Anti-glorantha rant to moongose.

[Dan True]

After reading the book I am none the wiser as to what Glorantha looks like.

And I take it you mean style-wise, correct?
Like, when you're reading about Warhammer Fantasy you have no doubt as to how the world looks like, it's gritty, dirty, there are beer spills, bloodstains and puke in every gutter and always some sinister dark thing which would tear your sanity apart in the blink of an eye, waiting just outside your sight.

You mean a relevant "theme" or "style" for the art of Glorantha, right?

- Dan

 

[HalfOrc HalfBiscuit]

After reading the book I am none the wiser as to what Glorantha looks like.

And I take it you mean style-wise, correct?
Like, when you're reading about Warhammer Fantasy you have no doubt as to how the world looks like, it's gritty, dirty, there are beer spills, bloodstains and puke in every gutter and always some sinister dark thing which would tear your sanity apart in the blink of an eye, waiting just outside your sight.

You mean a relevant "theme" or "style" for the art of Glorantha, right?

- Dan

That. Plus the fact that if you look at Warhammer art (and the minis of course) it's clear that the Old World is based, for the most part, fairly closely on late medieval/renaissance Europe (or at least the Human cultures are). That makes it easier to extrapolate what all the trappings might look like.

I realise this sort of thing might not bother everyone to the same degree - but I like to fix a "visual" for cultures and npcs. Where the visual cues given in setting material are diverse and even contradictory, this becomes much harder.

 

[Mugen]

I live in Australia. Definitely RQ is more Euro though. It's a shame because D&D over-shadows so much and it just isn't that good.

I don't know how it's like in the reste of Europe, but in France RuneQuest is ridiculously small compared to D&D.

Glorantha is seen by most people as a very complicated setting.

In terms of rules, RuneQuest 2 had a strong influence in the 80's. Famous RPG such as Légendes, Méga or Rêve de Dragon took their roots in Chaosium's version of the game.

Nowadays, it suffers from a comparison with StormBringer or Call of Cthulhu. Too many people think that all 3 systems are identical, and that they share the same "problems", such as the lack of influence from characteristics on skills, the high mortality of characters, or never-ending combats when attack and parry are very high.

 

[Dan True]

I don't know how it's like in the reste of Europe, but in France RuneQuest is ridiculously small compared to D&D.

Same everywhere. I live in Copenhagen and in the whole of Denmark there is ONE book store selling an RQ2 product, and that product is a single "Core Rulebook" on the shelves just to hope to catch someone. Everytime I need a book I have to order it from the US (because for some reason Mongoose won't allow him to order in such small quantities and still get sellers-discount) and wait 2-3 weeks for it.
It would be much easier for me to order it from an online bookstore or from the mongoose, but I'd gladly pay a bit extra and wait some time to support a bookstore who sells RQ2.

If things are worse outside of Europe, they must truly be bad...

- Dan

 

[Dan True]

I don't know how it's like in the reste of Europe, but in France RuneQuest is ridiculously small compared to D&D.

Same everywhere. I live in Copenhagen and in the whole of Denmark there is ONE book store selling an RQ2 product, and that product is a single "Core Rulebook" on the shelves just to hope to catch someone. Everytime I need a book he has to order it from the US (because for some reason Mongoose won't allow him to order in such small quantities and still get sellers-discount) and wait 2-3 weeks for it.
It would be much easier for me to order it from an online bookstore or from the mongoose, but I'd gladly pay a bit extra and wait some time to support a bookstore who sells RQ2.

If things are worse outside of Europe, they must truly be bad...

- Dan

 

[cthulhudarren]

Nowadays, it suffers from a comparison with StormBringer or Call of Cthulhu. Too many people think that all 3 systems are identical, and that they share the same "problems", such as the lack of influence from characteristics on skills, the high mortality of characters, or never-ending combats when attack and parry are very high.

One of the most annoying things about D&D 4E is the long, grindy combats. A first level goblin with over 20 HPs just does not compute.

MRQ2 combat is MUCH better. It's one of the main appeals of the system.

 

[cthulhudarren]

No Orcs in Glorantha.
No goblins in the traditional sense.

In order for me to use Glorantha I'd have to add these, along with things like hobgoblins, ettins, gnomes, etc. But now I have to make up myths for all of these cultures. I'm feeling overwhelmed already.

At least the Monster Colosseum made an attempt at providing more "traditional" monsters/races.

 

[ledpup]

One of the most annoying things about D&D 4E is the long, grindy combats. A first level goblin with over 20 HPs just does not compute.

It's the healing salves that really annoy me. What sort of idiot came up with them? Why not just give people more hit points in the first place?

4E is really just for people who want to play a computer game as a pen/paper RPG. Seems really dumb to me, a computer game is much better at handling all the number crunching than people are. I play RPGs because in a computer game you can't do anything like what you can imagine in a RPG.

 

[taxboy]

One of the most annoying things about D&D 4E is the long, grindy combats. A first level goblin with over 20 HPs just does not compute.

It's the healing salves that really annoy me. What sort of idiot came up with them? Why not just give people more hit points in the first place?

4E is really just for people who want to play a computer game as a pen/paper RPG. Seems really dumb to me, a computer game is much better at handling all the number crunching than people are. I play RPGs because in a computer game you can't do anything like what you can imagine in a RPG.

I am a long term hater of D & D, hate hitpoints, drove me made, you could fall 100 feet and survive, no injuries!

4th ed has finally shed any pretence of what D & D is, a tactical war game..

I hated d & d so much , i worshipped HERO for years, but cripes, the rules are complicated - love RQ2, has the realism, flexibility but quite simple - and the most recent magic system is awesome!

 

[cthulhudarren]

One of the most annoying things about D&D 4E is the long, grindy combats. A first level goblin with over 20 HPs just does not compute.

It's the healing salves that really annoy me. What sort of idiot came up with them? Why not just give people more hit points in the first place?

4E is really just for people who want to play a computer game as a pen/paper RPG. Seems really dumb to me, a computer game is much better at handling all the number crunching than people are. I play RPGs because in a computer game you can't do anything like what you can imagine in a RPG.

I am a long term hater of D & D, hate hitpoints, drove me made, you could fall 100 feet and survive, no injuries!

4th ed has finally shed any pretence of what D & D is, a tactical war game..

I hated d & d so much , i worshipped HERO for years, but cripes, the rules are complicated - love RQ2, has the realism, flexibility but quite simple - and the most recent magic system is awesome!

4E is the only one I hate. I've played a lot of 3.5; I only hate it at high levels. Still, RQ2 is far superior if you like combat realism. I've been rolling hit locations for particular damaging hits in D&D for years. I just call it 'flavor'.

 

[cthulhudarren]

One of the most annoying things about D&D 4E is the long, grindy combats. A first level goblin with over 20 HPs just does not compute.

It's the healing salves that really annoy me. What sort of idiot came up with them? Why not just give people more hit points in the first place?

What really chaps my arse is that you are totally healed after every extended rest. WTF

 

[Loz]

In order for me to use Glorantha I'd have to add these, along with things like hobgoblins, ettins, gnomes, etc. But now I have to make up myths for all of these cultures. I'm feeling overwhelmed already.

And its certainly in the spirit of Glorantha to add such things (heck, I bunged some goblin things into Pavis Rises)... but you don't need to start creating myths and detailed cultural set-ups for whatever you add; its simply unnecessary. Trolls, dragonewts, elves and dwarves have them because they are the elder races and we've taken the time to delve into their cultures in the various Race books. But there are scores of creatures in Glorantha that don't have, or even need, that level of detail. For goblins you could simply say they're a primitive cursed race - perhaps a failed dwarvish or trollish experiment. For orcs, some weird, inexplicable beast/human hybrid (plenty of those)... its all perfectly acceptable.

If you do feel the need to add more detail then you can do it at your own pace. People tend to get overwhelmed at Glorantha's existing detail and think they have to follow suit; but you honestly don't. Its simply that Glorantha's been around for such a long time and Greg's never stopped developing the place. But he would be the first to encourage you to add creatures that fit your Glorantha and leave all the mythic explanations as mysteries and vague truths for later development - if it all.

 

[kintire]

But my original point was the lack of any apparent direction in the art in the Gloranthan book. It appears to be a fairly random collection of images based on anything from the last 2500 years or so of real world history. After reading the book I am none the wiser as to what Glorantha looks like.

And my original point is that in order to be realistic Glorantha shouldn't HAVE a "look". Glorantha is an entire world. Would you complain in an account of 11th Century Earth that a picture of a Norman knight, a Mayan footsoldier and a Chinese archer had different "looks"?

 

[Exubae]

I am a long term hater of D & D, hate hitpoints, drove me made, you could fall 100 feet and survive, no injuries!

Agreed, my particular dislikes are levels, alignment, and classes... Watch out for the Lawful Evil 50th Level Accountant, whose thinking of taking the CEO prestige Class...yawn.
But it has always been a tactical war /skirmishing with stuff tacked on.

The good thing about RQ is that it forces you to think about other options than brute force and ignorance, ie talking to the opposition rather than killing them.

My rp-group started playing in Prax using the old Chaosium RQ rulebook and Cults of prax, information on prax was pretty thin on the ground, veiled references to the Gloranthan board games and cults was all the back ground that was kicking around for a while.

Troll pack, Pavis, cults of terror, and Borderlands didn't make it in to the players hands - so our Glorantha was limited and grew pretty much independently of any other sources.

The current rule set INHO are the best there have been (I may have sneaked mysticism in to the main book though- though without its Draconic focus and have got rid of some of the 80's style girlie pics on page 132, 119, 102 they're really well drawn but also really tacky)

 

[Dan True]

And my original point is that in order to be realistic Glorantha shouldn't HAVE a "look". Glorantha is an entire world. Would you complain in an account of 11th Century Earth that a picture of a Norman knight, a Mayan footsoldier and a Chinese archer had different "looks"?

Well, in real world of course not. But in a campaign yes. We don't mean "looks", we mean "style" or "theme". Of course there will be different assets in a world, but the art could at least be consistent. I mean, some of the art in the core rulebook adheres to a theme: it's all black and white, it's fairly simplistic - sorta like coal drawings or some such.
But then come a picture like the one on p 119, where the style is completely different and the whole picture seems misplaced compared to the others.
Now I'm only talking of the core books, as I have not read anything about Glorantha. I am merely elaborating on a point I agree on in general, but I cannot say anything specifically about Glorantha.

We're talking more about the style or "feel" of the images, than what looks the objects/characters drawn actually have. You can of course disagree but I think a lot of people enjoy that a setting has a "feel" or "theme" to its artwork, like:
Warhammer / Warhammer 40k (WFRP and Dark Heresy): Dark and gritty.
Eberron: Naturalistic Cartoony
Warcraft: Just cartoony
Greyhawk: Fantastical Naturalism
Full Metal Alchemist: Naturalistic Manga
Dragonball Z: Fantastical Manga / Cartoony manga
And so on...

It's more in the technicalities of art/drawing than any direct problem with content. Of course you can think it should not have a look to be more realistic (because the real world does not have a look), but the lack of a coherent theme to the art also makes it harder for (some) people to quickly fall for the setting.
A picture says more than a thousand words, sadly it says a thousand different things to a thousand different people.

- Dan

 

[cthulhudarren]

I think some of you folks are being harder on old D&D than you should. I don't think until 3.5 at the earliest (and CERTAINLY with 4E) did it essentially become a tactical miniatures game. I played OD&D, AD&D and original chaosium RQ2 and never used miniatures.


I don't dislike the levels/classes too much either, just the HP/combat system.

 

[DigitalMage]

4E is really just for people who want to play a computer game as a pen/paper RPG. Seems really dumb to me, a computer game is much better at handling all the number crunching than people are.

Funny, I am running a D&D 4e campaign, and while its not my favourite system and isn't without its flaws, our campaign could in no way be run as a computer game - maybe aspects of it could be like the combat scenes (in the same way the MRQ combats could), but all the other stuff, investigations, negotiations, etc couldn't.

I play RPGs because in a computer game you can't do anything like what you can imagine in a RPG.

Me to, which is why I am playing D&D 4e tabletop rather than D&D Online

 

[Dan True]

Funny, I am running a D&D 4e campaign, and while its not my favourite system and isn't without its flaws, our campaign could in no way be run as a computer game - maybe aspects of it could be like the combat scenes (in the same way the MRQ combats could), but all the other stuff, investigations, negotiations, etc couldn't.

Well, any reasonable GM can get something funny out of everysystem, no matter how horrendous it is. The point is how much work it takes to get the system to fit your own bill of what "fun" is.

I've heard people exclaim that d&d 4E is what d&d should always have been, and I guess it's just because they want something other than me. Personally I have not looked to closely at it - It was enough for me that they've removed ALL rp/background info on the races. That clearly said "this is not a system for you".

But if you enjoy the system, then by all means play it. A lot of people in here just don't really think it really fits the bill as to what an "rpg" is, as it seems more closely related to games like Inquisitor/Warhammer (albeit on a lesser scale). I think that is what people mean by it being "more like a computer game". Things like "this spell can only be used in combat", with no explanation as to why (does it need adrenalin in the body, then why not when hanging on a cliff?) and rules that random encounter must consis of a lot of critters with a huge boss in the middle.

But again, every DM can get something sensible out of anything.

- Dan

 

[DigitalMage]

Well, any reasonable GM can get something funny out of everysystem, no matter how horrendous it is. The point is how much work it takes to get the system to fit your own bill of what "fun" is.

I am running it RAW and it is doing most of what I want from an Eberron game, it isn't quite what I want (3.5 would be better) but it is a breeze to prep for and provides the basic tools I need to run a game of action, adventure, investigation, exploration and social negotiations.

It was enough for me that they've removed ALL rp/background info on the races. That clearly said "this is not a system for you".

Fair enough, I only got into D&D with 3.5 so I cannot comment on race information for previous editions, but the 4e core books seems to have about the same fluff as 3.5. To be honest the fluff for races is more in the setting books, which makes sense (Eberron halflings are quite different to Forgotten Realms halflings, just as Glorantha Elves are different from the usual Tolkienesque elves).

Things like "this spell can only be used in combat", with no explanation as to why (does it need adrenalin in the body, then why not when hanging on a cliff?) and rules that random encounter must consis of a lot of critters with a huge boss in the middle.

In case you ever decide to take another look at it you will be glad to hear that I don't know of any spell that says it cannot be used only in combat (though I admit many are focused on use in combat re durations, and so may be of less use out of combat).

And random encounters get a whole 3 pages in the DMG, for encounters you plan you can really build them of any mix of foes (and the XP budget system makes that a breeze), so you could legitimately have a Level 3 encounter for your four PCs (budget of 600 XP) that consists of four Human Guards (Level 3 Soldiers, 150 XP each).

Having said that though, for more exciting fights it is good to have a mix of roles and also Minions. E.g. 2 Human Guards (Level 3 Soldiers, 150 XP each), a Human Mage (Level 4 Artillery, 175 XP) and 4 Halfling Stouts (Level 2 Minions, 31 XP each); total XP of 599 XP.

Anyway, enough of a tangent, I think its safe to say that D&D is an RPG jut not one to everyone's tastes, but then I imagine MRQ is the same.

 

[languagegeek]

And my original point is that in order to be realistic Glorantha shouldn't HAVE a "look". Glorantha is an entire world. Would you complain in an account of 11th Century Earth that a picture of a Norman knight, a Mayan footsoldier and a Chinese archer had different "looks"?

Then I would suggest that each region/civilization get an art style appropriate to the culture. Bland old-school rpg-esque art doesn't inspire me. Art should help me want to play the setting, not put me off.

For better or worse, MRQII is competing against some pretty stylish games, and Glorantha against some pretty stylish settings, like 'em or not. I think because Glorantha is mythical, cultural, and historical, the art should evoke those aspects.