The 90's RPG Nostalgia Bug

 I've been thinking lately about how getting older impacts your perception of current value in change vs. the experience held from long ago. Or, put another way, the contrast between where gaming is now vs. where it was (for me, at least) in that golden era I hold in memory that is the late 80's and early 90's. 

I think a lot of people who get bitten by the nostalgia bug tend to think of their gaming experiences in their teens, but despite being a very active member of the fanzine gaming community in the eighties during my middle and high school years, I don't actually have a lot of "fond" memories of that time to fill with nostalgia....despite being so active in gaming, I didn't get to actively game very much at all until I was in college. I spent most of those formative years on a remote ranch in the middle of nowhere, so gaming was something I did on rare occasion during trips, or vicariously through the fanzines and play-by-mail resources. My sister and I managed some one-on-one gaming, but my first real, consistent game group didn't manifest until I was driving 63 miles one-way to my first year in community college. 

That first group was great! We were all around the same age, having the same new freshman college experience, and the group was very forgiving of my desire to mainly run DragonQuest (the SPI edition mixed with the somewhat sanitized TSR edition) and Runequest 3. They eventually convinced me to pick up AD&D 2nd edition and the rest is history. My college years were laden with consistent weekly games throughout the next six or so years, with campaigns designed to last one whole semester each. It was fun stuff.

So for me, my fondest memories of gaming are during college. I started thinking about how it would be fun to look back upon that time, and contrast how things were then with where things are today. How many of the RPGs I loved back then are still around now, and how many would it make more sense for me to find some old copies of on Ebay to "relive" that moment in time? How many back then are actually not worth revisiting? And....how many are still around today in a recognizable manner?

So first off, what were the games I ran iin college? I have a fairly modest list:

AD&D 2nd Edition - this was the go-to system. I ran AD&D in its new incarnation pretty much weekly from late 1989 all the way until D&D 3rd edition arrived on the scene. 

Runequest 3rd - I actually ran a fair amount of this early on using just the Standard Boxed Set and later ran the Deluxe book with more enthusiasm by 1992ish. My Realms of Chirak campaign initially started as a Runequest campaign in its very first form (there was also a Gamma World connection).

DC Heroes (MEGS Edition) - I ran a lot of this in the 80's and by 1992-93 I ran a very fun campaign using the 3rd edition of the DC Heroes MEGS rules.

MegaTraveller - This was the edition of Traveller I truly cut my teeth on. I had run a miscellany of Traveller Classic in the 80's, but the vast majority of my Traveller campaigning was during college with MegaTraveller. I even actually used the Imperium setting for most campaigns back then, too. I was one of those gamers who eventually washed out with The New Era, but I did give it my best shot.

GURPS 2nd and 3rd - I used GURPS for most of my campaigning that didn't fit neatly anywhere else. I used GURPS for most of my Cthulhu Mythos games as well, interestiingly; I preferred it a bit over Call of Cthulhu (which was I believe up to 3rd and then 4th edition in the 90's).

Call of Cthulhu - I only ran a bit of it (I used it as a resource for GURPS Cthulhu mostly) but it counts; it was pretty pivotal in terms of my horror gaming preferences.

Metamorphosis Alpha - not the original but rather the Amazing Engine powered game! I ran a lengthy and very fun campaign using this singularly unusual edition.

Dark Conspiracy - I loved the first edition of this game, it was amazing; I have heard it is now owned by Mongoose Publishing, and I am keen to see what lies in its future. Dark Conspiracy was a fantastic weird, dystopian horror setting and I ran a lot of it.

Kult 1E and 2E - the other horror game I ran a lot of; when I wasn't running GURPS Horror or Dark Conspiracy was Kult, which was as close to "Clive Barker the RPG" as one could get, even now. Back then Kult was a fantastic, creepy reality-warping deep dive into weird non-Cthulhu horror and I loved it.

Mutant Chronicles - I loved this RPG and collected all of it. I managed to run a couple campaigns, but it never quite took off the way I'd like it to.

Cyberpunk 2020 - this was the second most played system in my college years behind AD&D. Cyberpunk was highly formative for the time, so much so that it resides in memory as a fantastic reflection of where we imagined a future we'd live to see might go....and how so very different (and yet similar) that future actually is now that 2020 is in the rearview mirror.

There were likely other RPGs I dabbled in, but those were the big ones for the most part.

So where do these RPGs stack up by contrast today? Unsurprisingly (as this hobby does not grow as much as it seems) just about every one of these games is either still around in a new edition or has had a recent revival within the last 10-15 years. But are the new editions comparable in experience, particularly in terms of the nostalgia factor? This is my own personal take:

AD&D 2nd Edition - well, we all know where this went. It got more complicated (3E), then jumped the shark (4E), then revived itself spiritually (5E), and lately may have both jumped the shark and stagnated at the same time. But interestingly, I no longer feel an overwhelming desire to play the original 2E edition.....I would rather, like many other older gamers, look to what is new in the OSR community where the spirit (rather than the design) of the game thrives. My current poison of preference is Shadowdark or just sticking with D&D 5.5 or Tales of the Valiant. So Nostalgia does not win here (yet).

Runequest 3rd - The thing I liked about Avalon Hill's edition of Runequest was that Glorantha was optional. I could use the rules to make my own setting (as I did), or to run adventures in a mytho-historical earth. The current way to do this is with the admittedly excellent Basic Roleplaying RPG, but unless you have the reprint monographs that were based on Runequest 3, you won't have all the resources that originally were packaged in the Runequest 3 Deluxe Set. Runequest Glorantha in its modern incarnation is, while a fine system, entirely focused on Glorantha and is not welcoming to Runequesters who were fans of the mytho-historic earth settings. Chaosium is thankfully rectifying a bit of this with the new Vikings RPG using BRP, but even then....not the same as what the original Runequest 3 accomplished. So for my purposes? Playing this game in its original incarnation is a strong preference.

DC Heroes - interestingly this game had a successful Kickstarter reprint that may release later this year. I will be curious to see where that goes. I loved playing this back in the day, but my enthusiasm to revisit it is conditionally dependent on the players I have; the group I ran for in 1992-93 was very much in sync with the spirit of a comic book superhero RPG; these days it is harder to find such a group.

MegaTraveller - my memory of this edition is that it was great for the day, but it only got more convluted before it got less. Thankfully the great thing about Traveller is that its current edition with Mongoose Publishing is arguably the best edition to date, and this is one case where the contemporary version of the game can scratch that nostalgia itch quite easily.

GURPS - This is a rough one. I do believe that the current edition of GURPS (4E) is its most comprehensive and well organized, but something changed in the translation from 3rd edition to 4th edition that made the game a harder sell and less "friendly" for lack of a better word. GURPS 4E has an entire line of resources today in the form of "How to GM" books that suggest something was lost in translation from 3E to 4E. Unfortunately I suspect that it had a lot to do with the fact that 3rd edition was more concerned with parsing out content by setting book, and providing a flexible but less complete core experience, which accidentally meant is was more digestible and modular....while 4E became more comprehensive, but like Hero System, it also became more overwhelming and less welcoming to the new gamer, or the crowd that used to be able to do pick up and go games of GURPS. I mean....remember when GURPS provided a quick random character generator and it didn't pose any problems for quick play? Yeah....unfortunately the shift in design focus to 4E removed that convenience, replacing it with awkwardly formatted templates and a never-ending focus on mechanical rigor. So maybe finding an old copy of GURPS 3E might not be such a bad idea here.

Call of Cthulhu - like Traveller, this one only got better with time. You can even find 1st and 2nd edition in print again if you want thanks to a Kickstarter, and the 7th edition can be as nice or cruel to players s you desire. Call of Cthulhu's contemporary experience is if anything even better than it was back in the day, or maybe my ability to run campaigns with it is simply easier now thanks to experience? Either way, the newest edition of the game scratches that nostalgia itch just fine.

So how about the rest? Well, with Mutant Future you had a revival but it scrapped the original game engine and wedded it to the 2D20 engine from Modiphius, which was a mistake in my opinion. Then Kult worked out a Powered by the Apocalypse hybrid approach, and while it works....it's also somehow no longer quite the same feel as the original game (imo). Then there's Metamorphosis Alpha, which got a reboot on the original from Ward and Goodman Games, which is definitely cool but unfortunately my unique niche case for running the Amazing Engine edition is, I feel, unreplicatable....I will forever remember that campaign fondly for the unique and unrepeatable moment it rests within. 

Cyberpunk 2020 is also unique. I gotta be honest....the new Cyberpunk Red looks great and my son loves it. But when I crack it open I wish I was opening Cyberpunk 2020, and it just doesn't hold up to that edition in time, unfortunately. Worse yet, If I do look at CP2020 I can't imagine going back to it; the 90s really are gone, along with that vision of a future 2020. The new 2020's are both much less exciting and in many ways slowly getting worse than the megacorporate dystopia that was softened by cool cyberware; and the video game exemplifies a fantasy now, not a future projection. Cyberpunk Red and 2077 are both visions of an alternate reality; the next wave of future punk fiction will be a sober look at where the real 2020's today are taking us, which is unfortunately into a bleaker future than anyone really wants to game in (since we're living in it, instead). 

The shining light is Dark Conspiracy, which barely survived the GDW crash in the late nineties, to be tepidly kept on life support in some poorly realized updated editions. So maybe now with Mongoose in control we will finally see the game get properly revived with the dedication it deserves. We shall see!

 

Mythras By Session Three - Glory to the Ranged Combat

 Much of session 3 in Mythras involved some exploration of a mysterious hidden elven passage (thought to be Elven, then they realized it might once have been until kobolds (see the kobolds in Book of Schemes, lovely little bastards) occupied the passages. The group ended up having an interesting long range battle with a gang of orcs pursuing an escaped prisoner later on, which helped teach everyone how ranged combat works, as well as reminding us that a bow takes 2 action points to reload, and also get some proper range on experimenting with charges. Also, when you spend an AP to evade you go prone, another thing we were forgetting before.

Mythras has a lot of entertainingly fiddly bits, is what I am saying. But its good, because you realize just how much depth the system offers for a surprisingly well modeled realistic combat experience. It shines a hard light on just how gamified and artificial combat feels in modern D&D style games these days.

An odd thing has happened to me, though. As I am diving deeper into rekindling my old brain cells remembering how to play Mythras and Runequest, I am suddenly developing a really intense craving to start playing GURPS again, too. GURPS is the only other system where you can portray highly accurate combat with the appropriate level of lethal gravitas. I like systems where the best way to survive combat is to avoid it, but if you do plan to go into combat.....do it smartly, and take advantage of all the resources you have to stay alive. GURPS was a darling of mine for so many years, and I unfortunately really got out of sync with running it, I think the last time I actually ran a game was.....hmmm....2013 or 2014 maybe?

Anyway, this is all good. 2025 is shaping up to be the year I get back to the game systems that make me think, and give me a discreetly different and interesting experience from the popular conventional games out there. 

When You're In the Mood for "D&D," Just Not Specifically D&D - Mythras Classic Fantasy, Fantasy AGE, Cypher System And Other Weird Variants

 I've had lengthy times where I grew tired of D&D and wanted a break from fantasy, which then led to me running other game systems in different genres such as Mothership, Call of Cthulhu, Savage Worlds and so forth. More recently I have been facing a stranger issue: a desire to run something D&D-like, just NOT actual D&D. I mean, I am running and enjoying D&D....but I know it is less because of the current edition rules at this point than it is because of the campaign I am running, and the sundry plots and characters; the game is succeeding despite itself, not because of itself. Indeed, I realize that my main problem with D&D 5.5 (2024 edition) is that it's frankly just more of the same....lots of noteworthy changes, but none of them shake it up mechanically beyond being a horde of slight iterations. It is like they patched D&D 5E, and you notice the improvements, but ultimately also notice its still just the same game. To run with a video game analogy: they added in ray tracing an patched a loot exploit so it looks cooler and plays more smoothly, but its still the same game you've already played to death.

This has gotten me looking in to other options for a fantasy fix which mix up the mechanics sufficiently that I can feel a breath of fresh air even if I am still running some archetypal adventuring campaigns. I've explored Tales of the Valiant and while I am eager to test it out as a GM, it's still got the same problem D&D 5.5 does; it's just a variant on the thing we've been playing for the last ten years already. Pathfinder 2E Remastered is also good at "D&D like" so it's a bit closer to what I want....but in many ways it is the closest direct competitor to D&D, and has its own unique range of issues when it comes to applying it to classic D&D-ish fantasy without being D&D. 

This leads me to a few other systems I've considered, as follows:

Mythras Classic Fantasy - this just recently received a huge upgrade with the new Mythras Classic Fantasy Unearthed expansion. If you don't know what this is, it's a hack of the Mythras Fantasy RPG (which is itself a valid alternate to D&D) in which it retools the game's chassis to accomodate classes and a very "D&D like" level structure, along with a D&D-derived magic system and plenty of monsters and magic items. It is Mythras at core, but reframes everything to feel like D&D. Specifically it feels like an emulation of AD&D 1st edition, just now powered by a BRP-derived game engine with lots of skills, D100 mechanics and an extra heap of lethality. Cool stuff. 

Pros: Classic Fantasy is a very robust reimagining of D&D style play in a more gritty chassis powered by Mythras; it is well supported with a bunch of modules, main books, the Classic Fantasy Imperative (a ORC-license restatement of the rules as a stand along product, though note you will still want the original Classic Fantasy book for Mythras as it holds all the monsters and more goodies), and the new CF Unearthed book. Plus, you can use all the other Mythras material with it, it's fully compatible.

Cons: I always run into a stumbling block with Classic Fantasy, which evokes for me two things: AD&D and Mythras. I then leave myself wondering if this mix of chocolate and peanut butter really work, or if it makes more sense for me to simply play straight Mythras or straight AD&D. I also prefer BRP Itself, over Mythras, another issue entirely. Also, the special attack rules for Mythras can lead to player decision paralysis, a very common issue I encounter when running Mythras.

Fantasy Age 2E: Green Ronin quietly released Fantasy Age 2nd Edition last year and I am not sure anyone noticed. It's since released a Cthulhu Mythos and Technofantasy expansion on Drivethrurpg, and the 2nd edition is largely backwards compatible with prior books. Fantasy Age, if you did not know, is derived from the Adventure Game Engine (AGE), originally created for the Dragon Age RPG, and this is a full-on iteration designed for use in whatever setting you want. It is class and skill based (though they use focus and talent terms), and is in many ways similar in structural design to D&D with leveling up, escalating hit points and lots of fast paced, hard hitting magic. The latest edition is more robust than the 1st edition Basic Book, too.

Pros: You get a similar experience to D&D but will find Fantasy AGE allows for a lot of design flexibility; its a great system to make unique looking characters, and is pretty easy to GM as well. It has ample support material and the core book is pretty robust.

Cons: Some people find the high starting hit points take getting used to; combats will last longer, sometimes when you don't expect them to. The stunt system unique to Fantasy AGE can lead to a bit of decision paralysis for players, but I find that a few sessions will get them very used to it. Also, because its core design was meant to emulate a video game, it can sometimes feel a tad video-gamish.

Cypher System - Godforsaken and Others: Cypher System has had a lot of expansion into the realm of fantasy gaming in the last several years. The Revised Cypher System rules have plenty of content, but if you add Godforsaken and the Cypher Bestiary you have all you need for a robust D&D-ish campaign but powered by the deceptively simple point-pool system of Cypher. They also have the Planebreaker setting, a new Diamond Throne update and the Ptolus City Setting out for Cypher, most of which were originally settings for D&D 3rd edition or later 5th edition, so its got support for D&D-like campaigns baked in.

Pros: Cypher System is a resource pool game system with player-facing die mechanics which is incredibly easy for the GM to run, and you can simultaneously make very archetypcal D&D-themed characters and also go as off the rails in PC design as the GM is willing to let you. It de-emphasizes a lot of the nitty gritty mechanical elements of D&D, but with the cost advantage of making story and collaborative engagement top priority.

Cons: Cypher System, despite being so cool, can be hard for classic RPG enthusiasts to wrap their heads around, as the pool resource mechanic is counterintuitive to more simulationist rules systems like D&D. Cypher System also works best for GMs (and players) who enjoy improvisation and ad hoc developments, and the game really shines when this is leaned into, but flounders badly if you rgroup does not embrace it.

There are some other ones to consider too! In brief:

Basic Roleplaying, Runequest and Magic World: BRP has a nice new edition update out, and it just got a GM's screen. It's plus is BRP is the best system ever, but its downside is they don't have a single unique modern resource for providing fantasy gaming content. The core book has some material, but its not robust enough. A few years ago before Chaosium changed ownership they published Magic World, which does do exactly that, but its only available in PDF and POD (and had a lot of errata). It's not a bad option, but it is a shame that BRP's latest edition does not have more setting/genre resources out for it, and it continues to get neglected in favor of Runequest. Runequest, in turn, is a great alternative to D&D if you want to really experience something different in the world of Glorantha, but a difficult setting for most to parse out and make their own. If you just want a system to power your own creation, Runequest will disappoint. 

Dragonbane: This is a hybrid reimagining of what the original BRP Magic World of the 80's (from the Worlds of Wonder Boxed Set) became in Sweden, also called Drakar och Demoner, and it was brought back with a Free League flourish, now based on a D20 mechanic instead of a D100 mechanic. It's actually a really neat alternative to OSR D&D gaming, but it needs a bit more support to serve as a broader tool set for enterprising gamers. It also has a problem of looking and feeling like a D&D alternative, but in fact being much closer to its BRP roots and therefore being rather deadly to any game group which plays it like a straight up D&D dungeon crawl. I'm keen on trying this one out eventually, but it's not going to scratch the "D&D but not D&D" itch for me.

Savage Worlds Fantasy and Savage Pathfinder: actually these would work pretty danged well for scratching the "totally D&D feel but not D&D at all" itch. Pathfinder for Savage Worlds brings in classes and themes modeled from Pathfinder 1st edition and is not so wed to Golarion that you can't hack it for your own thing. Add in the SW Fantasy Companion (revised for SWADE) and you have essentially all you need to do everything I've been talking about. The top reason it might not be as ideal is because Savage Worlds excels at being multigenre, and I have found that I enjoy it a lot more in a modern or SF setting than fantasy....though that said, Savage Pathfinder rocks hard. The other problem with Savage Worlds is if you associate hit point bloat and long, protracted combats with the D&D experience, then Savage Worlds may not work for you! It's too fast.

There are others I have not mentioned....GURPS Dungeon Fantasy and the reissue of The Fantasy Trip both come to mind, for example. 

One of my game nights needs a change of system soon. I think it's probably going to be Pathfinder for Savage Worlds, but I might talk them in to a short campaign in Dragonbane just to see how it feels. I am super keen on Fantasy AGE at some point as well, but I really want to absorb the nuances of the system to feel comfortable with it, first....and that requires time I rarely have these days!

OpenQuest 3 Kickstarter POD in the wild

 Been super busy with work lately but just had to post that I got my at-cost coupon for OpenQuest 3 today from the Kickstarter and I have ordered two copies. Very excited to see this one....as much as I am impressed with the art and design of the new Runequest, I am just not a fan of the specifics of Glorantha and prefer RPGs that let me do my own thing, so OpenQuest 3 will very much allow for that. The PDF shows off a nice design strength, a good classic art aesthetic and a clean layout to the rules. 

Once I have the physical copies I will discuss in more depth!

Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is now out in PDF

You can find it here on Chaosium's website. There's free downloads of some sample monsters, a background worksheet and a character sheet. I'm balking at the price right now ($27.95) for a book I really want but am not sure just how much it is tied in to the Glorantha universe.

Example: a background system which is not custom tailored to Glorantha would be useful to me because I could extrapolate from it to other settings. Can I do this in the book? I don't know, but the background sheet provided suggests this might be hard since it even provides Glorantha calendar dates prefilled for your character's history.

I used to run Runequest 2nd edition (and later 3rd edition) in my own settings, which were tinged with the essence of what Runequest had to offer (the runes, spirit magic, and monsters inherent to the system) but back in the 80's you could use all that without seeing much Glorantha in the mix. I'm curious if this system can work that way, too. I mean....technically I'm doing that with Realms of Terrinoth right now to run my own setting with the Genesys Core default fantasy realm as the base.

I think the only reason that it is more of a question with Runequest: Adventures in Glorantha right now is because it seems very clear that the new edition is specifically aimed at being a vessel for this campaign, and Chaosium has indicated that future fantasy earth supplements will be their own separate deal; this is not going to be a "one rule book, many settings" approach. A lot of fans have had thirty years of Runequest editions that allowed you to design your own universe, so going back to Runequest's earliest roots like this is a little jarring for us.

Still, I love this ruleset, and it really looks from reading the free content like this new Runequest is very much an iteration of the system I love the most. I will probably cave and get the PDF....more to come once I've done so and had time to absorb the new system. If I can even just use it to create my own uniquely flavored universe once more with the style of a Runequest Glorantha but the trappings of a world of my own design (say, if I could use it to power Pergerron) then I will be satisfied.

Sometimes I do wish I was the kind of gamer who could just relax and enjoy someone else's universe......but a fundamental component of what I enjoy about this hobby is having the tools to create my own, not the Rough Guide to visiting someone else's.

UPDATE: Got a copy. In reviewing the contents this appears to be very much a core rulebook; while the writing and art is flavored with Glorantha (and it looks damned nice, read extremely well) the immensity of the tome is focused entirely on character generation, rules, magic and downtime.....a bestiary is yet to come, and it looks like there's not much more direct "Glorantha campaign" content in this book than in original RQ2, beyond the fact that the background system is entirely flavored with Glorantha in design. It's very interesting....Gloranthaphiles are going to be ecstatic, and I think people who are just looking for an easy system and setting to pick up and run with will find this an efficient way to jump in.

Anyway, more discussion to come!

UPDATE 2: Reading through this is making me want to strongly work up a "Conversion to Archaic Earth" doc for my Mesopotamia campaign.

UPDATE 3: final comment before I take proper time to dive deep....I am amused that the conversion doc in the back is aimed squarely at RQ2 and also RQ3. This is definitely a succession to those two editions, and in many ways an "alternative" RQ3 for a new altered reality timeline.

As I plow through, I am both awed that the book does such a fantastic job of making Glorantha look on the surface like an accessible play experience (something I feel prior editions were not that great at) and disappointed to realize that there are no longer really any of  the general purpose tools to let you add to and do what you want with RQ. For example: you can use the cultures of Glorantha and the Glorantha background, but beyond a quick and dirty method provided to get a PC in to play there's nothing really that provides guidance on designing new backgrounds and cultures. Likewise, every cult you could want from Glorantha is detailed in glorious depth but I am not seeing any direction on new cult creations, orders or other elements added in other iterations of the game. As a result, adding your own stuff will be through extrapolation rather than any guidelines.

I'm liking this book's design a lot, and impressed at how hard it works to make Glorantha accessible, but it's definitely "Roleplaying in Glorantha" and using it for anything else is probably more work than I want to put in to the process for, so I don't think Mythras or the BGB are going to stop being useful anytime soon.

The Woodland and City Gnome in OpenQuest 2

Gnomes in OpenQuest2

Gnomes have long been identified as a type of elemental in Runequest derived systems like OpenQuest 2, but for those of us who need…nay, crave gnomes in their fantasy adventuring, here are some stats you can use to handle your gnomes in OQ2.

Gnomes are essentially diminutive forest folk who sometimes go a little weird when exposed to the big city. A basic gnome has the following stats:

Str 2D6+3 (10); Con 3D6 (11); Dex 5D6 (18); Size 2D6 (7); Int 2D6+6 (13), Pow 2D6+6 (13), Cha 3D6 (11)

Movement 12 meters; Hit Points 9; Major Wound: 5; DM 0; MP 13; Armor Leather (2 AP); Plunder Factor 1

Skills:

Resistances: Dodge 50%, Persistence 30%, Resilience 40%

Knowledge: Lore (alchemy) 35%

Practical: Athletics 35%, Perception 45%

Special: Artificer gnomes have Mechanical 75% and Engineering 50%

Woodland gnomes have Natural Lore 75%

Combat:

Close Combat 30%

Short sword (1D6)

Buckler (1D4)

Ranged Combat 50%

Light crossbow (1D8 damage; 125m; rate ½ CR)

Magic:

Woodland gnomes normally belong to a nature cult. Artificer gnomes start with 6 points in sorcery and both type of gnome have 3 points in battle magic. Gnome characters may start with the nature cult or sorcery optional starting options, and must choose illusion as a spell.

Gnomes come in two varieties: the first is the classic gnome, sometimes known as the woodland gnome, who is commonly associated with nature spirits, the natural world and a penchant for quiet mischief. Such gnomes are generally regarded as honest folk with a solemn regard for nature, occasionally enjoying a prank or joke at another’s expense, but never with real malice or deceit intended.

The other variety is sometimes known as the “city gnome” or the artificer gnome. These gnomes are the result of what happens when a gnome or community of gnomes spend too much time in the presence of technology and magic. Such gnomes are inevitably corrupted by the delights of civilization and technology and this exposure unlocks strange and dark secrets within the gnomes themselves, who appear to be almost unbearably, addictively drawn to exploring the depths to which they can merge magic and science.

 Gnomes do not like ducks. While some speculate that ducks could be a byproduct of a mad artificer gnome's experimentation, a famous gnome named Charamis Zen'Rakatt once explained it was more about "niche protection."

Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha - There's a Lot of Game in Here

First off, you don't need my impressions to give you a sense of Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha when you can find it right here for free. This edition is a fifty page free release to accompany the "Free RPG Day" which is, best I can tell, something other parts of the country get but no one in New Mexico participates in. Luckily (?) Chaosium is offering the print version for $9.95 on their site as well. I was a bit behind in snagging the latest Call of Cthulhu goodness so I threw a copy in for good measure.

My first impression on reading through the PDF is it happens to be a mostly complete game. Although specific bits (such as additional possible magic systems beyond spirit magic and rune use) and a bestiary are clearly reserved for a future actual release, you pretty much have about as much in this book as, say, Mythras Imperative offers, and Runequets also offers a scenario.

One of the reasons I'm grabbing a copy is that the new core system is really pretty classic and also pretty nice. It's got some "issues" depending on whether you are still sold on certain classic elements of BRP and RQ....I have no love of the strike rank mechanic, for example (but accept that it's still core to the Runequest design concept). I have fallen in love with Call of Cthulhu 7E's bold excision of the 3-18 stat ranges in favor of uniforn percentile scores, shoring up what now feels to me like a nearly forty year old artifact of game design derived from D&D. But all this aside, the new RQ looks a lot like old RQs of the past.

It's still "RQ 7th Edition" to me no matter what the Chaosium crew would like me to think. And the "Roleplaying in Glorantha" part is still annoying, but I guess in some respects this is a vanity product aimed at a niche audience so this is probably a design feature we will just have to accept if Glorantha is not your thing.

There is good news, though.....nothing overly unexpected.....but just from reading this tome I can safely say that running Runequest adventures in settings other than Glorantha should be just as easy as it was in 1982. All you have to do is embrace the runes and core conceits of the magic system as chracteristic of whatever setting you desire, and that's it. Gamers have been cutting the setting from the mechanics since the dawn of the hobby, this is nothing new here. And this sort of concern is ultimately only for people like me who do not need a pre-created world to run games in, or who find the specific design ethos of Glorantha not to their liking. For most gamers, I have a feeling the new Runequest is going to make Glorantha accessible and easy to adapt to in a way we haven't seen before.

Anyway....check it out....I am really hoping we get to see the final product later this year.

R.I.P. Magic World

In Ab Chaos #25 (the Chaosium newsletter) it was announced that Magic World has been officially put out to pasture. Chaosium will continue to sell the books it has, and PDFs, but that's it. This is nothing (so far as I recall) that we didn't already basically know, it's just mostly closure. The official reasons: they are a small crew focused on other things, Magic World was very niche (I am sure it was) and they don't want to do "generic" fantasy (which is a shame that MW is considered generic fantasy; ain't nothing else like it in the fantasy RPG genre). There is also the more general feeling I get that Chaosium content from 1984 to 2014 has been wiped off the map for all practical purposes, and all projects associated with former Chaosium folk no longer in the mix. Okay, fair enough....one must expect that the current crew will focus on what they are most interested in (and what is presumably most profitable).*

But there is good news for the all the MW fans out there: Chaosium is indicating that they are open to licensing for Magic World, for any fans interested. There are definitely a few hardcore fans out there who've produced some impressive online supplements (check out basicroleplaying.com for examples such as the Big Damn Book of Monsters). Dustin Wright, unfortunately, is out of BRP entirely as of the last post I read from him over there so it seems unlikely we'll get any new content from the original author/compiler. It's also unclear to me if Chaosium would be open to a license in which someone produces an entirely new or revised rulebook (given they plan to continue selling the two books they did release in PDF, at least).

The other news in the email is that Mythic Iceland is nearing completion. I imagine this will sell well, both because many found it a great book, and also because this will be our first look at the new edition of the Runequest/BRP Essentials game system. I was never sufficiently excited by this setting to think of using it for gaming, but I am sure it somehow has it's place. It was, admittedly, one of the best sourcebooks for BRP to be released, so it's good to see it will continue to exist.




*And lets face it, Chaosium is practically the poster child for the cottage industry of gaming, where everything is already niche, so supporting a niche within a niche is just not a good idea. That said...is Mythic Iceland really that much better of a seller than Magic World was?

Runequest Classic now in print bundle on Chaosium!

If you're like me, you've been trying not to get involved in too many Kickstarters, and prefer to wait for an actual release copy to show up. Well, Chaosium has at last got Runequest Classic, the 2nd edition of the beloved game, up for sale now right here. At $29.95, which includes a GM Screen and mess of extra pages this is a steal, trust me!

I'm going to run this --SOON-- with Pergerron as the setting. Maybe I'll post some conversion details on the sundry and various Pergerron monsters posted to date....most of them are already in BRP or Legend format anyway!

This idea is an excercise of sorts: to see how adaptable RQ2 is to my own stuff (I did it back in the 80's, so I ought to be able to do so now, right?) and also to give me a chance to contrast and compare the RQ2 mechanics against Mythras.

Right now I can say that I am a bit shocked at how Gloranthafied the 2nd edition rules really were...I totally do not remember them this way (possible my greater time spent with RQ3 has clouded my memories of 2E). Still, easy enough to adapt to a relatively fluid, nonstandard setting like Pergerron. I'll probably need to borrow the BRP Creatures book (which is the reprint for BRP of the RQ3 monsters tome) to flesh out the missing monsters from RQ2 (I also totally did not remember that orcs, as an example, were missing from RQ2). I'll also have to drag Cthulhu: Dark Ages along, but I was already borrowing from that when I was using Magic World in Pergerron so nothing new there.

Runequest 6 vs. Magic World: A comparison and contrast

By popular demand I've decided to work up a list of differences between Runequest 6 (alias Mythras) and the BRP/Magic World game systems. In the latter case, I'm grouping them together as ultimately Magic World is essentially BRP powered, but with differences derived from the old Elric RPG mechanics. Where MW does something particularly different from BRP I'll mention it.

Character Creation:

There are lots of differences between the two systems here, but most are cosmetic. RQ6 provides a concise and straight method of character generation, as does Magic World. BRP provides a system littered with options and variants, but at its core can emulate character generation even more complex than the other two games, or as simple as Call of Cthulhu depending on which options you turn on and off.

Of the three, Magic World aims at the quickest and most streamlined character generation system. The net result is still functionally the same as RQ6 and BRP, but the goal is speedy and easy to use. It accomplishes this by defining how many skills to pick and at what value, and cuts out any optional rules that are not necessary. Despite being streamlined you still end up with a culture (defined by civilization size rather than RQ's cultural groups) and profession, as in Runequest. Magic World also restricts itself to a single magic system (unless you attach Advanced Sorcery or The Magic Book to it) which is based on the Elric! RPG sorcery system.

MW and RQ6 also differ in their morality systems. MW has a law/chaos axis defined as light and darkness (to de-Elricize it) with in-game effects based on behavior leading to purity or corruption. Runequest has a percentile-based passions system which was interesting and tries to codify a character's imperative in a mechanical way.

Combat:

This is really the biggest area where lots of little differences add up to a ton of trouble if you're not totally down with the rules differences (and where I felt the game dragged, albeit with the caveat that if we played long enough we'd probably all get used to it). Here's the differences:

Combat Styles:

RQ6 introduced combat styles, a "package" of typically 3-4 weapons all linked by one skill value, and reflective of a cultural combat style. Previous RQ editions still had each weapon with it's own skill value, and you could progress at different rates based on actual use. Go back to RQ3 and earlier and you still had attack and parry modifiers....so each weapon actually had two values! Combat styles also give you a special perk/maneuver option as well. The game is very tightly defined, except (strangely) for this part. Combat Styles are to combat what Passions are to personality/alignment....it's a weird spot where a holistic approach is applied to a game which otherwise is about to infodump serious effort into realistic combat.

Don't get me wrong, the concept works well. It is not really a bad approach, but it's hard for me to understand why there isn't more granularity in this part of the process when every other step of combat is highly granular.

By contrast, BRP lets you measure this from basic skill-per-weapon with default modifiers on up to the system Magic World uses, which is skill-per-weapon, but each weapon is part of a group which skill in one can affect skill in other weapons in the group. In BRP there are even options to "turn on" the old attack/parry style of RQ3 if you want that.

Strike Rank and Action Point Economy: 

I hate the way RQ6 handles strike rank and action points. HATES IT. Maybe I'm doing it wrong? My two veteran RQ6 players seemed to think the way I did it was fine, and even found out they had mistakenly been charging additional APs for special maneuvers (double dipping the cost).

So the Strike Rank is just a measure of initiative in RQ6, and it is where the MRQ/RQII/RQ6 mechanic jumped shark from the older RQ editions. The principle is sound: ditch the old strike rank system, which many found confusing and cumbersome in favor of a more delineated action point mechanic. You roll your strike rank initiative (SR, modified by an armor penalty, plus 1D10) and go. Each time your SR comes up, you can take an action, burning an AP. Each time you need to react, you can burn an AP. When you are out of APs, you are done...finito. The GM goes down the strike rank list, calling out until all participants in the round are out of APs to spend, then you go back to the top and start again. Sounds easy, right?

In practice, making sure the players track their APs correctly, and the GM tracks his APs correctly, is a micromanagement nightmare happening every single combat. There's no hard and fast rule on how to do it, other than to do the best you can to track each action and if you're in to this sort of stuff it might even be cathartic....but for me, it feels like work, every single time. Painful, unpleasant work that reminds me of how other games that are 98% identical to this one do it simpler and easier for the same effect. Never mind tacking on tracking each foe's injuries to the mix....more on that in a second.

To contrast: BRP lets you use a basic action economy where you go in order of dexterity, and everyone gets their movement and action (the CoC method, let's call it). Even better, BRP lets you mod the hell out of this if you want, to the point where you can reinstitute the complex and cumbersome strike rank/action system of old RQ2 and RQ3, which I won't elaborate on other than to say that if realism is your goal you should look in to it.

Magic World finds a fantastic, happy medium which ditches action points and goes with a variant of the strike rank system, but all using dexterity. So in MW you count down from your Dex score....you take action on our Dex, as the GM counts down. Every 5 increments (called Dex ranks) you have a chance at another action.....but every action comes with an increasing penalty, usually a -30% that is cumulative. So If Joe Elf with a Dex 18 acts on 18 to sprint to cover (2 MOV), then on Dex 13 he can strike at the orc, then on Dex 12 the orc tries to hit him so he makes his first parry (no penalty), and then on Dex 8 he decides to use his off-hand weapon to make a second strike (at -30%), and at Dex 3 he could in theory do more if the opportunity rises. Magic World avoids the action point economy by saying everyone gets an attack and parry at no cost, and every additional attempt (which requires a prerequisite, such as greater than 100% skill to make a second attack, for example, or an off-hand weapon) gets the cumulative penalty. So you can try to pull off more, or even avoid being killed more....but it's going to cost you. And best of all...when the GM hits Dex 1, the round is over and it all starts over again. You don't need to track anything; the flow of combat already did it for you. 

Injuries and Hit Locations:

RQ6 has a system where you have no overall hit point total...just locational hit points. You can get hit and wounded many, many times as long as you don't go negative in any one location, and if you do go negative, you're not at risk of death or dismemberment until you reach and exceed the negative of your HP total. I've seen this in action in RQII a lot, and now RQ6, and it makes for some interesting battles, especially against large and formidable foes like a minotaur. Everyone can be hitting them, but the damned thing won't go down. This, in and of itself, is totally cool.

However, try the following: 7 player characters are attacked by six soldiers, well armed and trained, with their leader and a minotaur. In D&D you need to know the AC, HP and what the creature does. You can capture most of that in a stat block easily enough. In RQ6 you are now tracking each wound on each location of each creature. Think about that for a second. While thinking about it, keep in mind you only have stat blocks if you create them, or stick to generic monsters....RQ6 has yet to release a convenient "Giant Book of statted NPCs" so maybe at best you can filch stats from prepublished modules (that is what I did, due to lack of time to stat everyone out). If The Design Mechanism ever does release a "Giant Book of Pre-Statted NPCs" I will buy that sucker for sure.

Now you have your action point/SR chart, your NPC roster, and a rolling hit locations chart. Better hope your NPCs drop fast! RQ6 does include rules for rabble and underlings...which are essentially NPCs with one block of hit points, to help alleviate the GM's job here. So...an acknowledgement that universally applying the hit locations can be extremely cumbersome in play.

BRP has all sorts of options, defaulting to the very basic hit point mechanic of Call of Cthulhu but also including rules for turning on all the complexity of hit locations circa RQ3. However, all such versions use a central hit point mechanic: you can take locational wounds, but two or three locational wounds can become a big deal when your main hit point total is depleted. BRP also uses the major wound threshold mechanic...when you take half or more of your HPs in one shot, you suffer grievous and lasting injuries. The latter is the default mechanic; you can use it with or without hit locations.

Magic World simplifies slightly, dropping hit locations entirely while keeping the hit point total and major wound threshold. In actual play I've found that MW PCs end up with just as many grizzly, debilitating injuries from an unfortunate combat as RQ6 characters do. Sometimes more! Magic World does offer an interesting heroic alternative, one where SIZ+CON become your hit point total (instead of SIZ+CON/2). This doubles your hit points and makes PCs much likelier to take risks and survive the results, on average. It's an incredibly simple way of keeping a realistic game system but making the PCs notably more epic.

Combat Specials:

RQ6 has them in spades: if you roll well, and your opponent doesn't, you get 1 or 2 special maneuvers you can call upon. It's a neat system in one sense, integrating cool combat tricks in to the process, and they are guaranteed to pop almost every time. But it's also a pain for several reasons, as follows:

1. You have a lot of maneuver options that make more sense if you're trying for them first, then succeed/fail. For example, it makes more sense to me that you declare an intent to hit a location first, get a penalty/modifier, and then succeed or fail on that. In RQ6 you attack first, maybe get a maneuver, and then if you want choose to hit a location.
2. Because there is not central hit point total bleed effects....more bookkeeping...are a necessity. In BRP they exist as an option for certain weapons, and in MW they have been more or less omitted as part of the streamlined mechanics. SO YMMV here.
3. Most of my players hit that moment when they had a maneuver option. The fastest resolution was for the RQ veterans to suggest what they did. But the RQ6 maneuvers are a very long list. I think it would go faster with memorization and experience, though....but even we vets were tripping up a bit. Rusty, I guess?
4. Here's my actual pet peeve: the specials detracted from the combat narrative. This is a huge YMMV type of complaint, because if you as GM are not in to narrative combat then a mechanical system which builds the narrative for you is probably going to look pretty cool. For me, though, it meant that injuries and situations were predetermined, and those were all post-hoc to the actual combat resolution. So in the end, all I did was "relay facts" without a lot of exposition. Maybe I've just played too much D&D, where most wounds are open to interpetation? I think this is very much a "it's just me" thing.
5. The complaint I feel is valid: too many choices and info "after the roll" led to a lot of slower combat situations, which was disappointing. I found myself less excited for combat to start as a combination of the combat specials conundrum, hit location tracking, SR/APs tracking and lots of fiddly bits in the process left each combat dragging. I remember in my RQII campaigns that the first game took about four sessions before we all started to "get it," and I almost quit running RQII by session two for this same reason......so my suspicion really is that practice makes perfect, here. But between the RQII days and RQ6, I discovered Magic World...and Magic World's combat system is streamlined, smoother, and so much easier while netting the same effective results. So sure, I could stick with RQ6 for a while longer until we all learn it well....but why bother, when I know I can get a faster but equally evocative system running immediately?

In BRP there are special effects, too. Bleeding and Impale are the most common, but they are very well defined over years of play, and are effects you expect from the weapons in question. As such, when specials happen their adjudication is quick. Magic World streamlines this: you don't have specials, getting extra damage or bypassing armor (or both) with you roll a special or critical.

Magic:

A word about the magic systems: this is one of the cooler elements of Runequest and BRP in general; there are about two dozen magic systems floating around now for the D100 systems, and all of them are equally interesting. RQ6 actually provides 5 magic systems in its main book and 2 systems in its Essentials book. Sorcery in RQ6 was regarded as sufficiently enigmatic that my players all agreed to ignore it. I have never liked how Theism worked in RQ, but it's easy enough to understand....just hard to master (and requires a lot of "time passes while I become a cult leader" moments in play). Folk Magic (alias Spirit Magic in BRP and RQ3/2) is the easiest magic system to understand. Shamanism....Animism in RQ6.....is the spirit combat/capture system, or as I call it "the original Pokemon minigame." It's familiarity to you depends heavily on what you get out of it, and when you first deployed it. I have found the presentation in RQ6 to be needlessly complex; compare to the system in older editions of Runequest and the BRP variant for a stark contrast. Magic World handles it simplest of all, offering some spirits to find in play with some very simple rules for what they do and why.

Something I didn't realize until I started comparing both systems: the descriptions of each spell in RQ6 don't always translate from the same spells in prior editions, or in The Magic Book, Magic World or BRP. This popped up when I noticed that the RQ3/Magic Book version of Demoralize is very clear in what it does, but not so much in the RQ6 edition. Weird!


Overall Style:

A lot of my issue with RQ6 boils down to a utility vs. expository presentation. If you are looking for a book that outlines the rules in a quick and merciless manner, then a system where the mechanics are clearly in one section and the exposition is clearly delineated for your leisure is very important. To give you an example, Magic World is, to me, a very utility-driven book; I can find most rules in its pages quickly and easily, with little muss or fuss; even BRP does a pretty good job, especially given what a toolkit approach it takes. RQ6 is a much chattier game, talking a lot of theory and exposition before getting to any rules when it comes to magic. This is in a sense good, because it really breaks from typical FRP game tradition, but it could really benefit from a 1-2 page cheat sheet for the magic systems, something which distills all the rules down to concise bits for quick access. Just my personal preference, though; another cohort of mine loves the RQ6 style and precisely because it is so laden with detail. For him (and to clarify, he's a single guy with a lot of free time!) finding the rules nuggets is not an issue. For me (a married guy with a company to run and a family to entertain) I just haven't got that sort of time. In fact it was the existence of Runequest Essentials that even gave me a sense I could feasibly return to RQ6 and try it out for this reason....the Essentials edition made it a cleaner package. It's also why the new Mythras Imperative will definitely be a system I run in the near future, albeit for a Sci Fi setting; I'll keep my fantasy with Magic World.

I have a final, petty complaint because as I was reading Magic World through again,* I realized that I wasn't wearing my reading glasses. Why? Because it has decent sized print for my middle-aged eyes. RQ6, unfortunately does not. Petty, I know! But I have the same complaint about Pathfinder. When you look at a lot of OSR games, I bet you'll notice that more, not fewer, use large font sizes, and I bet it's for this reason. (I won't even get in to the ligature issue, since Pete and Loz have identified that the next Mythras edition will get rid of it entirely).

What I think Runequest 6 could benefit from is as follows:
1. Some optional rules content, maybe a discussion on how to have a "basic combat system" and then layer on additional options for desired complexity.
2. Each of the core rules systems need a 1-2 page cheat sheet included which provides the flow-chart outline of how the systems work. A cheat sheet for the magic systems would go an enormous way to improving the utility of the book while leaving the expository text intact. Everyone wins, here.
3. I don't know what solution to offer on strike ranks/action points since they are pretty core to the RQ6 methodology. I'll have to brainstorm on ideas for how to make this process simpler,or at least easier to track.
4. Whatever comes out for Mythras next, I think they should have a Mythras Essentials to replace the RQ Essentials. Mythras Imperative is cool (and very, very utility-based), but it doesn't offer enough to do fantasy at all, and needs more content to do any genre justice.

And for BRP/Magic World:
1. Whatever Chaosium does with this, please keep any future BRP edition "moddable" like the current one. It should remain a toolkit at it's core. The new future BRP sounds like a skeletal framework on which specific settings will get their own stand-alone books, however, so I suppose my second request is just to keep the BGB in print.
2. Chaosium, please think about how you could revive Magic World. A second edition with errata fixes and expanded content (from the unpublished future sourcebooks we all knew about but never got to see) would be fantastic. Figure out a way to tie it to your new Runequest to boost sales. Like...call it QuestWorld 2E or something if you have to. Just please don't abandon it.




*I can re-absorb the whole MW book in about 2 hours but I still haven't finished RQ6. Go figure.

Excellent Overview of the Runequest 2.5 Playtest rules at Timinits & Trolls

Gianni Vacca has a great and lengthy post on the new Runequest 4th edition rules in playtest here. He mentions the idea of it as "Runequest 2.5" and I kind of like that monicker, too, since the game seems to be jettisoning most of what I identify as Runequest and moving back to an earlier era (which for me, means the new game is basically an update from the way I played it 1981-1983; all other RQ experiences I had have been with RQ3 and MRQ/RQII/RQ6). Unfortunately I really didn't "play" in Glorantha as such, using the ideas in that edition to forge my own thing, so the upgrade in focus on the RQ2.5 to be very Glorantha focused is mostly leaving me interested in the broader picture here of how the mechanics work, and what they suggest the future BRP revision will look like....but that said, if you are in to Glorantha-focused systems, this one sounds like it's shaping up to be stellar. Check it out.

Eradariin: The Red Elves of Chirak for Runequest 6/Mythras

Eradariin, the Red Elves of Chirak in Runequest 6/Mythras

The Red Elves, called Eradariin in the old elvish tongue, are elves who were enslaved in the Goblin Wars and later freed themselves, adopting the worship of Shaligon as they did, and assuming the mantle of control over the goblins. They are normal elves, but ritually scarred and tattooed in honor of Shaligon, and they revel in the vile ways of goblinoid culture.

Although the eradariin are not all evil, it is difficult to be good in a society which is dominated by the worship of Shaligon and the veneration of chaos. As such, red elves born of good alignment are usually found out and killed, or escape to the surface world to find freedom. Luckily, the depravities of the red elves on the surface world are largely an unknown, except for

regions such as Correnstal where they are manifesting as a dangerous military presence.

Languages: Red elves begin play knowing both elvish and goblin as languages, although they do not start knowing Tradespeak, but instead know Lower Common, the trade language of the Lower Dark.

Eradariin Traits: once a breed of high elf, the eradariin have been deeply scarred and changed by several centuries of assimilation into goblin culture and the worship of Shaligon. They have the following unique traits:

Ability Scores and Base Traits: Eradariin are identical to normal elves (per elves as depicted in Classic Fantasy).

Languages: Eradariin start play with two native languages at +40%: goblin and elven.

Marks of Shaligon: The red elves brand themselves with ritual scars and tattoos in veneration of Shaligon. Any red elf may elect to start with the Tattoo Mage skill at character creation (as a professional skill option for the elvish culture) but must invest points in it.

Combat Style Suggestions: Blades of Shaligon, the Cruel Whip, Bloody Brawler, Pain Striker 

Tattoo Mage Professional Skill (DEX)

Prerequisite: any spell caster; Eradariin elves gain this feat as part of their Mark of Shaligon trait

Benefit: Called tattoo mages, the practitioners of this art stand out due to the garish spell tattoos which cover their bodies. The character may brand ritual spells upon his or her body in lieu of a spell book, gaining unique special effects for those spells.

   In Chirak there are several cultures which engage in this form of ritual magic: most notable are the eradariin elves, who engage in a form of ritual scarring that imbues their flesh with spells. In the west, the Sabiri use elaborate forms of artistry and sharply contrasting pigments to imbue spell magic on their skin. Among these cultures heavily decorated skin is a sign of great power.

   Rules on tattoo magic are as follows:

   The Sabiri and Eradariin have learned the unique art of inscribing spells on their own bodies. Through the use of this skill, along with 100 SPs worth of tools and a special ink which comes from the blood of an enchanted creature (usually a gorgon), the Sabiri artist can spend one day placing the inscription or engram of the spell in question upon the body of the caster.

   For this to work, the skill of the tattoo artist must be higher than the skill of the recipient’s spell being tattooed. The time involved will take approximately 4 hours, but the GM can rule more time for more complex spells. The spell may be of sorcery or rune magic. Once it is placed upon the sorcerer’s skin, then he can never lose or forget the spell; he knows it innately.

   The Sabiri tattoo artist can also transfer the power of any rune stone* to the skin of the runecaster. This requires the same details as above, but the rune caster must integrate the stone at the time of the inscription, transferring the power of the rune to his own flesh. If all skill rolls succeed, then the process is done and the rune is now integrated physically. If the tattoo artist fails, the rune is integrated, but not on the skin (in the stone, instead). If the runecaster failed, he now has a cool tattoo that does nothing.

   If the runecaster dies, it is possible to take the rune from his flesh. It is also possible to then integrate the rune through the process described above, with the integrated rune being on stripped flesh instead of a stone or other object.

   Tattoo artists among the Sabiri often charge enormous sums to foreigners of the culture for the privilege of an integrated tattoo rune. The base price is usually 1,000 SPs, plus maybe some task.

*depending on which edition of Runequest you are using.... 

Pacing and Time Expectations in Role Playing Games

Diving back in to Runequest 6 recently has had me thinking about the pacing of RPGs. Not just "mechanical pacing" which, to give you an idea, is a major issue for various editions of D&D as well as more elaborate systems like Runequest....but also the inherent design expectations of just how much time you should anticipate investing in a campaign.

Pretty much any system can support short campaigns and one-shots, but such campaigns rarely offer a glimpse in to the long term play mechanics the system espouses. Some games do seem to factor this in to a certain degree, possibly using a fast advancement mechanic like a carrot on a stick to entice players to play more....I think D&D 5E's first four levels are designed this way, for example. Runequest 6 is interesting in that you get some potential to level up at the end of every session (unless you have a stingy GM) with skill roll chances. However, the real potential in advancement requires taking the time to hoard those skill rolls so you can boost attributes or pay for the cost of learning new skills and finding new magic...which can be a time consuming process and requires two things: that the players look for downtime to train and advance, and that the GM give them that time. By contrast, a character can start a career at level 1 in D&D and end up level 20 mere months later in a very fast paced campaign.

I've never seen a Runequest game go long enough in any edition to experience the length and breadth of this sort of advancement (my longest RQ campaign went about 24 sessions); most of my campaigns are structured around 6 month to year-long storylines/events which presume that we've ultimately got only so much time and need to maximize how we use that time; a game like D&D 5E lets us plow through a pretty decent 10 level campaign in 6 months, for example, with advancement baked in to the process. On top of that, RQ6 is more granular; when you have a combat it will be both higher stakes and more detailed, and take more time. As a result, less "gets done" in a certain sense, while in D&D you'll have more bang for your buck. This is, admittedly, a contrast of two very different flavors and not a statement on either system, but if I had to draw an analogy I'd say RQ6 was a great system for running "Master and Commander" while D&D was a natural fit for "Pirates of the Caribbean." And this isn't even addressing prior versions of D&D such as 4E or Pathfinder, where you also ran into slowdown due to mechanics as well.

Other systems, such as 13th Age, actually build a range of options in to how the GM can handle advancement based on the needs of the group while also providing you the best and fastest tools for quick mechanics. You can run a campaign that lasts dozens of sessions before reaching level 10, awarding new levels at the pace the GM wants. You can do incremental advancement which lets the GM dole out micro-rewards over the course of play. Or, you can do a ten-session, ten level campaign in a glorious zerg rush to the top. I used to be annoyed by 13th Age's system and even worked up some house rules for an XP mechanic, since XP is a great way of providing a trackable "reward mechanic" without actually disrupting the leveling process. But now? I realize that if you want to experience the full game, and you've only got 10 weeks to do it, 13th Age offers you a pretty compelling option here.

There's an entire subset on this issue as well: OSR games. They offer mechanical simplicity but also let you scale them quite nicely to suit the GM's tastes. Played by the book, for example, S&W with GP as XP leads to some quick advancement over time, and people don't slow down until hitting levels 6-8ish. You can also get a lot more done in one OSR session than any other game I've mentioned in this post. There's something incredibly attractive about a system that offers a guaranteed "maximum return on fun" and the OSR systems definitely do that.

In the end, this is mostly a thought exercise for me, and a way of identifying why maybe I end up playing certain systems a lot more (D&D) while pining for others but never actually playing them that often (RQ6). I think a protracted campaign in RQ6 that lasted years would be amazing, a chance to see the system shine....but perhaps, ultimately, I am more of a "Pirates of the Caribbean" kind of guy, and thus why D&D always ends up as my go-to game.

Monday Blaaaagh!!! Kickstarter Book of the Righteous; Plus: 13th Age and Mythras

I remember when I had lots of time to do stuff....sigh. Anyway! Some random stuff this Monday:

The Book of the Righteous Kickstarter

Green Ronin has their Kickstarter going for the 5th edition version of Book of the Righteous. It's not to goal yet but as of writing has three weeks to go. I'd be tempted, but I'm not a long-term investor, and the physical release is listed as March 2017. That's a long ways off....and if there's one thing I've learned it's that the farther out a Kickstarter date is, the less likely it is that I'll still be interested in a given Kickstarter by the time it finally shows up.

And that's assuming it isn't delayed!

I'll wait until this is available for print release. The fact that the release date is so far out tells me this is a "fishing for interest" Kickstarter....work has not begun, and they are testing the waters. This is not great; Kickstarters are essentially turning in to a market testing strategy but are only receiving the feedback from people who apparently have a lot of disposable income to throw away on hypotheticals. I'd absolutely buy this book, but I'm not going to hand off $45 in the hopes that the book is worth it at the end, that I still am interested, or that nothing disastrous goes wrong between now and then. This isn't a vote against Green Ronin, don't get me wrong; I'm just refusing to buy in to the idea that Kickstarter is the best way to handle a release like this. 

Other Stuff

Classic Fantasy/Mythras: if I took all the blog hits on these two subjects as a sign, I should really be doing more content for both. I'm still waiting patiently for CF to get a physical release (preordered) so that puts a tiny crimp in prepping content related to it, but anytime I do a blog tied to something The Design Mechanism (or Chaosium, for that matter) is behind I get four to five times the normal hits. Interesting. And good news for BRP-based games.

13th Age: Pelgrane Press released High Magic & Low Cunning, which is a sort of "encounter book" of highly customizable scenarios with an emphasis on combat in unusual locales, each tied to the various icons. It's a great book, really interest in premise and design. More interesting is the map pack, which contains a ton of high quality, full color maps you can use with the book. My pre-order arrived last week and I really advise 13th Age fans to check it out. Heck, the maps alone would be useful to any GM who likes to mix and match.

Mythras and Classic Fantasy - Design Mechanism Ramps Up

The Design Mechanism has announced that Runequest 6's name change will be Mythras going forward. The name is derived from "myth" and the deity Mitra/Mithras which is pretty cool. Announcement here.

They also have a preview of Classic Fantasy up for review (here). I admit, I wasn't a fan of the Classic Fantasy Monograph for BRP....it needed some work, and felt like a shoehorn of D&Disms into a BRP framework. That said, the preview for this new version has me intrigued, and hopeful as well that it will be more complete and focused (for example, it has a bestiary and treasure section, arguably important components of dungeon delving).

Part of me still feels like Classic Fantasy is an exercise in "missing the point" of BRP systems....but on the other hand, if it's done well then I really can't argue; a focused "refinement" of the RQ6/Mythras rules aimed at hitting that D&D sweet spot with a D100 system sounds kind of cool, actually.

OH! And did I mention I like the font in CF? Let's hear it for normal fonts!

The Glorantha Problem (or: defining "opaque" settings)

I was thinking about why all this teeth-gnashing and fanbase smashing is going on with Chaosium, Runequest, the Design Mechanism and other innocent victims (i.e BRP's Gold Book and Magic World). Ultimately, it all boils down to a single source of contention....really, it does!

Glorantha.

Now, the problem with Glorantha is not that the setting is, in and of itself, not an interesting, exotic affair that has a dedicated core of fans....it does. Glorantha is, indeed an exotic, unusual setting. It's probably close to Barker's Tekumel in many people's eyes, or at least settings like Jorune or Talislanta. Worlds that are sufficiently exotic that the rules of play are bent around the frame of the setting to support it (rather than, say, a set of rules on which one drapes the setting). Because of this, Glorantha has a reputation: it's the setting you choose when you want something really weird and different, something which is not in the least bit conventional. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, of course....other than the fact that Runequest has been presented as a more universal system for 31 years now since Runequest 3 was released in 1984ish, where the default setting was actually Mythic Europe and Glorantha got a supplemental book that added the setting to the rules.

This was hardly even a problem back in the day because Runequest 2 hardly included enough information to do more than get a vague sense of what the world of Glorantha was like. I ran scenarios ostensibly using the map, but my attention do detail ultimately led to adventures set in some corner of my own world (look for the location of Blackwell in the World of Lingusia). But of course that was 1982....and in the intervening years game design has changed, along with the "minimum expectations" of gamers and their settings.* As such, we all sort of anticipate that the next Runequest will have the following criteria:

1. It will be a setting with a system wrapped around it (maybe)
2. It will be heavy with Glorantha-focused content; so instead of a chapter on world building we'll get a Glorantha-focused chapter on the setting. Instead of charts and tables for general fantasy medieval adventuring we'll get charts and tables for Glorantha. Instead of all-purpose cultural details (which really are an artifact or RQ3 and later) we might get cultural details on Glorantha locales.
3. RQ4 will maybe....at best...focus on a specific era of Glorantha, which as I understand it has several ages (such as the second age of the setting that Mongoose's RQ focused on).

So....what that means is that it will be one of those games. Like Earthdawn, Empire of the Petal Throne, Talislanta, and others, in which what you are buying in to is a complicated setting, not necessarily a toolkit rulebook. Problem is, toolkit rulebooks are all the rage these days; the idea of a core system of rules which then supports multiple settings is very much a part of contemporary gaming culture. Runequest will be designing against this principle. That could work out well for them, sure....but it might backfire, too. Especially because Glorantha has a reputation among many gamers as being a difficult setting to penetrate. Few "setting-dedicated" rulebooks do well.

I like to define Glorantha as an "opaque" setting...very difficult to penetrate. Glorantha has an appeal to gamers who feel that something is not worth their time unless it has at least two of the following traits: it is obscure, it is academic and/or it is difficult to master/understand. Glorantha fits all three criteria.

Runequest 4 could avoid this problem by providing the skeleton of the Glorantha setting and still retaining "toolkit" elements. 13th Age does this....it has a world setting implied in the rules with some robust chapters providing necessary details, but the rules also assume you can and will do your own thing with it. As such 13th Age walks a fine line between predetermined world and open toolkit in it's design. RQ4 could do the same.

If RQ4 remains a dedicated book for Glorantha then there's a lot of content it won't need: Glorantha has defined cults and gods, for example; so we wouldn't necessarily get rules on how to make our own. Gone also will be other rules we've come to appreciate, such as designing orders and guilds, magic systems which may or may not be supported in this revamp of Glorantha, and specific magic systems retooled to reflect the Glorantha-specific flavor, making them hard to extract for use with non-Glorantha settings.

And of course the book will be big, and thick, because Glorantha is a monstrously large setting defined in countless obscure tomes. Dedicates to the setting love it...but you have to really, really love it to hold to such a commitment. Sure, RQ4 could garner lots of new fans, but the problem is that there are an enormous number of RQ fans out there who have been enjoying the system without a core setting for three decades now; and a lot of us specifically liked how Glorantha was carefully excised from the core rules for four of the six editions of the game.

This all ultimately points out that the return to Glorantha, while fine, is the real problem here; we're all about to get a combined rulebook and setting that no half of RQ's fanbase don't really want, haven't really wanted since about 1984. And of the other half, the Glorantha fans who do want a return, I am unsure of how many are going to really want to return to Runequest as a system when they also have HeroQuest, which has struck me for years now as a great example of the system designed to support the setting. Is RQ really that suited to Glorantha? I seem to recall that even Sandy Petersen said it wasn't (quotation missing until my google-fu gets better).

There has always been something of a split on this, though. I suppose we will now get a chance to see if a re-Gloranthified Runequest based on RQ2 will take off and be a success.....and I guess fans of RQ the toolkit system (but not Glorantha) can see where the Design Mechanism goes.

EDIT: worth mentioning that in the end, Runequest was Sandy Petersen's Greg Stafford's baby originally, as is Glorantha, which according to Designers & Dragons conceptually predates D&D's arrival by many years. I can't fault him for wanting to bring it all back in a form he wants....I'd be the same way. (fixed my gaff.)

My own preference....well, we have a lot of choices out there, and in the end games don't go away until people stop playing them. I'll continue to reserve my feelings on the matter until we see what 2016 brings us.




*Look at how many people complain that the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide is too skimpy to run Forgotten Realms scenarios. I personally think it's loaded with useful GM stuff, plenty of campaign material.

On Runequest 4 (after some thought)

After thinking about this for a day and reading some new information I realized that I am actually pro-RQ4, so I decided this entire post needed massive revision. 

So apparently Chaosium's new direction will be a Runequest 4th edition, referring to the 4th edition of the RQ game done by Chaosium (but still really a 7th edition for everyone who's been with the game since MRQ). The 4E version will however use RQ2 as the springboard/base from which it builds. I admit, this intrigues me.

Meanwhile, Design Mechanism will continue to support Runequest 6, which will get a name change.

I absolutely agree with Akrasia that this could fragment the base, but I'm not sure what can be done about that....we have exactly the same problem with D&D, which is fragmented between five (well, seven really) editions of the base game plus countless OSR retroclones and inspired D&D-alikes, so the fact that Runequest will have two coterminous editions....not to mention stuff like Legend and Renaissance....strikes me as business as usual for this hobby, which tends to be recursively derivative to a fault.

ENWorld Article

Runequest 2 getting a reprint with fixed errata

Look at it right here. Yeah, so this turns out to be a real thing (thanks Erik; weird work schedules haven't dulled your ability to get a cool scoop). I saw a post about this recently but breezed over it on the assumption it was some fan mockup. Nope.

Wow.

The idea that there will be a modern reprint of RQ2 to play with is actually the most interesting news I've heard in the Chaosium realm. For those of you not in the know, RQ2 was a very clean, concise and detailed look at the RQ mechanics, but it was also very tight in design. It assumed Glorantha as a setting, yes, but you could do what you wanted with it. RQ3 tried to make Mythic Europe the default, to good effect, but it also added some layers of complication to the rules as well.

I'd play RQ2 straight-up again (sans Glorantha...sorry, just not a Gloranthaphile). Will have to grab a copy or two once it's in the wild.

Check out the Ken Rolsten quote in the bottom back cover. Neat, considering I've always thought of the Elder Scrolls titles as the "Runequest of computer RPGs."


I am now really, really glad I sold my one RQ2 boxed set that I had held on to when I did; a reprint will (possibly) impact Ebay value on old copies since we all know most of us really want one to play with...right?

Also, it will be fun to contrast classic RQ2 with current RQ6. I admit, there's a lot of stuff I miss from the Old Days of RQ, such as the classic combat mechanics and weapon skills (attack/parry/dodge FTW) as well as a much riskier and deadlier limb-losing experience.