weasel_fierce said:
I wish people would stop using "complete" to mean "containing the same material RQ3 did".
I'd use complete to mean that in general, the rule book is not published with a Companion, GM's GUide, Players Guide etc already well advanced down the publication chain, and not requiring the rapid production of a "players update" to explain or re-write rules which should have been sorted out pre-publication.
MRQ failed big time against all of these measures. The first release should have been "complete" in this sense to capitalise on the existing RQ fan-base (which, after all was presumably the intnetion of licensing the name). This could have been followed up rapidly by a "RQ-Lite" -a slim volume that provided enough rules to get started for those who wanted to see what RQ was all about without necessarily commiting to the full package.
Specifically for RuneQuest I'd use Complete to mean the rules are capable of supporting play in Glorantha. - That's not to say it needs to contain all the specific cults, spells, creatures etc that have appeared over the years, but it should certainly support what RQ2 called Battle Magic and Rune Magic (RQ3's Spirit Magic and Divine Magic) - Neither of which were in MRQ from the beginning. Runes and the magic available through them should be Gloranthan (either specifically in the main text, with exceptions noted in a sidebar, or, if the main text is generic, with the Gloranthan correspondances in a sidebar).
MRQ failed this completeness test too. At least in part because it fell between the stools of being a Gloranthan game that could be used Generically, and being a Generic game that could be used for Glorantha, by assuming that Glorantha was the default except where it wasn't and never being explicit about what was and wasn't Gloranthan.
In my scheme above, the first release should have been specifically a Gloranthan release. The RQ-Lite book that followed it should have been deliberately generic.