Rune Magic - Payable Fixes

[Ssendam]

Hi Dudes and Dudettes

... further to a question I asked in another thread about Rune Magic being "Broken" I would like to ask another question ...

How do you play Rune Magic, straight out of the book or with house rules (and why)? (20 marks)

I never considered that it was "broken" but I have never liked the way the book dealt with it. In my campaign Runes exist but they give a bonus to spell casting, you don't actually need one to learn or cast Rune Magic.

Stay Frosty

 

[Denalor]

Actually I find that "Guilds, Factions and Cults" finally solved the issue about rune magic.
The only thing you need to houserule now is whether the Runecasting skill must be learned separately (i.e. spending 2 Improvement Rolls) or not.
Also what you intend to do with runic powers and physical runes in general.

 

[Ssendam]

I don't have GFC so I'm not clear about the changes although people have hinted at them in threads, (thanks Deleriad).

It sounds like the changes are similar to what I play anyway, (except that Runes are now redundant).

 

[Deleriad]

There wasn't anything particularly broken about Rune Magic, it just hadn't been fitted together with rune cults properly.

The only change that GFC has made to rune magic is the option to cast rune spells through the runecasting skill without needing a physical rune.

There are two really basic characterisations of magic. In one characterisation, mortals are not inherently magical therefore they must have access to an enabler in order to cast magic. In RQ the enabler for rune magic was a physical rune. GFC says that organisations such as cults provide an enabling link for rune magic as well as divine magic.

In my Glorantha, I work on the basis that mortals are born with links to certain runes depending on their culture, gender and family background plus a certain amount of randomness. Thus it is possible to cast rune magic for the runes you are linked to purely through the runecasting skill without need for any other enabler such as a rune or even joining a cult.

Runecasting becomes an advanced skill, just like every other advanced skill and is learned and developed the same way.

 

[Halfbat]

I did try it out of the box, but it soon showed itself to be too limiting. I can understand why the Runes were linked, but skill development and the tying of too few spells to each Rune became a real frustration.

Which is why I switched over the Petty-Magick and Cultist casting through their Lore(Specific Theology) skill quite early on. And developed the multi-version spells as an alternate for casting multiple spells from a single Rune.

Runecasting (e.g., almost back to RQ2 but not quite) as a global skill was something I wanted to keep clear of.