[Runequest] Review of Mongoose RQ Deluxe

[Lev Lafayette]

Hi people,

Here's a review of Mongoose RQ Deluxe I submitted a few hours ago. It
should be up on their site in a week or less, but it seems appropriate
you guys get first eyes on it ;-)

All the best,


Lev


PRODUCT: RuneQuest Deluxe
AUTHOR: Matthew Sprange
COMPANY: Mongoose Publishing

STYLE: 3
SUBSTANCE: 4

SUMMARY:
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The three-in-one publication is a welcome compendium to the Mongoose
RuneQuest line. The general game system is good but suffers from
numerous, and sometimes serious, glitches. Stylistically average the
book is reads well, but without flair.
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REVIEW:
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Background
----------

RuneQuest Deluxe is a combined publication of the Mongoose edition of
RuneQuest, combining the rulebooks of RuneQuest, RuneQuest Companion and
RuneQuest Monsters in a single tome, along with some necessary editing
of a couple of serious errors in the early editions concerning skill
tests, the persistence and resilience skills, opposed tests in combat
and and fumbles. This is a fairly long review, but then again, it's a
fairly hefty book.

Previous reviews of the Mongoose edition of RuneQuest received mixed
reviews. Some were favourable, pointing out that it was delightful to
see the game back in print again after so many years. Much of the
streamlining, especially in the combat system, was also appreciated.
Other reviews were less enthusiastic. The aforementioned rules issues
stuck out like a sore thumb. The 'streamlining' of the (Lewis Morgan
derived) cultures from the third edition was seen as a gutting rather
than a simplification. A perceived divorcement from the Glorantha
gameworld also was irksome to some fans, and finally, there were style
issues both in language and presentation.

For my own part, I have been a RuneQuest player for some twenty-seven
years and have reviewed first and second edition RuneQuest as well as
third on rpg.net. I was involved in the Mongoose Playtest group from the
first iteration of rules and submitted detailed comments, rule by rule,
every step of the way. I harangued the list for quite some time that the
name of the game should be represented in actual play. The playtest
process itself was not of the highest quality, but this experience will
not affect the review. There were some notable differences between final
draft of the rules and the version that finally went to press. Whilst
this review will comment extensively on comparisons between this and
previous editions this too will not affect the overall evaluation.

The Product
-----------

The book weighs in at a hefty 352 pages with hardbound and softbound
editions; the spine is solidly glued rather than stiched. The text is
presented in a sensible serif font, largely two-column justified
throughout, although the black print on light grey text leaves a little
to be desired, as does the excess of white space (grey space?) resulting
on line breaks rather than indentation for paragraphs. The margins,
designed with a with a fairly attractive parchment edging, offer a page
number and chapter title in a rather small font. Criticism must be
levied at the sheer size of the margins which take up over a third of
the surface area of each page. 

The table of contents is very slim, especially for a book of this size
and the index, whilst a good four pages in length is sometimes a little
odd. For example when looking for the starting age and experience for
characters (aware that characters don't have to start at the same age),
I checked under 'age', 'starting age', 'experience' and 'background
experience', before discovering the reference 'beginning play with
advanced characters'. The back pages include a summary Runesheet with
basic powers and a difficult to read (let alone photocopy) five page
character sheet. There is no summary of major charts which blessed all
preceding editions of the game.

The uninspired cover art, credited to Bob Cram, Dan Howard and Jeff
Koch, is the runes of Infinity, Beast and Law representing the Basic
Book, Monsters and Companion respectively; Anne Stokes' RuneQuest logo
shows some competence. Only some of the internal art shows particular
skill in either creativity or technique, with the various sketches of
runes throughout the book being particularly poor. A significant number
of pieces have also been printed too darkly. This said, the art is
usually contextually appropriate and I did like the winged gorgon
(p256), and the various nymphs (p284).

The writing style is informal but clear, perhaps a bit simplistic and
leans towards the verbose, taking few risks in lest it be accused of
purple prose. One aspect that certainly stands out in this edition
compared to previous incarnations is an apparent lack of prior exposure
to real-world anthropology and mythological structures resulting in the
text not generating the same sense of wonder and magic as previous
editions. The organisation of the text is mostly good, a basically
linear experience of character generation, skilll resolution and combat,
spells, after the adventure and various beasties, but can a little
haphazard at times - one would expect, for example, that the starting
level for characters would be in section for generating characters, but
this is not the case.

Characters and Skills
---------------------

Character generation is based on a 4d6 drop lowest for STRength,
CONstitution, DEXterity, POWer and CHArisma and 2d6+6 for INTelligence
and SIZe. A point-buy option, a feature of RuneQuest since 1978, is no
longer available despite now being adopted by its old competitor.
Derived from Characteristics are Attributes. These include Combat
Actions from Dexterity (which really must have 'etc' added to the bottom
of the table to scale properly), Damage Modifier from Size and Strength
(ditto), Hit Points per location from Size and Constitution (which does
scale), Magic Points from Power and Strike Ranks from the average of
Intelligence and Dexterity. The latter is most problematic as it removes
any possibility of a fast but unintelligent character and also
dramatically reduces the speed of many animals who have a low but fixed
INT.

Skill are conceptually differentiated as Basic Skills and Advanced
Skills, which in itself is a good idea although one can be justifiably
uncertain why, for example, 'Sing is a basic skill, whilst 'Dance' is an
Advanced skill. There is no necessary prerequisite method between the
Basic and Advanced skills either. Starting skill chances are derived
directly (like ElfQuest) from a varied number of characteristics (e.g.,
Dexterity for Acrobatics, Intelligence plus Power for Perception, 10
+Dexterity-Size for Stealth). There are 20 non-weapon Basic skills, 14
Advanced Skills (plus various Crafts, Languages and Lores), and 20
weapon skills. Skills are usually described in a couple of paragraphs
with occasional modifier examples.  Starting basic skills are somewhat
unbalanced; the average base for active physical skills is around 22%,
whereas SIZ-negative physical skills (e.g., stealth, dodge) and thinking
skills is half that. This is potentially not a problem if INT is used in
other ways (e.g., as a bonus in skill improvement tests) but this is not
the case.

Following this a player chooses a culture and a profession for further
background experience and starting wealth. Note that these are one-shot
acquisitions. One does not gradually gain skills or equipments in these
areas, but rather they are used up completely and immediately. The
'cultures' are Barbarian, Civilised, Mariner, Noble, Nomad (Artic,
Desert, Temperate), Peasant, Primitive and Townsman. There are
thirty-three 'professions', which are restricted by 'culture'. Whilst it
is good to see that a wide scope of realistic and non-adventuring
professions which are more or less balanced, it would appear that the
cultural definitions were taken by simply mashing the backgrounds of
RuneQuest 1st and 2nd edition with the cultures of RuneQuest 3rd
edition, resulting in most inappropriate mixture. Describing 'noble',
'peasant', 'mariner' and 'townsman' as "cultures" does not make much
contextual sense, and can justly ask if there are three sub-categories
of Nomad, why this doesn't also apply to primitives, barbarians and
civilised cultures. 

The final steps of character generation including allocating free skill
points, which is roughly the same bonus as that gained from culture and
profession, purchasing equipment and some incredibly vague notes on
character personality which is entirely absent of the emphases on
species, state, cult and runic prejudices. An option also exists, as
previously indicated, to start characters with higher levels of
experience, primarily through increasing the minimum starting age,
allowing extra free skill points, bonus characteristic levels, extra
runes, higher cult status, extra Hero Points and Legendary Abilities,
however this is much further in the book. 

Skill tests are a simple d100 roll-under method with general difficulty
and specific haste modifiers. Criticals are 10% of the success chance,
all rolls between 96 and 99 are failures and fumbles are a flat 1% (00),
although this is modified for very high skills. In opposed tests the
highest successful roll succeeds and in the case of failure, the GM must
decide. Group tests are split into teams (any success by any member) or
sorting (some fail, some succeed) with assistance to tests equalling the
critical chance of each assistant. The example of three characters
trying to hold up a heavy portcullis (p24) is most illustrative of an
enormous error in the game in deleting characteristic rolls (the test is
against an athletics skill) and the uselessness of the Assistance rules
versus the Team Test rules on the previous page. In the former case, it
illustrates how an average character with a minimal level of training
(say +20% to the athletics skills) is the equal in lifting things to the
untrained but naturally enormous Burly Bob (SIZ 20, STR 20). In the
second case it shows that in a group test three individuals with 50%
skill fails to equate with the same two individuals offering assistance
to the third (50%+5%+5%). There is an attempt to reconstruct
characteristic tests can be found in certain skills (such as mental
Persistence and physical Resilience) by limiting the possible skill
level to a characteristic multiplier. 

Equipment and Combat
--------------------

The Equipment chapter starts with brief notes on currency, trading and
wealth and status and also provides a table for standards of living,
weregild and ransom. The latter is taken from RuneQuest3e but lacks the
flavoursome status examples of the sort of clothing, food such people
are likely to have and the equivalent weregild in cattle. The chapter
ends with a short listing (four pages) of general items, animals,
transport and slaves, food and lodging and magic items. The bulk of the
equipment chapter is weapons and armour, staring with close combat
weapons, then ranged, then armour. A short separate listing is given for
stone primitive weapons. 

Combat rounds are 5 seconds long. During that time a character may act a
number of times equal to the Combat Actions (usually two or three) and
receives a like number of Reactions. This does seem to be more than a
little high, unless of course one intreprets a missed attack roll to
also mean not attacking (i.e., failing to see a potential opening).
There are also options for free attacks in certain contexts. Initiative
is determined on a d10 roll plus strike rank, determined by Dexterity
and Intelligence; Size, Dexterity and Weapon Length would have been a
preferred option and more consistent with previous editions. An action
includes Aim, Cast Spell, Close Attack, Charge (which is, oddly, a flat
bonus to damage regardless of speed or size), Fighting Retreat, Grapple,
Move, Ready Weapon, Ranged Attack and the like. If attacked, a character
may choose to React (parry, dodge) and the relative success of the two
is compared to a table which determine not only whether the attack
succeeded or failed, but a variety of other special effects, such as
Riposte, Attacker Overextended, Defender Gives Ground. In a fairly
significant departure from normal conventions a successful dodge against
a succesful hit is still a hit, albeit with minimal damage and you
simply cannot put your arms in the way (parry) a crafted weapon.

Damage is applied to specific hit locations following a familiar d20
roll with armour subtracting. If a location is reduced to less than 0
hit points it is considered to have suffered a serious wound, which
often incapacitates if a head, chest or abdomen wound. If the location
is reduced to negative hit points it is considered severed or mangled,
usually resulting in death for vital locations. Some of the skill
modifiers that result from such woundings are more than a little
strange; with two legs lost, the modifer to dodge is -30% yet the same
is applied if two arms are lost. Hero Points may be spent at this point
for rerolls, reduced damage and minor plot elements. If a character
receives greater than their SIZ in damage, they may be knocked back or
knocked down and if they hit a solid object they receive an additional
1d4 damage, although this does not scale to the initial damage - it is a
flat value.

There are a number of positive comments that can be made about the new
combat system. The initiative system is quicker than previous editions
(although getting rid of the the additional d10 roll per round would be
even better). The merging of weapon attack and weapon parry rolls into a
single skill is most certainly welcome, although greater variation to
base chances to each of these would have been strongly preferred. The
removal of general hit points certainly makes accounting easier and
increases survival rates of characters. Where there are glitches in the
system, as noted, they are the sort of errors that a GM can repair
without rebuilding. In a general sense (specific errors and omissions as
noted excluded) the combat system is an example of good design; it is
quite fast and easy to play, sufficiently realistic and flavoursome.

Rune and Divine Magic, Sorcery and Cults
----------------------------------------

The three magic systems in the new edition of RuneQuest are Rune Magic,
Divine Magic and Sorcery. The former is predicated on the removal of the
old Spirit Magic or Basic Magic systems as it was known in previous
editions, which is a serious loss to both the connection to the default
game world of Glorantha and to any other fantasy setting that makes use
of animistic magic. To acquire a Rune Magic spell, a character must find
a Rune which is a physical etching formed from a drop of a blood from
the gods. The rune must be then integrated by spending an hour in
solitude with the object which causes the character to become
'runetouched' (acquiring new abilities) and then can also be used to
cast a rune spell which take a variable time in days to learn according
to magnitude. The powers of multiple runes of the same type may not be
combined. Spells are cast with the expenditure of Magic Points according
to the magnitude of the spell and success with the Runecasting skill,
are often resisted by the Resilience skill. The appropriate rune (and no
others) must he held in the character's hands whilst casting the spell.
Some of the spells do seem a little odd in their alignment, most notably
Skybolt, whose description is very Orlanthi, but is aligned to Chaos.

Whilst the acquisition of Runes themselves is flavoursome it perhaps
would have been much more appropriate if this was included as part of
Divine magic, particularly considering that the runes are supposedly
formed from the gods themselves (or even more so, as part of Sorcery, to
represent forces beyond the powers of the gods), especially given that
the game does specify it assumes Glorantha as the core setting.Further,
the physical manifestation of the runes themselves is quite twinky,
lacking in any sort of elemental mysticism or personal alignment to
particular runes - the aim of the game is to collect as many different
runes as possible without doubles. Perhaps most damaging of all is the
recovery rates for Magic Points. Whilst in previous editions Magic
Points equated roughly with daily use, in the new edition all magic
points are recovered every 10 hours or 5 hours whilst resting,
effectively increasing the total number of magic points up to almost six
times. A person with average Power can now cast Disruption over 60 times
in a 25 hour period! This is a very significant problem to the game
system and a reversion to a far more sensible rate of recovery from
previous editions is essential.

Divine magic is given out to members of cults and the magnitude is
dependent on the size of a temple. The spells are one-use only and can
only be recovered by visiting the temple. Rather than Power being
sacrified it is now dedicated and returned once the spell is cast. This
is particularly appropriate as Power is no longer such a nebulous
characteristic subject to significant variation. Casting a Divine magic
spell requires use of a Lore (specific theology) skill roll and at least
Initiate status in a cult. No magic points are required unless the spell
is being "overcast". Divine magic is also considered more powerful than
Rune magic or Sorcery and when direct magic to magic conflicts occur it
is considered to have twice the listed magnitude. Because the old
distinction between 're-usable' (i.e., regained by temple visits) and
'one-use' (requires additional POW sacrifice) has been removed, it is
notable that the magnitude of Divine spells has increased
proportionally.

The third magic system is sorcery. Sorcery spells are distinguished by
their general lack of power, but extreme flexibility with variations in
damage, range, duration or even the number of targets. In addition to
these manipulation skills, each sorcery spell is also a separate magical
skill. Sorcery spells themselves do not require magic points to cast,
but do require such powering to be manipulated. The manipulation skills
establish a maximum capacity which follow a linear increase in power,
whereas the previous edition roughly doubled the capacity at each degree
of manipulation; this radically reduces the abilities of medium to high
powered sorcerers.

The three schools of magic are followed by short chapters on
Enchantments, the Spirit World, Cults and Temples. Enchanments are a
common procedure using the Enchantment skill, requisite spells, and the
sacrifice of Power. The time taken for the Enchantment varies on the
requisite Power and the difficulty of the skill on the type of
enchantment (e.g,, Item Blessing, Binding, Warding, Power Enchancement
etc). The Spirit World chapter discusses the characteristics and
abilities of spirits, spirit combat and possession. The chapter on cults
distinguishes between Lay Members, Initiates, Acolytes and finally
Runepriests or Runelords. Various cult descriptions outline the sort of
worshippers, the skills the cult offers, duties of members, Rune magics
available from the cult and any benefits. Temples are distinguished by
the size, the sort of staff present and their ability to provide magics.
Four sample temples and floorplans are offered.

Adventuring and Creatures
-------------------------

The four chapters of Adventuring, Travel, Between Adventures and
Improving Adventurers provide supporting and supplementary information
and rules. It includes, a simple fatigue system, an overly simple (and
inaccurate) encumbrance system, rules for falling and suffocation, fire,
poison and disease, with the latter two acting a contested rolls against
resilience. A small selection of armour and hit points are given to
inanimate objects, before moving on to travel speed and expenses, along
with eleven ship designs, characteristics, speed and the dangers of
waterborne travel, including naval warfare and ship repairs. The
emphasis on sea travel and the relative absence of discussion of other
modes of transport is surprising. The 'between adventures' chapter gives
descriptives of habitation sizes, a comprehensive list of reputation and
renown modifiers and their effect on influence tests, employment
prospects (suitably rough), including thievery, and item quality and
costs by locale along with notes on trade.

Characters improve their abilities based on the completion of stories,
which may take multiple sessions. On average three improvement rolls and
two Hero Points are gained. Improvement rolls can also be gained by
practise and research with a general rate of taking 1 day per existing
10% in a skill for improvement rolls. Improvement is based on a roll
above current skill levels with a success resulting in an increase of
1d4+1 (1d6+1 if trained by a mentor) extra skill percentiles and a
failed roll increasing the skill by 1%. Note that a character's
Intelligence plays no part in the quantity or rate of improvement rolls.
Note also that adventure-based improvement rolls do not have to be
related to any skill used during the adventure. New advanced skills can
be acquired by two improvement rolls and increases in characteristics by
three; no guidelines concerning the time required is provided. The
penultimate section of the "Improving Adventures" chapter is "Legendary
Abilities", which is a horrid set of munchkin superpowers whose content
should be directly achievable through extremely high skill levels and
powerful spells. Finally, the chapter finishes with some notes on
'levels of experience' namely, Novice, Seasoned, Veteran, Master and
Hero with bonuses to skill points, money, characteristics, runes,
status, hero points and legendary abilities.

Taking up over forty percent of the book is the various creatures. This
begins with a discussion on creatures as adversaries, creatures as
characters, creatures as resources (particularly the conversion of
natural skin to armour), the use of creatures as commodities (and
especially training time), and finally the touch of chaos upon various
creatures. In the case of creatures as PCs, like human PCs, they may
receive a bonus die and drop for selected characteristics. Most existing
cultures and professions are deemed to be sufficiently suitable for
non-human PCs subject to a table of common professions and common
cultures. Instinctual creatures (i.e., those with a fixed INT) are
described as "poor choices" for player characters! Usually there is only
minimal description of the alien psychology of many sapient creatures
and the mindset required to play such beings.

The creatures themselves are largely stat blocks, although the
associated notes usually make slight effort to describe the environment
where the creature can be found plus some comments on the social
organisation, if any, along with the expected special remarks on martial
and tactical considerations. There are some excellent notes (six pages!)
on the lifecycle of the dragonnewts, the reincarnating, sapient saurians
and also some good information on elementals. All the standard fantasy
species are of course present, along with a sizeable number belonging to
RuneQuest's eternal sister game-world, Glorantha. A final short chapter
also gives descriptions of some of the more extreme creatures of
Glorantha like the Chaos Gaggle, the Crimson Bat and the Mother of
Monsters, all of which have the sort of statistics that would make the
greatest hero seem insignificant. The white-space issue raises its head
again here with stat-blocs and hit-locations presented on the vertical
rather than side-by-side, again increasing the page count unnecessarily.

Overall
-------

It is probable that this book should have been released simultaneously
with the individual core rulebooks by Mongoose, but evidently the lure
of additional first sales was strong. Past mixed reviews of these three
core rulebooks are largely confirmed. This is a mixed bag; in some
instances the simplification of the rules was warranted and imaginative
alternatives were established. As mentioned the combat system is one
good example where simplification was gained without a major loss of
content. However this was by no means universal; the alterations to the
background cultural experience in particular was ill-conceived and
poorly executed. Whilst most of the rules hang together in a coherent
system, there are some incredibly annoying oversights and often in some
extremely critical areas (such as the removing characteristic rolls, the
recovery of magic points etc). Stylistically the game is very
middle-of-the-road, clearly written but with a great deal of the
evocative mythology largely lost, such as the removal of Spirit Magic,
or worse still turned into poorly suited enticements such as Legendary
Abilities. 

However this is not a Curate's Egg, or rather it is an egg like the
curate suggested. Parts of it are excellent and these parts can be taken
out and used independently from those parts which are not so good. For
those who have not experienced RuneQuest before and find older editions
quite unavailable I can thoroughly recommend it. For those with a great
deal of prior experience in the game I would be more prone to
recommending a modified use of the combat system and perhaps give a
second look to the magic system. By itself it is quite a workable
product and I cannot help but think that in some ways it suffers the
sort of problems that Alien 3 did when it was released; that is, the
prior editions set a very high challenge and criticism of the product is
in actual fact an indirect reference to previous editions. Overall, I
give Mongoose RuneQuest Deluxe a most marginal 4/5 for substance and a
high 3/5 for style.

Style: 1 + .3 (layout) + .4 (art) + .7 (coolness) + .7 (readability)
+ .7 (product) = 3.8

Substance: 1 + .6 (content) + .4 (text) + .7 (fun) + .5 (workmanship)
+ .8 (system) = 4.0

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