RuneQuest and Glorantha ideas

[RenleyRenfield]

So I want to know more about everyone's experience with Glorantha and RuneQuest.

I have two main questions as I peruse the books for you all =

- If you cold switch it all to another system, which system would it be?

- If you like the current BRP system, what matters most to you about it?

- If you like a different version of it, what one or two really stand-out mechanics that keep you coming back to that version of the game?

- If you have never gotten into RuneQuest or the setting of Glorantha, why? What were some of biggest things that pushed you away (aside from overall loredump and rules)

 

[Joerg Baumgartner]

1 - If I could switch to another system: I may not be as comfortable running Questworlds (previously the HeroQuest rpg) as I can run almost any RuneQuest based on my RQ3 experience, that narrative approach fits my approach to Glorantha and its lore better.

2 - I do like the current BRP metarules, but in its RQ incarnation it provides way too many skills, enforcing a degree of almost complete incompetence on the player characters outside of their specialisation that I find disingenious and unrealistic. Sure, there are people with extremely narrow specialisations unable to derive other skills from that, but they are a minority. Inheriting the passions from Pendragon makes sense.

3 - The integration of movement into strike ranks in RQ3 worked better for me than the current abstraction.

4 - it took me a while to get into playing in Glorantha. The lore of the world caught me a lot earlier.

In the eighties, within four years of discovering rpgs and experimenting with various rules sets I wanted something moderately realistic without such silliness as levels and character classes, so I switched from a rather simulationist German RPG (Midgard) to RuneQuest 3rd edition, creating my own translation of the rules. Initially I did not explore Glorantha in RQ, not even after getting in contact with the German RQ association (or its founders, even before it started). I was the regular GM of my groups.

My Vikings Box-based RQ fantasy campaign used a game world of my own creation, borrowing a lot from a number of sources, including Glorantha for some of the Elder Races.

My explorations of Glorantha started (appropriately) with the board game Dragon Pass, the "second edition" of the first Gloranthan publication ever, White Bear and Red Moon.

Over time, I accumulated all the Glorantha material I could get my hands on, most of it RQ. By the time I tried playing RQ in Glorantha, Avalon Hill had a playtest for a new edition of RQ, so I used that.

 

[John Dallman]

I'm quite fond of Glorantha and RQ. The problem I have with BRP systems is that I find the advancement mechanic (roll d100 higher than the skill you've used successfully) quite frustrating. Its reasoning is sound, but I've never played RQ frequently enough to have the statistics take effect.

Possibly I ought to work out an alternate advancement system. Something like being able to cash in a tick for +1%, two ticks for +3%, or something like that.

I planned a GURPS Glorantha campaign, playing as Lunars, entitled "Men in Red," but my players didn't go for it. Some of them didn't have any knowledge of the setting, and objected to the central place of religion in its societies. It was going to be set in the Lunar Investigation Bureau, an organisation I invented that does special operations on the front line of Imperial expansion. Its members need to be able to pass as non-Imperials, and thus its use of Chaos is very limited. Teams have seven members (naturally) and since it's GURPS, the Bureau can recruit for some specific advantages and disadvantages. For example, the party treasurer is required to have Honesty.

 

[aramis erak]

So I want to know more about everyone's experience with Glorantha and RuneQuest.

I have two main questions as I peruse the books for you all =

- If you cold switch it all to another system, which system would it be?

- If you like the current BRP system, what matters most to you about it?

- If you like a different version of it, what one or two really stand-out mechanics that keep you coming back to that version of the game?

- If you have never gotten into RuneQuest or the setting of Glorantha, why? What were some of biggest things that pushed you away (aside from overall loredump and rules)

• I've run RQ 3 but not glorantha.
• I've done Characters in MRQ. Players were unhappy about them.
• I've tried to run RQ Slayers - it's non-gloranthan, odd, but kinda cool. Now called RuneSlayers. The intro adventures don't give quite enough for me to extrapolate out. It was written for Avalon Hill, but they canceled after layout. The author released it free.
• I've run ElfQuest, was and is good.
• I've played CoC, once. Not a fan.
• I liked, but my players didn't, Worlds Beyond (a Non-chaosium that uses BRP mechanics; PDF from Precis Intermedia).

I am ambivalent about Glorantha. No more Gregging, at least.
I don't particularly like nor dislike the BRP mechanics as of RQ3 or EQ. I've some minor issues with the version in Ringworld and in Stormbringer.
The issues of Worlds Beyond were that "Traveller is easier." It is, very much, a Traveller Analogue, complete with Aslan by another name.

 

[pemerton]

So I want to know more about everyone's experience with Glorantha and RuneQuest.

I have two main questions as I peruse the books for you all =

- If you cold switch it all to another system, which system would it be?

Either HeroWars/Quest, or Burning Wheel.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

For everyone who plays RuneQuest in any BRP version (i think that is RQ2, RQ3, and RQG?) = how often do you run or play in those games? Do you play any other BRP style games? Warhammer fantasy? Call of Cthulhu? Other?

 

[haakon1]

My only experiences with Glorantha:

1) Playing “King of Dragon Pass” on Mac in the late 1990’s.

King of Dragon Pass - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2) Buying the Ducks book, I think in D&D 3e or 4e era, just for fun because I remembered them from the computer game.

 

[LordEntrails]

I've run ElfQuest, was and is good.

Don't know if I've ever heard of anyone else who even knows of ElfQuest. Never played it, but was gifted it when it was new. Read it and thought it was all about re-playing the comics. Was I wrong or did the system not have anyway to determine starting equipment?

 

[aramis erak]

Don't know if I've ever heard of anyone else who even knows of ElfQuest. Never played it, but was gifted it when it was new. Read it and thought it was all about re-playing the comics.

You're wrong on that score

Was I wrong or did the system not have anyway to determine starting equipment?

Not a clearly listed one.
Looking at the characters, they have the weapons they are skilled in. Very straightforward for a game of the era for characters' gear being by GM fiat.

 

[LordEntrails]

Well, that was my impression when I read it. And had never read the comics (or heard of them)
As for it being pretty standard, not for any of the games I played back then (Gang Busters, Top Secret, D&D, Twightlight 2000, Runequest, etc). In fact it was so confusing I we didn't even know how to start. The rules felt incomplete to us.
Glad other people found it enjoyable though.