Talk:RuneQuest

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It might be a good idea to point out that Hero Wars is now in a second edition and is called 'Hero Quest'. -- Trithemius

You should also add a real intro instead of that wimpy one liner about its publisher, write an overview there then go into detail further on.--Fliptopsean, a.k.a. Face 23:21, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] RQ Hasbro

It should probably be pointed out that ownership of the RuneQuest system is now in the hands of Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast, who also publish D&D. And that some of the elements in the newest edition of the D&D system are very much like parts of RuneQuest, which may be due to the use of RQ elements in early house games by some WOTC designers. Lastly, perhaps there should be some mention of the rumored acquisition of the RuneQuest trademark (but not the system) by Issaries, Inc.?

peter@maranci.net

[edit] Hit Location

As a player of Runequest in the early/mid 80s, one of its most distinctive features to me was the hit location system for combat. That and the fact that characters were actually quite weak in terms of HP and that any opponent had a chance of hitting you made RQ a much more difficult and ‘realistic’ game than say, AD&D. In RQ, even a minor enemy could get a lucky hit, impale or critical, take out your sword arm or leg where the armour was weak and suddenly you were on the ropes.

This, in my experience, made the game less popular with many “power gamer” types and maybe counted against RQ in the market.

But since this is just my opinion and experience, I’d like to see other people’s points of view. --Affentitten 03:47, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

IMO, RuneQuest offered a number of innovations compared to the D&D and Tunnels and Trolls, the two major RPGs out at the time. Among them:
  • The hit location system, as you mention
  • Percentile-based skills
  • The extremely flexible and tactical Strike Rank system of combat
  • Battle Magic: Everybody knows a spell or two
Those are the major ones I can think of off the top of my head! Applejuicefool 13:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cleanup and references

I added a cleanup tag and an unreferenced tag to the article. Much of the article could probably be deleted, especially a lot of the unreferenced stuff. The section contrasting D&D with RuneQuest is one section in particular that needs editing for grammar and content. (Much of this article seems to consist of personal opinion.) Rray 21:33, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Utmost deletion might be extreme and even unpleasant. I suggest that not all of it be deleted (unless hard drive space as a commodity is vanishing) because quite a bit of the information is in reference what can be gleaned from the various books of Runequest. The comparison between D&D and Runequest, which might be what you are objecting largely to, is not of terribly objectionable content but should be supported with swift citation to the various versions of D&D and AD&D. If a person takes a look at these D&D rulebooks, they make a very early attempt to establish a generic system outside of any specific setting, incorporating myth, folklore, and popular fantasy fiction from a wide variety of sources. Hobbits and orcs from Middle Earth, and trolls, paladins and alignment from Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions, and exhaustible magic spells from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, among other concepts such as seven league boots and bags of holding from fairy tales.
Of course, perhaps the objection is to the mention of Warhammer and other games as potentially derived from Runequest. It appears that many roleplaying game fans of a specific system are alarmed to find that their favorite game is not quite so distinctive and original as they initially presume. Others do not seem to mind so much, though. 68.115.17.73 17:01, 3 February 2007 (UTC)Anonymous
The objection is that Wikipedia is not the place to publish original research. Drawing conclusions about the superiority of certain aspects of Runequest over D&D isn't appropriate for an encyclopedia article, unless there are appropriate citations of other authoritative sources on the matter. While I happen to personally agree that Runequest is a lot better than D&D on almost every level, the article isn't the place to point that out. Rray 20:18, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-acquired?

"At some stage in 2003 the rights to the trademarked name "RuneQuest" were reacquired by Issaries, Inc." - this is incorrect. Since Issaries hadn't owned the trademark to RuneQuest previously, this should read "acquired" not "re-acquired".

The tangled mess of the relationship between Chaosium, Greg Stafford, Issaries, and Hasbro would be a fascinating addition to the article, but I suspect that it would lead to far too many complications - there's simply too much controversy going on.

I do think it would be worthwhile to note that there is a break in the provenance of the RuneQuest system between RQ1/2/3 and Mongoose RuneQuest (which was created without the agreement of the original RuneQuest creators, nor with the agreement of the copyright-holders of the text of previous RuneQuest systems). But I'm sure that the result would be a delete war, so I won't bother.

Likewise, it should probably be noted that Chaosium's new D100/BRP system is actually closer to RuneQuest III than Mongoose RuneQuest is, but again, that may be too controversial. PMaranci 15:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Good point regarding "reacquired" vs. "acquired". I've edited the article to reflect that. If there is legitimate source material regarding "the tangled mess of the relationship between Chaosium, Greg Stafford, Issaires, and Hasbro" then that would certainly be a welcome addition to the article. The main thing to avoid is original research regarding the subject. Controversy is fine as long as it's factual and cited. Rray 18:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)