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Are there significant differences between Rune Quest editions? I ask because I sometimes see used older material for sale but don't want to have to spend time doing a bunch of conversions to make it useful.

Thalaba made a list of differences between RQ3 & RQ6: http://basicroleplaying.com/runequest/runequest-6th-edition-2927/#post50439

Also, lawrence.whitaker aka Loz, one of the authors of Mongoose Runequest II/Legend and RQ6 wrote about the differences between the two latest editions of the game: http://basicroleplaying.com/runequest/legend-vs-runequest-6-a-2509/#post50126

If you are at all familiar with the BRP-system, as you seem to be, all conversions should be really easy and straightforward.

Is there a particular edition of Rune Quest that is supposed to be superior, and why?

Not really. Many people still swear by (Chaosium) RQ2 of 1978, whereas a lot of people consider RQ6 the greatest. I have always liked (Avalon Hill/Chaosium) RQ3 'cause that is what I grew up with and have played the most, but really like the 6th Edition a lot. It all comes down to personal preference, although many disliked Mongoose RQI and felt the second version was a great improvement.

All in all, all the versions of RuneQuest are largely compatible, conversions on the fly shouldn't present any great problems even to less experienced GMs.

Can anyone explain why the Design Mechanism Runequest has so few reviews (in fact only 3 listed on their own site: http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/runequest.php)...yet a D&D retroclone like Dungeon Crawl Classics has about 30 reviews on their page (Dungeon Crawl Classics)?

Google shows about the same ratio of hits if you do searches there.

So, I'm just curious what is or isn't going on? Maybe Runequest people are so busy playing that they don't have time to review? Or is really that few BRP/Runequest players? Or none of the above?

Sorry, can't explain that, but here's a short review I wrote for these forums: My Short (?) Review After Reading RuneQuest 6th Edition Core Rules

I still haven't actually played RQ6 yet, but we did port Luck/Hero Points to our ongoing heroic Dragon Age RuneQuest 3 campaign to increase character survivalibility and enable more heroic or lucky outcomes.

Actually, in Legend there is a similiar, but a little bit more complicated system. You roll the Skill checks every year in stead of just when entering the "age band" and negative modifiers for "life experience" such as Disease or Insanity. And you only lose 1d2 / missed roll.

If you don't have Legend yet, you should get it. After all, the PDF is only USD 1.00: Legend - Mongoose | Legend | DriveThruRPG.com

Relative not absolute skills? What do you mean by this?

I think he means that the resistance levels are set by to the skill level of the heroes, whereas in HQ1 the resistance to pray for a miracle directly from (the Invisible) God is always 10m9, for example.

I was wondering if it was Avalon Hill or Games Workshop. Is there a difference between those two?

I think both have the same content, except GW version is missing the Glorantha material. Art is different.

No, there isn't one, although some BRP-related games, like Mongoose Elric have them. You could just print/copy the tables you need and glue them to a piece of cardboard.

RuneQuest 6 has half page rules for ageing. There are five Age Bands from Early Middle Age (40-49 for humans) to Dotage (90+). As characters pass into new bands, they must make both Endurance and Willpower checks that get more difficult by band. Failure means they lose 1d3 in a characteristic.

So it is a rather simple system and it only affects characteristics.

What is RQ3+? Was that the Game Designers Workshop edition?

Like it says right there:

RQ3+, RQ3 with a healthy dose of stuff adapted from HQ, Legend, BRP and house rules.

So it is soltakss's homebrew system based on RuneQuest 3rd Edition (Avalon Hill/Games Workshop) with additional stuff on the top.

Check out RuneQuest 6, Chapter 5: Economics & Equipment, p. 100, Equipment Manufacturing and Quality and particularly the sidebar Using the Task Rules in Other Circumstances, p. 102.

And the upcoming Monster Island for RuneQuest 6 will contain a lot of monsters.

Never mind, its working (for) now.

I'm having trouble accessing the site; anybody else? Maybe OpenQuestRPG.com is overloaded due to everybody getting their full draft PDF, or maybe its just me. Thankfully I was able to download mine before the problem started.

Or autocorrect gone mad. He also wrote "Magic Aworld", which seems more like a phone typo than a keyboard typo.

Yes. I don't have a "smart" phone, so it didn't occur to me, but it is quite possible that it is an autocorrect mistake. Whichever the case, however, I declare yesterday "Hassium Day". From now on Hassium (and Hs for short) is our inside joke nick/codename for our beloved RPG provider and everybody better start using it!

At least I think Zomben directed you to the Chaosium online store. He wrote 'Hassium', which I think is a typo.

I think its a joke/nickname, not a typo.

I just finished reading the free quickstart, and I didn't notice the base attributes affect the skills in anyway. Are skills completely unaffected by the base attributes? Maybe there are optional rules in the full core rulebook for this?

Yes, in the default rules the Characteristics do not affect skills in any way, except four (if I counted correctly) whose starting percentage is based on a Stat: Own Language (INT/EDUx5%), Gaming (INT+POW), Dodge (DEXx02%) and Projection (also DEXx02%).

There is, however, the optional rule Skill Category Bonuses that give a small bonus to each category based on the Stats.

Also, each stat except SIZ has a related Characteristic Roll, which is usually 5 times the stat as a percentage, unless the GM makes the situation more difficult. These are Effort for STR, Stamina for CON, Idea for INT, Luck for POW, Agility for DEX, Charisma for APP and Know for EDU. These can be used when there is no applicable skill to handle a situation. E.g. if a character needs to stay awake during a watch after a long march they will roll for Stamina, perhaps with a penalty.

Stats are also used to resist stuff like poison and magic on the resistance table, so they are useful, even if they don't affect skills much.

Figured as much...

For BRP Ravenloft you might want to chech out this thread on RPG.net. As it turns out Chaot is running a Ravenloft campaign using Magic World, the "new" fantasy iteration of BRP.

Darned. I took advantage of the discounts and placed an order, only to noticed I had accidentally purchased one electronic book I had no intention to. I also managed to download it before realizing what had happened. Does anybody know if Chaosium will accept a "return" of the PDF? They probably won't, which is understandable, but I thought I might ask you guys here before embarassing myself by trying to contact Chaosium.

Number three, thank you very much. REH is always amazing.

A lot of Glorantha has been covered over the years, especially if you consider all the fanzines and other un- or semi-official sources. But you are correct in saying that there are a lot of new things and new worlds to discover. This is because the world is so large that in many places the published material has only scratched the surface. However the upcoming Guide to Glorantha will contain an enormous amount of new information on places never detailed before. This will not diminish the opportunity to discover, however, because, you know, Your Glorantha Will Vary.

Edit: BTW, what was the (dumb?) question mentioned in the title? :-)

Is this safer than the same title for MRQ2 ?

I believe there is no MRQ2 version of The Player's Guide. I haven't read the book, so I don't know about the "safety". You should probably ask your GM's opinion on what is safe to read and what is not.

Where can I find common knowledge on Glorantha.

Try these:

• The old Glorantha.com at Moon Design (especially The Travels of Biturian Varosh and Cosmology and History)
  
• Player's Guide to Glorantha for MRQ1; Second Age
  
• Gloranthan Folk Tales at Etyries.com
  
• HeroQuest Voices at Etyries.com; Third Age
  
• [Glorantha] Tell me about it like I'm a 3-year-old, a thread at RPG.net forums
  

Yes, for gritty realism RQ3 is a good choice.

"Magic numbers" seem arbitrary to me.

(It was straight off the top of my head, but seems to hold up under scrutiny - probably only down to 5%, the standard minimum, though).

Why isn't the 5% magic number inelegant and arbitrary, I wonder?

Doesn't my stating the "extra parries halve chance each time" idea above count as 'presented for consideration'?

Sure, but it doesn't count as a 'better solution.'