Where does Runequest fit?

[Garrik]

We can talk about how the publisher(s) presented RuneQuest, and how we, the players, used it. Both of these takes only mirror the viewpoints of very few people. It might be possible to draw broader conclusions about a general take on the material by the public if we could run a large enough gallup. That would be super interesting! In the meantime, I think the safest path is to look at the official and fan publications to try and see how the game was presented and used.

I honestly don't understand how hiring henchmen or random monster encounters is part of any one style of playing the game. But since you brought this up, let's have a look.

In our gaming circles, we had no problem in hiring henchmen or creating monster encounters with the 2nd and 3rd editions. These things were not neatly packaged in the main game, but the relevant information could be found in different sections and examples of the game: typical pay, typical skills and typical gear - even typical "threat-levels" and personal treasure. Some GM preparation was needed, of course. Unless you used the published adventures, which had all of this ready-made.

Early adventure modules had typical mercenary bands for hire (PC's actually could be members of such bands in the 2nd ed), encounter tables, and pre-generated monster encounters with pre-generated monster stats. Small-scale military operations were very much a tendency in RuneQuest gaming, from Pavis & the Big Rubble to the pre-hero wars Sartar campaigns presented in the 90's Tales of the Reaching Moon.

Then the myth/legend issue. How far did the early RuneQuest system & supplements focus on the mythic element as its driving force?

Heroquesting is the link between small-scale skirmishes and myths, but heroquesting rules for RuneQuest were not available before the 90's, IIRC, when various in-house and fan mechanics became public in the fan press and early internet. Then, in the 90's, we started to see myth and legend as practical issues and even tools in RuneQuest/Glorantha.

That still doesn't include the more generic use of RuneQuest in the Avalon Hill ancient/migration/Viking era alternate Europe, or as a generic system for any fantasy roleplaying. RuneQuest (and BRP) were not only about Glorantha, and Avalon Hill tried hard to present RuneQuest as a generic fantasy system. Avalon Hill and Chaosium published Gloranthan locations translated into generic ones (Griffin Island, Carse, Tulan), with little or no myth/legend presented for actual play. The focus was very much on classic adventure, character development, even pulp, if you liked that.

I feel the late 70's and 80's and up to the early 90's publications didn't focus the game play on myths and legends. RuneQuest the game in its 1st-3rd editions was always very much a small-scale skirmish and character-development system, and acquiring the skills & spells had very little background in the setting. Instead, they had simple monetary values, so you could buy spells and buy teaching. The (at the time) novel individual skill experience system made trial and error a chief method of acquiring skills - and forced the GM to balance the opponents to the PC skill level, if total party kill was to be avoided. A classic situation in early roleplaying in general.

The short cult descriptions brought some game-system meat around the bones, but very little in the way of myths and legends: you mostly had skill caps for attaining advanced cult levels, the heroic/mythical path was not described. Only a couple of cults had prohibitions/blessings, to enforce a certain behavior on the PC's. Humakt and Yelmalio come to mind. Then some Glorantha-specific supplements developed some cults further. Still, I personally feel the long cult descriptions rarely presented practical tools for bringing the myths into the focus of play. It was up to the GM and the players to create that magic circle, and from my own experience & what I heard from others, RuneQuest was often played without the myth/legend aspect.

As you can see, I cannot discuss the 2000's RuneQuest editions, as I never played any. From what I've seen & heard, most of them have much stronger focus on Glorantha and the myth/legend aspect. Also, the 2000's publications are probably more self-aware about the style of gaming they represent, after the internet theory discussions.

Perhaps you could explain your starting point in this discussion, to help me understand your point? Do you agree or disagree with my presentation of the tendencies about RuneQuest during its first 15 or so years?

[Questbird]

On 2/23/2022 at 8:18 AM, JRE said:

RQ: G, for me has an aspect that does not appear in the essay, that I would call "The tiranny of the setting", or "The one true Glorantha", typical of games where the very rich setting creates its own set of constraints. It can be played as Traditional, but if the GM tries to adhere to the setting, that reduces her agency, with the benefit of better compatibility with other players and with future supplements. Other games also have this problem, and the degree of adherence to the "Canon" can be used to challenge the GMs authority, something unusual within a traditional game. 

I will go further and propose that rich settings have the setting as a kind of assistant GM, as they make the work of the GM easier, at the expense of lost agency, and usually high money expense, to get all supplements. Like Gloranthan gods, limited to their Godtime actions.

 

The cost is not only measured in money for those supplements; the GM must also read and synthesise all that material, which takes time. Hopefully the time invested is paid back by the immersiveness of the setting in play.