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RuneQuest RPG

Rune Quest

An old Medieval Role-playing Game that competed with Dungeons & Dragons was Rune Quest. RQ brought in a new style to Role-play Gaming which allowed players to specify skills they want to learn as well as the exact place they would hit on a creature. What is your review?

RPG RuneQuest

I have played this a few times. What I like most about it is the battle system. You can actually find out the exact place you hit your opponent rather than one general hit. Your skill development is also based on percentage more than levels.

RuneQuest RPG Reviews RPG & Card Board

I once had a run in with this system. One thing I liked about it was the percentage for everything. The battle system was a little more complicated than it is in D&D.

RPG RuneQuest

I liked that aspect of Rune Quest too. Actually I was thinking of using the percentage system in the World of Medieval, but at the time I was not as good a coder and thought it would be too much information to keep up to date.

RPG RuneQuest

I knew only D&D when I was 19. had just bought Redbox, so when a friend brought over Runequest, I thought, "Eh, what is this? Meh, some ripoff I guess."

It immediately struck me as more... "strict" I guess, a bit more realism, you don't just throw a gold piece to the barkeep, that's like a year's wages.Character creation was long and initially confusing, there are a LOT of details in the system (probably not any more than the current D&D now) and questionable issues and "features", including layering armor and it being divided into seems like almost a dozen different configurations or body parts.

The Strike Ranks were highly confusing, and even when I got used to them, I definitely didn't like them (still don't, though they make some sense), but I eventually got into the percentile system, which is how I was able to fairly easily make the transition to Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying system horror flagship, Call of Cthulhu.

Overall, I had a lot of issues with the fiddliness of RQ, a bit too much detail and required maintenance, there were maps and calendars and High Holy Days and times when the moon influenced different things - I definitely credit it with being extremely immersive and served as a terrific example of just how much color and depth you can give to a fictional world, even in an RPG, everything had its own character and "feel", and it helped me also go on to appreciate the simpler Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

Overall, though I wasn't fond of the system taken together in a working machine, the general idea of it and how it was connected was just brilliant and I wondered how D&D could have ever competed. So even though now I still would prefer not to game with RQ unless it were modified to be a bit more intuitive, it was the very first non-D&D system I had ever seen and was a full-on example of "Hey, look what else is out there!" - it was a bit overwhelming, but I definitely remember it.

RuneQuest RPG

Jpatt, I always like to read your expressive reviews. I like detail so Rune Quest appealed to me. I believe like most other things anything that was too much to handled could have been dropped. For instance in AD&D I never really bothered with length of a weapon, or missile +/- modifier, we just rolled a D20 and if you're hit you're hit. I take Rune Quest the same way, certain things are used while others dropped - like worrying about the moon.

RuneQuest RPG

I agree and that's definitely the way I play, I wing a lot of stuff because I either forget that part of the rules, or I just don't like them - it's my game, I'll do what I want with it. I handwave range, ammo, etc. Most of that in most cases.

I've never ran RQ, though I have CoC so I could probably do it without much trouble, it just seems like, although much more detailed, like easily losing a leg to an arrow, RQ combats are necessarily complex and slow. I know you can't play a game where determining a blow in game only takes as long as it would in real life, but some games are pretty quick without lots of stats and math, and I prefer those.

One other thing, a detail, I touched on, was money - I was used to Gold Pieces, Silver Pieces, etc and assumed that was standard in RPGs and just how things were done - when I was told RQ used 12 pennies = 1 shilling and 10 (20?) shillings = 1 gold crown, or however it went, I didn't like it at first because of the 12, and I still don't, but it was almost totally accurate, which I now find an interesting subject - money conversion (Lsd), etc.

The magic in RQ was something that you really couldn't "drop" unless nobody took any magic use every time, but it seemed really, really complicated to me, though I haven't read it in over a decade so now having experience with WFRP2, I might understand it as being moderate by now, so I won't condemn it for something I can't even recall all that well.

I loved (still kinda do) tables and charts and generators, random numbers, random effects, critical hit tables, etc. But I feel in a lot of cases, they really aren't practical, and seem to REALLY slow down play and take you out of the action while you cross reference stats and rolls.

Still as I said, RQ definitely was (is) a very, very solid tabletop platform, definitely moreso than D&D was, though it had the advantage of being also fairly solid, but much more "assembled" - all the rules were sort of self-contained into one simple amalgam, without different options and details poking out here and there - I know what I'm trying to say but am coming up short for an anology. Anyway, RQ was good but for my tastes, I've found other fantasy games I prefer over it, as my tastes have changed from tons of detail and stats, to very rules-lite and detail-lite as well, handwaving many things that I judge just don't matter.

RuneQuest RPG Board Card & RPG Reviews

I believe I understand where you are coming from. I looked up on Wiki about Rune Quest and it seemed to go under some modifications until it reached a new successor: SPQR. I scaned through it quickly but the original set has PDFs that are free to use now? I wonder what it would be like to create a PBP using this system?

Rather off topic, but...
Anyone reading this and willing to pursue it let me know and I will set you up on the Member Wars Board.

Here is a brief history on Rune Quest from Wikipedia:

I will start a new Thread now for SPQR, please look for it here: Source 2