How to Fix Glorantha

(for tabletop roleplaying)

How To Fix Glorantha Series

• Why Glorantha Sucks (as a tabletop roleplaying setting)

• Why RuneQuest Sucks (as a system for Glorantha)

• How To Fix Glorantha

  • Glorantha Commentary: How the Lunar Empire is Evil

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The vast majority of nudity in 13th Age in Glorantha is male uz.

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Series Retrospective

There is one crucial bit of evidence that shows I am correct, and that Chaosium is aware of these problems.

13th Age in Glorantha. (Hereafter referred to as 13G.)

This is a product using the 13th Age system to play Glorantha. It was released in 2018, a year before RQG, and the system was massively different in lore and gameplay from RuneQuest and modern Glorantha.

Three examples:

1. Lore: The setting of 13G is after the conflicts between Orlanthi and Lunars. The world is collapsing as it enters the 4th Age, and Chaos is crawling through every crack. The world needs adventurers to save their own people and to join with others to save them too.

2. Gameplay: A very definitively class-based system, with some explicit racial classes for uz. 13G is similar to 4th edition D&D with some core differences around grid play versus theatre of the mind etc.

3. Metaphysics: Do you know what 13G has that RQG doesn’t? HeroQuest rules, including a full suite of rewards for each Rune depending on completion.

In case that rings any bells, these are all changes that I have recommended.

So to go through my six points:

1. Adventuring parties: 13G deliberately put a structure in place to force diverse groups to work together.

2. Moral relativism: 13G removes Lunars completely from the equation (the Empire has collapsed at this point in the timeline anyway) to avoid moral relativism, and gives a clear foe in the form of Chaos.

3. Metaphysics: 13G establishes mechanics for metaphysics as its solution to the metaphysics problem.

4. Combat: The combat is designed to be heroic in feel, to match to the broad setting lore. I do not particularly like the combat on a personal level, but it is a better broad fit to Glorantha as it currently stands.

5. Progression: 13G progression isn’t a perfect fit to the Gloranthan system of progression. It is more “lesser Rune-level to lesser Hero-level”, but the setting changes have made it so that the setting is not awash in Hero-level characters.

6. Metaphysics: It has HeroQuests, and it doesn’t expect a DM to invent the rest.

And you know what else? 13G received high praise for doing all these things! Because they “made Glorantha accessible”.

However, I think that 13G threw the baby out with the bathwater, and it is possible to manage these issues without completely tearing apart RQG and Glorantha in the process.

Which brings me onto the fixes.

“I choose you: Eaglebrown!”

1. “RuneQuesters” as adventuring parties

The solution to the adventuring party problem is “RuneQuesters”. These are people brought together in order to experience the world and deepen their connection with their gods and their runes.

We know that people play the game of joining different cults to gain power in setting. We know that people tend to use HeroQuests as a way to power up in setting. This is also all supported by real world behaviours practiced by Romans and Celts.

So I do not see any reason that there would not be an attempt at instituting behaviours to force people to join together.

This is also resonant with the idea of the “Lightbringers” in the Gloranthan world, who were a group of gods who did not get along very well that went into the underworld to restore the sun to the sky.

The reason they stick together is either they have chosen to do it or their clan / temple heads have told them they are to do it. It also allows for more tepid or area bound god worshippers (like Barntar above) to have justification for joining adventurous parties.

(A better name than “RuneQuesters” should probably be picked.)

What a pain in the backside this place would be.

2. Clear enemies for moral relativism

My solution is to admit that the Lunar Empire is evil.

They may do good acts. They may have good people. They may believe they have a moral justification and clear reason for doing what they do.

But they not only allow into their ranks rapists, killers, and cannibals they venerate them.

Take a look at Beat-Pot Aelwrin. (There is an article written by Chaosium on the character here.) He was a slave who lead a brutal and cruel revolt against the Lunars… only to immediately turn to join them when offered a high position! The article in the link says that he is “now a good man” and has “forgiven himself for the crimes of his past”. Good for him, huh?

Lore written by Chaosium like this could be cast as imperial propaganda and the deceit of the Red Moon Goddess.

One of the big issues is that the Lunar Empire is obviously evil in the lore, but then the community acts as if they are not.

This is such a weird case of moral dissonance

Please visit my sub-article “How the Lunar Empire is Evil” for an exploration of one of the ways this faction is evil.

(I think there is a tendency to talk past people with the “Lunars are evil” debate. Personally, I have had to be a bit more clear here. However, the Lunars are not an ethnicity, they are a political bloc across several ethnicities. It is akin to saying “Nazis are evil”, and having some argue against that on the basis that not all Germans are evil.)

3. Metaphysics guide

My solution is to publish a metaphysics guide. A guide that clearly lays out the metaphysics of Glorantha, how it works and how players can interact with it.

Or mechanically write out the metaphysics, as in point 6.

When Ratatouille goes wrong.

4. Combat changes

I think realistic combat is no longer on the cards for a system set in Glorantha.

I think the solution is to make combat a simple skill roll by each player and opponent, reducing the player involvement and detail of combat to the same level as all other skills.

Treat combat rounds as being a minute long and a series of feints and jabs and attacks between two opponents. Nearly everything else can be kept, but at least twenty pages of the rulebook disappear.

This means that combat is about as manipulable as any other skill in RuneQuest, and it means it is a lot more flexible for DMs to be able to integrate all the other mechanics from the magic system.

Solving the death problem is another question. According to the BRP forums, most DMs there double hit points on all locations for their players which I think clearly indicates the system is no longer worthwhile.

5. Mastery as a progression fix

I do not think that progression can be solved in RuneQuest as it stands without completely changing and breaking the system.

There is a potential temporary fix, that is to do with a mish-mash of HeroQuest and RuneQuest rules.

In HeroQuest, your abilities increase to a maximum of 20, and then you gain a mastery level (ш) in that skill. The ability then returns to 1 and you can advance again. These masteries let you bump up your success in that skill in every task you apply it to.

In RuneQuest, you would be able to increase your skill from 1% to your maximum (100+skill bonuses) and after you reach or get past 100% then you can undertake a HeroQuest or similar challenge to gain that mastery level.

These mastery levels would cancel out (so a 1ш50% sword against a 1ш25% dodge would just be 50% vs 25%) but different levels of skill give you an automatic base level of success (so a 1ш50% sword against a 25% dodge always has at least a success).

This enables a scaling ability for characters to continually grow to reach godlike heights, and allows the full Glorantha progression to be worked through.

It doesn’t solve the fact that the Hero Wars are, in full, about two years down the line and characters will never reach that level of skill within that timeframe but there is nothing I can do to solve that.

Please don’t call her a crazy cat lady. It hurts her feelings.

6. HeroQuest mechanics

We have now had a few versions of HeroQuest mechanics for both the system HeroQuest and from 13G.

13G actually has a reasonable system in place that could be adopted by a player of RQG.

I have been informed since my last article that there is a DM book that has been in development for 5 years and is due “four or five books in the future”, which is meant to contain HeroQuest mechanics.

Make of that what you will.

In two years time, she’ll be claiming that this was an entirely consensual ritual suicide for the dragon.

Final Words

13G is not for me. I think the 13th Age writing team is fantastic across the board, but I find it is not an engaging ruleset. It is too much like a game and not enough like a roleplaying system.

However, within a single book they manage to provide character classes, changes to the base system of 13th Age, more lore than the RQG book does, rules on HeroQuests, several example adventures, advice on building new adventures and HeroQuests… just a lot of information.

Unfortunately, the 13G range has not expanded beyond that single book, and I do not think it is likely to.

My thesis overall has been twofold:

1. Glorantha and RuneQuest have drifted apart as setting and system, mostly due to Glorantha changing.

2. Glorantha, in particular, has drifted away from playability as a tabletop setting into becoming more of a deep and detailed world.

These are not necessarily bad things, but they are - in my opinion - bad for tabletop roleplaying.

I hope this series has encouraged people to think about what makes a tabletop setting good or bad, and how systems can be hindered or harmed by the ludonarrative dissonance between them and the setting.

If you have not enjoyed this series, I have a completely different series where I do retrospectives on Ancient Modules, you can find B4 - The Lost City here.

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† All images from the 13th Age in Glorantha.