MRQ review in Roolipelaaja (Roleplayer) magazine, Finland

[MongooseMatt]

That's OK. You might have noticed most of us are fully capable of tailoring rules...in fact that's most of what some of us do.

Yes! Thank you!

This is something I have been championing for a long, long time - and I kinda blame D20

Once, long ago, I played D&D, Traveller and a host of other games. I made up new rules, changed ones I didn't like and generally fiddled with the game. I knew a lot of other people who did the same thing.

Somewhere along the line, this seems to have been lost. And I have a feeling it started around the time of D20, though whether that was the direct cause or not, I cannot say. But fiddling around with games at a fundamental level is, for me, as much a part of roleplaying as anything else. The rulebook is not the be all and end all - it is the start, the jumping off point.

It seems that more and more players are expecting their rulebooks to provide everything necessary (including the creative stuff, but that never happens) to cover every situation - and D20 makes a good stab at this, but you end up with 300+ page rulebooks with a Dollar tag to match. But it ain't exactly the hobby I grew to love.

If you guys take the new RuneQuest and start mucking about with the rules, using them as a building block for your own games (and, hey, releasing them for others under the Open Licence), then you are doing _exactly_ what I intended for the game.

This is not to say that games designers should abdicate their role. But if you play a six month campaign of RuneQuest with just half the rules intact as written, and you have fun with it, then my job has been successful.

Of course, others may not agree

 

[Harshax]

A character could have things like.

Brave +2 Recurring nightmares
Good memory Sense of Duty: protect the children

Those are relatively new innovations, but not necessarily good ones. I remember how little I use to reference the RQ3 rules, except to be inspired by an image or clever paragraph. Lately, I've seen books that had lists of these little character quirks, but what invariably happened to me, was that I started to forget what Brave meant vs. Face Adversity, vs. Stoic. Which is no problem in and of itself, but when you're looking at lists of monster stats, or reading a module, and you have to reference these quirks to make sense of an NPC. . . that's where I have a problem.

Not to say that MRQ does that. . . well legendary abilities, maybe. I can live without them, and not feel that I'm going to face an uphill battle converting material to my own game.

I think the MRQ combat rules are ok. For me, in fact, the innovation in gaming hasn't come in character generation, but combat modeling. My group loves the d20 3x combat system, it was almost perfect for us, but many of the things we liked about it were done better with less rules in Harnmaster, which is an awfully old system. MRQ has some combat elements I really like, but it isn't what my group is looking for. (our d20/HarnMaster/brp combat mix is more to our liking)

What I was really hoping for out of MRQ, was a streamling of RQ3, which was a complete game in one box. MRQ certainly succeeded some of my expectations with character creation, but not enough for me to engage in an expensive habit of collecting all the rules to make MRQ a complete game.

 

[mthomason]

If you guys take the new RuneQuest and start mucking about with the rules, using them as a building block for your own games (and, hey, releasing them for others under the Open Licence), then you are doing _exactly_ what I intended for the game.

Those of us "brought up that way" are quite happy with it that way

Personally I blame the new generation of "by-the-book" wargamers who learned to play with inflexible tournament-style rules and are now finding their way into roleplaying

Besides, if GMs don't innovate and make changes, where will the next generation of games designers come from?....

 

[Harshax]

Actually I think d20 was the final outcome of TSR's original anymosity vs. companies that attempted to make products that could fit in with D&D. When Judges Guild stuff stopped being applicable to AD&D Second Edition, the idea that players were encapsulated within a single game system really started to take off. D20 was an attempt to go the other way, with the creation of the OGL. It's done wonders to the industry, but the fact remains that too much of what is D&D has to be accepted in order to utilize the OGL ~ with the occasional exceptions like BESM d20, Mutants & Masterminds and to a lesser degree: True20.

 

[Enpeze]

If the "old guard" were not the "target audience" then why did all of Mongooses ad's target them?

Do you mean they target them because they gave out some Glorantha material as the first setting? Well I would say that there are a lot of people buying this material. And not only the "old guard". I bet this "old guard" will probably not be the major buyer of Glorantha 2nd age. The majority of buyer will be Mongoose fans which either buy basically everything from Mongoose or have acquired MRQ basic rules before. Also there will be many BRP fans buying this product, which are not necessarly "old guard" because they dont like Glorantha.


Addtionally the "old guard" will surely not be the major buyer of the other MRQ settings which appear the next years. These settings have at least the same attraction than Glorantha or even more (probably conan)

I wrote several pists in a nother thread about how all the ad's drop names like Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin and a return on the "classic" game system. THe only people theymarketing did target were the old guard.

Never. If this were true Mongoose Matt would not admit in an open forum that the "old guard" is not his target audience.

I think MRQ is going to have problems finding thier market by adverstising to the old gauard. If they want to attract new RQ fans, they needed to target them with thier ads.

I am sure Mongoose has its marketing plan, which can be good or not. I think also that either you nor I can evaluate this plan. The only thing I can be sure is, that Mongoose has been very successful in marketing his products the last years. They seem to understand their job.

Instead they target the people whp would automatically pre-order and buy a RQ product becuase we saw Steve Perrin's name attached to it. I feel like I was scammed. I was promoised a new edtion of RQ designed "under the watchful eyes" of Steve Perrin, and I got something else.

If the ads had been more honest about the game development, and that MRQ was believe devopled by a new group of people, I wouldn't have preordered it. I think a lot of people who preordered it feel the same way.

You order a game because there is the name of Perrin on it?

Btw: Perrins magic rules are used in MRQ. And Stafford did proofread the Glorantha material, so Mongoose didnt lie.

I believe the quick sales of the core book to the old guard is not going to be worth the animosity that will be generated. I think the marketing stragety is going to result in a backlash.

Well the "old guard" isnt that important for MRQ (see above) and Mongoose, while not unlucky if these people buy their product, didnt target them specifically. You overestimate the power of the old guard if you think that they can influence the sales of MRQ by blaming it in the way you described.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Btw: Perrins magic rules are used in MRQ. And Stafford did proofread the Glorantha material, so Mongoose didnt lie.

As a point of accuracy, the magic rules in RuneQuest are not Mr Perrin's. He worked on a draft for them but, in the end, we felt they were not going in the direction we wanted to see for the new game.

That said, Mr Perrin still has those rules, and he would be welcome to release them under the Open Licence. . .

 

[mthomason]

The (possibly) sad truth is there's a lot more potential new customers out there who never played the original RQ, than there are original RQ players who are still actively playing RPGs and still have the disposable income to spend on it.

Me for one.

With my shiny (on the outside, anyway) new rulebook in front of me, I'm quite happy with it so far, and hope to work my way through each and every new release as it becomes available. I'm looking forward to learning about Glorantha (whatever it's about, but the snatches I've heard so far sound cool), and it's using a system I'm mostly already familiar with from my beloved CoC which gives it the same "OGL advantage" I got when I first looked at the B5 RPG. I never really enjoy having to learn a completely new system from scratch that much, so this works pretty well for me - I've got an adjustment to make, and a whole new world to learn about (followed by more later on, it seems)

 

[Urox]

I bet this "old guard" will probably not be the major buyer of Glorantha 2nd age. The majority of buyer will be Mongoose fans which either buy basically everything from Mongoose or have acquired [MQ] basic rules before.

You must be a Glorantha n00b!

Gloranthaphiles are an obsessive bunch*, and we like all source material, especially official material.

I suspect that played a large part in the equation for Mongoose licensing RQ -- they can count on additional sales of Glorantha material to HQ and RQ (not MQ) players.

*if asked my greatest regret in life, I'd say it's not ever having found a copy of Wyrm's Footnotes #4 (darn halfsize book!)

 

[mthomason]

I suspect that played a large part in the equation for Mongoose licensing RQ -- they can count on additional sales of Glorantha material to HQ and RQ (not MQ) players.

In which case it also helps not to have any essential Glorantha info in the core book... it'd just annoy the old RQ players to have to pick up that as well as the sourcebooks they really wanted ( someone stick a notch in the "good things about keeping the core rulebook small" column, please? )

 

[Enpeze]

Seriously, what sort of 'advancements' have been made over the last 30 years? What are these new, revolutionary 'modern' innovations that are so much better?

(Sheesh, now I feel like I need to have a sit-down on the porch and shake my cane at passerbys...)

*smile* good point about the cane there.

But seriously? There are nice mechanics for defining a character beyond skills, and there's no reason why those shouldn't work for RQ. What they are called depends on the system. Advantages / Disadvantages (and Quirks) in GURPS, Qualities and Drawbacks for Unisystem, and so on.

A character could have things like.

Brave +2 Recurring nightmares
Good memory Sense of Duty: protect the children

Or something like that. Things that help define the character beyond stats and skills with easy-to-use mechanics.

That is something that has appeared in the last thirty years, and one I wouldn't like to do without.

I would not buy a system which has such a social "interaction" integrated. Social things has to be played out. If you like to play a children protector then play it out. No need to burden the core rules with it. This is totally against BRP. And it will also NOT be included in the new DBRP rules.

Btw: all these advantage/disadvantage mumbo jumbo is one of the reason I dont play GURPS. (while the rest of the system sounds quite good to me) This is one way to munchkinism, and a very modern and sneaky one.

 

[Harshax]

Outstanding point (both of you), especially for those of us who have left Glorantha long ago, and wanted a newer, revised, RQ3 format.

I suspect that played a large part in the equation for Mongoose licensing RQ -- they can count on additional sales of Glorantha material to HQ and RQ (not MQ) players.

In which case it also helps not to have any essential Glorantha info in the core book... it'd just annoy the old RQ players to have to pick up that as well as the sourcebooks they really wanted ( someone stick a notch in the "good things about keeping the core rulebook small" column, please? )

 

[Enpeze]

Btw: Perrins magic rules are used in MRQ. And Stafford did proofread the Glorantha material, so Mongoose didnt lie.

As a point of accuracy, the magic rules in RuneQuest are not Mr Perrin's. He worked on a draft for them but, in the end, we felt they were not going in the direction we wanted to see for the new game.

That said, Mr Perrin still has those rules, and he would be welcome to release them under the Open Licence. . .

Sorry, my failure. I did read it somewhere in this forum. :/

 

[Enpeze]

I bet this "old guard" will probably not be the major buyer of Glorantha 2nd age. The majority of buyer will be Mongoose fans which either buy basically everything from Mongoose or have acquired [MQ] basic rules before.

You must be a Glorantha n00b!

Gloranthaphiles are an obsessive bunch*, and we like all source material, especially official material.

I suspect that played a large part in the equation for Mongoose licensing RQ -- they can count on additional sales of Glorantha material to HQ and RQ (not MQ) players.

*if asked my greatest regret in life, I'd say it's not ever having found a copy of Wyrm's Footnotes #4 (darn halfsize book!)

Well, I am maybe a Glorantha noob. This could be true. But the more the Gloranthaphiles do contribute the better. What I wanted to say is that with 2nd age Glorantha, there will be a lot of other people (non-Gloranthaphiles) attracted, because they are Mongoosophiles.

I regret that I once sold Wyrms footnotes - which I had AFAIK complete - to my local FLGS several years ago. So probably I could have been able to help you out.

 

[mthomason]

What I wanted to say is that with 2nd age Glorantha, there will be a lot of other people (non-Gloranthaphiles) attracted, because they are Mongoosophiles.

That'd be me again

Having played RPGs for about 17 years now I get funny looks sometimes when I mention that I've never played RuneQuest...

 

[Enpeze]

What I wanted to say is that with 2nd age Glorantha, there will be a lot of other people (non-Gloranthaphiles) attracted, because they are Mongoosophiles.

That'd be me again

Having played RPGs for about 17 years now I get funny looks sometimes when I mention that I've never played RuneQuest...

/funny look :shock:

 

[mthomason]

See what I mean?

 

[Urox]

Well, I am maybe a Glorantha noob. This could be true. But the more the Gloranthaphiles do contribute the better. What I wanted to say is that with 2nd age Glorantha, there will be a lot of other people (non-Gloranthaphiles) attracted, because they are Mongoosophiles.

I regret that I once sold Wyrms footnotes - which I had AFAIK complete - to my local FLGS several years ago. So probably I could have been able to help you out.

I take it you were being sarcastic about being a Glorantha noob if you had a complete set of Wyrm's Footnotes. AFAIK, the first couple of issues are exceedingly rare (IIRC, Greg told me there were only about 100 of #1 printed... mimiographed).

Actually, I wonder what MQ will do the the value of old Gloranthan publications.

I suspect the real benefactor of all this will be Rick Meints and the Moon Design reprints (which are outstanding).

 

[Adept]

The latest issue of Roolipelaaja was delivered today, and has a two page review of the new RuneQuest. The review isn't all that positive, I have to say.

For score MRQ get's 4/5 stars for production values, 2,5/5 stars for content and 3/5 stars overall.

I'm very surprised that MRQ get's that high of a value for production. I don't care for the large margins, grey borders, and pencil drawings. I would have prefered less images of pen & ink quality, no borders, smaller margins, and slightly denser text. Granted my criticism bleeds into content, so your mileage may vary.

Funny thing. The actual text in the review talks about low production values, and how cheap the book looks. The four stars I mentioned are what are given as a mark in a box at the beginning of the review. Parhaps that is in error, and the reviewer actually meant there to be two or three.

 

[Enpeze]

Well, I am maybe a Glorantha noob. This could be true. But the more the Gloranthaphiles do contribute the better. What I wanted to say is that with 2nd age Glorantha, there will be a lot of other people (non-Gloranthaphiles) attracted, because they are Mongoosophiles.

I regret that I once sold Wyrms footnotes - which I had AFAIK complete - to my local FLGS several years ago. So probably I could have been able to help you out.

I take it you were being sarcastic about being a Glorantha noob if you had a complete set of Wyrm's Footnotes. AFAIK, the first couple of issues are exceedingly rare (IIRC, Greg told me there were only about 100 of #1 printed... mimiographed).

Oh no it was not that sarcastic, because while reading alot of material recently, I am really some sort of Glorantha noob. I had all these wyrms footnotes but I didnt enjoy them very much. I bought them I think 1987 or so from an old friend of mine (he was not interested in roleplaying anymore), because I thought they have many cool rule stuff for RQ3 in it. But that was not true. Their production quality have been very low (often just a bunch of pages with a weird layout), different paper sizes and they contained only old RQ1 und RQ2 stuff and material for White bear and red moon. This wasnt that useful for me, because I only owned AHs newer Dragon Pass.
I sold them to an Austrian game store years ago (quite cheap AFAIK). But if I read your lines I regret this step. :/

 

[atgxtg]

I wrote several pists in a nother thread

Are those the the posts you piss an moan in?

Probably, considering the fact that I've found preciousl little to like about MRQ, I've been "P&M-ing" in most of the threads. Every change starts a domino effect. i think that in the end, there is precious little RQ lest in MRQ.