Runequest

[Treebore]

I recently became interested in Runequest due to my interest in the Clockworks and Chivalry materials.

Anyways, Mongoose had this half off sale and my order came in. In it was a couple of RQ 1 books, and I started with "Guilds, Factions and Cults". I'm a big fan of such products, even bought the old ENWorld series on Guilds.

I have to say I was very impressed with this book. It is far from thorough but it gives plenty of guidelines and ideas to help any creative GM create even more guidelines to generate as detailed a Guild, Faction and even Cult as you could like.

In fact a book as fleshed out as possible along the line of this book would be incredibly awesome, so if anyone knows of such a book, TELL ME!

As it is, this book is definitely a very worthy edition to my collection of books along similar themes, and if you have similar interests in similar books, I think you will like this too, and I believe Mongoose has this on their close out sale, so may still be available on the cheap, plus shipping.

Next I'll be checking out their "Cults of Glorantha" book, then their new RQ 2 Core Glorantha book, then the new Runequest II itself, which I needed for the Clockworks and Chivalry stuff I have gotten interested in.

 

[Treebore]

Selling points of the Guild Factions and Cults book:
tables that help you decide upon size, capabilities, develop a framework based on history, culture, aims, goals, and even on methods of operation. With great examples to help you flesh it out and fill in the blanks, as well as help you go as far as you like with the details.

They even go into affiliations and traditions, folks, Great stuff!

This approach is used to fill out the Factions and Cults as well. Lots of really good ideas in here.

 

[Treebore]

This Cults of Glorantha is pretty darn interesting. Even if I never use Runequest it already has me doing conversions of spells to RPG's I do use, like this spell:


Communal Rest
CT: Special
Duration: Special
Level: 1 (Cleric/Druid)
AoE: Special
Range: Special
Material: Holy Water in addition to Holy Symbol

This spell is used as a communal ritual. All participants must be able to hold hands, traditionally in a line or circle. Usually laying down on

prepared beds or bed rolls. This ritual is led by one or more Priests of the same or allied religions. So if all "divine" participants are of the

Norse pantheon and their respective Gods are friendly to each other, they can perform this ritual together, evoking their respective Gods in a

communal fashion. Non preists can participate as well, but must be worshippers in good standing of the deities being invoked, or of a God allied

to the one(s) being invoked.

The effects of this ritual put all participants into a deep trance of meditiation/worship, typcially for 8 hours. While in this trance the

participants feel no pain from injuries received prior to this ritual, and they recover from all injuries (hit points, temporary loss of

attributes, etc...) as if they have rested for 5 full days. This spell also essentially feeds and waters all participants, so will recover from

starvation and dehydration as if they have been well fed and watered for 5 days as well.

The participants do need to be guarded if in a dangerous area, and can be aroused from the ritual by waking the Priest designated as the "leader"

of the ritual.

Worshippers of good standing are those who regularly donate time, gold, and/or service to their god's church. (GM call.)

The Holy Water must be used to bless (non magical) each participant prior to the casting of the ritual. One vial is usually sufficient to anoint up to 6 people, maybe 10 if the priest is careful.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Cool I picked up some from the sale but missed that, wish I had go t it now.

 

[Treebore]

Just to be clear, the spell is something I converted from the "Cults of Glorantha Vol. 1", not the first book I talked about. So I have said something about two books now. I'm off to read more of the Cults book, then I'll be looking at the Glorantha setting book.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Given the quote in your signature, I doubt this is a barrier, but you should be aware that the MRQ II rules are definitely written with a "spirit of the rules" intent. There are several sections where the rules are deliberately ambiguous, and the correct interpretation of how they work is, "how do you want it to work?" I'm not sure if this was true of MRQ I, as I don't have it.

If something doesn't quite click, it is definitely worth going over to the Mongoose forums and reading through some of the topics.

Compared to previous versions of Runequest, the latest version has sorcery that is easier for a character to start, but not as powerful for an accomplished character. This could make converting some spells from older sources a bit dicey. OTOH, the new spirit rules are simply cruel to any character without the appropriate counters--by design.

 

[Jon_Dahl]

I've always liked Runequest a lot and played it several times. The system is divine, except for the magic-system... When I started to play Runequest, there were guys that had played it for almost 10 years, and they still couldn't understand how magic worked. They used to have a DM who knew, but he was gone.

So we improvized a lot and tried to incorporate D&D magic to RQ, but you can imagine it didn't go too well...

Kudos to RQ, but its magic had a certain unfinished touch to it. And I'm certainly not the only one who thinks like this.

 

[Zhaleskra]

The only reason I looked at RuneQuest is that the authors of Diomin felt it fit that world better than D&D does. As I am growing away from systems that switch die types constantly, I feel MRQ1 was good for a look, but I have no intention of running or playing it. Nothing against roll low systems either, I just find some of the mechanics even clunkier than D&D. What I do like is the simplification of things like cover. I disagree with the Diomin authors too, I think HARP is a better d% system for that world.

 

[JeffB]

Big RQ fan here- mostly the original RQ2. Wasn't a huge fan of RQ3 or Mongooses first attempt, but MRQ2 is the best version since the original rules I have seen. Definitely worth picking up.

I also got my Mongoose sale products yesterday- Lankhmar Unleashed, while billed for MRQ1/2 is sizing up to be a VERY useful book for any fantasy RPG. The first chapter alone has a wonderful in depth discussion on "what constitutes Swords & Sorcery" that I think is a must read for anyone interested in S&S gaming and "old school feel" play/design. Quite frankly I'd like to see some of the WOTC & Paizo designers take a read of it, and let it sink in

Treebore- I would highly recommend picking up a copy of Ruins of Glorantha if you can. While it has some specific gloranthan adventure sites, it is mostly a toolkit book that is quite good and useful with different game systems (as well as campaign settings)

In addition I got pocket Traveller, and Conan 2E. Conan also looking very promising- wish I had picked this up years ago.

 

[Bluenose]

I recently became interested in Runequest due to my interest in the Clockworks and Chivalry materials.

Anyways, Mongoose had this half off sale and my order came in. In it was a couple of RQ 1 books, and I started with "Guilds, Factions and Cults". I'm a big fan of such products, even bought the old ENWorld series on Guilds.

I have to say I was very impressed with this book. It is far from thorough but it gives plenty of guidelines and ideas to help any creative GM create even more guidelines to generate as detailed a Guild, Faction and even Cult as you could like.

In fact a book as fleshed out as possible along the line of this book would be incredibly awesome, so if anyone knows of such a book, TELL ME!

As it is, this book is definitely a very worthy edition to my collection of books along similar themes, and if you have similar interests in similar books, I think you will like this too, and I believe Mongoose has this on their close out sale, so may still be available on the cheap, plus shipping.

Next I'll be checking out their "Cults of Glorantha" book, then their new RQ 2 Core Glorantha book, then the new Runequest II itself, which I needed for the Clockworks and Chivalry stuff I have gotten interested in.

Did you get "Empires" in the bundle? That's got an interesting approach to running estates/countries.

I've always liked Runequest a lot and played it several times. The system is divine, except for the magic-system... When I started to play Runequest, there were guys that had played it for almost 10 years, and they still couldn't understand how magic worked. They used to have a DM who knew, but he was gone.

So we improvized a lot and tried to incorporate D&D magic to RQ, but you can imagine it didn't go too well...

Kudos to RQ, but its magic had a certain unfinished touch to it. And I'm certainly not the only one who thinks like this.

Which version of Ruenquest, and which magic system, did you find confusing? Some types are more complex than others.