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
Not long ago I reviewed the previous version of this game, RuneQuest 2, published in 1978. By 1984 Chaosium, Inc. had settled with Avalon Hill (then the major produced of tabletop wargames) on a deal where AH acquired the rights to RuneQuest while Chaosium retained the rights to BRP. Chaosium would continue to develop the RQ line of products but these would be published by AH. At that time RQ was at highest level of popularity being a distinguished second to D&D in the fantasy role-playing market.
Things didn’t go very well. Products came out slowly (even if there were some of high quality), many of them were remakes of past Chaosium books and eventually RuneQuest slipped into oblivium. By the mid of the 90s Chaosium and AH ended their agreement. Chaosium retained the rights to BRP and Glorantha, the game world that had been the staple of RQ since 1977. But had lost the right to develop that game world with RQ. On the other hand, AH kept RQ but it was now no more than a brand name. It was not possible to keep developing a RQ game based on BRP. So they decided to develop a completely new game, RQ Slayers. Then Hasbro acquired AH and ditched RQ (maybe because Hasbro, owning WotC, didn’t want other of their companies developing pen-and-paper RPGs).
It could have turned out differently. As a game RQ3 had all that it needed to be a success. If this didn’t happen it was not because of the content of the game, but as the result of successive management errors on the part of both Chaosium and AH. Let’s see why.
Before I move on I must mention that there were several versions of RQ3 in the market. The version I’m going to review here was the De Luxe box, the more expensive (in fact RQ3 was an expensive game and that was one of the many reasons why it didn’t succeed) and more complete.
I have also to mention that the box contained five books (Players book with the system except for the magic, Magic book, GM book, Creatures book, Glorantha book) and a booklet (with tables, character sheets and some other useful data). Oh, I was forgetting about the large colour Ancient Europe map. I only have currently with me the first three books and these are the ones I’m going to review. I think this does not affect the review since the Creatures book was the standard collection of stats of creatures and the Glorantha book was about the setting that underscored RQ2. Since RQ3 was a setting-free book (more on this latter), the Glorantha book was included only to satisfy the hard-core Gloranthofiles that were playing RQ2 at the time, and to convince them to invest in RQ2, so it was really not part of the RQ3 rules set.
RQ3 provided a generic fantasy role-playing game. It was genre specific – fantasy – but setting independent. That means that RQ3 gave away from the connection with Glorantha of RQ2.
Yet, it still needed some kind of setting to be used in the examples of play. For this purpose RQ3 used an Alternate Earth set in the times of the late Roman Empire.
Finally you may consider reading my review of RQ2 before reading the present review of RQ3. That will give you an idea on from where this game came.
FORM
I mentioned already that RQ3 had a break up of the rules and materials into four books (excluding the Glorantha book for the reasons presented above). I am a big fan of separate books for different content so I was well served by RQ3.
These books were staple bound with soft covers (very soft, indeed, I had to re-cover it with a transparent sticking sheet).
All the books were in B&W with two-columns text. The covers of the books directed at the players are in rose, while those directed at the GM are in grey. The tables are filled in either rose or grey. Examples appeared throughout the text in italics. There are a sparse number of drawings of scenes relevant to the text they go with. The quality of the art was reasonable if not outstanding. Colour only appeared in the excellent box cover and in the map of Ancient Europe.
All in all, RQ3 made an excellent usage of the graphical and desktop publishing technology of its times.
The content of all the books is set in a logical and intuitive order that facilitates referencing. Each book has a basic index. IIRC the Tables booklet includes a glossary but I may be mistaken (and there are some section-specific glossaries here-and-there included in the flow of the books). And there is a very nice touch to each book, something that I always thought should be required in any rpg book: lists of illustrations, maps and tables (among others). Sheers for it. This is more useful than a detailed index, in my very subjective opinion.
There must be typos, but none I recall after re-reading the books.
As always with Chaosium books, there are examples of play al along the flow of the rules presentation. These are based on a set of characters that reappear and evolve has the game unfolds. Furthermore, you are to start playing the moment you open the first book (Players Book) since rules are presented in a “do as you read” way that I really think should be done in any game book.
I really love the form chosen for RQ3. I would give it a 5 if it wasn’t for the awful quality of the covers. Considering this, I’ll have to downgrade it to 4.
CONTENT #1: THE PLAYERS BOOK
The Players Book (PB) is 86 pages long and follows the next structure:
First comes a 5 pages introduction. It covers the usual basic ideas about role-playing, dice and other game materials. Concise and to the point.
The second section is about character creation (23 pp.). This is similar to RQ2 on all that concerns the attributes, even if with minor changes and here and there a relevant addition. The major changes concern previous experience. Let’s look at it more closely:
Character creation starts with the definition of Characteristics (strength, constitution, size, intelligence, power, dexterity and appearance). They can either be rolled, point-based or a combination of both. Compared to RQ2 the major change is that appearance takes the place of charisma (I prefer charisma, actually, so this was a wrong move for me).
Next come attributes. Like in RQ2, these are derived from the characteristics. RQ3 retains the same attributes (magic points, hit points, damage modifier and strike rank) while correcting the way some are computed and adds a new one, fatigue points. The changes make sense but fatigue points are too heavy in play. More on this when I’ll review the system.
You still don’t have psychological stats, something that we would expect to find in a game that tries to represent as faithfully as possible real world situations. (I guess the reason is, on one side, that the system devised in the Griffin Mountain RQ2 book was exported to Pendragon and, on the other side, that the magic rules and the detailed cult descriptions provided specific rules for localized psychological situations.)
Next comes a listing of the skills. As in any BRP game, RQ3 is a skill-based game where skills are expressed in percentages. Different skills have different default starting percentages. Skills are furthermore organized in categories. Each category has a modifier that reflects the impact of the characteristics in performance. Once more, all of this was already there in RQ2. RQ3 only introduces minor changes in the list of skills and the way the modifiers are calculated.
Where RQ3 definitely departed from RQ2 was in the previous experience field. RQ2 attempted to provide a realistic, consistent, and logical previous experience mechanic with plenty of options and alternatives. For this purpose previous experience is culture and occupation based. The player has to decide on one of four cultures: Primitive, nomad, barbarian or civilized. Each culture has several alternative occupations (that are presented in tables with the distribution of the population of the culture through the different occupations). For each occupation there’s a definition of the conditions of acceptance, skill modifiers, magic learnt and equipment. The degree of advancement is based on age.
I must say that I like RQ3 previous experience. It rings the right bells to me. Yes, it takes time to create a character but the end result is a consistent person that fits a defined cultural pattern while still allowing the player to design the other persona he has in mind. The main problem I find in the previous experience mechanic does not relate to the way it works but to the fact that it is not well tied into the character advancement rules. More on this latter.
In any case, RQ3 also provides a quick experience system where the player assigns percentiles to skills, and determines magic and equipment as he wishes with some limits based on age and culture.
A final note on character creation just to remind that in RQ3 a player can play any sentient and intelligent creature. The differences among creatures are represented in their characteristics values and starting skill percentages.
Next comes the game system (12 pp.). RQ3 follows the same system that can be found in RQ2: you roll your skill (after applying modifiers, if any) and get a result that can vary from fumble (something nasty happens to you), failure, normal success, special success or critical success. The main difference is that now critical successes became a standard feature of the game, while they were restricted in RQ2 to some cases of combat skills. RQ3 retains the ability to improve skills above 100%, allowing to increased probability of special or critical successes.
RQ3 also retains the infamous Resistance Table – check my review of RQ2 to get a glimpse of it (and I still don’t like it).
Character advancement has been improved. The basis is still the experience roll (roll skill modifiers higher or equal to your skill) but now you’ll have the options to train or research if you want to develop your skills.
Besides the rules for skills the game system also covers movement, damage (including the “trademark” RQ damage location rules), healing, fatigue and encumbrance.
The last two are new or different from RQ2 and relate to the new attribute fatigue points. The mechanic is too heavy, though. It requires the player to keep a record of fatigue points in a round-per-round basis. That means too much record keeping. The idea was good, the implementation mediocre.
The game system is followed by combat (26 pp.). This is basically the RQ2 combat system with some corrections. You still exchange attacks with defensive moves or use magic or move or do anything is acceptable in context. You still record the order of actions according to the strike rank rooster (based on the creatures dexterity and size, and the weapon’s size) but now you have 10 strike ranks per round instead of 12.
The differences are that now you have more options (like pulling blows, attack to subdue, disarm, etc.) and more details (like knockback, unfavourable environments, etc.). Armour still deducts from damage and can vary with body location.
Now critical and special rules have been improved to cover all types of weapons.
There is coverage for siege engines but there still are no rules for mass combat.
Unfortunately some of rules – even if they are well conceived and correspond to acceptable combat situations – increase the complexity of combat past the point of diminishing returns. But at least you have the option to pick the rules you want and drop those you don’t like (or change them according to your playing style). Personally I prefer to have a rule I can skip than to have no rule at all.
The fifth section details the skills (9 pp.). That’s it. You have an explanation of each skill and how to use it. It also states that the skills list is open to new additions and suggests some new skills that may be relevant dependent on the setting (many new skills were added in RQ3 supplements).
The book concludes with a section on the World (5 pp.), a not very appropriate name for a section that handles a collection of different hazards that may hit even the most careful adventurer. It covers natural damage (from falling, asphyxiation and the like), poison, diseases, aging and inaction, damage to inanimate objects weather and terrain. All of it is good stuff that sooner or latter finds a place in any campaign.
On the overall the RQ3 PB improved a lot on the corresponding sections of RQ2. It has a more logical and detailed presentation of the rules. Yet, it introduces too many rules that could be simplified, deleted or presented as options, thus toning down the increased complexity they introduce. Because of this I give it a 4.
CONTENT #2: THE MAGIC BOOK
This is the other rose book (book for players). The RQ3 Magic Book (MB) keeps the same two magic systems that could be found in RQ2 – spirit magic (formerly named battle magic) and divine magic – and adds two other: sorcery and ritual magic (a system that is common to the other three).
The book starts with an introduction (7 pp.) where it presents concepts that are common to all magic systems and explains how spirit magic, divine magic and sorcery correspond to three different perspectives on magic and the magical world.
Spirit magic (11 pp.) is the less powerful magic system. In it the characters learn spells by conquering it from spirits in a spiritual combat. Spirit magic is the realm of the Shamans. These are magicians that are able to discorporate and enter the spirit world where they can bind spirits and other entities. Cults usually also offer a limited number of spirit spells.
The shamans are really nice. They can grow their Pow behind the common species maximum and get a fetch (a magical double of their selves). They do magic either through their spells or through the magical entities they control. A powerful shaman can be really nasty.
The requirements to become a shaman have been lowered if compared with RQ2 which makes a lot of sense.
The spirit spells are less powerful than divine or sorcery ones. Yet, they place less restrictions in terms of usage, so are more easy to get and can still make a lot of difference.
Divine magic (15 pp.) concerns the gods and their cults. The basic idea is that the cultist and the god strike a bargain: The cultist gives the god Pow, magic points and a social support basis in the mundane world; the god returns the favour with is assistance in terms of divine spells.
The core of divine magic is the cult and at the centre of this are temples and priests. The rules detail the characteristics of the temples. This is nice. It means that in order to have access to divine magic one needs to get access to temples. In the hands of an able GM this becomes a good device for role-playing.
The priests are those that fulfil the requirements to be so, apply to it, and are accepted into priesthood. Here also the requirements have been lowered when compared to RQ2, and once more it makes sense. The greatest advantage of becoming a priest is that the divine spells became reusable. Since they cost Pow to get, this is really important.
If we compare the cults in RQ3 with those in RQ2, we notice three differences: the cults in RQ3 are generic, meaning they are not specific to Glorantha; there are more cults in RQ3 (12 vs. 3), which is good; but they are much, much less detailed, which is bad. That means that RQ3 does not make justice to the depth a cult can have in RQ.
Sorcery magic (14 pp.) is the realm of sorcerers. Where the shaman relies in spirits and the cultist in a god to do magic the sorcerer relies only in his strength plus his ability to tame the environmental magical powers.
Sorcery spells may be both the less powerful and the more powerful of the lot. The reason is that where spells in spirit and divine magic have more or less set values and effects, sorcery spells can be manipulated to enhance their output. This is done through four sorcery skills: intensity (increased power), duration (increased duration), range (increased distance), multispell (association of different spells into one). So, the basic spells are weak but they can be enhanced into nuclear bomb levels. Of course, this requires a really powerful sorcerer.
There’s a hierarchy in the sorcery profession. The accomplished sorcerer is called an adept. The most striking aspect of becoming an adept is the fact that one is taught how to create a familiar.
Finally, there’s a fourth magic system that is common to the other three: ritual magic (7 pp.). Rituals are based on skills. The basic ritual skill is the ceremony ritual. It is necessary to use ceremony spells and can be used to enhance the chance of successfully casting other spells.
Summoning is also a ritual. It allows for the use of summoning spells that bring to the mundane world discorporate creatures.
Enchanting is a ritual that is needed to use enchanting spells in order to produce enchanted objects or things.
All in all, one can notice that the spirit and divine magic systems, inherited from RQ2, came of age with RQ3. On the other hand, sorcery and rituals – at their prime with RQ3 – still need to be reworked since they are not very balanced. Be as it may, I give it a magical 4.
CONTENT #3: THE GAME MASTER BOOK
I love this book. I really do. It provides in a concise way (meaning tables) a lot of data that contributed to my game mastering experiences. Let’s see.
It starts with a section on gamemastering (8 pp.). This is basically data on how to organize adventures and campaigns, and how to run it. Simple and to the point.
Next come scenario aids (9 pp.). Here you have that classic of role-playing, the encounter tables and treasure tables. I am a fan of this stuff (not to use it right away but to get inspiration for what should be where and when). It ends with an useful rough estimate of the comparative power of different creatures in RQ3.
The core of book – at least for me – is the next section, civilization (10 pp.). It starts with the description and statistics for different sized settlements, starting from the hearth and finishing in the metropolis. For each type of settlement we get the approximate population, what professionals we should expect to find (including magic users) and a note on local governance. This is something I always go back to when designing a region.
It continues with the economics of role-playing by focusing on the concept of standards of living. It is an excellent guideline on how to manage the economics of PCs and NPCs.
Next come the usual price tables. The twist is that it includes prices of goods but also prices of services (including magic services).
The following section is about rules for ships and sailing (6 pp.). They are functional and consistent. A little too mechanical for my tastes, though.
The book ends with a start-up scenario (9 pp.). Nothing fancy nor particularly inspiring, yet good enough to allow the players to get into the game.
Once more, I think this book deserves a square 4.
CONTENT #3: THE FUN FACTOR
RQ3 is a very strong game. It has that that something that was standard in games 20 years ago and somehow got lost in the mean time: It was designed to be a resource for playing, not an exercise in “see how cool I, the writer (a writer, yes, not a boring game designer) am”.
In any case, the real fun is in that…
* I want to re-read the book………………..5 (I always love to come back to this set)
* I want to be an occasional player………..3 (too much work to create a character)
* I want to play in a campaign…………….5
* I want to be an occasional game master…3 (too much work with NPCs)
* I want to game master a campaign………4 (too much work with NPCs but more manageable than in RQ2)
The end result is that I give RQ3 4 for the fun factor.
CONTENT #1, 2, 3, 4: IN CONCLUSION
RQ3 is a solid product. It is a mature game whenever we consider its RQ2 legacy. It shows a very deep design effort spread over the years where the game evolved into a system in the true sense of the world: a complete and systematic interrelation of discrete components.
Things are less impressive when we consider the new additions specific to RQ3. Because they were new they were not subject to the same depth of development so they are problematic. Most of the time the ideas are good, it’s just that the implementation fails or falls short of being foolproof. (We can only wonder where a 4th edition would have taken the game.)
In any case, I still consider RQ3 one of the best fantasy games in the market, despite being OOP for years. (I don’t say “the best” to discount for an unavoidable margin of positive personal bias.) Based on that, content gets a 4.
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 2: http://www.rpg.net/news reviews/reviews/rev_7969.html
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)