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There is a very messy, no longer particularly relevent, history to this game which basically boils down to being the fact that RuneQuest: Slayers is not a new edition of the original RuneQuest game developed by Chaosium. As a result it doesn't use the BRP system but a new system more in common with the dice pooling style. The game was developed by Avalon Hill, but never published. However the game is available for download in PDF form at www.threefates.com. This site also includes a number of extras items like the WarClan books and character sheets as well.
About the game: This system in its current form is almost exclusively a game for creating adventuring parties of fighters. It initially reminded me of early D&D in that it is feels like roleplaying game developed using wargaming experience. In other words it is a first step from wargaming to developing roleplaying characters. Now for me a good test of a fantasy system is its capacity to allow you to create a wandering merchant who is mostly interested in trade but has plenty of opportunity to get involved in intrigue, the occasional ambush, etc. In other words if a game can allow me to make a meaningful trader character, it will probably handle most of the things I will want to use it for. I am more interested in the social aspects of the world than the superheroing adventuring method. So by rights I shouldn't be interested in this game, but there is a lot of core concepts that are worth developing to take this beyond its current capacity and so generating even a little interest can help assist in that process. (Aside: one of my favourite systems, Pendragon, technically doesn't meet my criteria due to limited character options so I don't discount a game out of hand if I can see the potential. David Dunham's PenDragon Pass is a good example of this).
Ok, really about the game: Due to the warrior focus I will start with combat first.
Combat: RQ:Slayers uses a different mechanism for combat that it uses for other ability tests. In combat, you start with Initiative by rolling ? and add your Agility. Highest goes first, but the lowest announces their choice of action first, giving the higher initiative the advantage. To attack you start with a minium of 2d6 and get extra +d6 for having higher relative Agility, weapon skill, Striking Hard etc. You subtract 1 or 2 dice depending of size of opponent's shield, if any. To hit, roll 6's. 1 is a basic hit; 2 is a Vital Shot provided you call before one before you roll; and 3 or more are criticals. Rolling all 1's are fumbles and both Crits and Fumbles have tables to determine results. The Strike Hard that I mentioned before is one of 2 stances that a character can choose: Strike Hard and Hold. Strike Hard allows you to add +1d6 to your attack, while Hold allows you to steal the Initiative from someone Striking Hard.
The amount of damage dice is determined by you Might attribute, with weapons adding to your Might for this purpose only. Weapons are determined also by type: Carving, Impaling or Smashing with the first 2 doing extra damage should they get through armour. Armour incidentally subtracts from damage received.
The game also has Fatigue rules, with every action having varying cost per round. If your total is Fatigue is reached or exceeded, all opponents gain an additional d6 Fatigue die to their attack. A 6 on the Fatigue die counts as a hit and causes the fatigued character to fall unconscious. A character with Dying damage level rolls a Death die instead of a fatigue die. A 6 on this is instant death. Cute.
Each weapon is learnt separately and have a number of levels of skill. Higher levels allow characters to buy manoeuvres or techniques for that weapon type that allow you to different things (think Feats).
Running Combat: In all, reasonably smooth but with bugs. Combat is meant to be hard and fast with the RuneMaster (now this is irritating. Usually the DM, Storyteller, Keeper, Great Guru type of naming silliness is pointless but harmless. In a game called RuneQuest however I would have thought a RuneMaster would have been a in game title. This option is now pretty much excluded due to potential confusion. Where was I?) treating opponents as cannon fodder who always strike hard and never fatigue (too much paper work). Fair enough. The problem for me is some named characters may want to Hold. What happens if 2 people facing each other both Hold? Apparently nothing, and this includes the fight. Two stances are a bit limited. Also, I don't like the assumption that if you have a shield you know how to use it. There are 6 levels of skill for weapons and none for shields, or parrying with daggers etc (although there are manoeuvres that may fit the bill). House rules are needed if you like this degree of realism, but the system will handle them quite well. For instance, an option I am considering is having a shield expertise which gives a bonus shield die if you level is higher than your opponent's weapon expertise. Completely consistent with existing mechanics and allows the option of creating funky shield manoeuvres like shield bashing or throwing (Captain America anyone?).
Other actions: Any non-combat action is determined by adding 2d10 and achieving a attribute number or lower to succeed, eg. rolling equal to or below an Agility of 11. More difficult tasks require 3 or even 4d10 and a fatigued character adds +1d10 to number. Rolling all 1's are criticals, 2 or more 10's are fumbles. If you have a profession related to the task you can reroll failures upto 3 times depending on the level of profession. I like this method. It kind of brings other skills in line with combat and can be dramatised quite well if you narrate the possible results of failures each time until they succeed, for example, stumbling or forgetting an important detail before hammering home the closing point in a debate.
Opposed actions, such as a debate, are determined by increasing the difficulty of the character with the lower professional level.
The only thing I don't like about this method is how the professions are handled, but I will cover this as part of character generation.
Characters: A simple process and reasonably quick. There are a number of usual fantasy races to choose from who start with different levels of characteristics. The human score is baseline and starts at 10 (max 20). You get a number of hero points to create your character by bumping up the levels of abilities. They are also used to buy professions and early levels of weapon skills. The system balances well and with a 2d10 bell curve, a single point of characteristic can make a big difference (just as well as it is very expensive to get characteristics beyond 14 to begin with). Character experience is done in a similar fashion: you earn hero points as xp and buy characteristics and professions. Hero points are earned by achieving adventure goals and for roleplaying your Glyph (see below). I am not a fan of this method, but it common in games and it does work. (One of my preferences to BRP is the coupling of skill use to xp. Earning points for achieving goals, regardless of how you did it, is not character development for me). Experience is closely tied to the WarClan you join (think classes, except they are all fighters) and explained further in the magic section below.
I am in 2 minds with the character development in Slayers. The professions cater for non-weapon skills. You can start out with more than one profession if you wish to pay the Hero points and you can also buy levels up to mastery of the profession. Weapons, on the other hand, have to be mastered separately and have more levels. That is my first reaction. The problem is the professions have no skill list: if a profession looks like it covers an activity you get the rerolls. If it is only partial coverage you get less than usual rerolls. The professions decriptions are all about 100 words long each. It is left up to the players and Runemas… gm to decide if it is full, partial coverage, or not at all. Probably not a problem for experienced players, but why exclude new blood? Thieves for example are described as streetwise and having enemies. That's all. No sneaking, pick pockets (except the illustration), hiding, etc. Surely a simple example list won't blow the word count. My biggest grip is the cost of new professions and level of professions. It is cheaper (and technically quicker) to master an entire profession than master a sword. This can lead to a character with an unreasonable, random collection of entire professions just to get the rerolls. I don't mind multiskilling, but multi-jobbing at the master level is not elegant.
I played it once months ago, the 2nd thoughts occurred while writing this but looking a little more closely at them most clusters into a set of activities that hang together. For example, making a bard would allow a number of professions like musician, singer, orator, acrobat, actor without looking unbalanced or haphazard. My point is this system is more practical than first appears and quite easily adjusted. For instance I am tempted to break the thief description into more precise footpad (sneaky pickpocket) and burglar (hide in shadows sneaky that needs to be combined with locksmith and acrobat, etc.) to broaden the skill base.
The other (more importantly for me) problem is the characteristics are few in number but cover all non-combat skills. I would prefer a manual Dexterity for things like picking locks and making jewellery. The game uses Might for some Constitution type functions and Courage for others. Not entirely inappropriate but a stretch in some cases (Fatigue is twice Courage for example). Likewise there is no Charisma/Communication (merchants, diplomats!) type of score. Adding these scores will require adjusting the Hero points for creation, but will not unbalance the game if done correctly.
Magic: This is a warrior’s game so there are no magicians, but it is also RuneQuest, so there are Runes, which are magical. The rune system is good and is divided into enchantments and clan runes. The enchantments are for magic items and a person who has reached the ultimate mastery of their weapon can become a runecarver and then use hero points to buy lesser runes carving as a skill. What weapon mastery has to do with this I am not sure.
The other runes are the clan runes. They are earned as you progress through your warclan, which you do by using collecting Glyphs. Glyphs are partial runes that represent the ideal personality of a clan member, so you get glyphs of vengeance,deceit etc. Each clan has 10. You earn a glyph by the GM randomly giving you one at the start of an adventure and if you roleplay in accordance with the glyph type you get extra hero points and the glyph at the end of the adventure. Score enough different glyphs and you get earn clan runes with give you different powers (more below). The system is designed so that it will take you around 10 to 100 sessions to earn the maximum allowed 4 clan runes. I can see where this comes from, but the glyph earning method sucks IMHO. The idea is not to override your main personality but to incorporate the traits as you get them until you achieve the idealised clansperson. Mystically makes perfect sense, you shouldn't be in a clan that doesn't suit you. In game terms it feels to me as an clumsy, amateur method of 'encouraging' roleplaying. I would much prefer to see characters deciding what traits they are aiming for, possibly rating them with difficulties to achieve (ok, Pendragon influence), and earn them that way instead of randomly choosing them. Make it a conscious effort on the part of the player.
Anyway, the runes are earned when you get enough glyphs. The order you choose runes affect the abilities that comes with it. This is because if you chose Rune X, and then gain Rune Y later, you don't get the powers of both Rune X and Rune Y, but rather have the power of Rune X (your first), and Rune XY.
The setting: the rules comes with a setting, the overview of Krahgmar and the closer look at single region the Glacier Rifts. This is Conanequse territory and not in the slightest original (elves, orcs, short people with beards, etc.), but I don't have great expectations on those grounds, especially with the entire setting in less than 20 pages. Plenty of room for expansion but not somewhere I am tempted to play. There is a reasonable bestiary but with oddities like wyvroqs - crosses of wyverns and men, but no wyverns in the bestiary to cross them with (maybe they were all used up). In regards to the races, there are a number of interesting ones (Gracht with a personality change or Leontaurs) in the bestiary which could be developed in lieu of the usual suspects (the setting tends to the 'if it looks evil, it probably is evil' mindset, with one possible exception - the Fenoderee seem to be just misunderstood).
Piccies etc.: This is quite a colourful number, with the art looking very good on average. However there are a lot of computer-generated images that don’t mesh with the rest of the art. Leaves me wondering if the person who posted the PDF was filling in blank spots that were left when the project was cancelled. Don't be afraid of the colour if wanting to print it, it prints well in black and white but the words are a little faint. The entire thing is about 230 pages long.
Conclusion: As a freely downloaded game, this is great value. If you are looking for classic RuneQuest it has a long way to go, but on its own merits is quite a good game. Actually the Warhammer RPG or Stormbringer would be closer in feel. What it really needs is what all new games need - a second edition. RPGs are like software, they are always released too early and always need debugging. For me the greatest amount of work is to expand it beyond the war gaming combat system into the more social aspects of world exploration. It's possible, but I always prefer the game designers to do it for me.
Footnote: my initial resistance to the glyph system was extreme until I replaced the word Clan with Cult. Suddenly I realised that you are meant to look at it in terms of becoming a RQ3 Runelord - the idealised representative of the cult's god on earth. That helped reduce my reluctance with the glyphs (not entirely as you may have noticed above) but also gave me an idea of how to incorporate magic users into the game. If you give the rune effect temporary duration (say an hour) you can buy rune slots with Hero Pts and cast runes like RQ3 divine spells and stack them for different effects as in the game normally. This would give you 'Runelords' (earns runes for permanent effects) and 'Runepriests' who cast temporary rune effects that have to be 'relearned' after casting.
Sorcerers would do a similar thing using temporary enchantment runes until they become runecarvers and learn to forge permanent enchantment runes.
Anyway, enough already. Check it out and lets see if we can get some real development in the system.
Cheers Stephen
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