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RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha
RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha is an all-new edition of one of the world’s most influential and acclaimed fantasy roleplaying games. First appearing almost 40 years ago, RuneQuest is as dynamic and vital as ever. This all-new, deluxe edition introduces RuneQuest and its setting of Glorantha to new players everywhere.
The core rules of RuneQuest are essential for players and gamemasters, as they contain all the rules for character creation, starting homelands, background history, professions, skills, starting Runes and magic, and the cults and gods whose influence will define your character’s activities. Further, the rules for character advancement are contained here, for the times between adventures.
The core rules of RuneQuest are essential for players and gamemasters, as they contain all the rules for character creation, starting homelands, background history, professions, skills, starting Runes and magic, and the cults and gods whose influence will define your character’s activities. Further, the rules for character advancement are contained here, for the times between adventures.
447 pages, ebook
First published June 1, 2018
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59 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 12, 2024
Qualità manuale:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Ambientazione:⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sistema regole:⭐⭐⭐⭐
La cura maniacale di questo manuale ha reso la mia esperienza di lettura un viaggio meraviglioso. Il sistema d100 è complesso e mortale, stratificato, e rende perfettamente l' ambientazione dell' età del bronzo che è parte integrante delle regole del gioco. Il sistema magico delle rune efficace e ben strutturato. Il combattimento risente di qualche regola di troppo che lo rallenta. In definitiva un gran bel manuale che ho davvero apprezzato.
Quality:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Setting:⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rules system:⭐⭐⭐⭐
The obsessive care of this manual has made my reading experience a wonderful journey. The d100 system is complex and deadly, layered, and perfectly renders the Bronze Age setting that is an integral part of the rules of the game. The magic system of runes is effective and well structured. The combat suffers from a few too many rules that slow it down. Ultimately a great manual that I really appreciated.
Ambientazione:⭐⭐⭐⭐
Sistema regole:⭐⭐⭐⭐
La cura maniacale di questo manuale ha reso la mia esperienza di lettura un viaggio meraviglioso. Il sistema d100 è complesso e mortale, stratificato, e rende perfettamente l' ambientazione dell' età del bronzo che è parte integrante delle regole del gioco. Il sistema magico delle rune efficace e ben strutturato. Il combattimento risente di qualche regola di troppo che lo rallenta. In definitiva un gran bel manuale che ho davvero apprezzato.
Quality:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Setting:⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rules system:⭐⭐⭐⭐
The obsessive care of this manual has made my reading experience a wonderful journey. The d100 system is complex and deadly, layered, and perfectly renders the Bronze Age setting that is an integral part of the rules of the game. The magic system of runes is effective and well structured. The combat suffers from a few too many rules that slow it down. Ultimately a great manual that I really appreciated.
June 10, 2020
It's RuneQuest! The real RuneQuest, the original RuneQuest, back for the first time since Avalon Hill killed the line over twenty years previous.
To a certain extent, you know what you're getting here, this is the classic simulationist system. Oh, it's been nicely updated, integrating the passions from Pendragon, adding in runes as skills much like the now non-canon Mongoose RuneQuest did. There's also great Glorantha background in the character creation. It took decades, but it's great to finally have it recognized that a setting strengthens a game, it doesn't weaken it. (Oh, we had a shot at this with the original RQ4 back in the late '80s, but that got killed, and that's a whole other story.) And we get a nice set of cults to add to the setting.
And this book also looks very nice. Take a look at the cover, and that's pretty representative of the level of art within the book.
Generally, I'm thrilled to have a real RuneQuest again, and to have it be such a high-quality book that innovates just enough to be interesting.
To a certain extent, you know what you're getting here, this is the classic simulationist system. Oh, it's been nicely updated, integrating the passions from Pendragon, adding in runes as skills much like the now non-canon Mongoose RuneQuest did. There's also great Glorantha background in the character creation. It took decades, but it's great to finally have it recognized that a setting strengthens a game, it doesn't weaken it. (Oh, we had a shot at this with the original RQ4 back in the late '80s, but that got killed, and that's a whole other story.) And we get a nice set of cults to add to the setting.
And this book also looks very nice. Take a look at the cover, and that's pretty representative of the level of art within the book.
Generally, I'm thrilled to have a real RuneQuest again, and to have it be such a high-quality book that innovates just enough to be interesting.
May 1, 2019
I first played Runequest back in the 2nd edition "red book" days, and I don't think I was quite ready to handle the concepts and setting, grounded as I was in the medieval inspired world of Dungeons & Dragons.
Runequest is solidly set in the Late Bronze Age, an era of city-states, numerous gods, and epic heroes. The entire feel of the game and setting push this feeling. Glorantha, the default setting, is solidly welded to the rules. To play Runequest is to play in Glorantha.
But what a wonderful world it is! One of the best-detailed worlds in gaming, Glorantha is a living place, from the dusty plains of Prax, home to bison-riding nomads and beasts that herd men, to the proud Kindom of Sartar, a bastion against the encroaching Lunar Empire, to the crowded cities and bustling ports of Estrolia, everything breaths.
This history is tied into character generation. Sartar has only recently thrown off the yoke of Lumar occupation, an epic war that in the end required the summoning of a True Dragon. Making a character begins with tracking the deeds of one of your grandparents and one of your parents, before showing what you've been doing up to the current day.
This not only gives you background, but it also helps define your Passions, the strong loyalties or hatreds that drive you. If your father was eaten by the Crimson Bat, odds are you're going have a strong hatred for the Lunar Empire.
You also decide what Runes you are strongly associated with. Runes are not just symbols, they are potent magical forms. A strong association with a Rune can help define your character, as well as boost magic and skills associated with that Rune.
It sounds complex, but it really flows well. You end up with a well-rounded character with strong feelings and goals.
Mechanically, Runequest uses a d100 skill system. Skills are expressed as a percentage, and your target number is that number or below, after modifiers. There are a wide variety of skills that allow for all sorts of fun character builds. Combat is deadly, as it should be. One thing I liked was a rule section of fighting in a phalanx. This section is complete without being overwhelming.
Magic and religion are central to Runequest. Everyone can at least do a little magic, summoning healing spirits or singing a song to make your blade sharper and faster. Rune magic is more powerful, requiring an investment of power but bringing greater results. A third type of magic, Sorcery, is touched on briefly and will be expanded on in a future product.
The book itself is beautiful. Full-color plates and maps with a great layout. The book feels solid, with no spine cracking. My edition has a silver ribbon place holder. Really, a lovely product.
All in all, this latest edition of Runequest is well worth checking out if you are looking for a different RPG experience.
Runequest is solidly set in the Late Bronze Age, an era of city-states, numerous gods, and epic heroes. The entire feel of the game and setting push this feeling. Glorantha, the default setting, is solidly welded to the rules. To play Runequest is to play in Glorantha.
But what a wonderful world it is! One of the best-detailed worlds in gaming, Glorantha is a living place, from the dusty plains of Prax, home to bison-riding nomads and beasts that herd men, to the proud Kindom of Sartar, a bastion against the encroaching Lunar Empire, to the crowded cities and bustling ports of Estrolia, everything breaths.
This history is tied into character generation. Sartar has only recently thrown off the yoke of Lumar occupation, an epic war that in the end required the summoning of a True Dragon. Making a character begins with tracking the deeds of one of your grandparents and one of your parents, before showing what you've been doing up to the current day.
This not only gives you background, but it also helps define your Passions, the strong loyalties or hatreds that drive you. If your father was eaten by the Crimson Bat, odds are you're going have a strong hatred for the Lunar Empire.
You also decide what Runes you are strongly associated with. Runes are not just symbols, they are potent magical forms. A strong association with a Rune can help define your character, as well as boost magic and skills associated with that Rune.
It sounds complex, but it really flows well. You end up with a well-rounded character with strong feelings and goals.
Mechanically, Runequest uses a d100 skill system. Skills are expressed as a percentage, and your target number is that number or below, after modifiers. There are a wide variety of skills that allow for all sorts of fun character builds. Combat is deadly, as it should be. One thing I liked was a rule section of fighting in a phalanx. This section is complete without being overwhelming.
Magic and religion are central to Runequest. Everyone can at least do a little magic, summoning healing spirits or singing a song to make your blade sharper and faster. Rune magic is more powerful, requiring an investment of power but bringing greater results. A third type of magic, Sorcery, is touched on briefly and will be expanded on in a future product.
The book itself is beautiful. Full-color plates and maps with a great layout. The book feels solid, with no spine cracking. My edition has a silver ribbon place holder. Really, a lovely product.
All in all, this latest edition of Runequest is well worth checking out if you are looking for a different RPG experience.
November 15, 2022
As a returner to Runequest whose only memories were 2nd edition and PCs with no arms, I was eager to read (and eventually play) this. I'd already got the Starter set (a bargain, I must say), so had a familiarity with the ruleset.
It's a beautiful book. Lovely art, well written, great immersive lore, and a good game system. It's a crunchy rule set c/w DnD, which most would be aware of. The detail in combat is excellent, and appropriately lethal, although the increased availability of healing mitigates this somewhat (except for the lethal crits). The magic system is odd to start with, but you can get the hang of it fairly quick (aided by watching some actual play on YouTube).
Any criticism? The print quality for text is fine, but the map print quality is too dark making detail difficult to see (a shame as they are well drawn). The book layout can be a little confusing at times (e.g damage section different location to combat rules).
Best bits? The lore is solid, the chapters on regions really really good, and the built in family history is a great idea.
Solid 4 stars. I'd highly recommend the Starter set in addition to this as some explanations are better there (Strike Rank for example).
Onto the Bestiary next.
It's a beautiful book. Lovely art, well written, great immersive lore, and a good game system. It's a crunchy rule set c/w DnD, which most would be aware of. The detail in combat is excellent, and appropriately lethal, although the increased availability of healing mitigates this somewhat (except for the lethal crits). The magic system is odd to start with, but you can get the hang of it fairly quick (aided by watching some actual play on YouTube).
Any criticism? The print quality for text is fine, but the map print quality is too dark making detail difficult to see (a shame as they are well drawn). The book layout can be a little confusing at times (e.g damage section different location to combat rules).
Best bits? The lore is solid, the chapters on regions really really good, and the built in family history is a great idea.
Solid 4 stars. I'd highly recommend the Starter set in addition to this as some explanations are better there (Strike Rank for example).
Onto the Bestiary next.
June 5, 2023
Chaosium’s RuneQuest, Glorantha and Call of Cthulhu books are the most readable and best edited RPG-related volumes I’ve thus far found. The multidimensional richness of RQ character creation isn’t found elsewhere. A critique, though: they need to either simplify the latest edition’s Sorcery rules, which are unnecessarily complicated and dissuasive, or at least supplement the sorcerous spell list to make jumping through multiple preparatory hoops worth a player’s efforts.
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November 2, 2021If you're ever in a weird cocktail party situation where it's de rigueur to know about RuneQuest/Glorantha, here's some bulletpoints to bluff your way through:
* For a roleplaying setting, Glorantha is old, going back to Greg Stafford's 1975 boardgame "White Bear and Red Moon" (which was, in fact, the first product made by Chaosium)
* Stafford was very interested in shamanistic practices and the Joseph Campbell idea that myths are ways we organize our lives, so this is a game about how myths play out, with characters calling on mythic figures and in some senses trying to emulate them
* Glorantha isn't a medieval setting of wizards and knights fighting orcs -- it's more of a bronze age setting where everyone has some access to the divine through ritual and charms, where the world is still organized into cults and tribes, where the goal isn't exactly to get the best sword but to make sure that you have enough cattle
* Also, Glorantha and RuneQuest have had a long and weird publishing history, with partnerships and corporate entities established just to publish this stuff that then licensed it to other, bigger game publishers; with boardgames, a novel, a few computer games, two separate roleplaying games, a lot of confusion over the name (HeroQuest was one name, but that was owned by Hasbro for a while, so some of this stuff is published as Hero Wars, until Hasbro let their ownership of the title lapse, and, etc., etc.)
So what is this new version? I skimmed this core and the Glorantha Bestiary, and I kind of have no idea. I loved loved loved the first half of the core book, which talks about the world and character creation. Part of character creation is figuring out what Runes your character is associated with -- these are the magic runes/words that underly existence -- but also figuring out what your favored grandparent and parent were like, which will affect your character's passions. (Did your favorite grandparent belong to one cult? Well, chances are they initiated you into it. Did they die fighting in one king's war? Then you might have grown up with tales of their heroism and loyalty to that king.)
Then I started to get bogged down in the 3 or 4 chapters on different magic, because not only are there cults (dedicated to gods with specific Runic interests) but there's also sorcery (which is an impartial view of the Runes as science, in a way), and shamanism (because everything has a spirit). There's seriously like 6 different chapters on this stuff, and it started to feel a lot more like bookkeeping than like unlocking the reality of mythological structures. (Fun fact: Stafford may have started Glorantha as a way to explore real mythic structure by creating fake myths.)
And while I was wading through, I hit on Robin D. Laws's refrain for RPGs: what do the PCs do? Now in King of Dragon Pass, a game ported to the iOS that I like very much, you play a chieftain trying to make your clan thrive amid the chaos of the time, with other tribes, monsters of Chaos, and plain starvation threatening you. It's more a simulation game than an RPG (you don't have a character with stats, but you have advisors and you have to decide, say, how many people to assign to herding and how many to defense), but it gives you a clear role and goal. Here... I never quite got a clear idea of what the PCs core activity is: is it going on a heroquest to bring back knowledge from the land of myth? (But that's like the climax, not the everyday adventure you would go on.)
Put another way: I felt this book lacked a focus that maybe an intro adventure would've given it. (Or maybe, considering this game's 45-year history, any intro adventure would've been too limiting.)
The bestiary is fun and expands a lot on the world; so we learn about Glorantha's elves, which are tree spirits, and dwarves, who are mechanical tinkerers (like out of myth), and the warlike humanoid ducks (that have been part of Glorantha for decades), and the trolls and their cults of darkness, etc. Unfortunately, the bestiary is only sporadically illustrated, and includes a lot of info about how to play this or that monster as a PC, which is what players always want, but waters down the interesting anthropocentrism of the setting.
(All that said, I'm like this close to starting to collect the earlier stuff, just to learn about the dungeon of Snakepipe Hollow or the city/hexcrawl of Big Rubble -- all places that I've heard of before because they were some of the first examples of their kind in RPG history.)
* For a roleplaying setting, Glorantha is old, going back to Greg Stafford's 1975 boardgame "White Bear and Red Moon" (which was, in fact, the first product made by Chaosium)
* Stafford was very interested in shamanistic practices and the Joseph Campbell idea that myths are ways we organize our lives, so this is a game about how myths play out, with characters calling on mythic figures and in some senses trying to emulate them
* Glorantha isn't a medieval setting of wizards and knights fighting orcs -- it's more of a bronze age setting where everyone has some access to the divine through ritual and charms, where the world is still organized into cults and tribes, where the goal isn't exactly to get the best sword but to make sure that you have enough cattle
* Also, Glorantha and RuneQuest have had a long and weird publishing history, with partnerships and corporate entities established just to publish this stuff that then licensed it to other, bigger game publishers; with boardgames, a novel, a few computer games, two separate roleplaying games, a lot of confusion over the name (HeroQuest was one name, but that was owned by Hasbro for a while, so some of this stuff is published as Hero Wars, until Hasbro let their ownership of the title lapse, and, etc., etc.)
So what is this new version? I skimmed this core and the Glorantha Bestiary, and I kind of have no idea. I loved loved loved the first half of the core book, which talks about the world and character creation. Part of character creation is figuring out what Runes your character is associated with -- these are the magic runes/words that underly existence -- but also figuring out what your favored grandparent and parent were like, which will affect your character's passions. (Did your favorite grandparent belong to one cult? Well, chances are they initiated you into it. Did they die fighting in one king's war? Then you might have grown up with tales of their heroism and loyalty to that king.)
Then I started to get bogged down in the 3 or 4 chapters on different magic, because not only are there cults (dedicated to gods with specific Runic interests) but there's also sorcery (which is an impartial view of the Runes as science, in a way), and shamanism (because everything has a spirit). There's seriously like 6 different chapters on this stuff, and it started to feel a lot more like bookkeeping than like unlocking the reality of mythological structures. (Fun fact: Stafford may have started Glorantha as a way to explore real mythic structure by creating fake myths.)
And while I was wading through, I hit on Robin D. Laws's refrain for RPGs: what do the PCs do? Now in King of Dragon Pass, a game ported to the iOS that I like very much, you play a chieftain trying to make your clan thrive amid the chaos of the time, with other tribes, monsters of Chaos, and plain starvation threatening you. It's more a simulation game than an RPG (you don't have a character with stats, but you have advisors and you have to decide, say, how many people to assign to herding and how many to defense), but it gives you a clear role and goal. Here... I never quite got a clear idea of what the PCs core activity is: is it going on a heroquest to bring back knowledge from the land of myth? (But that's like the climax, not the everyday adventure you would go on.)
Put another way: I felt this book lacked a focus that maybe an intro adventure would've given it. (Or maybe, considering this game's 45-year history, any intro adventure would've been too limiting.)
The bestiary is fun and expands a lot on the world; so we learn about Glorantha's elves, which are tree spirits, and dwarves, who are mechanical tinkerers (like out of myth), and the warlike humanoid ducks (that have been part of Glorantha for decades), and the trolls and their cults of darkness, etc. Unfortunately, the bestiary is only sporadically illustrated, and includes a lot of info about how to play this or that monster as a PC, which is what players always want, but waters down the interesting anthropocentrism of the setting.
(All that said, I'm like this close to starting to collect the earlier stuff, just to learn about the dungeon of Snakepipe Hollow or the city/hexcrawl of Big Rubble -- all places that I've heard of before because they were some of the first examples of their kind in RPG history.)
October 22, 2018
A new official version of RuneQuest after all this time? Co-written by Greg and based firmly in Glorantha? Surely now my head must explode.
This version essentially erases the RQ3 (Avalon Hill) period and picks up after RQ2, adding rules to codify the influences that major Gloranthan elements such as the all-powerful Runes have on actual gameplay.
It's a beautifully presented tome, too, with great layout and artwork and some lovely fonts :-) There are some flow and forward reference issues but really it's not possible to produce such a volume perfectly. All in all it's great.
Characters start with a pretty comprehensive history going back to the role their most important grandparent (!) played in the key events occurring in Dragon Pass at that time. After dealing with them, the most important parent is given similar treatment, and then finally the character gets some history too. This feels a bit more like Traveller than traditional RQ, and not just because all concerned can die in the process! Skills and Passions and the like are accumulated due to these events along the way, so you don't get the feeling that you're just a lump of protoplasm spat out of a formula, as history was before. This part is very welcome and is implemented very intelligently.
Characters also choose paths and accumulate Runic associations (and complementing them, some converse associations too - eg Harmony and Disorder have to be in balance, etc) and some Passions which generally come from family history again - clan and tribe loyalties, allies, and enemies, that kind of thing. Again all solid ideas and implemented well.
Overall I love the new system and the hard Glorantha / Dragon Pass setting. I understand the additions and approve of them being there in concept. However, I do have a couple of reservations about playing for real. Some of the system developments that came in with RQ3, although not necessarily part of Canon du Greg, made perfect sense and I would be adding them back in -- the single percent characteristic bonuses, the missile hit location table, etc. My main reservations are whether the added mechanics will slow play considerably. Now, every skill, spell, and weapon have a Runic association, and therefore potentially can be influenced by any appropriate Rune skills a character would have. This would add discussion and more rolling to just about everything a character did, not to mention even that the character sheet doesn't list the associations so the GM is left looking them up all the time. Ditto with Passions -- does a Passion apply in this situation? I foresee lots of character/GM interaction about it, lengthening things.
IMHO, RQ2 and RQ3 had a good balance of realism and book-keeping. The new mechanisms might push things over the edge into being unworkable in play. But then, I've not tried it for real yet. And as always the beauty of the RQ system is that the GM can suit themselves over which mechanisms to include. Hey we never played RQ by the book!
So, to sum up, I am blown away that there is new RQ & Glorantha material being produced, and even if I end up only using some of the new concepts and mechanics in my game, then the release of RQG is still a hugely influential event in the gaming world.
Have to sadly add here that Greg passed on October 11. It's always the heroes. Respect and RIP.
(edit, Goodreads formatting is impossible!)
April 26, 2020
Probably took longer to read the whole book, since I decided to restart it after it had sat on my desk a few months.
This new version of Runequest is what Greg Stafford always wanted, his acclaimed ruleset seamlessly intertwined with the glorious world of Glorantha, without the separation of those elements some versions had.
It takes the best out of RQ2 and RQ3, completely ignores the awful Mongoose versions, takes some refined elements of RQ6, and makes the rules and the setting live in the same space.
The final result is nothing short of breathtaking.
Add to that a fantastic layout and amazing art, and you have a perfect rendition of Runequest.
It was a long time coming, but I am beyond overjoyed that Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was released, and it has brought me a lot of happiness to read and play in.
Glorantha is one of the richest, most fascinating ttrpg worlds I have ever read, and the way character creation is woven into the story is perfection.
Leave it to Greg Stafford, may he rest in peace, to take one of my favorite games and make it even better.
This new version of Runequest is what Greg Stafford always wanted, his acclaimed ruleset seamlessly intertwined with the glorious world of Glorantha, without the separation of those elements some versions had.
It takes the best out of RQ2 and RQ3, completely ignores the awful Mongoose versions, takes some refined elements of RQ6, and makes the rules and the setting live in the same space.
The final result is nothing short of breathtaking.
Add to that a fantastic layout and amazing art, and you have a perfect rendition of Runequest.
It was a long time coming, but I am beyond overjoyed that Runequest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was released, and it has brought me a lot of happiness to read and play in.
Glorantha is one of the richest, most fascinating ttrpg worlds I have ever read, and the way character creation is woven into the story is perfection.
Leave it to Greg Stafford, may he rest in peace, to take one of my favorite games and make it even better.
December 25, 2023
Le jdr Runequest à un univers très intéressant et riche.
Dommage qu'une grosse partie de ce livre de base soit centré sur des règles assommantes à la lecture.
J'ai cependant bien aimé les descriptions des environnements, des dieux et des cultes proposés.
L'univers semble riche et les petits récits des exploits d'un groupe d'aventuriers utilisé en exemple, rendent l'univers concret.
J'ai bien aimé la création de personnages avec le développement de l'historique des grands-parents et des parents, ça peux être lourd comme ça. Mais ça permet de s'imprégner des récits passés avant de jouer et de comprendre les enjeux.
Ce livre est fourni avec un petit scénario, histoire de se lancer et de mettre un pied à l'étrier.
Bref, c'est un livre de règle et c'est un peu normal de ne pas avoir plus de détails sur l'univers, mais j'espère que les suppléments seront plus accès sur ce qui est jouable.
Dommage qu'une grosse partie de ce livre de base soit centré sur des règles assommantes à la lecture.
J'ai cependant bien aimé les descriptions des environnements, des dieux et des cultes proposés.
L'univers semble riche et les petits récits des exploits d'un groupe d'aventuriers utilisé en exemple, rendent l'univers concret.
J'ai bien aimé la création de personnages avec le développement de l'historique des grands-parents et des parents, ça peux être lourd comme ça. Mais ça permet de s'imprégner des récits passés avant de jouer et de comprendre les enjeux.
Ce livre est fourni avec un petit scénario, histoire de se lancer et de mettre un pied à l'étrier.
Bref, c'est un livre de règle et c'est un peu normal de ne pas avoir plus de détails sur l'univers, mais j'espère que les suppléments seront plus accès sur ce qui est jouable.
March 25, 2022
A fascinating and deep world to play in. The structure and format of the rulebook doesn't quit fit my learning style though, I often had to flip back and forth to figure out what things actually were referring to, or how something works. With other systems I find the rule books to be much more structured and concise... but they do lack the depth and immersion that RuneQuest provides, so I guess that's the trade-off.
April 6, 2020
The recent new edition of the classic game - a ground-breaking RPG which tied its setting in with its system. This is its equivalent to the new edition of D&D, its old rival - keeps its core values and USP, while updating it for modern gamers. Beautifully illustrated, a great marriage of game system and setting.
December 16, 2022
Does an excellent job of improving on RuneQuest's already solid foundations by adding in the best ideas from Pendragon (tying them into the titular Runes to make them more relevant in play) and adding a strong sense of community. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
October 28, 2019
An engine for imagination capture. Beautifully art and lay out. Comprehensive rules. Different and interesting mythos in Glorantha setting.
March 26, 2024
Excellent implementation. The bronze age setting is great. The refinements to runs and magic are welcome additions.
December 17, 2020
This latest edition of RuneQuest looks very interesting. They've taken the mechanics of previous editions and melded them with several mechanics from the Pendragon RPG. These new mechanics include family history, passions, and year end family/event/upkeep rolls.
The randomly generated family history serves to introduce new players into the setting, teaching them the major events and politics of the past 60 odd years of the game world as they roll up the history of their most significant parent and grandparent.
The passions are a mechanic that seems to fit the setting very well, allowing the loyalties and loves of the characters have a mechanical effect on the game.
I'm not going to go into full detail on the rest of the system, it's still the same basic BRP system that's been around now since the 70s. Elements show that age, but for the most part it still feels like a solid system.
I'm looking forward to wrapping up our current 13th Age Glorantha campaign and giving this system a try.
Edit: Rolling up a sample character and came across a major oversight in the rules: at some points you are asked to average the values of stats, but it doesn't tell you how to round the result if it isn't a whole number. All the examples average two even numbers, so I couldn't extrapolate from the examples. I googled the problem and couldn't find a FAQ for the rules. I did find a quickstart that said to round in the favor of the player (actually it contradicted itself the way it was worded, but it was clear from context what they meant). Running into such a basic error so early into actually using the rules is not very encouraging, so I'm lowering my rating by a star for now.
Edit: In play, the game mostly works, but the sorcery rules are broken, and the designer is defensive rather than helpful. Lowering my rating to one star since the game is essentially unplayable to me at this point, and I therefore don't like it.
The randomly generated family history serves to introduce new players into the setting, teaching them the major events and politics of the past 60 odd years of the game world as they roll up the history of their most significant parent and grandparent.
The passions are a mechanic that seems to fit the setting very well, allowing the loyalties and loves of the characters have a mechanical effect on the game.
I'm not going to go into full detail on the rest of the system, it's still the same basic BRP system that's been around now since the 70s. Elements show that age, but for the most part it still feels like a solid system.
I'm looking forward to wrapping up our current 13th Age Glorantha campaign and giving this system a try.
Edit: Rolling up a sample character and came across a major oversight in the rules: at some points you are asked to average the values of stats, but it doesn't tell you how to round the result if it isn't a whole number. All the examples average two even numbers, so I couldn't extrapolate from the examples. I googled the problem and couldn't find a FAQ for the rules. I did find a quickstart that said to round in the favor of the player (actually it contradicted itself the way it was worded, but it was clear from context what they meant). Running into such a basic error so early into actually using the rules is not very encouraging, so I'm lowering my rating by a star for now.
Edit: In play, the game mostly works, but the sorcery rules are broken, and the designer is defensive rather than helpful. Lowering my rating to one star since the game is essentially unplayable to me at this point, and I therefore don't like it.
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