More RuneQuest Confusion

[bobquasit]

Some company called Mongoose Publishing has announced that they'll be putting out a new version of RuneQuest - "a completely new system that will look and smell like the original", a phrase which does NOT fill me with confidence. If it's a new system, it's not RuneQuest!

There has been a lot of discussion on a thread over at the RPGnet forums. And I, of course, couldn't resist putting in my own two cents.

And now I'm REALLY gone on vacation...

Comments

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Part of what worries me is that Chaosium and Issaries must have agreed to all this, right? One half owns RQ the other Glorantha. Now, rather than being all corporate-like and doing it behind closed doors why weren't they up-front with their fans in the first instance?

All that said, I've picked up the playtest copy of what's been written so far. I'll tell you what it's like once I've had a chance for a proper look.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Tapping in to the Maine public library network (hi!). My strong impression is that Chaosium has NOT agreed to this - it's purely on Greg's initiative. Relations between Chaosium and Issaries/Greg may have improved from their recent nadir, but I really doubt that this is a collaborative effort.

And in my book, that's bad news. Jason Durell (who is working on DBRP for Chaosium) now says that DBRP will NOT use RQ3 mechanics, but rather the best of the CoC/Elric-type mechanics. Irksome.

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Mongoose's entire publishing line is D20/OGL. Somehow this makes me suspect that they are not talking about the system but the setting and confusing the issue once again.

[klyfix.livejournal.com]

Hmm. These days, I'm not so sure that a "skill check" system is what I want to play anymore. Pain in the backside to actually improve a character; my RQ characters have been pretty much always pathetic.

Now, from looking farther in the thread it would appear that Chaosium has abso-fraggin-lutely nothing to do with this; they don't own the rights to anything involved in it. The system would seem to not be BRP based then.

A guess would be thatit's going to essentially be "Glorantha D20" with perhaps tweaks to make it work a bit more old RQ-y.

I happen to like Glorantha, so long as if I run it I can beat it into my own horrific image. The idea noted in the thread of setting this game in a different time period than the "Hero Wars" might be a good thing, actually.