Prime Evil

Keep us informed - it's looking interesting

I just picked up a copy. It looks interesting. I'm going to get some time this weekend to work through it carefully

It's always tricky to announce this sort of thing. But what's done is done. I'm sure the new RQ will be a competent product - all of the people that we know are involved in the project have a solid track record and most of them also have a deep love of Glorantha. The idea of basing it around a mythic quest for the runes is interesting and shows that some thought is going into the product. But whether it can meet the expectations of fan community is a different question.

Glorantha is an amazing setting that deserves to be recognized as one of the finest feats of worldbuilding that the roleplaying industry has produced. In that sense, I'd rate it alongside M.A.R. Barker's Tékumel, N. Robin Crossby's Hârn, and Terry Amthor's Kulthea. However, I strongly prefer campaign settings to be independent of rule systems so that it is easier to use them with whatever system the GM prefers. In my opinion, locking any game system exclusively to a particular setting is a mistake - except in the rare cases that the system is designed around the unique requirements of the setting (e.g. Eclipse Phase, Unknown Armies, etc). This is not the case with Glorantha, which is often played as a quasi-generic swords and sandals setting in practice.

That's hardly surprising. RQ 6 is an incremental improvement on MRQ II that benefits from a few years of actual experience in play, whereas Legend is basically MRQ II with the serial numbers filed off. We owe Matt some gratitude for believing in the system enough to release it uunder the OGL rather than let it fall out of print, but it would have been better had Mongoose spent some time polishing the MRQ II system before re-releasing it under the new name. MRQ II is a HUGE improvement over MRQ I, but there was still room for improvement.

I'm not sure that we need a single BRP standard-bearer as all of the d100 variants are more-or-less compatible with each other. They are nowhere near as crunchy as D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder and it's easy to mix and match elements from different d100 games. The question of whether they are "open" or not is only important if you are a publisher. One advantage that D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder have is the existence of an official SRD that all variants (even OSR retrogames) take as a starting point. For us, the closest thing is probably the MRQI SRD - which is the point at which OpenQuest and Rennaissance branch off from RQ. MRQ II / Legend / RQ 6 can be seen as improvements upon this core system. Having said that, the new strategy from Chaosium does seem quite odd. I have a suspicion that they regard the idea that anybody might want to use RQ with anything but Glorantha with a kind of puzzled incomprehension. While it's a good move to leverage Glorantha where appropriate, the fact that there are many RQ campaigns that don't use that setting should also be recogniized. There is a danger that those who are primarily interested in Glorantha will gravitate towards Chaosium while those who want a more generic fantasy system will stick with Design Mechanism. I just worry that Chaosium may overestimate the number of people for whom Runequest = Glorantha (and nothing but Glorantha)!

What I'd like to see (and have considered having a crack at writing myself) is a modular system that starts off with an extremely streamlined versuion of the core rules but with optional subsystems that allow individual groups to select the level of granularity they want. BRP had this in theory, but the modularisation of the rule system never went far enough and complex dependencies remained between subsystems. I would like to see the different sections of the game decoupled from each other as much as possible so that you can crank up the crunch in one area without having a cascade effect throughout the rest of the rules. It would be difficult to achieve, but would be adaptable to different tastes.

Grrr...the success of this kickstarter is a mixed blessing. Now I need to save as much cash as possible to upgrade my pledge and buy all of the available add-ons. How can I miss a chance to own a brand new copy of Cults of Prax! Guess I'll be living on instant noodles a bit longer than I planned.

There is a growing body of OGL d100 systems out there with varying levels of compatibility with past and current versions of RQ. The Legend system from Mongoose is obviously the closest as it is a direct ancestor of RQ 6, especially if you include Blood Magic (which incorporates tweaks to the magic system later incorporated into RQ 6). Legend also has an extremely permissive compatibility license and pretty much everything in the rules has been released as OGC. However, it is by no means the only "open" implementation of the system - GORE and OpenQuest spring to mind if you prefer something a bit lighter than Legend / RQ 6 and Rennaisance lies somewhere in the middle. Plus there are more open variants in the pipeline - Revolution d100 is under development and Arc Dream are leaning towards releasing non-setting elements of the revised Delta Green under the OGL. And there is stuff like Magic & Flintlock from Solace Games that contains some clever mechanical changes to Rennaissance / OpenQuest that appear to be OGC. The MRQ1 SRD does contain a few Gloranthan critters, but I vaguely recall that there was some question over whether Issaries agreed to release these elements as Open Game Content. Whatever the case, the community has wisely decided not to press the issue. In any case, it's all water under the bridge now and the guys from Moon Design will no doubt do an excellent job of adapting these critters to the next version of RQ. Design Mechanism seem to be approachable when it comes to licensing, but obviously want to protect the quality of their brand. I'm not sure what Chaosium's position on licensed products is nowdays though - they used to have a number of third-party licensees for both CoC and BRP, but many of these have gone off in their own direction. I'm not sure what the implications for stuff like Cubicle 7's adaptations of Charles Stross' Laundry novels will be - is that licence still active or has it been rescinded? The decision to lock RQ so closely to the Gloranthan setting does seem to preclude third-part licenses for purposes not directly associated with the Gloranthan setting though. Interesting question.

I wonder whether Design Mechanism could create a generic system based upon the RQ 6 engine. Luther Arkwright and the Firearms supplement suggest that it would be possible. Given that BRP seems top be going into quasi-hibernation for a while, there may be a niche for such a game. It would be awesome if Design Mechanism released a universal d100 system under the OGL, but I suspect they will want to keep tight control over any licensed products to protect their new brand.

To be fair, Paizo had the advantages that D&D 4e was not received well by the community and the 4e Game System Licence (GSL) was such a mess that it drove most third-party publishers towards Pathfinder rather than D&D. I don't expect Chaosium / Moon Design will produce a bad rule system, but they may drive other publishers towards alternative d100 implementations through this decision.

The situation with rule systems is complex - it's true that you can't copyright the rules themselves (as they are merely mathematical formulae and procedural algorithms), but you can copyright expressions of those rules (i.e. the explanatory text surrounding the mathematical formulae, etc). Those d100 games released under the OGL - Legend, OpenQuest, Renaissance, the upcoming Delta Green reboot from Arc Dream, etc - license the wording of the game to third parties under an open licensing scheme. I can understand the desire of Chaosium to ensure clarity around their ownership of RQ brand moving forwards. The convoluted history of the RQ system shows the risks inherent in not fully controlling your own destiny - who would have thought that Avalon Hill Having said that, there may be creative reasons for the decision. RQ 2 is a "lighter" game than RQ 6, so maybe there was a desire to use "less crunchy" rendition of the rules for the new edition. I still think it's a step backwards in some respects, but the indications that they are going to incorporate some improvements from games such as Ringworld and Pendragon (still Greg Stafford's masterpiece) is a promising sign. It's a strange way to announce this though. Chaosium need to move quickly to communicate their intentions clearly or rumors will take on a life of their own.

This seems to be a strange decision, both from a creative perspective and a business perspective. Maybe Chaosium and Moon Design have a strategic plan mapped out for the Runequest brand, but communication has been handled badly. The sudden reversal of a previous decision is not the way to build consumer confidence that the brand is in good hands. Furthermore, the decision to break with Design Mechanism risks alienating fans who have invested time and energy into RQ 6 unless handled with care. From that perspective, the decision to brand the new iteration as RQ 4 rather than RQ 7 does seem a bit ham-fisted. I get the desire to refocus Runequest on Glorantha, even if I personally think it's a mistake - I would prefer a more generic rule system with Glorantha as the official campaign setting showing how the rules are applied in practice. Having said that, Moon Design produced some amazing work on the Gloranthan setting in the past and there's a good chance that Rick & co will continue to do so into the future. However, I'm saddened that we may never get to see Adventures in Glorantha for RQ 6. I think RQ 2 is a solid rule system even today and am backing the kickstarter as a long-term fan of the game, but I'm not sure the decision to base the new iteration of RQ on that version is a smart one. The most obvious reason for doing this is to base the new edition on a version of the RQ where Chaosium unambiguously owned all of the rights to the rules themselves. My personal suspicion is that Chaosium have a desire to own not only the RQ trademark but also the intellectual property embodied in the rule system. From RQ 3 onwards, Chaosium and Issaries had relationships with other companies that published the game: Avalon Hill, Mongoose, Design Mechanism, etc. Each of these have a legitimate claim to some of the intellectual property embodied in subsequent versions of the rules: the rights to the RQ 3 system itself are presumably buried somewhere deep in the vaults of Hasbro, Mongoose released the rights to the MRQII game system under the OGL when they rebranded it as Legend, and Design Mechanism presumably own the rights to the additional refinements they made in RQ 6 (even if Chaosium own the RQ trademark itself). I suspect that Chaosium are using RQ 2 as a starting point to ensure nobody can contest their ownership of the new rule system or produce unlicensed spin-off products. This would make perfect sense if they were planning to unite the community under the a single unified d100 system that would render the competition obsolete. From a marketing perspective, they could push the idea that they will end further fragmentation of the d100 community. But having different systems for Call of Cthulhu vs Runequest undermines this goal, as does tying the next iteration of RQ so closely to Glorantha. It seems like they are either flying by the seat of their pants or that they haven't worked out yet how to pitch this to the community.

Damn...I missed out on this campaign because I didn't know about it. Is there still a way to participate? I'd love to give you some money

True. But we don't know what their future plans are yet. It does sound like BRP will be placed on the back-burner for a while so that more profitable product lines can be given some immediate attention, but it's entirely possible that a new incarnation of BRP will emerge at some point down the track. This approach makes sound business sense while Chaosium gets back on it's feet, but it is still disappointing for those who love the system.

For example, I wonder if it would be possible to divide the combat system into a set of streamlined basic combat rules similar to OpenQuest and a more detailed set of advanced combat rules similar to Legend / RQ 6? The advanced combat rules would offer additional tactical detail when you want it, at the expense of added complexity. Assuming that the rules are fairly modular, you can select only those options relevant to your current game. Would an approach like this be of interest to people?

My personal experience has been that it's usually easier to port things from a less crunchy format to a more crunchy format than to perform the same operation in reverse, but your mileage may vary Cthulhu Rising would indeed make a great OpenQuest supplement. After River of Heaven, I wonder whether a generic SF version of OpenQuest might be a good idea. As a lightweight game system, it might even work better than an SF variant of RQ 6 - and I'm saying that as someone who liked Luther Arkwright and thought the short-lived RQ 6 Star Wars conversion was very well done. Personally, I'd love to see a variant of BRP / d100 that's explicitly designed to let's you dial up or dial down the crunchiness based upon the genre and your personal tastes. Sometimes I want something that's really crunchy and detailed while other times you want something that's very light and supports a more cinematic game style. BRP kind of has this, but I don't think it was ever an explicit design goal. You could probably achieve this with either Legend or RQ 6 (as the core mechanics are simple), but it would need a fair bit of work.

This is the key point - as much as we would love to see the ultimate d100 game system that can do anything, personal tastes do vary and different variants suit different settings.

I would also point out that the various d100 systems aren't exactly rules-heavy and many GMs mix-and-match stuff from different games on the fly. I know that I've used stuff from Elric and BRP with both Legend and RQ 6 without any major compatibility issues. I've also used mythos entities from Call of Cthulhu in a Swords & Sorcery game. You need to do a bit of mental conversion on occasion, but it's not that hard - it's certainly much easier than converting between D&D editions. I love the OGL and the freedom that it offers third-party publishers, but there's no real issue with using proprietary stuff from BRP monographs with RQ 6 or other d100 systems in your own private games if you want to. I don't think Loz or Pete will send the Runequest compliance police around to rough you up for this I love Cthulhu Rising so much! I just wish that we could chain Newt down and make him get the OQ version out sooner, but he's already got at least one Kickstarter to fulfill *sigh*.

I agree 100% with this. I think the decision to explicitly market RQ as a generic fantasy RPG was a smart move. I love Glorantha, but setting and game mechanics should be loosely coupled. It's possible that they may be worried about over-fragmentation of the market. There are a LOT of d100 variants out there these days. I suspect that BRP will continue to be sold (at least in PDF format), but active development may slow or stop. Personally, I'm looking for a d100 game somewhere between OpenQuest / Renaissance and RQ 6 / Legend in complexity.

But there's so much fun in baseless speculation :) I wonder if the revised RQ will be a streamlined version of RQ 6 that is newbie friendly and aimed at a broader market? RQ 6 Essentials did pretty well. Just imagine a version of Magic World powered by RQ 6 Essentials...but still compatible with the full version of RQ 6 :) There's no evidence that this is something being considered, but I do think an introductory work with an implicit campaign setting would be cool.

The quality of the monographs varied considerably. Some of them were amazingly good. Others were not so great. Looking at the past work of Moon Design and Design Mechanism, it is likely that the new Chaosium will value quality over quantity. I'm willing to bet that we'll see fewer releases, but the ones published will be larger and of a higher overall quality. Look at the Guide to Glorantha - absolutely amazing books (even though my kickstarter copy got damaged in shipping), but delivered very late. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. I suspect that Kickstarter is going to still be vital to the survival of Chaosium, although we might see some smaller, more disciplined crowdfunding efforts to rebuild public confidence in the company.

The news is fairly mixed. It looks like they are making some fairly radical changes in order to save the company. On the one hand, they are bringing some excellent talent onboard - partnering with Moon Design and Design Mechanism is an great move. On the other hand, the death of BRP is very sad.

Although people are obviously keen to see this product, I'm happy to see that you are taking the time to get it right. I'd rather wait another few months to get a product that I'll (hopefully) still be consulting for years to come than see a product rushed out just to meet an arbitrary deadline. Although it's important to meet deadlines once you've made a firm commitment, in this case the only commitment on the table is to release the book "sometime in 2015". If d100 products are delivered late, that's often because an extra effort is being made to ensure that they are worth the wait.

Green Ronin published the excellent Testament sourcebook back in the D20 days. All text in the book was designated as Open Game Content and the best bits could be converted to Legend. They also produced a PDF-only supplement on the Hittites. Both works are still available via RPGNow / DrivethruRPG: http://www.rpgnow.com/product/19191/Testament-Roleplaying-in-the-Biblical-Era?cPath=1487_4975&it=1 http://www.rpgnow.com/product/19208/Testament-The-Hittites?cPath=1487_4975&it=1 They also produced the Hamanuptra boxed set that was supposed to cover ancient Egypt, but isn't as good and not as much of the content is available for readaptation.