Free RPG Day is here at last! RQ Quickstart & Adventure

[MOB]

The day is dawning across North America and it's Free RPG Day at last! Head down to your participating FLGS and pick up a free copy of our RuneQuest Quickstart Rules & Adventure, along with other cool stuff.

10 copies in each retailer pack—get one if you can! If you can't make it to a participating store, or they've run out, never fear: it will be available as a free download on July 1st from Chaosium.com. Or you can buy a print copy then for USD$9.95.

[Steve]

Got mine. Thank you Chaosium!

[Gene M.]

Got there 20 minutes after the store opened and they were all already gone! Disappointing, but I guess a good sign for the game.

[Mel Riffe]

Looks like I have to wait until 1st July, then. *socks away a tenner*

[tobarstep]

24 minutes ago, Mel Riffe said:

Looks like I have to wait until 1st July, then. *socks away a tenner*

Same. Since my nearest FGS (no L) is more than 60 miles away.

[RQ Columbus]

I just got the Quick Start rules at Origins and sat through a game session.  Love the enhancements so far!!

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a new character sheet.  Do we need to wait until November (core rules release date) to start running campaigns with RQ Glorantha?

[g33k]

3 hours ago, RQ Columbus said:

I just got the Quick Start rules at Origins and sat through a game session.  Love the enhancements so far!!

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find a new character sheet.  Do we need to wait until November (core rules release date) to start running campaigns with RQ Glorantha?

Character-generation rules are NOT included in the QuickStart; a close read of the QS rules & the Design Blog entries will probably get you most of the new content, if you're willing to piece it together...

I've seen some rough-draft "blank" character sheets, but nothing finished/official.  I have an actual physical paper copy of the sheet (given to me at a 'Con); but I presume that it's not a final draft, as I got it before the rules themselves were finalized!

That said... I personally would *LOVE* to see the "current draft" of the official character-sheets !  I actually prefer the draft I have -- with the evocative rune-tree look -- to the ones in the "QuickStart" with the character-portraits (somewhat to my surprise, as I usually LOVE character-portraits on-sheet).

Edited June 17, 2017 by g33k

[Mankcam]

I'm amazed I actually came across the RuneQuest Quickstart here in Brisbane; wonders will never cease...!

People should be aware that it really doesn't contain any char gen process, it only discusses the role of abilities, hit points, magic points, etc. However its not designed to make characters, as it is essentially a scenario with some pre-gen characters ready to go. It's a great introduction to the setting, the characters are very Gloranthan, and the setting is perfect for beginning characters.

The Quickstart does provide a brief overview of the combat rules, and has a page or so of spot rules, and it's perfectly serviceable to run the scenario. It also covers a few very important new rules such a Passions and Runes, and how to use them to augment abilities and such.

On the topic of such, Passions work like they do in Pendragon and Mythras. It is a good idea to bring Passions into the classic RQ line, as these have really helped flesh out character motivations in my other games, and not having them would fall short for me now.. But the work of sheer brilliance in these rules is the notion of porting Pendragon's Personality Traits into Runes, it's both old and new at the same time. I'm surprised how much these rules feel like an organic extension of the classic line of RQ. I remember back in the 1990s I was always hoping Greg Stafford would somehow port some of his Pendragon concepts over to RuneQuest. So in a sense it looks like this is happening now.

Instead of waiting until RQG, anyone with the RQ Classic book (RQ2) could easily just update by adding this RQ Quickstart to those rules. You could probably do likewise with RQ3, although the stat values appear more in synch with RQ2's calculations, which only means sometimes opponents may have one or two extra Hit Points over their RQ3 counterparts. But RQ Classic+RQG Quickstart should work really well; at least for the next six months until RQG hits the shelves.

Anyway I thought I would only ever see this product in pdf form, so I'm so happy I managed to grab a copy. So good to see the cover artwork in the flesh. Really starting to feel that RQG is on its way now 

 

 

Edited June 17, 2017 by Mankcam

[Paid a bod yn dwp]

Yes, it's a great introduction. Really nice adventure that beds you deep into Glorantha very quickly. Mankam has covered the significant points and additions which give the game great depth.

Its very familar to anyone who has played RQ2/3. It's interesting to see how they've tweeked the rules, and what aspects of RQ2/3 made it to the new addiction. 

There is a lot in this small booklet, just right for introducing the game and playing though the adventure. Happy and surprised to see a wealth of spot rules for combat. Some areas are abbreviated and will surely be fleshed out more in the full rules. For instance special hits like "crush", "impale" are not specifically mentioned, though we do have special & crit results with damage. Also the fumble table has been abbreviated to a single fumble result. 

However all this works just fine for the QuickStart. It's a great intro full of Glorantha richness and depth....it's dripping with goodness!

 

Edited June 18, 2017 by Paid a bod yn dwp

[DreadDomain]

12 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I'm amazed I actually came across the RuneQuest Quickstart here in Brisbane; wonders will never cease...!

Really! Where did you get it? Not that it matters because I won't be in Brissy for a short while but I'm curious.

[Mankcam]

9 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Really! Where did you get it? Not that it matters because I won't be in Brissy for a short while but I'm curious.

Well always nice to come across a local on these forums

I actually came across the RQ Quickstarts at the Goodgames shop on Logan Rd ( Upper Mt Gravatt - south side), they had plenty of FreeRPG Day giveaways. I picked one of each free RPG products I could find, and two of the RQ QuickStarts (one for a mate).

They were very lax on the FreeRPG stuff, as they primarily deal with Board Games and Trading Card Games. To put some money back into the shop I bought two packs of Pokemon Cards for my kids, and Munchkin Cthulhu for myself. Had my eye on Cthulhu Pandemic, but out of my price range at present...

You could easily find that they may have RQ QuickStarts left over

Edited June 18, 2017 by Mankcam

[Raleel]

Easily found them st my gaming shop. Actually, the largest stack that was there. Not horribly surprised as we are a couple hours away from Seattle, and our folks seem to hang on Pathfinder and other d20 variants. 

Havent had a chance to read because we decided to go on a hike to Palouse Falls

[Jakob]

We were lucky enough to have Jason Durall at our bookshop in Berlin yesterday, where he ran the new RQ for us. I had already read the quickstarter rules and hadn't been quite convinced by some things - there seemed to be too many passions, too many runes and too many spells to keep track of per character, and augmentations looked a little unwieldy to me ... but it turned out to be pretty great at the gaming table. I guess the key is that in RQ, every roll tends to matter, so if you need one additional roll for the augment, it's really not that much of a hassle when compared to the outcome.

I also quite liked the scenario: Thematically, it has a nice little twist, it‘s open-ended, well-suited for the provided pre-gens, well-written without being verbose … pretty much everything I want from a short introductury scenario, and then more. I really need to run this myself for my group at home.

[simonh]

My brother Phil picked up a copy in London yesterday and then popped round so I got a look. Very nice. It would be handy to have one or two of these lying around during a proper game for reference, even when you have the rulebook, as it includes a fair chunk of the core rules. I didn't have time to read the scenario though, which I take as a plus as maybe I'll get a chance to play it some time.

Simon Hibbs

[JonL]

I'm very much digging the way that augments & passions have been back-ported from Heroquest & Pendragon. The passions in Pendragon are one of the best things about it, but they tend to be a bit of an all-or nothing "I Win!" button or not get used (since the stakes for failure being quite high lead one to only risking rolling very high ones), or turn things into rocket-tag if opponents are both inspired. Crossing that with the RQ success grades and consistent application of the principle across Passions, Runes, Skills, etc like you see in HQ is a very slick design move.

I still find rolling-low for better success grades but rolling high to break ties within success grades on opposed rolls to be a bit incoherent, but I respect that maintaining fidelity to classic RQ approaches is also a design priority here. High roller winning when success grades are tied does at least privilege higher-rated abilities much like a more consistent blackjack approach would, especially in the case of  large mismatches where the higher-rated roller's special range is eating up a lot of the lower numbers that might otherwise present an opportunity for an upset.

I like permanent POW sacrifice to gain Rune Points but regular worship & sacrifice to replenish them quite a bit. It makes them something that can't be trivially replenished in the midst of an adventure, while also providing more access to the cool toys than the old POW economy did, especially in shorter campaigns.

[Mel Riffe]

On 6/17/2017 at 6:52 PM, Mankcam said:

I'm amazed I actually came across the RuneQuest Quickstart here in Brisbane; wonders will never cease...!

People should be aware that it really doesn't contain any char gen process, it only discusses the role of abilities, hit points, magic points, etc. However its not designed to make characters, as it is essentially a scenario with some pre-gen characters ready to go. It's a great introduction to the setting, the characters are very Gloranthan, and the setting is perfect for beginning characters.

The Quickstart does provide a brief overview of the combat rules, and has a page or so of spot rules, and it's perfectly serviceable to run the scenario. It also covers a few very important new rules such a Passions and Runes, and how to use them to augment abilities and such.

On the topic of such, Passions work like they do in Pendragon and Mythras. It is a good idea to bring Passions into the classic RQ line, as these have really helped flesh out character motivations in my other games, and not having them would fall short for me now.. But the work of sheer brilliance in these rules is the notion of porting Pendragon's Personality Traits into Runes, it's both old and new at the same time. I'm surprised how much these rules feel like an organic extension of the classic line of RQ. I remember back in the 1990s I was always hoping Greg Stafford would somehow port some of his Pendragon concepts over to RuneQuest. So in a sense it looks like this is happening now.

Instead of waiting until RQG, anyone with the RQ Classic book (RQ2) could easily just update by adding this RQ Quickstart to those rules. You could probably do likewise with RQ3, although the stat values appear more in synch with RQ2's calculations, which only means sometimes opponents may have one or two extra Hit Points over their RQ3 counterparts. But RQ Classic+RQG Quickstart should work really well; at least for the next six months until RQG hits the shelves.

Anyway I thought I would only ever see this product in pdf form, so I'm so happy I managed to grab a copy. So good to see the cover artwork in the flesh. Really starting to feel that RQG is on its way now 

 

 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Pendragon2

Apologies for the OT reply, but I thought it funny that I first read/heard of Pendragon from this post, yesterday, and _then_ learning that Bundle of Holding is offering it for sale (or at least a version of it).

:-D

 

 

[Mankcam]

On 6/20/2017 at 1:15 AM, JonL said:

 

I still find rolling-low for better success grades but rolling high to break ties within success grades on opposed rolls to be a bit incoherent,

Yeah this always felt counter-intuitive to me, so I'm not going to use that, it certainly feels illogical for my troupe. So I'm quite unhappy that RQ is doing this, but yeah, no big deal. We'll likely use the CoC 7E approach where you have an extra success level (1/2 skill), then the notion of having 'the best success level wins' is a much more viable way to go

Edited June 20, 2017 by Mankcam

[Psullie]

5 hours ago, Mel Riffe said:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Pendragon2

Apologies for the OT reply, but I thought it funny that I first read/heard of Pendragon from this post, yesterday, and _then_ learning that Bundle of Holding is offering it for sale (or at least a version of it).

:-D

 

 

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/KAP2017

this is what you want, and I cannot recommend Pendragon highly enough

[Psullie]

'High rolling wins' benefits higher skill values - assuming that both get equal levels of success, even with the 1/2 success. It's just a way to break a tie while giving the advantage to the character with greater skill, while still giving the underdog a chance to win. 

[JonL]

15 minutes ago, Mankcam said:

Yeah this always felt counter-intuitive to me, so I'm not going to use that, it certainly feels illogical for my troupe. So I'm quite unhappy that RQ is doing this, but yeah, no big deal. We'll likely use the CoC 7E approach where you have an extra success level (1/2 skill), then the notion of having 'the best success level wins' is a much more viable way to go.

It wouldn't take much work to just invert the success ranges; criticals starting at rolling your rating exactly (or 95 for very high ratings) and going down from there, specials from the bottom of the critical range to 80% of your rating. In addition to being a more pleasingly consistent blackjack/price-is-right approach, it also makes higher rated rollers more likely to win ties on crit-vs-crit & special-vs-special opposed rolls, since their elevated success ranges will be farther along the number line.

[Mel Riffe]

4 hours ago, Psullie said:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/KAP2017

this is what you want, and I cannot recommend Pendragon highly enough

Thank you for the endorsement. I can't wait to learn and run Pendragon. I pulled the trigger on both bundles. 

Edited June 21, 2017 by Mel Riffe

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, JonL said:

makes higher rated rollers more likely to win ties on crit-vs-crit & special-vs-special opposed rolls

That's actually the downside of putting criticals and specials high - on crit vs. crit, there is no way for the lesser rated character to ever win.  By having it at the low end, there's that outside chance that the lower skilled character can still get that upset.

[MOB]

Here's what we're going to do going forward:

Cult of Chaos Forum (password protected) - Discussion, questions, post mortems about "The Broken Tower" scenario in the RuneQuest Quickstart. 

RuneQuest Forum - Discussion about the RQG rules themselves, and the rules as presented in the RuneQuest Quickstart. No discussion or spoilers about "The Broken Tower" please.

Carry on...