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RQ2 Supplements Reprints


Falconer

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Greetings, all!

My apologies if this has been covered before, but, Rick Meints invited me to start a thread here regarding the RQ2 Supplements Reprints, so, here goes!

For those not in the know, Chaosium ran a Kickstarter in 2015, raising $206,000 on the promise that various products would be reprinted in 2016:

Quote

$40,000 - APPLE LANE
A softcover classic adventure reborn… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$50,000 - SNAKEPIPE HOLLOW
A softcover classic adventure in the caverns of chaos… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$60,000 - RUNEMASTERS
The classic cult leader NPC supplement… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$70,000 - PLUNDER
The classic Praxian treasure supplement… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$80,000 - RQ COMPANION
The classic compilation of Gloranthan information… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$100,000 - CULTS OF PRAX
The classic supplement detailing the Cults of Prax… We will print a softcover book and make it available for sale in 2016.

$115,000 - CULTS OF TERROR
The classic supplement of Chaos cults… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$130,000 - SOLOQUEST CLASSIC COLLECTION
We will combine the three SoloQuest books: SoloQuest, Scorpion Hall, and the Snow King's Bride… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$145,000 - GRIFFIN MOUNTAIN
The classic campaign set in the Elder Wilds and Balazar… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$160,000 - PAVIS
The classic city campaign supplement… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$175,000 - BIG RUBBLE
The classic campaign set in a ruined city on the River of Cradles… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$190,000 - BORDERLANDS
The classic campaign for new characters set on the edge of Prax… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

$205,000 - TROLLPAK
The epic Troll supplement written by Sandy Petersen and Greg Stafford… We will make a printed book available for sale in 2016.

Well, as I think most people know, Chaosium had some trouble in finalizing the layout for all these products, but, in July 2019, we received the happy news that they were all done, and the printed books were on the way. Starting a thread about it is my way of hopefully drumming up a little excitement. :)

What’s kind of cool is that these can be used with RQ2 and with RQG. In fact, I believe that was the main reason stated for keeping RQG so closely compatible with RQ2, i.e., to keep this incredible back library accessible.

Speaking personally, I am too young to have collected, let alone played, any of these “back in the day” when they were first released for RQ2, but I have heard about them for a long time. Some of these are very famous. I’ve been able to pick up three of them on the secondhand market, but, most of them are just too rare, and therefore expensive. I really, really look forward to completing my collection. I will even re-buy the ones I already have. The core book reprint looks really great!

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Are these straight up reprints, or have they been edited/updated in some ways? I'm just curious. Apple Lane has been revisited in newer material, for example, so it's just interesting to see how they treat these vintage adventures/supplements.

Edited by Sir_Godspeed
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1 hour ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

Are these straight up reprints, or have they been edited/updated in some ways? I'm just curious. Apple Lane has been revisited in newer material, for example, so it's just interesting to see how they treat these vintage adventures/supplements.

The "Runequest Classic" Kickstarter was for straight-up reprints, scan/OCR.  I think known errata got corrected in edit.

The core "RQ2" book got some tiny additions... A few columns written by Greg.  I don't recall any such for the supplements, but may be mis-remembering.

That KS is what brought the original Apple Lane / Rainbow Mounds back into print, and AFAIK/IIRC it's exactly as per the original.

 

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42 minutes ago, g33k said:

That KS is what brought the original Apple Lane / Rainbow Mounds back into print, and AFAIK/IIRC it's exactly as per the original.

 

Unfortunately, the only printed products of the RQ CLASSIC-Line are: RQ2 Core Rules and the RuneQuest Old School Resource Pack.
The rest is only PDF so far.

 

 

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3 hours ago, g33k said:

The core "RQ2" book got some tiny additions... A few columns written by Greg.  I don't recall any such for the supplements, but may be mis-remembering.

There are bits and pieces added in many of the works. E.g. Snakepipe Hollow has all 3 covers included in the pdf. There are added notes in the RQ2 Classic book. Griffin Mountain added a few pages of Greg's notes on Running a Campaign. But Borderlands is pretty much as-was.

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2 hours ago, prinz.slasar said:

Unfortunately, the only printed products of the RQ CLASSIC-Line are: RQ2 Core Rules and the RuneQuest Old School Resource Pack.
The rest is only PDF so far.

I think that's what this thread is about; per the OP, @Rick Meints is finally talking about finally getting those other products into print.

Finally.

 

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18 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I do wish they could reprint the Glorantha Classics as well. I get that there's a lot of nostalgia value in the remakes of the original supplements, but the classics, to me, are far more practical and affordable, being compilations.

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.

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Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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29 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

... I don't enjoy saying this about the Gloranthan Classics, but that's how it is.

In contrast, I very much appreciate hearing a direct, realistic assessment.

It may not be the answer I prefer, but it's a real answer, not a pie-in-the-sky answer.

TYVM, Rick!

 

(but as long as you're not-enjoying-saying things... anything you can say further about the OP topic:  hardcopies of the RQClassic-KS stretch goals?)

 

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I thought it would be kind of awesome to make a pictorial list of all available RuneQuest Classic products sorted by year of release. If you click on an image, it will take you the appropriate storefront page (mostly just PDFs at present). It’s neat to see how Chaosium’s product line—and product design—developed throughout the early years. Beautiful!

 

1978

Runequest First Edition Balastors Barracks Apple Lane Trolls and Trollkin Creatures of Chaos

1979

Militia and Mercenaries Snakepipe Hollow Cults of Prax

1980

Runequest Second Edition Fangs The Gateway Bestiary Plunder RuneMasters

1981

Griffin Mountain Cults of Terror

1982

Borderlands Trollpak SoloQuest Classic Collection Pavis Big Rubble

1983

Runequest Companion

2016

The Sea Cave

 

Edited by Falconer
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Guest Vile Traveller

While print-on-demand isn't bad these days (in fact, it's quite good), some "proper" new books from the Kickstarter would be nice to have. Most of mine, with the exception of the indestructible Games Workshop softcover RQ2 rulebook, are getting a bit fragile.

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On 2/25/2020 at 3:06 PM, Falconer said:

I thought it would be kind of awesome to make a pictorial list of all available RuneQuest Classic products sorted by year of release. If you click on an image, it will take you the appropriate storefront page (mostly just PDFs at present). It’s neat to see how Chaosium’s product line—and product design—developed throughout the early years. Beautiful!

 

Thank you Falconer, that was very nice of you! I do not know your age, but us old farts dig nostalgia! I am happy and pleased to announce I have 99% of the above (well, all but one actually).

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On 2/24/2020 at 2:28 PM, Falconer said:

Here is the info on hardcover vs. softcover as stated during the campaign:

<Snip KS snippet>

Sounds great to me, especially if perfect binding can be avoided in some of the larger softcovers. ;)

Yes but (as noted in the snippet) that was FOUR YEARS AGO.  And the details were notably lacking and "TBA" back then.

No complaints on that front, it was clearly the only sensible approach!  They didn't know how many Stretch Goals they'd be addressing, hadn't begun many of the needed processes, etc.  "State of the Art" in printing and PoD'ing were (maybe still are) in flux.

The didn't/couldn't know what they'd be producing, nor the production technology, market, etc, that would apply when they actually got to producing.

Over-promising on indeterminate Stretch Goals is one of the notable ways to have KS-failure, or even having a company get "KickStarted to death."  (Chaosium almost "KS'ed to death," from what I can tell, before The Return of the Great Old Ones and the inclusion of the MoonDesign team).

BUT ...

It's now 4 years later, and evidently(?) Rick is looking into this last element mentioned in the KS:  availability of Stretch Goals as print / hardcopy versions.

Hence, my hoping to get some insight as to what Chaosium now expects things to look like...  Trollpak, for example, was several booklets & handouts and a map, as a boxed set.  I think that I recall Rick clarifying (during the KS campaign) that there would be no box-sets; that each of smaller books/booklets from the RQ2 box-set era would be collected into one larger volume, per product, for the RQ Classic editions.  I am presuming that handouts would go into those single volumes, too... But maybe I am wrong, because the RQ Classic core did include a separate suite of hand-outs.

But maybe Chaosium wants to go the Slipcover route instead, and do them as the original (3?) booklets.

Or maybe I misremember (or Chaosium sees things differently now than 4y ago), and the box-sets will be box-sets

Or something different from any of these...?

Edited by g33k
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10 hours ago, g33k said:

Hence, my hoping to get some insight as to what Chaosium now expects things to look like...  Trollpak, for example, was several booklets & handouts and a map, as a boxed set.  I think that I recall Rick clarifying (during the KS campaign) that there would be no box-sets; that each of smaller books/booklets from the RQ2 box-set era would be collected into one larger volume, per product, for the RQ Classic editions.  I am presuming that handouts would go into those single volumes, too... But maybe I am wrong, because the RQ Classic core did include a separate suite of hand-outs.

But maybe Chaosium wants to go the Slipcover route instead, and do them as the original (3?) booklets.

Or maybe I misremember (or Chaosium sees things differently now than 4y ago), and the box-sets will be box-sets

Or something different from any of these...?

If this ever comes to fruition, I wouldn't mind them joining titles. For example, it would seem to me natural to produce both Pavis, and Big Rubble into a single volume, as the items are naturally linked, far more than other items in the lists. For others, this would probably be a bit more difficult.

SDLeary

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On 3/2/2020 at 12:36 PM, SDLeary said:

If this ever comes to fruition, I wouldn't mind them joining titles. For example, it would seem to me natural to produce both Pavis, and Big Rubble into a single volume, as the items are naturally linked, far more than other items in the lists. For others, this would probably be a bit more difficult.

SDLeary

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. 

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Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

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. 

I understand the current intent Rick. Others were opining upon other potential formats, and I was responding to that with mine: a relatively small hardcover with Paris and Big Rubble, even if they are unchanged save for typo fixing and errata, would look good next to RQ Classic on the shelf.

SDLeary

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On 3/3/2020 at 9:56 AM, Rick Meints said:

If you look at any of the PDFs produced for the RQ Classic titles you pretty much know how each printed version will look...

... Printed poster maps are currently available for purchase on redbubble.com ....

TYVM, Rick!

This is exactly the info I was asking for.

Quote

Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

Yes, it really does!  Again -- TYVM!

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/3/2020 at 11:56 AM, Rick Meints said:

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. 

Thanks very much for the update, Rick!

I didn’t know that about redbubble.com. Super excited to see that.

I personally definitely do prefer Pavis and Big Rubble as separate books, FWIW.

If there are any of these that you think would sell well enough to justify a regular print run, I would personally prefer that over POD, no matter if it’s done unhurriedly like one/year. These are classics, and the more archival the quality the better, for me!

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On 2/29/2020 at 4:36 PM, Vile said:

While print-on-demand isn't bad these days (in fact, it's quite good), some "proper" new books from the Kickstarter would be nice to have. Most of mine, with the exception of the indestructible Games Workshop softcover RQ2 rulebook, are getting a bit fragile.

Vile, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but THIS is some quality POD! https://www.tolkien.co.uk/print-demand-bespoke-new-edition/

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1 hour ago, Vile said:

Nice! Still glued though, right? I look forward to the day when we get PoD indistinguishable from mass printed hardbacks (I don't doubt it's coming).

Explicitly says glued, yes.

Agreed that getting stitched folios would be wonderful!

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