HeroQuesting

[Eric Christian Berg]

Is there a rough ETA on when the heroquesting rules will be available? I recall hearing they were going to be in the GM book but the last reference I can find is already almost a year old. 

[Richard S.]

I second this request. With Heroquesting being such a major feature of Glorantha it's frustrating that we don't have official rules for it yet.

[Pentallion]

12 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I second this request. With Heroquesting being such a major feature of Glorantha it's frustrating that we don't have official rules for it yet.

My players are always singing that refrain.  I hear ya.

[Sumath]

Heroquesting always felt like the advanced part of Runequest we never got. I remember the opening section of RQ2 talking about adventurers taking their place in the Hero Wars in Dragon Pass, amongst the greatest collection of Heroes ever seen in Glorantha. But we were never given a way to make that happen in Runequest. Would be nice to finally see some rules and guidance on this.

Having said that, I'd want it to have been thoroughly play-tested before release. This is important stuff and I'd rather Chaosium get it right. Perhaps in the meantime, they could give us some indications of what direction they are going in with this, so we can adjust our expectations accordingly?

[David Scott]

6 hours ago, Sumath said:

Perhaps in the meantime, they could give us some indications of what direction they are going in with this, so we can adjust our expectations accordingly?

There are plenty of Heroquests available, they aren't for RQG but they certainly give a feel on how they work and they are "recent" in Gloranthan development terms. Most of these are written by Jeff, so it's unlikely that future developments will veer far from this kind of format. As for specific rules, it's unlikely that RQG will see a "super runequest" favoured by many in the past. If you are fortunate you might have one of the key documents in Fragment 1645, published in Tales of the Reaching Moon #7.

Descent into the Underworld - The culmination of the Colymar campaign, the heroes are to find an Orlanthi hero and free him from his sorcerous imprisonment in a Hell of the Red Goddess.Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes (2012)

Red Moon Rising - The heroes are selected  to be involuntary participants in a Lunar heroquest. The heroes are to take the role of the Rebel Gods (as seen by the Lunars) during a ceremony. Pavis - Gateway to Adventure (2012)

The Hero and the Grove - The heroes hero quest to a sacred grove to reestablish the magic between its occupant and their clan. Sartar Companion (2012).

The Law Staff Quest - Orlanthi heroquest whereby the Justice of Orlanth may be clearly discerned. (2012).

Return of the Goddess - The heroes enter the Underworld, enter the House of the Dead and return to their community with a goddess. HeroQuest Glorantha (2015)

The Stealing Of The Giant’s Cows - a well-known Orlanthi ‘cattle raiding’ heroquest. Performing this quest successfully leads to the clan’s cattle calving the red cows. The Eleven Lights by @Ian Cooper (2017)

The Three New Stars - epic Heroquest to return Orlanth from the underworld. The Eleven Lights by @Ian Cooper (2017)

Looking at these, heroquests either return a power or relationship to a community or an individual (as usual). The nearest to individual powers look to be the Shamanic Abilities of RQG, community powers go to a wyter (or similar). Relationships would be to powerful beings or sponsorship. There's likely to be other stuff allowing Adventurers function on the otherside and return easier, but for now the above are easily useable.

 

[kalidor]

21 minutes ago, David Scott said:

There are plenty of Heroquests available, they aren't for RQG but they certainly give a feel on how they work and they are "recent" in Gloranthan development terms. Most of these are written by Jeff, so it's unlikely that future developments will veer far from this kind of format. As for specific rules, it's unlikely that RQG will see a "super runequest" favoured by many in the past. If you are fortunate you might have one of the key documents in Fragment 1645, published in Tales of the Reaching Moon #7.

Descent into the Underworld - The culmination of the Colymar campaign, the heroes are to find an Orlanthi hero and free him from his sorcerous imprisonment in a Hell of the Red Goddess.Sartar - Kingdom of Heroes (2012)

Red Moon Rising - The heroes are selected  to be involuntary participants in a Lunar heroquest. The heroes are to take the role of the Rebel Gods (as seen by the Lunars) during a ceremony. Pavis - Gateway to Adventure (2012)

The Hero and the Grove - The heroes hero quest to a sacred grove to reestablish the magic between its occupant and their clan. Sartar Companion (2012).

The Law Staff Quest - Orlanthi heroquest whereby the Justice of Orlanth may be clearly discerned. (2012).

Return of the Goddess - The heroes enter the Underworld, enter the House of the Dead and return to their community with a goddess. HeroQuest Glorantha (2015)

The Stealing Of The Giant’s Cows - a well-known Orlanthi ‘cattle raiding’ heroquest. Performing this quest successfully leads to the clan’s cattle calving the red cows. The Eleven Lights by @Ian Cooper (2017)

The Three New Stars - epic Heroquest to return Orlanth from the underworld. The Eleven Lights by @Ian Cooper (2017)

Looking at these, heroquests either return a power or relationship to a community or an individual (as usual). The nearest to individual powers look to be the Shamanic Abilities of RQG, community powers go to a wyter (or similar). Relationships would be to powerful beings or sponsorship. There's likely to be other stuff allowing Adventurers function on the otherside and return easier, but for now the above are easily useable.

 

If we dont get the rules to doing heroquest in RQG, then we dont need to buy the GM sourcebook when Chaosium release it. Most of us will adapt, personally I will use the moongose rules instead.

[David Scott]

29 minutes ago, kalidor said:

If we dont get the rules to doing heroquest in RQG,

But you will, they will in the Gamesmaster book.

29 minutes ago, kalidor said:

then we dont need to buy the GM sourcebook when Chaosium release it.

There will be other stuff in the book, otherwise they'd call it the HeroQuest book. You might not want to buy it, but you can't speak for everyone's preference.

29 minutes ago, kalidor said:

Most of us will adapt, personally I will use the moongose rules instead.

I was replying to @Sumath's question to the direction of the rules, not the content's of the final book:

Quote

Perhaps in the meantime, they could give us some indications of what direction they are going in with this, so we can adjust our expectations accordingly?

The rules in Mongoose aren't that specific either and you could equate the heroic abilities section with the shamanic Abilities, however I suspect the "prizes" will be much more scenario specific as per HQG and RQ2 adventures like the rainbow mounds.

[Austin]

14 hours ago, David Scott said:

however I suspect the "prizes" will be much more scenario specific as per HQG and RQ2 adventures like the rainbow mounds.

I think it's worth noting that we have evidence of a heroquesting "prize" in RQG, in the Gamemaster's Pack adventure book. Asborn Thriceborn, on p.25 of my PDF (though I think I'm a patch or so behind) has the "Heroquest Gift" of "Can self-resurrect within 1D8 days. Requires a permanent expenditure of 4 Rune points." This is the only reference to game text on heroquests that I am aware of thus far in RQG published materials.

[womble]

Reading his entry, that looks like a 'membership benefit' for a certain level of acceptance into the "Died but got better club"... As in: "Succeed on your DI for resurrection n times [looks like twice for Asborn], and get the ability to roll a '4' any time you try..." Makes perfect sense as a Heroquest reward too, though.

[David Scott]

1 hour ago, Crel said:

heroquesting "prize"

With hindsight "prize" is the wrong word, it's boon as described in Hero with a 1000 Faces.

Quote

WHEN the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet, or the ten thousand worlds.

If you haven't read it, it's the ultimate guide to Gloranthan HeroQuesting, along with The Masks of God (Glorantha.com):

Quote

 

The Masks of God & The Hero with a Thousand Faces Campbell, Joseph.

Campbell’s monomyth of the hero’s journey, Joseph Campbell, more than any other writer, has had tremendous influence on Gloranthan mythology. The Hero of a Thousand Faces is the cheat code for heroquesting and, along with the Masks of God, is the source of the Monomyth (even if Joyce coined the term). I’d say this is the foundational text for Gloranthan mythology.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thousand-Faces-Collected-Joseph-Campbell/dp/1577315936/ref=la_B000AQ33DK_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550656713&sr=1-1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Primitive-Mythology-Masks-God-Book-ebook/dp/B07CPBL4XR/ref=la_B000AQ33DK_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1550656986&sr=1-7

[Austin]

19 minutes ago, David Scott said:

With hindsight "prize" is the wrong word

Boon, prize, McGuffin--whatever, the word's not desperately important here. I just figured it was worth adding the only extant game-text use of Heroquest features to the conversation about possible features/functions . (I'm not including other references throughout the RQG Core because they seem to be "lore" references, and not actual hints at "game" elements in the way I personally parse & understand the document.)

[PhilHibbs]

"Prize" has the advantage that you can play "Gimme The Prize" by Queen at the end of the game session.

[SDLeary]

4 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

"Prize" has the advantage that you can play "Gimme The Prize" by Queen at the end of the game session.

And "Don't Lose Your Head" during the climactic phase! 😉

SDLeary

Edited February 20, 2019 by SDLeary
Too many "o's"

[The God Learner]

Note that those who read Tales of the Reaching Moon #7 from 1992 will see that readers wanted HeroQuesting rules. And as I recall, the RQ2 rules, from 1982 or something like that, also promised HeroQuesting rules Coming Soon! So what do I want to say with this? In essence that some patience may still be needed. 

We now do have the HeroQuest rules though, and don't forget 13th Age Glorantha has a chapter on HeroQuesting. (As an aside, I have found this game a rather enjoyable different take on Glorantha. At least while reading it, since my normal group hasn't been able to congregate here in the Machine City Ruins for quite a while.)

My impression is that instead the bulk of the job will be to convert myths into playable HeroQuests. A practical approach to this might be to have a look at what @soltakss has been up to.

 

Edited February 20, 2019 by The God Learner

[Christoph Kohring]

On 2/18/2019 at 7:36 PM, Eric Christian Berg said:

Is there a rough ETA on when the heroquesting rules will be available?

No ETA. Ever! That's not how nuChaosium does work as has been said again & again... & that's a very good rule indeed!

It will come. In due time. Patience.

In the mean time, there is always HQ:CR/ HQ:G: questing with the Runes -all the Runes! since 2009! 😎

[Jeff]

The mechanics of heroquesting essentially boil down to three things:

1. What is a heroquest? Thematically and narratively what does it include?

2. What is the landscape of Gloranthan mythology? This one sounds weird, but it is basically just a mythic toolkit that lets you treat the God Time like any other sandbox setting.

3. How do I handle heroquest rewards? What does it mean within the RQ rules to be a Hero? 

The first two things don't have many mechanics associated with them - they are more or less a toolkit of concepts and ideas for the gamemeaster. The third is mechanical, and nicely supplements the existing RQG rules.

[Christoph Kohring]

17 minutes ago, Jeff said:

The first two things don't have many mechanics associated with them - they are more or less a toolkit of concepts and ideas for the gamemeaster. The third is mechanical, and nicely supplements the existing RQG rules.

And where will those be published? In the forthcoming Gamemaster Book as first planned or in a specific heroquesting RQ:G book?!? This year, next year or later?!! Interested parties want to know...

[Runeblogger]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

2. What is the landscape of Gloranthan mythology? This one sounds weird, but it is basically just a mythic toolkit that lets you treat the God Time like any other sandbox setting.

As for this, some more tidbits were revealed at THE KRAKEN 2018 during Jeff's seminar: See here (about 2/3 down). 

[Ultor]

On 2/20/2019 at 6:49 PM, Runeblogger said:

As for this, some more tidbits were revealed at THE KRAKEN 2018 during Jeff's seminar: See here (about 2/3 down). 

"It looks like Jeff had been working on a way to run heroquests that does not require the GM to first create a myth that then the players must memorise and go through in the Godplane. The approach Jeff is working on consists on going to the Godplane and creating the myth as the players go through it, so there is no longer the need to plan and prepare a coherent myth before play. That is to say, the in-world characters do know the myth beforehand, it's just that it won't be necessary for other players (and the GM!) to know it beforehand. In order to achieve this, he's working on a set of maps of the Godplane, where you can see how all the myths interact, so at least the GM can have a good picture of where can the PCs end up if they do certain things in each mythic place, so by chaining Godplane events, players can get to a climax not even the GM was aware of before the beginning of the quest. In my opinion this sounds like a fresh and great idea so people have it easier to go heroquesting without the need to first find the most appropriate myth."

This is fantastic - the sort of creative approach I'd always hoped for from RQ heroquesting rules. My players have always found "playing out a myth" confusing and even started to avoid them.

[Joerg]

What I have been doing (narratively, not yet in RQG but in older versions of RQ, and in HQ) is to treat certain mythic interactions as patterns that may impose themselves on the quest. In that method, it doesn't really matter whether the other myth is just a different look at the happenings of the ones the player party has been experiencing up to that point or whether it is just a superficially appropriate entry from some fluff they brought or accidentally triggered. A sort of derailing railroading, maybe. It takes something like the identity challenge in Morden Defends the Camp to keep on track and to shake off the distraction, or it takes a well-versed heroquester seeing a chance to hop on that new potential and use it to further the goals of the questers (or a personal goal that was included into the total of the quest goals).

(A bit like taking Heracles along on the Argonaut journey. You know he is going to be an asset, but you also know you have no way to keep him on your quest for the whole length of it when it comes to his personal challenges. Well, player characters can be like that, too, although they might be more easily brought back into the fold once they achieved their personal goal. Provided the leadership of the quest leader suffices. But then, if the quest is community-based and sponsored, there is a strong element of "executive producers giving dictates to the writing room", to take a parallel from what I learned about how TV series like The Expanse are produced.)

At times, questers might find themselves entering a scene on the wrong side, or with a significant twist making it appear that way.

 

This doesn't have to happen in every quest. If it is a simple quest to gain some standard magic, deviation from a myth as written isn't really required. But then, unless the story isn't yet well known to the players, there is little reason to play it out, either. In inverse logic, when the devious GM starts stepping the players step by step through a well known quest everybody knows in their sleep, players might get attentive to what exactly they are doing, and look out for the weirdness to happen. The even more devious but somehow stumped GM might then claim that their precautions spoiled his surprise that may not have been that hot, and stick to the original story.

If you play in a living world sandbox where the players have rivals with similar (and on occasion, mutually exclusive) goals, letting those rivals take roles in certain encounters, whether clearly identifiable or just barely hinted at, will be good for keeping your narrative resource list smaller, and for having an idea what those rivals are about to do, and whether or rather when it impacts the player character community, and how.

This is of course a lot more fun if the adventures or misadventures of the other party get played out, too. Like two or more GMs communicating about their games if they manage to run them somewhat in lockstep, or perhaps having some game among themselves.

[KingofElfland]

We need a d’Aulaire’s Book of Orlanthi Myth—not Hamilton, not even Bulfinch—but the d’Aulaires doing a children’s art book of myths. I think it would require an Orpheus style heroquest though.