RPG A Day 28−31

Day 28 — Great Gamer Gadget

I don’t like gadgets— at least not for tabletop role-playing games; I’ll happily purchase gadgets for my wargames, like mounted mapboards, deluxe cards, bespoke dice, acrylic counters, you name it. But the action of a role-playing game unfolds in your mind... it doesn’t need any physical media!

Day 29 — Awesome App

Sorry it’s in French but the best answer to this stupid question is definitely imaginos’.

Day 30 — Person You’d Like to Game With

I’ve mentioned at the Day 19 entry that I’d only managed to have the missus play once. It was a D&D game and she was playing a fairy. She was awesome (not very surprising since she’s into improvisational theatre) but alas she never wanted to play again... she prefers family boardgames. So that’s it: the person I’d like to game with is my wife!

Day 31 — Game or Gamer You Miss

Well, as a Gloranthaphile, I obviously miss Greg Stafford. Technically speaking, he wasn’t a great GM (all of us who have had the privilege to play with him have anecdotes on this subject) but he was such a marvellous and mesmerising storyteller.

I miss you Greg!

RPG A Day 25−27

Day 25 — Desirable Dice

Desirable Dice?? Dear Lord, what kind of “question of the day” is this?

Like all roleplayers, I do have a fetish for dice, but I do not remember having ever desired a particular die, even though there are a few it took me some time to get hold of, like the ‘D4 that rolls’ (actually a D8 numbered 1−4 twice), my polyhedral dice with Chinese numerals, or my fancy weather dice.

Day 26 — Superb Screen

I am not very keen on ‘official’ TTRPG screens. Sure, I regularly purchase the ones that are made for the games I referee, but I usually leave them at home and use my all-purpose, house-made screen instead in which I can put the tables I need and not the ones someone has decided I should need. Or I even usually simply place my binder upright on the table: et voilà... a superb screen!

Day 27 — Marvellous Miniature

Being of the theatre of the mind persuasion (see Day 8) I am not big on accessories/gadgets; this is hence again a difficult “question of the day” for me. I don’t own any minis. Not even a single one. So when I run a game in which visualising one’s surroundings is really important, I print mirror-sided pictures of the PCs/NPCs, glue the two sides on heavy paper or cardboard, and put the resulting paper minis in standees. Works for me!

RPG A Day 21−24

Day 21 — Classic Campaign

Shadows on the Borderland is my favourite product from the ‘RuneQuest Renaissance’ of the early 1990s, one of the few original Avalon Hill RuneQuest supplements that was not a re-issued or a re-packaged product from the RQ2 range.

Shadows on the Borderland was not officially presented as a campaign, but as a series of adventures set in the same area (Prax) and with a common theme: the ever-present threat of Chaos in this uncivilised part of central Genertela— which of course enabled resourceful GMs to build a campaign out of these adventures (which is exactly what our GM did).

Day 22 — Notable Non-Player Character

What is a ‘notable’ NPC? One that is central to the ‘lore’ of a role-playing game? In this case, Arkat, Argrath, Harrek, Ralzakark and many others are notable NPCs, especially Argrath, who is supposed to play a major role in the RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha line.

Or is it an NPC that the player characters are bound to meet over and over again over the course of their adventures, and who acts as a useful deus ex machina tool for the [lazy] GM? In this case, le Club Pythagore from the French role-playing game Maléfices ticks all the boxes.

Or is it an NPC that you and your fellow gamers will remember from a great role-playing session or from a memorable campaign? In this case, everyone will have a different reference as to who is a notable NPC, irrespective of how well the NPC was presented in a given gaming supplement. From my recent sessions as a player, I have fond memories of Zaleena Silver-Tongue, a Lunar schemer from The Eleven Lights campaign written for HeroQuest/QuestWorlds.

And, last but not least, me and my friends have notable NPCs from our house campaigns. These NPCs won’t mean a thing to you, but we of course love reminiscing about them. One such NPC is Sturm Martex, a dream magician from Orathorn who kept thwarting my players’ plans during our Chern Durel campaign. I think his appearance is what made him so memorable... he had no body, just a head that was carried around on a silken cushion resting on a precious palanquin supported by his slaves. He had tinkered too much with dream magic, and his body got stuck in the Dream World. 

Day 23 — Peerless Player

Anyone who has ever attended a role-playing convention and enthusiastically played in a one-shot with total strangers is a peerless player 🙂

Day 24 — Acclaimed Advice

As someone of the show, don’t tell persuasion, I enjoy learning from experienced GMs at cons during the course of a game or at a panel.

For inexperienced GMs I will recommend the book Mener des parties de jeu de rôle (in French), which is a collection of articles written by French TTRPG professionals with loads of useful tips.

RPG A Day 20

Day 20 — Amazing Adventure

Oh my days, there are so many.

For me the best adventures are the ones with well-defined NPCs that you will still fondly remember years after the adventure has been played, but I am not going to mention my favourite TTRPG campaigns again (that was Day 12), so I’ll have to think of something else.

One that truly stands out from my recent years of GMing is a free Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes adventure titled the Curse of the Midnight Sun by Michael Paul. It is supposed to be set in upstate New York in 1953, but: (1) I have moved the action to Normandy in 1902, and (2) I have adapted it to Maléfices.

Well, what was supposed to be a one-shot adventure ended up as a fabulous mini-campaign with very endearing NPCs, scary villains, and two mysterious siblings.

RPG A Day 19

Day 19 — Sensational Session

We are a family of hardcore gamers. Well, me, my son, my daughter, and my son’s girlfriend are. My wife and my son-in-law less so. The missus loves family boardgames à la Ticket to Ride, and my son-in-law likes short, fun games with simple rules. I’ve only managed to play D&D once with my wife, and my son-in-law started playing in my Maléfices campaign but dropped out after two or three sessions.

So that was the situation until I convinced everybody to play Arkham Horror (3rd ed.). And that was truly a sensational session— we played the Feast of Umôrdhoth scenario, and even though Arkham Horror is not exactly a role-playing game (your player character does not progress beyond amassing gear, and the choices you make are limited by the scenario) my wife and my son-in-law were completely immersed in our desperate fight against the chthonian horror. Next step, a real role-playing session? [I hear there is an Arkham Horror rpg in the works...]

RPG A Day 18

Day 18 — Memorable Moment of Play

Well, as someone who’s been playing since 1981, there have been many, but one of the best memories from the recent years is certainly the finale of my RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha campaign set in the Kingdom of Ignorance, when the player characters heroquested on behalf of Can Shu’s daughter who was looking for a means to act against her father. The heroquest succeeded, and its consequences kickstarted the Hero Wars in Chern Durel, much to our satisfaction as this episode marked the end of two intense years of gaming in real life.

RPG A Day 16–17

Day 16 — Quick To Learn

In my opinion, a role-playing game that is quick to learn is one in which there aren’t many different subsets of rules. Or maybe there are, but there is a single, overlying engine that lets you start playing, and then you needn’t refer to the rest of the rules until you have reached the particular situation that requires looking up said rules. In this way of looking at things, all BRP-based TTRPGs are ‘quick to learn’.

If we want to move further towards simplicity on the simple vs complex axis, however, there are many TTRPGs that are even quicker to learn.

Tunnels & Trolls has been my favourite go-to system for one-shots or to introduce newbies to TTRPGs for a long time. My only complaint is that it has two different unrelated engines, one for combat, one for non-combat actions, which I find inelegant.

Maléfices is even simpler: you have to roll 1D20 under a given characteristic (of which there are only five) to succeed in an action. Except perhaps for diceless systems, I don’t think there is anything quicker to learn.

Day 17 — an Engaging RPG Community

With the demise of Google+ and the decline of the OSR community, I would say that currently the online British RPG community is the most engaging. There are many cordial Discord servers (GROGPOD, The Mitchester Arms...), several excellent podcasts (Blasphemous Tomes, Frankenstein’s RPG, The Grognard Files, Orlanth Rex’s Gaming Vexes, What Would the Smart Party Do?), each with its own little idiosyncratic community, and now that Twitter has become a haven for fаѕсіѕtѕ and spreaders of fake news, we have all migrated to Bluesky where everybody is super friendly.

There also many online conventions, the most notable of which is the virtual GROGMEET.

RPG A Day 12−15

Day 12 — RPG With Well-Supported Campaigns

I expect a lot of people will wax lyrical about the Masks of Nyarlathotep or The Enemy Within. Well, let me stand out of the TTRPG crowd and highlight how good many of the campaign games I have played for HeroQuest/QuestWorlds are.

Blood Over Gold, the (unpublished) Harreksaga, and The Eleven Lights, all of these HQ campaigns rank high on my list of best-campaigns-ever-played. Except for the Harreksaga which is more like a series of one-shots in different locales, these HQ campaigns feature extremely detailed NPCs in a complex web of relationships, which is what makes them stand out and “feel real”— which is what any good TTRPG campaign should strive for.

Day 13 — Evocative Environments

Given my obsession with all things Gloranthan, I reckon no one would believe that my favourite TTRPG genre is the historical role-playing game. And since my favourite city is Paris, I feel the most evocative environments are:

 - the 17th century Paris rife with the swashbuckling exploits of the musketeers from les Lames du Cardinal,

 - the early 20th century Paris full of occult mystery from Maléfices

(of course, both of these are French TTRPGs).

Day 14 — Compelling Characters

This question is not super clear. Are we talking about the player characters? the non-player characters? If it is the latter, I am going to repeat myself and refer to the incredibly detailed NPCs from the HeroQuest/QuestWorlds campaigns I’ve mentioned at the ‘Day 12’ entry.

If it is about PCs... any TTRPG that allows you to flesh out believable player characters rather than two-dimensional ones will do the job. Which I think favours narrative role-playing games. And the only one I’m really familiar with is, again, HeroQuest/QuestWorlds.

Day 15 — Great Character Gear

Groan. Honestly, this is probably the last thing I’m interested in when I play. For me ‘horse’ or ‘rifle’ are good enough on my character sheet and, despite being a lifelong fan of Tunnels & Trolls, I’ve always found its list of weapons ridiculously long and detailed for a game that is supposed to emphasise simplicity.

So I am going to mention a supplement that is supposed to be a ‘character gear’ manual but which is, in reality, an immersive guide into the day-to-day life of the people of central Genertela:

the Weapons & Equipment book for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha.

RPG A Day 8−11

Day 8 — An Accessory You Appreciate

As a GM, being a proponent of the ‘theatre of the mind’ style of play, I am not fond of the use of accessories; I’ve never ever used minis, I seldom use a dry-erase board, and my GM screen is only there to make sure no one is peering at my notes.

An accessory I do appreciate as a player is the All Rolled Up because I know I’ll have all the stuff I need for the gaming session or at the con.

Square Dice Trays are also very useful because my dice somehow always end up rolling under a piece of furniture.

Day 9 — An Accessory You’d Like to See

Now if someone could invent a virtual tabletop system for dummies— that would be the ultimate ‘accessory I’d like to see’! Something like what Rally The Troops does for wargames or Boardgame Arena does for boardgames, but for tabletop role-playing games.

Day 10 — RPG You’d Like to See on TV

A lot of RPGs nowadays are based on licences so in a way we already have a lot of RPG universes on telly. One thing comes to my mind though: I’d like to see an East Asian fantasy TV show with low-level magic, not the kind of over-the-top magic you see in The Storm Riders or in The Legend of Zu; no, I want to see low-level, discreet magic like in The Celestial Empire.

Day 11 — RPG with Well-Supported One-Shots

Except for a very long campaign that was a mash-up of Masks of Nyarlathotep and Horror on the Orient Express, my experience with the Call of Cthulhu RPG has been one of one-shots with our characters dying or becoming mad at the end of the one-shot session, so I reckon this is it.

RPG A Day 6–7

Day 6 — RPG That is Easy to Use

I’m not sure what this entails. All RPGs are easy to use. All you need is a table, a few friends, and your imagination. 

This may leave out a few RPGs that mandate the use of minis or of weird dice but that still leaves 99% of games in.

Day 7 — RPG with ‘Good Form’

Without the shadow of a doubt, the RuneQuest Starter Set.

RuneQuest has often been maligned as being “only for Grognards” or “only for Gloranthaphiles”. The Starter Set shows how this criticism is rubbish.

The Starter Set is a beautiful, sturdy box containing everything needed to start playing RQ in the world of Glorantha: four booklets, a set of pre-generated characters, several maps, and a few accessories, like the super cool Strike Rank Tracker for mathematically-impaired players.

The first booklet contains the rules, which are perfectly laid out (I feel they’re even clearer than in the core book). The absence of what is probably the most daunting part of RQ:G, character generation, makes them almost standard fare as far as fantasy RPGs go. The slim booklet makes the rules easier to use as reference than a thick book.

The second booklet gives an overview of the world of Glorantha, with an emphasis on a single city, which I think is a good idea because it sets the tone of RQ adventuring, which is often city- or wilderness-based rather than dungeon delving.

The third booklet is a solo adventure. This is a terrific idea— an inexperienced GM can get the gist of RQ adventuring before they set up a table for their friends by playing this advenure, although I think the adventure itself may be a tad too complex.

The fourth booklet contains three adventures. The focus of the adventures is to have the novice players slowly discover the peculiarities of RQ and Glorantha as they start adventuring. The adventures are really good— but while I appreciate the surprise effect of the third one on long-term RQ aficionados I’m not sure it’s a good example of what a 21st century RQ game usually revolves around.

The character sheets are practical and beautifully illustrated. The characters are a good mix of adventuring types and make it perfectly clear that RQ is not your typical vanilla fantasy TTRPG.

RPG A Day 4−5

Day 4 − RPG With Great Art

For me, one of the outstanding features of the latest edition of RuneQuest, i.e., RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha, is its art, and in particular the illustrations by Andrey Fetisov, Katrin Dirim, Antonia Doncheva, Jakub Rebelka, Ossi Hiekkala, Michelle Lockamy...

I feel art in RPGs has always been a ‘filler’, with little if any relationship with the text it was supposed to, er, illustrate. Don’t get me wrong— I love the humorous vignettes in the original AD&D DMG, and I am a lifelong fan of the early Chaosium or Flying Buffalo artists like Luise Perenne and Liz Danforth, but I feel none of these Old School products featured art that enhanced the immersion in the game world like the latest RQ:G art does.

Day 5 − RPG With Great Writing

This might seem paradoxical, but although I really do not like 13th Age in Glorantha as a TTRPG engine, I immensely enjoy the book for its clear writing, many examples, and insightful side bars explaining why this or that choice has been made, including instances of where the two authors may have disagreed upon a given option. I wish all rule books were written like this one.

RPG A Day 1−3

Hey. Haven’t done this for a long time, mostly because the daily suggestions of the last few editions were kinda daft.

Also I think I will be unable to post daily, so expect this as irregular bursts every two or three days.

Day One − First RPG Bought This Year

Well, it doesn’t specify whether it’s ‘dead tree’ or any format, so I’ll assume it’s the latter and it’s going to be a double order for two Jonstown Compendium products:

Nochet: Queen of Cities

Secrets of HeroQuesting

both for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. This was on 1st March, which also shows that I don’t buy as many RPGs as I used to.

Day Two − Most Recently Played

Again, it doesn’t specify whether it’s face-to-face or any kind of gaming, so again I’m assuming the latter. In which case it’s my Monday night VTT session of

Old School Essentials

GM’ed by Old Scouse Roleplayer.

Day Three − Most often played RPG

Since the 2023 RPG-a-Day challenge? since the beginning of the year? since forever? It would be nice to know. I’ll assume since forever, in which case it is

RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha

(with HeroQuest/QuestWorlds a close second).

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!

We Are All Us

Titled Cults of RuneQuest: The Lunar Way, the cults book for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha detailing the Lunar cults is out at last. I am specifically writing “at last” because, whereas we could always use and slightly adapt the cults that were detailed for the earlier editions of the game for the Storm or the Darkness pantheons (and a few others), there was next-to-nothing if you wanted to stat Lunar NPCs, or play a Lunar player character.

This tome gives us at last the cult descriptions for the following deities: the Seven Mothers, the Crimson Bat, Danfive Xaron, Deezola, Etyries, Hon-eel, Hwarin Dalthippa, Irrippi Ontor, Jakaleel the Witch, Nysalor/Gbaji, the Red Emperor, the Red Goddess, Teelo Norri, Yanafal Tarnils, Yara Aranis. Many cult write-ups contain significant nuggets of Lunar lore, e.g., the write-up of the cult of the Red Emperor, or even wider information, e.g., about Illumination within the Nysalor/Gbaji write-up (and yes, there is much more stuff than in Lords of Terror).

The book may be ordered here (if you buy it from Chaosium, you also get the PDF).

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.

Animal Shape-Shifters in Glorantha

cover of DW #9

With the exception of the Telmori, the lupine shape-shifters that play a central role in the lore of Dragon Pass and Sartar, and which have been extensively described in several RQ and HQ supplements, animal shape-changers have never been precisely described in Gloranthan products. Worse than that, what little information we may find in the sources is often contradictory.

In RuneQuest 2nd edition (their first appearance), for instance, animal shape-shifters are described as follows under the heading Lycanthropes:

“Shape changers are a lonely breed, tainted with Chaos, and disdainful of civilisation. Few know whether they are animals who can take on human shape, or humans capable of assuming the shape of an animal. In either case, they can assume the strength and senses of the animal form at the expense of some intelligence (varying as to species).

...

Lycanthropes are a very rare breed, no matter what sort of animal they become. The genes for lycanthropy are recessive, so that only matings between lycanthropes will breed true. Most children of two lycanthropes are either animal or human without shapechanging ability.

...

Their Chaotic nature gives them their abilities of shape change and invulnerability to impure metals. They do not receive any of the Chaotic Features shown in Chapter X.

...

The lycanthropes include Bearwalkers, Tiger Sons, Tusk Brothers, and Wolfbrothers.”

In HeroQuest Glorantha, animal shape-shifters are described as follows under the heading Skin-walkers — accompanied by the Beast and Spirit Runes:

“Skin-walkers are shape-changers, and disdainful of civilisation. Few know whether they are animals who can take on human shape, or humans capable of assuming the shape of an animal. In either case, they can assume the strength and senses of the animal form at the expense of some intelligence (varying as to species), with its natural weapons.

...

The skin-walkers known in Dragon Pass and the Holy Country include Bearwalkers, Tiger Sons, Tusk Brothers, and Wolf Brothers. Only the Wolf Brothers are described in further detail here. The God Learners classified them as a type of primitive men they called Hsunchen or Hykimi. There are dozens of different types of Hsunchen throughout the rest of Glorantha.”

In a nutshell, RQ2 tells us that animal shape-changers are lycanthropes tainted by Chaos, whereas HQG describes them as a sort of peculiar Hsunchen. Well, that’s completely different: lycanthropes are basically monsters, whereas Hsunchen are primitive humans. Also, the connection to the Chaos Rune has been replaced by a connection to the Beast and Spirit Runes.

Worse yet, the most recent material (the RQG line) is completely devoid of any references to animal shape-shifters other than the Telmori. The Guide to Glorantha merely mentions (on page 484) that one of the towns in the East Isles has a Tiger Son Guard “comprised of Hsa were-tigers”, which simply adds a layer of confusion since ‘Hsa’ is the name of the tiger Hsunchen tribe according to the Guide (p439 and p561).

It is simply impossible to try and figure out which interpretation is correct (‘monsters’ vs ‘primitive humans’) given the current canon.

A further research on each type of animal shape-changer in the Gloranthan corpus doesn’t provide any particular help either:

A search on ‘Bearwalker’ returns a mention of “the Rathori Bearwalkers from the forests of northern Genertela” in HeroQuest Glorantha, and a very similar one in the Glorantha Sourcebook.
In the HQ supplement Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes, ‘Bearwalkers’ is the name given to the initiates of Odayla (p110). In its sister publication Sartar Companion, there is a description of such an NPC (p133), who “attacks and kills Telmori or Chaos on sight and without hesitation”. We are very far from the Chaotic nature of RQ2 Bearwalkers...
In RQG, ‘Bearwalkers’ is the name given to Odayla Rune Lords (RQG core rules p300, and the Lightbringers p124). 

A search on ‘Tiger Son’ returns a long, unofficial article in Different Worlds issue No.9, and a mention of a Tiger Son initiate of Zorak Zoran in Big Rubble. 

A search on ‘Tusk Brother’ doesn’t return anything.

⁂

So, to summarise:

★ In early Glorantha (end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s), lycanthropes were animal shape-shifters tainted by Chaos. According to the official rules, you had to be born a lycanthrope, whereas Big Rubble and Different Worlds issue No.9 seemed to imply you might become one via a cult.

★ In the early 2010s (at the time of the Guide and of HeroQuest Glorantha), the concept of ‘animal shape-changers’ seems to have become interchangeable with ‘Hsunchen’. The association with the Chaos Rune is gone, except for the Telmori.

★ Today, with the RQG line, there is no all-encompassing concept any longer. You have the Chaotic Telmori; you have the Bearwalkers who are the Rune Lords of Odayla; Tiger Sons and Tusk Brothers have disappeared. As for the Germanic prefix were-, it is used in the Glorantha Bestiary for the Ducks who are “sometimes called durulz or were-ducks” (p31), even though... they are not shape-changers, they are Beast Men! The inconsistency is total.

R.I.P. Jennell Jaquays

Jennell Jaquays (14 Oct 1956−10 Jan 2024) has passed away. She was one of the last giants of the gaming industry from the Golden Age, on par with Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin.

 

The Dragon, issue 21, cover by Jennell Jaquays

Jennell Jaquays’ peculiarity was that she was an accomplished artist: writer, illustrator, miniature sculptor, and even magazine editor. She also worked in the video game industry. Another peculiarity is that she will be remembered both for D&D classics (Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia) and non-D&D classics (Griffin Mountain, probably the very first RPG sandbox, and the Flying Buffalo City Books).

She even left her name as a verb: “jaquaying” a dungeon means rendering it less linear, providing several entrances and ways out, and most importantly designing it so that important encounters needn’t appear in a pre-definite order of succession.

More about Jennell Jaquays’ legacy at Designers & Dragons.

Black Friday 2023

Here is a summary of all the offers I have spotted until now (to be regularly updated):

Chaosium — use the code BLACKFRI23 at check-out and get 10% off your order on chaosium.com

Mindjammer Press — 30% off all their digital products at DriveThruRPG

Lamentations of the Flame Princess — 25% off all their PDFs at DriveThruRPG

Osprey Games — 30% off Jackals and its supplements, 30% off Righteous Blood, Ruthless Blades, 30% off Romance of the Perilous Land; both dead tree and PDF

Lots of Jonstown Compendium items are discounted.

LULU — use the code TWINKLE30 and get 30% off all print orders.

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).

Ultra-Fast As-You-Go Character Generation

QuestWorlds features a character generation option called the ‘As-You-Go Method’: instead of fully statting your adventurer at the beginning of the campaign, you simply sketch it to have a general idea and then you fill your ability slots during the course of the game whenever you need to roll under an ability, i.e.:

When events in the story put you in a situation where you want to overcome a story obstacle, or discover the answer to a story question, make up an applicable ability on the spot.

 

Today’s post is a suggestion to try and use this method for RuneQuest. However, instead of “making up an ability” you will choose among the skills printed on the RQ character sheet.

As with my previous character generation methods, this should work for any character type, except the assistant shaman.

Character Concept

Create a character concept: a homeland, that will give your adventurer their starting languages, and a general profession/background, that will give them reasonable equipment when needed.

 

Characteristics

Do not roll for characteristics but freely assign the following values: 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 to your characteristics, +4 extra points.

Do not apply the Rune or Homeland modifiers to characteristics (p53 of the core rules) as the values above have already taken them into account.

Compute the skill category modifiers per the rules.

 

Passions

Reserve three slots for three starting Passions: one at 70% and two at 60%. You will assign them during the course of the game.

 

Runes

Reserve three slots for three Elemental Runes: one at 60%, one at 40%, and one at 20%. You will assign them during the course of the game.

On top of this, you will be able to add an extra +10% (or +5% twice) to any of these Elemental Runes during the course of the game.

 

You have a grand total of 50 percentage points that can be added to any Power/Form Runes (max. +25%) during the course of the game.

 

Skills

Reserve 20 slots for 20 skills that will be improved during the course of the game. You have a grand total of 450 skill points that can be added to these initial skill values during the course of the game. You needn’t use all of the 20 slots – that will depend on whether you want to end up with a specialised adventurer, or one with a broader set of skills. Instead of improving a skill, you may also use a slot to add a new Passion that will start at 60% + the amount of skill points used up.

 

Skills that fully correspond to the character concept can be raised up to 100%.

Skills that are close to the character concept can be raised up to 75%.

Skills that are unrelated to the character concept can be raised up to 50%.

 

Cult

Once you have chosen which cult your character will be initiated into, distribute +45 skill points among three to four skills that fit in with the deity’s portfolio or with the deity’s Runes, e.g., Speak Darktongue for an initiate of a Darkness deity.

You also get to choose 5 points of Spirit Magic amongst the cult’s available spells. Your adventurer receives 3 Rune points dedicated to their cult, and an extra Passion at 60% amongst the ones listed under their cult.