Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

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Alai said:
Definitely curious where he's gone with the Draconic Mysticism thing in the second book. Kinda the sort of area it's by now almost traditional each successive entire Gloranthan ruleset to crash and burn on, never mind a scenario book boldly taking it on!
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He has about six pages explaining the "theory" of it in the second book, comparing it a good bit with the Lunar religion.
 
BlackWolf said:
So I have this hobby of checking old magazines when I'm drinking coffee. Today I was taking a quick look on the Dragon Magazine #1 and I found this curious text:



I remember reading the manual to play with @Bunch and It's interesting how many lore elements where already present on the early stage and how many others evolved over the years. Anyways, thought some of you may like this curiosity, cheers!
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There's also the sequel Nomad Gods (the third game in the trilogy never arrived). I have the French version with a translated rulebook and it's very impressive if you like old school fantasy wargames.
 
Black Leaf said:
There's also the sequel Nomad Gods (the third game in the trilogy never arrived).
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We did get a publication using that title, technically... I'd love to see a MoLaD as a less "trad" boardgame sometime. Given that it's essentially a heroquest, you could really use pretty much any sort of system for it, really! I'd work as a "light eurogame" like Khan of Khans... Or at the other end of that spectrum, it might be more like Die Macher! Part of me would like to see it done in the style of Ed Beach: Here I, The Pharaoh, Stand. OTOH most of me realizes that won't happen, and even if it did, when would I ever actually get to play it, and with whom?!
 
Séadna said:
He has about six pages explaining the "theory" of it in the second book, comparing it a good bit with the Lunar religion.
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And were they six good pages? :smile: And does he sharply distinguish the two, or see them as rather similar?

I get the sneaking suspicion that we're going to get the official rules for (Nysaloran) Illumination, then Arkatism will be "see Illumination", Draconic Realization will be "see Illumination", the various Vithelan forms will be "see Illumination" (maybe interspersed with the occasional "this one was False Path, doesn't work at all"). So if JC material gives us a rich take any or all of those, then all to the good!
 
Alai said:
And were they six good pages? :smile: And does he sharply distinguish the two, or see them as rather similar?
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I thought they were fairly good at giving the Draconic approach a distinct feel. It's oriented mainly as a GM section to help run a specific NPC and how it might affect the party with a bit more flavour.

He talks about how Draconic stuff seems like Illumination to the uninitiated, but is not actually the same thing at all fundamentally (this is detailed with examples such as how it pertains to Chaos). And he gives mechanics for it.
 
Séadna said:
I thought they were fairly good at giving the Draconic approach a distinct feel. It's oriented mainly as a GM section to help run a specific NPC and how it might affect the party with a bit more flavour.
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Would that be the warband's "wyter", and the priest of same? Odd amount of detail if it's just for that! (As opposed to "CR4 Young Clansman from Central Casting", etc.)

Séadna said:
He talks about how Draconic stuff seems like Illumination to the uninitiated, but is not actually the same thing at all fundamentally (this is detailed with examples such as how it pertains to Chaos). And he gives mechanics for it.
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Interesting indeed! I'm not sure I'd be wildly happy if it boils down to "cos Nysalor is chaotic and the Cosmic Dragon ain't, durr!", though granted that works perfectly fine as the viewpoint for Kallyr-symps, and so on.
 
Alai said:
Would that be the warband's "wyter", and the priest of same? Odd amount of detail if it's just for that! (As opposed to "CR4 Young Clansman from Central Casting", etc.)
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It's because contact with "wyter" can lead to gaining a form of Draconic Consciousness for the party and contact with Shah’vashak, a more powerful wyrm.

Alai said:
I'm not sure I'd be wildly happy if it boils down to "cos Nysalor is chaotic and the Cosmic Dragon ain't, durr!
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It's not that at all. It's more "philosophical", to do with how they each view the world as being constructed.
 
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Séadna said:
It's because contact with "wyter" can lead to gaining a form of Draconic Consciousness for the party and contact with Shah’vashak, a more powerful wyrm.
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I thought Shah’vashak was the wyter? Is the more powerful being the Brown Dragon itself? I'm going by my understanding of the previews and his blog, but I may have been over-hasty in looking at either. And feel free to avoid going into excessive detail about the non-public parts of the books: don't want to get unduly far into "spoylerz!", or leaking the chap's IP.
 
Yeah basically I don't want to say too much because in a short module like this you could replicate the whole thing in a short discussion.

I essentially think both of his books are a great intro to Glorantha because they give a taste of including the anthropology style stuff without it spilling into being an overwhelming "canon dump".
 
Séadna said:
Psychedelic Gloranthan adventure with plenty of notes detailing why the author wrote it this way or variants on playing it. Also has a suggested soundtrack.
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I'd a look at the preview, and it seemed more notes than "main" content!
 
Really didn't seem that way to me. It was much more gameable than many of the official adventures I found. Might depend on what one wants a module to provide.
 
Séadna said:
The new wiki might be handy for some:
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There's some pretty handy and interesting content all right! Great to have on online version of the rules (over an above the "quickstart" download), and brilliant to see some sort of take on chargen for people that don't have the core book! Whether window-shopping, or that difficult player in a starter-set game that isn't happy with any of the pregens...

I do have a couple of carps (as per!):
  • Don't get over-excited by the "wiki" tag; it may be collaboratively edited within Chaosium, but user-side it's completely locked down;
  • The online streamlined/simplified character generation, though rather cleverly constructed, is almost more like modular pregens. Kinda a shame that neither the starter set nor the online content actually covers the "roll your own stats, pick any cult, pick your own magic" stuff, even granting that the "character history" gubbins was obviously waaaaay too long, and was going to have to be either completely dropped, or heavily abstracted;
  • The online chargen is essentially a series of radio-buttons choices... but with no actual clickables, beyond "next" and "back" and some popup links for info. In particular, there's no automated "form filling" involved: you have to transcribe your choices by hand. Ironically I'm guessing this is related to point the first: they could doubtless have done this in JavaScript or with a different backend, but I can't imagine how you'd reasonably do it by a wiki.
But gift horses, mouths, etc!
 
Fenris-77 said:
Well, maybe minus Mythras. We all know about Mythras. It cures cancer and makes julienne fries.
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And isn't RuneQuest. [ducks and curls up into tight protective ball]
 
Alai said:
And isn't RuneQuest. [ducks and curls up into tight protective ball]
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Yeah, that too. I was specifically talking about Runequest, not BRP games more broadly.

OK, that's enough poking the Mythras crowd. So lets say best RQ other than Mythras...
 
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^ I mean, he's got you there :grin:

But if we're still discounting Mythras / RQ6 because, reasons, I don't know. I want to say RQ2 for being lighter, having a less developed setting, and a bit more grounded. But there's a part of me that really does like, RQ:G. Especially because I love me some good production values. But I also like some of the additions. So, I'm torn. If you forced me to answer, I'd probably say RQ2.
 
Savage Schemer said:
I want to say RQ2 for being lighter, having a less developed setting, and a bit more grounded.
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Given the frequency of cries of "Wrong!", "Not canon!", "Fan-published apocrypha!", etc these days, some days I think RQ:G has a less-developed settings too. :smile:
 
Don’t we have a BRP edition wars thread?

I think RQ1 is the best edition…
 
I wasn't looking to stir that up, just looking for thoughts on the various iterations. Are there any supplements people would recommend that transcend editions?
 
I have RQII and RQG and both are eminently playable. My only issue is the same as for Mythras, it is a touch too rules crunchy for my taste.
 
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Fenris-77 said:
Are there any supplements people would recommend that transcend editions?
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Many, but the contingency planning is fairly extensive! Starting with, do you have a setting, or a setting flavour in mind? Starting especially with "Glorantha or not?", but many ply thereafter. (Like where in Glorantha/not Glorantha, style of campaign, etc.)
 
No specific plans. I have Mythras and I'm just thinking about backstopping that with some other quality supplements.
 
Fenris-77 said:
No specific plans. I have Mythras and I'm just thinking about backstopping that with some other quality supplements.
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There are supplements that transcend editions, but none that transcend plans! Or at least plans to get plans, general preferences, etc.

Rules-wise the distinctions are mostly subtle and fairly easy to tweak (or fudge). But one gotcha is that RQ:G starting characters are a lot more experienced than any other edition. Right out the box you're closer to bucking for runelord, than to struggling to hit a cow turned sideways with your highest weapon skill. So if what you're shopping for is "good adventures for starting characters that save the GM work", don't buy those for 2, 3, "6", etc, lest you be setting yourself up for either a) a lot of conversion work or b) a TPK.

Then again, I say a lot of conversion work, but if you go with the above-mentioned ALM's "NPCs can be described by one number" approach, then just reduce that by... several!
 
Conversion work doesn't bother me. I do it all the time between various D&D and OSR supplements when necessary. It's more about the quality of the supplement and the level of cool gameable material it contains.
 
Fenris-77 said:
Conversion work doesn't bother me. I do it all the time between various D&D and OSR supplements when necessary. It's more about the quality of the supplement and the level of cool gameable material it contains.
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Two thumbs up to this!

I’ve been kitbashing BRP for so long I don’t know if I’m even capable of running any BRP RAW. There’s some RQG, M-Space, and a few shreds of D&D 5E lurking in my in my Mythras CF game right now. Before Mythras started flirting with me my BRP was equal parts Magic World, CoC, with a bit of RQ2 thrown in for spice.

One thing I do have to say, though: RQG is breathtaking in presentation. The art is beautiful and the adventures are really well done. I’ve been getting them all in hardcover simply so I can page through them idly while sitting in my old-man easy chair. My next game will likely be RQG with all my favorite Mythras bits swapped in.

I’ve always viewed “what’s your favorite game system” as being a variant of “what’s your favorite color.” And “what’s your favorite BRP system” is “what’s your favorite shade of blue.”

“Blue! No, Green! Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
 
Im not up on the lingo. Is RQG the books published by Games Workshop?
 
Fenris-77 said:
Which would be what, RQ6? Or maybe RQ5, it's tough to keep this shit straight with all the changes in companies and whatnot.
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"RQ7", though Chaosium will insist it's "the fourth edition", in an "only stuff invented here" way.

Ya know, the book the whole thread's about! RuneQuest - Roleplaying in Glorantha

What GW printed was a local repackaging of the AH-published RQ3.
 
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