Glorantha - How was it back then and how is it now?

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Alas! I’m in Rhode Island. That’s a little late for me.
Sorry, we keep missing or losing East Coast folks... Those in Central Time Zone seem to be able to cope, but it IS really late for Eastern Time Zone... And I just had someone from Brazil express interest and then realize what the time difference would be (worse than Eastern...).
 
Every other Wednesday at 8:00 PM Pacific Time. I know, that's a rough time for lots of folks...
That's about 11am Thursday mornings for me, I'll be involved in much more mundanity at that hour ...:sad:
 
An as an aside because I'm still rebuilding my old collection and because Meints didn't sound as enthusiastic about the excellent RQ 3e stuff that Chaosium produced and Avalon Hill published, I've been on a tear tracking down and buying old 3e stuff. Currently in my email in box...

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Another twenty or so to track down. lol. Figure I'll spend upwards of a grand doing this. Damn I should have never given away my gaming gear back in 99/2000. I'll regret it until the day I die. lol. It is fun rebuilding though.
 
Hmm, good prices on the Games Workshop Land of Ninja hardcover, but the shipping to the US is a killer.
 
An as an aside because I'm still rebuilding my old collection and because Meints didn't sound as enthusiastic about the excellent RQ 3e stuff that Chaosium produced and Avalon Hill published, I've been on a tear tracking down and buying old 3e stuff. Currently in my email in box...
You might want to triage that according to on the one hand, whether they're Gloranthan or not, on the other how fussed you are are about getting the exact originals vs updated dates on them, and on the third, um, tentacle, on what sort of timeline. Everything in GoG, G:G and Trollpack, for example, I'd bet on getting redone in their RQG equivalents...
 
You might want to triage that according to on the one hand, whether they're Gloranthan or not, on the other how fussed you are are about getting the exact originals vs updated dates on them, and on the third, um, tentacle, on what sort of timeline. Everything in GoG, G:G and Trollpack, for example, I'd bet on getting redone in their RQG equivalents...
I tend to suffer from a condition at times that requires saving throws... completionist angst. Which will cause me to go to no end to run down everything. I have a tendency to go all Gary Oldman as "Norman Stansfield" about collecting if I like something. I'd collect the newer stuff just to snag it though Chaosium staff is kind souring me and their stances and remarks at times the more I look around.
 
Pro-tip: there are a couple of non-Gloranthan RQ3 releases from 1990-91ish that were produced by Avalon Hill without Chaosium that you can skip even as a completist - Eldorad: The Lost City and Daughters of Darkness. They both feel like (and almost certainly were) mediocre AD&D modules that were hastily converted over to RQ stats.

You also don’t need the AH versions of Apple Lane, Snakepipe Hollow, Trollpak (including Haunted Ruins and Into the Troll Realms), or Cities if you own the originals (unless you really don’t want to convert stats from RQ2 to RQ3) - but note that Troll Gods has some new stuff in it that might be worthwhile, as does Griffin Island (in the latter case it doesn’t make up for everything that was cut from Griffin Mountain, but I remember there was stuff I liked and ended up using a combination of both versions when we played through it).

The blue Standard RuneQuest boxed set from 1987 can also safely be skipped. It’s a slimmed-down intro version of RQ3 but (unlike Gamed Workshop) AH never released an upgrade Advanced RuneQuest to fill in the gaps from the full set so if you start with this one you’ll still need to eventually upgrade to the full set at which time your blue box becomes useless.

Of course as a completist you’ll probably still buy all of this stuff anyway, but you can at least consider these (and the two boxed sets that are nothing but character sheets) as the lowest priorities…
 
I tend to suffer from a condition at times that requires saving throws... completionist angst. Which will cause me to go to no end to run down everything. I have a tendency to go all Gary Oldman as "Norman Stansfield" about collecting if I like something. I'd collect the newer stuff just to snag it though Chaosium staff is kind souring me and their stances and remarks at times the more I look around.
President Rick "Mr Suitcase" Meints both feels you pain, and thanks you for your custom. :smile:

Of course as a completist you’ll probably still buy all of this stuff anyway, but you can at least consider these (and the two boxed sets that are nothing but character sheets) as the lowest priorities…
If you let this stuff get out of hand, mind you, you can end up wanting not just every product, or every edition of every product, but every printing of every edition of every product!
 
It’s always interesting to find out where others’ tipping point with nostalgia lies. Personally, I have no nostalgia for RQ3 whatsoever. Does anybody want Lunar Coders in Pavis or feel that the scenarios in Strangers in Prax are any good? I remain very grateful to Mr Meints for Moon Design’s RQ2 reprints. Let’s hope that there are not RQ:G versions.
 
I’d actually forgotten about Strangers in Prax. Yeah, that was terrible. Even the production values were bad - pixelated cover art and an ugly purple border.
 
An as an aside because I'm still rebuilding my old collection and because Meints didn't sound as enthusiastic about the excellent RQ 3e stuff that Chaosium produced and Avalon Hill published, I've been on a tear tracking down and buying old 3e stuff. Currently in my email in box...
I apologize for misleading you. I really don't know why you took how I felt in the 1990's about RQ3 to be any more than what I said. I read it more than I played it. No more, no less. Please see the updated post below.
 
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From the first time Iooked at the world map in the RQ Rulebook (page 6 in RQ Classic), the world of Glorantha always seemed to be a huge place, most of which had basically nothing or next to nothing detailed. Whole continents like Pamaltela and Vithela were basically blank lands that I hoped more would get written about. I took a break from playing RQ during most of my time in college, although I started to become a collector of its game material and reader of it. The various RQ2 supplements like Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror were great reads, and the boxed adventures and campaigns were too. I started buying and reading a number of the Avalon Hill RQ3 as they came out, with mixed levels of interest, mainly focusing on the Gloranthan ones. I liked the increased level of Gloranthan info they contained because I was far more a reader than a player. I was incredibly interested and enthusiastic when the Vikings, Genertela, and Gods of Glorantha boxed sets were published. I didn't care as much for Griffin Island, Eldarad, or Daughters of Darkness. I was enthusiastic and a big fan of Dorastor, Sun County, and River of Cradles during the short-lived RQ Renaissance.
 
It’s always interesting to find out where others’ tipping point with nostalgia lies. Personally, I have no nostalgia for RQ3 whatsoever. Does anybody want Lunar Coders in Pavis or feel that the scenarios in Strangers in Prax are any good? I remain very grateful to Mr Meints for Moon Design’s RQ2 reprints. Let’s hope that there are not RQ:G versions.
This is sheer surmise on my part, but I suspect the Strangers Dangers are quite low. Doesn't really work in the 'default' startdate, right? Of course they might decide to go slightly off-piste and (re)publish things for support of other parts of the timeline, but I'm guessing less likely as an immediate priority. And when you consider what they've currently bitten off...
  • The Starter Box -- actually off all(?) the boats now and about to be released, woo!
  • The Equipment book;
  • The Gods set, which will be thick enough to stun two-and-half oxen;
  • The GM book;
  • Six-to-seven separate Homelands books (or indeed maybe whole boxed sets);
  • New in-timeline adventures;
  • Standalone additional characters;
  • The Elder Races do-over;
  • Prax/Big Rubble à la Laws;
  • The GM book;
  • Jonathan Tweet's project of mystery.
Then at that point (or interspersed to taste) you have other RQ2 and RQ3 reprints that aren't so problematic to draw on, and whatever other madcap idea they've had in the meantime. (Elves, dwarves, Lunars?) So that's quite a lot of Problem for Another Day buffer, at the least.
 
This is sheer surmise on my part, but I suspect the Strangers Dangers are quite low. Doesn't really work in the 'default' startdate, right? Of course they might decide to go slightly off-piste and (re)publish things for support of other parts of the timeline, but I'm guessing less likely as an immediate priority. And when you consider what they've currently bitten off...
  • The Starter Box -- actually off all(?) the boats now and about to be released, woo!
  • The Equipment book;
  • The Gods set, which will be thick enough to stun two-and-half oxen;
  • The GM book;
  • Six-to-seven separate Homelands books (or indeed maybe whole boxed sets);
  • New in-timeline adventures;
  • Standalone additional characters;
  • The Elder Races do-over;
  • Prax/Big Rubble à la Laws;
  • The GM book;
  • Jonathan Tweet's project of mystery.
Then at that point (or interspersed to taste) you have other RQ2 and RQ3 reprints that aren't so problematic to draw on, and whatever other madcap idea they've had in the meantime. (Elves, dwarves, Lunars?) So that's quite a lot of Problem for Another Day buffer, at the least.
That’s a reassuring list inasmuch that it will prompt about £0 expenditure on my part! Of course, I could plough the cash into yet another adventure path based around the travails of a minutely detailed Sartarite clan.
 
That’s a reassuring list inasmuch that it will prompt about £0 expenditure on my part! Of course, I could plough the cash into yet another adventure path based around the travails of a minutely detailed Sartarite clan.
I thought it was quite exciting as a prospectus! And a pretty logical one, in deepening what we have as a base in the Core Book. Obviously you can't please all of the people all of the time. People will want more (or less) Sartar... or Prax, or... Loskalm, who knows.
 
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I thought it was quite exciting as a prospectus! And a pretty logical one, in deepening what we have as a base in the Core Book. Obviously you can't please all of the people all of the time. People will want more (or less) Sartar... or Prax, or... Loskalm, who knows.
Quite right. I should be less dyspeptic. Since Mr Meints is part of this thread, I’ll just add that stat blocks confined to one column of one page and black and white pdfs that do not behave like a three-legged rhino, will go a long way to opening my wallet.
 
Quite right. I should be less dyspeptic. Since Mr Meints is part of this thread, I’ll just add that stat blocks confined to one column of one page and black and white pdfs that do not behave like a three-legged rhino, will go a long way to opening my wallet.
I think several of the main Chaosium layout people are based in Berlin, so maybe the stats blocks and PDFs have been partaking to excess of the "State policy" hippy, bohemian lifestyle? The possible psychedelia of the Ypsilanti area I can't over any insights on, I'm afraid! :grin:
 
I’d actually forgotten about Strangers in Prax. Yeah, that was terrible. Even the production values were bad - pixelated cover art and an ugly purple border.

The Coders in 'Strangers' were terrible, but the rest of the book is ok. I have used bits of "Barran" in various places. Arlaten the Magus the NPC was a good showcase of how broken the RQ3 sorcery rules are (and gave you an insight into what a sorcerer might look like), but the adventure location of the Arm of Pavis was fairly interesting and gave you another way of starting a Rubble/Pavis campaign, if you could work out what to do with Arlaten.

AH RQ3 is "terrible" as long as you ignore Vikings, Gods of Glorantha, Dorastor, Sun County, Shadows on the Borderland and River of Cradles. None of those were perfect, and they were sandwiched between the bizarre rubbish that AH put out, but far better than terrible. Gods of Glorantha might be poo-pooed by nouveau-Gloranthan sages but it did a lot to free RQ Glorantha from the Dragon Pass/Prax focus. River of Cradles does a much better job than Borderlands (10 years later) at conveying the setting, even if it's a water-railroad and has a desperately uninspiring BBEG. Vikings has lots of gaps, but could be used to run a Viking game, Dorastor is ridiculously deadly but has plenty that is useable, Sun County is a classic if you like that kind of thing, Shadows is probably the best in terms of pure adventure material. The Lunar Provincial Survey team is a NPC party that the PCs might reasonably tangle with, unlike the Lunar Coders.
 
Gods of Glorantha might be poo-pooed by nouveau-Gloranthan sages but it did a lot to free RQ Glorantha from the Dragon Pass/Prax focus.
And don't forget the Genertela box! A view from 40,000', to be sure, but another tantalising peek at a large chunk of the rest of the world.
 
I really enjoyed the RQ2 era of books. I started playing rpgs in the mid 1980s, predominantly RQ2. Even when I updated to RQ3 in the late 1980s I still used alot of my RQ2 books for resources, they just seemed to capture the vibe better.

Despite this, I did enjoy having the RQ3 Glorantha Box, even with its broad brushstrokes. The 1990s RQ3 books added quite considerable depth - River of Cradles, Sun County, and Dorastor - these later RQ3 publications were excellent

RQ2 suited me better as it felt loose enough to homebrew with abandon, whereas from RQ3 onwards it seemed to be more canon-focused.

Even though I absolutely love the RQ2 Classic reprints, I am dissapoointed that the DM's RQ6 wasn't used as the foundation engine moving forward. Things could have been expanded upon, such as Runes, Cultures, etc but I still feel RQ6/Mythras is a better version of the BRP game mechanics.

It is all very subjective, but dismissing RQ6 was a big misstep for Chaosium as far as I am concerned. Maybe not in financial terms, but just with how I relate to the company.
In some ways I wish I had not backed the RQ Classic kickstarter, given the outcome of that played a role in the direction moving forward.

However I am very happy with the current depiction of Glorantha and the good production standards of RQG, and definately supporting Chaosium with the new books. The Guide To Glorantha was a reimagining of the RQ3 Glorantha Box that exceeded expectations, and from here on I returned to Glorantha as a setting

But RQG has left me with very mixed feelings, in some ways I really just want to use Mythras with the new RQG narrative content.

I will work it out down the track, once the Cults books are published. At least Glorantha itself is alive and well these days, and I am very grateful to Moon Design & Chaosium for this :thumbsup:
 
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Mankcam Mankcam Agreed, I think that version of BRP mechanics are superior even if I'm not a big fan of the production value of the Mongoose material which is not impressive.

My dream, a new version of BRP that looks more like RQ6 with production values like RQG has. RQG books are beautiful, I can't fault them for the look and feel of any of those books.

I'd love to hear from R rmeints that they're working on a revamp/new edition of BRP done with the same level of production and care that the CoC and RQG have, for those of us who want to use these mechanics but not their campaign/world settings.

We can dream. I know i'd put up, I keep track of my gaming hobby expenditures, whether motorcycle, gaming or whatever. On gaming last year I spent about $4K. I'm much higher this year, a few too many Kickstarters that caught my eye. Hell just as an example in March I spent 1,189.00 and September I spent 2,132.00.

Mostly though I average around $500.00 a month or try to limit myself to that. I've not totaled October yet but I'll assume it's more likely around $600.00. Older adults whose children are all grown up and out of the house tend to have more free cash to spend on their hobbies. We truly don't want to get into how much I spent on my motorcycle addicti... err hobby in the past five years for example.
 
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RQ2 suited me better as it felt loose enough to homebrew with abandon, whereas from RQ3 onwards it seemed to be more canon-focused.
No question that lots of canon-angsting happened. Blame the fans, blame Greg, blame the internet. And intermittent thunderbolts from Zeus (as we're all about the Greek analogues these days) about the canon having changed, or things having changed... or changed back. HW: "Storm Bull is now Urox!" ... RQG: "No, Urox is now and always Storm Bull! Never call him Urox again! Ignore the fact that the Guide does so a dozen or so times!"

But if you can take it all with enough salt, YGWV is the perfect antidote to all that. It's all just a source of more options to choose from, and more detail to use or ignore. Given that canon doesn't agree with canon, the correct resolution is very clearly to homebrew with abandon. Whether deliberately, or when you realize that just after you zigged, canon zagged. Steer into it. If you didn't mind making stuff up when there was no option but to make stuff up, just remind yourself that more options is just more options -- not somehow less.

The Guide To Glorantha was a reimagining of the RQ3 Glorantha Box


It is all very subjective, but dismissing RQ6 was a big misstep for Chaosium as far as I am concerned. Maybe not in financial terms, but just with how I relate to the company.
In some ways I wish I had not backed the RQ Classic kickstarter, given the outcome of that played a role in the direction moving forward.
It's an odd way to conduct an election or a referendum, by presenting it as a fundraiser or a nostalgio-product sale, isn't it? But I guess if you're a business, when you see what way the wind is blowing, you sometimes you need to make a business decision. (In the US sports sense or otherwise.)

It might have been the plan all along, though. RQG is a step back (in time whether or not in quality) to RG2 in game-mechanics yes, but also in fair bit of the "lore". Much less splitting, and a lot more lumping, when it comes to runes, magic, and to gods. Which in a way makes a lot of sense, if you're doing Cults-of-Prax style "longforms" for every single major religion. Maybe four to eight pages for each of a hundred different deities? I'd maybe have started to think, "hrm, maybe let's do Tolat, Shargash and Jagrekriand all in a oner!", too. See also, previous link.

What I don't know is, was that the Return to Rightness Crusade all along, or does the one thing drive the other? You'd probably need to be in various rooms in Berlin and in Michigan to ever know. And as for Greg, it's clearly something he saw different ways at different times, being more and less Monomythic depending on what decade and what day you asked him. And often, both at the same time.


But RQG has left me with very mixed feelings, in some ways I really just want to use Mythras with the new RQG narrative content.
I thought that was an actual plan. Homebrew! With abandon! Tweak according to results.
 
I'd love to hear from R rmeints that they're working on a revamp/new edition of BRP done with the same level of production and care that the CoC and RQG have, for those of us who want to use these mechanics but not their campaign/world settings.
I imagine that while they both have their paws full of RQG right now, and Rick is the organ-grinder that presumably has the largest final say, the relevant monkey here might be Jason Durall. I don't know if he's active on any of the forums -- not being might be how he gets so much work done! -- but I imagine he's contactable by various mystical means...

We can dream. I know i'd put up, I keep track of my gaming hobby expenditures, whether motorcycle, gaming or whatever. On gaming last year I spent about $4K. I'm much higher this year, a few too many Kickstarters that caught my eye. Hell just as an example in March I spent 1,189.00 and September I spent 2,132.00.
Never mind the bill, think of the shelfspace! :shock:

We truly don't want to get into how much I spent on my motorcycle addicti... err hobby in the past five years for example.
Concerned that the mods are tuning in for on-topicness, or that your accountant, kids, etc, might be here popping in to monitor your finances? :grin:
 
Alai Alai Good point about Jason Durall, I do like his enthusiasm as an aside. His love for RuneQuest and Glorantha is obvious and I think a good thing. Hopefully he does turn his eye towards BRP. I also look forward to seeing how "Rivers of London" turns out.

As to the books, that's what building more shelves is for! The kids should talk to their mother, she enables my bad habits! Lol
 
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As to the books, that's what building more shelves is for! The kids should talk to their mother, she enables my bad habits! Lol
Sounds like some sort of carpentry/bibliophile codependency type dealio! :hehe:
 
No question that lots of canon-angsting happened. Blame the fans, blame Greg, blame the internet. And intermittent thunderbolts from Zeus (as we're all about the Greek analogues these days) about the canon having changed, or things having changed... or changed back. HW: "Storm Bull is now Urox!" ... RQG: "No, Urox is now and always Storm Bull! Never call him Urox again! Ignore the fact that the Guide does so a dozen or so times!"

But if you can take it all with enough salt, YGWV is the perfect antidote to all that. It's all just a source of more options to choose from, and more detail to use or ignore. Given that canon doesn't agree with canon, the correct resolution is very clearly to homebrew with abandon. Whether deliberately, or when you realize that just after you zigged, canon zagged. Steer into it. If you didn't mind making stuff up when there was no option but to make stuff up, just remind yourself that more options is just more options -- not somehow less.

It's an odd way to conduct an election or a referendum, by presenting it as a fundraiser or a nostalgio-product sale, isn't it? But I guess if you're a business, when you see what way the wind is blowing, you sometimes you need to make a business decision. (In the US sports sense or otherwise.)

It might have been the plan all along, though. RQG is a step back (in time whether or not in quality) to RG2 in game-mechanics yes, but also in fair bit of the "lore". Much less splitting, and a lot more lumping, when it comes to runes, magic, and to gods. Which in a way makes a lot of sense, if you're doing Cults-of-Prax style "longforms" for every single major religion. Maybe four to eight pages for each of a hundred different deities? I'd maybe have started to think, "hrm, maybe let's do Tolat, Shargash and Jagrekriand all in a oner!", too. See also, previous link.

What I don't know is, was that the Return to Rightness Crusade all along, or does the one thing drive the other? You'd probably need to be in various rooms in Berlin and in Michigan to ever know. And as for Greg, it's clearly something he saw different ways at different times, being more and less Monomythic depending on what decade and what day you asked him. And often, both at the same time.

I thought that was an actual plan. Homebrew! With abandon! Tweak according to results.
My philosophy on Glorantha is to start with RQ1, RQ2, and the RQ2 era materials. Then if there's something useful in later materials I use it. If something in the later materials contradicts the older materials, I may choose to defer to the older materials, but sometimes, maybe the newer materials are better. I like the time frame of the RQ1/2/3 era with a Lunar occupation so and later materials have to be examined through that lens.

Obviously since I'm sticking with RQ1 (with bits of RQ2), I really appreciate RQG being more RQ2-like than RQ6-like since it makes my job of converting stuff easier.

I dumped most of the Hero Wars/Hero Quest era stuff because the mechanical details were useless to me and really I found little of use out of the fluff. I think the RQG materials will be more useful to me.
 
I loved the depictions of Fronela, Ralios, and Seshnela in the RQ3 Genertela box and found all of them more interesting and inspiring than the depictions of Dragon Pass and Prax in that product (though I came to understand and appreciate the latter more once I finally acquired the RQ2-era material). I know those locations are out of fashion because they have a more medieval and less ancient-world flavor and that ancient-world flavor is Glorantha's marketing shtick (and also because they rely on sorcery and the RQ3 sorcery rules famously sucked - though Sandy Petersen's revised version was a lot better), but damnit I really like the idea of the Thawing of the Ban and the Kingdom of War and the Luatha and Brithini and Waertagi, and liked that the Genertela box gave me just enough info and flavor-elements (I especially love the regional Activity Tables) to be able to run games there, filling in the local-level details on my own. I don't need or want 1,000 pages of ultra-specific detail about a single Sartarite clan - I like the inspiring medium-focus stuff that sets the stage and allows me to make of it what I want.
 
I loved the depictions of Fronela, Ralios, and Seshnela in the RQ3 Genertela box and found all of them more interesting and inspiring than the depictions of Dragon Pass and Prax in that product (though I came to understand and appreciate the latter more once I finally acquired the RQ2-era material). I know those locations are out of fashion because they have a more medieval and less ancient-world flavor and that ancient-world flavor is Glorantha's marketing shtick (and also because they rely on sorcery and the RQ3 sorcery rules famously sucked - though Sandy Petersen's revised version was a lot better), but damnit I really like the idea of the Thawing of the Ban and the Kingdom of War and the Luatha and Brithini and Waertagi, and liked that the Genertela box gave me just enough info and flavor-elements (I especially love the regional Activity Tables) to be able to run games there, filling in the local-level details on my own. I don't need or want 1,000 pages of ultra-specific detail about a single Sartarite clan - I like the inspiring medium-focus stuff that sets the stage and allows me to make of it what I want.
I could see how those regions might be more attractive. For me, having started close to the beginning, Sartar and Prax have my attention, but also having started from close to the beginning, my concept of them set in long before the in depth material of the 90s (or even the 80s as even though I had access to the mailing lists, somehow I never absorbed much of anything from them and saw none of the fan publications of that era other than the little bit in The Wild Hunt). And Sorcery just never grabbed my attention, despite it being introduced in Greg's zine in The Wild Hunt. And what really grabbed me once it came out was Cults of Prax. Any area that doesn't have something similar to Cults of Prax, down to the specifics of how cults work (which was dramatically changed from my perspective by the RQ3 era materials) just isn't going to grab my attention. And at this point, realizing that I just don't have time to absorb new settings, and having little desire to try and drink from the fire hose of modern deep settings, I just find little interest in exploring very far outside of Dragon Pass and Prax.

But it's cool that those other areas are of interest to other folks, because I think all of that energy helps RQ as a whole, and having the game stay focused on Glorantha is a benefit to me even if half or more of the RQ players are playing in some portion of Glorantha I have little interest in. Of course from the Johnsown Compendium products, it seems like Dragon Pass and Prax are where the action is... With a healthy dose extending to the Lunar Empire, which makes sense, and just a smattering of products covering the other areas.
 
I loved the depictions of Fronela, Ralios, and Seshnela in the RQ3 Genertela box and found all of them more interesting and inspiring than the depictions of Dragon Pass and Prax in that product (though I came to understand and appreciate the latter more once I finally acquired the RQ2-era material). I know those locations are out of fashion because they have a more medieval and less ancient-world flavor and that ancient-world flavor is Glorantha's marketing shtick (and also because they rely on sorcery and the RQ3 sorcery rules famously sucked - though Sandy Petersen's revised version was a lot better), but damnit I really like the idea of the Thawing of the Ban and the Kingdom of War and the Luatha and Brithini and Waertagi, and liked that the Genertela box gave me just enough info and flavor-elements (I especially love the regional Activity Tables) to be able to run games there, filling in the local-level details on my own. I don't need or want 1,000 pages of ultra-specific detail about a single Sartarite clan - I like the inspiring medium-focus stuff that sets the stage and allows me to make of it what I want.
A lot of detail on one specific local area -- within reason! -- is a good thing, IMO, but not as a way to Leaf by Niggle everything to that level of canonical specification. (Though I wonder if Chaosium feel the same way: evidently we're getting a map of literally every single clan of Sartar, and population numbers and notes on all of them. We're a long way from Blank Lands, Toto!) But rather to provide a handle on how to model your own. See one, do one, teach one, as I believe they say.

Regional activity tables were (are! bring 'em back!) great. Those rioting conservative tribesmen!

The West isn't going away or anything, but who knows where it might in the "pipeline", beyond the coverage it got in the Guide. Cults isn't going to move the ball on that -- won't cover the liturgists in any way, apparently. Not even to the lightning sketch extent of GoG. Presumably we'll get a slightly deeper dive into sorcery in the Heortland setting book, but as we're post-Malkonwal, it won't be the real Malkioni deal. So I don't know if we work our way outward from DP/P (crawling along the Manirian coast? knocking through into Ralios?) or just hop straight to Loskalm or to Rokari Central at some point. Obviously there will be another Return to Rightness over the art-direction and anything at all Abrahamic- or medieval-sounding, so that it sounds a bit more Neoplatonic and Classic. Much as we apparently no longer say "warriors of the fyrd", it's "hoplites of the militia", and so forth. May not involve substantive change, for what modest amount of substance we ever got.

Early days on the RQG sorcery rules I imagine, and we'll get waaaay more detail, mechanics, and cultural context for them later on. But how are you liking them to this point?
 
Everyone, please feel free to just refer to me as Rick or Rick Meints. I keep looking around for my dad when you say Mr. Meints. (I'm not that old)
I assume El Presidente Meints avoids this confusion or ambiguity of reference? :grin:

(Though who knows!)
 
I also had an interesting thought this afternoon. I'm now also running a RuneQuest campaign in Gamelords's Thieves Guild/Haven setting, NOT Robert Lynn Asprin's Thieves World/Sanctuary setting that spawned some Chaosium products, though it has been offered I MIGHT set Sanctuary in the Haven universe, and of course Sanctuary is also present in Glorantha as Refuge, so one player who is in both campaigns wondered if we might have a crossover where the two campaigns meet...

So far I don't have a lot of cults for the Thieves Guild campaign other than borrowing a few like Lanbril and Black Fang Brotherhood, and bringing a modified Panash in from Quest World and putting together the skeleton of a healer cult and porting a cult in from the Traveller campaign that lost it's time slot to Thieves Guild.

It's an interesting experiment in what really makes up RQ to me.
 
I'll be interested in seeing some Malkioni regions detailed. The melting pot of Safelster seems particularly apt.
Who knows what analogies may be used for look of Malkioni culture? From the brief artwork in the G2G, I'm actually seeing alot of Vedic-meets-Slavic influences influences, but who can really say at this stage?
 
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Mankcam Mankcam My dream, a new version of BRP that looks more like RQ6 with production values like RQG has. RQG books are beautiful, I can't fault them for the look and feel of any of those books.

I'd love to hear from R rmeints that they're working on a revamp/new edition of BRP done with the same level of production and care that the CoC and RQG have, for those of us who want to use these mechanics but not their campaign/world settings.

We can dream. I know i'd put up, I keep track of my gaming hobby expenditures, whether motorcycle, gaming or whatever. On gaming last year I spent about $4K. I'm much higher this year, a few too many Kickstarters that caught my eye. Hell just as an example in March I spent 1,189.00 and September I spent 2,132.00.
An updated full color treatment of BRP is on our list of future projects, but is not currently being actively worked on. A lot has happened to the various flavors of BRP systems we already have out there, and the last edition of BRP is in need of a lot of updating and editing.
 
I'll be interested in seeing some Malkioni regions detailed. The melting pot of Safelster seems particularly apt.
Yeah, that's sorta the thing I had in mind when I was wondering if we were going to get their a homeland regional expansion at a time. I'd overlooked a key datapoint in an earlier post, which is that when discussing the Cults book, Jeff said the Invisible God "gets its own book". Which makes a lot of sense as it's a big and broad topic, and with all due to the likes of Orlanth, etc, needs more than the six pages Random J. Polytheistic Entity will be getting. I assume that when that happens, we'll get at least one of the "big", core Malkioni cultures on the bounce right after -- or maybe bundled in the same book?

Rick, I fully appreciate this is not remotely near the end of the pipeline or the top of the pile, and you don't want to give hostages to fortune we'll complain about changes to later, but any further hints on... current thinking about Malkioni publications?


Who knows what analogies we will have for the look of Malkioni culture? From the brief artwork in the G2G, I'm actually seeing alot of Vedic-meets-Slavic influences influences, but who can really say at this stage?
I'm not sure if that's a rhetorical or a querulous "who knows?"! Who knows indeed, but I doubt it'll stop us talking about it... Yeah, we get one big new piece the the Guide (though featuring two different Homelands), and a reprint (of a rather nice GoG illo, but one I've seen pointed at elsewhere as an exemplar of the old, bad, medieval model -- which seems rather overworked to be, it's a geezer in a robe). The Pithdaran and the Loskalmi Jeff shared his rather detailed art direction on, so I imagine it's a pretty fair indication, at least for a couple of sub-cases.
 
Rick, I fully appreciate this is not remotely near the end of the pipeline or the top of the pile, and you don't want to give hostages to fortune we'll complain about changes to later, but any further hints on... current thinking about Malkioni publications?
Malkioni publications would be a wonderful addition to the Gloranthan catalog. Unfortunately, we don't have many writers willing to write Western material. While there are exceptions, like the forthcoming Cults slipcase set, we greatly prefer to have sourcebooks with background info (geography, history, cults, culture, politics, etc) AND ready to play scenarios. Few writers (or writing teams) have stepped forward to do that. Jason and Jeff have some time to write, but we are mostly reliant on freelancers.
 
Malkioni publications would be a wonderful addition to the Gloranthan catalog. Unfortunately, we don't have many writers willing to write Western material. While there are exceptions, like the forthcoming Cults slipcase set, we greatly prefer to have sourcebooks with background info (geography, history, cults, culture, politics, etc) AND ready to play scenarios. Few writers (or writing teams) have stepped forward to do that. Jason and Jeff have some time to write, but we are mostly reliant on freelancers.
Thanks for the reply. Understood and understandable. I wonder if Jamie Revell is available...

I may have been over-interpreting Jeff's "gets its own book", and I'll read as meaning something akin to "needs its own book, if and when".
 
Personally, I think of Glorantha as only comprising Dragon Pass, the Holy Country, Dagori Inkarth and Balazar: that actual setting is made more convincing by being surrounded by an implied wider world and cosmos. In the same way Tolkien’s fiction only concerned a narrow band of middle Middle Earth over a short timeframe. Who knows or cares about Far Harad? However, his stories were given an amazing emotional charge by the deployment of history, legend, language and cosmology.

Having said that, I consider Tolkien a one off. A much better model for gaming is R.E. Howard: one 3,000-word lore essay and everything else told through stories (read scenarios for RPGs).
 
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