Just how revolutionary was RuneQuest when it first came out?

[Rick Meints]

At Gen Con several years ago Steve Perrin and I often chatted while in the Chaosium booth. I enjoyed Steve’s tales of how RuneQuest got developed and what the RPG community thought of the game when it first came out. He mentioned he wrote about those things in Alarums & Excursions back in the 1970s. He said I was free to share what he wrote there with anyone who wanted to know, provided I could find those articles. He lost his copies long ago. I accepted the challenge of tracking them down, even though the chances of finding them were against me. A&E is an Amateur Press Association (APA) magazine that dates back to 1975. In the late 1970s only a few hundred of each issue were printed. Article writers would get a free copy of the issue they appeared in. Publication was far more about being a community than being a commercial enterprise. As luck would have it, on Sunday I finally found Steve’s article and got to work preserving his words for posterity. 

In the September 1978 issue of Alarums & Excursions #37 Steve Perrin laid out, in a very bare bones fashion how RuneQuest, Chaosium’s first RPG, blazed a new trail away from the main RPG that dominated the market. RuneQuest offered a stark contrast to what many players perceived as the one true way to play a game: Experience points, Levels, Fighters can’t cast spells, Magic-users can’t wear armor, and Clerics can’t use edged weapons. RuneQuest turned that world upside down or simply chose to ignore it. Almost 44 years later, we want to share how Steve explained it all those years ago. 

D&D IS A THING OF THE PAST
Copyright 1978 by Steve Perrin. Photo-stenciled by the Chaosium (Greg Stafford) and printed by Lee and Barry Gold.

The Last Hurrah
Hurray! Last night (the 25th of June) we finished layouts and corrections for RUNEQUEST. The Albatross is gone!

I would like to say right here and now that Lynn Willis, creator of GODSFIRE, OLYMPIA, and LORDS OF THE MIDDLE SEA, was absolutely invaluable. He worked 14-hour days doing layout and other dirty work to make sure RUNEQUEST would be finished in time, while I had to hold down my mundane job at Blue Shield and Greg Stafford and Tadashi Ehara worked on KING ARTHUR’S KNIGHTS. Thank you again, Lynn, it was a pleasure working with you.

Commercial Note
Note that this contribution is copyrighted. I don’t know if I’ll be using anything I say in it for future games, but I may, and I need to be covered.

General Mailing Comments
I’ve seen a lot of discussion in A&E the past few months on what needs to be changed in D&D. A lot of you are saying we need a whole new game.

Buy RUNEQUEST. It’s all there.

Experience Points hassles are gone with the wind. Combat makes sense. There is a legitimate Hit Point system (tied to Constitution) with the chance for increase tied to paying for physical fitness training and limited by the racial maximums and other Characteristics of the character. All Skills are available to be learned, taking time and money. We all know where the money is coming from, don’t we?

Converting one’s D&D Characters to the RUNEQUEST system
The main problem with creating a whole new game system is that we (Steve Henderson, Warren James, Ray Turney and I) have stables of D&D Characters we are fond of which we would like to continue to use in the RUNEQUEST format. Therefore, I’ve devised the following rough guidelines for converting them to a saner game system. I am purposely writing the following as if the reader had a copy of RUNEQUEST before him. If you want to understand the references, buy the game.

New Characteristics
Power - As Power in RUNEQUEST is the measure of the relationship of the character with the gods, and Wisdom could be said to perform the same function in D&D, one can simply use Wisdom for the Power of the Character. Alternately, the player can reroll Power for the character and drop the Wisdom roll entirely (or use it strictly for personal reference). Spell Users should add one point of Power for every Order of Spell over First they know, up to Racial Maximum. If the converter wishes to use the Mages-and-Clerics-as-automatic-Cult-Priests option following, their Power should be simply raised to 18 automatically.

Size - If your character has a size firmly fixed in your mind, just estimate its equivalent in a 3-18 range and apply it to the converted character. If you have nothing in mind, roll it on 3D6. If you play with height and weight rolls, average them or just use the weight roll. 

Hit Points - For every Fighting Rank the character has attained (1-3 = 1st, 4-6 = 2nd, etc. for a fighter) add one to his Constitution if possible according to the limits of the game. The same can be done for Strength and Dexterity.

Defense - If the initial Characteristics allow a Defense ability, the player may roll for each Fighting Rank attained by the character to determine if his Defense has increased. If a Defense ability is obtained by. the increase of Dexterity increase shown above, allow one Defense increase roll for every Fighting Rank attained afterthe necessary initial Defense was obtained.

Conversion of Character Classes

Fighters
First figure the Combat Abilities Natural Ability adds and subtractions from the Characteristics.

If Fighter is of First Fighting Rank (lst-3rd level), his Basic Chance is 20% with his usual weapons, plus all Natural Ability pluses and minuses.

If Fighter is of Second Fighting Rank (4th-6th), His Basic Chance is 30% with usual weapons, plus Natural Ability pluses and minuses

If Fighter is of Third Fighting Rank (7th-9th), his Basic Chance is 45% with his usual weapons, plus Natural Ability pluses and minuses.

If Fighter is of Fourth Fighting Rank (10th-12th), his Basic Chance is 55% with his usual weapons, plus Natural Ability pluses and minuses.

If Fighter is of the Fifth Rank (13th-15th), his Basic Chance is 65% with his usual weapons, plus Natural Ability pluses and minuses.

If Fighter is of the Sixth Rank (16th+), his Basic Chance is 80% with his usual weapons, plus Natural Ability pluses and minuses.

These are the Attack and Parry chances with their usual weapons. Thus, if he has always used Broadsword, he will be at the usual RUNEQUEST Basic Chance with a Large Axe he may pick up.

Use of Magic - This depends on the campaign. Either the magic use is still limited to specialists, as it is in D&D, or the campaign can be opened up to the cross-training found in RUNEQUEST. If the former, Fighter use of magic would be limited to the use of Spell Matrices, and perhaps Bound Spirits...

Magicians
Most games do not allow Mages to wear armor and use most weapons. RUNEQUEST does not bother with these restrictions, but the individual adapter can suit himself. Again, like Fighters, Mages have Attack and Parry abilities commensurate with their Fighting Ranks in D&D. Naturally, this ability only applies to the use of Dagger and, perhaps, staff. Campaigns which let Mages use swords are of course welcome to allow Mage use of sword, too.

If you wish to open up Magic use to all, consider the first four levels of D&D Spells to be Battle Magic Spells and teach them anywhere. Depending on how much you wish to follow the guidelines of low magic use shown in RUNEQUEST, you may wish to take some of the more powerful spells and convert them into Rune (or Higher Order) Magic. I suggest this latter as the most reasonable system, as Fireballs and Lightning Bolts can get very dangerous, even if limited to their level in dice (i.e. 3D6 damage). They are more reasonable as the special spells of specialized Fire and Storm Cults.

I also heavily, urge the Intelligence limits on Spell Knowledge and that Power be the basis for Spell use. This is not absolutely necessary. The RUNEQUEST combat system will fit perfectly well into a regular D&D magic system, as long as multi-dice spells are toned down to their level in damage dice, but the use of the Power system limits Magic sufficiently to keep things on a hand to hand combat basis, which is my own particular prejudice in such things.

Cults
One can have specialized Cults, or assume that every Higher Order Magician is a member of some great Lodge which knows all Rune Power Spells. Clerics would be a separate Cult. If you wish to keep Magicians and Clerics as specialists with no cross-over abilities in the world, you can eliminate the Power of 18 limitation for joining and simply let the initiates build up in some other way to the Higher Order Spells.

If you wish to use the 18-21 Power limits for High Order Mages, with the sacrifice of Power for Higher Order Spells, then equate the following spells as follows:

5th and 6th level Magical, 5th Level Clerical, Spells are 1 Point Higher Magic

7th and 8th level Magical, 6th Level Clerical, Spells are 2 Point Higher Magic

9th level Magical and 7th level Clerical are 3 Point Higher Magic.

The concept of Gods supplying the Magical Power for Higher Order Spells can be dropped in a non-Gloranthan world, with the Mages and Clerics "tapping the Mana flow" or some other such rationale.

Clerics
These are dealt with pretty well as above. They would be tied to Life or Death Rune Cults (or equivalent in religious practices of your campaign). If you wish to keep the 18 Power limitation for their Spells/Prayers/Miracles, there are a number of ways to do it. Assume a Power of 18 to start with, making them earn the Power as Mages, then converting, or perhaps, best of all, forgetting the 18 limitation, at least for minor spells. It's your campaign.

Thieves
These can use all their D&D or Spartan or whatever skills at the level they have earned already. Mostly they correspond to RUNEQUEST skills in any case. The other Skills available under RUNEQUEST will have to be learned from basics. Combat Abilities are dependent on Fighting Rank, as usual. The Thiefly bonus in damage from hitting from behind is lost, as you might expect.

Other Categories
Methods of playing Illusionists (Separate Cult), Bards (Matter of Other Skills), Rangers (proficient Fighters), etc. should be obvious from the other guidelines. I will be glad to answer any questions you may have, but feel free to adapt as you will.

Magical Items
There are two ways to go with these.

1. All magical items work as they do now, having both the Spell(s) Matrix and a never-ceasing Power supply.

2. All items are Spell Matrices and must be Powered. Thus, a Staff of Wizardry would be a Matrix for all the Spells, but must be powered by the user. In this second case, all Power Storing and Spirit Trapping items from the RUNEQUEST rules must be retained, or the characters will never be able to use all the stuff.

Items which now have Intelligence and Ego should have Intelligence and Power, being Bound Spirits which will engage a character in Spirit Combat when picked up. Of course, a Spirit can be Chaotic, Lawful, or non-aligned, if your campaign uses such concepts. If a character is taken over by the Spirit in the device, the referee should commence playing the character, for Spirit possession is far more drastic than having a character who is simply "controlled" by his weapon.

Specific Examples
A Belt of Giant Strength - will not work as it does in D&D. Instead, it will bring the Strength and Mass (Size) of the character to 21 each, giving them extra damage ability, but not a giant’s massive power. Note that this increase of Size is simply an augmentation of the density of the body affected. It will not affect the previous Strike Rank.

Magic Armor - acts as Protection Spells of variable Power, depending on the Power brought in. Points are subtracted off damage, not hitting ability.

Magic Weapons - Act just as Bladesharp and Bludgeon Spells. You may follow the limitation to +4 or not, as you please.

Monsters
An article on how to adapt ATWM monsters to RUNEQUEST will be in All The Worlds’ Monsters #3. It’s fairly simple.

Money
All money is relative. RUNEQUEST uses the Silver Lunar, but those liking gold can just translate the amounts as you please. You may switch to either base as seems reasonable. Just be consistent.

Further Note on Magic Items
Looking over the previous comments brings to mind one possibility I had not considered, treating the Magic Items as Powered Crystals, each with its own Power which can be used to Power its Spell, but which can be exhausted. For instance, a Wand of Cold might have a Power of 10, and thus be useful for just so many shots a day, although the Power will regenerate over a period of a day. Then again, there is always the further concept of having to attune such an item, and not being able to use any others, but that is rather restrictive for D&D style play.

It is my intention to set up two "campaigns."

One will be a very loose D&D style campaign with D&D translated to RUNEQUEST terms much the same way (though not necessarily exactly) as I’ve been discussing, with a D&D style money system, monsters, and treasure. This will be mostly a series of dungeons (reworked versions of my D&D dungeons) with sufficient cultural background and above ground terrain to allow for overland travel and some culture interaction.

The other will be a full-scale Dragon Pass-Glorantha game, set in the Plains of Prax, but extending everywhere, in the years before the advent of Argath Dragonteeth, when he was a simple Sartar refugee Rune Lord in Pavis. Who knows, perhaps he’ll be killed... This will be a far tighter controlled game, set within an ongoing history. Eventually, the players will begin to influence this history. It should be fun. It could end up with us playing a game of White Bear and R_ed Moon with different Hero pieces...

RUNEQUEST Response
I’m looking forward for a lot of constructive criticism on this game. Try not to mention the typos. We tried to catch them all, but I will tell you right now that "buck roll" should read "luck roll."(See chapter X) If you’d like to put your own Cults through A&E, we will be happy to take them from here and put them in any supplements, for appropriate credit. Note that we will be a lot more discriminating about Cults appearing in any RUNEQUEST supplements than Jeff Pimper and I have been about Monsters appearing in ATWM.

This was the Chaosium’s first effort with typesetting, and it does seem to have worked out all right, though retyping the tables because the typesetters couldn’t do them was a drag. We’ll have to get used to it. Greg Stafford is thinking of buying a typesetting machine. Then again, I’m told there are computer programs for typesetting. Oog, oog, as Nicolai Shapero would say.

Parting shots
Rereading some of the above I realize that it makes me sound as if I think RUNEQUEST is the ultimate for FRP games, and far superior to anything else on the market. In many ways I do, yet can understand others’ preoccupation with D&D, C&S, and others. RUNEQUEST satisfies my yearnings for a rational game, as it does my co-authors Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James. Greg Stafford likes it too, and he’s the publisher. We are very happy with it. It has a lot of expansion possibilities and I look forward to your comments as to where it should go. Thank you all for reading this cathartic little message.

Art Credit
By the way, check out the artwork done by my wife, Luise. It is far and away the finest art appearing in any Fantasy Role Playing Game. Prejudiced? Yes, but I have a lot of confirmation on this. See the cover repro on Page two of this contribution.

Next Time
The list of figures stolen from me at DunDraCon III...

Epilogue
And there you have it. As Steve said, RuneQuest serves the yearnings for a rational game. Rediscovering this article only a few months after Steve passed away only makes the contents of it all the more bittersweet. I wish I could have chatted with him about this “cathartic little message” and how he felt about it more than 40 years later. In the end, like Steve, I very much look forward to where the newest edition of RuneQuest will go, especially because it has so many expansion possibilities. We all know D&D is by no means a thing of the past, nor is it likely to be, just as much as we know that RuneQuest will be a part of Tabletop Roleplaying games far, far into the future as well. Vale and Farewell, Steve. Your timeless voice still resonates amongst us, reminding us of the humble roots of our passion for stories and the games that allow us to tell them.

 

Edited January 11, 2022 by Rick Meints

[pachristian]

Bought my copy at Origin's '78. Heard all my gaming friends tell me why it wouldn't work. Within a year it was our go-to game system and everything else was an also-ran. I remember a friend complaining that there weren't any wizards in the game - to which I pointed out that all of the evil wizards in the Conan saga were priests of Set.

This was a revolution in another way: 116 pages contained everything you needed and nothing that you did not need.

Edited January 11, 2022 by pachristian

[smiorgan]

Thank you @Rick Meints! This is a wonderful, moving, piece. It fires up my imagination and suddenly I want to start two campaigns just  like those of Steve Perrin... 

 

 

[Akhôrahil]

Applecline notes how it was the first game with skills that could be raised. That’s a big deal!

[Nozbat]

Thanks Rick that was an interesting step back in time 

In early 1980, I remember trying to convince my friends to try playing RuneQuest and they were all initially reluctant. We had a well established AD&D campaign supported by monthly new sheets dating from the early days of the initial 3 book D&D. The 'DM' was rotated weekly but we all played the same characters in the same world.  I persevered with trying out RuneQuest nonetheless. I remember thinking I had succeeded when playing AD&D and one of the players said... "Wait.. the Kobold hit me... why can't I parry it?"

I think the 'ridiculousness' of the AD&D came when players were chasing fleeing monsters through a forest shouting, "Come back Experience Points.. I need you to get to the next level." I don't think we ever went back to AD&D again after that. There had been a general slip in AD&D system which depended on a constant diet of new creatures which no-one knew initially how to beat. But even by this stage most characters were more or less invulnerable and there was little jeopardy in games. Everyone had +5 weapons, armour and bags of holding for the 2 million gold pieces needed to get up a level. I remember comparing PC stats and equipment to the stats of gods in Deities and Demigods and thinking that our characters could take on gods. 

Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer completed the revolution to d100 with a different way to think about the game scenarios rather than dungeon crawls where a red dragon lived in the next room to 13 Drow. I don't think they even exchanged presents at Christmas despite living next door to each other for years. I guess they were living in terror of PCs turning up, stealing their magic and treasure and were thus understandably keeping a low profile.

I did allow players to convert their favourite characters to RuneQuest and had the two campaign game went on for a while. The greater depth of the RuneQuest stories soon took over and the older characters got consigned to the nostalgic myths of a past time.

I actually looked at my AD&D books after reading the above posts. They should just stay on the shelves

 

[Nozbat]

9 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Applecline notes how it was the first game with skills that could be raised. That’s a big deal!

That was a revelation... and skills that weren't limited to classes....fighters that could sneak!!

It always seemed ridiculous that while thieves flirted from shadow to shadow .. fighters had to content with being obvious to anyone who cared to look in their direction

[brionl]

I was in High School in '78 and our Chess Club had morphed into a D&D club. Then one of my friends and I went to DunDraCon at the Dunfey Hotel in San Mateo, CA. Pretty nice, although funds were limited. The first night we crashed at a nearby cheap motel. The second night, we'd spent all our money. Mine was on Runequest, Tunnels & Trolls and Black Box Traveller. So we stayed up all night playing in open gaming (and snuck in a quick nap under the table at one point). Of those three games, I liked Runequest the best, but we ended up playing Traveller the most, until the next year when I went off and joined the US Navy.

I've still got all three of those original books around here somewhere. If I was going to play RQ Classic though, it would be the second edition. I've still got quite a few old RQ source books and packs, including my favorite, Trollpack.

Edited January 12, 2022 by brionl
nefarious

[Bill the barbarian]

10 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

At Gen Con several years ago Steve Perrin and I often chatted while in the Chaosium booth

Thanks for the nostalgia Rick. That was great!

[jongjom]

10 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

This was the Chaosium’s first effort with typesetting, and it does seem to have worked out all right, though retyping the tables because the typesetters couldn’t do them was a drag. We’ll have to get used to it. Greg Stafford is thinking of buying a typesetting machine. Then again, I’m told there are computer programs for typesetting.

Thanks Rick for doing this. Many points made me smile for different reasons, and in particular this one. Truly from the dawn of the RPG era. 

[ffilz]

16 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Applecline notes how it was the first game with skills that could be raised. That’s a big deal!

Thought that's technically not true. Traveller (1977) has a mechanism for improving skills though it is very slow. It's so common for people to forget or not be aware of this.

RuneQuest IS the first game though where skill improvement is a major feature of the game.

EDIT: SpaceQuest (also 1977) has character classes, but it also has skills available to all that are trainable (doesn't look like they can be improved with experience or use though).

Still, RQ still really does look like the first game where skill improvement through training AND experience is the primary mechanism for character improvement.

Edited January 12, 2022 by ffilz

[Rick Meints]

22 minutes ago, ffilz said:

Thought that's technically not true. Traveller has a mechanism for improving skills though it is very slow. It's so common for people to forget or not be aware of this.

RuneQuest IS the first game though where skill improvement is a major feature of the game.

I played the original edition of Traveller from the late 70s and remember its experience "system". It had a brief section on experience in book 2 on pages 42-43. You could pick one of 4 areas of general improvement and then spend FOUR years honing a few skills in that area. If you stopped actively focusing on those skills they often reverted back to their former levels. To me that's not really a "system", or even much more than an extended footnote.

Once you throw in the word "technically" you might as well just say D&D had the first system for improving skills. They did it via experience points and going up levels, which improved your combat skill(s).

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, ffilz said:

Thought that's technically not true. Traveller (1977) has a mechanism for improving skills though it is very slow. It's so common for people to forget or not be aware of this.

Interesting - in Applecline, it says Traveller had skills but not improvable after chargen (IIRC).

[Cloud64]

31 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Interesting - in Applecline, it says Traveller had skills but not improvable after chargen (IIRC).

Checking my little black books, 1977 Games Workshop printing. Book 2 Starships p40: 2 pages on experience and improving skills.  Not easy, takes 4 years. 
 

Edit: I see now Rick beat me to it, but I politely disagree and think it is a system for improving specific skills. But realistically, did anyone actually do it? That's probably why it's mostly forgotten.  A skill improvement system based on actual use of specific skills; looks like a RuneQuest holds that crown. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Cloud64

[Cloud64]

Fascinating article, thanks for sharing, Rick. I remember as a teenagers we argued over which was better, D&D or RQ. I was initially on the side of D&D, but my teenage pedantry quickly conceded that RQ made a lot more sense and just felt logically correct. Thankfully that pedantry is now long <cough: decades> gone and I now enjoy many a game for what it is, not whether its system makes sense. I still prefer BRP though, and find it the most intuitive to play and to teach - everyone gets percentages, simples. 

Edited January 12, 2022 by Cloud64

[Baron Wulfraed]

33 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

Checking my little black books, 1977 Games Workshop printing. Book 2 Starships p40: 2 pages on experience and improving skills.  Not easy, takes 4 years. 

Essentially equivalent to spending another tour of duty in character generation...

 

[Rick Meints]

21 minutes ago, Cloud64 said:

Fascinating article, thanks for sharing, Rick. I remember as a teenagers we argued over which was better, D&D or RQ. I was initially on the side of D&D, but my teenage pedantry quickly conceded that RQ made a lot more sense and just felt logically correct. Thankfully that pedantry is now long <cough: decades> gone and I now enjoy many a game for what it is, not whether its system makes sense. I still prefer BRP though, and find it the most intuitive to play and to teach - everyone gets percentages, simples. 

Back in the early 80s most of my friends were happy to try different systems and in many cases the rules weren't the deciding factor, it was the setting. If you wanted to play in Space you tried Traveller. If you wanted to play in the Wild West you played Boot Hill. If you wanted to play as spies you played Top Secret. For Horror you played Call of Cthulhu. If you wanted to play in a post-apocalyptic wasteland you played Gamma World. Sure, there were other games in those genres too, but they were often harder to find unless you lived near a really big game store or were really into mail order.

For Fantasy settings you had a bigger range of options, such as D&D, RQ, T&T, and a handful of others. Because D&D had more modules available than the other games, and it was in a LOT of stores, it was often the easy choice to get into and keep playing. We stopped playing a number of rules systems because in the early days for that system you couldn't get a lot of ready to play modules. For RQ you only had Apple Lane and Snakepipe Hollow, and the very hard to find Balastor's Barracks. If your GM was happy to make up their own adventures this probably wasn't a factor for what you played, but it was amongst my circle of gaming friends. 

In the 90s I tried to get other gaming friends to play RQ, but most of them had played a fair bit of D&D and didn't want to bother with learning a new system. 

[ffilz]

1 hour ago, Rick Meints said:

I played the original edition of Traveller from the late 70s and remember its experience "system". It had a brief section on experience in book 2 on pages 42-43. You could pick one of 4 areas of general improvement and then spend FOUR years honing a few skills in that area. If you stopped actively focusing on those skills they often reverted back to their former levels. To me that's not really a "system", or even much more than an extended footnote.

Once you throw in the word "technically" you might as well just say D&D had the first system for improving skills. They did it via experience points and going up levels, which improved your combat skill(s).

I agree that the Traveller skill improvement is barely there, but I point it out because so many people believe Traveller had no improvement at all which is simply not true.

On the other hand, the little known Space Quest clearly has skills that are separate from its character classes and are clearly improvable with training, so even if we discount Traveller's improvement system, we still have another example that predates RQ.

BUT RQ IS still the first system where skills replaced classes and provides for character advancement as a regular part of play

There's also more to the revolutionary nature of RQ than just the skill system though, so it certainly is a revolutionary system when taken as a whole and compared to the other games that preceded it.

[ffilz]

14 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Back in the early 80s most of my friends were happy to try different systems and in many cases the rules weren't the deciding factor, it was the setting. If you wanted to play in Space you tried Traveller. If you wanted to play in the Wild West you played Boot Hill. If you wanted to play as spies you played Top Secret. For Horror you played Call of Cthulhu. If you wanted to play in a post-apocalyptic wasteland you played Gamma World. Sure, there were other games in those genres too, but they were often harder to find unless you lived near a really big game store or were really into mail order.

For Fantasy settings you had a bigger range of options, such as D&D, RQ, T&T, and a handful of others. Because D&D had more modules available than the other games, and it was in a LOT of stores, it was often the easy choice to get into and keep playing. We stopped playing a number of rules systems because in the early days for that system you couldn't get a lot of ready to play modules. For RQ you only had Apple Lane and Snakepipe Hollow, and the very hard to find Balastor's Barracks. If your GM was happy to make up their own adventures this probably wasn't a factor for what you played, but it was amongst my circle of gaming friends. 

In the 90s I tried to get other gaming friends to play RQ, but most of them had played a fair bit of D&D and didn't want to bother with learning a new system. 

Lots of parallel to my experience. Though between White Dwarf and Judges Guild there were a few more modules for RQ, but it wasn't until the 1990s that I got a campaign going that lasted for more than a few sessions. By that time I had enough experience with adapting D&D modules to other systems that I was easily able to fill out a campaign (and in fact, only ran a fraction of the RQ modules available...).

[Mark Mohrfield]

I'm wondering just when Runequest became easily available to the public. What was the print run for the first edition, and when was the second edition printed? My old beaten up copy 2nd edition lists copyright 1978, 1979, and 1980.

[ffilz]

26 minutes ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I'm wondering just when Runequest became easily available to the public. What was the print run for the first edition, and when was the second edition printed? My old beaten up copy 2nd edition lists copyright 1978, 1979, and 1980.

1st edition did have a small print run (it's documented somewhere out there on the web...) but it was reasonably available, I picked up my copy in the Boston MA area in 1978. I also got all the early modules (I was in college and my budget was more limited by the time Pavis and Big Rubble came out so I didn't get those originally).

[Ravenheart87]

Intriguing, thank you for sharing!

Quote

 

These can use all their D&D or Spartan or whatever skills at the level they have earned already.

 

What are these Spartan skills?

[Rick Meints]

1 hour ago, Mark Mohrfield said:

I'm wondering just when Runequest became easily available to the public. What was the print run for the first edition, and when was the second edition printed? My old beaten up copy 2nd edition lists copyright 1978, 1979, and 1980.

RQ1 had a print run of 5000 copies, and it sold out by May of 1979. The RQ2 softcover rulebook debuted in October of 1979, and also had a print run of 5,000 copies. Boxed RQ debuted in October of 1981 with a print run of, wait for it, 5,000 copies. Most Chaosium print runs were 5,000 copies back in the late 70s and early 80s. If that print run sold out quickly we would print another 5,000 units. Other than the RQ2 rulebook, the RQ2 boxed set, Cults of Prax, and Snakepipe Hollow, no other RQ supplement was reprinted. Supplements like Balastor's Barracks, Trolls & Trollkin, Militia & Mercenaries, and Creatures of Chaos had print runs in the 2,000 to 3,000 copies range. The Runequest Rulebook was sold in most game shops as it went through regular distribution. By 1981 any RQ2 release was readily available when it debuted. 

[Martin Dick]

RQ2 was available in Australia by at latest 1982, I don't remember seeing a copy of RQ1 though

 

[Frp]

We mostly played Melee (proto GURPS I believe) back in the early '80's. All I ever saw were mimeographed pages about character creation. I've never set eyes on the actual rulebook. But even that was a vast improvement over D&D. 

Runequest was around but it took us awhile to warm to the idea of ongoing plots and characters. 

[Bill the barbarian]

I think Melee was the beginning of The Fantasy Trip when combined with Wizards. My first encounter with RQ was in '83 at the University of Victoria. DnD of course was ever so much larger but there were folk playing DragonQuest, C&S/Bushido and Aftermath (I think).