RuneQuest Starter Set: Played It Review of a Mythic World of Magic and Conflict

The RuneQuest Starter Set introduces GMs and players alike to a mythic fantasy world filled with magic and challenge. The introduction is important because the world of Glorantha is massive and the rules of RuneQuest are intricate and detailed and include decades of design. The starter set promises to help me not only ground myself in the setting but also be able to run adventures using the RuneQuest rules.

A detailed designer diary is a good place to gain additional insight: RuneQuest Design Diary. My thanks to Michael O’Brien of Chaosium for sending me a review copy. This review is going to look at the box and contents itself and how both work from a GM’s point of view. Followed by details on how running the included adventure went.

What You Get​

The box itself is sturdy cardboard and slightly oversized to fit the dice in the top. It is stuffed with high-quality content. While I like miniatures/pawns and battle maps I appreciate the fact that this starter set doesn’t have them and so can include even more rules and setting info including maps. Even though the inside of the box lids are plain cardboard, there are other fun features. The backs of the four books form a giant map. The poster maps are large and double sided and the dice look great. Plus there are 14 pre-generated characters which is the largest number I’ve seen in one product before.

As a GM here is what I have to get started. In Book 3: SoloQuest I played Vasan, daughter of Farnan a warrior of Sartarite. My father’s body and soul were devoured by the Crimson Bat, an evil monster of the oppressive Lunar Empire and I am pissed about it.

I’m part of an Sartarite army about to fight an army from the Lunar Empire. My first roll ever in RuneQuest is a Scan skill (50%). I roll a 44% and pass! If I survive the upcoming battle I get to roll to try to improve my Scan skill.

The gods of my people include Orlanth, the Storm Lord, who skips along the river chanting our champions names and Humakt, the God of Death, sitting beside every warrior as they prepare to fight. I wield a lance and ride a bison into battle as part of the cavalry. I am also skilled in the bow.

As I wait for the fog to lift and the battle to start, I am faced with many options: talk to my leader, tend to my bison mount, pay my respects to my ancestors and the gods, and more. I make my Worship (Orlanth) roll and increase the Battle Result Total by +5. This increase will help swing the outcome of the upcoming battle in our favor. Detailed combat follows (pointing me to Book 1: Rules) with many of my character’s actions determining the outcome of the battle. And the decisions are not all easy. To help my leader fight in one on one battle thereby hurting her honor but maybe keeping her alive? Do I engage in one on one honorable combat or run down my foe, driven by orders to get somewhere quickly?

Playing one character is all well and good, but I wonder if I can run five PCs with differing backstories through an adventure. I read about the world first in Book 2. The starter set has the excellent idea of setting a campaign in Dragon Pass and having players create PCs from that area. Just human to start it looks like is the best option. That will make it easier on the GM.

The Adventures​

Next up, I want to see how the adventures help. The rules and the world books are each a slice of the larger RuneQuest rules and a glimpse of one part of the immense world of Glorantha. And Book 4 contains the adventures themselves.

I ran the first adventure, which involves the PCs breaking up some rioting trolls and then being asked to travel to farms and rescue four farm families. I liked that the PCs stopped the trolls without resorting to combat and that decision had positive repercussions. I also enjoyed the battle at the farms and the final boss monster.

Glorantha came across as both a world filled with strange creatures and powerful magic as well as one of human beings just trying to survive and live a good life. This combination really shone through and I liked this approach. The world was not gritty and dirty and lived in, but it still seemed real with the scars of war and the loss of life juxtaposed against mythical monsters and works of magic.

The Rules​

The rules for RuneQuest also tie directly into the world of Glorantha. Rune affinity helped PCs succeed at tasks, Passions tried to sway them into making different decisions, and the PC who Feared Dragons was given constant grief about his fear. I did miss not getting to see any ducks however. I had heard that they are most often encountered in Sartar.

I also like the rules. Strike ranks in place of initiative really worked well. Parrying and weapons and shields taking damage made battles come alive and seem visceral and realistic. But spells were flying as well, which tied the magical directly into every bit of combat. A great mix of deadly danger and high magic. I played combat theater of the mind and that worked just fine, even with five PCs and several monsters.

I like Sartar and Dragon Pass. The location is a great place for a RuneQuest campaign. The solo adventure can continue to be useful later because I can hand it to a player new to RuneQuest and they can also play through it to learn the setting and rules.

Should You Get It?​

This starter set is outstanding. The main RuneQuest rulebook doesn’t really have a section to show GMs how to run a campaign. This starter set accomplishes that goal and provides ongoing tools GMs can continue to use. I recommend it highly to anyneo who enjoys fantasy RPGs and wants to try a long-lived unique setting and well tested rules.

 

[Tonguez]

Not just an unconventional fantasy setting. It gets downright esoteric.


D&D is not generic fantasy.

D&D has too many baked in assumptions in its classes, class features, spells, how magic works, and the hit point scaling, for it to be "generic fantasy".

It is: 'D&D fantasy': a genre unto itself.


There is nothing inherently special about the d20 system for fantasy gaming.

I agree when I first discovered an RQ adventure all the talk of Storm Bulls, cults, rune magic were quite mindbending for the teenage me, but also quite intimidating so I didnt play until many years later.

I think the briliiance of d20 though is that it is a D% based system simplified via 5% increments, for that RQ can be thanked.

Also while D&D isnt Generic, I do think that a lot of modern fantasy is influenced by it, D&D is the Hollywood of RPGs and it has been able to cram in and twist other genres to fit its mode to the extent that many people view traditional Fanatsy and even Mythic tropes through a DnD lens (which is both sad and impressive)

 

[Jaeger]

Well, that is your assumption, and frankly I’ve already stated my disagreement with that assumption, based on how we define ‘generic’.

‘Generic' simply means that something isn’t specific. D&D doesn’t have a specific setting you can play in

This is where your underlying assumption is wrong.

D&D has always had been its own specific genre of fantasy.

Because D&D has always had a strong implied fantasy setting In the three core books.

Broadly speaking the implied fantasy of D&D has been the fantasy setting tropes first set forth in Gygax's home campaign of Greyhawk, (Which he created the game around) and now which the implied setting of the "Fantasy D&D Multiverse" carries the torch.

The available races and how they interact with each other is setting specific. Clerical Domains; setting specific. Great wheel cosmology is setting specific. The names of the classes are setting specific. How magic works is setting specific. The names of certain spells, the names of certain magic items, all setting specific.

All specific to the implied D&D Fantasy setting of the three core books.

It is no coincidence that you are able to pick up a published adventure for 5e set in the Forgotten Realms and play - with no alterations of any kind to the core classes, spell lists, magic items, the entirety of the monster manual, or default cosmology offered in the core books.

but draws from any given range of fantasy sources, many of which are actually cited in ‘Inspiration’ lists provided in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. You can use D&D, as written, to pick and mix any fantasy element from any source and create your own setting as you wish.

D&D drew from those sources, and combined them in a unique way to make the game.

D&D was not made to emulate those sources. They merely served as the inspiration for what the game became.

You can use D&D, as written, to pick and mix any fantasy element from any source and create your own setting as you wish.

Not RAW.

Not: "any fantasy element".

Yes, you can homebrew the core mechanic of 1d20 = mods six way from Sunday to get exactly "your own setting as you wish."

But if you discard clerical domains, the spell list, how spells work, how HP progression works, eliminate entire classes, and rework specific subclasses to get there; it can hardly be said you are "playing D&D" anymore.

If you want to be able to play in your "homebrew" setting while using the PHB as is, then: "your own setting as you wish." = so long as you are including all the D&D implied setting bits as written...

You have the rules that determine gameplay, but this doesn’t dictate how you use the game. It depends on how you interpret them and, a lot of the time, it boils down to whether you view the systems used in an abstract sense or more literally.

You can choose to talk in in vague terms all about the literal abstract parts of D&D, and interpret the game structure any way you need to so that you see what you want.

But the road this goes down is not worth the time for either of us. Happy new year.

Also while D&D isn't Generic, I do think that a lot of modern fantasy is influenced by it, D&D is the Hollywood of RPGs and it has been able to cram in and twist other genres to fit its mode to the extent that many people view traditional Fanatsy and even Mythic tropes through a DnD lens (which is both sad and impressive)

D&D has been a huge influence. So much so that it can be said that the game has been drawing inspiration from derivatives of genre tropes that it established!