Runequest Deluxe; what to buy next?

jolt

Mongoose
I have the Runequest Deluxe book (which I like very much) but that's it. I was wondering what my next purchaes in the line should be. My current thinking, looking through the products list is, in order:

The Spellbook
Arms & Equipment
Legendary Heroes

Any other recommendations? I'm mainly looking for crunch, not fluff. I adapt most games to my homebrew which I started on when TSR abandoned the Greyhawk setting. The only published world I've ever used since then (for fantasy) has been Middle Earth. The only other two I've been tempted to use are Glorantha and Talislanta; but I don't. So location and fluff books don't have much appeal to me (and I only have so much money!). I've spent too much time on my homebrew and constantly using it for various systems inspires me to keep working on it.

I do like Oriental themes so Land of the Samurai has some appeal. How well does it work just dumping it into RQ?

I'm torn on the Gamemaster's Companion. I've found in my many years of gaming that such books typically say pretty much the same thing (though that doesn't mean they aren't good reads). But some do include important crunch; which is the case here?

Thanks for your help.

jolt
 
GM Companion includes quick npc human's (hunters, knights, peasants and such), suggestions for Critical successes and fumbles for pretty much all the skills, and in look at magic and how the runes interact with each other.
 
Personally, I'd go for the Spellbook and the Gamemaster's handbook. In my view Legendary Heroes is not so good and Arms & Equipment is pretty limited in scope.
 
I'd go for Arms and Equipment first then Spellbook.

I didn't rate Spellbook much, personally, but it is good if you want a whole load of spells to throw at PCs. It would work better in a homebrew setting than a world such as Glorantha, which is possibly why I didn't rate it that highly.

Arms and Equipment is good in that it has loads of useful generic adventuring stuff, and the weapons are more like old RQ than RQM. I liked it and would recommend it.

Gamesmaster's Guide is full of useful stuff and I'd get that eventually, but only after Spellbook and Arms and Equipment.

Pirates is very good indeed and could be used in any homebrew world with seas and bad men sailing them.

Land of Samurai is a good setting, but is very heavily flavoured. If you can slot a copy of medieval Japan in your homebrew world then it is worth getting, but there is a lot of culture and background that might not fit.
 
Don't forget Monsters II.
Even if most of them are Gloranthan creatures, they have a lot of flavour for any fantasy world (and may be even SF worlds).
 
Thanks for the replies. I've ordered The Gamemaster's Guide, The Spellbook, Arms & Equipment, Land of the Samurai and the GM's screen. A little more than I had originally intended but still within my budget. Monsters II will certainly be one of my next purchases.

I have never played RQ before, in any incarnation. Some of this info may be in the Deluxe book (which I really need to read again) but what is the assumed year/age of the game? I see that the Second Age is a fairly prominent product. My first, and pretty much only, exposure to Glorantha was the wargame White Bear/Red Moon and later Dragon Pass (which still sees occasional play). I can't find a timeline in the rulebook; when did the battles of those games take place. Is there a book that it's covered in?

Thanks.

jolt
 
I've never played those games, but based upon their titles I'd say they take place during the 3rd Age of Glorantha. The original RuneQuest RPG (published by Chaosium) took place during the 3rd Age.
The basic RuneQuest rule books, such as RuneQuest deluxe, that Mongoose sells technically don't refer to any specific world. They merely provide the game mechanics for role playing in any setting. However, Glorantha during the Second Age is the default setting. The Second Age takes place during the time of the two great empires: The God Learners and the Empire of the Wyrm Friends. All of the Glorantha books sold by Mongoose refer to the Second Age. If your more interested in the Third Age, you'll probably have to search e-bay for out of print copies of RuneQuest supplements from Chaosium. Avalon Hill also published RuneQuest (also out of print), but chose to use a fantasy earth setting instead of Glorantha.
 
In answer to the original question I think you'd do well to have a look at Cult of Glorantha Volume 1.

A few minutes browsing the threads on this forum will show that some of it is broken and inspite of a fix promised from Mongoose on the cults next year it is still a worthwhile buy. It's one of the books that I refer to most of all.

Hope this suggestion isn't too late - sounds like you've spent your money already!
 
Inspector Zero said:
Hope this suggestion isn't too late - sounds like you've spent your money already!

Thanks for the suggestion. My friends and I are gaming generalists. We have no "one game" that dominates our play like some MtG and 40k players are (for example). We play all types of games in all categories. One day we played 14 straight games of Clue.

The problem with this is that it gets expensive; and gaming can be a fairly expensive hobby to begin with. When I bought AH's Dragon Pass it cost $18 which was fairly typical for a "bookcase" style wargame. When I paid $22 for ICE's Fellowship of the Ring boardgame it seemed quite expensive (though I've gotten my money's worth out of that game). Nowadays, even small games like Cave Troll are $20-$25. That's just the way it is.

We like to try new things but jumping into an already established rpg takes time as it just isn't financially feasible to buy everything you want at once; especially as I'm buying some Conan stuff too (played in the Ape City module at GenCon-had a blast).

So suggestions are still welcome. I'll get around to more purchases at some point.

jolt
 
I suggest Arms & Equipment book (my #2 resource after the Deluxe book) and then the Gamemaster's Handbook, which is chock full of useful stuff. Everything else after that is tertiary, but the Spellbook and Legendary Heroes book would be the next two on the list.
 
Nickbergquist said:
I suggest Arms & Equipment book (my #2 resource after the Deluxe book) and then the Gamemaster's Handbook, which is chock full of useful stuff. Everything else after that is tertiary, but the Spellbook and Legendary Heroes book would be the next two on the list.

I just picked up the GM guide. It clarifies and expands the rules from the core book and provides plenty of "pre-rolled" NPCs. I recommend it.
 
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