13TH AGE GLORANTHA: A REVIEW

This is a long review.  To me, it is not just another review; Glorantha has always had a special place in my heart.  Had I not encountered it in my junior high school "D&D Club," I doubt I would have gone on to get a Masters in mythology and epic literature, that I would be a Ritual Magician, or that this blog--which focuses on storytelling, mythology, and gaming--would exist.  I've run and played Glorantha for three and a half decades, reviewed it extensively, blogged about it, and even written for it.  So this review goes deep.   Grab a cup of coffee, pour a glass of wine, and settle in for the latest dive into one of gaming's most extraordinary and influential worlds. 

INTRODUCTION

AS GLORANTHA APPROCHES her half century mark, she has been the subject of board games (Dragon Pass and Nomad Gods), computer games (King of Dragon Pass and the upcoming Six Ages), fiction (King of Sartar, The Collected Griselda, The Widow's Tale, etc), and comic books (Path of the Damned).  Of course most of us have explored her through her roleplaying games.  The first was the legendary RuneQuest, one of the oldest and most influential games in the history of the industry.  The second, Heroquest, was the work of Robin D. Laws (Feng Shui, The Dying Earth, GUMSHOE).  Laws, like so many second and third wave game authors, grew up on Glorantha, and his work on Heroquest and both computer games shows his love for it.  Another designer Glorantha inspired was Mark Rein-Hagen, creator of Vampire: The Masquerade (one of the most successful RPGs of all time) and the "World of Darkness." On Glorantha, he wrote;

One of the greatest inspirations of my creative life was roleplaying in the incomparable and powerfully mythic world of Glorantha. Created by my mentor Greg Stafford nearly 50 years ago and the setting for one of the first roleplaying games ever written, Runequest, it has always been a lodestone and beacon to those in the know. An example of what a fully realized and vivid fantasy world can be...

  

Added to this list are two other major authors. Jonathan Tweet, lead designer for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, and Rob Heinsoo, lead designer of the 4th edition.  When the pair teamed up to create The 13th Age, a revolutionary indie take on modern d20 gaming, Heinsoo even mentioned Stafford (and the Gloranthan deity Orlanth) in his dedication.  It came as little surprise then when the duo announced the first major setting for 13th Age--after the default setting of the Dragon Empire (a world that shows marked Gloranthan influences)--would be 13G, or 13th Age in Glorantha.   Now it is here, with Heroquest still going strong and a new edition of Runequest about to appear.  Despite Glorantha's importance, regardless of its popularity and appeal, do we really need three Gloranthan RPGs?

I think we do.  Read on.

GLORANTHA?  13TH AGE?

It is likely that some of you know Glorantha, but not 13th Age.  Some of you will be fans of Heinsoo and Tweet's d20 game, but may not know Glorantha.  This section is to bring everyone up to speed.

Glorantha is one of the first fantasy game settings, appearing alongside Greyhawk, Blackmoor, and Tékumel in 1975.  It is almost certainly the most defined, with forty years of materials in print.  If the inspiration for a world like Middle-earth was primarily linguistic--a place for Tolkien to build imaginary languages--Glorantha was born because Greg Stafford wanted to explore mythology.  This is a Bronze Age world, bearing more in common with The Iliad, The Odyssey, or The Mahabharata than The Lord of the Rings or Le Morte d'Arthur.  Instead of knights in shining armor think "heroes" and "priest-kings."  

Glorantha is not a world like our Earth with a little magic thrown in.  It is flat, stretching under a sky dome.  The sun literally emerges from the gates of the underworld in the east, travels across heaven, and then descends through the gates of the west at night.  The realm of the dead lies beneath your feet; great heroes can actually escape the underworld and return to the lands of the living.  

Glorantha is defined by her magic, but this is deceptive if you are thinking of other fantasy worlds.  The world, and everything in it, is composed of the Runes.  These are to Glorantha what the periodic table is to chemistry, or phonemes are to language.  Darkness, Water, Earth, Plant, Harmony, Death...these are the essences, the building blocks of existence.  "Magic" in Glorantha is how your character relates to the Runes.  It is often defined by culture.  Shamans see the Runes as living spirits, negotiating and bargaining with them.  Sorcerers see them as impersonal forces of nature to be tapped into and directed.  Theists see them as gods, mighty beings whose deeds in the mythic prehistory of the world shaped it.  By sacrifice, the worshipper becomes one with them.  

A shaman would tell you that rivers run to the sea because the river spirits are mediators between the spirits of the land and the spirits of the deep.  A sorcerer would tell you it is the nature of the Water Rune to always seek the lowest level.  A theist might tell you that during the War of the Gods, when the Devil shattered the Spike (the primordial cosmic mountain that was home to the first gods), the Ocean rushed in to fill the hole left in the center of the world, and called his daughters, the rivers, to rush to help fill it. Drawing on mythologists like Mircea Eliade and exponents of perennial philosophy like René Guénon or Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Greg Stafford would tell us that in Glorantha...all these stories are true.  "Truth" is something outside the walls of time and space that bind the mortal races of Glorantha.  It is caught in glimpses.  The ultimate goal of Gloranthan magic is to seek it.  This search for Meaning (with a capital "M") was implicit in the title of the first two Gloranthan RPGs; Runequest implies seeking to understand and master the Runic forces of reality, and Heroquest is a Glorantha term for leaving the mortal plane to interact with the timeless myths that define reality.

13th Age, meanwhile, is a modern d20 game incorporating features of the recent editions of Dungeons & Dragons with many of those these recent editions abandoned.  Unlike Pathfinder, or the third edition, 13th Age is a streamlined, rules-light system that relies more on storytelling and GM improvisation.  Battle mats and miniatures are optional.  Situational modifiers are kept to a minimum.  And unlike the 4th edition, each character class is a unique play experience.  Playing a Sorcerer feels nothing like playing a Fighter or a Druid.  The classes all share features like levels and hit points, and gain greater abilities as levels increase, but they are designed to offer difference kinds of players different kinds of challenges.  Play a Wizard if you want a lot of improvisation and flexibility.  Play a Barbarian if you want to hit things and throw a lot of dice.

The greatest innovations in 13th Age are not the purely mechanical ones, but rather those geared towards creating unique characters and telling great stories.  Characters do not pick from a skills list, for example.  Instead they created broad backgrounds, such as "Former Spy for the Elf Queen" or "Exiled Nomad" for their abilities.  These are rolled against whenever applicable.  The Nomad might roll to soothe troubled horses, find water in the desert, or hunt for food.  The Spy might roll his background in matters of Elven etiquette, to decipher codes, or to eavesdrop.  These backgrounds go a long way to flesh out the protagonists.

As do the "One Unique Things."  Every 13th Age character comes up with an OUT to explain what makes them special.  As the name suggests, it is something about the character that no one in the world has.  "I am the bastard son of the Emperor," "I am the reincarnation of a Dead God," "I am the tallest Dwarf in the world."  There are rules for how to use (and not abuse) these, and they work well in making characters special.   

Most importantly to 13G, however, are the Icon relationships.  The original game dispenses with ideas like alignment and instead has the Icons, powerful NPCs who are the movers and shakers of the world.  The Emperor, the Archmage, the High Priestess, The Lich King, etc.  They are left archetypical enough for groups to tailor them to their words; the Archmage could be Gandalf, or Merlin.  The Emperor could lead a Roman-style Imperium or a Chinese heavenly bureaucracy.  What is important is that characters assign points to relationship with these, sometimes positive, sometimes negative.  A character could follow the Elf Queen and be opposed to the Dwarf King.  She might follow the Diabolist and seek to undermine the Priestess.  Frodo Baggins, for example, had Icon relationships with the Archmage (Gandalf), the Emperor (Aragorn), the Elf Queen (Galadriel), and the Lich King (Sauron) to various degrees.  

At the start of scenarios, dice rolls are made against the relationships characters have with their Icons and it is possible that they--or at least their agents--will be activated and intrude as subplots into the story, aiding the characters or complicating their lives.  This was a brilliant way to bind characters to the setting, and to make them feel a part of the story.  And as we shall see it plays an extremely vital role in 13G.

So with this background behind us, let's look specifically at 13th Age in Glorantha.

DRAGON PASS

13th Age in Glorantha is a not a stand-alone game, and you will need the 13th Age core rules to play.  It is essentially a massive, 466-page setting and sourcebook.  Because Glorantha is so immense, spanning two major continents, entire ages of time, and hundreds of detailed cultures, the focus of 13G is kept narrow.  The game is centered on a region called Dragon Pass, during a specific period of Gloranthan history, the Hero Wars of the Third Age.  Presumably future sourcebooks will broaden the scope, but if you know a bit about Glorantha, the book is full of ideas to expand and develop them on your own.

The book begins with a brief overview of Glorantha and the region you are playing in.  Dragon Pass is the crossroads of Glorantha's northern (roughly Eurasian) continent.  A highly contested region, it also happens to be one of the few nesting places of Gloranthan dragons.  In the previous Age, a sophisticated Empire that practiced draconic mysticism was centered there, until the Dragons ended this experiment by slaughtering every man, woman, and child in the region.  Emptied of humanity, it served as a refuge for many of the Elder Races, beings like the Aldryami (Gloranthan Elves, sentient plants with sap for blood, wooden bones, and leaves for hair) and the Uz (the Trolls, a subterranean race tied to the Darkness Rune).  Mighty in the mythic prehistory of the world, the Elder Races are greatly diminished since the dawn of Time.  

The Elder Races lived in Dragon Pass in relative peace until humans--specifically Storm worshipping barbarian tribes--started to trickle back into the region.  Coming in greater and greater numbers, they eventually formed new communities, including the kingdom of Sartar.  Roughly analogous to land-locked Vikings, horseless Men of Rohan, or Howard's Cimmerians, the people of Sartar value independence above all else.  Rebellion is at the heart of their religion; their chief deity, Orlanth, triggered the mythic Gods War by rebelling against the cosmic emperor, Yelm.  

Thus, conflict was inevitable when the urban and sophisticated Lunar Empire invaded Dragon Pass and attempted to "pacify" the rebellious barbarian tribes.  The Lunars--themselves analogous to imperial Rome with strong shades of Persia under Darius--further incite the Sartarites by including Chaos in their society.  Chaos, a force from outside Glorantha that the gods once waged a war against, is abhorrent to most cultures and especially the Storm worshippers. Thus the "Hero Wars" begin with the guerrilla struggle of the barbarians against against their imperial masters, and quickly escalate into a world shaking event that drags most people and races into the fight.

13G assumes most player characters will be these Sartarite barbarians, and as a result, fully half of the new character classes introduced in this book are drawn from that culture.  The other character options focus on neighboring peoples--not necessarily human--in the region. 

CHARACTER CREATION - THE RUNES 

Character creation in 13G follows the process in the core 13th Age rules, but adapts this to Glorantha.  Essentially players select a race, a class, and roll their abilities (the standard list for any d20 game).  13th Age specific features like Backgrounds (in place of skills) and the "One Unique Thing" are discussed extensively so players can come up with Gloranthan appropriate options.  Icon relationships are replaced with Runes.  Since 13G discusses these before even classes or races, we'll start there too.

Every character in 13G is bound to three Runes; two will be shared with the god he or she worships, and one is personal.    Characters have these instead of Icon relationships.  The gods of Glorantha--like everything else--are expressions of Runic powers.  The storm god Orlanth, for example, has the Runes "Air" and "Movement."  The earth goddess Ernalda has "Earth," "Harmony," and "Life."  The Runes define their natures and their spheres of power.  People in theistic cultures access the Runes by following a god.  If your character follows Orlanth, two of his Runes will be "Air" and "Movement."  If he follows Humakt, god of warriors and death, two of his Runes will be "Death" and "Truth."  The choice of a third Rune is meant to help personalize your character.  An Orlanth-worshipping hunter might have "Air," "Movement," and "Beast."  A farmer might have "Air," "Movement," and "Earth."  Stranger choices are also possible if you wish to give the character a more unusual backstory.

13G discusses each of the Runes and gives a brief overview of the major pantheons and gods found in Dragon Pass. 

During every full heal up (periods of restful downtime), each player character rolls a d6 to see which Rune he will be "attuned" to that coming day.  Basically, this Rune is currently "active" in the character's life.  A shaman might see this as a particular spirit accompanying you that day, a sorcerer might explain it as an alignment of the stars and planets that brings a specific Rune into focus, a theist will see it as the favor (or curse) of a god.  Whatever the case, on a roll of 1, 2, or 3, the character is attuned to his or her first, second, or third Rune.  On a 4 - 6, the Rune will be randomly determined by a die roll.  If that die roll results in one of your personal Runes anyway, that Rune is empowered, which means in addition to normal benefits and complications of attunement, you will end up with a permanent magical gift from that Rune. 

The player can "narrate" whatever Rune he is currently attuned to, granting him or her some sort of non-combat benefit during a dramatic moment in the game.  Tons of examples are given, as Runic attunement and narration is one of the things that distinguishes 13G from her sister Gloranthan games.  A character currently attuned to Darkness, for example, might be trying to slip past the town watch.  The player might narrate that Rune by having a cloud pass over the sun at the very moment he sneaks by, dramatically dimming the light, or since blindness is associated with the Darkness Rune, perhaps the guard gets dust in his eyes.  A character attuned to Truth might get a bonus to seeing through an NPC's lies, or his own words might become more convincing.  

But the Runes are all double-edged swords.  When a Rune is narrated in this way by a player, the GM rolls a d20.  On a result of 1 to 5, a complication arises.  This is a Rune-specific subplot that makes life suddenly more difficult for the player characters.  For example, as the character slips past the guard under the temporary influence of Darkness, he is spotted and followed by Troll bandits lingering in the busy square.  Why Trolls?  Because they are bound to the Darkness Rune.  The character who narrates Truth might be forced into a situation later in which he cannot lie.  The possibilities are endless.

As a sidenote, most of the material in 13G is presented in ways that put the Runes front and center.  Specific locations are associated with certain Runes, as are the creatures in the Bestiary.  All this helps GMs come up with appropriate complications. 

THE RACES  

The races available in 13th Age don't exist in Glorantha.  There are beings called "elves" but these are humanoid plants with wooden bones and sap in their veins.  There are beings called "dwarves," but they are a rigid machine race seldom seen on the surface world.  There are no halflings, orcs, or gnomes.  Most characters will be humans, and in keeping the focus on Dragon Pass, the game offers four "cultural traits" in place of races.  Aside from the Heortlings (the Storm worshipping barbarians we discussed), players can select the Earth worshipping Esrolians, the nomadic Praxians from the wastes to the east of Dragon Pass, and the Tarshites...cultural "cousins" to the Heortlings who have embraced the Lunar Empire and abandoned the Old Ways.

Two non-human options are available.  The first are the Uz, or Gloranthan "Trolls."  A hulking subterranean race strongly tied to the Darkness Rune, they were driven to the surface during the Gods War when the murdered Sun plunged into the Underworld.  Capable of eating anything--with the unfortunate habit of eating their neighbors--the Trolls nevertheless are fierce opponents of Chaos and a popular player race.

The second option are the Ducks.  

Though not a particularly numerous species (they are just one of many sentient animal or partially animal races in Glorantha), the Ducks are probably one of the best known features of the setting.  In the early 80s, when I started playing Runequest, the D&D players derided the game as "the one with ducks."  Whether they are waterfowl cursed with sentience or humans cursed with bills, feathers, and webbed feet, it is certain that the Ducks are cursed and they know it.  As a result they are a grim species given to worshipping Humakt, the god of the Sword and Death.  13G recognizes the notoriety of this race and offers several options for portraying them.  These range from comic relief to grim, legendary sinners paying for an ancient transgression.

THE CLASSES

In 1978, Runequest was one of the earliest RPGs to kick the concept of class and level aside.  Characters were defined instead by discrete skills.  On the other hand, there is something powerful and mythic about archetypes, so Runequest incorporated these as the Glorantha cults.  As one adventured, and grew in power and ability, he or she finally joined a cult that narrowed the scope of his or her choices but opened greater avenues to power.  Your cult informed basic things like spells, favored skills and what armor and weapons you could wear.  In effect, then, Runequest characters began play classless but eventually ended up selecting, and joining, their class "in game."

13G has a radically different power structure than Runequest.  Characters enter play later in their careers, already the rough equivalents of Rune Lords or Rune Priests.  All the background adventuring you do before joining your cult has already been done.  Thus you start with an archetypical class.  To frame this in Heroquest terms, in 13G your race is the equivalent of your Cultural Keyword, your backgrounds cover the territory of your Occupational Keyword, and your class takes the place of your Religion Keyword.  

13G introduces 11 Dragon Pass appropriate character classes:

The Berserker comes in two subtypes, the Chaos-fighting worshippers of Storm Bull and the fire and death using Zorak Zorani Trolls.

The Earth Priestess is primarily a worshipper of Ernalda, but could easily be modified to any of her sister goddesses.

The Hell Mother is the Troll equivalent of the Earth Priestess.  Both are matriarchs and both classes use a combination of spells and summonings (earth elementals in the first case, darkness spirits in this one).

The Humakti is the worshipper of the god of Truth and Death.  Grim warriors bound by rigid codes of honor (though more along the lines of discipline and truth than morality), the Humakti are also famed enemies of the undead.  To my mind, the Humakti was one of the 13G standouts, and is probably my favorite treatment of these characters since Cults of Prax.  

The Monk stands at the opposite side of the "quality spectrum" from the Humakti.  There isn't much here.  Basically it adapts a pre-existing 13th Age class (more on this in a few moments) to Glorantha, but while most classes (like the Humakti) feel perfectly adjusted to Glorantha, this one is a head-scratcher.

The Orlanthi Warrior is the first of several classes devoted to aspects of the barbarian Storm god, and as 13G points out, is easiest to play.  It is basically the Barbarian from 13th Age augmented with Storm specific elements and powers.  More on this class momentarily.

The Rebel is a follower of Orlanth Adventurous, a sub-cult of the Storm god.  This is the "young Orlanth," the rebel god who rose up and slew the Emperor of Heaven to liberate the cosmos.  The Rebel adapts the Rogue class, and does it very well, replacing elements of thievery with guerrilla fighting and trickery.  

The Storm Voice is a priest of Orlanth, based on the 13th Age Sorcerer class.  While both the Orlanthi Warrior and the Rebel are primarily fighting characters who use a little magic, the Storm Voice is far more magic heavy, commanding the powers of lightning, wind, and storm in battle.  This is the companion class to the Earth Priestess from above, using spells and summonings (this time, Air spirits and elementals).

The Trickster is a follower of Eurmal, the...er...Trickster.  Like Loki, Coyote, Eshu, or Hermes, Eurmal is devious, deceitful, and manipulative...but his misdeeds drive the engine of change.  With Runes like Disorder and Illusion, this class is the archetypical Fool that like the Doctor (of Doctor Who fame) masks its cunning with buffoonery.  

The Troll Warrior is the companion to the Orlanthi Warrior, a primarily fighting class augmented by Darkness magics.  It is primarily intended as a follower of Kyger Litor, but could be adapted to other Troll gods.  This is once again 13G at its best, focusing on the traditional features we associate with Trolls from previous games to create a fun, playable archetypical incarnation.

The Wind Lord brings us back to Orlanth, this time as the more martial arm of the cult.  In Runequest terms, this would be the Rune Lord, while the Storm Voice is the Rune Priest.  Like the Orlanthi Warrior, this is a fighter augmented by Storm magic, but there is much more magic here.  And this brings us to a topic that needs to be discussed...

In core 13th Age, while the character classes are all well-balanced against each other in terms of power, they vary tremendously in complexity.  This is explicit and intentional, a feature and not a bug.  While mechanically Heroquest characters are all the same, for example, 13G classes are not.  Thus, the distinction between the Orlanthi Warrior and the Wind Lord is not so much setting specific as a play choice.  The Orlanthi Warrior is nice and simple, for inexperienced players or those who just want to enjoy the game.  The Wind Lord offers far more options and choices for those who prefer such things.  As in 13th Age, 13G is upfront about all this and ranks the classes in terms of complexity, with advice on what class to select to reflect your taste in gaming.

Any of these classes could serve as models for additional Gloranthan cults not covered in the narrow, Dragon Pass-specific focus of 13G.  The same is also true of 13th Age's core classes, and the book discusses ideas and ways experienced Glorantha fans could adapt those classes for Gloranthan play.  The Ranger, for example, could be adapted for Odayla the Hunter (or with its animal companion, possibly Yinkin).  The Cleric (with appropriate tinkering) could reflect the Fire/Sky cults of Peloria or even the Red Goddess.  The Wizard would be a good choice for the atheistic sorcerers of the West.  In short, it is not at all difficult to change a 13th Age class, and the book offers much help in doing so.

FOR THE GM

13G introduces an extensive horde of Gloranthan NPCs and monsters, categorized by Rune.  Thus an Orlanthi Bandit Leader or Renegade Godi appears in the section under the Air Rune, while the Mad Stag Broo or Krashtkid appear under Chaos.  Nearly a hundred pages of adversaries are detailed.  It is a robust selection.

A bit less is offered about the world itself.  There are detailed maps of Dragon Pass and neighboring Prax, and descriptions of the key places in them (arranged again by Rune).  Outside of this region, little of the world is discussed.  Likewise, players will learn a great deal about the Orlanthi barbarians, but considerably less about the Esrolians, Aldryami, Praxian nomads, etc.  To round things out, 13G frequently references The Glorantha Sourcebook, which despite being system agnostic seems to be intended as a companion book for 13G.  While the Sourcebook is probably worthy of a review of its own, Gloranthan novices may find the extremely narrow focus of 13G limiting, and would benefit by also having that book.  It's hard to fault the 466-page 13G for not having enough; there is a lot here, and both Runequest and Heroquest kept the focus narrow as well.  Still, someone new to Glorantha may not get as much out of 13G.

GMs new to Glorantha will appreciate the sections of "Chaos Rises," the default campaign being offered, as well as the five (!) complete adventures included in the book.  The adventures do a terrific job of showcasing the diversity of stories available in Glorantha, and are worth a read even by Gloranthan grognards.  

But before we conclude our discussion, there are two more topics covered in 13G that need addressing, "Heroquesting," and "Chaos."

HEROQUESTING 

The God Time is the eternal land of myth, where the mighty (or sometimes inglorious) deeds of the gods are frozen in eternal recurrence, separate from the mortal world of time. In a sense, all myths are myths of creation, since the actions of the gods created and sustain the mortal world.

In Glorantha, a heroquest is a path through a myth that provides power and insight to mortals who are capable of recreating the actions and adventures of their gods. Powerful successes can restore the world, or perhaps even reshape it. 

 page 357

Gloranthan heroes can gain power and insight by ritually entering the Other World and re-enacting a specific myth, this time playing the roles of the original protagonists (usually gods) themselves.  Heroquests don't tend to reward the characters with treasures, but rather Runic Gifts...powers and abilities bestowed by the Runes of the god they walk the path of, or beings they might encounter wile doing so.  13G presents the Heroquest like any other adventure, albeit an adventure with a script.  Like any myth a Heroquest tends to be more formalized and structured than an adventure, and slightly more surreal.  Since they are a defining feature of what a Gloranthan hero actually does, 13G devotes an entire chapter to Heroquests, and has comprehensive rules for running them, and a broad selection of sample quests.

CHAOS

Chaos is from outside of Glorantha.  When the gods fought against each other, they cracked the world and Chaos started leaking in.  It began to murder existence piece by piece.  Chaos is randomness, mutation, and the Void.  It is the chief antagonist of most Gloranthan religions and peoples.  

To show the rule-breaking horror of Chaos, 13G adds a new twist to one of the game's core mechanics.  13th Age players will know that the escalation die is a critical part of the game's combats; after the first combat round, the GM places a specially designated six-sided die on the table with the one facing up.  That one is a bonus added to the player character's combat rolls.  Each round that the players keep fight, the die goes up...one to two to three, etc.  The bonus gets bigger and bigger.  Adversaries do not usually benefit from the Chaos die, but as it increases it can trigger their deadlier powers and attacks.  This is a pacing tool, ensuring that in each combat the stakes get higher and higher.

In 13G, when player characters are fighting creatures and NPCs touched by Chaos, the GM rolls a d20.  If the result is six to twenty, nothing happens.  If the result is a one through 5, the players do not receive the bonus from the escalation die, the adversaries do.  This is a very 13th Age specific twist that showcases the terror of Chaos in the world.

CONCLUSIONS

Three types of readers will be coming to this review; Runequest players, Heroquest players, and 13th Age fans.  I've tried inasmuch was possible to include all three in the conversation, but a question still remains.  Namely, if you are a player of any of the three above games, why bother with 13G.

For 13th Age fans the answer is simple.  If you love that game, there is every chance that you will love Glorantha, given the fact that both Rob Heinsoo and Jonathan Tweet do.  Glorantha's influence on the Dragon Empire, for example, is evident in the mythic extravagance of that world.  Places like Starport, beings like the Koru Behemoths, even the Icons themselves show Gloranthan inspiration.  How could you not be curious after reading Heinsoo's dedication?  But seriously, this is one of the most storied and significant settings in fantasy gaming, and 13G serves it up for a game you already love.  Now is your chance to see what 40 years of fuss has been about.

For Runequest and Heroquest players, the answer is a little more complex.  

Let's start briefly with Ron Edwards and GNS Theory. If we look at roleplaying games as being simulationist (trying to model actual reality), narrativist (trying to model how movies or novels work), or gamist (focused on the RPG as a game, a set of rules meant to be challenging, entertaining, and to be won), 13G would fall primarily in the gamist category. Runequest is the simulationist one, while Heroquest is deeply narrative. 13th Age as a system constantly dispenses with simulationist or narrativist elements in favor of "what works at the table" and "what is the most fun." The designers are explicit about this. This is not to say 13G cannot tell great stories; as we have seen it has many superb storytelling elements.  But where Runequest tackles situations by asking "what would realistically happen?" and Heroquest addresses them by "what would drive forward the plot?" 13G wants to set up challenges and let the players face them, letting the dice fall as they may.  The question really is "how do we maximize the fun?"

I've been playing Runequest since 1981, and while the game is unparalleled for gritty, lower-level adventures, it never really reached the Olympian heights attained by Jar-Eel the Razoress or Harrek the Berserk.  Heroquest addressed that, but especially in the 2nd edition seemed to move away from gaming deeper into the realm of storytelling.  My advice to long time Gloranthans is to to give 13G a try if you want those higher power levels, but still want a more structured, gamist approach to play.  If you want to know "can I beat the Crimson Bat?" more than "is it a better story if I beat the Crimson Bat or lose to it?" try 13G.

There is a lot of passion in this game.  It is clear the authors love Glorantha, and their giddy enthusiasm is on every page.  It is infectious.  Runequest always felt to be like a "precise Glorantha," while Heroquest was an "erudite Glorantha" (with scholarly focus on myth, narrative, etc).  13G is a hot-blooded, passionate Glorantha.

For those of us steeped in Staffordism, we know that Shamanism, Sorcery, and Theism are all valid approaches.  I apply the same logic to the three Gloranthan sister games.  They all "get you there," but what distinguishes them is the scenery along the path.

13G gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from this Gloranthan grognard.

        

NUMENERA; A REVIEW

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke, "Hazards of Prophecy: The Failure of Imagination"

TOWARDS THE END OF THE 1960s, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov were sharing a New York City cab.  Alongside Robert Heinlein, both were considered part of the Holy Trinity of science fiction writers, and often asked which of them was the best.  In the back of that taxi, the pair found an elegant solution, and the so-called "Treaty of Park Avenue" was drawn up between them.  Clarke would ever after insist that Asimov was the best, while Asimov would always insist his superior was Clarke.

Despite this, the two had their differences.  Asimov, for example, drew a firm line between "science fiction" and "fantasy."  The first, he insisted, was grounded in science and dealt with the possible.  The latter, centred purely in the imagination, dealt with the impossible.  But Clarke, perhaps in part as a play on Asimov's famous "Three Laws of Robotics" issued Three Laws all his own.  The first of these, I like to think, was a tongue in cheek jab at his friend and rival;  "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."  He finished with the famous and oft-quoted assertion that "sufficiently advanced technology" was indistinguishable from "magic."

No other role-playing game has ever embraced Clarke's point-of-view as deeply as Monte Cook's Numenera.

A bit like Clarke, by 2001 Cook found himself in a Holy Trinity of RPG designers.  Alongside Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams he was tapped to design the d20 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons, writing the Dungeon Master's Guide.  If you weren't familiar with his name from Champions or Rolemaster, or from his days at TSR writing books for the Planescape line, you couldn't be a gamer and escape it in the wake of the d20 system's ubiquity.  Despite my own antipathy for the system, I liked Cook's work in it.  His translation of Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu might have been (to me) completely unnecessary, but he pulled it off brilliantly.  Likewise his take on White Wolf's "World of Darkness" was inspired.  By the end of the decade he was bit of an RPG "rock star," and it was no surprise that when he turned to Kickstarter to generate capital for a new project called Numenera, he raised more than 25 times his goal of $20,000.  Cook has that sort of name recognition and fan base, and Numenera is the perfect example of why he deserves it.

Depending on whether you lean towards Asimov or Clarke, Numenera is either a fantasy or a science fiction RPG.  Set a billion years from now, Numenera is about the peoples of the Ninth World.  At least eight previous worlds have risen and fallen back into obivion, each over a cycle of hundreds of millions of years.  Some of them left behind orbital satellites to bathe the world in a massive datasphere.  Some of them terraformed, and then re-terraformed, the planet.  Some of them were the centres of vast, interstellar empires.  Some of them mastered the fundamental laws of physics and played with them like toys.  Some of them created the nanotechnology that now invisibly swarms across the planet. Some of them explored other dimensions.  Some bioengineered new forms of life.  And several--if not most of them--were not even remotely human.

Now, inexplicably, humans have returned to the Ninth World, though no one can say from where.  Spread thinly across part of the planet in a quasi-medieval patchwork of kingdoms known as the Steadfast--and some in a wilder region known as the "Beyond"--the humans of the Ninth World dig through the ruins of the ancients collecting "numenera," a catch-all term for any and all of the wonders of the past.  They are guided by the Order of Truth, a "church" of sorts led by the Amber Popes and dedicated to improving the human condition by learning the secrets of the old worlds.

If you close one eye and look at Numenera from the right angle, this is all pretty generic fare.  Medieval kingdoms built on the bones of ancient, wondrous empires, bold adventurers combing dangerous, monster-filled ruins for treasures...we've seen this a thousand times before.  Even the three core character classes--the Glaive, the Nano, and the Jack--look pretty much the same as the Warrior-Mage-Rogue archetypes from other games.  Numenera looks the same as any fantasy RPG.  But shift a few steps an take a look again.  Suddenly Numenera starts to look like a post-apocalyptic future.  Move a bit further and it looks like weird horror.  From another angle, an almost Roddenberrian game of hope, wonder, and exploration.  It can be used any of these ways.  It is at its best when used in all these ways.

Which brings us back to Clarke's laws.  That desert hermit, mumbling to himself?  With hand gestures and incantations he can bring a rain of fire out of the sky.  Is he activating the clouds of nanotech machines swarming through the air?  Is it some form of pyrokinesis caused by a mutation in his brain?  Does he channel extradimensional energies?  In the end it is simpler just to call it what it is; "numenera," the same as the Doctor's TARDIS, the Monoliths from 2001, or the "killing words" of Dune.  This is tech so far beyond us it looks like magic.

So what is the game about, then?  How does it work?

Numenera is a game of discovery, where experience points are handed out for uncovering wonders rather than killing enemies.  It operates around a simple d20 roll and a difficulty scale running from 1 (ridiculously easy) to 10 (practically impossible).  When a character wants to attempt an action, the GM assigns a difficulty, and the player needs to roll equal to or above that difficulty x 3.  For example, a chasm might require a Difficulty 4 Might roll to jump across it.  Multiplying by three gives us 12, and the player needs to roll that number or higher.

What then about Difficulties of 7, 8, 9, and 10?  You can't beat those on a 20-sided die.

Characters have three core attributes; Might, Intellect, and Speed.  They also posses special abilities and skills.  Skills can lower a Difficulty one or two steps, reducing a Difficulty 5 task to 4 or 3.  Certain abilities and pieces of equipment can lower a Difficulty as well.  Or, the player can chose to use "Effort," spending points from his attribute pool to lower the Difficulty.  This can be risky, because your attribute pools serve as your "hit points" as well.  The amount of Effort you can spend, and how much you must spend, is ruled in part by your Tier (level).  A lower Tier character needs to spend more Effort to lower a Difficulty by a single step; a higher Tier character can spend less Effort to lower a Difficulty a step, and can lower Difficulties by multiple steps.  It is a simple, flexible, and very elegant mechanic.

Combat, incidentally, works the same way.  Your opponent has a level from 1 to 10, which determines the basic rolls you need to strike and defend against it (again, level x 3 modified by unique NPC features).  In Numenera, the GM never touches the dice.  All rolls are made by players.  Damage is fixed by weapon type (Light, Medium, or Heavy) and reduced by armour.  A roll of 17 adds +1 to damage, 18 adds +2, 19 adds +3, and 20 adds +4.  19s and 20s can trigger special effects as well.  Naturally, a character's abilities affect combat and damage as well.

One of the finest features of the game is that it is "player-facing."  The GM, as mentioned, never rolls dice.  Instead, Numenera uses a mechanic known as "intrusion."  The GM is allowed to make things "happen" that normally would be handled by a roll.  Do the palace guards hear the sounds of the player characters breaking in?  Does the ancient bridge collapse under the character's weight?  Does the device the character is carrying suddenly malfunction?  The GM can invoke any of these effects--any effect she needs to further the plot or make things more interesting--but for a price.  The character affected by the intrusion is given two experience points immediately...one to keep for himself, and one to award another party member for any reason.  Or, he can refuse the intrusion, and pay an experience point back to the GM.  Between this mechanic, and the ease with which NPCs and creatures can be extrapolated using the simple 1 to 10 scale, Numenera eliminates the heavy lifting other games saddle the GM with and lets her concentrate on moving the story along.

Character creation is another excellent feature of the game.  It basically works out to a simple sentence in which the player picks the noun, the adjective, and the verb; "I am a (adjective) (noun) that (verb)."

The noun is the easiest; it's the three "classes" I mentioned above.  There are the warrior Glaives, the mage-like Nanos, and the roguish Jacks.  Each gets special abilities to chose from each new Tier, as well as a base pool of points for Might, Intellect, and Speed.  Each archetype comes with options to personalise the character choice.  

The adjectives are things like "Charming," "Graceful," or "Strong-Willed" that bestow a package of bonuses, skills, flaws, equipment, and connections to the setting.

Finally, the verbs are things like "Bears a Halo of Fire," "Controls Beasts," "Explores Dark Places," or "Masters Weaponry."  These are professions, super-powers, or character motivations that grant a suite of additional abilities that increase each Tier, as well as a wealth of character shaping details and extras.  

Thus, a Numenera character might be "a Clever Jack that Works the Back Alleys," "a Rugged Glaive Who Howls at the Moon," or "an Intelligent Nano Who Commands Mental Powers."  These three lenses come together to create detailed and interesting characters.

What Cook gives us then is a streamlined and very modern "D&D" with an Arthur C. Clarke twist.  Much of what characters do--explore ruins, discover treasures, fight hideous creatures, navigate local politics--happens in other RPGs, but Numenera's focus never leaves the theme of wonder, of weirdness, of discovery.  Whether it is science fiction or fantasy depends on how the group approaches it, and it's unique setting allows the GM and players to shape the world to their tastes.  Already with a strong line up of supporting products, Numenera is a far future game with a bright future ahead of it.

Go see the Numenera page here.

  

  

     

  

  

  

    

   

     

THE 13th AGE: A VERY MINI REVIEW

Imagine you took a stack of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons books, a few of the old school TSR "basic" D&D products, and a heap of indie games like FATE and The Burning Wheel and tossed them all in Seth Brundle's teleport pod from The Fly. Once the smoke cleared, and all the DNA was scrambled up together, you would have a copy of The 13th Age sitting there.

I was a very vocal critic of the d20 system when 3rd Edition D&D first reared its ugly head. Mechanically it was just a rehash of Jonathan Tweet's Ars Magica with all the good stuff taken out and a d20 shoved in. D20 was a love letter to the obsessive rules lawyers I have kept from my gaming table for over thirty years, and with the revised version's insistence on moving miniatures around and counting squares it went from bad to worse. Despite this, I knew the game would succeed because A) it had the D&D name and B) they very cleverly made the rules public so that everyone could adopt it and cash in on the D&D name. When the 4th Edition appeared, it became painfully clear to me Hasbro wanted a miniatures battle game instead of an RPG. The system had migrated as far from the spontaneous, free-wheeling fun of the original game as you could possibly get; everything was options from a menu rather than player contribution.

So when I heard that Tweet (the lead designer of 3e) was teaming up with Rob Heinsoo (the lead designer of 4e), I expected more of the same. Instead, I got a new d20 fantasy RPG that was dead sexy.

Let's be clear; this is another Dungeons & Dragons. There are Clerics and Fighters and Barbarians, there are Chromatic Dragons and Owlbears, there are levels and hit points and feats. And Drow. These days you gotta have Drow. And since this is basically a game that takes 4e, strips it down, and runs with it, I am not going to linger too much on the rules except for what The 13th Age brings to the table.

Let's start with the Icons.

The game has a very loosely described setting (the Dragon Empire) populated by 13 loosely defined uber-NPCs known as Icons. Their names read like a Tarot hand; the Elf Queen, the Archmage, the Prince of Shadows, the Lich King, etc. In a sense, these are the Elminsters and the Gandalfs and the Elrics of the setting. But they aren't...they really aren't. First, they are loosely described so that the GM and the players can define them for the kind of world they want to play in. Your Dragon Empire could be Asian and the Archmage could be Quan Li the Emerald Seer. Or it could be faux Roman with the Archmage as Ipsissimus Magnus. It's your world. Second, the Icons exist solely for the purpose showcasing the player characters and giving them adventures to play in. Here's how;

During character creation, PCs get 3 relationship points to assign to the Icons of their choice. They could assign one point to three Icons, or three points to one, or one to one and two to another. They also get to decide if the relationship is Positive, Negative, or Conflicted. Each point represents a d6, and these relationship dice are rolled at various times to see if the players and Icons cross paths somehow (directly, through influence, or minions). A roll of 1-4 means no interaction, a 5 means an advantageous interaction with some complications, and a 6 is a beneficial interaction. Usually these dice are rolled at the start of a session.

What does this mean? Think of Bilbo in The Hobbit. He starts off with a relationship with Gandalf (aka the Archmage). This relationship exists solely to get Bilbo into adventure. Gandalf isn't there to steal the scenes and be the hero, he's there to make Bilbo the hero. Likewise, Frodo starts off with a relationship with Gandalf (the Archmage), Aragorn (the Emperor), and Sauron (the Lich King) and they all exist solely to propel him through his epic quest. The Icons are plot engines that connect the characters to the world and the story. They tell the GM what kinds of stories they want to play based on the Icons they pick. Do players ally with the Priestess and against the Crusader? The campaign might be a conflict between the gods of light and dark. Do they ally with the High Druid and against the Lich King? A sage of life versus death. With the Emperor and against the Orc Lord? Civilization versus barbarism. The Icons help the players define their tale.

Second, on top of picking a race and a class and all the d20 standards, PCs pick a One Unique Thing. This is something that makes the character special. It can be anything, but if it is a power it has to be something interesting and non-combative. It can even be something that changes the setting. "The stars sing to me and sometimes whisper the future," is an example of an appropriate power. "I have a clockwork heart forged by dwarves," is an interesting feature that may be explored down the road. "I am the last of the Dark Elves" is one that changes the entire setting. This is another way that character creation makes the world the players'.

A final way character creation empowers players is the abandonment of skills from a list in favor of Backgrounds. Players don't put points in Athletics or Stealth or History, but create backgrounds they can assign points to. A Fighter with "Emperor's Elite Guard +3" would be able to use that bonus for a range of things, from etiquette to area knowledge of the capital city. A Rogue with "Iron Sea Pirate +5" knows how to sail, but also uses his bonus in dealing with other buccaneers. The players create and name these backgrounds, and again shape the world. Did we know the Emperor had an elite guard? Now we do. Were pirates common on the Iron Sea before? They are now.

This flexibility runs throughout the entire game. The setting is left vague, waiting to be filled in. The races and classes have mechanical functions but are again left open to be fleshed out. There are Clerics, but we know nothing about the gods. There are Dark Elves and Wood Elves and High Elves, but we don't know what separated the races (or in a strange twist, why they still all bow before the Elf Queen). All this waits for you to decide.

I don't want to get into classes too much, but I should point out that every effort has been made to step back away from 4e, where every class was essentially the same, with at-will, once per battle, and once daily powers. Elements of this remain, but now playing a Barbarian is a very different experience from playing a Wizard. Every class has feats, but they also have unique features and mechanical differences that set them apart. I mention the Barbarian and the Wizard specifically because they are at opposite ends of the complexity spectrum. Barbarians have talents that enhance their ability to do and take damage, Wizards have spells and cantrips that cover a wide range of possibilities, and these are flexible enough that they can be tinkered with or altered on the fly. Play a Wizard if you want a wide range of choices in combat and like improvisation. Play a Barbarian if you just want to hit things. Each and every class has a unique "thing" or two, a clear rejection of 4e's design philosophy.

Combat is also retooled. The grid is gone and minis are optional. It's a role playing game again, not Warhammer Fantasy Battle. You are now engaged or far away, intercepting, in front, or behind, the way D&D used to be. There are still 4e elements, like being "staggered" (bloodied) at half your hit points and having "recoveries" (healing surges), but battle is faster and more fluid. In part this is because player's do more damage; weapon damage now scales up (a d8 weapon does 3d8 damage in the hands of a 3rd level character and 8d8 in the hands of an 8th level). But the real cause for joy is the escalation die.

The escalation die is a d6. It is set on the table during the second round of combat, showing a "1." That one is added to all the attack rolls of the players (only the most powerful and lethal monsters, like dragons, receive a bonus from it). Each round it goes up by one, so that in round seven forward players receive +6 to attack rolls. This does all sorts of things. For example, casters who opened up early with the big guns like "fireball" in older d20 games might now play for time to get the bonus. Second, the way monsters are now weighted they start with the advantage at the start of the battle, and the heroes slowly rise to the challenge. There are all sorts of powers--on both sides--that old get activated by certain numbers on the escalation die. It adds a dramatic arc to the game.

Speaking of monsters, there have been innovations there too. The game now includes mooks, a bit like 4e minions. Basically the mook version of a monster is now a swarm of five. For example, a Dire Wolf has 80 hit points; the mook version is a pack of five Dire Wolfs with a combined total of 80 hit points. Every sixteen points of damage kills one off. Another innovation for the GM is that special monster attacks are "triggered" by the attack roll, rather than being chosen. Take the Chimera, for example. The Chimera has a fang, claw, and horn attack that does a certain amount of damage, but on an attack roll of 14-15 the target is also dazed by a head butt from the goat head; on a 16-17 extra ongoing damage is inflicted (bleeding) by the lion's raking claws; on an 18-20 it gets an additional fiery breath attack from the dragon head. GMs don't have to chose tactics, and the monsters play themselves.

A final point to be made is how The 13th Age handles experience. Experience is a potent tool because it motivates player behavior like nothing else. In D&D variants were most XP comes from treasure, players will practically crawl over each other's bodies for a gold piece. In versions were most experience comes from killing things, player characters will pick any fight they can. Numenera, Monte Cook's latest RPG, rewards XP for discovering relics of lost worlds, making exploration the focus of the game. The 13th Age has a novel approach as well; it doesn't offer experience. There are no experience points in the game. Players level up automatically after completing stories, or reaching a dramatic pause in an ongoing tale. 

This is very much in keeping with the spirit of the game. Players are free to pursue their own agendas and stories without having to focus on killing things or grabbing treasure. A character can do these things, but a PC can be a Cleric or Monk with a vow of poverty or even pacifism if he or she wishes and still level up. 

So in closing, if you had asked me awhile back what I would think of about a game designed by Heinsoo and Tweet, "sexy" would not have been my response.

But hot damn it is now.