TrippyHippy

The assurance on this site from those-who-know was that there is (was?) going to be a full release - not just preorders - this month.

One of the reasons cited for Chaosium not presenting a publishing schedule is they wanted to avoid the back and forth with fans about missed schedules which can often happen. This is a bit of a moot point, however, if they can’t fulfil the proclamations they actually do make.

Chaosium are rapidly becoming the biggest tease in gaming....

So......is it getting released today or tomorrow or when, exactly?

It is different in different areas of course - you still have to wait in Aus/NZ, so getting the PDF first (from the Chaosium site) is still the way to go for some of us.

I think it would have been a bit irritating for there to be separate Players and Gamemasters books. It is an age old preference, but having one core rules book adds to the accessibility of the line. Sure, there may be really useful rules and expansions in follow on supplements but players like to be reassured that the core publication is fully ready to run in and of itself. Well, I do anyway.

If you are somebody that feels that Runequest: Glorantha possibly rushed in a few too many bells and whistles in the rules and setting detail, too early, then Classic Runequest certainly feels simpler by comparison. The main issue to overcome with Runequest 2 are the character generation rules which kinda leave you hanging in terms of giving early background experience. The skill levels are very low and, while there is an appendix to provide some loose rules eventually, the implication is that you either take out a Traveller-esque mortgage to get some type of training from a Guild or Cult, or you simply start as a callow and mostly ineffective 16-year old. I’ve ended up trying to make a hybrid of RQ:G and RQ Classic to play.

Going to have to wait till the delivery costs come down for NZ.

Will slipcases be sold to contain the Players’, Gamemasters’ and possibly the Gamemaster’s kit altogether?

OK. I’m ignoring any post from Atgxtg now. I refuse to engage. If anybody else wants to post about it they can, but I am personally writing this thread off as derailed.

It is tangential and I have asked you stop. That is an assumption without evidence. You are assuming that it wasn’t supported because of lack of sales, as opposed to the other way round say, and as we don’t actually know what the sales figures were there isn’t anything to back up that assertion. Chaosium may have just surmised that they wanted to focus on other games or didn’t really know how to go about supporting it. As pointed out, it never received ongoing supplemental support so it is pure speculation as to how successful it could have been if it had. I haven't shifted any goalposts and your argument here is being disingenuous. I am saying, perfectly consistently, that the game needs supplemental support and the use of mini-settings is the best way of supporting the game quickly and effectively. I have not been arguing that it is one thing or the other but mini-settings should be prioritised as they were effectively with Fate. The sales of the supplements are secondary to the sales of the core rules. You will note that in the case of Fate, most of their mini-setting supplements were free or PWYW. They weren’t making money from the supplements, but from the increased sales of the core rules because it was perceived as a well supported line. You seem to be implying that mini-settings can’t be good settings? That is an immediate point of contention. Long supplements do not necessarily make for better settings. In fact, if you are looking for something quick and easy to run, they can be a major turn-off. Indeed, much of my experience is that longer setting supplements often lead to criticisms of why they weren’t just released as stand-alone games. My encouragement, to third party sources or Chaosium themselves is to support BRP in the best way possible by demonstrating the game's versatility. This means having a wide range of diverse settings to play - and the most effective way of doing this is get plenty of mini-settings quickly out, rather than spend years trying to develop major setting supplements which would likely get de-prioritised anyway for other game releases. Over time, I’d like to see a range of supplements - big and small, however it is a question of priorities for a new edition that has only just been released.

Fate has a different approach, but isn’t 'rules-lite’. Frankly, I don’t want this thread derailed about arguing about the Fate system anyway and it makes no real point to argue about the system when this is more a thread about marketing. This argument tangent is a distraction from the point of this thread. If you don’t have sales figures then it is hard to make arguments based on assertions about relative sales. You are making arguments without evidence to back it up. I’m not moving any goalpost at all. I am saying, clearly, that in order for BR:UGE to be successful, as a universal, generic systemic it needs supplemental support. Short mini-settings can be produced a lot quicker that fully detailed big setting books and their relative speed of reading/mastery and potential low cost means they can fulfil a specific niche for the BRP fanbase to get into play quickly. I am not arguing for mini-settings to cancel out the bigger setting supplements but I am saying that the fastest way to support the game is to get lots of mini-settings out there - and Fate provides a marketing model that is successful at doing this. Fate managed to keep its fan base happy by immediately supporting their game with lots of rapidly produced mini-settings first, way before it started producing more developed, longer setting supplements. BR: UGE currently has barely anything supporting it yet and it needs to have something or its going to fade away too.

Originally, Classic Runequest rules had quite a lot of information about improving Characteristic scores through training. These were done through costs and training and have been adapted as optional BRP rules since. In Call of Cthulhu, the emphasis was shifted more on to skill development and, to be sure the emphasis of the game is less about character improvement and more about survival (either physically or mentally) and solving mysteries. I kinda feel that giving any emphasis on character improvement, in a manner of ‘levelling up’ in D&D terms actually undermines these aspects a little.

Fate is a rule-set that can be customised and expanded accordingly. It is no lighter than BRP - which can also be run as a light system and customised accordingly. Your view here is prejudicial, honestly. Do you have sales figures? The fact is that when Worlds of Wonder came out it was an entirely novel concept - it predates GURPS which was the system that really marketed itself as a universal engine to a continual fanbase. Worlds of Wonder didn’t necessarily get the right model for supplemental support - aside from developing Superworld further - but it is entirely speculation whether it could have been more successful had it, for example, aggressively followed up the box set with multiple setting mini-setting ‘modules’ that fans could collect. We’ll never know because they never did this. My view is that WoW faded simply because it didn’t provide enough interesting settings quickly enough. So, actually, I’ll up the ante and state that I think BRP really does need to have supplemental support for it to remain in the public eye and succeed as a product. A pacy release schedule of cheap mini settings has worked for FATE. It could work very well for BRP too.

Yes. Fate has lots of mini settings - a lot of them are pay-what-you-want and a number of them have been collected into anthologies. A lot of these settings are really creative and original and about 50 pages or less in many cases. If you are wanting to switch between a variety of settings frequently, this is all you need - the longer the supplements, the harder they are to switch to. Have a look for yourselves. BRP actually had this too - they had an anthology of different adventures with different settings in some supplements when the big gold book originally came out as well as with the quick-play. The original Worlds of Wonder - with Magic World, Super World and Future World - was this concept too, of course. Imagine they had just kept going with Crime World, Wild West World, erm....Apocalypse World and so on?

Maybe I could be pointed in the direction of some but as far as I am aware, there isn’t that many supplements available for this current iteration of BR:UGE. It is early days still but I would like to make some sort of call out to third party creators or Chaosium itself, that what the game really needs is a bunch of short, creative mini settings - no more than 50 pages tops - that could be printed out from PDF files, maybe with a short adventure or two included. I’ve seen a few people suggesting they are working on settings, but what I am suspecting is this means larger setting books (200 pages or so). There is a place for this but short, cheap and quick stuff for one shots gets into the whole spirit of a universal system more I think. What do other people think?

Well, I just checked Backerkit and would like to have further clarification because the Morte D’Arthur survey DID go out to backers several years ago and when I checked the available add-ons, Prince Valiant was most certainly not included. https://www.backerkit.com/c/project_searches?search[text]=Morte+D'Arthur&button=

I’m a Kickstarter backer of Morte D’Arthur who already received a physical copy of Prince Valiant some time ago. I would note that Prince Valiant was originally offered in a previous Kickstarter campaign - Paladin if I recall correctly. They may have had Prince Valiant offered as add-ons in the Morte D’Arthur but that was probably because they had backstiock to do this. The Morte D’Arthur campaign, however, is more than five years old now and Chaosium were not involved in it originally. As such, it is highly unlikely that you could get it via that campaign simply because, as others have pointed out, Chaosium do not have a license to it anymore. According to recent reports, like yesterday, Chaosium’s plans to print and deliver the Morte D’Arthur books is well on their way for some time in 2024. It’s been a while, but will be appreciated when they arrive.

Honestly, there is no question that Runequest: Glorantha is a complex RPG - both in rules design and setting. The original Runequest rules were simplified into ‘Basic Roleplaying’ rules by the time Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu were released - removing elements from the combat system especially and developing other areas of the game to smooth out more granular aspects of gameplay. When the Hero Wars/Heroquest rules were developed they were deliberately designed to be more ‘narrative’ in as much as there was a preference for a less complex game system. The more recent version of the Runequest: Glorantha rules adds more skills, more magic systems, a rune-based personality system, family background generation and passions into the mix. The setting is much, much more developed than it was also. I am not saying these are bad things to have but it is what it is. I would hasten to add that the RuneQuest Starter Set is arguably the best product of its type on the market (and in the current market that is saying something!). There are also plenty of fans that love the complexity of the setting mythology as well as the crunch in the rules as signature elements of the Runequest game. The growing range of Cult splat books is really showing the scope of what you can do with the game when you master it - but that is the commitment you need. It isn’t a pick-up-and-play casual game in any sense. I guess the designers could have made the core rules book slimmer by stripping out the Sorcery chapter and the family background generator. I’d whisper it quietly, but they could have also held back the Rune traits as an optional rule too (saving everything for an expansion companion) but then I bet there would be lots of complaints about that if they had. We also have the BRP generic book if you want to create something simpler.

Also, while we are at it, Crowley would make an excellent entree into any, upcoming Cthulhu by Gaslight book. How’s that coming along?

It is curious that there hasn’t been many movies that directly refers to Crowley. His life really is ripe for a biopic. However, Mark Strong claimed in an interview that Lord Henry Blackwood of the Sherlock Holmes movie (with Robert Downey Junior) was loosely based on Crowley and also the classic Curse of the Demon (or Night of the Demon depending on which side of the Atlantic you are in), which itself is adapted from the MR James story - Casting The Runes, has a Crowley inspired figure (Karswell) as the main antagonist. Both are total fodder for Call of Cthulhu.

Would it be wrong to suggest they just use the 1st edition box set cover for the new edition too?

Will that be a March release for the physical books or just the PDF?

Hmmm...Asterix comics might be a clever little source to use....