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RuneQuest Deluxe is a combined publication of the Mongoose edition of RuneQuest, combining the rulebooks of RuneQuest, RuneQuest Companion and RuneQuest Monsters in a single tome, along with some necessary editing of a couple of serious errors in the early editions concerning skill tests, the persistence and resilience skills, opposed tests in combat and and fumbles. This is a fairly long review, but then again, it's a fairly hefty book.
Previous reviews of the Mongoose edition of RuneQuest received mixed reviews. Some were favourable, pointing out that it was delightful to see the game back in print again after so many years. Much of the streamlining, especially in the combat system, was also appreciated. Other reviews were less enthusiastic. The aforementioned rules issues stuck out like a sore thumb. The 'streamlining' of the (Lewis Morgan derived) cultures from the third edition was seen as a gutting rather than a simplification. A perceived divorcement from the Glorantha gameworld also was irksome to some fans, and finally, there were style issues both in language and presentation.
For my own part, I have been a RuneQuest player for some twenty-seven years and have reviewed first and second edition RuneQuest as well as third on rpg.net. I was involved in the Mongoose Playtest group from the first iteration of rules and submitted detailed comments, rule by rule, every step of the way. I harangued the list for quite some time that the name of the game should be represented in actual play. The playtest process itself was not of the highest quality, but this experience will not affect the review. There were some notable differences between final draft of the rules and the version that finally went to press. Whilst this review will comment extensively on comparisons between this and previous editions this too will not affect the overall evaluation.
The Product
The book weighs in at a hefty 352 pages with hardbound and softbound editions; the spine is solidly glued rather than stiched. The text is presented in a sensible serif font, largely two-column justified throughout, although the black print on light grey text leaves a little to be desired, as does the excess of white space (grey space?) resulting on line breaks rather than indentation for paragraphs. The margins, designed with a with a fairly attractive parchment edging, offer a page number and chapter title in a rather small font. Criticism must be levied at the sheer size of the margins which take up over a third of the surface area of each page.
The table of contents is very slim, especially for a book of this size and the index, whilst a good four pages in length is sometimes a little odd. For example when looking for the starting age and experience for characters (aware that characters don't have to start at the same age), I checked under 'age', 'starting age', 'experience' and 'background experience', before discovering the reference 'beginning play with advanced characters'. The back pages include a summary Runesheet with basic powers and a difficult to read (let alone photocopy) five page character sheet. There is no summary of major charts which blessed all preceding editions of the game.
The uninspired cover art, credited to Bob Cram, Dan Howard and Jeff Koch, is the runes of Infinity, Beast and Law representing the Basic Book, Monsters and Companion respectively; Anne Stokes' RuneQuest logo shows some competence. Only some of the internal art shows particular skill in either creativity or technique, with the various sketches of runes throughout the book being particularly poor. A significant number of pieces have also been printed too darkly. This said, the art is usually contextually appropriate and I did like the winged gorgon (p256), and the various nymphs (p284).
The writing style is informal but clear, perhaps a bit simplistic and leans towards the verbose, taking few risks in lest it be accused of purple prose. One aspect that certainly stands out in this edition compared to previous incarnations is an apparent lack of prior exposure to real-world anthropology and mythological structures resulting in the text not generating the same sense of wonder and magic as previous editions. The organisation of the text is mostly good, a basically linear experience of character generation, skilll resolution and combat, spells, after the adventure and various beasties, but can a little haphazard at times - one would expect, for example, that the starting level for characters would be in section for generating characters, but this is not the case.
Characters and Skills
Character generation is based on a 4d6 drop lowest for STRength, CONstitution, DEXterity, POWer and CHArisma and 2d6+6 for INTelligence and SIZe. A point-buy option, a feature of RuneQuest since 1978, is no longer available despite now being adopted by its old competitor. Derived from Characteristics are Attributes. These include Combat Actions from Dexterity (which really must have 'etc' added to the bottom of the table to scale properly), Damage Modifier from Size and Strength (ditto), Hit Points per location from Size and Constitution (which does scale), Magic Points from Power and Strike Ranks from the average of Intelligence and Dexterity. The latter is most problematic as it removes any possibility of a fast but unintelligent character and also dramatically reduces the speed of many animals who have a low but fixed INT.
Skill are conceptually differentiated as Basic Skills and Advanced Skills, which in itself is a good idea although one can be justifiably uncertain why, for example, 'Sing is a basic skill, whilst 'Dance' is an Advanced skill. There is no necessary prerequisite method between the Basic and Advanced skills either. Starting skill chances are derived directly (like ElfQuest) from a varied number of characteristics (e.g., Dexterity for Acrobatics, Intelligence plus Power for Perception, 10+Dexterity-Size for Stealth). There are 20 non-weapon Basic skills, 14 Advanced Skills (plus various Crafts, Languages and Lores), and 20 weapon skills. Skills are usually described in a couple of paragraphs with occasional modifier examples. Starting basic skills are somewhat unbalanced; the average base for active physical skills is around 22%, whereas SIZ-negative physical skills (e.g., stealth, dodge) and thinking skills is half that. This is potentially not a problem if INT is used in other ways (e.g., as a bonus in skill improvement tests) but this is not the case.
Following this a player chooses a culture and a profession for further background experience and starting wealth. Note that these are one-shot acquisitions. One does not gradually gain skills or equipments in these areas, but rather they are used up completely and immediately. The 'cultures' are Barbarian, Civilised, Mariner, Noble, Nomad (Artic, Desert, Temperate), Peasant, Primitive and Townsman. There are thirty-three 'professions', which are restricted by 'culture'. Whilst it is good to see that a wide scope of realistic and non-adventuring professions which are more or less balanced, it would appear that the cultural definitions were taken by simply mashing the backgrounds of RuneQuest 1st and 2nd edition with the cultures of RuneQuest 3rd edition, resulting in most inappropriate mixture. Describing 'noble', 'peasant', 'mariner' and 'townsman' as "cultures" does not make much contextual sense, and can justly ask if there are three sub-categories of Nomad, why this doesn't also apply to primitives, barbarians and civilised cultures.
The final steps of character generation including allocating free skill points, which is roughly the same bonus as that gained from culture and profession, purchasing equipment and some incredibly vague notes on character personality which is entirely absent of the emphases on species, state, cult and runic prejudices. An option also exists, as previously indicated, to start characters with higher levels of experience, primarily through increasing the minimum starting age, allowing extra free skill points, bonus characteristic levels, extra runes, higher cult status, extra Hero Points and Legendary Abilities, however this is much further in the book.
Skill tests are a simple d100 roll-under method with general difficulty and specific haste modifiers. Criticals are 10% of the success chance, all rolls between 96 and 99 are failures and fumbles are a flat 1% (00), although this is modified for very high skills. In opposed tests the highest successful roll succeeds and in the case of failure, the GM must decide. Group tests are split into teams (any success by any member) or sorting (some fail, some succeed) with assistance to tests equalling the critical chance of each assistant. The example of three characters trying to hold up a heavy portcullis (p24) is most illustrative of an enormous error in the game in deleting characteristic rolls (the test is against an athletics skill) and the uselessness of the Assistance rules versus the Team Test rules on the previous page. In the former case, it illustrates how an average character with a minimal level of training (say +20% to the athletics skills) is the equal in lifting things to the untrained but naturally enormous Burly Bob (SIZ 20, STR 20). In the second case it shows that in a group test three individuals with 50% skill fails to equate with the same two individuals offering assistance to the third (50%+5%+5%). There is an attempt to reconstruct characteristic tests can be found in certain skills (such as mental Persistence and physical Resilience) by limiting the possible skill level to a characteristic multiplier.
Equipment and Combat
The Equipment chapter starts with brief notes on currency, trading and wealth and status and also provides a table for standards of living, weregild and ransom. The latter is taken from RuneQuest3e but lacks the flavoursome status examples of the sort of clothing, food such people are likely to have and the equivalent weregild in cattle. The chapter ends with a short listing (four pages) of general items, animals, transport and slaves, food and lodging and magic items. The bulk of the equipment chapter is weapons and armour, staring with close combat weapons, then ranged, then armour. A short separate listing is given for stone primitive weapons.
Combat rounds are 5 seconds long. During that time a character may act a number of times equal to the Combat Actions (usually two or three) and receives a like number of Reactions. This does seem to be more than a little high, unless of course one intreprets a missed attack roll to also mean not attacking (i.e., failing to see a potential opening). There are also options for free attacks in certain contexts. Initiative is determined on a d10 roll plus strike rank, determined by Dexterity and Intelligence; Size, Dexterity and Weapon Length would have been a preferred option and more consistent with previous editions. An action includes Aim, Cast Spell, Close Attack, Charge (which is, oddly, a flat bonus to damage regardless of speed or size), Fighting Retreat, Grapple, Move, Ready Weapon, Ranged Attack and the like. If attacked, a character may choose to React (parry, dodge) and the relative success of the two is compared to a table which determine not only whether the attack succeeded or failed, but a variety of other special effects, such as Riposte, Attacker Overextended, Defender Gives Ground. In a fairly significant departure from normal conventions a successful dodge against a succesful hit is still a hit, albeit with minimal damage and you simply cannot put your arms in the way (parry) a crafted weapon.
Damage is applied to specific hit locations following a familiar d20 roll with armour subtracting. If a location is reduced to less than 0 hit points it is considered to have suffered a serious wound, which often incapacitates if a head, chest or abdomen wound. If the location is reduced to negative hit points it is considered severed or mangled, usually resulting in death for vital locations. Some of the skill modifiers that result from such woundings are more than a little strange; with two legs lost, the modifer to dodge is -30% yet the same is applied if two arms are lost. Hero Points may be spent at this point for rerolls, reduced damage and minor plot elements. If a character receives greater than their SIZ in damage, they may be knocked back or knocked down and if they hit a solid object they receive an additional 1d4 damage, although this does not scale to the initial damage - it is a flat value.
There are a number of positive comments that can be made about the new combat system. The initiative system is quicker than previous editions (although getting rid of the the additional d10 roll per round would be even better). The merging of weapon attack and weapon parry rolls into a single skill is most certainly welcome, although greater variation to base chances to each of these would have been strongly preferred. The removal of general hit points certainly makes accounting easier and increases survival rates of characters. Where there are glitches in the system, as noted, they are the sort of errors that a GM can repair without rebuilding. In a general sense (specific errors and omissions as noted excluded) the combat system is an example of good design; it is quite fast and easy to play, sufficiently realistic and flavoursome.
Rune and Divine Magic, Sorcery and Cults
The three magic systems in the new edition of RuneQuest are Rune Magic, Divine Magic and Sorcery. The former is predicated on the removal of the old Spirit Magic or Basic Magic systems as it was known in previous editions, which is a serious loss to both the connection to the default game world of Glorantha and to any other fantasy setting that makes use of animistic magic. To acquire a Rune Magic spell, a character must find a Rune which is a physical etching formed from a drop of a blood from the gods. The rune must be then integrated by spending an hour in solitude with the object which causes the character to become 'runetouched' (acquiring new abilities) and then can also be used to cast a rune spell which take a variable time in days to learn according to magnitude. The powers of multiple runes of the same type may not be combined. Spells are cast with the expenditure of Magic Points according to the magnitude of the spell and success with the Runecasting skill, are often resisted by the Resilience skill. The appropriate rune (and no others) must he held in the character's hands whilst casting the spell. Some of the spells do seem a little odd in their alignment, most notably Skybolt, whose description is very Orlanthi, but is aligned to Chaos.
Whilst the acquisition of Runes themselves is flavoursome it perhaps would have been much more appropriate if this was included as part of Divine magic, particularly considering that the runes are supposedly formed from the gods themselves (or even more so, as part of Sorcery, to represent forces beyond the powers of the gods), especially given that the game does specify it assumes Glorantha as the core setting.Further, the physical manifestation of the runes themselves is quite twinky, lacking in any sort of elemental mysticism or personal alignment to particular runes - the aim of the game is to collect as many different runes as possible without doubles. Perhaps most damaging of all is the recovery rates for Magic Points. Whilst in previous editions Magic Points equated roughly with daily use, in the new edition all magic points are recovered every 10 hours or 5 hours whilst resting, effectively increasing the total number of magic points up to almost six times. A person with average Power can now cast Disruption over 60 times in a 25 hour period! This is a very significant problem to the game system and a reversion to a far more sensible rate of recovery from previous editions is essential.
Divine magic is given out to members of cults and the magnitude is dependent on the size of a temple. The spells are one-use only and can only be recovered by visiting the temple. Rather than Power being sacrified it is now dedicated and returned once the spell is cast. This is particularly appropriate as Power is no longer such a nebulous characteristic subject to significant variation. Casting a Divine magic spell requires use of a Lore (specific theology) skill roll and at least Initiate status in a cult. No magic points are required unless the spell is being "overcast". Divine magic is also considered more powerful than Rune magic or Sorcery and when direct magic to magic conflicts occur it is considered to have twice the listed magnitude. Because the old distinction between 're-usable' (i.e., regained by temple visits) and 'one-use' (requires additional POW sacrifice) has been removed, it is notable that the magnitude of Divine spells has increased proportionally.
The third magic system is sorcery. Sorcery spells are distinguished by their general lack of power, but extreme flexibility with variations in damage, range, duration or even the number of targets. In addition to these manipulation skills, each sorcery spell is also a separate magical skill. Sorcery spells themselves do not require magic points to cast, but do require such powering to be manipulated. The manipulation skills establish a maximum capacity which follow a linear increase in power, whereas the previous edition roughly doubled the capacity at each degree of manipulation; this radically reduces the abilities of medium to high powered sorcerers.
The three schools of magic are followed by short chapters on Enchantments, the Spirit World, Cults and Temples. Enchanments are a common procedure using the Enchantment skill, requisite spells, and the sacrifice of Power. The time taken for the Enchantment varies on the requisite Power and the difficulty of the skill on the type of enchantment (e.g,, Item Blessing, Binding, Warding, Power Enchancement etc). The Spirit World chapter discusses the characteristics and abilities of spirits, spirit combat and possession. The chapter on cults distinguishes between Lay Members, Initiates, Acolytes and finally Runepriests or Runelords. Various cult descriptions outline the sort of worshippers, the skills the cult offers, duties of members, Rune magics available from the cult and any benefits. Temples are distinguished by the size, the sort of staff present and their ability to provide magics. Four sample temples and floorplans are offered.
Adventuring and Creatures
The four chapters of Adventuring, Travel, Between Adventures and Improving Adventurers provide supporting and supplementary information and rules. It includes, a simple fatigue system, an overly simple (and inaccurate) encumbrance system, rules for falling and suffocation, fire, poison and disease, with the latter two acting a contested rolls against resilience. A small selection of armour and hit points are given to inanimate objects, before moving on to travel speed and expenses, along with eleven ship designs, characteristics, speed and the dangers of waterborne travel, including naval warfare and ship repairs. The emphasis on sea travel and the relative absence of discussion of other modes of transport is surprising. The 'between adventures' chapter gives descriptives of habitation sizes, a comprehensive list of reputation and renown modifiers and their effect on influence tests, employment prospects (suitably rough), including thievery, and item quality and costs by locale along with notes on trade.
Characters improve their abilities based on the completion of stories, which may take multiple sessions. On average three improvement rolls and two Hero Points are gained. Improvement rolls can also be gained by practise and research with a general rate of taking 1 day per existing 10% in a skill for improvement rolls. Improvement is based on a roll above current skill levels with a success resulting in an increase of 1d4+1 (1d6+1 if trained by a mentor) extra skill percentiles and a failed roll increasing the skill by 1%. Note that a character's Intelligence plays no part in the quantity or rate of improvement rolls. Note also that adventure-based improvement rolls do not have to be related to any skill used during the adventure. New advanced skills can be acquired by two improvement rolls and increases in characteristics by three; no guidelines concerning the time required is provided. The penultimate section of the "Improving Adventures" chapter is "Legendary Abilities", which is a horrid set of munchkin superpowers whose content should be directly achievable through extremely high skill levels and powerful spells. Finally, the chapter finishes with some notes on 'levels of experience' namely, Novice, Seasoned, Veteran, Master and Hero with bonuses to skill points, money, characteristics, runes, status, hero points and legendary abilities.
Taking up over forty percent of the book is the various creatures. This begins with a discussion on creatures as adversaries, creatures as characters, creatures as resources (particularly the conversion of natural skin to armour), the use of creatures as commodities (and especially training time), and finally the touch of chaos upon various creatures. In the case of creatures as PCs, like human PCs, they may receive a bonus die and drop for selected characteristics. Most existing cultures and professions are deemed to be sufficiently suitable for non-human PCs subject to a table of common professions and common cultures. Instinctual creatures (i.e., those with a fixed INT) are described as "poor choices" for player characters! Usually there is only minimal description of the alien psychology of many sapient creatures and the mindset required to play such beings.
The creatures themselves are largely stat blocks, although the associated notes usually make slight effort to describe the environment where the creature can be found plus some comments on the social organisation, if any, along with the expected special remarks on martial and tactical considerations. There are some excellent notes (six pages!) on the lifecycle of the dragonnewts, the reincarnating, sapient saurians and also some good information on elementals. All the standard fantasy species are of course present, along with a sizeable number belonging to RuneQuest's eternal sister game-world, Glorantha. A final short chapter also gives descriptions of some of the more extreme creatures of Glorantha like the Chaos Gaggle, the Crimson Bat and the Mother of Monsters, all of which have the sort of statistics that would make the greatest hero seem insignificant. The white-space issue raises its head again here with stat-blocs and hit-locations presented on the vertical rather than side-by-side, again increasing the page count unnecessarily.
Overall
It is probable that this book should have been released simultaneously with the individual core rulebooks by Mongoose, but evidently the lure of additional first sales was strong. Past mixed reviews of these three core rulebooks are largely confirmed. This is a mixed bag; in some instances the simplification of the rules was warranted and imaginative alternatives were established. As mentioned the combat system is one good example where simplification was gained without a major loss of content. However this was by no means universal; the alterations to the background cultural experience in particular was ill-conceived and poorly executed. Whilst most of the rules hang together in a coherent system, there are some incredibly annoying oversights and often in some extremely critical areas (such as the removing characteristic rolls, the recovery of magic points etc). Stylistically the game is very middle-of-the-road, clearly written but with a great deal of the evocative mythology largely lost, such as the removal of Spirit Magic, or worse still turned into poorly suited enticements such as Legendary Abilities.
However this is not a Curate's Egg, or rather it is an egg like the curate suggested. Parts of it are excellent and these parts can be taken out and used independently from those parts which are not so good. For those who have not experienced RuneQuest before and find older editions quite unavailable I can thoroughly recommend it. For those with a great deal of prior experience in the game I would be more prone to recommending a modified use of the combat system and perhaps give a second look to the magic system. By itself it is quite a workable product and I cannot help but think that in some ways it suffers the sort of problems that Alien 3 did when it was released; that is, the prior editions set a very high challenge and criticism of the product is in actual fact an indirect reference to previous editions. Overall, I give Mongoose RuneQuest Deluxe a most marginal 4/5 for substance and a high 3/5 for style.
Style: 1 + .3 (layout) + .4 (art) + .7 (coolness) + .7 (readability) + .7 (product) = 3.8
Substance: 1 + .6 (content) + .4 (text) + .7 (fun) + .5 (workmanship) + .8 (system) = 4.0
