Quote from: Bren;878298In even a moderate restaurant in Rome, waiters are professional, but in Rome (and much of Italy) being a waiter is a profession. So it should be no big surprise that professional waiters give more professional service than do the servers at most places (even fairly pricey places) in the US - where being a server is frequently something people do temporarily while they are waiting to do something else.

You're kidding, right? I've been to Italy. Italian waiters are infamous the world over for being rude, unhelpful and patronizing.

Best thread detour ever.

Quote from: Pete Nash;878168Building up a new brand from scratch is going to be a gruelling challenge, but we'll give it our best shot. Who knows, it may work out better for us all in the end. I hope so anyway.

I understand the challenge. Do you go at it with your own approach? Or do you cater to an existing IP? For me, with my sandbox fantasy stuff, and Majestic Wilderlands I opted to adapt it all using classic editions of D&D figuring that would get it into the hands of more people. I had no illusion about how much money I would make but I would like to see people actually using it. Hence the choice to use Sword & Wizardry.

In an ideal world I would get to use GURPS which is what I developed most of it under.

I hope you guys succeed. Everybody at TDM does excellent work!

Quote from: The Butcher;878303You're kidding, right? I've been to Italy. Italian waiters are infamous the world over for being rude, unhelpful and patronizing.

Totally serious.

QuoteBest thread detour ever.

Why thank you.

Well, it is a scandal that the new RuneQuest is only for Glorantha now. That seems like a step backward.

I originally bought Runequest, becuase of RuneQuest Europe after Avalon Hill had announced they were doing that, and after i saw the AH box cover, the one with the swordman and shield maiden with the longspear.

My original experience with RuneQuest was not positive.

It was at Ghenghis Con I, or maybe it was GC II or III right when Griffin Mountain was released. There was someone at the convention, might have even been Steve or Greg, and they were at the show running playtests for RuneQuest in Glorantha.  

I went to try it and somehow ended up with a character sheet with a duck who owned a longsword and pretty much nothing else. Whoever it was at the show who was demoing was really trying to get me to seriously roleplay this duck with a sword, and I just couldn't manage to keep a straight face. It was one of those situations where I just backed away real slowly from the demo table, and then pretty much forgot about it.

Now I kept on hearing good things about Runequest in my gaming circles, from people who played or tried it. They said they really liked the smooth fastplay, and the mentioned the game had intuitive rules so it was easy to play and one didn't have to spend a lot of time during the game doing rules lookups, so this rekindled my interest a bit.

So, I picked up copy of AH RuneQuest in the summer of 1987, and with Fantasy Earth, and the beautiful Europe map, it was simply Awesome! It replaced D&D, Chivalry & Sorcerery, and Rolemaster, as my goto game for any fantasy/real world ancient/medieval crossover type games, and has been a part of my gaming library ever since.

I never did get into Glorantha though, alot of that had to do with the animal roleplaying aspects of Glorantha. I just never had much interest in that facet of roleplaying. This might have been different if there had been an option for the animals to be highly intelligent, or of a higher intelligence than your average human or humanoid.

Quote from: Warthur;878276I don't think MOB needs anyone here to be Chaosium's armchair PR expert

But apparently he needs you to defend each, every and all criticism against him and Chaosium, of course.

Quote from: Warthur;878276and I certainly find the pearl-clutching some have displayed around here amusing given the depths people here regularly drag the discourse down to.

I'd find your pearl-clutching over "Oh noes, a company has a critic!" amusing, if it wasn't so sad and pathetic.

Quote from: Warthur;878270I'm not sure how much of that is down to Akrasia's whispering campaign where he PMs people dropping the same "I game with one of the Design Mechanism guys and there's totally secret dirt and rancor involved" hints he did in his blog post without actually saying anything of substance.

Dude! I've had no dealings with Akrasia whatsoever. That doesn't stop me from thinking Chaosium is shooting feet - both their own and anyone else's in sight - with RQ7.

How dare you criticize them?!  You don't know how game companies work you fallacious geek, you pearl clutcher, you capitalism denier, you1!!

Quote from: GameDaddy;878321I went to try it and somehow ended up with a character sheet with a duck who owned a longsword and pretty much nothing else. Whoever it was at the show who was demoing was really trying to get me to seriously roleplay this duck with a sword, and I just couldn't manage to keep a straight face.

That's funny.
I actually really like the ducks and they're one of the Gloranthan elements in RQ2 that I kept and used in other settings... but I've always understood why they might put people off.
Sadly, they don't seem to be on the menu for the RQ game I'm involved in now.

Quote from: Warthur;878270I'm not sure how much of that is down to Akrasia's whispering campaign where he PMs people dropping the same "I game with one of the Design Mechanism guys and there's totally secret dirt and rancor involved" hints he did in his blog post without actually saying anything of substance.

Is it really so hard to believe that people invested in RuneQuest are irritated at the idea of a fourth edition in ten years? Is it surprising that some people are disappointed we will never see Pete Nash's Adventures in Glorantha, or for people that are Pete Nash fans that are indifferent to Glorantha, are upset that he wasted so much time that the could have spent on something else? Given that there is a large contingent of RQ players that have never used it for Glorantha, why wouldn't there be people upset about it being strongly setting-based?

Does any of this need a secret conspiracy run by Akrasia to explain why there are unhappy gamers across multiple boards? I can say that I have never received an IM from him. I first read his blog thanks to the link in this thread.

Personally, I am not angry about any of it. I hope Chaosium does well with RQ7. I am disappointed about never getting AiG. I am mildly concerned about the future of RQ6, with having to rebrand under a new name. I'm pretty sure they can do it, and Nash and Whitaker have made a good name for themselves in the D100 scene, but it's still on my mind.

It would be nice to unload my concerns in a forum without having you blathering on about pearl-clutching and secret conspiracies to destroy Chaosium. You are the one getting the RuneQuest you want. What are so upset about?

Quote from: Simlasa;878349That's funny.
I actually really like the ducks and they're one of the Gloranthan elements in RQ2 that I kept and used in other settings... but I've always understood why they might put people off.
Sadly, they don't seem to be on the menu for the RQ game I'm involved in now.

Interesting choice of phrase.

Quote from: Akrasia;878291I am not engaging in a "whispering campaign."  And I already apologized to you for sending that private message.

I did not reveal any information in that message. I merely wanted to convey privately my view on the matter, rather than muck this thread up further.

Actually, you're the first person to suggest you revealed anything non-public in that PM. I specifically said it was 'dropping the same "I game with one of the Design Mechanism guys and there's totally secret dirt and rancor involved" hints he did in his blog post without actually saying anything of substance'.

QuoteEDIT: And as I point out in my later post, I have not been participating (in any form) in any discussions of the new RQ at any other forums (like BRPCentral or RPGnet).  To accuse me of being behind some kind of grand conspiracy is frankly delusional.

Conspiracy requires multiple conspirators and I was accusing you of grinding this axe all by your ownsome.

But if that just consisted of blog posts a few months ago and PMs to me where you said more about your gaming connections than you actually said of substance, I suppose we all just have to take your word for it.

If anyone currently working for the new RQ is still reading this, let me reinstate a criticism I' ve already made elsewhere: please don't turn Glorantha into a new White Wolf iteration with fixed metaplot and untouchable uber-NPCs "because Greg said so 40 years ago".

The process has already started with the GtG presenting the "objective, unchangeable future" and with Heroquest: Glorantha moving forward the default starting time (and following The Sacred Metaplot Which Thou Shall Not Change Otherwise The RPG Police Will Crash Your Door And Take Away Your Books).

If you keep doing that crap, you will lose at least one customer.

This thread is hilarious.

Quote from: One Horse Town;878372This thread is hilarious.

It is surreal.

Quote from: One Horse Town;878372This thread is hilarious.

Yes, it kind of is. In a very sad way.  
Oh well..

That blog post was fairly innocuous to be honest. Warthur, I really don't see any whispering campaign here, just a guy expressing his opinion on his blog about games he's invested in. MOB seems very touchy about it, and the whole thing does smell like there are mixed feelings behind closed doors, which is very understandable considering how it's all gone down.

But you know what? I really have to say I admire the way the DM guys have been handling it, and handling themselves with professionalism and restraint. What we see on forums is obviously only the tip of the iceberg but they've consistently been cool and not fanned the flames. I think they come out of this looking good, and with a hell of a lot of good will from all the gamers they've won over with their excellent RQ 6 and its top notch supplements. I think they have a very solid, though small, fan base who will follow their work with the new iteration and fight hard to help them build up the brand, which as Pete said, doing from scratch is daunting.

The issue about the licence took everyone by surprise, including them obviously, but as they say, it's now been cleared up. It just looks like very poor communication choices by MD/Chaosium. It seems like they could have handled all of this a lot better.

But their direction with RQ seems to be very pleasing to Glorantha fans. Good for them. It'll just be without me. I wish them well, but I'm still sad that as a non Glorantha RQ player, my favourite system will no longer be called RuneQuest. It's a nostalgia thing really, as the system doesn't change, but I feel that all of us have just been cut loose by Chaosium. And that's okay. They want to consolidate, and Glorantha and RQ 2 seem to make sense to them as their way to go. But for me, RuneQuest was never just about Glorantha. It was my gateway to my own creativity. Now it's tied to someone else's. No matter how great Glorantha is, that makes me sad.