Now and Then – Page 2 – The GROGNARD Files

Now&Then: Diary of an RPG Gulliver

Now and Then is an occasional series of blog-posts from members of The GROGSQUAD, sharing their stories, hints and tips and images from their ‘thawing out’ after the Deep Freeze. First, is Rog Coe, who you may recognise from the ’18 GROGZINE, he laid out and illustrated the scenarios in the distinctive White Dwarf style, he also wrote the Call of Cthulhu adventure. Find out about his return to gaming:

“Draw The Blinds on Yesterday – through the lens of The Professionals: Cultists and the desperate battle it out with shotguns blazing, while Fire Vampires fly, and in the shed a combine-harvester fires up…”

The realities of real life seem to slowly cripple your gaming over the years.

It’s like being an RPG Gulliver, slowly pinned down by ropes, hammered in by little people; and not just your children; partners (no matter how easy going) work and responsibilities, all cause that time-destroying mallet to swing.

Gaming changed from 90’s Traveller sessions of 8 players round the kitchen table all weekend, down to 3 player D&D games in the 20-teens, crammed in the man-den once in a blue moon; and ultimately to nothing.

Until all you can do is lift a hand clear of the ropes to read an old supplement or click on a certain Bolton-based podcast.

‘Play is the thing’

Like an activation code for a sleeper agent, the Grognard Files’ steady drip of ‘newstalgia’ re-ignited my urge to play. The first ropes snapped, and the idea for the ‘RPG Club’ was born (catchy name I know).

It would have to involve new blood as well as the few old regulars, be in a venue that everyone could get to easily, and (at least until it was fully fledged) involve one shots, so it would feel light and fun, and if people didn’t like a system one time, (especially the first time players), there’d be something new the next.

Most importantly other people would have to step up and run their own adventures after my initial run of four, after 30 years of always being the GM I’d finally get a chance to play again. Grogmeet had whet my appetite.

And it’s worked so far, very well, we’re three games in, and everyone’s having fun.

We meet on the 1^st Friday of the month, (be there or miss out), in a stylish games café, (full of everyday people of both sexes, all ages, all gaming), with good food and drink, and in reach of a disreputable pub (for post-game analysis).

We’ve got a core of up to 8 potential players, with a couple of super subs in reserve so there’s been a good number round the table for the first games, and likewise the number drawn to the pub after is increasing, people whose Venn diagrams might not coincide have an excuse to get together to game and beyond. I rolled in at 1.45 after the last game; don’t judge me, there was a lot of adrenaline to counteract!

“Albuquerque Starport Rebooted: Lazarou the Carrin appears, destined to die from a beak full of Force Axe – but not before a missile from his ‘lil friend’ cracks the concourse dome, pouring sand and sand sharks into the finale mix.”

Games I’ve had sitting on the shelves and never played are being dusted down, there’s fun to be had mashing up, retrofitting and adrenalin-pumping old scenarios, ‘Pimp My Module’ if you will. Like an awful singing show on TV – if they do well as a one shot a glittering campaign may await next year.

I’ve stretched new muscles GM’ing, after playing in a different style to long campaigns, it’s a lot of prep work each time, yes, and more of a workout because of the pace, but the results are worth it. Pre-gen bios for the players for instance, a new thing for me, have led to much fuller interaction, players are bringing relationships and grievances to the table.

And as the one shot is not so daunting for first time GMs there’s more than one player now reading rulesets and putting together a scenario. It’s not just a re-awakening of the group, it’s an evolution, into a many GM-headed beast.

My initial stint is up after our next game, (Marvel Superheroes RPG does Strikeback), and a new GM has the next game ready: ’55-ish Days At Peking’ where we’ll be playing troops of the colonial powers holding out against hordes of Boxers.

“Are we the baddies?”

I cannot wait. Rog Coe

Fanzine Scrap Book: Nick Edwards (Part Two)

The second part of memoir and ‘zine scrap book. If you can help Nick find some of the ‘zines that he worked on, (Runestone, Iron Orchid and Manic Depressive) then please let me know and I’ll pass on the details. If you have a collection or a story to share then get in touch, we’d love to hear it.

Another gratuitous shelfie from Nick’s Collection

At some point, I either threw out or sold all the games and zines (including copies of my own zines), or had them thrown out for me by my mum.

That was that, until about 2004, by which point I had a career in business journalism and then general management in publishing.

I was ill in bed with some kind of horrible virus and in a kind of comfort food kind of thing, re-read Lord of the Rings over a couple of days. It was a reconnection with the past, and a revelation; the new film had just come out so that may have contributed.

At the same I was in a very bad marriage and my Dad was dying. In retrospect escapism was what I needed!

Over the course of some months, I gradually dug back into the past. I rooted out some stuff in my parents’ garage which had escaped the 80s purge – some White Dwarfs and some games.

I rooted round on the internet and found a blog by someone calling himself hyperbear which was a writeup of a Call of Cthulhu campaign in Delta Green universe. I was amazed how gaming had moved on since I had been away – it was dark and gritty with really good stories. I bought the Delta Green sourcebooks on ebay (really expensive) and read them like books. I started reading yog-sothoth.com (everyone seemed much nicer to each other these days).

Then I went crazy on ebay and basically bought everything I had ever owned and more – all the games from the 70s and 80s, a pretty much complete set of WDs and whatever zines I could get (sadly I wasn’t able to find any of mine – clearly the market had voted on the need to keep them for posterity!). I got the original white box D&D set, the first edition of Call of Cthulhu, obscure things like Metamorphosis Alpha, Land of the Rising Sun, Bunnies and Burrows etc. Just like when I was 14, I bought many more things than I could ever play or even read.

THERE, AND BACK AGAIN

Round about 2006 I started actually playing again. A friend (ex boss in fact) used to play D&D with his brothers decades before and was still into scifi/fantasy/Lovecraft so was open to discussing Delta Green. In fact we did the first session in the bar of the Groucho Club (the show biz private members club in Soho) without dice or paper based on an idea I had been knocking around set in modern Britain and using the Pisces section of the Delta Green campaign. Over the course of the next few years we ran through a sprawling campaign with a session once a month (which I wrote up in a yog-sothoth blog) mashing up DG scenarios, my own stuff, an old WD scenario from Marcus Rowland, bits stolen from different campaigns and then culminating in a present-day version of Beyond the Mountains of Madness. It was pretty messy and I am not the best games master but I was pleased with it overall – I seem to remember one of the characters ended up making the ultimate sacrifice at the end (if you have ever done that BMOM campaign you will know what that entails) which was satisfying. By this time we had a group of five players and since then I have run a number of games: a couple of shorter Delta Green campaign, a Cthulhu-esque thing set in the far future, some rule-light adventures set in Lankmar, and most recently the Eyes of the Stone Thief campaign for 13^th Age. I started going to Dragonmeet again (and am going to UK Games Expo for the first time in June).

So now almost 40 years after first opening the red box Basic D&D set, I am happily married with three boys (12, 8 and 3), living in South London and managing about 130 commodities analysts for my job.

Despite all of this responsibility, a part of me will always be 14. I basically like all the things I liked when I was a kid but just have more money to indulge it. And my Christmas lists these days? Last Xmas my mum bought me a Mansions of Madness expansion pack which pleased me greatly.

Scrap Book

Journal of The Senseless Carnage Society

Runestone 3 which has, perhaps, my first letter published – I have apparently just bought Call of Cthulhu and expect Bill to get cracking writing me some material

A song from News from Bree 21, one of the very early (1977) zines. I have a hazy memory of joining a D&D game at Games Day run by editor Hartley Patterson a few years later

A Paul Mason scenario from Thunderstruck 3 – this is one of the few zines to print the year it was published March 1982 so I would have been 13 and a third when I bought this.

Fanzine Scrap Book: Nick Edwards (Part One)

A glimpse into Nick’s gaming library in this wonderful shelfie

Another entry in the Armchair Adventurer’s archive. GROGSQUAD member Nick Edwards was an active collector, contributor and correspondent to the British ‘Zine Scene back in the eighties. He contacted me about helping to fill gaps in his collection, specifically Runestone, a ‘zine he was involved in. He very kindly agreed to share some of his collection and his experiences to add to add to the expanding Armchair Adventurer Library.

I was introduced to Dungeons and Dragons when I was in primary school, aged 9 or 10 in 1980 – by my older brother who played with a couple of friends in the pub over the road (the landlord’s son was the DM).

Playing in a pub was great as we were allowed the amazing treat of a free coke each. It’s also why the smell of stale beer that you get in old pubs always reminds me of childhood. Pretty soon I bought my own gear (the shop in Bristol was Forever People which made up the entirety of my Christmas list for a number of years) and in those first few years we ran D&D (then AD&D), Traveller, Bushido, Gamma World, Golden Heroes, Boot Hill, Aftermath and a few I can’t remember. Pretty soon I was keener on DMing than playing.

For AD&D, we played through Tomb of Horrors, the Giants series, the Slavers series, Queen of the Demonweb Pits and so on. Call of Cthulhu came along and captured my imagination, as did creating my own scenarios and even games. I remember running Order of the Silver Twilight from one of the early campaigns and the lack of combat was eye opening. This was a time when the hobby was reinventing itself regularly as games and gaming became more sophisticated – from the dungeon to the wilderness to the city to story-driven and looser adventures. Through senior school I continued playing with a couple of other friends although it had largely petered out by the time I was 15.

SMALL ADS

At the same time, I had started getting into the fanzine scene. I answered ads in the back of White Dwarf. Dragonlords was the early one that everyone has heard of but I remember Acoloyte, SEWERS, Beholder, News from Bree, among others. The early ones were largely about the mechanics of the games themselves and written by students but Dragonlords seemed to start a move towards more general.

Being at school, living in the countryside and not knowing anyone who had ever been university, I found this completely engrossing. Fanzines were a major thing when they came through the post. It was a glimpse of a different kind of life, more intellectual, more challenging and with better music (I liked heavy metal at the time and my musical taste today remains an odd combination of AC/DC, Black Sabbath, The Smiths, Joy Division and Talking Heads – basically everything I liked between the ages of 13 and 17 but mixed together.

I started writing letters to the zines and meeting some of the people at conventions like Games Day and the weekend one at Warwick. Presumably I was quite annoying – sorry guys. New fanzines came out with a fairly clear split between Dragonlords generation who had since graduated and those edited by schoolboys. The latter had a higher chance of being pretty lame but everyone was fairly understanding.

RUNESTONE

I started by co-editing a fanzine called Runestone by a guy called Bill Lucas – I can’t remember how it came about but a belated thanks to Bill (I was probably too self-absorbed to be grateful at the time).

Following that, I did my own thing called Manic Depressive (why I chose that name is beyond me – I wasn’t) which, I seem to remember, was a collection of mini-zines by other people (there was a term for it which I now forget). Then I did maybe half a dozen issues of Iron Orchid, which was all me and which I have fondest memories of – I was experimenting with design, politics, music and the gaming had largely disappeared (at this point the cool zines were largely devoid of actual gaming which was fine but there was a bit of a whiff of embarrassment about RPGs). And finally I co-edited (or perhaps I was more of a contributor) of some more occasional fanzines by Jez Keen, called Love in the Garden (his other zine was Next Stop Jupiter). He was more talented and older than me – so again I am grateful for the hand-up. The whole thing was a lot of fun but then the scene began to fracture – there were more cliques, more anger and feuds. Looking back some of it was just bullying. There wasn’t a lot of empathy or compromise – people with poor social skills are attracted to roleplaying after all (I count myself in this). People started to publicly drop out, closing zines in protest. I remember being sad about it at the time though I probably took my share of sides.

By the time I went to university (Warwick – chosen largely because some of the best fanzines were produced there a few years earlier). I was largely out of the scene and had certainly stopped being interested in the games. (to be continued)

SCRAPBOOK

A typically ‘robust’ opening to a Letters page from Thunderstruck explaining to editor Tim Kalvis just how shit he really is. Fair play to him for printing it all

Opening page from Shadowfire 1, one of the new wave of fanzines. I liked this one a lot though I think Richard Lee only did three issues

Reviews page from Imazine 13 where Paul Mason makes my heart swell with pride by being kind about Iron Orchid. Bless him. It is the only evidence I own that any fanzine I did actually existed!

Daily Dwarf’s Top 5 Issues of White Dwarf

Once in a blue moon there’s a post on the Daily Dwarf blog.

Here are his top 5 Issues of White Dwarf – what are yours?

Top Five Issues of White Dwarf

Moorcock, Moorcock, Michael Moorcock you fervently moan

More about IMAGINE No 22 Jan 1985

“Literature holds much for the adventure gamer: a glimpse of worlds to which we are denied access by the complexity of modern life, ideas for character and adventure to supplement our own. Fantasy fiction is never far removed from the ‘real world’, and yet more than any other genre it refuses to be bogged down in ‘life as it is’ with all the defeat and compromise that that entails. As a way of exploring alternative modes of existence and remedies the world’s ills, it is unsurpassed. Enjoy …”

Kim Daniel, Editor

Some of the discussion about Imagine magazine, in the latest the GROGNARD RPG files podcast, ended up on the cutting room floor. I thought it would be worth looking at it in a bit more depth here, as it provides a useful connective bridge between The Stormbringer episode with the AD&D ones that are on the way. Imagine was published monthly by TSR UK between 1983 and 1985 ‘for the players of Dungeons and Dragons game’. I’ve written about how Imagine reached out to active gamers through it’s coverage of fanzines. It also had a policy of covering at wider genre features through it’s reviews of film, television and books. Occasionally it would dedicate the magazine to a particular author and through the magazine I discovered Bryan Talbot’s Luther Arkwright and science fiction author Bob Shaw, amongst others.

TINY WORLD OF INSECTS

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The Moorcock edition had a striking cover by Rodney Matthews, with the organic, angular shapes that makes his art so distinctive. It is a cropped version of a wider canvas titled EARL AUBEC OF MALADOR, depicting the incarnation of the Eternal Champion under pressure from insect-like creatures. Look closely and you’ll spot his cat companion, who detects danger with a preternatural instinct. Aubec is the subject of the scenario authored by Michael Brunton and Moorcock himself, who provided the story-treatment for the scenario.

The adventure is designed for one player who adopts the role of Aubec, with the option of another player taking the role of the ‘Companion to Champions’ Jhary A Conel, who appears in a number of Eternal Campion stories.

In the scenario, the players are seeking the Horn of Fate, which will ultimately be blown at the End of Time by Elric. Aubec is a champion that exists in an earlier period of the Young Kingdoms, when Melniboné is still a powerful force. He is seeking revenge after his lands are seized by his wife’s half-brother.

The Lords of Law wish to seek and find the Iron Galleon to recover the Horn of Plenty so it can be held in safe-keeping until the time is right.

Altogether, it’s a good one shot adventure notable for transforming AD&D alignment to deal with Chaos and Law as defined by Moorcock’s multiverse. Also, it adopts ‘Luck Points’ – a ‘spend’ mechanic that is familiar now, but innovative at the time – allowing players (and NPCs) to influence the results. The Luck Points can create results such as ‘ a death blow’ or ‘Hit Point recovery’.

SOME ENCHANTED FEELING

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There’s also a short story (The Last Enchantment) which features Elric making a portentous encounter in with the Lords of Chaos. It’s slim pickings, but it does serve as a useful introduction to the cosmology:

‘Only the Greatest Power, of which we know little more than humans, can create fresh conceptions. The Greatest Power holds both Law and Chaos in perpetual balance, making us war only that the scale will not be tilted too far to one side.’

The Moorcock interview is interesting in the context of his literary career. This was prior to the publication of Mother London (1988) and it’s possible to see him becoming increasingly weary of his ‘fantasy Romances’. There is a sense where he is seeing the genre as moribund and ‘increasingly debased’ in the face of increasing infantilisation (cf Wizardry and Wild Romance). He wants to be taken seriously.

MORE COCKBURN

FullSizeRender 24 — A rare acknowledgement of the gaming hobby by Moorcock

Thanks to Patreon backer and active supporter of the Podcast, Sam Vail, I’ve been introduced to Paul Cockburn, who was on the Imagine editorial team. He said of the Moorcock issue:

I met Michael as we planned that issue. It was a big thrill. Unlike the majority of my gaming peers, Tolkien never was my thing. But I love imaginative fiction, and that’s obvious from my stewardship of Imagine magazine, plus what was going on in the background before I left Games Workshop. So, getting to hang out with Michael, talk about fiction and where it might influence games, that was a big thrill. My time on Imagine and at GW gave me license to have some great conversations with the big authors of the 80s, and that was truly amazing for me. So yes, I wanted Imagine to show that you could draw on the inspiration provided by great writers and great writing, and game in those kinds of environments.

There’ll be more from Paul and more about Imagine in a future podcast. He will also feature in the forthcoming 2016 theGROGNARDfiles Annual. Join the Patreon campaign to support the podcast and to ensure you get a copy!

Vicari-Con 2015

Thirty years ago I went to Dragonmeet Convention in that there fancy London. I’d only just turned 17, so it was a big deal that I’d managed to organise the trip myself. My parents were surprised, given that I was struggling with the most rudimentary tasks, such as “picking up socks from the floor.” Planning the journey involved travelling to Manchester to buy the tickets from Games Workshop – there was no online agent – I handed over the cash to the guy at the counter with an air of sophisticated superiority, as if I was joining a private members club. He explained that there were no spaces on their specially chartered charabanc so I would have to arrange for my own transport. No one else from our group was able to come, for various reasons, so it meant I had to travel alone. In order to keep the costs down, I arranged to travel overnight on the National Express with the safe assumption that I would sleep in my seat, ready to wake refreshed and ready to explore the delights of the gaming delectation that would await me in the Royal Agricultural Hall.

It didn’t work like that. I spent the whole night sat next to an over-weight, old fella, who rubbed his inside legs constantly during the entire journey. The combination of the rasping friction noise and the fear that he would make a move on me while I slept, meant I stayed ‘on watch’ all night. When I arrived bleary-eyed in London at 5am, I wasn’t sure what to do, the convention didn’t open for 5 hours and there was nowhere to go.

I decided to head to Hyde Park and have a lie-down on a park bench. I hadn’t been settled down for long before a police patrol car, cruising through the Park’s pathways stopped. “Where have you come from pal?” asked the copper in a friendly manner, clearly believing that I was a runaway (my sandwiches wrapped in a spotted hanky on the end of stick were an obvious give away.) I did the sensible thing and explained that I’d come to the capital to “Role-Play”. They exchanged glances.

They left me alone, with a few warnings about talking to strangers, and not sleeping on park benches, in case I was taken advantage of in my sleep.

At the convention itself, I spent the entire time in a sleep deprived delirium, walking between tables and stalls in a confused haze. After all the effort of getting there, I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do. It wasn’t like Northern Games Day, that I’d gone to a couple of years before, it was ten times bigger. At Northern Games Day, I’d managed to get into a game of Runequest with an enthusiastic Games Master and 6 other players. I’d never played the game outside of our group (when I say a group, it was me and friend). Playing with other people, for the first time, I realised that we had interpreted some of the rules incorrectly.

There were no games available, so just wandered around, in slow circles with a fixed grin on my face.

In the afternoon, I’d arranged to meet up with a group of players of a PBM, The Gadiators’ Gazette, including the Games Master who had drawn a t-shirt using felt-tip pens, so he could be identifiable in the crowd. Once we’d exchanged stories, we talked excitingly about Call of Cthulhu which was beginning to gain popularity. None of us had managed to bag a game, so we decided to run an impromptu game of CoC off the hoof, with no characters, dice or story. I sat in a corner, drifting in an out of consciousness, while the voices around me merged into a Charlie Brown’s teacher’s drawl.

I’ve been thinking of these Dragonmeet memories over the past few days thanks to the social media coverage of GENCON. In the comfort of my own armchair, I’ve been watching twitter friends meeting up, like I did with my PBM friends. I’ve enjoyed the cos-play, the live play beamed by periscope, and the seminar feeds (particularly the exciting announcement about Moon Design’s take-over of Chaosium).

The Armchair Adventurer’s club are heading south again at the end of the year to Dragonmeet 2005. I’m looking forward to recreating the experiences that I’ve enjoyed vicariously this week.This time, I’m taking no chances and getting there the day before so I can have a good sleep.

If there’s an old fella rubbing his legs on the train, Eddy can sit next to him.

It’s a Kinda Magic – RQ6 Magic for Glorantha

RUNEQUEST 2nd Edition created something of a paradox when it came to magic. Unlike other systems, characters didn’t need to be part of a particular class to cast spells; magic was available to all. The advantages of this are obvious, there’s no need to depend on a cleric character to heal the adventuring party, because all the characters are sort of clerics, worshiping gods in exchange for spells. The rules more accurately simulated combat compared to a game like D&D, so fighting could be deadly, the tactical use of a ‘Battle Magic’ spell could tip the balance and keep characters alive.

It was the game mechanics that created the paradox: there was magic everywhere, but it didn’t feel very magical, because it was so matter of fact.

Battle Magic gave additional points towards chances to hit, increasing damage, or improving defence or a resistance to damage; there were an assortment of ‘detection’ spells; and the most powerful spells could befuddle, disrupt or demoralise an opponent. In addition, there were a handful of spells that did practical tasks like ‘glue’ and ‘repair’ and a few others that did interesting things but it was unclear of how useful they could be (Lightwall, for example). Once a character progressed in status in their chosen cult, characters could get access to ‘Rune Magic’ which was a bit more powerful, but pragmatic and munchkin-like in its deployment (Mindblast is particularly nasty).

It was also difficult for a standard adventurer to attain Rune Magic as the spells were limited to Rune Lords and Rune Priests, and it takes a lot of effort and hours of play to reach the appropriate level to gain the use of Rune magic.

Back in the day, spells were merely part of the adventurer’s armoury, enhancing the sword and the shield and providing the means of sticking a limb back on in the heat of battle. In recent months, when we have been playing through the classic supplements BORDERLANDS and GRIFFIN MOUNTAIN we’ve been more canny with the use of spells. Particularly the NPCs, who have used magic in unexpected and ruthless ways to spice up encounters: summoning elementals or becoming invisible at key moments in the encounter; it still feels rather mechanical and rules heavy.

MAGICAL ADDITIONS TO THE LATER EDITIONS

Subsequent editions of the rules tried to address these deficiencies by adding more types of magic and some additional rules to boost their power. RQ3 was a more generic system that introduced sorcery as a school of magic. The Games Workshop version separated the rules into basic and advanced and this editorial chopping and changing made the rules around magic unintelligible. Our group concluded at the time that ‘Sorcery is for NPCs only’. None was encountered.

We are about to return to the COLYMAR CAMPAIGN – from the Moon Design SARTAR: KINGDOM OF HEROES campaign pack – which I am converting from Heroquest to the Runequest 6 rules. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been painstakingly studying the rules around magic so it can be introduced to the campaign. I say painstaking due to the different levels of conversions at play: as a group we are getting our heads around Runequest 6, which are generic rules (an ADVENTURES IN GLORANTHA supplement is due out this year) and the Heroquest supplement is “story-based” with no character stats to give clues to the magical ability of the NPCs.

The SARTAR … supplement provides phenomenal detail to the setting and revises some of the original Chaosium material. Glorantha is a very magical setting, so I’m keen to reflect the essence of the SARTAR supplement which brings some sense of awe to spell craft and feats of spell craft.

The SARTAR supplement actually provides some meaning to Runes and the affects that they have over characters in Glorantha. As part of character creation, Runes are selected that reflect the character’s soul, temperament, personality and magical drive and Games Masters are encouraged to award characters according to their actions that bring them closer to their runes. Progression becomes a ‘Rune Quest’.

HEROQUEST’s magic ‘rules’ are very fast and lose, allowing the players to create any magical effects as long as it’s consistent with he narrative. I like the potential of this free-form approach as it will allow our group to get inventive around the table, but I know from experience that such freedom will blow the players’ Grognard brains: “we need the rules, we live and die by the rules.”

ADDING SOME EXTRA CRUNCH

RQ6 provides five schools of magic: Folk, Theist, Animism, Sorcery and Mysticism. Thankfully, the rules are very clearly written and easy to understand in principle – the real test will be at the table – but I have the wireframe of the mechanics sussed out, so I don’t think there’ll be any problems. In essence, casting magic is a percentage based skill that can be adjusted using the ‘step difficulty’ modifier or it can be resisted by targets using the ‘opposed roll’ mechanic that I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Folk magic is more or less a straight swap for Battle Magic, but much more toned down. In Glorantha terms, they are spells that exist outside of the provision of the gods as they are passed through the generations via charms and handy cantrips.

Animism is the manipulation of spirits to the bidding of Shamanistic cults (such as Darka Fal) and Mysticism is a transcendental magic that will be available to the Elder Races such as Dragonewts.

Theist Magic is more or less Rune Magic with two ‘skills’ associated with its application. ‘Devotion’ is the measure of the cult member’s status and progression through the religion and ‘Exhort’ is the skill used to coerce the gods to intervene and provide the aid requested. To fit within the society described by SARTAR: KINGDOM OF HEROES, levels of Devotion and the availability of spells will be awarded for participating in rituals with the clan and for taking actions that fit with their character rune affinities.

Sorcery, in Glorantha, is more esoteric and throw-back to the Second Age and the God Leaners who worshiped Malian, the invisible god, who stole knowledge and artefacts from other cultures. The Sorcery rules are interesting because they allow for inventiveness from the players. It’s possible to Invoke sorcery from ancient artefacts, spell books, or demons from another plane. The spells in themselves are not particularly spectacular until the sorcerer uses their ability to ‘shape’ the outcome by combining spells together, or extending the range or duration or increasing their magnitude.

It’s possible for characters to remain loyal to their gods yet still teach themselves the powers from an ancient grimoire. It’s going to make things interesting and provide some unexpected twists and turns in adventures.

We are meeting on Roll 20 next week, where I hope to introduce some of these newly learnt elements to the adventure as they choose their next path. I’m hoping that the fuss-free crunch provided by RQ6 will allow for some interesting flights of the imagination.

It will be great to inject some magic into the magical world Glorantha for my long-in-the-tooth group… if they can get over not being able to pepper targets with a multi-missile.

Runequest 6 – Back to the Future (Part Two)

Now that we have had a couple of sessions playing with the new Runequest 6 (RQ6) rules, its possible to make some reflections on first impressions. We are dyed-in-the-wool evangelists for Basic Role Playing (BRP) from Choasium in its various incarnations – specifically Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and second edition Runequest. For our group, it suits our style of play, as its the kind of rule system that keeps out of the way until it’s needed. We like the idea of story-telling, character building and intrigue, but we also come alive when conflict and challenges need to be resolved by dice-rolls. BRP is a perfect match to this balance, which explains why it works so well with Call of Cthulhu: the system is light during the investigations but during times of conflict it introduces a sense of excitement and unpredictability.

Our group reformed after a 25 year hiatus and revisited our old stomping grounds in Glorantha – the wilds of Balazar and the far corners of Prax – exploring some of the classic supplements from the early 1980s: Griffin Mountain and Borderlands. Recently, we began to develop a familiar unease about the rules that we started to feel thirty years ago. When we played Runequest (second edition) back in the day, we soon made mental calculations that could anticipate our potential for success when it came to combat. For example, when we were helping Duke Raus of Rone commit acts of genocide against Newtlings – ethnic cleansing with delicious tails – the Player Characters realised that it was impossible for the little-lizards to do any damage unless they had a critical hit.

The characters we were using for the Borderlands campaign were tough (they need to be). We only have a small group so we need to double up with Player Characters, combat became a familiar pattern of “I hit”, “the opponent parries”, “I hit again”, “they parry again” and so on. The GM was frustrated at the lack of options available to the NPCs, other than spells or chucking in an usual weapon combo (a net and trident) there were too little options for Newtllings to benefit from their home-advantage.

It was time for us to investigate what has been going on in the hobby, while were were off the grid …

RUNEQUEST 6

First thing to say is that the rule-book is very handsomely produced. I took it on holiday last year and there was a real pleasure in flicking through the pages and discovering new little corners of interest. Hard copies are relatively difficult to come across, but there is a PDF download available from The Design Mechanism. There’s also a free edition of ‘Essentials’ available for the kindle (free of charge) but the rendering distorts the format to such a degree that it’s almost impossible to read.

The rules are both familiar and different/ old and new, a bit like Sharon Osbourne, there is the resemblance to the old rules but there are elements that are very different. The design of the rules reflects this as there is a homage to the original cover, a running story to explain some of the rules (remember Rurick?) and there’s generous use of runes from Glorantha to illustrate the chapter headings.

Character Creation is broadly the same as in the second edition – the attributes are the same and rolled in the same way so that humans have a range between 3-18 (there’s an option to allocate points too). The skills are calculated by adding together attributes to provide a ‘base’ rather than using a bonus table. It also adopts the background and professions that were introduced in the third edition, but here the allocation of starting skills is much more generous. The best addition is the development of background for the character – the relationship with surviving members of the family, and determine their ‘passions’ and motivations for becoming an adventurer.

WOT, NO RESISTENCE TABLE?

Readers familiar with BRP will know that one of the key game mechanics is the use of a resistance table to resolve most conflicts. It’s a simple, but effective, means of pitting a character attribute against an opposing force to calculate the percentage difficulty on a D100. Lifting a treasure chest with a SIZ 14 when you have a STR 14 is a 50% chance, if you have STR 13, then there is a 45% chance and so on. Even dumb poltroons as the collective minds of The Armchair Adventurers can work with that level of mental arithmetic.

RQ6 dispenses with this approach and introduces the idea of OPPOSED ROLLS to pit skills against skills – if you have a 60% spot hidden and you are trying to find someone who is hiding with a Stealth 40%, both parties roll and if they if they both succeed then the highest roll wins (unless its a critical): The person looking rolls a 55 (success) but the person hiding rolls 35 (another success) so the person looking finds him, because he rolled higher.

It took a bit for us to get used to this concept (and to remember the number that had been rolled) but we are starting to think it’s a neat mechanic.

The GM can apply different grades of difficulty based for skills and combat,based on the circumstances (it’s dark, for example) by reducing the percentage chance of success in thirds. This is making our maths head hurt, but the table provided in the GM guide helps, its something we’ll get used to by playing more often (we used to struggle with the resistance table).

SCRAP! SCRAP!

It is the combat rules that have really sold RQ6 to our group because they create such colourful and descriptive situations. On the whole, fights are resolved much quicker in game time, and in time (when we get more familiar with the rules) it will also reduce the sense that the PCs are grinding out results against evenly matched opponents. Skills percentage are determined by combat styles, which can feature multiple weapon combinations (a Mercenary style, for example, can use an axe, shield, short sword and great axe all at the same percentage). This is based on the principle that combat training is likely to feature a combination of different weapons in case you are disarmed, or in different situations.

Without going into too much detail, there is a similar mechanic as the Opposed Rolls principle applied to combat (Differential Rolls) where levels of success are determined by the number rolled. If you are successful in attacking, and the defender fails parry, then the attacker can choose to implement a ‘special effect’ based on the weapon, if they get a critical then they can choose 2 special effects. For example, Leika got a critical against a weapon’s thane – the player chose to ‘Choose location’ and ‘Impale (to maximise damage: full damage strike to the head, killed him in an instant). The same principle applies if its the other way round – the attacker could fail and the defender get a successful parry – the chance to disarm an opponent or ‘pin the weapon’. The special effects are wonderfully tactical choices than can shift the balance of combat in interesting ways.

There are rules about weapon length and size that are great for us gamers who like a ‘lightweight’ sense of simulating the real-thing. The fatigue rules are less cumbersome than the third edition (but need the ‘divide by 3’ maths that we’re not very good at) and there a genuine sense of excitement during combat.

Healing spells are not as mechanical (I’ll write about magic in another post) so there is no chance of sticking an arm back on with a Healing 6. There’s no hit-points and the level of points per location have been increased, but combat remains lethal for those with low armour (sorry Conan).

Another interesting feature to help in moments of desperation are LUCK POINTS which are allocated by the GM at the start of every session. These may be deployed to ‘re-roll’ a result or to rescue a dire situation. It is a neater solution than offering an attribute multiplier … “you need to roll POW X2 to see whether or not you fall to your death”).

GLORANTHA

The second edition was indelibly associated with Glorantha. RQ6 is much more generic, with the promise of more Glorantha material to come in the future. I’ve done some conversion work that I’ll discuss in another post. The absence of setting is always an issue with a rules set and this is probably the biggest weakness of RQ6. The combat styles are interesting, but there are too few examples provided in the rules.

In my campaign I have brought together the rules-lite Heroquest, Sartar Supplement with the very crunchy RQ6, so far it’s providing some interesting results. Thirty three years later, Grindle’s Pawnshop seems very different…

Runequest 6 – back to the future (Part One)

THE FIRST TIME

They say that you always remember your first time. It was a sun-dappled day in 1982 that we had our debut RPG game, we really should have been enjoying the fresh-air, but for weeks we had been pouring over the finer points of the RUNEQUEST rules. It was a massive conceptual leap to grasp the idea of a game without a board. Thanks to an article in Starburst magazine, which provided an example of play, we were able to work out the idea of ‘Games Master’. When combined with my 12 year old ‘God Complex’ it seemed a natural thing to do. The Games Workshop box set contained ‘everything you needed to play’ which at the time seemed slim pickings, but on reflection were a feast:

Basic Roleplaying: A pamphlet that provided the essential mechanics behind RUNEQUEST, which was later adopted by other Choasium games, most notably CALL OF CTHULHU. The idea of a ‘percentile dice’ being able to resolve most skill-based actions was fairly simple to grasp, as was the attribute vrs attribute resistance table to resolve tests of strength, willpower and agility.

Runequest Rule Book: The cover, and the box featured an evocative painting by the wonderful Iain McCraig, depicting a boiled-leather-bikini clad woman battling with a horrible lizard monster. We would learn that the woman’s chances of survival were minimal if the tenants of the rules were followed. The rules introduced the rather baffling ancient world of Glorantha. Its a wonderful ancient-world setting, but overwhelming for a 12 year brain trying to get to grips with hit locations, three different variations of spells and ‘treasure factors’.

FANGS: A collection of (much needed) pre-generated non-player characters. The best thing about RUNEQUEST is that the NPCs are as richly detailed as the PCs; the worst thing about RUNEQUEST is that you have to roll the NPCs in the same way as the PCs. It meant more work for the Games Master. This booklet provided characters ‘generated on one of those fancy computers that everyone is talking about).

APPLE LANE: A card-backed booklet with a simple line drawing of a little fella being mugged by a goblin-like creature. Inside it provides the details of a small hamlet nestled in the mountains of Dragon Pass. There are three scenarios, the most significant was Grindle’s Pawnshop, where the adventurers are recruited to protect a building against an attack from a pack of baboons.

GRINDLE’S PAWNSHOP

The first game that we played on that summer’s day was Grindle’s Pawnshop. As the Gamesmaster, I had played the game a hundred times in my head before we actually sat down to do it. There had been weeks of painstaking preparation. The scenario suggested that the plans of the Pawnshop were mapped out on ‘butcher paper’, but I wasn’t sure what it was and the bemused heavy-metal lovin’ guy at Manchester GAMES WORKSHOP didn’t know either.

I compromised and drew the floor plan of Grindle’s Pawnshop on a sheet of graph paper. We’d been collecting Citadel miniatures long before we knew that they were connected to a game. In essence, we had created a board for a game that didn’t really need it. The first game was faltering as I was constantly consulting the rules to try an accommodate an action that the players had devised that didn’t fit the version that had been practised in my head.

Despite the sometimes clumsy session, it was clear by the end of it that we were hooked. The thrill of being in the middle of an epic combat with a group of bandits lead by a centaur was just too enticing. The ability to determine our own destiny in a fantasy world, when we were forced in to conformity in school, made us more determined to learn the rules and put the hours in to get better and better at it.

REUNITED – Runequest second ed.

Fast forward 32 years and our gurnard group is stronger than ever. We reunited several years ago to dust off the old supplements such as Borderlands and Griffin Mountain. As adults, we have been able to weave a more textured experience of Glorantha and have been willing to make the setting our own. When we were teenagers we were a bit too precious about upsetting the multi-layered game world with its countless cults, races, myths and convoluted history. There was always a concern that if a Games Master changed something, it would be later contradicted by a supplement.

Now we feel more at liberty to do what we like with the setting, besides there are so many supplements for Glorantha already out there, we are never going to read them all.

At first, we were rusty on the rules. Each of us remembered the rules for ‘special attacks’ differently. Was it full damage plus rolled damage? or, roll the damage twice? Either way, it seemed more deadly than a ‘critical’ that merely ignored armour. Could special attacks be parried with a normal parry roll, or did it need to be a special one? We had a number of different permutations in the early games, which meant that combat was often broken with outbursts of “that can’t be right, can it?”.

Steven, our resident rules lawyer, studied the appendix of the second edition rules where the different effects of an impale, slash and crush, are described in detail, which explained the results of special attacks change, depending on the weapon. We realised that the rules that were in our memories were a conflation of STORMBRINGER and some house-rules we adopted back in the day, thanks to an article that once appeared in White Dwarf.

Since the 2nd edition rules were released back in the early 80s, there have been a number of iterations published. Thanks to the complicated exchange of rights and acquisitions since then, its has been difficult to keep up with what actually constitutes ‘Runequest’. Last year, The Design Mechanism solved uncertainty by deciding that the latest version of the rules were the ‘6th’ edition and they published a handsome rule-book to bring the game into the 21st Century.

It’s time for the these old gurnards to freshen up!