From midnight to around 4am last night I was holed up in the Den under the stairs as I was a visiting Fellow of The RPG Academy. Their ENNIE nominated podcast includes a ‘Trial’ series, where they reach out, beyond their usual fayre of D&D and Pathfinder, to discover new systems. They invite ‘an expert’ of a game that interests them to GM for them. No expert was available, so I agreed to GM RuneQuest.
Thanks to a twitter poll, Gringle’s Pawn Shop was to be the scenario and I decided to use the Pre-Gens that had been road-tested for The Sea Caves (and GROGMEET… just call it my contribution to recycling). Playing Ducks would allow them to see at first hand some of the uniqueness of the Glorantha setting and think differently about their characters.
I adapted the scenario by taking elements of the original and blended in story elements from the Sartar Companion to make it more interesting and twisty.
Michael surprised me but saying that the actual play was to be streamed as well as recorded for their audio podcast. You can watch the results now at their You Tube channel. Later, they will discuss and dissect their experience and their thoughts on the rules.
I’ll probably share more of my thoughts on actual play once it has been broadcast. I enjoyed the experience. It was fun. In retrospect, there are a couple of aspects that I’d do differently. I missed not having virtual table top to scribble on so the characters could locate themselves. Also, it would have been good to have had a session zero to orientate the players within Glorantha, to give them an overview of the setting and telling them why ‘Jeffery’ is a rubbish name. A session zero would have given an opportunity to trot through the character sheet to point out different elements. The players had to rely on my quick-start notes. Maybe explaining the combat rules in an overview would have made them a little more cautious… “you’re running into a hail of arrows …. Again?”
Overall, as a knock-about, fun, one-shot adventure, it was entertaining to play.
Your Quack John will vary – mine certainly did.
Let me know what you think.
I found this very entertaining. I was especially impressed with your command of the Baboon language. I hear it’s quite difficult to speak due to the different shape of the mouth parts. It always amuses me when folks playing RQ for the first time don’t seem to get that your first reaction to a group of archers should be to rapidly find cover. Still, it sounded like everyone was having great fun. Thanks!
Pleased you found it entertaining. I’m not a fan of actual play podcasts, I don’t think RPGs are a spectator sport as the thrills and fun come from participating. I enjoyed the experiment and it was fascinating to play with D&D players, as they tried to grasp the different concepts at the heart of RQ. I did warn them that it can be deadly!