Is RuneQuest too dependent on social organizations?

[Guest Vile Traveller]

I believe this is why RQ was considered unsuitable for Glorantha by many people in the past. When it first appeared the most talked-about aspect was that the rules were so much more "realistic" than D&D and that's what drew people in - the gritty, low fantasy feel that was achievable with these rules. Glorantha was a nice-to-have, but hardly essential for everyone. I'm not overly worried about RQ7 in this respect, because I'm probably waiting for the other BRP games at this point. RQ7's job now is (rightly, I would say) to make BRP work in Glorantha, and I moved on from Glorantha a long time ago.

[Baron]

When it first came out, RQ was indeed noted for gritty "realistic" danger. And classless, skill-based advancement by easily-understood percentile scores. And everyone could cast spells. Yes, Glorantha was secondary. But, RQ was also widely known for its crazy creatures: ducks, morokanth, dragonewts, tusk brothers, walktapi, broo, jack o'bears and trollkin. People new to the game STILL ask with disbelief if any of that is "true." Sure, "Cults" became its "Gods Demigods and Heroes," but the histories, myths et al were secondary to how to increase your PC's awesomeness. From RQ2 page 12: "Thus we see that if Rurik had the money, he could put 4000 L towards bringing his STR up to 16... Where would our hero get this money? That's what the rest of this book is all about."

[styopa]

22 hours ago, Zit said:

I agree. I'm often getting lost in such discussions and give up before the end, but every one can integrate myths to the degree he wished. I sometime have the feeling that the PCs are supposed to be played as a kind of mystical exhalted derviches. I prefer playing the consequences of the myths on the mundane plane rather than playing the myths themselves. I runned as GM two heroic quests, both in the mundane world. It's all a matter of taste, but the publishers shall be carefull not cutting Glorantha away from less mystical and more real playing tastes. YRQWV

Yep, for us it boiled down to a few simple points:

- the much-more realistic combat was orders of magnitude more satisfying than D&D (initial hook)

- the skill system and classlessness was so much more intuitive (set the barb)

- a world that wasn't just medieval Europe with magic clumsily bolted on but not even faintly rationalized in terms of impact (not to mention religion; it's pretty important in the history of OUR world where miracles (if you believe in them) are pretty few and far between; how much more overwhelming a cultural force would religion be in a world where the gods are demonstrably immanent) and no alignments. (and...caught)

My main campaign ran for around a dozen years, more or less.  Not one "heroquest" was done, but everyone had a great time.  Every single player, however, has complained to me that they find it tremendously hard to move to other games.  D&D5e is a good game, don't get me wrong, but once you've played RQ it sort of ruins you for for the compromises in other systems.