New Runequest - what to expect

[Neo]

I was never a huge fan of the Gloranthan world in a lot of ways it always felt like a cheap homage to the Warhammer world in a lot of ways.

Mark, sorry mate, I usually wouldn't, but I HAVE to take that bait. SERIOUSLY, soz!

Sorry, but that really is a VERY ignorant viewpoint on a setting that has been in continual development since 1966! WFRP was developed...hmmm, a LITTLE while after that!

No offense meant mate. And if you've played 'pretty much every incarnation of RQ over the years' WHY did you miss which came first?

- Q

As i've pointed out matey our experiences were with the WH world first, when we encountered Glornatha irrespective of the fact it may well have significantly predated it, the comparison in our eyes was made in the order we encountered them.. ergo glorantha (and most of GW's rune quest edition for that matter) was compared to the already familiar Old World and seen as being a bit of a cheesey reworking. Unfair, incorrect maybe, im merely explainign how our opinion was made and why Glorantha isnt popular with my group as a result.

 

[Neo]

May I ask you if the new game has a tactical combat system with squares or hexes? (like WFRP2 or d20)

not actually at my own Pc at the moment so dont have the files available to confirm, but if memory serves me right it doesnt use either, movement is measured in metres and more free form, i'd have to check to be absolutely certain though. Ill re-check for you tommorrow when I get home.

I am also looking forward for MRQ covering new world settings. (especially Conan) Regarding Warhammer, dont forget that Glorantha is older than the warhammer world. And its...cheap maybe in some ways. In other ways its much more complex. Of course both worlds have the idea of chaos (warhammer even more) which comes from Moorcocks books.

Heh I wasnt actually having a dig at it, and our view point can in large part be blamed on GW's incarnation, which they very much tried to re-make in thier own Warhammer'esque image, but it did nevertheless lead us to the view of glorantha being little more than an "incarnation" in many ways of all things warhammery.. which put us off it as a setting, sorry somefolks have taken umbrage to that, and mongooses take on Glorantha may well correct that opinion we have, but so far the gloranthan material is the only manuscripts available to date we have not been involved in playtesting with regard to RQ. Im open minded though im willing to take another look, if only to be proven wrong

 

[RMS]

Heh I wasnt actually having a dig at it, and our view point can in large part be blamed on GW's incarnation, which they very much tried to re-make in thier own Warhammer'esque image, but it did nevertheless lead us to the view of glorantha being little more than an "incarnation" in many ways of all things warhammery.. which put us off it as a setting, sorry somefolks have taken umbrage to that, and mongooses take on Glorantha may well correct that opinion we have, but so far the gloranthan material is the only manuscripts available to date we have not been involved in playtesting with regard to RQ. Im open minded though im willing to take another look, if only to be proven wrong

Definitely take a look at the Glorantha stuff when you get a chance. There's very little resemblence between the two worlds. Even the idea of chaos is completely different. Glorantha has a lot (too much at times) of depth to it, in myths, gods, societies, etc. that I haven't seen in another RPG world. (There are a few other classic worlds out there that probably rival it, but they never received as much support as Glorantha so are harder to track down.) WH is fine and isn't bad at all, but it's pretty 2D next to the 3D richness of Glorantha. I do like the grimness of WH however!

 

[RMS]

That doesn't follow. How is MRQ a competing product with HQ[?]

Well, it competes for the best Gloranthan authors, and theoretically could compete for gamers with limited budgets.

I suppose there's some truth to that. OTOH, very few of these guys are making any kind of serious living off writing RPGs, so maybe more work to go around is good overall.

What I am afraid will happen is that either the Gloranthan material will dry up if a dispute arises between Issaries and Mongoose, or even worse, all of Mongoose's source material gets 'Gregged.'

I'm strangely optomistic that Greg learned his lesson the last time around when AH/Chaosium drove RQIII into the ground. Also, by all accounts he's really opened up to more diverse input into the world over the years, so is less likely to throw things out.

If it isn't appearant, I am clearly in the RQ/Glorantha court. I am mostly indifferent to Mongoose supporting other game settings in MRQ (other than the historical fact that this was unsuccessful for RQ3).

It's very apparent that you're in the RQ court. I didn't know about your indifference to other worlds. I'm pretty much there too. If Mongoose has a steady stream of publications for various worlds out, I'll have to pick-n-choose what I actually buy and Glorantha will be first.

But, what I am concerned about is MRQ/Glorantha being compromised to make it a generic d100 system.

I'm optimistic about this too. All the indicators so far are that things have changed but that it's Glorantha first and foremost that will be supported. We'll have to see how it goes, but I'm expecting at least an initial strong support for the world. Sales figures will undoubtably drive where things go from there.

Here is a question -- is d100 five times better or five times worse than d20? :twisted:

You know I've never purchases a single d20 thing. I actually don't think the resolution system is half bad. If they'd just throw out the clunk: levels, classes, bland magic system, and feats (not to mention things like alignments) I'd enjoy the system fine enough.

 

[RMS]

I'd agree that HQ has tended to equalize combat cult's magic. (Aside: most cults in HQ don't get combat magic. Only the combat oriented cults do, but I assume that's what you meant.)

No, I meant most cults. Practially every cult in HQ has one or more subcults that give a combat affinity. If you look through the Storm Tribe book, every god gives some sort of combat ability, including Chalana Arroy (at least she just gets defensive magic).

I understand you now. I was thinking of 'cults' as being each individual subcult, so there are 20+ 'cults' dedicated to Orlanth, less than half of which have any combat magic. Lhankor Mhy and Issaries (very popular PC deities - much more than Humakt in my experience) both have only a subcult or two with any combat magic. I am glad they brought forward the militant subcult of Lhankor Mhy from RQIII. I had a player with a very Indian Jones type Lhankor Mhy running around the Rubble, Wastes, and Prax collecting artificacts for study for years: great adventure driving character.

That is what I don't like about the "sameness" of the HQ rules. In RQ there were rules about not stepping on a God's amjor field of expertise. THe example given was that since Humakt was the preeminent Death God in the area, no one else should get Sever Spirit as a resuaable spell.

I understand. I'd just point out again that this is context specific. The affinities are a wash IMO since they can only augment other skills. (OK, technically you can improvise from them, but it's pretty pointless to do so.) The individual feats however do change things. Humakti are much more likely to kill someone in battle from a feat, while an Uroxi's feats are mostly limited to fighting Chaos, and an Orlanthi's feats will either deal with magical attacks (Thunderous Aspect) or only worked against a certain specific foe of Orlanth from myth, etc. I do agree with you on the surface though. When I first read the HW/HQ book, I thought the same thing and it certainly can be run that way.

Btw, IMO Sever Spirit isn't the best example here. Humakt is the only one who gets True Sword and that's a much more powerful spell IMO. Drop it on a Bastard Sword or a Great Sword and hack through people like they're wheat. That Humakit PC I mentioned before ended up on the very powerful end and towards the end of his playing time was routinely doing damage in the 35-45 range with all his magic up.

Now it's more about situation and application than in RQ. I don't know that HQ Humakti are any more grim or tough talking than in RQ. They sound pretty much identical to the long RQIII writeup. Humakt has always been a much grimer (or grimmer?) god outside of Dragon Pass than he is there. Throughout Esrolia and in the Kingdom of War he's a nastier death god than the lovable? Heortling reconciled brother of Orlanth, where he's more of a strange storm god.

That goes a long way to explaining our differening viewpoints. Generally, game mechanics tend to fade into the background until situations crops up where they are needed to resolve something important. Combat, by it's nature, tends to be more deadly than most other activities, so the rules get used a bit more. With Humakti being professional warriors, they tend to get into more fights than most.

You lost me here. What's explaining our different viewpoints? I agree about mechanics being the background until they're important. However, I do think that in HQ any conflict is important and is supported by the mechanics. In my experience, the game does drive people to play less combat intensive characters since any conflict is handled the same. In fact, I find that my players tend to naturally have more conflicts amongst themselves with it, and the conflicts are more personality and relationship driven than anything else. They're different tools for different types of play, and I choose which one I use based on the players I'm working with. My current group is into Indie-Forge type games and so I run HQ with them, when it's my turn to run. In my older groups, they're of the mindset that RQIII is nearly perfect so why mess with it, and I run it with them.

None of the previews reads anything like HQ and they all read like close relative of old RQ. I'm sure all of us old timers will have nits to pick on the new RQ, but I'm also certain that it'll be very recognizable as RQ.

None of the previes actually gives away much of anything about how the game works. We've see stats, skills, hit location, weapon, armor, and spells, but nothing that really tells how they are used. WE all all asuming that it is the same old system with a few changes, but we don't really know yet.

They've given away plenty to me. The game is still d100 based (which I really could care less about personally). The same seven stats exist, and thankfully they've returned CHA and ditched the stupid APP stat. Hopefully, CHA is as important as it was in early RQ. I never understood that change. Combat looks to run much the same as before, but with some very sensible tactical options offered: the -40% to bypass armor is a very good idea and much more "real world correct" than anything else I've seen done. The magic system seems sensible, but enough different that I need to see it in play.

 

[atgxtg]

Btw, IMO Sever Spirit isn't the best example here. Humakt is the only one who gets True Sword and that's a much more powerful spell IMO. Drop it on a Bastard Sword or a Great Sword and hack through people like they're wheat. That Humakit PC I mentioned before ended up on the very powerful end and towards the end of his playing time was routinely doing damage in the 35-45 range with all his magic up.

Can't agree with you there. Truesword only doubles a weapon's damage (I personally prefered the orignal version that capped at max damage, but RQ3 uppowered everything else, so TS needed a boost). Plus there are compatiblity issues with some spells. There is battle magic like Fireblade and Bladesharp that are a lot better.

Sever Spirit on the other hand was a great spell for killing practically anyone or anything. Very useful when you are running up against things that you don't want to get within reach of. THis is important for a group that is melee combat oriented, like Humakti.

You lost me here. What's explaining our different viewpoints? I agree about mechanics being the background until they're important. However, I do think that in HQ any conflict is important and is supported by the mechanics. In my experience, the game does drive people to play less combat intensive characters since any conflict is handled the same. In fact, I find that my players tend to naturally have more conflicts amongst themselves with it, and the conflicts are more personality and relationship driven than anything else. They're different tools for different types of play, and I choose which one I use based on the players I'm working with. My current group is into Indie-Forge type games and so I run HQ with them, when it's my turn to run. In my older groups, they're of the mindset that RQIII is nearly perfect so why mess with it, and I run it with them.

Let me see if I can explain. In most contested situations, the result of losing isn't fatal-that is no one will loose thier character. There are consequences, but generally no one gets killed for losing the singing competion. Combat, on the other hand, generally involves situations that are commonly fatal or at least phsycial injury. A couple of people whacking other with shap objects is inheriently dangerous, and has a certain element of risk.

Asa result players (and GMs) tend to put more detail into the combat than elsewhere, since the stakes tend to be higher. Losing the singling contest and you get dropped from Herotling Idol [/i]. Lose the fight and you might end up as lunch for the troll.

They've given away plenty to me. The game is still d100 based (which I really could care less about personally). The same seven stats exist, and thankfully they've returned CHA and ditched the stupid APP stat. Hopefully, CHA is as important as it was in early RQ. I never understood that change. Combat looks to run much the same as before, but with some very sensible tactical options offered: the -40% to bypass armor is a very good idea and much more "real world correct" than anything else I've seen done. The magic system seems sensible, but enough different that I need to see it in play.

Not much info really.
Lost of games use D100, and in different ways.
Likewise most RPGs have about the same stats, only SIZ and POW are uncommon, STR, DEX, CON, INT & CHA have seen a lot of life in other RPGs, inclduing D&D.
THe -40% to bypass armor is a terrible idea. It will make the over 100% crowd impossible to deal with. Two Rune LOrds are just going to chop past each other's defenses. Better a half skill percentage roll.

 

[atgxtg]

How can a setting that was created in the 60s be a cheap homage to a setting that wasn't created until the 80s?

Or are you one of those people who think the Kinks ripped off You Really Got Me from Van Halen?

I'd play nice If I were you, you may not share my opinion but because you do not doesnt make me any less entitled to it.

I am playing nice. I just pointed out another example of what you were doing. Yes you are entitiled toy your opinion, but when that opinion is based upon an impossiblity that does make that opinion less valid.

I didnt encounter glorantha in the 60's as the is before my time Im a 70's child im afraid, though an earlier version of the game was owned by me some years back, by and large our first significant regular experiences with RQ were with GW's version. though we later switched to a much preferred Avalon Hill edition.

What order you and your group encountered each setting has no bearing on which one was created first. Claiming that one felt like a cheap homage to a setting written decades later is rediculous. It something that is going to make a lot of people take notice and question it. You have to expect people to ask how you could have come up with that point of view.

Nothing personal in this. You can't drop a line like that, espeically among Gloranthan gamers and not have it challenged. If you had said that you thought the Warhammer setting was similar to Glorantha, but better, you would probably find a lot of people who disagree with you, but that is a matter of opinion.

A claim that one game is a homage to another that followed it, is not a matter of opinion, just a gap in information.

Lot's of people didn't like Glorantha. It was probably one of the main reasons why D&Ders didn't like RQ. It was just too different from the Tolkien-eqse ripoffs that comprised the bulk of the RPG setting of the early days of gaming.

 

[RMS]

Can't agree with you there. Truesword only doubles a weapon's damage (I personally prefered the orignal version that capped at max damage, but RQ3 uppowered everything else, so TS needed a boost). Plus there are compatiblity issues with some spells. There is battle magic like Fireblade and Bladesharp that are a lot better.

You can cast Bladesharp and Truesword on the same weapon, but not Fireblade with either of them...but Humakti don't have access to Fireblade do they? That doubling of damage is huge. It pretty much guarantees a knockback on anything you hit, so basically no one ever gets to swing back at the Humakti. They either get knocked back into something, knocked off their feet, or hacked into two or more bits. Severe Spirit is powerful and has it's uses, true.

This probably depends one what you're used to dealing with. With a big physically tough creature, that Severe Spirit is nasty. With another powerful sapient creature, they're going to have magic resistence and probably a high enough POW to make Severe Spirit a 50/50 thing at most. OTOH, anything that isn't huge doesn't want to tangle with a Humakti in melee. My character always wanted to reduce battles to melee, where all of his magic helped and was overpowering against the opposition. My fear for him was missle combat where he couldn't compete very well, and needed to close the distance.

Funny how this conversation has gone...

Let me see if I can explain. In most contested situations, the result of losing isn't fatal-that is no one will loose thier character. There are consequences, but generally no one gets killed for losing the singing competion. Combat, on the other hand, generally involves situations that are commonly fatal or at least phsycial injury. A couple of people whacking other with shap objects is inheriently dangerous, and has a certain element of risk.

Asa result players (and GMs) tend to put more detail into the combat than elsewhere, since the stakes tend to be higher. Losing the singling contest and you get dropped from Herotling Idol [/i]. Lose the fight and you might end up as lunch for the troll.

True. That's definitely the classic RPG way of handling things, and HQ definitely has tried to move away from the classic RPG model. It does a good job of that IMO, but as a consequence it doesn't support classic style gaming as well as many other games. Like I said before, I enjoy either way and can happily move between the camps.

Not much info really.

Enough to strongly suggest that it will look and work like another edition of RQ, rather than be a system that is RQ in name only. That was a huge fear around here at one point. It may not be as good of game to you or I as RQII or RQIII, but I'll bet that you won't claim it's diverged that far from them either.

THe -40% to bypass armor is a terrible idea. It will make the over 100% crowd impossible to deal with. Two Rune LOrds are just going to chop past each other's defenses. Better a half skill percentage roll.

You're picking nits now. The point was that having a standard "called shot" to ignore armor that anyone can try is a great idea. Since neither of us have played it yet, neither of us can really comment on whether it should be -25%, -40%, 1/2%, etc. This is especially true for the ancient style setting/feel for RQ where there are significant openings in armor to exploit.

Two Rune Lords will still presumably have high defenses to go along with their high attacks. I guess I don't see the problem with two highly skilled swordsmen attempting, with some success, to get past the armor of each other. FWIW, the difference in -40% and 1/2% for someone with a 90-100% skill (typical Rune Lord) is pretty small.

 

[Lord Twig]

THe -40% to bypass armor is a terrible idea. It will make the over 100% crowd impossible to deal with. Two Rune LOrds are just going to chop past each other's defenses. Better a half skill percentage roll.

You're picking nits now. The point was that having a standard "called shot" to ignore armor that anyone can try is a great idea. Since neither of us have played it yet, neither of us can really comment on whether it should be -25%, -40%, 1/2%, etc. This is especially true for the ancient style setting/feel for RQ where there are significant openings in armor to exploit.

Two Rune Lords will still presumably have high defenses to go along with their high attacks. I guess I don't see the problem with two highly skilled swordsmen attempting, with some success, to get past the armor of each other. FWIW, the difference in -40% and 1/2% for someone with a 90-100% skill (typical Rune Lord) is pretty small.

I would agree that just adding the -40% to bypass armor would be a horrible idea if it was just dropped into RQIII. Once you get a ways over 100% everyone would be doing it all the time. Which would be stupid and not much fun (IMO).

Hopefully there will be similar things for Parry and Dodge in MRQ where you can take a penalty to perhaps negate called shots and such. Hopefully there is something like that to balance things. So in that sense you can't tell from the previews whether it is good or not. We don't see the whole picture.

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

You know I've never purchases a single d20 thing. I actually don't think the resolution system is half bad.

The resolution system is pretty damn excellent!

About the only good thing going for d20, which is a real shame. I'd love to port it over to RQ (any variant) as a house rule, but I don't think I'd be let away with it!!!

Would work best in RQ2 with it's multiples of 5, but there's precedent for RQ3 and MRQ in Bushido, which used a similar free precentile skill score, then derived a Base Chance of Success (BCS) by dividing by 5. Just stick DCs and rollover on top of that and you have one very good resolution system that's capable of handling a lot of situations in a flexible manner.[/quote]

 

[Mikko Leho]

I would agree that just adding the -40% to bypass armor would be a horrible idea if it was just dropped into RQIII. Once you get a ways over 100% everyone would be doing it all the time. Which would be stupid and not much fun (IMO).

What I heard from a fencing instructor is that in real world one would always want to get past armour. He kept adverticing how in his classes students would be teached how to get past period armour. While I can't say whether -40% is too little or too much, a warrior skilled enough would always take the option to go past armour.

 

[Ravage]

THe -40% to bypass armor is a terrible idea. It will make the over 100% crowd impossible to deal with. Two Rune LOrds are just going to chop past each other's defenses. Better a half skill percentage roll.

quote]

Cummon folks.... We're hoping for RQ4 here... -40%? thats just plain bland. Half your chance - Thats equally rough.

In true RQ3 fashion i'd say:

Armour Points X no. of locations protected

 

[Enpeze]

I would agree that just adding the -40% to bypass armor would be a horrible idea if it was just dropped into RQIII. Once you get a ways over 100% everyone would be doing it all the time. Which would be stupid and not much fun (IMO).

Why? A fighter with 100%+ is on the highest end of the combat chain. he should be a terrible foe. At least in my games. 100%+ is not easy to reach in a normal game, except the players have very much luck or a forgiving GM. I remember just one player in my games who reached such a high value due to his survival instict and some luck. And this in 2 decades!

A fighter with such tremendous values should have the abilty to bypass armor with a 60% chance. And dont forget the average enemy has the abilty to parry with 40-50% too.

So I am fine with -40% to bypass armor. It suits perfectly to the playing style of our group.

 

[Neo]

What order you and your group encountered each setting has no bearing on which one was created first. Claiming that one felt like a cheap homage to a setting written decades later is rediculous. It something that is going to make a lot of people take notice and question it. You have to expect people to ask how you could have come up with that point of view.

Im afraid I'd have to disagree with you, the order we encountered them is VERY much the point as it "obviously" determined the order in which our opinions were formed..im sorry you fail to see this.

As i've explained here and on the other thread, we first regularly encountered RQ via GW's incarnation and they very much tried to remake it visually and flavourwise in thier own warhammery image.. and as we already had Warhammer and were happy with it another seemingly watered down version of many of the same ideas. you are also blatantly overlooking the fact that although Glorantha may well have been written in the 60's when we first saw it it was being published in the 80's (i think cant recall as dont have the books anymore) under GW's banner.. and it was definitely published albeit not originally written, conceptulaised or whatever.. in that edition "AFTER" warhammer. Ergo as far as we were concerned at the time it came after.. does this make it clearer?

either way as I've also said elsewhere as a result it put us off we had a warhammer world and werent at the time looking for another with very similar ideas.. but im not close minded and my group will play whatever I put in front of them, and im happy to take another look at Glorantha if only to disprove our original opinion of the world.

 

[atgxtg]

I would agree that just adding the -40% to bypass armor would be a horrible idea if it was just dropped into RQIII. Once you get a ways over 100% everyone would be doing it all the time. Which would be stupid and not much fun (IMO).

What I heard from a fencing instructor is that in real world one would always want to get past armour. He kept adverticing how in his classes students would be teached how to get past period armour. While I can't say whether -40% is too little or too much, a warrior skilled enough would always take the option to go past armour.

WANT to yes. Be able to do so, no. One always wants to get past the other defenses too, but a -40% to get past a parry would be a bad idea too.

However, doing this is much easier for fencing weapons than with aneicent and medieval weapons.

 

[andakitty]

Your perception doesn't alter the fact that RQ was created first. Don't be silly. You sound like a kid who read R. Jordan first and believes he is the 'first' writer of fantasy epics. Your point of view is just that, YOUR point of view. It negates reality in no way whatsoever. Nor does it matter.

 

[Lord Twig]

I would agree that you would always want to ignore armor if you can. What I am saying is that it wouldn't be very much fun if armor was just always ignored. At that point it would stop mattering what type of armor you were wearing, just so long as you had enough armor that your opponent would take a -40% to his skill. Everyone would be running around in the RQ equivalent of the Mithral Chainshirt.

Also, getting over 100% is not that hard in a combat focused game. If you played every week for a few months everyone’s primary weapon will be getting close to 100%, if not over.

 

[atgxtg]

I would agree that just adding the -40% to bypass armor would be a horrible idea if it was just dropped into RQIII. Once you get a ways over 100% everyone would be doing it all the time. Which would be stupid and not much fun (IMO).

Why? A fighter with 100%+ is on the highest end of the combat chain. he should be a terrible foe. At least in my games. 100%+ is not easy to reach in a normal game, except the players have very much luck or a forgiving GM. I remember just one player in my games who reached such a high value due to his survival instict and some luck. And this in 2 decades!

A fighter with such tremendous values should have the abilty to bypass armor with a 60% chance. And dont forget the average enemy has the abilty to parry with 40-50% too.

So I am fine with -40% to bypass armor. It suits perfectly to the playing style of our group.

Necuase you are going to end up with RUne Lords taking thier armor off. If will also mean that too many people are going to be doing that whenever they see an armored foe. I'd certainly do it with missile weapons.

It will make the game far more lethal than it is already.

 

[andakitty]

I have used a game system that is percentile and uses a similar -40% modifier to hit a specific location. It works well, but I should add that the chance to hit rarely excceds 100% in that particular system.

It would seem to depend on whatever the basic resolution sytem of MRQ winds up looking like. In other words there is probably no point in making a judgement before we see the entire ruleset. The -40% can work, but will it work in MRQ? Tune in next month...

 

[andakitty]

atgxtg, In play I have found that it usually doesn't get used with lighter armor...the PCs tend to want to do as much damage as possible as quickly as possible unless they can't get through at all. Did you notice you could use it one of two different ways? To hit a specific location, or to bypass armor anywhere they do hit? This suggests another layer of rules that we don't know about, that it will be useful whether the target is armored or not. And I bet there is more to it. I wonder if it is a cap on the maximum percntiles that can be used on a single attack? Whatever, I think we can only see part of the picture. Too soon to judge.