The Inside Scoop on Gaming

It's always struck me as odd that a fantasy RPG like Runequest has virtually disappeared from modern gaming discussions. Much like its sister game, Call of Cthulu, Runequest was always spoken of in glowing terms while it was being published. Much of the game's reputation lay in its use of Glorantha, the most complete and elaborate RPG world ever conceived, a comment which might elicit gasps of astonishment from Forgotten Realms fans. The actual rules of Runequest were rarely mentioned as a result, but the core concepts of the system have been revived in a very recent fantasy RPG's re-release.

If I were to list the following concepts as the foundation of a fantasy RPG, what game would you guess I was referring to:

1) Any character can be both a "fighter" and a "spellcaster", with no detrimental effects from blending the two archetypes.

2) A character's ability scores directly influence his chances of success when utilizing his skills.

3) Several different systems of magic are included and characters can utilize more than one type.

4) Characters can generally perform two actions in a combat round, including attacking, defending, or moving.

5) Characters can perform critical hits.

6) Characters' ability scores can increase over time.

7) In certain cases, magic-weilding characters can influence the duration, range, or intensity of their spells.

If you guessed Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd Edition, you'd be right. If you also guessed Runequest, 3rd Edition (which was published before AD&D, 2nd Ed. (if memory serves), then you need to get onto Ebay and land a copy of Runequest, 3rd Ed.. I'll be reviewing the Deluxe Edition.

NOTE: I won't be mentioning the art. It really has no impact on the enjoyment of a game. When these books were published, art was an afterthought in the minds of gamers, IMO. The books are virtually devoid of art and are focused on rules, as it should be. Let me cut short those who will claim that a certain picture in a certain book inspired them to dizzying role-playing heights. I'm glad that a game's art moved you, but in my experience it has little long-term impact on any game.

The Deluxe Edition is a boxed set that contains five rulebooks, a large map of Mythic Europe, a "Game Aids" booklet which contains all the vital tables for running the game, and a "What's in this Box" pamphlet. The first two books have pink covers and are designed for player and GM use. The last three books have gray covers and are intended for the GM. Rather than explain things book by book, I'll simply sum up the rules of the entire game. Each book makes it pretty clear what information is contained within. If you've ever played or read Call of Cthulu, then you pretty much know how to play Runequest.

Character creation is guided by cultures. There are four cultures in the game: Primitive (hunter/gatherers such as Eskimo or Kalahari bushmen), Nomads (can be mounted or on foot, such as Mongols or Sioux), Barbarian (feudal Gauls or Vikings), and Civilized (Romans, imperial Chinese). Your culture determines what occupations you have to choose from at the outset of the game. Runequest does not assume that starting characters are "adventurers". They could be Hunters, Crafters, Farmers, Herders, Soldiers, Sailors, or Assistant Shamans, among many others. Culture is the major factor that determines what kinds of magic your character can initially choose from. Primitives can't even grasp divine magic, let alone sorcery, while Civilized citizens consider spirit magic a waste of their time. Once the campaign begins, the characters are free to pursue any skills or magic that they can gain access to. A Primitive Fisher might one day become a high priest in a foreign religion. The choice is entirely in the player's hands.

Each character has seven traits: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, and Appearance. All of these traits are self-explanatory, except perhaps Power. Power represents a person's spiritual strength. It determines the number of magic points a character has (which are used to fuel spells) and is used when engaging in spirit combat. It also represents how lucky a character might be. A character's traits are used to determine broad bonuses to different skill areas. Skills are grouped into categories such as Communication, Agility, or Stealth. Traits can work for and against a player. For example, having high Size gives a character high hit points, but can push his Stealth modifier into negative territory.

Runequest is a skill-based system, as I mentioned earlier. Characters have percentage scores in a wide variety of combat and non-combat. Players try to roll under the character's score in a skill to succeed and skills can exceed 100%. Players can achieve "special" or "critical" successes if the number rolled on the dice is under 20% or 5% of the character's skill, respectively. So, a character with Sneak at 80% receives a 'special' success if he rolls 16 or below and criticals on a 4 or below. Characters can also fumble if they roll between 95-100. The chance to fumble decreases as the skill grows, eventually reducing the fumble chance to 1% (a roll of 100). Players can also make rolls based on their traits. A GM might say that in order to cross a slippery log over a river, a player must roll less than their Dexterity x 4 as a percentage. So, if my dexerity was 15, I'd have a 60% chance to cross that log. Using a character's trait in this way is a relatively rare occurence, only used if no skill truly applies to the situation, such as rolling Constitution to resist poison or disease. Special or critical skill roll effects are spelled out for GMs in combat situations, but are left to the imagination for non-combat situations.

Combat is handled by rolling attack skills versus defense skills. Combat rounds are divided into 10 Strike Ranks. Initiative is not random, but is determied by a character's Dexterity (how fast he can swing a weapon), his Size (how long is his reach), and a given weapon's Strike Rank modifier (how quickly and effectively can it be used in combat). Large, fast characters with spears are going to attack before small, slow characters with short swords. The rules describing Strike Ranks are muddy and difficult to grasp, but function smoothly once understood. Characters can generally perform two actions in a round, such as moving a few meters, attacking, or defending. A character could choose to attack twice or defend twice if desired. Determining when spells take effect in combat is determined by how many magic points are used in the casting, which can cause spells to spill over into subsequent rounds. If I cast a spell with 12 magic points, I would cast the spell over 12 Strike Ranks (which could mean Strike Rank 2 of Round 2). The other unique element in Runequest combat arises if one of my combat skills exceeds 100%, I can choose to split the percentage into two and make two rolls during a standard action. If my Spear skill was 110%, I could make two 55% attacks, for example, and only use one action. Special, critical, and fumble rolls do what you would expect in combat, which is increase damage or trigger disaster. A critical strike can inflict maximum damage and ignore armor, while a fumble can lead to damaging yourself with your own weapon.

In play, combat is straightforward, gritty, and "realistic". It is up to the defender to successfully parry, block, or dodge and armor will subtract as much damage as it can. Armor, shields, and weapons take damage over time and become less effective at stopping damage as time goes on. There really aren't too many bells and whistles, such as aerial or underwater combat.

Runequest's magic system is probably the most complex part of the rules. There are four different systems of magic, though only three are commonly used.

Spirit magic is the most common and easiest form of magic. Its spells are mostly small-scale, utilitarian, and short-lived. Most spirit magic spells are stackable, meaning that you can increase the effects of a spell by increasing putting more 'points' into it. For example, a Healing 1 spell (also called a 1-point Healing spell) would heal a single hit point, while Heal 4 would heal 4 at a time. Spirit magic spells generally cost one magic point per 'level', so the Heal 4 spell would cost 4 magic points. A character's chance to cast a spirit spell is Power x 5 and the maximum limit of spirit spell points a character can have equals his Intelligence score. A failed casting roll means that the character loses one magic point, so spells like Heal 1 are not too efficient.

Divine magic, as might be expected, is bestowed upon worthy characters by the gods. Religions in Runequest are called "cults" and each cult has access to both divine magic and spirit magic, with spell selection depending on the nature of the cult. Yes, these are the same spirit spells previously mentioned. Divine magic is best described as fast, powerful, reliable, and expensive. Divine spells are acquired by sacrificing actual points from the Power trait for points in various spells. Once a divine spell is cast, it is lost. If you are an acolyte in the cult, you can sacrifice more Power for more one-use Divine magic. Priests of the cult only need to sacrifice Power once and may recharge their alotment of divine magic at a holy site. Divine magic is stackable in some cases, just as spirit magic is, and characters can decide how many of their available points in a spell they wish to use at a given time. The chance to cast a Divine spell is 100% minus a character's current Encumbrance and there is no penalty for failure (other than lost time).

Sorcery is the third form of magic and the most complex by far. Sorcerors learn the fundamentals of their unique spells and they twist and bend the spells to achieve the effects they want. Sorcery spells have no fixed duration, range, or intensity. These three elements are decided upon by the sorceror as he casts the spell. The system is too complex to summarize, but there is a system of checks and balances which avoid campaign-crushing spellcasting. A sorceror could cast a very potent version of the Damage Boosting spell that might only last for 5 minutes or a weaker version that lasts for 2 years. That's right, 2 years. Each sorcery spell has its own chance of success and there are several skills needed to manipulate sorcery spells. A character determines which sorcery skills will be needed to cast a spell (including his skill in a particular spell) and uses the lowest to determine the odds of success. Sorcery is the most flexible and potentially the most powerful form of magic in the game, but a player needs to learn the ins and outs of sorcery to gain best effect.

Enchantments are the fourth kind of magic, but are quite rare. Through these spells, characters can add hit points to themselves, increase an objects Armor points (or their own), bind spirits, create magic point storage devices, and similar things. It is ritual magic that takes time and effort to perform and isn't usually done "onstage" in a gaming session.

The other noteworthy facet of Runequest's magic system is the way that all spells are coded in a matrix which a character must have in his or her possession to cast the spell. The particulars of each magic system's matrices vary slightly, but the general rules are the same. If I wish to cast Heal 2, I must have a spell matrix on my person (not necessarily in hand) for that spell. If I lose the matrix, I can't cast the spell. Many characters choose to use tattoos to record their spell matrices, so that the only way to separate a character and his spells is to flay him. Others might have a Bladesharp matrix engraved in a sword or a Heal Body matrix inscribed in an amulet. Each matrix is different, so if I want to increase my Heal 2 spell to Heal 4, I would need a new matrix. The interesting side-effect is that if a character finds a spell matrix, she can attune it to herself (by spending magic points) and instantly be able to cast the spell, if she is able. Even one-use divine magic can be stored in a matrix and used by others.

For many people, the complexity and variety of Runequest's magic systems is a huge plus. Characters might start the game knowing only a couple points of spirit magic but end up as powerful sorcerors. Characters can be acolytes in more than one cult and gain access to a good selection of divine and spirit magic. Sorcery is truly complex and requires serious planning and forethought for maximum efficiency, which could be off-putting for modern gamers who are used to simpler systems. The best part of the magic systems is that they are all tied together in the rules to be part of the same whole. The relationships between the different forms of magic is explained and makes sense.

That is the core of the system and it is contained in the first two (pink) books in the box. The three GM-specific books are packed with tools to help the GM in building his setting (remember this sentence, it will be important later). The actual "Gamemaster's Book" provides simple tools to help a beginning GM. There are small sections on how to construct adventures and campaigns, encounter tables, treasure tables, equipment lists which include price differences depending on culture, rules for large ships, and even a small introductory adventure. While many of these inclusions (encounter and treasure tables) seem antiquated in today's gaming world, they are still valuable resources for first-time Gamemasters who aren't quite sure what they "should be doing".

There is a Creature Book, which provides statistics for the usual suspects and for some unique monsters. Trolls (unlike AD&D) have a highly sophisticated culture on par with human Barbaric cultures. Orcs can come from Civilized societies that practice sorcery. Dwarves and elves are shown, both showing distinct differences from AD&D/Tolkien-based thinking. GMs can allow players to play any of these races as characters, but there is a subtle bias towards human characters. Characters can even be anthropomorphic ducks if the GM is so inclined. Giants, Dragons, Ogres, Basilisks, and other fantasy staples are found. Runequest is best geared towards humanoid antagonists, so while the Creature Book is thin, it has enough monsters for most GMs to work with.

The final (and thinnest) book in the box is an Introduction to Glorantha. As I mentioned at the outset, Runequest was the showcase for Glorantha for many years, before the recent release of Hero Quest. This booklet is too broad, providing a quick overview of an entire game world. Imagine trying to compress the entirety of the Forgotten Realms into 30 pages. It would be a bit fleeting at best. It whets the appetite for further Glorantha products (perhaps its intended use?) and little more. Fortunately, this in no way detracts from the quality of the Deluxe Edition because...

Runequest doesn't really come with a setting.

Fans of the World of Darkness or Rokugan might need to re-read that last sentence a few times. Runequest, much like D&D, provides rules for running a fantasy campaign. It doesn't tell you what that campaign has to be. Many of the subsequent releases for this edition of Runequest did deal with Glorantha, but not all of them. Runequest isn't interested in providing you with a setting. In modern game design, that might be considered heretical, since modern rules systems are considered almost an afterthought, a necessary evil. Much of Runequest's popularity is directly related to the richness of Glorantha, but the Deluxe Edition is everything you need to run a campaign for years, just like the core AD&D books.

And it's Dungeons and Dragons 3E that brings me to my final point. Many of the "innovations" in 3E were in Runequest fifteen years ago. I don't begrudge TSR/WotC any success with 3E and I hope they sell a million copies (I'm responsible for one of them). But I'll admit that Runequest holds a special place in my heart and I'll trumpet its virtues to anyone who will listen (or read). It's sad to see that the core concepts of this great RPG have finally come into fashion a decade too late.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Runequest, 3rd. Edition
Author: Greg Stafford, Sandy Peterson, Steve Perrin, and others Category: game Company/Publisher: Chaosium/Avalon Hill Line: Runequest Cost: ?? Page count: 71 Playtest Review by Dave Turner on 08/20/00. Genre tags: Fantasy	It's always struck me as odd that a fantasy RPG like Runequest has virtually disappeared from modern gaming discussions. Much like its sister game, Call of Cthulu, Runequest was always spoken of in glowing terms while it was being published. Much of the game's reputation lay in its use of Glorantha, the most complete and elaborate RPG world ever conceived, a comment which might elicit gasps of astonishment from Forgotten Realms fans. The actual rules of Runequest were rarely mentioned as a result, but the core concepts of the system have been revived in a very recent fantasy RPG's re-release. If I were to list the following concepts as the foundation of a fantasy RPG, what game would you guess I was referring to: 1) Any character can be both a "fighter" and a "spellcaster", with no detrimental effects from blending the two archetypes. 2) A character's ability scores directly influence his chances of success when utilizing his skills. 3) Several different systems of magic are included and characters can utilize more than one type. 4) Characters can generally perform two actions in a combat round, including attacking, defending, or moving. 5) Characters can perform critical hits. 6) Characters' ability scores can increase over time. 7) In certain cases, magic-weilding characters can influence the duration, range, or intensity of their spells. If you guessed Dungeons and Dragons, 3rd Edition, you'd be right. If you also guessed Runequest, 3rd Edition (which was published before AD&D, 2nd Ed. (if memory serves), then you need to get onto Ebay and land a copy of Runequest, 3rd Ed.. I'll be reviewing the Deluxe Edition. NOTE: I won't be mentioning the art. It really has no impact on the enjoyment of a game. When these books were published, art was an afterthought in the minds of gamers, IMO. The books are virtually devoid of art and are focused on rules, as it should be. Let me cut short those who will claim that a certain picture in a certain book inspired them to dizzying role-playing heights. I'm glad that a game's art moved you, but in my experience it has little long-term impact on any game. The Deluxe Edition is a boxed set that contains five rulebooks, a large map of Mythic Europe, a "Game Aids" booklet which contains all the vital tables for running the game, and a "What's in this Box" pamphlet. The first two books have pink covers and are designed for player and GM use. The last three books have gray covers and are intended for the GM. Rather than explain things book by book, I'll simply sum up the rules of the entire game. Each book makes it pretty clear what information is contained within. If you've ever played or read Call of Cthulu, then you pretty much know how to play Runequest. Character creation is guided by cultures. There are four cultures in the game: Primitive (hunter/gatherers such as Eskimo or Kalahari bushmen), Nomads (can be mounted or on foot, such as Mongols or Sioux), Barbarian (feudal Gauls or Vikings), and Civilized (Romans, imperial Chinese). Your culture determines what occupations you have to choose from at the outset of the game. Runequest does not assume that starting characters are "adventurers". They could be Hunters, Crafters, Farmers, Herders, Soldiers, Sailors, or Assistant Shamans, among many others. Culture is the major factor that determines what kinds of magic your character can initially choose from. Primitives can't even grasp divine magic, let alone sorcery, while Civilized citizens consider spirit magic a waste of their time. Once the campaign begins, the characters are free to pursue any skills or magic that they can gain access to. A Primitive Fisher might one day become a high priest in a foreign religion. The choice is entirely in the player's hands. Each character has seven traits: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, and Appearance. All of these traits are self-explanatory, except perhaps Power. Power represents a person's spiritual strength. It determines the number of magic points a character has (which are used to fuel spells) and is used when engaging in spirit combat. It also represents how lucky a character might be. A character's traits are used to determine broad bonuses to different skill areas. Skills are grouped into categories such as Communication, Agility, or Stealth. Traits can work for and against a player. For example, having high Size gives a character high hit points, but can push his Stealth modifier into negative territory. Runequest is a skill-based system, as I mentioned earlier. Characters have percentage scores in a wide variety of combat and non-combat. Players try to roll under the character's score in a skill to succeed and skills can exceed 100%. Players can achieve "special" or "critical" successes if the number rolled on the dice is under 20% or 5% of the character's skill, respectively. So, a character with Sneak at 80% receives a 'special' success if he rolls 16 or below and criticals on a 4 or below. Characters can also fumble if they roll between 95-100. The chance to fumble decreases as the skill grows, eventually reducing the fumble chance to 1% (a roll of 100). Players can also make rolls based on their traits. A GM might say that in order to cross a slippery log over a river, a player must roll less than their Dexterity x 4 as a percentage. So, if my dexerity was 15, I'd have a 60% chance to cross that log. Using a character's trait in this way is a relatively rare occurence, only used if no skill truly applies to the situation, such as rolling Constitution to resist poison or disease. Special or critical skill roll effects are spelled out for GMs in combat situations, but are left to the imagination for non-combat situations. Combat is handled by rolling attack skills versus defense skills. Combat rounds are divided into 10 Strike Ranks. Initiative is not random, but is determied by a character's Dexterity (how fast he can swing a weapon), his Size (how long is his reach), and a given weapon's Strike Rank modifier (how quickly and effectively can it be used in combat). Large, fast characters with spears are going to attack before small, slow characters with short swords. The rules describing Strike Ranks are muddy and difficult to grasp, but function smoothly once understood. Characters can generally perform two actions in a round, such as moving a few meters, attacking, or defending. A character could choose to attack twice or defend twice if desired. Determining when spells take effect in combat is determined by how many magic points are used in the casting, which can cause spells to spill over into subsequent rounds. If I cast a spell with 12 magic points, I would cast the spell over 12 Strike Ranks (which could mean Strike Rank 2 of Round 2). The other unique element in Runequest combat arises if one of my combat skills exceeds 100%, I can choose to split the percentage into two and make two rolls during a standard action. If my Spear skill was 110%, I could make two 55% attacks, for example, and only use one action. Special, critical, and fumble rolls do what you would expect in combat, which is increase damage or trigger disaster. A critical strike can inflict maximum damage and ignore armor, while a fumble can lead to damaging yourself with your own weapon. In play, combat is straightforward, gritty, and "realistic". It is up to the defender to successfully parry, block, or dodge and armor will subtract as much damage as it can. Armor, shields, and weapons take damage over time and become less effective at stopping damage as time goes on. There really aren't too many bells and whistles, such as aerial or underwater combat. Runequest's magic system is probably the most complex part of the rules. There are four different systems of magic, though only three are commonly used. Spirit magic is the most common and easiest form of magic. Its spells are mostly small-scale, utilitarian, and short-lived. Most spirit magic spells are stackable, meaning that you can increase the effects of a spell by increasing putting more 'points' into it. For example, a Healing 1 spell (also called a 1-point Healing spell) would heal a single hit point, while Heal 4 would heal 4 at a time. Spirit magic spells generally cost one magic point per 'level', so the Heal 4 spell would cost 4 magic points. A character's chance to cast a spirit spell is Power x 5 and the maximum limit of spirit spell points a character can have equals his Intelligence score. A failed casting roll means that the character loses one magic point, so spells like Heal 1 are not too efficient. Divine magic, as might be expected, is bestowed upon worthy characters by the gods. Religions in Runequest are called "cults" and each cult has access to both divine magic and spirit magic, with spell selection depending on the nature of the cult. Yes, these are the same spirit spells previously mentioned. Divine magic is best described as fast, powerful, reliable, and expensive. Divine spells are acquired by sacrificing actual points from the Power trait for points in various spells. Once a divine spell is cast, it is lost. If you are an acolyte in the cult, you can sacrifice more Power for more one-use Divine magic. Priests of the cult only need to sacrifice Power once and may recharge their alotment of divine magic at a holy site. Divine magic is stackable in some cases, just as spirit magic is, and characters can decide how many of their available points in a spell they wish to use at a given time. The chance to cast a Divine spell is 100% minus a character's current Encumbrance and there is no penalty for failure (other than lost time). Sorcery is the third form of magic and the most complex by far. Sorcerors learn the fundamentals of their unique spells and they twist and bend the spells to achieve the effects they want. Sorcery spells have no fixed duration, range, or intensity. These three elements are decided upon by the sorceror as he casts the spell. The system is too complex to summarize, but there is a system of checks and balances which avoid campaign-crushing spellcasting. A sorceror could cast a very potent version of the Damage Boosting spell that might only last for 5 minutes or a weaker version that lasts for 2 years. That's right, 2 years. Each sorcery spell has its own chance of success and there are several skills needed to manipulate sorcery spells. A character determines which sorcery skills will be needed to cast a spell (including his skill in a particular spell) and uses the lowest to determine the odds of success. Sorcery is the most flexible and potentially the most powerful form of magic in the game, but a player needs to learn the ins and outs of sorcery to gain best effect. Enchantments are the fourth kind of magic, but are quite rare. Through these spells, characters can add hit points to themselves, increase an objects Armor points (or their own), bind spirits, create magic point storage devices, and similar things. It is ritual magic that takes time and effort to perform and isn't usually done "onstage" in a gaming session. The other noteworthy facet of Runequest's magic system is the way that all spells are coded in a matrix which a character must have in his or her possession to cast the spell. The particulars of each magic system's matrices vary slightly, but the general rules are the same. If I wish to cast Heal 2, I must have a spell matrix on my person (not necessarily in hand) for that spell. If I lose the matrix, I can't cast the spell. Many characters choose to use tattoos to record their spell matrices, so that the only way to separate a character and his spells is to flay him. Others might have a Bladesharp matrix engraved in a sword or a Heal Body matrix inscribed in an amulet. Each matrix is different, so if I want to increase my Heal 2 spell to Heal 4, I would need a new matrix. The interesting side-effect is that if a character finds a spell matrix, she can attune it to herself (by spending magic points) and instantly be able to cast the spell, if she is able. Even one-use divine magic can be stored in a matrix and used by others. For many people, the complexity and variety of Runequest's magic systems is a huge plus. Characters might start the game knowing only a couple points of spirit magic but end up as powerful sorcerors. Characters can be acolytes in more than one cult and gain access to a good selection of divine and spirit magic. Sorcery is truly complex and requires serious planning and forethought for maximum efficiency, which could be off-putting for modern gamers who are used to simpler systems. The best part of the magic systems is that they are all tied together in the rules to be part of the same whole. The relationships between the different forms of magic is explained and makes sense. That is the core of the system and it is contained in the first two (pink) books in the box. The three GM-specific books are packed with tools to help the GM in building his setting (remember this sentence, it will be important later). The actual "Gamemaster's Book" provides simple tools to help a beginning GM. There are small sections on how to construct adventures and campaigns, encounter tables, treasure tables, equipment lists which include price differences depending on culture, rules for large ships, and even a small introductory adventure. While many of these inclusions (encounter and treasure tables) seem antiquated in today's gaming world, they are still valuable resources for first-time Gamemasters who aren't quite sure what they "should be doing". There is a Creature Book, which provides statistics for the usual suspects and for some unique monsters. Trolls (unlike AD&D) have a highly sophisticated culture on par with human Barbaric cultures. Orcs can come from Civilized societies that practice sorcery. Dwarves and elves are shown, both showing distinct differences from AD&D/Tolkien-based thinking. GMs can allow players to play any of these races as characters, but there is a subtle bias towards human characters. Characters can even be anthropomorphic ducks if the GM is so inclined. Giants, Dragons, Ogres, Basilisks, and other fantasy staples are found. Runequest is best geared towards humanoid antagonists, so while the Creature Book is thin, it has enough monsters for most GMs to work with. The final (and thinnest) book in the box is an Introduction to Glorantha. As I mentioned at the outset, Runequest was the showcase for Glorantha for many years, before the recent release of Hero Quest. This booklet is too broad, providing a quick overview of an entire game world. Imagine trying to compress the entirety of the Forgotten Realms into 30 pages. It would be a bit fleeting at best. It whets the appetite for further Glorantha products (perhaps its intended use?) and little more. Fortunately, this in no way detracts from the quality of the Deluxe Edition because... Runequest doesn't really come with a setting. Fans of the World of Darkness or Rokugan might need to re-read that last sentence a few times. Runequest, much like D&D, provides rules for running a fantasy campaign. It doesn't tell you what that campaign has to be. Many of the subsequent releases for this edition of Runequest did deal with Glorantha, but not all of them. Runequest isn't interested in providing you with a setting. In modern game design, that might be considered heretical, since modern rules systems are considered almost an afterthought, a necessary evil. Much of Runequest's popularity is directly related to the richness of Glorantha, but the Deluxe Edition is everything you need to run a campaign for years, just like the core AD&D books. And it's Dungeons and Dragons 3E that brings me to my final point. Many of the "innovations" in 3E were in Runequest fifteen years ago. I don't begrudge TSR/WotC any success with 3E and I hope they sell a million copies (I'm responsible for one of them). But I'll admit that Runequest holds a special place in my heart and I'll trumpet its virtues to anyone who will listen (or read). It's sad to see that the core concepts of this great RPG have finally come into fashion a decade too late. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Runequest, 3rd. Edition