This is a capsule review. It’s based on the concept that a gamebook can be usefully reviewed without playtesting. As it has been said, “The book is the book and the game is the game. The book helps create the game, but it can only help. You can review it as a book, you can review how much it helps, but reviewing an individual session can (at its worst) be as useless as reviewing an individual snowflake.” (Greg Stolze) Given this, instead of playtesting I do what I call benchtesting by which I mean that I pass the rules through a certain number of game situations to figure out how they play.
THE REVIEW IN A PARAGRAPH
This is a very, very long review, so for those of you that don’t want to read till the end here goes a resume: The Mongoose edition of RuneQuest I’m reviewing is comprised of two books, the core rules book and the Companion book, plus a Player’s Update errata pdf, all of which are reviewed together. They form a mediocre product in terms of style, mostly due to a very poor distribution and systematization of content. Speaking about content, this edition of RuneQuest retains many features from the previous ones, drops several things some of which were core to the game (like the advancement rules), and introduces new things not present before (Legendary abilities and hero Points, for instance). Some of the changes are welcome (like terminating the Resistance Table or improvements in sorcery), many were not needed (like the combat actions / revised strike ranks combine). The end result is a game that plays substantially different from RQ3 or RQ2. Yet, the greatest problem I have with the game is with the emphasis with abilities above 100%, something that strains the core mechanics by placing the action resolution above the range of the randomizer. This I consider to be poor game design and because of that I rate the game with a 3 for content.
DISCLAIMERS
Well, it has been long since I published my last review. Other priorities forced me to discontinue writing such stuff. Yet, after reviewing RuneQuest 2 and RuneQuest 3 I could not fail to review the Mongoose edition of the game but how should I refer to it? As Mongoose RuneQuest? Or as RuneQuest 4(th edition)? I suppose it all depends on how different the last edition is from the previous ones. In any case, I’ll use MRQ to refer to the Mongoose edition of RuneQuest for the time being.
I’m reviewing the combined Core book (hardbound) plus Companion book (pdf) plus the Player’s Update (pdf). I consider the three to be a single unit covering the game’s core rules, the basic set required to play RuneQuest, so they should be considered together. Notice that Mongoose published recently a Deluxe MRQ edition that incorporates both the core book and the companion book (or so I’m told since I didn’t see it).
Like most old-time RQ players, I have my own set of house rules and personal views on where I would take the game from RQ3 if I had been in charge of its revision. Let me say up front that that direction is very different from where Mongoose took the system. I’ll try to avoid bringing my own personal views into the review, and to look at MRQ as it is – unless my views are too strong to be kept at bay. Of course, I’ll compare it with the previous editions, specially RQ3 since this is my favourite of the two. No, it does not hold to say that the game should be evaluated in its own merits and not in comparison to some OOP edition. Mongoose intentionally picked the RuneQuest brand. They intentionally based the MRQ development on RQ3. They went after the fan based and the visibility provided by good old Chaosium developed RQ. They didn’t need to do it, so they opened themselves for comparisons.
MRQ comes in the footsteps of the previous RuneQuest 3rd edition published by Avalon Hill, as a “Deluxe” boxed set with five booklets: Players book; Magic book; Game Master book; Creatures book; and Glorantha book. The books I’m reviewing roughly cover the same ground than the four first RQ3 booklets but with a very different distribution of content (note: I created a comparative chart that I’m not publishing here because the review is already too long), the main difference being that MRQ dropped the Glorantha specific data found in RQ3’s Glorantha booklet. Notice that in the present review I’ll not delve deeply into the contents specifically directed to the game master (creatures, for instance). My main concern is the game system, as it was in my previous reviews of RQ2 and RQ3 and other games.
STYLE
Physically the Core book is a hardcover, 128 pages tome, with non-glossy pages. The pdf Companion book is as good as my printout which is perfectly legible.
Both the core and Companion MRQ books follow the same layout: The text is organized in two columns and written in a small but readable type; the pages are black & white with a light greyish background and a graphical border. On the overall, it’s an effective layout without any particularly distinguishing feature. It’s worth noticing that my printout of the Companion (in a standard B&W laser printer) is of less quality than the Core but the difference is not so marked that it would make me regret opting for an electronic version.
The writing is clear and readable without entering the realm of literary quality. It’s written as a training tool without pretence to anything else. There are some typos in the Core book, some of which are of substantial importance (for instance, in page 50 there’s a reference to “defender” that should be “attacker”, in page 53 there’s a “-” that should be a “+”, and in page 94 there’s a reference to “Hero Points” that should be to “improvement rolls”). The Companion has more typos but still not enough to disturb the flow of reading. Other reviews have dealt with the issues raised by these mistakes, so I’ll stop here.
Neither of the books can be considered an art book, but both have their fair share of art, including a steady flow of Gloranthan runes. Most of the art is standard according to my aesthetic tastes. Some pieces lean more on the mediocre including the cover, a few are good and at least one is out of context (Core p. 28). In any case, art is small size (no larger than a third of a page), so it’s not disturbing.
What about reference tools? Each book has a basic table of contents and an index (2 pages in the Core book, 1 page in the Companion). Each page references the current section on the border: Not fancy but very functional. As we will see further down, character creation includes both the definition of a cultural background and a profession. Now, the tables with the professions mention the cultural backgrounds accessible for each profession, while the tables with the cultural backgrounds in the Core book don’t mention the professions that can be acquired. This missing reference needlessly burdens character creation. At least it was corrected in the table with new cultural backgrounds that comes in the Companion. Finally there’s one appendix with all the runes and the powers they provide.
The Core book includes a functional character sheet with the basic stats and combat-oriented information in the front page; and equipment, cults and spells in the back page. The Companion adds three more pages, one for Divine Magic and Sorcery and two that expand the combat-related data. It’s a poor choice: It would be more convenient to provide a revised character sheet with a common front page and several alternative back pages (for fighter, priest, runes’ user and sorcerer).
My final comment on Style concerns the organization of the two books. Boy, if there’s something frustrating about MRQ’s style it is precisely organization, data is scattered all around. This is particularly outrageous when we look at character creation since it is spread in bits and pieces in 9 (nine) sections of the two books. Another widely spread subject is magic (and we will see in due time that this has an impact on content as well). It’s very hard to understand why Mongoose opted to structure the information on MRQ this way when it would make a lot more sense to have a proper players’ book and a GM book. I just hope they corrected their hand with the Deluxe MRQ edition.
Summing it up, while there is nothing particularly exceptional about MRQ’s style, the game is marred by very poor structuring, so I give it a 2 for Style (game books are resource books, so one of their critical test points is how easy it is to access and integrate data). If the Deluxe edition corrects the organizational problems this can easily be raised to 4.
SUBSTANCE I – SETTING
It might seem that it makes no sense to mention setting in relation to a generic fantasy rpg, but hold on. While MRQ does not have a specific setting (unlike RQ2’s Glorantha or RQ3’s Alternate Earth), it has bits and pieces that are setting-specific. Let’s look at these:
For a start, there are bits from Glorantha. The most glaring one are the runes. You see, MRQ attempts to bring the runes into the system which is fine, but it does this by providing a setting-specific set of runes, which is not that fine. Other than runes, MRQ also includes several races and creatures that are either specific to Glorantha (say, Broos or Ducks) or have a Gloranthan twist in the way they are presented (for example Trolls, Dwarves and Elves).
Next, there are bits that could come from your house campaign. That’s the case for the cults presented (a lot less generic than those provided in RQ3). That’s also the case with the very mediocre explanation for runes, in this case with the more serious concern that it has mechanical implications (see Magic below).
In any case, MRQ covers a good set of racial, social and professional alternatives and thus deserves the generic fantasy tag.
SUBSTANCE II – CHARACTERS
I’ll start with everything that defines a character, both at the start of the game (character stats and creation) and as play progresses (character advancement).
Character stats
MRQ characters are defined by several sets of stats: Characteristics and attributes, skills, Legendary abilities, hero points, and reputation. Furthermore, they are also defined by their backgrounds and professions that provide their pre-gaming experience.
Characters have the same seven Characteristics found in RQ2: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Size, Intelligence, Power and Charisma (thumbs up for going back to Charisma instead of Appearance as found on RQ3). The range of values is the same as in RQ3: 3 to 18 for all characteristics (roll 4d6, drop the lowest, which gives an approximate average value of 12) except for Size and Intelligence where it is 7 to 18 (roll 3d6, drop lowest, which gives an approximate average value of 14). Unfortunately there’s only a random mechanic for characteristic determination when both the previous editions had a point-buy option.
The list of Attributes presents the first departures from the previous editions. RQ3 Fatigue Points are lost in combat, not a bad move since these were not exactly a model of rules design. Gone are the old Strike Ranks, their place taken by a new type of Strike Ranks (the average of Dexterity and Intelligence plus 1d10) and by Combat Actions (1 to 4 per round). The Damage Modifier is still based on Strength and Size and there are still negative modifiers, something that I always thought should be scrapped from RQ. Hit points come next and remain based on Size plus Constitution. My greatest problem with RQ2 and RQ3 HPs was that it required a double accounting in terms of general HPs and body location HPs. Mongoose scrapped general HPs (a positive move even if I would go the other way and scrap body location HPs or scrap both…). Magic Points are unchanged and were kept at the value of Power. Gone are the old RQ2 and RQ3 skill modifiers (calculated from a set of attributes), now each skill is based on the value of an attribute, the sum of two attributes or an attribute plus 10. This is a good change but it could be streamlined in several aspects (but I’ll not bother you with house rules for MRQ…).
Skills continue to be at the core of MRQ, even more so than in the previous editions since gone are characteristic rolls. On the plus side the list of skills has been very streamlined and narrowed to a small set of broad skills. Sheers to this. On the down side I also have my problems with the choice of characteristics on which to base some skills (Play Instrument based on Charisma instead of Dex or a combination of both?), but I’ll leave these to myself. Skills are divided into basic (anyone – meaning any intelligent humanoid – has these), and advanced which are acquired in some backgrounds or professions. There are also combat and magic skills as separate categories. I’ll just mention about the former that the list has been compressed from previous editions (good) and that there is no longer a separation for any given weapon between an offensive and a defensive skill (I’m ambivalent about this).
MRQ starts to show his new colours when it introduces several new stats that didn’t exist in the previous editions including: Two odd stats that are actually attributes treated as skills, Persistence and Resilience, somewhat like D&D’s saving throws; Legendary Abilities; Hero Points; and reputation.
Persistence and Resilience are neither here or there. They are not pure skills since they correspond to innate capabilities based respectively on Power and Constitution, they have different initial and maximum values, and they have a lower degree of advancement (I’m basing this on the Player’s Update). Both were needed since MRQ dropped the characteristic rolls present in RQ2/3 but they are a mechanical oddity. I would prefer a solution better integrated with the rest of the game.
Hero Points. Strangely placed in the Combat section since they can be extended to other fields of action, they are reserved to PCs. A starting character gets 2 Hero Points. Hero Points allow the player a re-roll of a skill roll, to downgrade the seriousness of an injury, a minor change to the storyline or to acquire Legendary Abilities. With Hero Points we start to see that Mongoose is trying to take RQ away from his origins towards a different type of game play by bring down the “grittiness” of the system. Personally I never liked this type of devices and I didn’t start to like them after MRQ. Furthermore, I have a profound dislike for games that introduce mechanics that discriminate among PCs and NPCs. After all, if there are heroes there are also villains, right? And any setting has heroes that, well, lack a player to play them.
Legendary abilities, oddly placed in the Improving Adventurers section (one can have these abilities at character creation, after all) these abilities provide huge benefits to characters by providing a combination of characteristic bonus, skills bonus and other goodies, sometimes at the cost of some drawbacks. Most require a value of 15 in one characteristic and a minimum value in a skill (there are cases that require 50%, 70% and – most often – 90%). They are acquired with a variable number of Hero Points (the costs listed go from 8 to 12). The set of Legendary abilities in the core book includes things such as Battle Fury, Born to the Saddle, Decapitating Swing, Linguist, Poison Immunity or Tireless. What can I say about Legendary abilities? For a start they are a contradiction in terms since these “awesome innate talents” are actually acquired, and some are not talents at all (Runelord and Runepriest are cult status, not talents or abilities)! Like Hero Points Legendary abilities increase the chasm between MRQ and the previous editions of the game by leading it towards a different type of fantasy roleplaying. (Notice in any case that Legendary abilities have a distant predecessor in the gifts of RQ2 and RQ3 cults, but these made sense in the context of the magic and cultural system, and – as I am told – in the ki powers from RQ3’s Land of Ninja.)
Reputation (fame) and infamy are presented in the Companion book. They start at 0 and may provide modifiers to the Influence skill or similar skills. It’s nice to have this covered in the game, even if I think it could have a wider application.
Character creation
How is all of this assembled into a MRQ character? For a start and as written above, characteristics are rolled; attributes are derived from characteristics; basic values for skills are also derived from characteristics; the character receives two Hero Points, zero Reputation and no Legendary abilities. Next the player can improve the character with Previous Experience (Backgrounds and Professions) and with free skill points.
The core book lists four Backgrounds that correspond to different social environments. These are Barbarian, Peasant, Townsman, and Noble. The Companion book adds some more to the set: Civilized, Mariner, three varieties of Nomad and Primitive. Each background provides 70% to be distributed by a defined set of basic skills; a basis of 50% in the native language (languages are advanced skills) and the acquisition of three other advanced skills; and a variable amount of starting money that can be used to acquire equipment. Backgrounds also define the professions the player can choose for his character. Each Profession provides 50% in a set of basic skills and the acquisition of two additional advanced skills (or an increase of 10% if the character already has that skill). There are 31 professions in the Core book and another four in the Companion. They go from Acrobat to Woodman, passing by alternatives such as Courtier, Farmer, Miner, Peddler, Spy, and Witch. To round out the character the player has 100 free skill points to assign to the skills he wants with the restrictions that he should not assign more than 30% to a basic skill or 20% to an advanced skill. On the overall, the character receives around 280% skill points at character creation.
MRQ’s character creation rules don’t stop at that. There’s also provision for the creation of characters with increased Levels of Experience. These are broken up into Seasoned (five skills close or above 50%), Veteran (in the range of 75%), Master (in the range of 100%) and Hero (in the range of 125%). Each level provides extra skill points (from 150 for Seasoned to 500 for Hero), more money, improved characteristics (from 1d3 points for Seasoned to 1d8+4 for Hero), extra Runes (same as with characteristics), higher status in cults, Hero Points (from 3 for Seasoned to 12 for Hero) and Legendary abilities (1 for Master and 2 for Hero).
Before moving forward some comments on character creation: First, I like the system. It’s a simplification of RQ3’s more detailed and harder to use cultural tables. I like the latter but MRQ is easier to use. Second, I would like to have a way to tie more closely the advanced character creation rules with the Backgrounds and Professions. Third, the advanced character creation rules show clearly where’s the medium ground for the game: The Veteran range. In other words, MRQ characters will have their best and mostly used skills around 100%, more or less 15% (I’ll confirm this further down the review). A final note: So far I’ve been dealing with human characters. The game has the basic stats for some playable non-humans but unfortunately it provides no backgrounds and professions for them. Yes, I can sort this out by myself but I would prefer to find it in the game book, thank you.
Character advancement
Let’s go back to RQ2 and RQ3. Character advancement was based on actual skill usage. You successfully use your skill, you can attempt to improve it. For that purpose you have to roll above your skill: With a caveat – you add the skill category modifier (based on characteristics) to your roll; and with a consequence – you can advance skills past 100% but only if you have a positive skill category mod. In RQ3 you can further advance your skills through training or study that work on similar lines to active experience. And there were rules to increase characteristics.
Forward to MRQ: How do you advance your character? Whether we are speaking about characteristics or skills, advancement is done through improvement rolls. So far, so good, but now improvement rolls have nothing to do with actual stat usage. Instead, the GM gives players “Improvement rolls” – ‘points’ would be a better expression – at the end of the scenario (one to five, averaging at three), and the players use these in the skills they want, once more increasing them if they roll above the current value of the skill. From my perspective this is a critical departure from the previous versions. You see, in RQ2 and RQ3 character advancement was driven by character behaviour in terms of both character impersonation (the skills the player chooses to use) and game mechanics where there was no GM intervention. This was a distinctive feature of the game. Not anymore. In MRQ character advancement is based solely on a combination of GM and player decisions with no connection to character impersonation: What is improved is what the player chooses at the meta-game level. So, one of the key and defining RQ mechanics has been zapped.
The game ties improvement rolls with either practice (training the skill) or research (using “study materials” to learn more) but this is not clear enough: It took me some time to understand that practice and research are not alternatives to improvement rolls, they are actually the way these are employed. Furthermore, there is no express rule to define how a character increases his skills past 100%. The only way I can see this happening is through either research or mentoring that provide bonus to the improvement roll (but mentoring requires a mentor with double the skill of the trainee which begs the question: Who mentored the mentor?); or the 1% increase when improvement rolls fail – in other words, from 100% onwards skills advance automatically 1% by spending one improvement roll on them. Where previous editions of the game were geared towards people that don’t mind dirtying their hands (improve the skills you use), MRQ is the heaven of armchair experts (research and mentoring are the way to go). Finally, I pointed it before, the game is directed towards characters with around 100% skills and top characters are way above that mark. Yet, it greatly decreases the pace of advancement when the character moves past that level. I wonder how one can get characters with 350% in their skills as it is mentioned in an example somewhere (did Mongoose really advance these characters through play or did they just make them up?).
Advancing characteristics costs 3 improvement rolls and is rolled against the value of the characteristic * 5. (A nice touch: If the improvement roll fails the character may still increase a skill associated with the characteristic. I really like this.) For no specified reason characteristics only improve by practice, they cannot improve through research and there is no mention to mentoring (perhaps to ensure that body builder gyms don’t spread into RQ words). A roll of 96 to 100 always results in an increase (maybe there’s a statement like this missing from the skill improvement rules? The Update does not include it, though.). Size cannot be increased this way and all other skills can advance up to 21. Yes, you may start with an Intelligence of 8 but you can always expect to become a genius if you play enough Sudoku.
In MRQ we have two parallel paths of character advancement: One is the acquisition of Legendary abilities, in this case based on the Hero Points awarded by the GM; the other is the social image of the character expressed in Reputation/Infamy Points also attributed by the GM. Both lead MRQ further away from that cardinal principle of pre-Mongoose RQ: What you do defines where you go as a character.
How does all of this map into character advancement rates? Let us consider three different character ranges, “junior”, “mature” and “top gun” characters (my terminology here). In RQ3 Junior means pre-rune level characters, while Mature and Top Gun correspond to rune level ones. In MRQ Junior are pre-legendary characters while legendary ones cover both Mature and Top Gun. The average skills of a starting RQ3 character are at 40% in my experience, while in MRQ that value is a little higher, in the 45% range. The skill threshold to access rune level in RQ3 is usually 75%, and in MRQ the usual level to acquire Legendary abilities is 90%, thus Junior characters are characters bellow these values while above those values characters are Mature. I also estimate that a Top Gun character will be above 100% in RQ3 and above 115% in MRQ (115% is more or less the average for a Master character). Finally, I consider that a Top Gun character will be played up to around 110% in RQ3 and 140% in MRQ (yes, characters can go past those values but this will not be the norm; even taking them to those values is already hard both in setting and meta-setting terms). What I want to see is how long a character spends in each level for each of the two games since this tells us what players will actually spend more time playing.
To achieve this I’ll use a simple measure: How many game sessions does it take to grow a character from startup to Mature? How many do we need to grow him from that threshold to Top Gun? And how are required to move to the top of the top? Next I compare the relative weight of these tree values and see what level of characters we are expected to spend more time playing. (Notice that in my calculations I’m not factoring things like training and practise in RQ3 or Mentoring in RQ4 and characteristic increases that speed things up. I’m just looking for something that’s approximately correct.)
What did I found? That in RQ3 you spend around 20% of the time playing the Junior level, and afterwards more or less the same time playing the Mature (38%) and Top Gun (42%) levels. If you decide not to move to Top Gun (above 100% skills), you still spend twice as much time playing the Mature stage (66% of total playing time) than the Junior one. This means the “comfort” level in RQ3 is the Mature, rune level up to 100%. On the other hand, in MRQ you spend almost the same time playing each of the three levels (34% for Junior, 32% for Mature and 34% for Top Gun). The comfort level is still the Mature character.
On the other hand, one needs a lot more time to advance a character in RQ3 than in MRQ. In order to progress in RQ3 from 40% to 110% one has to play on average some 214 game sessions, while in MRQ one can go from 45% to 140% in only 74 game sessions (I would actually consider that this number must be increased to something like 100 since the character may not be able to practice due to damage recovery, time need to other activities, etc.). This means that due to the impact of game abandonment it is a lot more likely for MRQ players to reach high levels than RQ3 players.
My conclusion about MRQ’s character creation and advancement rules? This game takes characters in a very different direction from older versions of RQ. Yes, the core is still there – characteristics, attributes and skills – but it has been downplayed: Characteristic rolls were dropped and the skill list was streamlined and shortened (both good decisions in my account). True, the core is still the skill roll but that core has been diluted and re-shaped with the introduction of Hero Points and Legendary abilities, and by making skill advancement independent of skill usage. Both games break up the character life cycle into two “eras” that in the case of MRQ are below Veteran (Mature in my analysis) with no access to Legendary abilities, and from Veteran onwards, where Legendary abilities become a major objective and gaming factor – a division that mirrors the RQ2/RQ3 break between pre-rune level and rune level. In relative terms RQ3 characters would spend a lot less time in the Junior stage but due to the much faster step of character advancement in MRQ it is likely that MRQ players end spending more time playing advanced characters than RQ3 players. Anyway, both games are balanced towards the middle, the Mature stage in the life-cycle of the characters and I am sure that this is the stage that most players will be looking forward to play.
SUBSTANCE III – MECHANICS
Of course, those characters have to be put into action and for that they need action mechanics. Gone is the Resistance Table, one of the two mechanics in previous editions. Mongoose has my full support for this since I never liked the usage of two resolution mechanics and I didn’t like the Resistance Table. The default mechanic is thus skill rolls. (Note: I’m basing what follows on the rules as corrected by the Player’s Update)
The basics of skill rolls are still the same: Roll 1d100; if the result is equal or bellow the skill then it’s a success; otherwise it’s a failure. Special results have been simplified by having only two success levels, simple and critical (10% of the value of the skill). Difficulty/haste modifiers are applied to the skill, not the roll, thus they change the probability of a special result. So far, so good but what about criticals in skills lower then 10%? MRQ is oblivious to it. Fumbles are still there but they have been reduced to rolls of 00 (it basically gives the same chance of fumbling to a complete novice as to a Top Gun and that’s not to my taste).
Straight rolls are all we need when using skills with no active opposition. When there’s opposition players resort to opposed tests. In this case the final result depends on how well both characters did: If one succeeds and the other fails, the successful one succeeds in his action; if they both succeed, the one with the highest roll succeeds in his action; if they both fail, no one succeeds; if there’s a tie, roll again; criticals beat normal successes.
I explained that MRQ characters have been moved up to the 100% and above ability range. This has a clear impact in game terms since it means that the core abilities will be above the randomizer (d100) range. This is a very, very strange option. The logic of roll under systems is that the abilities have values below the maximum rollable value. Having abilities above that value is either inconsistent or an exception that signals really outstanding capabilities, outside the normal range of action, and thus reserved to rare and particularly dramatic situations. By moving the normal ability range close to or above 100% Mongoose broke the logic of its game core mechanic. Needless to say this required some sort of fix. Mongoose has been trying several and the last one is to change the logic by handling abilities above 100% basically with a roll over mechanic instead of a roll under one (if you have abilities above 100% you roll the die and add the margin above 100 to the value rolled; highest result succeeds). More exactly, one gets a hybrid mechanic since one still checks for criticals in roll under terms. This is not only a strange option as I wrote above, this is really poor game design. Needless poor game design since all Mongoose needed to do was to keep the logic of roll under by reducing the average value of abilities to 50%, slowing down character advancement and sticking to the 100% maximum. Double thumbs down for this. (Yes, this was present in RQ2 as well with its requirements for rune level at 90%, and it was present in RQ3 even if the situation improved by reducing the requirements for rune level to the 75% range. Yet, as my analysis above shows most RQ3 players will stick to the 1 to 100% range, with only a couple of skills going past that mark and no flip to roll over included, so that game mostly stays consistent with its premises.)
SUBSTANCE IV – COMBAT
Combat. At its core there’s that moment when the character is able to swing his weapon and attempt to finish his adversary with a well placed blow. But we have to consider what happens before that core moment and what happens afterwards.
Before the blow
MRQ preserves the usual break up into rounds but these have been reduced to 5 seconds instead of the previous 12. Rounds are divided into action phases. As we have seen before, a character can perform up to 4 actions in a round of combat (depending on his dexterity), each in a corresponding phase. There is more to action phases than actions: Characters can also perform reactions to the actions by other characters. They can perform as many reactions as they can perform actions, meaning that on the overall a character can perform from 2 to 8 actions plus reactions, depending on his stats (and we will see that there are circumstances where a character can do even more actions or reactions). That’s a lot of things to do in 5 seconds. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it again: This is just plain inconsistent with any real or fictional description of pre-modern fighting, the inspiration for any fantasy game including MRQ.
Notice that Combat Actions and their phases don’t reflect skill. Personally, I would expect the more skilled character to be able to have more opportunities for action. And actions are performed in order in such terms that action 1 happens in phase 1, action two in phase 2, and so on. Yes, this simplifies things but it also makes me wonder why a character that has only an action in a round should perform it in action phase 1. Shouldn’t it be at a latter stage? At least there should be an optional rule for that purpose.
As explained before, there are still Strike Ranks in MRQ but these are now based on the average of Intelligence and Dexterity plus 1d10. They exist mostly to avoid simultaneous actions but their impact in the game runs much deeper (as an aside I never got what game designers have against simultaneous actions – aren’t they just part of life?). Let’s look at things in order. By basing SRs on Int MRQ biases things in favour of the smart guy, thus there is no space for the ultra-fast mindless bloke, and creatures with fixed and usually low intelligence are disadvantaged even when we know they are fast as hell. I suppose the rationale is to give a chance to intelligent, low dexterity characters, but… why do it? Next point, the impact of weapon and creature size on strike ranks has been dropped. I think these made all the sense (even if RQ3 could be enhanced a lot in this field), I mean, having the longest hardware and being the largest guy has an impact on who hits first. Next point, Strike Ranks like Combat Action don’t reflect skill, and they should. The way things work in MRQ you may have the slower character (in game terms, the one with lowest dexterity); the one that performs less actions in the round; the smaller and with the shortest weapon; the less skilled of them all; and still he ends being the first to perform an action because of a die roll and lots of brains (meaning intelligence)!
I will not look at the rules for surprise and combat tactics that work within the setup just presented. They are subject to the same shortcomings and add their own bit of question marks and scratches on the head. The bottom line is that I’m unconvinced by this salad of Combat Actions (and Reactions) plus Strike Ranks cooked for us by Mongoose. They could have achieved the same by focusing on just one of those concepts (for instance, the way Stormbringer does it by focusing on Strike Ranks based on Dexterity).
The exchange of blows
Now that we know who acts when it’s time to see how the actual exchange of blows takes place. Needless to say, it all starts with the attacking character and the corresponding skill roll. The target character may oppose a reaction to the attack… if he has any reactions left. If there is no reaction, the attack is handled as an unopposed roll with the normal spread of critical success, normal success, failure and fumble.
The reaction is another skill roll. If it succeeds we compare the degree of success of the attack versus the reaction (once more critical, success, failure and fumble). These are cross-checked in a matrix (actually two, one for Parries and one for Dodges) with 16 alternatives. In a sense this is a complexification of opposed tests that expresses all the alternatives (or else opposed tests are a simplification of this). Let’s see this in practice:
Rapier in hand, D’Artagnan is facing a Cardinal’s Guard armed with rapier and main gauche. d’Artagnan has 90% Rapier skill (critical on 1 to 9) for both attack and parry, and 83% Dodge skill (critical on 1 to 8); the guard has 70% Rapier skill (critical on 1 to 7) and 60% Dagger skill (critical on 1 to 6). D’Artagnan has four actions (plus four reactions) and a higher Strike Rank (ok, not only he is smarter and more dexterous, he also rolled better on the d10). The Guard has two actions (plus 2 reactions). D’Artagnan’s tactic is to attack with the rapier and dodge. The Guard’s tactic is to attack with the rapier and parry with the main gauche.
First action: D’Artagnan attacks and rolls 32 – a normal success; the Guard reacts by parrying with his dagger and rolls 54 – also a success. It’s a successful attack against a successful parry so d’Artagnan does damage (3 on 1d8) which is absorbed by the dagger. It’s time for the Guard’s first action. His attack is a success to which d’Artagnan replies with a successful dodge. Successful attack against successful dodge means that d’Artagnan suffers minimum damage (1 HP) to a random location, his left leg on a roll of 1d20. A second and a quarter has passed.
Second action: D’Artagnan fails his attack and the Guard, emboldened by the smell of his adversary’s blood, Criticals on his parry. The attack is perfectly parried and the Guard may riposte. Or else, he would be able to do it if he had any reaction left. Since he does not, the Guard has a split second (literally) to dream about riposting. Still, he proceeds with his second action and he attacks D’Artagnan, failing this time. By the way, the riposte is an immediate attack after the parry so if the Guard had any reaction left he would be able to parry, riposte and attack, all at the same time! But it is not specified with which weapon he would do all of this: With the Rapier? With the Rapier and the dagger? Anyway, 2.5 seconds are gone by now.
Third action: “Ah, ah!”, says d’Artagnan, “now it’s on my terms”, and rightly so since he can act freely without any pesky reactions on the part of the Guard... So he thinks. Since the Guard is carrying a parrying weapon, he can parry one additional attack. D’Artagnan Criticals with his rapier doing maximum damage (8 on 1d8). The Guard fails his parry, thus he is impaled in his chest… where the rapier would stay stuck… if D’Artagnan did not attempt to Yank it out with an Athletics test… that fails. The Guard suffers an additional 3 points of damage (on a 1d4 roll). Another 1.25 seconds elapse.
Fourth action: Maddened by having his rapier stuck on the Guard’s body D’Artagnan kicks him in his lower parts and criticals once more. Ah, ah, there you have, 3 more points of damage. What happens with all that damage we will see afterwards.
You may ask, what’s wrong with all of this? Let’s see it step by step:
Number of actions. The number of actions is independent of skill. Now, I gave d’Artagnan the highest skill but that does not matter. A character may have 200% skill and a single action; while another character can have 25% skill and four actions. In other words, the complete novice may have three more attacks in a round than the most skilled expert in the game world. Since these extra attacks cannot be reacted to, you start to see why I’m not exactly in love with these mechanics. (In all fairness most humans will have 2 or 3 actions, the examples I’m working with are extreme.) Couple this with the fact that the character with 200% in a combat skill may never had to exchange a blow to get to that level, all he needs is to belong to a player that keeps gaining improvement points by helping old ladies cross the street and Hero Points when barking at the moon, points that are spent in improving Pike fighting and buying combat-oriented Legendary abilities.
Strike ranks. As I said, these are based on Dexterity and Intelligence… Which is puzzling. I would consider that it should be the other way around, I see more sense in having Int influencing the number of actions than Strike ranks (you see, the intelligent guy can plan better his actions, consider more alternatives, got it?). In any case, since both the number of actions and SR are influenced by Dex, there’s a good chance that the character with more actions also acts first in his actions, which is acceptable but also means that the slightly less agile but much more skilled character tends to be outdone by a complete novice (the d10 in the SR is there just to ensure that from time to time the character with lowest SR gets the upper hand at it).
I’ll repeat myself: Neither the number of actions or the Strike ranks are influenced by Size or weapon size, so your dagger-carrying dwarf fighting a big Troll with a looong tree trunk may attack before and more often than the Troll. I would have nothing against this if there were rules for closing in and out of an enemy. There are none.
Next we have the Dodge and Parry tables. They also have their rough corners. Dodge table: The attacker may be Overextended and suffer a penalty to the next reaction… but not to the next action that may actually come before the reaction! Parry table: Correct me if I’m wrong but technically the riposte is specific to fencing. In it the same weapon that is used to parry is immediately redirected into an attack. MRQ generalizes it to any combination of parrying and attacking weapons. In fact, MRQ’s riposte includes both the real riposte and any counterattack. This may seem a minor issue but there are two larger ones: Why making the riposte dependent on chance (it only happens in case of a successful or failed attack vs. a critical parry) instead of being a tactic decided by the player? Why restricting the riposte to parry and not including it in dodge as well? Other than this the tables work but are mostly redundant. Most of what they state is implied in the description of each level of success for the skills involved. The specific cases (riposte, overextension, giving ground) could be worked in more generic terms as either common consequences of combat exchanges or as tactical options offered to the players.
Notice that there are many other details about MRQ’s combat system that I didn’t delve into. These include two other types of reactions (Free attacks and Dives – actually a variant of the Dodge reaction); variants on attack actions (aim, charge, flurry), movement actions (change stance, move, sprint, fighting retreat), weapon reading, etc.; and ranged attacks. Most of this makes sense.
After the blow
In his third attack D’Artagnan delivered 11 points of damage to the Guard’s chest. We know that it was to the chest because d’Artagnan rolled 11 on 1d20. I already mentioned that this was inherited from previous editions with the caveat that there is no account for general HPs damage, thus dropping the accumulated impact of damage. (My option would have been the opposite: Keep the unified account of HP, and drop HP per location while keeping the qualitative impact of damage to each location.) The Guard has 5 HP in the chest, so it is reduced to -6, more than double his chest’s HPs. He has to pass a Resilience test or die immediately. He fails, he dies.
Furthermore, d’Artagnan impales the Guard. The Impale concept is also a legacy of RQ2 and RQ3. I was always puzzled by this particular rule for two reasons. For a start it always happens when one criticals with an impaling weapon. Now, this brings some interesting advantages (more damage, skill penalties to the victim) but also a major disadvantage in the sense that it basically may leave the attacker without his weapon. I would prefer a different approach to impale. Next, why a rule for impale and no similar rules for other types of attacks? Say a slash rule for cutting attacks, or a crush rule for smashing attacks. It puzzled me with RQ2 and RQ3, I’m still puzzled with MRQ.
In any case and in all fairness I must say that some of my strongest reservations about action resolution and combat were corrected in the Player’s Update. Things like successful actions when both characters fail their rolls or the confusing original defence tables. Still, Mongoose has a lot of ground to cover until MRQ really becomes a shining game in terms of game mechanics.
Legendary combats
My example above completely disregards Legendary abilities. I am sure D’Artagnan would love to know things like Duellist (one additional parry – but no dodge! – with a +10% bonus, and +1 damage); Heroic Aura that, strangely enough, is only felt by your friends, not your enemies (so if they shift sides they completely forget how heroic you are); or even Wall Leaping. What is not explained is how these stack. I suppose you can employ as many as you can reasonably justify. Note that the core book has only a sample of Legendary abilities, I’m sure that with the book about them you will be able to turn your perfectly run-of-the-mill character into a fantastic wonder. Just add magic to the mix.
SUBSTANCE V – MAGIC
MRQ’s magic suffered heavily with the strange distribution of content by the two books. Weird things happened like presenting the structure of cults first in the Core book, and the divine magic system next in the Companion book. Yet, let’s look at things in a systematic way, the one I hope you can find in the Deluxe edition of the game.
MRQ has three basic magic systems– rune magic, divine magic and sorcery. So far, so good, almost the same as in RQ3. All the three systems allow the magician to do enchantments, so these have their own section… just like in RQ3. Furthermore, the character may interact with spirits which may result in possession (now, whether this should be considered as ‘magic’ or as a non-magical interaction with another dimension of existence is open to debate since the game tells us nothing about it; I’ll just club it with magic). Practitioners of magic organize themselves into cults. This is more or less the scheme of things so let’s see how it works.
Rune magic
Rune magic is the successor to spirit magic (RQ3) or battle magic (RQ2). The main change is that it has been severed from the spirit world and shamanistic practices: No longer do you learn its spells by interacting with spirits, instead now you acquire them in a twofold process. First, you need to find a rune and atone yourself to it; next, you need to learn a spell that is dependent on that rune.
Runes are like magical devices spread around the world. The explanation for the runes is lame (they are the teardrops of gods) and very context sensitive: What if your game world doesn’t have gods? And what if the gods in your game world don’t shed tears? Luckily it can be easily forgotten. Another weird decision was to use Gloranthan runes throughout the gamebooks since these are also very context sensitive, even if I perfectly understand that this saves the effort to create a new set of runes and I know new players unfamiliar with Glorantha will not realize the connection. Anyway, the point is the reason behind the macguffin: To treat runes as stuff that you search for and collect. That’s actually a nice idea… until one starts asking things such as: Is there a finite set of runes in the game word to be found? Are runes still appearing here and there? How and why? The answers are as much about the setting as about the balance of magic in the game. Mongoose has no replies to suggest.
Whenever you find a free rune you may integrate with it by caressing it for an hour, passing a Persistence test and loosing 1 Power (don’t ask me why all this happens, there’s no reason to it). From then on you get two things: You gain a power specific to the rune (most of these powers are mods to rolls) and you acquire a runecasting skill related to that rune, a skill that allows you to use rune spells based on the rune. You have to be in possession of the runething to use the rune power or the runecasting skill. My first impression is that Mongoose was not able to make up its mind: Are the runes magical powers or are they magical devices? They made them both for no particular reason.
Now, to rune spells. Needless to say, each spell is associated with one or more runes. But where do you get them? From a teacher. Why would the teacher teach the spell? Because you pay him. Where do you find that teacher? In a cult. Cult to what? To a god. Remember, runes are teardrops of gods – that may be the reason why rune spells are learned from cults. On the other hand, there is nothing preventing different gods from shedding tears with the same rune; or for a character to learn the spell from the cult to god X only to use it with a rune dropped from the mystic eyes of god Y. And nothing of this makes much sense. The spells themselves work much like the spirit/battle magic of previous editions with the difference that the chance of success is now based on the runecasting skill. Using spells still costs magic points and they are still amenable to some limited manipulation. The list of spells is also based on the one found in RQ3 but has been expanded. Where RQ3 had 37 spells (I’m combining the three Detect spells into one and ignoring the enchantment spells because in MRQ these are no longer spells) MRQ has 53 of which 32 are common to both editions, five spells from RQ3 have been dropped and 21 have been added (maybe some of these can be found in supplements to RQ3).
Divine magic and cults
In order to acquire divine magic the character must be the follower of a cult with at least initiate status, know the lore of the cult (no skill roll is required), pray to the god for some time in a temple or suitable place, and pay (MRQ magic, like RQ3 and RQ2, as this weird capitalist fixation with round bits of metal). If he succeeds in all of this, the god grants him the spell. There’s a small problem, though. The cults are presented in the Core book where there is no mention to divine magic while the divine magic rules and spells are presented in the Companion book. Thus the cults don’t list the divine magic spells they grant. Instead, the divine magic section has some generic indication that the spells should be adjusted to the cult. That’s all. The illogical break up of magic rules starts to burden the game with something more than making them harder to learn (I just hope this is something that has been corrected in the Deluxe edition): How do we know if the match is right? We use our psyche – fortunately to its fullest power as we will see right now.
You can’t just keep adding spells, you are limited by your Power to how many points of divine spells you can learn. (Why? Because a character “must expend a great deal of mental effort to controlling and retaining the divine knowledge within his psyche”! Let’s stop and talk instead about poor explanations to game system controls and balances.) Of course, this also means that your magic points and Power-dependent skills are reduced by the amount of divine spells you are battling to control and retain within your psyche. At least one does not have to go on a quest to find some runething because divine spells come from the “direct action of the character’s god”, not from his indirect action percolated into teardrops (Mongoose doesn’t tell us what happens to the fluids liberated when gods go to the toilet; do these have rune powers as well?). Contrary to rune magic, the divine magic spells’ list shrank to 27 from the RQ3’s 35 (in both cases I’m combining into one similar spells – like the 6 Illusions – and I dropped out of RQ3 the enchantment spells). While 10 RQ3 spells don’t figure in MRQ, there are 2 spells in the new edition that didn’t figure in the Magic Book. I suppose that most of the spells that didn’t make it into the Companion book will resurface in future supplements. Divine spells can still be subjected to some manipulation in similar lines to previous editions.
Sorcery
Sorcery inherits most of its characteristics from RQ3, including the fact that sorcery spells are skills that need to be learned and improved in time, that the maximum number of spells one can learn is limited by Intelligence, and that they may be extensively manipulated with additional skills in order to make them more powerful. The most significant changes to sorcery are: The starting skill values that have been much increased which is very good; a basic sorcery spell no longer requires the expenditure of 1 MP (I’m ambivalent about this since it breaks the rational for the way sorcery operates); sorcery skills increase with improvement rolls as any other skill; the usage of the Manipulation skills still requires the expenditure of MPs but it no longer demands free Intelligence (also very good); there was a drastic reduction in the scope of the manipulation skills range and duration. These changes are welcome since they enhance sorcery’s playability.
MRQ has 30 sorcery spells. Compared to RQ3 it adds one single spell and drops 9 (again, not counting the enchantment spells). The drop-outs deserve their fate since they either were too powerful or will re-surface in a new guise in a more appropriate context (that’s the case with the three ‘Create’ spells). Also ditched was the sorcery’s social system found in RQ3.
Other bits of magic
Cults and temples are another inheritance from previous editions that suffers from the hazardous distribution of rules through the different books. As I said, there’s no reference to divine spells in the cults, only to rune spells. Since these are learnt from cults the end result is that rune magic is nothing else then a less powerful sub set of divine magic. There are still rune levels, but now they are Legendary abilities simply because one is required to spend Hero Points to access that status. It is also said that there can be sorcery cults, which is puzzling since sorcery does not require a faith-like belief. Besides, such cults should provide sorcery spells instead of runic ones, I suppose, but also divine spells? Maybe it’s better to just ignore this possibility since there is no single example in both books of a cult based on sorcery.
RQ2 and RQ3 gave great importance to the spirit world by linking it to shamanism and the whole battle/spirit magic system that became rune magic in MRQ. Shamanism is not presented in this game and as we have seen the spells became a separate entity with no connection to spirits. MRQ retained what’s left and turned it into just another dimension of the game world, the spirit world with its entities – spirits – and its way of interaction with the mundane world – spirit combat and possession. A this level the most drastic change concerns spirit combat. In RQ2/3 it was one of the few instances using the Resistance Table. Since MRQ dropped this mechanic, it standardized spirit combat by applying to it the rules for normal combat. I think this is much better, specially if the players are able to be as descriptive about spirit combat than about regular combat.
Enchantments were inherited from RQ3. The MRQ rules are somewhat similar but now the character has to know a suitable spell (either from rune, divine or sorcery magic) to perform the enchantment. Interestingly enough he also has to inscribe runes in the thing being enchanted. Now, what does that mean? The meaning of runes in MRQ keeps shifting. There are runethings (teardrops of gods one collects); there are rune spells learned from cults; and now there are rune inscriptions but where we learn these and how do we use them is not explained. I would think that if one wanted to do an enchantment based on a rune spell one needed to inscribe that rune in the enchantment. But divine and sorcery spells are not rune-dependent, so why the runes?
On the overall…
When I read the core book and saw how it tied spells to runes, I thought that MRQ was moving in the right direction (despite the very mediocre rationale for that tie). Hellas, I jumped to conclusions too fast since runes continue to be mostly chrome. Yes, they have their origin in the gods and the gods (at least those provided) have descriptions that associate them with powers represented by runes. Yet the gods are not tied to the runes, and neither are divine magic, sorcery or enchantments. It’s still to come the RuneQuest that lives up to its name. This all goes down to a simple observation: The magic system is not innovative enough. I expected more since there’s so much one can do. Why not an unified magic system with a single set of spells subject to different usages according to the different magical traditions (runic, divine, sorcery, etc.)? Why not a system that puts the runes at the centre, maybe inspired by RQ2 where runes were separated into different formal categories, coupling this with the rules for spell manipulation in order to create a free-form system for spell creation? Furthermore, MRQ actually reduced the magic paths open to characters: One is either a cultist or a sorcery practitioner; cultists may stay at the low, rune magic level, or progress to divine magic level; shamanism was dropped.
As the magic rules stand they are just a variant on previous editions, improving some things, changing other things that didn’t need change, and loosing much of the focus and consistency previously present in the system.
SUBSTANCE VII – THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE
When I bought MRQ and decided to review it I had two questions in mind: How much RQ is there in MRQ? Despite of that, how good is the game?
As pointed out, MRQ both retains many of the characteristics of the previous editions and departs from them in three key aspects. We noticed that when we looked at MRQ characters: There are new major non-skill capabilities (Legendary abilities and Hero Points); character advancement is no longer player-controlled and play-dependent, instead it became GM-dependent and disconnected from actual ability usage; the average character has been moved up to the 100% ability range. MRQ deeply changed the structure of rounds and action orders and reduced the lethality with the consequent complete reformulation of the flow of combat and game feel. The core of the magic system is still there, the spell lists and how spells work, it’s just used in a different way.
So, how different is MRQ from RQ3 or even RQ2? The answer depends on several things: How much it plays the Legendary abilities card. If it puts too much emphasis on these, the players will focus on their acquisition and usage (and the acquisition of the required Hero Points), instead of the skills. On the other hand, if the characters have only a limited access to Legendary abilities to be used in the most extraordinary circumstances, then the skills will remain at the core and the game will be closer to the previous editions. Couple this with the changes in character advancement (both in terms of process, player control and pace of advancement), the changes in round structure, the changes in the structure of magic, the much reduced lethality, the asymmetry between PCs and NPCs (since Legendary abilities and Hero Points are supposed to be reserved to the former), and the move from roll under to roll over for abilities above 100%, consider all of this and you end with a very different game. So, if you are a fan of RQ3 you’re better of by sticking to it and just look at MRQ to pick and choose those bits that can improve your game (since, as I pointed, there are some welcome changes like the simplified character creation, more playable sorcery, etc.).
Yet, I guess that most players will be people that never played RQ3 or RQ2, or those that are ready to move forward to the new game despite the fact that he moves in directions different from those they were used to. If that’s the case then they find in MRQ a consistent and playable game except for a very critical component, the prevalence of ability scores above 100%. As I said, this creates a mismatch between the character concept and the core mechanics. It also means the players will end playing two game mechanics: Roll under for abilities up to 100% and roll above / roll under for abilities above 100%. I’ll repeat, I consider this to be a case of very poor game design. This flaw really casts a shadow on MRQ and leads me to attribute to it a generous 3.
THE FUN FACTOR
After going through the MRQ’s rule book and benchtesting its system I would like to:
* Read the book again: But not in this edition where I have two books and plus seven critical pages of update. So, I’ll stick to 2. (As I said, I hope the Deluxe edition deserves a much better mark.)
* Be an occasional player: Yes, certainly if characters stick to the 100% limit, even with the changes to some features of previous editions I love. It deserves a 4.
* Be a campaign player: No, I’m not interested. The game moved in directions I’m not fond of. What can I say more? 3.
* Be an occasional game master: I could do it if someone gave me all the stuff ready to play. Other than that I’m not interested. Make it a 3.
* Be a campaign game master: No, not at all, I don’t want to GM a game with such a complicated round structure, where I have too many things to consider in order to create characters (attributes, skills, magic, Legendary abilities, you name it) and with flawed mechanics. 1.
PREVIOUS REVIEWS IN THE SERIES
FS#00 Hero Wars (technically not part of the series, I’ve included it because the game falls into the scope of games I’m reviewing)
FS#01 RuneQuest 2
FS#02 RuneQuest 3
FS#03 Basic D&D
FS#04 D&D 3rd Edition
FS#05 Prince Valiant
FS#06 Exalted
FS#07 Rêve de Dragon
FS#08 Spiritual Warfare, the Role Playing Game
FS#09 Mazes & Minotaurs
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