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Just wondering if anyone here is running Glorantha using Mythras rules instead of RQG?

I prefer the combat options and the skill base chances in Mythras, and RQG feels a bit like a step backward for me in some ways
I love the production quality of the RQG books, and the current interpretation of Glorantha is really great
I do quite like RQG's Family Background timeline, it has great flavour, and essentially provides rationales for various Passions - which Mythras also has.

I wonder what would be the pitfalls running Glorantha using Mythras?

The NPC stat blocks are pretty similar, although I think Mythras and RQ's Hit Locations may not be perfectly aligned.
I guess the Runes would need to be recorded on the Mythras sheet under 'Passions', although I suspect that there may not be enough space on the Mythras character sheet for that.

I wonder if there are any other pitfalls to look out for?
It's probably going to be too fiddilly with the differences with the magic system etc.

I did not want to ask this on either BRP Central or TDM forums, it seems a little out-of-place to do so on their official forum pages.
Regarding BRP, there is already an enthusiastic Mythras fan base here, so I think this is a better venue for me to post such random musings.

I suspect I'll just have to go RAW with RQG, but I'ld be interested in hearing if anyone is running Glorantha with Mythras
 
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An excellent resource for using Mythras in Glorantha, and Mythras in general, is Hannu Kokko's Notes from Pavis blog. It has all sorts of wonders, many of which handle the crunchy bits for you via web-based calculators.

Some quick highlights

Gloranthan Cult One-Pagers - Gloranthan Cults using the Mythras rules.

Mythras Encounter Generator - Does what it says on the tin. A vast stat's generator that has a mindboggling number of monsters, cults, cultures in it. When I was running Hearts in Glorantha, Hannu contacted me to give permission to add the new monsters that cropped up in the magazine. That's how dedicated it is :smile:
 
Just wondering if anyone here is running Glorantha using Mythras rules instead of RQG?
I do for our home games, but it's not really something "elegant" as such.
It's just using the Mythras Combat system and Skill Check system. Characters were mainly generated with RQG so they have RQG skills, but with the combat skills altered to fit into Mythras.

The Hit locations are funny. So the values giving the arms and head are the same.

However Mythras makes hitting the torso as likely as hitting the legs, where as in RQG you are more likely to hit the legs. Also when you hit the torso RQG makes hitting the abdomen three times more likely than hitting the chest, but in Mythras they are equal. See here. It's basically just two values being taken from the chest and given to the legs:

Body LocationRunequest GloranthaMythras
Right Leg1-41-3
Left Leg5-84-6
Abdomen9-117-9
Chest1210-12
Right Arm13-1513-15
Left Arm16-1816-18
Head19-2019-20

I use the Mythras skill check system simply because I think it is simpler, as RQG has an additional level of success and some exceptions and the RQG combat system is more complex in terms of memory load for me. However the actual RQG skills, weapons, etc are more tied to Glorantha.
 
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I have run a couple of short Glorantha campaigns using RQ6/Mythras. It is not at all difficult if you have access to some of the older material, but I also have the RQ6 Glorantha preview from 2015 which helps.

The old/new RQG from Chaosium amps up the power level of PCs significantly, turning all the players into rune-level heroes. It looks like this is the company line for what Glorantha PCs are supposed to look like, but it is not my glass of tea.
 
Not to derail things too much, but I just wanted shout out to Newt Newport Newt Newport and say how much I've enjoyed following the progress on OpenQuest. The road map looks impressive and seems like there's a lot of interesting tweaks in the forthcoming Companion and its great to see VTT support getting some love.

For those that haven't been following its development you should give it a look. I really love Stormbringer/Magic World as my go-to for "simple" BRP fantasy, but this is shaping up to be a great replacement (especially with a forthcoming SRD document to hack and tailor to whatever setting i might care to run).
 
Mythras has taken the place of BRP and is steadily fulfilling the promise it once had.
How can it take its place? It is a BRP game. That's the name of the underlying system.
 
I'm the OP who initiated this thread, and it is really here to serve the purpose for a full on 'free-for-all' for all things regarding BRP.

As long as we are more-or-less talking BRP here, then there is no way of derailing this thread.
In fact, any time our BRP/Mythras banter gets too much or too intrusive in other threads, just shift the conversation right over to here.
You can't have too much of BRP in this thread

In terms of gaming settings, Glorantha has been my gold standard, followed by the Hyborian Age. I could elab for hours over either of these.
One setting is fortunate enough to be in BRP (RQG), whilst the other one is a traversty of justice that it isn't, heh heh.
I also love Call of Cthulhu in all it's varieties, it really is a work of art. The world became a better place the day a young Sandy Petersen decided to bring Lovecraft's Mythos over to the rpg gaming hobby.

In terms of my favourite BRP mechanics - Mythras is my crunchy BRP game, and OpenQuest is my light BRP game - they are both my 'go-to' systems.
I'm currently considering running either a Mythic Britain,Thennela, or Lyonesse game using Mythras; as well as a Grimm Faerie Tale homebrew game using OpenQuest - the later was a concept I originally had for MagicWorld, but I think I prefer OpenQuest just slightly better for this.

So given my enthusium for Mythras and OpenQuest, I'm really stoked to see both Loz Loz and Newt Newport Newt Newport occasionally show up in this thread, it's about the closest I'll ever get to rolling dice with these creative blokes whose books I often find myself reading.
Would love to have a cuppa and banter with both, but that's not likely to happen unless I form the 'BRP Chapterhouse of Australasia', so I'm happy to listen to more charismatic types like Ben Milton geting the chance to do so on his Questing Beast channel. That lucky guy also gets to do so with Sandy Peterseon, another of my favourite gaming authors.

These days BRP is a Big Bag Of Tricks - so if it's Mythras, RQG, OQ, whatever, it all can go here.
Feel free to post away with wild abandon
Consider this thread to be the Dionyssus and Bacchus Festival of BRP :grin:

Please keep a-rambling with ANYTHING BRP related here, there is really no derailing this train! :grin: :thumbsup:
 
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My derailing comment was meant to be tongue in cheek, I just chuckle a little bit when the Mythras train gets to rolling around here.
 
How different can a BRP game become before it stops being BRP? It's interesting to me that the English-language branch of BRP never really got very different. In Sweden, the d100 had been replaced by the d20 in our biggest BRP game by the late 80s. Yet other than that there's all kinds of things you would recognize as being BRP in those editions of Drakar och Demoner (Dragons and Demons). The stats are the same, the Resistance table is there, most of the skills and spells are the same as in the older editions of the game that still used the d100. In my mind there's no question that the game was still a BRP game, even though it had abandoned one of the system's most known aspects, the use of percentile dice. So, what defines a BRP game?
 
How can it take its place? It is a BRP game. That's the name of the underlying system.
That's a reasonable question. My point is that the Mythras developments that have happened and are on going (by which I mean the Mythic Earth supplements, Lyonesse, Luther Arkwright, Classic Fantasy, M-Space, Thennla and so on) have taken the place of any Chaosium BRP publications, which declined and then stopped completely. Chaosium are not developing new BRP rpgs (aside from RQ and CoC), but TDM is, and 3rd party publishers are developing more with the Mythras Gateway licence. Whatever Chaosium's demand for a continued BRP/CoC licence was, it killed The Laundry rpg from Cubicle 7, and Delta Green moved to the Legend OGL, itself closer to Mythras than anything else. Even Jackals is based on the OpenQuest/Legend ogl.

In addition to this, BRP is not very consistent, the Big Gold Book is an anthology which was never made to fit together. Mythras (and related) manages to be consistent and diverse at the same time. Former BRP-writers have moved to Mythras having previously produced monographs. The Chaosium BRP OGL is not appealing, at all, so it is effectively, and bizarrely, dead as the 'BRP' system of choice. If you are writing and publishing a BRP game you either use the Legend OGL, or the Mythras gateway.
 
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That's a reasonable question. My point is that the Mythras developments that have happened and are on going (by which I mean the Mythic Earth supplements, Lyonesse, Luther Arkwright, Classic Fantasy, M-Space, Thennla and so on) have taken the place of any Chaosium BRP publications, which declined and then stopped completely. Chaosium are not developing new BRP rpgs (aside from RQ and CoC), but TDM is, and 3rd party publishers are developing more with the Mythras Gateway licence. Whatever Chaosium's demand for a continued BRP/CoC licence was, it killed The Laundry rpg from Cubicle 7, and Delta Green moved to the Legend OGL, itself closer to Mythras than anything else. Even Jackals is based on the OpenQuest/Legend ogl.

In addition to this, BRP is not very consistent, the Big Gold Book is an anthology which was never made to fit together. Mythras (and related) manages to be consistent and diverse at the same time. Former BRP-writers have moved to Mythras having previously produced monographs. The Chaosium BRP OGL is not appealing, at all, so it is effectively, and bizarrely, dead as the 'BRP' system of choice. If you are writing and publishing a BRP game you either use the Legend OGL, or the Mythras gateway.
Ok, but what I'm saying is that Mythras is just as much a BRP game as any of Chaosium's stuff. To me saying Mythras has replaced BRP is like saying B/X essentials has replaced the OSR. It's a bit complicated by Chaosium actually having printed a couple of rule books just called Basic Roleplaying, but the more recent one of those is usually referred to as the Big Gold Book anyway, probably to avoid stuff like this.
 
Maybe he just means that Chaosium is no longer the flagship for BRP goodness... it has rendered itself a bit 'niche' whereas the system is being expanded and explored by numerous other creators... with TDM and D101 Games leading the charge.

Similar to how when I want to play some form of D&D I look to companies that are NOT TSR/WotC for the good stuff.
 
Ok, but what I'm saying is that Mythras is just as much a BRP game as any of Chaosium's stuff. To me saying Mythras has replaced BRP is like saying B/X essentials has replaced the OSR. It's a bit complicated by Chaosium actually having printed a couple of rule books just called Basic Roleplaying, but the more recent one of those is usually referred to as the Big Gold Book anyway, probably to avoid stuff like this.

There's no way out of BRP as it exists within Chaosium, it's now a dead-end. The Mythras/RQ6/MRQII RPGs have always been a version of RuneQuest to me in any case, they are not derived from BRP - BRP games are derived from it. The original Basic Roleplaying was a booklet written out of the larger RuneQuest rules, it was and is a derivative. You can still describe Mythras and RuneQuest as belonging to the BRP family of games, just like you can describe D&D5e as a 'd20 game' or a 'f20 game'. It's also true that Mythras has been influenced by BRP games, it's not just an iteration of RQ, and as a result of that it is now a more reliable base compared to anything based on the older BRP references.

It's not just Mythras, there's OQ, Jackals, and the new Delta Green is a very impressive take. But Mythras is effectively the parent system now.
 
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There's no way out of BRP as it exists within Chaosium, it's now a dead-end. The Mythras/RQ6/MRQII RPGs have always been a version of RuneQuest to me in any case, they are not derived from BRP - BRP games are derived from it. The original Basic Roleplaying was a booklet written out of the larger RuneQuest rules, it was and is a derivative. You can still describe Mythras and RuneQuest as belonging to the BRP family of games, just like you can describe D&D5e as a 'd20 game' or a 'f20 game'. It's also true that Mythras has been influenced by BRP games, it's not just an iteration of RQ, and as a result of that it is now a more reliable base compared to anything based on the older BRP references.

It's not just Mythras, there's OQ, Jackals, and the new Delta Green is a very impressive take. But Mythras is effectively the parent system now.
Chaosium decided, and pretty much everyone agreed, that the basic underlying rule system underlying both RuneQuest and later Call of Cthulhu was called Basic Roleplaying when they put out RuneQuest second edition. That's just the way it is. BRP is the system, RuneQuest is a specific game using an iteration of that system, same as Mythras.
 
Maybe he just means that Chaosium is no longer the flagship for BRP goodness... it has rendered itself a bit 'niche' whereas the system is being expanded and explored by numerous other creators... with TDM and D101 Games leading the charge.

Similar to how when I want to play some form of D&D I look to companies that are NOT TSR/WotC for the good stuff.
This :thumbsup:
 
Chaosium decided, and pretty much everyone agreed, that the basic underlying rule system underlying both RuneQuest and later Call of Cthulhu was called Basic Roleplaying when they put out RuneQuest second edition. That's just the way it is. BRP is the system, RuneQuest is a specific game using an iteration of that system, same as Mythras.
hehe...noooo....it ain't. I have never called RuneQuest "BRP". In RQ2, BRP was a little pamphlet for newbies. You have things upside down.
 
hehe...noooo....it ain't. I have never called RuneQuest "BRP". In RQ2, BRP was a little pamphlet for newbies. You have things upside down.
Sorry, but I'm right. And you know I am, as you came in to this thread called brp the edition wars ready to talk about RuneQuest and Mythras. There's no mention of RuneQuest in the thread title, but everyone knew that the edition war wasn't between the basic rule book in the RuneQuest 2 boxed set and the Big Gold Book without even opening the thread. Whereas if the thread title had been "RuneQuest - the edition war to end all wars", no one would have expected much talk about Magic World, Call of Cthulhu, Drakar och Demoner etc. BRP is a generic name for the system underpinning Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Drakar och Demoner, Elric!, Mutant (the older versions, not Year 0), Magic World, Mythras, OpenQuest etc. That's the way it is. Sometimes the name of the system isn't the name of the first game that used it (The tri-stat system isn't called the BESM system, Unisystem isn't called the WitchCraft system etc).
 
Ok here it is - the placeholder thread battleground to discuss the merits of any and all of the different editions of BRP, like the true civilised folk we are! :thumbsup:
There's my initial opening post for this thread :grin:
It's as open as we want it to be! :thumbsup:
 
Sorry, but I'm right. And you know I am,
Oh dear. I'm familiar with the misunderstanding, but one has to just sigh and get on with it I suppose. RQ2 didn't describe itself as BRP, nor did RQ3 for that matter. It's perfectly ok to say that RQ & Mythras belongs in the same family but you have it completely the wrong way around if you say "RuneQuest is a specific game using an iteration of that system" - which is just wrong, sorry, but you have to know your history better. I appreciate this was lost and forgotten - most CoC players have no idea about RuneQuest, or I'm sure BRP for that matter, that doesn't make their ignorance "right".
 
'Basic Roleplaying' as a separate set of rules was a booklet that came in the RQ2 box. The RQ2 book was the full rules, and the BRP booklet was a slimmed down separate rules for generic homebrew settings, which could also be used as a primer before jumping into the full RQ rules.

I still have my tattered copy of that early 'Basic Roleplaying' booklet from the RQ2 box, and as a kid I used that as my RQ primer when I was 13yrs old.
I graduated to the full RQ2 rules when I was 14yrs or 15yrs, then onto RQ3 when I was about 16yrs old.

BRP today has come to indicate the broad family of games that are BRP-related, and that's how I refer to it now
But yeah it is confusing, as BRP now encompasses RQ within it - yet RQ was definately NOT initially derived from BRP, it was the other way around :thumbsup:
 
Oh dear. I'm familiar with the misunderstanding, but one has to just sigh and get on with it I suppose. RQ2 didn't describe itself as BRP, nor did RQ3 for that matter. It's perfectly ok to say that RQ & Mythras belongs in the same family but you have it completely the wrong way around if you say "RuneQuest is a specific game using an iteration of that system" - which is just wrong, sorry, but you have to know your history better. I appreciate this was lost and forgotten - most CoC players have no idea about RuneQuest, or I'm sure BRP for that matter, that doesn't make their ignorance "right".
I know the history. I'm still right. You writing exactly the same thing again isn't going to change that. This isn't about people not knowing historical facts, this is about the name of the rule system underpinning a bunch of different games. The rule system is called Basic Roleplaying. No one calls it the Call of Cthulhu system either, and I'm pretty sure most CoC players know about RuneQuest, and that the rule systems both games use is called BRP. Most "only know about one game system" people play either D&D or possibly World of Darkness games (although I think that's become rarer now than it was in the 90s). And guess what, the rule system for World of Darkness is known as the Storyteller system, or for the newer iteration Chronicles of Darkness the Storytelling system, despite no game titled Storyteller/Storytelling ever being released, another example of the rule system not being named after the first game to use them. It certainly isn't called the Vampire system.
 
No, I'm not another Sales Bot like Raleel Raleel, heh heh, this is more like just throwing a community announcement in my own thread :grin::



For those who are curious about BRP, and keep reading us ramble on about Mythras, then I just saw that there is currently a decent opportunity to see what we are on about

The Mythras rulebooks seem to be going for a good price on DrivethruRPG at present:
  • Mythras Imperative (basic rules): A complete steal for a Free pdf, and $14.99 USD for the printed booklet + pdf
  • Mythras (full core rules): Only $6.99 USD for the pdf, and $28.49 USD for the printed hardcover book + pdf
Postage may be an issue for the printed books at present, but that is pretty much how things will be for a while.
Still, the price for the actual books is quite decent, especially for what you get in one book.
It's making it very easy to jump on and check it out (especially if one just wants to grab the core rules pdf)

1619955661218.png 1619955705655.png

If interested, you can check it out here:
BRP/Mythras Imperative at DrivethruRPG
BRP/Mythras Core Rules at DrivethruRPG
Just sayin' :thumbsup: :grin:


.
 
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Probably worth mentioning the Lulu.com storefront for Design Mechanism. I've found that prices are frequently a bit less (especially with Lulu's frequent discount codes) and the quality of their POD books a tiny bit better than DTRPG and you just have to send proof of purchase to Design Mechanims to get your free PDF
 
Probably worth mentioning the Lulu.com storefront for Design Mechanism. I've found that prices are frequently a bit less (especially with Lulu's frequent discount codes) and the quality of their POD books a tiny bit better than DTRPG and you just have to send proof of purchase to Design Mechanims to get your free PDF
Yeah Lulu definately is pretty good, possibly better than DrivethruRPG. I bought a whole heap of Mythras stuff thru them recently, such as the huge Lyonesse hardcover book, and some Thennela supplements. Very good quality, and TDM sent me free pdfs for all of the titles, so it worked out really well for me.
However I think that DrivethruRPG may be significantly cheaper for Mythras just at present.


(ADDIT: I just checked the web sites again: The Mythras hardcover core rules book at Lulu is listed for me as $52.99 AUD, whereas the Mythras hardcover core rules book at DrivethruRPG is listed as only $36.92 AUD. Just highlighting that it must be a sale or something at DrivethruRPG)
 
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Yeah Lulu definately is pretty good, possibly better than DrivethruRPG. I bought a whole heap of Mythras stuff thru them recently, such as the huge Lyonesse hardcover book, and some Thennela supplements. Very good quality, and TDM sent me free pdfs for all of the titles, so it worked out really well for me.
However I think that DrivethruRPG may be significantly cheaper for Mythras just at present.


(ADDIT: I just checked the web sites again: The Mythras hardcover core rules book at Lulu is listed for me as $52.99 AUD, whereas the Mythras hardcover core rules book at DrivethruRPG is listed as only $36.92 AUD. Just highlighting that it must be a sale or something at DrivethruRPG)
There must be some regional variability apparently. If you are in Yoo-Esss-and-Ay Mythras core is about the same, Lulu's Lyonesse is cheaper, etc.
 
Lulu has regional pricing with a minimum rate depending on printing region (US, Europe, Canada and Australia). We try to keep prices across storefronts consistent, using USD as the base, but sometimes a regional price minimum is higher than might appear elsewhere. This is most typically the case with Australia and Canada.
 
Probably worth mentioning the Lulu.com storefront for Design Mechanism. I've found that prices are frequently a bit less (especially with Lulu's frequent discount codes) and the quality of their POD books a tiny bit better than DTRPG and you just have to send proof of purchase to Design Mechanims to get your free PDF
I've picked up several of the Mythras titles in Lulu Hardback and they've all been really solid. I think I'm going to end up getting the whole damn catalog soon enough...

Edit - Lulu in the US, that is.
 
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