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How long has your RQ G campaign been going on


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15  minutes ago, or so, Crel started a thread-drift which sounded interesting enough to continue and give him credit for. So let me, let him start this off...

31 minutes ago, Crel said:

Sorry to derail the thread, but how long have you been playing that game IRL? Has it all/mostly been RQG? Have you been using the "adventure per season" model?

Just curious. :) I'm not familiar with many actual long-running games of RQG.

Finished Chargen and we are 2/3rd through the first module, All in all about a Sacred season and a couple of weeks. Alas the game is now on summer break (waugh!). Ah well must work to buy more product (yes mostali overlords....work... eat... consume...).

Cheers

Edited by Bill the barbarian
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3 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Crell started a thread-drift which sounded interesting enough to continue and give him credit for.

This makes sense. Thanks for the initiative :)

23 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

We started our 11L campaign almost right after RQG core rules came out. Our GM loved the campaign since he got it and we really wanted to try the need rules on. Very little houseruling so far. Absolutely loving the game ane the new power levels. We don't even have a single RuneLord or Priest yet, though some are incredibly close right now. We play weekly, probably taken 3 months or so of sessions off around the holidays, so 12 or so less. I don't wanna do math right now. Lol.

And made it through seven game years, wow. So that's close to a game year per month of IRL playtime, if you handle the numbers a bit roughly. My game's been going since about November and we're still in our second season of game time, Fire 1625 (I started a bit before the Dragonrise, right after Argrath conquered New Pavis). Our weekly game ought to go three hours, but usually plays closer to two between late players, random chitchat, catching up and so on.

Aaaand I tend to let the adventures drag themselves out unnecessarily through split parties, excessive hijinks, sudden side-quest opportunities, and so on. So that's slowed the game down quite a bit as well. Still, I don't think I've ever played an RQ adventure in one session, even back in my old game where we'd play consistent 6-8, sometimes 10-hour sessions.

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21 minutes ago, Crel said:

This makes sense. Thanks for the initiative :)

57 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

Cheers, exactly what I was thinking and it seems like a great topic, Hope I did not make a mistake not putting this in the tavern, But perhaps this is (at the moment anyway) really a RQ G only thread due to the newness and all.

Edited by Bill the barbarian

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Our group does use the Seasonal adventure model presented in RQG. We thought it would be a better fit for the way content is provided and wanted to change as little from RAW as we could to get a feel for what RQG was trying to portray about Glorantha. I think it has been an absolutely smashing success. RQG and Eleven Lights have done a better job engrossing our party in a living Gloranthan world than any other attempt we have made at Glorantha. And we have played in Glorantha for about 13 years together off and on, some of our longest campaigns were 4 or 5 years off and on. We have done the Argrath story through the entire end of the Hero Wars with several different players over the years. Our core group has remained the same four or so dudes though.

 

One thing about our group is that we telecommute to make up for distance at this point. We also tend to play quite a bit longer than most, it seems, when we sit down for a session it could be up to 8 or 10 Hours in a day, most of the time it is about 4 or 5 in a session. We tend to get one 'Adventure' done per session depending on what types of adventures we are doing and in between season events. For Example, we completed Snakepipe Hollow (The Classic Write-up) in just about 5, maybe 6 hours total gaming together over two sessions. Snakepipe Hollow was absolutely amazing with RQG, we ended up experiencing more as players than we EVER EVEN KNEW EXISTED, and we have done that specific adventure/area every time we play a glorantha campaign pretty much. ❤️ Baroshi

End of year bookkeeping takes a minute, but we don't make a huge deal out of Sacred Time stuff and haven't done more HeroQuesting than we absolutely really needed to for the story, we REALLY want to get the HeroQuesting rules out before over or undershooting the power level too dramatically.

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16 minutes ago, HreshtIronBorne said:

For Example, we completed Snakepipe Hollow (The Classic Write-up) in just about 5, maybe 6 hours total gaming together over two sessions. Snakepipe Hollow was absolutely amazing with RQG, we ended up experiencing more as players than we EVER EVEN KNEW EXISTED, and we have done that specific adventure/area every time we play a glorantha campaign pretty much

Okay wow, y'all must have really hauled ass then, cuz from what I recall of that module (I've skimmed/read it, but not played it) it's quite extensive. It sounds like your milieu is much better at staying focused and working through rooms than mine is :P. The biggest adventure I recall playing was an adaptation of the AD&D adventure Lost Shrine of Tamoachan, which I believe has a similar map-size to Snakepipe Hollow (but I don't have either module in front of me) and that took us like six weeks of 6-ish hour sessions.

God, I wish we could get back to sessions like you describe. I loved them, but our group's having trouble finding a new schedule which works.

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2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Sorry to derail the thread, but how long have you been playing that game IRL? Has it all/mostly been RQG? Have you been using the "adventure per season" model?

Just curious. :) I'm not familiar with many actual long-running games of RQG.

Given that RQG hasn't really been out that long... One of my groups' meets only once a month, but we are playing "vanilla" RQG. We've played the Cult of Chaos's Stealing the Eye as an intro, then Defending Apple Lane, Cattle Raid, next friday likely to do the third adventure or another Cult of Chaos scenario - Darkness over Runegate. We are playing one game per season and it's going fine.

I've also run a once a week Prax based game for 12 weeks and another 12 week Snakepipe Hollow. The season flow really worked well for training and avoiding Fire season in the wastes. I've GMed and played a lot of Pendragon with its one adventure per year model so it very straightforward to manage.

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I tried to start a game about 6 months ago but one of my players tried to create a sorceror and gave up and we ran out of enthusiasm. I said we should wait until the slipcase is out and try again with traditional Sartarites.

So we did, and I've run The Broken tower which took three sessions, then a trip to Boldhome to witness Kallyr's heroquest, then A Darkness At Runegate which they mostly avoided like the plague. One of the players refused to even enter the town and stayed outside the walls the whole time! It's his first time roleplaying though and he hasn't really got the hang of it. I'd given him a pretext to need to go to Runegate, and he seemed to have it stuck in his head that that was the only reason to be there, his job was to get it done and go home and that's it.

I've never had a group that is so keen to avoid the scenario at all costs, they tried to get out of The Broken Tower as well but they couldn't think of an excuse to come home empty handed.

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GM'd six ~4 hour sessions for our FLGS game (so far). I've run a couple of other sessions outside of that, however. No "official" scenarios (all IMG, though I am using some material from the ever-excellent Tales of the Reaching Moon, RQ2 Classic Apple Lane -- Rainbow Mounds, but updated for post-Dragonrise and my own nefarious machination -- and the RQG Adventure Book material for Apple Lane's NPCs, et al).

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We're about seven, 4-hour sessions into our campaign. We started in March of this year. 

Our game is set in Pavis and The Big Rubble. I wanted to present a "classic" RQ experience and the Rubble seemed like the right part of Glorantha to transition D&D players into RQG. I've made a few reversions to RQ3 combat, but I'd say that we're otherwise playing 90% RAW. Due to several PC deaths so far, most of the characters are still relatively inexperienced in RQG terms. No one's really got their eyes on being a Rune Lord yet.

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My Play-by-Post RQG game has been running just shy two years now starting with the Broken Tower. 

It's hard to define as sessions, but after the Broken Tower, I ran a story arc nominally called "Colymar's Vision" where the adventurers were sent by Queen Leika to Colymar's Lookout to gain a new vision for the tribe after Prince Kallyr's disastrous LBQ and the subsequent bad omens.  They had to travel to Garanstone first and then follow Colymar's path to the Lookout. After encounters enroute, an attack by bandits at Blacktree Shrine, a suggestion by the Raven to see Dekko, a venture into Dekko's Crevice where they gambled with Dekko and won a sleeping Earth priestess, a trek to Garanstone where they discovered a group of Yelmalions and Grazers calling down a star daimon and had to help fight off a scorpionman attack, and gaining passage across the waters at Centaur Cross, they finally reached Colymar's Lookout and magically fought for control of the vision with several other groups (including the Yelmalion-Grazer alliance, scorpionmen, and some folk from a distant elf woods).  The return saw them stop at the battlefield at Auroch Hills to try to recover the Justice Spear of the Colymar.

Now into another story arc nominally called "Into the Hero Wars".  They aided Queen Leika at the Battle of the Queens where Prince Kallyr fell. Queen Leika had a battlefield vision where she saw they she needed to gain the Ivory Horn of the Storm. She has sent them off to find it.  They've not made it too far yet, just to the ruins of the Lunar slave farm near Old Man Village where they are investigating the former rooms of the Lunar witch Oheha and trying to figure out who beheaded the river spirit Nymie.

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8 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I ran a story arc nominally called "Colymar's Vision" where the adventurers were sent by Queen Leika to Colymar's Lookout to gain a new vision for the tribe after Prince Kallyr's disastrous LBQ and the subsequent bad omens.

I'm glad to see that some other GMs are thinking of their campaigns in terms of "story arcs." I do so as well, although we've not completed the first one yet. I intend to end the arc around the Fire Season 1625 defeat of Argrath's Praxian horde. Not sure how I'm going to do it yet; IIRC canon is Lunar madness spirits but I kind of want to use the Bat because my players are familiar with it and hopefully it'll inspire its well-deserved fear and terror.

My long-term goal is to slowly shift into a freeform sandboxy thing set in Prax and the Big Rubble once my players have learned enough about the region through story stuff that I can go to them and say "Hey, what do your adventurers want to do?" without blank stares, without needing so much use of questgivers.

10 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Our game is set in Pavis and The Big Rubble. I wanted to present a "classic" RQ experience and the Rubble seemed like the right part of Glorantha to transition D&D players into RQG.

What material have you been running? Old RQ2 stuff? 

Also, I feel like thus far the expected IRL time of an adventure is about one session. Does that feel accurate to other GMs? Remembering the length of the Broken Tower, Cattle Raid, Defending Apple Lane, etc.

In my campaign that's very much not been the case, but I feel like my group's norms and the material I've chosen has been the cause, rather than a design expectation within RuneQuest.

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8 minutes ago, Crel said:

My long-term goal is to slowly shift into a freeform sandboxy thing set in Prax and the Big Rubble once my players have learned enough about the region through story stuff that I can go to them and say "Hey, what do your adventurers want to do?" without blank stares, without needing so much use of questgivers.

I like that. This seems not very compatible with the new 'part of community' thing, though.

 

10 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Our game is set in Pavis and The Big Rubble. I wanted to present a "classic" RQ experience and the Rubble seemed like the right part of Glorantha to transition D&D players into RQG. I've made a few reversions to RQ3 combat, but I'd say that we're otherwise playing 90% RAW.

Which reversions are you using? I have also some problems with the new combat rules.

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1 minute ago, Kloster said:

I like that. This seems not very compatible with the new 'part of community' thing, though.

On the one hand, historically my tabletop milieu has been pretty heavy on the murder-hobo thing, so that's to be expected. On the other, I am hoping to pull further into the community stuff, to the point that ideally this is "you have a week away from your occupational duties--what do you want to do to help X in New Pavis?" or something like that. I'm hoping to build setting-familiarity which will let me reduce the number of questgivers (which I feel the community-centric perspective increases, since you aren't adventuring for yourself but for someone else), and then move forward into "I care about X, so how can I further its goals?" For example, helping Argrath to conquer Sartar after the death of Kallyr.

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13 minutes ago, Crel said:

On the one hand, historically my tabletop milieu has been pretty heavy on the murder-hobo thing, so that's to be expected. On the other, I am hoping to pull further into the community stuff, to the point that ideally this is "you have a week away from your occupational duties--what do you want to do to help X in New Pavis?" or something like that. I'm hoping to build setting-familiarity which will let me reduce the number of questgivers (which I feel the community-centric perspective increases, since you aren't adventuring for yourself but for someone else), and then move forward into "I care about X, so how can I further its goals?" For example, helping Argrath to conquer Sartar after the death of Kallyr.

I like the way you drive your stuff!

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6 hours ago, Crel said:

What material have you been running? Old RQ2 stuff? 

Just as I champion Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes as the best RQG supplement for Sartar adventures, Pavis: Gateway to Adventure provides the best resources for someone who actually wants to play the game. I supplement it with the RQ2 stuff, since RQG's designed for compatibility with RQ2, and it's a pretty clean fit. That's been helpful. I pointed my players at Balastor's Barracks, but supplemented the Griffin Gate with Big Rubble material produced by Clint Staples from this site: https://d-infinity.net/game-content?tid_1=13 . Presented with several options for adventure, they didn't get close to the Barracks before a few PC deaths and low Rune Point totals chased them back to New Pavis. They've since decided to get a little more experience before trying it again, so I've adapted the Broken Tower for Prax and they're headed that way. ;)

6 hours ago, Kloster said:

Which reversions are you using? I have also some problems with the new combat rules.

Mostly returning to RQ3's "You can do two things in melee combat" framework (chosen from attack, parry, cast a spell, or dodge), which gets rid of the Pendragon-style multiple-parries-and-dodges change (or is that from Stormbringer?). This isn't quite as limiting as it was in RQ3 since attack and parry skill are combined in RQG. Once a PC's above 100%, they get the ability to split their attack and parry at the same time rather than on a potential delay. We've got one character who started at 100% with her axe and managed well for herself until some bad dice luck.  I removed the skill penalty to opponents when a skill exceeds 100%. Combined with the multiple parries and dodges, it gets ridiculous once the Axe and Sword Trance spells start flying. An increased chance to special or crit is reward enough. Finally, I added RQ3's Knockback rules and the Disarm rules. 
 

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9 hours ago, Crel said:

Also, I feel like thus far the expected IRL time of an adventure is about one session. Does that feel accurate to other GMs? Remembering the length of the Broken Tower, Cattle Raid, Defending Apple Lane, etc.

 

IRL I can't say I have finished many adventures in a day, the fastest ones I have run have been The Village of Greenbrass from the RQ 3 GM's book. which took 2 or 3 gaming days of 4-7 hours (its been years) and The Broken Tower is supposed to be  playable for new comers to RQ in 5 hours but my game at the FLGS on free gaming day back in '17 got to the final combat in 5 and a bit hours As the combat could have taken up to an hour (newcomer and all those spells, one player looked at me helplessly not sure what to do with all that power (thirty or so spells was it, can't recall glad they did away with that rule, quickly) necessitating a less then clean finish and a ruling on how the battle might have gone based on the set up. People had to leave so... in real life intervened.

In my games I love a story, and thread drift does not bother me (who knew) so the thought of lengthening a game rather than shortening them is usually my goal or at least a result I usually get. For example Melisande’s Hand was run by one of my players giving me a chance to play and I think we milked that one for about 4 or 5 weeks of real time playing once a week. The game was so engrossing I recall 8 hours being our shortest day. So a minimum of 32 or 40 hours of Pavis County goodness and a fine way to introduce the adventures to Duke Raus (not to mention get one of the adventurers in trouble with... (never you mind!); thank you MOB!

Cheers

Edited by Bill the barbarian

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Campaign has been going since late September and we have run 8 full sessions as well as an online only mini-session set during the celebrations of Sacred Time (no Heroquesting or anything just letting them enjoy the celebrations and get to know their clan better. 2 players competed for the affections of one NPC to the group's amusement).

However I have had a few players drop and now have it on a mini-hiatus this month while we try and bring in some new blood and finish up the story we started.

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5 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

the fastest ones I have run have been The Village of Greenbrass from the RQ 3 GM's book. which took 2 or 3 gaming days of 4-7 hours (its been years)

Think that was the first adventure I ever ran years ago, and aside from Griffin Mountain sandbox settings, probably the only published adventure I ever ran until adapting the Harvest Bride for HQG and then the Broken Tower quickstart.  Probably finished it in 6+ hours.  My face-to-face game sessions back in RQ3 days were typically around 10 hours (including time for a dinner), though I think the battle with the monstrous dragonsnail went about 13 hours in one sitting.

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14 minutes ago, jajagappa said:

Think that was the first adventure I ever ran years ago, and aside from Griffin Mountain sandbox settings, probably the only published adventure I ever ran until adapting the Harvest Bride for HQG and then the Broken Tower quickstart.  Probably finished it in 6+ hours.  My face-to-face game sessions back in RQ3 days were typically around 10 hours (including time for a dinner), though I think the battle with the monstrous dragonsnail went about 13 hours in one sitting.

Captain, logically I have to inform you that a slight drift has been detected ahead.

Look you pointy eared freak, if I was worried about a slight drift why I never would have boldly gone... <edited for pointlessness>

So how long did it take you to finish GreenBrass? Enquiring minds and all. For both actually, how long did you crazy kids play in the sandbox?

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

So how long did it take you to finish GreenBrass?

I'm guessing it was about 6 hours, possibly as much as 8 - that's going back 30 years ago though.  As we only played once a month, we had long sessions usually starting at noon and finishing around 10pm typically.

My face-to-face game ran for 10 years always centered on Imther (Greenbrass got transported there) though did have a trek across Balazar and the Elder Wilds to reach Gonn Orta's castle and return, and the Amber Fort sessions were set along the Elf Sea.

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16 hours ago, EpicureanDM said:

Mostly returning to RQ3's "You can do two things in melee combat" framework (chosen from attack, parry, cast a spell, or dodge), which gets rid of the Pendragon-style multiple-parries-and-dodges change (or is that from Stormbringer?). This isn't quite as limiting as it was in RQ3 since attack and parry skill are combined in RQG. Once a PC's above 100%, they get the ability to split their attack and parry at the same time rather than on a potential delay. We've got one character who started at 100% with her axe and managed well for herself until some bad dice luck.  I removed the skill penalty to opponents when a skill exceeds 100%. Combined with the multiple parries and dodges, it gets ridiculous once the Axe and Sword Trance spells start flying. An increased chance to special or crit is reward enough. Finally, I added RQ3's Knockback rules and the Disarm rules. 

It seems we have the same problems. I am also disturbed by the fusion of attack and parry skills. For me, this is Stormbringer, not Runequest (same thing as the multiple parry rule and the attack result matrix). I also want to go back to the non simultaneous strike ranks of RQIII round (and thus the per SR moves). I am still undecided on the 10 or 12 SR round.

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I started an RQG campaign in April '18 on Roll20 made up of a group of people who I had played online with in other games and felt would be a good fit, we did our 26th session last week and aim to play each week but don't feel bad if we don't.

I started off with a sand box type approach based around Clearwine, with the first adventure investigating the ruins of the Lunar Villa on the Broken Tower map. then rounding up some lost sheep that had got into the the Cinder Pit and finding out what had happened to the shepherd boys.
At this point it was becoming clear I wasn't going to maintain seasonal adventuring and we would just have to follow the story arc where it took us. I re-skinned the adventure from River of Cradles with the Gorps, which did need to be reworked significantly. The Giant Catfish Zola Fell priest was morphed into a Giant Salmon, and the Gorp/Manlings got a 21st Century update (see below)

We then spent a couple of sessions on the events covered in the Winter War adventure posted on this site, got distracted by some dinosaurs north of the Upland Marsh, had a Christmas themed special adventure in Sun Dome County - (which some day I'll write up the notes for properly and share with the community). I had been seeding the main campaign adventure from the GM screen pack with the players over the preceding weeks but at this point they decided that the Big Bad was somebody else's problem and stated looking for something else to do.

We then did my own 'Clearwine must Flow' adventure from the Cult of Chaos competition, and then explored some of the politics of Boldhome under Queen Kellyr - the queen and the party ended up on bad terms as she blamed them for her loosing a bet with the Pol-Joni on a sporting match which was a Quidich/Polo mash up.

The party are currently in the marshes to the west of Corflu to which they were magically transported. They have been restoring the lost Newtling Cult of the Storm Bull Frog, and are currently exploring the ruins just outside of Corflu where they have discovered a lost Zistorite temple/manufactury and have just begun to fight off the automated guards. They are also considering the possibilities offered by the unidentified magical prosthetics that can be found in the workshops. 

They have visited the Hero Plane twice - once when one of them accidentally had a heroic death and needed to find his way back to the mortal world, and the other time when they encountered grandfather frog and his founding myth - which unfortunately then resulted in the Storm Bull Frog mix up. I am rather keen to see the official rules for these rather my improvised approach to HeroQuesting.

The group consists of a mixture of players who are completely new to RQ and Glorantha (I brought them over from WFRP) and some old Grognards who have been around since RQ2. They are all loving being in Glorantha.

As you can tell, we are a little off canon now, so there is some ruling hacking going on to keep up - which is fine. The character advancement systems from the book is the area which is most under strain and really isn't fitting well with the needs of the campaign I am finding myself in. I am just giving characters spells and training as in kind rewards from the cults and communities they encounter as the XP rolls and particularly the POW gain rolls don't seem to give rewards that match character efforts. This isn't a complaint, simply an observation in keeping with the original question that started this topic.

manling mob.png

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49 minutes ago, Gryphaea said:

I started off with a sand box type approach based around Clearwine.....

To quote Kloster's comment to me, I like how you drive your stuff! That campaign sounds like a wild, crazy ride.

14 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

The Village of Greenbrass from the RQ 3 GM's book. which took 2 or 3 gaming days of 4-7 hours (its been years)

All the Money Tree times (and yours in particular, Bill) are very interesting to me because IIRC I've played the adventure three times over about seven years now, and each time I believe we completed it in one session of about 4 hours (with maybe another hour or so on top for RQ3 random char-gen).

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