Cooperative Play

We Are All Winners!
I usually think of Tunnels & Trolls as a solitaire adventure because of the number of incredibly enjoyable solo modules I have for this system, but Tunnels & Trolls (T&T) is also a fine group tabletop adventure game, one which encourages the group to cooperate even more than most RPGs and collectively engage in creative problem solving. T&T has a unique combat mechanic in which all the players make their attack rolls and add them together to compare to the monster's total - high score inflicts damage on the low score equal to the difference. If the player characters are to take damage, the players together allocate that damage among their characters. Playing solo one hardly notices all this, but it is a mechanic that emphasizes the group over the individual.
Shadowrun is among the games I usually only get to play at conventions, but it is one I enjoy party because of the emphasis on teamwork and mutual planning. In Shadowrun everyone plays a "runner" or operative who works covertly, behind the scenes and under cover...in the shadows. Adventures consist of a mission, usually something that takes discretion and stealth, leaving no trail behind. Players specialize in various skill sets that when brought together with other players gives everyone a role and the whole team either succeeds or fails together. Cooperation is again the name of the game in Shadowrun.
Tabletop role-playing games of the pen and paper variety such as White Box have inspired game designers to take the role-playing, dungeon crawling concept into other game realms, notably computer and video games, and card and board games. David Megarry developed the first such boardgame, a dungeon crawl simply titled Dungeon! while working alongside Dave Arneson as he developed the role-playing game campaign, Blackmoor. According to gamer legend, both concepts were shown to Gary Gygax the same weekend.
In more recent decades, the RPG element in games of all sorts has expanded, often to include cooperative mechanics that allow all, or at least all except one (who controls the bad guys), of the players to work together supporting the efforts of each other and combining individual character talents and resources to achieve a common goal. The group of players succeed or fail all together.
Today some of my favorite games are card and boardgames that have a heavy role-playing element. One of the oldest and still a favorite is the boardgame Talisman, originally done by Games Workshop and featuring fantasy characters who adventure around a board. Fantasy Flight Games' Runebound has been a favorite since it's release in 2004 and gives one of the best feels for playing a RPG using the boardgame format. Talisman and Runebound are competitive games, but some of the more recent titles make use of cooperative mechanics. Fantasy Flight Games' Lord of the Rings living card game is a favorite deck building adventure game set in Prof. Tolkien's Middle Earth which delivers an excellent cooperative role-playing experience when using multi-player mode. Each player controls one to three characters from the lore who may acquire items and abilities as play progresses. The many scenarios are challenging and require the characters and players to work together in order to be successful.
Dragonfire and the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game are based on 5th Edition and Pathfinder respectively and are role-playing card games, plain and simple. Take the RPG experience and convert it to a card game is the goal and they both succeed fairly well. Dungeon Roll and Dungeon of Fortune are two titles by Tasty Minstrel Games that have a fun RPG feel. Tiny Epic Quest is a fantasy game with a more abstract role-play element, but I find it fun.
Gloomhaven by Cephalofair Games is a newcomer, but already stands out among the several good cooperative fantasy boardgames with an RPG feel. Its card driven combat mechanic and huge depth of play would make this a remarkable game even without the engaging setting, storyline and immersive components. Besides Gloomhaven, there are several very nice FRP boardgames I currently enjoy playing and the ones with a good cooperative feel are among my favorites. Those include Mistfall by NSKN Games/Passport Game Studios, Legacy of Dragonholt by Fantasy Flight and Zombicide by CMON.
Throughout the history of tabletop games, most have been competitive - one side wins, the other doesn't. In multi-player games it is usual to have a single winner and several others who don't. Ours is a hobby which turns the game concept of winners and losers on its head. The goals are cooperation, creativity and mutual fun. And that, my friends, is what brings me to the table!

The Adventurer

Why 3 Classes is more than Enough!
So the original LBBs famously include three iconic classes for the player to choose from when making a new character for the game. Other early games break the available classes into two - those who use magic and those who fight with weapons and don't cast spells. Springing forth from the classic fantastic fiction of the day, these two "classes" or types of character are representative of the characters found in the inspirational stories which influenced the authors and players of the early game. For a quick experiment in the near completeness of this dichotomy of Fighting Man and Magic User, ask almost anyone to tell you about their character in general terms - Fighting Man or Magic User covers it almost every time. The details are just that, a minor uniqueness that sets the individual apart from the rest of the group of Fighting Men or Magic Users.
To be sure, while reading stories of high adventure one quickly runs across the character who is both fighting man and magic user, handy with a sword and yet able to throw a few magic spells about. One might ask, why have classes at all? And fresh from my exploration of the solitaire D100 Dungeon system, I am inclined to ask this question myself. Of course there are many classic examples of pure fighting men, such as Conan, Sir Lancelot, Sinbad and Robin Hood, and magic users including Merlin who don't seem to have much use for a sword themselves seem to be the norm, but the combination character also frequently appears (Kane, Elric).
Obviously, a design decision made by the inventors of the hobby to include character class in the White Box has influenced other designers to also use the concept of "class" to help create and define unique roles for each character in their game (so characters are not all alike and each contributes something unique). Picking a class or career is central to character generation in many games, but not in all as some designers early on saw class as unnecessarily restrictive and rather chose to rely on a skill system to define their character's abilities (Traveller, RuneQuest).
I believe one of the advantages to using a class system is that it gives the referee a bit more control over what sort of stories will emerge from play. Setting the cast of characters is a cooperative activity between the referee and the players and necessary for mutual enjoyment of long term play in my experience. (Characters that don't fit with the milieu are an immediate and ongoing problem.) So the inclusion of the Fighting Man tells us that combat will be a central theme of the action occurring at the table and that the ability to excel in combat is what matters most about this character. The Magic User introduces the supernatural and moves play into the realm of fantastic imagination, commands mass destruction, but requires a degree of protection. There we have the basics of the D&D genre, which has been repeated in many titles over the 45+ year history of the hobby..
The LBBs include a third class, the Cleric, holy warriors who have special power over the undead and are able to cast spells which protect and heal. The Cleric class stamps a unique flavor on the implied milieu of the Original Game, one which has persisted through the subsequent editions making religion and the gods count for something important. At a minimum, the gods intervene in the setting through their clerics. Without the Cleric, undead can be a more powerful threat and religion may take a back seat - which may be exactly what some referees desire (so they should remove the Cleric). The question of magical healing is left hanging if the Cleric class is removed, but that is easily addressed (or not).
Add a Thief class as Supplement I does and again the cast of characters in our story to be told changes. Thiefly things now inter the story - sneaking, breaking and entering, picking pockets and back-stabbing! There is an implication that adventures may take on a more urban setting, as many of the thief's best abilities are suited to an urban environment. To be sure, the Thief may be employed as a specialist in dungeon delving and that may be the sole intent of the referee who includes the class in their milieu, but I find playing an urban thief more rewarding. An entire campaign can be built around the adventures of a group of thieves and never leave the town/city.
The Character Class answers the question, "what is my character good at?" It helps the player get a feel for the character as a fictional entity separate from the player. It is therefore at the heart of role-playing. But it is only the start of fleshing out the imaginary "person", who also needs a background, some personality in the form of likes and dislikes, a few beliefs and some relationships. Unless the referee wants to dictate one or more of these features as part of the setting they can, and should, be left to the player's imagination. How much of this "character detail" the player and referee want to include in game play will vary from table to table, but is often a source of amusement for all.
This extra character detail tells us "who the character is" and need not be part of a character class or even a part of the game system mechanics. It is rather part of the role-play of the character which the player brings to the table. Unstructured can be good when it comes to exercising the imagination. Make character traits a part of the game mechanics and some players will look for the most advantageous combination of personality types and quirks. No, I think players should decide "who the character is" without regard to game mechanics. It's just more interesting that way.

Old Movies

Game Inspiration
Books and magazines probably hold the preeminent spot regarding influences on White Box and the hobby, but there are other sources of inspiration referees and players can use for colorful descriptions, character ideas and adventure plots. The more experiences you have, the more ammunition is available to draw upon during the game. Today I want to talk about some older films.

Ivanhoe started out as a novel by Sir Walter Scott and has been adapted for the screen a number of times. The above picture is a DVD cover of the 1952 movie, which I consider to be one of the best medieval inspirational films of all time.  The costumes and scenery are evocative and the action is superb, thanks in a large part to some excellent stunt work by Yakima Canutt. The fight scene at the end between Ivanhoe and Sir Brian is worth the price of admission alone. The film is well acted and includes a number of character performances worthy of "adapting" for NPCs.

The Vikings is a 1958 film in the swashbuckling tradition which tells the Ragnar Lodbrok saga as depicted in the novel The Viking by Eddison Marshall. The scenery and costumes are of a more barbaric age than that depicted in Ivanhoe and together the movies pretty much cover the "historical" extent of what the middle ages has to offer in terms of inspiration for our fantasy games. The cast are all good actors and many of the characters can be reskinned with a simple name change for use at the game table.

The War Lord, released in 1965, is perhaps less well known than Ivanhoe or The Vikings, but is a film worth noting for the interplay between historic Normans overlords and their pagan subjects and opponents. Like the others, The War Lord has some excellent scenery and costumes and the action is inspiring, but in this film the plot involving a Christian knight and a pagan peasant girl brings two divergent cultures into conflict and is ripe with suggestions for game play that may involve administration of a manor. I always think of the game setting Harn (Columbia Games) when I watch this movie.
These three movies are just a small sampling of the many wonderful films I have watched and drawn inspiration from over the years. Other medieval themed titles which immediately come to mind are the Robin Hood pictures, especially the 1938 classic, Adventures of Robin Hood, starring the dashing Errol Flynn, King Richard and the Crusaders (based on Walter Scott's, The Talisman), various King Arthur films including Knights of the Round Table (1953, featuring more Yakima Canutt) and Excalibur (1981). Venturing outside medieval Europe, the Sinbad movies are fantastic adventure films with an obvious Arabian Nights theme. It isn't based on history, but I can't end this post without singing praises for my favorite inspirational movie, Conan The Barbarian (1982) with an outstanding soundtrack and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the starring role. Based (loosely) on the character created by Robert E. Howard, the film brings the fictional setting of Hyboria into focus and gives the viewer inspiration through the use of pounding music, big swords and lots of muscle. His acting aside, Arnold can strike a pose!

The Adventure

Where Are We Going?
Wargame, adventure game, role-playing game, White Box has been described variously and each depiction holds a degree of accuracy. Using miniature figures and measuring devices the game can play as a miniatures wargame. Explore the unknown and encounter challenges in the form of traps, puzzles and monsters and it is an adventure. Focus more on the words and actions of the individual characters and it's role-playing. My oldest group of gaming friends and I have always referred to the game sessions we play using White Box and its successors (regardless of focus) as "Adventures".
I think of the "Adventure" as what happens during play. It includes the preparation the referee does and the intention for what kind of dynamic the referee expects as a result. To my way of thinking the term "Adventure" covers all the various types of games that can be played using White Box and similar systems. The actual focus of play can vary widely and it is important that all at the table are working toward the same type of adventure.
One way to run an adventure is for the referee through verbal description to present the players with a situation and ask them what they want to do. Sometimes this is called a "sandbox" because the players can make just about anything out of the game they like. The referee follows their lead and improvises what isn't prepared ahead of time. As referee I find this method of play very entertaining.
Another obvious way to play is for the referee to develop a detailed storyline or plot and invite the players to role-play the characters in the story. This involves cooperation on the part of the players who may have to forgo some of their freedom of action in order to not take the story in an unexpected direction. It can be quite rewarding to play a central part in a good tale.
For some the goal of the game is for their characters to acquire treasure and experience, become rich and powerful and eventually join the ranks of the legitimate nobility. In this case the adventure may be anything that furthers this end. If treasure is found and experience earned the game is a success. It seems many early games consisting of a dungeon stocked with random monsters to kill and treasures to take were designed to do just this.
Exploration and discovery is another way to play the adventure game. A referee may spend a lot of time and creativity is developing a unique setting for the game and exploration of a detailed, original setting can be entertaining in itself. To discover a setting's secrets while perhaps making choices that impact the future of that setting can be great fun. One way to do this is the "hex crawl" which involves the party of adventurers traveling from one hex on a map to another uncovering whatever details the referee has to reveal in each location.
I was introduced to the investigation scenario by the game Call of Cthulhu and although I recall struggling at first to comprehend this new style of play, I credit CoC with teaching me to role-play a character. So much of the investigation adventure is asking questions of the NPCs that it is hard not to role-play. Like many others, I found that I liked this aspect of play and soon we were using it in all the adventure games played by our group.
A variation on the theme of character advancement is character development, or using the adventure as a means of playing out some personal aspect of the fictional character's personal growth. The character may develop and advance skills therefore becoming the hero they were meant to be, or they may resolve certain personal issues such as revenge, or experience growth such as forgiveness. They may pursue their passions or fall victim to their vices and this becomes the story that emerges during play. Certain games seem built around such in-game goals and The Burning Wheel instantly comes to mind.
I am a believer in pregame discussion - a session zero, in which the referee and players discuss what type of game they will be playing. Having shared expectations for the upcoming session or campaign can make play go much smoother and avoid tension at the table. It is a good idea to give some thought as to what kind of adventure you want to run as referee and make sure your players are on board for what you have in mind. Characters should be tailored to suit the agreed upon game style.

More Swords & Sorcery Gaming

Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea
What a great title. I never tire of saying it out loud and I always have to say it with panache! Pictured is the 2nd Edition of AS&SH, a whopping 622 page old school role-playing game devoted to the pulp swords & sorcery feel of shirtless barbarians battling vile sorcerers and monstrous beasties just for (well, reasons).
In this second edition, the setting of Hyperborea is given lots of attention, which is welcome, I say.  The setting of Hyperborea is one of the best features of the 1st edition and now it comes even more into its own in the 2nd edition of AS&SH. Hyperborea, the land above the borealis or northern lights, is a flat world in its own dimension that has been accessible from other worlds, including Earth, at various times over the ages. Therefore in Hyperborea one finds remnants of several familiar human civilizations and not a few alien ones as well.
The Hyperboreans are a race unto themselves, tall, white haired, ancient and in decline, and tainted by magic. They tolerate the lesser (human) races, those who have immigrated over the ages through various links to Earth, people such as the Kelts, Vikings and Esquimaux. All are "human" player character races and there are no elves, dwarves or orcs. Limiting PCs to only human types is one way AS&SH stays true to its swords & sorcery roots. Also in keeping with the S&S theme, magic use has corrupting influences and the gods seem cruel and uncaring for the most part. AS&SH mixes ancient science, such as the occasional blaster pistol or airship, into the milieu of heroic sword-play and sinister sorcery and therefore sets itself apart from many fantasy settings.
AS&SH appears to be based on the 1st Advanced version of the World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game with appropriate adjustments for the swords & sorcery genre. There are character classes specific to the setting and the 2nd Edition of AS&SH includes some new classes. The magic spell lists have been altered from the "Advanced" lists to more closely follow the kind of magic one finds in S&S literature. The artwork throughout the 2nd Edition screams swords & sorcery and much of it reminds me of the old Savage Sword (Tales) of Conan magazines of my youth.
The more I play a variety of role-play systems, the more I find myself drawn back to the d20 class-based systems derived from the Original Game. Familiarity, first-love or however you want to explain it, I find many other systems have mechanics which I find useful and clever, mechanics that I want to borrow and incorporate into the Original Edition mechanics. After-all, I find that it is mostly the milieu which sets a game apart as note-worthy and the best system mechanics are the ones that fade into the background and allow story to happen at the table uninterrupted by rule mechanisms.

Origins 2018

After Action Report
The Origins Game Fair has come and gone and I am settling back into my routine after the trip to Columbus, Ohio where Origins is annually held these days. I had the usual great time reconnecting with fellow hobbyists and sharing some games with friends, both old and new. The game fair, or convention, is a great place to see what is new in the hobby, talk to designers and developers and try out something new. Origins is one of the bigger annual events and one can find just about any sort of game that exists in the hobby being played; card games, board games, miniatures games and electronic games, as well as my own favorite - roleplaying games.
So what did I do at Origins? I played in 10 games over 5 days, caught up with some friends I only see at the conventions, did a little shopping and got very little sleep. Games played included Call of Cthulhu, Hackmaster, Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG, Shadowrun, Starfinder and Pathfinder. I sat in on a demonstration of The Fantasy Trip run by Steve Jackson himself and am excited to hear The Fantasy Trip will soon be available again through Steve Jackson Games. I picked up the newly released and already sold out Mutant Crawl Classics RPG and was lucky enough to get author Jim Wampler to sign my copy. I spoke with the folks at Cubicle 7 about the upcoming Warhammer Fantasy RolePlay 4th edition which takes the game back to its 1st and 2nd edition roots and has a good chance of being available at Gencon this year!

Poul Anderson

Influential Fiction
It is no secret today that the designers, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, were influenced by the literature they read and films they watched when they created the Original Role Playing game. Certain ideas seem pulled directly from the pages of a book or the scenes of a movie. Some authors and filmmakers probably had more influence than others in this respect and the fantastic fiction of Poul Anderson appears high on the list of such sources.
Three Hearts and Three Lions is a fantasy tale of Holger Carlsen, an underground fighter against the Nazis during WWII who finds himself transported back in time (?) to a world where the champions of Charlemagne, his famous paladins, are warring against the forces of chaos that seek to overwhelm the civilized world of mankind. There are two themes here that directly appear in the LBBs of the Original Role Playing Game (plus Supplement I) - chaos and the paladin.
Holger finds himself in the role of an armored warrior in this new setting, a paladin to be precise. His behavior is governed by a code and he enjoys certain supernatural abilities as a result of his membership among the elite paladins and adherence to the code, abilities which aid him in holding back the forces of chaos which seek to spread into the world of law and order ruled by Charlemagne. Although the authors do not directly say this book prompted them to include the paladin sub-class, the paladin, as a champion of the forces defending Law will find its way into the game in the form of the Paladin sub-class as described in supplement I Greyhawk.
The concept of ordering the world as a struggle between the forces of Law, representing civilization,  order and goodness wherein men flourish and the forces of Chaos being chiefly wildness where spawn those non-human races who would run a-muck spreading violence and disorder and the desire to overthrow man's civilization is a central theme in the game in terms of Alignment. Although no direct link between the game concept and Three Hearts and Three Lions is made by Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson, the ideas seem very similar (and the novel first saw publication in 1953), so it seems a fair assumption to me.
Three Hearts and Three Lions features a friendly and helpful dwarf character (seen in the above cover illustration riding double with Holger) who assists Holger in getting his bearings and who is both a familiar trope from fairy tales and similar to the dwarf race described in the LBBs. A dragon and various other creatures of Chaos appear in the story, including a rubbery troll whose wounds and lost limbs rapidly heal and regenerate and a werewolf who haunts a village. The forces of Chaos are perhaps personified in the elf character (villain) Duke Alfric who rules in Faerie-land and leads an army of conquest against the Law-abiding kingdom of Charlemagne.
Poul Anderson was a prolific and popular author who wrote in both the science fiction and fantasy genres. His dark ages saga The Broken Sword is an even more extensive description of his view of faerie and the amoral elf race and like Three Hearts and Three Lions can be seen as an influence upon the Original Adventure Game. High Crusade is a less serious, but highly enjoyable novel which again looks at the conflict between Law and Chaos, this time in a novel about alien space travelers who land in medieval England and wind up having their whole space-faring empire conquered by the local baron and his band of merry Englishmen. Tau Zero is a science fiction tale of interstellar travel which contains a very accessible discussion of near light speed travel and its relationship to time as we understand it. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in gaming space travel.

Terror!

"Run-a-way!"
I have always thought Terror is an interesting addition to the Original Adventure Game mechanics.  Currently, my favorite way to incorporate a bit of terror is simply to have some monsters, or situations trigger a Saving Throw - I use the Paralyzation column - and a fail results in all actions being at a -2 penalty. It isn't much of a penalty (10% on a d20 roll), just enough to perhaps make the player question whether running from this encounter might be wiser than sticking around. After-all if we return later and try another save verses Terror, we might succeed and avoid fighting the terrible what-ever with the dread "-2" penalty. It all kinda makes sense to me, which adds to the believably (and fun) of the game.
Misters Gygax and Arneson didn't include a save verses terror in their original LBBs, but in their day it may have been redundant. When the game is new and monsters are yet unfamiliar, they all are a bit more ominous - terrifying, if you will. Each encounter could be with something new and as-of-yet unknown. Peril was everywhere and nobody wants to be the first to lose their character...even if it only takes a few minutes to roll up another and be back in the game.
As the above cartoon from Strategic Review (vol. 2, no. 2) illustrates, a little table anxiety can be fun and making decisions about pushing one's luck is a big part of what we do while playing White Box. It's an adventure game, after-all!  And acting out the "terror" your character may be experiencing during the present encounter gives us the opportunity to do that other thing the game is known for - role playing.

Four Against Darkness

Solitaire Dungeon Delving
With a name that sounds a bit like a popular sword & sorcery story title (Two Sought Adventure by Fritz Leiber), Four Against Darkness is a solitaire dungeon delver where you control four characters. There are eight "classic" characters to choose from: warrior, wizard, rogue, halfling, dwarf, barbarian, cleric, and elf - each with its own specialization in one aspect of adventuring. The game supports a hack-n-slash style of play and can also be used for cooperative group play with each player controlling one or more characters.
Mechanics are built around the use of one or two six sided dice rolls. The dungeon is randomly generated in the basic game using a series of d6 rolls on various interlocked tables following a decision chart, but the system itself is robust enough to support story-based adventure and there are supplements (I have four) that offer additional characters and alternate adventure scenarios to replace the exploration of a random dungeon. In fact, all the pieces are there for it and I could see using Four Against Darkness as a rules lite refereed system.
The characters are all about class...they have no ability scores such as Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence...they do level up, and level is added to a die roll for most tests. Each class is equipped to play their unique role in the dungeon so they can form a balanced party. The warrior is best at fighting, the cleric can heal, the wizard casts fireballs and the rogue removes traps. All the basic RPG stuff is here and it is all pretty standard if a bit sparse.
Rolling six siders to give the entrance layout to the dungeon from a table and any encounters which may occur there is how the basic game starts. Combat involves characters attacking by rolling a d6 and parrying by rolling a d6 comparing each adjusted result to the monster level. treasures, traps, quests and more await discovery on a number of d6 tables. Additional dungeon rooms are generated rolling d66 (two different colored six sided dice read as a tens and a ones die to give values from 11 to 66).
Four Against The Abyss takes the game to the next level(s). Once Four Against Darkness characters reach 5th level, The Abyss offers a new tier of play (through level 9) with more powerful spells and monsters and introduces the use of a d8 for combat and saves and additional rules for madness, hirelings and campaign plots adding variety and richness to the game experience.

RuneQuest 4th Edition

RolePlaying in Glorantha
It's here...at least the digital version is, and it does not disappoint!  Chaosium's new RuneQuest, which they refer to as their 4th edition of the game, reunites the RuneQuest game and the original setting world of Glorantha. Building upon the classic 2nd edition, which was re-released a couple years ago following a massively successful Kickstarter, RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha (RQG) claims backward compatibility with all the older RuneQuest products available again from Chaosium.
At almost 450 pages, Chaosium has added a lot of new material to the basic d100 roleplaying system which was their first RuneQuest RPG back in 1978. The new volume is beautiful to look through on my device and I anticipate the printed version will be of the same high quality that Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu 7th edition books are.
Glorantha is not your generic late medieval European based fantasy world as can be seen from the cover illustration above. Glorantha is a mythical bronze age setting which reminds me more of the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia, China and Mycenaean Greece and the illustrations throughout the book set that up nicely.
I understand that one of the goals Chaosium has in the new RuneQuest is that it remain compatible with older editions and in this they seem to have succeeded nicely.  Anyone familiar with the classic 2nd edition mechanics will recognize this game as RuneQuest. There are some additions in the form of rune associations and additional rune magic, passions and a lot more skills, but the system works pretty much like 2nd edition.
What is added in RQG is a lot more Glorantha setting material. If you are new to roleplaying in Glorantha, the designers have included the material needed to understand what kind of setting Glorantha is and how to roleplay in this setting. Character generation can be done quickly by skipping a lot of the character background or can make use of the extensive background setting material which includes family history which is linked to recent events in Dragon Pass so that your character (through their family) becomes a part of the story even before play begins.
RuneQuest is a game about myths and gods and how characters relate to their gods and their culture. There are no homeless adventurers looking for a quick kill and some fast loot here, this is a game about people with family and neighbors and priests and priestesses and religious cults. While this was implied in classic RQ, this is made especially clear in RQG. Also, the role of the runes has increased making the game's name more relevant.
Combat is definitely a part of the RQG game, as it was in older versions, and the mechanics of combat have changed very little from 2nd edition, which means it can still be deadly, even to experienced characters. One concession to the modern trend towards a less deadly game is that when a hit location takes damage that doubles the location hit points,  the limb is now disabled rather than severed and results in unconsciousness if taken to the head or chest area. It now takes damage that triples the location hit points to result in limb loss or instant death.
What is obviously not included in this tome are stats for any creatures other than humans. Therefore I will consider this a Player's Handbook. The bestiary information will follow (I presume), maybe as part of a referee's guide.  The Chaosium website currently has a link here to a 15 page Bestiary Preview document which includes material on a dozen creatures (6 are elementals).
Glorantha is a human setting first and foremost, and although previous editions have allowed for players to control non-human characters such as Ducks and Trolls (two of the uniquely Gloranthan sentient creatures described in the Bestiary Preview), the non-humans are truly alien in their thinking and the game seems to rely on human PCs.