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HeroQuest: Glorantha
The book includes everything you need to have to start a campaign in Glorantha: basic overview of the setting; character creation; magic rules for spirit magic, rune magic, sorcery, and Lunar magic; seven complete cult write ups; heroquesting rules and explanations; monster descriptions; themes of Glorantha; and even an introductory adventure that will take your heroes on a heroquest into the Underworld!
Glorantha is the most elegant, original, and imaginative fantasy setting since Middle Earth. It is a world of exotic myth and awesome magic, self-contained and unique in its creation. The existence and use of the magical and mythic realms are central to the physics of Glorantha. Here the gods and heroes guard and guide their followers, sharing magics while pursuing their own enigmatic ends. Glorantha’s detailed cultures, histories, and myths are shaped by gods, heroes, and magic, and yet are plausible and logically self-consistent. Glorantha has been the setting for the Dragon Pass board game, the original RuneQuest roleplaying game, and the award-winning computer game King of Dragon Pass. Glorantha is fully described in the Guide to Glorantha, available from Moon Design Publications.
HeroQuest Glorantha is the HeroQuest 2 rules system specifically tailored for Glorantha. It presents a simple rules system that allows Game Masters to run games modeled on ancient myth, epic sagas, and tales of high adventure. HeroQuest encourages creative input from players, resulting in an exciting, unpredictable narrative created through group play.
Glorantha is the most elegant, original, and imaginative fantasy setting since Middle Earth. It is a world of exotic myth and awesome magic, self-contained and unique in its creation. The existence and use of the magical and mythic realms are central to the physics of Glorantha. Here the gods and heroes guard and guide their followers, sharing magics while pursuing their own enigmatic ends. Glorantha’s detailed cultures, histories, and myths are shaped by gods, heroes, and magic, and yet are plausible and logically self-consistent. Glorantha has been the setting for the Dragon Pass board game, the original RuneQuest roleplaying game, and the award-winning computer game King of Dragon Pass. Glorantha is fully described in the Guide to Glorantha, available from Moon Design Publications.
HeroQuest Glorantha is the HeroQuest 2 rules system specifically tailored for Glorantha. It presents a simple rules system that allows Game Masters to run games modeled on ancient myth, epic sagas, and tales of high adventure. HeroQuest encourages creative input from players, resulting in an exciting, unpredictable narrative created through group play.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published April 17, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 31, 2015
HeroQuest is basically a game of abstraction. Anything can be a skill, because the skills are abstract ideas, and you can contest in anything, because the contests are abstractions too. Is that a benefit, because you have infinite narrative possibilities, or is it a deficit, because the abstraction is too obvious? It almost certainly depends on the player, and it's probably the most contentious point of this game. (Personally, I like the system of HeroQuest the best when the abstraction becomes very specific, such as with the clever sorcery system in this edition, but otherwise the abstraction makes me feel disconnected from the game.)
Of course this particular book is HeroQuest: Glorantha and the background on Glorantha that opens this book is terrific; it reminds one of why Glorantha is such a great world for adventuring. The rest of the book is also relatively saturated in Glorantha, particularly in the cult section, and from time to time it rises up to greatness.
This edition also builds on HeroQuest 2, where Laws did some clever revamping of the system to support story beats, and that's one of my favorite parts of the game. Yeah, it's abstract too, but it does a good job of adapting something that you don't usually find in roleplaying games, and that can actually create better stories at the table.
Unfortunately, I find some of the rules description in this edition a bit muddy. Some of the mechanics are pretty outré for the industry, so if anything more work was needed to keep the rules really tight. Unfortunately, I feel like things swing in the other direction. This is frequently due to referencing important rules (such as augments and pass/fail) which haven't been explained previously, but there's also insufficient specificity at times (like in the character creation).
Overall, HeroQuest is an interesting game and an interesting companion for the very exotic and mythical world of Glorantha. I still prefer my RuneQuest, but HeroQuest is an interesting alternative if you can make the system work for your gaming style.
Of course this particular book is HeroQuest: Glorantha and the background on Glorantha that opens this book is terrific; it reminds one of why Glorantha is such a great world for adventuring. The rest of the book is also relatively saturated in Glorantha, particularly in the cult section, and from time to time it rises up to greatness.
This edition also builds on HeroQuest 2, where Laws did some clever revamping of the system to support story beats, and that's one of my favorite parts of the game. Yeah, it's abstract too, but it does a good job of adapting something that you don't usually find in roleplaying games, and that can actually create better stories at the table.
Unfortunately, I find some of the rules description in this edition a bit muddy. Some of the mechanics are pretty outré for the industry, so if anything more work was needed to keep the rules really tight. Unfortunately, I feel like things swing in the other direction. This is frequently due to referencing important rules (such as augments and pass/fail) which haven't been explained previously, but there's also insufficient specificity at times (like in the character creation).
Overall, HeroQuest is an interesting game and an interesting companion for the very exotic and mythical world of Glorantha. I still prefer my RuneQuest, but HeroQuest is an interesting alternative if you can make the system work for your gaming style.
November 27, 2019
A beautiful book with an interesting core mechanic. I’ve had a hard time fully understanding this system, and some of the rules could really use some clarification, but the extensive example of play midway through the mechanics goes a long way towards making a lot of it make sense. Unfortunately, it doesn’t cover everything, and it’s dropped in half way through the mechanics, which means it goes over stuff that hasn’t been explained yet. Once I figured out that I hadn’t forgotten certain mechanics it worked okay, but the placement is still a weird editorial choice.
I’m planning on running a one-shot of this before too long, and will be curious to see if works well with my group or if it’s too abstract.
I’m planning on running a one-shot of this before too long, and will be curious to see if works well with my group or if it’s too abstract.
December 28, 2018
Another conflicted review I fear! This is a great game and wonderful setting, but somehow the book doesn't engage me as others do, not quite matching up to the heroic nature of the genre it describes. As a piece of writing 3 stars, as a game, I suspect nearer 5.
September 21, 2015
Well, it's definitely a unique system and is paired with a very unique setting. The worst I can say about this one is that some of the examples are less clear than they could be and they deal with concepts that haven't been explained clearly or come up later in the book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews