Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
1 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
A Bright Beginning
Title: RuneQuest (I)
Published: 1978 by Chaosium.
Authors: Steve Perrin and Ray Turney, with Steve Henderson, Warren James, Sven Lugar (uncredited)
and Greg Stafford.
In 1978 a new roleplaying game burst onto the scene: RuneQuest. It was the first skill-based RPG, and
featured a number of other innovations that would go on to influence roleplaying game design forever
after.
The game also featured Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha, which had been previously used in board games such as
White Bear & Red Moon, Nomad Gods, and Dragon Pass (all published by Chaosium). Parts of the rules were initially
published in roleplaying APAs such as The Wild Hunt and Alarums & Excursions. Comparatively few copies of
RuneQuest I were produced, and it is now extremely rare. Nonetheless, the game was popular enough to inspire a
second edition.
The Early Days
Just a quick note on the early history of RuneQuest. The first person to try to do a
Gloranthan RPG was Dave Hargrave, using his Arduin Grimoire rules. For whatever
reasons, Greg was dissatisfied with those and handed the job over to three White Bear
and Red Moon fans, Ray Tierney, his brother Art, and a gentleman named Henrik Pfeifer
(sp?). Art was pretty much the driving force in this group. They came up with the idea of
spending money AND experience points for skills and allowing character classes to crosstrain. At this point, I don't recall if there was a penalty for cross-training or not.
Things were moving slowly with them, and for reasons I am not sure of, except that Jeff
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
2 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
Pimper and my All the Worlds Monsters seemed to be doing well for Chaosium and my
name was on The Perrin Conventions for playing D&D, Greg asked me to look in and see
if I could help out the situation. I was inspired by what they had done and started adding
things like throwing away experience points, having a flat number of hit points, throwing
away classes, adding Strike Ranks, etc. Some of these things I came up with on the fly,
others, like Strike Ranks, were things I was experimenting with in my D&D games.
I kept using slack time at work and the company's electric typewriters to publish rule
change after rule change, including recording Ray's tweaks of the magic system, and
essentially I became the voice of RuneQuest (which I also named). Art and Henrik dropped
out of the process, but Ray hung on and we added Steve Henderson and Warren James
(two of my SCA friends) to the author list and took input from other friends like Les "Sven"
Lugar and Terry Jackson.
And in 1978, two years after I started working on it, RuneQuest was born.
- Steve Perrin
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
attempted to add back in some of the original ideas that were very Rune oriented but
Mongoose chose to reject that approach. So [...] questing for Runes was once a primary
focus of the system though admittedly it was prior to publication or for those who were
involved with the original playtest. I am still using it as a plot line in my current campaigns.
- Sven Lugar (designer of the Resistance Table, "I just consider myself a minor contributor")
Side Notes
Title: Basic Role-Playing
Published: 1980 by Chaosium.
Authors: Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis.
This 16-page booklet is a simplified version of the RuneQuest system. It's a common misconception
that RuneQuest was based on this book, but in fact BRP was based on RQ. It became the basis of
most of Chaosium's later games, such as Call of Cthulhu, ElfQuest, Superworld, Elric, Stormbringer,
Hawkmoon, Ringworld, and others. This membership in the BRP family gives all these games strong
(but not perfect) compatibility. Chaosium's Arthurian RPG, Pendragon, can be considered to be the
most distantly-related member of the BRP family; the connection is fairly tenuous.
Several foreign-language editions and expansions of BRP were published by European game companies and
flourished, but in the USA Basic Role-Playing itself was not highly successful; no supplements were released for it in
the English language. However, some BRP-derived games by Chaosium were successful, most notably Call of
Cthulhu, which is based on the writings of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and is still in print today. New
supplements continue to be produced for CoC, and also for Chaosium's Stormbringer, one of several games set in the
multiverse of British author Michael Moorcock.
3 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
4 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
5 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
6 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
setting than Glorantha (but still a well-crafted one, with the lively humor that Chaosium was noted for). It
included several scenarios, and a few Questworld supplements were later published.
TrollPak (1982) broke new ground: this award-winning racial supplement contained virtually everything anyone
could want to know about the Uz, the trolls of Glorantha. Among the wealth of material was a complete Troll
menu (from an establishment called "Thunderbreath Gobbleguts"), and a medically-precise illustration of a
dissected troll which would not be out of place in Grey's Anatomy!
This is only a partial list, of course. And in addition to Chaosium, Judges Guild also published some RQII material such
as Legendary Duck Tower (1980), among others. Chaosium's magazine Different Worlds covered a variety of game
systems, but RuneQuest was always a heavily featured subject. Wyrm's Footnotes was a less-formal periodical from
Chaosium with an exclusively RQ/Glorantha focus.
The RuneQuest supplements published by Chaosium in the early 1980s set a new industry standard for quality. The
writing was clear, highly readable and filled with deft touches of humor; the books read as well as they played.
Illustrative fiction was frequently interspersed in the text, but unlike much game-related fiction up to that point, this
fiction was actually well written. It was possible to play a scenario straight through from the book, or simply flip open
a supplement to extract a few useful ideas. And the books were packed full of ideas. The RuneQuest supplements of
the early 1980s were at that point far and away the most conceptually rich RPG materials ever published. Fortunately,
many of these supplements have been made available in new editions by Moon Design Publications.
Special: HeroQuest
From the first, RQ players were intrigued by references to a "higher" level of gaming: HeroQuesting. Set in the mythic "God Time" of
Glorantha, HeroQuests surpassed the ordinary mundanity of Gloranthan existence and allowed individuals of incredible power to interact with
the gods and basic forces of the universe. Success in HeroQuesting could allow a character to become a Demi-Hero, a Hero, a Superhero
(not the caped kind), perhaps even a god. But although Chaosium often referred to HeroQuest as an upcoming product, it was never
published. Apparently some HeroQuests were run in-house at Chaosium, but the rules used were a matter of speculation. Fans created a
wide variety of add-on HeroQuesting rules for RuneQuest and designed their own HeroQuests, inspired by fiction in such works as the
RuneQuest Companion.
Eventually Milton Bradley published a major board game under the name HeroQuest. Chaosium had apparently failed to get or maintain the
rights to the name. But fans and publications still referred to HeroQuests, and many continued to create their own versions for their own
campaigns. Some can still be found online, many years later.
Much later, Milton Bradley gave up the trademark for HeroQuest (the boardgame had long since gone out of print). Greg Stafford's Issaries
company picked up the rights to the name, and the next major revision of their non-BRP-derived Hero Wars RPG was called HeroQuest. It
has kept that name ever since.
So now there are several kinds of "HeroQuests" in the gaming business. When it comes to RuneQuest, however, there are HeroQuests which
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
7 of 21
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
were designed for RuneQuest II and III using the Gloranthan setting, which have no relation to the Gloranthan RPG HeroQuest - which is,
now, the official Gloranthan system. Confusing, isn't it?
RQ 2 or II?
In 2010 Mongoose Publishing released a second version of their RuneQuest system which they called "RuneQuest II". This was not the
original RuneQuest II, and was in fact quite different from it. That version of the rules became the basis of their Legend system when their
agreement with Issaries ended (which required them to give up using Glorantha as a setting).
RuneQuest III
Title: RuneQuest (III)
Published: 1984 by Avalon Hill.
Authors: Steve Perrin, Greg Stafford, Steve Henderson, Lynn Willis, Charlie Krank, Ray Turney,
Ken Rolston, and Sandy Petersen.
RuneQuest III included several changes from previous versions. The three most notable were
conversion from a 5%-incremental percentile-based system to a true percentile mechanic; the
decoupling of Glorantha from the main rulebook with the introduction of a new default world called
Fantasy Earth (although Glorantha was still the major focus of the system, and a Glorantha Book
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
was packaged with the original set); and the addition of a third school of magic, Sorcery. The
system was somewhat "genericized" at this time, although it remained within the bounds of
general fantasy roleplaying.
Fan feelings about these changes were mixed. The consensus seemed to be that most of the mechanics changes were
improvements, but that the Sorcery system was a questionable addition. The lack of a flexible character design
system was decried. In addition, the de-emphasis of Glorantha disappointed many. Some, of course, remained
diehard RQII proponents.
A Common Misconception: Even more than twenty years after the publication of RuneQuest III, some fans blame Avalon Hill for flaws that
they see in the system. In fact, RuneQuest III was designed in-house by Chaosium, as can be seen instantly by simply looking at the list of
authors for each edition.
We may, however, legitimately blame Avalon Hill for the initial abysmal physical production values of RuneQuest III, which were not corrected
for more than five years.
Avalon Hill published RQIII from 1984 through 1995. During the 80's fans were deeply disappointed. The core game
had been published in three different ways: a Players Set, a GMs Set, and a complete Deluxe Set consisting of the
Players and GMs sets. All were boxed sets, with the game broken up into several stapled pamphlets. These were so
flimsy that they often literally fell apart after a mere few weeks of use, forcing RQ players to make heavy use of
reinforcing tape. This flimsiness was especially unfortunate since the price of the new RuneQuest material was
extremely high, particularly in Europe.
Supplements came out rarely, and were usually disappointing. Old RQII material was updated and recycled, but the
process was not handled well; in one case the same material was cut up and included in three different supplements.
Beloved classic works such as Griffin Mountain (released as Griffin Island for RQIII) were rewritten to remove
Gloranthan references, but much of the unique fun quality of RQII and Glorantha was removed in the process. It took
years for much of the old material to see daylight again, and fans felt that since these were only rewrites of alreadyexisting material, the process was taking far too long.
New non-Gloranthan material ranged from good to horrendous. The quality of art (mostly awful) was an in-joke
among fans ("chop Dobyski's hands off!"). The system, once the primary challenger to AD&D (although always a
rather distant second in terms of sales), dropped back into relative obscurity.
8 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
Early in the 1990's, however, a new spirit began to energize RuneQuest. This was fueled to a large extent by the
growing popularity of the Internet. Online activity increased steadily. The RuneQuest Digest (a mailing list which also
had a weekly digest version) served as a locus for players and writers to discuss the game and create new material.
Amateur publications were put together by various groups, some of surprisingly good quality. RuneQuest conventions
of various names appeared in Europe and later in America (RQ has always been popular in Europe, particularly in the
United Kingdom, although Chaosium is based in California). A new editor (aka "Rune Czar") was installed at Avalon
Hill: Ken Rolston, one of the authors of the RQIII rulebook. He had also written some RQII material for Chaosium, and
had a solid reputation with RuneQuest fans. Ken recruited writers from the fan base and published well-illustrated new
Gloranthan material. It was the age of the RuneQuest Renaissance.
A new perfect-bound edition of the RuneQuest rules was released, containing all of the rules and errata in a single
reasonably sturdy collection. Talk of a new RuneQuest IV flowered during this time, too. Several early playtest
editions were written. Unfortunately, however, the RuneQuest Renaissance was all too brief.
Trouble In Paradise
The RuneQuest audience had begun to split between those who saw RuneQuest as a mere vehicle for discussion and
exploration of the world of Glorantha, and those who saw Glorantha as one good (but not indispensable) setting for
an outstanding FRP rules system. The majority of fans ended up in the first camp, and the RuneQuest Digest/Daily
mailing list became a hotbed of a new breed of Gloranthan "scholar". The list began to see discussions of amazing
obscurity, focusing on Gloranthan issues both minute and esoteric.
But some of the new Glorantha fans were far less friendly and tolerant of "error" than the older fans had been. The
ever-growing complexity of Glorantha (and Greg Stafford's penchant to frequently revise elements of the world and its
history, a habit which came to be called "Gregging"), was daunting to those roleplayers who looked at the world
primarily as a setting for a fun RPG, rather than an end to itself. The amount of Gloranthan information available
became so great that the learning curve was forbidding to some new players. What's more, a good deal of the
material was self-contradictory, reflecting Stafford's policy of semi-subjectivism (i.e. previously-released Gloranthan
lore might have been deliberately or mistakenly misreported by "historians"). This was clever from a
sociology/anthropology perspective, but it produced confusion and arguments among fans, too.
The split in the fan base deepened. Likewise, the RuneQuest Digest split into two camps, and ended up as two
separate lists: The Gloranthan Digest, which became the home of Gloranthan scholarship, and the RuneQuest-Rules
list, which served (and still serves) the smaller but still substantial number of fans of the RuneQuest system. Of
course many subscribed to both lists. Both lists are still active as of Summer 2011, incidentally. Archives of previous
versions of the RuneQuest-Rules list are also available.
9 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
RuneQuest IV?
The RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha project was headed by Oliver Jovanovic. It was an attempt to update the
RQIII rules by adding more detail: three different levels of skill difficulty, a highly complex character design system,
and a new Sorcery system. RuneQuest III's flawed Fatigue and ENC systems were also given the major overhaul they
needed. Glorantha was, as advertised, re-integrated into the game. For the first time, the western section of the
continent of Genertela was to be heavily detailed.
Some complained that the new rules were far too complex at a time when RPGs were trending toward simplicity.
Others argued that realism and effective simulation was RQ's strong point, and should be maintained. Healthy but
cheerful debate was widespread, and it seemed likely that the playtest process would result in a superior edition of the
game.
But despite appearances, the future wasn't bright for RQ:AiG.
With the brief exception of the Renaissance, RuneQuest fans had been extremely disappointed by the poor support
that the system had received from Avalon Hill. Chaosium, it turned out, felt likewise. Avalon Hill had made strong
representations to them of outstanding support for RuneQuest, and - except briefly under Rolston - the reality had
fallen very far short of that promise.
10 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
In 1994 Greg Stafford decided that he didn't approve of the way RQ:AiG handled Glorantha, and the project was
halted. At about the same time relations between Chaosium and Avalon Hill deteriorated to a new low. It was rumored
that Chaosium had offered a substantial payment to Avalon Hill's President, Jack Dott, for the rights to the RuneQuest
system, and that this offer was refused. Chaosium and Avalon Hill broke off relations.
Chaosium pulled all rights to Glorantha at that point. Avalon Hill was allowed to sell the Gloranthan RuneQuest
material that they had already printed, but were not allowed to print any more.
Unexpectly, and before anyone was ready for it, RuneQuest III was dead.
Enter Issaries
In the summer of 1997, Chaosium announced plans to create a new Gloranthan RPG company: Issaries, Inc..
Incorporation papers were filed in California on 11/20/1997.
It was announced that a new, better, more appropriate rules system would be created for Glorantha under the
Issaries label. Rumors flew. Some speculated that it would be based on David Dunham's popular PenDragon Pass
system; a Glorantha-customized form of Chaosium's "Pendragon" Arthurian RPG (which, as noted earlier, was a
11 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
relatively distant member of the BRP family, being d20 based and therefore not as compatible with RQ as most BRP
systems). Others claimed that a new cutting-edge system would be created, specifically designed to allow full
scalability; in other words, a system that would work both for mundane, relatively low-power characters as well as
extremely powerful ones, thus filling the niches both of RuneQuest and the long-promised HeroQuest. Until the
system was created, Chaosium would publish "systemless" books about Glorantha.
A Gloranthan-specific system called Hero Wars was eventually published by Issaries, but the mechanics were
completely unrelated to any version of RuneQuest, and the design philosophy ("cutting-edge" and scalable, but rather
minimalistic and free-form) was also not compatible with RuneQuest. In a later edition Hero Wars was renamed
HeroQuest, but this was not related to RuneQuest in any way (see Special: HeroQuest for more details). Issaries was
not to play a direct role in the history of RuneQuest for the next several years.
12 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
As WOTC expounded their new theory that the roleplaying community would be better off with only one rules system
(which soon resulted in the release of the D20 rules), the prospect of a new edition of RuneQuest dwindled. Fans
talked about acquiring the rights to the system, but Hasbro/WOTC refused to answer inquiries on the subject. They
were reportedly hostile to such requests by fans of other defunct RPGs that they owned, too.
In any case, the prospect of dealing with a massive, faceless corporation like Hasbro was daunting for fans who were
used to meeting and even scolding game company presidents and authors at conventions.
Aftermath of RQIII
There was still a little hope that RQ would resurface in some form, however. Word circulated that the president of
WOTC, Peter Adkinson, had either played RQ when younger or at the least had been heavily influenced by RQ in the
design of his own "house" version of AD&D. Jonathan Tweet, who was working on D&D 3.0, was an avowed
RuneQuest fan. And indeed, the WOTC release of the new third edition of AD&D seemed to show definite signs of
being influenced by RQ, particularly in the skill system. But when Adkinson left Hasbro, few could doubt that it was
finally the end for RQ as a commercial entity - even as part of another system.
13 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
generally known as Mongoose RQ or MRQ for short. Since Stafford owned the trademark to the RuneQuest name, but
not the the copyright to the text of the RuneQuest system (which had reverted to his former company, Chaosium),
Stafford announced that the new Mongoose RQ would be a re-creation: "the same system using different words".
Since copyright law does not regard systems of roleplaying mechanics as patentable intellectual property, this allowed
Mongoose to create their own version of RQ without the permission of the copyright-owners or the creators of
previous versions of the RuneQuest system.
15 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
I should note that I was part of the initial Mongoose RQ playtest group, but not the later "inner circle" group. I was not impressed by the
Mongoose rules. I was also part of the Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System playtest group, and was extremely impressed by the design
choices made for that system. I was not part of the playtests for Mongoose's "RuneQuest 2", nor any other versions. ->Peter
2008: Rebirth!
On June 24th, 2008, Basic Roleplaying: The Chaosium System started shipping. It was an extremely impressive
multi-genre compilation of the best rules from many Chaosium games based on RuneQuest and BRP. In fact, since it
offered the option of using a "menu" of different optional rules, it could actually duplicate RuneQuest III precisely depending on the rule modules used by the gamemaster.
Ironically, a company called Goblinoid Games also published a game which was virtually identical in many ways to the
Call of Cthulhu system, and therefore to all BRP-derived systems - including RuneQuest. They called it "G.O.R.E.",
short for Generic Old-school Role-playing Engine, and made it available online at no cost. And thus wild west rules
have truly come to roleplaying; RPG systems are effectively unprotected and unprotectable, except for the specific
words and trademarkable names that they incorporate. Getting around such restrictions was all too easy. What did
this mean for the future of traditional roleplaying? How would things turn out for the three iterations of
RuneQuest/BRP that were now commercially available from three different companies? Only time would tell.
2011: Undead/Alive?
Chaos continued to be the single defining hallmark of the RuneQuest system. In 2010, Mongoose Publishing released
a new version of their RuneQuest system under the name "RuneQuest 2" - which nonetheless was not the classic
RuneQuest II system under which RuneQuest became famous in the 1980s, but rather a revision of Mongoose's first
take on RuneQuest. By most accounts these rules were an improvement on the original Mongoose RQ system. And
Mongoose did acknowledge the original creators of the RuneQuest system in their new edition.
But in any case, and for reasons unknown, Mongoose Publishing and Issaries parted ways in June of 2011. With that
split, publication of all versions of RuneQuest by Mongoose ceased.
Except not quite! Mongoose retains the copyright to their own version of the RuneQuest rules (albeit not the
trademark to the RuneQuest name, which remains with Issaries), and have announced that they will be publishing
those rules as the "Wayfarer" RPG, later changed to the "Legend" RPG since it turned out that "Wayfarer" was already
trademarked. They've also announced plans to convert a number of their other RPGs to the Legend system, including
their Eternal Champion games. None of these systems include Gloranthan material, of course, since the rights to
Glorantha remain with Issaries. Issaries did not immediately announce any plans for the RuneQuest trademark.
16 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
However, there were now even more versions of the RuneQuest system than ever on the market - although a family
tree showing the relationships between them would be very difficult to diagram.
The one thing that seemed sure was that more developments were on the way. But they came quicker than anyone
expected.
On July 16, 2011, a new game company called The Design Mechanism announced that they would be coming out with
a new edition of RuneQuest, called "RuneQuest 6th Edition", under agreement with Issaries. The ruleset is based on
Mongoose Publication's RQ2, and will not be integrated with Glorantha. However, The Design Mechanism will be
working with Moon Publications to produce Gloranthan supplements for the system. They will also publish generic
supplements. The new system will not be released under an Open Gaming License, but under a custom license which
will apparently be equivalent to OGL. The ETA is "early 2012".
Several other versions of the system have been published or posted online, including (but probably not limited to)
OpenQuest, RetroQuest, GlyphMaster, Draker & Demoner, Privateers and Gentlemen, Other Suns, Mutant:
Undergangen, Parpuzio, and D100 Rules. And, of course, Steve Perrin's Quest Rules are still available.
17 of 21
Issaries Inc. is owned by Greg Stafford. He controls the 3 trademarks for Glorantha, Heroquest and
Runequest. He also owns the intellectual property rights to Glorantha. While Issaries Inc. was the
original publisher of Heroquest RPG material, the company is now mainly used by Greg to issue
publication licenses for Heroquest, Runequest, and Glorantha. Greg still writes too.
Moon Design Publications is owned by Rick Meints and Jeff Richard. We currently hold the license to the
Heroquest trademark and have a license to use the Glorantha trademark. We also have the rights to
reprint much of the "RQ 2nd edition copyrighted material" as we have done via the Gloranthan Classics
series of reprints. We are the current publisher of Heroquest Gloranthan material, and we also license
third party companies, such as Alephtar Games and D101 Games, to publish Heroquest publications.
The Design Mechanism is owned by Lawrence "Loz" Whitaker and Pete Nash. They are the current holders of
the Runequest trademark license, and also have a license to publish Gloranthan material.
The Reaching Moon Megacorp is/was David Hall's UK based company. They have not published anything for
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
about 10 years. They are most famous for their publication of the "Tales of the Reaching Moon"
magazine, which ran for 20 issues. David (and the Megacorp) has largely retired from RPG publishing. I
used to help David on a number of his projects.
All of the specifically named people mentioned above are all friends that have known each other for
about 20 years (give or take a few years). We have worked together on many projects in various
combinations, and you may often see us at the Continuum and Eternal Conventions in Europe. We continue
to work on various projects together. Moon Design is going to help the Design Mechanism publish their
Runequest material. Pete [Nash] and Loz are also signed up to write some Gloranthan Heroquest books for
Moon Design.
- Rick Meints, Moon Design
What Next?
Watch this space to find out!
Resources:
A list of all Glorantha material published for RuneQuest may be found at Issaries, Inc.. This includes some
third-party and fan-produced material that are still available. Note that a fair amount of RuneQuest material isn't for
Glorantha, and some of it is quite good. The RQIII Fantasy Earth Land of the Ninja supplement was outstanding, for
example. Both Chaosium and Judges Guild published some "Questworld" RuneQuest II Gateway supplements for RQII
in the late 1970s and early 1980s. If anyone out there turns up a complete list of RQ publications online, I'd love to
see it.
The Meints Index to Glorantha listed all RuneQuest publications, although I never saw it myself. It is apparently no
longer available. The link has been removed since it is now invalid.
In Print:
18 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
Moon Design Publications is embarked on an impressive project: the production of new editions of many classic
RuneQuest supplements. These are not simply photocopies, but complete new versions containing the original texts.
Apparently hardcover editions are also available in some cases. Pavis & Big Rubble is a combined version of both RQ2
supplements (highly recommended!); also in print are Griffin Mountain, and a Cult Compendium consisting of the
original RQ2 sourcebooks books Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror combined with additional source material. These are
all wonderful books. I only wish I could afford them.
The books are available directly from Rick at the Moon Design link above, or from Warehouse 23.
Tradetalk, published by the international Chaos Society, is another Glorantha/RuneQuest magazine which publishes
articles on other BRP-derived Chaosium games as well. Honesty compels me to admit that many years ago I served
for some time as an associate editor on Tradetalk, although I have not done anything for them in years. I used to
rewrite imperfectly-translated articles for them. One or two of my articles were published in a past issue, as I recall.
Here's a tip: it's incredibly easy to convert material from any version of RQ to another, with the obvious exception of
RuneQuest: Slayers. It's certainly easier than converting to or from HeroQuest, although I haven't tried to myself.
Conversion from any of Chaosium's BRP-derived systems is also relatively easyat worst it's like shifting between one
dialect and another in the same language. It should be noted that Chaosium is still publishing new material for their
Call of Cthulhu system.
Out of Print:
Most classic RuneQuest II and RQIII material is obviously out of print (with the exception of the renamed monograph
editions of the core RQ3 rulebooks from Chaosium, as noted above), but it is possible to find a lot of it still for
saleeven RQ2 material (and if you get the chance, buy the red hardcover RQ2 bookit's great, and incredibly
durable). Avalon Hill used to offer a lot of it, but Hasbro apparently pulped it all. Still, here are some good sources:
1. The American Book Exchange is one of many online used-book databases. Their database is constantly
changing, so they're worth keeping an eye on.
2. BookFinder is another excellent general used-book service, and since it takes its results from many other online
databases, it's huge.
3. Noble Knight Games has an excellent selection of obscure and out-of-print RuneQuest material.
4. Ebay might be the best source of all. They usually have dozens of RQ publications, and the widest range of
books by far.
5. How about your local game store? If it's a good one, they may have some back stock lying around. Play your
cards right, and you might even get a discount! And of course it's always a Good Idea to support your local
game store.
19 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
Glossary:
AD&D, D&D - (Advanced) Dungeons & Dragons, now published by giant toy company Hasbro.
AH - The Avalon Hill Game Company, publishers of RQIII. Now wholly owned by Hasbro.
APA - Amateur Press Association (variant: Amateur Publishing Association). A collection of separately-produced
fan pamphlets, bound together and published as a magazine. Typically low-circulation, often by subscription only.
BRP - The Basic Role-Playing system, a simplified version of RuneQuest first published by Chaosium in 1980. Also
the name of the much-expanded multi-genre non-Gloranthan system published by Chaosium in 2008.
D100 / Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System - the official name for what was called "Deluxe Basic Roleplaying"
(see DBRP), a multi-genre update of BRP and RuneQuest rules which was released in 2008.
FRP - Fantasy Role Playing.
GM - Gamemaster. The RuneQuest equivalent of (A)D&D's "Dungeon Master" (DM). The judge/referee of an RPG.
GURPS - The Generic Universal Role-Playing System, published by Steve Jackson Games. Not related to RQ.
Legend - Mongoose Publications' non-Gloranthan RQ-based system, specifically based on their own RQ2.
Monograph BRP - Monograph editions of Basic RolePlaying published by Chaosium, which are not the classic
Chaosium system which was made by simplifying RQII but rather the individual RuneQuest III books (the same as
those published by Avalon Hill in the 1980s) with the name "RuneQuest" removed and replaced with "Basic
RolePlaying". The only other difference is that all Gloranthan content has been removed.
MRQ - Mongoose RuneQuest. A Gloranthan version of RuneQuest published in August 2006 by Mongoose
Publishing under the auspices of Issaries and Greg Stafford. It includes much of the RuneQuest rules system phrased
in different words to avoid infringing on Chaosium's copyright of the text of RuneQuest I, II, and III, but has some
rules which break from previous RuneQuest standards. Ceased publication in June 2011.
NPCs - Non-Player Characters, the "extras" and others controlled by the GM in a roleplaying game.
PCs - Player Characters in a roleplaying game.
RPG - Role Playing Game.
20 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM
http://www.maranci.net/rqpast.htm
RQI, RQ1, RQII, RQ2, RQII, RQIII, RQ3, RQIV, RQ4 - RuneQuest versions one through four. Note that
Mongoose's RuneQuest 2 is very different from the classic RuneQuest II system.
RQ:AiG - RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha, a playtest version of RQIV that was never published.
RuneQuest Sixth Edition - the apparent name of the new generic-but-associated-with-Glorantha version of the RQ
system (via Mongoose Publications' RQ2), from The Design Mechanism, a new game company created by some of the
authors of Mongoose's RQ2.
TSR - Originally an acronym for Tactical Studies Rules; later that name was dropped in favor of the initials alone.
Former publisher of (A)D&D.
WOTC - Wizards of the Coast, a game company which acquired TSR and was soon after itself acquired by Hasbro.
WoW - Worlds of Wonder, an early multi-genre BRP-derived system from Chaosium. Based on Chaosium's
RuneQuest II rules.
Peter Maranci is a long-time RuneQuest player and GM, a former Associate Editor of Tradetalk (the Journal of the International Chaos
Society), founder and former editor of the Interregnum RPG APAzine (now defunct), and the author/publisher of Pete's RuneQuest &
Roleplaying!, one of the oldest and most popular RuneQuest sites on the web. You're soaking in it.
A previous version of this article.
HOME
Scenarios
Alternate
Rules
Chaos
Project
Character
Sheets
NPCs &
More
Art
Chatter
Game
Zines
Peasant's
Progress
Links
Guestbook!
webmaster@maranci.net
Copyright 2001 by Peter Maranci. Revised: October 15, 2014. v. 2.16
21 of 21
6/28/2015 7:39 AM