Talk:RuneQuest

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It might be a good idea to point out that Hero Wars is now in a second edition and is called 'Hero Quest'. -- Trithemius

You should also add a real intro instead of that wimpy one liner about its publisher, write an overview there then go into detail further on.--Fliptopsean, a.k.a. Face 23:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

RQ Hasbro

It should probably be pointed out that ownership of the RuneQuest system is now in the hands of Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, who also publish D&D. And that some of the elements in the newest edition of the D&D system are very much like parts of RuneQuest, which may be due to the use of RQ elements in early house games by some WOTC designers. Lastly, perhaps there should be some mention of the rumored acquisition of the RuneQuest trademark (but not the system) by Issaries, Inc.?

peter@maranci.net

Hit Location

As a player of Runequest in the early/mid 80s, one of its most distinctive features to me was the hit location system for combat. That and the fact that characters were actually quite weak in terms of HP and that any opponent had a chance of hitting you made RQ a much more difficult and ‘realistic’ game than say, AD&D. In RQ, even a minor enemy could get a lucky hit, impale or critical, take out your sword arm or leg where the armour was weak and suddenly you were on the ropes.

This, in my experience, made the game less popular with many “power gamer” types and maybe counted against RQ in the market.

But since this is just my opinion and experience, I’d like to see other people’s points of view. --Affentitten 03:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

IMO, RuneQuest offered a number of innovations compared to the D&D and Tunnels and Trolls, the two major RPGs out at the time. Among them:

• The hit location system, as you mention
• Percentile-based skills
• The extremely flexible and tactical Strike Rank system of combat
• Battle Magic: Everybody knows a spell or two

Those are the major ones I can think of off the top of my head! Applejuicefool 13:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

D&D had hit locations and percentile based rolls for Thief skills (Greyhawk, Supplement I), before RQ. T&T had level-less design before RQ. Traveller had skill-based characters before RQ. Empire of the Petal Throne had a weird non-traditional setting before RQ. I'm not sure I'd call SR's that innovative either, they were just a followup of D&D's weapon speed, reach, and initiative rules.

I think what RQ had that made it great was the first complex AND coherent overall system. I don't think you can look too closely at each part of it, it's more the combination of parts that was innovative and amazing. 76.205.215.84 (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• • Excellent points made, sign up and get involved. You appear to have a good understanding of early RPG games. Why not edit the article to reflect your understanding. Citations would also be appreciated, we have so few. FruitMonkey (talk) 22:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup and references

I added a cleanup tag and an unreferenced tag to the article. Much of the article could probably be deleted, especially a lot of the unreferenced stuff. The section contrasting D&D with RuneQuest is one section in particular that needs editing for grammar and content. (Much of this article seems to consist of personal opinion.) Rray 21:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Utmost deletion might be extreme and even unpleasant. I suggest that not all of it be deleted (unless hard drive space as a commodity is vanishing) because quite a bit of the information is in reference what can be gleaned from the various books of Runequest. The comparison between D&D and Runequest, which might be what you are objecting largely to, is not of terribly objectionable content but should be supported with swift citation to the various versions of D&D and AD&D. If a person takes a look at these D&D rulebooks, they make a very early attempt to establish a generic system outside of any specific setting, incorporating myth, folklore, and popular fantasy fiction from a wide variety of sources. Hobbits and orcs from Middle-earth, and trolls, paladins and alignment from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, and exhaustible magic spells from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, among other concepts such as seven league boots and bags of holding from fairy tales.

Of course, perhaps the objection is to the mention of Warhammer and other games as potentially derived from Runequest. It appears that many roleplaying game fans of a specific system are alarmed to find that their favorite game is not quite so distinctive and original as they initially presume. Others do not seem to mind so much, though. 68.115.17.73 17:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Anonymous

The objection is that Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research. Drawing conclusions about the superiority of certain aspects of Runequest over D&D isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia article, unless there are appropriate citations of other authoritative sources on the matter. While I happen to personally agree that Runequest is a lot better than D&D on almost every level, the article isn't the place to point that out. Rray 20:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Re-acquired?

"At some stage in 2003 the rights to the trademarked name "RuneQuest" were reacquired by Issaries, Inc." - this is incorrect. Since Issaries hadn't owned the trademark to RuneQuest previously, this should read "acquired" not "re-acquired".

The tangled mess of the relationship between Chaosium, Greg Stafford, Issaries, and Hasbro would be a fascinating addition to the article, but I suspect that it would lead to far too many complications - there's simply too much controversy going on.

I do think it would be worthwhile to note that there is a break in the provenance of the RuneQuest system between RQ1/2/3 and Mongoose RuneQuest (which was created without the agreement of the original RuneQuest creators, nor with the agreement of the copyright-holders of the text of previous RuneQuest systems). But I'm sure that the result would be a delete war, so I won't bother.

Likewise, it should probably be noted that Chaosium's new D100/BRP system is actually closer to RuneQuest III than Mongoose RuneQuest is, but again, that may be too controversial. PMaranci 15:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point regarding "reacquired" vs. "acquired". I've edited the article to reflect that. If there is legitimate source material regarding "the tangled mess of the relationship between Chaosium, Greg Stafford, Issaires, and Hasbro" then that would certainly be a welcome addition to the article. The main thing to avoid is original research regarding the subject. Controversy is fine as long as it's factual and cited. Rray 18:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Mongoose RuneQuest

Considering that MRQ has been out for more then a year now, wouldn't it be appropriate to shift the bulk of the article around the current rather then prior versions of the rules, as is the case with Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay? Right now the page reads mainly as a history article, and does little to give readers info about the current state of the game, and how it's played, other then briefly mention it's current publishers. Avador (talk) 19:32, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a valid point, though on reading the D&D system I don't see it as reflecting the newer system, rather a history of the game. An encyclopedia should reflect the most notable features of an article, and therefore the RQ II rules were the most successful, had the most fans and is probably what people looking for the article want to access. The new system uses an almost identical game mechanics as the first version, so I'm not sure if stressing the Mongoose version is the way forward. Do you know how many copies of the rules they have sold? FruitMonkey (talk) 20:20, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

It's a good question, I'm not sure how successful MRQ has been. But considering that Mongoose is basing most of their new games supplements off of it, it's probably a safe bet that they are getting some profit out of it. Avador (talk) 01:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Mistake in the introduction?

Hi everybody, we currently can read this in the introduction of the article: and as of 2008 has produced a fourth version.... 2008? wasn't the fourth version (Mongoose Publishing) first published in 2006? Another point to comment: why talk about versions? aren't they editions? I know that an Avalon Hill fourth edition was aborted in 1994... but is that a good reason to avoid talking about a fourth edition concerning the Mongoose Publishing edition? 343KKT Kintaro (talk) 02:47, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Lack of mention of white bear, red moon

The game isn't mentioned, it's formative so this is a major ommission.

The ambiguous and curiously political status of the lunar empire isn't touched on.

I'm not even going to attempt to edit it. I've always seen the issue as political (since the end of the 1970's when I started playing RQ), but omission is not a good solution. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbowler (talk • contribs) 02:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Ship Sheets

Do we need the Ship Sheets picture? The Character Sheet picture seems to do enough. Plus, there is really no mention of ship sheets anywhere besides the picture's caption. ZedZed77 (talk) 22:25, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Worse still, both it and the character sheet are possibly copyright violations. The file uses two free licenses, but I can't find any evidence that the publisher agreed to them. I've asked the uploader to clarify the position. Feezo (Talk) 23:31, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Legacy

Basic Role Playing went on to shape many other games outside Chaosiums publication. Especially in Sweden, were BRP-derivations still dominates the role playing market.

I'm thinking of mentioning this in the Legacy section. Any objections? Joeldaalv (talk)

In fact, if we hold hit locations and the such as RQ exclusivities (rather than logical game development), the legacy of RQ is much more larger. Heck, Warhammer FRS could be seen as a RQ legacy.MVictorP (talk) 16:36, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Joseph Campbell reference

Throughout its existence, the game has been molded by designers and players alike into a complex mythology which is often linked to the teachings of professor Joseph Campbell.[citation needed]

I'm removing the above sentence from the intro. I've never heard of this connection with Campbell, there's no reference, and there's no mention on Campbell's page of any connection to Runequest, Glorantha, or Greg Stafford. Yorkist (talk) 04:56, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

Created by Steve Perrin ?

Steve Perrin was not the only author of the game, even if at one point he was the leading designer of RuneQuest. Just read How RuneQuest was Made in We Are All Us, the Greg Stafford personal website. Kintaro (talk) 01:40, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

SCA Relevance and Source?

Somewhere in the page it is written that "RuneQuest's system has been praised as a realistic, robust simulation." Is there a source for this statement? The fact that some of RQ's developpers were SCA means little, given that RPG was in its infancy. Nowadays, there are systems that undoubtely are more realistic, with features like dice roll with a Gauss curve instead of being linear, and a difficulty that varies depending on one's adversary rather than using a fixed number no matter what you try to attempt. The SCA doesn't include just fighters, but many courtesans types who never touched a weapon. I'd rather trust a guy who fought in the streets for fighting savy.MVictorP (talk) 16:44, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Passive voice weaseling and lack of citations.

The Setting and System sections of the article have no citations and are written in a positive manner that feels rather biased. Sentences like "RuneQuest's system has been praised as a realistic, robust simulation." are vague, unencyclopedic, and should be confined to parts of the article that are concerned with the game's reception. 2602:306:BCCD:4ED0:E6CE:8FFF:FE0C:1F80 (talk) 06:27, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Foreign editions

The article doesn't mention foreign editions, like Games Workshop (UK), Oriflam (France) and Hobby Japan (Japan) . 151.202.29.23 (talk) 01:31, 27 July 2015 (UTC) Taras

References

Fourth Edition Controversies

The article as it stands offers a milquetoast explanation for why RQ4 was shelved and offers no sources. The full story was one of much spicier, and newsworthy (resulting in legitimate news stories, though they didn't get the details quite right), event. Though I have no sources to hand so I am not editing it into the article as it stands, the fact is that the designer was caught up in a sex scandal and criminally charged with sexual assault. It seems that he was a "Gorean" who may not have made the full extent of that subcultural lifestyle known to his partner, and she responded predictably (and rightly). Now, while the complete details of this affair may not be fully relevant, it is misleading at best to attempt to paint the failure of RQ4 as just one of creative differences between the creator and publisher. If someone else has the citations handy, that would be great. Whateley23 (talk) 03:50, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

• Additional note: the "designer" and the "creator" of RQ4 are two different people, and neither is the author of the original RuneQuest. Whateley23 (talk) 03:52, 23 August 2024 (UTC)