TrippyHippy

It really wasn't. Lord of the Rings is hardcore dark fantasy - it's central theme is largely about death, as inspired by Tolkien's own experience in World War I and his own reflections of Wold War II. There is a central Christian-esque morality at play within the setting and characters, which contrasts with later fantasy creations, and reflects Tolkien's own conservative world views - but unlike The Hobbit, the story is not fully aimed at children nor is it a lighthearted romp. Characters die and suffer in LotR.

Fair enough.

Moorcock was the editor for New Worlds magazine for decades. Not only is he regarded as a major fantasy writer in his now right (he's ranked in the top 50 of UK writers of all time), he is also one of the most authoritative academics of the fantasy genre. To suggest that he had a cursory reading of Tolkien is silly - he actually met Tolkien in person - he's the sort of guy that could present lectures on the subject. Just because he doesn't like Tolkien's work - the reasons of which are well detailed in multiple articles and essays - doesn't mean he hadn't read them in any detail. Quite the opposite in fact.

Y'know when people complain about 'identity politics' and that there is too much politics entering into our general, everyday discourse, when we could be discussing all sorts of topics in much less adversarial ways...there's this....

I doubt it.

Well, everyone has tastes, and I don't begrudge you your own. It should be noted though that Elric as a literary character was written as a direct antithesis to Conan. Wheras Conan started as a barbarian who ascended towards being a King, Elric started as an Emperor who destroyed everything he had. This is what made him an antihero.

I didn't say 'evil heroes', though, I said 'antiheroes' who very much fall under the notion of morally grey characters. In the case of Elric, the moral greyness comes in the form of his consciousness of his acts (aided and abetted by demonic figures).

Both Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer were released in 1981 and, at the time, Stormbringer would have been the bigger release as Michael Moorcock was a more culturally prominent writer in the 70s to fantasy enthusiasts. He was a bit of a rock star, was the editor of New Worlds magazine and was credited for fostering the 'New Wave' of science fiction writing at that time. Even now he is regarded as an 'essential' fantasy author within the genre and has one multiple lifetime and other awards. Call of Cthulhu eventually eclipsed Stormbringer mostly because it was reaching out to a new genre (horror) in which it became archetypal within the broader hobby, while Stormbringer was still within the fantasy genre which most rpgs were at the time. However, Stormbringer was also seminal in it's own way as being the first adult orientated 'bad boy' RPG - focussing on dark subject matter and demonology - while the tone of the game felt like you were playing doomed antiheroes. There was some inspiring art, empowered but still vulnerable characters, a degree of brooding, philosophical depth and a straightforward ruleset in the main. White Wolf games took their name from Elric's moniker, and the appeal of those games to their market with the World of Darkness games, is largely what Stormbringer offered before they came along.

Has there been any more thought on this as a future era book? I think it was highlighted in the Cthulhu: Through The Ages supplement with some rules in the Cthulhu End Times section. It was also mooted in discussion about Sandy Peterson's Cthulhu Wars miniatures games. I would guess that there is a long term schedule out there somewhere, along with the various priorities, but is there an appetite for such a setting and a likelihood of seeing one?

Does this mean it wouldn't work at night?

Horizontal velocity stays constant, but the final vertical velocity is equivalent to the initial vertical velocity, as acted upon by gravitational acceleration (with the counter angle of drag also forming a vector angle with gravity). A lower angle would go further and be more accurate in judging range, but the question would be about how to maximise velocity and force on the target. Theoretically, if the only acceleration acting on the arrow is gravity, then the force ought to be constant too. However, the comment was mainly a joke about hitting somebody in the ankles! The layout is nice though. With regards to SI units, it's certainly easier to mathematically analyse, while the distinction between real world measures and in game measures is probably compromised already. What units do they use in Glorantha?

Good to hear.

If you do a kickstarter on it, please keep it tight. Please don't get overly ambitious with add ons and extensions, to the effect that it never gets delivered in any timely fashion. I'm a bit of a vet when it comes to the kickstarter 'experience'.

Hmmm...speaking as a physics teacher, if that bowman wants to maximise the gravitational acceleration upon the impact of that arrow's target.......he should aim a little higher. Although, admittedly, he could be aiming at the target's toes.

THACO was an attempt in AD&D 2nd edition to provide a single mathematical cue instead of having to reference lots of 'To Hit' tables. The actual maths were no different, however, it just simply assumed that players could count backwards from the 0 to determine what target number to roll. The D20 die was core to the combat system 'To Hit' rolls, although the other dice were more irregularly used throughout the rest of the game. Percentile tables, for example, were pretty normal as well as using percentiles in feats of Strength and the like. Initiative was normally based on a D6 roll. The 'D20 system' was indeed a marketing tool, although its also true that 3rd edition did a lot to standardise dice rolling towards a D20 as default.

This is true, and accentuated by the fact that D&D was built on the entirely counterintuitive, inverted THACO (To Hit Armour Class 0) system that required extensive table referencing at the time when RuneQuest first hit the roleplaying market. The whole 'D20' system as we know it only really came about with the 3rd edition of D&D, which was lead-designed primarily by Jonathon Tweet - a noted RuneQuest aficionado - who largely rebuilt the D&D/D20 system by integrating ideas established through games like RuneQuest. While they stuck with a D20 rather than % dice, they reversed the target numbers lines so they were more transparent, introduced a fully integrated skill system, included 'meta-magic' feats and opened up multi classing to de-emphasis the reliance of niche-restricted Classes. All of these things can be seen through the lens of RQ's influence.

There were a number of technical issues in Mongoose's first attempt at doing RuneQuest (some of the info in combat tables was contradictory, etc) although some of the developments introduced reached some good conclusions in the game we now call Mythras. As written, however, the MRQ1 rules were clunky and dysfunctional. I think the main problem with MRQ1, however, was in the culture and intent about how to make use of RuneQuest. While the Glorantha setting was developed (in an earlier age than the canon usually used, it should be noted) as a supplementary setting, Mongoose really just wanted a system to replace the waning D20 market with, so as to be able to hang off various settings from. The OGL used to do this largely illustrates it, while the issues with physical Runes merely highlights that the 'committee' that designed it didn't really have a feel for what RuneQuest was. MRQ2 had a better grasp of what the history of the game was, and tidied up a lot of the mechanics into what was a much more refined and effective game system. However, the books were still rushed in terms of interior presentation and even the title name: was the 'II' really necessary? The tensions in the game design intentions can probably be seen best when Mongoose lost the RQ license and ended up putting out Legend, while The Design Mechanism went ahead with RuneQuest 6. The former was a cheap ($1 on PDF!) and cheerful, generic game published in handy, little black book with minimal art. It was entirely functional to fit into the RPG market alongside titles like Savage Worlds or Fate - had it garnered more setting support and less alternative BRP/RQ alternatives it may still have been flourishing now. The latter, however, was a classy big book, with high quality binding and a beautiful, full colour cover that was a throwback to the original RQ cover art. Whilst it too, eventually lost it's license, the contrast between approaches tells you all you need to know.

Power could be measured in Watts! :

We-eee-ll, this might get tricky fast but here goes.... I agree that a number of skills could have been pruned or merged from the current list. Listen and Spot Hidden are a good example of this. There has always been issues in the game of a skill list including narrow and broad skill entrees. I felt they could have done a bit more to deal with that in this most recent edition, but I cannot account for the feedback of others during play testing. Education used to be exclusively used to determine the number of skill points that could be spent from a selection of about 8 or so Professional Skills - the higher your Education the more points you had to distribute. This was deemed unrealistic for some professions (like Actors for example) and so the skill points distribution was levied out to other Characteristics, where deemed appropriate to certain Professions, in the 7th edition. You could argue for a minimal Education for some Professions, but it's assumed that players can make these sort of appropriate decisions for themselves. If you have a low Education, you probably would not be much worth as a Doctor - so you'd pick other professions accordingly to fit. Do we need hard/assertive rules to enforce this more? I dunno - it's not really been a problem in the games I've played. Size ought to have applications in the game in more aspects than just combat. Hiding, or squeezing through a tight hole for example. Unfortunately, combat gets more focus. In terms of fairness between sexes, it's possibly Un-PC to suggest that a women's comparable lack of size to men, in the real world, does indeed put them at a disadvantage in combat. However, in the game rules there is no such penalty or differentiation made in character generation. If you want a bigger woman, built for fighting, go ahead and pick a good size. Of course, if you want to play to more traditional notions of female strengths, then pick Appearance, or maybe Constitution and Dexterity (women live longer on average and are much more supple in things like yoga on the whole). Appearance vs Charisma has been an ongoing debate for decades in BRP games. RuneQuest used Charisma originally, but Appearance was preferred in the making of Call of Cthulhu. I think that the advantage/argument for Appearance is that it is an innate, fixed and measurable thing (one can rank beauty in Appearance and there are measures of facial symmetry, idealised body proportions, etc) whereas Charisma is more nebulous and often as much a factor of what the external audience wants to hear in a particular circumstance (hence it's it isn't 100% a personal characteristic). In the real world, Appearance is a massive factor in terms of career and general social power. Play it up that way. Psychology and Mental illness was very well (re)written and explained in the Unseen Masters scenario collection by Bruce Ballon about 20 years ago. I would advise that you seek out this book if you want to get a good write up about this sort of thing. The current edition seeks to interpret Psychology and Mental illness a little more cinematically. In the real world, a Psychologist wouldn't, in fact, necessarily have any ability in psychological healing but would be skilled in collating and statistically analysing data about behaviour in a scientific way. The medically trained 'healers' are Psychiatrists who have a grounding in medicine and can prescribe drugs and other treatments. In the game, Psychology is used in a layman's fashion which does involve personal insight and detecting motives, etc. Psychoanalysis, which is actually quite a specific Freudian technique largely dismissed by modern medicine, is used for 'psychological healing'. I'm not sure if these are the answers you are looking for, but it's the best I can suggest at the moment. The Call of Cthulhu rules aren't perfect. And this is with me not even mentioning why on earth anybody thought Luck should become disassociated with POW in this edition...rather than separating Sanity instead to make a Characteristic SAN score.....aw shoot...I just did!

It looks a bit like anime - in the same sort of style used for things like White Wolf's Exalted, among other things.

No ifs or buts on this one. It's an automatic preorder when available for me.

I've only skimmed it so far, but it does detail the pretty seismic impact of the 4th Crusade on Constantinople in the book and, considering the timeline is only a matter of a couple of centuries or so, it's probably adaptable without any major fuss.

5th place out of 40+ nominees, and a Top 10 place for two years running.....is not bad! Vampire and Warhammer Fantasy obviously have their fans too, but in a competitive field (from more than 5000 voters) RuneQuest still has a clear identity. Look at the other titles it beat - Warhammer 40KRP, The Witcher, etc. There are some excellent prospective games that didn't even make the Top 10 - Paladin, Aquelarre, Prince Valiant, Trinity, Judge Dredd, Top Secret, etc.

RuneQuest: Glorantha came 5th. Quite respectable.

Well, another system they could use - which would work with some tweaks I think - is their Vortex system, which they use for Doctor Who (and some other games).