[Rq-rules] Mongoose Runequest

[Adam Canning]

Last Weekend I picked up a copy of Mongoose's Runequest and the 
Adventure Rune of Chaos.

Thoughts so far.

The Credits don't seem to include either Perrin or Stafford. But have 
Sprange as both Author and Designer.

I miss almost everyone having small quantities of Battle/Spirit/Basic 
Magic. This version Magic is only for specialists who have POW to 
spare integrating Runes.

The new experience system is inferior to the old. [Basically get 
roughly one tick per 5 hours play you can put where you want but gain 
+1 to a skill if you fail to make the check.Increasing a Stat costs 
three ticks] Hero Points make for some odd effects especially since 
you'll want to save them up to become Runelords or Priests [The old 
needing skills etc no longer applying]. All non Siz stats being 
equally easy [or Hard] to increase. 

The Dodge, Resistance, Persistance Skill triad seems to show a 
preference for D&D's triune saving throws rather than the old stat 
rolls.

I don't see much of the point with the renaming of Spell Properties 
[Progressive rather than Variable] or the new nonstat based 
durations. 

Despite being 124 pages long it seemed less valuable as a single book 
game than RQ2 [While mentioning 6 magic systems it detailed only 1 
[With about as many spells as RQ2's Battle Magic but players will 
have less access to them], PC alchemy is hived off to another book, 
less monsters, Only three Magic Crystals] Most of this seems to be to 
push sales of the MRQ Companion and thus doubling the cost of the 
basic rules. The core rule book gives the impression of being padded 
with margins and text styles to fit the page count rather than being 
efficient.

The Adventure should have another name. This one gives away a plot 
point. It also isn't as much fun to run [or from comments play] as 
the Garhound Contest which has a similar plot. Other than apparantly 
being in the Barbarian belt [Probably] it has had almost all 
locational clues filed off. Plus the refernces to Elfs rather than 
Elves got on my nerves. [The Elfs appear to have no connection to 
Aldrya and the one that turns up seems more like a D&D Elf than an RQ 
one. Oh and the farming village has a plentiful supply of high 
quality bastard swords stockpiled.

Before anyone gets the impression I hated all of it, the new team 
tests and assistance rules were a nice addition. The number of 
actions a turn and fatigue rules might grow on me but I doubt it.

In general It looks like a game written by someone who didn't like 
most of the core memes of RQ2 or3

-- 
Adam Canning