Newt

@Jakob can I ask you to refrain from commenting on others posts. I'm asking for people's opinions on what they would like to see in a new OpenQuest. Discussion about the details comes later Thanks.

There's a great crop of thoughts here, so please keep them coming

OK I'm gearing up to a tenth-anniversary version of OpenQuest in 2019, probably Kickstarting it over the summer. Obviously, I've got my thoughts on what I'd like to change. I've got two approaches I could take which fall broadly between two extremes. Approach 1. OpenQuest 2 tidied up. Minimal changes, another editorial pass/proof, all new art from the current stable of D101 Artists, reintroduce the Empire of Gatan overview that was taken out in the last version and release the book as an all in one inclusive rulebook. Emphasis on polish rather than big rules changes. Approach 2. OpenQuest 3 a more radical revision of the rules and presentation. Spilt the current 8 by 11 inch 250+ page book into three 6 x 9-inch books: Book 1: Rules + Magic, Book 2 D100 World Builders (GM's book) Book 3 Bestiary. Under this approach, OpenQuest Basics (the current free pdf/lo-cost 6x9 inch book) becomes a free artless Book 1 in pdf only. Rules would also get a good going over and it would be a proper new version, called OpenQuest 3 - where there would be big changes such as elimination ot the three approaches of magic. So as well as voting for which approach would you favour, see poll above, what would you want to see changed or sorted out in this version of OpenQuest?

Truly saddened to hear of Greg's death. If Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson flung open the gates to imagination with their RPG writings it was Greg who invited the Gods into play In my mind not just one of the Greats of Gaming, but one who made it Epic! Thanks Greg

Currently, the Empire of Gatan is being worked on for republication in 2019, as part of OpenQuest's 10th Anniversary. The original plan was to re-release it as a self-contained book with adventures as well as much more. if you are familiar with Crypts and Things Remastered, Gatan would have been presented in the same way as the Continent of Terror is in that book. PM me with your email address and I'll send you a pdf of the setting as it was in OpenQuest 2 Deluxe. Be aware its really bare bones, it was designed to be built upon by GMs and made their own.

Hearts in Glorantha # 7 is now on general release and can be bought at both the d101games.com store and DriveThruRPG. Get Hearts in Glorantha via the D101 Web Store. Or via DriveThruRPG.com Our 10th Anniversary Issue, featuring 48 pages of Myths, Articles, and Scenarios (13th Age Glorantha and for RuneQuest 2) in softcover A4 format. This issue: Pavis Boxing Association A RQ3 Hero Cult by Leon Kirshtein. How A Rubble Runner Destroyed the Crimson Bat at The Battle of Iceland. A short tale by Lev Lafayette and Erica Hoehn. Strange Broos. A very strange RuneQuest Classic encounter with scenario seeds by Scott Crowder. Boatduck’s Lunch. Stewart Stansfield details what’s on the Duck menu. Snipbeak. A Duck with Lunar sympathies for RuneQuest Glorantha by Stewart Stansfield. Who Gets to Speak. Ian Cooper, Line Editor for HeroQuest, talks about what makes HeroQuest so unique among role-playing games. Orlanth, Heler and the Dragon. An Orlanthi Myth told by Stuart Mousir-Harrison. The Beard of Lhankor Mhy. An adventure for 13th Age Glorantha by Guy Milner. Heroic Tales. Two scenario seeds, each with three possibilities, by Newt Newport. The Temple of the Golden Gorp. A Short Adventure for RuneQuest Classic by Newt Newport.

The Road To Hell is an adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess and other Old School RPGs. It is now live on Kickstarter until Tuesday 30th October, the day before Halloween, when if it funds all backers can download the draft adventure, complete with rough (but functional) maps and six premade characters. ]The Road to Hell on Kickstarter. Set in Jacobean England, this adventure sees a band of veteran (5th Level) but down at heel adventurers take a desperate journey between Chester and Manchester in the North West of England, that takes them into Hell itself. It is a weird fantasy adventure that sees the adventurers thrown into magical situations outside of their normal lives, and challenge fiends that would eat their flesh and steal their souls. The book will feature the work of: Dan Barker (Monkey, Tournaments of Madness and Death) on internal art. Jon Hodgson (numerous credits, including WHFRP 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions, D&D 4th and 5th edition) on the front cover, Paul Mitchener (Age of Arthur, Liminal) on the editorial duties. Glynn Seal (2018 Golden ENnie Award winner for Cartography for his work on the Midderlands). Peter Town (Hearts in Glorantha, Gloranthan Adventures) who will be doing character portraits for the six pre-made characters. Old OpenQuest fans will recognise the title from an adventure that was previously published in the now out of print OpenQuest Adventures. This is an expanded version (it has a whole new section before the beginning of the adventure in the OQ version) with pre-made characters and completely new art.

I certainly got plans to do RQG stuff for Hearts in Glorantha and Gloranthan Adventures. In fact, we snuck in a RQG stated Duck NPC for the recently finished Hearts in Glorantha #7 Here are my submission guidelines if anyone is interested http://heartsinglorantha.d101games.com/submissions/

Newt Newport's Principal of Player Centred Games: Your Game's Mythology starts with and is driven by the personal stories of the player characters, so keep the focus on that no matter which big deity they follow at the start and desire to emulate long term. Let your player's play like heroes and heroines, no matter how low the numbers on the character sheets are. When they gain a new magic item or ability, let them use it. Above all make sure it’s the player character's story and they are not overshadowed by powerful non-player characters.

So not just RuneQuest at Furnace 2018 this coming October, since Guy Milner is running a couple of 13th Age Glorantha games. First off on Saturday Night is this original adventure: Into the Wasps Nest The pygmy wasp riders of Wasp Nest used to be allies of Sartar, but you haven’t heard from them in decades. A new threat to Whitewall requires their aid, though, so you must venture into the Troll Wood to find the last person to visit Wasp Nest and come out alive. Either way, you are going to have to brave the flying, stinging guardians of the ancient town in order to save your tribe. And then this 13A G take on the classic Apple Lane. Gringle’s Pawnshop Apple Lane is a peaceful village in the borderlands territories near Dragon Pass – but all is not well! Crafty Rune Lord Gringle and his improbably-named duck servant Quackjohn have made dangerous enemies, and fear an assault on their shop. Can the adventurers help them and save Apple Lane from the Baboon invasion? This is a 13th Age update of the classic RQ2 adventure by the high shaman of Glorantha himself Greg Stafford. It’s been updated for some modern sensibilities, but expect Baboon-filled highjinx and Home Alone-style slapstick, tied together by the tight 13th Age system. Guy's is a great GM and although relatively new to Glorantha he's got both Glorantha and the 13th Age system. He's also the author of The Beard of Lhnykor Mhy in Hearts in Glorantha #7.

So I'm going to be running the new edition of RuneQuest at Furnace 2018 in early October. This introductory post is the first in a series where I post about my experiences, prepping and running the game. http://heartsinglorantha.d101games.com/2018/09/12/a-dry-run-in-prax/ Here's the flyer I've made to advertise the game to the convention attendees.

Just remember to include the relevant OGL

I'm in contact with Marcus and he's finishing off his adventure - but its still a work in progress. If we are going to use software development terms (I used to be a software developer, before I went full time with D101/stay at home carer last year) it also firmly falls outside of the scope of the project :D

I've done the whole pushing things back 6 months, and then another 6 months, and then a year etc, and that's how the book is 4 years on from it being promised as a KS backer addon (and a small group of about 15 people paying for it) and three years from when I could have reasonably delivered it. John's got no spare time to work on it, and I'm busy with other stuff. As I said it was a tough decision. I'd rather see it come out with Binary Deep myself, but its simply not in a shape to publish. The whole thing is what they call in project management-speak a "blocker" on the whole River of Heaven line. Without the Companion is out there's no way in good consciousness that I release anything else for the game. Previous purchasers of the modules Last Witness/Message from Furthermost will get a 25% discount on To the Stars.

The final push for the Companion is here!! I'm looking at the end of September to have it out in PDF and on pre-order in print at the D101 Games web store. However, I've had to make a big compromise to get this thing out. The three adventures that make the Binary Deep mini-campaign by John Ossoway we're not as complete as I had assumed, and would have required a lot of rewriting to fill out the gaps. Since writing River of Heaven, John's time has been taken up with his family and his free-lance day job as a Graphic Designer/Web Designer. So despite our best efforts, we've never been able to clear time in his schedule to get together to finish the adventures. So I've had to take the tough decision to drop Binary Deep, and in their place put two of the adventures that we've published so far (Last Witness and Message from Futhermost). If you are wondering were Reunion is in all of this, I'm going to be putting that in a slightly revised version of the main rulebook as the introductory adventure. River of Heaven Revised should be coming out about the same time as the companion. All Kickstarter backers from the campaign that funded River of Heaven back in 2014 the will be getting coupons for at cost versions of the Revised edition - because as well as errata, and some minor rules tweaks, it will also be using DriveThru's Standard (Heavy) paper that they brought in after RoH initial release. This is a heavier grade of paper that should show RoH's colour art better. By including Last Witness/Message from Futhermost in the companion in place of the Binary Deep arc, it means I can complete the project and move on to produce new material for River of Heaven, which I'm still committed to.Peter Frain is currently doing art to illustrate the 40 or so pages of new content, and I'm hoping that the book will finally be available at the end of this month. This is the rough sketch of Major Wrong, the charismatic leader of the Hell Blades Mercenary Company, who feature in the Quickstarts' article.

Got mine, here in the UK, yesterday

I explored some of the avenues The Company could take in this Making off.. post I did in support of the OpenQuest Bundle of Holding The Making of the Company My current goal is to do a small amount of revision to the current set of rules to bring it in line with the small changes I made in OQ Revised, and then get it in print at DriveThruRpg.com. The pdf if not the printed version as well, will also be updated to use the colour photos. Where I go after that? Depends on how big a makeover OQ gets. Could be looking at a new edition, but I'm certainly looking at doing a scenario or two to support it

OK brief update: After a quick chat with OQ collaborator Paul Mitchener yesterday, I've decided to spend more time on it and I won't be pushing for its release as quickly as I previously stated. Looking more at Quarter 1 2019 than Quarter 4 2018. If like @Jakob you are interested in Beyond Dread Portals, that's going to be our next Kickstarter in Sept/October (once a few bits and pieces are out of the way).

I've got Jon Hodgson on cover duties for the new edition, so that might influence your decision Beyond Dread Portals will kickstart in January of next year. later this year (hopefully end of September).

Just to be clear the whole "OGL situation" did not almost kill OQ. OQ's legal situation was never in doubt in my mind, in fact the whole discussion about the MRQ SRD gave me a kick up the arse to stop leaving the game fallow

Over at my Sorcerer Under Mountain blog I navel gaze about what the heck is going on with OpenQuest. Where I'm up to with OpenQuest Short of it, I'm producing a slightly cleaned up version of the rules, putting back in the Empire of Gatan setting chapter and the Road Less Travelled adventure, with plans to add some more monsters (about 20 or so at the moment). Oh and the wrap round dragon cover is coming back. But mainly I'm going to be working on getting out the 3 or so adventures I've got written up before the end of the year (and this is not including Green Hell) . There's also going to be news on the River of Heaven and Company front

OpenQuest is completely OGL, you don't need to contact me for a sub-license or any sort of approval. Here's the link to the developers kit/srd https://d101games.com/openquest/openquest-developers-kit/ As well as a download for the text of the game, there's an explanation of how to use it to comply with the Open Gaming License that underpins it. If you want an idea of the type of games/supplements that have used OQ as their base scroll down to the bottom of this page, to the section Powered by OpenQuest. https://d101games.com/openquest/

Yessss!

Wimps

Could you give specific examples, otherwise you seem to be collectively accusing anyone who uses the OGL of breaking it?