TrippyHippy

I thought the point of making a new edition of the game was to make it better. If you are reviewing the mechanics of the sorcery system to better capture a flair for the setting, well the language you use is a simple way of doing exactly this. Do you want RuneQuest to be a vanilla fantasy or something more flavourful of Glorantha?

Well, words carry the atmosphere of the game for me. Prosaic, generic language makes magic feel unmagical to me - and while we could make it all up ourselves, it's like arguing that we should just write up the setting material ourselves too. What's wrong with a bit of florid writing? It worked in Ars Magica.

I'm backing it at Hero level currently. It really is a bank buster though at $450 (+PP to New Zealand), so I'm going to have to carefully assess this on the next payday before the end of the campaign. I do recognise that I'll be paying for quality though as the figures are truly awesome. The game play looks like a good intro to the themes of Glorantha too, and the Hero level is clearly the best value for money (you get everything!).

I do like the use of season/moon cycle idea. I'd still like to see more florid language in the spell names though - it would also add to the flavour I think.

You could keep some low powered dynamism by having each Rune associated with some relatively minor 'cantrip' style effects? In Ars Magica, Spontaneous Magic has only a fifth of the potency of Formulaic spells.

One thing that RuneQuest could borrow from Ars Magica is more imaginative spell names. Rather than simply spells being named by effect, could they not be given some more poetic sounding names?

Another thing that I'd like ask is about the culture of Sorcery, as it's always been something I couldn't quite get. Is Sorcery really the domain of the Western culture and the God Learners? I mean, is it sort of exclusive to that culture or more widespread? Following on, in a typical game, is it the sort of thing that PCs would use - or are they more likely to stick with Spirit Magic and Theism? How is a mixed culture group of adventures meant to come together? Actually, while I'm at it - ditto about Illumination and the Moon Empire?

Elizabethan England and Italian Renaissance period.

What's the difference in practical terms?

So it's verb+noun a la Ars Magica. ...and yes, that's a selling point to me.

Smart move to release the Combat cards and the Rome book at almost the same size, as is the discount for the core. The core will be the hardest sell to existing RQ6 customers, for obvious reasons but if you can swiftly back it up with new material and props it ought to keep the enthusiasm high.

If Chaosium can get back Stormbringer and build on it to create a complete Eternal Champion series, with full on colour presentation and a refined modern system that would be the best news of all for me.

Excellent recording here - news for all Chaosium games!

Not that much of a surprise, to be honest. Shame about the redundant old Elric/Stormbringer material though.

So, when is the kickstarter happening? I'm excited by this one!

Why do you not consider Judge Dredd to be cyberpunk? Pretty much all the tropes - high tech, low life - are the same, it's just the comic strip is a bit more, well, comic-strip like. You'll note that Ridley Scott worked in close consultation with Phillip K. Dick on the Bladerunner film before he died shortly after. In interviews, Dick said that this was precisely the image he had in mind. The film is different in plot to the book, but the dystopian imagery isn't. The concepts of the Matrix were largely dictated by the technology of the time. Cronenberg's Videodrome made satire about the 'video nasty' phenomena of the time, but he was still exploring the nature of neural pathways in his own way.

Personally, I think many of the tropes of Cyberpunk evolved from A Clockwork Orange. One can also cite things like Cronenberg's Videodrome. Bladerunner is also sometimes referred to as the definitive cyberpunk movie, but of course it's based on Phillip K Dick's novel from the 60s. The Matrix was apparently referenced in a 1970s episode of Doctor Who. Judge Dredd had been around in 2000AD comics since 1977. I'm not arguing that Gibson's work was not influential, but he's more of a nexus point of different influences coming together - which then inspired a genre fad to follow.

Sounds like it was a fun event. Unfortunately, here in NZ, it's been a low key week where little information was garnered about the future of RuneQuest! I did enjoy the Call of Cthulhu seminar video, though.

While I have to be honest in saying I'd prefer the grittier percentile rules of RuneQuest for Glorantha (and any other fantasy game, actually), I do feel that the HeroQuest rules are ideal for the supers genre. If Chaosium ever decide to re-do SuperWorld, I'd actually like to see the HeroQuest rules as the basis, rather than BRP.

All of this is really positive, inspiring stuff. Bit wary of another Kickstarter, I have to say, but I guess it's inevitable if you want to see a top quality, full colour (?) product.

Personally, I'd like to see CoC7E expanding through a lot of different era books, including Invictus. It has been hinted at in the Through The Ages supplement anyway.

There was a Kickstarter for a BRP Punktown rpg. We've been waiting about three years now for it to deliver....

I think the big thing that needs to be said when comparing RQ2 to the current version of D&D is, well, 35 years of development. Compare RQ2 to OD&D and it makes a lot more sense. I do think they need to tidy up the relationship between skills and characteristic scores though, as when I've tested out the chargen with groups I play with it has been a frustration. Every characteristic score ought to make some difference in play. In the case of the combat system, I just think there needs to a concerted effort to make it as intuitive as possible, especially with regards to table referencing which needs to be minimalised.

Looking at RQ2, and then King Arthur Pendragon, it's certainly something I would consider - moving the core mechanic to D20. Then again, backwards compatibility...

Anybody who is a potential customer is also a potential playtester, and I'd hate to think that the game wouldn't be the best potential game it could be.