British Runequest

Runequest 3rd Edition is mainly known as booklets in a box from Avalon Hill, at least in the US. It's also known for not being over-illustrated to be kind. It's the version I played the most back in the 80's, but there was another version released by Games Workshop in the UK.

The Avalon Hill version:

It's not terrible but it's all sparse black and white line art.


The GW version:

Also, they are hardcover books. They do have the infamous 80's GW binding which means they will come apart on you, but it's still cooler than a pink paper pamphlet.

The internal art is very different:

I'm pretty sure that's a chaos warrior from Warhammer. In fact, Warhammer's 3rd edition (where they went to hardbacks with some color inside) came out the same year as this book (1987).

 More warhammer style art.

Even the black and white art is from warhammer. This gives the book a very different look and feel than the restrained presentation of the AH version. Not all of the art is repurposed from the miniatures game but even the other pieces use a lot of the same artists and so have a similar style.

Some stay that art in an RPG doesn't really matter. I will use this as a prime exhibit that it does, The art in here appeals to the 16-year-old in me way more than the AH version. Pictures of people picking fruit or preparing food or guys in weirdly ornate armor in weird landscapes or surging in the middle of a mass battle? That's an easy choice.

I'm sure a lot of this was dictated by the decisions to separate the rules from Glorantha in this edition. once you lose a setting like that you need something strong to replace it. "Fantasy Europe" as presented was not all that compelling in the AH version. GW's unstated but definitely illustrated option of Warhammer is much much stronger. It's not as culturally developed as Glorantha, but it's a visceral world full of conflict, magic, and enough history to get a party going.

I was a little surprised at the timing on this one when I went back and checked. GW had released the Warhammer Fantasy RPG in 1986. This came out a year later. There are enough similarities that I would guess RQ was one of the games the WFRP designers had played previously, probably more so than D&D or AD&D. I'm guessing RQ was popular enough to make it worth printing a new version - especially if you could save money by re-using Warhammer art - but it had to be separate from the WFRP line due to licensing  restrictions. It's an interesting situation where one company had two fantasy RPG's in print at the same time.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting enough to share. If you're a Runequest fan they're worth checking out.

The Fantasy Non-Option

Weirdly, the decision to go with Deadlands as the main game has me thinking about what kind of fantasy game I would want to run the next time it comes up. In between chapters of the main Reloaded book and The Flood I am flipping through a few others and making some notes. I'm mainly concerned with getting the new game pointed in the right direction but these other things are still leaking in.

My campaign notes and binders for 4E still feel like something I need to revisit. There is still a lot to explore there. One of these days we will. I don't think I need to make a bunch of new stuff, it's more that I'd like to "finish" what we started in them. As much as a relatively open campaign can be finished.

For 5E I do have some ideas, many of them revolving around playing through some of the older classic adventures that some of my players, mainly the Apprentices, have never experienced. It might be a way to finish out the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign outside of the 4E version I had worked up. The main open question here is setting - homebrew? In that case old or new? Greyhawk? It's been a long time. Forgotten Realms? I used it exclusively for 4E, don't know that I need to go there again for 5E but my players know it and seem to like it. I'd like to do something again with the Scarred Lands but I'm not sure 5th is the best fit for it. This one is still "TBD" for now.

Dungeon Crawl Classics - It's its own thing. If we keep playing it I plan to make it a world of its own. I'm having fun with the published adventures and I am pretty sure I can string those together into the beginnings of a campaign setting of my own. Maybe a variation of the whole Dragonport thing I used for my Basic games. The plan forward here is to finish our intro adventure, run through a level 1 adventure, and see what people want to do next.

This brings us to Runequest. Runequest of all things! I've never run it. I've never been a Glorantha-phile. I played it for a while 20 years ago and thought it was fun but it's never been in demand with my group of players. That RQ 2 Kickstarter material though has stirred up some things. I could run it, and I think I could make it quite a bit of fun. I've always thought of Glorantha as having more pre-existing lore than I would enjoy tangling with but the early books, this 2E stuff, is much more "here are some cool things" than the commandment-level scripture style that it comes across as in later stuff. I'm not afraid to bend lore in game worlds to better fit what I want to do with the game and this version of the stuff seems much more bendable.

For RQ I have two main ideas:

• Glorantha - my take on Glorantha. I have one player who played in that same long-ago game that I did and remembers enough of the setting that he could help the other players get familiar with things. I'd probably use Pavis/Big Rubble as the focus of the game. No metaplot, just RQ characters exploring a big ruined city.  I kind of have a thing for those, with Return to the Ruins of Adventure being the biggest example. I think trying it in this world with these mechanics would be a blast. Plus it's authentically retro, not a modern attempt to do a throwback, and that makes it that much cooler. 
• Mythic Greece - RQ supports magic everywhere, weird mythic beasts, and a generally lower level of tech than most D&D games nowadays. Why not take that somewhere besides Glorantha? Why not the age of the Greek myths? Gods, monsters, heroes, wars, cults - all of that fits really well here. Adapt some of the Goranthan cults and the rune stuff to the Olympian age and see where it goes. I had a campaign outline worked up for a 4E game that never went that far and it could be adapted here. I have some adventure ideas too. I think it's a solid fit between system and genre. the trick is convincing the players that it's a good idea. It's also a chance to run RQ without the Glorantha cultural baggage that sometimes bogs the players down. 

So there are a lot of options for the "someday" fantasy game. I'll keep making some notes and doodling some maps and then one day there will be a need and off we will go. 

Campaign Status and the What's Next Conundrum

If you're a GM who's running an ongoing campaign you know there is some pressure to have some idea of what's happening "next" - next session, next month, next year, etc. In a heavily plotted campaign it's somewhat easier to manage as there's a plot to follow. With a sandbox campaign you might have the local region sketched out and some idea of what's going on there. You have to be careful though because players have a tendency to wreck detailed plans as fast as you can come up with them. My approach is not to waste time on a lot of detail for more than the next session or two and just have an outline, a sketch, of what's going on where and how the players might stumble into it. For me, the sweet spot is "I know where we are and I have some idea of where we might go next".

Right now the existing campaigns are in a pretty good place:

• With Pathfinder we are working our way through an adventure path - no worries there. We'll be playing it for another year most likely.
• With d6 Star Wars I know where they are going at the end of the current hyperspace jump and I have an idea of what is there. No worries here either. This will be a largely player-driven space sandbox with no particular destination in mind on my part. 
• With Deadlands the Apprentices are in the middle of an adventure - a short one, but still - so the next session or two is pretty straightforward. Long term we will probably investigate some of the published adventures.
• With ICONS I have an adventure I want to run so when we get time and interest that's what we will do.  It should be a single session so it will continue our nicely episodic approach to that game. Down the road I have several adventures I like plus some homebrew ideas to explore. 
• With M&M I also have an adventure I want to run. It is not a single-session type and will probably take 5 or 6 to complete. The trick is finding a window where all of the players who start it could continue to meet every week or two in order to finish it. I really want to run it and I don't want it to fall apart or have a 3-month break in the middle so I'm being picky about starting it. It may be an "intermission" between the Pathfinder AP books 3 & 4. 
• Marvel Heroic is one we only play every once in a while but we always have a really good time when we do. The good thing is that I have a definite (though pretty flexible) campaign in mind for it and we are ready to start the second chapter of that the next time we play. Plenty of material ready to go!
• The best thing about Savage Worlds apart from the system itself is the plot point campaigns - typically it's a setting, a campaign outline, and supporting adventures all in one book. It means I always have "one in the chamber", ready to go, for at least six different campaigns.  

Before anyone gets too jealous let me say a lot of these games are not on any regular schedule. We played Star Wars d6 twice in July, and if we're lucky we will work in another session labor day weekend, and I'm not sure when the next one will be between then and Thanksgiving. The boys are still excited about it, I just don't have all 3 of them here very often. We had our second or third Deadlands session of the year then too, and the last Marvel game was in February. I tend to have one or two games running on any kind of regular schedule and the rest drop in when we can manage it.  

Other games on the horizon are a little less set:

• For FFG Star Wars I have a pretty good idea of where and how I want to start and where I want to go after that but a lot of it will depend on actually getting a game started and seeing what the players want to do. I could probably summarize it as a 12-episode outline with some notes but that might be getting a little carried away at this point. 
• The DCC RPG has a lot of published adventures but no particular, expressly stated setting. I have chosen one to use as a starting point (probably one good session) and then one more as a follow-up (probably 1-2 more good sessions). I figure 3 sessions of material is plenty for a new game. After that we will have to see how much everyone likes it and how we want to continue. If I need a world to play in I have a homebrew I have used for Basic/Labyrinth Lord in the past and I would likely just adapt it as it has some similar flavorings. I might also set it in Greyhawk. Not sure, have to see how it goes. 
• Runequest: I have a nice retro-rulebook and an idea of what I would like to do with it for a session or two. That's enough to get a game going.
• For Trek I have a fairly solid idea on where to start for a Next Gen campaign and I'm working on a TOS idea too.  

The odds that I will run multiple sessions of all 4 of these before the end of 2016 is slim. I'd like to at least have a try-out session of all of them but even that is tricky. 

The real conundrums:

• Savage Rifts: The rules look great and I have a bunch of material ... and that's the problem! I wrote up my previous experiences with starting a Rifts campaign here but I still haven't decided what I want to do with the next one. There are plenty of options, I just don't know where I want to start things up.
• 5th Edition: I had mixed feelings about my first experience as a player but I want to give it another chance. I don't really like what I've read of the big published campaigns so I'l be homebrewing or converting some stuff that I do like. Part of it is going to be influenced by setting:
• Back to the Realms? Maybe a Return to the Ruins of Adventure again? Give Haunted Halls a try? Finally try that Waterdeep game I think about every few years? Also - when should it take place?
• Greyhawk? I haven't touched it in years but I've had a lot of fun there. Plus most of the classic adventures have a home there. Maybe run the Temple/Giants/Drow in the original setting?
• Scarred Lands? This was my favorite 3E setting and there's a 5E version of it due out soon from a Kickstarter. Because Pathfinder exists I can't see us going back to 3E any time soon and I like running PF in it's own setting so Scarn is not likely to get attention that way either. 
• Homebrew? I have more than a few worlds of my own, some of which were written for D&D games a long time ago. I could dust one of them off and see where it goes. 
• Wild cards: Eberron? Probably not. Dark Sun? Nah. Primeval Thule? That one does look interesting. 

Beyond all this I still have other stuff I want to try. I'd like to introduce the boys to Traveller and Gamma World. I'd like to run through an old Marvel Super Heroes adventure. I'd like to play some old DC Heroes with the crew. FASA Trek sits there staring at me on the shelf. Champions awaits a rebirth for at least a one-shot. Then by next year we're going to have the Mutant Crawl Classics stuff from that Kickstarter, Freedom City for M&M 3E, a new Star Trek game, and I'm sure there will be a Savage Worlds Kickstarter of some kind because they seem to have at least one every year now. 

Then there are the mini's and the boardgames.

Man, I need more time.

Anyway, there's the present and the future and at least as many questions as answers. The good thing is that in between all of the grown-up stuff, work. relationships, and all of the kid stuff we still manage to find time to have fun with this stuff too. 

Investigations into a Fantasy Campaign

(other than Pathfinder, that is)

Reading some rulebooks and playing some Pillars of Eternity has me thinking about some other options at the table.

• Re-read RQ2 a while back and got the itch to try it out. I like Glorantha enough to play there but I'm thinking about using Caverns of Thracia for the first run, maybe setting it in a more Roman-type setting than Dragon Pass. For a test run I don't need to overthink the setting.  
• I re-read the 5th ediion D&D PHB too and I feel like I should give it another chance. I was all fired up about Pathfinder and coming off of 4th Edition when I last tried it. I might be more willing to find it's strengths now as simpler and faster definitely has its own attraction again. Thinking about using Thracia here too. Also considering Ptolus, as I haven't run a big city based campaign in a long time. Or I could pick up Temple of Elemental Evil again ...
•  I'm all over the Mutant Crawl Classics Kickstarter and that got me thinking I should really re-read the original DCC and of course that has me thinking that we need to try it out too. I'm thinking Stonehell would be a good fit for it after the initial carnage of zero level.
• Then of course looking over my Stonehell notes, we could have played some Labyrinth Lord at any time the past few years and probably had a blast. 

So many adventures - faster and simpler is huge. All of these games look like a good time waiting to happen. 

Something Old and Something New

The RQ2 Reprint Kickstarter payoff arrived last week and over the weekend I actually had enough quiet time to read the whole thing. I like it. There's a practicality to it,  a very definite sense that this developed in play and was not sent out with zero playtesting. One example: You improve stats and skills by paying for training, in addition to experience. That's something we never used much in my prior RQ playing experiences, but it makes a ton of sense as far as a playable solution to character improvement. It also implies a ton about the world, way beyond Glorantha-this and Lunar Empire-that - there are fighting guilds, temples, and other organizations that provide this training, even going  so far as to do it on credit to new adventurers! Yes, "adventurer" is a known and widely accepted occupation. In a world full of ruins and monsters that seems eminently reasonable - and practical.

It's also very clear the influence of the SCA experience of the primary author, Steve Perrin. Combat is all about weapon types, weapon length, the order an attacker might be able to strike vs. different weapons, how much one might reasonably carry and still be effective in a fight. Including Size as a stat is another sign of this as it plays a role in a bunch of combat elements. With Apprentice Red in a similar organization at school I'm picking up on a lot of the influences here - moreso than i did before, anyway.

The whole book is written in a conversational tone that  I found incredibly appealing. It's something you just do not see in modern RPG writing. Comments like how an referee certainly could track a bunch of different elements if they wanted to overburden themselves, but in the writer's opinion it's simpler to just do X. It's very different than the contemporary (circa 1980) Gygaxian I was immersed in at the time, and it's very different form what I see in books today too It's personal without being ego-driven, which can be a tricky balance to strike. It's much more like how I think   I would want to write a RPG supplement if I ever got around to doing that - that's intended as a compliment!

We've already agreed within out group to run a session of RQ and see how my mix of veterans, experienced non-RQ'ers, and millennials take to it. I'll let you know how that goes.

On a different note, while I was re-reading some of my Savage Worlds stuff last week I got to thinking about how it would make for a really strong Star Wars ruleset. I started looking up conversions online, dug out some of my d6, Saga, and even Star Frontiers stuff with an eye towards outlining how I might use it. I also came across my AoR book and reviewed our playtest of the Beginner Box and how much fun we had with it, and started thinking I should really give this set another chance. So after I finished reading RQ I sat down and read AoR.

This is the serendipitous path we all tread at times. Honestly I was really happy to find the time to read two RPG books in detail in one day.

Maybe reading RQ helped open up my mind a bit, but I think I get the FFG system's appeal now. There are some touches with Marvel Heroic in the whole "building a dice pool" thing and we love that game. I know it's a giant rulebook, much like the Pathfinder ruelbooks, but it is a very different approach from PF mechanically and I think we could have a lot of fun with it. I'll have more on it next week but I am furiously thinking up campaign options in between the rest of life and at some point it will click and we will set up a one-shot to try it out. Also, there are a lot of cool things being done for this game by players - for example:

I still think Savage Worlds would handle Star Wars really well, and I may try it too. One nice touch is that both games, SW and AoR/EotE/F&D are mechanically light enough that you can put NPC's on cards. My take on the SW ones is here, an example of FFG's is here. I really like that these exist. Going back to my RQ take, they are very practical, an approach and an item that's intended to help you actually run games and not just sit on a shelf! That's becoming more and more of a factor for me in games: Is it a good game, is it fun, will my players have any interest in playing it, and is the "work factor" in running it high or low?

More to come!