RuneQuest

• 1. Origins And Early Development

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  In 1975, game designer Greg Stafford released the fantasy board game White Bear and Red Moon. The Chaosium published this title as a product of their own newly formed company. Staffed created the mythical world of Glorantha specifically for that board game. Three years later, in 1978, The Chaosium published the first edition of RuneQuest. Steve Perrin, Ray Turney, Steve Henderson, and Warren James designed this role-playing game together. It took place within the established geography of Glorantha. The game quickly became the second most popular fantasy role-playing game after Dungeons & Dragons. During the four years before the second edition replaced it, Chaosium published over twenty supplements to support the system. These early years established a foundation of detailed rules and a living world that players could explore.

• 2. Publishing Rights And Editions

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  Chaosium made a deal with Avalon Hill in 1984 to increase distribution and marketing of the game. Avalon Hill published the third edition that same year under an agreement where they took ownership of the trademark. All Glorantha-related content required approval by Chaosium, who retained the copyright of the rules text. A proposed fourth edition titled RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha was shelved mid-project in 1994. Stafford refused permission due to his unhappiness with Avalon Hill's stewardship of the third edition. When Avalon Hill was acquired by Hasbro in 1998, the project was canceled despite being near completion. In 1998, Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen left the management of Chaosium following financial issues. They formed Issaries, Inc. to manage the Glorantha property. Mongoose Publishing released a new edition of RuneQuest in August 2006 under a license from Issaries. The Design Mechanism announced a licensing agreement with Issaries in July 2011 to produce a sixth edition. Moon Design Publications purchased Issaries outright in 2013. In June 2015, Stafford and Petersen retook control of Chaosium after a series of financial issues. They arranged a merger with Moon Design later that year. In 2017, a new edition called RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha was announced based heavily on the second edition.

• 3. Core Mechanics And System Design

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  RuneQuest uses three basic systems for task resolution including simple, opposed, or resistance rolls. All three use a roll-under percentile system to determine success of actions. Bonuses can increase or decrease the target number. Success or failure is further subdivided into categories derived from the target number. A critical success occurs when rolling one-twentieth of the target number. A special success happens at one-fifth of the target number. Failure occurs above the target number and specifically between 96 and 100. Fumble results occur at one-twentieth of the target number and specifically at 100. For example, if a character has a climbing target of 35 percent and his player rolls 25 on a D100, the character succeeds. If they had rolled 01, that would be a critical success. The combat system divides rounds into Strike Ranks which provide an initiative system based on dexterity, size, and weapon. An attacking character will roll their skill and if successful the defender has the option of parrying or dodging the attack. Successful attacks are normally allocated randomly to a part of the target's body. This hit location subsystem helped separate it from more abstracted hit-point-based combat of competitors such as Dungeons & Dragons.

• 4. The Glorantha Setting And Cults

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  The default setting for RuneQuest adventures is the Dragon Pass area of Glorantha. This region consists of five homelands each with their own distinctive cultures including Sartar, Prax, Old Tarsh, Lunar Tarsh, and the Grazelands. The whole area is extended upland with several passes through surrounding mountains leading to different regions. This combination of geography and culture creates the backdrop of the Hero Wars. Adventurers in RuneQuest gain power as they are used in play but not to the degree that they do in other fantasy RPGs. It is still possible for a weak adventurer to slay a strong one through luck, tactics, or careful planning. A key element of the game flavor is an adventurer's membership of religious societies called cults. These usually have three levels of membership including lay members, initiates, and rune levels. Lay members are informal members with no insight into the true nature of the cult. Initiates are directly connected to a god or greater power of the cult and receive magic in return. Rune levels serve as priestly, martial leaders or shaman working for the god's ideals and goals. The basic rules describe 21 cults whose availability relates to an adventurer's rune affinities, homeland, and occupation.

• 5. Critical Reception And Reviews

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  In the September-October 1978 edition of The Space Gamer, Dana Holm commented that since this game contains a logical system almost anything can be added to the matrix it presents. He called it a gem of a game and stated players would not be disappointed. Jim Donohoe reviewed the rulebook in the February-March 1979 edition of White Dwarf as 116 pages of well thought-out and comprehensive rules. He found the character generation system quite complex but gave the game an excellent rating of 9 out of 10. Greg Costikyan wrote in the March 1980 edition of Ares that RuneQuest is the most playable and elegant fantasy role-playing designed to date. He noted its only drawback was that it does not cover enough ground for a full-scale role-playing campaign. In the July 1980 issue of Ares, Eric Goldberg reviewed the second edition and said the foundation of the game has play problems. He praised the freshness of design concepts and the elimination of odious level progressions for characters. Dan Joyce retrospectively reviewed RuneQuest for Arcane magazine stating it broke the FRP mould entirely. He explained players were not stuck with character classes or expected to head straight for gold left piled in bizarre dungeons.

• 6. Legacy And Derivative Systems

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  Chaosium reused the rules system developed in RuneQuest to form the basis of several other games. In 1980 the core of the RuneQuest system was published in a simplified form edited by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis as Basic Role-Playing. BRP is a generic role-playing game system derived from the two first RuneQuest editions. It was used for many Chaosium role-playing games including Stormbringer released in 1981 and Call of Cthulhu also released in 1981. Worlds of Wonder appeared in 1982 followed by Superworld in 1983. ElfQuest arrived in 1984 alongside Ringworld that same year. Pendragon launched in 1985 and Hawkmoon followed shortly after. Nephilim was published in 1992. The science-fiction roleplaying game Other Suns published by Fantasy Games Unlimited in 1983 used the Basic Role-Playing system as well. Minor modifications of the BRP rules were introduced in every one of those games to suit the flavor of each universe. Pendragon used a 1-20 scale and 1d20 roll instead of a percentile scale and 1d100. Prince Valiant: The Story-Telling Game released in 1989 uses coin tosses instead of dice rolls. In 2004, Chaosium released a print-on-demand version of the third edition RuneQuest rules with trademarks removed under the titles Basic Roleplaying Players Book.