Runequest – how much flavor do you force on it?

One of the most challenging things about running classic Runequest, beyond the mechanics of full character creation and combat crunch, is setting the mood. Hell, originally I wasn’t even sure a proper mood could be set.

A little over 30 years ago I was a kid at Aero Hobbies in Santa Monica, playing in whatever game one of the older pricks decided they wanted to run (and that owner Gary Switzer wanted to play). That meant very little D&D, and lots of things like Bushido, Traveller, and Runequest. There were always a couple of Runequest campaigns going on.

Outside of the focus on god worship and common spell use (I do remember thinking that everybody pretty much ran clerics in RQ), I don’t remember much of what I learned of the secrets of Glorantha at that time. The older guys seemed to know the world and it’s conflicts very well, and it makes sense that Gary would because as a store owner he could read all the material in the form of books and fanzines that filtered through. This and that battle; this and that war; this and that location. Stuff on that classic setting that you have to search through a thousand sources to get bits and pieces of. And it’s worse now, because there is so much more that has been added to the milieu over the decades.

With limited time on my hands, I put in much more research in the Dragons Pass setting (where I would ultimately start the first game; that was another hard decision – Prax or DP?) than studying up the rulesbook. In all honesty, I forgot how much there was too the crunch. I ran a lot of Call of Cthulhu in the 90’s, but I forgot that is a fairly retarded down version of those RQ rules. Basic Role Playing at its most basic.

But whatever. In games I’m a “flavor man.” A good solid foundation in your setting and the player’s surroundings is crucial for my style of character development. So, with the under-populated classic Runequest forums being of little help, I thrashed about for Dragons Pass location info, at least enough to hang my hat on and add my own items to it to make it my own. I got the Kerofinela Gazette, but that describes things to a certain degree in terms of at least several years after the time period I am using. So I have to play fast and loose with that info. Just use what I need to describe a location. And of course Cults of Prax is big help, but that describes the gods in terms more of the natives of that area.

So into it I go with only shards of info and my own winging skills, on the raggedy edge of trying to express a world I did not create with scattered and sketchy info.

I did not want to hit these guys over the head with too much data. A few days before the game I created a several page primer on the setting. Basically, getting across that it is a Bronze Age version of a marriage between ancient Scotland and ancient Norway. That city civilization is a very new thing, and that even the haughtiest noble is not far removed from barbarian herd culture. I gave the basics of how the Lunar Empire has spent a generation chaining Dragons Pass because they need it as a highway to the holy land, and how they are suppressing the god Orlanth. That all the characters, townsfolk or barbarian, are of the kingdom of Sartar, and how it is a conquered kingdom, but has not been so for long.

As far as the official history of the era, I hope I am not too far off with all this. So much is assumption.

To get away from the D&D reasons for adventure, I explained that this particular period (1615…two years after Starbrows famous Sartar rebellion) was a time of youngsters of both sexes hitting the bricks in search of combat and mysteries for a variety of reason that created a perfect storm: a feeling that major wars are on the horizon, that the gods and their before-time adventures and dungeon crawls are to be emulated, that success in all endeavors is achieved by personal fitness and growth, and a sort of hipster faddishness (“everybody’s doing it, mom” sort of thing). That last reason alone seems to makes sense to me as to why teenagers who can’t use a weapon for shit would set out into a world where one lucky sword hit could take an arm off you, and probably will no sweat.

As you might know I like to have music going during my sessions, although in the long run I’m not sure how the group on a whole feels about it. But in all honesty I don’t really give a rats ass about that. The “right” music going during a game is important for MY mood, and I’m running the game so my mood matters most. But when you run your games somewhere were somebody else is the host, there can be some ackward moments. There was a point not too long ago when our kind host seemed to think Butthole Surfers was good for D&D. And when I emailed the group saying to bring any ancient Celt/Tribal music for our first Runequest session, the first thing said to me when I showed up was “we decided David Byrne was ancient enough for Runequest”. Oooo-kay. "We." Right. But again, MY mood, so before long I had some drums and pipes going, as well as some Vasen (Swedish super-folk group I met last year at a music camp). Set the mood for me.

As for the combat, I think it was a good “working out the kinks” session. It did take awhile. You can tell when a combat it taking too long – I usually judge it by the look on Terry’s face. If it is kind of blank, half smiling, with the eyes half shut zombified sort of thing, then things are getting old. But I think it will go quicker next time, especially when people have better chances of hitting and are a little less challenged by everything. But just the fact that they are young dumbshits with no training; punks cracking wise and full of piss and vinegar, seems flavorful to me. I hope they see that too.

And I see things already for the characters that might evolve naturally for maximum flavor, things I realized later on after the session. Big Ben’s guy seems to favor the bow, and with archery being invented by the sun god Yelm he might want to go in the direction of that cult. Might go good with his characters apparent love for singing. Andy’s guy has a Power and INT of 17, and he happens to be from the city of Jonstown which has the biggest library in all of Sartar. That might make Jonstown a “college town,” and that would go good with his apparent scholarly leanings. Terry as a female fighter and devotee to Orlanth’s daughter, Vinga, will surely lead her to some interesting things. And Paul’s midget barbarian, well, nuff said there. Character was born with flavor (and “Shorty” uses a long spear, which is pretty amusing).

In the long run, the guys seemed to have fun doing something new. But it was very much a learning experience for us all. I’m sure the second session will go much smoother. If not, well, Terry was hoping we were doing a Call of Cthulhu campaign instead of this…




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasen

Finally…Runequest!

My little dream of running some classic Runequest, and current obsession months in the making, has come to wonderful fruition! Well, OK, don’t want to oversell it. Character creation took a little longer than I had planned, and seemed crunchier than I expected. I always found character creation sessions some of the most fun you can have in gaming, and it was, but with a voice hoarse from a cold the other week and NYE this week, it was a bit like work as well. A couple of the players had unusual levels of bitchiness (post holidays blues?), and I had to repeat things a lot as we went through the stat rolling and skill and ability modifying process.

Weapons and strike rank (hoo boy, strike rank) set-up too, and all during the process I tried to interject setting info that had to do with this and that. Without stuffing it down their throat, I mentioned cults and gods here and there and how they might fit in with the lives they have planned for the characters. And they did pan out pretty good, considering I made them all Sartarites and had them roll for background (human characters can be overly similar in RQ, so a little personal character flavor can go a long way). Three of the four players present this night rolled townspeople, and Paul got to be the sole barbarian. Amusingly, he decided he wanted his tribe to be sheep herders. “I wish I could quit you!”

Most interestingly, Paul’s barbarian got a 4 for size (I actually had them roll three sets of stats in order, and the one with the size 4 was most appealing to Paul). So, the party had a midget in their midst. An M&M in a bowl of Snickers Bars.

Terry’s girl and Big Ben’s dude were from the capitol Boldhome, and Andy made his guy be from Jonstown, near as I can tell from the setting is the sister city to Boldhome. You see, the setting info for classic Glorantha is spread out over tha’ internets like melted peanut butter. Most of the stuff you can find ends up being about Heroquest or other Glorantha games set in time periods different than the classic one (the period after Starbrows Rebellion). Even though I have a couple of items with info on classic Dragons Pass, I’m still having to guess and half guess so many things it makes my head fucking spin. But I guess this is a good way to make Glorantha your own. Intentional? I dunno. Pain the ass? Kinda. I don’t want to buy any Runequest material (last I looked a year or two ago the 2nd edition Runequest book of my youth was going for more than 50 bucks), so I’m restricting myself to online info (the Runequest forums aren’t exactly hopping) and whatever I can pilfer online in terms of PDFs.

Anyway, the three young townies and the barbarian midget (with a size of 4 he could wear Vern Troyers kilt – but I still let him use a long spear) came to the spring festival in a certain town famous for apples and a tin roofed public lodge, and ended up doing the “tribal initiation” routine found in classic RQ. Basically, fighting other young, wisecracking punks to the death in Humakt Battle Circles, with a powerful healer nearby. Good thing, because after the characters paired up in teams of 2 (I wanted to go easy on myself and have them fight each other instead of NPCs) and fought the good fight, Ben’s guy was taken out by a spear through the bread basket, and Paul’s wee sheep laddie found his left arm chopped off. This was nice surprise for these guys used to D&D, I tell you what. As the healer did her thing, they got the gravity of the situation; you can get seriously jacked-up in combat in RQ. Death and amputation lurks around every corner. Nice.

Anyway, that combat took awhile as many RQ combats do. They take awhile early on when nobody can land a blow for shit, and it will take awhile later on when everyone can parry every attack. But it was a good practice session for characters, players, and GM. Still a lot of kinks to work our regarding movement and statement of intent in combat (it’s a realy buzzkill in gaming), but I think I made my rules skill check. Hopefully it will be easier next time.

The characters retreated to the Inn to have refreshments bought for them by amused combat spectators, and celebrate their first real life or death combat.

Next time, a little more festival fun and mini-games to get them a variety of skill checks (I also had the Humakt guys build an obstacle course that could test jump, climb, and dodge skills), and perhaps the characters first job and a brush with something they have been frightened of since childhood: Chaos.

Harley & Ivy's Xmas Shopping Spree

Here's an Xmas themed clip from one of my favorite episodes of The Batman Animated Series. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy brainwash and kidnap Bruce Wayne and force him to pay for a high end departement store shopping spree. Goddamn these sick, evil chicks are so cute together. Girls really put us men through the ringer during the holidays, right guys? Right, guys? Guys...? C'mon, you can speak up. She doesn't know this blog exists...

Have a fun, happy holiday all!

Paul Jaquays - Wow!

This news will probably be all over the OSR in the next day or two, but just thought I'd do a quick post on it. Paul Jaquays, one of my favorite JG designers from back in the day, has had gender reassignment this weekend. Apparently he has been unhappy for a long time, and this is bringing him happiness, according to his Facebook page.

Last year he answered a couple of my silly questions in the comments section of his Grognardia interview (I think regarding Fred the Amulet and his old Star Trek parody in The Dungeoneer). He came off as a pretty cool guy, who is now I guess a pretty cool gal.

Anyway, as a nod to PJ here's a post of mine from a year or so ago talking about wanting to get back into some of his old material I loved in my gaming olden days. Good luck with your new life, my friend.






Night of the Walking Wet

Even though it is maybe months away, I keep thinking about what I would like to do for the early part of my next campaign, so I have been going through my older game stuff for ideas. Over the weekend I took another look at my old and beaten copy of The Dungeoneer Compendium.

The first 6 issues of The Dungeoneer from back in the day each had a featured dungeon. Each of these were great examples of Judges Guild’s wild and wooly take on Dungeons and Dragons. For one thing, the entries for rooms and areas were just like I did mine in my game notebooks, specifically, poor spelling, grammer, and amusing misuse of words. A lot of the time, you could barely grasp what the author (usually the great Paul Jaquays) was getting at in some of the entries, just like one of my players might find my notebook jots to be if they snuck a glimpse. This stuff was so very amateurish, and for sure that was a good thing. It was one of the charms of the stuff; it was written the way I wrote for my games, and how could that not appeal to me? It was homey and warm, and you automatically felt like the author was your buddy, a regular guy in a way Sir Gary never could came off in his flowery prose.

At one time or another, I ran each of the dungeons featured. Borshak’s Lair, The Pharoah’s Tomb, Merlin’s Garden, etc. Actually, I ran most after the Dungeoneer Compendium came out and collected the dungeons of the first six issues. That great book not only contained all those dungeons, but also placed them all on the land map of Jaquays’ great Night of the Walking Wet setting. All those places, and more, were right there in the Castle Krake area, and I used that to my advantage.

I made a decent mid-level campaign out of it. My teenage sweethearts’ Elf character Noradama “Nord” Calingref won Castle Krake in a card game, and took her adventurer pals along with her to clear out the Slime God, and the Type 4 Demon and ghoul army of Krakesbourough. That Walking Wet scenario is hella cool, and is pure Judges Guild.
I have great memories of all those dungeons set near Krake. In The Pharoah’s Tomb, one player had a desert ranger, and he was able to scramble over all those sand-trap rooms while other characters struggled and got trapped. He loved using an ability I gave his character that he thought he would never use. He was so jazzed, his character skittering over the sand floods and ululating “ayiayiayaiyaiyai!”

Within Borshak’s Lair, a magic tomb invaded by orcs, one character found the hilarious “Fred the Magic Amulet.” The sentient, +1 protection amulet had awesome illusion powers, and I would have it transform into a giant, inanimate shark that still spoke in Fred’s high pitched Mickey Mouse voice. Dark Tower was great, but this shit was Paul Jaquays best work as far as I was concerned. Was he as stoned as I sometimes get when he was writing these scenarios?

All these dungeons featured old school D&D staples, i.e. plenty of magic affect statuary, and traps that were usually more weird and scary than deadly. I had so much fun with this stuff as a teen. Sadly, I eventually got more serious with my adventures, heading more into “High Fantasy” despite sticking with 1st edition.

But I think it is time to revisit some of this classic cheese of time past, so I may just be making the dungeon-heavy Castle Krake area and it’s interesting sandbox surroundings the setting for the next campaign.

Sci Fi fashion goes full circle

If there is one truly weird fact I have learned from Science Fiction films and books is that fashion eventually comes full circle. That is to say, it gets to a certain point beyond military or blue collar worker jumpsuits into semi-space punk latex jumpsuits and astronaut armor, and then starts heading back to ancient garb. Tunics, togas, and robes. Cases in point: Logan’s Run, Star Wars, The Time Machine, original Star Trek, and the book version of the Dune Universe and others. Whatever it is, we eventually digress into the fashion of ancient Rome.

Somewhere in there is the turtleneck sweater phase of the future as well.

One campaign wraps, some others begin

Well, last night we did what will be the last KOTOR session for awhile . After having done Night Below with 1st edition for two years (with little breaks for Metamorphosis Alpha and Champions) I was a little burnt out, so I knew from then on I would keep to 6 month campaigns of whatever I ran. We started KOTOR in July I think, so the holidays seem to be a good time to end it. I think we had between 12-14 sessions, and it has actually been pretty fun. For people who are only marginally into Star Wars, we got into it and everybody seemed to like their characters and there were some pretty good interactions.

I found the Star Wars Saga system a bit of a challenge in that there is very little wriggle room with the rules. If you house rule one thing, you risk messing up some other thing related to it. My first instinct as a GM is to houserule any little thing I don’t like. But in a way this was a good discipline exercise for me. I could focus less on rules I wanted to change and more on the actual gameplay.

So with a session of dicking around Coruscant, with three pretty good combat actions sequences, including Rokran and Lushia the Jedi getting to lightsaber duel two other Padawans under power suppressors in the Jedi Temple (with the block ability, these fights can take a long time with no force powers involved), we set things to rest and will do the second half of the campaign later next year. But for now…

Both Call of Cthulhu and Runequest are what I want to do next. Big Ben’s 1st edition games will help keep us a D&D group, but after all that Night Below it’s going to be awhile before I want to run extended D&D. Just for fun we are going to do some one-offs here and there with the now high level Night Below guys, but my focus will be CoC and RQ.

But which to start first? I had long, successful Cthulhu campaigns in the 80’s and 90’s (some of those 90’s runs were so much fun as to seem unreal). But I have also been itching to do some classic Glorantha again for almost 30 years. As for the players, some seem the most into Cthulhu, some seem to be very curious about RQ. Terry having been a big part of those 90’s Cthulhu games (her mobbed-up torch singers Lila survived two campaigns where most others died or went nuts) is inspiration to get going on that, and the fact is that with Dan Dan the Power Game man™ being back in South Africa seeing family for a couple of months, it’s a great time to do some subtle, low combat Cthulhu.

Anyway, with both games being based off Basic Role-Playing, I think I’ll interchange sessions; run both games at once. Maybe do Cthulhu when we only have 4 or less players, seeing as six is kind of a crowd in an investigator group, and RQ the rest of the time.

As my last Cthulhu game ended set around 1923, I think I’ll jump ahead a few years to 1927 or 28. Lots going on towards the end of the decade in America and beyond. I’m going to take the adventures from Times Square in New York, to New England (brief visits to Innsmouth and Arkham might be called for), and eventually to California, the setting of my previous campaign.

For Runequest, the big question is do I want to have characters start in the stormy hill country of Dragon’s Pass, or in the arid and sometimes barbaric land of Prax to the east. Actually that decision is my biggest struggle with it at the moment. What is the best way to introduce players to Runequest and Glorantha who have zero knowledge and experience about it? That is actually part of the excitement for me. Complete Glorantha noobs. Blank slates.

But anyway, here we go. New year, new genres, new campaigns.

The Star Wars Universe is like a Toaster

In this recent post about the Star Wars city planet Coruscant, Chaz makes this comment:

“…On a further aside - what's with the technological stagnation in the star wars universe? My grandmother was born in 1916 and today she uses a kindle with ease! It always seemed weird to me that KOTOR tech was in line with Episode IV etc…”


It’s true that we still think more about the cool tech, and enduring “lived in” look of Star Wars than why this 25,000 year old galaxy-spanning civilization does not advance much in terms of the functionality of the equipment available. Over the thousands of year of the Republic, little changes outside of, perhaps, the architecture and style-design of weapons and gear. Pod Racers might be popular towards the end of the Galactic Republic, while Swoop Bikes are the choice for racing 4,000 years prior, but very little goes forward in the technology that drives and powers things. The biggest technological difference that comes to mind to me time and time again is that the protocol droids are far less mincing than their Empire era counterparts (but still a little light in the loafers) although that is sketchy research matter at best. Bottom line; if C3PO was proficient in over 6 million languages, odds are that was the same amount a Knights of The Old Republic droid would be proficient in.

Comlinks are the cell phones of the Star Wars Universe, and Datapads seem to be the Laptops/Netbooks of folks. You would think that just like the real world these things would change fastest and the most, but between the KOTOR period and the Trilogy period, the tech has not changed. In fact, in the classic Star Wars periods you do not see many Datapads at all, usually only in the hands of tech dudes on the Hoth base or whatever. But as little as 30 years prior in the Clone War era Anakin is seen goofing around with one on the couch. So did they just get too expensive in the Empire era? Was everybody just too busy shitting their pants to even think about such frivolous items?

In Dune, the universe had a pretty good excuse for keeping tech from advancing. They had bad prior experiences with robots, so they banned all computers any more advanced than an abacus. There’s yer technological retardation right there. Not even the Golden Path could overcome that fear.

But Star Wars has no such excuses. What’s the deal?

One could say that the galaxy and Republic is constantly being faced by devastating wars again and again, usually involving the Sith and the Jedi. This not only costs huge numbers in lives and sucks up resources, but puts many thriving planets, again and again over the millennia, into periods of urban decay and semi-post apocalypses. When this happens to major industrial areas, technological growth gets retarded. OK, but you soon have to hand-wave theories like this, because wars tend to bring forth greater and great technologies that eventually trickle down to the masses. That does not seem to be happening (outside of the occasional Death Star or Star Forge).

So could the very presence of Jedi as constant allies in the Republic over the millennia have something to do with technological retardation? Probably not, because after most Jedi are gone regular folk seem to fuck things up pretty good on the high tech front. Everybody heads for the hills when The Empire takes over, and most of their ships and vehicles don’t seem to be able to even get a paint job, much less an upgrade. Hey, when the highest tech items on Tatooine are either used to vaporate moisture or bullseye Womp Rats, you know you are in a universe in decline.

But I think my “Toaster Theory” is the most logical fit. You see, toasters have barely changed in almost 100 years. They must be the least changed technology in our real world. Sure, they have come in countless designs and styles on the shelves of Sears stores over the decades, but when the day is done they all still heat your toast and your Pop tarts by heating up metal coils. That’s it. Why? I think it must have something to do with functionality meets cost-benefit analysis meets the point of diminishing returns. Could we come up with better ways to toast our multi-grain grub-outs if we threw a lot of money at it? Sure. We could probably also set little laser beam blast traps to disintegrate the mice infesting the garage, only 2.1 million dollars per trap down at Rite-Aid! But will it kill mice better than a spring-loaded roll bar that breaks it’s neck for 3 bucks? Nope. Don’t need a better mouse trap. Come to think of it, in Star Wars they would probably have it be a low tech Rube Goldberg-like device with gears and poles and descending cages like the old board game.

So maybe in the Star Wars universe, blasters work as good as you need them too and still be able to afford them. How much faster does a starship need to go once it’s in hyperspace? Would it make that huge a difference to spend three times the money to get somewhere a day sooner? And when your police force numbers in the millions and your armed forces number in the billions, can you afford to give them all blasters that do double damage, and give them all hand held super-computers? Could you divert needed funds towards teleportation technology? Who would set-up all these resources? And could such advances actually ignite wars over them, fracturing the Republic even more than the endless beatings it takes over the thousands of years of it’s existence?

In all Star Wars eras computers not changing is the real head scratcher. They seem to be in the early to mid-80’s Earth level of tech millennia-in, millennia-out. So…there are no Steve Jobs types in the SW universe? Perhaps there are some planets in the universe with super-tech that has actually advanced beyond those you see in general population use in Darth Vader’s time or Darth Revan’s time. But what works and is cost-effective on a planetary scale probably is not on a galactic scale.

OK, obviously I have no answers, and the Toaster Theory™ only goes so far. But apparently The Republic after the Empire era sufferes for it’s lack of tech advancement and too much reliance on The Force when the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy. With their own bizarre organic hi-tech weaponry and immunity to The Force, they are enough to make the sentients of the galaxy wish they had put more nose to the grindstone in the technology department, and less in ancient weapons and hokey religions.