MRQ1 vs MRQ2, also MRQ1 Glorantha vs MRQ2 Glorantha

[DigitalMage]

Okay, well I never got much play out of my Mongoose RuneQuest 1 books when I originally bought them so I never bothered with MRQ2. Recently was getting inspired to try to run a campaign using my MRQ1 books and in anticipation bought Blood of Orlanth and Dara Happa Stirs.

And then came the announcement that Mongoose were losing the RuneQuest and Glorantha licences.

So the next few months could be the last chance to pick up the MRQ books in PDF format, and so I wonder, should I pick them up now before the licence is pulled? Mongoose have made this an even more attractive prospect by dropping the price of the PDFs and even bundling up the stuff.

So my questions are:

What improvements does MRQ2 make over MRQ1?

What things got worse with MRQ2 compared to MRQ1?

How much content (if any) of MRQ2 is likely to be cut when it is reproduced as Wayfarer due to having links to Glorantha? I.e. should I just wait for Wayfarer or will I potentially lose out on quite a bit of material (e.g. monsters, sample cults, specific spells etc - sort of like how Pathfinder couldn't reproduce some of the D&D stuff).

How does the Glorantha material written for MRQ2 compare to that for MRQ1? I already have for MRQ1 G:tSA, Cults 1&2, Magic of Glorantha, Players Guide & Ralios (and am likely to buy the remaining MRQ1 Glorantha PDFs) - is there any benefit to getting the MRQ2 books?

Any comments welcome!

 

[Hopeless]

Okay, well I never got much play out of my Mongoose RuneQuest 1 books when I originally bought them so I never bothered with MRQ2. Recently was getting inspired to try to run a campaign using my MRQ1 books and in anticipation bought Blood of Orlanth and Dara Happa Stirs.

And then came the announcement that Mongoose were losing the RuneQuest and Glorantha licences.

How does the Glorantha material written for MRQ2 compare to that for MRQ1? I already have for MRQ1 G:tSA, Cults 1&2, Magic of Glorantha, Players Guide & Ralios (and am likely to buy the remaining MRQ1 Glorantha PDFs) - is there any benefit to getting the MRQ2 books?

Any comments welcome!

Whats your opinion of the Ralios book?

I've bought most of the rest you've listed, but I'd like your opinion on that book in particular if you don't mind?

 

[andyl]

How does the Glorantha material written for MRQ2 compare to that for MRQ1? I already have for MRQ1 G:tSA, Cults 1&2, Magic of Glorantha, Players Guide & Ralios (and am likely to buy the remaining MRQ1 Glorantha PDFs) - is there any benefit to getting the MRQ2 books?

Yes.

Cults Of Glorantha is so much better. So much more focused on providing gaming support. Explains hero-questing well and provides a decent enough system for running hero-quests.

Pavis Rises. Definitely recommended. No crossover of material with MRQ1 books.

The Abiding Book. Recommended. You will probably find a lot of this material is new.

Races 1. Probably not essential either if you have the MRQ1 race books. If you don't then it is recommended. Good stuff on the trolls. I would buy this instead of the overlapping MRQ1 race books.

MRQ2 G:tSA. A bit more focused on character creation than MRQ1 (and Ralios). Maybe not essential if you have a good handle on Glorantha and its peoples.

 

[taxboy]

Base rules for MRQ2 is much better and more logical than first ed - esp the magic rules - finally have a simple but flexible arcane magic ruleset.

Each sorcerer can be unique and gets away from the stupid rune mated approach and the cookie cutter approach from d20..

 

[DigitalMage]

Whats your opinion of the Ralios book?

TBH it didn't make much of an impression because I can't remember too much about it - so I don't think it was too bad, but equally didn't blow me away.

Each sorcerer can be unique and gets away from the stupid rune mated approach and the cookie cutter approach from d20..

I quite liked the bonding with a physical rune thing of MRQ1!

 

[PhilHibbs]

I quite liked the bonding with a physical rune thing of MRQ1!

It never really appealed to me - struck me as, "the game has 'Rune' in its name, we have to have more runes in it". Also makes the system less generically applicable to existing fantasy worlds that don't have runes.

 

[DigitalMage]

I quite liked the bonding with a physical rune thing of MRQ1!

It never really appealed to me - struck me as, "the game has 'Rune' in its name, we have to have more runes in it". Also makes the system less generically applicable to existing fantasy worlds that don't have runes.

Well I never really bought it to play in anything other than Glorantha and liked the idea of being able to physically quest to find Runes.

If physical runes are gone is the idea of a RuneQuest more of a metaphysical one now?

 

[PhilHibbs]

If physical runes are gone is the idea of a RuneQuest more of a metaphysical one now?

Always was. Runes don't discretely manifest themselves in the mundane world of Glorantha, never did. To get to a rune, you have to quest not just to the Hero Plane or the Gods' World but beyond that, maybe all the way to the Green Age which is nearly impossible and almost infinitely dangerous. And I'm not quite sure about the "nearly" and the "almost".

I think back in the early days, Greg had the notion that the game would eventually progress to cover heroquesting and increasing one's runic affinities, so a Humakti would increase his connection to the Death rune, Trolls could directly improve their relationship with Darkness, and that this would have some game mechanical system that linked directly with the heroquesting rules. It never happened, HeroQuest did instead, and that doesn't have direct runic mechanics either, so the name RuneQuest is a bit of a historical misnomer anyway even in a Gloranthan context.

 

[DigitalMage]

so the name RuneQuest is a bit of a historical misnomer anyway even in a Gloranthan context.

Thanks for the background, I have never played RQ or in Glorantha before MRQ1 and so didn't know different, but I still prefer the physical runes

 

[Mark Mohrfield]

I think back in the early days, Greg had the notion that the game would eventually progress to cover heroquesting and increasing one's runic affinities, so a Humakti would increase his connection to the Death rune, Trolls could directly improve their relationship with Darkness, and that this would have some game mechanical system that linked directly with the heroquesting rules. It never happened, HeroQuest did instead, and that doesn't have direct runic mechanics either, so the name RuneQuest is a bit of a historical misnomer anyway even in a Gloranthan context.

HeroQuest 2.0 does indeed have runic affinities.

 

[PhilHibbs]

HeroQuest 2.0 does indeed have runic affinities.

I sit corrected.

 

[Loz]

HeroQuest 2.0 does indeed have runic affinities.

And they're introduced in 'Cults of Glorantha' for RQII, too.

 

[PhilHibbs]

HeroQuest 2.0 does indeed have runic affinities.

And they're introduced in 'Cults of Glorantha' for RQII, too.

Are they? Not that I noticed... well, it does say that you can quest to become Rune Touched, and subcults are defined by their rune, but they don't make much of an appearance other than that. The "runic" side of things is very much flavour rather than crunch. But that's ok, the runes are supposed to be distant and unreachable - the gods have direct relationships with the runes, and ordinary folks go through the gods. I might create an expanded version of the Rune Touched table, with varying levels of bonus for closer connections to the runes, scaling up to truly heroic benefits for heroic level characters who transcend the usual mortal limits.

 

[Loz]

Its nothing to do with being rune touched. Look at the Runic Affinities section of the Cult Structure chapter - lots of guidance in there about choosing which rune you will follow your god through. As this section says:

It is customary for Gloranthan cultists to approach the worship of a god through one of these runic affinities, choosing the affinity that best represents their manner of worship and veneration. This selection is chosen at initiation and is sealed with the creation of the Pact. Yet even those cults where a pact is not essential (such as the Invisible God cults or Spirit cults), members still choose an affinity to follow.