The Inside Scoop on Gaming

The present review is part of a series of reviews of fantasy games. By fantasy I mean pre-modern fantasy involving low levels of technology (up to the equivalent of 15th century Europe without gunpowder guns), magic and fantastic creatures. After the review you can find links to the games that were covered before.

BEFORE WE START

Tell me about a role-playing game combo that is classless, level-less, skills-based, allows point-based character creation, is setting specific, includes game fiction to highlight the rules, includes a rules-lite booklet to introduce the system to new players, allows “create your own” abilities, where we can play the monsters, where “story-telling” and “narrativism” are not an after thought, where art is there to set the tone and is consistent with the content of the book.

And was published in 1978.

I guess that if it wasn’t for that last point you would drown me with the names of all other games published the last 15 years. You would ditch this review under the reasoning that it should be the product of another die-hard D&D player that chanced on the second RPG of his life and had seen the light.

I don’t know how many games published in 1978 or before can claim to present all those required characteristics needed to pass the examination of the 5th generation's gamers of today (or is it 6th generation?). I only know RuneQuest. And I know it for a very good reason: it was my first ever RPG, thanks to the sound advice of two French magazines, the late and wonderful Jeux & Stratégie (where I discovered the intriguing idea that one could “role” and “play” in a “game”) and the no less excellent Casus Belli.

In 1983 I acquired a box called RuneQuest – the second edition of RQ, to be more precise, published in 1978 (I acquired a reprint of 1980) – so It’s only fitting that I start this series of fantasy rpgs with RQ2. The box contained the next items:

* A large book called RuneQuest and authored by Steve Perrin and Ray Turney. This was the main rulebook of the game.

* A booklet called Apple Lane. It included the introductory adventures for RQ.

* Another booklet called Basic Role Playing authored by Greg Stafford. This was, of course, a basic introduction to role-playing.

* A booklet called Fangs that was full of statistics of people and creatures. Dice.

* A Read Me First page with instructions on how to read approach the contents of the box.

Let’s forget about the last four products since they are of marginal interest for the purposes of the present review. What really interests us is the main rulebook.

FORM

The book is soft bound and glued. My copy survived fairly well (no loose pages for instance) until now but the cover is the part that suffered more. It’s in black and white, except for the cover that is in red and white.

All the art is by Louise Perrin while the 3 maps (the gameworld Gloranhta, and the regions within it Sartar and Prax) are by William Church. Louise’s art is far from outstanding but it fits well the setting (I can only guess that she knew it well – probably she was a relative of Steve Perrin) and does not interfere with the enjoyment of the book.

The text is in a two columns format using the same font all through (Times Roman type 10 I suppose) except for the titles of the sections (a sans-serif font). All through the book there are boxed inserts with examples of play often described from the point of view of the characters. These are in italic type 8. There is also a good deal of appendixes that are in a smaller type. Nothing fancy but very good in 1978.

The editing is fairly good. There are not many mistakes. In any case, the book includes an Errata in the inner sides of the cover. Many of its contents are not strictly errors but rules corrections.

The content is well structured and mostly distributed in a logical way. That is, if we keep to the basic idea that a starting character is a 16th year old new adult without previous experience. The structure has in mind a progressive learning of the game (at least that’s my interpretation):

* It starts with an introduction (6 pages) where we get the usual “what’s role-playing and what’s need to play” stuff plus an introduction to Glorantha, the game word of RQ.

* Next comes character creation (6 pages, one is the character sheet). As I said above, it only allows for the creation o a beginner character.

* The third chapter (5 pages) concerns the basics of combat.

* Next come 12 pages of combat rules. Oddly at first sight, in the middle of this we find the rules for character advancement. Yet, it makes a little sense when we consider that the book is structured to present the rules at the pace they are used, and have in mind the way character advancement works in RQ (one may advance a skill after using it successfully; so, the advancement rules come just after the player was informed on how to use skills for combat).

* The 5th section details the battle magic rules (13 pages), a low power magic system that’s accessible to most everybody. It also details a special «character class», the shaman.

* Next come details on some non-combat skills (9 pages). It is to be noticed that most of the skills are intuitive so don’t need much explanation. This section concentrates in those that are more technical or create more problems when in play.

* Follows Rune Magic skills (20 pages) that include three cults of the many that exist in Glorantha.

* The two last chapters, monsters (19 pages) and treasure hoards (6 pages) are directed at the GM.

As I said, the structure is logical and has a purpose in the way it presents the rules: One starts with the basics (a basic knowledge of the game world), next creates a character (a simple and basic character to facilitate the learning of this important section), moves the core action field of any pre-modern setting – combat – (chapters 3 and 4), continues by learning the basic magic, presents rules for specific skills that cannot go simply with a tag name, and finishes with the more advanced rune magic to be acquired latter in the PC’s life. The idea is to allow the player to learn the rules a step at a time. It is supposed that the players will play-test each section of the rules in real-time role-playing before moving on to the next section. If only all 7th generation (your and my generation) games were so committed to facilitate the learning of the rules while playing. You get what I mean.

There’s a catch, though. It’s called Appendixes. The 12 appendixes of rules and setting material (11 pages – if we don’t count two pages of maps plus 7 pages of tables, useful recording sheets, bibliography and advertisement of other RQ products –could grow to several pages more if they used the same type than the rest of the book) present many variants to the rules that could fit in previous sections. Even if fitting it in the sections could limit the “learn the basics fast and start playing” tone of the book, I think that all this stuff should not be in the appendixes.

The style of the writing is unpretentious, easy to read, clear and concise. I’ll repeat, concise. The game book has 122 pages. Furthermore, there’s the sense of humour, and the elegance of saying something like “this book is dedicated to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who first opened the Pandora’s box, and to Ken St. Andre, who found it could be opened again.” I have told you, this book is a school on how to write a role-playing game.

Summing up about Form, in 1978 I would give it a 5 and put it In the list for the Nobel-prize. Today I still give it a 4 (and only because of those appendixes that should not be).

CONTENT

The characters are based on attributes and skills. The attributes (inspired by D&D) include Strength, Size, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma and Power (for magic) that are rolled with 3d6 or created with one of several variants, including a points-based one. Furthermore, there are derived attributes like Hit Points, Damage, Magic Points and others.

The skills are percentile-based. They are modified by a penalty/bonus based on a combination of attributes.

Action works by percentile rolls against the skills or a multiplier of the attributes. There are qualified successes (special or critical) and fumbles.

All characters have all the skills, unless in special cases due to personal limitations or species.

Combat is complex without being complicated since it is logical and consistent. From the point of view of a player it is excellent. When game-mastering things change. It’s not easy to control the NPCs and stay answerable to the enthusiasm of the players. The basis, of course, is the same of any other action: skill rolls. To these one has to add two other rolls: damage (dice vary according to attributes and weapon) and body location (d20). Some of the features are:

* Strike Ranks to order actions within a round. These are based on Dex, Siz and weapon. It works well and provides tactical options to the players.

* Quantitative (hit points, both total and per body location) and qualitative damage that varies according to body location.

* Armour that works like armour (meaning it diminishes damage).

* The usual situational modifiers and actions within combat that any combat system that respects itself cannot fail to explore.

All in all, I love this combat system, even if I use my set of house rules that either make it more simple (like giving away with hit points per location) or more complex (like variable effects of armour according with type of damage).

Battle magic is not very powerful but is accessible to everybody. It’s also the realm of the shaman, a specialized magic user. The number of spells is not very extensive but they are all useful. Since I prefer less but good, I really have no complains in this field. Rune Magic is connected with the cults. It’ more powerful than battle magic, but also harder to access: first, it requires the sacrifice of Power to be learned; second, most people – the laymen of the cult – can only access a small number of spells and even those one-use. To be able to effectively use rune magic one has to access to the rune levels by becoming a rune priest or a rune lord (a graced fighter of the cult). Just as what concerns battle magic, rune spells are not many but are good. (Besides, there are many other battle and rune spells in other books of the RQ line.)

I mentioned the shaman above. He specializes in battle magic. This is not necessarily a disadvantage when compared with the rune levels for two reasons: First, he as access to all battle magic while the rune levels are limited to a small selection of common rune spells and the special spells of their cult. Second, he can become discorporate and acquire spirits and other magical «servants».

I suppose you guessed: I like this magic system(s). (Did I mention the expression «house rules»? I guess I am a rules-lawyer.)

The greatest limitation of the magic section is the fact that it only presents three gods while Glorantha has an endless number of these. That means that the players need at least the companion book “Cults of Prax” while the GM is advised to also get hold of “Cults of Terror”.

Previous experience is presented in the appendixes. It consists in training provided by a guild. There are brief descriptions of the guilds like the warrior or the merchant guilds.

Character advancement works incrementally through set-by-step increases in skills ad some attributes, and the acquisition of spells. Each time a skill is used successfully it becomes eligible for advancement. The end result is that character advancement is basically dictated by the way it is played, since the player conditions the prospects of advancement through his choice of actions that lead to skill usage. Of course, this can be opened to abuse (needless usage of skills just to get skill checks) but it’s up to the GM to control it. It also means that there are no set paths for the characters like the classes in D&D.

This is not to say that there are no paths to choose. They exist but in a very different way. You see, the focus of RQ is for the character to become part of a cult and to progress to rune level (or, alternatively, to be become a shaman). To achieve this the character needs to progress into 90% in five skills. These are different from cult to cult, so by choosing a cult for his character the player is choosing a well-defined path of advancement. This is very good because it closely ties character advancement to the setting without arbitrarily limiting the choices at the disposal of the player/character.

Unfortunately previous experience and character advancement are the parts of the system that pose more problems.

First, the guild system does not marry well with the cults system. It is apparent that they come from different places (the guilds system was probably a creation of Steve Perrin not tied up to the setting while the cults system defines the setting to a great extent). Each one separately is very good, they just don’t work well together.

Second, The requirements to become a rune level are too stringent. Five skills at 90% is no easy cake. Furthermore, this is the highest level of normal progression in the skills (“normal” because skills can be advanced above 100%, something that also affects the balance of the game) so a character only advances to rune level after reaching the top for common characters but what’s there in the rulebook is everything that pertains to the latter, not the former. This becomes apparent in the Apple Lane booklet. There we have one very powerful NPC that just can’t be created with the rules. (Actually, this was not supposed to be an error in design. RQ was supposed to have a companion game, HeroQuest, that would provide the jump to the next power level – the hero level – and where playing rune levels would make sense. Unfortunately that game never left the design board.)

The goodies for the GM includes: creatures, intelligent races and monsters for whish are provided stats and brief descriptions; the already mentioned treasure hoards rules; encounter tables that for Sartar and Prax (I like this a lot since it is a very synthetic way of providing setting information); and a few other minor things.

Is there any downside to RQ2? Yes, there’s one, and something that was a real let-down. The runes in the name are just not there. You see, RQ2 provides a very nice set of runes devised for Glorantha. But there are no mechanics to use it in play. It’s just cosmetics with no hard content. This is a major flaw in a game called RUNEquest. I expected to have directions on how to incorporate the runes into play. It just isn’t there. Worst than that, the set of runes included, the way they are organized into categories and the way they are referred to in the cults leads me to think that it would not be very difficult to provide a good rule system for runes. All we get is nothing. Shame.

What can I say? The system is great. It’s concise, offers plenty of freedom to the players and has a very nice power curve. Yes, it needs some polishing here and there (most notably in previous experience and character advancement) and is not fitted for the top guns of the setting. And the runes are really not there. That’s why I give it a 4, otherwise I would give it 5.

SETTING

RQ comes with its own setting, Glorantha, a creation of Greg Stafford. This is a rich and detailed setting that combines immediately recognizable elements (non-human races like elves, trolls, dwarves) with a unique approach to these that makes them very different from D&D-style standard fantasy. To help this sense of uniqueness it introduces many other species (intelligent baboons, dragonewts, newtlings, intelligent ducks) and uses a visual inspiration from classical and ancient civilizations plus native America that departs from the medievaloid standards of pre-modern fantasy. (A word of caution: there were major changes in the setting from its 70s and 80s times of RQ2 to its 90s and new millennium years that lead to Hero Wars. In my opinion, it lost more than what it gained in the process. Diehard gloranthofiles disagree with me on this.)

The main problem is that the RQ2 rulebook only offers a glimpse into the setting. One needs the other books in the game line to get the whole picture. (And even then… despite the many books published for RQ2, most of the setting was left in the shadow. Granted the best parts have been covered.) In any case, what’s there in the rulebook is more than enough to set the mood and tone of the game world. I guess that this is all one should ask from a core book.

All in all, I give it a 4 for setting.

THE FUN FACTOR

As they say in one of the first paragraphs of RQ2, the aim is to have fun. RQ2 provides this, and provides it the way it should be done when we consider that it is about role-playing gaming. We are supposed to have fun with a game.

RQ2 achieves this in a way that should be taken as a model by many games we can find on the market these days: It starts with a small introductory chapter that sets the mood and provides enough references for the player not to get lost in what comes next, without the need to absorb too much information. It goes on with sections that are concise, clear and that stick to their aim: to present rules for play. Each time I read a section of RQ2 I end with that feeling of “I want to do/play this”, I want to create a character, I want to do combat, I want to use magic, let’s seat and start right away. In my opinion, this should be the aim of any rulebook.

The real fun is in that…

* I want to re-read the book………………..4

* I want to be an occasional player………..3 (too much work to create a character)

* I want to play in a campaign…………….4

* I want to be an occasional game master…2 (too much work with NPCs)

* I want to game master a campaign………3 (too much work with NPCs)

I give RQ2 4 for the fun factor.

AND FINALLY

RPGnet reviews don’t allow separate marks for setting, system and the fun factor. I’ll just stick to what’s there available and give a 4 for both form and substance.

PREVIOUS REVIEWS IN THE SERIES

Hero Wars: http://www.rpg.net/news reviews/reviews/rev_3385.html (technically not part of the series, I’ve included it because the game falls into the scope of games I’m reviewing)

RuneQuest, 2nd Edition
RuneQuest, 2nd Edition Capsule Review by Sergio Mascarenhas on 31/01/03 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) The game that once challenged D&D’s dominant position among the fantasy RPGs Product: RuneQuest, 2nd Edition Author: Steve Perrin et al. Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Chaosium Inc. Line: RuneQuest Cost: OOP Page count: 122 Year published: 1978 ISBN: n/a SKU: n/a Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Sergio Mascarenhas on 31/01/03 Genre tags: Fantasy	The present review is part of a series of reviews of fantasy games. By fantasy I mean pre-modern fantasy involving low levels of technology (up to the equivalent of 15th century Europe without gunpowder guns), magic and fantastic creatures. After the review you can find links to the games that were covered before. BEFORE WE START Tell me about a role-playing game combo that is classless, level-less, skills-based, allows point-based character creation, is setting specific, includes game fiction to highlight the rules, includes a rules-lite booklet to introduce the system to new players, allows “create your own” abilities, where we can play the monsters, where “story-telling” and “narrativism” are not an after thought, where art is there to set the tone and is consistent with the content of the book. And was published in 1978. I guess that if it wasn’t for that last point you would drown me with the names of all other games published the last 15 years. You would ditch this review under the reasoning that it should be the product of another die-hard D&D player that chanced on the second RPG of his life and had seen the light. I don’t know how many games published in 1978 or before can claim to present all those required characteristics needed to pass the examination of the 5th generation's gamers of today (or is it 6th generation?). I only know RuneQuest. And I know it for a very good reason: it was my first ever RPG, thanks to the sound advice of two French magazines, the late and wonderful Jeux & Stratégie (where I discovered the intriguing idea that one could “role” and “play” in a “game”) and the no less excellent Casus Belli. In 1983 I acquired a box called RuneQuest – the second edition of RQ, to be more precise, published in 1978 (I acquired a reprint of 1980) – so It’s only fitting that I start this series of fantasy rpgs with RQ2. The box contained the next items: * A large book called RuneQuest and authored by Steve Perrin and Ray Turney. This was the main rulebook of the game. * A booklet called Apple Lane. It included the introductory adventures for RQ. * Another booklet called Basic Role Playing authored by Greg Stafford. This was, of course, a basic introduction to role-playing. * A booklet called Fangs that was full of statistics of people and creatures. Dice. * A Read Me First page with instructions on how to read approach the contents of the box. Let’s forget about the last four products since they are of marginal interest for the purposes of the present review. What really interests us is the main rulebook. FORM The book is soft bound and glued. My copy survived fairly well (no loose pages for instance) until now but the cover is the part that suffered more. It’s in black and white, except for the cover that is in red and white. All the art is by Louise Perrin while the 3 maps (the gameworld Gloranhta, and the regions within it Sartar and Prax) are by William Church. Louise’s art is far from outstanding but it fits well the setting (I can only guess that she knew it well – probably she was a relative of Steve Perrin) and does not interfere with the enjoyment of the book. The text is in a two columns format using the same font all through (Times Roman type 10 I suppose) except for the titles of the sections (a sans-serif font). All through the book there are boxed inserts with examples of play often described from the point of view of the characters. These are in italic type 8. There is also a good deal of appendixes that are in a smaller type. Nothing fancy but very good in 1978. The editing is fairly good. There are not many mistakes. In any case, the book includes an Errata in the inner sides of the cover. Many of its contents are not strictly errors but rules corrections. The content is well structured and mostly distributed in a logical way. That is, if we keep to the basic idea that a starting character is a 16th year old new adult without previous experience. The structure has in mind a progressive learning of the game (at least that’s my interpretation): * It starts with an introduction (6 pages) where we get the usual “what’s role-playing and what’s need to play” stuff plus an introduction to Glorantha, the game word of RQ. * Next comes character creation (6 pages, one is the character sheet). As I said above, it only allows for the creation o a beginner character. * The third chapter (5 pages) concerns the basics of combat. * Next come 12 pages of combat rules. Oddly at first sight, in the middle of this we find the rules for character advancement. Yet, it makes a little sense when we consider that the book is structured to present the rules at the pace they are used, and have in mind the way character advancement works in RQ (one may advance a skill after using it successfully; so, the advancement rules come just after the player was informed on how to use skills for combat). * The 5th section details the battle magic rules (13 pages), a low power magic system that’s accessible to most everybody. It also details a special «character class», the shaman. * Next come details on some non-combat skills (9 pages). It is to be noticed that most of the skills are intuitive so don’t need much explanation. This section concentrates in those that are more technical or create more problems when in play. * Follows Rune Magic skills (20 pages) that include three cults of the many that exist in Glorantha. * The two last chapters, monsters (19 pages) and treasure hoards (6 pages) are directed at the GM. As I said, the structure is logical and has a purpose in the way it presents the rules: One starts with the basics (a basic knowledge of the game world), next creates a character (a simple and basic character to facilitate the learning of this important section), moves the core action field of any pre-modern setting – combat – (chapters 3 and 4), continues by learning the basic magic, presents rules for specific skills that cannot go simply with a tag name, and finishes with the more advanced rune magic to be acquired latter in the PC’s life. The idea is to allow the player to learn the rules a step at a time. It is supposed that the players will play-test each section of the rules in real-time role-playing before moving on to the next section. If only all 7th generation (your and my generation) games were so committed to facilitate the learning of the rules while playing. You get what I mean. There’s a catch, though. It’s called Appendixes. The 12 appendixes of rules and setting material (11 pages – if we don’t count two pages of maps plus 7 pages of tables, useful recording sheets, bibliography and advertisement of other RQ products –could grow to several pages more if they used the same type than the rest of the book) present many variants to the rules that could fit in previous sections. Even if fitting it in the sections could limit the “learn the basics fast and start playing” tone of the book, I think that all this stuff should not be in the appendixes. The style of the writing is unpretentious, easy to read, clear and concise. I’ll repeat, concise. The game book has 122 pages. Furthermore, there’s the sense of humour, and the elegance of saying something like “this book is dedicated to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who first opened the Pandora’s box, and to Ken St. Andre, who found it could be opened again.” I have told you, this book is a school on how to write a role-playing game. Summing up about Form, in 1978 I would give it a 5 and put it In the list for the Nobel-prize. Today I still give it a 4 (and only because of those appendixes that should not be). CONTENT The characters are based on attributes and skills. The attributes (inspired by D&D) include Strength, Size, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Charisma and Power (for magic) that are rolled with 3d6 or created with one of several variants, including a points-based one. Furthermore, there are derived attributes like Hit Points, Damage, Magic Points and others. The skills are percentile-based. They are modified by a penalty/bonus based on a combination of attributes. Action works by percentile rolls against the skills or a multiplier of the attributes. There are qualified successes (special or critical) and fumbles. All characters have all the skills, unless in special cases due to personal limitations or species. Combat is complex without being complicated since it is logical and consistent. From the point of view of a player it is excellent. When game-mastering things change. It’s not easy to control the NPCs and stay answerable to the enthusiasm of the players. The basis, of course, is the same of any other action: skill rolls. To these one has to add two other rolls: damage (dice vary according to attributes and weapon) and body location (d20). Some of the features are: * Strike Ranks to order actions within a round. These are based on Dex, Siz and weapon. It works well and provides tactical options to the players. * Quantitative (hit points, both total and per body location) and qualitative damage that varies according to body location. * Armour that works like armour (meaning it diminishes damage). * The usual situational modifiers and actions within combat that any combat system that respects itself cannot fail to explore. All in all, I love this combat system, even if I use my set of house rules that either make it more simple (like giving away with hit points per location) or more complex (like variable effects of armour according with type of damage). Battle magic is not very powerful but is accessible to everybody. It’s also the realm of the shaman, a specialized magic user. The number of spells is not very extensive but they are all useful. Since I prefer less but good, I really have no complains in this field. Rune Magic is connected with the cults. It’ more powerful than battle magic, but also harder to access: first, it requires the sacrifice of Power to be learned; second, most people – the laymen of the cult – can only access a small number of spells and even those one-use. To be able to effectively use rune magic one has to access to the rune levels by becoming a rune priest or a rune lord (a graced fighter of the cult). Just as what concerns battle magic, rune spells are not many but are good. (Besides, there are many other battle and rune spells in other books of the RQ line.) I mentioned the shaman above. He specializes in battle magic. This is not necessarily a disadvantage when compared with the rune levels for two reasons: First, he as access to all battle magic while the rune levels are limited to a small selection of common rune spells and the special spells of their cult. Second, he can become discorporate and acquire spirits and other magical «servants». I suppose you guessed: I like this magic system(s). (Did I mention the expression «house rules»? I guess I am a rules-lawyer.) The greatest limitation of the magic section is the fact that it only presents three gods while Glorantha has an endless number of these. That means that the players need at least the companion book “Cults of Prax” while the GM is advised to also get hold of “Cults of Terror”. Previous experience is presented in the appendixes. It consists in training provided by a guild. There are brief descriptions of the guilds like the warrior or the merchant guilds. Character advancement works incrementally through set-by-step increases in skills ad some attributes, and the acquisition of spells. Each time a skill is used successfully it becomes eligible for advancement. The end result is that character advancement is basically dictated by the way it is played, since the player conditions the prospects of advancement through his choice of actions that lead to skill usage. Of course, this can be opened to abuse (needless usage of skills just to get skill checks) but it’s up to the GM to control it. It also means that there are no set paths for the characters like the classes in D&D. This is not to say that there are no paths to choose. They exist but in a very different way. You see, the focus of RQ is for the character to become part of a cult and to progress to rune level (or, alternatively, to be become a shaman). To achieve this the character needs to progress into 90% in five skills. These are different from cult to cult, so by choosing a cult for his character the player is choosing a well-defined path of advancement. This is very good because it closely ties character advancement to the setting without arbitrarily limiting the choices at the disposal of the player/character. Unfortunately previous experience and character advancement are the parts of the system that pose more problems. First, the guild system does not marry well with the cults system. It is apparent that they come from different places (the guilds system was probably a creation of Steve Perrin not tied up to the setting while the cults system defines the setting to a great extent). Each one separately is very good, they just don’t work well together. Second, The requirements to become a rune level are too stringent. Five skills at 90% is no easy cake. Furthermore, this is the highest level of normal progression in the skills (“normal” because skills can be advanced above 100%, something that also affects the balance of the game) so a character only advances to rune level after reaching the top for common characters but what’s there in the rulebook is everything that pertains to the latter, not the former. This becomes apparent in the Apple Lane booklet. There we have one very powerful NPC that just can’t be created with the rules. (Actually, this was not supposed to be an error in design. RQ was supposed to have a companion game, HeroQuest, that would provide the jump to the next power level – the hero level – and where playing rune levels would make sense. Unfortunately that game never left the design board.) The goodies for the GM includes: creatures, intelligent races and monsters for whish are provided stats and brief descriptions; the already mentioned treasure hoards rules; encounter tables that for Sartar and Prax (I like this a lot since it is a very synthetic way of providing setting information); and a few other minor things. Is there any downside to RQ2? Yes, there’s one, and something that was a real let-down. The runes in the name are just not there. You see, RQ2 provides a very nice set of runes devised for Glorantha. But there are no mechanics to use it in play. It’s just cosmetics with no hard content. This is a major flaw in a game called RUNEquest. I expected to have directions on how to incorporate the runes into play. It just isn’t there. Worst than that, the set of runes included, the way they are organized into categories and the way they are referred to in the cults leads me to think that it would not be very difficult to provide a good rule system for runes. All we get is nothing. Shame. What can I say? The system is great. It’s concise, offers plenty of freedom to the players and has a very nice power curve. Yes, it needs some polishing here and there (most notably in previous experience and character advancement) and is not fitted for the top guns of the setting. And the runes are really not there. That’s why I give it a 4, otherwise I would give it 5. SETTING RQ comes with its own setting, Glorantha, a creation of Greg Stafford. This is a rich and detailed setting that combines immediately recognizable elements (non-human races like elves, trolls, dwarves) with a unique approach to these that makes them very different from D&D-style standard fantasy. To help this sense of uniqueness it introduces many other species (intelligent baboons, dragonewts, newtlings, intelligent ducks) and uses a visual inspiration from classical and ancient civilizations plus native America that departs from the medievaloid standards of pre-modern fantasy. (A word of caution: there were major changes in the setting from its 70s and 80s times of RQ2 to its 90s and new millennium years that lead to Hero Wars. In my opinion, it lost more than what it gained in the process. Diehard gloranthofiles disagree with me on this.) The main problem is that the RQ2 rulebook only offers a glimpse into the setting. One needs the other books in the game line to get the whole picture. (And even then… despite the many books published for RQ2, most of the setting was left in the shadow. Granted the best parts have been covered.) In any case, what’s there in the rulebook is more than enough to set the mood and tone of the game world. I guess that this is all one should ask from a core book. All in all, I give it a 4 for setting. THE FUN FACTOR As they say in one of the first paragraphs of RQ2, the aim is to have fun. RQ2 provides this, and provides it the way it should be done when we consider that it is about role-playing gaming. We are supposed to have fun with a game. RQ2 achieves this in a way that should be taken as a model by many games we can find on the market these days: It starts with a small introductory chapter that sets the mood and provides enough references for the player not to get lost in what comes next, without the need to absorb too much information. It goes on with sections that are concise, clear and that stick to their aim: to present rules for play. Each time I read a section of RQ2 I end with that feeling of “I want to do/play this”, I want to create a character, I want to do combat, I want to use magic, let’s seat and start right away. In my opinion, this should be the aim of any rulebook. The real fun is in that… * I want to re-read the book………………..4 * I want to be an occasional player………..3 (too much work to create a character) * I want to play in a campaign…………….4 * I want to be an occasional game master…2 (too much work with NPCs) * I want to game master a campaign………3 (too much work with NPCs) I give RQ2 4 for the fun factor. AND FINALLY RPGnet reviews don’t allow separate marks for setting, system and the fun factor. I’ll just stick to what’s there available and give a 4 for both form and substance. PREVIOUS REVIEWS IN THE SERIES Hero Wars: http://www.rpg.net/news reviews/reviews/rev_3385.html (technically not part of the series, I’ve included it because the game falls into the scope of games I’m reviewing)

RuneQuest, 2nd Edition