From: Michael Cule (mikec@room3b.demon.co.uk)
Date: Tue 11 Aug 1998 - 02:09:56 EEST
Shannon Appel lays down the law:
> RuneQuest really got the short
> end of the stick under the Avalon Hill regime (something that's not
> entirely their fault, I should be quick to note). Sales fell off to
> the point where it wasn't profitable to print RQ (though AH continued
> to do so), so it's not a surprise at all that there are less groups in
> the world now. *THIS* is why Hero Wars is required: to rejuvenate the
> Gloranthan community.
Which I entirely concur with. Although I would like (Hell I'd love!) to get
my hands on an updated RQ I realise that this will never happen on a commercial
basis unless some RQ loon wins the Lottery and blows the money on such a non-
commercial project.
It would be possible to web publish RQ: AiG but I'm sure that Chaosium would
not regard this as a sane thing to do and would regard releasing a competing
game system for its premier game world as not entirely in their commercial
interests. (If this isn't the way you regard it fellas, let us know!)
> To repeat: RuneQuest did not have adequate sales to support a
> game line and has not for many years. It has a core group of loyal
> fans that we're very grateful for, but in order to make it successful
> we need to double or triple that number. A new game that will appeal
> to new gamers should do this. (And I'm sure old fans will still be
> pleased, because we'll be printing background supplements on all kinds
> of interesting Glorantha places.)
All of which is true. But why are you convinced that HW is the product to do it?
I don't find its central mechanic intuitive. That's my main problem. I read
OVER THE EDGE (which surely must have a part in HW ancestry, especially in the
character generation) and thought 'Wow! I understand this! I can use this!'
With HW this did not happen.
Two other objections that occur to me.
The scale of the game drops the PCs right into high level Gloranthan adventure.
There does not seem to be an easy way to run a campaign where the PCs are less
powerful people gradually learning about the world and maturing the way they
could with RQ. Getting to the heights of power is often the fun for many
players not being there.
And the second flaw seems to me to be a lack of support for leading people into
using the magic system. This is trivial to fix but at the moment the magic
system seems to me to have too few 'learner slopes' (or maybe I mean 'training
wheels') in the form of already worked out 'feats'. I think there may be too
much enthusiasm for the freeform nature of the system and not enough realisation
that some people may be frustrated by having an infinite number of options.
I'm clear that HW is the future. I'm just anxious that it should be a viable one
and that its developers should bear in mind that the new blood they are trying
to attract to Glorantha must include a large number of people who know nothing
about the world. They must not find the learning curve of HW too steep.
- --
Michael Cule
Actor And Genius
AKA Theophilus Prince Archbishop Of The Far Isles Medieval Society
Arms Purpure An Open Book Proper: On the Dexter Page an Alpha Or
On the Sinister an Omega Or. Motto Nulla Spes Sit in Resistendo
(Resistance is Useless). Ask me about the Far Isles:
Better Living through Pan-Medieval Anachronisms.
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