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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TrippyHippy" data-source="post: 8492093" data-attributes="member: 27252">I think in the case of Magic World, there wasn’t really enough time to establish it with a significant fanbase. It probably should be noted that Magic World was effectively the replacement for Stormbringer/Elric! when Chaosium lost that license - the system was identical with all the references removed. But it also took its name from the game found in Steve Perrin’s Worlds of Adventure (1982; along with Super World and Future World) which was otherwise, entirely unrelated. Steve Perrin himself was critical of this, and I’m not really sure it was ever 100% its own thing.The irony here is that Runequest was originally seen as a very unconventional fantasy setting. It wasn’t just the Bronze Age feel, but also peculiar factors like Ducks, Cults not Classes, or Elves that were literal plants, etc. It was as if they looked at every aspect of D&D and cocked a snook at all its conventions in all the little details. Runequest was very exotic, by comparison to D&D.Of course, the other main selling point in the late 1970s/early 1980s was that Runequest’s system seemed so much more logical than that provided in AD&D. Nowadays, D&D5 doesn’t have such arbitrary restrictions as Prerequisites for Classes, or limited Class levels for Races, stat limitations for female adventurers, complicated multi-class rules, and other Class & Level based restrictions. Rules regarding combat (remember THACO?), AC and HP are all explained better too. So D&D has moved on from what it used to be.Back in the day, however, if you wanted to get a set of rules without all these oddities, then Runequest was it - the Betamax to D&D’s VHS if you like. Even though the original game was rooted in Glorantha as a core setting, I think a lot of gamers still liked to use the RQ rules as a way of building their own settings. I think that is how BRP-based games became such an influence on RPG design.The problem Chaosium has is managing to communicate the differences and advantages of its system in the current era. D&D5 is arguably better at doing generic fantasy these days - despite things like Class & Level. As such, I think there is more emphasis in the current Runequest marketing on the setting and the sheer quality of product being made. In some ways, I wish was still seen as THE alternative fantasy RPG to D&D (as opposed to Pathfinder, say), but I feel these days are long gone. Still, can’t fault this Starter Box - it is excellent.</blockquote>

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