So it turns out that Chaosium have put the new RuneQuest Fantasy Roleplaying Game (RQFRP), development of which was being headed up by Mike Mearls (who has now left Chaosium to join Asmodee) out to pasture, and in its place are going to do a RuneQuest Glorantha 1.5 based of playtest feedback of RQFRP, which will tie in with a Sartar Setting Book/Campaign that they’ve been teasing for sometime.
My RQ thoughts on the current situation. Bear in mind that I write this as a Long Term RQ fan who started in the 80s. I ran a big decade long game of RQ in the 90s and several shorter campaigns of six to nine months since. I own and have played every edition.
I feel prescient about the announcement about the current situation…
After first read through, I felt that RuneQuest Glorantha (RQG) would eventually head towards a leaner meaner RQ G v1.5, at some point within the five to ten years. As the game stands, it’s a well-meaning attempt to give GMs/Players a big chunk of Glorantha simulation via the best of breed RQ2/3 with a few bits thrown in from Pendragon. I found it too much, to the point that as a GM it overloaded me when I ran it online, and quickly moved the group onto playing OpenQuest in the Empire of Gatan setting in the rulebook (well, I had just run a very successful Kickstarter for the game 🙂 ). With its wealth of colour illustrated books, I think the best way to play it would be face to face on a long Sunday lazy afternoon. Where the various books could be handed around to oo and ah at the illustrations, having time to discuss the deeper point of the lore and nitpicking some of the quirkier rulings and bashing them into shape either with work arounds or more elaborate house rulings (which is fun in itself). It would certainly keep my 80s inner child occupied and happy.
I purposely stayed away from the RQFRP playtest when it was released, for a number of reasons. The main one was the pitch: a simpler RQ engine married with the Pavis setting sounded too much like RQ2, i.e. I already have this game and have played that style – D&D with a light, not too deep Gloranthan setting. Even the publishers said that it wasn’t for long term players like myself, but new blood straight off the D&D boat. Also, the noises I was hearing from friends who were in on the playtest were none too positive. I’m not surprised that it’s been kicked into the long grass. Or that the feedback has hastened the arrival of RQ 1.5, which is seemingly being tied into the release of the long-teased Sartar Campaign book.
Will RQ G 1.5 with close ties to Sartar see a resurgence of interest in the game? Probably, the existing audience will want to know about the new lore and be curious about how the game has been made more playable. Potential new fans will check out the new edition to see what all the fuss is about.
One reply on “So no New Edition of RuneQuest?”
Yeah, the RQFR rules honestly felt like I was playing someone’s cobbled together hack for Glorantha in some non-RuneQuest rules. Not only did it eschew the simulationist vibes of RuneQuest for something more like a boardgame, it wasn’t a fun or compelling boardgame. And it definitely wasn’t simpler. We know what simpler RQ looks like. Your OpenQuest or Dragonbane are those games, while Mythras shows clearly how a RQ game can be every bit as complex as RQG but be clear and concise in its design.
The most frustrating thing of all, though, is the system isn’t that complex, its just very poorly explained, which has been obvious since the much much better Start Set dropped. This whole line has demonstrated clearly that, while the big names are good at what they do, editing is not one of those things.