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I’ve been involved with RPG’s one way or another and from one degree to another, since the mid 80’s. But I was always fairly discontent when it came to settling down with a system for long term use. Granted, settling down with a system may not be everyone’s cup of ale, but it does make campaign life easier!
I starting out playing and GM’ing Basic D&D 1983 edition and ICE’s Middle Earth Role Playing (MERP’s) 1st edition. However, a friend of mine who was my first GM was a Runequester. I was always impressed with the realism of that system, but not so impressed with the hassles he seemed to often get with it (I think he may have used 1st or 2nd edition). I eventually went on to do a very involved, loose sort of Freeform kind of Roleplaying that lasted for several years real time while my search for a system grew well out of proportion. There’s a lot of advantages to Freeform, but ultimately a lot of hassles also.
The search for a system I could settle on, cannibalize, etc., went on for years. I messed with AD&D, Rolemaster, Paranoia, Palladium 1st Edition, DragonQuest 2nd edition, and had a very serious investigation into Sword Path Glory (remember Lead Edge Games, the makers of such systems as Phoenix Command, Living Steel, and the Aliens RPG based on the movies?). These and more come to mind at the moment. Yet none of them fit the bill in the long run.
Granted, my time for RPG’s has not been evenly consistent over the years, but I recently got newly inspired to devote more time to role playing again, which certainly is one of my favorite pastimes and IMHO way more entertaining than TV. Now, it’s 2003 and guess what? After spending months of grueling hours reading RPG reviews online (especially here at RPGnet), it seems I have finally settled on something. Ironically, it’s RuneQuest (3rd edition), an “Old School” out of print RPG. But the fact that it is out of print does not mean there is no support. Plenty of online groups exist, and there is a lot of material floating around. As a matter of fact, I landed a new shrink wrapped copy of the RuneQuest III Deluxe Edition rules online at ebay on the cheap. All I can say is… wow. Later, I even turned around and bought a brand new spare copy of the very same thing on ebay, on the cheap!
History and Setting
In short, RuneQuest is a role-playing game that was first published by Chaosium, and later by Avalon Hill, between 1978 and 1995. In many ways, it was way ahead of the curve of D&D at the time, and followed right behind the heals of D&D when it came to popularity. The history of Runequest is messy and grim and others have gone into plenty of detail about it elsewhere. One things for sure, it was a refined system that had years to work itself out before mismanagement lead to its demise. The original releases of Runequest (prior to third edition, when Avalon Hill took over) were deeply intertwined with the incredibly rich and detailed world of Greg Stafford's Glorantha. For many players, RQ is Glorantha. While many argued that the true greatness of RuneQuest was it’s setting, others believed its mechanics set it apart from the other FRPGs of its day. I for one don’t give a rip about the setting, don’t care for magic systems at all, and don’t prefer the Runequest view of Elves (much preferring Tolkien’s take on them). Yet the times and feeling of Runequest is desirable for my purposes, as they are more akin to Robert E. Howard's Conan and a pre-historical age. The heroes of D&D are more akin to a pseudo medieval Europe in the times of pseudo-xtian knights, King Arthur, Merlin, all within a quasi-medieval world sometime around the10th-15th century (even on occasion encompassing gunpowder weapons). However, both games contain many elements from the same fantasy backgrounds.
On a side note about Conan, Mongoose Publishing, a leading British publisher of roleplaying games (such as Judge Dredd, Slaine, and Babylon 5), has acquired the license to produce an all new d20 D&D RPG based on Robert E. Howard's Conan. Mongoose will have access to the entire Conan universe including the original Robert E. Howard novels as well as subsequent Conan books by other authors, plus the film adaptations and even the Conan comics. This is rumored to come out around early 2004.
RuneQuest III System
The flexibility that I have been looking for in a system is here in RuneQuest so I can modify it to my own tastes, along with some very realistic rules (such as the awesome individual hit point location rules that the system was famous for). The original designers of RuneQuest were active members of the SCA (the Society for Creative Anachronism, a dedicated group in which members wear armor and fight with padded weapons, rule kingdoms spanning all over the U.S. and other countries, among other activities). Their experience of real-world fighting guided their design choices. Thus in RuneQuest, one can be wounded or incapacitated in a specific body part (ouch!). There are many choices in equipment and tactics, and ones choices actually make a difference in combat. Of course, some feel that combat in RQ takes too long, but at least the realism is present and this leads to combat in RQ being more deadly than in D&D. It also seems like there are probably reasonable ways to shorten combat, and various "In House" rules are available here and there online and are worth looking at.
Characters in RuneQuest are not strictly limited by an artificial "class". Instead, skills are more independent, so a character can pick, choose, and increase all sorts of skills and even statistics, leading to a sort of jack of all trades if that is desired. If not, one can mold their character to be more defined. Skills are percentile-based, i.e. ranging from 1 to 100 (or even higher, in later versions of the rules). And, when it comes to the artificial division that many role playing games often place between non-player-characters (NPCs), monsters, and PCs, RuneQuest gets rid of them by allowing all to having equal access to training, support, resources and the ability to improve with experience. Monsters are not just generic statistics. They are more real, alive, and even advancing and progressing with time (if the GM desires to do the necessary work and play it that way).
Why Palladium, my second choice, flew out the window
Sure, some of the things that RuneQuest does can be done with other systems now, but RuneQuest did it long ago, and even encourages us to mess with the rules. That’s not the kind of thing that one generally gets these days from companies who want you to buy, buy, buy, their latest supplement, rule book, etc. And that leads me to one other issue. To be honest, I came very close to settling down with Palladium. With all of Palladiums talk about most of their products being compatible with one another in the Palladium "Megaverse", such sounded like a good deal. But, the more I looked into it, and the more Palladium books I bought (sheesh), I began to realize that all was not well in the minds of the Palladium creators.
Actually, Palladium is beginning to feel more and more like how old T was. One example right off is to be found on the back of their Revised Ninja’s and Superspies game (a well written martial art cyber-punk system in itself), which claims: "Now compatible with Heroes Unlimited, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness, Rifts, and the entire Palladium Megaverse". However, way inside the back of the book on pg. 163 of the Revised Edition, in the very first paragraph of the conversion rules: "Adding the Martial Art forms from Ninja’s and Superspies can add an interesting twist to any Palladium RPG fantasy campaign. However, the characters in Ninjas and Superspies are designed to hold their own in a Heroes Unlimited or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle campaign, so they’re far too powerful [italic emphasis theirs] for the fantasy game." All of this just appears to indicate that Palladium systems are not as interchangeable as they seem to be on the surface, at least not without some work. In fact, on pg. 163 again, they go on to give Ancient Martial Artist O.C.C. stats, and yet state that when it comes to selecting martial art forms: "It’s up to the Game Master to decide which forms will be available. For example, the inclusion of Ninjitsu may serious imbalance an existing Palladium campaign." Just great, and it seems like the inclusion of plenty other things could imbalance it as well.
Thinking of getting the Palladium Fantasy RPG 2nd edition? Well, I came close. I owned the 1st edition way back when and thought, maybe I could give the Palladium fantasy system another shot. After all, I have Palladium’s Compendium of Weapons, Armour, and Castles (which they have now recently split up!), and I have their Compendium of Contemporary Weapons, and their Monsters & Animals sourcebook. Who knows what I could do with all the characters types in the fantasy system and with these books. Well, another catch (insert T flashback here) is that the Monsters & Animals sourcebook contains everything you could imagine (and some things not worth imagining), EXCEPT the main staple creatures like ORCS and DRAGONS. You get Orcs in the Palladium 2nd Edition rules, but Dragons and Cults and such are now separated from the rules and have their own book, which currently is out of print! Etc., Etc… Besides, from some of the reviews I have read, it sure sounds like Palladium 2nd edition has gone more in the power gamming style of Palladium’s Rifts anyway.
Final Thoughts
There is a downside to systems that have many source books. Things go out of print, and it makes it hard. With RuneQuest 3rd Edition, everything you need comes with the rules including a decent collection of monsters, beasts, etc. There is an optional Monster Manual, which, though also out of print, I happened to score somewhere online through a book search. Seems like I’m set for life. In the end, whether or not you give RuneQuest III a try is up to you, but if your going to get into a system for the long haul you might try to go for one that is going to be an all around balanced system, independent of the need for consecutive releases of expanding sourcebooks. It’s great to have extra material around, but to make such basically essential is a hassle. The recourses and support and whatnot of some new systems may be cool, but a system that does not help you to use the number one resource you have (that lump of brain tissue between your ears) by providing you with everything necessary in one volume is not worth long term commitment IMHO.
