Aneoth wrote:and my question still remains unanswered.......
Does WotCo's 4e now use it?

To my knowledge it was never invoked again after Blackmoor, not even in Dragon Magazine.

Aneoth wrote:Road not taken by whom?

By D&D.

Aneoth wrote:I only recently obtained a copy of the Box Set myself (A week or so back) and I have only been reading the rules for a couple of days.
So I have no clue yet how easy or how hard the game might be, but I do not dislike the things I have read thus far.

Which version of the box? In the past year I've collected everything published by Chaosium for the game before they started with boxed sets in 1981, as it is the more raw phase with cartoonish illustrations.

Character creation is extremely time-consuming [I played from the late 80s to the late 90s]. The greatest advantage to the game is its appreciation for academic history/mythology, albeit in a fictionalized form.

Aneoth wrote:I have the Third Edition Box Set. The Deluxe Edition. (1984, Avalon Hill)

That's the one I had & played. A store had put the wrong price sticker on it, mistaking it for the similar-looking basic versions. Games Workshop made five nice hardcovers for this edition, which are easily obtainable today from European ebayers for cheap. Their monsters volume was popular with American players.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=260236497968&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=016




My set was complete (Except for the Dice).


It contains five core books, a large fantasy map of Europe, the game aids book (Sort of like a DM's screen with all the tables handy), and a What's in this Box booklet.




It also had a large paper page for puchasing (By mail) other games by AH (One of the ones listed is Outdoor Survival) and a small 16 page booklet (Brochure??) that lists all the offerings from AH, including replacement parts for games already owned, plus a double mail back card (One side is to sign up a friend for the Prodcuts Catalog and the other is a response back about the RuneQuest game).




The Brochure lists the version of the game that I have (Deluxe RuneQuest Box Set) at $29.95, which is less than I paid ($20.50).


Of course it IS Used and not in mint condition, so perhaps it should be less expensive now.




The Standard Box Set is listed at $15, the Players Box Set at $20, and the Gamemasters Box Set at $25.




I watched auctions for each of those last two (During the same time period) go for more than I paid for this one.




In another Auction which closed recently, I was able to snag a complete Box Set of Griffon Island.


I have had more time to read through that one and it contains oodles and gobs of really good stuff that could be used in any setting.


Including 10 full length adventure scenarios ready for play.




http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=130221641078&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=003




The Box arrived from Australia crushed but the contents were fine.


After its arrival I began almost immediately to read through the contents (Especially the adventures).


I was already hooked, so I decided to find and puchase a RuneQuest Box Set.


It did not take long to get one either, as they have been fairly common during my search time.


I am glad it was the Deluxe version, since I had no clue that there was much difference.




Going by the list of contents of the other Box Sets as shown in the Brochure, I did well to get the Deluxe version............

Aneoth wrote:

As I hear it Runequest is and always has been second only to D&D/AD&D in useage and popularity...... for Fantasy RPG's.

Yes, but a long, long second.  Waaaaaaaaaay back there.  

It's like saying that Country X might still become only the third country to land on the moon. Waaaaaaay back.

D&D is like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders: "Often imitated, never equaled!"

I've never tried it...but if anything were to lure me into Runequest it would be the Elric and Hawkmoon settings published by Mongoose.

Aneoth wrote:a large fantasy map of Europe.

This was the fatal flaw of RQIII. So much depended on the Glorantha setting. Different people maybe liked it for different reasons, but for me it's the quasi-historical aspect. Key here is how it's a warped depiction of the real past, using the same formula as Howard, Tolkien, et al.

That is, if you lived thousands of years ago you would have a completely different understanding of the world & your place in it. You wouldn't know that you speak an Indo-European language & live in the Bronze Age in a country that would later be known as Greece and that in the distant future dorks will write RPG stat blocks for you. Your frame of reference would be totally different.

Literal historical RPGs can be fun too, they're just another approach which needs to be handled their own way. But RQII did not handle the transition well; there were clumsy choices. I don't think Griffin Mountain works as Griffin Island. It's supposed to be the outback of it's continent, most everything about it is a factor of people wandering into it from other areas.

p.s. Odd how art is imitating life on this thread. In the past, I've noticed that players frustrated with new material for D&D drift away into playing other systems. Maybe we should retitle this thread "What do you intend to play now that D&D has screwed the pooch?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8UldMTTDJ4

There, that's what 4th ed is like

ShaneG.

lawrenson wrote:Hi,

I played yesterday at the launch party at the London Dungeon.

I thought it was an improved intro system, but suspect that when characters get higher level, the system would become cumbersome.

A 1-st level wizard who can take 34 damage before falling over! Yikes!

Cheers,
Malc

They are just front loading a ton of hit points so that 1st level characters don't go down quickly. You certainly don't gain 34 hps every level.

I'm definitely curious to see how the upper levels play. I would be surprised if it completely breaks down as one of their purported goals of 4e was to widen the levels that were playable. But, I'm interested in trying it out. Once amazon deigns to ship my books, that is.

Mouse Police wrote:I played a couple gaming sessions under the Stormbringer rules.

Fun, but there's no real magic system.

If you're a wizard or priest, you can "bind" Demons or Virtues, depending on your alignmnent.  "Demons" if you're Chaos, "Virtues" if you're Law.

You can summon a Combat Demon and bind it into a weapon.  You can summon a Protection Demon and bind it into armor.

But... there's no SPELLS!  No fireballs, no lightning bolts!  No sleep!  No invisibility!

Umn   I do believe they have magic missiles that do not hit the enemy.
See the thread listing a game battle with the fire breathing dragonborn Paladin.....
The mage in the party cast MM three times and it missed twice.

Perhaps that game was not played under the Stormbringer rules.......