new RQ Hawkmoon?

[richard_watts]

Just a quick note to introduce myself, say hello, and see if anyone has any updates as to whether or not the deal between Mongoose and Chaosium (and Moorcock, one assumes) has been finalised.

I'm Richard Watts, the author responsible for much of the Moorcockian background in Chaosium's 4th edition Stormbringer supplements, the Elric! RPG and Stormbringer 5th edition.

I've been following discussion about the transfer of the Eternal Champion rights over at the Yahoo group of that name, and thought I'd drop in here for a look around.

Given the amount of effort I've invested into Stormbringer over the years, I'd certainly be interested in knowing the direction that Mongoose plan to take with their Eternal Champion game lines. Is theer anything official at this stage, please?

 

[Archer]

Rickard Watts: I do not have any info to give you. But I just wanted to say thank you, I really like the work you have done on Elric! and its supplement. Elric! was the first basic role-playing game I felt was close to perfection.

 

[Mongoose Gar]

Dear All,

I'm far more interested in how MRQ handles science and constructed artifacts. I sincerely hope they handle it as the French 'Hawkmoon NE' edition did - it was a stroke of genius!

How did they handle it?

 

[smiorgan]

Dear All,

I'm far more interested in how MRQ handles science and constructed artifacts. I sincerely hope they handle it as the French 'Hawkmoon NE' edition did - it was a stroke of genius!

How did they handle it?

Basically as sorcery. Tragic Millennium scientists are not scientists any more: they cling on scraps of arcane knowledge from ages past. They know awesome technological secrets, but no grand theory anymore. Each technological secret is learnt separately....

Instead of having disciplines or lores that wok like skills Hawkmoon NE has technologica secrets learnt like spells and stored in free INT. Each sorcerer-scientist has his patchwork of knowledge. Secrets define precise effects (e.g. Sonic Weapon), and have a complexity rating and occupy that number of INT slots (e.g. Sonic Weapon = 2-5 depending on how powerful), some secrets have prerequisite secrets.

When creating a technological object you roll a number of times = complexity a general purpose skill (Technological Mastery) and appropriate craft skill, modified by the quality of the laboratory, and by the complexity.

You can combine secrets in your objects adding up to the difficulty and the weirdness.

The whole thing make technology very similar to demon summoning and this is FUN.

Cheers
Smiorgan

 

[Chardros The Reaper]

Not sure if this has been posted yet, but here's a link to multiverse.org where Moorcock addresses, a little, this interesting turn of events.

http://www.multiverse.org/fora/showthread.php?t=4111&highlight=runequest

Man, oh man I hope Mongoose has to rights to all the Eternal Champion stuff! I think RuneQuest is a perfect fit for it! Sure, you can use the RQ rules and just stick them into a Multiverse setting, but to have real, official information and stats one doesn't have to create on their own! Woo-hoo!

 

[Archer]

Well, I hope that the RQ version of Hawkmoon preserve the speed and flair of the Stormbringer/Elric! RPGs. Do away with hit locations, use only Total HP, and a Major Wound table to roll on. Plus use the brilliant Close, Medium, Long distances of melee fighting.

 

[Trifletraxor]

When the actual Glorantha stuff comes out - the stuff that actually made RuneQuest RuneQuest - then I see any D&D comparisons fading.

Mhm. I actually think the RQ rules are what actually made RuneQuest. Glorantha is a great setting, but that alone was not enought to have me play that horrible Hero Wars system.

SGL.

 

[Mugen]

Dear All,

I'm far more interested in how MRQ handles science and constructed artifacts. I sincerely hope they handle it as the French 'Hawkmoon NE' edition did - it was a stroke of genius!

How did they handle it?

Basically as sorcery. Tragic Millennium scientists are not scientists any more: they cling on scraps of arcane knowledge from ages past. They know awesome technological secrets, but no grand theory anymore. Each technological secret is learnt separately....

Instead of having disciplines or lores that wok like skills Hawkmoon NE has technologica secrets learnt like spells and stored in free INT. Each sorcerer-scientist has his patchwork of knowledge. Secrets define precise effects (e.g. Sonic Weapon), and have a complexity rating and occupy that number of INT slots (e.g. Sonic Weapon = 2-5 depending on how powerful), some secrets have prerequisite secrets.

When creating a technological object you roll a number of times = complexity a general purpose skill (Technological Mastery) and appropriate craft skill, modified by the quality of the laboratory, and by the complexity.

You can combine secrets in your objects adding up to the difficulty and the weirdness.

The whole thing make technology very similar to demon summoning and this is FUN.

Cheers
Smiorgan

Personnally, this is the reason why I was disappointed by Hawkmoon:NE.
I was fond of the 1st french edition rules for scientific inventions, and found those rules very artificial.

For information, first french edition had a system for scientific inventions that was based on a number of skills such as Knowledge (Mechanics) or Knowledge (Electricity). In order to create something, you had to find in an impressive list of effects what you wanted to do, which determined the skill to use and the difficulty to apply.

The rest of the rules is simply a copy-paste of Elric!.