Glorantha, races and other RQ related questions

[soltakss]

Perhpas my problem is the focus on myths, I’m not a great fan of that, not to say that I don’t like it, but in my games (and the world I’m co-creating/writing for HARP) has myths, but thats what they are, myths, not facts, which is the way I like it. I have no problem with myths, my issue is when the myths becomes tangible, real and thus the center of attention and revolved around, in a more direct way, I like the myths mythic, vague, as legends, more than a real thing. Myths in my opinion should be presentations of the past that are symbolic and serve as metaphors, more than anything else.

Well, Glorantha is built on Myths, which is why a lot of people like it.

However, and it's a big however, you can still play in Glorantha and treat the Myths as history without a problem. In fact, the first 2 RQ campaigns I ever played never even referenced the myths except to explain why Orlanthi didn't like Chaos and even then it was " 'Orlanthi don't like chaos.' 'Why?' 'Because it's evil.' 'Why?' 'Because it nearly destroyed the world.' 'OK'"

So, you can play in Glorantha and ignore the myths, pretty much.

Ancient myths are history as much as the Biblical Creation is history. In Glorantha you can interact with the myths, but if you don't like that idea then don't do it. Don't HeroQuest and myths aren't that important.

All this being said, I don’t know Glorantha, so many of my issues may seem strange to long time Glorantha fans/players/GMs, but I get disheartened reading the "Glorantha, Second Age" setting book/companion.

A lot of that is myth and history, so it can be quite daunting in many ways.

Perhaps I’m used to a different style of writing and way of portraying settings, which of course can be seen as silly, but for me it’s quite important, as it sets the mood for the digestion of the material and how I end up seeing the world. I loose interest whilst reading it, there is something about the cultures, the two empires and the religions that just keep annoying me. That being said, I’m not biggy on religions either, religions for me is a tool, political and/or otherwise, that I most of the time have a hard time to accept in most games, unless portrayed in an abstract and distant way, for example Forgotten Realms’ portrayal and the dnd way of presenting gods I find unimaginative, boring and irritating,

Well, Second Age Glorantha is notable because it was a time when large empires mucked about with cosmology and changed it. It all came to a sticky end because what they were doing was wrong and the world snapped back, destroying both empires.

If you treat it as Soul-less Sorcerers and wierd Dragon-Friends then you might get a better feel for things.

Third Age Glorantha is simpler - Evil Lunar Empire vs Sartarite freedom-fighters at its very simplest.

I’m no fan of epic god battles, divine intervention or the like. Not to say the Glorantha strikes me as something like Forgotten Realms, they are quite different I feel, the gods and all are presented different and feel different, but there is still something that nags me about it. The whole God Learner changing myths and the Hero Plane (or whatever it’s called).

Divine Intervention needn't necessarily be used. It is also not restricted to Glorantha. The Gods of the Norse, Celts and Greeks/Romans often came to earth and messed about with people. Homer's Iliad has epic battles between the gods.

But, if you don't like that sort of thing then perhaps another setting would suit you better.

I feel it’s going to take time to get into RQ, just deciding on a setting has never been so difficult before, but I want to play very soon, as my players are impatient, so well... perhaps I’ll make a concoction of my of own, and perhaps later fit it into and adapt it to some other world.

OK, published settings:

• Glorantha - Myth Heavy, Culture-Rich, Epic in Nature, Lots of Magic, Many Supplements
  Young Kingdoms (Elric) - Myth light, Law vs Chaos, Gods Interact with the world, Evil Empire, Lots of Magic, Some Supplements
  Tragic Millenium (Hawkmoon) - Virtually no myth, Epic, Little Magic, Evil Empire, No (or very few) Gods, Some Supplements
  Lhankmar - Myth Light, Andventurer Setting, Some Magic, Few Supplements
  Slaine - Myth Light, Much Magic, Some Supplements
  Alternate Earth (Pirates, Land of Samurai, Stupor Mundi) - Myth Light, Some Magic, Some Gods, Few Supplements

Earlier versions of RQ also have Vikings and Land of Ninja for the Alternate Earth setting and Chaosium has a number of supplements for Hawkmoon and Stormbringer/Elric.

I like the Alternate Earth setting myself as it is familiar, easy to use and has a lot of non-RQ background.

Has anyone checked out the Land of the Samurai book? (I’m a biggy on samurai and Legend of the Five Rings).

It looks pretty good. It is fairly detailed, goes into the noble houses, has magic rules, covers deities in an interesting way and has a lot of probably authentic details. I don't know the period particularly but it looked fine to me.

 

[soltakss]

Ok, what you are saying is of course blatantly obvious, the world is what I want it to be, so I’m determined to give it a try or a deeper delve at least, but I’m keeping my eye on Elric too, as.. well.. I’ve had my eyes on the whole Elric character since I saw the books and the old Stormbringer rpg.

I find Elric to be harder to get into than Glorantha. I read a lot of Michael Moorcock's books when I was younger and enjoyed them. However, the setting has a lot of issues for me and isn't as satisfying as Glorantha is.

Another matter, which is not entirely Glorantha oriented, being a bit more on the system side of things, how is reach handled in RQ? Most games have some take or another on this, depending on how abstract combat is handled, RQ seems to be using meters as the measuring unit, which is nice for me, meters being less of a brain case than feet (yay for the metric system). In "that other" game, with which I mean d20, have a 5 feet reach as basic (or 2 meters in SWRCR, 1 square in SWSE which equals approximately 1,5 meters), HARP uses feet, which roughly has the same estimate, of about 5 feet or so. I find these lacking, since weapons have different length, unarmed drastically shorter, both because arms and feet are usually shorter than longswords, but also because martial arts styles differ in focus, Aikido and Hung Gar Kung fu for example have a shorter reach and "danger zone" than say Tae Kwon Do and Karate, which have a longer reach. A Zwei Hander is approximately 2 meters, give or take, whilst a Gladius is what? 1,5-2 feet (a bit less than a meter)? Braodswords are around a meter, perhaps a bit more... this would of course affect reach and who you treat, in the case of Reaction free attacks, and movement and charges. Also, your own size (perhaps not the characteristic in game terms?) counts towards reach, we’ve all seen the guys with long arms holding a shorter man at bay...

The original Mongoose RQ rules did not take reach into account. Well, they did in the fact that taller people have a higher base SR, but they didn't take weapon length into account. I thought that the RQ Comapnion / Arms and Equipment used Reach, but I have checked and can't find anything on it.

RQ2/3 allowed longer weapons to strike faster, RQ3 reversed this as very close quarters.

RQ uses Strike Ranks (SR) to determine who gets in first. SR is calcultaed based on SIZ and DEX, so the taller you are the longer your reach and the quicker/more nimble you are the faster you get your blow in. So, the larger of two people with the same DEX gets in first. You also roll 1D10 for Initiative which adds to your SR to see who actually hits first, so this can mean that a slower shorter person gets in first because he sees a better opportunity.

What I would do, to keep things simple, is to assign a Strike Rank (SR) Bonus to a weapon, depending on its length, so that weapons of that length attack faster than shorter weapons. I'd also turn this into a SR Penalty at extremely close quarters.

So, you would have a number of weapon lengths and SR Bonuses:

Close (Dagger/Knife/Fist/Kick) + 0
Short (Shortsword, Kukri, Club) + 2
Medium (1H Sword, Mace, Staff) + 4
Medium-Long (Longsword, Short Spear) + 6
Long (Long Spear, Flail) + 8
Very Long (Pike, War Flail) + 10
Extremely Long (Irish Flail) + 12

Someone using an Irish Flail would almost certainly get in first, but get in close and the +12 becomes -12 and it gets in last.

The tricky bit is to work out the reaches and SR Bonus for each weapon.

Please don't ask about Closing/Retreating rules otherwise the heavens will open and this will turn onto a 10 page discussion on how "when I did Ju-Jango I could get in close with a carrot and beat a chainsaw". Ok, perhaps Ju-Jango is made up and a carrot shouldn't beat a chainsaw, but you get my drift.

When are you, this is basically my question I guess, all the other just late night thinking: When are you considered adjacent to your opponent?

When you are next to your opponent?

Seriously.

What do you mean by adjacent? If I have a Poleaxe then adjacent is 4-8 feet, perhaps. If I have a knife then adjacent is 1-3 feet. If I have an Irish Flail (A dirty great ball on the end of a 12 foot chain - I saw one at a medieval re-enactment and was well impressed) then adjacent is 15 to 20 feet.

 

[elgrin]

RQ uses Strike Ranks (SR) to determine who gets in first. SR is calculated based on SIZ and DEX, so the taller you are the longer your reach and the quicker/more nimble you are the faster you get your blow in. So, the larger of two people with the same DEX gets in first. You also roll 1D10 for Initiative which adds to your SR to see who actually hits first, so this can mean that a slower shorter person gets in first because he sees a better opportunity.

What I would do, to keep things simple, is to assign a Strike Rank (SR) Bonus to a weapon, depending on its length, so that weapons of that length attack faster than shorter weapons. I'd also turn this into a SR Penalty at extremely close quarters.

Just to follow Soltakss' points.
As a GOM (Grumpy old man) and RQ2/3 player, I could not get my head around ignoring weapon length. So I followed (generally) the old rules, and gave each weapon a SR modifier so that a long weapon had a better chance of stiking before a shorter weapon, but an agile character with a short weapon might still get in before a clumsy opponent with a longer weapon. It is one of the few house rules which has not evoked a longish discussion and has been accepted both by old RQ'ers and players of the other game coming in.

elgrin

 

[Loz]

Reach is in the GMs' Handbook. Every weapon has a reache modifier, going from 0 to +6 which is added to strike rank. There are closing rules too for handling combatants getting around long weapons.

 

[soltakss]

Thanks, Loz, I knew I'd seen it somewhere.

Another reason to buy the excellent GM Handbook.

I doubt if it has the Irish Flail, though.

 

[Loz]

You're right Simon, it doesn't!

 

[Jegergryte]

soltakss: my use of adjacent is of course used with that square-based-rpg-gone-warhammer-quest-strategy-hero-game (otherwise known as dnd, d&d or dungeon & dragons) in mind.
So what you all are telling me is that weapons, instead of having longer or shorter reach in a sort of range term, has initative/strike rank bonuses instead? I find it odd, but not too strange, as combat is mobile and not static, which by the way RQ does very well, at least it looks like it rules-wise, with knock-backs and such nifty niceties. Me likes much long time.

Thanks to all those who helped clearing that up. It seems I need the GM’s Handbook too
And thanks for encouraging interpretations and ways of thinking of Glorantha, I’m giving it a longer shot... (can one say that? but I guess you know what I mean).

 

[soltakss]

That's right.

Of course, you can use hex-based or square-based combat with RQ if you want. I haven't used hexes for 20 years, preferring things to be a lot freer and flowing than that.

The trouble with hex-based combat is that you get into arguments about whether someone is exactly within range of a shortsword or not, which completely misses the fact that combat should be free-flowing and dynamic rather than static and chunky.

I also find that we don't use half the combat rules in combat. Sure, you can use fancy tactics, but in my games the players don't bother and I haven't the time as a GM to try fancy stuff.

 

[Jegergryte]

so back to glorantha, sorry for the tangent about combat rules.

I’m looking through the book and I’m wondering, if any of my players wanted to play an Uz, dwarf or an Aldryami, and I would feel inclined to let them, then since there are no stats/characteristics provided in the book would I use the information provided in the RQ deluxe book? if so, which of the troll stats would be used do you think? also, are the stats for these various races provided in the supplements and do they differ much?

 

[weasel_fierce]

so back to glorantha, sorry for the tangent about combat rules.

I’m looking through the book and I’m wondering, if any of my players wanted to play an Uz, dwarf or an Aldryami, and I would feel inclined to let them, then since there are no stats/characteristics provided in the book would I use the information provided in the RQ deluxe book? if so, which of the troll stats would be used do you think? also, are the stats for these various races provided in the supplements and do they differ much?

Just use the stats out of the deluxe book. Dark trolls would be the "real" trolls.

 

[soltakss]

The stats are the same, but the culture is different. This pretty much applies to all the "generic" creatures in RQ Deluxe.

Supplements have expanded information about Trolls, Elves, Dragonewts, Centaurs, Ducks and Minotaurs, off the top of my head. Each species has had cultural descriptions, some cults, some new Runemagic/Legendary Abilities and some magic items. Whilst not essential for roleplaying they do help to put the race/species in context and certainly give guidelines on how trolls, for instance, would react in certain circumstances.

 

[Deleriad]

Perhpas my problem is the focus on myths, I’m not a great fan of that...

Given your interests it seems that Glorantha at the deepest level is probably not for you. Not every world is for everyone.

Now you can play in Glorantha and pretty much ignore the deep background. The earliest RQ scenarios and campaigns were pretty low level and featured people trying to make enough money to get by. If you're playing in Second Age all you and your players really need to know is that there is an evil empire of weird magicians in one direction, an even weirder empire of dragon worshippers in the other direction and a bunch of barbarians living in the hills. Think of it as Braveheart meets Fantasy SteampoweredMecha meets [Corrupt]Kung Fu. Add in the usual fantasy tropes with a twist -
there are elves but they really are plants
there are dwarves but they have more in common with the Borg than Tolkien
there are trolls who live in caves and eat people but they have a noble and tragic backstory
there are ducks. Well, it was them or hobbit clones.

The stories you tell don't have to be great explorations of comparative mythology. There's a phrase much used "YGWV" - which means "Your Glorantha will vary." If you like the colour and feel of the world then go where you want with it. The problem you will face is that published scenarios tend, at some point, to delve into the myths and it sounds like that would leave you cold. In which case, play something else you would enjoy more.

 

[Sinisalo]

Perhpas my problem is the focus on myths, I’m not a great fan of that...

Given your interests it seems that Glorantha at the deepest level is probably not for you. Not every world is for everyone.

Do you read the Cults book 1 and go "ooo nice myth".? I look for the cult with the best spells or the coolest look or whatever. Then I go off and kill monsters and steal their magic point matrices

 

[Jegergryte]

I have to admit, after reading more in the book, especially the gazetteer and about Safelster I have come to like the setting more and more. Although I have now joined a second project, creating yet another setting, albeit on a much smaller scale than my harp project and this is more generic, not tying it up to any system as of yet, I feel Glorantha offers at least aspects that I can use. I guess the issue, my issue, rises with how I was introduced to the setting in the book, all the good stuff was in the second half of it...

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Has anyone checked out the Land of the Samurai book? (I’m a biggy on samurai and Legend of the Five Rings).

It looks pretty good. It is fairly detailed, goes into the noble houses, has magic rules, covers deities in an interesting way and has a lot of probably authentic details. I don't know the period particularly but it looked fine to me.

Land of Samurai contains lots and lots of things that, had they been included in L5R wouuld have made it a much better setting. I liked L5R until the metaplot got in the way and wrecked the setting, but as I read LoS I kept coming across bits and thinking "now why wasn't that implemented in Rokugan..."

 

[Jegergryte]

the metaplot would be the one big issue I have with l5r too, other than that, wicked. Legend of the Burning Sands (or LoBS ) is coming out soon, august I think, so yay for that.

Now, RQ, seeing that I’m now starting to buy into the whole idea around Glorantha as a setting, I had one furhter question, which is more oriented around the system of RQ, but I think I have solved it already, but I would like to run it by here, just to be safe.

Weapon skills, are, basically, basic skill, all weapons are included in either the Basic Close Combat or Basic Ranged skills. Any increase in these would be in a particular weapon sub-category; for example Bow or 1H Axe, not in particular weapons, like longsword, broad sword, or long bow or short bow, correct? So learning a new weapon skill is basically to pick up a new weapon and start to use it with for example the BCC skill until improvement rolls are awarded and some time is spent practising? yes?

 

[soltakss]

Weapon skills, are, basically, basic skill, all weapons are included in either the Basic Close Combat or Basic Ranged skills. Any increase in these would be in a particular weapon sub-category; for example Bow or 1H Axe, not in particular weapons, like longsword, broad sword, or long bow or short bow, correct? So learning a new weapon skill is basically to pick up a new weapon and start to use it with for example the BCC skill until improvement rolls are awarded and some time is spent practising? yes?

Yes, that's how I would do it.