Why I Will Probably Never Play Runequest, and some rambling

I’ve come to two conclusions recently:

I like rules light and I’m low prep. Super low prep. Mostly none. 

I think I’m too lazy for crunchy games (caveat, for a given value of crunch, some GURPs players might think my bar for such things is set pretty low) Or maybe I don’t have enough time. However the same pattern tends to emerge. I get the bug for Runequest (largely from listening to the Grognard Files podcast, which is excellent) or WHFRP, I read about it, begin to fear the sheer weight of rules and flee back to the comforting arms of Swords & Wizardry or Dragon Warriors. Not that I don’t feel these systems have their problems, I can however run either without any reference to the books in terms of rules. Now, I accept that these are the games that I am most familiar with and if I were to bite the bullet and actually run some Stormbringer 1st edition (like I secretly want to) then I might get to a point where it is as easy for me to handle as my beloved S&W: White Box. If.

The weight of the new is a terrible thing however. Runequest comes complete with the behemoth Glorantha attached. A huge draw to the game, not many fantasy settings are as widely realised nor carry such depth. That being a double edged sword however. I know next to nothing about it. I don’t even know if I know enough to know how much I don’t know. Before I descend into Casanova Frankenstein territory, that is a bit of a stumbling block that I’m sure is not only relevant to me. So when you add unfamiliar rules and an unfamiliar setting we get to the demon of DMing: Prep.

If I have to do more to prep for a session than stare out of the window for five minutes, that is too much. I’m busy. I have an irregular schedule. Work strange hours. I juggle lots of things socially. So does everyone else. I’m not whinging about these things. They are just facts. My gaming time, no matter how much I enjoy it, is limited (currently non existent.) So Glorantha or Tekumel or Talislanta , as much as I would love to learn about them, are beyond my means in terms of time. I need a setting that just sits perfectly in my imagination space, I believe other people call this their brain. So Legend, the Dragon Warriors setting, is a good example of this for me. It draws heavily on the same influences that I had as a child. I loved Robin of Sherwood on ITV and so did Dave Morris and Oliver Johnson, the creators of the game. Also as I first picked it up as a snot nosed minor and it has lived in my imagination for a long time. I mean, I used to be able to look out of my bedroom window in North Yorkshire and see bleak moors and dark, cobwebbed forests. It’s not a great mental leap to fill those forests with mystery or be scared of what might be lurking in the mists on those moors..

The Grim North (see practically every other post on this blog) is a similar situation for me. As a setting, it is grown out of influences and decisions I made specifically to run a D&D campaign. My dislike for clerics and demi humans as playable races are heavily evident (Although originally I had planned to include such things to provide a familiar environment for players, I binned them. It hasn’t proved to be a problem.) As a result it draws in all the things I think are good influences for some old school D&D. Particularly a game played over google hangouts with a semi rotating cast of players. It’s a sword and sorcery setting, it has a particular aesthetic that I find easy to call up and work with. Another blogger, I forget who but would be happy to be reminded, stated that posts of random setting notes or influences act like magic spells a GM can read to instantly invoke the required mindset to run that game. That’s important I think. When my head is in the right place for a game is when it tends to sing. Players doing standard player things, like going off in unforeseen directions and deciding on courses of action that there is no prepared material for, are easier to cope with. Indeed this is where the fun of running a game is, even if it can seem daunting at times.

So no Runequest for me, at least until I enter retirement and my projected gaming renaissance. It looks really cool though...

What I Learned From Last Night's Game

I had two players, both girls in their early thirties with no previous RPG experience. They got into the swing of things fairly early although explaining the character classes was a bit difficult ("So if a cleric is a holy warrior and a paladin is a holy warrior isn't it all a bit religious?") Having just read some Brent Weeks "Eloise"'s player was straight in there with the assassin ("she's called "The Shadow" but that's not her real name, you can call her "Eloise" but that's not her real name either...") After some deliberation Geoff the Cleric ("Geoff is hands but he has high charisma so it come off as charming") was born but his deity was not named except that he was "lawful but a bit smitey."

For NPCs I picked a barbarian fighter, randomly generating the name Blithref from my overly complex table of Saxon pre- and suffixes, and a magic user called ("Quick, what's the first boy's name you can think of?"  "Geoff?" "Not Geoff." "Peter Rabbit?" The beloved children's book being under the table) PeterRabbit. Blithref being a typical slow witted barbarian, a Rekkar of the randomly generated Star Elk tribe. ("How is Blithref so stupid if his intelligence is 15?" "He's not book clever, more that he has a high natural cunning. Like a weasel.") PeterRabbit being a bit posh and slightly impressed with himself, dripping in false modesty.

The swords and wizardry rules worked really well and I was able to run pretty much the whole game off the top of my head. I only checked the books for the grappling rules (for the attempted rugby tackles towards the end) and for the damage a giant spider bite inflicts. We used ascending armour class, which was intuitive for the girls. I had to constantly convert from descending in my head but it wasn't a problem. Although the single saving throw looked weird to me when I first read the rules, it worked beautifully in play and is an elegant simplification of the original system.

They earned about 1350 XP each, not enough to level but still a good chunk, and walked away with a third each of approx 2000sp in loot (which is the equivalent of gp in the rules, I just can't get on with gold as standard currency and silver better fits the slightly gothic tone of my setting) the majority of it in hack silver.

I particularly enjoyed role playing the goblins as a bit mental, bickering amongst themselves while negotiating with the PCs and after asking what they could give them, fixating on the idea that the PCs had Absolutely Nothing and that they wanted it and weren't going to share.

My map, skull and crossbones showing where Blithref and Geoff the Cleric died

The players' map, showing the giant spider, the pit trap and some bats. Plus a pizza related stain. X marks where Geoff fell.

Hobgoblin: More than just 1HD+1.

The archetype

The hobgoblin. He's no bigger, no more militaristic or orange than his goblin brethren. He's simply a goblin, steeped in cunning and evil sorcery, with strange faerie weapons and a greater penchant for mischief and chaos. The other goblins fear him and reluctantly do his bidding. They named a beer after him.

Good out of bottles

I like him already.

In D&D the hobgoblin just forms part of the fairly mundane Kobold/Goblin/Orc/Hobgoblin/Gnoll/Bugbear chain of humanoid foe progression. In Warhammer the hobgoblin is a Mongolian steppe tribesman analogue enslaved by chaos dwarfs, which is a bit of an improvement. In Dragon Warriors the hobgoblin is a dark, sorcerous faerie who throws poisonous puffballs, have unique spells and a net made of spider silk.

Clearly I prefer the latter version. In The Grim North faerie creatures are mysterious and dangerous. They behave in unpredictable ways. They have nets made of spider silk and their motivations are weird and unfathomable.

So what we're saying is: Not these guys

Goblins have a society (of sorts). They have a city, it's called Terrax Ur. They have gods, kind of. There's a Goblin King, although he's not the fat guy from the Hobbit movie. Hobgoblins exist outside of that. They're like independent nobles of the goblin court. They're wanderers, magicians and bringers of disorder.  They're folkloric creations, more than just a stat block in the Monster Manual. Although really, they're just a meaner version of a goblin. I guess I'm just doing that differently to adding a bit to their HD and AC.

At the moment this is just an idea storm. I'm going to get something in writing about my ideas for goblins and their general insanity fairly shortly. Plus I need to draw up some adventures for my new players.