The Lost Runequest

[Richard S.]

From what I've heard, there was another edition of Runequest under development while RQ3 was still in sway, called Runequest: Adventures in Glorantha. I've also heard there's still some copies of the playtest rules floating around the web, though I'm not sure of Chaosium's stance on it. To anyone who either was actually a playtester for this early "RQ4" or who has read it through some other means, what were your impressions of it? Were there any major changes from RQ3, any improvements or steps back? From the title, I'm assuming it was an attempt to return the game to Glorantha, but how well did it succeed? Are there any elements that showed up in later editions, up to and especially RQG?

[galafrone]

i have the pdf of an installment of it.

i liked it, got some ideas that we used in our "mainly rq3 campaign"

was an evolution of it, with firm roots in rq3

character generation was vastly improved

[soltakss]

I have read it and I wasn't that impressed, to be honest. 

From what I recall, combat had things like quarter-turns and half-turns as combat options, allowing your PC to rotate through 90 or 180 degrees in combat, which took Strike Ranks. Combat was incredibly detailed and finicky, not the sort of thing I want in RQ combat, to be honest.

[David Scott]

13 hours ago, Richard S. said:

To anyone who either was actually a playtester for this early "RQ4" or who has read it through some other means, what were your impressions of it? 

I playtested it. It was firmly in the "more complex is better" RPG ideology. Most of the "improvements" complicated he system, some of the new stuff like point based template characters were interesting - but only at character generation. I adopted 2 things from it into my RQ3 games. A simplified version its complex fatigue rules and some of the Sorcery rules that made more sense than RQ3. Search through the list here using RQIV : https://glorantha.steff.in/digests/ It did have its own list somewhere. 

The version floating around has clearly been tarted up and produced much later (2000s?).

the reality (the internet in1992 wasn't sophisticated), I had raw text files in individual emails and never the whole thing in one go - others might have:

This was all in 1992-93, 28 years ago. It happened at the time we were riding the RuneQuest Renaissance wave - I was involved in the Convulsion conventions in the UK, Tales of the Reaching Moon and Sun County had just been published - fortunately these were much more exciting. Overall it was a dead end, that was never official or published. The memories of it have merged into thousands of hours of games and been fortunately forgotten.

 

[Glorion]

I actually ran a campaign in it. Basically, it wasn't terribly different from RQ3 in feel as a game. RQ3 rules were refined a bit, they overall seemed like improvements to me, but yes, were a bit more complex, something I don't particularly mind. It died because the main author got into very serious personal legal trouble, so Chaosium dropped it like a hot potato, not wanting to be associated with that.

[AndreJarosch]

5 minutes ago, Glorion said:

I actually ran a campaign in it. Basically, it wasn't terribly different from RQ3 in feel as a game. RQ3 rules were refined a bit, they overall seemed like improvements to me, but yes, were a bit more complex, something I don't particularly mind. It died because the main author got into very serious personal legal trouble, so Chaosium dropped it like a hot potato, not wanting to be associated with that.

Avalon Hill dropped it. 

[PhilHibbs]

26 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

Avalon Hill dropped it. 

And started "Runequest Slayers" instead. Nobody misses that one.

[jajagappa]

41 minutes ago, AndreJarosch said:

Avalon Hill dropped it.

I believe it was a bit more complex than that as Greg withdrew AH's rights to publish anything Gloranthan.

[Ian Absentia]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

And started "Runequest Slayers" instead. Nobody misses that one.

It's still out there!  Albeit under a different name.  I took a bit of heat for criticising it back in the day.  It was a weird iterative step farther away from Glorantha.

!i!

[Glorion]

2 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

Avalon Hill dropped it. 

The thing never made it to serious discussions about publication with Avalon Hill I don't think. I was running the playtest version which I'd gotten access to, but it wasn't really a playtest, it was simply my house campaign, as I preferred its rules to RQ3 rules. I did participate in the email discussion forum about it Chaosium set up, and contributed my own suggestions for new sorcery rules, which weren't adopted (and none of the PC's in my campaign were sorcerors, it was your usual Orlanthi Dragon Pass and Prax campaign, including a lot of stuff from the published RQ3 materials). I posted them elsewhere on this blog. The final breakdown between Avalon Hill and Chaosium actually happened after the RQ4 fiasco ended, I think.

[PhilHibbs]

23 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

And started "Runequest Slayers" instead. Nobody misses that one.

21 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

It's still out there!  Albeit under a different name.  I took a bit of heat for criticising it back in the day.  It was a weird iterative step farther away from Glorantha.

!i!

I should point out that I don't know anything about RuneSlayers, it might be a great system. My memory of it is tarnished by the AH blurb that deliberately trashed RuneQuest's heritage.

[Bill the barbarian]

49 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I should point out that I don't know anything about RuneSlayers, it might be a great system. My memory of it is tarnished by the AH blurb that deliberately trashed RuneQuest's heritage.

Any old grognards having the text or even graphic for this want to post it up? Just curious.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Any old grognards having the text or even graphic for this want to post it up? Just curious.

Hasbro bought them out & cancelled the project.  Rights reverted to the authors, who released it for free.

RuneSlayers

Connors & Lawrence (I think)

Don't have the link, but should be findable!

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Any old grognards having the text or even graphic for this want to post it up? Just curious.

Just going from memory, "Fat merchants and gaunt troubadours have no place in this savage world where only the most brutal warriors survive". Basically, "we have no time for nuanced characters, just kill things and take their stuff".

I guess you munchkins would love it, but not me. It's very much a "barbarian wearing horned helmet" person game.

Edited March 2, 2020 by PhilHibbs

[Bill the barbarian]

Just now, PhilHibbs said:

Just going from memory, "Fat merchants and gaunt troubadours have no place in this savage world where only the most brutal warriors survive". Basically, "we have no time for nuanced characters, just kill things and take their stuff".

Holy crap, really! That is terrible.

[Jeff]

9 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

Just going from memory, "Fat merchants and gaunt troubadours have no place in this savage world where only the most brutal warriors survive". Basically, "we have no time for nuanced characters, just kill things and take their stuff".

I guess you munchkins would love it, but not me. It's very much a "barbarian wearing horned helmet" person game.

Please do not post any material from RuneQuest Slayers. We do not own the copyright. 

[Bill the barbarian]

 

29 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Please do not post any material from RuneQuest Slayers. We do not own the copyright. 

Not even an ad, Jeff? Sorry had no idea that would be crossing a line.

[g33k]

38 minutes ago, Jeff said:

Please do not post any material from RuneQuest Slayers. We do not own the copyright. 

It is -- apparently -- a free PDF, released by the authors (who DO own the (c)). I don't know that they ever put a CreativeCommons, OGL, or other explicitly "free" license on it, but I also don't know that they didn't, or what it means if they "said" it was free but never put a license onto it.

I appreciate your professionalism, Jeff, in not wanting to step on anyone's toes here!

https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=5136

May be a place to start, although the "official" website (linked at end of article) seems dead.  Looks like there's other links there to follow, if one wanted to keep hunting it down...

[David Scott]

10 hours ago, g33k said:

RuneSlayers

RPGnet have the info and explanation of the history.  https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=5136

and a review: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_5223.phtml

 

[Rick Meints]

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.

 

[Richard S.]

32 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

In 1994 Greg did not approve the manuscript for publication. Thus, AH could not publish RQ:AiG, even if they wanted to.

Do you know why he didn't approve it?

[Rick Meints]

4 hours ago, Richard S. said:

Do you know why he didn't approve it?

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.

[Richard S.]

30 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

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.

One last question: what's Chaosium's stance on the versions of the playtest rules floating around the internet?

[MOB]

42 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

One last question: what's Chaosium's stance on the versions of the playtest rules floating around the internet?

As with any work belonging to others, please do not share the files (or where you can get a hold of them) on BRP Central.

[davecake]

I was involved in the play test, I actively participated in discussions. It was definitely a more complex set of rules, some changes worked some did not. I adopted a few rules for my campaign that started as RQ3, but ignored many others - on the whole it was pretty workable, and we had a taste for complexity back in those days, but not astonishing.

It certainly would have been different had it made it to publication, but relationships between Greg and AH may have doomed it before it started. And the project was definitely one that came out of Glorantha fandom, so it was it was a bit tragic (and was probably doomed before the unfortunate issues that finally killed it).