Glorantha - a d20 setting?

[Plane Sailing]

The Perrin Conventions speak to this, in particular, IIRC; see:

• KNIGHTS & KNAVES ALEHOUSE :: View topic - THE PERRIN CONVENTIONS
• Ray Turney RQ
• Steve Perrin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm sure that RQ historians will be able to provide more-informative links, too....

Thanks for the very interesting links. They do illustrate that RQ was entirely separate from D&D nicely though! The Perrin Conventions were just about order in melee and informed a fraction of a percent of RQ. The Ray Turney article explains very nicely how the rules were basically created whole cloth, not derived from D&D.

Certainly interesting historical information though.

Cheers

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Sure

Thinking about this a bit more, It's not that the 3 systems have to be exactly like they are in RuneQuest. it's that the current D&D magic systems , put in Glorantha, would totally change Glorantha. Average people in Glorantha can cast healing magic. But the certainly don't have all the abilities that come with a level of Cleric. Turn Undead doesn't even exist. And cults have very specific spell lists... only a single religion in all of Glorantha has reusable rune magic that kills at range (Humakt -- Sever Spirit), and if I recall correctly only a single religion in Glorantha has ressurection magic that can be cast over and over by a priest (Chalana Alroy).


Speaking as someone who really loves Glorantha, I think a game system that tried to shoehorn Clerics and Wizards into Glorantha would fail. Of the two the Wizard list would work better, I suppose.

Good links, by the way. Ray Turney and I played in the same RuneQuest game for several years when I lived in San Francisco. We haven't been in touch for a long time, though.

Ken

 

[Glyfair]

Where do you get this idea?

RQ is so different from D&D in almost every respect... It is a wholly different game. Inspired by D&D in the same way that other RPGs are inspired by D&D, but you can't call it 'homebrewed D&D rules'.

Runequest grew out of "The Perrin Conventions" that were Steve Perrin's house rules for D&D (which included Strike Rank, etc.). You can see some discussion here.

Also, by "based" I meant "grew out of."

 

[Erekose]

In a possible "d20 system" version of Glorantha, there's also the issue of whether combat should be made very deadly (or not).

Back in the day, I remember the Runequest combat being very deadly. Even with a relatively lenient DM, we churned through many more characters in Runequest than in our 1E AD&D games (even with the same person DMing both games).

I too remember RuneQuest as being very deadly - while not similar (as I also remember dismemberment being quite common too ) wouldn't this be mirrored in D&D 3.X by a relatively low Maximum Damage Threshold?

 

[Waylander]

Thanks for all of the replies

I suspect this would be the way to go (thanks Greene Knight):

I would actually discourage someone from trying to convert RuneQuest's flavor (the three types of magic, the generalist nature of the system alluded to above) in a d20 context. It just wouldn't work that well.

What you have to do, in my opinion, to make Glorantha work with d20 is embrace the d20 system's assumptions (specialization, niche roles, and such) and convert straight from the universe, and not from RQ. Which means that there would be say fighters, clerics and wizards in Glorantha from then on, with perhaps alternate types of magic (such as ritual types of magic for the Britini, or the Cult of the Emperor of Kralorela, or even power types of magic akin to Incarnum for the adepts of inner mastery...) to emulate specific types of magical feels in the world.

The concept of Prestige Classes would work formidably well in Glorantha, what with all the mercenary companies, the cults, sub-cults, various types of agents, specific magical abilities, the rune lords themselves, and so on, so forth!

It could work really well.

I guess what I was hoping was that someone had already attempted it rather than having to start from scratch

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

RuneQuest deadliness

RuneQuest is deadly in a sense. It's easy in combat to get ripped apart. It's equally easy to get put back together again, with access to the right magic.

For example (this is with RuneQUest 3) , it's quite common to get your arm chopped off , from a single blow. But if one of your party members has the spirit magic spell Heal 6, they can reattach your arm on their turn and you might be able to fight on the very next round ;-) Rune Magic can be even more potent, Heal Body is essentially 'Erase all damage on the Character Sheet'. Heal Wound (which every cult in Glorantha has access to) is also capable of reattaching limbs in battle.

That said, if you go double negative in the head (by say, getting impaled in the head by a crossbow bolt when not wearing armor), you die instantly.

So, combats can get a bit silly; a lot like the scene with the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But I having a low 'Max Damage Threshold' might be a bit too severe, since RQ characters actually often survive being dismembered in battle.

Ken

 

[ggroy]

I too remember RuneQuest as being very deadly - while not similar (as I also remember dismemberment being quite common too ) wouldn't this be mirrored in D&D 3.X by a relatively low Maximum Damage Threshold?

Even easier, just reduce the number of starting hit points to a really low number, instead of following the hit-dice of a class or monster.

 

[Ariosto]

I like TSR-era D&D for the "superheroic" level that is beyond (and basically the objective of) RuneQuest. After all those decades of waiting for HeroQuest, the game does not fit the bill for me as well as old D&D.

At any rate, RQ seems to me a bit cumbersome for characters in a class with the Crimson Bat.

 

[Glyfair]

I like TSR-era D&D for the "superheroic" level that is beyond (and basically the objective of) RuneQuest. After all those decades of waiting for HeroQuest, the game does not fit the bill for me as well as old D&D.

At any rate, RQ seems to me a bit cumbersome for characters in a class with the Crimson Bat.

Indeed, that was a big issue with Heroquest. I got a few bits and pieces about the original design for Heroquest (back in the 80s) and the issue was that it was turning into "super Runequest." I remember one Humakt HQ that potenially allowed an attack every Strike Rank in a round. That isn't what Greg wanted, so it never really saw the light of day.

RuneQuest is deadly in a sense. It's easy in combat to get ripped apart. It's equally easy to get put back together again, with access to the right magic.

And let's remember that deadliness in Runequest is not necessarily the same as Glorantha being deadly. At a certain level heroes in Glorantha can become quite hard to kill. The advantage of the Heroquest system is that how deadly the system is depends on the GM.

Of course, the deadliness of RQ did have one effect that I wished I had seen in D&D. Players would surrender in RQ. The chance of death was so high that players would surrender knowing that most intelligent creatures would release you for a ransom (except, of course, for chaos creatures). I can't remember the last time I saw a D&D character surrender.

 

[Ariosto]

I can't remember the last time I saw a D&D character surrender.

How about a D&D player who had arranged for a ransom? I wonder how newer RQ players approach the game. I think the "system matters", but I think the "game culture" matters as well.

Last weekend, my AD&D group barged into the lair of a bad guy ... who turned out to be way more than we could fight ... and walked out having cut a deal with him.