Adventure Depth in RuneQuest/Mythras

[VoxRationis]

I'm interested in running a game (and hopefully a campaign) in this system, but I'm unfamiliar with how actual adventures in the system work. I get the vague sense that adventures can't be as filled out with numerous combats as in D&D. Does anyone have more specific advice for adventure creation?

[Khedrac]

Caveat: my experience is with RQ3 (Avalon Hill).

Most RQ parties have more healing than D&D parties - simply because probably every character can heal and most will be able to re-attach limbs. The only limiting factor is the supply of magic points - and I have had a character with over 15 power spirit matrixes (well over 100 MP to play with before even thinking about personal power).

With the above in mind, RQ adventures can easily have way more combat than most D&D adventures because the party won't run out of healing so fast. This does not always work, I have been in a party that was composed of relatively recent rune levels and play tended to go "get into fight, cast divine combat spells, win fight, want to go back to pray spells back" (my character didn't have much combat divine so found this irritating) - very similar to the D&D "6 minute adventuring day".

The main piece of advice I would give is to be careful with opponent numbers. Until characters get extremely high skilled they can only really fight one opponent at a time so extra bodies on your side is probably worth more than 20% better combat skills (it varies - an extra person with 20% skill isn't really going to help as much as having 40% to start with, an extra person with 70% is worth way more than having 90% skill - they are probably going to hit and their attacks will probably not be blocked...).
In general keep opponents numbers fewer than the expected party size, or place bottlenecks so that the actual combats are between equal numbers. Except for really tough fights you can get away with keeping opponent skill quite low (say 50%) - they still pose a realistic threat (so long as their damage will penetrate armour) but they are less likely to have an unlucky critical to spoil a fight the party should win.

[VoxRationis]

Really? How do they have so much healing and re-attach limbs? The Mythras PDF I have talks about how healing is far from a given.

[Andor13]

Really? How do they have so much healing and re-attach limbs? The Mythras PDF I have talks about how healing is far from a given.

Probably because PCs know to prioritize healing. It depends on the magic available to the PCs of course. Spirit magic makes it pretty easy to get several low powered but readily available spells. If the PCs are limited to Divine Magic then while the individual spells are much more powerful, they are not exactly spammable.

Although while I haven't read the PDF you reference pretty much any settlement bigger than a half-empty hovel should have someone who is an at least capable healer. Glorantha is an extremely magical world, and healing is a basic daily need.

[Khedrac]

In RQ3 Healing is a common variable spirit magic spell, and most all cults offer Healing as one of their spells.
Healing II will stop bleeding.
Healing VI will re-attach limbs if used immediately after they are severed.

Pretty much every player will take Healing II and most will take Healing VI unless they don't have the free intelligence after taking the other things they need. And yes, if they cannot get it from their cult they will try wherever they can to get some healing.

There's a more subtle reason for having healing as a spell known - it's often the primary source of "power ticks" for many characters. If you don't have an offensive spell, your main opportunity to overcome someone's power is when trying to heal them when they are unconsious.

[VoxRationis]

What do the Healing III through Healing V spells do?

[Khedrac]

What do the Healing III through Healing V spells do?

OK, a character who knows Healing N as a spell can cast it at any 'strength' from 1 to N. The primary affect is to heal as many points of damage as the 'strength' of the spell. As a side benefit, 2 or more points of healing will stop bleeding from severed limbs and 6 or more points of healing will re-attach limbs (but it has to be in a single spell casting). Spells of strength over 6 are very rare, but I have a character somewhere who knows Healing 8 I think - it's for when a Healing 6 may re-attach the limb but won't actually get it working (i.e. positive hp).

So, Healing 3 through 5 will heal 3 through 5 points of damage and stop bleeding from the body location to which they were applied. (Yes, you can apply healing direct to total hit points for the rare occasions when the damage wasn't to a location.)

[rax]

OK, a character who knows Healing N as a spell can cast it at any 'strength' from 1 to N. The primary affect is to heal as many points of damage as the 'strength' of the spell. As a side benefit, 2 or more points of healing will stop bleeding from severed limbs and 6 or more points of healing will re-attach limbs (but it has to be in a single spell casting). Spells of strength over 6 are very rare, but I have a character somewhere who knows Healing 8 I think - it's for when a Healing 6 may re-attach the limb but won't actually get it working (i.e. positive hp).

I think you're off by one edition. You're quoting the RQ2 version of Healing, not RQ3, which is much more restrictive.

In RQ3 only spells which are specifically described as being able to regrow a limb may be used to reattach a severed limb. That would be the divine Regrow Limb spell and the sorcery spell Regenerate. Mythras/RQ6 uses a different damage track system, but the spells there also have limits as to how bad a wound they can heal, with said limits being (I believe) less generous than in RQ2.

However, the latest iteration of RQ, Runequest in Glorantha, goes back to its RQ2 roots and once again allows basic spirit magic Healing to do what you're describing.

@OP
Regarding having access to such strong magic and a healthy supply of magic points to power your spells - no character is likely to start out with the kind of healing capabilities Khedrac mentions, at least not unless they're a healing specialist of some kind. Which of course means that there's plenty of time to get maimed in horrific ways until such a time as the characters have the cash and social standing to get hold of stronger healing magic. Also note that while Glorantha is a setting where everyone has a little magic, neither Mythras nor RQ6 are Glorantha based by default, so it may certainly be the case that magic is intended to be less common in those systems.

[Khedrac]

I think you're off by one edition. You're quoting the RQ2 version of Healing, not RQ3, which is much more restrictive.

In RQ3 only spells which are specifically described as being able to regrow a limb may be used to reattach a severed limb. That would be the divine Regrow Limb spell and the sorcery spell Regenerate. Mythras/RQ6 uses a different damage track system, but the spells there also have limits as to how bad a wound they can heal, with said limits being (I believe) less generous than in RQ2.

Well, I guess that's what I get for mainly learning my RQ3 from people who had switched from RQ2. I never noticed that and I have been playing it off and on for over 30 years!

I went to have a quick look at my copy of Delux (to prove it to myself as it were) and not only could I not find the rules for re-attaching limbs, but I couldn't find rules for them coming off in the first place, so that looks like something else we imported form RQ2.

[VoxRationis]

Hm...
Back to the original topic: what does a RQ adventure look like? How many scenes or encounters are there typically? Do they tend to be a broad mix of investigatory and combative scenes? Are they based on the idea of resource management between scenes in the way D&D or even Call of Cthulhu are?

[Khedrac]

Hm...
Back to the original topic: what does a RQ adventure look like? How many scenes or encounters are there typically? Do they tend to be a broad mix of investigatory and combative scenes? Are they based on the idea of resource management between scenes in the way D&D or even Call of Cthulhu are?

I think the best answer is "they can be" (whatever you want them to). Resource management adventures are probably rare as the main resource is magic points and they come back over 24 hours (and characters are hosed if you hand them a tough fight when they don't have any mp). I don't think there is any typical number of scenes or encounters.
With investigative adventures there is the usual need to have multiple ways to complete htem (never base the adventure of the players succeeding on a skill check - even if they all have 95% skill they might just all fail, or roleplay that they know their beast searcher did not find anything and not bother to try themselves). There are published investighative adventures, there are published hack-n-slash adventures. Again there are published "sandbox" adventure settings and there are published adventures that are very linear - some of which have weeks or seasons (or longer) between sections!
A RQ adventure can look like anything you want it to - there's no template.

Edit: as for number of encounters - I think the least I know is 3 (it's an RQ2 solo adventure) and the most is "lots and lots" (the entire boxed set is one adventure setting).

[Dynodragon]

Since the licensing of Runequest was revoked Mythras has become a more generic system, the rules give you options for the amount of magic and regaining magic points. The options chosen by the gm will make a huge difference to your game.

I would recommend Mythras’ Classic Fantasy which has a base more like D&D hack n slash with classes and levels for those scaredy-cats of free choice the base game provides.

The main difference is that is no total hit points in Mythras, damage to each location is treated separately with different break points for effects unlike in D&D where you are totally fine until you only have 1 hit point left.

Combat in Mythras is actually much more tactical than D&D, who you attack, what special effects you choose, probing for the enemies weaknesses all have much more effect of the probability of victory than how much damage you can do, it’s entirely possible to win a fight without doing any damage whatsoever.

[VoxRationis]

Since the licensing of Runequest was revoked Mythras has become a more generic system, the rules give you options for the amount of magic and regaining magic points. The options chosen by the gm will make a huge difference to your game.

Yeah, I am planning on running a one-shot with the magic system customized to reflect the premise of the game: that tea is a strategic resource because it allows humans to cast magic.

Do you play with the "rule of recovery" mentioned in the magic chapter? It seems a tad restrictive to me. I feel like if you enforced that rule, people wouldn't get to full MP capacity except in the most generous of circumstances.

[rax]

Regarding pacing and encounters, I find it's much like Khedrac says - highly variable. Both the Mythras and RQ6 rulebooks contain decent advice on what to think about when planning combat encounters, which should help determine the appropriate level of resistance.

Looking at a couple of examples from RQ3, there's a beginners campaign in the River of Cradles setting book. It involves travelling the length of a major river to discover the causes of a gorp infestation and try to stop it (gorp being similar to ooozes and such in D&D). There are at most six or seven straight combat encounters in the entire campaign, which includes plenty of social encounters as well some exploration and investigation. It's also intended to play out over weeks of game time. The encounters are mostly with gorp, which are mindless but quite dangerous if not handled properly. There's an encounter with broo raiders (think Warhammer beastmen but more explicitly vile), which can be made as easy or difficult as the GM wishes by making the broo more or less tactically skilled. The "boss encounter" is potentially deadly - the boss is difficult to target, has deadly spellcasting, and the environment favours him much more than the PCs. There's also swarms of gorps and gorp-like monsters to deal with. But in almost all encounters, the PCs are the active party, deciding when to engage their enemies.

Another RQ3 product, the Shadows on the Borderland book, includes three adventures in the same region as above. One is an almost pure investigation, with combat only taking place if the PCs are getting to close to the secret. If that happens, they're potentially fighting an entire village with quite strong magical backup but poor direct combat skills. However, the PCs may also have some allies and if they're tough enough, the enemy may just decide to flee instead of fighting at all.

The other two are exploration/raids against cultists and broos that are holed up in cave complexes. The enemies in Dyskund Caverns only number eleven named opponents, but some are very tough - powerful priests with strong magic and good combat skills. However, they won't necessarily all be faced at the same time or even cooperate very well. The broo in A Tale to Tell number three separate gangs, but also a large number of powerful ghosts. The PCs may also have a competing adventuring party to deal with, or they may be allies of convenience. This adventure needs to be carefully calibrated by the GM - the broos are deadly on their home ground. On the other hand, the adventure also includes the means for the PCs to significantly weaken the broo chieftain without engaging her in a direct fight, which may lead to the entire broo gang structure collapsing as the competing gangs fight each other for dominance.

Overall, I would say most published adventures aren't planned out according to a model of "suitable number of encounters per time period". Instead they're written according to a more story-based model - determine what's going on, then populate with enemies to suit the scenario. Whether or not enemies are encountered infrequently, a certain number of times per day, or all at once, depends on what seems right for the scenario and the desired level of difficulty.

When it comes to the desired level of difficulty, it's much like Khedrac says - mobs of enemies are quite dangerous, because even characters with low skill levels can do the same amount of damage as a more experienced one. Ambushes and guerilla tactics are also very dangerous, because PCs (or enemies for that matter) probably won't have their best offensive and defensive spells up, making combat more dangerous or forcing them to waste time casting spells before engaging. One point that also bears mentioning in Glorantha is that fights against "civilised" enemies don't have to end in death. Defeated enemies will often be held for ransom rather than put to death, so surrendering is usually an option. Of course, that's not the case when faced with chaos creatures or some really nasty cults - there it's fight to the death or run for your life.

[Dynodragon]

Yeah, I am planning on running a one-shot with the magic system customized to reflect the premise of the game: that tea is a strategic resource because it allows humans to cast magic.

Do you play with the "rule of recovery" mentioned in the magic chapter? It seems a tad restrictive to me. I feel like if you enforced that rule, people wouldn't get to full MP capacity except in the most generous of circumstances.

The rule of recovery is an optional rule to prevent meta gaming, it does not apply to magic points regenerated naturally. In your example if a nice bit of afternoon tea revived half of your magic points you could not repeat the action and regain more. If your custom world works differently that’s fine but you have effectively reduced the value of the strategic resource. That may change the way the game plays compared to your original idea.

[VoxRationis]

So if magic points don't replenish by themselves and the rule of recovery is in play, is it just expected that people won't be able to be at full capacity most of the time?

[VoxRationis]

Also, are there roles that are typically expected of party spellcasters? Should a normal party have someone who can do magical damage by default? I take it that healing is generally considered standard.

[Khedrac]

Again, it depends on your world.

In Glorantha, unless you are playing in a sorcery campaign then probably no (to both). Using Spirit magic there are very few direct damage spells (disrupt is the only one that springs to mind), and, though there are a fair number of offensive spells most people will be lucky if they know one (see earlier comment about healing the unconcious being the primary way of getting power ticks). Once characters start getting more experienced and richer they may start getting offensive divine magic and/or matrixes for offensive spells, but otherwise people just don't know enough spells to worry about offensive spells (and many cults don't offer them) - if you cannot cast many spells why bother with an offensive spell that may not work when you can use a buff that will?

Now if a party has a wannabe shaman then they will be more of a dedicated caster, but the defaut glorantha party is a buch of theists (people in cults worshipping gods) all of whom are OK in a fight and all of whom have a reasonable amount of magic to throw around. Apprentice shamans are usually close to the theists in this, the apprentice sorcerors are usually the only characters with very few other skills (to go with magic that is probably not going to be successfully cast after 3 rounds of casting anyway).

Also, when looking at spirit magic, disrupt has basically two uses (OK 3):
1. Getting a power tick
2. Fighting skeletons
(3. Annoying your opponent.)

More useful offensive spells are things like demoralise (halve opponent's attack chance) or spells that are not cast at the opponent like fire arrow (which changes a ranged attack from doing approx 1d6 impaling damage to 3d6 fire damage) but is cast on the arrow not the opponent.

Note: Yes, apprentice sorcerors tend to be nearly useless in RQ3, as written powerful sorcerors are insane - they can kill you from thousands of miles away with no chance of you surviving the attack if it hits.

[VoxRationis]

Yeah, I noticed that sorcery is fun and abusable. I like the idea of combining the spell that attracts missiles to the target with the spell that confers damage resistance.

What sorts of advice do people have for a first-time GM? What sorts of tables would be most useful to print out and have on hand? What critical rules do people tend to overlook?

[Dynodragon]

Yeah, I noticed that sorcery is fun and abusable. I like the idea of combining the spell that attracts missiles to the target with the spell that confers damage resistance.

What sorts of advice do people have for a first-time GM? What sorts of tables would be most useful to print out and have on hand? What critical rules do people tend to overlook?

Spread the work load with your players, give them counters for their action and luck points, special effects cards/sheets. If you try to do too much the game will slow down and be less fun.

Write down the encounters beforehand, you need space to write notes as effects happen, you don’t want to be leafing through manuals looking up statistics or abilities. Go easy with the encounters at first, give yourself a chance to learn the balance and give the players time to experiment with effects.

One of players is not good with maths so I printed out the sheets with the adjusted skill numbers for the different difficulties, another is a sorcerer so he has the combine table.

Use the passions to give the players moral dilemmas, one of the npc’s they have to negotiate with is a target of one pc’s hate or similar. The Mythic Britain sourcebook gives examples for giving the players more passions if they are influenced by npc’s, this is a great source for good role playing.

[VoxRationis]

Thank you.
What skill levels are reasonable for starting characters? The book's examples of characters with starting skills tend to show their skill percentages in the 30s and 40s, but it seems fairly straightforward to make characters with 60s in certain key skills. Am I overlooking a key restriction in character creation, or is the book just being stingy with its poor example characters?

[Bilharzia]

Thank you.
What skill levels are reasonable for starting characters? The book's examples of characters with starting skills tend to show their skill percentages in the 30s and 40s, but it seems fairly straightforward to make characters with 60s in certain key skills. Am I overlooking a key restriction in character creation, or is the book just being stingy with its poor example characters?

For resources there's the "Notes From Pavis" website, which has a ton of excellent charts.

The Mythras Encounter Generator is a fabulous resource.
I recommend making yourself a login to save your own custom creatures & npcs. You can also use the MEG and import directly into the Roll20 character sheet, if that's something you want. The MEG can also create whole parties of NPCs.

Sorry I can't post direct links as my post count is too low here.

On magic point recovery - yes you can expect characters to be low on magic points, if they use magic frequently. If you want the game to be magic rich, have MP replenish every at dawn. Note that RQ6/Mythras Folk magic is in general much less powerful than the older RQ2/3 battle magic and spirit magic (there are no Healing 2,3,4 etc. spells in RQ6), in part this is to distinguish it from the more powerful Theism and Miracle spells which are significantly stronger. If you're running your own homebrew setting, it's your call what magic systems are available, if any. It would be perfectly possible to run an interesting fantasy campaign with Folk Magic being the only magic available and none of the others being known. If you look at the setting for Conan, sorcery is used almost exclusively by corrupt (in a game NPCs) characters, Conan will occasionally take advantage of magic effects, objects or weapons but is never comfortable with them. In my campaign I have drugs available which can recover magic faster, at the price of getting fatigued, a less lethal Black Lotus.

From easiest to hardest I would rate the magic systems:
Folk Magic, Theism, Mysticism, Animism, Sorcery.
For a one-shot I would probably go with just Folk Magic and Theism. The spells in these systems tend to be straightforward to use and clear in their effects. I like Animism a lot but you have to have an idea of what you're doing with the spirit world and spirits themselves, you have to understand spirit combat and spirit buffs, decide whether you're using Tenacity, etc. Mysticism is about self-buffing and starts to bend the rules, which if you're new to them in the first place probably is too much to take on, Sorcery just has a lot of dials and switches - unless you setup something entirely pre-made I wouldn't use it as a starter.

With that said Sorcery is now usable for mortal PCs, unlike in RQ3 which was a disaster as far as a PC magic system goes. In RQ6/Mythras sorcery can be cast in the moment and doesn't take 100 years to learn.

Skill Levels - you're not overlooking anything - if players specialise you can get into the 70s for the skills you want to be important (depending on characteristics), the more generalised a PC starts the lower their skills will be typically. The book example tries to cover a large number of skills which is why they seem lower than you might expect. It's expensive and time consuming to acquire new professional skills after you make a character, choosing the ones you want at character creation is a lot easier, even if you don't put a lot of points into the skills they might be worth having.

Wounds and Healing - the rules are quite generous with wound recovery, minor wounds especially will recover in a matter of days and the First Aid and Healing skills can be important to have if healing magic is not common.

Rules Gotchas - there's a few places I've noticed people get confused.
Cycles and Rounds and Action Points - make sure you're clear how Rounds work and be careful with the language. If a D&D player is told he/she has 3 actions they expect to take them immediately on their "turn", but this isn't what happens with Mythras, you almost always only take *one* of your 2 or 3 actions you have when it's your turn. When I've run games I let movement always be a free action, and then the PC can take their action.

And with that - running out of actions, if you take actions parrying or reacting in some way to an attack, that's an action you use up for the Round. Definitely get the player to track their own actions, and if possible the opposition as well.

Special Effects - the GM should know how these work and which ones you might use for a given enemy, players can get trapped in 'analysis paralysis' when they get a chance to use one. I would give them a cheat sheet with selected special effects, and possibly even get them to select favoured specials they would usually choose. I have started a campaign where I restricted special effects to a certain number that the PC knew according to how high their Combat Style skill was, and then allow them to learn more as they progressed.

Wounding Effects
I made a cheat sheet for myself because I can never remember what happens, but I can't post it yet! my post count here is too low.

The importance of being Armoured
Again D&D players might have problems with realising how life-saving armour can be, and where it's used. Make sure the PCs have *some* armour but give them a budget so they're aren't armoured up in Gothic Plate, some armour (3 or 4 points) on the Head, Chest and Abdomen is probably a good idea, with light padding for limbs.

Luck Points
These can mean the difference between life and death for a PC, they tend to get spent liberally at first when the player wants to get a better result, and then when they're in danger they wish they had saved one. Just letting this happen is more entertaining than warning the players before hand to be careful spending the points.

Combat Pacing
We typically have one or fewer combat encounters in a session, although this is of course going to depend on player and gm preferences and style. It's certainly true in the RQ2 days many adventures were run exactly like a D&D dungeon crawl with just more lethal combat. My preference now is to make sure combat is always potentially lethal to one or more of the characters to keep the stakes high, but the other thing I've noticed is that Mythras tends to have less lethal outcomes in a typical melee - it's more common for someone in the party or the opponents to be knocked unconscious than killed outright.