I must say up front, I do not understand the sudden resurgence of interest in the game known as
RuneQuest. It is a great game. In fact, it may be the greatest tabletop frpg, but who plays it? I own several incarnations of the basic game system, including Mongoose RQII,
Legend (i.e. son of MRQII) and
Elric! (RQ rules, Moorcockian setting), but I must confess, I've never played it (except in my own mind). The closest I've come are brief flirtations with
Call of Cthulhu and
Basic Role-Playing, both of which use the same basic game mechanics. Now, a new edition of the venerable game is making its debut,
RuneQuest 6 from The Design Mechanism. The primary designers of MRQII, Lawrence Whitaker and Peter Nash, are the guys responsible for this, which makes ignoring RQ6 pretty much impossible. But do I need yet another version of RuneQuest? If it's the best one yet, then absolutely yes. However, the pdf has a hefty $25 price point, double what I am usually willing to pay for something sight unseen. Weighing in at over 450 pgs, I would expect to hardcopy version to show up on store shelves with a price tag north of $60. In other words, it's a pretty steep buy-in for something which may be only superficially different from the last version of RQ that Loz and Pete produced. Initial
reviews are
overwhelmingly positive, but I suppose I will have to wait to find out if RQ6 is significantly improved over MRQII.
-Rognar-
6 comments:
I believe it is going to be a softcover for $62.
I like the basic system. Perhaps it was just the horror nature of the game we were playing but everyone was very conscious of our weakness. You certainly didn't see us doing our normal kick down the door and blasting our way through the bad guys.
BRP/RuneQuest is a system that demands a cautious approach. Combat should never be taken lightly.
For 50$ you can get the PDF and the book until August 22nd.
Artus - That's a tempting offer to be sure (although here in Canada, the added shipping is often prohibitive).
$10 shipping in Canada (same as US).
Post a Comment