iamtim said:
I'll tell you. And this is the first time I've spoken of this to anyone.
To me it feels like Matthew (Sprange) loved RuneQuest and had a bunch of new and innovative (from an RQ perspective) ideas for it, so he worked to get the rights to do it and was almost immediately torn to shreds by RQ "old-guard" who were offended at the very thought of changes to their precious game. It feels like the RQ "old-guard" complained enough that the new RuneQuest was brought more into line with old RuneQuest, until Matthew tired of their complaints and brought the new RuneQuest completely in-house where it was quickly reshaped yet again into something of a hybrid between Matthew's original ideas and what the RQ "old-guard" wanted, and pushed out the door as it had already been delayed once.
Funny how perceptions differ.
I'm up with you till MS got the rights to (the) RQ (name) - At this point the vibe I got was by and large the "Old guard" was excited. There was maybe some disquiet that Mongoose were largely known for their D20 and derivative OGL systems, and that some of their products had been noted as having quality control issues, as well as some confusion as to the relative status of MRQ and DBRP. I saw no evidence of any shredding based merely on the thought that changes might be made from earlier editions. Just about everyone who has played either RQ2 or RQ3 recognised that some changes would be desirable (It's just that no 2 people agreed what those changes were).
MS than began a very public playtest via Yahoogroups, which (and I think he admitted something along these lines on rpg.net subsequently) he used to float some half formed ideas both to see whether they worked and to see whether they were "acceptable" to the potential player base. Some of the ideas were good, some were bad, and some were "good, but not for RQ". The Playtest rules underwent a number of revisons, in which some rules were never touched, and others underwent massive changes. There were also a number of posters on the group who seemed more interested in discussing their own house rules than anything that MS was producing. Some of these house-rules were tweaks based on other BRP games, others were radical changes that borrowed from any manner of mainstream or indie RPG's...
MS then dropped out of the playtest to concentrate on other (business) Issues and the (visible) mongoose presence on the playtest list dropped right off.
A number of people, particularly the so-called "Old Guard" did become very discouraged during this period, due to the very radical nature of some of the changes, both from Mongoose and from other individuals. Personally I feel a more structured approach would have been a benefit here...
The Yahoogroup was then closed down and a number of posters to the group received a further update to the playtest rules - These were, I felt a great improvement on the earlier versions, and much closer to the original system without being a direct copy. I also assumed that (particularly given the previous iterations) that there would be a couple more updates to polish off the remaining rough edges, but in a very short space of time (A week, or possibly less I think) the playtesting was, as far as I could tell over. (For all I know there might have been an ever shrinking number of playtesters, and this was the point I was dropped...)
The impression
I got was that the Mongoose Business Plan required that Runequest be launched at the end of July (to hit Continuum?) and that plan over-ruled any considerations like ensuring the rules were fully functional, coherent and consistent
iamtim said:
My observations on this and other forums generally supports that; RQ "old-guard" generally do not like MRQ and greatly overstate the problems with it. D&D players and people with little or no prior RQ experience generally like MRQ and are willing to gloss over more of the problems with MRQ.
.
I think lumping everyone in to "RQ Old Guard" is somewhat misleading, being as it encompasses people who think RQ3 was wonderful, people who think RQ3 was a hideous mistake, People who liked RQ but hated that it was set in Glorantha, People who love Glorantha, are ambivalent about RQ, but dislike HeroQuest, and people who'se old RQ games are so old and heavily house-ruled that given a reprinted RQ2 or 3 would complain about all the rule changes it contained
Also consider the history of RQ. Despite what Glorantha-freaks may tell you, RQ's main selling point in the early days was that it wasn't D&D. It
may therefore be a less than positive sign if people with prior experience of RQ dislike the system but those from a D&D background do not. (Depending on a whole host of things including why they think that and what your intentions were in designing the system that way).
While I don't believe you could ever design a system that would completely satisfy every old RQ player (far less every potential RQ player), as others have said, why go to the trouble of licensing the RQ name if you do not want to attract the RQ fanbase? (If it was a desire to work in Glorantha why not "OGL Glorantha"?)