Mongoose's Runequest, Anyone have it?

[buzz]

For the record, my intent isn't to come off as one of thsoe gamers who has an irrational hate-on for a system or company. I'm just telling you how I feel. Still, full disclosure: I have never been much of a Mongoose fan.

Could you talk about this some more? I haven't seen anything at all about the playtesting. What made it disastrous?

As soon as Mongoose announced they had RQ, they solicited playtesters. I emailed Sprange immeidately. In the same thread they made the announcement (on RPG.net), Perrin popped in and said, "You're doing RuneQuest?" He had no idea. Sprange replied, "Steve Perrin! Wow! Do you want to be involevd?" I was kind of aghast, as you'd think Perrin would be the first person they'd call, especially since he's had a revised RQ system (SPQR: Steve Perrin's Quest Rules) available in raw form on the 'net for years.

The playtest was then about twenty poeple or so on a Yahoo! group. It was pretty obvious that they were writing the game as we went along, as even the basic die mechanic concept went through a couple interations in the first week or so (BRP-style, to HARP-style, to UA-blackjack style, back to BRP). Over the next couple of weeks we got to see four initial drafts of some of the rules. Then things pretty much ground to a halt as we waited for v1.5. And waited. And waited. And then the Yahoo! group was removed and I found out via RPG.net or somewhere that Mongoose was unhappy with the Yahoo! playtest and were taking it internal. None of us were ever notified of this by Mongoose. The group just disappeared one day.

Around the same time, RQ content was added to Mongoose's site, with the admonition (still there) that it was "the longest and most open playtesting period that any Mongoose game has been through." This speaks volumes to me about their products in general.

Why was that? Was there any reason given? What did Perrin have to say?

FWIW, Perrin was invovled in the Yahoo! playest, and we were told that he was going to be developing for the line. The magic system in the main book was supposedly his, originally. I haven't noticed him being given any credits in the new books, though. They may have ditched it. Anyone know?

Other than that, I have no idea what went on between him and Mongoose.

Ouch. I hadn't heard about that.

I've already seen a few people grumble about the Companion containing rule content that ideally should have been in the core book.

Initially, it was said that RQ was going to be intended as a simple, inexpensive package, but, e.g., getting the MRQ equivalent of the aformentioned Artesia (a $39.95 book) is going to invovle buying 7-8 products at $24.95 to $34.95 a pop.

Yeah, the art left a lot to be desired. It wasn't evocative at all, except in a very few spots. I'd hoped to see RQ given the kind of treatment Green Ronin gave Warhammer as far as art and layout were concerned. That was disappointing. The price didn't bug me too much, given it was the core book, but if major rules are going to be spread out amongst a number of books, that's disappointing.

I'm biased, I guess, as I consider RQ such an important RPG in the history of the hobby that I'd likely be disappointed by anything less than perfection. (The, IMO, Mongoose-standard garish art and mundane layout cerainly aren't doing it for me.)

Look at it this way: Mongoose is asking me to pay about 2.5 cents per page for pretty low-quality product with well-worn, old-school mechanics (1.9 for color books like Glorantha). Smylie is asking me for 1.1 cents for a full-color hardcover with a refreshing take on Fuzion. WotC is asking me for less than 1 cent, at least for the PHB, and about 1.3 cents for prestige books like ToM. We can be forgiving in comparisons to WotC --though Mongoose is a big player once we move past WotC-- but a one-man operation like Smylie?

I know that Mongoose has to make money like any other company; I'm a capitalist, and I'm cool with that. Still, they way they're going about it doesn't exactly inspire me to buy their product. RQ just deserves better, IMO.

Nonethless, I look forward to some actual play reviews.

 

[Treebore]

I never played Runequest (or Harn). They have just historically been my favorite systems to steal ideas and material from. So this version is filling that same role. Harn has always been my favorite to steal ideas/material from, though.

That said, reading through RQ, the rules didn't look "broken", but there are definitely things I would be house ruling on.

I've never been a Mongoose fan either. They are the reason I haven't bought any of the Conan books.

 

[Kanegrundar]

I never played Runequest (or Harn). They have just historically been my favorite systems to steal ideas and material from. So this version is filling that same role. Harn has always been my favorite to steal ideas/material from, though.

That said, reading through RQ, the rules didn't look "broken", but there are definitely things I would be house ruling on.

I've never been a Mongoose fan either. They are the reason I haven't bought any of the Conan books.

This was the first Mongoose game I've picked up since...I guess the first Babylon 5 RPG (which was pretty good), and I really wish I would have passed on it. Nothing terrible, but nothing really great either.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I wish they'd lavished as much attention on it as they do on the various Conan game books. Those are really high quality books.

 

[sniffles]

Sounds like I won't be rushing out to pick it up - not that I was going to anyway. I've still got all my old RQ materials at home, and the guy who used to GM for us seems to have dropped off the planet.

With regards to the art in the new book, it has to be better than what was in some of the old supplements!

 

[Haffrung Helleyes]

Yeah, I skipped on the Mongoose RQ book (in spite of having played RQ for about 20 years). If it had been treated as half the labor of love that the Conan book obviously was, I would have bought it in an instant.

Ken

 

[Staffan]

Changes in RQ3 that we hated, and resulted in us never using it:

I might be imagining this, but I think they did away with the impaling hit rules, if your attack was 1/20th of what you needed to hit?

I never played Runequest 2, but back in the day I did play a bit of Runequest 3. I definitely remember impaling hits, and even more common (I think you got an impale on a "special" result (1/5 of your skill), not just on a "critical" (1/20)). However, it was a trait of certain weapons, not of all of them.

 

[Voadam]

Somewhere I'd got the idea that the new version was going to be d20. But from your description it sounds similar to the old rules.

That's another thing I miss about RQ - being able to use all my polyhedral dice.

I don't have it but I believe the new RQ is supposed to be OGL but not d20 based. That means the rules bits can legally be put into a third party product unaffiliated with Mongoose or up on a fan srd site as long as the OGL is complied with. It also means not directly rules compatible with D&D and its variants.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

I don't have it but I believe the new RQ is supposed to be OGL but not d20 based. That means the rules bits can legally be put into a third party product unaffiliated with Mongoose or up on a fan srd site as long as the OGL is complied with. It also means not directly rules compatible with D&D and its variants.

Yeah, I think that's where the confusion lies. People hear that Mongoose is making RQ open source, and they equate that with the OGL games based on d20. Any game can be made open source.