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RuneQuest 2 Reprint - First Impressions


TrippyHippy

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So, as a Teacher on holiday, I've had most of the day to peruse through the PDF I received earlier this afternoon. It's quite exciting for me, as my own experience in gaming started more in the late 80s sometime after RQ2's heyday. As such, it's the first time I've ever read a copy of it, and while you can see the roots of what followed in there (RQ3 et al) it actually has some very distinct differences.

The most striking one for me is character generation and starting skills.

Firstly, all base scores are much lower than modern gamers may be used to and there are no background or cultural packages that extend skill scores beyond these bases. Characteristics are all rolled on 3d6 with high or low scores influencing the skill bases by the odd 5% here or there usually, but when the variance amounts to a starting score of 10-20% it's still pretty low. Secondly, while you can make experience rolls against skills used to make small 5% incremental improvements, the real development is through downtime Training which is paid for in hard cash - not too dissimilar to Classic Traveller. Another similarity is the point that to get early training a character has to take out loans from various Guilds, Brotherhoods and possibly Cults in order to buy skill advancements (which actually looks quite similar to the way Warhammer games pay for advances with XP - except it's in Lunars instead). As such, the motivation to adventure is often initially driven to pay off debts, before trying to push for more powerful developments via cults and wotnot.

The magic is nominally divided into Basic magic, which is ubiquitous and can also be bought on a spell-for-cash basis (and in effect these actually operate a bit like talents or feats from other games) and Rune Magic which is associated with different Cults and a degree of secrecy and mastery. Within Basic Magic, Sprit Magic as practiced by Shaman is also detailed (and involves spirit combat and the like as we see in RQ6) while there is also the practices of Alchemists and Sages to teach more practical skills in creating potions and poisons, or speaking languages respectively.

There are lots of other little differences and stipulations that remind that this game is not the same as the Basic Roleplaying rules we may have been accustomed to via RQ3-6, Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu. It's certainly different, and an interesting read because of it. I haven't noticed too many typos as of yet, although seeing Ducks with an Average Size of 54 was amusing....:)

Still reading on.......what are YOUR thoughts?

 

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19 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

As such, the motivation to adventure is often initially driven to pay off debts, before trying to push for more powerful developments via cults and wotnot

That was pretty much how I played my first year of RQ2. It went something like screw up depending Gringle's pawnshop so you now owe money to him and the guilds. Agree to explore Rainbow Mounds to get some loot and go into more debt needing healing potions. Run into the occasional Lunar patrol as a random encounter who "tax" you of your pitiful supply of loot. Have so many debts and obligations that you spend your time being sent to explore death traps that end up with you dead, limbless or even more in debt. Rinse and repeat. Life as a RQ2 adventurer was short, brutal and indebted. The characters occasionally made it to initiate level. One did once make it to 3 points of rune magic until he had to blow it all and then ended up on 2 POW after a DI.

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On 12/1/2016 at 8:29 AM, TrippyHippy said:

Still reading on.......what are YOUR thoughts?

 

Well, I am particularly happy with the extra content (RuneQuestions, additional appendices) since I am already familiar with RQ2. My thoughts here: http://2ndage.blogspot.com/2016/01/runequest-classic-if-youve-missed.html

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Guest Vile Traveller
1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

I have noted that there in an appendix for gaining prior experience, although I'm still going through it.

That's from the original. The "new" appendices are from R onwards (I believe they mostly come from Wyrm's Footnotes).

The boxed "Rambling RuneQuestions" text is newly inserted, although I'm not sure it's really necessary.

On a sad note, I miss the D12 already ... :(

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Guest Vile Traveller

There are incidences where the D100 matters, notably impales and criticals, but also things like fumble tables, minimum chance of learning from experience (equal to INT in percentiles), and possibly a few others.

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On 1/13/2016 at 6:42 AM, Vile said:

There are incidences where the D100 matters, notably impales and criticals, but also things like fumble tables, minimum chance of learning from experience (equal to INT in percentiles), and possibly a few others.

+1

I believe the d100/5 mechanic was chosen because it was "the same as" d20.  But as Vile says, there are times when fractions-of-skills are used, and the finer granuarity comes into play.

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There are a few fractions here and there - but I can see why Greg Stafford eventually shifted the mechanics from d100 to d20 in the way he did with Pendragon, or Moon Design (loosely) to HeroQuest.

I'm actually interested in seeing how much of this original game continues through to Chaosium's next edition of RuneQuest - and how much comes from other sources like RQ6 or indeed, Pendragon and HeroQuest.

 

 

 

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My first RQ game (1980) the GM got us involved with Cults & Guilds & the like pretty quick.  Debt (at least cash) was pretty minimal, as the cult was training us mostly in their own 1/2-price skills -- but we definitely "owed" them, and declining to do the "favors" they wanted of us would have been both churlishly ungrateful, and dangerous...  ;-)

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