German Language BRP/RQ/Cthulhu

[HierophantX]

Hey Guys,

So, I've decided to resurrect my childhood German, and I thought, what better way to do this than to find things I know deeply and think about more than perhaps is sensible, but to do those things in another language!  yay. I know there's a body of RuneQuest material out there in German, and Call of Cthulhu as well. How many forum members are German speakers? Are there German forums? I'd appreciate a gatekeeper to point me in some useful directions.

CP

Edited July 1, 2017 by HeirophantX

[Joerg]

Moin HeirophantX,

without wanting to tax your language skill when giving directions, there is a German language subforum here, however not very active. Recently we had a discussion about translation issues in German even on the regular Glorantha forum.

That body of original RuneQuest material in German is rather slim. There are a few German language websites with RuneQuest or Glorantha material, like humakt.com by Robin Mitra and friends (the folk behind the translation of HeroQuest 2 into German) or my own glorantha.de where I try to fill the void of introductory material to the setting in German. Both are ongoing projects with only sporadic bursts of activity.

There are a few RuneQuest 3 scenarios that exist exclusively in German, mostly in out of print publications. All these publications that I know of were produced by Deutsche RuneQuest Gesellschaft e.V., also known as Chaos Society, the people behind Deutscher RuneQuest-Con and Tentacles.Convention, who then moved on to The Kraken (still officially connected to that Verein) and to Eternal Convention.

Schatten in den Hügeln is a campaign setting on the Stream just south of the Dragonewt Wilds with a couple of scenarios about the village of Ornsfurt:

http://www.drosi.de/archont/buy/id649944448

There was another RuneQuest 3 scenario, Ort ohne Wiederkehr, also set in western Sartar. Both are well over 20 years old and quite out of print, but depending on legalities might be made available again as pdf.

A few other RuneQuest scenarios were published in Free INT or Schattenklinge, the German language periodical of the Verein which was published in the nineties. I contributed two Gloranthan scenarios and one Viking scenario.

When the German activists became the hosts for an ever more international crowd on their conventions, our publishing activities turned to the English language. There was no fan support for the German translation of Hero Wars and the Hero Wars Introduction to Glorantha book that was produced in cooperation with the French publisher of those rules. There is an upcoming German language collection of HeroQuest scenarios as support for the German translation of the (generic) rules, with two Gloranthan scenarios and various other settings.

The RuneQuest 6 rules (still available under that name, elsewhere now Mythras) and the Bronze Age setting scenarios have been translated to German, but I don't know of any original German language publications for that system (yet).

 

There certainly are entire books of unpublished fan-made RQ2 and RQ3 scenarios in German language from the eighties and nineties, some of these at least somewhat prepared for editorial work and publication. Many of these were overtaken by the developing canon, and quite often this frustration coupled with Real Life distractions removed those prospective authors out of the hobby.

 

On the Cthulhu front, the situation is completely different. While the publishing history of Cthulhu in German is a bit complicated, there have been quite a few official releases of original German material. This isn't quite my speciality, though.

Edited July 2, 2017 by Joerg

[HierophantX]

Thanks for the response Joerg. 

Feel free to message me privately, but I'm interested in your thoughts in general about the German gaming scene. Drive-Thru has a fair amount of German material. What are Germans playing? Are they doing it in German or English? I have endless inane questions.