dozens of magic points you can store...

I prefer how the unpublished RQ IV, Sandy Petersen's rules for Sorcery and OpenQuest put a limit on how many MP you could spend based on you sorcery skills rather than your INT.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Mugen

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

If you like having to develop one skill per spell, and your power based on how many dozens of magic points you can store...

I prefer how the unpublished RQ IV, Sandy Petersen's rules for Sorcery and OpenQuest put a limit on how many MP you could spend based on you sorcery skills rather than your INT.

None of those approaches were particularly "Gloranthan" or reflected how sorcery has been described. 

[Mugen]

21 minutes ago, Jeff said:

None of those approaches were particularly "Gloranthan" or reflected how sorcery has been described. 

They surely differ from the actual cannon, but, as far as i know, both Sandy Petersen's and RQIV(whose subtitle was Adventures in Glorantha) were designed for Glorantha.

I'm NOT speaking of any Mongoose or Design Mechanism versions of the game here.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Mugen

[David Scott]

14 minutes ago, Mugen said:

They surely differ from the actual cannon, but, as far as i know, both Sandy Petersen's and RQIV(whose subtitle was Adventures in Glorantha) were designed for Glorantha.

Given when they were written they were based on what was known at the time. Sandy's sorcery (v2 1998) was based on RQ3 and that suffered from the whole mediaeval christian model for the west and didn't involve any runes. Likewise RQ4 (1992) was based on the same RQ3 model, again no runes and still saints etc. Nearly 20 years later from Sandy's rules we're finally getting a proper Gloranthan system based on runes and texts which Greg wrote on sorcery. The new era for sorcery didn't really start until Sartar KoH in 2009 when the Lhankor Mhy cult was rewritten to include sorcery.

Edited October 12, 2017 by David Scott

[styopa]

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

If you like having to develop one skill per spell, and your power based on how many dozens of magic points you can store...

I prefer how the unpublished RQ IV, Sandy Petersen's rules for Sorcery and OpenQuest put a limit on how many MP you could spend based on you sorcery skills rather than your INT.

I think that's a bit harsh, given how little info we have on it (unless you have a copy of the draft rules)?

I think all we've gotten so far are sketches and summaries and IMO particularly with Sorcery (actually typed Sourcery....been playing too much Divinity 2), the devil's very much in the mechanical details.

[styopa]

2 hours ago, David Scott said:

Given when they were written they were based on what was known at the time. Sandy's sorcery (v2 1998) was based on RQ3 and that suffered from the whole mediaeval christian model for the west and didn't involve any runes. Likewise RQ4 (1992) was based on the same RQ3 model, again no runes and still saints etc. Nearly 20 years later from Sandy's rules we're finally getting a proper Gloranthan system based on runes and texts which Greg wrote on sorcery. The new era for sorcery didn't really start until Sartar KoH in 2009 when the Lhankor Mhy cult was rewritten to include sorcery.

What's leaving me so conflicted on the new Sorcery is that:

- I liked RQ3's sorcery system default version (warts and all, I felt it was a very solid structure that could be comfortably revised to usefulness - it may have been an ugly house but it was firmly built with a good foundation), and

- I disliked very much the 'Saints' thing it turned into (for me, that just got too deep into a sort of Glorantha-Digest-y navel-contemplating lore-frenzy), and

- I'm even *less* enthused about the current retconning of sorcerous societies and particularly the concatenation of sorcery into LM...that's just wrong to me (I find it curious that Loskalm and Snodal were, AFAIK, the very *roots* of Greg's writings on Glorantha, but seeing them implemented in-game has been such a painful flip-flopping Odyssey) , but

- looking forward to the mechanics very much.

How messed up is that?