RQ Classic ---> RQ4

[MOB]

On 6/13/2016 at 5:41 AM, Mugen said:

They may have changed their mind recently, but in the first posts on the subject I read at rpg.net, Chaosium people stated that their new game's name was to be RuneQuest. Not RuneQuest 7, RuneQuest 4, RuneQuest Next or RuneQuest Glorantha, just RuneQuest.

Yes, the new edition is simply going to be called RuneQuest. That is what will be seen on the cover.

On the title verso page inside it will note that this is the 4th Chaosium edition, 2016.

What it becomes called in the popular imagination is what it will become.

Edited June 14, 2016 by MOB

[MOB]

You'll see that in our Design Notes blog posts, we're referring to what we're working on as "the new RuneQuest" or "the new edition". Design Notes #6 outlines overall editorial approach: "This is built directly off the RuneQuest 2 chassis, and is simply not a new layer atop RQ3, the MRQ variants, or TDM's edition".

[Rick Meints]

Let me start by saying that regardless of whatever the final printed version the new RuneQuest rulebook refers to itself as, it is absolutely and unequivocally not meant as disrespect to any previously published version/edition of the game. This isn't about distancing ourselves from, or disowning anybody. 

The cover of the book will have the title "RuneQuest". That's what it will have on the spine. It's not going to state "RuneQuest Deluxe", "RuneQuest X Edition", or "RuneQuest El Capitan". On the inside, it will state "RuneQuest, Copyright 2016." It will also have that nifty circle c icon, which I can't recreate at the moment...

So, enquiring minds want to know what edition the new Chaosium RuneQuest will specifically state... 

It probably won't. We have a hard time imaging why almost any potential buyer would reach a crisis point of confusion based on any edition number we use. Philosophically, sure, but not when getting the book. If they buy the book and/or PDF from chaosium.com they will have the choice of buying RuneQuest Classic, which drips OSR from every pore and gloriously trumpets retro in every description, or they can buy RuneQuest, the latest edition of an iconic role-playing system. If they go to DrivethruRPG the only things labelled RuneQuest will be likewise. Same for anything we sell on Lulu. When someone hears about the Design Mechanism and all the cool stuff they produce, when they look for their products online or in stores all they will find is a range of Mythras products. If someone goes into a FLGS store, do you think it is likely they will find multiple versions of RuneQuest to choose from? Do you think the store owner will only wave at dusty editions from years ago on a shelf and feign ignorance? Will the prospective buyer wander over to a shelf with Chaosium's new edition of RuneQuest next to MRQ, RuneQuest 3, and RuneQuest 6, and grab the wrong book? The only place you MIGHT find some confusion is if you surf through a few online used game resellers, and maybe Ebay. Quite frankly, we have no control over the description those places use, let alone the photos they choose for them, regardless of what we call the latest edition of RuneQuest.

If someone asks a gamer friend about RuneQuest, that friend will say nice things about the edition they like best. In all likelihood they will know conclusively if their favorite edition is out of print, in print, and/or called something else when they talk about it.  

Jeff clearly explained why the latest version of RuneQuest can be called the 4th edition. It absolutely is the 4th edition of RuneQuest that Chaosium has had a role in. The latest version is not based on RuneQuest 6, MRQII or MRQ. Did people who bought Mongoose RuneQuest II face insurmountable confusion when looking at RuneQuest 3? Did they even have that choice in a game store?

In some ways, this whole discussion reminds me of a good game of Credo! same substance? similar substance?

Play the edition you love best. Tell your friends about it. Get them playing games with it. Take a look at Chaosium's RuneQuest. The rest will sort itself out.

Edited June 15, 2016 by Rick Meints

[Baulderstone]

 

3 hours ago, g33k said:

So true!

But... RIck Meints & the MD crew...  Add the Great Old Ones' return, to a Chaosium slimmed-down enough to j-u-s-t keep continuity....   Not a combo that I want to bet against; ymmv, as may your Glorantha, of course.

I'm not going to bet against MD. I want this project to succeed. Rick Meints seems pretty capable, even if I think the naming thing is kind of ridiculous.

Mainly, I am not a fan of the idea that only people that have designed a role-playing game are qualified to have an opinion on them. I sold RPGs at the retail level for six years, so I feel fairly knowledgeable about the kind of things customers can get hung up on. 

[pachristian]

1 hour ago, Rick Meints said:

If someone goes into a FLGS store, do you think it is likely they will find multiple versions of RuneQuest to choose from? ...Will the prospective buyer wander over to a shelf with Chaosium's new edition of RuneQuest next to MRQ, RuneQuest 3, and RuneQuest 6, and grab the wrong book?

I take it you've never been to Games of Berkeley...

[styopa]

1 hour ago, Rick Meints said:

Tell your friends about it. Get them paying games with it. 

There's a Freudian slip, Rick.

[Jeff]

5 hours ago, ajtheronin said:

Personally Runequest 2.5 should be fine if it's as close to 2 as intended. 

Runequest: Glorantha is also a good name IMO and like someone mentioned above would fit with Heroquest: Glorantha. 

I'm sure it will be called RuneQuest 7 or CRQ by the masses. 

We're disinclined to call it RuneQuest: Glorantha, since for us RuneQuest=Glorantha. Other published settings get their own tailored rules. For example, RuneQuest's magic - which in our opinion is a big part of its distinctiveness - is tailored for Glorantha, and frankly doesn't make a lot of sense in other settings (that's why Stormbringer didn't use it). So if we want to do a game set in the Byzantine Empire, the RuneQuest magic system would need to be entirely stripped out and replaced. Combat would need modifications, and so on. That isn't RuneQuest anymore but its own engine - similar but not the same. 

BRP is a family of related, but not identical, rules systems - RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Mythic Iceland, Stormbringer, Ringworld, ElfQuest, Nephilim, etc. 

[Jakob]

3 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Jakob

[Jakob]

Sorry for the weird double-post - I tried to quote Rick, but couldn't write outside of the quite, couldn't get the quote out of my reply ... so I had to submit and write a new post.

Anyway, about the likelihood if people being confused by finding multiple editions on the shelves: Actually, that is exactly what will happen here in Germany, were we have a German translation of RQ6 as RuneQuest - an I'll probably also order Chaosium's new RuneQuest and Mythras. So it is going to be pretty hard to explain that the German edition of RuneQuest ist not the translation of RuneQuest, but of Mythras ...

I would have preferred consecutive edition numbers (with this being RQ7), also to acknowledge everything that has come before. To me, it feels like Chaosium is saying: "The Mongoose and DM versions were not true RQ." It just doesn't feel quite right.

Edited June 14, 2016 by Jakob

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

We're disinclined to call it RuneQuest: Glorantha, since for us RuneQuest=Glorantha.

There is a significant number of people who don't share that identity. Among others the German RQ society, which acknowledges the rules as a tool for a lot of settings, with similar magic.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Other published settings get their own tailored rules. For example, RuneQuest's magic - which in our opinion is a big part of its distinctiveness - is tailored for Glorantha, and frankly doesn't make a lot of sense in other settings (that's why Stormbringer didn't use it). So if we want to do a game set in the Byzantine Empire, the RuneQuest magic system would need to be entirely stripped out and replaced. Combat would need modifications, and so on. That isn't RuneQuest anymore but its own engine - similar but not the same. 

While that makes sense from a publisher's perspective, it doesn't from a customer's perspective. RQ/BRP is easy to modify. RQ3 showed how to play a RQ style game for fantasy Vikings or fantasy Samurai, and provided ideas for fantasy Earth based on the late Roman Empire or earliest Dark Ages.

Sure, Mythras (formerly known as RQ6) is the go-to rules set for this kind of gaming, and Chaosium is going to use BRP for other settings, and refrain from calling these games RQ.

But restricting the trademark RQ to the Gloranthan setting is really only a marketing decision and doesn't reflect the role RQ has played in the hobby.

 

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

BRP is a family of related, but not identical, rules systems - RuneQuest, Call of Cthulhu, Mythic Iceland, Stormbringer, Ringworld, ElfQuest, Nephilim, etc. 

And while BRP has a significant fandom (look where we are writing this), it is not as famous as its instances (CoC, Superworld, Stormbringer). A modified RQ is quite dissimilar from any of those three games.

[Mankcam]

RQ7 would have suited me.

However I can see the point in reflecting that this edition of RQ is a progression of the original Chaosium RQ line rather than a continuation of the MRQ line.

So I'm going with CRQ4 and seeing if it sticks 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Mankcam

[TrippyHippy]

16 hours ago, Jeff said:

We don't call this RQ7 because we find that very misleading. MRQ1, MRQ2, and DM's RQ6 share a common design thread from MRQ1, and going on to MRQ2 and DM's RQ7. The new RQ is simply not from that line of development. It stems from RQ2 (with elements of RQ3) and then moves on, but does not build off the MRQ line. Calling it RQ4 (or RQ2.5) makes that point. Calling ti RQ7 is, in our opinion, more confusing.

I'm sorry, Jeff, but the very evidence of this comment itself just shows how confusing your new moniker is. You say yourself that the 'design thread' of the new game is based on RQ2.....so where does that leave RQ3? RQ3 was sold to Avalon Hill and removed the direct link to Glorantha in the game to make a more generic game, so was that really AHRQ1? Should you really be calling it RQ2.5 (via a time paradox) rather than RQ4? What is the point of trying to airbrush the game's history anyway?

Why don't you just call it RuneQuest, and let fans call it what they will. If that is RQ7, which is a respectful title and makes a lot more sense to me, then sobeit. 

EDIT: I do note that Rick has answered much of this above, after reading it. 

Edited June 14, 2016 by TrippyHippy

[rust]

7 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

The cover of the book will have the title "RuneQuest".

In my view this is the best way to handle the edition problem. There will be some temporary confusion while Design Mechanism's Runequest 6 is still around, but this will probably end not long after its name change to Mythras has been completed. 

[BigJackBrass]

I was just looking at the Leisuregames.com new releases page and saw that they have the Traveller core rulebook, which they're parenthetically calling the 2016 edition. That seems reasonable for a game with a long history and multiple editions from different publishers, so I think I'll personally be calling the new game RuneQuest (2016) ... unless it comes out next year. 

[Pentallion]

23 hours ago, g33k said:

+1

In fact, I have a hell of a lot of things to spend my money on, and $50 (and up!) for a core rulebook is actually enough of a barrier that I think twice (or thrice, or more) before buying.   If I had bought 6th (or "Mythras" because it's "the new RQ 6" according to the guy in the store (and you DAMN well better believe THAT will happen!)) ... well, I'd be feeling pretty PO'ed, and strongly disinclined to drop any more $$$ on anything else bearing any form of RQ branding.

But I think it's planned to be just "Runequest."

And while I disagree with that choice, too... as noted above, I simply don't have any marketing credibility in the face of the accumulated backgrounds of C/MD.

you're the customer.  You're always right. 

[Pentallion]

16 hours ago, pachristian said:

I take it you've never been to Games of Berkeley...

Or the huge store in Lacey Washington.  Where they literally have everything ever published by Chaosium and AH in shrink wrap, brand new.

[K Peterson]

2 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

Or the huge store in Lacey Washington.  Where they literally have everything ever published by Chaosium and AH in shrink wrap, brand new.

Which store is this? I don't usually make it down that way very often, but I'm up for a road trip if what you say is true.

[Pentallion]

Olympic Cards and Comics.  They don't have Cults of Terror anymore as of my last visit

Edited June 14, 2016 by Pentallion

[Mankcam]

12 minutes ago, Pentallion said:

Or the huge store in Lacey Washington.  Where they literally have everything ever published by Chaosium and AH in shrink wrap, brand new.

This store sounds absolutely great. 

Just knowing such a place exists in the USA makes up for all the election campaign coverage your media is inflicting on the rest of us at the moment, heh heh

 

Edited June 14, 2016 by Mankcam

[Rick Meints]

7 hours ago, Pentallion said:

Or the huge store in Lacey Washington.  Where they literally have everything ever published by Chaosium and AH in shrink wrap, brand new.

Send me some contact details and they will see their stock depleted tomorrow. Getting a chance to buy Borderlands in the shrink is an enticing possibility...

 

[SDLeary]

On June 13, 2016 at 9:27 PM, pachristian said:

I take it you've never been to Games of Berkeley...

Just an FYI for those in the Bay... much of Games of Berkeley's back catalog is gone. The last time I was there, all I saw was RQ6 and supplements, an MRQ Vikings book, and a small physical copy of Legend (tons of Mongoose Stormbringer product though). It was much the same with the other Chaosium products (current copies only).

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

40 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

Send me some contact details and they will see their stock depleted tomorrow. Getting a chance to buy Borderlands in the shrink is an enticing possibility...

 

Borderlands... The one of the big three that I don't have.

SDLeary

[jongjom]

1 hour ago, Rick Meints said:

Send me some contact details and they will see their stock depleted tomorrow. Getting a chance to buy Borderlands in the shrink is an enticing possibility...

 

Borderlands in the shrink can be found at:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/142004844813?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Make them an offer (if you haven't done already!).

[g33k]

On 6/13/2016 at 8:21 PM, Rick Meints said:

... If someone goes into a FLGS store, do you think it is likely they will find multiple versions of RuneQuest to choose from? Do you think the store owner will only wave at dusty editions from years ago on a shelf and feign ignorance? Will the prospective buyer wander over to a shelf with Chaosium's new edition of RuneQuest next to MRQ, RuneQuest 3, and RuneQuest 6, and grab the wrong book? ...

Let me tell you about my experience with another game, with a similar but simpler history:  Ars Magica (ArM).  I'm betting that you (& several others here) know that history, but that some do not, so I'll give a precis:

• 1987 - 1st ed published by "Lion Rampant" (LR)
• They also produced a 2nd edition -- for some years it was nicknamed the "One True Edition" (OTE).  An ex-LR guy founded "Atlas Games" & published some modules under license.
• 1991 - "Lion Rampant" merged with "White Wolf Magazine" to form "White Wolf Game Studio" (WW) who produced the 3rd edition & many supplements.  Before ArM3, they produced V:tM and the WoD, attempting to retcon the ArM world into a unified world/timeline with the WoD; this was strenuously resisted by ArM fandom (hence the "OTE" business), and caused a fair degree of brand-identity confusion since they shared some critical terminology.
• 1994 - WW sold the line to Wizards of the Coast, who produced a few supplements and was most of the way done with a 4th edition -- this WotC version never saw print!  WotC abruptly dropped all secondary RPG's, including ArM, Everway, and SLA Industries.  Atlas Games bought the ArM product-line.
• 1996 - Atlas publishes ArM 4th edition, having extensively revamped the draft from WotC.  Atlas also publishes several 4e supplements.
• 2004 - Atlas releases ArM 5e (current edition) and about 40 supplements to date.

Now, my experiences:  throughout the mid- to late-90's, the 3e books were easier to find than 4e books were.  As soon as the actual release (as in, products shipped) of 4e, I began calling & visiting the 2 most-L of my FLGS'es.  I was told variously that the line was "out of print," that "the publisher is out of business," that "our distributor doesn't carry it," & similar sorts of misinformation.  Sometimes I was pointed to old copies of 3e as "the latest version."  It took almost a year before both stores had their facts straight, and current product on the shelves!

So, yeah:  multiple versions of RQ on a shelf, and/or being directed to years-old product instead of Chaosium's brand-new product *IS* something I expect to happen... 

 

[Al.]

On 14 June 2016 at 11:37 AM, BigJackBrass said:

I was just looking at the Leisuregames.com new releases page and saw that they have the Traveller core rulebook, which they're parenthetically calling the 2016 edition. That seems reasonable for a game with a long history and multiple editions from different publishers, so I think I'll personally be calling the new game RuneQuest (2016) ... unless it comes out next year. 

As with most RPG discussions I agree with most of what has already ben posted (especially the bits in opposition to each other)

 

But I agree with BigJackBrass the most

'RuneQuest' as a name is just a better name than RuneQuest<Letter><Number>

Placing the date of publication up front makes it obvious it's the newest version. In paranthesis is fine, in a smaller print on the same spine would work as well.

('RuneQuest2016' and 'NewRuneQuest' both make nice, unique filenames on a hard disk but IMMOO would look unbearably naff on book covers)

 

Al