The RPGnet Interview

SA: Last month we talked with Greg Stafford, and he briefly mentioned the exciting Second Age Gloranthan stuff that Mongoose is doing for their new RuneQuest game. Can you tell me about your involvement in this new RuneQuest, and a little bit about your gaming life prior to that?

MS: I wrote the original draft of the new RuneQuest rules. There was a specific line we wanted the mechanics of the new game to take.

As for prior gaming experience, I started when I was a very tiny lad with the Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books, progressing quickly to Tunnels & Trolls, and the red box Basic D&D set. The rest, as they say, is history!

SA: It looks like you've been with Mongoose for a while. What's been your general responsibility there, and how did RuneQuest end up in your lap?

MS: It's been about five years - I was one of the original founders of Mongoose, along with Alexander Fennell. At this time, I am in charge of production and the UK office, while Alex looks after sales & marketing, and our US operations.

I would have to really think where the idea of doing RuneQuest originally came from. We handle a lot of licensed materials (Conan, Babylon 5, Starship Troopers, among just a few), and had produced a new version of Paranoia shortly before. We keep an eye on several arenas for possible new licenses, including TV and film, and given the success of Paranoia, we had proved that "classic" RPGs were still very much in demand. Gamers just wanted them brought up to date, so to speak.

So, we got in touch with Greg Stafford and outlined a few ideas - he was very receptive to our plans and we quickly hammered out the conditions of the license.

SA: You said that you had some specific ideas about what you wanted to do with the RuneQuest mechanics. What were those, and how have you changed the system?

MS: Well, that is a loaded question. Let me see if I can answer as briefly as possible …

There are all sorts of changes that had knock-on effects throughout the system - for example, tweak something with the combat or magic mechanics, and it has an effect on character creation. However, there were three core mechanical systems that we wanted to focus on - combat, magic and what we called the 'adventuring' system, which is a catch-all term for hazards such as falling, disease, poison, starvation, etc.

Combat came first. I have made no secret of the fact that a major influence on the combat system was Star Wars in general and Episode III in particular - not flashy force effects and blasters, of course, but the movement and dynamic choices that could be presented to players. A great deal of RPGs have the familiar "two men enter a square, one man leaves", making combat very static. We wanted combatants to be moving around all over the place, affecting the environment as they went. Guiding this was that we wanted the mechanics to actual "feel" right. That is, when a player dodges a blow, it should "feel" like he is actually dodging. Parrying should "feel" different.

This is quite a difficult concept to explain (after all, we are just rolling dice here) but in practice it does work. This is a type of game development we have been experimenting with for a couple of years now, starting with Babylon 5: A Call to Arms - the Interceptor mechanic for Earth Alliance ships is the example there, with players having to wear the defenses down with multiple dice rolls before they get through. But I digress.

We also saw a chance to give different weapons various characteristics that meant they had greater differences than x amount of damage vs. y cost and z weight. Earlier versions of RuneQuest had begun to tread this path, and we picked it up wholeheartedly. The example I always use here is with a Great Axe. If you are fighting a burly Broo armed with a Great Axe, you will usually choose to dodge his blows, no matter how skilled you are at parrying with your short sword - that crushing weight of metal is simply going to make a mockery of any defence, and the only real solution is to get out of the way!

There are little "tricks" like this all through the system, which will really reward players who start to learn tactics (rather than just saying "I'll bash 'im wiv me sword!"). Spears are born again hard weapons for example (as they always should be), axes can shatter armor but are difficult to parry with, swords are nice all rounder while not being the be all and end all, and so on.

All this we had to accomplish with as simple a system as possible, and here we had a bit of a nightmare. The best solution, mechanically, so often proved to be the wrong one for actual game play. Very soon into development, we instituted a "no math" rule, which basically meant that any rule we created had to rely on no math being performed by the player. Granted, it is no great task adding a skill of 37% to a dice roll of 56% (which is a system we had at one point), but in the heat of combat, mistakes are easily made and, at the end of the day, players just did not want to do it! The final system we have handles attacks, dodges and parries with two dice rolls and no math at all. You simply roll your dice, compare it to your skill score and then compare it to your opponent's roll. That's it, simple, fast, no hassle.

The same applies, incidentally, to all opposed tests, such as when you try to sneak past a guard. Two dice rolls, with some modifiers if applicable, no resistance tables.

That was really the guiding principle throughout our design process.

SA: True tactical combat has always been a real goal in a lot of RPGs, but often it gets so tangled up in complexity that any tactics get ignored. It sounds like you guys are well aware of the issues, and I look forward to seeing the results!

You said that magic was another system that experienced changes. I think if you asked most RuneQuest players they'd say that this, and the associated cults, is one of the strong cores of the game. What changes can we expect to see here, and what principles guided them?

MS: Ah, yes, this was a big one. First off, I should say the main rulebook contains just one magic system - Rune Magic. However, we foresaw the potential to have not one mechanic for magic, nor just two or three - but an open ended system whereby you could, if you wished, have a different type of magic for every setting. Or every nation. Or every city, if you wished.

This was partly inspired by our D20 range of books, the Encyclopaedia Arcane, each of which covered a different type or specialization of magic - the idea being that if you collected all those books, you end up with the sort of library a real wizard might have. So, to this end, we made the magic system very modular. If rune magic is not your thing, simply whip it out and replace it with another or, alternatively, use it alongside other magic systems - they can all work alongside one another. As the new RuneQuest is Open Content, there should be a great many different magic systems out very soon, in addition to those we are working on here at Mongoose.

As for Rune Magic, we wanted to bring runes into the heart of the game (which is, after all, called RuneQuest). Basically, it goes like this;

Along your travels, your adventurer might come across a rune (of which there are many different flavors). He will then have a chance to "integrate" with it, effectively absorbing its essence. You then become Rune-Touched, and will gain a bonus as you adopt a characteristic associated with the rune.

From this point on, you can start learning spells. Spells require one or more runes (all of which must be integrated in order to use), which means you are likely to have different party members specializing in different aspects of magic, even if they are using the same magic system, as runes can only be integrated by one character at a time. The spells will be recognizable in both form and function to dedicated RuneQuest fans - Bladesharp is still in there, for example, along with a few surprises. Again, while we have a good spread of spells in the main rulebook, rune magic itself is Open Content, and so I am sure many more will be added by third parties!

I mentioned other magic systems - between the RuneQuest Companion and Magic of Glorantha, we will be adding such systems as Spirit Magic, Dragon Magic and Sorcery to the game.

SA: What about divine or cult magic?

MS: Handled in the RuneQuest Companion and Cults of Glorantha, respectively. Divine Magic is extremely powerful, but takes a great toll on its user, sucking away POW just for the privilege of doing your deity's wishes - the effects are very powerful though. The manuscript of Cults of Glorantha, on the other hand, has only just arrived at our office, and so I'll have to get back to you on that!

SA: We've talked about some of the big changes in RuneQuest. Are there any new rules either there, or maybe amongst smaller changes that we haven't discussed, that you particularly enjoyed, perhaps because of its elegance or just because it was cool?

MS: That would be the system of dodges and parries and, by extension, opposed tests in general. We went through many, many permutations of these mechanics before settling on their current form - no math is involved, it is simply a case of roll dice, compare the roll to that of your opponent and your own skill score. Quick, easy, and no stress involved!

SA: So it sounds like there are a lot of changes. How would you ultimately characterize the new game? Is it RuneQuest 4, is it essentially a new BRP-styled game that shares some features in common with the original, or is it pretty much a new game all around?

MS: I would most liken it to RQ4, put in those terms. It looks, feels and smells like the original, but we have done our best to update older ideas while retaining the core concepts that always made RuneQuest so unique.

SA: I was recently browsing through Heroic Worlds, an excellent history of roleplaying games that was published in 1991, and it said "After D&D and AD&D, the most popular and influential fantasy RPG has been RuneQuest". I generally agree with that assessment, especially back in 1991. Meanwhile, Paranoia is another game that made a pretty big impact on the gaming industry back in the 1980s, and you guys of course re-released that just a few years back.

How do you feel about revising such iconic games? Has it impacted what you were willing to change in any way?

SA: Not as much as you might think. Our background in RPGs has been mainly with licensed lines, such as Conan, Babylon 5 and Starship Troopers (among many, many others!). In that sense, approaching Glorantha is no different than approaching Babylon 5 - both have very strong canon that must be obeyed if you are going to please the fans and get the most out of the game.

In terms of game mechanics, we normally have a fairly free hand (Warner Brothers, for example, is not going to give too much thought as to whether we use D20, Tri-Stat or anything else for Babylon 5). With RuneQuest, things are very different, as there are already established conventions that people expect to see when they look at the new game. For example, we could have made the game easier to grasp if we boiled all the percentage stats into 5% increments and rolled D20's for task resolution. However, that would simply not be RuneQuest …

SA: How firmly is the new RuneQuest set in Glorantha? Is it going to be all Glorantha or a number of different settings?

MS: In terms of the main rulebook, it is generic in terms of setting, though we have plans to produce a variety of settings (such as Glorantha and Lankhmar). Think of it in these terms - the main RuneQuest rulebook and Glorantha is to RQ what the Player's Handbook and Forgotten Realms is to D&D.

SA: And what's coming up for the RuneQuest line after the rulebook?

MS: Ooo, lots!

Releases for RuneQuest will be divided into different lines - one for each of the official settings, and one for 'core' books. For example, the RuneQuest Companion and RuneQuest Monsters are both core books, while Magic of Glorantha and Newhon are both supplements for their respective settings.

For the core line, we have the Companion (think of it as a DMG but for players as well, introducing lots of cool new things to do), Monsters, Arms & Equipment, and Legendary Heroes (for very high-powered characters). Glorantha will be receiving a lot of love this year and next, while Lankhmar will appear in November, and a third setting is planned for next year.

That is, of course, all on top of what third party publishers do with the rules set under the Open Licence agreement we have running with RuneQuest …

SA: Is this going to be a d20 sort of thing where any company can produce RuneQuest products without needing individual licenses and strict approval from you?

MS: Basically, yes. The RuneQuest rules have an SRD that is Open Content, so anyone can produce material for the new game, whether it is on a web site or a paper product. However, we have a slightly separate RuneQuest logo license that allows people to use the official RQ logo in order to denote compatibility. There are slightly more restrictions on this than with the Open Game Licence, but it is still free and easy to work with.

Glorantha and the other settings are not included in this license, but there is nothing to stop people producing their own settings for the new RuneQuest.

SA: Well, I'm sure I'm not the only one who excited about the idea of a lot of different companies producing products for RuneQuest. We'll see how that comes to pass. Anything else you'd like to say about RuneQuest or Mongoose before we finish up here?

MS: Just that we have a lot of faith in the new game, and that we will be backing our belief up with a whole slew of new releases for it, from new rulebooks and in-depth Glorantha setting material, to whole new worlds and games based on the core mechanics. We'll see you there!

SA: Thanks!