Sorcery

[Dead Blue Clown]

Basically, it is, it seems to me, perfectly possible to balance GL magic in Glorantha.

It's not exactly vastly unbalanced. It reflects that God Learner sorcerers have a distinct edge over most other magic-users. The Dragonspeakers have that edge too, though in different ways because their magic functions differently. It reflects the setting, that the magic of the two imperial cultures was dangerously powerful and with a different flavour to other magic.

It's magic for groups who are playing God Learners or Dragon Mystics, which a lot of people probably will be. The imbalance will only show if it is something imbalanced in the setting. If weaker magic-users are hanging out with a God Learner sorcerer or a Dragon Mystic, well... Yeah, they're going to be a little outclassed. But that's the setting. I played the hell out of the rules as I was writing them, and I'm playing with them in the same campaign still.

Couldn't be happier with them, really. I'm dead proud of how well they reflect the imperiousness and superiority of the God Learners' and Dragonlords' ultimately flawed magic styles in play, as befits the setting.

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

I think the issue at hand is one of expectation. Runequest and Glorantha doesnt presume that everything is equal and balanced to a "can kill the same number of orcs each turn", in the way of, say, D&D. Its more concerned with "this is how the world works".

If you come with the expectation of D&D dungeon-kill setups, then things will look very askew.

Mein Gott, that's eloquently put. It's almost like reason, common sense, logic and setting knowledge actually play a part in all this.

Take a 'Got the Point' point and the promise that I'll buy you a beer if we meet in real life, WF.

 

[Rurik]

Can't we all just blame Fordy and move on?

 

[Quintus]

I think the issue at hand is one of expectation. Runequest and Glorantha doesnt presume that everything is equal and balanced to a "can kill the same number of orcs each turn", in the way of, say, D&D. Its more concerned with "this is how the world works".

If you come with the expectation of D&D dungeon-kill setups, then things will look very askew.

Mein Gott, that's eloquently put. It's almost like reason, common sense, logic and setting knowledge actually play a part in all this.

Take a 'Got the Point' point and the promise that I'll buy you a beer if we meet in real life, WF.

So ... HOW ... does the world work? Thats my fundamental question.

HOW do I create a Wizard, using the Sorcery Skill Rules and Spells?

HOW do Godlearners Manipulate Rune and Divine Spells?

Is that sooooo hard to understand...?

 

[richaje]

PS: I'm seeing these Godlearners as worse than the Nazies...is that what you intended?

OK, once a thread invokes Nazi Germany you know it is pretty much dead!

That being said, the God Learners (and the EWF) are tragic examples of hubris and pride - a common theme in Glorantha. The Jrusteli are given the Abiding Book - which gives them a tremendous insight into Glorantha. From that, the Jrusteli revolutionize the Malkioni religion and at some point they move from trying to better understand the Abiding Book to using the insights they have gained to remake Glorantha. Power, greed, ambition, impatience and many other vices lead to the God Learners doing truly awful and insane things - which Glorantha rebels against.

The same sort of thing happens with the EWF. Orlanthi priests conclude that they need to rule the Orlanthlands around Kerofin - since the kings do nothing but fight amongst themselves. They rule Kerofinela with a ring of priests - and one of the priests shows that Orlanth is a Dragon. The priests allow a dragon on their ring and then the ring becomes dominated by draconic priests. Their magic is great - they have tremendous insights into Glorantha and then they decide to remake Glorantha using those insights. Once again, power, greed, ambition, impatience and many other vices lead the EWF to do truly awful and insane things. And then Alakoring shows them that Orlanth is not a dragon - he is the Dragonkiller and that Orlanth's Kings rule His Priests. And the DH eliminate the Golden Dragon. And the Carmanians keep attacking year after year. And then the dragons rebel against the EWF.

That's the big themes of the Second Age - a great time for adventurers. If you go the path of the God Learners or the EWF, you might start out rocking, but you will find that pretty soon you are swimming upstream!

Jeff

 

[Deleriad]

I think the issue at hand is one of expectation. Runequest and Glorantha doesnt presume that everything is equal and balanced to a "can kill the same number of orcs each turn", in the way of, say, D&D. Its more concerned with "this is how the world works".

If you come with the expectation of D&D dungeon-kill setups, then things will look very askew.

This is a perfectly good point to one extent. RQ has never tried to balance in the D&D style (heck, it hasn't been developed since the mid-80s) but for its time it was quite balanced. Anyone could be killed by a spear in the back. Even the most powerful characters were fairly fragile.

That said, if you want to run a campaign where pound for pound one kind of character outclassed others then you have to prepare for it. You can take a "troupe" approach where each player has multiple characters of different power levels or you have all characters from the same background so no player is overshadowed or you use the uber characters as NPCs only. What you don't want to do is to run a campaign where 2 players bust their spherical objects in order to get Bladesharp 4 each while the GL supersorceror in the same party can happily cast Bladesharp 8 for half a day at minimal effort.

 

[Quintus]

Good point. And exactly what happens. No avoiding it. Are you, or do you think you can tell a player NOT to learn a Bladesharp spell, when the book of Magic sais they can? Sure, you can say NO, but to what are you going to say yes? Basic Sorcery. OK. But what happens when I say:

"Ohh, the sorcerer with those Orcs cast a Baldesharp at Magnitude 8 on all their weapons. He had 15 POW, so he cast it on all 3 Orcs that are his guard...did that not work out for you guys?"...hello..guys..please come back. I still wana play....hellooooooo

Point is: They have access to it. They can do this. I dont and wont nee to use that kind of power. BUT, what dictates in your world, that EVERT monster beginnig players encounter are at their level, and so is every NPC. What if they piss off the worng guy? Not play him to his ability? Comon...

The gist is: its unplayable, this age. And if you dont play it with the published rules, why publish them? And if you do, why pull strings? They have hero points after all...right?

Q...

PS: Its Broken...it dont work. Fix it...

 

[weasel_fierce]

Good point. And exactly what happens. No avoiding it. Are you, or do you think you can tell a player NOT to learn a Bladesharp spell, when the book of Magic sais they can? Sure, you can say NO, but to what are you going to say yes? Basic Sorcery. OK. But what happens when I say:

If your campaign setup involves letting someone play a god learner sorcerer, then yeah, he can learn the spell. As the GM you've already made the decisions on what type of campaign you will run, and the consequences of different character types.

Point is: They have access to it. They can do this. I dont and wont nee to use that kind of power. BUT, what dictates in your world, that EVERT monster beginnig players encounter are at their level, and so is every NPC. What if they piss off the worng guy? Not play him to his ability?

Nothing. If you piss off a guy who is far more powerfull than you, you propably die horribly.

Are you intending to run a campaign where the players will routinely fight and try to kill ultra powerfull sorcerers at regular intervals ?
Its the same reason that a D&D game doesnt involve a 1st level party fighting a level 15 magic user.

The gist is: its unplayable, this age.

I went to mcdonalds and had a burger. It sucked. All burgers are un-eatable. Make them differently.

 

[richaje]

The gist is: its unplayable, this age. And if you dont play it with the published rules, why publish them? And if you do, why pull strings? They have hero points after all...right?

Quintus - the Second Age is hardly "unplayable". You might not like it as a literary source for your games - heck, you might not like the themes, style, conflicts, or whatever - but that does not make it "unplayable". Based on your recent posts, it appears that your fundamental problem is with Glorantha as literary background for games. That's fine - different folk have different tastes (fwiw, I personally think Warhammer and Harn are both terrible examples of fictional background - although I got to admit the Harn maps were wonderful - but that's just my personal taste).

But right now, you seem to be whinging for the sake of whinging. Perhaps it might be more useful if you would try to add some constructive ideas instead.

Jeff

 

[Dead Blue Clown]

I promised myself I'd not bother replying to you again, but I'm going to this once because you managed to ask these in a semi-polite manner.

Actually, no, you didn't, but I'll answer anyway. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. Once more.

HOW do I create a Wizard, using the Sorcery Skill Rules and Spells?

1. A God Learner Sorcerer or a Dragonspeaker Mystic is not a 'beginning-level' character. They are both people in professions that takes some degree of time to master, to research, to study and to train into. They are not characters who are just starting out on the road of life, they are people in their 20s+ who have worked very hard to fit into their magic-based societies.

Judging on the requirements to be any good at God Learner Sorcery (i.e. learning the Five Manipulation Skills from books and/or a mentor as well as the costs of training, etc.) or Draconic Mysticism (i.e. Enlightenment and the costs of training, etc.) I thought it was plain as day that a beginning character with his initial points isn't really going to be able to do it. I mean, that's clearly obvious from the rules and the setting.

Therefore, to create a God Learner sorcerer or a Dragon Mystic, you either build up the experience through play and purchase the required Skills, etc. if you join the empires, or you use the Advanced Character rules in the MRQ core book to make a character in his 20s who has undergone all that training as is starting off his life outside the education system of his respective empire. My PCs, for example, are 3 Dragonspeakers of various cults and 1 God Learner sorcerer (all in their mid-20s as Veteran-class characters). The sorcerer is the apprentice of Delecti the Inquirer - which is practically the only way to learn God Learner Sorcery outside the Middle Sea Empire, of course.

They had the points to start off as pretty skillful 25-year-olds, moving around the conquered territories and quelling uprisings, fighting the God Learners to prevent them from harming the Orlanthi, and just generally watching over the communities they are assigned to protect.

It's that simple. You make a sorcerer with the rules in the books. Common sense is required, however. If a beginning character lacks the points to be any good at a discipline, it stands to reason he either has to learn about it in-game or start off as a slightly older, more experienced character.

How the characters learn their cultural magics in the setting are detailed in the books, too. They study, they find mentors, they read a lot, they practice, and they learn. Done. Dusted. Next.

HOW do Godlearners Manipulate Rune and Divine Spells?

2. God Learners don't Manipulate Rune Magic or Divine Magic spells with God Learner Sorcery. That makes no sense.

They can discover or create Sorcery-based equivalent spells that have the same effects as magical spells from other disciplines. It says that in the text. If they see a spell they like, they find a way to make their incredibly flexible (though slow to learn) Sorcery imitate it somehow. Again, research, talking to mentors, etc.: standard game mechanic ways of increasing skills or getting new spells apply. They get to do this while, say, Rune magic does not, because they are the God Learners, and the price of such cool, parasitic power is when they eventually get their asses kicked by the world saying "Okay, enough of that."

Until then, they have very flexible magic that takes a while to learn, but can imitate other spells - and do them faster at GM discretion. Luckily, I wrote about this in Magic of Glorantha so I won't ever have to write it out again on a forum to explain it to someone who can't behave with basic politeness.

Oh, wait. How ironic.

Is that sooooo hard to understand...?

3. Everything you write is hard for me to understand, Quintus. Everything.

It's a small but significant part of the reason I'm going to avoid responding to your posts in the future.

Now open fire with the Caps Lock and tell me like it is. That'll learn me good. I promise that even if I don't read it, I'll at least get someone to break it into bullet-points and read it to me at a later date so your toil doesn't go unnoticed.

Rurik - you've got a great head for organisation. You're on bullet-point duty.

I'll pay you in bootleg Metallica CDs. Can't say fairer than that. I've got this great one where they're in a radio studio with the guys from Alice in Chains and Corrosion of Conformity. Uh, but that one's really good. You can't have that one. You can have all lame the ones from live gigs where the crowd is louder than the music.

Hey, I never said the wages would be good, Ru.

 

[Voriof]

DBC, I owe you a burger. Even one of those unedible ones.

"Its a cat. Why doesn't it bark? I have dog. It barks. This cat is useless."
- Penny Arcade

Jeff

 

[weasel_fierce]

DBC, I owe you a burger. Even one of those unedible ones.

"Its a cat. Why doesn't it bark? I have dog. It barks. This cat is useless."
- Penny Arcade

Jeff

Maybe you could have a 2nd edition burger or something

 

[Rurik]

We should have Voriof errata the burger.

 

[Rurik]

I'll pay you in bootleg Metallica CDs. Can't say fairer than that. I've got this great one where they're in a radio studio with the guys from Alice in Chains and Corrosion of Conformity. Uh, but that one's really good. You can't have that one. You can have all lame the ones from live gigs where the crowd is louder than the music.

Hey, I never said the wages would be good, Ru.

Actually, I harbor a bit of resentment against Metallica. As much as I admire their early stuff and the impact they had in spreading the goodness of thrash/speed metal. And no, it is not over the Napster thing.

CoC is totally cool though (err, Corrosion of Conformity, I guess I shouldn't use that acronym on an RPG board when referring to the band, though the Game is totally cool too).

 

[weasel_fierce]

Listening to corrosion always makes me want to drink beer and eat barbecue food.

 

[Rurik]

Listening to corrosion always makes me want to drink beer and eat barbecue food.

That's funny, because eating BBQ always makes me want to drink beer and listen to Corrosion of Conformity.

 

[richaje]

That's funny, because eating BBQ always makes me want to drink beer and listen to Corrosion of Conformity.

Ah, Corrosion of Conformity - man, that brings me back years. I remember seeing them in Bremerton (I think) back in the late 80s with GBH and DOA. Fine bands (although they never held a candle to the Fear shows I went to back then - Have a Beer with Fear!). Such memories.

Jeff

 

[Rurik]

Ah, Corrosion of Conformity - man, that brings me back years. I remember seeing them in Bremerton (I think) back in the late 80s with GBH and DOA. Fine bands (although they never held a candle to the Fear shows I went to back then - Have a Beer with Fear!). Such memories.

Those must've been some great shows.

I've never seen Fear Live but I remember their set at the end of Decline of Western Civilization where Lee Ving basically picks a fight with the audience, starts a riot, then they play the set.

More Beer.

Early punk was fun. I'm glad I was a teenager in the 80's.

EDIT: Wow, that probably doesn't a whole lot of sense to many people. Glossary follows:

Decline of Western Civilization: Documentary about early punk bands. It's sequel, DoWC: The Metal Years is much more popular.

Lee Ving: Lead Singer of Fear

Fear: Early punk band, with such songs as More Beer, I love Living in the City, and Let's have a War - the last one made relatively famous for being on the Repo Man Soundtrack.

Slam Dancing: What is now known as Moshing. Has no direct relevance to the post, but worth mentioning, cause that is what we did back then, before the Metalheads took over. Not to be confused with Pogo'ing, which is much less aggressive but still a blast.

 

[Adept]

<snip a rant>
IF Godlearners can learn all those spells, and manipulate them as they do...wow. I'd hate to see what happens when 10 mages combine their power to cast a spell - if that is the intent...why even bother plaing in this age? Players are too powerful, and NPC's are too powerfull for players to deal with. To ignore them, and not use them..may as well not play in this age...

Q...

Q, I'll just say this.

Either you really like to hear yourself talk (or see your own writing, as it were), or you aren't an experienced enough GM to be writing the suff you do.

You see somethign is unbalanced? Fix it! Also consider that you have gotten it wrong, and try to think what the intention behind the rules and descriptions were.

No gamesystem is perfect, and every setting has something that an individual GM will have to tweak, accentuate or leave out.

There a lot of material out on Glorantha to give you perspective, and more and more coming out on the second age. Heck, if you want to know what the godlearners are supposed to be like (and want a second opinion) read Greg Staffords "Middle Sea Empire".

And parhaps go easy on the sugar for a while,

 

[richaje]

Ah, Corrosion of Conformity - man, that brings me back years. I remember seeing them in Bremerton (I think) back in the late 80s with GBH and DOA. Fine bands (although they never held a candle to the Fear shows I went to back then - Have a Beer with Fear!). Such memories.

Those must've been some great shows.

I've never seen Fear Live but I remember their set at the end of Decline of Western Civilization where Lee Ving basically picks a fight with the audience, starts a riot, then they play the set.

Continuing this unrelated thread, one of the finest shows I ever saw was when Iggy Pop and PIL played down in Berkeley back in the mid-80s. John Lydon kept taunting the audience after pulling the amp feeds from Steve Jones' guitar during Iggy's set. A wonderful show!

Jeff