MRQ review in Roolipelaaja (Roleplayer) magazine, Finland
- Thread starter Adept
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Steve B said:
First off, you are assuming the Companion is the second part of the rulebook. It isn't - it is a Companion, nothing more. You have everything you need in the main rulebook to run a complete campaign. Now, if you want more options in your campaign (and who doesn't?), you have a selection of books coming that you can pick and choose from to suit your own style of play.
However, releasing a $60 rulebook would have been the wrong thing for us to do, no matter what we had included in it. There are a string of companies that have failed or been seriously hurt over the past year or so that back this up.
We realised when we started work on RuneQuest that we would not please everyone, and took solace from the flak WotC had when it released a new D&D. This may well not be the perfect answer for you. But for the majority of your gaming peers, it was most certainly the right way to bring the game out. One day, perhaps not too far into the future, it will be possible to release a game that is tailored directly to the individual gamer. That day is not here yet but the component nature of Open Content RuneQuest is a step in the right direction.
I am really not trying to change the subject - I have answered all your points (whether they are to your satisfaction is another matter, as we are both at subjective viewpoints. . .).
As for your questions above, we never, ever take on a licence unless someone at Mongoose has a positive passion for the subject. Ever. This is what we do for a living. We also like to enjoy what we do.
As for RQ being an 'assignment', well, I am the one who usually chooses who does what and when, and this was a project I took on myself. Draw your own conclusions from that.[/quote]
Okay, I guess we both got our point aired then. We just have very different (diametriaclly oppsed) viewpoints about what made RQ a good game. Pretty much everything that I liked about the game was removed in MRQ. It is sort of the reason why I was asking so many questions before the game came out-to help me understand what the new design team had for goals. We must have very differnert tates in gaming styles, tastes and preferences.
Well, thanks for taking the time to post and respond to my questions. I might not agree with or like your answers, but I still appreciate getting them.
Steve B said:
Not everyone prefers things that way. People that do not require the rules in the RQ companion include those who just need to pick it up for character generation for third-party games produced under the SRD, and they don't want to pay more for a book twice as large full of things they don't really need. You should have added in your example that the WFRP rulebook costs nearly twice as much as the RQ core rulebook, which is a lot of money when all you wanted it for is the rules for generating Characteristics.
What Mongoose have done is produced something halfway between a very basic rules pamphlet and a comprehensive rulebook, with enough information to play a fairly complete game on its own without getting bogged down with information not everyone will need in their game.
(actually, if it were down to me I'd have dropped the section on Rune Magic as well but you can't please everyone). There's a little bit of everything in order to explain how the basics of the system work, to give some example monsters to mess around with. It's also a useful annotated and extended edition of the RQSRD which works well to clarify how to do what you want to do with it.
It's also a great marketing decision (a statement which I'm sure will draw some unwelcome comments), as it's a relatively cheap book on the shelves which people can pick up, hooking them and drawing them into the game. Far too many lines don't sell because the core book itself is too much of an investment to risk the money on.
Just to illustrate how good a decision that was by Mongoose, I've already sold nearly half as many copies of RQ as I have of WFRP since it came out, and it's only been out for four days.
I don't really want to come off as knocking WFRP here, as I like that too. The thing is, I pick up WFRP to play in the Warhammer world, and am happy that it is "complete". I pick up RQ as a small, more generic, and simpler to play rulebook, and hopefully one for which there will soon be a fairly widespread range of settings for.
msprange said:
First, thanks for the reply.
However, I doubt that combining the Companion material into the rulebook (for a total of 216 pages, still smaller than most 'core rules') would not warrant a $60 price tag.
I do think MRQ shows promise and I want to be your customer. But I also want good value and product satisfaction. You infered from my comments that MRQ just may not be for me, and I disagree--I'm stating my criticisms because I do want MRQ to succeed. But, I'm given up other games that I loved in the past because I did not enjoy supporting the business practices behind them. Are Mongoose's practices there yet?--no, but I'm wary of taking the Nestea plunge. I do not like the MRQ+Companion decision, and the combat snafu bugs me. When the latter is resolved, I'll be getting the main book and proceed from there.
Thanks,
Steve
Exactly. As I said months ago, it looks like they were going for the exact same sort of book development as D&D has had for years. You have one book with the basic rules, and has all the stuff your typical player needs. The second book is mostly expanded stuff, and is not as critical for the player to have, but very important for the DM/GM to have. And we'll toss in a third book full of creepy crawlies as well, just to round things out.
I understand Mongoose's approach here. Most of us are looking at it from a perspective of us being the ones likely to run a game, or at the very least, wanting to know more about the game. So it's not surprising that we would have preferred a combined rulebook; it meets our personal needs better.
But for the typical player, who isn't all that interested in running a game for the system, Mongoose's (and D&D's) philosophy works just fine. If you're not going to run the game, and instead just be a player, just grab the Player's Book, and you're good to go.
I don't mind if a company splits the material up into smaller books -- as long as the content in each book is worth the pricetag. That's the important issue for me.
True, WFRP is more expensive, $40 for one vice $45 for two MRQ. And I'll concede that I've reached the point where I expect a rulebook to be $30-40 and I have the disposable income for them.
I'll go one step further and agree that Mongoose just may be on to something by having the entry book at $25--in my last post I stated I'm pretty well committed to getting it at a minimum. Hopefully this pays off. Actually, I'm very interested to see how this pans out. I'll gladly eat my previous gripe if proven wrong!
I'll go one step further and agree that Mongoose just may be on to something by having the entry book at $25--in my last post I stated I'm pretty well committed to getting it at a minimum. Hopefully this pays off. Actually, I'm very interested to see how this pans out. I'll gladly eat my previous gripe if proven wrong!
Although to be fair, Matt.... the two books combined wouldn't have been anywhere near 60 bucks. Combined, it would have been 216 pages, and looking over the other hardbacks you've published... well, okay, frankly it's actually hard to find a hardback core system you've published that's that small.
However, the Jeremiah RPG core hardback was only $39.95, and has 256 pages -- 40 more page than a combined RQ+Companion. As such, I would imagine $34.95 would be right around what the typical MSRP would be for a 216-page book.
Wow. In comparing the two options, I no longer sure splitting up the books was as an acceptable idea as I had before...
SteveMND said:
Thats a really good point - I have to admit I've been extolling the virtules of a smaller rulebook just from the prospective of a GM and writer concentrating on non-Glorantha (and indeed non-fantasy) games, and hadn't even stopped to think about the players
Of course all they really want is the smallest concise reference possible, and this book's price makes it all the more likely people will buy their own instead of borrowing a copy
The more people that have a copy of the rules, the more likely they are to buy extra volumes for it... providing an almost viral spreading of the RuneQuest rules amongst gamers.
"Ah, I picked up this RuneQuest rulebook a few weeks back to play in a campaign, why don't we try it out for a game?"
atgxtg said:
I don't have the book, but I did start this thread based on a finnish review.
In the review the writer seemed almost shocked at how quickly and brutally the fights went. He seemed to think the combat system was fast, furious and deadly (and isn't that what many people are missing from RQ2/3?).
He also said that reading the combat system it seemed confusing and non-workable, but in practise it worked fine.
Adept said:
Well maybe this finnish mag writer played never RQ if he think that MRQ is brutally. Its just brutally compared to mainstream carebear games, not to original BRP or RQ.
I know nobody who is "missing" furiosity or deadly play from RQ2 or 3. How can this be? RQ is one of the most deadly RQ games. So if one misses lethality in RQ, he should probably make a reality check.
Enpeze said:I know nobody who is "missing" furiosity or deadly play from RQ2 or 3. How can this be? RQ is one of the most deadly RQ games. So if one misses lethality in RQ, he should probably make a reality check.
I meant to say that the gameplay experiences of the review writer seemed pretty quick and deadly, and that parhaps people who feel that the deadliness of RQ2/3 is missing in MRQ are mistaken.
RQ 2/3 had a serious flaw in that it was all too easy to die. In our games we changed things so that death occurred at -1x Total HP, instead of when total HP hit zero. Hopefully MRQ is closer to this.
RQ2 also had a limit on healing magic, which RQ3 didn't. In RQ3 one basically just needed healing 1 to fix almost any injury. In RQ2, one could cast healing just once a day on a given area.
andakitty said:
Or any other Chaosium RPG. Wounds that have MRQ player rolling resistance checks would have other BRPers rolling new characters. A critical with a spear to the chest? Hmm, that's 18+1d4 through worn armor. Not much in the player character range can live to tell about that one.
...or a critical anywhere in Stormbringer combined with a low armor roll. For instance, a broadsword with no damage bonus, and an average roll for damage, combined with a critical and a roll so low it provides no protection. 5.5 x 2=11. Average hit points? 11. Two handed sword average is 18 on a critical there, and that is usually a major wound WITH a good armor roll...with no damage bonus added. What fun! And then you take into account the blade venoms available, like 1d10 or 1d20 extra damage. No, I think MRQ is going to be a pussycat in comparison...and as atgxtg points out, there is still Call of Cthulu, where the result of the attack of many monsters is...death, but don't worry, you are already too crazy to notice. Any previous version of RQ, where hardly a combat goes by without an amputation. And so on. :lol:
PS; Ask Rurik about the first time he fought a little trollkin.
PS; Ask Rurik about the first time he fought a little trollkin.
Adept said:
Ah I understand. Then it seems the writer isnt used to play deadly rule systems. If this is true then he comes from a different direction of roleplaying and his review of MRQ should not be taken that serious at all.
Adept said:
Yes this is an interesting way to alter character survivability. Personal I was toying with the idea to use GURPS which seems to be as realistic but not that deadly as RQ. (at least if you play with its full damage rules) But then I read all these hundreds of pages rules and modifiers and disadvantages and this put me off from Gurps. This game is science and only fun for gearheads.
