Swords & Sorcery: Glorantha?

[Vortigern]

I'm a Swords & Sorcery fan. I started buying Mongoose products when I originally grew interested in the Conan RPG, and then transitioned to RQII/BRP after I bought the Chaosium BRP book. Followed quickly with RQ, and the Elric line of material.

The Glorantha material has always been low on my list of 'interested items' because the setting seems so very 'High Fantasy' to me, from what little I can glean from the descriptions of it I have read.

However given that it is likely to somewhat soon be unavailable and such, I would like some guidance from those of you that have used/perused it... is there much in those RQ supplements that I readily could port over to using in a more S&S style game? Are they still worth getting, while I still can, for someone with my areas of interest?

How much 'conversion' would be necessary to make use of what is 'portable' in a lower fantasy/grittier setting?

 

[Dan True]

I asked a similar question a while back. The answer boiled down to that Pavis Rises is a great campaign and has a lot of good inspirational ideas, and that Cults of Glorantha has a good deal of cults and extra spells.
So, I've decided to get those two.

- Dan

 

[Blackyinkin]

Glorantha can work perfectly for a swords and sorcery style of setting. It all depends on how you want to handle your game and how you view magic. If you see Battle Magic spells as really being nothing more than talents then they receed into the background, you do not have to have every character zapped up on magic, magically empowered priests, the occasional sorcerer are all fitting in the S&S setting.
I have been writing for Glorantha for 20 years, and GMing for 30 and hardly ever play the highly magical version of the game, mine definetly has a boot in the S&S camp, especially those games played in the frontier regions of places like Prax. If I was going to recommend settings to players I will still hold with converting the Gloranthan Classic volumes of Moon Design Publications, Griffin Mountain is a great setting, most players have very little magic (you could even remove the magic for most people), the priest and shamans are powerful, but they should be in an S&S setting, there are territories to carve out, monsters to fight, lost temples, ancient runes, goddess patrons and loads more. The other option of course is the Prax and Pavis books, which can have a real S&S feel to them.

Simon Bray

 

[Antalon]

Check out 'the Golden Liberation Sociery' for a good S&S style Glorantha adventure: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/living-glorantha.php

Antalon.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I'm a Swords & Sorcery fan... The Glorantha material has always been low on my list of 'interested items' because the setting seems so very 'High Fantasy' to me, from what little I can glean from the descriptions of it I have read.

Glorantha can do S&S. I'd describe the last fight in my game as such:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47291

 

[soltakss]

It depends what you mean by "Swords and Sorcery".

Barbarians rampaging through the world killing people? Yep, I've played a couple of campaigns like this.

Evil wizards exploiting the people and being killed by heroes? Yep.

Exploring ancient civilisations and discovering/killing strange and exotic races of beings? Yep.

Most of the RuneQuest supplements are Low fantasy, in my opinion, rather than High Fantasy.

What I would do, rather than using any particular supplements is to take the rules and the magic supplements, possibly with some of the D101 supplements, and use them to make a Swords and Sorcery campaign.

 

[Vortigern]

I suppose what I really want is a MRQII/Legend: Conan.

For example, though I appreciate the example and reading thereof in campaign thread you bring up Phil, I would tend to think of that as something of a bit higher on the fantasy scale than what I am shooting for.

Though it does sound like the Glorantha setting is more interesting than perhaps I first gave it credit for, and the rules etc. from it worth having to use/abuse.

 

[Vortigern]

Evil wizards exploiting the people and being killed by heroes? Yep.

Who says they have to 'lose'? :twisted:

Sounds like a fair ammount of my PC characters actually. :wink: