Death in RuneQuest

Whilst preparing the lastest episode of Runecast and researching through the various rule books and supplements, I realised that the rules of RuneQuest - Roleplaying in Glorantha were not crystal clear in terms of when it is, exactly, that a character dies.

First of all, and contrary to what happens in a lot of TTRPGs (especially fantasy ones, in which combat plays such a predominant role), there is no section titled ‘Death’ in the Combat chapter or ‘Character Death’ in the Adventurers chapter.

You have to read the non-emphasised text beneath the ‘Attributes’ heading of the Adventurers chapter of the core book (page 55) to find the following:

When your adventurer has taken sufficient damage to surpass their total hit points, they will die at the end of the combat round.

(Which is a very convoluted way of saying that the adventurer dies when their hit point total reaches −1 or below [not 0, because of “surpass”]). Honestly, I would have expected a side bar or something similar to make sure how a character dies is crystal clear to anybody who is reading the core book. And by the way, why restrict this to ‘adventurers’... NPCs and monsters will die at the same threshold. Also this is contradiction with the Starter Set, which specifies that a character “dies at the end of the melee round if the total hit points are equal to or less than 0”.

Of course losing all their total hit points is not the only way your player character might die in a RuneQuest game. Excess damage in a vital hit location is probably the main cause of death among RQ adventurers. But to get this kind of information you have to read on and reach the ‘Damage’ heading of the Game System chapter (pages 146-149), to find the following:

p147: Damage Equal to or More Than the Location’s Hit Points

• Abdomen: If not healed or treated with First Aid within ten minutes, the adventurer bleeds to death.
• Chest: The adventurer bleeds to death in ten minutes unless the bleeding is stopped by First Aid.
• Head: The adventurer is unconscious and must be healed or treated with First Aid within five minutes or they will die.

p148: Damage Equals or Exceeds Double the Location’s Hit Points

• If the head, chest, or abdomen suffers more than twice as much damage as the adventurer has hit points in that location, the adventurer becomes unconscious and begins to lose 1 hit point per melee round unless healed or treated with First Aid.

p148: Damage Equals or Exceeds Triple the Location’s Hit Points

• A head, chest, or abdomen hit for three times as much damage as the adventurer has hit points in that location results in instant death.

RuneQuest Humble Bundle

For a mere €16, you can get the PDFs of most of the books of the latest edition of RuneQuest via this incredible offer.

Whether you have sat on a fence, or only purchased the dead tree versions, or even if you want to offer this bundle to a friend, you can’t possibly ignore this unbelievable offer.

In detail, this is what you’ll get:

1. the RQ core rules
2. the RQ Screen Pack
3. the RQ Quickstart
4. the RQ Bestiary
5. the RQ Book of Magic
6. the RQ Starter Set (best TTRPG starter set evah)
7. RuneQuest Weapons & Equipment
8. King of Sartar
9. Cults of RuneQuest — Mythology (invaluable even if you don’t play RQ)
10. Cults of RuneQuest — the Prosopaedia
11. Cults of RuneQuest — the Lightbringers (the good friends of Orlanth Rex)
12. Cults of RuneQuest — the Earth Goddesses
13. the Pegasus Plateau & Other Stories (scenario pack)
14. the Smoking Ruins & Other Stories (scenario pack)
15. the Guide to Glorantha (all about Glorantha, the TV series)
16. the Argan Argar Atlas (map companion to the Guide)
17. the Glorantha Sourcebook (all about Glorantha, the film)
18. the RQ colouring book (I have no idea what this is)

Again, this is amazing value for €16!

RQG - Errata & Q&A

OMG this is huge. I hadn’t realised there had been so many errata and Q&A published on the Chaosium’s web-site. I reckon this is going to be a very useful reference page.

Dragonbane

The Basic Role-Playing System (aka ‘the Chaosium system’) started out as a very slim introductory booklet with just the barebones D100 rules. It wasn’t sold separately but was a free addition to many of the early Chaosium role-playing games that were sold in boxes.

The first game that was marketed as an expansion of the BRP System per se was the boxed set titled Worlds of Wonder, which contained three mini-games that used the same core rules applied to three different genres: fantasy, super-heroes, and sci-fi.

The fantasy mini-game was called Magic World [not the same as the later standalone frp game]; it was translated to Swedish and published as a standalone game in 1982 under the name Drakar och Demoner (Swedish for ‘Dragons and Demons’). As with many BRP-derived games, it went through a tortuous life of its own, changing publishers and/or names several times, and even having a system overhaul once before getting back to the BRP System (albeit with a D20 instead of a D100, à la Pendragon).

The game was purchased by Fria Ligan (Free League Publishing) in 2021, and is now coming back in English as ‘Dragonbane’. Fria Ligan already owns several successful role-playing games, and apparently Dragonbane has adopted a few features from these games.

Anyway, I’ve downloaded Dragonbane’s Quickstart, and I will try and highlight the differences I have found with the Basic Role-Playing System.

Attributes

SIZ has disappeared. As a result, HPs are equal to CON instead of ½(CON+SIZ) or CON with SIZ-dependent adjustments.

Power points/magic points are called willpower points (WPs) and are used for special actions on top of spellcasting.

Game System

A ‘1’ is a crit, and a ‘20’ is a fumble, instead of having more refined D100-based values.

There is a system of boons & banes à la D&D 5E where you roll an additional D20 for each boon/bane and count only the lowest/highest result.

There is also a ‘push’ system like in CoC 7th ed., but it can quickly result in your character getting a bane.

Combat

Each combatant has a single action for each combat round.

Initiative is 1-10 and drawn from a set of numbered cards. Meh.

Parrying is a fully-fledged action and uses up your single action. Meh.

You can do nothing during a round and recover 1D6 WPs. Given the prevalent use of WPs this is pretty cool.

When you roll a crit in combat you get to choose amongst three different effects (double damage, extra action, ignore armour) rather than automatically apply a given effect. This is super cool.

Weapons get damaged more easily than in the BRPS because whenever the armour protection completely negates the damage from a melee attack the attacking weapon itself suffers the damage instead. Ouch.

There aren’t any hit locations. If an opponent is partially covered by an obstacle, you get a bane on your attack.

Monsters

This is where Dragonbane shines: each monster has its unique abilities and attack table. The GM rolls on this table when it is the monster’s initiative (also randomly from the cards). A monster never rolls the dice to hit its target: monster attacks succeed automatically.

I really, really like this. Obviously I haven’t tested this in actual play, but I’d love to see some monster fear instilled back into my players’ eyes. Today they’re only afraid of criticals.

As an example, the giant spider from the sample adventure in the Quickstart has the following attack table:

It’s obviously massive work at the GM’s side to build such a table for each monster in their campaign. However, I really feel like this is the major innovation in Dragonbane.

⁂

Given the similarities with the BRPS I reckon any GM could pick and choose whatever they like best from this game to add flavour to their BRPS games. I guess you should at least download the Quickstart (available for free on DriveThru or directly here).

New BRP Handouts

The Chaosium has just made available a free, 21-page downloadable PDF booklet with all the useful Basic Role-Playing tables and charts from the new edition of the Basic Role-Playing System.

Amongst what the booklet contains, I have found the following as being the most interesting:

★ the Optional Rule Checklist (this is really super useful for all the GMs who like tinkering and, well, if you’ve purchased the Basic Role-Playing System I guess you do),

★ a matrix with all (?) the possible results between attack, parry, dodge, etc. depending on the skill success levels,

★ a summary of fumbles, wounds, etc. and their effects,

★ and last but not least a summary of personality traits and reputation effects [new to this edition if I’m not mistaken].

The Lair of the Leopard Empresses is out!

A few months ago, I mentioned the fact that the Monsters! Monsters! engine (which is basically T&T without the name ‘Tunnels & Trolls’) would henceforth be available for third-party publications, and that Sarah Newton’s The Lair of the Leopard Empresses would  be the first fantasy role-playing game that would benefit from this new licensing scheme.

Well, The Lair of the Leopard Empresses (LotLE) is out and available in both print and PDF format on DriveThruRPG. The game is a stand-alone role-playing game (meaning you do not need the M!M! rules to run it), and although it comes with a set of rules that is deeply intertwined with its setting (à la RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha), I believe you can still use these rules as the basis for any swords & sorcery frp game.

The setting, though, is not to be overlooked. Ximuria is an ancient world with crumbling empires, decadent cults, and evil magicians plotting behind the scenes at the courts of inbred rulers — and these are all aspects that we expect from a S&S frp game — but it has its own surprises that go beyond mere pastiches of Robert E Howard’s and Clark Ashton Smith’s œuvres, like:

 ★ Cannibalistic fire elves,

 ★ Guerrilla hobbs fighting against goblin invaders,

 ★ Weird dwarf sub-races (frost dwarves, volcanic dwarves),

and lots of mysterious backstories, like the origins of dragons and giants, whence the Six Elements (Earth, Wood, Air, Water, Fire, and Metal) originate, and what continents lie beyond the oceans.

I also like the heavy ‘beastly’ influences like the Serpent Kings of the past, the Bat Cult of the Nagraefi, or obviously the eponymous Leopard Empresses. More generally, the non-European feel of Ximuria is very welcome and is a refreshing change from the scores of faux European fantasy settings.

The rules are very Old School-ey, with many character classes (called ‘callings’) and races (called ‘kindreds’) available for player characters. You can also use them for NPCs (again, à la RQ) or stick to the standard Monster Ratings as in classic M!M!/T&T.

The main deviation from M!M!/T&T, however, is that spells are grouped into spell lists (à la Spell Law); spell-casters may only access spell lists available to their calling and depending on their culture, which will guarantee that players will be able to customise their spell-casting PCs and that no two wizards will be the same.

LotLE also introduces shamans, without resorting to additional rules but simply by adapting the magic system and by adding some special abilities to this calling.

The game is chock full of sensible advice for starting as well as seasoned GMs, who may both be unfamiliar with the M!M!/T&T rules. There are, in particular, many examples of use for the stunts, which were usually only hinted at in previous M!M!/T&T publications, and which get a full treatment here. There is a whole chapter dedicated to creating and using Cults, Guilds and Brotherhoods (an aspect that was seriously missing from previous M!M!/T&T-based games). Joining a cult/guild/brotherhood gives your player character a lot of nice perks, much like in RuneQuest. These organisations, however, are not only there for power-hungry players: they really add layers of verisimilitude to the world of Ximuria and (again, much like RQ cults) an aim to your PCs other than simply looking for treasure; here are a few examples:

Join the Sisters of Wragna because the dream of the Once and Future Queen must not die. The Good Kindreds of Ximuria were once united in a Golden Age of peace and justice, and can be again!

Join the Wyvern Masters because your people have done so for generations. Or because the Dragonwatch and the defence against the Enemy in the East needs your support. Or because training and riding wyverns is in your blood— it’s so freakin’ cool!

Another chapter is titled ‘Elaborations’ and, er, elaborates upon a lot of the fundamental but oft-overlooked M!M!/T&T rule elements such as Ranged Combat, Saving Rolls, Spite Damage, or Stunts [yes I know I’ve already mentioned Stunts, but the way LotLE uses them is really at the core of how Sarah Newton has improved the M!M!/T&T engine].

This chapter also provides a lot of spot rules, e.g., PCs helping each other, Ganging up, Surprise attacks, Mounted and aerial combat, Cover and concealment...

In the RPG community, Tunnels and Trolls is famous (a) for being the second frp game ever published and (b) for its many solitaire modules. I feel The Lair of the Leopard Empresses at last shows how the M!M!/T&T engine can be satisfactorily used as a fully-fledged GM role-playing game.

New BRP Q&A

The Hardboiled GMshoe’s Office hosts a transcript of an interview Jason Durall gave about the new Basic Roleplaying book.

Enjoy. 

[needless to say, I am expecting y’all to have already purchased the PDF of the new BRP book]

New BRP Book Coming!

 A replacement for the “Big Gold Book” is coming, along with a dedicated licence (ORC). Can’t wait!

(from the bluebird site)

🌟 Explore🌟 Create🌟 Play🌟

Basic Roleplaying: The Universal Game Engine is coming in April!

This updated edition of BRP includes everything you need to create your own games using the lauded Chaosium D100 system under the ORC license.

Read more below! #TTRPG #BRP pic.twitter.com/oBv7BZUquR

— Chaosium (@Chaosium_Inc) March 20, 2023

The RuneQuest RPG Wiki

The RuneQuest RPG Wiki is online at long last! Not to be confused with the fan-created Glorantha Wiki, which tackles Gloranthan lore, the RuneQuest RPG Wiki has been created and is maintained by the Chaosium and is solely about the game’s rules.

The RuneQuest RPG Wiki can be seen as an online extension of sorts of the RuneQuest Starter Set: since the latter does not contain a character generation chapter, or the full details of all the RQ weapons, etc., you can now find them online on the wiki.

from the RQ wiki

You can now spend a mere €25 for the RuneQuest Starter Set and have anything else missing available at your fingertips via the RuneQuest RPG Wiki. No more excuses for playing inferior role-playing systems!

RuneQuest Starter Set

The RuneQuest Starter Set is available at last. Chock-full of Gloranthan goodness, it is an absolute must-buy for any serious TTRPG player and/or collector.

chock-full of gaming stuff, for €25 only

I'll point you to someone else's blog post for a ‘standard’ review of the RuneQuest Starter Set. Since this blog is mostly followed by seasoned Gloranthaphiles, I am going to concentrate on what a grizzled Gloranthaphile will find of interest in it and on why you too should purchase it. First and foremost, the RQ Starter Set has been written with years of feedback from newbie and veteran players and GMs, and it shows in how the rules have been clearly laid out, re-organised, and re-written. Honestly, except for character generation (which has been left out of the Starter Set and replaced with 14 pre-generated characters), Book 1: Rules of the Starter Set contains all the rules needed to play RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. In this aspect, it is completely different from most TTRPG starter sets that only give you an inkling of the fully-fledged game system, and which require you to purchase the various manuals later on. With the RQ Starter Set, you can skip the purchase of the rulebook if you are happy not to go through the fully-fledged character generation procedure (the one with the adventurer's family history, etc., from the core rulebook) and if you are willing to use a simpler system like, for instance, my accelerated character generation or my ultra-fast character generation.

In some areas, I feel the Starter Set is even superior to the core rulebook. The tricky parry/dodge mechanisms with regards to success quality (fumble, failed, normal, special, critical) are clearly explained, with a very detailed table that details all the various cases with the relavant results. Spirit combat and the shaman–fetch relationship are also expounded upon in a much more unequivocal way than in the core rulebook.

Obviously, Book 2: the World of Glorantha does not attain the encyclopedic depth of the Guide of Glorantha, nor does it give the same overview of the myths and of the religions of Glorantha that the 220-page Sourcebook does, yet it does solve the eternal GM problem of ‘how am I going to quickly introduce Glorantha to my players’. In a mere 21 pages of (dense) text, it manages to give a satisfactory overview of the history of Glorantha, both mundane and mythical, of the Runes and of the Elder Races, of what makes Gloranthan magic and religion different from your vanilla TTRPG setting, and of what organisations your adventurer will gravitate to; it also includes a mini-gazetteer of the Dragon Pass area with the added benefit of it all being for GMs and players alike (which means you can safely pass on the booklet to your players for reading).

This is followed by what can only be described as a mini-campaign setting of Jonstown and northern Sartar. Again, in a mere 39 pages you have everything you need as a GM to run your games in the Jonstown area: city map, gazetteer, guilds, cults, major NPCs, sample NPCs, etc.

Book 3: SoloQuest is a Tunnels and Trolls-like solo adventure that has the double aim of teaching you the rules and of making you familiar with the situation in the Dragon Pass area in 1625. As a seasoned Gloranthaphile, you probably don't need to be taught the rules. However, if you've only played the adventures that were published for RQ2, RQ3 and HeroQuest, you won't be familiar with the new situation (the Dragonrise, the end of the Lunar occupation of Sartar, Argrath's conquest of Prax and Pavis, etc.), and going through the Battle of Dangerford with your player character will brush you up on your Know Glorantha skill.

As implied by its title, Book 4: Adventures presents three adventures set in Jonstown and northern Sartar. The interest for the seasoned GM is, again, to make you familiar with the new political landscape of the Dragon Pass area; the second adventure, A Fire in the Darkness, is particularly useful in this regard. As for the third adventure, the Rainbow Mounds, your players will certainly be extremely surprised if they try and go through it using whatever they may remember from the original RQ2 adventure— the times they are a-changin'!

Last but not least, the Starter Set contains several reference sheets, amongst which a handy ‘Strike Rank Tracker’ with helpful SR-related information directly printed on it such as spell casting times & SRs, held actions, spirit combat, aimed attacks, etc. Again, this should prove useful even for grizzled players & GMs.

Analysis of the Red Book of Magic - Part Two, Spirit Magic

I hope you enjoyed the analysis of the Rune magic spells in the Red Book of Magic that I posted last week. Today, I would like to share a few thoughts about the Spirit magic spells in the Red Book of Magic. The first very noticeable thing is that Spirit magic spells are much less numerous than their Rune magic counterparts; “only” 69 Spirit magic spells vs 448 Rune magic spells.

Even the increase itself is much less spectacular: whereas the Rune magic spells increased almost threefold from the core RuneQuest book, the Spirit magic spells only increased 30%, from 53 to 69.

This is as it should be: ever since Cults of Prax (1979), the Gods’ protection over their worshippers has translated into Rune magic rather than Spirit magic: as written under the Sleep spell in Chalana Arroy’s cult write-up in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax:

No non-cult person can be taught this spell. Befuddle was once a special cult battle magic spell as well, but unwise teaching of it beyond the cult led to its use in attacks, perverting its merciful origin. That cult mistake will not be repeated.

Exactly! Battle magic (i.e., Spirit magic) can be disseminated, Rune magic, being linked to the cult’s runes, is much less likely to be taught beyond the cult.

Statistically, here is the distribution of the spells in terms of magic point cost:

1-point spells: 26 (38%)

2-point spells: 13 (19%)

3-point spells: 5 (7%)

4-point spells: 2 (3%)

5-point spells: none

6-point spells: 1 (1%)

Variable spells: 22 (32%)

Let us now go back to the individual Spirit magic spells. 41 of them are straight from the original RQ2 rules, 27 of which being practically identical. The differences are as follows:

The spells Befuddle and Demoralise have had their cost raised from 1 to 2 magic points.

The variable spells Bladesharp, Bludgeon, Dullblade, Ironhand, Multimissile, Shimmer and Vigour, which were limited to 4 MPs, have no upper limit in the Red Book of Magic.

Extinguish was a fixed-cost spell; it is now a variable spell. The 2-point RQ2 spell would extinguish any fire, now the cost depends on the size of the fire.

Fanaticism used to be a variable spell, with one person affected per magic point. That was way overpowered; I am glad the current rules have you cast one spell per person.

Farsee was a fixed-cost spell; it is now a variable spell with a finicky explanation as to why it is variable. I prefer the RQ2 version.

Repair is another fixed-cost spell that has become variable, and much less interesting than it used to be: a 2-point spell repairing 20 points of damage. Now each point only fixes 1D10 points of damage.

Slow has merely undergone a name change – it used to be called Binding.

Some RQ2 spells have been removed, viz.:

Detect Detection, which I found useful, even though to be honest I can’t possibly remember having ever used.

Detect Gems – unless it falls under the umbrella of Detect (substance).

Mindspeech. I can see how it may have been considered overpowered, but it enabled good infiltration-style games.

Xenohealing has become useless since Heal now heals any target and not only your own species.

Some other RQ2 spells have become Rune magic spells: Detection Blank, Harmonise, Invisibility. Honestly, I can see why, as someone who has abused their Invisibility spell for years.

The same has happened with two Spirit magic spells from the very first RQ2 supplement (Cults of Prax): Stone Biting and Tree Chopping Song.

Let us have a look now at the “new” spells, those that were not there at the time of RQ2.

Binding Enchantment is from the RQ3 rules; way cheaper now, since its cost used to be 3 MPs.

Comprehension and Pamalt’s Touch are from the write-up of the cult of Pamalt in the RQ3 supplement Gods of Glorantha, with no change (they are still restricted to the cult of Pamalt).

Conceal Item, Face of Lanbril and Forget are from the write-up of the cult of Lanbril in the RQ2 supplement Pavis; Conceal Item’s cost has been reduced from 2 to 1. The two other spells are identical. And all three spells are still restricted to the cult of Lanbril.

Control (entity), Magic Point Enchantment, Second Sight, Spell Matrix Enchantment and Visibility are from the RQ3 rules, with no change.

Cool is from the write-up of the cult of Norag in the Book of Drastic Resolutions, volume Darkness, with no change in terms of its cost but with a big change with regard to its accessibility: it is now a non-special spell that costs 250L or less, i.e., it is among the most common of the common Spirit magic spells (see p107 of the Red Book of Magic).

False Healing is from the write-up of the cult of the Black Sun in the RQ3 supplement Troll Gods, with no change in terms of its cost but, again, with a big change with regard to its accessibility. I am truly unhappy with this change… False Healing used to be one of the big surprises of the Ignorant cults of the Black Sun and of the Blood Sun.

Food Song is from the write-up of the cult of Aldrya in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax, with no change in terms of its cost; as for its accessibility, it is unclear… the spell is not amongst the ones listed on p107 as being restricted to a certain cult; however, the spell description sort of makes it look like it is restricted to Aldryami.

Heat Metal is from the write-up of the cult of Lodril in the RQ3 supplement Gods of Glorantha, with no change in terms of its cost but, again, with quite a change with regard to its accessibility.

Hotfoot is from the write-up of the cult of the Trickster in the RQ3 supplement Gods of Glorantha, with no change (it is still restricted to the cult of Eurmal).

Jumping is from the write-up of the cult of Kyger Litor in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax, with no change (it is still restricted to the cult of Kyger Litor).

Lantern and Seek Sun Dome Temple are from the write-up of the cult of Yelmalio in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax. Lantern used to be a variable spell with a duration of 10 melee rounds per point; now it is a 1-point spell, which I think makes perfect sense. Seek Sun Dome Temple has not changed. Except for this change, they are still both only available to Yelmalio cultists.

Meteor Swarm (unless I have missed my Library Use skill check) is the only truly new spirit spell in the book. It is also the one and only Spirit magic spell with a cost greater than 4; we may consider it as a kind of “anomaly” brought upon us by the Lunars and their constant meddling with the fabric of Glorantha. In the context of the Hero Wars, I really like this addition— especially since the use of the spell is limited to the Lunar cult of the Crater Makers.

Parry is from the write-up of the cult of Humakt in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax, with no change in terms of its cost but with a big change with regard to its accessibility since it is now available to any player characters.

Preserve Herbs is from the write-up of the cult of Chalana Arroy in Cults of Prax, with no change (it is still restricted to the cult of Chalana Arroy).

Rivereyes is from the write-up of the cult of Zola Fel in the RQ2 supplement Pavis, with no change in terms of its cost but, again, with a big change with regard to its accessibility.

Sleep is from the write-up of the cult of Chalana Arroy in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Prax. Much like Fanaticism (see above), it used to be an overpowered variable spell, with one person affected per magic point. Luckily, it is still only available to Chalana Arroy worshippers.

Sneeze is from the write-up of the cult of Mallia in the RQ2 supplement Cults of Terror, with no change (it is still restricted to the cult of Mallia).

Solace is from the write-up of the cult of Xiola Umbar in the RQ2 supplement Trollpak, with no change except for its accessibility.

Summon (entity) is from the RQ3 rules; it used to be a 1-point spell but is now variable although it is only a difference in how the spell is presented.

Analysis of the Red Book of Magic - Part One, Rune Magic

So the Red Book of Magic for RuneQuest is out. The funny thing is that, as a by-product of the Cults of Glorantha books, it should probably have been published at the same time as the two Cults books, or slightly later, but then because its illustrations were ready, whereas the art for the other books is still underway, it happened the other way round.

One annoying consequence is that the Red Book of Magic does not say which spells are learnable by whose cultists. Obviously the gamemaster is the sole arbiter at their table and they may decide that a given spell becomes available in their game but I can understand those who have complained on social media. Also, it has been explained to us fans that spell-to-cult correspondence tables would probably have taken up too much space; however, given how the Cults books are late, I reckon a free PDF would have done the trick.

Anyway, I have been perusing the book a good deal since I purchased the PDF, and I would like to share some analyses of the Rune spells.

There are 448 Rune magic spells in the Red Book of Magic. That’s a lot — there were 166 Rune spells in the core RuneQuest book, so that’s almost a threefold increase.

The cost of each Rune spell varies between 1 and 6 Rune points. Here is the breakdown by percentage:
1 Rune point (267 spells): 60%
2 Rune points (107 spells): 24%
3 Rune points (68 spells): 15%
4 Rune points (7 spells): 2%
5 Rune points (2 spells): negligible
6 Rune points (1 spell): negligible

This doesn’t tell us much, except that Rune magic is really readily available to all cult initiates, since they usually only have 3 Rune points.

A more interesting breakdown is the number of Rune spells per Rune affinity. Here it is:
Darkness 61
Water 39
Earth 51
Fire/Sky 58
Air 40
Moon 31
Harmony 40
Disorder 17
Stasis 8
Movement 26
Truth 14
Illusion 26
Fertility 39
Death 44
Beast 56
Man 18
Plant 11
Dragonewt 0
Spirit 0
Chaos 42
Mastery 0
Magic 19
Infinity 0
Luck 0
Fate 1
Variable/cult-dependent 4

I hate to say this, but I believe the above is good input for “munchkin” players to choose how to distribute their Rune affinity values during Step 3 of the character generation process. This is particularly true for the Power and Form Runes.

Basic Role-Playing SRD and OGL – At Last!

The Basic Role-Playing System, the common ‘engine’ at the heart of most Chaosium role-playing games, has at last its own System Reference Document (SRD) and its very own Open Gaming Licence (OGL), different from that “other” open gaming licence.

On top of the bare bones rules of the Basic Role-Playing System, similar in size to ones from the early Chaosium booklets, and in scope and content to the ones within the “Big Gold Book” (pictured on the left), the Basic Role-Playing SRD also contains guidelines for publishing content under the Basic Role-Playing Open Gaming Licence.

The Chaosium web-site provides a lengthy explanation of what is allowed and what is prohibited via the BRP OGL. The SRD itself may be downloaded as a PDF from here.

I hope these new tools will spur game designers to create BRP-compatible role-playing games and adventures!

The Well of Daliath

Daliath is the Gloranthan god of Secret Wisdom. He is worshipped by the Gnydron, the enormous monster merfolk who live in the abyssal depths of the Gloranthan oceans. His Runes are Water and Fate. Daliath is also worshipped by the seafaring Waertagi.

For those more interested in Heortling mythology, Daliath is Heler’s father.

Daliath is called ‘the Keeper of the Well of Wisdom’, so it is no surprise that Chaosium have chosen ‘The Well of Daliath’ as the name of their online portal of free resources.

The crazy thing that I have noticed is that apparently not many fans of RuneQuest are aware of the existence of this portal even though it features a zillion things....

timelines...

Q&A...

PDFs of RuneQuest rules errata/clarifications...

the Glorantha Core Rune Font...

and much more!

Upcoming Book by Chaosium: ‘The Gods of Glorantha’

This piece of news is so important for fans of Glorantha and RuneQuest that I am copying it verbatim from Chaosium’s web-site:

The Red Goddess, by Jacob Rebelka

(This is Jeff Richard writing) ‘I just finished the draft manuscript of The Gods of Glorantha, which is about 50 RuneQuest cults done long-style (as was done in Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror).

We’re going to include all the old favourites like Storm Bull, Humakt, Yelmalio, and of course Kyger Litor (albeit fully updated and expanded for the new rules), and cults that feature major overhauls like Orlanth, Ernalda, Maran Gor, Lodril, and Yelm, plus plenty of cults that have never had a long version write-up before (like say Babeester Gor, Dayzatar, Gorgorma, Lokarnos, Odayla, Valind, even the Red Goddess, and plenty of others). This is the culmination of work I first turned to after we finished putting the Guide to Glorantha together, and I finally have a vehicle to get this into print!

The book is done with a strongly God Learner perspective, and provides lots of guidance as to Gloranthan mythology itself. You won’t need anything other than the RuneQuest rules and maybe the Bestiary to use this book (since obviously if you want to make Kyger Litor, Zorak Zoran, or Aldrya worshippers, you’ll probably want stats for dark trolls and elves!). And for grognards, the new information and revelations will definitely make this a must-have.

This is going to be a big book – probably the size of the Call of Cthulhu Keeper Rule Book – and it is going to take time to get the art commissioned on it (and I am sure we’ll be editing and tweaking this for quite some time). But the manuscript now exists— we might even make a few copies of it available at some point in the not so distant future.

And just to be a completionist, I’ve been finishing up the cult descriptions of the Cults of Terror – the updated and revised write-ups of the main gods of Chaos. These cults won’t be included in The Gods of Glorantha, since they are antithetical to most of the gods (although the Red Goddess might disagree), and because they are really not intended as player character cults. But having that done now helps us have resources for the scenario writers.’

As a RQ referee, I do hope we will also be able to have access to the latter cult write-ups!

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Sample Page Revealed

As you already know if you are a true blue Glorantha and/or RuneQuest fan, play tests for the new RuneQuest rules are over, and the new rulebook, simply titled RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is currently at the layout phase.

Jeff Richard has declared on social media that he was aiming at having the art not only embellish but also illustrate the rules. Here is one of the samples he has posted:

Revolution D100: Hardcover Crowdfunding & Free QuickStart

Well, the title of this post pretty much sums it all up: Alephtar Games have started a crowdfunding campaign to fund a hardcover edition of their narrative D100-based game, Revolution D100. It is currently running on ulule, and if you pledge you get an extra reward (an out-of-print supplement, a deck of cards, or something else they will work out upon request during the crowdfunding campaign).

Also of importance, if you just want to discover this excellent mash-up of narrative and gritty mechanics, you may download the free QuickStart rules, which also contain a contemporary occult scenario. Very recommended.

RuneQuest 4 - News From Chaosium

The latest news from Chaosium about the new RuneQuest are quite astounding. You may read them here.

For those of you who are lazy, in a hurry, busy– or who do not like to click links– or who are in a TL;DR mood, I have summarised them here in a nutshell:

1. Experienced game designer Jason Durall (he of the ‘Big Gold Book’ fame) has joined the new RuneQuest team to re-read the draft RQ4 rules and add “story of Rurik”-like game examples throughout the rules.

2. The new RuneQuest rules will be divided between three books:

• The first book (the one whose draft Jason is reviewing) will contain the core rules, and in particular character generation and background, runes, passions, rune magic and cults (with almost 20 cult write-ups), battle magic, spirit combat, new shamanism rules, new sorcery rules (incl. notes on Malkionism, Aeolianism, and Lhankor Mhy sorcery)!
• The second book is going to be a Gloranthan bestiary that will double as a sourcebook for nonhuman characters.
• The third book is going to focus on rules for the referee such as heroquesting, Chaos, Illumination, Lunar magic, magic items, and on rules for advanced characters — in particular Heroes. It will also feature a few encounters, and three or four fully-fledged Gloranthan scenarios.

All in all, excellent news.

RuneQuest 4 - First Impressions

So my friends and I were lucky enough to take part in the first worldwide open playtest of the new RuneQuest rules by Jeff Richard at Chimériades V.

The following is a modified and summarised translation of Grégory Molle's original French-language post about the new RuneQuest rules, with a few additional impressions thrown in.

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At the last Chimériades convention, Jeff Richard refereed two games with the new RuneQuest rules. I played in the second game; I got to create a character, play a short two-hour game with four fellow players, and peruse the printout of the latest draft of the game.

RuneQuest 4 or 2.5?

By the way, what version of the game are we talking about, exactly? Jeff talks about RuneQuest 4, because he considers the game as a successor to the 3rd edition, the one that was created by Chaosium but published by Avalon Hill in 1984. This is tantamount to “erasing” the Mongoose editions from the 2000s and the one by The Design Mechanism a few years ago – not to mention the unpublished RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha by Oliver Jovanovic, Michael McGloin and Carl Fink that should have been published as a successor to RuneQuest 3.

This having been said, this new edition of RuneQuest is also sometimes referred to as RuneQuest 2.5. Why? Because it is sort of a step back from RQ3 that the new 2016 Chaosium consider crippled by now-obsolete rules (fatigue points) or clumsy ones (one-use rune spells, sorcery). The starting point of the new RuneQuest game is hence its “classic” version, i.e., the 1979 edition known as RuneQuest 2. The fans’ commitment to RQ2 has been showcased by the hugely successful RuneQuest Classic Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign in 2015 that raised more than $200,000.

However, since RuneQuest is back in a Glorantha-specific version, and not as a generic fantasy role-playing system, we might as well call it RuneQuest Glorantha. The game credits the following people as its authors: Steve Perrin, Greg Stafford, Sandy Petersen, Jeff Richard, Ken Rolston, and Chris Klug.

Character Generation: Pendragon and HeroQuest to the Rescue

Character generation assumes the choice of a homeland and of an occupation that will affect the values of some skills. The skill categories have not changed since the 1980s: magic, agility, communication, knowledge, perception, manipulation, stealth. The homelands available in the game are Sartar, Esrolia, the Grazelands, Lunar Tarsh, Old Tarsh, and five Praxian tribes: Bison, High Llama, Impala, Pol-Joni, Sable Riders.

Characters are defined by the seven traditional characteristics (Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma, and Power), by their magic points, hit points (with hit locations), strike rank modifiers (Size, Dexterity), damage bonus, and maximum encumbrance (beyond which you undergo negative modifiers). This will all look very familiar to RQ grognards. The Defence skill from RuneQuest 2 has disappeared, and a new ability, healing rate, has appeared.

Where it starts getting groovy is in the top right corner of the character sheet, where you can spot two runic diagrams! Oh yes, RuneQuest has at last deserved its very name.

The first diagram is about the six Elemental Runes – Water, Air, Earth, Darkness, Fire/Sky and… Moon! You choose a main rune whose score is set to 60%, then three others that respectively obtain 40%, 20%, and 10%. These are the basic scores: further modifiers may come into play, so that Branduan, my Sartarite character, ended up with 60% in the Moon Rune (OK, he was a Eurmali skald whose paternal grandmother already was a trickster, see below), 20% in Darkness, 10% in Water but 70% in Air (after adding two bonuses, +10% and +20%, to an initial score of 40%).

The second runic diagram is reminiscent of the Pendragon personality traits table since it opposes five pairs of Power Runes – Fertility / Death, Harmony / Disorder, Truth / Illusion, Stasis / Movement, and Man / Beast – whose values are linked: the sum for a given pair must be equal to 100%. I don’t remember the actual procedure but I know that, with the choices I made, Branduan ended up with two pairs of Power Runes having scores different from 50% / 50%: Illusion (95%) / Truth (5%) and Movement (75%) / Stasis (25%).

Whether Elemental or Power, the Runes can be used to improve, via a set bonus, the score of a given skill, sort of like in HeroQuest. A successful roll under a relevant Rune, e.g., the Illusion Rune for a thief who is trying not to be noticed by their victim, yields a 20% bonus to their Sneak skill score. However, should the roll under the Illusion Rune fail, the inability of the character to attune to that particular Rune at that moment in time yields a 20% negative modifier to the skill. I’m not sure at the moment if the modifier is always ±20% but it definitely seemed to be the default value.

Moreover, just like in Pendragon, the Power Runes can be used to influence the player’s actions; for instance, acting in a way that is in contradiction with a given Power Rune in which the PC has a high score might decrease said score – or prevent the PC from acting the way they are.

That’s more or less all with regard to Runes. We have used them a lot during our two-hour game, meaning they are not there as a fancy addition, they are really part of the core mechanics of the new RuneQuest game. One must really weigh all the options at character generation, in particular in order to avoid redundancy among the player characters. While I was perusing the printout of the draft rules, I’ve also noticed that the description of the Runes assumed a host of symbolic associations: personality traits, senses (sight, etc.), skill categories, arms, colours, metals, animals and… body organs [editor’s note: this is all very reminiscent of wǔxíng in Chinese cosmology]. For instance, Moon is associated with the pineal gland, which the Grey Sage Wikipedius tells us plays a central role in regulating the body’s biological rhythm (waking/sleep, seasons), which is really close to what we know about Lunar Magic and its cycles. This gives plenty of food for thought about using Runes in actual gaming sessions.

Yet another Pendragon legacy: passions. You get them while defining the background of the character (see below) – but I reckon you may also acquire them as-you-go (during play).

Branduan hates:

• the Telmori
• the Orleving Clan
• authority in general

He also:

• is devoted to his cult
• loves his family
• is loyal towards:
• his clan
• his tribe
• Argrath (very present in the new game’s background since it’s been moved to 1627+!)
• Erik (another PC, whose bonded trickster he is)

I realise now, by re-reading the character sheet, that all passion scores start at 60%. It’s maybe slightly too uniform, there should be more variety or randomness. This having been said, these scores will change during play via the skill check mechanism.

Ancestry

The next phase is the determination of the PC’s background, and that’s where you’re in for a ride. The new RuneQuest asks you to answer a long series of biographical questions, up to your player character’s grandparents. The game is set in 1627 – much like 13th Age in Glorantha – you must hence go back till the Battle of Grizzly Peak in 1582 to know what happened to your grandparents – at least for a Sartarite PC, because the events tables vary depending on the character’s culture.

A succession of tables will enable you to travel through Gloranthan time – re-read Pendragon, it’s the same concept – down to the present time. Are your grandparents still alive? There aren’t many probabilities that they all are, and it’s actually interesting to know what happened to them, because that will have repercussions for your character. There’s a family tree of sorts that unfolds. Regarding my character, I’ve discovered that his paternal grandmother was still alive in 1627, but that was kind of expected since a trickster is supposed to avoid combat rather than risk their life and amass glory like a nice Sartarite.

At some point, the story focuses on the character’s parents: one can witness the whole history of Dragon Pass and of Prax between 1608 and 1626. Then the focus shifts to the PC themself, and one may discover what has befallen them between 1623 and 1626. Branduan, left for dead during a raid by the Orleving Clan, eventually sought and found refuge in Pavis, where his skills as a trickster led him to being spotted by Argrath and to adventuring at his side before returning to Sartar and to his clan.

All in all, this biographical phase provides characters that have a detailed past while establishing a few points of reference for players who are not familiar with the world of Glorantha (it has actually reminded me of the clan creation in Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes). It’s also a fantastic way to create bonds between the various PCs. In our case there were clearly those whose background had been strongly influenced by clanic or tribal conflicts, and those who had simply wandered throughout Dragon Pass and who had serendipitously met Argrath.

The most spectacular consequence was that the character background generation phase strongly informed the adventure that we played. Jeff might have had some hidden agenda, I’m not sure about that, or maybe he deviated from it; anyway, he simply started the game by asking us: “What do you want to do?”. The answer that we provided was directly linked to the characters’ background. I’m not going to tell you all the details, but it had something to do with a revenge and conquest plan against the Orleving Clan, against whom our own clan bore an ancient grudge. This led to an encounter with Leika, the tribal Queen of the Colymar, and then – on the basis of the PCs’ background – we eventually met Argrath himself, who was busy conquering some former Lunar lands in the north of Dragon Pass, so as to involve him in our petty squabbles whilst promising him our allegiance in the future and feeling that we couldn’t fully grasp his innuendos. All this in two hours of play. That was far, far away from the usual introductory scenarios of our teenage years where we’d fight three broo and a half to defend our village!

a portion of the background part of the character sheet

And Also…

We didn’t use it during this playtest, but when I had a look at the rules, I found that a PC could have a family heirloom that was a “special” thing. Among the suggestions, there was “a small sentient animal” or “an iron object” – which is pretty cool.

I’ve also noticed there was a fast-track chargen, for people who wanted to start playing right away. It is something that was already present in RuneQuest 3, if I remember correctly.

I thought I’d read that the Resistance Table had been removed, but actually no, it’s still there; it’s just been removed from the Spirit Combat section.

There’s also a whole chapter devoted to Sacred Time, which (yet again) strongly reminded me of Pendragon. The new RuneQuest has been devised so as to enable campaign game, with long campaigns that entail one or two adventures per Gloranthan year. During Sacred Time, the background of the PC, or of the whole party, or of their community (or actually a little bit of each of them) is affected by some events. Based on my perusal of the draft rules, I remember titles such as “events”, “heroquest”, “omens from last year” (there’s something similar in King of Dragon Pass, with questions such as Did you take into account the omens from yesteryear’s Sacred Time during last year?), “raids”, “invasions”, “harvest”, “family”, or even “character income”, based upon their profession.

There was also a chapter about heroquesting but it was still a mere collection of notes, and there was a mention of a book of heroquests. Note: the other group of players did a heroquest during their introductory adventure, so it’s definitely not something only available to ‘high-level’ parties.

Voilà, you have an idea of the new RQ rules. Now let’s be patient until we can get hold of them!

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Jeff has also blogged about family background in the new RuneQuest on the Chaosium web-site.