threedeesix

Still in layout and art is still coming in. I will say that I think it looks absolutely fantastic however.

Thanks for your interest Trentin, its getting closer everyday.

Rod

Wow, I'm actually shocked that this is being disagreed with.

In just a few short months RuneQuest 6 will no longer exist under that name. It will instead be using a new name not related to RuneQuest in any way. Legend, Magic World, Open Quest, Revolution, and many more have folders that can easily be found. Why does the soon to be renamed Design Mechanism game have to be relegated to a folder that a year from now a new player will not even know it has anything to do with?

Rod

6 hours ago, Jeff said:

I'm going to be a contradictory voice in this. I think the folder should remain RQ, as a quick scan shows plenty of discussion of RQ2 and RQ3, as well as discussion of ALL editions. And I suspect there will be plenty of rules discussions for the new version of RuneQuest later this year.

I'd recommend that the new Design Mechanism game should get its own folder under its own name.

But that was my point Jeff. Since 2012 this folder WAS the folder for the Design Mechanism's games. It was renamed only recently to RuneQuest Gateway. My point was that there needs to be two folders. And as there are 4 years of posts that pertain to the Design Mechanism's games in this folder, it would be easier for Trif to put this one back to what it was, and move the more recent posts to a "new" RuneQuest Gateway folder, that's all.

Rod

1 hour ago, Ryasin said:

That goes for me as well. Finished spells makes it so much easier to get people in my group to play. As much as they love writing house rules then they simply can't start out with freeform or toolbox magic....

Will non magic classes, such as fighter, have any special abilities to use power for?

All classes have traits and abilities that harken to AD&D. They are essentially regular RQ careers, just larger than life with special abilities and are reserved for player characters and important NPCs. Most normal NPCs will simply be built using the rules as presented for careers (when they warrant that much detail of course).

Classes with non-magical abilities will typically have other (non-magic point) methods of limiting the use of said abilities. The fighter has all kinds of weapon mastery abilities, none of which cost magic points to use for example.

Rod

Classic Fantasy adapts most of the staple spells such as magic missile, fire ball, color spray, shocking grasp, cure minor wounds, magic mouth, etc.

There are easily over 150 classic spells.

RQ Classic Fantasy goes into greater detail on subterranean adventuring and includes new rules for infravision, torches and lanterns, squeezing into tight spaces, tons of example traps, finding secret and concealed doors, breaking down doors, and securing doors, and treasure tables, lots and lots of treasure tables.

Your familiarity with my BRP Classic Fantasy gives a good starting point as RQ Classic Fantasy is organized exactly the same way, just with loads more of it.

You might want to check out my Yahoo group, specifically the files section, it includes several samples from the book, including some monsters, classes, spells, and magic items. Plus some of my playtesters have posted session reports. These do lack game mechanics however.

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info

23 minutes ago, Ryasin said:

With Runequest 6 the approach is very much a tool box that gives you a lot of options to fine tune the rules to your settings, but on the con side it leads to a "lot" of work before play.  Here I am thinking of fighting styles, weapon groups, cults and what spells they have access to.  I know that setting books remedy this and do the work for you but what about Classic Fantasy? Will it take the same approach or will there be defined examples of these things? Or maybe a seperate settings book for a Classic Fantasy line?

 

Classic Fantasy isn't written in any form of tool box approach. Instead it uses the RuneQuest 6th Edition rules to setup a set of established rules that are ready to play "out of the box". That isn't to say that some specific settings wouldn't need some additional tweaking, Dragon Lance and Dark Sun for example, but to play a typical Greyhawk or Forgotton Realms type game, there should be little to no prep needed.

27 minutes ago, Ryasin said:

Also, will the basis of it be older D&D versions, like the BRP Classic Fantasy, with things like Clerics using blunt weapons, Alignment restrictions on certain classes and so on. Or newer versions that removed some of these restrictions? While I know its down to each GM to change as they want, then I am just curious about which inspiration you are drawing from.

I based pretty much everything on 1st and 2nd edition and all that entails. However, I note at several points in the book that restrictions are guidelines, so that everyone is starting from the same baseline. One of the iconic characters found in the rules is a half-elven berserker, which itself is not typically allowed by the rules. If I can break them, feel free to do so yourself.

Many of the restrictions are Passions and Oaths as detailed in RuneQuest 6th Edition, which gives them more internal consistency then the rules as they are normally written in other games.

Rod

Thanks Trif

Please rename this forum page RuneQuest 6 and re-name it when the Design Mechanism releases the new name of their flagship product. Then create a new forum page for RuneQuest Glorantha.

Sorry Trif, I know this will mean pulling lots of threads that pertain to RQG and moving them. But this forum page was originally set up to cover the Design Mechanisms product and no one will be able to find the numerous threads that it already contains for the Design Mechanism's products by this time next year. That includes all of the existing threads for Classic Fantasy, Chronicles of Future Earth, Luther Arkwright, Mythic Britain, Shores of Korantia, The Taskan Empire, and Monster Island, just to scratch the surface. You go back to even page 2 and all of the posts pertain to RQ6.

Rod

Actually, I was always partial to the one-per-page creature write-ups. It goes back to the AD&D Monstrous Manuals.

Rod

1 minute ago, ReignDragonSMH said:

What did you think of of the second format vs. the first ones I did? I like the newer format better (bokemono and cormoran giant) and feel like it will look better in the book. I will convert all of them over and use the second format for the new beasties going forward. 

Oh wow, I hadn't gotten that far. That's even better. Great job.

Rod

Hey Sean,

Just wanted to say that I like the creature/race write-ups. Its a nice format.

I did notice however that most of your averages as detailed on the typical creature are not true to the average that would be produced by rolling the dice. 2d6+6 for example will produce an average of 13 not 14, 2d6+8 should be 14 not 15, and 2d6+4 should be 11 not 12 for example.

The easiest way to figure it when averaging 2 dice is to determine the low average and high average and add them together. So 2d6 would average a 3 and a 4 for a 7, then add any bonus points.

No disrespect if you already knew this and their just typos, I just wanted to point it out incase you didn't know.

Like what I see though,

Rod

Edit: Sorry, I thought I posted this in the critters thread. Moved.

15 hours ago, nDervish said:

Agreed, but it goes both ways.  I like to game in worlds that feel plausible.  If other people at the table are constantly going off and doing things which would be implausible if the game setting were real, then it's no fun for me.  And a lot of the stereotypical tick-hunting examples strike me as implausible.

True, but you cant just quote part of my post and not the part relevant to your argument, I also said...

"If the players can come up with some rational as to why they need to use the skill in a particular situation..." 

Rod

I have personally never seen a problem with tick boxes. However that may simply be because I never had a problem with tick hunting.

If the players can come up with some rational as to why they need to use the skill in a particular situation, they should be able to check off the skill as far as I'm concerned. As a game master, its not my player's job to keep me happy, its my job to run a game that keeps them happy. If they really enjoy seeing their characters develop at the end of every session, then damn it, their going to. If they feel the need to switch from their battle axe to their longsword in the middle of a pitched battle, just to have a chance to check off the skill (and their willing to waste a round doing so), then so be it.

Its a game, and games should be fun. I let each group determine what's fun for them, and we go from there. If I have to police the game just so its fun for me, then its fun for no one.

Rod

Ok. the Kickstarter has been over for more then an hour now and I have yet to get my books. I have gone out to the mail box no less then three times. This is unacceptable.

But seriously, congrats.

Rod

1 hour ago, Baulderstone said:

I think starting archetypes are an entirely different thing to niche protection. I like starting archetypes because it can be a hassle as a new player to have a big fat pile of skill points to distribute. I don't have Classic Fantasy, as I am waiting for the RQ6 (or whatever its called now) version. It doesn't sound any more restrictive than being a member of a cult in RQ.

To me its only niche protection if you pick an archetype and are stuck in it. 

Actually, I used the rules for Cults to design the various classes. If you know how Cults work, you already know how classes work. The only difference is that instead of Cults and Brotherhoods, Classic Fantasy refers to them as Orders and Guilds.

Rod

4 hours ago, K Peterson said:

If your players are happier with their characters having their own archetypical "thing" then maybe D&D, Vampire, and Savage Worlds are just better options for them, and BRP won't work for them. BRP doesn't work for everyone, clearly.

Sorry but I have to disagree.

BRP Classic Fantasy was the best selling non-Cthulhu Monograph published by Chaosium for the last five years of the Monograph run. It included Classes featuring all of the archtypes made famous by AD&D. Obviously, someone liked and used them.

I would rather have a BRP/RuneQuest/D100 game that says, "hey, come check this out, it has all the archtypes your already familiar with, but uses a much better system", then say, "sorry, we cant help you, but enjoy your D&D, Vampire, and Savage Worlds".

Obviously, Classic Fantasy and its Classes cater to a certain type of gamer and isn't necessarily for everyone, but that type of gamer happens to be the largest demographic in this industry, and we could use a few more of them.

Rod

4 hours ago, g33k said:

Why do I call this a "feature" rather than a "bug"?  Because it "feels right," like that's how it (mostly) SHOULD be.  Consider the "adventuring party" -- a party of armed to and beyond "normal military" standards, with additional "penetrate hard target" and "explore/evaluate unknown" specializations.  The closest real-life analogues I envision are something in the "special forces" military/intelligence/CovertOps domains, and those guys ARE all exceptionally combat-ready, exceptionally stealthy, exceptionally good at climb/etc...  95% in the core skills of EVERY adventuring "character class".   Sure, there's some "niche" but they are RARELY in-use compared to session-oriented RPG play:  One guy might be the "best" demolitions guy on a SpecialOps team, but few of them will be less than competent at it, etc.

It really all depends on "how" classes are handled in a particular game.

As mentioned, both BRP Classic Fantasy and the upcoming RQ Classic Fantasy utilize classes. But there are no built in limits to the skills a class can or cannot use. Yes, one class may be the better at climbing walls and picking locks, and have some "special abilities" that support that, but there is no reason that the parties cleric or fighter can't have the same skills in excess of 90% or even higher.

So as you mentioned; "One guy might be the "best" demolitions guy on a SpecialOps team, but few of them will be less than competent at it." This can easily be handled with classes if their not done in a restrictive manner.

Rod

I played my fair share of RoleMaster and MERP back in the day. I did enjoy the level of lethality it offered, something not common to other level based systems.

I still remember a poster for RoleMaster in the local hobby shop, it read:

RoleMaster; Because Fighters Don't Kill Dragons... Criticals Kill Dragons.

Rod

The professions in Traveller were just templates to begin your game. Actually, the original Traveller "little black books" didn't even have a character advancement system after the game began if I recall. All character advancement took place during character creation and there was no actual change once play began. It's been a while however, so I could be wrong.

Rod

While I wouldn't want to diminish the part that RQ played on the history of role playing games and agree that it did play a huge part. I would like to point out that Steve Jackson's GURPS followed a different design path, one that predates RQ by as much as one year.

GURPS was an evolution of Steve Jackson's earlier The Fantasy Trip from 1980, which was an expansion of both Wizard (1978) and Melee (1977).

As Melee predated RQ by a year, and included things that were later incorporated by RQ, I would question who got the idea from whom, as Melee had such innovations as non-level based advancement, non-escalating hit points, armor that reduces damage, skill rolls, and a tactical combat system.

Again, I love RuneQuest and all things BRP, but like many of the users on this forum, I was there and remember all to well the early days of the hobby, and just wanted to point out this piece of history.

Rod

22 hours ago, trechriron said:

This is going to be amazing, I can already tell. :-D

I can't take this pressure right now. 

Rod

Thanks Fingolfin80, and everyone else.

Editing is done. Its currently in layout. Art for it is coming in at a rate of about 2 or 3 AWESOME pieces a day.

I "think" Loz posted on another forum that it is looking like a Q1 2016 release. But if I'm mistaken, I'm sure he'll chime in.

Thanks for your interest,

Rod

This looks very interesting.

I'll be ordering a hardcover after the holidays.

Rod