I've noticed quite a few posters mentioning RuneQuest 6 recently, and I thought it would be nice to dedicate a thread to it. It's been out a couple of years now, and I think it's slowly winning hearts and minds ... If you're into Glorantha, there's the excitement of the new Guide to Glorantha, and the prospect of the upcoming Adventures in Glorantha from the Design Mechanism, but I'm not a Glorantha person myself; the buy-in seems too huge. I'm more interested in what people have been doing with their RuneQuest 6 games up to now.
I've been playing a great campaign using the Monster Island supplement, a gang of pirates stranded in Port Grimsand, and exploring the ruins in search of a get-rich-quick scheme to buy back their ship that their drunken captain lost at cards. We don't get to game very often, but when we do it's been absolutely awesome. One of the really rich things about it, I've found, is that characters who use different magic systems, from different cultures, have a whole cosmology built in, and the confrontations between different belief systems have become, in some ways, a theme of the campaign. We've had some great moments as the voodoo shaman pirate quartermaster and the Islander acolyte of Ravenashoor the Shark God have vied for influence over the young impressionable cabin boy - he's been brought on a vision quest with the shaman, with the tribal animists of Gamari village, and, after losing a hand in a fight with an allosaur, convinced by the Shark God acolyte to perform a ceremony in which he cooks and eats his own hand as a sacrifice to the god, to return the strength of the limb to himself. All of this really came from the characters' deep backgrounds and magic systems.
I've also found combat to be an absolute blast. That battle with the allosaur was truly epic, and there was also a deadly and dynamic show down with some cultists of Zululuun the Unforgetting in the settlement.
But a hell of a lot of the fun has also come from using the wide range of skills available to the characters, and particularly the hilarity that has ensued from characters rolling criticals in ridiculously non life-or-death situations: a critical Deceit roll in convincing some sailors that a character was an acolyte of their god, critical Dance roll to impress the villagers in a tribal ceremony, critical Craft (Carpentry) roll to fashion a crutch and spears from the shafts of an Ivory Impaler, critical Lore (Herbalism) roll to perfectly harvest and preserve the pollen of a Black Lotus the characters came across on the jungle path ... The skill system seems to provide tons of fun just in these unforeseen and ridiculous successes ... and there have been a couple of fumbles too, more crits and fumbles than I at all expected; we've also been enjoying the Passion rules, with Loyalty (Captain), Adherence (Pirate Code), Rivalry (Other PC) coming into play ...
I could go on at length, and perhaps later in the thread I'll chime in with my plans for a new campaign, but for the moment I'm interested in how people who are using RQ6 have been getting on with the rule-set. How have you set the dials for magic use? Which magic systems are you using?
What settings are you playing in? Published products, or homebrew?
How are you finding the rules make themselves felt in play? What are your thoughts on the Combat Special Effects?
Tell us about your campaigns! I'm convinced that this version of what was already one of my favourite games is one of the best systems out there for emulating swords and sorcery, gritty, bloody, culturally rich fantasy ....
Have you been using it for anything else fun?
Have at it!
I just discovered RQ6 a couple weeks ago and don't currently have anyone to play it with, but I've made a couple characters and played out a couple solo battles, which I've really enjoyed. The available set of combat actions and the special effects system are both really well done. I'm still a bit concerned about how much combat comes down to sheer numbers (specifically, how many total action points each side has), but, then, spending an AP to counter a missed attack is optional, plus there's Outmaneuver, so simply having more AP on your side isn't necessarily decisive.
I don't have any history with BRP in general or Glorantha in particular, so no real interest in that setting. Instead, I've been revisiting the Hyperborean setting from Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea with an eye towards converting that to RQ6. Haven't gotten far with it, though, given that I have no "We're playing in X weeks!" deadline to push me.
As for magic systems, I'm thinking I'll definitely be using animism (Kelt druids, Kimmerian shamans, etc.), mysticism (quasi-oriental monks), and sorcery (Ixian necromancers calling on Dark Powers), although I hear that Magic World has an Elric-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off magic system which might work better than sorcery for demon pacts and the like. I might also find use for theism, but haven't decided yet whether it would just be unnecessary kitchen-sink bloat or not. (Maybe use it for Esquimaux shamans, given that the Esquimeaux are a bunch of Kthulhu cultists...)
Yeah, I think it would work really well with the setting from AS&SH. As for demon summoning, I could see two ways of going with it from the RQ rules as they are. You could play it as Animism, reskinned to be all about dealing with demons. It works really well I think, and could replicate those Elric "demon weapon" and "demon armour" type things with binding the demons into those objects as fetishes, and then having them manifest to work their powers; the other option is to use the Sorcery spells, Evoke, Dominate (Demon), and perhaps Protective Ward for the magic circle or pentacle or what have you, and Imprison to hold the summoned creature within its boundaries chalked on the floor in mystic glyphs, surrounded by candles and so on ....
The "Animist" Demon Summoner (it's suggested in the rulebook actually) would really be all about using demonic powers to Augment or Manifest creatures he's summoned, or to do deals with demons, perhaps for parts of his soul! (sacrificing Magic Points to them, and other, squickier things), whereas the Sorcerer could do some Demonology as a side-line, and be a more general spellcaster otherwise ...
I ran a lovely kitchen sink, dystopian S&S game with it and had a blast.
Combat is just great fun.
I will return in a year or so but limit the choices more and just use Theism and Sorcery, with Folk Magic.
It may even be Glorantha which I have not run for years.
I got RQ6 when it first came out and to my mind, it's ramped up the complexity beyond where I can be bothered trying to remember all the rules.
So I like it in theory.
It looks quite nice, but in practice, I just can't be bothered to run it or try to remember all the rules.
Also I don;t particularly like Glorantha. It feels very unapproachable and I feel like I have to read lots of books and lore to get an idea how to run it.
It sort of feels like Rolemaster in that way. which I also like the rules set sort of, but I just can't be arsed with it in practice.
Quote from: danskmacabre;824968Also I don;t particularly like Glorantha. It feels very unapproachable and I feel like I have to read lots of books and lore to get an idea how to run it.
But RQ6 isn't tied to Glorantha... so why is that an issue?
Quote from: Simlasa;824970But RQ6 isn't tied to Glorantha... so why is that an issue?
It isn't tied to it directly no and the Glorantha comment was more of a side comment, which I feel is valid, given Glorantha was mentioned in the original post alongside RQ6.
I'll put it this way. Both Glorantha and RQ6 feel like too much like work and less like fun.
Early on it also struck me as a bit more complex/detailed than I needed but I keep dipping into it for bits to borrow... first the stuff for building cults and then the magic systems and now I'm coveting its combat maneuvers.
We're still playing Magic World but it's slowly creeping closer to RQ6.
My background with RQ in general goes back to 1st Edition Stormbringer
Then followed through with pretty much every iteration of Stormbringer/Elric over the years.
I had played various versions of RQ over the years.
I really liked RQ2/Legend, which I ran a lot of for some years.
Then RQ 6 came along and it felt to me it just upped the complexity beyond where I could be bothered to keep up.
On the face of it, RQ6 and Legend are very similar, but there's elements of RQ6 I just found too fiddly.
I ran a few sessions of RQ6 and found I was flipping all over the book in a sort of disorganised way for character gen and just generally running the game.
Nothing, sadly...
Now, when they release a full on Meeros setting book...
Speaking of Magic world though. As a big fan of the Elric/Stormbringer RPGs, I've been tempted to get Magic World.
But there's so many good RPGs out there I want to run and play, I dunno if I'd get a chance to run or be able to find players for Magic World.
Still I might just buy the PDF one day on an impulse buy , just to read it.
Especially if it ends up on a Humble bundle or something like that.
Quote from: danskmacabre;824993Speaking of Magic world though. As a big fan of the Elric/Stormbringer RPGs, I've been tempted to get Magic World.
It's nice having most all the bits derived from Stormbringer in one place. The Advanced Sorcery book is a pretty great addition as well.
Still... there's just something about the writing in RQ6 that keeps pulling at me like some honey-tongued purveyor of exotic treats. Every time I dip into it my imagination fires up with the possibilities.
I'm thinking when our little group gets back from Spring Break hiatus and finishes up it's current doings I might push for a short stint of pure RQ6 in the same setting but farther out in the boonies where things are a bit less civilized.
You know, it just doesn't seem that complex to me, though even some of my players seem to think it is .... The d100 roll under mechanic itself, once you get your head around it, is really simple, and all the rest is just trimmings. I will admit though, when you add in the magic systems ... I still find Animism a bit of a head full to run without checking bits of it from time to time. And the combat manoeuvres are relatively complex ... Okay, I get your point!
Quote from: YourSwordisMine;824990Nothing, sadly...
Now, when they release a full on Meeros setting book...
Shores of Korantia and
The Taskan Empire are both out now from TDM, that's near enough of a Meeros setting as you're likely to get. SoK is essentially a bronze age Greek city state fantasy analogue...
On the subject of RQ6's apparent complexity, it really isn't, it's detailed which doesn't have to mean complex. It's not detailed in a Rolemastery way it's detailed in the sense of - here's five different magic systems, five of which are optional. When I've looked at Pathfinder rules or any of the d&d editions from the last 20 years I'm amazed at the detailed set of special rules written for each character class (!)...yikes, but that's the most popular rpg, so from that point of view players love complexity as long as it's about levels, powers, druid spell lists, but if it's about parrying? Woah, are you crazy? That's waaay too involved.
Quote from: danskmacabre;824984Then RQ 6 came along and it felt to me it just upped the complexity beyond where I could be bothered to keep up.
On the face of it, RQ6 and Legend are very similar, but there's elements of RQ6 I just found too fiddly.
I ran a few sessions of RQ6 and found I was flipping all over the book in a sort of disorganised way for character gen and just generally running the game.
What are the things in particular that you find too fiddly? I for one couldn't be bothered with the optional rules for more complex movement in combat. Maybe because I don't use miniatures. Otherwise I find that Combat Manoeuvres, for example, are really worth getting your head around and play much more simply than they read. They give you real pulse-pounding knock-down drag-out fights ... But also sometimes fights that are over very quickly due to one side being incapacitated. It's far from slugging through hit point attrition ...
Quote from: Bilharzia;825118On the subject of RQ6's apparent complexity, it really isn't, it's detailed which doesn't have to mean complex. It's not detailed in a Rolemastery way it's detailed in the sense of - here's five different magic systems, five of which are optional. When I've looked at Pathfinder rules or any of the d&d editions from the last 20 years I'm amazed at the detailed set of special rules written for each character class (!)...yikes, but that's the most popular rpg, so from that point of view players love complexity as long as it's about levels, powers, druid spell lists, but if it's about parrying? Woah, are you crazy? That's waaay too involved.
Yes I agree! I find Pathfinder for example to be insanely complicated. And I'm not even sure it's worth it ....
What are you doing with your RuneQuest Bilharzia?
Quote from: markfitz;825121What are you doing with your RuneQuest Bilharzia?
Unfortunately nothing right now! No gaming group any more. All the more annoying after reading your game writeups which are bloody hilarious/fantastic in all the right ways.
Cheers! Glad you enjoyed them! I should do some more ... Unfortunately I've not been getting much gaming this year either. In the middle of finishing a PhD, so I only get to play very occasionally at the moment. Hopefully finishing up that Monster Island game soon and then planning a new campaign with a couple of new players joining in. Talking about games online is like methadone ...
RQ has been voted off the island, so other than tinkering and testing I haven't done much with it lately. Sadly.
I think I have to rig the ballot when Hastur has been tagged and bagged.
Playing a little Cthulhu then are we? I've got a couple of one shots of that as a player on the cards for soon as well....
I'm actually in the middle of a gaming hiatus right now, other than an on-again off-again 5e game. I do want to run either a CoC jungle romp, or RQ6 Monster Island (probably with PCs and other colonists as 16th-Century Portuguese explorers and merchants; the lizard people tribes, and maybe the High Folk, substituted by human natives; and the Island somewhere off the cost of West Africa or South Asia).
That sounds fun. I've substituted the lizard man tribes for humans in my game as well but they're being infiltrated by secretive serpent men....
Portuguese explorers would be awesome. That might work as non standard CoC setting as well....
Quote from: markfitz;825436That sounds fun. I've substituted the lizard man tribes for humans in my game as well but they're being infiltrated by secretive serpent men....
Yeah, keeping the High Folk as serpent men does have that nice Weird Tales vibe, doesn't it?
Quote from: markfitz;825436Portuguese explorers would be awesome. That might work as non standard CoC setting as well....
I chose the Portuguese because I wanted a 16th Century CE level of technology, so you can have longswords and plate armor (if anyone's foolhardy enough to bring it to a tropical island) and even a few primitive black powder weapons; and the early-to-mid-1500s were the height of the Portuguese ultramarine empire, at least until King Sebastian disappeared in a Moroccan battlefield and started the sucession crisis that ended with the Iberian Union.
I see the campaign as moving towards a clash with the serpent men, definitely! Gradually realising that there's a whole decaying civilisation elsewhere on the island is going to be a great reveal I think. I love what they did with the High Folk in Monster Island. Especially those Sorcery schools.
I really like your idea for 16th century Portuguese characters. You sound like you actually know a bit about the period and that can really add hugely to the sense of wonder achieved. Dark things intruding on a world have a hell of a lot more impact if that world is realised in detail. I must admit in my game I went for a fantasy setting, but this time I went for a more pacific islands vibe with the general setting, with some "European" ish characters there as explorers, missionaries, merchants and pirates. I'd been reading some of Robert Louis Stevenson's later work, and that gave me some setting ideas ...
My personal 18thC Monster Island campaign drew to satisfying close late last year with the party somehow managing a TIK (total island kill) - a tale too long to get into here.
Anyway in the prelude to the final scenario I almost killed the campaign myself when I made them roll on the Special Event table and they got a 78 - Pyroclastic Flow... when by the sheerest ill-chance they were passing through the hex of Mount Kamohoali! The players all looked a bit shocked, but I assured them there was only a 1 in 8 chance of it occurring on their NW side of the volcano, so they then went and rolled an 8. Let just say that a lot of Luck Points when up in literal smoke.
Sometimes my own writing is so diabolical it bites me in the arse... :)
I often use RQ6 for one-off sci-fi games, and last month I ran an RQ6 James Bond mini-campaign for a group of old friends, which was topical since we were in Cuba at the time.
Quote from: Pete Nash;825507My personal 18thC Monster Island campaign drew to satisfying close late last year with the party somehow managing a TIK (total island kill) - a tale too long to get into here.
Perhaps, but it begs for an abridged version!
Quote from: Pete Nash;825507My personal 18thC Monster Island campaign drew to satisfying close late last year with the party somehow managing a TIK (total island kill) - a tale too long to get into here.
Did it involve giant kaiju stomping on everything?
Quote from: markfitz;825506I really like your idea for 16th century Portuguese characters. You sound like you actually know a bit about the period and that can really add hugely to the sense of wonder achieved.
I'm a big enthusiast of Portuguese history and that's definitely a factor.
Quote from: markfitz;825506Dark things intruding on a world have a hell of a lot more impact if that world is realised in detail. I must admit in my game I went for a fantasy setting, but this time I went for a more pacific islands vibe with the general setting, with some "European" ish characters there as explorers, missionaries, merchants and pirates. I'd been reading some of Robert Louis Stevenson's later work, and that gave me some setting ideas ...
One of my players assures me that I excel at horror and/or dark fantasy with a historical backdrop, that it's my trademark as a GM, at least since the Solomon Kane game. In any case it is something I enjoy running at least since Vampire: the Dark Ages came out and you're spot-on; the setting doesn't have to be strictly accurate historically, but it's got to feel consistent and lifelike and whole. Like any RPG setting.
Quote from: Pete Nash;825507My personal 18thC Monster Island campaign drew to satisfying close late last year with the party somehow managing a TIK (total island kill) - a tale too long to get into here.
Haha, sounds awesome! Where did you place MI? And who were the PCs?
Quote from: Pete Nash;825507I often use RQ6 for one-off sci-fi games, and last month I ran an RQ6 James Bond mini-campaign for a group of old friends, which was topical since we were in Cuba at the time.
Is that even legal in Cuba? ;)
And most importantly, how did you handle (a) vehicles and (b) gadgets?
Quote from: The Butcher;825581Is that even legal in Cuba? ;)
And most importantly, how did you handle (a) vehicles and (b) gadgets?
Only if communists win.
Quote from: baragei;825515Perhaps, but it begs for an abridged version!
Oh dear, just remember that you asked for this...
Well, my original intent was that after my players unsuspectingly playtested Monster Island for me, I would run a final scenario where they would discover the Throne of the Gods!
[A carved jade artifact which unbeknownst to the PCs would not only elevate the first person to sit on it to godhood, imparting complete awareness of everything on the island; but in addition, permit them to unlock the one-way portals so the other characters could return home if they wished. The idea being that I'd hand over a mint copy of MI to which ever player claimed the prize and pass over the GM's hat to them.]
By the time I got around to launching the end-game, most of the original PCs and even the second stringers had died (and I'd already given them each a copy of MI in gratitude for the entertainment they'd provided). However, the latest characters were just as egocentric so looting an artifact appealed to them.
In order to find the throne, they abandoned Port Grimsand on the point of being destroyed by Oodaku (the octopus kaiju which had come in revenge for what the party had done to the Oodaku tribe), cut a deal with the serpent people and worked out the final resting place of archmage Ybion (whose soul was trapped within one of the Giant Tikis on Ruaumoko). During the rescue mission his ghost possessed one of the PC's and guided them across the island to the hidden valley where the throne was guarded by an immortal legion of vegetated zombies, and a demon infested tree.
To cut a rambling story short, for some reason and despite in-party bickering as to who would claim the right to sit on the throne, at the climax of the scenario none of the PCs seized the chance - simply letting the possessed PC to get there first... with inevitable consequences when the player now controlling Ybion ran with the power trip and scenery-chewing, not even trying to reestablish control.
So the utterly insane and treacherously vengeful as hell Ybion set in motion the final sinking of the continent, with all the remaining kaiju awakening and fighting each other as the sea swallowed the island for once and for all. I think Captain Cook (the NPC buffoon who started the whole campaign off with his traditional British arrogance against the Hawaiian natives) was the only survivor, killing the last remaining PC right at the end as an act of GM maliciousness. ;)
Still, it was a truly epic way to finish the game!
Quote from: Simlasa;825517Did it involve giant kaiju stomping on everything?
Yes!
Quote from: The Butcher;825581Haha, sounds awesome! Where did you place MI? And who were the PCs?
In its own alternate parallel. The original party were members of the crew of HMS Resolution who along with Captain Cook were not killed on the beach in Kealakekua Bay, but were thrown through a magical portal by the natives as sacrifices to the gods. They of course arrived on Monster Island and began suffering the myriad of nightmares of English gentlemen cast into a living hell.
QuoteAnd most importantly, how did you handle (a) vehicles and (b) gadgets?
I handled both as disposable plot elements. You don't really need rules for how fast the Aston goes, or how much damage its machine guns do. Its simply a tool for getting one of the PCs to make Drive skill checks in an opposed test against the mooks or agents pursuing them. In the movies it doesn't matter how good Bond's vehicle is, the other bad-guys vehicles sill interact with it.
Likewise with the gadgets. I gave them an inflatable, jet powered sled suit and a dead bear inflatable balloon (which they used to escape the sub base in Murmansk), tranquilizer dart wrist watches, and a few other gizmos - all one shot items which effectively trumped whatever my NPCs were doing whenever the gadget was used - provided of course they could aim/trigger the thing correctly with a skill roll of some sort.
No need for detailed mechanics for a one-off week long mini-campaign.
Great stuff Pete! It must have been particularly satisfying, as the creator of Monster Island, to destroy it so comprehensively and Ragnarokely! Bit like setting fire to the piano at the end of your turn on stage ....
What I do with RQ6.
"What settings are you playing in? Published products, or homebrew?"
I am running a Gloranthan campaign started from Pavis and moved across the sea to the beautiful island of Loral where the players have settled for a bit with the natives. Those in the know know that the other name for the island is Monster Island. Eventually we might reach Fonrit.
"How are you finding the rules make themselves felt in play? What are your thoughts on the Combat Special Effects?"
I just love the special effects - they make the fights really cinematic and unpredictable. Sorcery is great as well.
I have been creating enemy encounter templates for RQ6 with RQ Encounter Generator. There is now approx 1800 templates from Broos, Afadjanni Corsairs, Fonritan sorcerers to Lunar Hoplites. Most if not all creatures from Anaxial's Annex, Anaxial's Roster, Gloranthan Bestiary, RQ6, Monster Island and magazine and supplement sources have been templated so you can easily generate enemies quickly for your campaign.
https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/rq6-encounter-tool-feature-recap-for-busy-gms/
There are few posts on how to run Gloranthan campaigns with RQ6 before Adventures in Glorantha
https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2014/04/10/starting-a-glorantha-rq6-campaign-before-adventures-in-glorantha/
There are also some charts and tables compiled for RQ6 here
https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/rq6-charts-and-tables/
Most if not all Gloranthan cults have RQ6 One pager created here
https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/gloranthan-cult-onepagers-main-page/
--h
My Glorantha/RQ6 blog (https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com) with Glorantha Cult One-pagers (https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/gloranthan-cult-onepagers-main-page/) and RQ Encounter Tool updates (https://notesfrompavis.wordpress.com/category/rq-encounter-generator/main-page/)
Quote from: hkokko;829216I have been creating enemy encounter templates for RQ6 with RQ Encounter Generator. There is now approx 1800 templates from Broos, Afadjanni Corsairs, Fonritan sorcerers to Lunar Hoplites. Most if not all creatures from Anaxial's Annex, Anaxial's Roster, Gloranthan Bestiary, RQ6, Monster Island and magazine and supplement sources have been templated so you can easily generate enemies quickly for your campaign.
Your Encounter Generator has been a godsend for my Monster Island campaign. Using that plus the excellent random tables from that supplement and some of the adventure seeds and games practically write themselves!
The Combat Effects really are excellent. Fights are not only full of gritty detail but they also flow really well and provide edge of the seat excitement!
It's really been one of the best campaigns I've ever run. Real swords and sorcery goodness.
Thank you - Credits: RQ Encounter Generator is the brainchild of skoll (in thedesignmechanism forums). He is the developer of the software, I am part of the development team and have created fair amount of content but it is crowd sourced so anyone can...
Monster Island truly is one of the great source books for GM.
What are combat effects?
Quote from: Raven;829321What are combat effects?
Scoring a level of success (success v failure, critical v success, critical v failure, and so on) over an opponent, you earn a Special Effect. Effects are varied and range from tripping an opponent through to compelling surrender. The choice is the player's and these choices are very important to the flow of the fight. Some can be fight enders; others can give a distinct advantage.
Ok, so maneuvers from MRQ 2/Legend then. That's cool. I thought it might be something different.
I've been looking at reviews of Monster Island because of this thread. It's... very tempting.
Don't hesitate! Go for it! Monster Island is a superb supplement. You won't regret it.
Quote from: Raven;829354Ok, so maneuvers from MRQ 2/Legend then. That's cool. I thought it might be something different.
I've been looking at reviews of Monster Island because of this thread. It's... very tempting.
Quote from: markfitz;829357Don't hesitate! Go for it! Monster Island is a superb supplement. You won't regret it.
Monster Island is a gem full of terrifying goodness. If you've wondered about what a deranged decadent society of ancient sorcerers looks like, or a complete alternate set of weapons and armour for a mythic pacific island setting, or how much you'll get for three bundles of hummingbird feathers, it's here, if you make it to port before that warparty catches you.