OpenQuest 2017 Edition (totally awesome art snob edition!)

I admit, I've been harsh on the art in previous editions of OpenQuest. But with the latest release, the OpenQuest 2017 edition, all that has changed; the art in this edition is great! The artists are Jon Hodgson (cover) and Jeshields does the interior art, which is a wide range of color pieces that are highly evocative of the swords & sorcery genre, and all excellent pieces. A big emphasis on evocative characters is evident, which helps convey the interesting range of PCs and NPCs you can generate with these rules.

 A key issue with RPG art, I have found, is that it needs to hit the right chord to get general acceptance from players...art that is stylistically or tonally off, or which contains amateur elements (such as problems with anatomy) that detract from the style rather than add to it, can make a game an incredibly hard sell. The art in OpenQuest 2017 edition feels both old school and is very stylish. An easy sell, in other words.

The game itself is derived from the Mongoose Runequest OGL, and is at this point the only contemporary edition of the D100 system to realistically hold title as rightful successor to Magic World and BRP. Mythras, of course, stands on its own as a more complex iteration of the same games, with similar DNA.....but seriously, one of the top appeals of Magic World (to me) was it's ease of access and ability to achieve the same feel and style of the BRP system without the extra complexity that Mythras offers. OpenQuest also accomplishes this, while also still feeling very Old School in a 1982 kinda way (just sans Glorantha).

I'll write more on this soon....I liked the look of the new OpenQuest enough to purchase physical copies of both this book and I also snagged a copy of it's sister system, the SF RPG River of Heaven in for good measure. That one is also gorgeous, by the way. I've really been craving some BRP-style gaming recently, and it is possible that at last I may fully embrace OpenQuest as my system of choice.