Concerns about the new RQ edition

[10baseT]

My group has been playing RQ since the early 80s and we haven't lacked for any storytelling, or felt a lack of it anyways. The cult right ups in Cults of Prax/Terror gave us good fodder to drive our PCs and ambitions/motivators. If there was something we wanted to do or add, we just added it or took care of it. I guess i'm on the other side 'cause i'm fine without it. I must admit though, from what's mentioned in the designer note updates, the new chargen and background sounds cool. But you do mention DnD Inspiration. Towards that, i can say i did like Stormbringer's elan points. We actually use that somewhat for RQ in that a PC will get an extra point or so for DI attempts... depending how in character the PC was to his cult, (at GM discretion.

(one thing i hope we dont and never see is bennies or coins/tokens for rollovers/rerolls... i think we're safe there)

Edited June 2, 2016 by 10baseT

[rust]

1 hour ago, styopa said:

You probably meant to reverse those comparisons, respectively?  

This must have been some kind of "Freudian Slip", with my subconscious self elevating RQ to the relative dimension of China ...

[g33k]

6 hours ago, styopa said:

Oh, and maybe of passing interest in this discussion as well: sales ranking of RPG systems

styopa, you are a god among men!  Thanks -- I've never before seen anything like objective, reliable numbers on multiple RPG"s across an extended timeframe...

[Jeff]

10 hours ago, styopa said:

Oh, and maybe of passing interest in this discussion as well: sales ranking of RPG systems based on retail reporting since Q32004.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=69358&d=1437395191&stc=1

Keep in mind, that this tracks only retail sales through game stores. These do not take into account online sales, Kickstarter, direct sales, Amazon, or anything other than hobby retail sales. So for example, 99% of our Glorantha sales are not through retail hobby stores.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?1984-Top-5-RPGs-Compiled-Charts-2008-Present#.V1EcslfYNOg#ixzz4AUeGRiWv

[styopa]

12 hours ago, g33k said:

I've never before seen anything like objective, reliable numbers on multiple RPG"s across an extended timeframe...

If you dig into that source page, further down someone actually posts FATEs numbers, to some degree putting $ behind the ordinal positions.  

And, as Jeff commented, it should be kept in mind that this is a VERY particular slice of an economy that's less and less driven by retail sales.  (Although I'd point out that if anything, that probably depresses Pathfinder's share as much as anyone, I understand they're largely direct-sales themselves?)

That's why I originally started my comment using Reddit's numbers.  Objectively, a game could sell 1000 copies (either direct or via retail) but if nobody's talking about it, that's probably a better indication of where it is in the constellation of the RPG universe.  (Pathfinder is nearly 28,000 btw; egad.  I don't know if those numbers do or don't include all subreddits, either.)

While part of me would love to see that vibrant an RQ community, I don't really want RQ to be so vanillified that everyone plays it.  I'm displaying my 49-yr-old bias here, but some of the RPG world has gone the same direction MMOs have trended: no risk, no actual danger, no effort required.  I don't want RQ to be that.  I play it because I *like* my games a little harder, a little more (ok a lot more) dangerous.  By that measure I think if RQ stays true to itself we simply will never be as attractively easy as D&D, bluntly speaking.  And that's perfectly fine.

It would be nice to see a few thousand regular RQ redditors, if only because there'd be a comfortable churn of new ideas, adventures, etc.  It'd be nice to have "new RQ stuff" to read every day.  But hell, if you just excised the "Look I drew my character" posts from Reddit, D&D's would drop to about half anyway....

[g33k]

I note that with 5e, D&D returns to the topspot.

An interesting trivium:  when I looked into the 5e PHB on Amazon, the #1 complaint was low physical quality -- spine breaking, pages falling out, etc.  My 2 closest FLGS'es deny seeing any greater 5e complaints; I wonder if the 5e market is big enough for low-quality knockoffs to be worthwhile?  I know that it is for, e.g. some textbooks...

[trystero]

22 hours ago, styopa said:

...hell, I'm probably one of the dozen people that actually played Phoenix Command and LIKED its gun-combat system...

My players and I apparently constitute another half of that dozen; we've played Living Steel (which uses the PC system) as well as playing long-weekend PC games in and after college. And I played it in high school with a different group, so add at least another three...

...but getting back to the point you were actually making, both groups had the same sort of RuneQuest experience you describe, coming to the 3rd edition from D&D and being immediately and favourably impressed by the reduced level of mechanical abstraction and by the way that made play both more gritty/urgent and more comprehensible. My players and I like Glorantha, and I'm certainly looking forward to seeing it more tightly integrated into the new edition, but we're definitely people who got hooked by the Perrin/Turney et al. system first, rather than by the Stafford world.

[The Hooded Claw]

On 2 June 2016 at 4:34 PM, Doc Martin said:

If only there were some people around with a mechanism for designing such a game.

Quite.

[Mankcam]

On 03/06/2016 at 1:34 AM, Doc Martin said:

If only there were some people around with a mechanism for designing such a game.

I just saw what you did there...lol

[RosenMcStern]

On 2/6/2016 at 5:34 PM, Doc Martin said:

If only there were some people around with a mechanism for designing such a game.

Indeed. His choice of words must have been a pure coincidence. Or not?

Edited June 4, 2016 by RosenMcStern

[Baulderstone]

9 hours ago, g33k said:

I note that with 5e, D&D returns to the topspot.

An interesting trivium:  when I looked into the 5e PHB on Amazon, the #1 complaint was low physical quality -- spine breaking, pages falling out, etc.  My 2 closest FLGS'es deny seeing any greater 5e complaints; I wonder if the 5e market is big enough for low-quality knockoffs to be worthwhile?  I know that it is for, e.g. some textbooks...

I doubt it. RPG books are expensive, but not nearly as expensive as textbooks. Combined with the existence of a captive market for textbooks, it seems like making knock-off D&D books would involve smaller margins with less guaranteed sales. There is also the fact that 4E was a relative disappointment, meaning that 5E knock offs are not a guaranteed thing. 

Also keep in mind the volume of books that Amazon deals in vs. what your FLGS sells. If a small fraction of them are faulty, your FLGS might never even see one of the faulty books, while Amazon will sell dozens of them. 

[Baulderstone]

11 hours ago, styopa said:

While part of me would love to see that vibrant an RQ community, I don't really want RQ to be so vanillified that everyone plays it.

Same here. I used to lament most of my favorite games languishing in the shadow of D&D, but now, I simply don't care. As long my games survive, I am fine with them remaining a niche. 

I'm not concerned about the matter. Nothing about the current design team makes me think that they looking to sacrifice flavor for maximum appeal. 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Baulderstone said:

Same here. I used to lament most of my favorite games languishing in the shadow of D&D, but now, I simply don't care. As long my games survive, I am fine with them remaining a niche. 

I'm not concerned about the matter. Nothing about the current design team makes me think that they looking to sacrifice flavor for maximum appeal. 

My big problem with loving niche games is that I live in a low-population area; few groups play my preferred games...

[Baulderstone]

23 minutes ago, g33k said:

My big problem with loving niche games is that I live in a low-population area; few groups play my preferred games...

That's fair enough. I mostly play by Google Hangout these days. 

[MOB]

18 hours ago, styopa said:

It would be nice to see a few thousand regular RQ redditors, if only because there'd be a comfortable churn of new ideas, adventures, etc.  It'd be nice to have "new RQ stuff" to read every day.  But hell, if you just excised the "Look I drew my character" posts from Reddit, D&D's would drop to about half anyway....

As Rick outlines in his recent annual update, Chaosium is working on reconnecting and rebuilding communications with our customers and fans. This had been largely left fallow for many years. In the update Rick shares some stats about the increase in audience across various social media platforms (including BRP Central - over 1000 new members have joined in the last year).

Although we recognise that different people have their own preferred social networks, for now we've been mainly focussing on Facebook, Google +, Twitter and BRP Central. We haven't made a conscious effort to engage with Reddit yet.

[Mugen]

On 3/6/2016 at 6:14 PM, g33k said:

I note that with 5e, D&D returns to the topspot.

Sure, but it should be reminded that during the period when D&D is outside the top 5, there were no D&D new releases, except for a handful of scenarios based on an unfinished version of 5e.

[daddybear]

My greatest worry about the new edition is that in trying to tie it more fully to Glorantha the design will make it difficult or functionally impossible to use the system in another setting.  I am another old wizened grognard who grew up with AD&D and later converted to Dragonquest.  In recent years I have been running a campaign with a group of younger adults (all twenty-somethings now) who had no exposure to FRP before.  I used RQ3 with a redone sorcery because I thought it was the most intuitive system for novices.  After all, if you passed eighth grade math you understand percentages.  Give them a half hour explanation, hand out characters and start playing and they actually have a clue how to do it.  However, I use the campaign background I created all those decades ago for AD&D.  I have literally decades of work invested in it and the physical/social/economic/religious/magical background differs from Glorantha.  I remain hugely impressed with the many adventure modules available from the past iterations of RQ, but converting them to work in my world is a real chore.  I am very much a Perrinista (as opposed to a Staffordite) who is mostly interested in the system as a game, not an exploration of an alternate mythology.  What I have seen in the designers'  notes has been interesting and certainly you have my attention, but I remain concerned that the system can get so wrapped up in the setting that it becomes unusable for someone like me.   

[soltakss]

For me, tying RQ entirely to Glorantha is probably a mistake.

However, do I care? Not really.

We have Mythras, Revolution, Legend, OpenQuest and Renaissance that will provide supplements outside Glorantha that I can use and adapt. Even Chaosium has BRP that will do similar things. 

Will it dilute the RuneQuest brand? Of course. Do I care? Of course not. I don't own the RuneQuest brand.

Moon Design and Chaosium will have the sales figures when the new RuneQuest comes out. They are the ones who will know if it has been successful.

Edited June 5, 2016 by soltakss

[Zit]

Since runes are symbols, or at least could be regarded as such, I wouldn't be surprised if it was be possible to use the rules for other settings -without fire arms- just by renaming them or may be even disregarding them, but since I haven't seen the rules, it is pure speculation.

BTW, I hope the new rules kept the Metric measures which everybody understands in the World, in contrary to the local Imperial (don't ask me what is an acre). Or at least both. Long life to the Lunar Key Mile !

[Guest Vile Traveller]

I thought this had settled down? From what I can tell, RQ7 will be BRP in Glorantha. Mythic Iceland will be BRP in, er, mythic Iceland. BRP Essentials (or whatever) will be a very basic generic system book containing the common denominators of both of those as well as future BRP books. Or am I wrong?

I have made peace with RuneQuest becoming a setting-specific set of rules, as it was never entirely comfortable being generic. It was perfectly usable as such in my experience with RQ2 and RQ3, but that did involve ignoring huge swathes of material in the books. I just hope there will be sufficient quantity and quality of non-RQ7 materials to come out of the Chaosium stable for those of us who still like the BRP system but have no interest in Glorantha or Cthulhu. Mythic Iceland is a start, and a logical one, but I am really keeping my fingers crossed for updates of Magic World and Future*World. Perhaps once the the Chaosium has settled down, and can take on new writers without fear of over-extending themselves.

[Mugen]

8 hours ago, Zit said:

Since runes are symbols, or at least could be regarded as such, I wouldn't be surprised if it was be possible to use the rules for other settings -without fire arms- just by renaming them or may be even disregarding them, but since I haven't seen the rules, it is pure speculation.

Legend of the Five Rings is a good example.

[Etepete]

Didn't Nephilim have a system with symbols linked to attributes as well? The four elements and the quintessence iirc

[Mugen]

2 hours ago, Etepete said:

Didn't Nephilim have a system with symbols linked to attributes as well? The four elements and the quintessence iirc

The 4 elements plus Moon, in fact.

[TrippyHippy]

2 hours ago, Etepete said:

Didn't Nephilim have a system with symbols linked to attributes as well? The four elements and the quintessence iirc

Yes, although unlike the new RuneQuest, these 5 elements (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, and Moon) acted as an overlay for the characteristics rather than additional traits. The new RuneQuest ones have something in common with Pendragon personality traits. 

I have no problem with RuneQuest being a setting specific game. Indeed, it makes more sense in some ways. However, there is a bit of a bad taste in how it came about, with RQ6 being left on the wayside, and I'm still sitting on the fence as to whether it's for me or not. I do have Guide to Glorantha, and want a RQ companion rpg to go with that - but maybe Classic RuneQuest (if it ever arrives!) will be good enough for that? Maybe I should stick with HeroQuest?

Curiously, Glorantha is still a new thing for me as I've never played or ran a campaign there. When I bought into RuneQuest, with Mongoose, the appeal was for a generic fantasy system. Mythras now fulfills that slot for me. Glorantha is not forgotten though - I just need to be sold on the idea a bit. .  

Edited June 6, 2016 by TrippyHippy
Added stuff.

[David Scott]

7 hours ago, Vile said:

I thought this had settled down? From what I can tell, RQ7 will be BRP in Glorantha. Mythic Iceland will be BRP in, er, mythic Iceland. BRP Essentials (or whatever) will be a very basic generic system book containing the common denominators of both of those as well as future BRP books. Or am I wrong?

You're correct. But each will be their own standalone version of BRP. They are not designed to be compatible. It's a step back to the old days of Chaosium. Each setting with its own separate engine. Granted they do have similarities and you can mash them together if you like, but it's not a factor in the design. I'm not sure that the BGB and Worlds of Wonder were ever great sellers, those that want generic systems to tinker with are likely already doing it. Personally I like RPGs with the system and world in the same book.

Bringing the new version of RQ into line with CoC7, BGB, RQ 6ed, etc. just seems a bit pointless, and a lot of effort for no gain except for those who want a grand unified system (perhaps a handful of people). You are not compelled to buy or use the new products, and those with established groups are unlikely want the hassle of converting. If you are concerned, stick with what you know works and don't buy it. As @soltakss points out, sales will tell if the product is successful.