[Rq-rules] Mongoose Runequest

[Thomas Zunder]

Nick, we are not that far apart in opinion.

The playtest was crippling awful and in fact proves to me that it was  
a bad idea for Mongoose.
The current rules are very much a rewrite of the core RQ by Ken Hite  
to recreat his memory of what made RQ.
It then has some meta-stuff that is not very RQ on top, but just take  
it out (hero points, leg abilities).
Other bits are just another way of doing things that aren't wrong but  
are different, such as combat actions, or having only hit points in  
locations and no core hit points.

The fact that Mongoose bought the name doesn't mean it isn't RQ. It  
is as much a child of RQ as any other BRP game, and as such as worthy  
to use the name.

Now.. I may not actually play it as written.. but I think we need to  
be careful not the throw the baby out with the bathwater when it's  
actually on the shelves and will get new players into the BRP fold.

On 28 Jul 2006, at 10:03, Nick.Middleton at invensys.com wrote:

>> 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
>
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