In the second episode of the GROGNARD files podcast, Dirk the Dice looks at the history of the game, where did it come from and where was it going back in 2015.
Potted History: Glorantha was the glorious creation of Greg Stafford. This is the story how his creation became a fantastic role-playing world and spawned different editions of RuneQuest.
Post Bag 27:00: People were actually listening to the first part of the episode. Dirk reviews some of the responses to the discussion about RuneQuest and the ‘duck’ issue.
ReMaster Refelction 37:00 looking back on the first episode, eight years later.
Support the GROGPOD on Patreon.
Reblogged this on Oldgreywolf’s Weblog.
Thank you for the ego-boo! I will as promised give you a shout out in the next IMPROVISED RADIO THEATRE WITH DICE.
You missed a few points though: in the chaos that was Greg extracting his world and the system from Avalon Hill, there were two projects that never got properly published. One was RUNEQUEST: Adventures In Glorantha (generally called RQIV which numbering caused much confusion later). This was AH trying to revitalise the property. It had some good points but it went in a direction that Greg was tired of: even more simulation, even heavier rules. It didn’t help things that the primary author got himself accused of rape with S&M overtones, convicted and then cleared on appeal. (No, really!)
So somehow Greg ended up with the rights to the system but AH ended up with the rights to the name RUNEQUEST. And tried to use it by commissioning RUNEQUEST: SLAYERS, an abomination against the muse of RPGs that could only be explained by AH assuming that gamers are deeply, deeply stupid and will buy things on name recognition alone. So Greg went off to Robin Laws and got HERO WARS/HEROQUEST started and had to wait several years for the name to return to him and he could let Mongoose have a go.
And then there’s the fact that when Mongoose stopped doing RQ the system (Mongoose RQ2) lead to two successor systems, not just the one you implied: RQ6 and LEGEND.
I’m still re-reading RQ6, by the way, and finding it less irritating the second time though I still hate the fact that they have got rid of what for me was one of the best features of RQ: the experience gain based on whether you used the skill successfully or not. Not having to give out XP and make judgements on how well the players have been doing was a great release for me.
Looking forward to CoC!
I’ve been listening to your podcast today and enjoying it very much: it’s like Ken and Robin talk about stuff meets History Today.
Thanks for the additional material. I chose to make an editorial glide over the late 90’s wrangling and ‘Legend’, but I wasn’t aware of the potential AH products. That period during the 90s was a real black hole for me as I completely disengaged from the hobby, only to pick up interest in 2003 when I joined a D&D group that I unsuccessfully tried to convert to Runequest.
I like RQ6, the special effects make combat very exciting and unpredictable and the spells are neat too. I understand your point about the experience allocation and we considered retaining the previous mechanic, however the campaign I’m running is the Colymar campaign designed for Heroquest, and the allocation of points actually supports awarding players for behaving in a manner that is consistent with their clan requirements.
Thanks again for the additional information – I may include it in the next Post Bag, if that’s ok.
RIP Meatloaf – after all ‘Rockin ‘Rollin Broos’ this is what we sang all those years ago (you say ‘back in the day’)