Do you think you'll give Runequest a shot after leaving Dungeons & Dragons?

Runequest was my gaming group's rpg in high school (1980's) and it was so much more intuitive than D&D. It's worth a try for a unique fantasy game.

I was lucky enough to have been given a friend of a friend's whole Runequest collection back in high school. It included the original Trollpak, which just blew my mind. The new edition is just excellence in RPGing.

One of the great things about Runequest, which has been there from the start, is the idea of YGWV: Your Glorantha WILL Vary, not may or might but will. There's an expectation that things will change between book and table. So don't get too hung up on the lore.

I will be giving Runequest a shot. I bought the Starter Set when it was on sale but have not had the time to dig into it.

My favorite system! Been playing for decades. You don't have to twist my arm. ;)

Runequest wasn’t the first game to use skill rules. Traveller (1977) has a skills system although they work in a different way to Runequest.

I've been diving into Mythras, aka Runequest 6e. The system is wonderful but if you want something more generically fantasy without the baked-in campaign setting, it's worth a look. If you want to keep it to Chaosium, BRP is a great toolkit. Or, try and find Stormbringer. A great Chaosium RPG that really captures the world of Elric and that has been out of print for far too long.

Thank you so much for bringing this gem of a system. Pro tip, if you don't like Glorantha (the RuneQuest setting) check out Mythras which is a setting agnostic version of the system, and it has a crap load of settrings, including historical ones like Mythic Britain and they also have a Classic Fantasy book that would allow you to use your favorite D&D setting with just a little work.

Do yourself a favour and try it! I've been playing it since the 2nd edition (yep, I'm that old) and it has consistently been the most fun to play, lore rich but easy to learn game I've ever played and I keep coming back to it again and again. Plus the company that makes it (Chaosium) are a super lovely bunch of people who really care about making their products as beautiful to look at and own as they are fun to play. I'm an old(er!) gamer and have been playing for decades, but am obviously aware that (some) players who belong to newer generations have different expectations and tolerances for what is socially and morally acceptable to them in an RPG - so a quick heads up: RuneQuest is a grownup game, and by that I mean it doesn't shy away from some real world issues that other games (like D&D) increasingly pretend don't exist in order not to offend people. For instance, some of the artwork includes nudity or semi-nudity, but is in no way gratuitous. Think of it more like the art of classical Greece or Rome. If you've ever studied classical art or looked at a Greco-Roman sculpture in a museum without batting an eyelid, then you'll be absolutely fine. Glorantha (the game's canonical world) is a bronze age setting and the game's beautiful and evocative artwork merely reflects the feel of its many different cultures, based on our own world's historical equivalents. Similarly, it's possible (but entirely avoidable if players so choose) to come across some mature themes in RuneQuest. Slavery exists in several human and non-human cultures in Glorantha. The game neither condones nor glorifies it. It simply acknowledges that in some cultures the practice exists. So too do some gods who are the literal embodiment of some very dark social taboos (for instance, Thed the Chaos goddess of rape, or Ikadz the Chaos god of torture). If confronting such issues might be a problem for you or any of your players, then it's simple enough to just omit some of the darker gods or monsters from your campaign. Choosing to leave out certain things that RuneQuest addresses will in no way spoil your enjoyment of the game - there's so much more to the setting than a (very) few things some might take issue with. Pick up the free quickstart at Chaosium and dive in. I promise you, RuneQuest and the world of Glorantha are at once surprisingly familiar and yet completely unlike any other fantasy RPG you've ever played.

I played a campaign of Runequest in my college time (the 90's), it was fun but it felt a bit hardcore for most current D&D players. Some of them could like the different mood And I kind of wonder how it is now with the current edition.

I’m a big fan of the Mythras RPG, which was known as RuneQuest 6. There are a lot of great d100 games, but I personally think it has the best combat system I’ve ever seen in an RPG. It also has some really incredible settings and sourcebooks. Love to see folks trying a new system!

I've always loved Runequest.....since I was around 10....it's deeper and more brutal and much much more fleshed out

I have been looking into Runequest. Currently I am getting into Drakar och Demoner which has a lot in common with Runequest (or at least the older editions did). But this game and setting has a really cool theme and has caught my attention.

Stormbringer too is amazing very dark

I grew up playing Runequest!

Beautiful video, thank you for this 👍

Sounds very interesting! Haven't ever heard of it, fun to learn about this bit of history I can actually play. :)

Cool. This sounds like that old role master system, but maybe simpler in a good way. I always loved the ridiculous crit tables.

Personally going for its' sibling Mythras, but Runequest seems really cool too.

Great free quick start pdf and the starter set is crammed with stuff.

And for the people who wants this great system with more generic system. magic world from chaosium is also a great choice it's also a little lighter on rules

Warrior ducks! Earthdawn is another good alternative, if that's still being published.

Runequest is really a deep and awesome experience 👍👍👍👏

BRP is the superior system

If you want something more high-fantasy, there’s also Elrick/Stormbringer and even Elfquest.

This is the RP game my friends and I played right when I got out of high school (30+ years ago). I didn't love the bronze age setting that much but otherwise loved the game system (especially specific body parts being able to be damaged or being able to dodge and parry). There were no ducks back then but trolls were a playable race and a few of my friends played trolls. For some reason I don't remember the rune magic that well. I think we focused more on spirit magic.

I picked up the slip-cased edition of RuneQuest and I cannot recommend it enough. Chaosium does not cut corners on quality or production of their products. I found this on sale for $95 and it comes with the Core Rule Book, Bestiary and GameMaster’s Screen Pack. The last item is misleading as not only do you get a gorgeous, heavy-duty, 4-panel GM reference screen. You also get multiple maps, a soft-cover GM primer of Dragon Pass with 3 adventures, rules reference, and pre-made PC & NPCs. Definitely get the starter set first and make sure you like the game as you can find that now $20. If you like this edition is worth every penny!

And let's not forget..being set in the Bronze Age, RQ has more boobs. As the video shows. 😉 All joking aside, I've been playing/GM'ing RQ since 1st edition was first released in the 70s (still have my copy of the first printing!) and it's so much more playable than any version of D&D has ever been. That includes 5e and I'm a player in an active D&D 5e campaign. Over the years since then, I've found the trick to moving players from D&D to RQ is to get the players used to the much, much more lethal combat before getting them really locked into a character they enjoy playing. That means running them through arena style combat to get them used to the different dice rolls as well as teaching them RQ not only allows for tactics during combat, it requires their use if a character is to survive. Then follow up with combat scenarios where easy healing is available. NO, repeat, NO back-to-back fights until the players are used to the combat rules and tactics and have their core character skills raised above 60%. Give the players time to internalize the combat skill differences and the tactics that go with those differences. One other thing... RQ defaults to the Bronze Age in Glorantha but that doesn't mean a DM is stuck with that campaign background. It's just as easy to say a campaign background is medieval Europe, 14th century Japan, or even Middle Earth and use the RQ game rules exactly as they are. I've done that throughout most of the 80s and early 90s and no one knew that RQ rules were supposedly set in the Bronze Age. Finally, keep in mind that all the published material for Call of Cthulhu in all its versions can be integrated seemlessly with the rules of RQ as can any other Chaosium publication based on their D100 game engine. So running a Cyberpunk type campaign using RQ and Modern Cthulhu is easily doable; I've done it multiple times as well.

Good summary though surprised you didn't mention the magic systems.

Love RQ, got 7e a while back mostly for the art and the setting, I've not had chance to play or run it yet, its sadly a bit crunchy for my group

RQ was cool as was Stormbringer and other Eternal champion franchised products

4:56 so a gruffer Howard the Duck?

Ran an RQ 2 game, that moved to the Avalon Hill RQ rules. The game lasted 9 years and my group still gets together for lunch once a month. After all these years, I just started a RQ Glorantha game. Will it run antjer 9 years?

I've been playing and DM'ing RQ in all its interations since 1978 and the biggest problem with the game is lack of marketing. It is easily superior to D&D but Chaosium has never pushed it the way TSR and Wizards of the Coast (now Hasbro) has. I play in a D&D 5e group now and it's constantly frustrating to see how the 5e rules don't measure up with the Chaosium "RuneQuest", Mongoose Publishing's "Legends" (my favorite RQ version) or even Design Mechanism's "Mythras" rules. It's so much easier to combine Chaosium publications than use D&D material. I combined adventures from RQ, Call of Cthulhu, and Modern Cthulhu in a now-retired campaign in the 90s and it lasted 5 real-time years; think a fireteam in the middle of a firefight in the jungles of Viet Nam suddenly being summoned by RuneQuest sorcerers to help deal with minions of Cthulhu. Now *_that_* was an experience!

Bro I’ve been wanting to get into Runequest for a couple years now

Heard of Runequest but don't think I have tried it. Though I'm a CoC fan have 7th Ed and Pulp Chuthull. So I'll give it a shot. Thx.

Any chance at all that you would cover Fantasy craft? I played it once briefly, I would love to again if some more people got into it. Runequest sounds a bit more brutal potentially than I enjoy, but it was nice to learn more about it!

I play CoC and have play RQ.

only played one Runequest campaign but it was very fun before the game ended my Humakt worshipping swordswoman had just over 180% sword skill before any spells which i found pretty enjoyable although I will say the current books do seem to be missing stuff like in the core book under enchanting it says how everyone knows how to make a sword of sharpness but now where in the current books does it say what that is or how to do it although it is in the older books but it might be in the next book for runequest that got delayed by the events of the last few years

I think the idea of the Duck race was more inspired by the "Howard the Duck" comics (and later the movie). Think "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" but with more attitude and feathers.

Glorantha has renegade duck people...the Durulz

One big factual error: Skills were first used in D&D original ed, in one of the 1976 supplements, where they added thieves. Travellr beat RQ to the first skill driven engine, in 1977 for Traveller, 1978 for RQ. Traveller went to press the week Star Wars released.

I dont know how I had not heard of Runequest before... it seems interesting and I'd be willing to give it a go, but my initial reaction is that the whole rune part is a turn off and I dont know how to explain why.

Simplify it to CoC 7E rules and it is far easier

Hey, Donald Duck is a badass when it really matters. Sure, he's a walking trainwreck, but if given the chance, he will flip the house.

Have played RQ sincne second edition, though if you don't want to dive into the lore of Glorantha (which is stupidly deep for some) there is also the "magic world" (pdf of magic world core and the "advanced magic" supplement are both super cheap right now) option which is basically BRP tailored for more generic fantasy, you can take the magic world system and use it to run a grittier version of your own homebrew world.

So, these duck people are all Howard the Duck?

The kind of experience you get from Runequest is highly dependent on the gamemaster's knowledge of Glorantha. It's not difficult find a lot of fun at the surface level, by sticking to mainly the mundane aspects of the game. The world is huge, well documented and there are plenty of opportunities for D&D-like roleplaying. But to really get the most out of out it, you need to delve heavily into the mysticism aspects. The gods are more than religious constructs and runes are more than interesting designs with which to adorn your armor. Their relationship to you and the world itself, is the key to unlocking the greatest mysteries Glorantha has to offer. Having a GM who understands these esoteric connections can make a big difference in the way the stories play out. I've been playing for more than 30 years and every session, I learn something new ranging from the sublime to the blasphemous. There is no lore that goes deeper than Glorantha.

Does it have multi classing

JOIN US...

Seems friendly enough. Not sure about the setting. I like the old D&D Tolkien feel.

wait.... Glorantha.... isn't that the setting that was allegedly designed by someone who was VERY much high when he made the setting?

Whether it's this newest version of Runequest - Glorantha, Legend (Mongoose MRQII with Glorantha/Young Kingdoms references removed) Mythras, or any other of the BRP family, the d100 system is, IMO, far superior to d20 based games. It's more intuitive, simpler, more role play rather than roll play focused, certainly more deadly and easily playble with just your character sheet. With PF & D&D it can be difficult to manage a PC with all the various +1 here +2 there bonuses from feats, spells and whatnot without a device running Herolab or similar.

:< D

Got to say, Glorantha was the turn off for me. Tried Runequest as soon as we'd finished our first CoC campaign in (some point in the...) 1980's. I loved the game but I always felt the rules were too tied to the setting, and I just didn't love Glorantha and all the Broo and Chaos stuff. Runequest 6E is now also "Mythras"... (I dunno... politics) but Mythras isn't focused on Glorantha and has a number of settings, including Ancient Britain (Celts/Saxons etc) a Sci Fi variant, and "Classic Fantasy" which is basically a d100 version of AD&D (including the Unearthed Arcana classes like Cavalier and "Thief/Acrobat) If you are real quick, Mythras "Classic Fantasy" is currently on DrivethruRPG for $0.99 till the end of January in PDF format. And that's not like a 16 page mini expansion... its about 300 pages. The Mythras Imperative (the basic intro rules of the system) is also $0.99 so you will be able to actually run the Classic Fantasy d100 game for less than 2 bucks. But only till the end of Jan, (the main Mythras rules pdf is reduced from 15.99 to 6.99 too... It is exactly the same game as Runequest, just without the Gloranthan stuff...

Do those percentages have non divisible by 5 values because if not why wouldn't you just use a d20. I didn't see any in the video. Also how dare you suggest Donald Duck is not badass.

I like everything, except the ducks

The reality is HASBRO is no longer interested in traditional table top players. They are dumping them in exchange for a greater more mainstream audience. For example, I can see bored online World of Warcraft players playing the OneDnD VTT which is shaping to be a videogame rather than a table top game. Who would have thought that table top players would be betrayed by the very HASBRO that milked them for decades.....sigh.

The bestiary has the rules for playing a myriad of non-human races.

I think you really overestimate the impact of ogl on casual(most) players . And no, I do not mean changes to ogl are good , I think on the market at this moment, there are really no good options even to suggest change . And coming back to the topic, I tried runequest few years ago, and to be fair, it was OK, but lacking this something special that I would consider to play this game over d&d or warhammer.