Overview

Basic Questions

1. What is the Realms of Glory RPG?
2. What is a role-playing game?
3. Are role-playing games evil?
4. Does it have magic?
5. Why does it have magic?
6. Does the Realms of Glory game or setting have evil stuff in it?
7. Is a strict moral code forced on characters?
8. Is this a Christian game?
9. What is the point?
10. Can my friends/kids/parents play this game too?

System Questions 1. What is an “opposed d10” system? 2. Does it have class-based or point-based character creation? 3. What classes are available? 4. How do skills work? 5. What is unique about combat?

Basic Questions

1. What is the Realms of Glory RPG?
The Realms of Glory RPG is an original, fantasy/steampunk role-playing game that puts the thrill of adventure, discovery, and combat back into anxious player hands. People have an amazing desire to truly experience a fantasy setting as is evidenced by the explosion of fantasy novels. The majority of people who play RPG’s, whether pen and paper, video games, or even board games, are literature lovers. The culture is swimming with fantasy novels, television shows, games, and movies that transport their audiences into other worlds with characters that are diverse and unique. All of these become the inspirations for the imagination of both players and storytellers. This system and setting are designed to make a role-playing game that feels like the great stories that we read and see. It uses mechanics that make a fight against a lithe rogue and massive barbarian vastly different.
It maintains a balance between a class and skill based systems so that players have flexibility when designing their characters. An advantage system
in combat gives characters a vast number of actions instead of simple attacking. Topping off the combat is a tiered magic and technology system that gives characters special abilities, spells, and gadgets to make the rest of the party envious.
The setting is geared to support all major fantasy races as well as many new races. The nature-based, green Milam, the nomadic, tough Ortug, the shape changing, ancient Melachim, and even new takes on Orcs with poison blood and creepy Goblins. There is a flexible morality system that encourages the role-playing of alignment shifts and even actions that go contrary to a character’s stated alignment. The Realms of Glory RPG provides you the tools to create and play characters and campaigns with a flexibility and variety that has been sought after, but never accomplished, until now.

2. What is a role-playing game?
A role-playing game is a game in which you create a character and determine how they interact with the imaginary world around them. It is similar to a “create your own adventure” book where you are presented with options and choices and you get to decide how the character you’ve created will respond. Then you get to see the consequences of those decisions and actions played out. Instead of a book or game guiding you, there needs to be a Storyteller who helps move along the plot. The Realms of Glory RPG, however, allows you to fully customize characters in ways that video games and adventure stories do not. Create a background, choose skills and abilities, and customize your character how ever you’d like.

3. Are role-playing games evil?
Short answer: No, I’ve yet to see an inherently evil role-playing game and the Realms of Glory certainly is not evil. Evil RPG’s may be out there, but I’ve not sought them out or run across them (and have no desire to do so). Role-playing games are tools and systems used to build worlds and decide consequences for thoughts, words, and deeds. The ones wielding those tools choose what type of world they create and actions they encourage. That being said, the Realms of Glory aims to clearly define good and evil, promote heroism, and show the consequences for actions. The setting is in a fantasy world for the explicit reason of separating the game apart from reality. It encourages players to think through the consequences of their characters actions and examine how worldviews and philosophies of characters shape how they behave.

4. Does it have magic?
Yes. The lands of the Realms of Glory and everything in it is magical. There are fantastic creatures, foul beasts, and everything else you can imagine. The Realms are NOT our earth. The world itself is encompassed in an aether that is unseen yet flows through and in everything. Many characters are able to manipulate the natural substance of the world in an effort to create magic and cast spells. Magic, within the Realms of Glory, is a natural part of the world (and fantasy literature). It is NOT depicted as dark or demonic and powers are not coming from “other sources”. Magic is depicted as a standard part of the world itself in much the same way as science fiction depicts advanced technology. Faster-than-light travel, laser guns, aliens, genetic cloning, and mind-control are just as far fetched from reality as magic is within the Realms of Glory. The system and setting actually put magic side-by-side with technology in a slightly steampunk genre. They are both using natural means to create supernatural effects.

5. Why does it have magic?
The Realms of Glory RPG contains magic because it is part of the fantasy genre. It gives characters tools to creatively solve problems and overcome obstacles and encourages them to think outside of the box. It allows for fantastic locations like floating islands in the sky and underwater cities as well as fantastic creatures like dragons, yeti, scorpion-bears, zombies, mummies, and many more.

6. Does the Realms of Glory game or setting have evil stuff in it?
Yes, absolutely. Does it promote evil, encourage evil, or dismiss the consequences of evil? No, absolutely not. If you consider your favorite super hero, they are often defined and shaped by the fight against the bad guys. Good and evil are not morally neutral ideas or thoughts. They are thoughts, intentions, words, deeds, and the embodiment of those concepts. The Realms of Glory seeks to portray evil so the distinction between good and evil can be clearly seen. One of the benefits of fantasy and other literary genres is that it can clearly depict evil so it is often-times more clearly seen and identified than just by looking at the world around us.

7. Is a strict moral code forced on characters?
No. The setting and rules of the Realms of Glory do not force any type of moral code upon characters. However, as in life, good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior will have serious consequences. The basic “alignments” or world-views within the Realms of Glory are based upon a grid of diametrically-opposed factors. These are used not only for player’s characters, but for all background characters (NPC’s – non-playable characters) throughout the game. The primary distinction is between Good and Evil. The secondary distinction determines whether the character is primarily self-focused or community-focused. When laid out on a grid (with a neutral value between each extreme), it allows for 9 different basic combinations of alignment. This gives the Storyteller and characters a good idea of how characters would respond to different situations. For example, most heroes of the Realms would be either Self-Focused Good, Good, or Community-Focused Good. But it allows for characters like Robin Hood who “steals from the rich to give to the poor” to be labeled simply as Community-Focused. A Self-Focused constable in a small village would probably be considered corrupt by many, but would not necessarily be evil and certainly would not be good.

8. Is this a Christian game?
No and yes. Primarily no, because Christianity is founded upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ and His perfect life, atoning death, and resurrection. You won’t find that anywhere in the Realms of Glory RPG setting nor rules because the game is based on fantasy and NOT reality. However, there are Christian themes, concepts, and ideas ingrained throughout its entirety. The Realms of Glory aims to imitate Tolkien’s presentation of Christianity within the Lord of the Rings series, so if you consider that to be Christian then you will probably consider this to be so as well.

9. What is the point?
Have fun! The Realms of Glory Role-Playing Game provides tools and encouragement for creativity, fun, and world-view building by creating a fantasy world and guiding players as their characters explore.

10. Can my friends/kids/parents play this game too?
Yes! This is not intended as a single-player game and is definitely more fun with a group of people. It is designed to be played with a group of friends, as a family, or with any combination thereof! You merely need one person to be the Storyteller and 2-6 others to create characters and respond to the situations described by the Storyteller. Yes, the Storyteller can create a character and play with the group as well if you only have a small group.

System Questions

1. What is an “opposed d10” system? There are many different gaming systems to include a chance factor for actions to succeed. The d20 system is one of the more popular where  a 20-sided die (d20) plus a modifier is rolled to help determine whether an action succeeds of fails. (i.e. 1d20+5 against a difficulty class (DC) 15.) The d10 system is one where a number of 10-sided dice (d10’s) are rolled and the number of dice which hit a certain threshhold are counted up to determine the outcome. (i.e. 4d10 are rolled and count the number which were 7 or higher, needing at least 1 to succeed.) The Realms of Glory uses an opposed d10 system where a single d10 die plus a modifier is rolled to determine the outcome of a result. However, very rarely will that be against a set difficulty as most skill checks are opposed.

2. Does it have class-based or point-based character creation?
The Realms of Glory uses class-based character creation. However, all skills are open to all characters to allow a wider range of options. This encourages players to think through what type of character they want to play and then can choose between a multitude of classes that can all fit that idea. See the skills section below for more information. There are 6 attributes that help define any character: Strength(Str), Dexterity(Dex), Constitution(Con), Intelligence(Int), Charisma(Cha), and Will(Will). These influence abilities, saves, and skills of every character and creature in the Realms.

3. What classes are available?
The list of classes currently available are: Barbarian, Bard, Fighter, Huntsman, Mage, Monk, Paladin, Priest, Rogue, Shaman, and Technologist. Each class has abilities and provide either a primary, secondary, or tertiary bonus to each skill. This gives some classes a slight advantage over the others, but still allows all classes to be competitive in any category. Characters are also able to multi-class by taking levels in different class and combine the abilities in order to create any type of character you can imagine.

4. How do skills work?
Skills are broken down into 3 categories: Combat, Non-Combat, and Background. All characters receive 3 skill points per category (with a bonus or penalty to Non-Combat skills based upon Intelligence) at 1st level and each level thereafter. (Maximum ranks cannot exceed a character’s level.) Each skill gains a bonus from its associated attribute (in parentheses). The Combat skills are: Awareness(Will), Block(Con), Dodge(Dex), Martial Arts (Dex), Spellcasting(Will), Stealth(Dex), and Weapon(Dex). The Non-Combat skills are: Athletics(Str), Fly(Dex), Handle Animal(Cha), Heal(Int), Investigate(Will), Larceny(Dex), Politics (Cha), Presence (Cha), Repair (Int), Ride(Dex), Sail(Str), Socialize(Cha), and Survival(Con). The Background skills are: Appraise(Int), Craft(Will), Linguistics(Cha), Lore(Int), Perform(Cha), and Profession(Will). Skills marked with an asterisk () must have a specialty chosen before ranks are put in them, giving characters the option of having Weapon(Longsword) and Weapon(Crossbow) or Lore(Nature) and Lore(Politics). In order to give players a wider variety of options, skill points may be exchanged between categories. One Combat skill is equal to two Non-Combat skills. One Non-Combat skill is equal to 2 Background skills. This aims to strike a balance between the different types of skills allowing a Mage to give up 1 Combat skill and gain 4 Lore skills if they so desire.

5. What is unique about combat?
Combat within the Realms of Glory is all about opposed rolls.