Appreciation post

[RandomNumber]

Hi there,

I discovered RQ when I tired of AD&D and saved up my pocket money to buy GW's RQ2 in 1980. My friends and I played RQ through Balazar and the Elder Wilds, Pavis and the Borderlands up to and through the AH RQ3 period and the wonderful RQ Renaissance of the early 90's - Sun County, Strangers in Prax, Dorastor.  I went to Convulsion several times, met Greg and even landed up with a copy of Sandy Petersen's campaign notes from the Convulsion auction in 1994 (?).  Great memories.

Then I guess life got in the way. I moved to Australia in 2005 and all my RQ stuff has sat in boxes in the loft for at least 15 years; I haven't played a game of RQ in at least 20.  Keeping track of RQ and Glorantha became tiresome as it branched in so many different directions.  Every now and again I would buy an RQ or Glorantha product mostly as a homage to my teens. I would leaf through the product and then consign it to the back of a cupboard.

With the COVID19 lockdown in hand, I pulled out my copy of latest RQ Rules on a whim and gave it a good read.  The years have fallen away and I'm a teenager again!  The production quality is magnificent and the rules and the setting have been honoured admirably. I realise too that I now have potentially captive players - two children the age I was when I first lifted the lid on RQ2 and rejoiced at the lack of character classes and alignments.

So... there's real no point or question to this post.  I simply felt moved to offer my thanks to those who kept the spirit of RQ and Glorantha alive during a fallow period and have engineered such a magnificent rebirth.

Thank you

[BrentS]

I'm in exactly the same boat. Hard core roleplayer in my teens and early 20s.....but nothing for 25 years. 

Runequest 2 and Glorantha were always my favourite and I've kept an occasional eye on Glorantha since then, even though I haven't cast a Befuddle or rolled percentiles in 20 years. That all changed when my considerate and beautiful wife bought me the amazing Guide to Glorantha for Christmas and I've been reliving my love of Glorantha, now with the RQG slipcase set....which is just wonderful (and a welcome diversion).

I've even considered dusting off the dice and running something for family and old roleplaying friends and am exploring online options for this. Time's an issue (I'm a healthcare worker) and I haven't committed to anything soon but the interest is there.

Apart from our similar history with Runequest (and our similar vintage if you started on RQ2 in 1980 ), we share something else in common......I'm also in Sydney. That might as well be the other side of the world at the moment but it does mean a shared timezone and future gaming opportunity. I'm new to the site and when I've worked out how to send a PM I'll be in touch.

[Dissolv]

I gamed Runequest for 10+ years solid, fairly hardcore with multiple gaming groups (I lived in a boring small town) starting waaaaaay back with Dragon Pass (the game) and the 2nd Edition Red book -- and no other clues on how to work the setting!  At one point I had to guess what was west of the Holy Country, and without a clue, I decided that it was Glorantha Pictland.  A tremendously fun adventure (I'd read all of Conan, and the players had not, so they didn't realize that it was a pastiche of several Conan adventures against the Picts). 

Then....a whole lot of real life, and almost nothing fantasy.  Lots of computer stuff.  Beep. Boop.

These days I belong to a very active miniatures gaming club, and role playing games are very difficult to get the guys into, or me for that matter.  However my old gaming group is "in", and I'm trying to get the miniatures guys heads around as well.   It's tough sledding, but one thing that is helping are the incredible models that are available for fantasy gaming these days.  Bronze age stuff is still challenging, but I'm gradually taking a "tour" of the world of Glorantha, and my broos, and my Delecti undead have both seen the table as part of To The Strangest! games, in addition to being fun visualization for Role Playing. 

I'm hugely enjoying getting back into the setting, and have been doing a ton of reading of the many published works, official, Jonstown Compendium, Greg's mythology stuff, the works. 

[Stephen L]

On 4/26/2020 at 7:57 AM, RandomNumber said:

I now have potentially captive players - two children

My experiences sound similar.  I started with RQii in Glorantha in the early 80s.  Switched to RQiii as it fixed problems, but didn’t quite have that RQii feel.  Played Pendragon, which was fun, but didn’t have that magic.

But RQ in Gloranatha is everything I’ve ever wanted.  The vividness of the characters as they’re generated, and the settings, really the scenarios just write themselves.  And so much care has been taken for the novice, so that they can just pick it up and have fun.  

My children are 9 and 7, and we’ve set up a group with an old friend and her kid, and we’re loving it.  The youngest (with a penchant for melodrama and overacting, think Brian Blessed, just louder) was born to play a duck, demanded to play a duck, is a duck to his very soul (Stanislavski, eat your heart out), and now he found out about the dinosaurs, his life is not complete until he has achieved his goal of becoming a dinosaur rider!  There’s a thief from Pavis, known to Argrath, there’s a Yelmalian noble with an intelligent hawk companion, and the son of a Khan, thirsting for revenge against the Lunar Empire for his robbed Sartarite inheritance…

I have never experienced a roleplaying system that comes anywhere remotely close to this.

[Dragon]

I was introduced to RQ2 back in 1982 by a college professor, and we transitioned to home-rule modified RQ3 sometime before May 1986. I really enjoyed the detailed background. I consumed it like a Devour Book spell, though I still retain the slightly broken-in originals. Though my RQ3 Cults Book is not 'slightly'. I copied it all for my own home-rules where I modified some things for play-balance or MGF. I added my own details to the short Cults Book descriptions where I could glean some suggestions from in print stuff, web, or my own personal preference. I somehow got a copy of early heroquest rules (including Berserkergang and Seven Sky Gates, etc.), Sandy Peterson's 1998 Sorcery rules, and the potential Shaman rules. I modified those too, slightly.

But you fixed many of the issues I had tried to fix myself when RQG was published and have now gladly moved to those. Though I did confuse my players a touch when I excitedly changed from my home rules to that. Unfortunately, prior to RQG I had started them in 1619, and haven't decided to speed them forward. Now they know a bit of the world-changing events that are going to happen in the next few years. Oh well, some of the story lines outside the scenarios themselves couldn't be sped forward well.

I love that everyone uses magic, just different aspects. No specific 'classes' or 'levels'. I love the fact that different cultures have different truths. That no one declares their 'alignment' to be chaotic evil (who would actually do that). That most cultures view themselves as the good guys. Such a depth of meaning to Glorantha.