Month: January 2015

RQ Encounter goes to town to check out the taverns and bars

RQ Encounter tool has been enhanced with new tools for building taverns.  We received a permission from Johnn Four of the fabulous RoleplayingTips.com to extend our taverns with the tables from his GM Mastery Book Three: Adventure Essentials: Inns & Taverns. He is offering 100% off the PDF version of Inns & Taverns

There is now Tavern Names – Ports and Tavern Names – Cities feature table to provide names for the bars. Room Quirks provide varying quirky rooms and Tavern Themes can be used to set a theme for the bar.

There are now also RQ6 rules for getting drunk in the taverns – this was based on Sebastian Jansson’s excellent suggestion at the design mechanism forum.

State of intoxication table has been added and you can see its effects on any of the drunk members in the bars.

Taverns and bars also have a drink menu automatically generated for various strengths of drink.

Tavern Names, Tavern Themes, Room Quirks and many of the added “Activities at bar” inspired by “GM Mastery: Inns & Taverns Essentials” and used with permission of Johnn Four of RolePlayingTips These have been tuned a bit to fit a RuneQuest/Glorantha context.

All of the current establishments (bar templates) have been updated with the above

List of new things

  • Drinking rules for Runequest 6
  • Tavern themes
  • Greatly expanded activity at bar table
  • Tavern names for cities
  • Tavern names for ports
  • Room quirks
  • State of intoxication
  • Drinks menus provided and can be added to taverns
  • Drunkenness table for the patrons of the bar

Bars to visit tonight

 

Rules for drunkenness

Drunkenness

The victim suffers a state of intoxication, and will therefore experince an increasing lack in mental and physical finesse. Each time the victim fails an endurance role versus the drink’s potency, he or she gains a level of fatigue. These levels of fatigue persist for 1 hour. If the victim gains five levels of fatigue in this way he or she will have to make a secondary endurance role or suffer nausea for 1d6 + Number of drinks hours the following day. Thanks for rules to Sebastian J at Designmechanism forum.

Random Drunkness for a patron of the bar

For random drunkness use add 1d6 * hours place has been open for drinks. Reduce by any endurance over 100.

1-25 Not Drunk
26-45 Feeling it – All skills get hard penalty.
46-60 Buzzed – All skills at Hard Penalty. Movement rate -1
61-70 Sloppy – All skills at Formidable Penalty. MR -2. Strike Rank -2
71-80 Reckless – All skills at Formidable Penalty. MR halved. SR-4. Action points -1

81-85 Hammered – All skills at Herculean Penalty. MR halved. SR-6. AP-2
86-90 Passing Out – All skills at Herculean Penalty. Immobile. SR-8. AP-3
91-95 Blackout – All skills at Hopeless Penalty. No activities
96-00 Wagonwreck – No Activities possible. Horrible things may have happened. Total memory loss of the loss of self control

The Big guys

There is usually always the big guy to oppose you – the big barbarian in the corner, the bodyguard of the boss, the sergeant. He could be just the really big and strong one the big Wolf Pirate, the blacksmith, the strongest man in the tribe. Now there are templates for a few of these at various levels

He could be also the guy nobody likes to fight – the unstoppable one – the only undefeated champion in the history of gladiator fights – the Tigris of Gaul, he could be Onslaught, Conan the Cimmerian, Marv in the Sin City, Kull of Atlantis – basically a fighter at the top of his game – does not use much magic but just the physical skills.Here is a version of one such. The version might not fit the power level of your game so tune up accordingly if needed.

Gloranthan and Eastern Weapons

Elf, troll,dwarf, dragonewt and eastern weapons (non official versions) have been added to the selection of weapons. Have you wanted to roll a disorder keg down the corridor against the attacking trolls – here is your chance. Volley of blunderbuss fire to clear out the too far extended tunnels of the Sazdorf clan – fire away. Have you wished to bash in the skull of these pesky Mostali aberrations with your troll maul – your wish has come true. Have you wanted to draw your klanth and embed into the stealers of draconic secrets – that can be done now. Have your Vormaini pirates missed their katana, naginata and the long forgotten yari – now they are here. Yari-nage, Chokin, utuma – all exist now. You can select now two new categories in the templates – Gloranthan and Eastern weapons.

The weapon calculations now also take into account the size of the wielder.

Guest Post: Back Under the Glowline

A long time gaming buddy of mine Tom Zunder wrote such a great post on his Gaming Tavern forum that I asked his permission to reblog it also here. There is so much choice that we friends of Glorantha have now. So here is his post. 

So, time to return to Glorantha I feel. It’s been years, maybe a decade or more, since I’ve gamed under the Red Moon, faced the terrors of Thanatar and charged with my Enlo against Blue Moon Moth Riders. You know what, I kinda bloody miss it, and purged of all the accumulated cruft of the Glorantha nerds and the mismatch between myself and Hero Wars, it’s time to worship the Dark Mother, riddle with Nysalor and embrace the endless history of Darra Happa.

But, and this is lovely, there are so many choices.Firstly, and I don’t mind saying this, there is HeroQuest with the tailored match between the the recent setting books, all redolent in simple d20 keywords and meshed neatly between culture and game. There is some truly lovely stuff in the sources that meshes with HQ, and yet.. I’ve never really enjoyed a game of HQ, although a lot of that might be from the Hero Wars action point economy that bored me to tears. Also, and although I can enjoy the depth of Glorantha cultural minutia, it has been what turned me off the setting for so long. I am, and always have been, more of a greatsword swinging Zorak Zorani than a Lhankor Mhy, and so I don’t think it’s HQ for me.

Secondly there is RuneQuest. We approach a time of possibly the best moderately complex version of RuneQuest that we’ve ever had, one that fixes the old issues about divine magic, montheism in a polytheistic world, makes a bloody good stab at sorcery and delivers a folk magic that actually feels folksy and useful to a carpenter or potter. We don’t have Adventures in Glorantha yet, but Hannu Kokko and the Finns are making a very good stab at it with their proto-cult write ups and the joy that is the RuneQuest Encounter tool online.. a party of Chaos cultists heading out from SnakePipe Hollow, I don’t mind if I do. Only problem, I think RQ6, like earlier RQs, doesn’t scale to Heroic, which is, after all why HeroQuest was first conceived.

Thirdly, and this isn’t as mad as it sounds, is OpenQuest. Combined with the RuneQuest Classics RQ2 reprints from Rich Meints, or a selection of RQ3 adventures, one can run an OQ game in Glorantha with barely a flutter. The spells have the same names, the stat blocks are very similar, and OQ is lighter and involves less rethink that RQ6. I know Simon Bray runs all his Glorantha with OQ these days and if that isn’t a recommendation I don’t know what is. So, possible and do-able, but one also can’t help wondering if maybe a copy of RQ2 or RQ3 might also fit in this camp, they’re easily pickupable in the UK on ebay, if you haven’t already got them all on the shelf, which I have.

Fourthly, and here the ZZ beserker in me wails in joy, 13th Age Glorantha! This riot of a d20 game that won me over to D&D after 34 years just made me think of Orlanth, the Red Goddess, Kyger Litor, Yelmalio, etc. as I turned the pages. This is a game for the Heroic, and by setting it in the Hero Wars when Argrath wages devastation on the Lunar Empire, and the Red Moon wages it back in an apocalyptic frenzy that cracks Glorantha from Choralinthor Bay to Valind’s Glacier, is the time for the power and crazy that is a 13th Age player character. So, and this is a defininte, the d20 will come to my Glorantha table, but it will be rolling high and not low.

But that’s not all.

Oh no.

I have a steadily growing collection of skirmish minis and skirmish rulesets. I know Sandy Petersen is playtesting a Gloranthan Gods War game, and I suspect that like his earlier Cthulhu boardgame, this may lead to a big fat bunch of 28mm Gloranthan minis.

So how to skirmish in Glorantha?

Well the Glory Geeks, that brave band of Gloranthan wargamers, have valiantly field Hordes of the Things Gloranthan armies in the HOTT fields of war, and indeed Rich Crawley’s Goranthan HOTT bands are great to play. Just ask him, or Jane, for army lists and where to get the rules and you too can be playing Gloranthan battles in under an hour a time on your dining room table. I am odd though, I don’t like to base my figures in blocks, since I am a roleplayer first I like them singly based. So, not HOTT for me, although always up for a game.

Rich and I have been enjoying Song of Blades and Heroes from Ganesha Games in recent years. A fast 28mm/15mm/any scale skirmish game free of any tie in with any minis maker, SoBH or SBH is enjoyable, wonderfully generic, quick to learn and play, and leaves your minis free for any other use since it has no basing needs. I know Rich has done Glorantha with it and I was almost there until I saw..

Of Gods and Mortals, or OGAM. Published by Osprey this is in fact a superset of SBH, where gods (40mm+), avatars (28-40mm) and their forces (28mm) battle it out on the field of war. What could be more Gloranthan? Cacodemon and his warband facing down Storm Bull and his? It’s appealing isn’t it, and I think I shall have to lay down the ten quid to get OGAM and see how it’ll work if and when some good Gloranthan minis come out, so come on Sandy!

And that’s not all.. after all, if Sandy P does get the Glorantha boardgame going, is there any chance of resisting that?

Must go, Cragspider is calling..

The Troll

HQ: http://www.glorantha.com/product/heroquest-glorantha/
RQ6: http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/runequest.php
OQ: http://d101games.com/books/openquest/
13th G: http://www.13thageinglorantha.com/

SBH: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3080 … and-heroes
OGAM: http://www.northstarfigures.com/list.php?man=159&page=1

Tom Zunder: tom at zunder.org.uk
Encourage the Awesome!

Uz of Shadows Dance – Trollball and Other Troll Pursuits from Dagori Inkarth

It is time to return to Dagori Inkarth and visit the famed Skyfall Lake and see the Uz at their best – at a Trollball match. Based on “Into the Troll Realms” which contains the two famous Trollball teams here is a way to create your own Trollball teams with the rules tuned for RQ6. Full rules exist in the “Into the Troll Realms” but an abbreviated version will be found with the “Trollball Staff”
Should you anger your hosts they might set a pursuit pack on you or two.
Should you escape the hunters – you might encounter

Most of the trolls have now been updated with the “Hate the Sun”, “Vulnerable to Iron” and other abilities needed.

You will find more troll parties and enemies with filters Uz and Uz lands.

Back to the Roots – Returning to Snakepipe Hollow

Back in the very early days there was a wonderful scenario for Runequest called Snakepipe Hollow and then RQ Adventures did a return to the Snakepipe Hollow 20 years ago. For Runequest 6 one would surely need worthy opponents in Snakepipe Hollow.  For nostalgia’s (and education’s sake) added the missing enemies. Many of the ones were already existing and created just a tag for them. Here are few – updated for RQ6 – some of them are somewhat deadlier than in the original.

Both Hands of Chaos are it again.

There are a few obscure ones that have not been seen in publications since Snakepipe Follow like

Some existing parties have been updated and placed into Snakepipe Hollow. Use a filter with name “Nest of Chaos” in Party Encounters  and press the “Do you Feel Lucky” button – you’ll see a party appropriate for the Heart of Chaos in Snakepipe Hollow. It will include among other parties

  • Broo Raiders and Broos on the Road for Ragnaglar and Thed.
  • Dark Troll Hunting Party and a war party
  • Dragonewt Ambassador, Expedition, Revenge Mission and Dragonewts on Warpath
  • Ogre Trading Caravan and an Ogre Hunting Party
  • Some desperate Sartarites with Sartar Earthshakers
  • Scorpionmen Raiding parties
  • Unruly Giants
  • Thanatari Headhunting Mission from nearby Engoli tribe
  • Tusk Rider party and Urain Foul Wind Party

Opening the Doors of the Anaxial’s Ark – hundreds of beasts escape

Anaxial’s Ark has opened its doors and the multitudes of Gloranthan insects, land and sea animals and various chaos and darkness beings that escaped have taken the RQ Encounter tool beyond 1700 template mark to generate enemies from.  There should be now enough insects to feed the largest troll army and quite a variety of broos. Among the latest templates created are the following.

Uz lands

  • Dark Troll Sorceror
  • Kozoru, Shadow Vampire
  • Dehori – Grasping Hands plus tuning of most of the shades
  • Party: Flying Trollkin
Chaos
  • Bison – Chaos Herd
  • Bull Broo, Thed Initiate
  • Bullsitch
  • Chaos Wasp
  • Chaos Wolf
  • Chaotic Giant Constrictor Snake
  • Chicken Broo
  • Cloud of Chaotic Gas
  • Crocodile Broo
  • Hellwood Dryad gardener
  • Horse Broo
  • Hungry Eater
  • Krarshtkid Broo
  • Scorpion Broo
  • Stake Snake

Land Animals

  • Alligator
  • Bonacon
  • Diplodocus
  • Fell Wolf
  • Giant Vrok Hawk
  • Giant Worm
  • Glyptodon
  • Golden lion, Male & Female
  • Great Wolf
  • Horned Wolf
  • Nasobeme
  • Rhea
  • Storm Tiger
  • Woolly Serpent
Insects
  • Changa (Giant Cricket)
  • Giant Beetle
  • Giant Bloodgnat
  • Giant Dragonfly
  • Giant Elkhorn Beetle
  • Giant Fly
  • Giant Leech
  • Giant Peripatus
  • Giant solpugid
  • Giant Whipscorpion
  • Giant Woodlouse
  • Ham Beetle
Sea & Rivers
  • Flocks of Piranha (small to enormous)
  • Giant Shark
  • Ichtyosaur
  • Kronosaur
  • Sea Horse
  • Sea Lion
  • Seal
  • Walrus
  • Whale
Other
  • Dringi, Free Jolanti
  • Fachan
  • Gordayan
  • Hollri
  • Lycanthropy Spirit
  • Serpent Guardian
  • Spirit Wolf

It is easy to search for templates you need, just select either home, enemies or parties page and fill out the search criteria by typing a word or words and/or select an filter.