Rick Meints

I am Rick Meints, and I don't use a spreadsheet to track my collection! 🙂

1. Yes. 2. Yes, on page 77.

We are working on getting this sorted. You will get a replacement, we just don't have the exact timing yet.

I bought my Squad Leader items back in the early 1980s. I leapt over to it after playing Panzer Blitz and Panzer Leader in the late 1970s. I stopped after getting Squad Leader, Crescendo of Doom, Cross of Iron, and GI Anvil of Victory. I have heard nothing but good things about MMP, and they are in this for the long haul. A number of their things are out of print, but not to hard to get on the secondary market if you are patient. They bought all the rights to the game, so there is no license for them to lose.

I have three of the titles they published back in the early 1990s. The only titles I know they did are: 3001 1991 RuneQuest Collector’s Edition (HC) 3002 1991 RuneQuest 1992 Das Kreaturenbuch 3040 1993 Die Gotter 3050 1993 Apfelallee 1000 1994 Schatten in den Hugeln I'd love to know if they did more books.

Chaosium didn't shrink-wrap individual books very often, but all of their boxed sets were shrink-wrapped. Back in the day it was a rite of passage to have to work the hot shrink-wrap machine in the Chaosium warehouse. Chaosium collated their boxed sets in house too. I do have a number of Call of Cthulhu boxed sets in the shrink, plus a number of other titles, but the only RQ boxed set I have in the shrink is the first printing of the RQ thick box. I can still remember taking the shrink wrap off of the RQ boxed supplements when I bought them in the 1980s...

I have a lot of the Oriflam licensed product, including both Wargames and their RQ3 line. Some are in the shrink still. I can't read French so I can't say I've done more than look at all of the cool art they did for the books, which is mostly different from the art used in the US, UK, etc.

Speaking of original Squad Leader...

Those are upstairs with my other war-games and general boardgames. Not everything can fit in my office.

Most people know I have dabbled in collecting Chaosium games...

Greg really didn't want to work with Avalon Hill any more. That's the ultimate reason he didn't want to have a Gloranthan based RQ game done by Avalon Hill.

I agree with Mob's response as per above, and also want to expand on it. The work is copyrighted by the authors, and also contains IP owned by Moon Design Publications, which has licensed its IP to Chaosium. The Playtest Rules should not be distributed by anyone, via electronic or other means without the permission of Chaosium AND the authors. While we cannot speak for the authors, Chaosium does not give permission to distribute the material here or anywhere else, even if done for free.

Chaosium currently prints its books in the USA, China, and Lithuania. Where we print depends on several factors including cost, quality, format, and timeliness. For example, we print our B&W softcovers in the USA and Lithuania. We print our color hardcovers in China and Lithuania, and occasionally in the USA. Setting aside the hyperbolic mentions of sanity, cruel claws, and such, this isn't something we do on a whim. I spend a good portion of my "day job" at Chaosium trying to best source our print projects. Here are a few things to keep in mind: 1. Most of the books we sell are sold to distributors that pay us 40% of the cover price. That means we get $20 for a $50 book, and we have to pay to ship it to the distributor. 2. Out of that $20 we have to pay the authors, artists, editors, layout people, etc. along with paying for the printing. Each $1 of extra cost means a big bite out of our profit. 3. To remain competitive with the major game publishers we have to look good on the shelf next to their full color hardcovers. Otherwise game shops are less likely to stock our books, except for special orders and pre-orders, which are only a small small portion of their (and our) sales. 4. I'm not sure what time frame you are referring to, but a $15 book in 1980 would cost $47 in 2020, when adjusted for inflation. Most RPG books in 1980 were in B&W. In 1993 the CoC core rulebook was $30.00. That's $53.56 in today's dollars, which is very close to what we charge today ($54.95). 5. Wages for many people have not kept up with the rate of inflation, and that just sucks. People have less buying power than they did 20 or 30 years ago.

I spoke with Greg about it on a few occasions, and also with others involved in the project. I'd prefer to not open up that can of worms. Suffice it to say there were a number of factors that influenced his decision, for good and bad, but in the end it was his call and he chose not to let Avalon Hill publish it. The one factor that I will share is that Greg and AH had totally fallen out with each other and it was almost inconceivable to Greg that he could work with AH in the future, especially having them publish a new edition of a Glorantha based RQ.

The short version of the history of RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha and RuneQuest Slayers. In December of 1990, Chaosium stopped working on RuneQuest projects. Prior to then, Chaosium did all the writing, editing, art, and layout related work. They basically sent AH a "ready to print" set of files, which AH would then print, market, and sell. Starting in 1991, Avalon Hill had to develop all future RQ supplements from start to finish on their own. Additionally, if it was a Gloranthan work it had to be approved by Chaosium, and Chaosium would retain the copyright. If a supplement was non-Gloranthan then AH did not have to get Chaosium approval and AH would own the copyright. In the early 90s several people began working on a new 4th edition of RuneQuest which was given the working title of RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha. Considering that most RPGs get a new edition every 5 years or so, and that RQ had its first three editions come out within a span of 6 years, it wasn't much of a surprise that a new edition was in the works. In 1994 Greg did not approve the manuscript for publication. Thus, AH could not publish RQ:AiG, even if they wanted to. Chaosium sold the RuneQuest trademark to Avalon Hill in 1997. They did not sell AH any copyrights related to Glorantha. The agreement also specifically stated that AH could not print or reprint any existing Gloranthan RQ titles, nor could it create any new Gloranthan ones. To make use of the Trademark, AH would have to create a new game, largely from a blank sheet of paper. Thus, they ultimately decided to create a non-Gloranthan game called RuneQuest: Slayers. I have never heard of a specific reason why AH appended "Slayers" onto the name, although I am sure they did so in part to show this was a new and different game to all previous editions. As has been said, as RQ: Slayers was being printed, AH was bought by Hasbro and Hasbro scrapped the project. Years later they even let the RuneQuest trademark lapse (they did not renew it), allowing Greg Stafford to re-register it for his own purposes in the early 2000s.

If you look at any of the PDFs produced for the RQ Classic titles you pretty much know how each printed version will look. TrollPak is a single PDF that includes all the handouts, same for Pavis, Big Rubble, and Borderlands. Printed poster maps are currently available for purchase on redbubble.com. We will not combine books beyond what was done on the Kickstarter, such as with the SoloQuest Collection of the three solos in a single PDF, which basically made each solo a chapter in a single book. We won't combine Pavis and Big Rubble because not everyone purchased Pavis AND Big Rubble during the Kickstarter, or since then. Plus, some people only want one of the two for whatever reason. Thus, they are only going to be sold individually. None of these will be sold as an individual boxed set with individual booklets and components because we doubt they would sell well enough to justify a regular print run, and items like that cannot be done economically as POD.

As for the Gloranthan Classics, I don't know if they will be available in print again. NOTE: Borderlands & Beyond is still available in print. If they are, they certainly won't look super similar to the original print run of those books. The PoD versions would be slimmer, with glossy covers, thinner paper, and won't have sewn bindings. The PoD hardcovers would look even more different, and wouldn't have dust jackets. Doing a regular hardcover and softcover print run of them, not matter how much a few people want them, just isn't economically viable. Shipping them to our overseas warehouses is expensive, and then storing them in our warehouses has an ongoing cost. Getting low print run, slow selling books like these into all of our warehouses is too costly. We could have them just in our US warehouse, but I already know our overseas customers would hate that. Also, Distribution is very unlikely to pick them up, so very very few game stores would ever carry them, especially overseas game stores. I don't enjoy saying this about the Gloranthan Classics, but that's how it is.

I have issues 1-150 of A&E, and have been going through them for RQ/Gloranthan related material. That is going to go into my updated MiG 2020 edition. We have all of Greg's 10 Dragons Past in the archives and all 4 Son of Sartar. I have OCR'd all of those, plus the Pharaoh's Gazette issues we have and put them all into a single MS Word document. Ultimately that will be available soon in PDF and probably as POD.

As I often do, I agree with Loz. Chaosium does not have a license to do anything with the Hawkmoon IP, or any other Moorcock IP. We cannot sell or distribute in any fashion the Hawkmoon Monograph, and we echo Loz's request that no one distribute any PDFs of this material, no matter how well intentioned you are trying to be.

If an author submits a project along those lines we will certainly try to make something happen. Most of our books like CDA get published because a freelancer approaches us with a project pitch, we work out the deal, and then onwards from there. I would have to defer to Mike Mason if more books that expand CDA are in the works, but off of the top of my head I do not know of any.

I'm not really sure what you are specifically asking me, but I believe the answer is "no". You cannot use our IP for anything computer game related that will be free, for profit, shared, distributed, or any combination thereof. We have an exclusive license with a software company. If you have a project in mind, please email mob at chaosium, who is our head of licensing. He can best determine what is or isn't possible.

No updates at this point in time.

While we appreciate all feedback, positive and negative, we find it far more helpful if people are specific. Can you please quantify "many typos and errors". Otherwise it's just a vague bit of feedback that we can't really do much about, other than look at Lord Vader and tell him that we will double our efforts. We don't doubt you. We just need to better understand the feedback. We have had some people provide us with details on a dozen errors, and we have also had people tell us that the THREE typos they found in a 256 page book ruined their reading experience.

Greg didn't always GM the Chaosium in-house campaign usually played at Chaosium HQ. I really doubt he played AND GM'd in the same session. The game logs don't represent a single session of play, necessarily. They might easily have spanned 5-10 play sessions. I don't know, as there is no indication on the papers. The PC Errol Flynn's name morphed over time from Errol Flynn to Errol Silksword and then Eril Silksword. I have no idea why. I am just going by what is written on the pieces of paper. Greg tried to hold onto the Character Sheets between sessions. If somebody showed up to play they probably just grabbed one of the character sheets available and played it, as opposed to slowing things down by rolling up a new character. I get a strong sense people were sometimes not that precious about somebody else playing their character while they weren't there, at least in some cases. These sheets are all hand-written, and by the looks of them they were done quickly. Greg wasn't big on extensive note taking. He probably had somebody else at the table fill things in. Mis-spellings are fairly rife. Also, drugs and/or alcohol were often involved. We have a memo from Greg to the players in the campaign about cleaning up after themselves, especially their beer cans. In the end, we can't ask Greg, so it's mainly down to what the players remember. Fortunately, most of them are still alive.

They should be for sale this month.