Besides D&D, what are you playing?

[TurinTurambar]

So, at it's most basic Heroquest is an opposed roll system using 1d20 where you try to roll less than your ability but more than your opponent's roll. If you roll your ability exactly that's a critical success; if you roll more than ability that's a failure; if you roll a natural 20 that's a fumble unless your ability is 20. If your ability advances past 20 then it goes back to 1 but you get a level of mastery (W after the number) which shifts your level of success by one or if you have a critical shifts your opponents level of success down by one. An ability of 25 is written 5W, and if you rolled 15 then that's a failure, moved up to a success because of your mastery, and beats someone with ability 17 who rolled a 13 (you both had a success, but your roll was higher).

Characters are very freeform. The main way of creating them is by writing down the three basic keywords that say where your character is from, what their previous occupation was, and what sort of magic they have. Then write a 100 word description of your character, pick out the important bits, and add those to your character sheet as Abilities which start at 13 (you can write more but the rest is backstory and won't be on your character sheet unless your GM is generous). Keywords in most respects are just another Ability and can be used for tests, but they're fixed at 17 in HQG and are quite broad - Homeland: Sartar 17 means that you'd be able to use it to do a check about geography, language, customs, which clans are rivals with others, history and other things that relate to Sartar. You can also use the Keyword to start a specialised Ability, so if your previous career was Craftsman you could have Potter as an ability and write it in under the Keyword, where it would have a starting value of 17 instead of the normal 13 for Abilities. An ability can be anything, so you might have Strong, Hate Greydog Clan, Fear Dark Trolls, or many other things. Abilities can sometimes be used to augment other abilities, adding a fraction of the score where it's appropriate; if your character is Strong 17, they would be able to add 2 (1/10, rounded up) to a fighting Ability if they're in melee combat; or if they're fighting against Dark Trolls, Fear Dark Trolls 17 gives a -2 penalty. You can also get an Ability as a consequence of a challenge even if you win the challenge, and impose something on the loser too. Normally abilities are raised a point at a time by spending Hero Points earned through adventuring and completing objectives (personal ones, group ones, or clan ones). You also define groups in a similar way, so a group would be defined by where it's from, what it does, and what magic it uses, along with extra abilities that make it different from other groups.

Heroquesting is handled by using Abilities as stakes in a contest, and every part of a Heroquest ends with a contest. On the Quest for the Meteor Bow we're doing, the various parts include Finding a Steed; and in that, we're probably going to have to wager our horse Ability against the resistance of a spirit animal that doesn't want to be ridden, and if we win our horse is temporarily augmented by the spirit while if we lose it probably runs off and can't be used for the rest of the quest which could be a real problem if there's a race involved and you have to oturun something on foot instead of mounted. Any Abilities gained (even flaws) are lost at the end of the Heroquest, except for the one that's your final objective. Whatever ability you use there is gone if you lose and would have to be started again. If you succeed, then you can decide what to do with the Ability, so we might pass it on to the clan where it becomes part of the clan magic and anyone can learn it as a magical Ability, or if more than one person takes the challenge and succeeds then some might decide to keep it themselves. One of our players had Eldest Child of the Clan Chief as an Ability and intends wagering that as her stake since she intends giving the magic to the clan; if she loses, people won't remember her status and she will have a flaw related to it but if she wins it will increase permanently by the Augment value of the Bow; my character, if the challenge has already succeeded, will challenge to learn that magic personally, and if I succeed then I'll immediately have access to Meteor Bow magic under my magic keyword at whatever value the ability I'm opposing have. Heroquesting is high-risk but also high-reward

That's the basics, at any rate. There's more to the rules, and different versions of Heroquest take a slightly different approach (Robin Laws' Heroquest allows raising keywords for 2HP, for instance), but it's honestly a pretty simple game at its core. Most of the book is examples of homelands, careers and types of magic, as well as GM advice and examples of enemies, challenges and adventure possibilities.

And how much Glorantha lore do you need to have to run the game relatively well?

Ducks? Mount up, sisters, and ready your bows. An enemy is upon us!

I like this approach!

 

[Bluenose]

And how much Glorantha lore do you need to have to run the game relatively well?

Honestly, I don't think I'm the person to ask. I've been playing Runequest and using Glorantha since the 1970s so I really can't judge properly how good it would be as a place to start with Glorantha. Probably not the best, thinking about it. The Glorantha Sourcebook that came out for 13th Age Glorantha would be my recommendation as the best starting point. Or if you want to play Heroquest as a system, pick up the Robin Laws version and use it with a setting you know well. If your players are willing to accept a fairly abstract system (it's the one I thought of in the "Combat as a Single Die Roll" thread, though it's technically two dice) then it's pretty adaptable and the more 'Narrative" elements aren't obtrusive.

 

[Jeff Albertson]

oh, no. I mean Ironsworn: Ironsworn - Tabletop RPG
Try it, you will not regret it (and its free!)

Ah, right on, will check it out.

 

[Tun Kai Poh]

Blades in the Dark Session 14: MY DEMON UNCLE CAN'T BE THIS CUTE!

I ran Blades in the Dark for three players today: Frei as Scotch the two-fisted Hound, Darren as Zhao the foxy Spider and Zahidi as Irfan the university drop-out Leech.

Today, our crew sat down with Rail Jacks and cultists, made messes of brothels and warehouses, and recruited a surprising number of potential gang members as they meddled deeper into the Crow's Foot war on behalf of their patron, Lady Ankhayat.

First, Amon the Rail Jack reported that the ghost attacks on Gaddoc Rail Station were intensifying, and the crew's previous contact, Chief Kibo was out of action after breaking his legs. It was clear to Zhao that they would soon have to deal with the Forgotten God known as the Whispering Tree, as it was once again ordering cultists to summon ghosts to interfere with the construction at the rail station. Amon revealed that the new barracks at Gaddoc would house a battalion of Imperial marines. In addition, the Spirit Wardens had been asking around about the crew, and now they were hunting for both the Tycherosi members of the gang, Zhao and Karen.

Scotch went to visit her lover in the Red Lamp brothel in Silkshore, but ended up overindulging and causing trouble (and raising Heat), forcing her to spend even more time hushing up the mess she had created. But at least her Stress was gone.

Zhao took some downtime to relax with his lover Rin. The Tycherosi spy was still waiting for information from the Old Country about any renegade demons that might have headed abroad (specifically Ashitaka). Zhao also distributed bribes to local Bluecoats to keep the authorities off the gang's backs. Finally, he hired a couple of young dish pit witches from his old haunt, Fogcrest Heritage Inn, to serve as lookouts for the next few days, as they would be visiting the Lampblacks on Lady Ankhayat's business.

In the meantime, Irfan was walking into a veritable shark tank of investors from the Docks, seeking a "sailor's loan" to help defray the costs of crafting his automated gambling machine for Twoscore's Tavern. Compared to some of the academic reviews he'd faced in the past, this was nothing, and he walked out with a hefty loan to fund his invention. Later, he spent a few comforting hours repairing damaged electroplasmic equipment for the crew's Rail Jack allies at his Silkshore repair stall. A shadow loomed over him, and he looked up to see fellow university student-turned outlaw, Rabby, offering him some peace biscuits (shaped as white flags in memory of the end of the Unity War) and tea. "You were my third choice after Lord Scurlock and the Dimmer Sisters, but they didn't respond to me and I couldn't get into their lairs," she explained.

At the Fogcrest Heritage Inn, guarded by their young lookouts, the Vagabonds sat down to hear what Rabby had to say. With them was a red-headed teenaged boy, actually Karen's demon uncle Ashitaka in one of his shapeshifted guises. The crew had decided it was better to keep him in sight rather than have him wandering the city on his own.

Rabby had been jilted by her Forgotten God, the Whispering Tree, and seeing that new recruits had taken her place in the cult, she sought revenge against her former master. She wanted to join a winning team that knew what it was doing. She assumed (from historical research) that since the crew used chickens to herald their arrival at her hostel in Nightmarket, they must be the new Cockbringers, a famed cult known for using the chicken as their symbol. "I want to join the Cockbringers," she said. Ashitaka had been advising Zhao to increase the crew's manpower, and now he seemed quite taken with the idea of recruiting Rabby to join them. Perhaps too taken.

"Go bring us some salted chicken from Charterhall, from the stall that has the good brown sauce," said Irfan. Zhao sent one of the lookouts to tail Rabby to make sure she did as she was told. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew (including Ashitaka) would visit the Lampblacks in an attempt to secure Puzzle Shen's map for Lady Ankhayat.

While one of the lookouts remained out on the street, Zhao, Scotch, Bandit, Irfan and Ashitaka ventured into the Lampblacks' heavily guarded warehouse. The guards escorted them past a well-lit killbox inside the warehouse entrance, past row after row of shelving and racking, and alongside a wall where Irfan could hear the buzzing of electroplasmic power. The former Lamplighters had taken to the electroplasmic age with a vengeance.

At a supervisor's office near the rear of the warehouse, the crew watched as Bazso Baz emerged from a basement stairway, and caught a glimpse of lightning fields down below, before the basement door closed. The gang leader offered them fine 50-year whiskey looted from Lockport during the Unity War, a rare vintage now that the Lockport refinery had been razed and the family who made the whiskey were all dead.

To their surprise, Bazso was quite willing to do business. He offered to hand over Shen's map in exchange for a stealth job - the crew would have to plant an incriminating artifact inside the Red Sashes' mansion, something that Bazso hinted would ruin the enemy gang's reputation.

Ashitaka alerted Zhao, Irfan and Scotch that their lookout had spotted Shen arriving at the warehouse entrance. The guards informed Bazso moments later, and he shooed the crew out to the hallway to wait while he dealt with Shen elsewhere in the warehouse.

Presently, the sound of shouting and scuffling could be heard from somewhere on the warehouse floor. As Zhao, Irfan and Scotch debated what to do, Ashitaka vanished from plain sight. One of the Lampblack guards ran off to find the missing boy, while Zhao tried to fast-talk another one in order to give Scotch and Bandit a chance to break off as well. Bandit's keen canine senses helped lead the way through the darkened warehouse, but just before reaching Shen, Scotch and her dog ran into Ashitaka, who warned them that Bazso's men were everywhere searching for Shen. "I'll go back to cover for you," he said, and instantly vanished from the warehouse aisle.

Just then, the supervisor's office door opened, and Ashitaka, Scotch and Bandit walked out, looking all friendly and cheerful. The guard looked cross, but suspected nothing. "Don't run off again!" Irfan took a close look at Scotch, suspecting something was wrong, and saw Ashitaka's metal eyes flash from under Scotch's brows. And Bandit's brows. The terror was almost enough to freeze him in his tracks, but he forced himself, under great stress, to act as if everything was normal.

Shen was hidden in an alcove at the far corner of the warehouse, battered and panting, crouching like a hunted animal. Scotch dropped silently down behind him, grabbing him and covering his mouth to keep him from crying out. But Shen was more than willing to betray his leader. "Help me get out and I'll do anything!" he told her. As guards approached, Scotch focused on the ghostly doorway at the end of the hall, which she could sense through the Ghost Echo. As gunfire roared around them, the Hound, her dog and her captive plunged through the wall and emerged in an alley outside the warehouse. Scotch's heavy body armour soaked up the worst of the shots, and she was able to spirit Shen away to the Vagabonds' lair.

Bazso seemed slightly suspicious of the Vagabonds, but the crew was able to put on their innocent faces, and so Bazso sent them on their way for the time being. Once they were far enough away from Lampblack territory and out of the open, Ashitaka absorbed the "Scotch" and "Bandit" bodies that he had formed as part of the deception - to the horror of Zhao.

Back in their hideout, the crew members regrouped and Puzzle Shen told them the truth: his Void Sea map was drawn on a piece of Leviathan hide, cursed to re-form into a full-blown Leviathan if it ever touched the sea. The map was indestructible and Shen had sworn never to let it fall into the wrong hands - especially demons!

Everyone gave Ashitaka a look.

To be continued.

 

[pemerton]

Today I played (as in really played, with someone else GMing) a short session of Burning Wheel. A full write-up is here. The short version: the religious knight Thurgon and his sorcerer companion Aramina ruined the abandoned tower of Evard in their largely failed attempt to explore it; but following a clue led them east back to Thurgon's ancestral estate of Auxol, where he learned that his brother is now a broken man in service to "the master", but where he was able to call on the Lord of Battle to restore heart and hope to his mother. And in the process also to turn Aramina from cynical and somewhat embittered to hopeful herself.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'm running out of patience with not having played Mork Borg yet. I think I'm going to have to play by post it, but I have some interesting ideas about how to use some multi-media to make that cool. That game is way to cool for me to have just read it.

 

[TurinTurambar]

Honestly, I don't think I'm the person to ask. I've been playing Runequest and using Glorantha since the 1970s so I really can't judge properly how good it would be as a place to start with Glorantha. Probably not the best, thinking about it. The Glorantha Sourcebook that came out for 13th Age Glorantha would be my recommendation as the best starting point.

I played a lot of RuneQuest. Never in Glorantha, but I always wanted to give it a try. There are things that I like a lot (the main conflict in Dragon Pass between the Lunar Empire and Sartar, the cosmology, the deities) but some other things not so much (ducks, the amount of lore that exists, not knowing where to start reading).

Maybe I'll buy the Glorantha Sourcebook to get started there ...

 

[TurinTurambar]

Honestly, I don't think I'm the person to ask. I've been playing Runequest and using Glorantha since the 1970s so I really can't judge properly how good it would be as a place to start with Glorantha. Probably not the best, thinking about it. The Glorantha Sourcebook that came out for 13th Age Glorantha would be my recommendation as the best starting point. Or if you want to play Heroquest as a system, pick up the Robin Laws version and use it with a setting you know well. If your players are willing to accept a fairly abstract system (it's the one I thought of in the "Combat as a Single Die Roll" thread, though it's technically two dice) then it's pretty adaptable and the more 'Narrative" elements aren't obtrusive.

Hey, I´ve been reading a lot of Glorantha in this two days.

Anyway, I ask you this for being a fan of both Glorantha and its RPGs (RuneQuest and HeroQuest): do you recommend any published scenario or adventure to start playing in the setting? Any setting or adventure that captures the spirit and / or aesthetics of the world?

I am beginning to think that I can simply eliminate the elements that I do not like, because there are more that attract and challenge me as a player.

 

[Bluenose]

YGWV - Your Glorantha Will Vary. Whatever you do with Glorantha. it's your setting once you start playing with it. There have been several parts of canon that I've disregarded, modified or used for a different purpose in my time.

For a starting adventure, I'd say Apple Lane if your campaign is going to focus on Dragon Pass. It's a nice little village which a group of young Sartarits with a few outsiders could plausibly start in, there's several plot hooks in place which aren't too complex but give a fair impression of the area and some aspects of life in Sartar, it works in pretty much any time period you want to play in (the new RQ: Glorantha has made some big changes to the current status of the setting locally), and there's potential for a long term relationship with the person who employs you and could send reliable people all across Dragon Pass in search of items he could trade.

Alternatively, Pavis/Prax has a lot of detail in older editions. Pavis is much more cosmopolitan than Apple Lane so characters from all sorts of places could be there, it's a chance to introduce various strange and unusual cultures and non-humans, and the area is full of adventure hooks from years of development. There's a nice introductory adventure in the Pavis boxed set, then there's potential for running a variety of adventures before moving into the excellent Borderlands campaign After that there's still plenty of adventure to be had as well. It does mostly depend on the particular time period, which is around 1615 (RQ:G is 1625).

The other thing is there's a lot of Community Content adventures on DriveThru now, for more than I could keep up with, but one I have got is Valley of Plenty and that has two introductory scenarios for newly initiated female and male characters respectively. I think it's a very good book, and it's supposed to be the first of a series. Though as is often the case, it's set in Sartar and nowhere near as varied in the characters likely to appear as a Pavis campaign.

 

[pemerton]

do you recommend any published scenario or adventure to start playing in the setting?

My contribution to this is on a much narrower info base than @Bluenose.

I have very little Glorantha play experience. But I do have a copy of the original Narrator's Book for HeroWars (Robni Laws). It has some scenarios that seem interesting to me, and one of them - Demon of the Red Grove - I've adapted successfully to D&D 4e. I'm sure it would be a fun scenario in some version of RQ/Glorantha also.