Glorantha: Which system?

[jdrakeh]

I've been out of Glorantha for quite awhile, but recently received the amazing Guide to Glorantha as a gift, which has got me excited about playing in the setting again. But boy howdy, are there ever a lot of systems out there currently on the market (in print or PDF) for playing in Glorantha! So, of the following systems currently in print or available via legal PDF, which is the best for playing in Glorantha?

 

[reelo]

One would think the most recent edition of Runequest by Chaosium would be it.

 

[jdrakeh]

One would think the most recent edition of Runequest by Chaosium would be it.

That's a strong contender for sure, but both the first and second editions of Runequest are currently available from Chaosium itself. And 13th Age Glorantha is also currently available from Chaosium. So there are three current official editions of Runequest and one current alternate (but still official Chaosium) system for roleplaying in Glorantha. Hence the poll.

 

[John Dallman]

If I were trying to run a Glorantha campaign this year, I'd take a good look at RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha. If I did not find it satisfactory, I'd fall back to RuneQuest 2e.

A couple of years ago, I tried to start a "Men in Red" campaign, playing members of the Lunar Investigation Bureau (which I invented, AFAIK). That was going to be GURPS 4e, because I wanted to try out the Ritual Path Magic system as Gloranthan Sorcery. Now, I'd look at RQ:RiG for Sorcery first.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . but recently received the amazing Guide to Glorantha as a gift, which has got me excited about playing in the setting again . . .

The promotional video says the book set is 14 pounds and 800 pages. So you'll probably want something light after all that reading. Maybe a streamlined character sheet too, like this:

Character Name
Concept: (Background, Hero Point effect, Goal, and Flaw)
Hero Points:
Physical: Mental: Metaphysical:
Skills:
Perks:
Gear:

It's a little thing I wrote up called Modos 2, which is free here, and can be explored here. As a generic system, it should let you focus on the parts of the Guide that you want, without presenting more than you need. For example, if you don't want duck-people waddling around in your game, there's no page(s) that presents all the benefits that would entice a player to ask for such a race. But if you do, PCs can become ducks by writing it into their concepts, and designing their hero points and flaws accordingly.

 

[Bluenose]

Heroquest: Glorantha or the new version Questworlds would be a strong contender for me. While I like RQ: AiG I think it's very heavily focused on a limited selection of available places - basically Dragon Pass and its neighbours. If I wanted to run a game elsewhere in Glorantha or in another setting it'd be a significant amount of work to provide the same character background that comes with the latest version. And I find RQ better for smaller scale lower stakes adventures - something Conan or Fafhrd and the gRey Mouser might do - where Heroquest is good on more fantastic adventures including, obviously, Heroquesting.

That said, I ran Session 0 for a new game set in Glorantha last week and I'm using the latest Runequest. While it has flaws for what I want to do it'll be a very good system. Scruffy mercs on the edge of civilisation trying to get by is where it's best.

 

[BigJackBrass]

HeroQuest. I wasn’t particularly enamoured with Glorantha when I first encountered it in RQ2, but HeroQuest really seemed to bring out the mythic elements and sense of magic. It’s a pity that it seems to have been left behind now that the RuneQuest juggernaut is back on its tracks.

 

[Voadam]

Mechanically I think I'd be happier with a 13th Age base than a BRP one.

There are a ton of resources on the Runequest BRP rules versions though, so if you want pre-done adventures then I would go with the BRP stuff for the big adventure campaigns, though I am not familiar enough with the differences between Runequest 2e, Mongoose Runequest, Mythras or the current Runequest ruleset to make a recommendation on which one to go with.

 

[Bilharzia]

The choices are fewer than they might seem. Listing RQ1, RQ2 and RQG is a bit redundant - effectively there is no RQ1 (it is the same as RQ2), and RQ2 & RQG are close enough that almost anyone who was a fan of RQ2 would be perfectly at home with RQG - certainly that is the bulk of the audience for RQG.

Mythras is not really a fork of RQ6 - it is RuneQuest 6, just re-named, and the book got a new layout, functionally the rules are identical. RuneQuest 6 itself is a fork of Mongoose RuneQuest II, written by the same authors. There are people who play in Glorantha with RQ6/Mythras (I've run a few games like that myself) Hannu of Notes From Pavis and the Mythras Ecnounter Gen Mythras Encounter Generator is one. There is a lot of support on his blog for Mythras-in-Glorantha. There was a copy of "Adventures in Glorantha" (for Mythras) printed as a preview for Gencon 2015. I may know where to get a copy from if you are interested - it was never on sale, and can't be after Chaosium dropped RQ6 as the system for the next edition.

Support-wise RQG is a no-brainer as it is the only Glorantha game in town at the moment. The system makes me groan though. It was great when I played it (80s) but RQ6/Mythras did a great job updating the system I can't go back to RQ2. Even though there are bits of Mythras I think are too much (like turn cycles, reach), it is still much more interesting that RQ2/RQG. You can of course pretty easily adapt RQG material to Mythras or even OpenQuest, with a bit of work.

Shame about 13th Age Glorantha, it looks good but it got dropped - ie. there are no and there will be no supplement support for it.

 

[aramis erak]

HeroQuest. I wasn’t particularly enamoured with Glorantha when I first encountered it in RQ2, but HeroQuest really seemed to bring out the mythic elements and sense of magic. It’s a pity that it seems to have been left behind now that the RuneQuest juggernaut is back on its tracks.

HeroWars, the first edition of HeroQuest...