RuneQuesting

RuneQuest by Chaosium - Avalon Hill publisher

I personally find the publication history of many game systems to be a fascinating story in itself. This is no doubt partially due to my memories of them as they were unfolding. The role-playing game (RPG) hobby began with publication of the original version of D&D in 1974. Written by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, it was published by a fledgling company - arguably formed just because the authors failed to sell their novel game idea to Avalon Hill (and maybe other game publishers). A decade later and Avalon Hill is likely feeling the loss of a profitable opportunity, having said "no" to Mr. Gyagx and Mr. Arneson and then having watched from the sideline as the new RPG phenomenon rapidly expanded. 

RuneQuest was first published in 1978 by another fledgling company known then as The Chaosium. Founded in 1975 by designer Greg Stafford, The Chaosium gave Mr. Stafford a way to produce his boardgame designs, including White Bear and Red Moon (Dragon Pass as it was retitled in the Avalon Hill version), Nomad Gods and King Arthur's Knights. RuneQuest, was published by Chaosium, as an RPG including Mr. Stafford's fictional Glorantha as its default setting. Glorantha is also the setting for the tabletop map/board games White Bear and Red Moon and Nomad Gods (and several more recent versions of RPG).

The Chaosium (later changed to just Chaosium) published two editions of RuneQuest in the late 1970s. An effort on Mr. Stafford's part to leverage Avalon Hill's wider distribution network had apparently led to a partnership between Chaosium and The Avalon Hill Game Co. for the 3rd edition of his FRP game. The 3rd edition RuneQuest (1984) arrived in stores packaged in Avalon Hill's signature bookshelf box. Three versions of the boxed edition can be found - Deluxe Edition contains the full game which includes 5 booklets, a map and player aids; a Players Box (pictured above) containing the Players booklet and Magic booklet, a Gamemasters Box containing the remaining three booklets as found in the Deluxe box, and a Standard Edition box containing two abbreviated booklets, but enough system contents to still run a RQ game. A bit later, the Deluxe version was rereleased as a softcover book with the contents of all 5 Deluxe booklets in one volume.

The 3rd edition of RuneQuest is an obvious evolution of previous RuneQuest editions and most of the same mechanical features of the previous editions are present, but it differs in a significant way by removing the Glorantha material as its "default setting" and replaces it with reference to a "fantasy Europe" setting that is very briefly described. The full Deluxe set contains a single Glorantha booklet for reference if one would like to role-play using that setting. Other Glorantha materials would be released by Avalon Hill as follow on products, but at a glacial pace.

I recall having greeted the Avalon Hill version of RuneQuest in 1984 with eagerness and having quickly embraced the changes it introduced to the game, changes which at the time, seemed both minor and an improvement - mostly. Having enjoyed RuneQuest for a few years while also struggling with Glorantha as a setting, I welcomed the "fantasy Europe" alternative and quickly started to develop my own "dark age" version of RuneQuest. My enthusiasm for the 3rd edition was further enhanced when Avalon Hill released their Vikings setting box (1985) - a favorite product that I cherish to this day.

Simply put, "my RuneQuest" became a dark age low fantasy Europe RuneQuest. 

 

Tending the Hearth-Fires

A Different Kind of Adventure Game!

In 1977 I started "adventure gaming", which is the term originally used for the hobby that has became widely known as "role-playing". Having previously played several popular "family" tabletop games, map wargames and wargames using miniature figures for years, I was then, and remain so today, interested in almost all new concepts in games, tabletop or digital. Much as I have described previously, my approach to The World's First Role-Playing Game was to treat it as a new "fantasy" themed wargame. My game character(s), we often controlled more than one during any given session, I saw as synonymous with "playing pieces". Each "character" consisted of a list of abilities and rarely did the character have anything one would identify as a "personality". I made game decisions using the character abilities as tactical options to achieve success at the table. The character was moved, made attacks and cast magic much as one would move a playing piece across a board or play cards from a hand or deck. It was simply put, "a game". It took us some time to get comfortable with even this simplistic gamey approach to the new hobby.

Then my friends and I discovered a new tabletop RPG called Call of Cthulhu and our head scratching wonderment began all over again. The new game published by Chaosium involved playing "investigators" rather than "adventurers". Asking questions of the NPCs seemed more important in CoC than killing them and taking their stuff. The emphasis on combat abilities gradually gave way to social and research skills. Based on the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, Call of Cthulhu is set in the 1920's and a bit of "law and order" is assumed within the setting. Random acts of PC violence often leads to the intervention of authorities - much as one might expect. Research and problem solving ability, along with the role-playing of numerous PC/NPC conversations is more a part of a typical session of Call of Cthulhu than shooting and stabbing. It is through playing Call of Cthulhu that our gaming group began to understand "playing a character role" at the table.

Soon after Call of Cthulhu we began exploring another game published by Chaosium, RuneQuest 2nd Edition, and our learning of something new about the hobby took yet another sharp turn. RuneQuest's default setting is the mythical bronze age world of Glorantha in which bronze sword and spear prevail as weapons of choice and a pantheon of nature-based deities take active roles in the lives of the characters who often seek to re-enact the heroic deeds of their ancestors through various "quests". Perhaps unfortunately, RuneQuest seemed just close enough to our beloved dungeon crawler game that we attempted to do just that using the new d100 mechanics of RuneQuest. Its low powered "battle magic" and hit location damage gave RQ a distinctly different flavor. The result of our playing RQ as a dungeon exploration game was a lot of maimed and dead characters.

It seems obvious in hindsight that we missed the target while playing RuneQuest. We just did not "get it" in the early 1980s. There is a really special game to be had in RuneQuest and for the most part it went unnoticed as we ignored thatt as we tried to force RQ to be something it was not designed to be.

The designers of RuneQuest envisioned a game where players take on the role of playing characters who are active members of a culture, a religious community and a social group. The RQ character is supposed to be more than a playing piece. Context matters as much as personal character achievement in RuneQuest. Advancing the PC's abilities is secondary to the events that involve the deities and the other fictional inhabitants of the fictional setting. RuneQuest is a game about relationships and we largely missed that fact. 

As a result of my personal ignorance regarding the game's actual objectives, I struggled mightily with RuneQuest as a game system. RQ 3rd edition brought us a new boxed format and a few changes to the game mechanics - such as the introduction of fatigue rules - but the release of any specifically Glorantha based setting material for RQ3 was slow. In the meantime, I was attracted to the fantasy Europe setting as offered by the new publisher of RQ 3e, Avalon Hill. Vikings became my preferred setting for RQ3 and drawing upon my knowledge of historical Scandinavian culture, I began to accidentally play RQ more as I believe it was designed to be played. The player characters were viewed more as members of their society, as a ship's crew with mates with a village to return to, or as settlers on a remote island exploring and surviving the harsh environment. Context. Gradually I got a glimpse of how RuneQuest could be played and what great enjoyment could result from this sort of game. Then Avalon Hill went out-of-business and RuneQuest 3e became out-of-print. My friends and I moved on to other newer games and years would pass before I returned to RuneQuest and Glorantha.

Having come to the realization that many of the best games ever produced are currently "games of years ago" in terms of being new or in-print, I have devoted much time of late to re-acquainting myself with many "old friends" in the form of older games I once loved - RuneQuest not the least among them. With my modern "gamer eyes" I can see more clearly what RuneQuest 2nd edition sought to accomplish circa 1980 and I have new respect for its subsequent influence on the hobby - even though I largely missed out on all that at the time, others obviously weren't as clueless as I was. The evidence of RuneQuest's success in the hobby can be seen in many role-playing games today that feature player characters in context. PCs who are connected to each other, involved with the setting and with groups of NPCs, all through relationships that give play a depth and enjoyment factor that transcends crawling through a dungeon looking for treasure. Do I still enjoy the occasional dungeon crawl? You bet I do. But I also enjoy many other types of adventure games as well.

It's a Wargame

It says so right in the subtitle.

Like many who came upon the game before me and a few that were introduced to the game after me, The World's First Role-Playing Game came to many as a new fantasy "wargame" on the man-to-man scale. (Each figure represented a single combatant, hence the wargames term "man-to-man".) I was not among the first to discover this new "fantasy game" as it was sometimes referred to in the early-mid 1970s, but eventually it called to me. The original edition of The World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game had already reached its 5th printing by the time I got ,y hands on a copy. The first three printings were shipped in a woodgrain box (I have only seen a few copies of these printings and that being years ago!), but my 5th printing came in the box like the one pictured above. (Hence my referring to this beloved edition as the "White Box".)

Like many fans of the then-new hobby phenomena, a hobby we now somewhat generically refer to as "playing D&D", I had (and still maintain) an abiding interest in many other types of games, especially those involving an historic topic. In my personal background of interests and experiences that I bring to gaming, and which I first brought to the "adventure game" table, were experiences with various favorite games I had previously found among the American Heritage series of boardgames published by Milton Bradley starting in the 1960s, followed by various paper map wargames published by Avalon Hill and SPI game companies as well as several game systems involving the use of historical miniature figurines and tabletop terrain pieces (often borrowed from model railroading).

The game concepts that I found and immediately understood in the new White Box edition's little brown rule books were those that were somewhat similar to rules and conventions I had previously encountered while playing various wargames. The measuring of tabletop distances in inches, I could relate to this concept from a similar practice used in miniature figure wargames. Taking turns moving and "attacking' with the figures under my command, I had also done playing such wargames and I found very similar to the turns and rounds I saw being described in the fantasy game rules. Weapons and armor and game terms such as "light foot", "heavy foot" and "armored foot" all referencing the armor protection worn, movement rate, and morale ratings and training of various types of troops, this all made sense when I compared these to concepts I had previously found in my various experiences with prior wargames. 

Weapon reach and the idea that longer weapons strike first, that the "setting" of spears against a charge in order to maximize damage to the charging enemy as a sound tactic - it all made perfect sense to a wargamer as I read those rules in the early edition of the new fantasy game. The Original RPG included an end-game in which fighting men have progressed through adventuring to the point they have acquired wealth and power and a stronghold to attract a loyal following, and in essence, to become the "lords of the realm" commanding a host of troops with which to wage various battles defending and expanding their holdings - this all makes a lot of sense in a wargames campaign context. 

Dividing the fictional game world into opposing sides for the purpose of determining who will fight against or alongside who is another concept familiar to experienced wargamers. The World's First Role-Playing Game contains just such a list of the creatures, fantastic and mundane, who inhabit the setting and who all are aligned with the forces of either Law, Chaos or Neutrality. Interestingly, the creature called "humans" (presumably us!) appear on all three alignment lists!

The original adventure game (role-playing is not a term that was used at the time) breaks new ground in many ways when it is first released in 1974, chief among its innovations is the inclusion of fantasy tropes (and troops) borrowed from popular science fiction-fantasy sources. Elves, trolls and dragons are common in games today, but that was not so in 1974 - and certainly not so in wargames which to that point had almost universally adhered to real-world historical subjects and themes. 

The inclusion of (the now) classic fantasy elements was (and remains) appealing to a growing Fantasy audience and to many of the purchasers of the new game and increasingly so to those purchasing its successor editions. Having been an avid reader of adventure stories including many genres prior to my discovery of the new hobby, most importantly those works of the  many authors specifically mentioned by the designers of the original role-playing game, my imagination quickly grasped onto several possibilities of having great gaming fun while imitating the adventures of characters such as Conan the Barbarian or John Carter of Mars - fictional characters which had already captured my imagination through books and comics. And coincidentally, I also knew what a "hobbit" was from my having been handed the book prominently featuring the same name by a kindly school librarian some years before - a book I have read and reread over the years since! The new fantasy game seemed a natural fit.

In the decades since publication of The World's First Role-Playing Game, fantasy tropes have become more a part of popular culture. It is not difficult today to find various products from cinema to computer and console games that feature fantastic creatures. What each gamer brings to the table when they first explore role-playing games will still shape their interests and interpretations of the game, however. Whether they are steeped in older classic fantasy tropes like elves and hobbits or those found in more recent media, I suspect they will imagine recreating adventures of their own informed by the inspiration gained through what they have previously encountered. It seems to be the way of things.

Therefore the nature of our game changes with whatever each player will bring to the table. This is one of the strengths of the hobby and an obvious appeal that the game can be whatever its players desire it to be. By way of their own unique background, every player will use their imagination in a personalized vision of the game's "fantastic". Wargamers will of course share certain common experiences with other wargamers, especially those with similar background, and this will be true of other non-wargamers sharing similar non-wargame backgrounds. Readers of certain select works of fiction will have similar understandings of the fictional concepts involving magic and of the fantastic and supernatural. Cinema and even other game media will influence our personal and shared preconceptions of what we shall find among the pages of the fantastic role-playing game. And your game will vary accordingly!