This topic was actually suggested to us by our guests Jon Webb and Neil Gibson.

Jon Webb is the initiator and an author of the four volumes of the Sandheart series, following the challenges of the militia of a remote Sun County hamlet. Also featured on the Chaosium Blog.

Neil Gibson returns after gracing us in our first God Learner Podcast episode, with ducks in the pipeline.

News

Starter Set out in the Wild

We talk about the solo-quest and the scenarios. Jon needs to maintain his innocence for a while until his GM has presented those scenarios, while Neil has already spoilered himself.

Neil talks about working on a solo-quest.

Jörg points out that the solo-quest is available online on the Chaosium website.

Equipment Guide

We discuss the fantastic cover of the upcoming Equipment Guide.

Ludo talks about a rather reserved reaction to receiving an equipment book.

Chaosium Convention

April 2022 in Ann Arbor: ticket sales have started on Chaosium’s website, and other than Ludo none of the panelists are planning to attend due to distance and distancing.

We speculate on Chaosium Conventions elsewhere, and Neil reports that 2022 is not going to have an Australian one due to the pandemic.

Main Topic – Gamesmastering in Glorantha

Jon confesses that listening to episode 1 and talking about different styles of play gave him the idea for this episode.

Types of Campaigns

Ludo addresses the amount of crunch GMing RuneQuest brings compared to other games, and how that can become tricky at times.

Neil talks about his current campaign using the Sandheart books, how entire sessions can go on without combat as he uses the scenarios in the series and encounters or player-driven activities in between, and a mix of scenarios – both dungeon-bashing and bouts of negotiation and diplomacy.

Jon (unsurprisingly) has similar experiences, and mentions how Call of Cthulhu altered his GMing style, and how that may have changed his gaming group as well. He also talks about giving his players complete freedom as both he and his group dislike railroads, and how deadly combat will be (both in Cthulhu and RQG).

Ludo addresses lessons from horror and investigation rpgs, finding solutions to problems like pacing and mood and how to have the story progress.

Jörg has a railroad through the stories in his sandbox, with the players ignoring the rails, and how his games are character-driven both in the sense of character background and in the players’ ambitions for their characters. And how that can make pre-written scenarios harder to use.

Neil observes that the White Bull campaign run by Jeff Richard appears to be very Argrath-driven (as the titular NPC patron).

Ludo goes off-script discussing how the meta-plot can ground the characters into the world.

Neil expounds how being followers of Vega Goldbreath, in opposition to Count Belvani,

Making big changes to the timeline.

Subsystems in RuneQuest

Ability rolls, simple skill rolls, opposed rolls, chained rolls

Jon shies away from repeated rolls on the same skill, e.g. Track.

Neil tells an anecdote about rolling to disembark, and how a fumble doing that carried over into the combat.

Ludo plugs one of his Runic Rants articles on opposed rolls, ties, etc. and how a tied roll will change the playing field to different skills.

Jörg breaks a lance for repeated rolls analogous to combat. Ludo mentions extended contests and how a ticking clock will be a diminishing resource.

GM-Screen Usage

Neil talks about how playing online replaces the GM screen. There are rolls that the GM does rather than the players.

Jon values the brutal honesty of the rolls, even if it leads to total party kills.

Ludo talks about dice-driven games, and when he overrides the dice for the sake of a good epic story. RuneQuest with its Old School vibes can go either way.

Jörg talks about player-initiated combats vs. scripted combats, and how the scripted ones may be a lot less deadly or a bit harder as there may be ways to reinforce the story – to a certain degree. Also, turning a hopeless situation into a “barely survived as prisoners” situation (as in many a James Bond movie).

Another option is invoking heroquest conditions at a point, where the more magical environment may offer new options, and how the change in environment makes the appearance of a deity less of an ex machina. New complications may bring new options to resolve a situation.

Players rolling GM rolls – shifting the blame to the players

Leaving the gritty details like the hit location after a successful opponent’s hit to the player with the affected character.

Split parties open up the players whose characters aren’t involved in a conflict to roll the other players’ opposition. Also, in big combats, players would take over other players’ characters’ opponents and roll against them.

Ludo talks about opportunities to flip dice rolled behind the screen before revealing.

Phantom rolls, or how to stoke player paranoia with leading questions.

Rules Discipline

Diligent book-keeping and adherence. But YGGPMV – your Gloranthan game-play may vary. And game fun rules.

Not all opponents need to be at full health at the start of a combat, either.

Neil asks for name generation on the fly. Ludo comes prepared there, with lists of names, and possibly lists of personalities and motivations, too.

“Bor-ees Jan’s Son.”

Neil and Ludo use spread-sheets of all the NPCs, color-coded for attitude etc.

NPC passions, or NPC morale.

Jon advodates two modes of play – non-combat free-flowing or round-based, where only combat-related information is used. He also avoids rolling for interactions between NPCs, narrating those.

Neil laments the occasional loss of finely crafted monsters to dice luck, and we discuss ways around it, as in “monsters have mothers too”, or “it’s the same monster but with a moustache”. (Which may apply to the monster’s mother…)

When to roll, when not to roll

“If you win, the NPCs win, if you lose, they lose.”

Distributing rules mastery to the players.

Limiting players’ time for questions.

Statement of Intent. Changing intent (resulting in delays, or at lowered chances of success).

Battle Map vs. Theater of the Mind

Preparing maps for Roll 20 and similar, or for tabletop combat.

Clutter in the scene.

Different scales on battle maps.

Strike Ranks in the game as a hindrance? Strike rank tracker (as in the Starter Set).

Paired-off combatants when all player characters are engaged vs strict sequence of strike ranks.

Speeding up combat

Rolling all dice at once.

NPC actions and motivations.

Not having to look up rules details (like spells, criticals) in the middle of combat.

Disengaging from combat

Conflicts with plenty extras

Party Death, Party Size

Divine Intervention reducing character deaths.

Occasional rune levels and their influence on the game,

Reaching rune level, frequency of experience checks.

POW or CHA 18 as hard goal on the way to rune level.

Lack of ambition enjoying the human side vs, career-oriented character concepts.

Skills lacking skill check boxes

How strictly do you play “next season” between adventures to resolve experience checks?

Gloranthan holidays as reasons to refuse the call to adventure, votive figures.

Reusable rune magic for all as slightly reduced motivation to make it to rune level.

Regaining rune points from associated worship.

Sanctifying for rune points from your own ceremonies.

Tips for managing danger or threat levels.

Occasionally getting the match wrong after 30 years of GMing.

One trollkin with a critical head-shot will topple any balance.

Playing monsters sharper or dumber.

Overplaying your monsters.

The whack-a-mole monster where a monster offers few occasions to hit it.

Monsters beyond accidental kills by lucky rolls.

No clever last words…

Where to find our guests

The Sandheart books:
Tales of the Sun County Militia: Sandheart Volume One
The Corn Dolls & Fortunate Sun: Sandheart Volume Two
Tradition: Sandheart Volume Three
The God Skin & Mad Prax: Sandheart Volume Four

Neil calls for volunteers for his work-in-progress, a duck soloquest. Contact Neil on the RuneQuest & Glorantha Discord server (@BOLG), on other discords like the Chaosium Discord, or failing all those via our email collective@godlearners.com. You might know Neil’s work from episode 1, like LEGION.

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.

This is the inaugural episode of the Glorantha Initiation series, where we talk to members of the tribe who recently joined the God Learner studies. The God Learner Podcast wants to investigate how people comparatively new to Glorantha experience the world, what are the rewards, what are the hurdles when approaching this setting.

To test the concept and the questionnaire we plan to use on our volunteers, Joerg interviews Ludovic, who actually only discovered Glorantha around the time the new RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was released.

© Schmidt International

Ludovic’s first roleplaying game was The Dark Eye, also known as L’Oeil Noir in France.

The Havena city box also had a big early influence on him. For more nostalgia, see Ludovic’s “RPG DNA” article.

The French HeroWars and Glorantha books whose covers Ludovic talks about are visible above.

© 2021 Chaosium Inc.

The Broken Tower RuneQuest Quickstart is available in print and POD here. It’s also available for free in PDF here.

You can find Ludovic all around the interwebs. For more information, see his God Learner wizard profile.

Our guest for this episode is Drew Baker, author of a series of products on the Jonstown Compendium, including the QAD (Quick and Dirty) series (available as the omnibus edition “Pimper’s Block“), the Rubble Redux scenarios Insula of the Waning Moon and Insula of the Rising Sun, and Alogo’s Caravan – Riding Animals of Dragon Pass..

Announcement: The Gloranthan Initiation Interviews

Announcing a series of interviews with people comparatively new to Glorantha, sharing their experiences and their perspectives on the setting and the games surrounding it. We’ll be posting these between our main episodes.

News

Jörg boasts of his recent visit to the Kraken Convention, a gaming retreat held annually at Schloss Neuhausen, a chateau in the German state of Brandenburg,

The What is New About RuneQuest panel video is mentioned, as well as the fact that some copies of the Starter Set were available, something Jason Durall blogged about, too.

Jörg mentions a game he played – coincidentally with our Finnish fellow Dayzatarin Tähtien Alla podcaster Juha Rutila (Finnish language only). That game was Turning Point, by Phil Vecchione and Senda Linaugh. It is still in quickstart phase, but totally playable.

The release date of the Starter Set was announced – it is the 10th of November 21, or 11-10-21 which add up to a significant number.

Katrin Dirim received the 2021 Award.

Drew tells how Jeff putting out the definitive map both screwed up and bettered his Glorantha game, and gives a huge shout-out to Jeff’s preview notes.

Drew puts forward an idea how the changes in the Sartar Map may be blamed on the rise of “an eight kilometer long reptile” “swallowing half of the east part of Sartar”.

The Black Spear campaign by Nick Brooke, lavishly illustrated by Mike O’Connor, takes you on a highly mythical road trip into Prax towards Pavis.

Main Topic: The Travels of Biturian Varosh

Pavis (Pavis Cult)

We start with Ludo summarizing the sidebar stories in Cults of Prax and the previous travels of Biturian.

We start off with a theory why there are universal names for spirit magic spells – Ludo blames the God Learners, Drew blames mercantile standardization at the hands of the Issaries Cult, while Jörg points out that the God Learners promoted the cult of Issaries in the Second Age.

Drew turns our attention to the phases of the moon for Biturian’s interactions with the lunars at Moonbroth.

The perennial debate about pronunciation of the city of Pavis, and we get into the history of the place, including the mecha-battle between the Faceless Statue and Waha and the giants.

Drew points out that Biturian spends the Winter Solstice on fhe road, possibly in the neighborhood of Tada’s High Tumulus.

We talk about the best travel times in the Wastes, and how that assessment may vary between Praxians following their herds and travelers from Dragon Pass. Jörg sows confusion about Praxian seasons (checking this afterwards, yes, there are rains in winter, but summer fertility lasts into Fire Season, while Winter doesn’t provide for the herds yet.

We discuss raiders dropping down from bridges on boats going underneath, and we wonder about the falling damage for 25 meters in RuneQuest. Jörg suggests bungee jumping (Vanuatu style).

Drew is wondering about Biturian’s motivation for researching into Morak’s nature.

Biturian is getting a couple of apparently profitable opportunities in Sun County and Corflu, but with hindsight wisdom we speculate whether those were planted sabotage.

We get into almost a Clue situation about who ambushed who in that neighborhood ritual headed by a priest of Pavis.

We speculate about where exactly in Pavis this ambush would take place, and why it would be an auspicious day.

We also talk about the ale economy in Pavis, and how curfew could spoil a festival aftermath.

Sun County (Yelmalio Cult)

Biturian arrives at Sun County and gets coerced into the role of the Lightbringer for a deadly Yelmalio ritual, the Three Blows of Anger.

Drew badmouths the Yelmalio cult as petty for the non-marriage rules of the Yelmalio priesthood.

We discuss how this “this world” heroquest is set up, mention mythic identification, and we discuss how the preparation for that myth could have been done better, ignoring the HeroQuest Surprise element of such an undertaking.

We’re discussing the fate of Rurik, from his bad run as boxed text example character in RuneQuest first.

We discuss the problems of divine intervention landing a character at very low power, and how that can retire character.

Then we high-tail out of Sun County to the newest marketplace in Prax, the recently built port of Corflu.

Corflu (Issaries Cult)

The Corflu Issaries market is actually run by the Etyries cult, but still serves as the example of the Issaries cult.

We discuss the origin of the name Corflu and why Biturian had to sit out the entire season at that dismal market.

The arrival of a Wolf Pirate ship scares the entire port, and we speculate on the female pirate’s motivations and mode of transport, and how poor traders the Etyries priests are to shun away from her.

A gang of Baboons gets rich from removing the carcasses of the beasts of burden dying from that plague, and Jörg speculates whether these could be the same baboons showing up nearby at the start of the River Voices scenario in River of Cradles.

We discuss the (impossible?) task given to Garzeen to re-assemble Genert by the sister of Prince Hrestol, and how it is obeyed even by the Etyries priests.

We speculate about the red glow warnng off Kethaelan ships from the port of Corflu, and whether it may have had to do with the re.animation of the Watchdog of Corflu.

We then take an inventory of Biturian’s assets, and wonder why he wouldn’t sell off the slave bracelets on Norayeep which probably surpass the value of a slave by a magnitude.

Conclusions?

We discuss the impact of the example character stories, and how many of the episodes have an undercurrent of heroquests happening to Biturian – a heroquest magnet.

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.