Merging Combat and Chase Rules in Rune Quest Glorantha

We just had an electrifying game session with the 'Rainbow Mounds' scenario from the RuneQuest (RQ) Starter Set. After a thought-provoking discussion on Chaosium's Discord server, I decided to test merging the combat and chase rules, which added unexpected twists to the story.

The chase rules I'm referring here are on pg.151-153 of the Rune Quest Glorantha rulebook if you want to check them out. There's also a thorough example of of the chase rules in action on Runeblogger's forum here.

Anyway...

Our party had embarked on a mission to find Ma Rotroot's sons who had ventured into the caves in search of Eurmal Crumbs. The Rotroot boys had been sent on this mission by an outlander, a sorcerer named Urvantan, who was chilling in the Tin Inn and waiting his shroom delivery. 

Inside the caves things quickly escalated as the party encountered some trollkins and inadvertently invoked the wrath of their mother. The party's shaman cast 'demoralize' on the enraged troll mama. Rather than fighting, she fled deeper into the caves with the remaining trollkins, sparking off a thrilling chase sequence.

There are two kinds of players of rpg's. Those who'll eat Eurmal Grumbs and those who won't :D

For the chase, I adjudged the initial distance as 'close' due to the limited visibility and challenging terrain. Because of the trolls’ home advantage, the PCs had a -20% to their opposed DEX rolls. Each chase round equated to two melee rounds which was crucial considering the 'demoralize' spell's duration of ten melee rounds.

The chase sequence was high-stakes, with the PCs slowly closing the gap on the trailing trollkin, managing to eliminate one in the process. Keeping track of everyone's position and setting the scene for mama troll's ambush after shaking off 'demoralize' was straightforward.

The versatility of RuneQuest Glorantha's chase rules was recently discussed on the Chaosium Discord server. Besides chases, these adaptable rules can also be used for different skirmish scenarios. If you're unfamiliar with them, I strongly encourage giving them a try.

The melee rules from the RQG Player’s Guide, though occasionally perplexing, made running the melee smoother once I separated the movement of unengaged combatants from the actual combat round.

The only hiccup, in my opinion, lies with the movement rules in RQG compared to the older RQ3 version. While the measurement in meters/strike rank from RQ3 seemed more logical, the speed measurements in RQG rules seem somewhat off. Specifically, the pace of 'fast' things, like a galloping horse, appears drastically undershot.

I'm still debating whether to address this speed discrepancy; unless future games involve a lot of skirmish situations, it might not be worth the fuss. I guess adapting RQ3 movement to RQG would be easy enough to do, but we'll see.

As for the troll mama? She put up a good fight, but the PCs eventually triumphed. They concluded that the boys they had set out to find had most likely become troll food. After some rather eventful shroom harvesting (and a near-death experience), they returned to the sorcerer. In a twist of irony, the boys had been too scared to venture past the cave’s rock lizards and were hiding all along, waiting for the sorcerer to leave.