Magic query

[Balbinus]

Hi there,

Quick query re magic.

In Runequest traditionally, everyone had magic. It was one of the more unusual setting elements of Glorantha. Also, success chances were very high (95%+ IIRC).

In MRQ, my impression (I get the book later today) is that one must sacrifice permanent pow for magic, it is not ubiquitous in the setting. Also, starting success chances are quite low (often below 40%).

Is that correct? If so, will the Glorantha book have variant rules making magic more common and more reliable?

Also, what was the thinking behind the change out of interest?

Thanks

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hi there,

I really need to attend some other projects, but this is an easy one

Remember, right from the start, we said there was going to be more than one magic system for RuneQuest - indeed, it is not our intention to even have a 'standard' magic system, you should use what is most appropriate.

We did Rune Magic to start with because it links directly into thre themes of the game and it is the most common system that 'adventurers' are likely to come into contact with and use.

As for other Gloranthan beings, yes, there is magic to help the farmer raise crops, the smith to fashion metal, and so on - however, this is all pretty low grade stuff and while there is no reason for adventurers not to use it, it won't be of prime interest to them. They want to blow things up

Thus, we concentrated on what the players will be doing. We'll get round to covering all the other types of magic in due course but, as the saying goes, we had to start somewhere. . .

 

[WildHealer]

Coming from a Gloranthan 3A mindset I've been trying to understand the MRQ Rune Magic concepts. At its root I think it's a good system - tying magic in with runes - but I've found hurdles on some of the Runic associations, in particular with things like Skybolt (Chaos Rune), and also with what happens when a character joins a cult which decides half of his integrated runes are "incompatible" with his cult rune associations.

Treating the MRQ Rune Magic rules as "the way they do (basic) magic in 2A Glorantha", you actually come up with some interesting implications. First, given the Rampant God-Learnery & Weird Dragon Magics flying around, you can actually imagine people thinking it's a cool idea to integrate the Chaos Rune 'cos you get all this cheap and powerful magic - only to have the Great Doom catch up with them a century or two later. Looking through the spell lists, it does appear to be the GL and EWF-style spells (Dragon Breath, etc) that are the extra-powerful ones, over and above good ole Disruption and Bladesharp. People are just much more gung-ho about exploiting the power of the Runes, regardless of cultic or moral associations - which is definitely in keeping with what we already know about the Terrible Hubris of these guys...

Of course, when you get into 3A Glorantha, the whole GL / EWF thing has been effectively expunged from the collective consciousness, and even *thinking* about integrating a Chaos Rune will get you strung up for being a dirty heretic.

The only problem with my explanation is that I've shot myself in the foot - my campaign in Gloranthan 3A, so I'm left with wondering what the Rune Magic Rules would look like for the traditional Apple Lane campaign...

Cheers,

Sarah

 

[Urox]

As for other Gloranthan beings, yes, there is magic to help the farmer raise crops, the smith to fashion metal, and so on - however, this is all pretty low grade stuff and while there is no reason for adventurers not to use it, it won't be of prime interest to them.

The was a really great old-school article on RQ Common magic that talked about how common people used it. If you're a farmer, you know Ploughsharp, not Bladesharp (whch also came in handy when the militia was called up).

We'll get round to covering all the other types of magic in due course but, as the saying goes, we had to start somewhere. . .

Weak sauce...

 

[mthomason]

I think the seperation of "RuneQuest Core Rules" and "Glorantha" makes the omission of all those various kinds of magic almost a necessity. The core rulebook needs to cover everything that's "core" to all the various game worlds that could potentally be spawned from it, otherwise you'll have non-Glorantha players in here complaining that they had to pay for an extra sixty pages of magic rules they don't want.

Unfortunately, it's another case of not being able to please everyone - whichever way it's done someone would have preferred it done a different way. As a Glorantha newbie, I'm quite happy with a rulebook that lets me pick up on how the RQ game actually works before heading into setting-specific details. Mongoose's plan looks to revolve around the idea of RQ being used for many other projects, which has me excited as it's presenting a ruleset I'm mostly familiar with from CoC which I can now use in pretty much anything I want, and can expect to see a lot of competitive third-party support for.

The downside is that this approach doesn't give the Glorantha vets the nice 320-page hardback with rules and setting in one volume they would have liked, and as someone who likes those types of books themselves I can only feel sympathy for those who feel this is "missing" , however I understand fully and support the reasons for why it has been done the way it has.

 

[Quire]

Weak sauce...

Damn, but you really are rude.

 

[Rurik]

Weak sauce...

Damn, but you really are rude.

Storm God. What do you expect?

 

[Quire]

Storm God. What do you expect?

I guess this is always the problem when they get home from fighting Chaos. :lol: