Why I always return to Runequest (long)

So I've played a LOT of different games. I own a lot of different games.

I've played year long campaigns, as well as one shot games. And everything inbetween.

But one thing never fails. I always return to Runequest.

The specific version may vary.. 2nd edition, 3rd edition, Mongoose. They all have things I enjoy.
But its always what I return to. The baseline if you will.

And I think I've finally put my finger on why:

Modern games (and I use the term modern loosely) have a different focus than many older games. In a way, the best way to sum it up is "style over substance". That sounds terribly derogatory so let me elaborate.
In many newer games, the focus is on the characters and their powers, abilities and ways they can influence things, the story or even the world at large. Crack open a White Wolf book and you'll find countless pages of disciplines, gifts or charms. Check the new D&D or its predecessor D20 and you'll find an ever-increasing number of feats, spells, creature abilities and class powers.
The emphasis is on the character and the powers he posses. The colour if you will.

There's many reasons for this. It obviously appeal to the wish fulfilment we all do, "wouldnt it be awesome if..."
They define and set apart characters mechanically "My guy can shoot lightning" and they give us cool stuff to be excited about.
Those are all good things.

A lot of new games talk about player empowerment, about being able to influence the story directly, sharing the narrative. They often do this by mechanics that let you change details, take over the storytelling or at its simplest form, succeed at a certain dice roll automatically.
Often these things become rewards for actions taken, or even used as a sort of gamble or metagame mechanic.


The reason that these games ultimately don't have the deep internal logic that Runequest does to me is that they were built around these steps. Often every single piece of the game is built around the ideas of character powers and player empowerment. Look at D&D4 for example. When you strip away the classes, races and monsters, you're left with very little information.
Look at Exalted. Its all set up to specifically support a certain style of game, in a certain setting.
Look at Spirit of the Century. The epitome of a given playstyle and mood.


What Runequest did though, and to an extent still does is build a framework that is separated from all that.
If you strip away the monsters and magic, the Runequest mechanics are still rock solid. Nothing seems weird or unusual. The game resonates with an internal logic that matches how we expect the world to work.
Most games look very very strange once you strip away the flavour and the powers.
Some will still work, though they will feel devoid of what made them special. Others will work because they are designed to promote certain narrative ideas (like FATE).

But they don't inherently "make sense" to me. I ran White Wolf's Trinity for a year, and I still find the dice pool mechanic completely nonsensical. I understand how it works and I understand the effects on the game, but every single time I sit there and count dice, I am reminded I am playing a game.
Games with meta-mechanics like FATE are even more jarring. Rather than increasing the narrative, for me, they create a divide between the narrative and the mechanical play by producing strange dice quirks or effects.

To me, Runequest has always represented the fundamental way things work. Your ability scores affect skills, you improve by using your abilities or taking time to train them, limbs can get hurt or incapacitated, wounds are serious etc.
Once you add in the monsters, magic and people in funny suits, it feels more "realistic".. .maybe plausible is the right term here.
Because the foundation is solidly grounded in what we know and expect, the fantastic feels like it makes sense. There's a sense of scale. I know that an axe can seriously hurt somebody, so something doing 3D6 damage is extremely dangerous. I can equate that to something in my head.


This doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed or played other games in the past. I love WFRP, Rolemaster, Traveller, Reign and a bunch of other games. I thought FATE was neat and Heroquest was genius.

But they'll never be "natural" in the same way.
 
I'm really liking RQ Pirates so far. I haven't delved into the magic systems of RQ yet because I'm still confused about how they work. That's also what's holding my friends from changing to RQ, the spellcasting rules seem so alien. I guess once I start rolling up "core" RQ characters and run a few demo games I'll figure it out.

That's one difference with D&D that seems to go in D&D's favor. You're this level, you get these spells and this is the damage it does.

James / Nezeray
 
nezeray said:
That's one difference with D&D that seems to go in D&D's favor. You're this level, you get these spells and this is the damage it does.

Yes, but that's only because D&D's magic system is so combat-oriented.
 
Hi,

Thanks for the compliment {I was a co-designer of RQ I & II}.

But I think the reason for the effect you report is that RQ uses mostly abstractions that are used elsewhere to describe real life. Skills, incapacitation, etc are all ideas developed in other contexts and imported into RuneQuest. Character class, hit points, levels, etc are ideas which are either specific to role playing games or are used differently than they are in the contexts they came from.

So RQ seems to map to "reality", because it uses mostly concepts that you have already been taught how to map to reality.

The commenter who reports that character class systems seem simple and intuitive is also reporting a real effect. We've all read enough fantasy to have an idea of what a warrior or paladin is. When you pick a character class in D&D, you decide much more about your character's role and future than any individual decision in RuneQuest.

My views on this are discussed in more detail in the Designer's Commentary for Fire and Sword {my new system} available {along with Fire and Sword itself} under an open source license as a free download at the following URL:

http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/downloads.php?do=cat&id=12

My guess is that you will find that Fire and Sword is a little less intuitive than RuneQuest, but that it is much easier to prepare a scenario than in RuneQuest, and there are fewer distractions to handle bookwork issues.

Anyway, glad you liked RuneQuest

Ray Turney
 
Thank you sir. Your work all those years ago have given me and countless others many hours of fun.

Would you be up for answering a few questions by any chance ?
 
Hi,

Yes, I am willing to answer some questions.

That said, I last worked on RQ almost thirty years ago, and my memory may not be all that you hope it would be. Also, I am not an expert on the current Mongoose version of RQ, and there is no reason to think my views will be any more helpful in answering Mongoose RQ questions than those of others.

Ray,
 
Well said, weasel_fierce. I could have taken your essay and replaced "RQ" with "OD&D" and it could have really summed up my own view of the gaming world.

I began playing OD&D in 1975 but a friend and I found RQ as early as 1978. I remained faithful more to OD&D's way of running things, but he immediately switched over to a RQ model of gaming. I liked the simplicity of OD&D, he enjoyed the realism of RQ. We had years of fantastic games with me running my system and playing in his, so I've hardly ever actually run a RQ game.

And of course so many fantastic games are based on the RQ model -- from Call of Cthulhu to Pendragon and Elric/Stormbringer and Hawkmoon and more recently the entire Mongoose line which includes Lankhmar. All of these games are on my shelf at this moment, in easy reach when needed.

RQ still isn't as intuitive to me as OD&D, but it has that certain internal consistency which newer games just don't seem to match. RQ is, at its essence, one of the greatest games of all time and should be admired as such. Again, thanks for the wonderful essay and perspective.
 
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