Shannon Appelcline is our guest for the 12th episode.
Shannon tells us about his entry into the roleplaying genre, which features the typical games of the early eighties. RuneQuest became one of his main systems when he joined the Erzo game by Eric Rowe, a long-running campaign set on Eric’s own universe, but he also started exploring Glorantha. In the 1990ies , Shannon joined the Chaosium staff.
Shannon’s Glorantha credits include articles for Tradetalk magazine and Ye Book of Tentacles (a series of fundraiser books for the German RuneQuest convention). Shannon also organized RuneQuest conventions in the nineties, and his improvised “Hero Wars” logo made for the 1998 convention ended up on the product.
We talk about the upcoming Elf Pack for RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (the manuscript has been handed in, which means that a series of time-intensive steps need to follow).
Three Generations of Elf Pack
We learn about the incarnations of Shannon’s Elf writings, starting with a coverage of all elf forests of Glorantha for the HeroQuest (1st edition) line of Issaries Inc. But due to delays, Greg Stafford taking a sabbatical teaching English and studying shamanism in Mexico, the Issaries line closing down, and HeroQuest 2nd Edition taken in license by MoonDesign, this first manuscript was never published.
Around that time, Mongoose published their “Glorantha – The Second Age” line, and unwilling to see some other authors contradicting more than 1000 pages of material, Shannon contacted Mongoose and offered to write the elf supplement for them. Despite usually working with in-house writers, Shannon managed to convince the company. The result was Elfs: A Guide to the Aldryami, written in just three months – a short time compared to the other two manuscripts, but very long for a Mongoose RuneQuest book.
About the current version of Elf Pack, we learn that it is (mostly) focused on the Dragon Pass area, like the rest of the latest RuneQuest books.
Designers & Dragons
Shannon’s major contribution to the hobby is his history of roleplaying games titled Designers & Dragons. An original massive 2-volume book expanded into the current form which has four books, with one book per decade. It is available in print from Evil Hat (or translated into other languages, like German or French), with additional volumes with somewhat different focus added over the time.
Shannon has a few more volumes in the works, including “The Lost Histories”, two volumes of stuff that did not go into the first four volumes.
Shannon talks about Reaching Moon Megacorp as one relevant example of Gloranthan publications.
The 2010s volume is about to be collected, as a certain distance is required to make sure no trends are overlooked: Shannon talks about how his volume on the 2000s missed the Old School Renaissance movement.
Another ongoing project is four volumes on the TSR histories talking about all 100+ TSR publications (OD&D, 1st ed. AD&D and Basic D&D) for the D&D Classic website on Drivethrurpg.
Last but not least, Shannon is working on a publication history of Traveller for Mongoose.
We also mention a recent article on rpg.net on the many editions of RuneQuest, Traveller and Talislanta, part of Shannon’s Advanced Designers and Dragons series there which adds current events, eulogies, and occasional glimpses into the work-flow.
This is not an “Aldryami 101” episode, we assume that listeners have, at least, access to the Glorantha Bestiary. For a full newcomer presentation of the Aldryami, you can of course read the Bestiary, or watch the Exploring Glorantha episode on the topic.
Elf Culture
Elevator pitch: Plant people in tune with their forest interacting with it in a collaborative way where they really are all one
Comparison with Tolkienesque elves in standard fantasy (literature and rpgs) and the difference in appearance.
Evolution of elf depictions for RuneQuest: Gaunt faces, spiked ears – that’s about the main common denominator of early elf artwork, with increasing treeishness as the time proceeds.
Different elf types matching certain types of trees or forests.
Is there space for “elfs” based on other plants?
Shannon mentions vampiric trees sucking up nutrients or sap from other trees in the network.
Undead as seen by elfs – petrified trees, trees hollowed out by insects, vampiric ones.
Vine elfs – Shannon wrote a myth why those aren’t around any more.
Elder Races pantheons may tend to be smaller than human ones.
Elf deities shared with humans
Seedings of generations of gods by primordial ones.
The Elf “Secret” – Elfsense, the ability to pick up the experiences of plant beings around them.
The importance of Aldrya, who upholds the forest
Elf Philosophy
Balance: Growth balanced by Taking
Cycles: Reincarnation, though without memory of individual experiences (but then those are held by the forests)
Making the myth matter in the game
Lots of myths not included in the Elf Pak manuscript
Myths as patterns for a heroquest (another word for an adventure)
A preview on the upcoming scenario “The Great Graft”, set in the Stinking Forest
The first Pruner among the elfs
Playing an Elf
Four major Passions:
Loyalty to Forest – find out the goals of your forest
Devotion Grower – further Growth, spread life
Devotion Balance – realize that every single elf is your brother, and all the other races are too, even though they may have the opposite job
Devotion to Cycle – things that are killed will return, and so will you if you die.
Different psychology of Green and Brown Elfs
Elf emotions being spread out into the forest, delaying a reaction.
Green emotions (communal) vs. Red emotions (individual) vs. Black emotions (anti-community).
Five forests of the Dragon Pass region:
The Old Woods (easternmost region of Arstola) – dissidents from mainstream Arstola, lost the site of the Great Tree when probably Arkat cut it down at the end of the Dawn Age
Tarndisi’s Grove – about the smallest an elf forest can become
The Stinking Forest
The Vale of Flowers (including the normal trees of the Flower Wood)
The Dryad Woods – including an adventure about the Forest of Wondrous Beasts
Not included, but Shannon elucidates on it: the Redwoods of Dagori Inkarth/Prax
Bringing elfs into the game:
Rootless elfs – elfs cut off from Elfsense
Rooted elfs – elfs pursuing the goals of their forest
Elfs are long-lived and have long-rooted plans
Range of elf-sense – a quarter-mile outside of the forest they lose contact and are left alone with their emotions etc.
Purpose-grown material or even individuals
The role of rootless elfs in elf society – a constant source of pity
Flamals seed came to rest on the three elements. Those that fell on Gata (Earth) became the Green, Brown and Yellow elfs, those that fell on Sramak became the various types of Murthoi or Blue elfs, and those that fell on fire became the lost White Elfs of the peak of the Spike. Those are the true elfs.
The Hybrid Races were born out of the moment of Balance between Growing and Taking, and that’s where the Red Elfs are grouped by the true elfs, right alongside the humans and other non-autotrophs.
Lesser aldryami races – Runners, Pixies, Sprites
The role of the dryads in elf society – demi-gods, something akin to the Mistress Race uz.
First encounter in an elf forest – usually an arrow.
Kings and queens of elfdom, nobility of the elfs, are more of a diplomat caste than rulers.
Vronkali were the ones who learned to Take in order to survive. The Mreli chose to accept death rather than give up their natures, and got re-awakened after the Dawn.
Hostility between elfs and other Elder Races.
Does the Cycle come into the destruction of the world in the Gods War? Shannon counters with Grower being reborn as five entities, finally Voria to restart the Cosmos.
Elfs and the Man Rune – individuality as the primal sin, the unfortunate outcome of the Green Age ending.
Intra-elf conflicts: God Learners call it Aldrya’s Woe, the elfs call it the Planting.
For this episode of the God Learners podcast we welcome back Drew Baker, who followed Biturian Varosh with us back in episode 5. Drew is doubly qualified for this task since he just released a new Jonstown Compendium item called Highways & Byways which is a travel reference for Dragon Pass and its surroundings.
Next, Joerg and Ludo run a short interview with Drew about Highways & Byways: where the idea comes from, what it contains, the fun of reconciling various Gloranthan maps with different scales, and the possible fictional explanations for things changing from one map to another.
Ludo mentions the Dumb Cuneiform website in passing, where you can order your own cuneiform tablet.
We catch up again with the Travels of Biturian Varosh, from the classic Cults of Prax supplement. This short story was scattered across the book to help picture what life in Glorantha might look like.
In the first segment, Biturian and Norayeep search for healing herbs in order to make a little bit of money. We talk about the rules for Plant Lore, the utility (or lack thereof) of D12s, heroquesting, and Humakti ghosts. Drew mentions the Old Men Play RuneQuest podcast and video series.
The second segment brings us back to Pavis, where we share theories and consternation about what’s going on with Biturian and Morak at the local Lhankor Mhy temple. We talk about slave bracelets, horned children, sex rituals, and more weird stuff.
In the last segment, Biturian goes to the Pairing Stones and witnesses an Orlanthi initiation, including (finally!) some spirits of reprisal.
Before heading out, our three hosts share their thoughts on this penultimate leg of Biturian’s journey.
In the news section, Ludovic plugs the Journal of Runic Studies, our weekly newsletter. It features everything directly or indirectly related to Glorantha that we could find over the previous Red Moon cycle.
From there we launch into a digression about Rick’s exhaustive collection, including the Pavic Tales issues pictured above. Some items from Rick’s collection will be available for sale at ChaosiumCon’s collectors auction.
Then Joerg mentions RuneQuest Year Zero, a limited-run podcast by Baz Stevens in which he delves into the RuneQuest Starter Set without much prior knowledge about RuneQuest and Glorantha. Along the 11 episodes of the show, Baz shares what he likes and doesn’t like about the rules, the setting, and other material found in the box.
The Jonstown Compendium has been quiet in the past few weeks. Rick once again has all the books available in POD so far already, and plugs Nick Brooke’s index as a good way to stay on top of the publications (the 2021 index is here, the 2022 index is here).
Main Topic
For the main topic, we start with Rick’s path from the automotive industry to the presidency of one of the most beloved RPG publishers in history. Ludovic then shares his own shorter and weirder path to Glorantha.
During his time as a Chaosium fan, Rick had an unofficial “subscription” to all released products. Ludovic asks if any official subscriptions might come to Chaosium but sadly the logistics don’t make that idea viable at the moment.
Next, we talk about Rick’s MIG book, the Meints’ Index to Glorantha. It previously had two editions, and a third edition is being finalized and printed. The next version is bigger, in colour, and includes all the Glorantha material released in the 21st century.
The back cover of MIG2 already had a format similar to the back cover of RuneQuest 2nd edition (picture above). MIG3 will even look more similar, from the book size to the colour scheme.
Here are some MIG3 pages Rick shared over the last few months on social media:
Rick also explains how the write-up for old material has gained in depth, thanks to his access to the Chaosium’s archives, and to his time spent interviewing many figures of the early RuneQuest eras.
Ludovic asks Rick about foreign licensees, which have been previously off-limits for the MIG since Rick can’t read them and it wouldn’t fit in the page count anyway.
We go on for a bit about the various styles of foreign RuneQuest covers, while Rick once again grabs a few books from his shelves to illustrate the point. MIG3 will have a small appendix dedicated to these foreign editions, but not much more.
Next, we talk about Wyrms Footnotes, why it hasn’t come back, and why it probably won’t, since most authors now get their Gloranthan writing fix through the Jonstown Compendium. This leads us to chatting about how great the Jonstown Compendium is, and how happy Chaosium is with their community content programs in general. Ludovic is a bit sad that the whole OSR zine revival passed by Chaosium without them paying much attention to it, but is also happy that they put their energy and resources into a good quality community content program.
And while we talk about Chaosium’s “master plans” (or lack thereof), Ludovic asks whether Chaosium intends for Glorantha and RuneQuest to be synonymous for the foreseeable future, or if Glorantha will indeed stay a bigger franchise that encompasses other game systems. Of course, 13th Age Glorantha is out of Chaosium’s hands, but Rick reveals that Chaosium does have the intention of having some Questworlds Glorantha books, even if some of it might only be conversion guides for using RuneQuest adventures in Questworlds.
There is a digression on Cthulhu Live and Gloranthan free-forms. Rick did include free-forms in MIG3, but shares why LARP books generally sell poorly. Ludovic talks about the opportunities of RuneQuest splatbooks that could sell more, but Rick reveals that Glorantha isn’t conductive to this because all the “character classes” (i.e. the cults) are too woven together to be handled independently. This is why the upcoming Cults books are so big and taking a long time.
We chat for a bit about the difficult task of juggling between the old cranky fandom of Glorantha and the desire to attract new people to the setting. Chaosium has, of course, the RuneQuest Starter Set for the latter, but also a few other ongoing projects, such as the Glorantha video-game still being developed, plus other initiatives such as VTT integration, which is taking longer than Chaosium intended.
Joerg asks about Gloranthan fiction, which is another good possible entry point. Although Rick would like to publish something, there just aren’t many (if at all) authors pitching Gloranthan stories to Chaosium. In the meantime, there’s old fiction such as Griselda’s tales still available.
Joerg also asks about the return of Gloranthan board games, which might prove to be another effective entry point for new people. Rick gives a small update on those, and what the design direction is. He also mentions the board games that never were, like the Tournament of the Masters of Luck and Death and Shadows Dance games.
Ludovic moves on to rare collector’s items, such as the RuneQuest playtest documents, the Roots of Glorantha series, or the Greganth Atlas (picture above), asking if these things would ever be available in some form or other. This is tricky to do for various reasons outlined by Rick, but he does reveal some upcoming booklet called “the Stafford House Campaign”.
The cover can be seen in the first picture above. This booklet contains Greg Stafford’s “Dragons Past” columns from a couple 70s and 80s magazines. These articles tell the story of his RuneQuest campaign. Rick also found in a binder a few unpublished stories about Greg’s Holy Country campaign.
As for other rare collections of Greg’s notes, a lot of that content is making it in a more polished and playable form through the new RuneQuest Glorantha line anyway.
Finally, Ludovic asks one of his burning questions about the “SP” denominations found on RQ2 supplements, and in particular why he has two PDFs of the Sea Cave labelled SP7 and SP8 respectively. Rick reveals the simple solution by pointing at the first edition cover for Cults of Prax (seen above).
We apologize for the tardiness on this episode: we are not used to Earth’s weird calendar where one month is surprisingly shorter than the others. Plus, Ludovic was busy with work and with writing two convention scenarios for ChaosiumCon. It also didn’t help that this episode was a lot heavier on the editing than usual.
Without further excuses, this month we welcomed Chaosium’s David Scott again. This time he was present wearing his “Prax expert” hat in order to chat about Nomad Gods, the 1977 board game designed by Greg Stafford.
In news, Ludovic mentions that his first Jonstown Compendium item it out. A Short Detour is a RuneQuest adventure with a complex moral dilemma, and a (hopefully) insightful appendix on everybody’s favourite Gloranthan power.
As always we also mention the Journal of Runic Studies, our weekly newsletter of Gloranthan news. If you’re not subscribed by email or RSS, do it now!
Joerg gives a shout out to other podcasts and streams:
Ludo mentions that his French edition of RuneQuest has arrived (you can read and see more about it here). After fumbling around to remember the name of the artist who did the French slipcase art (it’s Joann Sfar), David takes us in a tangent about foreign RuneQuest editions’ art, starting with Oriflam’s cover for Dorastor:
Joerg also mentions the German art for Apple Lane:
Speaking of the Well of Daliath, our tangent takes us to another tangent to celebrate this very useful resource for Gloranthaphiles. David Scott is the principal maintainer, but receives help from volunteers. We discuss how the timeline of Dragon Pass and the Prosopaedia are Ludovic’s most frequently visited pages.
Main Topic: Nomad Gods
We start talking about Nomad Gods, as promised. To follow along, listeners who aren’t rich or old enough to own the game can purchase the PDF of the rules booklet from Chaosium for a bit less that $9.
Many pictures (including pictures of the board and the counters) are available on the BoardGameGeek page for Nomad Gods.
David runs us through the process of extracting the map and counters art from the module file, which is a simple ZIP file with a different extension.
Here’s the map of Nomad Gods:
Nomad Gods map from Vassal
Then we start looking at the art on the counters. David shares some photos of early prototype counters:
And then we look at some pre-production chits of the alchemical transformer (left) and Jar-eel (right).
We can’t show the assembly boards with chits on grid paper, or lunar units with the red filter sheet taped over them, but you can probably imagine how, errr, “crafty” it looks like. The result can be seen below in the finished product, and it looks similar to how most other wargames of the time looked like, as far as I can tell:
Next, David talks how Greg was still “exploring” Glorantha at the time, with many names just thrown on the map as nods to his friends (refer to the map above). These locations were only further developed when there was a roleplaying game to do that, and this of course happened with RuneQuest and Cults of Prax. The sound you hear at this point is David unfolding and re-folding his Nomad Gods map!
Where did names like Orlanth came from? Where did the many places in Prax come from? We don’t know. The creative process is a mysterious thing.
David recalls how “amazing” these 1970s wargames looked like: they came in ziploc bag, as shown below:
David Scott’s own unpunched White Bear & Red MoonPhoto from eBay
David talks to us about his first fantasy board game, Divine Right, from TSR.
Some of the setting lore in Divine Right (sorry about the blurry Zoom screenshot):
Divine Right’s NPC cards look like this, with the random cards to apply to them:
We finally start looking at the Nomad Gods booklet. David runs us through the names in the credits (and how they’re tied to Glorantha).
Joerg and David talk about the difference of rules between the editions. Ludo asks about the spelling of “Plaines of Prax”, or the reason for making the map sideways (with North pointing to the right)… apparently we don’t know!
We talk about the mythology and history of Prax, as presented by the rulebook, and how it’s still guiding the design of Prax nowadays.
There was supposed to be a third board game (advertised in the Nomad Gods booklet!) but this third game never happened. David shares anecdotes about it, and mentions Greg’s Holy Country game, which explored the themes of that unpublished game.
We look at the art pieces found across the pages. The cover can be seen above at the start of this chapter of the show notes. The Zebra Riders and the big battle spread are shown below:
For the weird-looking sci-fi picture of Argrath, the greek-inspired Ronance, and other illustrations we talk about, you’ll have to get the PDF of Nomad Gods! Nomad Gods is where we get many first looks at things like the Devil, Broos, Dragonsnails, and more.
Ludo talks about using board game rules, scenarios, and events as ideas for RPGs. This sends us on a tangent about Jaldon Toothmaker, one of the main figures of the board game. Did he really gnaw through the walls of Pavis? David has a theory.
Nomad Gods has a big recurring theme of dead gods and heroes who can be called back when the Praxian tribes need them.
Unlike White Bear & Red Moon (and Dragon Pass) where you play the Hero Wars, Nomad Gods has a more artificial setup, where you play practice drills, tournaments, and such.
Moving on to the counters’ stats, Ludo mentions how some of these can be used to drive faction play or tribal history, but David says those stats are probably defined like that only for game balance.
The hexes on the map have different properties in terms of resources, from the fertile grounds of the Paps to the desert of the Dead Place. We also go through the landmarks, and how they are represented on the board, compared to what we now know of them.
As we look at the five major tribes of Prax, our discussion goes into the matter of the Covenant, and what little we really know about it. We debate whether the Morokanth are omnivores or mostly vegetarians. Ludo’s Glorantha seems to align with Sandy Petersen’s on that topic, but Chaosium is going with Greg Stafford’s wishes. David explains why, and what it means for the Morokanths’ role in Prax.
Speaking of Morokanths, David talks about the Most Respected Elder, the current of which is a Morokanth. David explains how to run games that really make use of the nomadic lifestyle. Joerg asks how to include the Eternal Battle to life in Prax.
David starts talking about spirit cults and theism in Prax, and how Praxian mounts really survive on the chaparral: it’s a secret that’s not written down anywhere but Greg told David, and David now tells us! (although he has shared it on forums before so it’s not exclusive)
Ludo asks about the Zebra Riders. David gives a not-so-short version. He also explains the cycle of representation of tribes in the Most Respected Elder position. Then, as we look at the other “independent tribes” of Prax, David reminds us that apart from the Rhino Riders, all these tribes are pretty tiny. Ludo mentions the Cannibal Cult, and David gives the actually-short version of what they are.
As we reach the beginning of the “Magic Game” section, Ludo tries to wrap up the episode but fails utterly. We launch into a discussion of Sartarite games vs Praxian games, and what the role of Praxians is in the Hero Wars. We share some ideas for Praxian campaign frameworks, and David talks about the “big events” that could happen there. Eventually, Ludo manages to wrap up the episode for good.
We are joined on this trip down memory lane by Doc Cowie, Doc sums up his credits as “40 years RuneQuest player, published one scenario”. Ludo also gets Doc to talk about his custom-made bronze shield depicting Chalana Arroy fighting Chaos, made by Type 40:
Doc offers a very UK-centric perspective of how one would encounter and learn about Glorantha.
The first big UK release was “The Lair of the White Wyrm”, a RuneQuest scenario in White Dwarf in 1979.
Doc holds up his Games Workshop edition of RuneQuest 2, which he acquired at age 12.
Doc had actually picked up Cults of Prax at the Games Workshop store before acquiring RuneQuest, and remembers how he was awed and overwhelmed by that tome..
Doc outlines the competition of D&D and AD&D: There was Tunnels&Trolls and Traveller, and there was RuneQuest.
Doc recalls being intimidated by the entire concept, and kept it on the “mystical and somewhat obscure” pile of games.
Having played and enjoyed the Apple Lane scenarios (Gringle’s Pawnshop and Rainbow Mounds), the game went into a hiatus because his group was unsure what to do with this game beyond those published scenarios.
Griffin Mountain (the Games Workshop edition, again) came as a revelation what to do with RuneQuest. Doc recounts how their group distrusted the cults, and how their group had a Zorak Zorani troll and an elf in the party, with the two characters being good friends.
We discuss the sophistication of early teenage boys tackling a fantasy setting, roleplayer elitism and an instinctive “Your Glorantha May Vary” stance as the GM.
Doc recounts his experiences as regular GM until one of his players started to run a Pavis and Big Rubble campaign, alternating with Doc’s Griffin Mountain game.
Dpc pulls out his stack of photo-copied reference sheets, hand-outs and index cards.
When asked about the timeline, Doc confesses a God-time like timelessness for his Balazar campaign, with the only future event that mattered being the Cradle Scenario as the immense finishing piece for a Pavis-based campaign, always looming, never played.
Then came a disappointing hiatus when there weren’t any players of RuneQuest at Med-School, although a game was picked up again after a year or so.
We briefly touch upon the Dragon Pass boardgame, and then we go on to Doc’s almost traumatic experience of the first Convulsion which left him with the impression that everybody knew everything about Glorantha and that he sucked at RuneQuest.
He did meet Greg Stafford, though, and while he feared the “You’re not playing Glorantha as it is meant to be” boogeyman hiding behind the door,
Doc actually lent Issaries Inc some money to get the Hero Wars started, and with Hero Wars actually and finally providing some rules for heroquesting, he got interested and bought the material.
What re-ignited the Gloranthan fire was the Guide to Glorantha kickstarter (of 2013, fulfilled in 2015)
“I have Passion Glorantha 90%, but Knowledge Glorantha 40%.”
Doc goes on to enthuse about having played HeroQuest with Ian Cooper (who is currently in charge of the Questworlds successor line) and how that lends itself to go on mythical exploration.
Ludo brings up MAR Barker’s Tekumel and how he encouraged people to find out what is in Glorantha. Doc regales us with a private conversation with Greg Stafford, and how he reacted to Greg’s offer to explain a thing about Glorantha, and Doc felt he didn’t really have a question to ask. Instead, they discussed rearing children in a shamanic culture, and how myth contributes to that.
The weight of information behind Glorantha helps making it real and solid, even if you don’t apply that much of the vast amount of information.
From his current game, Doc tells about finding an actual bone of a god and making a magical dagger out of that, or finding an iron hauberk and giving it to the Earth Temple because it felt right, rather than one of the characters using it – something that would not occur to any player in a Dungeons and Dragons game.
We talk about everybody having magic and how that affected the way the game and its setting felt, and how people felt about playing that.
Ludo mentions the Year Zero Podcast with the impression that “everybody is playing a cleric.”
We talk about the impact of RuneQuest 3rd edition and how it was a disaster for the UK game scene.
Jörg gets to waffle a bit about his initial experiences starting with third edition RuneQuest and the Vikings box.
Doc sums t up that however much aspects of the rules might annoy him, there is still that way that certain outcomes make you feel which bring back the love you feel for the system.
The PDF of the Weapons and Equipment Guide is out, and it’s up to the listener whether to believe Diana’s tale of how her name appeared on the cover (There is no take-over of Chaosium’s Glorantha line by Beer With Teeth, according to Diana: “Too much work”).
The concept of providing your standard RPG lists of sharp and otherwise deadly items in context with the culture is what makes this a Gloranthan product,. Saying that it has been a dive into a Gloranthan midden might be mis-interpreting Ludo’s experience.
We discuss Chaosium’s naming sense for their Gloranthan products. Gamemaster Screen Pack for a scenario book with a sandbox was underselling the product, and the Weapons and Equipment Guide is really an introduction to the material culture of the world.
The New Gamemasters Month starts this January, a guided seminar teaching new game masters how to actually run a roleplaying game. Chaosium contributes with the RuneQuest Starter Set.
New on Jonstown Compendium we find To Hunt A God, the final volume of Austin Conrad’s Myth of the Month.
Diana is teasing that Beer With Teeth are about to deliver a manuscript to Chaosium supporting the Starter Set.
The Gloranthan West gets some attention, too, with the first in a series of map PDFs of Gloranthan regions starting with Kanthor’s Isles, and then there is Nick Brooke’s art-book illustrated by Katrin Dirim explaining The History of Malkionism.
(As always, you will find the complete listings of Jonstown Compendium new releases in our weekly Newsletter/Blogpost Journal of Runic Studies)
Main Topic
Adventures in Jonstown
In our main topic we aim to explore how to take the RuneQuest Starter Set and get more scenarios out of it.
Jörg praises the resources the city has to offer to adventurers (player characters), like the library.
Diana points out that by having played through the scenario the adventurers will have built up a reputation in the city,
We discuss how rather lengthy training efforts can tie an adventuring party down (e.g. ability training, which takes two seasons), and that the city of Jonstown can offer scenarios to do on the side without lengthy travel that would interrupt such training.
Ludo points out that the background information in the Glorantha Book (book 2 in the box) is designed to be given to both gamemasters and players, which means that all the information in that book contains hardly any narrative spoilers.
We discuss the motivation and background of the City Rex of Jonstown, Orngerin Holdfast, and his possible future.
Diana describes her modus operandi for preparing a gaming session. “At first I panic because it is only half an hour until the game.” and how she gets inspiration out of the headings of the book, and considers what would happen if one of those things have a problem, one that the adventurer party can be pointed at.
Jörg suggests to use the efforts to get the tribes to work together and form a cohesive military as the backdrop for inter-personal conflicts or even inter-tribal politics, using any of the NPCs in the book as a catalyst for the adventure. That could be top-down, as Ludo points out, or there could be minor street level events escalating.
Diana wants to involve the adventurers in the preparation for such an assembly and joint training.
Ludo suggests to look into the factions of the city and explore their agendas for scenario hooks and a web off intrigue.
Ludo mentions the Cherry Ridge groves with its medicinal jerret cherries tended by the Chalana Arroy cult (p.57), and how anything happening to the cherries may involved the local clans. He also reminds us why your characters will want to stay on the good side of the Chalana Arroy temple.
We talk about Birne’s Squeeze, already mentioned in the Colymar Adventure Book, as a place where you can expect bandits. How do these bandits become your problem? Your players might hire out as caravan guards in the region. Traders with unusually valuable goods may hire more guards than usual, but then there may be a risk that there might be bandits among those new hires. Might even the player characters, or they might join up to investigate what that caravan really is transporting.
A Life of Crime vs. Heroic Adventuring
Ludo talks about sorting his scenario hooks into “Below” hooks dealing with criminal or lawless agendas, and “Above” hooks with possibly more heroic stuff or politics out in the public.
There might be spies or spying for the Lunars going on.
Diana confesses that she often lets herself be surprised when it comes to criminal or covert activities in her games.
Ludo brings up the good old player suspicion of perfectly non-descript throw-away or “soup” characters that may derail your entire prepared plotline, and advocates to confirm the players’ story instincts. Diana suggests using a roll on the player characters’ POW to decide how right they are.
Jörg suggests using NPC record sheets as discussed in the Passions episode to develop such characters more or less on the fly.
Ludo maligns the Hornos brothers as the ultimate crime bosses, and how they might be the crime lords behind all underworld activities in Jonstown. Diana proposes a more political dark secret tied to their collaboration with the Lunar occupation forces and administration, and of course their massive profits from trading Lunar war booty.
Ludo brings up the problems plot possibilities that might result from having acquired somebody else’s heirlooms through some of those deals.
Diana points at Lyserian Goodspeech, the former City Rex under the Lunar occupation, and how he avoided being sent into exile because his tribe threw their full support behind him.
For the grognards, Jörg points out that all the traders in Jonstown would have been associates of Gringle, the pawn shop owner from Apple Lane who had gone missing following the demise of the former Thane of that hamlet.
At the very least, the connections to the Gamemasters Screen Package with its description including the hamlet of Apple Lane are a good tie in if you prefer to run published scenarios.
The circumstances of Gringle’s disappearance are described in the old HeroQuest/Questworlds demo PDF Return to Apple Lane.
You All Meet in a Pub, or in a Bathhouse?
Gaining a connection with regular residents of Jonstown, putting names and faces to the generic stats provided in the book.
Socializing can happen in the pub, in public baths, in the Chalana Arroy hospital, joining the militia.
Ludo expounds how relatively harmless militia duty may lead to favors that residents of the city may owe your adventurers.
Jörg points to the police procedurals on TV where militiamen (well, cops) come to interfere with plots of some of the high and mighty, possibly putting them in their bad books.
Diana talks about how crafters (and really all economic activities) come under the scrutiny of the guilds, and that suitably skilled adventurers may be offered (or demanded) a guild membership, which opens up another social circle of interactions and vested interests. Ludo mentions how the guilds (or the sages, or other temples) may act more easily as quest-givers if one of the adventurers is already a member of that organization.
Jörg points out that all the provided adventurers fail to mention any spouse or permanent love interest, and how providing some may connect the party to the place and give family or in-laws as another possible source of quest-givers or plot hook anchors.
Diana describes how she brings up marriage, childbirths etc. in the Sacred Time review of the year meta-session where the regular income and spendings of the characters are determined. She also uses marriages as rewards for adventures. (Keep in mind that temporary marriages are a big thing in Orlanthi society! Having a spouse for a year will not tie you down interminately!)
Ludo suggests that sufficiently notable characters might be pushed by their superiors towards political marriages to further some agenda. Even if it is over by next sacred time, that extra connection can be valuable.
We digress on discovering possibly unsavory skin care habits of new spouses, and being walled up upon discovery of those…
Ludo brings up the Noir Detective story genre, or the old chestnut of getting your clothes stolen in a bath, possibly mistaking them for somebody else’s ones suspected to contain plot hooks.
Diana rejects any and all accusations of planning forward her adventures. Instead, she uses NPCs the characters have a relation with and who they judge to be politically astute. Whether correctly so remains to be discovered. Between Jorjera Latish and Orngerin Holdfast, Diana reckons one is politically astute and the other may or may not take her their leads.
Introducing Plot Hooks
Ludo lists patrons and quest givers (potentially any of the important people mentioned in the book).
Diana suggests to look at the player characters’ passions, starting with Love Family or Loyalty Clan or Tribe which everybody gets. You can introduce plot-carrying NPCs as belonging to one of these target groups, or map the role of plot-carrying NPCs to an existing NPC contact in your game.
Diana offers “Miraculously, whatever the character is good at is exactly what the tribe wants of them.” Ludo counters with “These people are disposable.”
People from the place you stay at may serve as quest givers.
Amid pronunciation debates Ludo points to the opening in Wulfsland created by the majority of Jomes Wulf’s followers abandoning the former Maboder lands, and all the neighbors and kin of the previous owners may vie for.
Ludo suggests a plot line where the adventurers escort a group of people intent on re-settling those lands, only to find squatters or rivals with a similar claim having arrived before them, or about the same time.
Jörg points towards plots in the city that were formerly owned by the Maboder, starting with their tribal manor. We discuss things that may be found in their abandoned manor (or that of the Cinsina who left the Jonstown confederations a few years later), and that their portion of city plots may have gone to the Lunars, who aren’t here any more. (Many of their tenants still are, though, and may be looking at an insecure future.) Diana brings up buried hoards in some of the houses, left by people having to leave in a hurry.
Ludo suggests to have characters with “Hate Lunar Empire” protect and escort people still loyal to the Lunars moving out.
We discuss the ongoing trade volume with the Lunar Empire and the travel opportunities joining a trading caravan to Tarsh or just the still Lunar-occupied Far Place.
We discuss spying done by people in these caravans, and whether or how often traders of the Etyries cult will travel to and through Jonstown, bringing their Lunar goodwill habits to an audience that may be unwilling to accept that. Scribes and sages are information gatherers anyway, and might be used by opposing powers. And then there is Eurmal.
Diana suggests that if you play a spy game, create a bunch of eligible candidates and randomly determine who dunnit. Jörg brings up the Paranoia RPG’s concept of everybody following two secret agendas, and we riff on potential secrets within secrets plots.
Diana tells about a murder mystery where all player characters thought they had killed the victim (which actually had not been killed at all, but disappeared).
The Darkness Within Jonstown
Ludo suggests to use another common passion, Hate Trolls, and the fact that the Torkani tribal mansion houses trollkin for an involved crime investigation to hand to the militia, where the head librarian and known glutton with a sweet tooth Garangian Bronze-Guts gets a nightly visit by trollkin which doesn’t go undetected, while at the same time somebody else filched a scroll with possibly dangerous information, but definitely one a senior member of the temple cares about. Now the trollkin who did break into the library get identified and falsely accused for the scroll theft, and it is up to the militia how to deal with this.
(What is it about the sweet stuff, Ludo? Even the tale of a visit to the Block made you talk about sugar cubes…)
Ludo explains his prep work for something like this, giving the real theft maybe a paragraph or two in preparation, and improvising from there. Diana points out that this is fine for your personal game if you are an experienced gamemaster, but if you want a scenario you can hand over to a GM inexperienced with the setting or the rules, you will need to note down some alternatives for possible courses of action.
Ludo talks about keeping the pacing, so if your player adventurers interrogate the trollkin, they ought to learn more than just that they did steal the sweets. Possibly they saw a robed (or prominently bearded) person sneaking away during their escape.
Jörg suggests an alternative where the real culprits, or some other party desiring the stolen object, assumes that the player characters have the lead, asking enough leading questions during an uncomfortable interrogation that the players can pick up a lost trail.
Diana talks about NPC defenders of the story arc, and to place them as companions and plot-drivers with a group of inexperienced player investigators.
Diana outlines how she manages her NPCs in a fairly simple spread sheet, and how to find stuff in that.
We return to the trope of the players ignoring all the plot hooks and following the harmless NPC they feel is suspicious, and the resignating gamemaster yielding to the collected wisdom of the table and making that NPC a bearer of the plot.
But in the end, keep it small and as simple as you can get away with.
Ludo talks about the Schrödinger’s Reward, where a job well done as much as a job catastrophically failed at will lead to the same follow-up adventure, either to atone for the failure or because of the show of competence.
Jörg suggests to give the adventurers low-level contacts in all the institutions that might come up in their upcoming shenanigans to have at least one boot inside the door, and Diana suggests to have the adventurers bask in their fame for a job reasonably well done, getting offered free drinks as well as free plot hooks when they visit their pub or bathhouse.
Diana tells a tale about infant ducks (durulz) coming to take a look at the famous people (the adventurers) who might be able to heroically help them out.
Diana talks about taking inspiration from looking at the maps.
Ludo elaborates how reading about the system of food distribution among citizens inspired him to look for ways how people could abuse that system for their own advantage, whether through fraud, forgery, manipulated weights… and then goes into the dangers of having too many opinionated intellectuals in a small place.
“The dog ate my homework” and what kind of ideas just mentioning that can trigger.
Joh Mith is a valuable NPC because of his wide-ranging connections outside of Jonstown, and some of those may be enemies with a hostile agenda.
We discuss a few possible follow-up scenarios on the Jonstown Compendium, and talk about some of the smaller Beer With Teeth scenarios that have ties to some of the adventures in book 4 of the starter set.
Rocks Fall might tie in with the third scenario of the Starter Set
Stone and Bone as a possible follow-up to the second scenario of the Starter Set, or near Birne’s Squeeze
Vinga’s Ford is suggested for the Apple Lane region, but that’s just west of Jonstown
A Tale of Woodcraft could be set near Tarndisi’s grove just south of Birne’s Squeeze
Other community content scenarios or sand boxes set in the region:
The Red Deer Saga exploring the Namolding clan living between Jonstown and Apple Lane, whether as a bundle or as single products that will give you a discount when you buy the bundle
In a Merry Green Vale explores the Lysang clan, another Tree Triaty clan severed from the Colymar on the road from Jonstown to Apple Lane
The Duel of Dangerford describes a battle of Dangerford different from what happens in the solo scenario, a year later. It might cause a few continuity kinks, but is another exciting opportunity to encounter Lunar forces in full panoply while giving the player adventurers agency.
Apologies if we missed any other pertinent Jonstown Compendium content – we advise our listeners to visit there and discover things for themselves anyway.
In a last minute recording, Diana reveals what project Beer With Teeth is working on for Chaosium. Their manuscript is ready to hand out, but the book is likely a long ways away.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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,
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.
This episode’s guests are Beer with Teeth, at time in character:
Erin (aka Varanis, a noble of Sartar lineage)
Dom (aka Rajar, a huge Storm Bull axe fighter)
Diana (aka Berra, a tiny Humakti warrior)
We also learn about their original GM Tom who is at fault, and about Kris who is the resident visual artist.
Why Beer With Teeth, and how they arrived at the logo.
Current Glorantha games played: one in the classical era, meant to end with the Cradle, one in the current timeline which had Kallyr come back after the Battle of Queens, and another such game run by Diana, currently digging into their characters’ previous history.
The campaigns combine published stuff and “making stuff up”.
Keeping several games’ plot-lines aligned when different GMs and parties advance at different paces.
Ludo talks about his games, and Dom discusses Cthulhu.
Using the Ars Magica trick of guest Gming in the main game (GMed by Tom), which is how
Use of passions, but also lots of rolls on the Battle skill.
Jeff Richard’s previews on Sartar Campaign material on Facebook
Erin learning stories and background, Jeff’s posts on Facebook.
Main Topic: Writing Adventures
Dom tells about his cooperation with Diana to create the interim scenario in their main campaign as guest GMs.
Erin talks about disappearing into those deep rabbit holes of research, and that writing game scenarios is somewhat different from writing stories.
Dom shares his (complete) notes from which he meant to run that scenario – about seven hand-written lines covering half an A4 sheet.
Diana tells how her lack of familiarity with GMing RuneQuest led her to pre-write a large range of tasks and challenges, and how that happened to be quite close to Chaosium’s submission guidelines.
Ludo points out investigative methods (like John Tynes’ concept of the Investigative Sandbox).
Nudging players rather than imposing railroad.
Diana talks about player characters working their way up from followers towards the movers and shakers.
Dom thinks in terms of cool scenes that he wants to inflict on the players which strangely are going to happen where the player characters walk.
Foreshadowing, plot hooks, or red herrings?
Introducing minor things that become useful hints later.
Red herrings created by players may be turned into plot hooks.
Prophecies – heroes fighting against one another, a test of strength of truths.
Themes
Adventures vs. arcs. Personal arcs and passions.
Lethality in the game
NPC stats.
Adjusting opponent ability, numbers and smartness to the player party.
Resurrection is always an option, both for departed player characters and NPCs.
Playing NPCs smart.
Creating NPCs as communities.
How much does the past reach into the design process. How much archaeology?
Finding something old (e.g. in Clearwine, which has history and pre-history), as items, or as shards and in middens.
Populating houses in Clearwine drawing a terrible map and then using “RuneQuest Cities” results as inspiration. (RQ Cities is really a reprint of Midkemia Press’ “Cities“, which is still available in all its OSR glory).
Researching ancient technologies – charcoal-making, glass-making.
Family structures in Bronze Age society – multi-generation households rather than core families.
Researching Bronze Age
Erin riffs about how writing game material offers her an opportunity to make stuff up rather than sticking to facts (and citing all the sources).
(If you don’t know it, The Motel of the Mysteries is a book about creative interpretation of archaeological finds. The pdf linked is a very short version for educational purposes)
Suggested reading lists cut, and Dom’s woes GMing for experts in their fields playing characters with those skill sets.
Dom talks about his role as the Glorantha grognard in the Beer With Teeth collective.
Cave walls with bronze bands – “yes, you are walking in the body of a dead god here”.
Glorantha is about magic, myth and belief, and conflicting truths may be tested against one another.
As the Game Master, your presentation of Glorantha defines the setting for your campaign. Your Glorantha will vary, possibly between campaigns you run.
The sense of community, manifest as the wyter entity, is a unique trait of the setting.
Use of Runes as hooks to pull player characters in
Runes creating personalities that lead to motivations, e.g. in The Gifts of Prax.
Horses with character (expressed as runes, though not with magic associated).
Making a campaign unique by changing one (major) feature in the setting for that campaign, like e.g. “Argrath is dead”.
Kallyr survives the Battle of Queen in the Beer With Teeth campaign, and the potential for story and conflict inherent in this.
Our guest this (long!) episode is David Scott, who wears a number of Chaosium hats – among others convention presence, rules Q&A, and the web archives.
David talks about his work on the Well of Daliath – a collection of material posted on glorantha.com, slowly reconstructed from backups when stuff didn‘t migrate that well across platforms, and also chronicling current notes on Glorantha.
We hear some tales of woe about material lost to entropy, whether from natural disasters or from migration of the website.
News
Our only item this time (other than a shout-out to our newsletter) is the good bye to Steve Perrin, and the reactions of the community.
The Chaosium blog has links to a series of six blog posts by Steve on designing RuneQuest.
We look into the introduction of personality traits into RuneQuest and other rpgs.
The first published version was 1981 in Griffin Mountain as the NPC record form (which Chaosium also put into the Thieves World box that was released the same year). However, David was able to track this development back even earlier, in (mostly) unpublished notes of Greg, and (other than to ultra-collectors, also unpublishable notes).
We cannot show you the glimpse into the “Unpublished RuneQuest” material David gave us, but we can attest that what we saw were scribbled notes (in more legible hand-writing than mine) without any grand revelations.
David shows us a few glimpses into the evolution of RuneQuest character sheets, and talks about the synergies between John Sapienza‘s character sheets, Steve Perrin‘s grasp of mechanics and Greg Stafford‘s desire to build his world.
A first fusion of skill percentages and numeric values for personality traits and passions:
David then gives us an insight into Greg Stafford’s process into bringing these traits and the runes into the game RuneQuest, and Gloranthan gaming in general.
Greg’s concepts of people being hard-wired for mythology and certain types of behavior. One book Greg suggested to David is “Our Kind” by Marvin Harris.
Ultimately, the personality traits became an integral mechanic in Greg’s King Arthur Pendragon. David Larkin shows Greg’s research as annotations in Le Morte D’Arthur in his Pendragon designer’s notes.
The game mechanics for dragonewts (as NPCs) in Wyrm’s Footnote #14 (in 1982) were another step in the process of getting game mechanics out of this.
The quest for HeroQuests as a game mechanic led to Greg working on the Epic System – or Glorantha the Game – even during the years of the Avalon Hill publication of RuneQuest.
“The maddest character sheet anybody has ever seen for Glorantha” from the development process for Glorantha the Game:
The more coherent and elaborate pieces of this process made their way into the “Arcane Lore” volume of the Stafford Library, which still is a collection of almost random notes and concepts.
Robin Laws’ concept for Hero Wars (later HeroQuest, nowadays Questworlds) then was a game where basically all abilities were traits.
Personality traits in gaming praxis
We address the reluctance of players to let personality traits dictate their roleplaying of the characters. David talks about three types of gamers’ reactions to this mechanism – newcomers, curious old hands, and set-in-their-ways grognards.
We touch on conflicting passions (rather than just opposed traits), like “Loyalty (Leader)” and “Hate (Leader)”, and the roleplaying potential in that, and how not to roll this gives the players the freedom to steer their characters.
The example characters of Vasana (the leader who has “Hate Lunar Empire”) and Vostor (an AWOL Lunar soldier disillusioned with the Lunar army looking out to join Vasana’s band) are used in David’s demo games to illustrate how these things play out.
We touch upon how Hate Lunar Empire is different from hating individual Lunars, and how the Storm Bull’s Hate Chaos does not make every Lunar in sight a target for their berserking.
We also talk about the situation of Lunar converts in Sartar after 1625.
Augmenting with traits and passions
“Can I use my Mobility Rune to fly?” and credibility checks.
Use of “Loyalty (Leader)” to get things from a leader, and other uses, and use of automatic success in roleplaying situation.
What to do as a GM when a necessary success doesn’t show up. How to deal with failure.
Opposed rolls with the same degree of successes (plugging this little treatise).
Using the moon rune to augment spirit magic casting.
High scores in passions or traits – GM calls
Allowing players to reduce such high traits
Traits derailing the game.
Traits are not meant to be played as mental illness.
Runes and passions in heroquesting.
Casting massive amounts of rune points manifesting the deities.
Acquiring new passions in-game
Taking loyalty to the leader, or to another patron the character might want something from.
David gives a great example about a Lhankor Mhy initiate from his campaign who took loyalty not to the Colymar tribe, but to the Colymar lawspeaker Hastur, and how he would go about shifting loyalties from one temple to another.
And with that, Joerg reminded Ludovic of bedtime, and we postponed questioning David for a later podcast.
