RuneQuest roleplaying in Glorantha yes or no?

[lawrence.whitaker]

23 hours ago, Gene M. said:

Strike Rank is one area where I strongly prefer RQ2 & RQG over Mythras. I've never been a fan of modern D&D's cyclical initiative, and Mythras is a bit too close to that for my taste. 

Part of the reason why Mythras/RQ6 doesn't use the RQG Strike Rank approach (and we did consider it), is that the game treats weapon length differently mechanically, decoupling it from the initiative process, and placing greater emphasis on it's tactical deployment to hold opponents at bay (or get inside weapon reach, if one has a small weapon). It does still rely on DEX and INT as active factors in the initiative cycle though.

[Jeff]

Whereas RQ uses the same SR system as RQ2 and more or less the same as RQ3 (the main changes are that RQG has 12 SR like RQ2 and doesn't use the pseudo-impulses of RQ3). I personally find SR systems easier than rolled initiative, but to each their own.

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

pseudo-impulses of RQ3)

I’ve never quite understood what this is in game terms? Is this refering to how RQ3 gets more specific with movement in SR’s? 

[simonh]

In RQ2 strike ranks were mainly an initiative system just to determine what order characters in melee would hit each other in. Then Chaosium developed the Ringworld game where there were no melee rounds. Instead each action took a certain number of impulses and combat consisted of a continuous series of ‘strike ranks’.

RQ3 took a middle road. You still had melee rounds, but each action or activity took so many strike ranks and you could perform these in basically any order.

In RQG, when engaged in combat you have fundamental limits on what actions you can perform. You can attack and defend, or you can defend and cast magic. You then use Strike Ranks to determine when you get to perform those actions compared to other characters. So it’s more of a simple initiative system. It does turn into a bit more of an impulse system when you’re out of combat though, casting magic and reloading and firing missile weapons. It’s still a bit of a middle ground between a simple initiative system and a pure impulse system like Ringworld.

Simon Hibbs

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

25 minutes ago, simonh said:

Then Chaosium developed the Ringworld game where there were no melee rounds. Instead each action took a certain number of impulses and combat consisted of a continuous series of ‘strike ranks’.

Thanks for the explanation, that’s really helpful 

[Madrona]

5 hours ago, styopa said:

As someone who's played both, personally I disagree that WFRP 2e is any better

Not to just be an echo box, but oh my god yes. I've been playing a WHFRP 2e game and it really feels like a haphazard beta for the WH40k games and its just. So.... ok?  I feel like the WH system feels good with ranged weapons and lousy with melee.

Though my current game is absolutely going to likely shift to a partial-Mithras partial RQG. There's no way I'm slipping out of a combat system that got people in my personal group to stop combat just to giggle with glee. We're kind of in a discussion of what we want to do as there's so much I love about RQG.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Madrona
Had a stray sentence cos I can't write good derp

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Charlie D. said:

Combat. For something written by people who have re-enacted hand to hand combat it runs fairly clunky and slow. When we run combat it feels like us as players playing a game rather than our characters in world fighting for their lives.

...

Sometimes RuneQuest combat seems complicated just for complications sake.

<boggle>

Your experience is very very different from mine.

[Jeff]

5 hours ago, g33k said:

<boggle>

Your experience is very very different from mine.

Yeah. In our house gaming group we have several players who have zero interest in complex simulation and just want to get to the action and immerse in the roleplaying experience. I've also now run RQG with LOTS of newbies. The common experience is that RQG combat is easy and intuitive (I attack with my sword; I wait until the end of the round and make an aimed shot for the head; etc.) - just we found RQ2 combat easy and intuitive back in the day. 

[styopa]

8 hours ago, Jeff said:

Yeah. In our house gaming group we have several players who have zero interest in complex simulation and just want to get to the action and immerse in the roleplaying experience. I've also now run RQG with LOTS of newbies. The common experience is that RQG combat is easy and intuitive (I attack with my sword; I wait until the end of the round and make an aimed shot for the head; etc.) - just we found RQ2 combat easy and intuitive back in the day. 

It's all points on a spectrum, really.  At the far end of "let's skip mechanics and get to the adventure" you've got FATE and diceless games as narrative heavy/mechanics lite systems.  At the other end you've got Phoenix Command and Aftermath as "let's spend 4 hours meticulously simulating 3 minutes of action combat".  I'd say D&D is toward the simplistic combat end.  Personally I chose RQ so many years ago to move toward a more simulationist system deliberately.

I'd guess most people would find either extreme a yawn.  My group is annoyed by certain inconsistencies, so we've house-ruled RQ3 combat into a more impulse-like system by flipping it (we count down to one, Dex/Siz SR are bonuses) at the cost of some portability and requiring conversion every time we run actual RQ material.* 

*less of a burden than it sounds, we exhausted RQ published stuff years ago so I'm either converting other game system adventures or creating ex nihilo anyway.

We're going to start a separate RQG campaign, and run RAW with an open mind.  Rather than prejudging based on all the things we "think" we probably won't like, we're going to play it as presented and see what we get.  After a couple of sessions, we'll have a kibbitz session about what works, what doesn't, and then try to come up with a minimal set of HR.

[Mankcam]

RQG looks great. I love the ancient world flavour, I mainly bought it for Glorantha anyway. I've been playing a RQ3/BGB mix of Glorantha for years, and my group will just play things the way we have for a while, just adding Runes & Passions.

I'm happy to go either way with the initiative system. Played the DEX +D10 rules for years, although I don't mind returning to the old SR system (although we mainly used RQ3's 10 SRs not RQ2's 12 SRs, but no issues).

I guess I'm happy that RQG is consistent with the RQ2 products I have, as I can see myself running lower-skilled RQG characters through the classic Pavis/Big Rubble/Borderlands scenarios pretty soon.

I'm looking forward to the Bestiary, GM Book, and the slipcase edition of all three.

As far as not having any rules for Disarm and such,  (which came up somewhere in these threads), well anyone new to the rules won't have an earlier edition to compare it to anyway, and can just find out about it in the GM Book. However for pre-existing fans, it's easy enough to work around - either port in the Disarm rule from an earlier RQ edition, or if you have CoC 7E then just handwave it under the Maneuver option in combat. 

I am more into simple rules these days, so I would have preferred less crunch with RQ. A version like 'OpenQuest with Runes + Hit Locations'' would have worked for me, but I'm strangely happy with how this edition looks so far anyway.

I'm also considering converting The Red Cow Campaign into RQG, it should be pretty easy to handwave those stats.

Happy to show this RQG book off, and hopefully we'll see some RQ getting played again in gaming conventions around the world

RuneQuest Glorantha? Yeah count me in!

Edited June 10, 2018 by Mankcam

[Zit]

I second. My very first rpg was RQ2. I started with a friend, none of us having played any rpg before. Our English was awful. We played the BRP a couple of times and then jumped into RQ, and we understood the rules without any trouble. They were really intuitive and consistent. A soon as you get the easy logic behind then, everything goes fluent. And RQG is more or less RQ2 + what was missing in RQ2.

So no worries with RQG, despite the number of pages.

[Prinz Slasar]

I have been playing RPG for 25 years with countless people and in various groups. Mostly as GM.

When I think about how many times a disarming maneuver was used, I can count it on one hand.

However, it was often because in many RPGs, disarming is quite difficult and was therefore seen as a poor option.

Other players may have had a different experience and have different expectations of a rule product.

But let's be honest: measuring such a fantastic product only if it's include a specific rule or not, is unfair.
Especially when another book (GM's Pack) will be released soon, with additional rules.
Furthermore, in times of forums like this one, where house rules can be discussed and developed.

My impression of the RQ community is, that it consists of many creative people. I am sure that various ideas will be showing up in the coming months and years.
Let us think positively. Everything is good.

Edited June 10, 2018 by prinz.slasar

[Jeff]

1 minute ago, prinz.slasar said:

I have been playing RPG for 25 years with countless people and in various groups. Mostly as GM.

When I think about how many times a disarming maneuver was used, I can count it on one hand.

However, it was often because in many RPGs, disarming is quite difficult and was therefore seen as a poor option.

When we discussed this internally, we cut disarm from the core rules because: 1. we felt it was a rarely used option and always a bit fiddly in games; and (more importantly) 2. not really core that Bronze Age spirit of Glorantha - Achilles, Odyssesus, Gilgamesh, etc. don't capture prisoners by hitting on the head "non-lethally" - at best they reduce a hit location to 0 hit points or less and the incapacitated or unconscious foe surrenders or is taken captive.

[DreadDomain]

On ‎6‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 2:02 AM, Jeff said:

Whereas RQ uses the same SR system as RQ2 and more or less the same as RQ3 (the main changes are that RQG has 12 SR like RQ2 and doesn't use the pseudo-impulses of RQ3). I personally find SR systems easier than rolled initiative, but to each their own.

Yes, I think it sums it up nicely. I am myself prefer RQ3 over RQ2 when it comes to combat (and more). I have no strong opinion about SR 12 or SR 10 (except that with SR 10 it is much easier to figure out when long actions will happen) but I always prefered to liberty of performing actions in any order each taking a certain amount of SR. I am not sure this is what you refer to when you talk about pseudo-impulses. 

[jajagappa]

6 hours ago, prinz.slasar said:

When I think about how many times a disarming maneuver was used, I can count it on one hand.

However, it was often because in many RPGs, disarming is quite difficult and was therefore seen as a poor option.

I ran RQ3 for 10 years.  Not a single player ever used Disarm.  They did maim or sever weapon arms.

[Madrona]

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

When we discussed this internally, we cut disarm from the core rules because: 1. we felt it was a rarely used option and always a bit fiddly in games; and (more importantly) 2. not really core that Bronze Age spirit of Glorantha - Achilles, Odyssesus, Gilgamesh, etc. don't capture prisoners by hitting on the head "non-lethally" - at best they reduce a hit location to 0 hit points or less and the incapacitated or unconscious foe surrenders or is taken captive.

TBH I can't blame you. While I've seen a lot of disarm checks, I tend to play with people who like that kind of thing. I.E. One of my ex roommates I don't think has made an ordinary attack more than a half dozen times no matter the RPG. In Pathfinder he disarmed, Dirty Tricked and tripped, in Dark Heresy he Takedowned constantly, etc.

In my current Mithras game I think every combat has involved a disarm attempt. Then again our accidental defacto partyleader is sort of an watery-eyed idealistic do-gooder.

Even with that taken in mind, I've seen a lot of people long wonder if there's a point to disarm in 99% of scenarios, beyond maybe "oh jeeze that guy has a soul eating magical death sword that talks", most people are going to ignore disarm anyway.

[PhilHibbs]

13 minutes ago, Madrona said:

While I've seen a lot of disarm checks, ... most people are going to ignore disarm anyway.

I've seen it used quite a bit in other game systems, but I don't recall it being used much in RQ3. To be honest I wasn't aware that there was a disarm rule. I would quite like to see it included, however, because I like non-lethal options to be available, but I'm not burned by its absence.

[RosenMcStern]

1 hour ago, jajagappa said:

I ran RQ3 for 10 years.  Not a single player ever used Disarm.  They did maim or sever weapon arms.

I suspect that your players were of the kind that does not bother to read the rules well, then. In RQ3, Disarm and intentional damage to weapons work even when your opponent parries, unless he has a shield, whereas cutting a weapon arm requires an unparried blow (or a blow so powerdul as to bypass both parry and armour). With combatants of skill level of 90+, aiming at the weapon is the quickest way to end a fight in RQ3, rather than waiting to see who is the first to roll 96-00 on a parry.

[soltakss]

In RQ2, only Vivamort cultists could use Disarm, in RQ3 you had to have a special swordbreaker/swordcatcher adjustment to a weapon, if I recall correctly. We generally didn't bother, but I can see why those people who used it a lot lament it not being in the core rules.

[Jason D]

On 6/4/2018 at 9:41 PM, Pierre said:

Beyond the quality of the work, I am rather disappointed by the absence of long examples on the rules of combat. 

My experience is that while some people find long examples of game systems to be interesting, others regard long examples as bloat that don't add anything of value. 

It really is "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sometimes. 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

I suspect that your players were of the kind that does not bother to read the rules well, then. In RQ3, Disarm and intentional damage to weapons work even when your opponent parries, unless he has a shield, whereas cutting a weapon arm requires an unparried blow (or a blow so powerdul as to bypass both parry and armour). With combatants of skill level of 90+, aiming at the weapon is the quickest way to end a fight in RQ3, rather than waiting to see who is the first to roll 96-00 on a parry.

Yup.

39 minutes ago, soltakss said:

 in RQ3 you had to have a special swordbreaker/swordcatcher adjustment to a weapon, if I recall correctly. We generally didn't bother, but I can see why those people who used it a lot lament it not being in the core rules.

Nope. Check pp. 58-59 of the Player's Book.

 

Oh, and to clarify things, It's not the absence of the Disarm tactic that I mind, per say. It's the priories and choices made about what is in RQG vs. what isn't. I think even Jeff has problem had more request for a disarm move than for a picture of a dead pig. At least I hope so. I hate to think his group is that much weirder than mine. 

[soltakss]

On 6/4/2018 at 8:41 PM, Pierre said:

Beyond the quality of the work, I am rather disappointed by the absence of long examples on the rules of combat.

That's the kind of thing that Interweb thing is good for. 

[g33k]

13 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

... Oh, and to clarify things, It's not the absence of the Disarm tactic that I mind... 

Likewise.

My objection (different from @Atgxtg) is to the weapon having this feature, but the rules not existing to support the feature.

[Jeff]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Likewise.

My objection (different from @Atgxtg) is to the weapon having this feature, but the rules not existing to support the feature.

Let's be specific - there is one sentence in a description of a weapon that states that it can be used for an optional combat technique that will be fleshed out mechanically in the Gamemaster Book. Once the GM book is available that won't be an issue at all. And maybe we'll even release a preview of the Disarm Rules for those people who seem to use that rule regularly.

Edited June 11, 2018 by Jeff

[simonh]

16 hours ago, soltakss said:

That's the kind of thing that Interweb thing is good for. 

Seconded. One of the risks of a long combat example is it getting out of sync with the rules text, especially as revisions, clarifications and typos pour in during the gap between publishing the PDF and the print edition. How many games have been burned by this sort of problem? An example on the web site can be perpetually updated to the latest version and interpretation of the rules, and expanded to cover edge cases that come up long after the publication of the rules. I really think that's the way to go.