[Rq-rules] Mongoose Runequest

[Nick.Middleton at invensys.com]

>No, it's very much RuneQuest. Not quite the same, but definitely a RQ.
>We need to decide, do we want to be grumpy ld men or not?
>Give it a fair trial, forget the playtest, see how it plays..

I did. It's called "RunQuest" because of a business deal, not because it
has any intrinsic link to the game Steve Perrin & Co designed back in the
seventies, and it's quite clear that whilst Stafford wanted it to be "the
same system, just not the same copyright words" (as S John Ross said at the
time on RPGNet, a morally troubling turn of phrase at very least), Sprange
not only didn't know RQ well, he didn't like most of what he DID know and
set out to change those things. Leaving aside the (being charitable)
brusque and thoughtless treatment of the Open Playtest group (and Steve
Perrin in particular), and anything else I still have the Open Playtest
files and I can quite clearly see from the previews that a number of things
I didn't like (or agree with) are still there (and some new things I
disagree with have been added). So, apart from a passing resemblance to
RQII and the name, it's mostly a game a lot of the detail of which I
already know I don't care for.

Why then, given that I HAVE RQII and III and just about every other BRP
game published, and the new BRP is on it's way (and which looks very much
to my taste) should I bother wasting money on MRQ? Not forgetting that the
MRQ SRD will be released shortly on the net basically for free if I'm THAT
interested in the rules, and that (Mongoose's claims aside) it is now clear
from their schedule and previews that in order to have a usable complete
set of MRQ rules one will need several books (and that the core book has
crept up in price) - MRQ, RQ Monsters and Companion at least? So it has the
name "RuneQuest" on it, so what? That name became merely a vacuous
trademark the moment Stafford and Chaosium got in to what ever childish
spat it was that had each other chasing the various trademarks in 99/2000 -
I am grateful to MRQ at least for making me realise that, and thus helping
severe my irrational attachment to the name "RuneQuest".

I will give the MRQ _settings_ a look (albeit Glorantha long ago stopped
appealing, I don't like the look or tone of the previews I've seen, and
Stafford's antics in the last year or so have done nothing to re-fire my
interest in Glorantha, and I was never that interested in the Arthur one),
and if Lankhmar is any good I might even buy it in my FLGS rather than
waiting for it to show discounted on eBay. But if I do buy the Lankhmar
book, it will be because I believe it to be well written, decently
produced, good value for money and will appeals to me - to buy it on any
other grounds would seem rather strange.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton