I be confused.... HELP!

[Itto]

Here is a link to the HQ rules synopsis.

http://www.glorantha.com/support/GameAids.pdf

Also poke about the Glorantha.com site, oodles of tasty info about the game world.

I find this page very usefull, for a potted God Time history.
http://www.glorantha.com/library/history/cot-cosmology.html

Plenty of other goodies in there too.

 

[Wolverine]

HeroQuest is a good system, one that can be adapted for many other genres. It allows for more heroic, or cinematic play. Plus there is a lot less book keeping involved.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

History Bits:

Chaosium wanted to be primarily games designers rather than games publishers (they designed West End Games "Ghostbusters" which was the original d6 system that spawned thge WEG Star Wars line). Avalon Hill was a successful (Board) Games publisher who wanted to break into the RPG market. They had previously picked up a couple of Chaosium board games (White Bear & Red Moon, published by AH as Dragon Pass, which is the first Gloranthan game, and the ELRIC board game), so on the face of it the deal to allow AH to publish RQ looked like a good one...

When the deal went sour, and when AH was bought up by Hasboro, but still retained the RQ name, Chaosium could not put out anything for RQ. Greg was working on "a new Gloranthan RPG" - which was, at one stage more similar to Pendragon - this was to be "HeroQuest" - a sort of "advanced" RQ that had been promised many years ago, before the AH deal was even thought of!

To add to the general confusion, in the intervening period Games Workshop, together with Milton Bradley produced a fantasy board game called "HeroQuest" and "Advanced HeroQuest" - this has nothing to do with either RuneQuest or Glorantha.

Following the break up of Chaosium, Greg set up Issaries to publish his new game, written by Robin Laws. As HeroQuest was unavailable this game was published as Hero Wars.

Subsequently Greg was able to acquire the trademarks to both HeroQuest and RuneQuest which had lapsed under US Law. A greatly revised and much improved version of HeroWars was produced as HeroQuest, and the RQ trademark, and the rights to produce Gloranthan 2nd Age material were licenced to Mongoose.

The only similarity between HeroQuest and RuneQuest is that they both use Glorantha as a (potential) Campaign world.

There are rather more similarities between Hero Wars and (Mongoose) RQ however. Not in terms of the rules, nor the settings (although again, both use Glorantha) - more in terms of both being rushed to market without sufficent proof-reading allowing fairly basic errors through. Also both eschewed the "standard" RPG rulebook format in favour of one intended to be more acceptable to "Standard" book stores - not that either game has/had a noticable presence in standard bookstores....

 

[Mage]

Informative, but the last paragraph sounded a wee bit bitter...

Anyhow, it seems very confusing, and from what I've read it looks like Chaoisum made mistakes quite a bit, not that I am being critical. I mean just desining games and not publishing, or rather focussing on the former? Ludicrous!

 

[Loz]

I mean just desining games and not publishing, or rather focussing on the former? Ludicrous!

At the time it made perfect sense. AH had massive distribution capabilties that Chaosium could plug RQ into, and could publish the kind of ruleset Chaosium wanted to release at a lower cost. Editorial problems at AH meant some daft decisions were made at their end (like making the very first release two separate boxed sets of character sheet). When Ken Rolston came onboard as RQ line editor for AH, things changed rapidly and the RQ renaissance of the mid-90s happened, with the publication of Sun County, Genertela, Gods... and the awesome Dorastor. There were some horrors too, like the infamous 'Daughters of Darkness' and 'Eldorad' - and lets not forget the disastrous artwork for Troll Gods and Elder Races (but text was good).

Publishing games, especially of the boxed variety, back in the 80s/90s was an expensive business, and Chaosium's strength was, truly, in its creativity. Outsourcing the publication, production and distribution made sense, but came with some strings attached, which wouldn't manifest until a lot later.

Hindsight, as they say, is a wonderful thing and always 20/20. But Chaosium had good reasons for the path they trod back then, so condemning their decision as 'ludicrous' is a bit disingenuous.

 

[Rurik]

It is worth mentioning that Chaosium has been around for over 30 years, which is a long time in this industry. It has not all been smooth but they have never closed up shop or gone bankrupt. That is not an easy feat in this market.

 

[Mage]

Not trying to condemn them, I'm like twenty dude, I was a mindless ten year old when most of that happened. I just don't know the system, and want to know. I just did not know the facts or understand the business part.

I like Chaosium and mongoose, and hope they stay around longer.

Cthulhu was my first ever RPG, and I will always love it. That is why I am so pumped aobut RQ, Elric, and everything else.

 

[andakitty]

Twenty is less mindless than ten? Its been sooo long...

 

[weasel_fierce]

Not trying to condemn them, I'm like twenty dude, I was a mindless ten year old when most of that happened. I just don't know the system, and want to know. I just did not know the facts or understand the business part.

I like Chaosium and mongoose, and hope they stay around longer.

Cthulhu was my first ever RPG, and I will always love it. That is why I am so pumped aobut RQ, Elric, and everything else.

Its all good mate

I think its awesome that you put an effort into knowing how these things all fit together.

The thing is, that a lot of people ARE bitter about things like this, which is, of course, a waste of precious chemical energy and resources. Keep up the good spirit

 

[Loz]

Not trying to condemn them, I'm like twenty dude, I was a mindless ten year old when most of that happened. I just don't know the system, and want to know. I just did not know the facts or understand the business part.

I like Chaosium and mongoose, and hope they stay around longer.

Cthulhu was my first ever RPG, and I will always love it. That is why I am so pumped aobut RQ, Elric, and everything else.

Its all good mate

I think its awesome that you put an effort into knowing how these things all fit together.

I quite agree. It's an interesting history and as Weasel says, it's great you want to know more!

 

[gamesmeister]

At the time it made perfect sense. AH had massive distribution capabilties that Chaosium could plug RQ into, and could publish the kind of ruleset Chaosium wanted to release at a lower cost. Editorial problems at AH meant some daft decisions were made at their end (like making the very first release two separate boxed sets of character sheet). When Ken Rolston came onboard as RQ line editor for AH, things changed rapidly and the RQ renaissance of the mid-90s happened, with the publication of Sun County, Genertela, Gods... and the awesome Dorastor. There were some horrors too, like the infamous 'Daughters of Darkness' and 'Eldorad' - and lets not forget the disastrous artwork for Troll Gods and Elder Races (but text was good).

To be fair to AH, I don't think this is quite right. Genertala, Gods, Troll Gods, Elder Races, all these appeared in the mid to late 80's before Ken Rolsten was on the scene, and all were pretty good in their own way (some were better than others). The awful DoD and Eldorad of the early 90's were, as far as I remember, the final products produced before he arrived. There was then a bit of a hiatus before the renaissance finally arrived, with Sun County, River of Cradles, Dorastor, and several others appearing in quick succession. These were infinitely better than most of the dross produced by AH up to that point, and demonstrated just what Chaosium and AH could have achieved had they got their act together a bit sooner.

 

[Loz]

Daughters of Darkness still gets ritually burnt at Tentacles each year.

I'm convinced there's a small press somewhere working 24/7 churning out copies so they can be offered as sacrifices.

 

[Darran]

Daughters of Darkness still gets ritually burnt at Tentacles each year.

I'm convinced there's a small press somewhere working 24/7 churning out copies so they can be offered as sacrifices.

I was told by Rick that AH had their own presses and just churned out many, many copies to keep their staff busy.

The one copy that gts burned each year will not make much difference, short-term or long-term.
Hence I am not too oppossed to that book getting burnt, as long no others are. :shock:


However Loz didn't they say at Tentacles that your books better be good or they will get the same treatment? :twisted:

 

[Loz]

However Loz didn't they say at Tentacles that your books better be good or they will get the same treatment? :twisted:

They did. I don't know why I bother going...

 

[Mage]

Torrents of abuse is fun!
Wait.....
It... isin't?

That book burning sounds quite odd. I'll note to keep my books hidden durign that ritual if i ever go to tentacles.

 

[Loz]

Torrents of abuse is fun!
Wait.....
It... isin't?

That book burning sounds quite odd. I'll note to keep my books hidden durign that ritual if i ever go to tentacles.

Your books are safe, Mage. It's only Daughters of Darkness that gets burnt, and that's provided by the committee!

As to stuff I write... that remains to be seen.

 

[Mage]

It couldn't be that bad :lol:

 

[Rasta]

Yeah

 

[Alakoring]

So there is a glorantha award winning game. Interesting. I'm off to find a copy.

You probably won't be able to, but you can contact A Sharp to get a copy.

 

[Mage]

Found one on ebay but forgot to bid on it. It was like 7 dollars. I probably would have gotten charged out the arse for it anyway.