Rune magic in Glorantha

[Exubae]

Do you mean how new ones are invented, or how they are learned?

Primarly how new spells are invented

Invention is via HeroQuesting, I guess. Learning is via spell-spirits, summoned-up by cult priests. And this gives us a solution to another problem...

Not sure if heroquesting is the correct method of 'inventing' all you can really do is re-enact Myth.
Spell spirits etc have become the domain of Shaman - well at least as far as I've read in the CoG2, so not sure how summoning ties into divine cults anymore.
Still not happy with the game logic behind Rune Magic, its a nice idea but its got no logical grounding...

 

[Banned Beetle]

HeroWars was Stafford's biggest gregging ever.

Well seeing as it was developed from Greg's writing whereas RQ was shoehorned on to Greg's writing your sense of history is somewhat awry.

Greg destroyed the old RuneQuest by forbidding Chaosium to produce more Gloranthan material, just to bring people over to his weird new system. The old system was excellent. HeroQuest on the other hand have no intuitive feel to it whatsoever. Greg startet up a nice good world, but making rpg systems not something he's very skilled at.

I accept it may not be a style that suits you, and one of the positives to Mongoose releasing RQ is that there is a Gloranthan system of a different ilk, but to call it 'useless' just implies that your posts are flame bait.

It's certainly useless to me. You don't bite?

Personally I do not believe RQ fans should accept bad product, out of gratitude that RQ is in print.

That's why we never complaining about the rules in this forum? This system is however close enough to the old one to be houseruled into something similar, allowing the use of new published scenarios and supplements, something which have been long awaited.

Trifletraxor.

 

[Rurik]

Well this is an RQ board so I don't really want to get into a debate about HQ. However, we have played it every week for about 5 years without any house ruling as have many others, so your description of it as useless is perverse.

Well, he (Banned Beetle) was referring to HeroWars, and you to HQ, and the two are very different in regards of playability 'out of the box'.

As much as I love my HW Glorantha and Thunder Rebels, the rules were a mess. Perhaps MRQ2 will be to MRQ what HQ was to HW.

And the concept behind the Rune Magic system is to my understanding about the only part of Steve Perrins input to MRQ that remains - so even that is by one of the original authors of the RQ system. And really, Rune Magic in MRQ is not half as messed up as Divine Magic is (Dedicated POW has become the most messed up rule on my MRQ list of messed up rules - I think Divine Magicians have really gotten the shaft)

I know Greg never felt RQ was the 'right' system for Glorantha, but it is the system that many, many players used when they came to love Glorantha. I never really took to HQ, and maybe some of that has to do with my HW experience. I have bought some of the books just for the Gloranthan material because it is still my favorite RPG setting.

But Greg chose to license his world to Mongoose along with the RQ name, and the end result is MRQ. Is it the best version of RQ in my opinion? No, but it works, and after all my bitching (and I've done a lot since the first previews) it has proven fun to play in practice.

 

[Voriof]

Spell spirits etc have become the domain of Shaman - well at least as far as I've read in the CoG2, so not sure how summoning ties into divine cults anymore.

I had written that creatures similar to spell spirits were found for Divine cults and taught cult rune spells but I do not know if that made it into print. Sorcery, of course, doesn't have these sorts of critters. Mostly.

Jeff

 

[Voriof]

Greg destroyed the old RuneQuest by forbidding Chaosium to produce more Gloranthan material, just to bring people over to his weird new system. The old system was excellent. HeroQuest on the other hand have no intuitive feel to it whatsoever. Greg startet up a nice good world, but making rpg systems not something he's very skilled at.

This statement is wrong on so many levels I don't know where to begin.

Jeff - extremely conscious of Rule Nine

 

[Rurik]

Greg startet up a nice good world, but making rpg systems not something he's very skilled at.

Pendragon?

 

[frogspawner]

I had written that creatures similar to spell spirits were found for Divine cults and taught cult rune spells but I do not know if that made it into print.

Oh, good grief. I'd only just got used to the RQ3 idea of spell-spirits, too!
But, even if they didn't make it into print, we can infer their existence - so long as the rules don't specifically rule them out...?

 

[Voriof]

I had written that creatures similar to spell spirits were found for Divine cults and taught cult rune spells but I do not know if that made it into print.

Oh, good grief. I'd only just got used to the RQ3 idea of spell-spirits, too!
But, even if they didn't make it into print, we can infer their existence - so long as the rules don't specifically rule them out...?

Sure. At least, I would. I happen to like the little buggers. And there's some rules for intergration of spirits, at least by the animist hsunchen types. Somewhere along the line, I've noted that there are divine and sorcery variants of spirits - essences and daimoines (yes, I know some folks hate those terms, and I feel their pain) - which serve similar functions.
But YGMV

Jeff

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Greg startet up a nice good world, but making rpg systems not something he's very skilled at.

Pendragon?

Yes, and Prince Valient. Unlike RPG systems that Greg published, but did not create - like RQ and HW/Q...

Greg destroyed the old RuneQuest by forbidding Chaosium to produce more Gloranthan material, just to bring people over to his weird new system.

I think you'll find the two things that prevented Chaosium publishing more Gloranthan material were (1) The potential legal ramifications with AH of producing anything for "Runequest" and (2) Chaosium's own lack of money following the "Mythos" disaster...

As much as I love my HW Glorantha and Thunder Rebels, the rules were a mess. Perhaps MRQ2 will be to MRQ what HQ was to HW.

We had an explanation, an apology and a huge improvement in subsequent volumes with HW - The first two are still missing, and the quality of the support volumes still seems patchy...

 

[weasel_fierce]

Of course, Heroquest was written by Robin Laws.

 

[Rurik]

Greg startet up a nice good world, but making rpg systems not something he's very skilled at.

Pendragon?

Yes, and Prince Valient. Unlike RPG systems that Greg published, but did not create - like RQ and HW/Q...

While I have never played or read Prince Valiant I consider Pendragon a pretty much perfect system. It is simple and elegant and there is nothing really to complain about. It is also an excellent balance between the gritty simulationist RQ/BRP and the more abstract storytelling HeroQuest system.

As much as I love my HW Glorantha and Thunder Rebels, the rules were a mess. Perhaps MRQ2 will be to MRQ what HQ was to HW.

We had an explanation, an apology and a huge improvement in subsequent volumes with HW - The first two are still missing, and the quality of the support volumes still seems patchy...

While I can live without the first two as long as we get the third. While Mongoose certainly can't claim poverty as the reason MRQ was rushed, they have (without openly admitting to problems) promised to take steps to improve the editing. An explanation and apology would be nice, but fixing the problems in the future is really what counts.

And really, 2 out of 3 of the Gloranthan releases are very good. The only thing holding back Cults is the editing job - and that really offends only existing Gloranthaphiles - I suspect someone new to the world will enjoy it very much. I find it a much more enjoyable read than RQ3's (very dry) Gods of Glorantha and once you cut out all the missing/mangled spells and other changes to the existing canon, there is really not that much to complain about.

 

[Jaldon Goldentooth]

Invention is via HeroQuesting, I guess.

Not sure if heroquesting is the correct method of 'inventing' all you can really do is re-enact Myth.

Correct: HeroQuesting is about re-enacting myth. But the point (or if you prefer, payoff) of the HeroQuest is to discover some new truth about the Myth. That new truth may be a new spell. So you don't as such invent a new spell but you discover an existing unknown spell.

 

[soltakss]

HeroWars was confusing, complicated and had lousy core rulebooks.
HeroQuest is a lot clearer, the rules hang together better and the books are a lot nicer.

I played HQ for a couple of years and enjoyed it, although it does suffer from multiple augments at the high end after a long period of play.

We are now playing RQ(3ish not RQM) in Prax and thoroughly enjoying it (well, I am at least and that's what counts).

I think I will always prefer RQ to HQ, but HQ is a pretty good system once you get rid of some of the fluff and needlessly complex rules.

Back to RQM ....

 

[Exubae]

Sure. At least, I would. I happen to like the little buggers. And there's some rules for intergration of spirits, at least by the animist hsunchen types. Somewhere along the line, I've noted that there are divine and sorcery variants of spirits - essences and daimoines (yes, I know some folks hate those terms, and I feel their pain) - which serve similar functions.

Remember reading last night a couple of lines in COG2 infering the possibility of Rune magic being provided by spirits... nothing explicitly for divine cultists though... no details of summning cult spirits/elements or what spirits are tied to what cults. Though most can be implied by Rune, I've a feeling the cults book would have been a lot more intuative if they weren't split in to two seperate volumes. Oh well... seems I'm grumbling again.

 

[soltakss]

I had written that creatures similar to spell spirits were found for Divine cults and taught cult rune spells but I do not know if that made it into print.

It's a shame it didn't. It would have at least provided an explanation of how Rune Spells are taught.

I liked the RQ2 Spell teaching (person to person) and the RQ3 Spell Spirits. Both are reasonable ideas and would work with RQM's Rune Magic.

Sure. At least, I would. I happen to like the little buggers. And there's some rules for intergration of spirits, at least by the animist hsunchen types. Somewhere along the line, I've noted that there are divine and sorcery variants of spirits - essences and daimoines (yes, I know some folks hate those terms, and I feel their pain) - which serve similar functions.

Ess*nces and D**moines - there's no need to use such foul language here!

I never liked the concepts, let alone the terms.

But, Spirits for cults, that's fine. 'Tis my birthday on 11th January, so I'll be getting Cults2 on the 12th. I'm looking forward to the animist stuff and hope to use it in my current campaign. Sorcery leaves me cold most of the time, but the schools might be interesting enough to include as opponents.

 

[simonh]

I think I will always prefer RQ to HQ, but HQ is a pretty good system once you get rid of some of the fluff and needlessly complex rules.

Which is apparently what QuestWorlds is about. It'll be interesting to see how the simplified QuestWorlds system, retro-fitted back into Glorantha, works as a cut-down HQ.

The fact is that the HW/HQ system is a prety radical rethink of how to write an RPG system, and it's taking everyone a while to build up some real experience with it and try out variations. As a futher refinement, and slightly different take on the system, QW will be a very interesting release.

 

[Exubae]

Which is apparently what QuestWorlds is about. It'll be interesting to see how the simplified QuestWorlds system, retro-fitted back into Glorantha, works as a cut-down HQ.

Theres not a lot to HQ other than bumping and opposed test, can you cut it down any further?

 

[soltakss]

Theres not a lot to HQ other than bumping and opposed test, can you cut it down any further?

Uh, yes!

HQ has the advantage that all resolutions use the same mechanic, then introduces several types of magic to confuse things. Do what Mythic Russia did and make everything feats within affinities, that'll save a whole lot of work. Forget about talents/charms/spells/grimoires/orderlies and the like. Forget about essences/daimones/spirits and call everything the same. Simplify skills/abilities. Never use rolled augments, always use automatic augments, in fact change automatic augments to augments and forget that rolled augments ever occured. And that's just the start.

But, this is a RQ Forum not a HQ one ....

 

[Banned Beetle]

HeroWars was confusing, complicated and had lousy core rulebooks.
HeroQuest is a lot clearer, the rules hang together better and the books are a lot nicer.

I only bought the HeroWars core rulebook and stayed away from HeroWars and HeroQuest rules afterwards, so my view is probably shaped a bit by that (and the lack of D100!).

Trif.

 

[Banned Beetle]

[I think you'll find the two things that prevented Chaosium publishing more Gloranthan material were (1) The potential legal ramifications with AH of producing anything for "Runequest" and (2) Chaosium's own lack of money following the "Mythos" disaster...

Seems like you're halfway right, he did pull the plug on RQ4 though, according to maranci:

In 1994 Greg Stafford decided that he didn't approve of the way RQ:AiG handled Glorantha, and the project was halted. At about the same time relations between Chaosium and Avalon Hill deteriorated to a new low. It was rumored that Chaosium had offered a substantial payment to Avalon Hill's President, Jack Dott, for the rights to the RuneQuest system and was refused. Chaosium and Avalon Hill broke off relations.

Chaosium pulled all rights to Glorantha at that point. Avalon Hill was allowed to sell the Gloranthan RuneQuest material that they had already printed, but were not allowed to print any more.

Unexpectly, and before anyone was ready for it, RuneQuest III was dead.

Trif.