Quote from: MOB;877871Look all - there was no treachery going on. We didn't renew TDM's license for one reason: RQ6 failed to meet its royalty milestones in its license (not that Loz and Pete did anything wrong, just that RQ6 sold poorer than expected). We had all originally wanted Loz and Pete to manage the new RQ project, but we ended up having incompatible creative visions (TDM wanted the new RQ to be based on RQ6, and be directly compatible with their existing RQ6 products; we came to the decision we needed the new RQ rules to have RQ2 as their basis and be compatible with the rereleased RQ2 product line).

So the decision was to ditch a general purpose fantasy version of RQ6 for a version of RQ (i.e. RQ2) oriented to a specific setting Glorantha in order to have increased revenues? And also to support the investment made in the re-released RQ2 products.

Sorry as cool as Glorantha is, I just don't see the logic of that argument.  My counter-argument is to do both. A revitalized RQ2 would an officially supported "OSR" product of the BRP family of RPGs. You still would have probably gotten the same amount of money from the kickstarters. You will likely get the same dollars from the fans of RQ2 + Glorantha.

But layered on top of this would have been Runequest 6 along with Runequest 6's support of Glorantha as well. So the income would have what you are going to get from re-vitalizing RQ2 along with whatever was coming from TDM. And likely would significant amount of buyers getting both.

I don't know if you are going getting royalties from TDM going forward. But as far the manpower goes, the situation now is exactly if Chaosium decided to do both. The TDM focus on RQ6 support and products, Chaosium focuses on RQ2 related products. Except now TDM will have the same system under a different name with more than a few going "what the hell is the point of this?"

Thanks to the OSR, I think the hobby now it perfectly comfortable with old and new editions of a RPG out there concurrently and supported concurrently.

Quote from: MOB;877871And although Loz and Pete are no longer involved, the new RQ has the likes of Sandy Petersen, Ken Rolston, Chris Klug, Jason Durall and (most recently) Steve Perrin all part of the development team, which isn't a bad consolation prize...

That has a lot of benefits but in this situation they are thinking as if it is the 80s and 90s and not the 2010s when it comes to product lines and product placement in the market.  RQ2 has a place and I think will support a viable line of products but it does not serve all of the space that RQ6 carved out.

Big difference, Estar, is that whilst RQ2/the new RQ has exclusive access to the Glorantha space, RQ6 is not and never will be alone in the space it has created - it will alwaus have Legend, OpenQuest, Revolution, and other SRD-derived BRP games competing with it.

Either way, Chaosium are in a far better position to know just how much traction RQ6 had in the market than any of us because they know how much in the way of royalties on sales they received.

Quote from: MOB;877871We didn't renew TDM's license for one reason: RQ6 failed to meet its royalty milestones in its license...

Quote from: Pete Nash;877890As Loz mentioned over at RPGNet, this is news to us.

So DM was unaware of "the one reason" RQ6 was abandoned by Chaosium.  :rolleyes:

Man, Moon Design / Chaosium really needs to hire somebody to counsel them on PR...

Quote from: Akrasia;877913So DM was unaware of "the one reason" RQ6 was abandoned by Chaosium.  :rolleyes:

Man, Moon Design / Chaosium really needs to hire somebody to counsel them on PR...

Word.

This really strikes me as Not Cool. I think Chaosium/Moon Design had a lot of good will related to getting the old team back together, bringing RQ back to its roots and so on. Some people, like me, who weren't that interested in Glorantha, were happy enough to stay with DM, and let them go their merry way. But this gives me an actively bad feeling about the handling of the whole thing.

Quote from: Warthur;877911Big difference, Estar, is that whilst RQ2/the new RQ has exclusive access to the Glorantha space, RQ6 is not and never will be alone in the space it has created - it will alwaus have Legend, OpenQuest, Revolution, and other SRD-derived BRP games competing with it.

Either way, Chaosium are in a far better position to know just how much traction RQ6 had in the market than any of us because they know how much in the way of royalties on sales they received.

I disagree that a Glorantha focused edition of RQ is going outsell a classic fantasy oriented Runequest even with other classic fantasy clones out there.

And specific to Runequest is the reputation that Design Mechanism team have made for themselves relative to everybody making a BRP clone. They have a golden reputation for making good products.

It not a either or situations either. They can have both.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877848So kind of like the old White Wolf stuff with the various tracks to beat the players into playing the game the 'right' way?

You know, I'm of the opinion that mechanical enforcement removes the roleplaying from the RPG.  By making it a chart of options, it's less about deciding what a character would do and more about rolling to see what happens next.

I could be wrong, it's just a perception. And if correct, turns me off more on this RQ.

I don't know about new RQ, but in Pendragon, there are two times you must roll against a trait:

• If the trait value is in excess of 16, and you wish to behave contrary to it.
• If undergoing a mystical or spiritual test (eg, only a truly humble knight may enter the sacred space, or a chaste knight can resist the beguiling fairy seductress).

For the former, if you don't want to be in that position, you simply don't let your trait reach that value. There's not really anything compelling you to do so. Further to that, what the result of the roll actually means is left very much up in the air. One of the examples given is an extremely chaste knight who fails his chaste roll, then passes his lustful and then (OMG!) gently brushes the cheek of the fair maiden with a finger.

The second situation is just a resistance roll, saving throw or skill check by another name.

To correct any misunderstanding, there have been quite a few business reasons discussed for not renewing our license (which isn't a bone of any contention, by the way), but royalty goals were the contractual reason. We've had some offline discussions with the Moon Design team and everyone's now clear on the position.

How many versions of Runequest are there now? This is confusing...

Quote from: Loz;877945To correct any misunderstanding, there have been quite a few business reasons discussed for not renewing our license (which isn't a bone of any contention, by the way), but royalty goals were the contractual reason. We've had some offline discussions with the Moon Design team and everyone's now clear on the position.

Glad things are clear between you Loz. Here's to continued excellence on both sides. When everything shook out a couple of months ago, my initial reaction was nonplussed, but in the end I consider it a win-win. Good for the Glorantha fans - if I were them I'd be really into what I've heard here - and good for the non-Glorantha fans like me who are in your capable hands. The way the business side of things leaked out in a gradual and apparently unplanned way left a bit of a bad taste, but as long as you guys are happy I'm good.

I want to stress that I have no ill will for this new version of RQ.  It's not for me, but I hope it does well.

Having gamed with some serious Gloranthan fan-people I can believe there is a market for a new Gloranthan Runequest.  Those folks were fanatics (in a good way).  Despite them being good people and having fun gaming with them, I'm not really into Glorantha.  The one thing so many Gloranthan fans seem embarrassed by is what I liked the most:  Ducks.

I have no problems with the ducks as long as they are done right. I think they are cool. I'm looking forward to having more Rune in RuneQuest for a change, rather than the game just being a soulless me-too generic D100.

Quote from: Brander;877956Having gamed with some serious Gloranthan fan-people I can believe there is a market for a new Gloranthan Runequest.

I am under the impression that most diehard Glorantha enthusiasts (a) are happy with some older version of Runequest, or (b) have transitioned to Heroquest. But I could be wrong.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;877848So kind of like the old White Wolf stuff with the various tracks to beat the players into playing the game the 'right' way?

You know, I'm of the opinion that mechanical enforcement removes the roleplaying from the RPG.  By making it a chart of options, it's less about deciding what a character would do and more about rolling to see what happens next.

I could be wrong, it's just a perception. And if correct, turns me off more on this RQ.

Don't worry, you are indeed wrong!

Quote from: soltakss;877897Personally, I like Glorantha and I like RuneQuest, so I will be buying the new RuneQuest.

I will also be buying TDM's successor to RQ6.

For me, there is no problem in owning multiple versions of RuneQuest and mixing and matching what I like. Throw in a bit of Legend and BRP and I have a system that works really well for me.

That's my stand as well. I've got RQ6, I've got games that only fit one setting, can get RQ7 and I lose nothing regardless of how specialized it would be.

Quote from: Akrasia;877913So DM was unaware of "the one reason" RQ6 was abandoned by Chaosium.  :rolleyes:

If RQ6 had reached its royalty milestones, the renewal would have been automatic and there would have been no need for the discussions we had with TDM last July about ending the license. This is the sole contractual reason that triggered those discussions, as has been clarified.

Quote from: Akrasia;877913Man, Moon Design / Chaosium really needs to hire somebody to counsel them on PR...

Well, counsel from egregious sh:hand:tstirrers or concern trolls is not helpful to anyone.

We didn't "stab" TDM in the back as you asserted earlier, nor did we "abandon" RQ6 - we graciously gave TDM a year's notice of our intentions, continued selling and promoting their product through our website, and even gave L&P the job of writing the new edition! And the door remains open and welcome for TDM and Chaosium/Moon Design to collaborate on other projects in future.