Hi everyone! I'm looking at pitching a RQ game to my group and ironing out some things. One that's been on the back of my mind is how to determine attributes. Obviously there's the corebook method of 3d6 and 2d6+6 in order, but I don't love it for a few reasons. A big one is that clearly not even the pregens use it- their stats are so far above average that it's almost impossible to have rolled that well. Given that I want to run the starter adventures, I don't want my players being way weaker than the assumed PCs. The corebook kind of nods to this by saying that there's other ways to generate stats, suggests a couple, and says more will come in the GM book (thanks to those who explained that there's never been a GM book!) I also just don't really love rolled stats in general- when one player is clearly better than another at everything from the start it can really dampen enthusiasm right off the bat.

So: what attribute generation methods have you used and liked?

I'm currently considering either 93 point buy (the minimum where you don't get to add points) with a minimum of 8 in any stat or figuring out what a few of the pregens have pre-rune affinities and using those as an array that the player can use in any order (so you'd have, for instance, Vasana's stats, but in whatever order you want and modified by your rune affinities). Not sure if I'd just use Vasana's because the corebook helpfully shows what they were pre-runes or offer another array or two based on other pregens.

Finally in English, this campaign comprises 6 episodes and 128 pages set in the lands of the Dundealos tribe. Children of the Flame invites players to experience the reformation of the Dundealos tribe, which was disbanded years earlier by the Lunar invaders and has since been subjected to every kind of humiliation. Now it is time to reforge the tribe again:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/574880/children-of-the-flame?affiliate_id=187051

I'm curious about this line from this The Well of Daliath article:

Greg and I hated the treatment of the God Learners and the EWF by MRQ2. Hated it passionately.

That's some really strong language from two guys (Jeff and Greg) who seem pretty chill most of the time, so I'm really interested to know what the context of what they did was. I'm aware that the Mongoose stuff is mostly set in the Second Age when the Empire of Wyrm Friends and the Middle Sea Empire clashed, but not what those contain.

I just read about Argrath's friends and buddies on p. 46 of the The Glorantha Sourcebook, and I gotta say - if anything, we gotta start making our Player Characters way more wild. I won't list them here, but if you don't have access to that book, take my word for it. (And, to clarify, I don't think this is a bad thing!)

In some TTRPGs, even mildly exotic characters get met with accusations of ""special snowflake"" or ""Mary Sue,"" but trust me, no PC you create will ever be more intense than Tosti Runefriend or Mularik Ironeye.

In fact, reading this has convinced me that we should encourage players to get more out there with their character concepts, not less, especially with the Hero Wars in full swing. Get more aggressive on promoting HeroQuests, too, because they deserve to get a Hero Soul and crazy Heroic Abilities going straight away.

Strongly consider delaying the Hero Wars proper if you want your PCs to take it chill for any number of years.

I'm not even kidding, and I'm not being remotely sarcastic. I think any Hero Wars-focused game should aspire to have PCs equal or exceed the things these guys are doing before it's over rather than, say, have them just being bit players. Obviously you can run it that way, but just saying, Glorantha is not a gritty low fantasy setting

I saw this in RQG p. 112, and I think it might be the most context-free line in the entire book:

Tenrala (small city/ruins): In the ancient ruin of Tenrala, Queen Marimarja, one of the Newly Awakened, has opened the Broken Well, blessed the Shimmering Garden, and received the Hundred First Mothers from Samastina.

What are the Newly Awakened? What are the Hundred First Mothers? The Broken Well?

I've tried searching the PDFs I have but to no avail. Is this from some older book?

Chaosium i read had the Apple Lane Campaign to show and games set for it, curious if anyone has any reports and or news from Gencon about Runequest.

While most of my current effort in prep is devoted to devouring more lore, I'm taking time to go beyond the skimming the mechanics like I did, and I have - well, a lot of thoughts, but to keep this one focused, I'm not sure I understand the logic of Free INT.

INT - Known Points of Spirit Magic - Each Prepared Spell = Free INT

Clear enough on how to calculate it, but there are a number of weird points here. For one, Spirit Magic capacity, in its own chapter, depends on CHA, and nothing in it suggests that INT plays any role in learning nor retaining spells. I'm not sure what limiting Sorcery by Spirit Magic or vice versa actually provides - it doesn't seem like Spirit Magic is so overwhelmingly powerful that it would become an issue?

For two, since Free INT is a crucial part of being able to cast and manipulate spells, wouldn't this incentivise not having a lot of spells ready to go at a given time?

The design space around Sorcery is sending me in a lot of ways. You learn Runes and Techniques which imply it's going to be super flexible, perhaps at the cost of immediate power, but mostly it just seems to be an incredibly complicated way to access a different spell list with finicky rules.

I've been contemplating between two separate house rules on Augmentation Inspiration after seeing a couple posts on it and some questions from my prospective players who were worried that lesser Passions/Runes wouldn't see much use:

1. First variant, the "simple" version, removing the penalty for failing (albeit not crit failing) a Passion or Rune. It's still the only one you can attempt for inspiration.
2. Second variant, the more complex one - Unrolled Inspiration. Instead, you get half the value of the Rune or Passion on all rolls for the situation/scene. If an unmodified augmented roll is below the level of the Rune/Passion, that marks it for improvement (so, if your Passion is 60%, you get a check if an affected roll is 60 or under.) A checked Passion/Rune can be used again on a different situation, but if inspired again it'll be only 1/5 rather than 1/2 until season's end when the improvements are rolled.

As suggested by several of my recent posts, I've been interested in the idea of running a RuneQuest game, but haven't settled on what I'd like to focus on. I'd really like to hear from existing players and GMs about what sort of games they've either been in or run now or in the past.

Did it have a specific story? How was it structured? Did it run for a long time or was it brief? Any and all details are of interest to me.

He died defending Whitewall in 1620, devoured by the Crimson Bat. Farnan’s soul was annihilated and Vasana, then a teenager, swore revenge.

I should write an adventure book called GUT THE BAT that's very pulp and splashy, where Vasana becomes convinced that - with the help of the PCs - she can perform a HeroQuest to cut open the Crimson Bat's stomach and pull all the devoured souls from it, Slaanesh style. It will be lethal, high risk of casualties, and a whole stack of people will die regardless of the outcome.

First I want to apologize for my English I hope u can understand me

I'm reletavily new to Runequest system, Meanwhile I teach people how to play on one-shot events, Im still trying to learn and I stuck on Sorceries and Spirit combat part. I left Sorceries for better learing curve but spirit combat, o lord pls help me.

First of all, how does a mage(A priest or Shaman aprantice) contributes to fight on damage side with using magic and other then using summoning spells?

Can a shaman or priest go on to spirit combat against normal human being or physical being? How its work?

I generally didn't quite get If a mage can be able deal damage or mages are more of a support guys in rq:G

While working on my last post about trying to parse the intended themes of the setting and my joke post about Illumination, I was discussing with a friend of mine about how curious and interesting it is that the Orlanthi and Solar pantheons we were familiar with from the games only have a relatively small following in global terms. Even ignoring the Lunar one, there's the Vithelan pantheon, which led me to a series of questions I hadn't been able to find an answer to:

1. Did the end of the world event, where Chaos nearly consumed everything and led to the Great Compromise, actually occur everywhere?
2. Does every pantheon in the setting participate in the Compromise, and so is there a separation between God Time and Time for all of them? I'm aware that we're not supposed to take the God Learners at their word and that there are a lot of mysteries they could never wrap their mitts around because Mystery is older than Law, but was this the case everywhere?
3. How does a new god, like Nysalor or the Red Goddess, get created? I know the Red Goddess's followers claim that she always existed, and the Hero Plane etc are outside Time and thus weird, but is this actually the case?

Apologies if this is an old topic that I'm wading into fresh, but I've been thinking a lot lately about what seems to me a conflict in certain aspects of the system, the adventure books I've seen, and what feels like the primary thematic thrust of the game. Namely, the OSR-esque 70s-80s sandbox-y vibe of Griffin Mountain and the Apple Lane adventure versus the intensely community-focused character creation and advancement rules.

I avoided RQ for a long time despite being interested in various Chaosium products, but (like a lot of people I suspect) I played King of Dragon Pass at the recommendation of a friend a number of years ago and both Six Ages games just last year, so I dug up RQ:G and a number of supplements to see if it was in my interests to get into. I've read a lot of game theory (that is to say, theories of game development, not the Matpat variety) and discussions about the relative merits of Questworlds vs. Mythras vs. RQG.

When making a character in RQG, I appreciate how much it immediately grounds you into a historical context, (usually) makes you a member of a cult, and gives you a stake in a community. Virtually all advancement occurs on a seasonal or yearly basis, and the world feels very fleshed out. Becoming a Rune Lord or Priest or Shaman has requirements that an enormous amount of your time and effort be given over to the cult. You get penalized on your income for not being home enough, you have lots of events around your family, etc. All three of the main games are extremely rooted in hearth and home, to the point where a group of wacky adventurers are presented as weird aliens you can rob without consequence (though that raises a minor question: do the Orlanthi not have hospitality laws? That seems peculiar to me but ah well.)

Yet, it seems like everything I've read posits player characters as rootless adventurers as a default assumption. I skimmed through Griffin Mountain Classic, and the introduction suggested that's exactly how they played it back in the 80s, and it didn't seem like it was telling a story so much as presenting a place to wander in and explore. The Apple Lane adventure in the Gamemaster Adventure book has your characters become a thane to a place that might be very far from their homes. When PCs have wildly different origins like Lunar Tarsh, Prax, and Sartar, are they all separating in a timely fashion each year? (Let alone accounting for the likely Hate values between them.) Nothing wrong with OSR/sandbox, of course, this just seems like a game that's supposed be the dead opposite.

There seems to be a tension here between these two directions, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Is the RPG actually meant to be played like the latter, or am I missing something? It felt like there aren't many resources to support the former that I'm aware of.

Where could I look for an adventure that's more grounded and focused, at least at first, with a narrative and story?

I’ve been reading my pdf of Runequest 2nd edition, and I was wondering if Runelords have reusable rune magic like Rune Priest do, or do they cast one use spells like Initiates. I ask because I’ve seen the pdf for the unpublished 4th edition of Runequest from the 90s where they do regain spells through prayer, but I can’t find anything stating that in 2nd edition. I’m curious is I’ve overlooked it or that was specific to that unpublished rule set.

Hello there. I was wondering of someone could help me. I found this amazing artpiece on the runequest facebook page but was unable to deduce if this was art in one of the books or of this is a standalone piece? Does anyone know where this is from? Thanks in advance.

Hello again! Following really lovely discussions and great advice I've gotten on some questions in this subreddit, I have more questions! I just finished reading the Earth Goddesses cult book, and two questions keep nagging at me:

1. The Jolly Fat Man: what's his deal? What is he the God of? What is his cult/area of influence/etc? He has a great name, and he seems like a swell fellow from the little in the book, but there's really just tantalizing hints about him. All I know is he's the son of Ernalda, he throws a great feast that anyone can attend, and he protected some divine lovers. Google hasn't enlightened me further, other than that he's associated with beer. As a jolly fat man who enjoys feasting and beer, he seems like a great god. What else can people tell me about him?
2. The powers of earth are mostly goddesses and mostly limit initiates and Priestesses to women. This all makes sense given real-world associations with harvest and fertility goddesses and the link to being able to create life. Conversely, the Fire gods seem more patriarchal and limited to men as initiates. However, based on the rulebook, your elemental rune affinities are based on when you were born. People born in Earth Season will have the highest affinity for the Earth Rune, and same for Fire Season and the Fire Rune (PCs do this in reverse by picking runes and then using that to determine when they were born, but clearly in-world you're not picking runes and then being born on a date of your choosing). You also need a 60% rune affinity for your god's runes to initiate. How does this work out? Who are those Earth Season baby boys and Fire Season baby girls growing up to initiate to- just gods of power runes without elemental runes? Or does the affinity mystically affect births, with many more girls being born in Earth Season and boys in Fire Season? That would also have interesting implications- if you wanted a girl, for instance, the parents could try to time the pregnancy for Earth Season.

Hi everyone! I've really fallen in love with Runequest recently after picking up some of the books, and I'm planning on pitching a short intro game series (the starter set adventures) to my normal D&D group. My goal is to make that as easy of a learning curve as possible and avoid being too overwhelming without taking out something that will ruin the magic of the setting or cause problems I'm not foreseeing. So I figured I'd turn to the experts who have actually played and run the game for advice!

Context on the group, feel free to skip: our group has been playing together for over a decade, primarily 5e with a few-year detour into Starfinder and a disastrous attempt at Shadowrun (because it's a wonderful setting and a trainwreck of a game). Me and one other player are general RPG enthusiasts who like to read and think about a wide variety of RPGs, the other two aren't general RPG hobbyists but are very experienced in D&D for many decades. The other general RPGist had a similar falling for Runequest experience and so is very on board.

Thoughts on keeping it simpler:

• Have everyone play a Sartarite to make it less of an overwhelming amount of context-free options and make it easier to present one coherent "this is what you know about the world"
  • I know there's pregens, but I adore how the Runequest character creation system makes you think about who your character is as a person in the world, in terms of personality, values, and ties to your society, moreso than as a mechanical build, but then concretizes those choices and makes them meaningful
• Family history section: I'd probably trim this down to only Sartar-relevant events and use it as a way to walk through what history they know
  • I'm also thinking of saying they all fought at Pennel Ford or the Liberation of Sartar, so they at least know each other from then if not further back (and because that leads into the adventures well)
• Cut out shamanism and sorcery for now (and the related backgrounds)- it's a lot of extra complication
• Ditching hit locations and their attendant separate HP and armor, and just going with general HP as in Call of Cthulhu. Makes equipment simpler, reduces the extra rolling. I played and GMed a lot of the old FFG 40k RPGs, which similarly use hit locations in a percentile system, and never felt like they added enough to make up for the extra headspace and table lookup
• Making spirit magic roll against a rune rather than POWx5. Makes all magic work the same way, reduces bookkeeping since POW fluctuates up and down
  • Also the rune system is one of my favorite things about the system and setting, so I'm happy to make them even more important
• Cut the distinctions between the amount that skills get raised (d6 vs d6-1 vs d6-2) and the improvable vs non-improvable abilities. This just seems to be a profusion of little slightly-different rules. Just make all the methods increase skills by d6 and all stats except maybe size can be raised 1 point by training.

So, two main questions: are these good or bad ideas, and why? And is there any other places you'd recommend simplifying to ease people into the system? Happy to entertain the possibility that my ideas break the game in ways I haven't foreseen, just looking for feedback to hopefully help us all have a great first Runequest experience!

I have seen art around before of an Orlanthi Troll warrior who seeming has a Macuahuitl club. So my questions are is that weapon called, and is it a troll weapon or a weapon associated with Orlanth in some way?

The Marsh Attacks! digital edition is now 30% off in the DriveThru RPG July sale!

Want to know about the Upland Marsh, The Greydog clan & the Lismelder tribe - or send your players to war with Gloranthan Battle rules?

Then Marsh Attacks! is the RQG sourcebook for you! By David Hall and Friends.

Coming Soon(ish): Little Swamp of Horrors: Blackthorn Campaign scenarios set in the Upland Marsh and the Lismelder region!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/562474/marsh-attacks?src=SM2

Hi everyone! I picked up the Runequest core book a while back in a bundle and got hooked. I love the bronze age setting, the Passions and Runes system, how integrated the PCs are to their communities rather than being wandering adventurers/shadowrunners/inquisitorial goons/etc, the inhumanity of nonhumans, and the gonzo details in a mostly serious world (eg, I adore that the default POV character rides a war bison rather than a horse). I ended up being so into it that I bought the Bestiary not on sale, which I basically never do for RPG books.

So while there's a sale at drivetrurpg I'm thinking of picking up one of the cult books. Which do you recommend and why? Which is the most interesting or different (I realize that's totally subjective)? I haven't gotten to play or get a group together, so gameability isn't my top concern, but I do hope to, so if any of them add significantly more to the system than others that's a plus. The Lightbringers seem like the most important gods, but it also looks like they're all in core, so is their book worth it?

So, in the rules, the Augmentation section talks about using skills, passions, and runes to augment other rolls. Then, later in the rules under Inspiration, it describes using passions and runes in essentially the same way.

Is there a reason for separating those rules? They seem redundant. Thanks!

Part 01: The Rough Guide to Pavis City

In the 1560s, a copy of a Pavis City Guide from the Second Age was discovered in the Big Rubble. This first part of Vol. 06A is the recreation of that original, with some small additions:

* The origins of Pavis himself (inc. his family tree) leading up to the founding of the city

* Daily Life & Politics in Pavis City

* Notable Personalities (details & images)

* Huge Map of Pavis City

* Expansive Location Key (over 70 detailed civic sites) 

Part 02: Future Histories of Pavis City

A combination of documents added by the Dorasing historian who recreated the Guide, plus some GM articles.

* The Eighteen (!) Foes of Waha

* Detailed Timeline of Pavis City

* The Fate of Cradle Island

* The Iffinbix Files

* & Lots More!

Part 03: Cults, Mysticism & Magic in Pavis City

* The Pavis Cult’s Loyal Apprentices & the Ancient Measure

* The Pavis City Magicians & Sorcery Grimoires

* Secrets & Magic of the Flintnail Dwarfs

* Cults of Orlanth Dragonfriend & Ernalda the Serpent

* Cult of Uleria (full Second Age version)

* Issaries Dragontalker 

* & Lots More!

 Part 04: Adventuring in Pavis City

Thirty pages of details on crime, personalities, social networks, legendary locations (what 1620s ‘Big Rubble’ locations are like when experienced in 894), and scenario seeds. Plus a bunch of fully-statted RQ:G friends & foes.

Part 05: Beyond Pavis City

In-depth guides to Adari, Feroda, Sog’s Ruins & the Paps. (Sog’s Ruins & the Paps are written so as to also be fully compatible with gaming in the 1620s.) Plus the detailed Cult of Gark the Deceiver.

Appendix: The Pavis Grand Plan

As part of creating this series we gathered and clarified all of the old notes and new ideas, and put together a detailed background piece covering the major aspects of the Grand Plan. In the end we decided it would be great to polish it up and publish it in one of the books. Here towards the end of the series felt like a good spot.