Vishi Dunn

[KingofElfland]

Right, this is RuneQuest, not 13th Age Glorantha. Both are great, but they are different games. 

[EpicureanDM]

On 2/21/2019 at 7:57 AM, Jason Durall said:

This cannot be emphasized enough. 

If you want to play a combatant, then Vishi Dunn, an assistant shaman, is a poor choice.

His preferred ranged combat tactic is to point at something and say "Cousin Monkey, go kill that."

His best combat option is to entangle a foe with his pole lasso and have Cousin Monkey take that foe out with his spear. 

This sort of information (written just like this) should be provided along with the stats for pregen characters. Players who are new to RQ (especially in a con scenario) should be given explicit, practical guidance on how to make effective use of their character, especially when modern gamers largely have no experience with game systems like RQG. Why risk disappointing a potential customer because they can't figure out what makes Vishi Dunn interesting to play? 

[David Scott]

6 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

This sort of information (written just like this) should be provided along with the stats for pregen characters. Players who are new to RQ (especially in a con scenario) should be given explicit, practical guidance on how to make effective use of their character, especially when modern gamers largely have no experience with game systems like RQG. Why risk disappointing a potential customer because they can't figure out what makes Vishi Dunn interesting to play? 

This is not my experience of running con scenarios with new players. I actually use the pregens in place of the provided adventurers in one of our con scenarios. Out of the choice of characters, Vishi Dun is popular, new players often go for "assistant shaman (spirit magician) on giant llama with baboon sidekick". I show them the pictures and have large standees of them. Yanioth and Vostor are essential for the scenario, so aren't included, but the others in order of popularity:

Harmast - "Trader and farmer. When talk fails he can fight. Rides a zebra"

Vishi Dun - "Spirit magician on giant llama with baboon sidekick"

Vasana - "Armoured warrior woman who rides a bison"

Sorala - "Sorcerous scholarly woman in search of new lore"

Nathem - "Stealthy hunter who can turn into a bear. Has a hunting cat.

Most just want to play and have fun, so providing more than a character sheet is too much info. I provide an extra page with the magic and its %s clearly visible.

@Jason Durall the joy of Cousin Monkey is:

Quote

Follower (Boon Companion): An intelligent baboon called Cousin Monkey, an unapologetic coward.

He mostly refuses to fight, Vishi must often force him to help and he's not that good at it. This is one of my favourite roleplaying parts. 

 

[EpicureanDM]

8 hours ago, David Scott said:

This is not my experience of running con scenarios with new players. I actually use the pregens in place of the provided adventurers in one of our con scenarios. Out of the choice of characters, Vishi Dun is popular, new players often go for "assistant shaman (spirit magician) on giant llama with baboon sidekick". I show them the pictures and have large standees of them. Yanioth and Vostor are essential for the scenario, so aren't included, but the others in order of popularity:

Harmast - "Trader and farmer. When talk fails he can fight. Rides a zebra"

Vishi Dun - "Spirit magician on giant llama with baboon sidekick"

Vasana - "Armoured warrior woman who rides a bison"

Sorala - "Sorcerous scholarly woman in search of new lore"

Nathem - "Stealthy hunter who can turn into a bear. Has a hunting cat.

Most just want to play and have fun, so providing more than a character sheet is too much info. I provide an extra page with the magic and its %s clearly visible.

I defer to your experience, which obviously differs from that of the OP. However, I don't see any conflict between having fun and providing guidance to brand new players on how the RQ system contains some interesting mechanical options that might not be obvious to D&D players. Providing an extra page with magic and %'s doesn't seem like the same thing I'm advocating for. I could be wrong, so if you shared the contents of one of those extra pages, I'd have a better idea of where you're coming from.

[Oracle]

On 3/11/2019 at 10:40 AM, David Scott said:

This is not my experience of running con scenarios with new players. I actually use the pregens in place of the provided adventurers in one of our con scenarios. Out of the choice of characters, Vishi Dun is popular, new players often go for "assistant shaman (spirit magician) on giant llama with baboon sidekick". I show them the pictures and have large standees of them. Yanioth and Vostor are essential for the scenario, so aren't included, but the others in order of popularity:

Harmast - "Trader and farmer. When talk fails he can fight. Rides a zebra"

Vishi Dun - "Spirit magician on giant llama with baboon sidekick"

Vasana - "Armoured warrior woman who rides a bison" 

Sorala - "Sorcerous scholarly woman in search of new lore"

Nathem - "Stealthy hunter who can turn into a bear. Has a hunting cat.

Most just want to play and have fun, so providing more than a character sheet is too much info. I provide an extra page with the magic and its %s clearly visible.

@Jason Durall the joy of Cousin Monkey is:

He mostly refuses to fight, Vishi must often force him to help and he's not that good at it. This is one of my favourite roleplaying parts. 

 

Why are Yanioth and Vostor more essential than the other adventurers.
(I'm asking this in the context of the Quickstart adventure The Broken Tower, which may not be the scenario, that you have in mind ...)

[David Scott]

12 minutes ago, Oracle said:

Why are Yanioth and Vostor more essential than the other adventurers.
(I'm asking this in the context of the Quickstart adventure The Broken Tower, which may not be the scenario, that you have in mind ...)

This for one of our con scenarios, Stealing the Eye. 

[David Scott]

16 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

I could be wrong, so if you shared the contents of one of those extra pages, I'd have a better idea of where you're coming from.

The extra sheets are rather boring and just contain magic info, nothing else. However laying it out large give players a superficial understanding of their magic powers. In this case many who play Sorala cast Solace of the Logical Mind for 20-40 mins, but then loose out on Passion augments. This turns out to be a good trade off...

[jajagappa]

12 hours ago, Oracle said:

Why are Yanioth

In the Broken Tower, Yanioth's ability to engage with the Earth goddess or to utilize Inviolable to counter Fear or Demoralize spells (including Idrima's Faceless Gaze) is really invaluable. She's also strong at countering attacking spirits.

[EpicureanDM]

Thanks for sharing that, @David Scott. Not quite what I was pointing to in my reply, but I like it. Jason's proposed guidance would give an RQ neophyte who's struggling at the table (as in the OP's example) some guidance for how to be effective with Vishi Dunn. Your handout summarizes some spells that might be helpful, but doesn't put the pieces together for a newcomer like Jason's does. 

[PhilHibbs]

Another thing to watch out for is his Track skill is clearly wrong, 10% when he has a Perception modifier of +15. I'm assuming it's a typo and should be 20%.

[Rob Darvall]

On 3/12/2019 at 8:20 PM, David Scott said:

The extra sheets are rather boring.....

But are an excellent idea which I will now steal for my regular players. 

Getting players to use the full range of their magic is proving...troublesome.

Edit: To which end, does anyone have a list of RQG Rune Spells and/or sorcery spells already compiled?

Edited April 9, 2019 by Rob Darvall

[David Scott]

4 hours ago, Rob Darvall said:

To which end, does anyone have a list of RQG Rune Spells and/or sorcery spells already compiled?

The Core Rune Magic list is in the GM Screen Pack, GM Reference book. Sorcery is alphabetical in the core rules (as is rune magic)

Bestiary Rune Magic

Doesn't include Dragon Magic (B42) or Dwarf sorcery (B61)

Animate War Tree, Plant, 1pt, B27

Appease Earth, Earth /Beast, 1pt, B70

Arrow Trance, Plant / Fire, 1pt, B27

Attack Soul, Darkness, 1pt, B81

Blinding, Darkness, 1pt+, B81

Carry (Disease), Death / Chaos, 2pts, B93

Cause (Disease), Darkness / Chaos, 1pt+, B93

Chameleon, Plant, 2pts, B27

Chaos Feature, Chaos, 3pts, B94

Chaos Spawn, Chaos, 2pts, B94

Counterchaos, Darkness, 2pt, B82

Crack, Chaos, 2pts+, B94

Create Ghost, Death / Darkness, 1pt, B82

Create Revenant, Death / Darkness, 3pt, B82

Create Skeleton, Death / Darkness, 1pt, B82

Create War Tree, Plant, 1pt, B27

Create Zombie, Death / Darkness, 2pt, B82

Crush, Darkness, 1pt+, B82

Curse of Thed, Chaos, 2pts, B94

Darksee, Darkness, 1pt, B82

Death Binding, Death, 1pt, B70

Fumble, Chaos, 1pt+, B95

Pain Tooth, Beast, 2pts, B71

Seal Wound, Death, 2pts, B71

Seal Wound, Death / Disorder, 2pts, B82

Plant Spy, Plant, 1pt, B28

Rebirth of Chaos, Chaos, 3pts, B95

Silence Sphere, Plant, 1pt, B28

Tangle Thicket, Plant, 1pt, B28

Transform Self, Beast, 2pts, B87

Wolfhide, Beast / Chaos, 3pts, B87

Wolfrunning, Beast /Movement, 2pts, B87

Wolf’s Head, Beast, 1pt, B87

[Jeff]

18 minutes ago, David Scott said:

The Core Rune Magic list is in the GM Screen Pack, GM Reference book. Sorcery is alphabetical in the core rules (as is rune magic)

Bestiary Rune Magic

Doesn't include Dragon Magic (B42) or Dwarf sorcery (B61)

Animate War Tree, Plant, 1pt, B27

Appease Earth, Earth /Beast, 1pt, B70

Arrow Trance, Plant / Fire, 1pt, B27

Attack Soul, Darkness, 1pt, B81

Blinding, Darkness, 1pt+, B81

Carry (Disease), Death / Chaos, 2pts, B93

Cause (Disease), Darkness / Chaos, 1pt+, B93

Chameleon, Plant, 2pts, B27

Chaos Feature, Chaos, 3pts, B94

Chaos Spawn, Chaos, 2pts, B94

Counterchaos, Darkness, 2pt, B82

Crack, Chaos, 2pts+, B94

Create Ghost, Death / Darkness, 1pt, B82

Create Revenant, Death / Darkness, 3pt, B82

Create Skeleton, Death / Darkness, 1pt, B82

Create War Tree, Plant, 1pt, B27

Create Zombie, Death / Darkness, 2pt, B82

Crush, Darkness, 1pt+, B82

Curse of Thed, Chaos, 2pts, B94

Darksee, Darkness, 1pt, B82

Death Binding, Death, 1pt, B70

Fumble, Chaos, 1pt+, B95

Pain Tooth, Beast, 2pts, B71

Seal Wound, Death, 2pts, B71

Seal Wound, Death / Disorder, 2pts, B82

Plant Spy, Plant, 1pt, B28

Rebirth of Chaos, Chaos, 3pts, B95

Silence Sphere, Plant, 1pt, B28

Tangle Thicket, Plant, 1pt, B28

Transform Self, Beast, 2pts, B87

Wolfhide, Beast / Chaos, 3pts, B87

Wolfrunning, Beast /Movement, 2pts, B87

Wolf’s Head, Beast, 1pt, B87

There is the Red Book, which contains all Rune Spells and all Spirit Magic spells from the Core Rules, the Bestiary, and the Gods and Goddesses book. Plus a few others.

[PhilHibbs]

5 hours ago, Rob Darvall said:

Edit: To which end, does anyone have a list of RQG Rune Spells and/or sorcery spells already compiled?

My character sheet has a list of all the Spirit and Rune spells available to each cult, including through associates, including Bestiary cults, and I've separated it out into its own document:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YJrQ9G1ayO1MehLIa5qUKP4Sb55935pcZz2DSgCWOwk/edit?usp=sharing

[Oracle]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

There is the Red Book, which contains all Rune Spells and all Spirit Magic spells from the Core Rules, the Bestiary, and the Gods and Goddesses book. Plus a few others.

You've catched me cold here. What's the Red Book?

[7Tigers]

9 minutes ago, Oracle said:

You've catched me cold here. What's the Red Book?

As Jeff said: it seems a Rune/Spirit spells compilation, the equivalent of Cthulhu's The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic.
 

[Oracle]

1 hour ago, 7Tigers said:

As Jeff said: it seems a Rune/Spirit spells compilation, the equivalent of Cthulhu's The Grand Grimoire of Cthulhu Mythos Magic.
 

Ok, and is this book available anywhere? (Although I guess not.  This looks like a convention only printing ...)

[7Tigers]

Likely only after Gods & Goddesses of Glorantha is available so sometimes in 2020 I guess (personal guess).

[PhilHibbs]

47 minutes ago, Oracle said:

Ok, and is this book available anywhere? (Although I guess not.  This looks like a convention only printing ...)

Not even that, I don't think anyone outside of the Chaosium team have this yet.

[Rob Darvall]

11 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

My character sheet has a list of all the Spirit and Rune spells available to each cult, including through associates, including Bestiary cults, and I've separated it out into its own document:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YJrQ9G1ayO1MehLIa5qUKP4Sb55935pcZz2DSgCWOwk/edit?usp=sharing

Many thanks

Edited April 9, 2019 by Rob Darvall

[Oracle]

15 hours ago, Oracle said:

Ok, and is this book available anywhere? (Although I guess not.  This looks like a convention only printing ...)

Just learned, that The Red Book of Magic is a work in progress (similar to Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha), which is all I need to know, as I've never heard about this book before ...

 

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Oracle said:

Just learned, that The Red Book of Magic is a work in progress (similar to Gods and Goddesses of Glorantha), which is all I need to know, as I've never heard about this book before ...

It has been mentioned a few times, I think.

GaGoG is actually a complete ms. at this point -- it needs art, it needs layout, it likely needs proofing and other editing; but it's a complete text.

RBoM is not text-complete; it's still being written.

[PhilHibbs]

Further notes on Vishi Dunn for anyone wanting to play the character. I have found a number of places where the character does not match the rules. This may be because he was originally created under a slightly different iteration, so without intending criticism here are the issues that I have found.

• He has clearly not taken the bonuses to two cult skills of +15 and +20 each. All of his cult skills are at the value that you get from base, culture, occupation & cult, apart from Peaceful Cut which should be 10 points higher and Meditate should be 5 points lower and so can't be explained by that.
• Ride High Llama is at 65, but before personal adds it should be at 60, so can't be explained. Should be either 60, 70, or 85.
• Likewise Animal Lore and Plant lore are both 45, but should be 40.
• Speak Tradetalk is 20, should be 25.
• Battle probably has 5% from family background so that's ok.
• Peaceful Cut should be at least 60, not 50 (base 10, culture 15, cult 20, modifier 15).
• Meditate is 40, but should be 35.
• Track is 10, should be 20..
• In order to get the rest of the skills to line up, I had to take 7 skills at +10 and 3 at +25, rather than 5 at +10 and 4 at +25.

In numerical terms, he's sold short by 40 points.

Edited April 14, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[PhilHibbs]

What options would you present or allow for the player wanting to advance Vishi Dunn to a full shaman?

He is more or less outcast from his tribe, and even if he could return to undertake the rite, his responsibilities as a High Llama Tribe shaman would largely preclude his adventuring with the rest of the Colymar party. Contriving to have him return to Clearwine once every season just when something interesting happens, that's going to wear thin.

He could switch codes and undertake the shamanic ritual with the local Kolating shamans, but I don't think he wants to do that. He still loves his ancestors, the covenant, and his God-Khan Waha.

Or... just ignore the whole "tribal responsibility" thing. That seems to be the approach in the example sections of the book!

I suspect that my player is going to give up on Vishi and roll something else so we probably won't have to solve this problem anyway.

Edited April 15, 2019 by PhilHibbs

[Shiningbrow]

Personally, I think the problem comes down to his spell selection. While typical and expected for a shaman (and apprentice), they're not great for 90% of the time. And, doesn't help that his boon companion has a couple of cross-overs (Spirit Screen, and Heal, although obviously most would have that).

Vishi has Spirit Binding - but no bound spirits... which is odd as it's basically one of the main reasons someone takes a shaman.

So - change out a couple of spells (give Befuddle and Demoralize, up the Heal to something useful,, and add Protection or similar). And, lose a couple of POW, and add a Spirit (possibly with the aforementioned spells, and/or others).