RQ2 Quality of Life Improvements

[Olias of Bunhillow]

So I'm getting ready to run my first game of RuneQuest using the 2nd edition rules. What tweaks or changes have y'all found useful in improving your game experience without changing the core of the game? Also what pitfalls have you learned to avoid in your experience playing the game? Really looking forward to introducing RuneQuest to my group.

Thanks!

[Psullie]

Avoid big combat encounters until you are all comfortable with the system. Keep it low key with the threat of violence - remember even broo want to live if given the chance to escape. 

[MJ Sadique]

I never used RQ2 rules but read them for improving RQ3 or understand the original rules... As we don't speak about Change of rules, My best to "simplify your life" advices

For fight, don't Go in Melee straight.
-First, Armed enemies don't appear from nowhere and describe them well in term of gloranthan lore : "Broo are vicious, they use ambush and contaminated weapons...."
-Second, Let your adventurer the choice to fight or fly... and assume the consequence of their choice : "Broo try sometimes to NOT kill their enemies, they capture them for ..."
-Third, If they see enemies from far, magicians and archers will progress more wisely. RQ2 is deadly but unlike a a lot of game, a wise plan can save you... skills are secondary

For the Magic Part
-Don't Mind POW economy in the 1-5 first scenario but give everyone an equitable chance to evolve POW or any other carac. at the end of a scenario.
-Healing magic make Glorantha a bit more safer world and most creatures prefer ask for a wergeld and become richer than just killing (were- : man and -geld : gold). Don't kill you PC, make them poor or crippled ! (you won't have to remake their sheet and believe me .... after losing 2-3 pts of CON they will start to use their brain)
-Don't mind the fact that they HP go down to zero or below, just tell them they aren't dead ... just dying (A lot of people can be reanimated after an heart arrest of 2min). You don't have to use resurrection magic for a less than 10min dead man. Make them panic, call for a healer/chaman/priest and spend their money like there is no tomorrow. Death is a gift for honourables heroes (As long as you need a PC, don't mind the rules... In Glorantha sometimes stranges things like "all people who died today, come back to life" happens)

[g33k]

Have you seen this nifty little page on initial-character-creation?  It may be helpful to them!

My #1 is a "racked" handful-o-dice in combat:  Set up d100 + d20location + DamageDice across the palm of the hand BEFORE your strikerank.  When your turn comes, roll them in a sideways skew that preserves their order; read the result as a sentence, e.g. "48!  That's a HIT to the... Right Arm, doing... 6 points of damage!

It takes a bit of practice to "write the sentence" while still actually ROLLING the dice (early on there were a few accusations that someone was trying to "cheat" with a pre-set result, PLACING rather than rolling), but we generally found that a few dozen casts gave enough experience to enhance the read).

This is MUCH faster at-the-table than

•  waiting to see IF you hit before
• finding the d20 & rolling to see WHERE you hit, before...
• checking your character-sheet to see what dice you need then...
• finding it/them and rolling damage

(yes, I have seen people do it that way, and find it agonizingly slow...)

Getting the dice in-order as a "sentence" doesn't enhance everybody's read, but it helps more people than I'd have thought... their "read" becomes more fluid, the combat round becomes more fluid.  Note particularly the d8-vs-d10 & d12-vs-d20 issues... many, particularly n00b's, will grab the wrong dice to rack in their palm, or read the wrong dice from the set; d100-tthen-d20 makes a clear separator.

It seems like such a silly little thing, but my experience has been that it makes a huge impact at the table.

[Yelm's Light]

Assuming you're starting at low level, make sure there's relatively easy access to healing, whether it be a healer NPC, items, whatever.  They'll need some way to apply Healing-6 to blunt the deadliness, which isn't going to be available to them otherwise.

[g33k]

7 hours ago, Psullie said:

Avoid big combat encounters until you are all comfortable with the system. Keep it low key with the threat of violence - remember even broo want to live if given the chance to escape. 

Make sure to demo the "ransom" concept early-on.  E.G. -- get some nobles-son who fancies himself a badboy, leading some street-thug mooks.  As the mooks drop and the battle turns against him, he cries mercy and offers a big ol' ransom.  He might even go turnabout, become a semi-friendly patron on occasion, seeing as how they showed him mercy & all (and maybe are "real" adventurers not under the thumb of a controlling parent ... ? )

But make sure there's at least 1-2 others.  Normalize the idea that a successful adventurer will have a ransom ready, and thus survive a fight that cannot be won or outrun...

 

Edited April 16, 2018 by g33k

[Olias of Bunhillow]

Thanks for all the advice so far. It all seems like really good advice. I saw the ransom rules in the book and your vocal support of it actually has me excited to implement it in my game.  

6 hours ago, g33k said:

Have you seen this nifty little page on initial-character-creation?  It may be helpful to them!

This has been so helpful just to read through myself. I thought I had a decent grasp on character creation after reading the rules through a couple time but having them all in one place as opposed to sprinkled through multiple chapters really helps.

As a follow up question. How recommended is starting the characters out at the really low power level that the book defaults to or should I pull in the previous experience rules from the appendix?  It seems like they will be failing a lot by default. Do you find it teaches the players to be more cautious especially given they don't get much more robust HP wise?

[MJ Sadique]

12 minutes ago, Olias of Bunhillow said:

As a follow up question. How recommended is starting the characters out at the really low power level that the book defaults to or should I pull in the previous experience rules from the appendix?  It seems like they will be failing a lot by default. Do you find it teaches the players to be more cautious especially given they don't get much more robust HP wise?

To me, This often depend on your player experience in rpg... new role-players can start with defaults settings.

PS : I ask for the Dragon Lord Gygax forgiveness in advance but Consider D&D players as newbies, whatever the numbers of years of experience they have ^^

[Psullie]

As for starting characters it might be worth your while to give one or two PC's a little bump, but make it integral to their backstory - demobbed soldier might have a high weapon skill or a journeyman priest with higher magic/healing skills.

Another tip is stage your game in a 'safe' environment until they're ready. In RuneQuest the wilderness is a dangerous place only to be ventured into in large groups. No reason why your first several games can happen in a city 

[simonh]

9 hours ago, Olias of Bunhillow said:

As a follow up question. How recommended is starting the characters out at the really low power level that the book defaults to or should I pull in the previous experience rules from the appendix?  It seems like they will be failing a lot by default. Do you find it teaches the players to be more cautious especially given they don't get much more robust HP wise?

Definitely start with previous experience, as a minimum. Otherwise you won't be able to use even the basic starter scenarios like Apple Lane without killing PCs. Also when characters have lots of low skills outcomes get very swingy, the chances of a catastrophically bad series of rolls eventually coming up is really high.

Simon Hibbs

[Olias of Bunhillow]

2 hours ago, simonh said:

 Also when characters have lots of low skills outcomes get very swingy, the chances of a catastrophically bad series of rolls eventually coming up is really high.

This is what I was worried about. It's easier to fudge things I roll if it gets out of hand, but I don't want challenges to just be miss miss miss. Even with a 60/40 it still feels like they would be missing a lot. I've played other BRP games and other non BRP percentile based systems and they feel like they swing wildly.

 

9 hours ago, Psullie said:

Another tip is stage your game in a 'safe' environment until they're ready. In RuneQuest the wilderness is a dangerous place only to be ventured into in large groups. No reason why your first several games can happen in a city 

 That was my initial thought upon reading through the lore. It works with the guild and cults as well, getting some basic jobs guarding this or that to get some lunars to pay off part of their starting debt. Also a good way to introduce them to the society. They are more used to a D&D medieval fantasy world and it will probably take a while to adjust to the more bronze age/early iron age cultural feel which attracted me to this game in the first place.

 

12 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

PS : I ask for the Dragon Lord Gygax forgiveness in advance but Consider D&D players as newbies, whatever the numbers of years of experience they have ^^

Ha! Definitely newbs all around then. The feel of this game is very different to anything we've played. The closest it comes to is Unknown Armies and that's only the potential deadliness and percentile rolls. 

[Al.]

Unofficial but by far and away by favourite way of creating RQ2 characters:

http://redbox.wikidot.com/making-runequest-characters

(I'm an inveterate rules-fiddler so I do more meddling for my games, but if you are looking to be close to RAW but a bit more competent and flavoursome this group's idea seems hard to beat)

 

[g33k]

Here is an idea:

Make several NPC's -- one per player.  Make 'em a bit weaker than the PC's.  Split the NPC's into two evenly-matched "teams."

Have the PC's hired to guard something -- extra help, maybe, "security" at the back door of a big townhouse when a noble is throwing a big lavish party.  There is one NPC "guard captain" in charge of their post, who is one of the Noble's trusted retainers.

As the PC's are standing guard, two groups of "thugs" (your prep'ed NPCs) get into a brawl near them -- close enough that the PC's COULD intervene, but far enough that they don't HAVE to.  The guard Captain orders them to "Stand Fast!  It may be a lure... don't abandon your post!"

If the PC's move forward to engage despite orders, run the encounter however seems best.

If the PC's obey orders and "Stand Fast" -- hand out the NPC sheets, tell the players they will run your NPC's and this is a total deathmatch -- Team A (brothers) has just learned that Team B had their father murdered, and they plan exact retribution at any cost (or whatever motivation suits).  Let the players see how brutal these mechanics can be...

[Olias of Bunhillow]

I love it. I can use that as jumping off point for a bit of intrigue (maybe give one side the appearance of higher social status) and highlight the idea of family and clan loyalty. All while reinforcing the ideas of negotiation = survival and bloodshed will lead to bloodshed.

[styopa]

13 hours ago, MJ Sadique said:

PS : I ask for the Dragon Lord Gygax forgiveness in advance but Consider D&D players as newbies, whatever the numbers of years of experience they have ^^

Given the lethality of RQ, you're not being silly.  I'd say the problem with D&D players is that they aren't unlearned, it's just that they've learned in the wrong direction.

For the newest RQ players and for former-D&D players, I always set the scenes very, very visually and then ask them directly to picture themselves in the situation their character is in...to emphasize that they're best off choosing the REALISTIC course of action, not the 'fantasy heroic I'm 2nd level with 9hp so a 1d8 sword hit CAN'T KILL ME' mode.

Emphasis: realistic.  (For gamers used to computer games, this has another meaning, encouraging them to think creatively and laterally.  You're not limited to the 3 dialogue options the programmer offered, nor are you limited to interaction only with scene objects intended to be interacted with...)

1 hour ago, Al. said:

Unofficial but by far and away by favourite way of creating RQ2 characters:

http://redbox.wikidot.com/making-runequest-characters

Nice find.  I like that.

 

[jajagappa]

17 hours ago, Olias of Bunhillow said:

As a follow up question. How recommended is starting the characters out at the really low power level that the book defaults to or should I pull in the previous experience rules from the appendix?

I always had my players add previous experience.