d100 Clones

Adventure Gaming with Percentile Dice
My recent exploration of Zweihander has me thinking about the trend in our hobby to re-imagine older game systems, add new material and create something both old and new. In the better examples an idea that has been around for a while is improved on, either through better organization and layout, better game mechanics in one or more areas, additional material which builds on and takes the original concept to bigger and better things, or in some other way brings something new and worthwhile to the hobby. The flexibility and popularity of White Box and mechanics based on the use of a twenty-sided die has produced the majority of these clones, simulacrum, pseudo-clones, what-ifs and love letters to... But there are also a few of the re-imaginings which focus on games using other mechanical systems involving either six-sided dice or percentiles. Zweihander is one such product which takes its inspiration from a percentile or d100 roll-under system. There are others.

OpenQuest has a new "refreshed" edition out. It takes its inspiration from the d100 games originally produced by Chaosium in the 1970's and re-tooled by Mongoose around 2006. OpenQuest makes use of the Mongoose Open Game License (OGL) System Reference Document (SRD) and is therefore an open game license product itself. It is this OGL concept spearheaded by Ryan Dancey at Wizards of the Coast and widely adopted that has made the re-imaginings (and a host of creative products) possible. No small thanks is due Mr. Dancey and WotC for this "gift" to our hobby. OpenQuest is generic in the sense that it is not directly connected to a specific world, but like many of the d100 clones it clings closely to the original bronze age myth-based heroic age feel that RuneQuest has. Battle magic, spirit magic, divine magic, cults, and sorcery will feel familiar to anyone conversant with the old Glorantha based products, but each section of the OpenQuest rules also bears the unique stamp of Mr. Newport's vision of his preferred game style.
Percentile dice have been rolling around the game table for a long time. Basing game mechanics on a roll-under percentile is about the simplest and easiest to understand mechanic yet invented for introducing chance into data driven game play. I recall rolling the two polyhedrons used for generating percentiles as part of wargaming long before I heard of White Box, role-playing or fantasy gaming. Several early fantasy role-play games made use of percentile dice in one way or another, probably because they were being used in historical wargaming from which the hobby emerged.

The first game I recall playing that used a straight-up, intuitive, roll-under, percentile based skill system as the central mechanic was RuneQuest from which Basic RolePlaying (BRP) is developed. The BRP engine powers most of Chaosium's many RPGs including personal favorites Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and Magic World. Basic RolePlaying has been included in many of Chaosium's RPGs as a slim, generic, "introductory" or basic rules book and as such may have been the hobby's first "generic" rules. Currently Basic RolePlaying takes the form of the big "Gold Book" which assembles most (if not all) the various rules from the many systems Chaosium has published in a generic toolbox format aimed at the referee who wishes to design their own custom version using the d100 engine.

Mongoose Publishing acquired the rights to the name RuneQuest and its brand of d100 after WotC had opened the Pandora's Box of the OGL and therefore their versions of d100 were also released as Open License products. OpenQuest is Newt Newport's interpretation of the Mongoose OGL rules. Mr. Newport has built OpenQuest as his vision of d100 and refined it for his preferred style of play. I find it a tightly written and slightly more accessible combination of some of my favorite elements of older editions of RuneQuest and Stormbringer.

Before it lost use of the Glorantha and RuneQuest intellectual properties, Mongoose released a major redesign of the d100 system under the title RuneQuest II. Written by Pete Nash and Lawrence Whitaker, RuneQuest II (as Legend) is one of my favorite iterations of d100. It is still in print, with references to the Glorantha setting removed, as Legend by Mongoose. Mr. Nash and Mr. Whitaker subsequently formed their own company, The Design Mechanism, and continue to refine their vision for d100 with RuneQuest 6 (while they had rights to the RQ name) and Mythras. I have the highest praise for the work of Mr. Nash and Mr. Whitaker both as authors of rules and setting books.

While d100 arguably holds second place behind d20 in popularity as a system mechanic it definitely fits my definition of "old school" with roots in the pre 1990s RPGs. Many of the games that use the d100 mechanic are among my all-time favorites. Many I still enjoy playing.