New RuneQuest is Named: "RUNEQUEST: ROLEPLAYING IN GLORANTHA"

Chaosium has just announced the name of the upcoming edition of RuneQuest, due for a Christmas 2017 release. This edition will not be called RuneQuest 4, or RuneQuest 7 (depending how you choose to count them), but will be called "RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha" (or RQG). This edition is descended from the 2nd Edition ruleset, and is compatible with the RuneQuest Classic reprints which Chaosium recently Kickstarted.

Not only that, Chaosium confirms that RQG will not appear on Kickstarter. Rick Meints of Chaosium says "If we Kickstarted the new RQ, the campaign wouldn't be able to be launched until September at the earliest, and if there had been stretch goals the first books would probably not be out until the middle of 2018. In our new timeline we'll have three RQG titles out by the end of the year, followed by additional items every month or two after that."

So what's the product schedule looking like? The core rules come out this year, as does the Gloranthan Bestiary, and a book of adventures. These will be followed by 6 products per year. Meints says "We are building up a RQ product pipeline that will release 6 products per year, at a pace of a book every other month on average. Big gaps between new product coming out sap the momentum".

You can also expect to see the RuneQuest Quickstart in June for Free RPG Day and in July for feree on Chaosium's website.

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[turkeygiant]

If they can keep to this schedule they could see a lot of success, Fantasy AGE was kinda ruined for me and my group of players by the giant gap in time where nothing came out after the core book.

 

[Sunsword]

I love that cover.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

I'm eagerly waiting for this to get out the door to clear up their schedule for future BRP projects.

(EDIT: Okay I'm not a Gloranthaphile but I am excited to see the new RQG anyway. Chaosium always gets my money, even when it's just for reading fun)

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I remember some weird guy showing me and my friends (we were around 12 or 13 at the time) "RuneQuest Deluxe" boxed set at the local library. We rolled up characters and he had us in an arena. We started fighting these knights and at the end of it we discovered that they were skeletons! It was a bit of a shock because we had only played D&D for a few years (started when I was 10'ish, c.1980)...and we were only used to D&D skeletons. Mostly the same, but these guys were smarter and harder to kill, from what I remember.

It was a memorable experience, and the guy was a bit odd (he was in his mid to late 20's I'd guess), so there's that bit of memory...

Since then, RQ has always had that spot in my heart of "Cool game...one day I'll run a campaign in it...one day...". I'm still waiting for that day. I still have an original 1st edition of the RQ Hardback book, my RQ Deluxe box set, and a bunch of RQ II PDF's plus the main book and equipment book in hardback. Oh, and the "RQ Lankhmar" hardback too.

Looking forward to see what this new version turns out like.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[agrayday]

Ah the memories, this was my first RPG game introduced to me by my dear Friend at the time named Franciso in the early 80s. He had a St. Bernard, and sadly after many wonderful Runequest sessions he moved away from New Mexico. We spent hours not only playing but reading that boxed set. As soon as I saw that D&D had a boxed set (Red) I went for it.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The name is a good call, as it makes it clear what the setting will be while avoiding the tricky situation of potentially alienating fans of previous editions. Glorantha is clearly a work of passion for the creators, and the rules essentially are aiming to combine RQ2 with Pendragon-style personality traits (albeit based upon Runes, and apparently originating in a RQ supplement anyway). Most RPG fans ought to be intrigued with what they come up with.

 

[werecorpse]

We kept away from it for a few years in the early 80's because of the weirdness of barbarian ducks as player characters and the adventure duck tower. Once we got into it we had a great time. One of my most talked about campaigns was several years long Runequest campaign. Glorantha and the themes therein are so important that we always considered the campaign world to be more important than the rule set. The releases were very sporadic and full of flavour - like getting bits of someone's homebrew.
looking forward to the proposed release schedule although my experience with RQ makes me sceptical.

 

[ScaleyBob]

So looking forward to this. Been a Gloranthaphile since the eighties, although I'm still puzzled over what the Lizard thing the woman is fighting on the cover of the rulebook is. Very happy indeed with the release schedule, but I do hope it's just not reprints of older stuff updated. (I've got most of that in one form or another). Still it's not a proper edition of RQ unless there's at least 3 versions of the Cult of Kygor Litor printed throughout all the suppliments.

Interesting that it's not a Kickstarter - seems almost unheard of for a small publisher nowadays.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I love that cover.

It reminds of something, can't quite put my finger on it...