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RuneQuest rules at Gen Con


Charlie D.

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I picked up one of the one hundred text only copies of RuneQuest at Gen Con. I'm not an old hand at RQ but as a mostly newcomer the rules look great. There is a lot to absorb and take in. The world info and rules blend together well and I can see why the decision was made to blend RuneQuest and Glorantha back together.

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The new RuneQuest rules are heavily tied to Glorantha melding and changing the rule system and information to become Gloranthan. Now you still may get complaints about rules people like or dislike but this new version absolutely does Glorantha in all it glory. But it's done in a way that won't leave new players overwhelmed. I just took three of my kids through the character creation process. And they're already more attached to There PC then I've seen him with any other system. Character generation ties you into your community, Family history, enemies and allies In a personal way. The only thing my kids complained about during character creation was with some of the battles. Your parent or grandparent went through the result was simply survived. They wanted more, wanting to know how they servived did they hide, did some one save him exc exc. We ended up roll playing out  story on how there ansester survived the particular battle. But I think in the future I'll probably come up with a 1d20 table of Battle survival possibilities. To add a bit more depth to any of the  survived results.  In the future I'll post some more about are experiences adventures with the new rules. 

Also at Gen Con I had a chance to see some the art that is going to be in the rule book. And I have to say is absolutely amazing. It is so uniquely Gloranthan I felt like I was looking at one of those ancient cultural documents with all the detail drawings of the people things they used there weapons lifestyle. Far surpassing even what you see in the guide of Glorantha. I have to say I'm a bit starstruck with the quality of work and effort that is being put into this. 

IMG_0079.JPG

Edited by Belgath
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That's great!  

This is the one year I really wish I could have made it too.  :(  Though to be honest it's been a long time since I've gone anyway but there was no way I could have made it this year.  Sad to miss out on getting a copy of the preview though.  Glad to see new folks excited about RuneQuest though!

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9 hours ago, Septimus Kendaro said:

... but there was no way I could have made it this year.  Sad to miss out on getting a copy of the preview though....

I couldn't have made it, would have loved a copy...

But all of us in this boat have to realize that there were probably ALREADY more people wanting that preview, than copies available for sale; so "attending GenCon" wasn't a guarantor of "getting one of the few RQG Preview copies" !

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

I couldn't have made it, would have loved a copy...

But all of us in this boat have to realize that there were probably ALREADY more people wanting that preview, than copies available for sale; so "attending GenCon" wasn't a guarantor of "getting one of the few RQG Preview copies" !

I was in SE WI earlier last week, was going to go to UW Parkside, hopefully they still have some iconic landmarks, take a selfie with them in the background with the comment "Gen Con's 50th?  Phht, I don't see any Gen Con around...."

But while it seemed like an amusing idea, it wasn't amusing enough to blow the 45 mins it would have taken when I had a 5 hour drive home anyway...

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5 hours ago, g33k said:

I couldn't have made it, would have loved a copy...

But all of us in this boat have to realize that there were probably ALREADY more people wanting that preview, than copies available for sale; so "attending GenCon" wasn't a guarantor of "getting one of the few RQG Preview copies" !

True but I would have had a better chance than not being there at all.  No worries, I'm sure we'll have freshly minted copies from Chaosium soon(ish).

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On 8/22/2017 at 9:01 AM, Runeblogger said:

And, any news from the Chaosium panels?

I didn't get to the Chaosium panel due to exhaustion, but did attend the Runequest one immediately prior to it. Some of this info would be familiar to people reading this forum and following the developer blogs, but I will do a recap from my notes (any errors are mine, I just got back to New Zealand this morning and have only had about three hours sleep over the last two days).

The PDF of Runequest is expected around November 2017, the print version in early 2018. No kickstarter for RQ, but there will be one for Gloranthan coins from Campaign Coins in February 2018. There will be an RQ colouring book, like the recent Cthulhu one.

The first wave of books will include the core rule book, a bestiary, and a GM pack that includes a Return to Apple Lane scenario. The Bestiary has about 12 playable races. Broo are not a playable race, but Ducks are. Setting wise its not 1621 anymore, the Braveheart era is over and the Lunars are no longer an occupying power - mixed Lunar/Lightbringer parties could be the norm, not the exception. Power level is for extraordinary characters. Time scale is expected to be one scenario per season. Cult Books will have stories like Cults of Prax.

The second wave of books will include The Heroes Book to provide support for heroquesting, Trollpack, a second quickstart, Cults of Dragon Pass (the first of several cult focused books) and a Glorantha quickstart (short setting introduction).

A good game getting better:

  • core rules are the same, good backwards compatibility
  • weapons damaged more often
  • additions to improve immersion, rune associations and passions that provide augmentations
  • spirit combat overhauled so that it didn't split the party so much
  • sorcery a logical process, not a superpower, less maths requirred
  • avoiding the initiate trap of sacrificing POW for rune spells, rules to support progression to rune level, not to provide barriers.

Heroquesting:

  • some discussion about how this is a narrative problem, not a power problem
  • stations approach in HQ was too formulaic, railroady, required too much upfront knowledge, too many deus ex machine HQs based on obscure lore
  • Greg - have fun with mythic narrative, rules provide framework to extrapolate from, don't bother with canon if it gets in the way of fun.

Greg also said something like "Two hearts for all the GMs out there".

I enjoyed the demo game I played, and it was my partner's first ever tabletop roleplaying game. She was happily telling people about delivering the killing blow to the giant statue for hours afterwards.

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Wow thats some excellent reviews of the RQG drafts, the finished product sounds like its going to be great !!!

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" Sure it's fun, but it is also well known that a D20 roll and an AC is no match against a hefty swing of a D100% and a D20 Hit Location Table!"

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I got a copy. I was less than impressed with the Quickstart because it seemed like there was too much mechanical stuff for a 'quickstart,' but seeing the whole thing I like it.

I didn't really start reading until last night, was totally exhausted from gencon back to back with the eclipse back to back with work. 

It's very backward compatible with 1/2/3. 

At a glance, I just prefer the way some things work in Mythras better and would have preferred something closer to that game than this. It is an obvious labor of love, so don't think I'm dissing...just think that Mythras or even CoC7 may have been a better base engine than what we've all tinkered to death for years. It's nice that I can do Resistance Table calculations in my head, but that doesn't mean I think it is all that great a system.

Spirit Combat is better on the page. In the scenarios I ran at the con, we just kludged something together because I hadn't seen the rules until about twenty minutes before session one. 

Sorcery reads better than 3 read or played.

I like that the Bestiary has quick spot rules for non-humans. My home game is mostly trolls, so I like to see support for that type of game.

More to come I'm sure as I read and eventually integrate what I like into our RQ6 game.

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8 minutes ago, Runeblogger said:

Gloranthan coins from Campaign Coins? I wonder what that means. :huh:  @Jeff?

But thanks a lot for the news Texarkana!!!!!

"Campaign Coins" is a custom fantasy-game-coin maker; easily google'able.

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1 minute ago, Texarkana said:

Photos of the card that was available at Gencon.

2017-08-24 06.21.56.jpg

2017-08-24 06.22.11.jpg

I shouldn't like too much of the line to be "antiqued" like they were 3000-year-old archeological finds.

Presumably, in the world of Glorantha, most of the coins are newer than that!

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1 hour ago, g33k said:

I shouldn't like too much of the line to be "antiqued" like they were 3000-year-old archeological finds.

Presumably, in the world of Glorantha, most of the coins are newer than that!

I'm think it's more the in-universe limitations on manufacture than it is deliberate antiquation.

It looks to me like that Lunar coin has been nicked to proof the silver.

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23 hours ago, g33k said:

"Campaign Coins" is a custom fantasy-game-coin maker; easily google'able.

I have bought way to much coins from them before and always been more than  satsified ( acctually bought several series for use in a RQ campaign that never got off). The actual coins are a great resource at the table as it focus the greed of the players something enormously. But as 4000 L are difficult to handle at the table :-) I use other types of treasure objects and jewelry to handle the larger amounts of coins instead.

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