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Some of us have. I think about half the people I've gamed over the years have read Lord of the Rings. Few have read much more than that or kep up with the lore. Most of the people I've know who are familar with Lord of the Rings, think Gandalf is a human with magical powers, and do not understand what he really is. All the more reason to get things down. There are differences between the books, movies, and TV series. Some of which are very significant I don't play RQG, so I have to ask- why? Can PCs die in character generation ala Traveller, or do the players give up in chargen because of excessive backstory? Either way, it would seem to apply to RQG in general, and not just to a Middle Earth adaptation. Then I guess we disagree on this. I get the idea of wanting to play rather than writing up rules and background, but it's the GM's job to be prepared and prepare the players. There are four RPGs for playing in Middle Earth (MERP, LOTR, TOR, AIME), plus many FRPGs that were heavily influenced by Middle Earth. If someone is in a rush to play then those game exist. But just shoehorning Middle Earth into another game system without really considering how to do so is going to be a disappointing experience. Like all those AD&D supplements where they converted various fantasy and historical settings to AD&D, and they all ended up playing and feeling like AD&D rather than the intended setting. If a group is determined to play in Middle Earth using RQG then they are going to have to do the prep work. Sam with any established setting.

Yeah, Pendragon is very similar (probably because it was used as inspiration for RQG). Doing up Family History Tables could be a chore (I did just that for my last Pendragon campaign, which pushed the starting date back to around 410), but I think with Middle Earth it won't be as bad to set up, as Tolkien wrote up extensive timelines that would be of great help. Yes, but that is going to be the case anyway. By running Middle Earth with RQG (or pretty much any RPG that hasn't borrowed heavily from Tolkien) a GM is going to have to do a lot of work to make the game fit the setting. But then they lose out on the history and details that make the setting appealing in the first place. A GM can't really get away with playing fast and loose with the One Ring, or the major characters. A GM either has to embrace the lore, or set the campaign away from the people and events that made people want to game there. Now if a GM can get the players to write up characters from one area/culture they can start small, and won't need to go into a lot of detail about everything (much like what Tolkien did by using Hobbits as the main characters and making everyone else strangers), but they will need something to act as a foundation. Otherwise the campaign will just fell like yet another generic fantasy game. I've seen more than one gamer drop back into D&D mode while playing in Middle Earth.

Good reason. I think this could mostly be covered by tossing out the Rune abilities that came with RQG. RQ Spirirt/Battle Magic, Rune/Divine Magic and Sorcery work out okay functionally. Maybe. It might be better just to ignore Rune inspriations and instead give some trait options based upon culture. That's what The One Ring does with Traits and it helps to capture the fell of the various cultures. You kinda lose some of the charm of the setting that way. As Middle Earth is a setting with a detailed and extensive timeline, I think it would be better to redo the family history tables to reflect the setting. It would be great to be able to tie the PCs to the great battles and events of the age. I think that is mostly true. It worth remembering though that there are those who use magic of some sort in the setting as well as weapons with heroic/magic properties. A GM would need to have some idea of how to handle the Witch King of Angmar and such. Yes, the original Magic World from Worlds of Wonder did just that, using the Gloranthan species as the base templates for generic FRPG elves, dwarves, etc. But the species of Middle Earth and not quite the same as their generic FRPG counterparts. For instance, Elves in Middle Earth, especially the Calaequendi, are tall, taller than most men and so would have a higher SIZ that the typical RQ Elf. So to do the setting justice a GM should adapt the system to the setting, which is pretty much the approach Chaosium used in the past for game such as Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, ElfQuest, etc. BTW, on a related note I do have some Middle Earth species writeups for RQ3 that I did up back in the 90s. It's not RQG, was a first or second draft, is about 30 years old, has some errors in it, was supposed to be modified with some rule changes that got left of the hard drive of an Atari ST, but they might be of some use. I think I still have the weapon crafting rules that went with it, too. I could post or upload it, assuming I could find it. I think I sent it to someone on the forums a couple of years ago.

I agree. I liked the earlier edition from C7 as well. IMO The One Ring captures the fell of Middle Earth better than any of the other games that have tackled the setting. It would certainly be something I would lean into if trying to run Middle Earth in RQ/BRP too. The game does a great job of combining the homespun, down to earth aspect of Middle Earth, with the more fantatical elements.

LOL! I think we are on the same page here. Ki Skills were something I was thinking about when I typed that text. But basically my point is that a lot of what is considered to be magical in a generic FRPG sense, isn't specifically noted as such in Tolkien's works. Instead such items are noted as being of superior craftsmanship. RQ's Land of the Ninja's Ki skills isn't out of place for Middle Earth. Neither would be the Lineage rules for magic weapon as presented in Pendragon's Saxons!, where just being the weapon of a famous person adds to a weapon's effectiveness. Probably because both approaches hack back to legendary items in Earth's history, all of which have some sort of backstory and not just something picked up at the local shop. Ki skills could also account for some of the superhuman abilities possessed by the Eldar. Legloas' archery skills, especially in the Peter Jackson films, could easily by explained in RQ terms via Ki skills (although the extremely long lifespan of elves could justify insanely high skill scores too.

Kinda. Just what constitutes "magic" is hard to pin down in Tolkien. Much of what the Elves do is considered to be magic by the hobbits and men. So in game terms a elven cloak,boots or rope might be treated as magical or not. A similar case exists for Elven and Numenorean weapons that are know to be more effective against creatures of the Enemy, such as Glmabring or Sting. Much of what is considered as magical are items that are superior at what they are supposed to do, but aren;t specfically as being magical in the text. So we have some wiggle room there. An effect thast works like Bladesharp might be magical or it might be the result of a highly skilled smith making good crafting rolls. Game system wise, you might want to consider using a more generic version of RQ/BRP as you base system, as RQG is more deeply entwined with Glorantha that other BRP games. I think RQ3, Stormbringer/Elric/Magic World, or BRP would all be easier to adapt to Middle Earth.

Welcome to the GM club. Uh, why? Seriously, every GM with any experience has messed something up badly, at least once, and most have done it multiple times. Being a good GM doesn't;t mean that you never mess up, it means that you try to learn from your mistake to avoid repeating it, and do what you can to correct the error. A bad GM isn't one who makes mistakes, but one who refuses to fix them, either out of ego or fear or looking like they have failed. Really it's a learning curve. I think a lot of new GMs are too hard on themselves (and some experienced players are too hard on new GMs) and expect to be able to do everything as good as an experienced GM. That's just not being fair. Situations like this are how GMs learn. So you have learned from your mistake and are doing what you can to correct it. Sounds like you good GM to me. I bet you won't make the same mistake again, and be a bit more hesitant about upping the opposition in the future. Judging what a group is capable of handling is one of the toughest skills for a GM to master, as the line between challenge and slaughter is fairly thin. Mostm if not all, of us have similar horror stories.

Wow, were are you located? I gamed in the Northeast U.S. and the DI houserule was as common to all the AD&D groups as the critical hit/natural 20 does does damage houserule. It was so prevelant that most people just assumed it existed unless told otherwise. I'd think a Runelord is at least a Lvl 10-11 character based upon the relative combat skill. A Runlord needs a 90%+ weapon skill, and to have a 90% base chance to hit in D&D would require a fighter to be at least level 8. That ignore attribute modifiers, specialties and such, but it also ignores Armor Class. But basically if they are uspposed to be master swordsmen they must be highly skilled and thus high level. More like Macintosh to Golden Declicious. Both do the same thing, simulate heroic fantasy world combat, but they do so in different ways. I don't know if RQ is more "realistic", per say. I've never seen anyone cast fireblade, or have thier allied spirirt do so for them in real life. I get your point, but RQ isn't all that more "realistic" than D&D. It's grittier and have a higher element of risk to them. Yeah, but for you to be dfown in the first place is the tough bit. 10th level fighter vs. 1HD monster is a foregone conclusion in D&D. It's mostly so in RQ/BRP but not quite. Pretty much anybody can fall to a single lucky critical and that is a game changer. You're still assuming that the guy is down, which is what probably wouldn't happen in D&D. Additionally, being dead isn't quite as inconvenient in D&D that in RQ/BRP. D&D has a lot of magic to bring character from the dead, so even if the mook offs a PC the other PCs can bring them back easily enough. Even the Rurik situation of being killed before coming back would just mean that a cleric would be inconvenienced and have to raise Rurik again. In RQ such magic is much rarer and most other version of BRP don't even have coming back from the dead as an option. Uh, it's a non feature. First off mook has to drop the PC. This is the tough bit. Secondly mook kills downed PC, easy bit. Thirdly, non of the other PCs do anything about it. Generally speaking, once you reach a certian level in D&D, unless you have a Total Party Kill, death is only an setback. Hmm, the guy used to post on this forum. Maybe he's still lurking and could post the details? But then, I haven't seen him around for over a decade. Yes, it's seconday becuase it's not a featuee of RQ, but of game mechanics in general. Basically the more attempts you make the higher your chances of eventually failing. It gets pointed out a lot with action heroes, comic book characters and such. It's the infitinte monkeys/Hamet thing. Mathematically speaking, if you shoot at James Bond or the Batman enough, you will eventually hit and kill them. But if that were to happen it would end the series, so it doesn't happen. Or it jet's retcooned or rebooted. If the mooks kill off the PCs at too high a rate, you run out of PCs. Because it kills a campaign and causes players to stop playing. Now the trick is to provide enough of a risk that it could happen to keep the game existing, but not have it happen enough to disrupt the game. It's the same reason why the NPCs doen't have skill scores assigned randomly. Realistically, a fledgling PC could run into a master swordsman in his first fight, but that doesn't happen in games because it makes for a bad game. Oh, I agree. Let the dice fall where they may, and deal with the consequences, unless your group is using hero points or DI or something. I recall one infamous weekend when I rolled up and lost five characters. All due to the GM rolling a lucky critical hit in the first combat. It happens, and it did derail those games- just going through chargen five times will do that. I was fine with it though because without the risk of that happening the game wouldn't have been an exciting and my accomplishments would have felt empty since they would have been rigged. But most of the protection/screening comes is the adventure design, not in the gameplay. They are written such that they PCs have a better than average chance of success. The PCs rareley if over, are over matched in skil and ability. Becuase it bad storytelling and bad gaming to just beat down the heroes every time. Not quite anything. In fact, a lot of what can and will happen is clearly spelled out. Much of what makes Glorantha interesting is stuff that is pre-written pre-ordianed, and involves heroes who overcome the odds and accomplish great things. That's what makes them appealing. SO you have a narrative, a highly structured adventures, player characters with free will, along with some form of randomizers (usually dice), and they don't always mix well. Player death can ruin an adventure, depending on where and when, and how much depended upon that player character. The more of a heroic campaign you are going for the more difficult such events can be. If you are running a "generic" game where the PCs are adventueres who don't affect the big picture much, and everything can be allowed to play out however the dice fall, then yeah, PC death isn't that big a thing to the campaign. But if the game is story focused and a PC has a major role then death can ruin not only an adventure but a campaign. It's not long chargen, it's player investment. Once the character starts to develop, no matter when, they player gets invested and doesn't wan't to loose that character. But, conversely they want (and need) to be put at risk and overcome obstacles in order for the adventures to be exciting and satisfying. My last group was playing Tunnels & Trolls a game where chargen takes about ten minutes, yet players who got invested in thier characters didn't want to lose them. Yes, but that is because no one wants to see a movie where the main characters get killed off half way through, and the bad guys win. But by that logic it's not good for Glorantha either. Basically most of the heroes tend to do things that defy the odds. That's why they are heroes. And that's why we find thier stories compelling. Now they can do so because their stories were written and the authors made sure things went as desired for the story. But if thing were all done organically, it probably wound't have come out as well. Same with PCs. Players play RPGs to play larger than life characters who can do things they can't, and who can beat the odds. But if they odds were really against the PCs they would be beaten pretty early on. So most games cheat and stack the deck in the PCs favor. Now you might thing that you don't stack the deck and run everything "fair" but adventures aren't written to be "fair", they are written so that the players have a good chance of succeeding. What if the Empire blows up the Falcon before they make the jump to lightspeed? That's the thing with a narrative/story type of advenure with heroic PCs wo are needed for something. If they fail then the universe fails with them. And the same thing can happen in RQ, if the PCs are that important to the course of events. Now if they aren't that important, that's fine, but they limits them to being minor players in the story. But that isn't a feature of RuneQuest so much as you choice of GMing style. Which is fine, as long as you understand what it means, and also what that means with dice and multiple attempts. What it means with adventures design and so on. I'm not opposed to that style, in fact, I run fairly similar to that with a lot of games (the type of campaign/genre/setting influences the style of play). As far as the difference between RQ and D&D they are also fine, as long as people realize and accept them. Over the years I've seen a lot of D&D players, who tried some other RPG and then got very unhappy when the tactics they used in D&D didn't work in the game they were playing. Rather than realize this and change their tactics, they would get upset and blame the GM or game. I've wiped out scores of PCs who though a frontal change was the best tactic to use against missile troops. That tactics makes sense in AD&D where fighter have lots of hit points, archers only get off a couple of shots before being engaged, and arrows do 1d6. That tactic doesn't make as much sense in RQ where hit points are fixed, archers can get off several shots before the opponent can close, and missile weapons can impale. It makes even less sense when the archers are on battlements, and is just suicidal when the missile troops have assault rifles and an M2HB machine gun. And yes, I've seen D&Ders charge a fort and a machine gun in order RPGs and be surprised when they got mowed down.

You're missing the point. The point is when gaming we want the risk of of death to make the fights exciting but we also don't really want our PCs taken out by a random mook and ruin the adventure. For example, image how Star Wars would have gone if one of those Strotroopers had actually hit Han Solo before he took off in the Falcon? In order to have an excting game we want that element of risk, but conversely in order to have a satify adventure, no to mention a campaign, we don't really want that to happen. Much of the design choices and differences between RPGs are about how you balance off those two conflicting goals. Somewhat. I think it had something to do with the way adventures were written and probably applied to early RQ as much as early D&D. Balastor's Barracks and such were dungeon crawls much like with D&D. I think the differences are that RQ quickly expanded beyond the simple dungeon crawl and that PCs can never really be safe in a fight to the same degree as they can in game with increasing hit points and "balanced" encounters. A master swordsman in RQ can almost always be taken out by a lucky critical, while a high level fighter in D&D can't be taken out by one attack from a low level oppoent. True. Player characters can only notice the things that the GM conveys to them, and even then they might not always grasp the significance of what they are told. While the players can work on their perception skills to help with this, the GM gets to design the encounters and can pretty much set the difficulty as desired, or just make something happen. I once had a character get ambushed by forty ninja (!!!) because the GM just sort of made it happen that way, and that was with a character who had superhuman sense ala Daredevil. I did plead my case to the GM and he changed his mind, but it did happen. Mathematically it's about one in four times not "a couple" but I see your point. I'll also point out that weapons break almost as fast in RQ2. I think that is more of a problem with the given WQ ratings rather than the method. Raise WQ by 4 or 5 points and you get much better results. . I don't find any of the various weapon breakages to be congruent with reality. Even plastic toy weapons are more durable than RQ2 weapons. Your forgetting impales and crticals. Even something like arrows can take down a shield, or make it unusable. Skill is a bigger factor. Yes, you can actually parry a pole ax with a dagger. If you do it right, it works out just fine. Problem is what happens when you don't do it right. But keep in mind that defending isn't just standing there and placing your shield or weapon in the way, but can include things like stepping forward and making contact before the oppoent fully extends. It why RQ had the succesful parry damaging a failed attacking weapon rule. Yup. For what is essentially one page of tables it does that wonderfully. Oh, I don't think HArn's injury system is all thatmore complicated that BRP. Basically it comes down to a matrix with 4 sucess levels for each oppoent.; damage vs. armor; and an inury roll based upon the result of the latter. Somewhat, but again it comes down just what is happening. For instance a blow could strike someone off balance and so on. For a real life situation I know hunters who swear that a bullet knocked a deer down, but real world physics proves otherwise. If the shot could knock the deer down, it would also knock them down when they fired the weapon. Newton's third law of motion. But realistically if the pain caused the deer to flinch or jump, and the bullet damaged a leg so that the deer couldn't stand on it - it would sure look like the shot knocked the deer down. Also realistically no one can really send someone flying by whacing them with a mace. Not unless thier the Hulk or something. Well for starters I'd probably go with RQ3 as my base, as I find that preferable to the BRP/Elric method. It's not perfect, but I think it holds up better than any of the other methods used in BRP games. Maybe I'd differentiate between a block and a parry (harder but no weapon damage). Come to think of it BTRC's Timelords did a good job of this. Weapons didn't break all that often, unless the wielder was very strong. Shield did break fairly easily, but had hit locations, so that you'd usually lose a chunk of it rather than having the whole shield go at once. But as you don't want to track weapon AP/HP , I might go with something like the HARN WQ roll, but set the WQ higher so that you have fewer weapon breaking. A steel sword should be tougher than a wooden shield. Maybe even factor in for a partially broken weapon/shield and a completely broken one. Being BRP, I might replace the 3d6 rolls with opposing the WQ's on the Resistance Table. Damage could be based upon the result (critical/special/success/failure/fumble). I'd probably use a two success level hit model for all weapons/shields. That is the losing weapon would be destroyed on a critical or fumble, but only partially damaged (say half damage and WQ/AP) on normal success.failure. Two normal successes/failures would break the weapon though. I''d probably need to consider how much fighting goes in in the campaign, and how often I want weapons to break before I made any decisions though. I mean if the average fight has a PC making five attacks and parries and there only a one in ten chance of weapon breakage the PCs are going to have a hard time (approx 12% chance) keeping a weapon for two fights.

Yes, that's my point. High damage isn't always about an attacking doing more damage, but could be about it doing damage to a more vital location.So a light energy/force attack to a leg probably gives you a limp, but to your skull gives you a concussion, and to your brain gives you a coma. A greatsword might hit with several times the force of, say a .25 caliber bullet, but if the latter goes through someone eye it will do "more damage" in game terms, even if it does less actual damage. A lot of what makes "damage" in the game are the various vulnerabilities of a living body, and wouldn't nor shouldn't translate to a parry object. You can't impale a broadsword with a thrusting dagger.

Depends on what vbersion of D&D you are playing and under what house rules. Most groups that played AD&D had some sort of DI rule, usually along the lines of Level as a percentage. And there are all sorts of raise from the dead/wish type spells that could have gotten him back. But the key point is that high level PCs aren't at nearly as much risk against low level oppoents in D&D than in RQ or other skill based RPGs. Only for massive damage. Rarely if ever for a mook stabbing a body while it's down or already dead. Because the rest really isn't all that relevant. In just about any RPG other RQ the situation couldn't happen. BTW, how did the Trollkin kill Rurik after Rurik called DI but before he got back up? DI should have gone off on SR 0 in RQ2 so Rurik should have been able to defend himself. Now I understand that a PC taking lots of risks is eventually going to fall to something, just by the percentages, but that is secondary to the fact that a hero type PC fell to a mook.

I never said there was anything wrong with it. Only that it wouldn't happen in D&D. Yes he was, as you point out below. So yes, Rurik was killed by a lucky trollkin. But in D&D a lucky trollin plunging a spear into his leg almost certainly wound;'t have done enough damage to kill Rurik. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with it. Just that it the increased level of risk to a PC is inherent with the game system. RQ is just more dangerous to PCs that D&D is. There is nothing wrong with that. People should know how things work in whatever game they are playing. In fact,I'd say that the increased risk is actually a feature of RQ that make it appeal to some layers, myself included. Becuase some NPC could potentially kill any PC, no matter how experienced or skill they are, the fights are always dangerous, and thus exciting. That's not the case in increasing hit point games where the PCs have four times the ability of their typical opponents. My point against Baron Shathur's argument here is with the claim that weapon degradation penalizes the PCs because it is more likely to happen to them to them than to the NPCs. As with many other things it's is really more an unavoidable aspect of the RPG being focused on the exploits of the PCs, and their PCs survival and continued play. Few NPCs are going to have ten attacks made against them over the course of a campaign, where almost every PC will face that over time. It just a byproduct of the NPCs being mostly one-shot opponents, while the PCs are there for every session. I also dispute the claim that they PCs will be adventuring all the time with damaged equipment. In most versions of BRP that track weapon damage, there are ways for the PCs to avoid weapon damage, or to fix or replace their weapons between encounters. FOr instace RQ2 had unbreakable shields and the repair spell, RQ3 had much more resilient weapons and the repair spell, and all versions of BRP allow players to have a spare weapon or shield on hand for when they need it. Not do I see an all or nothing weapon breakage rule as being and less penalizing to the PCs. In fact I would say it has the opposite effect because rather than the PCs weapons degrading they just break, leaving the PCs even more vulnerable. Double so since in most version of RQ/BRP it takes a lot to break a weapon.Even the relatively soft weapons from RQ1-2 could usually stop a couple of hit before breaking.

Exactly. Fate Points/Character Points/Force Points/Hero Points all help to mitigate the slings and arrows of outrageous dice rolls. On one hand we want and need the threat that some random mook could take out a PC in order to make the fights interesting and hopefully exciting, but on the other we don't actually want some random mook to take out a PC. Yeah, it is harder is skill based games compared to level based games where the level of risk can be more tightly controlled. Playing with more realistic game mechanics risks more realistic results. But realistic results aren't what we really want for heroic adventures. No, the most dangerous games are not necessarily those where critical cannot be parried. You cannot parry crticals in D&D, but is hardly more dangerous that RuneQuest. Generally games that have fixed hit points or would levels, where characters are always at risk of being killed or incapacitated by a single hit are more deadly that those where that don't. The infamous Ruirik Runespear vs. Trollkin fight, where a Runelord gets taken out by a random mook, is something that won't happen in D&D to 14th level Paladin facing a 1 hit die goblin. Yes, statistically it could happen in D&D, but in order to do so the Paladin would have to miss the goblin a couple of dozen times while the goblin slowly whittles down the Paladin's hit point, and then stand there for the killing blow, despite seeing how the fight had been going. Statically speaking, the D&D Paladin has a much greater chance of getting struct by Lightning. Agreed, unless there is some in universe justification for it. Actually it does with the differences in Weapon Quality. Which could happen in BRP with your idea of rolling damage vs. AP on the resistance table. Again, that is exactly what could happen in BRP with your oppsing damage against AP idea. It's not far superior, just different. In reality: Defending/Parry an attack isn't just interposing something else to take the hit for you, but instead involves angling your weapon (or shield) to deflect the attack to redirect it away from you. How damaging an a weapon is to a person is not just about "relative impact", force or energy. The body part hit has a lot to do with it. What might be a 2 hit to the chest could be a 8 point hit in someone's eye. Weapons that can impale soft human flesh shouldn't be any harder to stop with a sword, or plate body armor. Impaling weapons someone being weapon and armor piecing. You are oversimplifying everything by assuming high damage must mean high impact. it doesn't. If it did firearm damages would be relatively fixed at a given distance, , and light weapons like daggers could never do more damage than greatswords or halberds. But as "damage" is a combination of many factors (impact, energy/area, sharpness of edge, relative hardness of materials, user skill, point of impact, angle of attack, luck, etc.) then making impact damage roll the only criteria is far from superior.

Yes, but its' not so much about being outnumbered but just the inevitiability of constanlty playing. IUf the PCs always had surpeior numbers they would still suffer more because they are there every session while a given NPC isn't. It's like watching an action TV series where the heroes face death every week, yet always come out unscathed. For instance there is a slight chance of someone decaiptating themseves with a fumble. So if you play long enough it will probably happen to a PC. It's why a lot of things that people intuitively think help their characters (such as improving their skill scores) actually hurts them. If the PCs skills goes up they end up facing more skilled oppoents, which in turn increases the chances of a PC taking a critical hit. The NPCs going from 20-25% to 30% is actually a big deal, statstically. But why would the pCs have degraded equipment? Maybe it's because I go with RQ3 over Elric! but it was rare for a PC to see a weapon degraded. Maybe a shield might lose a point or two, but it didn't happen that often, and when it did the PCs just replaced their shield - often by takening one to the fresh ones conveniently provided by the NPCs. Yes, but why would the PCs bee walking around with degraded equipment in the first place? In RQ3 that rarely happened. It was more common in RQ2, but in RQ2 most people used shields, which didn't have that problem, and knew Repair to fix stuff up. You could do it that way. Or you could just have every attack roll on the resistance table against the weapon's AP. Or you could give the weapons an APx5% roll or some such. I think it's more onerous to implement that the RQ3 method, but it might be less onerous that the RQ2 or Elric! methods. But then I never found RQ3's fatigue system to be all that onerous. Most fights were over long before fatigue became an issue, unless someone was overloaded. But if this works for you and your players go for it. There are lots of ways to handle something like this. HARN's weapon quality roll comes to mind. Weakest weapons rolls against it's WQ and if it fails it breaks. If it succeeds the stronger weapon then rolls against it's WQ.

Any sort of weapon breakage, degradation or otherwise, can be said to penalize the player characters. The same can be said for critical hit and fumble systems. The player characters show up and play each game session, and roll dice, while the NPCs only show up for their key scenes in an adventure. So the PCs will roll the dice much more than the NPCs, and the multiple rolls make it much more likely that a e low percentage thing will occur. In addition, because the PCs are the "stars" of the game, those rolls actually matter, where that might not be the case for one-shot NPCs. Nobody really cares if an extra's shield breaks and he get's run through during the battle, it's just good drama. But when it happens to a player character it can be a campaign altering event. But a lot of things we tend to like in BRP games penalizes the player characters. Just having multiple skills in a campaign penalizes the PCs. NPCs have a defined role in an adventure and will naturally be written up with any skills they need to fill that role. For instance, an NPC pilot will know how to fly, a soldier how to fight, a physician will know how to treat wounds, etc. But players don't really know what skills they will need during their adventures of it they will have those skills at a score high enough to rely upon. So PCs study and improve multiple skills to try and cover potential situations. With shield degradation, especially with the RQ3 armor point model, the degradation really isn't much of an issue to the PCs as it took a lot of damage to actually damage a shield, and PCs could buy new/spare shields and/or cast Repair to fix the ones they have. Of course RQ2 had shields as indestructible, in fact it was one of their major advantages over weapons.

Cool. In that case I certainly hope the do put the RQ3 stuff up as a PDF and or reprint it. I mean, why not? They have first edition Pendragon stuff available and nobody plays tha, and all the adventures were updated to KAP3/4 long ago.

Well, if it has happened long ago I'd have gotten it back then. These days, I would probably ask said ol' timer how to get it, if they had a extra copy ( I gave away at least one RQ3 set, and three Bond rulebooks, plus dice, and I'n sure I'm not the only one) ,or have them list the significant changes to me so that I could adapt a ruleset that I had available. Or maybe, I'd just assume that there would be a PDF available somewhere, as is the case with most old RPGs these days. Or I'd run some other version of RQ/BRP. We are talking about procuring a 40 year old game that been long out of print. Options are limited.This is assuming that I'm an honest person who is restricting myself to legal means of procurement. But then, not everybody has my scruples. The thing is, your hypothetical situation requires that someone be taken with RQ3 enough to want to play it, and enough not to run something that is easily available such as RQ2/RQG/BRP BGB instead. I'm not sure how many people there are like that. Sure, I'll run RQ3 over RQG or most other version of RQ, and I've got a couple of RQ3 boxed sets, but I suspect most people who just go buy the latest version fo RQ/BRP and make do. I really don't think there are that many people out there who like RQ3 enough to want it over RQG. If there were, then I think there'd be a lot more RQ3 activity around here. It's not that I'm unsympathetic to the plight of gamers who want to play long lost games. It's just that some games either won't come back or if they do they must do so on a modified form. Us 'ol timers are very lucky in that we had a chance to buy many great games where they were available. Some of us even had the foresight to buy an extra copy or two when we realized that said games were not going to be around much longer. But there isn't a lot we can do about it, at least not until 2073.

Do they own the text? I though Avalon Hill (or it's successors) did. Remember Chaosium didn't own RQ3, Avalon Hill did. If they do own the text then I'm surprised they didn't make it avlaible as a PDF like most of Chasoiums other older products.

I think you're right, too. Just not for the reasons you state. I think the main reasons are that doing so would probably involve working out who owns the RQ3 text, in order to produce a product that would ultimately compete with their other RQ line, RQG. I'd say RQ3 is superior to RQG, and there are a lot of old Chasoium products that Chaosium has seen fit to make (or keep) available for online purchase that do not live up to current standard in terms of grahpic design, layout, or art. So I suspect it probalby comes down to a rights issue and that the wrok required to make a version of RQ3 that would get around Avalon Hill's rights would probably wouldn't be worth it. Especially since it would most likely just take money and customs away from the RQG line. You don't see much Gloantha HeroQuest stuff anymore either. Nor am I. Just another person making supposition and presenting opinion online.

But it you don't have access to RQ3 why would you want to use it as the base in the first place? You have to have access to RQ3 to know what it is, and what it offers compared to other versions of the game system. I suppose there could be instances where someone's rulebook fell apart over the years (*cough* Strombringer *cough*) and they don't have it anymore, but I suspect most RQ3 fans have a copy. Now I'd love to see RQ3 show up as a PDF on Drivethru or some such, they way most other Chasoium stuff has, but I think that that the Avalon Hill deal probably plays a factor here. Chaosium probably can't just re-release the RQ3/BRP monograph they way they can with all the old stuff that they own outright. I think anyone who wants to run a game based around the RQ3 ruleset can do so. They don't need to provide handouts to the players either. Most of the stuff we had to deal with in our groups was told to us by the GM. At least the stuff that our characters would be expected to know about. Yeah, while I'm not fond of the direction they chose, I have to give them full credit for getting stuff out there. Back in the old days, it had gotten sob ad that many were worried that the BGB was going to be the RPG equivalent of vaporware.

Yes, I know. I commented on the BGB's core roots back when the book came out. My point is why bother to try and turn the BGB into RQ3 when you can just run RQ3 instead? The inter-system compatibly among BRP games measn that if someone wants to use RQ3 as thier core ruleset and port over something from the BGB, Stormbringer, CoC, etc. they can do so. Why? If I recall the posts correctly, the BGB didn't really work out all that well for them. Most GMs want a game with a setting and rule options worked out for them, That seems to be the way things have gone since the BGB. The very GMs who appreciate the toolkit nature of BRP as the same ones who could , and mostly likely already have, mixed and matched various elements of pre-existing Chaosium (and Chaosium related) RPGs into thier previous ruleset. Probably long before the BGB every came out. That would be nice except it overlooks the reasons why Chaosium dropped RQ3, namely that they seem to consider RQ3 to have been a misstep and wanted to move back to a RQ2 core rule system and develop on from there. It's a major reason why I don't follow RQG and why I asked that RQ3, the longest serving "current" iteration of RQ, get it's own subforum to prevent it from being lost and buried by RQG. But, things didn't go that way and now us RQ3 fans are on our own with an "orphan" RPG. Fortunately, we're probably used to that, as it was the status quo for quite some time. IMO it's why RQ GMs are more independent that those of other, better supported game systems. Most of us have had to go it alone for so long that we're used to it. The D&D crowd, for better or worse, never had that sort of situation. While I'm not all that happy with the direction the new Chasoium has gone, and have been quite outspoken about it, I have to give them credit for giving RuneQuest the sort of support it hasn't had in decades. No, they won't. At least I think they won't. Doing so would be a major back step from the direction they are heading. Yes he can, and I know just the city to do it in.😉 But, the thing is, you can do more than just dream. As long as you have the ruleset you want to play, you can play it. You don't need some company to support it. These days most of my favorite RPGs and the ones I run the most all all "orphans". They all play just fine despite the lack of official support. In most cases the games are only orphans because licencing deals expired, and just shows that running a official game based on some pre-existing franchise means that sooner or later a GM will be on their own when the support ends and some new game (or new edition) based on said franchise comes out. It doesn't really matter all that much tough, as the RPG police won't be stoping anyone from playing an RPG that they already own and want to play. So if you got some idealized blend of RQ3 and other BRP products, go for it. It's not like everyone else is going to agree with you, me , or anyone else about what the best version of BRP is anyway. Personally I thing attributes are almost pointless without category modifiers, and that strike ranks lets you do things in combat that you just can't do with DEX ranks, but there are tons of people who disagree with me about that. But, none of the people who disagree with me about that are my GM so who cares? And, I'm not their GM either, so they don't have to put up with any of my choices that they do not like. So we all get to be happy. That's about the best we can do.

Wouldn't it be easier for someone to just run a game based on RQ3 and port over anything from BRP (or other related game) to it? Making an add-on only really makes sense if there are other people who want it. I think the problem here is that anyone who prefers RQ3 (myself included) probably already have RQ3 and so don't really need to buy another BRP version of it. Heck, the last version of BRP prior to the "Big Gold Book" was RQ3 with all the Glroanthan stuff taken out. I think that might be the thing with anyone who prefers to a game closer to some specific BRP game (RuneQuest, Strombringer, Worlds of Wonder, ElfQuest)- namely that said game already exists, and there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Modifying the BPR to better suit a particular setting only makes sense if that has some advantage over using another system- mostly with things/rules that aren't in said existing system.

Not really. Stormbringer added a lot of other stuff such as ripostes and demon abilities and had 1% skill increments before RQ did, so it wasn't all that simpler than RQ2. That came later with Elric!. The RQ method of parring weapons stopping damage points doesn't work against demon weapons that have multiple D6 damage bonuses and can blow by any parrying object in one hit. So unless they wanted demon weapons to cut through parrying objects like a lightsaber they needed another mechanic. Demon weapons were something else that got toned down in Elric!. Not really. Seasoned characters could riposte, which tended to speed up combat greatly. After the first couple of attacks the parry percentages would drop, and even experienced characters were at serious risk of injury -especially as Stormbringer capped skills at 100%. It probably the most cinematic variant of RQ/BRP. If I wanted to run a swashbuckling game or Lightsaber duels in BRP, that would be the way I'd go. Unless you carry a backup weapon, which everyone should probably do unless they got a demon weapon with a high CON. Remember in Stormbringer you could parry and attack with a one handed weapon. The real advantage of a shield in Stormbringer was that it could parry arrows, which a melee weapon could not. Before Elric!, it wasn't as much of an issue as someone could improve shield parry along with weapon attack. It's only from Elric! onward that things got clunky because of combined weapon skills and the new combat matrix. Combined attack and parry means shield improvement comes at the expense of weapon skill, and the new combat matrix means makes success levels and damage to weapons a thing. Who wants to put skill points into shield when they could just double down on their weapon skill? Not many in n a game where players are encourage to start with a weapon skill at 100% or higher. '

To be fair, "better" in this context is highly subjective. Lots of people prefer the method used in Stormbringer or BRP to the one used in RQ2 or RQ3. So it comes down to preferences and trade offs. That's why there are so many threads with so many alternate ways of doing things. I suspect the whole BRP parry mechanic came about because the traditional one used in RQ2 wouldn't have worked in Strombringer, due the the insane damage that demon weapons did in first edition.

Yeah, somewhat. Shields lost most of their benefits they had in RQ in BGB. In RQ shields either didn't break (RQ2) or were on par with a good weapon, but a lot cheaper to replace, plus they helped against missile weapons. Without those benefits though they just become a liability. What if shields just gave a bonus to parry? Then they would always be a defensive advantage to carrying one. You'd think that is would easier to defend against an attack with sword & shield than it would be with just the sword.