We said we were back from our summer break with episode 32, but we lied! Joerg’s laptop died and he was busy growing a moustache, and Ludo was ridiculously busy with work. Either way, we are back again, just in time for the end of the year!

Our Guest

This time we welcome Jon Webb again, who appeared on our show back in episode 6 along with Neil Gibson. Jon is of course the wonderful author of the equally wonderful “Sandheart” series of scenarios:

Disclaimer: the above links are affiliate links of course (please use them to support the show!)

The Making of Sandheart

Our first topic is the Sandheart series of scenarios (see links above) which, although they have been written and published a long time ago, we had not covered on the show before… better late than never!

We chat with Jon about how Sandheart came to be, the strength of its campaign framework, moral choices, “street-level” adventures, designing problems for which you don’t know the solution, culture clashes between characters, custom heroquesting rules, and more.

If you haven’t read or played Sandheart, there shouldn’t be any spoilers for you — only titillating previews of the sort of fun you can expect therein. Note that if you don’t plan on getting all four volumes of the series, we recommend getting volumes 1 and 3. The reason for this is that volume 3 is a scenario that spans multiple years, as the adventurers are tasked with guard duty for a recurring ritual. Getting volume 3 early will let you weave the first couple occurrences of the ritual into the first few adventures.

House Rules and Custom Systems

In the second and larger half of the episode, we exchange all kinds of ideas about tweaking and extending the RuneQuest rules. Among the things we talk about, in no particular order:

Picking rules from different editions of RuneQuest
Hit Points formulas
Initiative systems and Strike Ranks
Sorcery rules
Experience checks and experience gain
Resolving ties
Failing Forward
Combat effects and aiming at hit locations
Custom hit location tables
Shields
Granularity of rules per activity
Gritty tactical combat vs heroic scenes
Average skill scores vs heroic skill scores
Fighting styles and converting to other weapons
Group rolls
Adopting rules from Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
Chaotic corruption!
Lingering emotions
Caravan trading rules
Going into a rabbit hole of research and math, and finding what a mechanic should be about
Keeping custom mechanics into the “spirit” of the main system
Post-coital pillow talk rules

We also mention:

Ludovic’s own adventure, “A Short Detour”
Mythras
Troika
Dragonbane
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Traveller
Alien RPG

Credits

The intro music is “The Warbird” by Try-Tachion. Other music includes “Cinder and Smoke” and “Skyspeak“, along with audio from the FreeSound library.

Episode 33: The House Rules of Sandheart