Newt

List as stands is in the SQ Zero Edition PDF,I've not made any changes or updates yet. I'd much rather people go there since they will be able to see it context.

Simplifying the Weapon skills list to Unarmed, Ranged and Close combat - does fit in with the philosophy of SQ, but the die hard RQer in me wants to keep hold of the Golf bag of weapons. To see which approach wins out you have to read SQ 1st Edition

If you like the art I've shown so far, you'll like the rest of the work that Simon Bray has done, about 14 pieces in all. Onto your various queries. 1. Damage table is like it is because it makes it easier to remember, especially when I'm churning out the monsters/npcs. 2. Differences in skill bases, not sure what you are getting at here? 3.Battle Magic base is POW x3 rather than the traditional POW x 5, because I like the idea of characters growing into their skills. 4. Open to ideas on rationalizing the skill list.

Its that infamous convention in a Castle overlooking the Rhine Tentacles Convention - Welcome! Surely someone at Continuum didn't talk excitedly about it?

Ok couple of quick points coming out of this thread, and some of the feedback that I've been getting via email. It seems for some people's tastes I've not gone simple enough and produced a "RQ with the corners rounded off". To be honest some of this is by design, since I wanted something that is compatible with MRQ, and some of it from not looking at the rules hard enough. From the feedback here I'm going to incorporate most if not all of the suggestions I've had, to make SQ more of its own entity and a truly simple easy to play D100 system. Its still going to be easy to covert back to MRQ/BRP and to help this I'll publish some conversion guidelines, probably as web documents, after the release of the main core book. Weapon skills are going to be grouped into broad groups as suggested by Deleriad and by Halfbat (who publishes RQ compatible supplements via Scepultune games) via email. Unarmed and Throwing will be part of this Weapon Skills group since I don't want Athletics to become some sort of uber-skill, since I have bad memories of this from playing 1st Ed Cyberpunk. I'm also going to simplify and streamline the close combat weapons list itself, and drop weapon properties which now I look at it again is full of +-10% modifiers and I never use anyway. From looks of it Magic needs a through looking through. I'll be simplifying the traits of Battle Magic, Sorcery is going to get an overhaul (more on this below), and Illusion spells are going to get rolled into one. As for Sorcery, I'm going with deleriad's suggestion of rolling the manipulation skills into one and allowing players build up their spell's effect (range, duration etc) with the 10s of the skill being the maximum magnitude. Except I'm going to go one step further and do away with the Manipulation skill entirely and base the manipulation limits on the Spell's % itself. I'm getting some extremely useful feedback from this thread, please carry on.

My favourite ending to Dead Pot Country, was when the PCs completed the adventure by kicking out the bandits in the Village and were rewarded handsomely by the Merchant-Council of Aztar. Each PC got the ending that they desired with the money that they earnt; Vinsck the Pirate bought himself a new ship and Gornam the Protector used the money to protect his village for example. Meanwhile Nola the Owl*, bought herself a magical repeating crossbow and retired to the Village, where she spent the rest of her time sitting in a chair on the wall overlooking the valley, taking pot shots at passing Zombies. * it was must be said that Nola was being played by a everso slightly gung-ho 12 year old boy.

All good stuff...I'm still very much learning DTP and SQ edition Zero was very much a first pass, but a first pass that I'm going to build on. I'll work through your comments in detail once I'm back from Continuum in detail.

Its a kind of a historical one from RQ1/2, different named spells differentiated between different cultures, since weapons were/are very culturally based in Glorantha. So your Troll warrior wielded a Troll maul with Bludgeon 2 on it and a Human warrior had his sword with Bladesharp 2 on it. Both spells do exact the same thing, but having them separate means that the Troll can't just pick up a sword and be a badass with it, because both his cultural skill and magic wouldn't let him. I understand your point, since this is the route RQ Sorcery and Savage Worlds, whose no nonsense cut the flab philosophy was a big influence on SQ, takes, but I've left it in so SQ is compatible with historical and current versions of BRP/RQ.

I like this idea, personally I find all the fiddly spell traits a bit much. I'll take this on board for the final version. Another exception to point out in the aside on p56, OR such Characteristic boosting spells only give the immediate big benefit - for example Coordination 1 would only give a +1 to DEX, handy in a fight, and not the +2% to Dex based skills.

Yup I've removed Throwing - in 20 odd years of running RQ/BRP I've never had need to use it. But like an idiot I've not removed the references to it! I like your idea and will fold it into Athletics. Acrobatics is included in Athletics. Dodge almost went the same way on the suggestion of another reviewer, but I thought this would make the skill too powerful. Opps. I'll have to put Unarmed back in under Basic Skills. Where's the reference to the Grapple table. I thought I had purged all mention of it. Thanks for highlighting this. I had a tough time sorting out the Grappling rules, and it appears they are still borked. Definatly. Pure driven gold. This is why I released Zero Edition.

Oh yess! Myself and Neil Ford will be running the following over the weekend. Life and Death A SimpleQuest game for six players by Newt Newport Miraz the Golden is sees itself inheritor of the old Lion Empire. It is an oppressive military police state which seeks to dominate its neighbours. Some say the wrath of the gods has been brought down because of its hubris and it is currently stricken by a plague. Its Tyrant looks on from his remote palace as the victims of the plague shuffle round the streets as newly risen zombies. While his heirs fight amongst themselves to see who will succeed their father, when he is toppled by the rebellion that is fermenting in the streets. Into this madness step the adventurers out to make a fortune and a name for themselves. Dead Pot County A SimpleQuest game for six players by Newt Newport Some Merchant's son got lost in the BadLands. Perhaps in the worst part of this desolate wilderness, Dead Pot County. A place crawling with the hungry dead of a long dead civilisation and terrors much worse! Good job there's a large reward for the return of the lad and the chance to pick up all that treasure buried with the deadies!. SimpleQuest is a D100 Fantasy game, based upon BRP/RuneQuest. Times Deadpot Country: Friday afternoon 2pm, Saturday morning 10pm Sunday morning 10am Life and Death: Saturday afternoon 2pm, Sunday afternoon 2pm

Howdo Just in time for Continuum, here is SimpleQuest Zero edition! Basically this is a pre-release, with the main core rules (Chapters one - nine) missing the Creatures, Setting and Adventure chapters (all in various stages of completion) and art work using a very basic DTP format. Go grab it off the d101games.co.uk site The final edition should be out Sept/Oct again as a free PDF and as a print on demand version from lulu.com

You've got the job Gianni! One can never have enough Typo Trapping Trolls! Another update, unfortunately Real Life TM has mugged me once again, so I'm not going to be able to do the full release for Continuum, beginning of August So instead I'm going to do a Pdf 'Zero Edition' , which will be all the text with minimal formatting of all the chapters except the Creatures, Setting and Adventure chapters. This will give you guys something to play with, give me feed back on and of course cut down on Errata and Typos in the final 1st Edition, which will be available September or October at the latest.

Simon Bray, the artist for SimpleQuest, came up with the goods today as he submitted this lovely vivid cover that I think sums up the tone of the game nicely. I've also posted the Introductory chapter of the game on the SimpleQuest page of my website, so you can check out what its all about. Not long to go now.

Ok...this is a big one, so bear with me. There are four editions of the game. RQ1 and RQ2 are basically the same, RQ2 is RQ1 with errata, but RQ2 is more commonly available via Ebay. The rules are similiar to Call of Cthulhu, but with a different magic system and hit locations. In the main 100 page or so rule book there's a rough outline of Glorantha, the game's setting, mainly told by examples and by embedding the setting in the rules. If Glorantha tickles your fancy, RQ2 is the easiest to get into - you simply buy the Cults Compendium (which is a reprint of the old Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror supplements + some other bits) and one of the setting/adventure books - Pavis & The Big Rubble, Griffin Mountain or Borderlands. All these are reprints by Moon Designs of the original supplements that Chaosium printed back in RQ2's hayday back the early 80s. Not sure if all the Moon Design's books are currently in print, but enough were printed so they again turn up on ebay and you might still find copies in your local games store. RQ3 updated the rules, adding Sorcery into the magic mix. Its a slightly more crunchy game and possibly provides a bit more scope that RQ2. Its out of print, but can be found in a couple of flavours via Ebay. Avalon Hill, then the game's publisher although Chaosium still wrote the game, put out a couple of box sets. Deluxe RQ3 is the complete game. The Adventurers and GMs boxes are cut down versions that I'd avoid since they are not complete. AH also did a book version of Deluxe. GamesWorkshop, who had the license to publish the game in the UK, did a series of 3 hardcovers -RuneQuest, Advanced RuneQuest and Monsters. Get all three and you've got the game. One of the major features of RQ3 was that it was more of a Generic system than RQ2, so Glorantha was split out of the rules (although you do get an Introduction to Glorantha in AH's Deluxe). If you are interested in Glorantha, get Glorantha: Cruicible to the HeroWars boxset, Gods of Glorantha boxset and the Rivers of Cradles setting/adventure (which is an update of the Pavis/Prax stuff of RQ2). For non-Gloranthan stuff Land of Ninja and Vikings are well worth checking out. RQ4 or more commonly refered to as Mongoose RQ (or MRQ) is a reworking of the system, since Mongoose although given rights to the name couldn't directly copy the BRP system. Again Mongoose did a basic core book, followed by a Companion and a Monsters book and about a year later updated some of the rules and released a Deluxe version, which is the one to get. Glorantha wise you need Glorantha 2nd Age, followed by Cults 1&2 and the Players Guide. Dara Happa Stirs is an excellent setting/adventure book. On the confusion front there was also an abortive attempt to do RQ4 by Chaosium, but this never made it into printed publication. If you know the right place to look there's a pdf version out there, but in IMHO its not a complete game. MRQ is set in Glorantha's Second Age which is a time where two large empires - The GodLearner Empire and the Empire of the Wyrms Friends - are dominating the setting , both conducting their own grand magical experiments. The Godlearners are busy looting the beliefs and religions of other cultures for magical powers while the EWF are creating a human pyramid of conquered peoples and lands whose magical powers will feed into the creation of the Great Dragon. Both are doomed to failure, and the books start describing the setting when things are starting to go wrong. Previous editions of RQ were set in the Third Age, which is about seven hundred years later. Known as the HeroWars its a time were individual heroes and heroines are fighting to impose their will upon Glorantha, which is at a time of crisis where reality is up for grabs. Most of the published material centers on the struggle between the civlised Lunar Empire and the barbarian Kingdom of Sartar. Hope that helps

Cthulhu Rising the monograph has been updated by the author, and should be out in revised form by Continuum in August. I can attest that Proof reading /Copy editing is the hardest part of doing a RPG project of any size. The author of the piece should never attempt to do this himself. I definitely find that I get to the stage were I can't see the Wood for the Trees and have to pass it over to my Proofreaders. Its also amazing to see how they improve the piece.

I've toyed with the idea of using Pendragon style passions (ranked 1-20) to act as augments to skill rolls where appropriate or on their own to provide tension at appropriate moments For example want to step away from that bunch of Lunars soliders who are itching for a fight, roll against your character's Hate Lunars 15 and prey you get over 15. If you fail your character can through himself into the fight getting a +15 bonous to attack (but not parry) because of his passion. But at the end of the day I think these sort of things are best roleplayed out in BRP and I play plenty of HeroQuest, where this is a major part of the mechanics, to scratch this particular itch. However I do have an optional system for personality mechanics that I use in SimpleQuest which I detail below. Note an Improvement Point in SQ is equivalent to an Improvement Roll in MRQ or skill tick in BRP. Note this system is highly derivative of Burning Wheel's Belief system, which inspired it.

Ok being part devil's advocate here and part out of interest Would SimpleQuest - based on the MRQ SRD with some BRP rules and some commonsense houserules firmly based on the D100 roll, fit the bill? Could I display the logo on the game? Who would adjudicate the decision?

The stuff I would use in a BRP game from MRQ, The separation of skills into Basic (which everyone knows) and Advanced (skills which only professionals know) Their implementation of Hero Points.

Registration for Furnace 2008 is now open. Last year Loz was in attendance and between him and a couple of the other attendees we had a good showing of Elric, Hawkmoon and RuneQuest games. A lot of us are BRP fans, so I can see with the release of the core rule book there being several games of BRP going. Here's the announcement by our Chairman Graham Spearing

From the Cthulhu Rising website

Current plan for distribution is make it available as a low cost pdf via RPGnow and similar sites and as a print on demand version from Lulu.com.

I'll be leaving the job of doing a dedicated BRP fanzine to someone else Saying that I've already got a few offers of some BRP stuff in its RQ version for issue 1. As for endless Barbarian-loving articles, HiG won't be delivering that since I want to make each issue diverse. Besides as a Lunar-lover there's only so much I can take of those Sartarite skumbags As for HQ -> BRP thats more a system issue, rather than a Gloranthan one. My personal opinion is while you could graft on various bits of HQ onto BRP, they are such different systems in terms of scale and scope that its better to use each for where its good. In terms of systems heresy I was thinking using Burning Wheel for Sun County, Savage Worlds for Prax and Unknown Armies for Lunar Intrigue.

Hi Adrian I've asked all those people who've contacted me with ideas for articles to give me a title and a short abstract. Hopefully I'll be in the position to post this information later in the week.

Hi all This is just a quick update about where I'm upto with SimpleQuest for those of you who are interested. Well the writing on the game has been completed after much delay. Didn't factor in the demands of my young daughter and her hassled mother on my time Its currently being edited, by Graham Spearing a friend of mine and long time BRP head and when I receive the chapters back I'll be putting it together with the art that Simon Bray has already sent me. So the only hurdle to this getting out is me and my time While I'm reluctant to set a firm date, since the God of Gaming mocks me badly every time I do, I can safely say it will be released by the start of summer. Since I have the Introduction chapter back from editing, I'll be putting it together with some art, to create a new preview of the game, which I post to my website hopefully by the end of the week.