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Well, this is exciting. (http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-1)

I liked runequest primarily as a system as I could never get my head around Glorantha as a GM. Still the strong link between runes and character abilities is pretty cool, under a good glroanthaphile GM this could be pretty sweet.

I wasn't really expecting to like the direction of this version and it appears that I was right. I used to play in Glorantha all the time but 1980s Glorantha was nothing like the bloated game-world that it has become today.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;877712I wasn't really expecting to like the direction of this version and it appears that I was right. I used to play in Glorantha all the time but 1980s Glorantha was nothing like the bloated game-world that it has become today.

That's why I stick with last century's Glorantha. And it's still Yelmalio. Damn Elmal wankers.

Putting the runes more into play does sound good and setting up a Pendragon traits style duality for the power runes might be interesting.

Sounds like a great game for Gloranthaphiles.

Me, I like Glorantha well enough, but I prefer Runequest as a more open-ended game engine for gritty, brutal fantasy.

They totally lost me ast point 1.

Quote from: AikiGhost;877710I liked runequest primarily as a system as I could never get my head around Glorantha as a GM.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

I have every reason to think that Chaosium will make a decent version of RuneQuest. However, I have no interest in Glorantha, and this RQ7 (I refuse to call it RQ4) has to be really good for me to prefer it over MRQ2/RQ6.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;877712I wasn't really expecting to like the direction of this version and it appears that I was right. I used to play in Glorantha all the time but 1980s Glorantha was nothing like the bloated game-world that it has become today.

I've always ran the Glorantha of 1st/2nd edition with what I like from the AH 3rd edition (a fair amount) and a few things I like from all the later stuff (not all that much). And after a campaign starts, I don't care about official canon -- what happens in the campaign is the official canon as far as my campaign is concerned. This annoys the official Glorantha canon-worshippers. Of course, they would not touch a campaign I was running so their opinions aren't of much concern to me.

They certainly seem to have gone all-in on the Glorantha angle... which pretty much shuts out my interest.
I'll wait to see what, if any, non-Glorantha materials follow.

Point 1 and 3 lost me.  Oh well.

Wow. Not much Glorantha love around here.

The best part about Glorantha from the 80s was that it consisted of parts that were easily ignored (various monsters or the fact that bronze was god bone) and the religious cults. These cults were presented in a modular fashion. Each cult had two or three pages that contained all the information you needed. They didn't have big lists of gods nor did they, as D&D did, divide the spells up among the gods. Instead it was very easy to add or remove the various gods from your campaign as you saw fit. Even the list of runes was presented in a way that made it seem like those listed were just the common ones and that there could be strange or rare ones that the GM could invent as needed.

So even though the world was very detailed, it was done so in a way that made it easy for the GM to adjust for a home campaign. Once you start to codify the various gods and runes, you lose that flexibility in exchange for a tiny bit of extra flavor. Not, IMO, a trade worth making. [If I want to use Pendragon's Passions, I'd use them. I don't need a "Gloranthafied" version.]

Yes, I was never much of a Glorantha fan, other than a mild interest in the Broo as a player race. The manner in which it was marketed when it was first released put me off from buying the game, even though we were experimenting with games other than Dungeons and Dragons at the time.

I bought a copy from Avalon Hill, the 2nd edition Deluxe Runequest, and it included a map of Europe, so I gave that a spin, and our group also liked this for awhile. I really liked it as well! It was a fresh take on historical based fantasy roleplaying. I never heard of Pendragon until after 2000, so Runequest was our go-to quick play alternative to the rules and math heavy Chivalry & Sorcery, which put some players off for historical fantasy games. The players would play Runequest if we would run Runequest Europe high fantasy games, but not C&S.

I'm with the others who stated they got lost on 1 and 3. It's too Gloranthafied for me. At least this saved me from ordering a copy of the game from the kickstarter page.

Quote from: GameDaddy;877784I bought a copy from Avalon Hill, the 2nd edition Deluxe Runequest, and it included a map of Europe...

It's a minor point, but the Avalon Hill edition with the map of Europe was Runequest 3rd edition not second edition. Second edition was the soft bound book with the color cover.
(http://www.maranci.net/rq2.jpg)

Having never played Pendragon I'm not clear on what Personal Traits and Passions are. From a quick google search they strike me as being constraints on how I can play my PC... kind of artificial and annoying like 'alignment'. Am I missing something?
It sounds like more stuff I don't want rules for...

Quote from: Simlasa;877821Having never played Pendragon I'm not clear on what Personal Traits and Passions are. From a quick google search they strike me as being constraints on how I can play my PC... kind of artificial and annoying like 'alignment'. Am I missing something?

The Personality Traits are sets of pairs of opposite things, like Forgiving & Vengeful, Trusting & Suspicious, Generous & Selfish, with a number between then to for a d20 roll. However, you don't usually roll them. Instead when a character acts in a particular way, the GM will check that trait and, at the end of the session, roll to see if the number moves. So the numbers will track (more or less) the way the player is playing the character. If you get certain values in certain traits (the exactly ones vary depending on your religion) you might get a bonus. You only ever roll the trait if there's a "significant' choice made by the character. So, in a way, the system is designed to track behavior and enforce consistently.

The Passion system is just a way to get in-game bonuses for certain things. So if you have Hate (Saxons) of 15, then you need to roll a 15 or less to get a bonus to fight Saxons. However, if a Saxon lord offers the character a fair deal, the same roll would be used to see if you reject it out of hand due to your hatred. Passions are things that you usually choose to get.

But, no, you don't really need either of these rules. One of the reasons they make sense in Pendragon (other than genre emulation) is that game defaults to generational role-playing. Since you will be switching characters after a set number of sessions it becomes an easy shorthand to distinguish one character from another.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;877831So, in a way, the system is designed to track behavior and enforce consistently.

That's what it sounds like... not sure I want that... or the Passions thing.

Huh. I'll stick with RuneQuest 6.

And I think Chaosium should've done the same. Adventures in Glorantha had already been written by Pete Nash, and could've been on the shelves now for folks who want to play RQ in Glorantha.

But for some (still not clearly articulated) reason, Chaosium wants to introduce yet another version of RQ onto the market, and hardwire Glorantha into it.

Quote from: Stainless;877744They totally lost me ast point 1.

Yes.

But then I knew that this was the 'new direction' for RQ7 ever since Chaosium stabbed ... er, I mean, brought about a 'friendly parting of the ways' with DM months ago. ;)

Well, since they decided to screw the guys that had been keeping all interest in the name RuneQuest alive for the past SIX years, I'm not really feeling the love for Chaosium right now, even if they did get the band back together.

From a game design standpoint, the rune stuff does sound interesting.

Quote from: hedgehobbit;877831So, in a way, the system is designed to track behavior and enforce consistently.

So 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.

Quote from: Akrasia;877836But for some (still not clearly articulated) reason, Chaosium wants to introduce yet another version of RQ onto the market, and hardwire Glorantha into it.

I thought they had articulated it pretty well: they've decided that they would rather put out systems intimately tied to distinctive settings rather than put out more generic games.

I'm amused by how many people on here are substantially more furious about the whole Design Mechanism thing than Loz and Pete have been. They made it clear that they're still buddies with the Moon Design guys back when the split happened, and even backed RQ2, and if they'd genuinely been screwed over I don't see why they'd hand over money and help out the Kickstarter of the people who screwed them.

But trust gamers to put edition warring and taking offence on behalf of others above actually listening to people.

Quote from: Warthur;877856I thought they had articulated it pretty well: they've decided that they would rather put out systems intimately tied to distinctive settings rather than put out more generic games.

I'm amused by how many people on here are substantially more furious about the whole Design Mechanism thing than Loz and Pete have been. They made it clear that they're still buddies with the Moon Design guys back when the split happened, and even backed RQ2, and if they'd genuinely been screwed over I don't see why they'd hand over money and help out the Kickstarter of the people who screwed them.

But trust gamers to put edition warring and taking offence on behalf of others above actually listening to people.

They were diplomatic, but I've come to expect no less from the both of them. It doesn't mean they weren't put out by the process though.

My view is that I will continue to buy products written by Pete and Loz on the merit of what I have recieved from them before. The jury is still out on what Chaosium has to offer for the new RuneQuest, as it's yet to be released, but I am open minded about it.

Quote from: Akrasia;877836Huh. I'll stick with RuneQuest 6.

And I think Chaosium should've done the same. Adventures in Glorantha had already been written by Pete Nash, and could've been on the shelves now for folks who want to play RQ in Glorantha.

But for some (still not clearly articulated) reason, Chaosium wants to introduce yet another version of RQ onto the market, and hardwire Glorantha into it.



Yes.

But then I knew that this was the 'new direction' for RQ7 ever since Chaosium stabbed ... er, I mean, brought about a 'friendly parting of the ways' with DM months ago. ;)

Look 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). Are Loz and Pete disappointed that we had a different creative vision than they did? Probably - it would be strange if they were not. But are we all still friends? Certainly, this is just what happens in the regular work place. People - who are friends - work with each other, and have differences in opinions about how to do a project. If those disagreements are substantial enough, they leave the project.

Pete and Loz are professionals. Rather than beat their heads about the direction that Chaosium wanted to go, they asked to be let go.

And 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...

At the last Dragonmeet in London (2015), they stated that sales of CoC in Japan alone far outstripped their sales of the rest of the world put together (not sure if that was sales of CoC or of all Chaosium products, I think it was the latter).

If that's so, then I would suspect (personal speculation only) their only significant revenue stream comes form one product sold in one country and thus everything else they produce is just icing on the cake. That probably (again, personal speculation only) means, being gamers themselves, they get to produce the things that interest them personally (i.e., Glorantha) rather than consider the "market" since that really isn't a significant market. Not to put the pejorative on it, but it means everything other than CoC is just a "vanity project" for them. I can't argue with that, if I was in the same situation I'd be producing a Napoleonic RPG that I know would have very little market share.

Quote from: Stainless;877874At the last Dragonmeet in London (2015), they stated that sales of CoC in Japan alone far outstripped their sales of the rest of the world put together (not sure if that was sales of CoC or of all Chaosium products, I think it was the latter).

If that's so, then I would suspect (personal speculation only) their only significant revenue stream comes form one product sold in one country and thus everything else they produce is just icing on the cake. That probably (again, personal speculation only) means, being gamers themselves, they get to produce the things that interest them personally (i.e., Glorantha) rather than consider the "market" since that really isn't a significant market. Not to put the pejorative on it, but it means everything other than CoC is just a "vanity project" for them. I can't argue with that, if I was in the same situation I'd be producing a Napoleonic RPG that I know would have very little market share.

For what it is worth, Glorantha related products have financially done very well for us. Glorantha certainly isn't a vanity product for us - it is, along with CoC, our bread and butter.

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).

As Loz mentioned over at RPGNet, this is news to us.

Scenes.

Personally, 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.

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

This. Sucks.

I wish everyone concerned well, but it seems pretty unprofessional, or a weird retcon, to suddenly come up with this as "the reason",  if it had no part in the negotiation initially. But hey, this stuff moves in mysterious ways. I'm sure there's lots we'll never know about the whole kerfuffle.

As for the new RQ, yeah, including the runes in Pendragon traits style makes sense. That's nice, I guess. But I'm no fan of Glorantha apart from a mild curiosity, and Design Mechanism have my confirmed custom. If I bought this, it would just be to read, as the campaigns I'm going to run for the foreseeable future are going to be firmly RQ 6, whatever it ends up being called.

Oh, for... I've said this once before, let me repeat:
Do not muck this up!

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.

Quote from: MOB;878006Well, counsel from egregious sh:hand:tstirrers or concern trolls is not helpful to anyone.

Akrasia is hardly a good fit for the "egregious shit-stirrer" label you're so ready to hand out. But he's a grownup and more than capable of defending himself.

I don't know who you are, but if you work for Chaosium, y'all would do well to take the slice of humble pie he's serving you. You're not in your company forums, where brand loyalty is a given. Chaosium has managed this abysmally and it's only Loz and Pete (who have a ton of goodwill with RQ fandom, at least around these parts) coming forward to clarify things that's made the company look merely incompetent, instead of uncaring. A little owning up would be a nice change of tone.

Loz and Pete don't have any store of good will from me. They don't have any ill will either. I don't know Loz and Pete from a hole in the wall, but I'm glad their posts have been polite and rational. It makes it much easier not to hold their fan's boiling outrage against them.

Are some Runequest fans jealous because so far there hasn't been a big edition war kerfuffle like D&D 3E vs. 4E?

A post earlier in this thread about the new RQ having exclusive access to Glorantha makes me wonder--doesn't OpenQuest have some Glorantha supplements? And how did that come about? Are they about to lose that license?

The only OpenQuest book to have any Gloranthan Content, which is licensed by the special Commercial Fan License I have with Moon Design , is OpenQuest Adventures which has a not entirely canonical adventure and some notes on how to run Gloranthan Magic by Simon Bray who uses OQ for his Gloranthan Games.  So its all very fanish and not very official :)

Everything else D101 puts out under the Commericial Fan License, ie. Hearts in Glorantha and Gloranthan Adventures is for HeroQuest, with a light smattering of RQ3 in some of the articles/adventures in HiG.

And no we're not about to loose our Gloranthan License :)

Quote from: MOB;878006We 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 then backstabbed them by pulling AiG leaving them with a several hundred page book they can't sell.

Akrasia a concern troll?  Go fuck yourself and your whore of a mother you shit-stained fat bastard.  Go back to the Mid-East, maybe ISIS will do us all a favor and cut your useless mouthpiece head off.

P.S. Welcome to theRPGsite.

Quote from: MOB;878006... Well, counsel from egregious sh:hand:tstirrers or concern trolls is not helpful to anyone...

Heh. This reply only demonstrates my earlier point: you guys need to work on your PR.

This is no way for a representative of a company to reply to customers on a public forum.  (I may not be happy with what Chaosium has decided with respect to RQ, but I still play CoC and look forward to my copy of 7e.)
 
I'll leave it at that.

Quote from: Akrasia;878043Heh. This reply only demonstrates my earlier point: you guys need to work on your PR.

MOB is certainly no Ben Monroe. That's for sure.

I don't want 'edition wars', I'm in no way jealous of the D&D crowd for that mess... but some of us are annoyed that (maybe/probably for legit business reasons) product lines we enjoyed from Chaosium and licensees (BRP, Magic World, RQ6 and Alephtar's stuff) have been dropped... seemingly to concentrate on pushing Glorantha. Calling the new RQ 'RQ4' rather than 'RQ7' strikes some as a insulting to DM as well... and needlessly confusing.

I do feel a bit as if I've been fired as a customer... similar to the stuff Games Workshop continues to pull... though I'm still expecting to buy After the Vampire Wars when the reformatted version comes out.

One day I need to sit down and write an article about Geek Business Fallacies - like the Geek Social Fallacies idea but applied to business. Fallacy 1 would be "Licensors have no right to pull a licence."

Quote from: Warthur;878081Fallacy 1 would be "Licensors have no right to pull a licence."

Who suggested that?

Quote from: Warthur;878081One day I need to sit down and write an article about Geek Business Fallacies - like the Geek Social Fallacies idea but applied to business. Fallacy 1 would be "Licensors have no right to pull a licence."

:confused:

Who is committing this fallacy?  I don't think anyone is disputing the legal right in question.

"Licensors who pull licences are assholes", then, whatever.

Quote from: Warthur;878090"Licensors who pull licences are assholes", then, whatever.

Soooo... not necessarily a 'fallacy' then, 'cause they might very well be. Assholes.
Not that anyone said Chaosium were assholes either. Well... not me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878039...and then backstabbed them by pulling AiG leaving them with a several hundred page book they can't sell.

Akrasia a concern troll?  Go fuck yourself and your whore of a mother you shit-stained fat bastard.  Go back to the Mid-East, maybe ISIS will do us all a favor and cut your useless mouthpiece head off.

P.S. Welcome to theRPGsite.

Lay off the drugs mate.

Quote from: The Butcher;878016Akrasia is hardly a good fit for the "egregious shit-stirrer" label you're so ready to hand out.

Akrasia is trying to stir up conflict, between his blog posts ('Chaosium fumbles fatally'), accusations of "stabbing" Loz and Pete and "abandoning" RQ6, claims of super secret insider knowledge, and so on. That's sh:hand:t stirring in my book. Buy hey Acrasia, thanks for allowing us to inspire such passion. I would say that's far better that than indifference (excluding some pathetic trolling - stay classy Kruger:cool:)

Quote from: Warthur;878090"Licensors who pull licences are assholes", then, whatever.

Well my view Chaosium are not assholes, I do consider them foolish in this regard to not let Design Mechanism continue with a trademark license. Because Pete and Loz are top notch writers and proven to create a quality product that is good enough to attract people like me who are not Runequest fans into buying and playing it.

I am not surprised that TDM sales are as up there as everybody thought. In the end it is Runequest which has to compete against a variety of RPGs that blanket the range of complexity of mechanics. But I feel their sales would have been sustained over the long haul because they do good work with regular releases.

So without the Runequest trademark we will see what happens with TDM. I think they will be around to stay myself only this time with a trademark and brand they control.

Quote from: Warthur;878081One day I need to sit down and write an article about Geek Business Fallacies - like the Geek Social Fallacies idea but applied to business. Fallacy 1 would be "Licensors have no right to pull a licence."

Warthur Fallacy 1: Customers have no right to have an opinion when a company makes decisions they don't like.

Given that Chaosium is saying this edition change was a cold, hard business decision driven by low royalties, I'd think they would be interested in the fact that so much of the fanbase is unhappy with the decision. At least it gives them an opportunity to engage with unhappy customers, either to win them over or to adapt to what they want.

It's also worth remembering that RuneQuest is acquiring a very bad reputation for excessive edition churn. This will be the fourth edition since 2006. As someone with a history with RQ/BRP, I know that it isn't as bad as would be in some systems, as there is a reasonable level compatibility between books for different editions, but its something that comes up when I try to sell the game to outsiders. A lot of the negativity simply comes from a new edition when very few people were clamoring for it.

Warthur, it's cool that you are happy about this new edition. I'm ambivalent about it, but I don't wish it or it's creators any ill will. In fact I hope it does well regardless if I end up playing it or not. However, if you want to be a cheerleader for this edition, I suggest you lay off implying that everyone that isn't happy about it is an entitled whiner. It's not going to win anybody over to your side, and it might make people that would have come over to your side with time choose to dig in their heels instead.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878163Given that Chaosium is saying this edition change was a cold, hard business decision driven by low royalties...

To be fair, I don't think that's what they're saying. My reading of it is that was just the technicality that gets them out of the contract with TDM once it was decided not to go with RQ6 as a base for the new version... for reasons we are not privvy to.

Quote from: estar;878156So without the Runequest trademark we will see what happens with TDM. I think they will be around to stay myself only this time with a trademark and brand they control.

Building 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.

Quote from: MOB;878126Akrasia is trying to stir up conflict, between his blog posts ('Chaosium fumbles fatally'), accusations of "stabbing" Loz and Pete and "abandoning" RQ6, claims of super secret insider knowledge, and so on. That's sh:hand:t stirring in my book. Buy hey Acrasia, thanks for allowing us to inspire such passion. I would say that's far better that than indifference (excluding some pathetic trolling - stay classy Kruger:cool:)

I tracked down the blog entry you refer to (http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com.br/2015/12/chaosium-fumbles-fatally-with-its-plan.html) (with a comment from you (http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com.br/2015/12/chaosium-fumbles-fatally-with-its-plan.html?showComment=1450077504310#c8647611859185285395)) as well as Akrasia's response (http://akraticwizardry.blogspot.com.br/2015/12/chaosium-comment-confusion.html).

I had no idea you and Akrasia had, ahem, "history."

I realize that unsolicited advice from sorta-anonymous strangers on the Internet is, well, just as likely to suck as it sounds. But I'll go out on a limb and do it anyway.

Quote from: Akrasia;878043This is no way for a representative of a company to reply to customers on a public forum.  (I may not be happy with what Chaosium has decided with respect to RQ, but I still play CoC and look forward to my copy of 7e.)

He is absolutely right.

You are coming across as a whiny bitch who can't deal with critics.

I don't see the VPs of other entertainment companies typing angry comments or logging into forums to rebuff critics who are far more vocal and vitriolic than Akrasia.

I realize the hobby's a small pond, but if you're a pro, act like one. Other Chaosium staff like Ben Monroe and Jeff Richard have been nothing but professional in what I've seen of their posting, as have Loz and Pete. You might want to take a page from these people's playbooks. Maybe appoint someone else to handle all online media interactions?

Good luck putting Chaosium back on its feet. The new Runequest, like the new CoC, looks like it's not for me; and like Akrasia, I think you guys are going about it all wrong. But I owe many, many hours of fun to CoC and I feel Greg, Sandy, Ben and Jeff all deserve to succeed at this. :)

PS. Kruger's just yanking your chain. Welcome to theRPGsite! :D

Quote from: Warthur;878081One day I need to sit down and write an article about Geek Business Fallacies - like the Geek Social Fallacies idea but applied to business. Fallacy 1 would be "Licensors have no right to pull a licence."

Awesome, while you're at it, go over the Geek Fallacy of the Company Apologist, where they believe customers have no right to any criticism or opinions about companies because Capitalism.  That's one's getting kind of annoying, not to mention a wee bit sad.

Quote from: The Butcher;878171PS. Kruger's just yanking your chain. Welcome to theRPGsite! :D

Sssshh. ;)

Quote from: Simlasa;878167To be fair, I don't think that's what they're saying. My reading of it is that was just the technicality that gets them out of the contract with TDM once it was decided not to go with RQ6 as a base for the new version... for reasons we are not privvy to.

If the royalty issue was just a contractual technicality, not their main motivation, it seems that they would have been better off not dragging it into public discussion. It seems weird there would be some other motivation behind that they we are not privy to if they are okay with that as public knowledge.

Quote from: MOB;878126stay classy Kruger:cool:)

Dude, seriously, "classy" isn't replacing the "i" in shit as you post across the various forums insulting people who criticize your company's PR disaster.

The one who did the most to put a stop to the torches and pitchforks is the same person who put a stop to it last time when the original announcement that months of work developing the most comprehensive collection of Gloranthan spells, creatures, and cults from the last 30 years just got flushed down the toilet despite being ready to publish - Loz himself.

If you don't want his system, fine, but maybe take his social media example.  All you've done is lose sales since you've opened your mouth.

...and RQ4?  That's just a dick move. Period.  Might as well say "Well we tried to keep the name going while Greg was off on the mountain, but that didn't work out so well, so our long national nightmare is over and the "real" RuneQuest is coming back.

Quote from: One Horse Town;878101Lay off the drugs mate.

Bah, he started it. :D

Quote from: Simlasa;878167To be fair, I don't think that's what they're saying. My reading of it is that was just the technicality that gets them out of the contract with TDM once it was decided not to go with RQ6 as a base for the new version... for reasons we are not privvy to.

Could be.

• It's not unusual for companies to use the out provided by a licensee not meeting their contractual obligations to yank the license. That's a key reason those obligations were put in the contract in the first place. That protects the license owner (licensor) in the event that the licensee isn't able to pay or doesn't pay the agreed fees and royalty amounts.

• It sounds like in this case, if the licensee had fulfilled the terms their license couldn't have be yanked. That too is not unusual in license agreements as that protects the licensee as long as the licensor is paid the contracted license fees and royalty amounts.

• It sounds like in this case, the reason the licensee didn't fulfill the terms of their agreement was that the royalty amount didn't meet a contract minimum because licensed product sales were too low. That too is not unusual when sales don't end up as high as both parties original expected and hoped.

• Royalties may be lower than expected, hoped for, and required by the license despite the best efforts of the licensee. Sometimes the market just isn't what people thought it was going to be when they first agreed to the license.

Nothing here sounds unusual from a business standpoint. Though the outcome is undoubtedly sad and discouraging for the licensee.

EDIT: Also, MOB (whoever that is) could use the help of an actual PR person. It's one thing when random people on the internet toss out insulting posts. It's another when someone associated with a company does that. That's seldom a winning marketing strategy.

Quote from: Bren;878181Could be.

The picture I'm getting is that the RQ title was going back to Chaosium one way or another. TDM was originally talked about as writing the 'new' RQ (the one we were told was absolutely NOT going to be a new edition). That fell through for whatever reason but Chaosium still got the RQ back (because of the technicality).
I could be, probably am, wrong... but that's the story I'm getting from what's been said.

Quote from: Bren;878181EDIT: Also, MOB (whoever that is) could use the help of an actual PR person. It's one thing when random people on the internet toss out insulting posts. It's another when someone associated with a company does that. That's seldom a winning marketing strategy.

Got to agree.
Of course, Mr. O'Brian is also the human outreach for Chaosium, as evidenced by his profile at their site, so we are telling him how to do his job. But without questioning his skills in that area, I'd say he might benefit from some professional advice.

Quote from: Simlasa;878185The picture I'm getting is that the RQ title was going back to Chaosium one way or another.

That would depend on the terms of the license. If it was an exclusive license RQ couldn't go back to Chaosium without first pulling the license. And whether or not the license was exclusive, the licensee's could continue to publish RQ stuff as long as they maintained a license. But not generating the agreed stream of payments isn't a technicality. It's one of the main substantive points of a license agreement.

Quote from: MOB;878126Akrasia is trying to stir up conflict...

I didn't start this thread. And my first post is #18, after a number of other criticisms of the new RQ already had been raised.

Frankly, your fixation on me is becoming a bit creepy. You seem to think I'm the cause of all your troubles. It's bizarre. (But if you absolutely must obsess over my posts, why not something more helpful for your company, like my review of CoC 7e (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=31309)? I was one of the very few people to have nice things to say about 7e in these parts. [Chaosium is still selling CoC, right? It's not now 100% Glorantha-ized?])

As for your PR job, if you don't want to take my advice at least consider seriously the comments from Bren, the Butcher, CRKRuger, AsenRG, and others.

Quote from: Bren;878221But not generating the agreed stream of payments isn't a technicality. It's one of the main substantive points of a license agreement.

I should have used some other word that doesn't imply it's a negligible thing... but I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.
Either way, none of the concerned parties seems to be digruntled about it.

Quote from: Akrasia;878224As for your PR job, if you don't want to take my advice at least consider seriously the comments from Bren, the Butcher, CRKRuger, AsenRG, and others.

Or if you just want everyone to shut the hell up, let Adventures in Glorantha come out. ;)

Quote from: CRKrueger;878230Or if you just want everyone to shut the hell up, let Adventures in Glorantha come out. ;)

Or print enough copies to burn them on film. At least then the vitriol will match the offense.

Quote from: Akrasia;878224my review of CoC 7e (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=31309)? I was one of the very few people to have nice things to say about 7e in these parts. [Chaosium is still selling CoC, right? It's not now 100% Glorantha-ized?])

Please don't mention that. I'm now having nightmares about an unholy merger of those 2 settings. ;)

Quote from: This Guy;878243Or print enough copies to burn them on film. At least then the vitriol will match the offense.

Good One!
(http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/c85c8d9e-e8e0-44ba-9ed9-cb1896f20142/11d32310-f45c-49af-ae64-f3f194c4ce8c.jpg)

Quote from: Baulderstone;878163Given that Chaosium is saying this edition change was a cold, hard business decision driven by low royalties, I'd think they would be interested in the fact that so much of the fanbase is unhappy with the decision.

Is it, though? Or are we echo chambering like crazy here?

Quote from: Warthur;878265Is it, though? Or are we echo chambering like crazy here?

I vote chamber. Love the Mechanism but I haven't bought a new iteration of RuneQuest since it came in boxes. Eager to see the new one.

If so, our echo extends to BRPCentral and awfulpurple where the same conversation is happening with different forumgoers.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878269If so, our echo extends to BRPCentral and awfulpurple where the same conversation is happening with different forumgoers.

I'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.

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.

That's a serious accusation. Can you back it up?

And even if it were true — do you feel MOB's doing a good job of handling it?

Quote from: The Butcher;878274That's a serious accusation. Can you back it up?

Given that I'm a recipient of PMs from him along those lines, I can document those.

If I am the only person he has PM'd on this subject then I might have overstated the case. But given that he's done a blog post on the subject and then bothered to PM me about it he certainly seems keen to get the word out about this juicy Chaosium/TDM scandal that he can only hint at.

As for MOB's handling of PR stuff... dude, I'm on the CoC7 Kickstarter, I have seen the miracles the Moon Design team can pull off when it comes to taking a righteously furious fanbase and calming them down and getting them onside.

I don't think MOB needs anyone here to be Chaosium's armchair PR expert, and I certainly find the pearl-clutching some have displayed around here amusing given the depths people here regularly drag the discourse down to.

Quote from: Warthur;878276Given that I'm a recipient of PMs from him along those lines, I can document those.

Well then, I guess the ball's on Akrasia's court.

Quote from: Warthur;878276As for MOB's handling of PR stuff... dude, I'm on the CoC7 Kickstarter, I have seen the miracles the Moon Design team can pull off when it comes to taking a righteously furious fanbase and calming them down and getting them onside.

Well then, I guess the ball's on MOB's court. ;)

:popcorn:

Quote from: Warthur;878276I don't think MOB needs anyone here to be Chaosium's armchair PR expert, and I certainly find the pearl-clutching some have displayed around here amusing given the depths people here regularly drag the discourse down to.

"People here" are anonymous nerds on the Internet. MOB's a company representative, and while I am by no means a "PR expert", I stand by my previous assessment. He's free to ignore it, of course.

But I still don't see online representatives from Blizzard accuse WoW doomsayers (and trust me, there's a ton of them) of "shit-stirring" when yet another "OMG WoW is dead" post rolls by. In fact, the day they do it is the day I might suspect WoW is indeed dead.

Quote from: Warthur;878270I'm not sure how much of that is down to Akrasia's whispering campaign...

I 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.

I very much regret this lapse of judgement.

EDIT: 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.

Quote from: The Butcher;878290But I still don't see online representatives from Blizzard accuse WoW doomsayers (and trust me, there's a ton of them) of "shit-stirring" when yet another "OMG WoW is dead" post rolls by. In fact, the day they do it is the day I might suspect WoW is indeed dead.

That may have more to do with the level of money* involved in games like WoW compared to games like - well pretty much every RPG ever. (Aside from the wild early 1980s D&D boom, nobody makes much money on RPGs.) In pen and paper RPGs good PR ability is probably more an accident of personality than it is a conscious business strategy by a company to recruit and pay people who are good at PR along with whatever else their day job consists of.


* I don't know the numbers, but I'm guessing WoW has revenue and profits between that are at least 2-3 orders of magnitude greater than those of Runequest.

Quote from: Bren;878296That may have more to do with the level of money* involved in games like WoW compared to games like - well pretty much every RPG ever.

Like I said upthread, I realize the hobby's a small pond, but professional is professional. All I see is a company rep losing his cool over a fan critic.

Quote from: The Butcher;878297Like I said upthread, I realize the hobby's a small pond, but professional is professional. All I see is a company rep losing his cool over a fan critic.

While I too would prefer to see a more professional interaction with even the more abrasive elements of the public, in life you tend to get what you pay for. So I don't expect five star food or service when I go to a one star restaurant. In 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.

Quote from: Warthur;878276...I might have overstated the case. But given that he's done a blog post on the subject and then bothered to PM me about it he certainly seems keen to get the word out about this juicy Chaosium/TDM scandal that he can only hint at...

Yes, you definitely are overstating the case. :rolleyes:

I haven't participated in any recent threads at RPGnet or BRPCentral on RQ. So accusing me of fomenting trouble for Chaosium at those sites is ridiculous.

And my blog post (from two months ago) does not "hint at" any "scandal" at all. So I don't know where you're getting that.

This thread is the first time I've commented on RQ in two months.  I'm not leading any kind of "anti-Chaosium" conspiracy.

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. :D

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. :D

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.

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.

What whispering campaign? I've received no PMs from Akrasia this year or the last (I think we might have discussed some issues on TBP years ago, but I might be mixing him with someone else, and the discussion was about probabilities and a totally different SF setting).
I didn't like the original announcement when I read it first, and then I looked at how it was handled and liked their attitude even less.

And regarding the posting of MOB in this thread, fans are right now tearing a new one to OPP for much milder reactions. Said reactions were coming from an Ex3 developer and not the VP, so I'm kinda surprised the reaction wasn't much stronger than what we have now.
I suspect Chaosium is simply enjoying much more goodwill from this forum community, but I also think it would be unwise to keep relying on this.

Quote from: baragei;878375Yes, it kind of is. In a very sad way.  
Oh well..

I agree. It's all rather sad. There's a whiff of sour grapes around, and I include myself in that.

Quote from: Warthur;878362...
Conspiracy requires multiple conspirators and I was accusing you of grinding this axe all by your ownsom.

So, according to you, I'm causing all of Chaosium's woes on all the various boards all by myself?  Through my "whispering campaign"?  :rolleyes:

Do you not see how crazy that is?

Quote from: Warthur;878362...
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.

Yes, you do. Because it's the truth.

But feel free to try to produce any evidence to the contrary. That should be amusing.

(And my "gaming connections" in this context, by the way, are no secret. I have gamed with Loz in the past. That's public knowledge. But my judgements and characterizations about what has happened with RQ, to the extent that I've expressed them, are entirely my own. I've tried to be careful in what I say to avoid any confusion on that score.)

Quote from: markfitz;878377I 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.

Well said. I agree 100%. :)

Quote from: The Butcher;878171We are all coming across as whiny bitches who can't deal with critics.

Fixed that for you ...

Well, I really like Runequest, I just hope the newest iteration does not limit itself to just Glorantha themes, but instead remembers all of the RuneQuest fans and includes them.

Quote from: soltakss;878405Fixed that for you ...

Speak for yourself, fanboy.

Quote from: GameDaddy;878406Well, I really like Runequest, I just hope the newest iteration does not limit itself to just Glorantha themes, but instead remembers all of the RuneQuest fans and includes them.

That's not what the article linked said.  It's all Glorantha all the time now.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;878442That's not what the article linked said.  It's all Glorantha all the time now.

And it's always been Glorantha, right? We have always been at war with Eurasia ....

Quote from: richaje;878374It is surreal.

So that's a "No" on Adventures in Glorantha then? :D

I guess we'll just have to buy all the 18 different supplements for RQ2.5 again because the single comprehensive unified resource won't be available.

:hand:

Quote from: The Butcher;878409Speak for yourself, fanboy.

His income partly depends on playing nice, remember.

I'm really not excited about buying "Oh Look It's Dragon Pass" again and its followup "Horrible Metaplot." On the other hand, at least it's not Heroquest.

So where'd all those thousands of RQ3 fans who loathe Glorantha go? I'm sure they're out there somewhere and MD just stabbed themselves in the wallet because the backlash will be ruthless and extreme.

But out here in the cheap seats all I see is a high crossover between the RQ2 and Glorantha fan bases that raised $460K plus over two kickstarters.

Surely the Glorantha haters have at least that much commercial impact and can it send the way of The Game Formerly Known As RQ6, where they'll never have to fret about ducks again. That's awesome. Let MD see you vote with your wallets. Me, Runequest IS Glorantha so I'm in that $460K crowd, but that's just where I come from.

Quote from: econobus;878460So where'd all those thousands of RQ3 fans who loathe Glorantha go? I'm sure they're out there somewhere and MD just stabbed themselves in the wallet because the backlash will be ruthless and extreme.

But out here in the cheap seats all I see is a high crossover between the RQ2 and Glorantha fan bases that raised $460K plus over two kickstarters.

Surely the Glorantha haters have at least that much commercial impact and can it send the way of The Game Formerly Known As RQ6, where they'll never have to fret about ducks again. That's awesome. Let MD see you vote with your wallets. Me, Runequest IS Glorantha so I'm in that $460K crowd, but that's just where I come from.

There is enough Runequest/TDM fans to fund a 30k Indiegogo campaign for the RQ6. I guess we will see what happens they try using it for new projects.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/runequest-6-special-edition-hardback/x/958388#/

Also Mongoose Legends is consistently on the Hot Seller List over on RPGNow. Currently #52, and is Platinum Seller.

So yes there are fans of Runequest that are not fans of Glorantha.

Now Runequest as the RPG for Glorantha and Glorantha itself are  far more well known than either Mongoose Runequest, Legend, and Runequest 6. So it not surprising that that all three Glorantha related kickstarters have backers in the low thousands as opposed to TDM hundreds of backers. And in latest Runequest 2 kickstarter there is the fact that it also benefits the original designers of the game directly.

However I think once the current wave subsides the situation will revert to the way it was under Mongoose. There are fans of the game, and the fans of the setting. There are enough of both to sustain each with some crossover but it not going to be big bucks and not going to ignite a renaissance of interest in either Runequest or Glorantha.

The one thing that is important about what is going on is that I believe it will ignite enough interest keep both viable into the next generation of gamers and that is a good thing in my book.

And I still think it is foolish not to have the TDM team heavily involving in supporting the Runequest brand as they proven to be able to do quality work that is released on a timely basis. It not an either or situation either. Chaosium could have both but didn't which is again is a foolish decision.

For crying out loud there is a 13th age Glorantha out there being sold. There is the Heroquest rules and supplement as well. You mean to tell me that Chaosium couldn't have a Adventure in Gloranth for RQ 6 floating out there as well?

Quote from: ThatChrisGuy;878458On the other hand, at least it's not Heroquest.

Yes. I see that as a plus.

Quote from: estar;878464There is enough Runequest/TDM fans to fund a 30k Indiegogo campaign for the RQ6. I guess we will see what happens they try using it for new projects.

Hi Rob! Good point. I'm sure all those Runequest fans who hate Glorantha can work on that number and get it up closer to the $460K that the "other side" has managed to demonstrate.

Oh wait. You're right, I forgot about 13th Age, which isn't out yet but adds another $113K to the Glorantha side of the ledger.

So it's $30K for the haters that needs to become what, $570K before MD really has to sit up and take notice of how foolish they're being? Get to it, haters! Start organizing those communities to push the funds to the Mechanism! Make The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 the biggest success story the industry has seen in decades!

EDIT: but I am really curious where all the haters at besides this thread and its cousins on other sites. Because back in the day the perception was that Mythic Earth dropped like a rock and Avalon Hill had to bring in a lot of Glorantha content awful fast. Good to hear there was a huge cadre of Mythic Earth fans after all. It's a surprise. You've all been so quiet!

The downright silly amount of money Gloranthaphiles are willing to throw at projects is well known. The last (incomplete) beta-copy of RQ6 Adventures in Glorantha went for 1000 bucks on eBay - of course C/MD see where the money is, and of course C/MD want control of their IPs now when they finally can, and I really can't hold that against them.
Doesn't mean that I have to like that they gave Loz and Pete - who pretty much resuscitated RuneQuest - the middle finger in the process.

It's odd that people are trying to make this into simplistic Glorantha vs. non-Glorantha fans pissing match considering that one of the main things that many RQ6 fans are upset about is that Chaosium prevented the Glorantha supplement for RQ6 coming out. If this new edition was coming out in conjunction with Adventures in Glorantha, there wouldn't be as much animosity from RQ6 fans.  

It's also weird to think that there is a clean line between people that are Glorantha fans and people that use RQ for settings other than Glorantha. I like GLorantha just fine, but I also like using RuneQuest for other settings.

Quote from: estar;878314I understand the challenge. Do you go at it with your own approach? Or do you cater to an existing IP?

Our own. We'd rather not be beholden to the vagaries of other IP's.

QuoteFor 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.

Yep. I imagine most of us small timers aren't in it for the money, but to write stuff people enjoy. :)

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

Thanks Estar.

That's quite the overgeneralization based on just crowdfunding numbers. I pledged money to the RQ6 Indie Gogo and to the Runequest Classic Kickstarter. I also don't particularly care for Glorantha and haven't been happy about a lot of the things the new Chaosium has chosen to do. I doubt I'm unique.

Quote from: econobus;878474Hi Rob! Good point. I'm sure all those Runequest fans who hate Glorantha can work on that number and get it up closer to the $460K that the "other side" has managed to demonstrate.

Oh wait. You're right, I forgot about 13th Age, which isn't out yet but adds another $113K to the Glorantha side of the ledger.

So it's $30K for the haters that needs to become what, $570K before MD really has to sit up and take notice of how foolish they're being? Get to it, haters! Start organizing those communities to push the funds to the Mechanism! Make The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 the biggest success story the industry has seen in decades!

EDIT: but I am really curious where all the haters at besides this thread and its cousins on other sites. Because back in the day the perception was that Mythic Earth dropped like a rock and Avalon Hill had to bring in a lot of Glorantha content awful fast. Good to hear there was a huge cadre of Mythic Earth fans after all. It's a surprise. You've all been so quiet!

Quote from: ptingler;878495That's quite the overgeneralization based on just crowdfunding numbers. I pledged money to the RQ6 Indie Gogo and to the Runequest Classic Kickstarter. I also don't particularly care for Glorantha and haven't been happy about a lot of the things the new Chaosium has chosen to do. I doubt I'm unique.

Awesome. Got a better benchmark? Because otherwise it's hard for anecdotes to add up to data, much less cash for the Mechanism to show MD where the real fans are. Right now I see some anecdotes and a few numbers on the crowdfund, community registration accounts, etc.

Quote from: econobus;878496Awesome. Got a better benchmark? Because otherwise it's hard for anecdotes to add up to data, much less cash for the Mechanism to show MD where the real fans are. Right now I see some anecdotes and a few numbers on the crowdfund, community registration accounts, etc.

 Regardless, you are missing the point that your argument is a strawman, at least in part.  Certainly, the new direction for RuneQuest  has some of (not all of) those who dislike Glorantha  opposed to it, but you ignore what has already been pointed out that it also has opposition from those who like Glorantha but prefer RQ6 to RQ2  and would have preferred to see something of Glorantha  come out for it.  There is also opposition from those who like both  ( or do not care about either ) who think that there have been far too many new editions of RQ  in far too short a time and would have preferred to have stuck with the most recent edition for future releases.

 And I would hazard that the latter two groups hold a more firmly held opposition than the former.

Quote from: Sytthas;878505And I would hazard that the latter two groups hold a more firmly held opposition than the former.

Sure, but where are the numbers that prove they were buying before and will now stop . . . the numbers that support, you know, the "Chaosium fumbles fatally" argument? That's all I'm agitating for. Otherwise, I can't tell where a few people's deep and passionate opinion ends and the real business disaster starts.

And of course if the firmly held opposition organizes to send funding to the Mechanism, I bet Loz and Pete wouldn't mind.

Quote from: econobus;878506Sure, but where are the numbers that prove they were buying before and will now stop . . . the numbers that support, you know, the "Chaosium fumbles fatally" argument? That's all I'm agitating for. Otherwise, I can't tell where a few people's deep and passionate opinion ends and the real business disaster starts.

And of course if the firmly held opposition organizes to send funding to the Mechanism, I bet Loz and Pete wouldn't mind.

Seeing as there was no, and apparently never will be, any Glorantha  material for RQ6  to my knowledge, an opportunity to generate the numbers you're seeking was never provided.

Quote from: Sytthas;878507Seeing as there was no, and apparently never will be, any Glorantha  material for RQ6  to my knowledge, an opportunity to generate the numbers you're seeking was never provided.

You never know. As The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 continues to evolve and, I hope, build a passionate audience, the negotiating table may open back up. If MD sees compelling numbers, strange things happen.

But when I came in here, the thread seemed to me to focus on how the non-Glorantha RQ fans are getting cut out of the publishing cycle. That struck me as odd because I was unaware of there being that many non-Glorantha RQ fans, so I asked: where are they all at? The only numbers I see point in the other direction.

-------

Quote from: Warthur;878265Is it, though? Or are we echo chambering like crazy here?

I do not 'hate' Glorantha... I'm just not interested enough to want to play in that setting. For me it was always the 'sample setting' of RQ, kind of like the vague examples in RQ6 and Magic World. I used some of it and ignored the rest.
The same with the setting books that came out for RQ3. I bought most all the Glorantha stuff... while NEVER having any desire to run a game there, just to mine it for ideas because it was still more interesting, IMO, than most of the D&D stuff I was seeing. My Apple Lane was somewhere else.
AND we got Mythic Earth stuff as well, cool!

I'd rather have had a Glorantha sourcebook for RQ6 or the BGB or Magic World... which I could ignore or mine for compatible ideas... but what's coming seems like it will be far less use to me... AND it bumped anything for BRP/Magic World off the map.
So I've got some resentment towards it, and the Glorantha-philes pushing for it... but it's far from 'hate'.

Quote from: econobus;878496Awesome. Got a better benchmark? Because otherwise it's hard for anecdotes to add up to data, much less cash for the Mechanism to show MD where the real fans are. Right now I see some anecdotes and a few numbers on the crowdfund, community registration accounts, etc.

Nothing on indiegogo can match Kickstarter for eyeballs.  Also part of that money you're claiming is for a systemless Glorantha book that anyone, current gamer or not, could buy and just read, and a coffeetable Atlas.  Hell I've never played in Glorantha and I almost bought the Atlas.

People claiming non-Glorantha RQ would make more money than Gloranthan RQ?  Well I don't know who actually claimed that, but people usually don't become Fanatical Fans of systems (at least not non-Forgey ones), but there are 40 years of Glorantha Fans out there.

That doesn't excuse spiking AiG and fucking the guys who kept your brand name relevant for 6 years while you were asleep at the wheel.

"Oh, the RuneQuest name is actually worth something now?  Good job guys, we'll take that back, thanks.  Oh, flush the last year of work on that finished book down the toilet too while you're busy going and fucking yourselves."

The last 2 pages have been rather weird.

Since when are we forced to conform our RPG tastes to Kickstarter's crowfunding numbers?

Anyway I'll just provide my personal single point of data: I've always been a Glorantha fan; I own a metric fuckton of the old material and I've purchased the GtG and backed their recent RQ2 Kickstarter, but I couldn't care less about Glorantha's latest editorial direction. And it has much more to do with the tonal shift than with system's shenanigans. If it stays as it is now, it's extremely unlikely I'll purchase any new books in the line.

Not sure which faction this ascribes me to, but I won't lose any sleep over it...

If the work for AiG has been done but they are now not allowed to sell it, is there anything legally stopping TDFM giving it away for free? Honest (and most likely naive) question, I know nothing about the law. Or can the retcon it to the Glorantha fan licence thing that is allowing D101 Games to keep publishing Glorantha material?

Quote from: CRKrueger;878455His income partly depends on playing nice, remember.

Income? Hah! I wish ...

Quote from: econobus;878474Hi Rob! Good point. I'm sure all those Runequest fans who hate Glorantha can work on that number and get it up closer to the $460K that the "other side" has managed to demonstrate.

Oh wait. You're right, I forgot about 13th Age, which isn't out yet but adds another $113K to the Glorantha side of the ledger.

So it's $30K for the haters that needs to become what, $570K before MD really has to sit up and take notice of how foolish they're being? Get to it, haters! Start organizing those communities to push the funds to the Mechanism! Make The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 the biggest success story the industry has seen in decades!

A bit harsh, but the figures do speak volumes. A lot of people like Glorantha and a lot of people like RuneQuest in Glorantha.

Quote from: econobus;878474EDIT: but I am really curious where all the haters at besides this thread and its cousins on other sites. Because back in the day the perception was that Mythic Earth dropped like a rock and Avalon Hill had to bring in a lot of Glorantha content awful fast. Good to hear there was a huge cadre of Mythic Earth fans after all. It's a surprise. You've all been so quiet!

The people I know who prefer RQ3, or even RQ2, without Glorantha quite happily write their own setting material or play the occasional RQ game outside Glorantha. As they have their own settings, they don't need to buy anything else.

Alternate/Mythic Earth has its fans, myself included, but they don;t seem to be as numerous as fans of Glorantha, which is a shame.

I still think that a model of Chaosium producing a Gloranthan RuneQuest and other companies producing Alternate/Mythic Earth supplements for RuneQuest-Like games works really well.

Quote from: soltakss;878568The people I know who prefer RQ3, or even RQ2, without Glorantha quite happily write their own setting material or play the occasional RQ game outside Glorantha. As they have their own settings, they don't need to buy anything else.

Maybe that's "the dog that didn't bark" here. One of the first things I learned about the industry -- not the hobby, the commercial operation of game publishing -- is that you don't create products for people who don't buy products.

If the vast silent majority of RQ(N) players are people who don't buy products, it's great that they're having fun. With all that energy and creativity, I bet even the Glorantha fanatics in that group can play the world under any system without needing to rely on anyone for support.

Likewise, Mythic Earth or Questworld or Your Homebrew Here.

But when we move back into the commercial side, you got to follow the numbers. As far as I know the new Chaosium has limited capacity and limited room on the production calendar. (God knows!) They make hard choices. Numbers factor into those choices.

Did they hit every beat right? Of course not, the shift from RQ7 In Glorantha still feels "nebulous" and if I were the Mechanism I'd be gearing up to create amazing things to compete head to head with the new Chaosium platform. Maybe the question is really what products the vast silent majority would actually rush to buy and make that happen.

But is it a fatal and catastrophic failure for Chaosium? Hard to say unless we see numbers go the wrong way.

Quote from: Stainless;878560If the work for AiG has been done but they are now not allowed to sell it, is there anything legally stopping TDFM giving it away for free? Honest (and most likely naive) question, I know nothing about the law. Or can the retcon it to the Glorantha fan licence thing that is allowing D101 Games to keep publishing Glorantha material?

In short, the thing legally preventing that are the RuneQuest/Glorantha trademarks.  My impression from comments made by Loz on the TDM forum is that they've looked at every option they could think of and MD/C has replied in no uncertain terms that, aside from the 50 GenCon preview copies, that material may not be distributed in any form.

It's threads like these that put a tear to my eye.

Quote from: econobus;878574But when we move back into the commercial side, you got to follow the numbers. As far as I know the new Chaosium has limited capacity and limited room on the production calendar. (God knows!) They make hard choices. Numbers factor into those choices.

Hence my comment that Chaosium is exhibiting 1990s mentality in the 2010s. It not their production calendar that effected by the decision it is TDM's calendar. All they have to do is say "We allow TDM to release Adventures in Glorantha at the previously agreed royalty rates.". "We allow to for TMD to use continue to use the Runequest trademark in their products."

The relative numbers greatly favor Glorantha fans however in absolute terms we are talking a potential market of around 8,000 to 10,000 for Glorantha and probably 1,000 to 1,500 for Runequest 6. This is assuming that both companies attract additional sales 5 time in excess of backers. And I could be wrong about this in regards to TDM because Runequest 6 is a platinum seller on DriveThruRPG.


This is not a big market here. The idea that brand dilution is going to harm anybody in this situation is ludicrous. Especially when Heroquest Glorantha is not shutting down, nor is 13th age Glorantha.

With a market this small personal factors become very important. And the relevant factor is that there are a group that like the work that Pete and Loz do. This mess alienated that group. The only reason that it isn't a bigger mess is because the new management at Chaosium have the original guys behind Glorantha and Runequest as part of their team. And they are showing some love for the RQ2 rather than shoving a new and improved approach down everybody's throats.

Hence my opinion that in general Chaosium is making good moves except when it comes to TDM and Runequest 6. My opinion is that they should let them continue to use the Runequest trademark in some form. Perhaps not as Runequest 6 maybe something like Classic Fantasy powered by Runequest. And by all means let them release Adventures in Glorantha.

Quote from: estar;878581(good stuff on "why can't we support both?")

This is not a big market here. The idea that brand dilution is going to harm anybody in this situation is ludicrous. Especially when Heroquest Glorantha is not shutting down, nor is 13th age Glorantha.

Bu-bu-but I heard somewhere that "fragmentation" and "version creep" were killing that market because four versions (two Mongoose and now this fork) in ten years.

Quote from: econobus;878582Bu-bu-but I heard somewhere that "fragmentation" and "version creep" were killing that market because four versions (two Mongoose and now this fork) in ten years.

It already fragmented and won't be put back together. The d100 system behind Runequest is effectively open content. So what matters is what a company does with a system not the fact they are exclusive publishers of that system.

Because of the small size of the market it would in their best interest to incorporate everybody who proven competent at dealing with Runequest and Glorantha rather than exclude them.

The 90s way is thinking that by forcing everybody to use the same system you will reunite the fanbase. The 2010 way is to forge a community around the shared history of Runequest and Glorantha. With Chaosium as the clear leader. Similar to what Wizards did with 5e and classic D&D. So while you have multiple system the community is re-united with people freely switching and interacting with different yet similar systems.

Quote from: econobus;878460So where'd all those thousands of RQ3 fans who loathe Glorantha go? I'm sure they're out there somewhere and MD just stabbed themselves in the wallet because the backlash will be ruthless and extreme.

But out here in the cheap seats all I see is a high crossover between the RQ2 and Glorantha fan bases that raised $460K plus over two kickstarters.

Surely the Glorantha haters have at least that much commercial impact and can it send the way of The Game Formerly Known As RQ6, where they'll never have to fret about ducks again. That's awesome. Let MD see you vote with your wallets. Me, Runequest IS Glorantha so I'm in that $460K crowd, but that's just where I come from.

So, if you are asserting that Glorantha fans will buy anything with Glorantha stamped on it, would it not have made more sense to let TDM print Adventure in Glorantha? They could have collected all the royalties on that, plus royalties on RQ6 corebook sales increases.

Then Chaosium could have made this new edition, and all the Glorantha fans would have automatically opened their wallets again.

Also, you are a member of the $206,000 crowd, Not the $460,000 crowd. You can't establish the size of an audiences spending power by adding multiple products with redundant buyers together. Especially as you are spuriously asserting that all the GtG copies went to RQ2 fans, not a mix of various fans of various editions of RQ  and HeroQuest fans.

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

Quote from: richaje;878374It is surreal.

Quote from: baragei;878375Yes, it kind of is. In a very sad way.  
Oh well..

All I know is I am terribly invested in the ethical state of video game journalism.

(Oh shit, I crossed the streams... :o)

Quote from: Baulderstone;878611So, if you are asserting that Glorantha fans will buy anything with Glorantha stamped on it, would it not have made more sense to let TDM print Adventure in Glorantha? They could have collected all the royalties on that, plus royalties on RQ6 corebook sales increases.

Well, that starts with an "if" that isn't actually true, so I'm at a loss. Not privy to their business decisions, which may or may not be the right ones in any event. All I know is that the license was pulled and now legacy stock is kaput.

The time to lobby for AIG's survival was when the numbers triggered the renegotiation. Again, I wasn't there so who knows. Maybe people fought hard for the product on both sides.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878611Also, you are a member of the $206,000 crowd, Not the $460,000 crowd. You can't establish the size of an audiences spending power by adding multiple products with redundant buyers together. Especially as you are spuriously asserting that all the GtG copies went to RQ2 fans, not a mix of various fans of various editions of RQ  and HeroQuest fans.

Actually I'm in that $460K crowd, so thanks. Backed all three. But the original argument actually lumps "Glorantha and RQ2, which we both know is a game with native imbedded Glorantha support" against "Glorantha hating RQ fans who would sooner retch than pick up Chaosium RQ 2016."

Did a lot of Glorantha hating fans buy the Guide? Dubious but dumber things have happened. Maybe they got caught up in the grandeur of it all.

Did a lot of Heroquest and system-agnostic fans buy the Guide? Hell yes. Which is why it doesn't go in the "get your Glorantha out of my RQ" bucket.

EDIT: Oh, I get you now with the market size point. OK. So say for the argument that it's $30k and $206K. Where's the bigger market opportunity been established so far? If for some reason you feel that you have to choose, which do you cling to?

Quote from: econobus;878622EDIT: Oh, I get you now with the market size point. OK. So say for the argument that it's $30k and $206K. Where's the bigger market opportunity been established so far? If for some reason you feel that you have to choose, which do you cling to?

It's still not a particularly valid data point. The RQ6 Indiegogo campaign is for a fancy, limited edition copy of the rules in a slipcover. I don't own that. Nobody I play with owns that. I've never seen it in stores. I own the more common standard edition hardcover. I didn't pick it up for another year when buzz began to build around it. It just doesn't seem a useful measure for comparison.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878641It's still not a particularly valid data point. The RQ6 Indiegogo campaign is for a fancy, limited edition copy of the rules in a slipcover. I don't own that. Nobody I play with owns that. I've never seen it in stores. I own the more common standard edition hardcover. I didn't pick it up for another year when buzz began to build around it. It just doesn't seem a useful measure for comparison.

And he ignoring the fact that RQ6 is a platinum seller on DriveThru.

Quote from: estar;878642And he ignoring the fact that RQ6 is a platinum seller on DriveThru.

You're right. Because unless we have ongoing sales numbers for both sides of the brand, there's no comp. Feel free to keep slamming my numbers as long as you provide replacements -- otherwise, I go right back to the "echo chamber" hypothesis.

Let's actually luxuriate a moment and explore why this is such an apparently big deal from my POV.

I get to this thread and I wade through pages of people weighing in on a product announcement, "nope, not into Glorantha, thanks." That's great. We're all free to avoid buying things that don't interest us.

Then we get the conniption and claims that Chaosium Did a Bad Thing by leaving a population of diehard "love RQ but hate Glorantha, no thanks" fans out in the cold. This is intriguing. I had no idea such a population existed outside pockets here and there -- even in the Mongoose era, RQ and Glorantha were joined at the hip -- so I start wondering where all these people have been all my life.

In the absence of anyone pointing at established "love RQ but hate Glorantha, no thanks" communities, I start to wonder how much of a commercial drag this really is on Chaosium. To me, crowdfunding numbers on Glorantha and/or RQ2 products versus crowdfunding numbers on setting-neutral RQ6 are a pretty good proxy on relative market size. We could also look at community registration numbers and so on.

Are those numbers perfect? No. But they're numbers. Getting a gold star on a retail site doesn't cut it because there's no number attached. Positing ongoing retail sales on one side without getting the best possible comps on the other side doesn't cut it: Heroquest, for example, doesn't sell through distribution.

Now where's the giggle here other than my own perverse interest in industry metrics? When MD and DM had their talk, numbers were on the table. Numbers apparently triggered the conversation in the first place and then numbers contributed to the ultimate decision of going with the RQ2 chassis and native Glorantha. We don't have those decisions and weren't there, but trying to model those numbers might shed some light on those decisions.

And if the numbers didn't line up in the favor of the "no thanks" side of the argument, I have maintained throughout this thread that active support of "no thanks" publishers and products is a great solution. Don't settle for "platinum seller on RPGnow." Go for big kickstarter numbers. Prove to MD that they stabbed themselves in the wallet. Laugh in their face if you want to do that.

Then we can come back here and evaluate the business decisions. Maybe they missed a brilliant chance to outsource the brand OGL style. (God help us all.) Maybe they needed to move fast in the other direction for some external reason. Maybe the numbers just didn't line up. I like those conversations as long as they're backed up with more than anecdotes. Or if there's nothing but anecdotes, that's cool too, but it's a very different conversation.

Quote from: econobus;878643You're right. Because unless we have ongoing sales numbers for both sides of the brand, there's no comp. Feel free to keep slamming my numbers as long as you provide replacements -- otherwise, I go right back to the "echo chamber" hypothesis.

There are no replacements. We don't have sales figures. That doesn't make your flawed numbers any better.

And why do we have people keep calling this an echo? An echo chamber is when you have a discussion where everyone is in unquestioned agreement. That is not this thread.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878645There are no replacements. We don't have sales figures. That doesn't make your flawed numbers any better.

Then you are committed to having that very different type of conversation. Which is OK.

Quote from: econobus;878644Then we get the conniption and claims that Chaosium Did a Bad Thing by leaving a population of diehard "love RQ but hate Glorantha, no thanks" fans out in the cold.

There's also the faction that loved BRP/Magic World/etc... that feel a bit left out in the big rush to foreground Glorantha and RQ2. We might have bought Glorantha product to strip for parts, but apparently we were voting against our own interests by doing that.

And stop with the 'haters' nonsense... I don't see anyone saying they 'hate' Glorantha... we're just not interested in the setting.

Quote from: Simlasa;878648And stop with the 'haters' nonsense... I don't see anyone saying they 'hate' Glorantha... we're just not interested in the setting.

Oddly, Econobus seems to putting out the most hate in the thread. Well, except for CRKrueger, but that's just normal for him.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878650Oddly, Econobus seems to putting out the most hate in the thread. Well, except for CRKrueger, but that's just normal for him.

Nah. "Haters" is what my kids call anyone who isn't relentlessly cheerful. Looking back at the thread there's plenty of actual venom -- but I take the note, "not interested but no thanks" is a better way to sum up the first few innocent pages.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878641It's still not a particularly valid data point. The RQ6 Indiegogo campaign is for a fancy, limited edition copy of the rules in a slipcover. I don't own that. Nobody I play with owns that. I've never seen it in stores. I own the more common standard edition hardcover. I didn't pick it up for another year when buzz began to build around it. It just doesn't seem a useful measure for comparison.

Quote from: estar;878642And he ignoring the fact that RQ6 is a platinum seller on DriveThru.

There's so many ways that idiot is being deliberately disingenuous it's not worth arguing.

"Hey neither of us have total sales figures for Apples vs. Oranges but we do have sales figures for all apples of every type from the State of Washington so let's compare those to the sales figures we have of Seville Oranges in Japan, so until you have different numbers Apples are better."

Jackass.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878650Oddly, Econobus seems to putting out the most hate in the thread. Well, except for CRKrueger, but that's just normal for him.

Bah, MOB started it. :D

Quote from: Strother MartinWhich is the way he wants it.  Well, he gets it.

Platinum status for a product means that it is in the top .5% for the site. I don't have any platinum status products but I know people who do and it awarded when you get over around 1,500 sales. It is hard to be precise because OBS counts each storefront separately.

On RPGNow I have Majestic Wilderlands at Electrum status the same as RQ6 on RPGNow. I was awarded it when I had around 550 sales. It may be 500 is the cutoff point but since I had some DriveThruRPG sales (where I have silver status for MW) in the mix I can't be sure.

And I do know how many orders RPGNow processes because of Blackmarsh being downloaded nearly every day. For 2015 that was around 1,300,000 orders. Undoubtedly around 25% may be internal orders, or publisher only orders. But that a lot of volume no matter how you look at it.

And Legend is Platinum on both sites.

If you look at Moon Design's Glorantha products their best seller is only at Electrum.

The point is to show that RQ6 has a following that it as successful as other RPGs in it's tier. Not that is a wunderkind among RPGs in the way that Pathfinder, 5e, Star Wars, and Shadowrun are.

When I factor in the activity I see in both communities on their respective company's websites is that they are comparable in size and audience. Which is one reason that I view Chaosium omitting TDM out of the new push for Runequest was foolish. Not bad mind you, but foolish.

Quote from: estar;878656Platinum status for a product means that it is in the top .5% for the site. I don't have any platinum status products but I know people who do and it awarded when you get over around 1,500 sales. It is hard to be precise because OBS counts each storefront separately.

On RPGNow I have Majestic Wilderlands at Electrum status the same as RQ6 on RPGNow. I was awarded it when I had around 550 sales. It may be 500 is the cutoff point but since I had some DriveThruRPG sales (where I have silver status for MW) in the mix I can't be sure.

And I do know how many orders RPGNow processes because of Blackmarsh being downloaded nearly every day. For 2015 that was around 1,300,000 orders. Undoubtedly around 25% may be internal orders, or publisher only orders. But that a lot of volume.

And Legend is Platinum on both sites.

If you look at Moon Design's Glorantha products their best seller is only at Electrum.

The point is to show that RQ6 has a following that it as successful as other RPGs in it's tier. Not that is a wunderkind among RPGs in the way that Pathfinder, 5e, Star Wars, and Shadowrun are.

When I factor in the activity I see in both communities on their respective company's websites is that they are comparable in size and audience. Which is one reason that I view Chaosium omitting TDM out of the new push for Runequest was foolish. Not bad mind you, but foolish.

Not mention the fact that if you presume all RQ6 fans hate Glorantha (which is certainly NOT the case), many of them still would have bought all the RQ7 products that were filled with new game system mechanics.

Adventure in Glorantha had 352 Rune Spells (Theist in RQ6).  352.  Not to mention brand new versions of Shamanism and Sorcery.  As long as the RQ7 line products combined RQ6 rules expansions and setting content, people would have done what they always do with such books.  Buy for the rules, ignore the setting.  You think the person who bought the 50 page preview of AiG for $1000 dollars did it for small amount of rehashed setting content or for a ton of exclusive rules for the system that now cannot be published?

Chaosium just lost the sales of a ton of books.  It's not that they are serving Glorantha-philes, Glorantha-philes get served no matter the system, it's that they are specifically deciding to NOT sell to people who like the RQ6 system and would have bought rules expansions to mine for any setting.

They are step by step repeating WotC 4e disaster.
1. Take a decades old traditional system and toss narrative mechanics in. (CoC7)
2. Take a decent chunk of people you could make money off and fire them. (Dumping RQ6 rules)
3. Tell everyone involved to go fuck themselves in the process. (Pulling AiG and calling the new game RQ4)

CRKrueger keeps winning this thread over and over again.

Also, Estar, you should come out with a RQ6 version of Majestic Wilderlands.  It would fit very well with the forthcoming Classic Fantasy RQ6 supplement.

Quote from: estar;878656Platinum status for a product means that it is in the top .5% for the site. I don't have any platinum status products but I know people who do and it awarded when you get over around 1,500 sales. It is hard to be precise because OBS counts each storefront separately.

Now this is starting to get useful! So add a BASE of 1500 sales x $25 current PDF retail = $37,500 to the "no thanks" bucket. Could be infinite dollars, who knows, but let's start with the numbers we have. Double it for Legend even though that's a whole third type of fruit.

Quests is Electrum (use BASE of 500 sales although it could be up to double to get to Gold), Monster Island is Electrum, Ships+Walls Electrum, Hessaret is Silver, Korantia Silver, Mythic Britain Electrum, Britain Companion Silver, Taskan Empire Silver. Guess the Silver cut-off is 250 and call the supplements $23,500. Great stuff!

Of course I need those Japanese apples so Moon Design over there has the Dragon Pass Gaz at Silver, WF 15 at Silver, Champions Silver, other moldy stuff like ILH 1 and 2 Anaxial's Roster Thunder Rebels Blood over Gold Storm Tribe Barbarian Adventures 1 and 2 (=Issaries PDF) at Silver, SKOH and the new Pavis Silver, Griffin Mountain Pavis Cult Compendium Borderlands (=RQ2 Reprints) Electrum, HQ Core Intro to Hero Wars Electrum, Sartar Pack a lowly Copper so I'll just skip it, Stafford Library trending Silver except for Heortling Mythology and GROY (4 titles).

Doing the math there I would not kick the RQ6 titles out of bed unless there's no room left in the bed for some reason. But break it down. Heroquest Core and the old Glorantha book, Electrum, $10k. Add in SKOH and Pavis for another $27,500. The real numbers might be be double, but then again, RQ6 at Platinum might also be "infinite."

Problem: the new Heroquest Glorantha book isn't even sold through DTRPG so all talk of apples and oranges must now shudder to a halt! Only kidding. You can call it Electrum too for another $10k, but either way, as far as DTRPG goes, Glorantha-driven Heroquest undersells explicitly non-Glorantha RQ6.

Moral Lesson Learned: once you can see how big the garden is, you can start gauging the impact of walling bits of it off.

But how about them RQ2 reprints? Big price point, equivalent market. Four big books at Electrum adds a base of . . . count with my toes . .  fifty thousand dollars. And that's not counting the recent kickstarter, which we must never, ever do.

Perusing this thread, and GNR's 'Civil War' song comes randomly on in the background on one of my playlists. Surreal, yet the perfect soundtrack...

Quote from: Mankcam;878663Perusing this thread, and GNR's 'Civil War' song comes randomly on in the background on one of my playlists. Surreal, yet the perfect soundtrack...

Sayre's Law: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue—that is why academic politics are so bitter."

I'll employ econobus' esteemed logic and say that Moon Design should either design Runequest to run Theah or use 7th Sea rules to run Glorantha. :D

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnwickpresents/7th-sea-second-edition

4,377 backers at $493,417 in 4 days with 30 days left on the Kickstarter.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878657Adventure in Glorantha had 352 Rune Spells (Theist in RQ6).  352.  Not to mention brand new versions of Shamanism and Sorcery.

I had no idea it was going to be that good! I was just annoyed. Now I'm mad.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878657They are step by step repeating WotC 4e disaster.
1. Take a decades old traditional system and toss narrative mechanics in. (CoC7)
2. Take a decent chunk of people you could make money off and fire them. (Dumping RQ6 rules)
3. Tell everyone involved to go fuck themselves in the process. (Pulling AiG and calling the new game RQ4)

#1 and #2 are dumb, but hey, it's their funeral. But #3 is sheer douchebaggery.

Hey, remember when we were laughing at CoC7 "pushing rolls" bullshit and Akrasia swung by to defend it? ;)

Quote from: The Butcher;878683I had no idea it was going to be that good! I was just annoyed. Now I'm mad.

The guys who wrote the RQ6 toolkit system, took the setting they loved the most and wrote the most complete and comprehensive collection of spells, cults, monsters for a setting probably ever.  It would have been the "Master's Class on adapting RQ6 to your favorite system."

And it will never see the light of day because Chaosium is ...threatened by it...cowardly...just dicks? Who knows.

Quote from: The Butcher;878683#1 and #2 are dumb, but hey, it's their funeral. But #3 is sheer douchebaggery.

Hey, remember when we were laughing at CoC7 "pushing rolls" bullshit and Akrasia swung by to defend it? ;)

It must have been a false flag op, he has a personal vendetta against Chaosium doncha know.

Stafford needs to come out of the sweat lodge and look at his feet.  Too much toejam has collected In the shadow of greatness.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878689It must have been a false flag op, he has a personal vendetta against Chaosium doncha know.

Yes, it was all part of my very cunning 'whispering campaign'. :pundit:

Everything i liked about Runequest was stuff loz and pete wrote for it so yeah count me out for this new boreantha tethered version.

In other news i cant wait to see what the folks who made me give a shit about Runequest do next!

My gut feeling is that the new RuneQuest will be a good system.

It will probably be different from RQ5/6, but RQ5/6 were very different from earlier versions of RQ.

Pulling back to a more traditional RQ with the improvements made for RQ5/6 might be a good thing.

We can use the RQ5/6 improvements and the new RuneQuest ideas, with things from other versions.

Quote from: Akrasia;878660Also, Estar, you should come out with a RQ6 version of Majestic Wilderlands.  It would fit very well with the forthcoming Classic Fantasy RQ6 supplement.

I have been considering it for awhile as Legends is open content. Which why I been participating in the kickstarters and trying out the rules in order to get a feel for how the system works.

Quote from: estar;878736I have been considering it for awhile as Legends is open content. Which why I been participating in the kickstarters and trying out the rules in order to get a feel for how the system works.

RQ6 had a Gateway License. I'd be surprised if the license doesn't remain while the name changes.

Quote from: soltakss;878729My gut feeling is that the new RuneQuest will be a good system

Yeah, it probably will be. Possibly a very good game. Not sure it will beat the current edition, but with 3 high-end games - Call of Cthulhu and Glorantha RuneQuest and HeroQuest - Chaosium might become a contender again.

Quote from: soltakss;878729My gut feeling is that the new RuneQuest will be a good system.

It will probably be different from RQ5/6, but RQ5/6 were very different from earlier versions of RQ.

Pulling back to a more traditional RQ with the improvements made for RQ5/6 might be a good thing.

We can use the RQ5/6 improvements and the new RuneQuest ideas, with things from other versions.

Based on the blog entries, it does seem that both CRQ and RQ6 will be using the same core dice mechanic, skill calculation and HP calculation. The big question is magic. RQ2 used the Power characteristic as an expendable, replenishable resource, while RQ6 doesn't. It's the trickiest part of converting Gloranthan cults and magic over to RQ6 and a big part of why I was looking forward to AiG.

One solution would be to use GRQ as the base, then attach RQ6 parts such as Special Effects to it. The thing is that I am really not fond of the whole "Power as resource" mechanic. Aside from mechanical issues, it felt thematically wrong in its effects.

Power is defined in the text as the attention of the gods, and builds up an aura that diminishes stealth. If the biggest magical workings in the game require spending Power to acquire, it means that the Rune Priest who has just loaded up on powerful Rune Magic that he can use has lowered the strength of his aura and become more nondescript.  

Perhaps the best way to get away from the Power economy is to treat the cost of Rune Magic the way RQ6 treats enchanting items. The cost of the Rune Magic gives a penalty to your Magic Point total rather than costing Power. Maybe these penalties can be removed over time by performing quests for your cult, giving a mechanical equivalent to buy gaining more Power in RQ2.

Or who knows. Maybe the new edition won't even have this issue, and I won't need to play around with it.

Quote from: estar;878581Hence my comment that Chaosium is exhibiting 1990s mentality in the 2010s. It not their production calendar that effected by the decision it is TDM's calendar. All they have to do is say "We allow TDM to release Adventures in Glorantha at the previously agreed royalty rates.". "We allow to for TMD to use continue to use the Runequest trademark in their products."

The relative numbers greatly favor Glorantha fans however in absolute terms we are talking a potential market of around 8,000 to 10,000 for Glorantha and probably 1,000 to 1,500 for Runequest 6. This is assuming that both companies attract additional sales 5 time in excess of backers. And I could be wrong about this in regards to TDM because Runequest 6 is a platinum seller on DriveThruRPG.


This is not a big market here. The idea that brand dilution is going to harm anybody in this situation is ludicrous. Especially when Heroquest Glorantha is not shutting down, nor is 13th age Glorantha.

With a market this small personal factors become very important. And the relevant factor is that there are a group that like the work that Pete and Loz do. This mess alienated that group. The only reason that it isn't a bigger mess is because the new management at Chaosium have the original guys behind Glorantha and Runequest as part of their team. And they are showing some love for the RQ2 rather than shoving a new and improved approach down everybody's throats.

Hence my opinion that in general Chaosium is making good moves except when it comes to TDM and Runequest 6. My opinion is that they should let them continue to use the Runequest trademark in some form. Perhaps not as Runequest 6 maybe something like Classic Fantasy powered by Runequest. And by all means let them release Adventures in Glorantha.

Quote from: estar;878600It already fragmented and won't be put back together. The d100 system behind Runequest is effectively open content. So what matters is what a company does with a system not the fact they are exclusive publishers of that system.

Because of the small size of the market it would in their best interest to incorporate everybody who proven competent at dealing with Runequest and Glorantha rather than exclude them.

The 90s way is thinking that by forcing everybody to use the same system you will reunite the fanbase. The 2010 way is to forge a community around the shared history of Runequest and Glorantha. With Chaosium as the clear leader. Similar to what Wizards did with 5e and classic D&D. So while you have multiple system the community is re-united with people freely switching and interacting with different yet similar systems.

Well, my opinion happens to coincide with these two posts.
Of course, it is clear we're not going to see AiG, so all we can do is wait and see what we're going to get with RQ7, when it's done.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878657Not mention the fact that if you presume all RQ6 fans hate Glorantha (which is certainly NOT the case), many of them still would have bought all the RQ7 products that were filled with new game system mechanics.

Adventure in Glorantha had 352 Rune Spells (Theist in RQ6).  352.  Not to mention brand new versions of Shamanism and Sorcery.  As long as the RQ7 line products combined RQ6 rules expansions and setting content, people would have done what they always do with such books.  Buy for the rules, ignore the setting.  You think the person who bought the 50 page preview of AiG for $1000 dollars did it for small amount of rehashed setting content or for a ton of exclusive rules for the system that now cannot be published?

Chaosium just lost the sales of a ton of books.  It's not that they are serving Glorantha-philes, Glorantha-philes get served no matter the system, it's that they are specifically deciding to NOT sell to people who like the RQ6 system and would have bought rules expansions to mine for any setting.

They are step by step repeating WotC 4e disaster.
1. Take a decades old traditional system and toss narrative mechanics in. (CoC7)
2. Take a decent chunk of people you could make money off and fire them. (Dumping RQ6 rules)
3. Tell everyone involved to go fuck themselves in the process. (Pulling AiG and calling the new game RQ4)

I still don't know if WotC would count 4e as a "disaster", but the part about people buying books to mine for rules is a solid one. I've seen that happen often enough.

Quote from: soltakss;878729My gut feeling is that the new RuneQuest will be a good system.

It will probably be different from RQ5/6, but RQ5/6 were very different from earlier versions of RQ.

Pulling back to a more traditional RQ with the improvements made for RQ5/6 might be a good thing.

We can use the RQ5/6 improvements and the new RuneQuest ideas, with things from other versions.

Sure we can. I'm pretty sure I would.
But my gut feeling is that at least some fans would be lost in the process.

Quote from: estar;878736I have been considering it for awhile as Legends is open content. Which why I been participating in the kickstarters and trying out the rules in order to get a feel for how the system works.

Legend is a good bet as it is similar to RQ6 and does not need a licence.

Supplements can contain no Open Game Content, which means it is protected in the same way as for other systems.

FWIW, Legend pulling a platinum rating on DriveThru could be down to Mongoose selling it for a dollar - at that price, you don't really know how many of its buyers actually really dig the system and how many decided that $1 was enough for a quick look at the thing.

Sales levels of Legend supplements might be a better guide. Though I understand that they (and core Legend, for that matter) have suffered from the classic Mongoose editing problem (the problem being that Mongoose don't bother editing their stuff if they can get away with it).

And I've yet to see anyone seriously say they prefer Legend to RQ6, which isn't surprising given that RQ6 is basically Legend: the Director's Cut.

Oh, and the latest designer's notes (http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-3) go into detail on the decision-making process behind Chaosium moving away from RQ6:AiG.

RQ6 definitely has higher production values than Legend. I see the differences between the two rules the same way I see TSR era D&D, i.e. minor in most aspects.

Non-rules wise, I vastly prefer it being OGL compared to closed content. I lobbied for that on Mongoose's boards before it came out and was glad to see it happen. I've actually bought more from Mongoose's Legend line than RQ6 because of that very reason.

Also, Loz has confirmed over on The Big Purple (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?775804-RuneQuest-Details-about-the-new-Chaosium-version-of-RuneQuest-emerge&p=19805295#post19805295) that a) despite previews being available at GenCon, RQ6:AiG was not yet ready for prime time so it isn't the case that an essentially finished product was abruptly shitcanned and b) Moon Design made sure all of Pete and Loz's costs on producing AiG so far were covered so Design Mechanism didn't end up making a loss on their part of the development process.

Quote from: Warthur;878820Oh, and the latest designer's notes (http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-3) go into detail on the decision-making process behind Chaosium moving away from RQ6:AiG.

The decision behind going back to the version the entire design team is expert with and adding things from RQ6 (for example on BRPCentral all the new rules people are saying they really like are mainly from RQ6) and Pendragon and adjusting to fit the design teams vision of Glorantha makes sense, they are the design team and it's their license after all.  I think they are missing some obvious points in their decision, but it's not my decision to make.

However, there's nothing in there that talks about AiG and the decision to pull it.  They could have let AiG go forward and be the last RQ6 title and still did everything they wanted to with RQnext.  But that would have introduced competition and we would find out exactly what Econobus was looking for, hard number comparison between RQnext Glorantha and RQ6 Glorantha.

Something Chaosium obviously wants to avoid, so they deliberately spiked a mostly completed supplement, turning away their share of the profits, because they, assumedly, feel so threatened by it's existence in the marketplace.

The "new design note" is cut and pasted from other earlier posts I've seen.  I'm sure Richards would have done anything to not post that again, as Loz and Pete are very quickly becoming They Who Shall Not Be Named in any discussion involving RuneQuest.  They want people to ignore their behavior and shut up about things they've already decided and just move on.  Well, not even Google gets to do that.

Edit: I see they covered development costs in the settlement so that's something, even though all the work was lost.  Hopefully it can be rejiggered for The Game Formerly Known As Runequest6.

In the post from Rick that Loz (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?775804-RuneQuest-Details-about-the-new-Chaosium-version-of-RuneQuest-emerge&p=19804259#post19804259) was referring to, he points out that AiG wasn't anywhere near "mostly completed". The preview document at GenCon was a rough draft (admitting as much in its preface), and was missing the chapters on "Cults, Elder Races, HeroQuests, Lunar Magic and illumination, Mysticism, The Runes, Appendices, and the Scenario" - most of which cover subjects absolutely central to Glorantha.

So the idea that there's a complete game out there that Chaosium has senselessly suppressed just doesn't fly.

Also, I note that several people on this thread have griped about too many RQ editions coming out already, and letting RQ6:AiG and RQNext both come out would only exacerbate that problem even more than just publishing one of them would (plus confuse the market).

I suppose TDM could have put out a Glorantha supplement under whatever new name they apply to RQ6, but I think it would have been a mistake for Chaosium to greenlight that: Heroquest Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and RQNext each have a niche in part because each of those games has a radically different system, whereas RQNext and The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 would share too much BRP-flavoured DNA and confuse the market.

Quote from: Warthur;878841In the post from Rick that Loz (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?775804-RuneQuest-Details-about-the-new-Chaosium-version-of-RuneQuest-emerge&p=19804259#post19804259) was referring to, he points out that AiG wasn't anywhere near "mostly completed". The preview document at GenCon was a rough draft (admitting as much in its preface), and was missing the chapters on "Cults, Elder Races, HeroQuests, Lunar Magic and illumination, Mysticism, The Runes, Appendices, and the Scenario" - most of which cover subjects absolutely central to Glorantha.

and most of which is well known and referred to umpteen times among many different supplements.  The only thing AiG needed to do was the actual rules conversion, a ton of which had already been done.  There's dozens of pages already written on the Cult of the Crimson Bat, none of which has or ever will change, only the specific game effects need to be worked out.  BTW, the index wasn't done either, make sure to toss that out in your similar defense threads on purple and central. ;)

TDM wants to be stand-up guys (which they always have been) and just move on without fighting or saying much of anything really, that's up to them.  There's a little more to the story that Loz and Pete can't or won't talk about and Chaosium has every interest in not talking about.

Quote from: Warthur;878841(plus confuse the market)...confuse the market.

You say that a lot.  As far as market confusion goes, I wonder if the Kickstarter would have sold quite as many copies of RQ2 if people knew it meant the flushing of RQ6 and AiG.  I didn't see that as one of the stretch goals. :D

The Runes as personality thing is pretty interesting though.  Gods, Cults, People, all tied to Runes.  Why does a certain cult attract certain people?  Levels in a Cult or even spells available might be tied to Rune levels.  It would be cool if they could manage to really make the setting feel like everything to some degree could be described in the interaction of runes, like a Taoist sorcerer might describe things in terms of Yin, Yang or the elements.

Quote from: Warthur;878841In the post from Rick that Loz (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?775804-RuneQuest-Details-about-the-new-Chaosium-version-of-RuneQuest-emerge&p=19804259#post19804259) was referring to, he points out that AiG wasn't anywhere near "mostly completed". The preview document at GenCon was a rough draft (admitting as much in its preface), and was missing the chapters on "Cults, Elder Races, HeroQuests, Lunar Magic and illumination, Mysticism, The Runes, Appendices, and the Scenario" - most of which cover subjects absolutely central to Glorantha.

So the idea that there's a complete game out there that Chaosium has senselessly suppressed just doesn't fly.

Fine. It needed more time be developed. That really doesn't change the fact that I would have liked to have seen Pete Nash finish and release the project.

QuoteAlso, I note that several people on this thread have griped about too many RQ editions coming out already, and letting RQ6:AiG and RQNext both come out would only exacerbate that problem even more than just publishing one of them would (plus confuse the market).

There will be seven editions of RQ either way. A supplement for RQ is not a new edition.

QuoteI suppose TDM could have put out a Glorantha supplement under whatever new name they apply to RQ6, but I think it would have been a mistake for Chaosium to greenlight that: Heroquest Glorantha, 13th Age Glorantha, and RQNext each have a niche in part because each of those games has a radically different system, whereas RQNext and The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 would share too much BRP-flavoured DNA and confuse the market.

TDM's game will have a new name, and they have already stated it's not going to be some RuneQuest sound-alike. To the completely uninformed gamer who wanders into a store, they will look like different games, moreso than HeroQuest and RuneQuest look like different game.

The people that know they share common DNA are the people already know the situation and won't be confused.

Anyway, if Chaosium was worried about having two Glorantha games with common DNA on the shelves next to each other, they wouldn't have released a reprint of RuneQuest 2 (Cover title "RuneQuest") for sale in the same year that they plan to release a brand new edition that they plan to simply call "RuneQuest".

They don't seem to believe that gamers are as easily confused as you are. I think Adventure in Glorantha would have been a more distinct title on the shelf next to the MD/Chaosium line-up of RuneQuest, RuneQuest, and HeroQuest.

Let me add though, it was very cool that Pete got compensated for his work.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878918TDM's game will have a new name, and they have already stated it's not going to be some RuneQuest sound-alike. To the completely uninformed gamer who wanders into a store, they will look like different games, moreso than HeroQuest and RuneQuest look like different game.

Ah, but I'm not talking about a situation where TDM sell a generic rulebook under a new name and Chaosium put out RQNext, I'm talking about a situation where RQNext and GameNoLongerCalledRQ6: Adventures In Glorantha are both in stores. The uninformed gamer who thinks that both games both look cool will be decidedly confused.

QuoteAnyway, if Chaosium was worried about having two Glorantha games with common DNA on the shelves next to each other, they wouldn't have released a reprint of RuneQuest 2 (Cover title "RuneQuest") for sale in the same year that they plan to release a brand new edition that they plan to simply call "RuneQuest".

As they've explained in the latest designer's notes, they're OK with RQ2 being out because RQNext will be designed to be compatible with RQ2 supplements to a greater extent than RQ6 is. Two basically compatible games being out there would cause less confusion than two similar games with very slightly incompatible systems.

Quote from: Warthur;878923Two basically compatible games being out there would cause less confusion than two similar games with very slightly incompatible systems.

Two?:)
RuneQuest is possibly one of the games where people doing some basic research before purchase would be turned away by the sheer chaos(ium) of the line. Which would, of course, be doing themselves a disfavour, as all the games that came out of the original RQ are basically compatible.

Quote from: Warthur;878923Ah, but I'm not talking about a situation where TDM sell a generic rulebook under a new name and Chaosium put out RQNext, I'm talking about a situation where RQNext and GameNoLongerCalledRQ6: Adventures In Glorantha are both in stores. The uninformed gamer who thinks that both games both look cool will be decidedly confused.

I think even the slower gamers among us can tell understand that difference between a core rulebook for one game and a supplement for an RPG with a different game.

When I worked in an FLGS in the '90s, I didn't see any confusion between V:tM and the GURPS campaign setting for it. People that buy RPGs get this kind of thing, much like how Xbox owners are generally savvy enough to not take Playstation games home.

QuoteAs they've explained in the latest designer's notes, they're OK with RQ2 being out because RQNext will be designed to be compatible with RQ2 supplements to a greater extent than RQ6 is. Two basically compatible games being out there would cause less confusion than two similar games with very slightly incompatible systems.

Sounds like the RQ3 Standard and Deluxe rules headache all over again, with each supplement needing to support both. Two "Basically" compatible game with the exact same title seems more confusing than two similar games with different titles.

Jesus Wept, Warthur, give it a rest with the Apologia.  What marketing weasel speak are you going to toss out next, "brand dilution"?

They were coming out with a RQ6 based RQnext.  Decided to boost funds by doing a reissue of the last version they had all the text for, RQ2.  Because rereleasing old games is pretty popular, they sold a lot, so decided to take away from that RQ2 had enough of an audience to use that instead of RQ6.  So they flush Loz, Pete and RQ6 the same way they flushed Ben Monroe and Magic World (ie. After all sort of agreements of continued products).  Simple case of perceived economic benefit over-riding any other possible concerns and using technicalities to ensure the result.  These are the people that when contacted to see if they held any rights to the name Heroquest (as in the Milton Bradley boardgame) said no, then went out and bought the rights within 2 weeks so they could hold the rerelease of the Boardgame hostage via IP trolling.  Perfectly legal Douchebaggery.

Also stop with the idiotic "confusion" argument.  Glorantha in Heroquest (the name of a boardgame), 13th Age (D&D variant), Runequest (of which there have been 6 versions) is fine.  However, God forbid that in addition to Runequest 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 Glorantha is now also available in 6!!!111!!! Glorantha will never recover!!!!  We'll have the dead rising from the grave, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria!

This is Glorantha for Yelm's sake.  The simplest, easiest God to understand, Orlanth, is four gods in one, and that's one of a thousand gods.  The only setting on earth more complex than Glorantha is Tekumel and that's because Phil invented his own frickin language.  Glorantha people got over the concept of there being more than one version of Runequest 36 years ago and they've been humming along ever since, your faux-concern for their comprehension unneeded. #NotYourExcuse

Oh noes, what about the gentle children, the brand new minds entering Glorantha, surely we must think of them, you say?  Any new gamer that can handle Glorantha isn't going to be confused by Glorantha being available in 4 systems instead of three.

Finally, if the "two Runequests" was a valid concern, then AiG could have come out under the title of the new L+P game, a conversion supplement.  As Baulderstone pointed out, not many gamers are going to confuse a supplement vs. a full game.

Quote from: Baulderstone;878934Sounds like the RQ3 Standard and Deluxe rules headache all over again, with each supplement needing to support both. Two "Basically" compatible game with the exact same title seems more confusing than two similar games with different titles.

Especially since there's already umpteen d100 games out there using a similar system.  To someone in the d100 sphere, that's a feature, not a bug.

I've been out of the loop for the past 8 months - will Design Mechanism be publishing anything else for RQ6? Will they be still able to sell RQ6? Sorry to ask a redundant question.

Quote from: Rincewind1;878941I've been out of the loop for the past 8 months - will Design Mechanism be publishing anything else for RQ6? Will they be still able to sell RQ6? Sorry to ask a redundant question.

No more anything under the RuneQuest name, however, the settlement gives Loz and Pete the right to the RuneQuest6 system, under a new name.  They will be unable to publish Adventures in Glorantha, but they will be able to republish all their previous stuff (Monster Island, Mythic Britain, etc) under the new brand currently known only as The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 (TGFKARQ6).  All the current plans for releases they had, Classic Fantasy, Mythic Greece, etc will be released under the TGFKARQ6 brand.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878943No more anything under the RuneQuest name, however, the settlement gives Loz and Pete the right to the RuneQuest6 system, under a new name.  They will be unable to publish Adventures in Glorantha, but they will be able to republish all their previous stuff (Monster Island, Mythic Britain, etc) under the new brand currently known only as The Game Formerly Known As RQ6 (TGFKARQ6).  All the current plans for releases they had, Classic Fantasy, Mythic Greece, etc will be released under the TGFKARQ6 brand.

Thanks. Phew, for a moment I was scared RQ6 (or TGFKARQ6) was gonna drop, and that'd be a darn shame.

Quote from: Rincewind1;878948Thanks. Phew, for a moment I was scared RQ6 (or TGFKARQ6) was gonna drop, and that'd be a darn shame.

Yeah that would truly have sucked.  It still sucks that the guys that kept RuneQuest relevant as a brand for 6 years while also writing cool stuff for HeroQuest Glorantha, a setting they were heavily invested in, got shut out.

QuoteI've been out of the loop for the past 8 months - will Design Mechanism be publishing anything else for RQ6? Will they be still able to sell RQ6? Sorry to ask a redundant question.

The name will change, but the system will remain current, even a tiny bit tweaked, and we will rebrand all the existing supplements and continue to produce new ones.

We still have to work out the full strategy for the transition from RQ to the new name, and this needs to be done with the MD guys. There's time enough to do that and we'll make everything clear in due course.

But rest assured, we're continuing as a company with the system we've built over the past decade or so.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878938So they flush Loz, Pete and RQ6 the same way they flushed Ben Monroe and Magic World (ie. After all sort of agreements of continued products).  Simple case of perceived economic benefit over-riding any other possible concerns and using technicalities to ensure the result.

Could you blame them, given the hole Chaosium was in when they took over?

Magic World and BRP apparently accounted for some figure substantially below 10% of their income, so I don't think the decision to shunt it way down the priority chain was at all inappropriate in the light of that, even before you consider stuff like the enormous stocks of old product that were sat in the warehouse taking up space and costing rental money to keep and the enormous mess the CoC7 Kickstarter had been left in.

Also, as I understand it Ben's role at Chaosium was substantially more than "guy who writes Magic World stuff" - he also seemed to be in an office manager sort of role, he was the person who wrote back when you sent a customer support message, and so on. Which is an important role, but also the sort of role that can end up suddenly not making sense once a major restructuring happens (and of course we don't know how long his job would have lasted if the restructuring didn't happen - because if it didn't happen, Chaosium might have just collapsed and everyone would be out of luck.)

Quote from: Warthur;878841As RQ6 would share too much BRP-flavoured DNA and confuse the market.

"Confuse the market" is 1990s thinking. Given the size and nature of the niche ere people are quite capable of sorting it out themselves. In the 2010s there is no good reason to say "Oh we don't want you do to that project because it will confuse people as to what we are doing."

Because of Avalon Hill, Mongoose, BRP, and TDM, Runequest hasn't been a Glorantha RPG for a long long time. So it is understandable that if Chaosium think it important to have a Runequest Glorantha RPG that they will make a new version. Only a few people are arguing with that.

What people are rightfully criticizing, including myself, is the notion that for marketing purposes there can only be one Runequest.

If you can answer, Loz--to what extent would it be possible for you to release some of the AiG materials with the serial numbers filed off?

E.g. that impressive spell list--if much of it is original, not compilation/conversion of stuff from Cults of Prax or Gods of Glorantha or whatever.

Going up a step, what about cult descriptions? Can you take the mechanical structure of Humakt and call it Thor or whatever?

Mainly saying that a collection of worked cults would be a nifty product.

Quote from: Arminius;879008If you can answer, Loz--to what extent would it be possible for you to release some of the AiG materials with the serial numbers filed off?

E.g. that impressive spell list--if much of it is original, not compilation/conversion of stuff from Cults of Prax or Gods of Glorantha or whatever.

Going up a step, what about cult descriptions? Can you take the mechanical structure of Humakt and call it Thor or whatever?

Mainly saying that a collection of worked cults would be a nifty product.

Seeing as they have been recompensed for that work it's now the property of Chaosium. So TDM will not legally be able to publish it. Now if they reworded everything then they could but would it be worth their time and effort to face a potential lawsuit afterwards despite being still friends with Chaosium/MD.

Quote from: Arminius;879008If you can answer, Loz--to what extent would it be possible for you to release some of the AiG materials with the serial numbers filed off?

Sadly we cannot.

QuoteE.g. that impressive spell list--if much of it is original, not compilation/conversion of stuff from Cults of Prax or Gods of Glorantha or whatever.

It was a list of every official Gloranthan spell ever published (plus a handful of favourites). The idea being that anyone converting over their legacy RQ2/3 campaigns to RQ6 could use old material and cults with no effort.

Ethics aside, you will understand that I lack the heart to rewrite it all.

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;879049Seeing as they have been recompensed for that work it's now the property of Chaosium. So TDM will not legally be able to publish it.

Yeah, a lot depends on the exact nature of the agreement between Chaosium and TDM but a clause in that sort of creative-work-for-hire contract where the copyright in the work produced on commission gets assigned to the party commissioning it would be fairly standard, and based on what Pete said in his reply it sounds like that is the case.

Plus, since the spell list is essentially a big compilation of all the Gloranthan RQ spells ever published, reskinning it would be a spectacularly pointless exercise. Go too light on the reskin, and it'd still be fairly obvious what the actual source is (and it'd needlessly antagonise Chaosium). Go too heavy, and they'd basically be scorched-earthing the cultural context that makes the spells interesting in the first place.

At least it sounds like it was mostly a conversion job of old material rather than a big mass of brand-new stuff, so whilst it would have been handy for RQ6 GMs to have, any major Glorantha/RQ6 fan probably has the tools they need to do their own conversion already. Would have been nice to have, but since we can't have it, I think TDM's time would be much better spent looking to the future development of their own line. (I'm particularly interested to see if we'll get more stuff like Luther Arkwright, which even if you don't care for its setting provides support for taking RQ6 into genres that the core RQ6 stuff doesn't cover but works surprisingly well for.)

Quote from: Christopher Brady;878442That's not what the article linked said.  It's all Glorantha all the time now.

What tends to get left out is that there is a core to RQ7 that is BRP Essentials, and non-Gloranthan games will use the latter. Chaosium seems to be going back to their former tendency to create related but different games for particular settings as opposed to the brief era of the BGB BRP toolbox. Pros and cons for either side. My personal preference in terms of the combination of Chaosium D100 features has always happened to fall in the RQ camp rather than, say, CoC or Stormbringer, so I tend to use that (minus Glorantha). When using the BGB, I also had to "minus" a lot of stuff. That's one reason I like PDFs these days, easier to print out a minimalised version without the bits I don't need at the table.

Quote from: Pete Nash;878491Our own. We'd rather not be beholden to the vagaries of other IP's.

Except Luther Arkwright IP. It's perfectly okay for you to keep being beholden to Luther Arkwright IP.

Quote from: estar;879007What people are rightfully criticizing, including myself, is the notion that for marketing purposes there can only be one Runequest.

For marketing purposes, no. For milking the KS cow...

Quote from: estar;879007What people are rightfully criticizing, including myself, is the notion that for marketing purposes there can only be one Runequest.

There has always only ever been one RuneQuest.

Chaosium has traditionally dropped support for previous versions as soon as a new one has come out. Hence the reprints of older supplements converted to the new version.

As players, we see RQ1-7, but the designers just see RuneQuest, whatever iteration that is at the time.

If you include things such as BRP, Legend, Renaissance, OpenQuest, Revolution and GORE then you are well into double figures. Include Worlds of Wonder, Stormbringer, Hawkmoon, Ringworld and so on and you are closer to twenty.

That's twenty times the fun, twenty times the rules that can be incorporated into my own version of RQ and twenty times the scenarios I can use.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878938These are the people that when contacted to see if they held any rights to the name Heroquest (as in the Milton Bradley boardgame) said no, then went out and bought the rights within 2 weeks so they could hold the rerelease of the Boardgame hostage via IP trolling.  Perfectly legal Douchebaggery.

Your summary of what happened is completely false. We owned the HeroQuest trademark (for the United States) before we were asked about licensing it. We were in the early planning stages as to what to do with the IP and Trademarks so we hadn't announced it in public. They did NOT ask us if we owned the trademark. They knew we owned the US trademark.  They asked us for a license to use it for their boardgame. We said no to licensing our HQ trademark.

Quote from: Warthur;878820Oh, and the latest designer's notes (http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-3) go into detail on the decision-making process behind Chaosium moving away from RQ6:AiG.

After the sturm and drang, or perhaps because of it, over two months later than they should have done, finally some acknowledgement of TDM and RQ6. On top of the disappointment and confusion for RQ fans the fact that MoonDesign/Chaosium tried to pretend nothing happened just added to how pissed off we were. Akrasia did nothing to whip up controversy, he just articulated how people felt. I'm not just disappointed in what has happened, I'm also disappointed in how this has been communicated and it has soured how I think about Chaosium.

I don't give a shit about Glorantha. If i want a "quest," I've got DragonQuest. Are they putting Pendragon back in print?

Quote from: Bilharzia;879103Akrasia did nothing to whip up controversy, he just articulated how people felt.

Thanks for pointing this out! (And thanks to Baulderstone, baragei, markfitz, and AsenRG for refuting the ludicrous notion that I was behind any kind of 'anti-Chaosium' campaign earlier in this thread.)

The fact of the matter is that Chaosium handled their decision to not use RQ6 abysmally, but rather than acknowledge this they chose to blame me – a minor blogger and poster – for their woes instead. :rolleyes:

Consider that as late as December 3rd Rick Meints publicly stated the following:

QuoteThe RQ6 "Glorantha" project is progressing. We have it as a 2016 release, most likely later in the year. Lots of writing and editing is underway.

(From here (http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4176-what-is-the-status-of-rq6-glorantha/#comment-64624).)

Yet we now know that RQ6 was not going to be the basis for the new RQ well before December 3rd.  

Is it any wonder that RQ6 fans are upset with how Chaosium handled this, independent of the decision not to use RQ6 in the future?

Quote from: Pete Nash;879054Sadly we cannot.


It was a list of every official Gloranthan spell ever published (plus a handful of favourites). The idea being that anyone converting over their legacy RQ2/3 campaigns to RQ6 could use old material and cults with no effort.

Ethics aside, you will understand that I lack the heart to rewrite it all.

I'm now almost sad, because that might have persuaded me to bash my players into learning Glorantha. They know and like RQ6 already, I think it was their first exposure to D100 games:).

Making them learn a slightly different system and a foreign setting at once is something I could do, if I wanted to - I am that kind of GM and make no excuses about it - but I know they have the most issues with "slightly different" systems, and I try not to subject them to unnecessary stress. So I guess RQ7 Glorantha will be a no-go for a while at least.

(I might try to introduce them to RQ7 if I like the system, with a historical setting. After that, I'll let them vote - because while I might make my players learn what I ask of them, and have done so in the past, I also prefer to use stuff they like when possible).

Quote from: Vile;879071Except Luther Arkwright IP. It's perfectly okay for you to keep being beholden to Luther Arkwright IP.

Well, I guess that means they don't expect any issues with the Luther Akrwright IP.

Quote from: Akrasia;879121Thanks for pointing this out! (And thanks to Baulderstone, baragei, markfitz, and AsenRG for refuting the ludicrous notion that I was behind any kind of 'anti-Chaosium' campaign earlier in this thread.)

You're welcome, for my part. The idea that you might be doing this just didn't make any sense to me;). I like Chaosium, but it seems you're a greater Chaosium fan than I am.

And yes, the quote you mentioned isn't cool in my book. But I'd still purchase Chaosium's rules, because I really like d100 systems (they're my second favourite). And I like Pendragon, which seems to be a major inspiration.
But then, unless they have clearly surpassed RQ6, my gamer ire shall be great. And I just might end up using RQ6 for Glorantha, under whatever name it is being published at the time:p.
Or I might, with great sorrow, have to ditch Glorantha entirely, and focus on other settings. Time should show us what direction we'd be taking;)!

Thennla (Korantia/Taskan Empire)..or Chronicles of Future Earth, anyone?

Quote from: Arminius;879149Thennla (Korantia/Taskan Empire)..or Chronicles of Future Earth, anyone?

Chronicles of Future Earth for RQ6 is in a holding pattern I thought... might come out for some other system instead (which, as I read it, was partially a reaction to the confusion over the RQ6/Chaosium situation).

QuoteChronicles of Future Earth for RQ6 is in a holding pattern I thought...

We've been talking with the Mindjammer Press guys and think we do have the basis of a great agreement that will make this more than a holding pattern.

Quote from: Loz;879163We've been talking with the Mindjammer Press guys and think we do have the basis of a great agreement that will make this more than a holding pattern.

Yay! I was looking forward to Chronicles coming out in an expanded form... I really hope you guys can make it happen!

Quote from: Loz;879163We've been talking with the Mindjammer Press guys and think we do have the basis of a great agreement that will make this more than a holding pattern.

Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

Quote from: rmeints;879096Your summary of what happened is completely false. We owned the HeroQuest trademark (for the United States) before we were asked about licensing it. We were in the early planning stages as to what to do with the IP and Trademarks so we hadn't announced it in public. They did NOT ask us if we owned the trademark. They knew we owned the US trademark.  They asked us for a license to use it for their boardgame. We said no to licensing our HQ trademark.

You've seen the same following information and charges in threads on BGG, one you started yourself, but elected there not to clarify further.  If this is incorrect, then I apologize.

• Gamezone asked you for permission to use the Trademark on 7/31/2013.
• You acquired all trademarks and all other IP from Greg Stafford on 8/12/2013.
• You denied the request on 8/26/2013.
• The last week of 11/2013 you petition Kickstarter to cease the Gamezone Kickstarter using the rationale that the "market would confuse"...

1. A reprint of a Milton Bradley dungeoncrawling boardgame having nothing to with Glorantha or Chaosium named Heroquest.
2. A narrative roleplaying game having nothing to do with MB or dungeoncrawling called Heroquest.
3. A boardgame named Glorantha:The God's War, having nothing to do with MB or dungeoncrawling and not named Heroquest.

Now some people claim you simply didn't want to get crushed if somehow Hasbro got stirred to action in all this, and that would be a smart move.  However, you didn't come anywhere near to saying anything remotely like "If Hasbro glances this way we all die, so no." You went with "brand-dilution", "market confusion" ie. the language that 1/100 times defends someone's actual rights and 99/100 times is used for IP trolling from the people who want to get paid for something they aren't working on.

You know, it's quite ok to say something like the following:
"Personally, we at Moon Design would love to see a reprint of the classic Milton Bradley boardgame HeroQuest, but we don't write IP laws even though we are affected by the consequences.  As Hasbro is the direct IP holder in this case, owning the entire game, and we just a minor IP holder of the name, Hasbro would have to agree before we would make a decision.  In addition, due to peculiarities of various countries' IP laws, even if we would like Gamezone to use the name Heroquest for free, as it obviously has nothing at all to do with Glorantha or our related roleplaying game, if we did do that, we would be effectively surrendering our rights in some countries, so we must charge Gamezone otherwise we could lose the IP entirely."

It would also have been ok to say something like the following:
"While Chaosium and The Design Mechanism have come to an agreement that RQnew will be based on RQ2 instead of RQ6 and as such, Loz and Pete are no longer part of the project, they will be able to publish the system formerly known as Runequest 6 under a new name to be decided.  In recognition of their long-standing friendship to both Chaosium, Moon Design, and the people involved, our agreement allows them to publish the current sourcebook they were working on, Adventures in Glorantha, under the new system, giving Glorantha fans the ability to experience Glorantha in Runequest, Heroquest, 13th Age, and The Design Mechanism house system.  A great day for all Runequest players, and all Glorantha players alike."

Corporations as entities have to mainly be ruthless beancounting rules lawyers.  We get it.  The people who run them however, are still human.  YOU have choices, and for god's sake, you certainly have the ability to use human language instead of legalese, especially in a public forum.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879201Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

He didn't say it's not in a holding pattern, he said he thinks they're closer to an agreement.

He's not giving false hope.  Any project has three possible momentums at any given time.
1. Forward
2. Stalled
3. Backward
He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

I can only imagine putting that work in, only to have to redo it to actually have it see the light of day.

Quote from: Pete Nash;879054Ethics aside, you will understand that I lack the heart to rewrite it all.

Obviously some of the spells, even rewritten, would be pretty specifically Glorantha, like Gorgorma's Vagina Dentata spell.

But, you guys could always Kickstarter the thing, that would tell you right there if it would be worth it.  352 (minus some) Theist Spells plus alternate forms of Mysticism and Sorcery...

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--MqS9OBUW--/z8gdpn0zajx2mwociyia.jpg)

Quote from: Akrasia;879121Yet we now know that RQ6 was not going to be the basis for the new RQ well before December 3rd.  

Is it any wonder that RQ6 fans are upset with how Chaosium handled this, independent of the decision not to use RQ6 in the future?

Hmm December 3rd, that's a little bit before the Dec 21st end of the RQClassic Kickstarter, right? :hmm:

Oops.  There's that whole "dates not lining up with official version" thing again.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879226Hmm December 3rd, that's a little bit before the Dec 21st end of the RQClassic Kickstarter, right? :hmm:

Oops.  There's that whole "dates not lining up with official version" thing again.

Speaking of dates "not lining up", MOB posted this over at RPGnet (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?775804-RuneQuest-Details-about-the-new-Chaosium-version-of-RuneQuest-emerge&p=19793771#post19793771):

QuoteWe actually formed the design team last year directly after Gen Con and we first met in person (including Ken, Sandy, Jason and Chris) in late September. It's only Steve who is a recent addition, and we're delighted to have him on board!

MOB
VP - Chaosium

So as late as December 3rd we have official, public statements from Chaosium that RQ6 is continuing, despite a new design team having been formed in August/September.
:hmm:

Quote from: Akrasia;879233So as late as December 3rd we have official, public statements from Chaosium that RQ6 is continuing, despite a new design team having been formed in August/September.
:hmm:

Lucy...you got some 'splainin' to do...

Quote from: Arminius;879149Thennla (Korantia/Taskan Empire)..or Chronicles of Future Earth, anyone?

My relatively recent exposure to Pendragon led me to Glorantha, which led me to RQ6. I had plans to run a RQ6 game in Glorantha. With the recent events, I'm now excited about a future game to be situated in Thennla instead.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879201Well, until you're not 'thinking' but KNOW that you have an agreement, it IS in a holding pattern.

Please don't give false hope, if you're not entirely sure.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879210He didn't say it's not in a holding pattern, he said he thinks they're closer to an agreement.

He's not giving false hope.  Any project has three possible momentums at any given time.
1. Forward
2. Stalled
3. Backward
He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

Not to dogpile Brady, but I agree. I'm interested to know that talk are underway. It would only be false hope if Loz was saying it was a sure thing, or giving some coy answer like "It may not be as dead as you think."

Knowing there talks going is just a plan, cold hard fact.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879213I can only imagine putting that work in, only to have to redo it to actually have it see the light of day.


Obviously some of the spells, even rewritten, would be pretty specifically Glorantha, like Gorgorma's Vagina Dentata spell.

But, you guys could always Kickstarter the thing, that would tell you right there if it would be worth it.  352 (minus some) Theist Spells plus alternate forms of Mysticism and Sorcery...

Honestly, I would be happier for Pete to just get on doing a TDMRPG supplement that he feels inspired by. I'm sure a kickstarter would be successful, but re-compiling a mechanical spellbook doesn't seem the best use of the talents of the guy that wrote Monster Island.

I'd rather have him just move onto something fresh now.

Quote from: Sable Wyvern;879238My relatively recent exposure to Pendragon led me to Glorantha, which led me to RQ6. I had plans to run a RQ6 game in Glorantha. With the recent events, I'm now excited about a future game to be situated in Thennla instead.

Thennla has a lot of my attention at the moment too. It's a setting that really takes advantage of all the things that RQ does well. It's also has a nice balance of providing a detailed central area with lots of places the GM can make his own.

I just got done speed-reading a couple threads over at the BRP forums:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4176-what-is-the-status-of-rq6-glorantha/
http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4335-new-rq-designer-notes-part-one/?page=1

(Not sure if anyone has already linked them.)

At this point it sounds like, regardless of the rules base it's being written from, RQ7 will be very much like RQ6 except:

• The magic will only have whatever's needed for Glorantha
• Combat special effects are gone
• RQ2-style impale/crit are back
• Strike ranks may be back instead of the RQ6 "actions"
• They've got the new rune-passion thingy from Pendragon

(A lot of this is cribbed from Baulderstone's posts over there, except he wrote from perspective of what's being added to RQ2.)


One might also speculate that skill improvement rolls will also go back to the "checkbox" approach but I'd say that's a 50/50 chance.


Also they might make an effort to reduce the word count especially in the rules section.


I'll also bet there won't be any typographic ligatures. (Possibly that was the irresolvable creative difference! We'll probably never know.)

Quote from: CRKrueger;879210He's saying it's currently moving forward, ie. communicating without official legalese babblespeak.  You know - what more small game design companies should be doing instead of pretending they're Jeff Bezos.

That's incorrect.  He states that HE BELIEVES that it's moving forward.  That is not a definite motion in any direction.  It is in a 'holding pattern' until they get confirmation that the talks are going forward, meaning that any work on the product is NOT moving.

Until they know FOR SURE that the talks are going forward, he is giving false hope.  He shouldn't open his mouth on the likely very off chance that his belief is incorrect.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879282That's incorrect.  He states that HE BELIEVES that it's moving forward.  That is not a definite motion in any direction.  It is in a 'holding pattern' until they get confirmation that the talks are going forward, meaning that any work on the product is NOT moving.

Until they know FOR SURE that the talks are going forward, he is giving false hope.  He shouldn't open his mouth on the likely very off chance that his belief is incorrect.

You're hair-splitting for I-neither-know-nor-care what reasons:). Seriously, the "believe" part in "I believe we have progress" probably simply means "we have some progress, I'm not sure it would be successful but I'm seeing that as definite progress".

I'm saying that as someone who isn't at the moment interested in Mindjammer, but TDM have lots of other stuff to offer, too;).

Quote from: AsenRG;879291I'm saying that as someone who isn't at the moment interested in Mindjammer, but TDM have lots of other stuff to offer, too;).

Just to be clear... Mindjammer isn't the game they're discussing, Mindjammer Press is the writer's, Sarah Newton, company.
Chronicles of Future Earth is a 'Dying Earth' type setting. A bit like Tekumel, Penumbra, Viriconium, etc.

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j59/venusboys3/the-chronicles-of-future-earth_press_release_cover_mockup_medium_zpsrgeqt178.jpg) (http://s77.photobucket.com/user/venusboys3/media/the-chronicles-of-future-earth_press_release_cover_mockup_medium_zpsrgeqt178.jpg.html)

Quote from: Simlasa;879343Just to be clear... Mindjammer isn't the game they're discussing, Mindjammer Press is the writer's, Sarah Newton, company.
Chronicles of Future Earth is a 'Dying Earth' type setting. A bit like Tekumel, Penumbra, Viriconium, etc.

Well, thanks for the info. I used to know nothing of Chronicles of Future Earth, but if it comes out for The Game That Was RQ6 (https://mindjammerpress.com/chronicles/) I'd check it and might buy it:).
According to that link I found, there were plans for that, and I hope they would transfer to the new edition;).

Quote from: Arminius;879264\`
At this point it sounds like, regardless of the rules base it's being written from, RQ7 will be very much like RQ6 except:

• The magic will only have whatever's needed for Glorantha
• Combat special effects are gone
• RQ2-style impale/crit are back
• Strike ranks may be back instead of the RQ6 "actions"
• They've got the new rune-passion thingy from Pendragon

(A lot of this is cribbed from Baulderstone's posts over there, except he wrote from perspective of what's being added to RQ2.)


One might also speculate that skill improvement rolls will also go back to the "checkbox" approach but I'd say that's a 50/50 chance.


Also they might make an effort to reduce the word count especially in the rules section.

Sounds good. :)

Quote from: Bren;879387Sounds good. :)

Sounds good to me as well, except for the part about tables:).

What I am hoping, however, is that either RQ7 or The Game That Was Rune Quest 6 would take another note from Pendragon, and base damage mostly on your Damage Bonus.
For that matter, I'm hoping they don't forget to include Power in the calculation;).

Quote from: Christopher Brady;879282That's incorrect.  He states that HE BELIEVES that it's moving forward.  That is not a definite motion in any direction.  It is in a 'holding pattern' until they get confirmation that the talks are going forward, meaning that any work on the product is NOT moving.

Until they know FOR SURE that the talks are going forward, he is giving false hope.  He shouldn't open his mouth on the likely very off chance that his belief is incorrect.

and you shouldn't open your mouth when you go off your meds.  If this is some kind of clever plan you have for whatever the hell you think it is you're doing, you want to skip to the point where you make it?  If not and you've had a minor stroke or are roleplaying someone from Bizarro world...

A RQ6 version was planned, that obviously isn't going to occur.  But both sides are in talks to proceed with the new version.

Has the deal been inked yet, no?  
Did Loz say the deal was inked yet, no?
Did he say they were in talks? Yes.

Is the game still just sitting in Limbo due to RQ6 been flushed? No.  
Talks have re-opened with the new system in mind.
Is this what Loz said? Yes.

You can't accuse someone of giving false hope and declaring a contract signed when he literally did not say a contract was signed, but did say, talks have reopened and are ongoing concerning the new system.  In other words, for the neuron-challenged...
It's not dead yet, we're working on it, Stay Tuned.

Jesus Wept.

Quote from: Simlasa;879343Just to be clear... Mindjammer isn't the game they're discussing, Mindjammer Press is the writer's, Sarah Newton, company.
Chronicles of Future Earth is a 'Dying Earth' type setting. A bit like Tekumel, Penumbra, Viriconium, etc.

(http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j59/venusboys3/the-chronicles-of-future-earth_press_release_cover_mockup_medium_zpsrgeqt178.jpg) (http://s77.photobucket.com/user/venusboys3/media/the-chronicles-of-future-earth_press_release_cover_mockup_medium_zpsrgeqt178.jpg.html)

Wow, really digging that cover artwork.

Okay, so now here is something to worry about:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4338-new-rq-designer-notes-part-two/

I saw the bit about "everything you can do is on your sheet" in the blog and just winced slightly, decided Jeff isn't au courant with the raging RPG theory debates of the day. But in the thread he doubles down on the modern design dogma. I'm still hoping he doesn't really understand the full implications and the actual game will be--at least--malleable.

nDervish put it very well:

QuoteThat is exactly what I dislike about the Design Rules from the post.  I don't want my players to look at their character sheet and say, "Hmm...  Which of these buttons can I press now?"  I want them to look inside and say, "Hmm...  If I were my character in this situation, what would I do?"  It looks to me like what you (and the post) are describing is what The Cool Kids are calling "mechanics-first" gaming these days, while I favor what they call "fiction-first".  "Find a mechanic to use, then describe an action to rationalize it" vs. "describe what you want to do, then figure out what (if any) mechanic applies".

Quote from: Arminius;879458Okay, so now here is something to worry about:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4338-new-rq-designer-notes-part-two/

I saw the bit about "everything you can do is on your sheet" in the blog and just winced slightly, decided Jeff isn't au courant with the raging RPG theory debates of the day. But in the thread he doubles down on the modern design dogma. I'm still hoping he doesn't really understand the full implications and the actual game will be--at least--malleable.

nDervish put it very well:

Yeah, they're showing themselves to be very much influenced by the New School/Narrative/Cult of the Designer camps, which have a great track record of failing hard with long-established traditional systems and IPs.  The damage to CoC7 was minimal though, so I'm hoping more of a "speaking the babble without knowing how idiotically the meaning behind those terms is usually applied". :D

Any d100 system has always had a "use some kind of stat derivative for the general stuff not covered" option, so unless they completely get rid of stats, even if they go Full.Retard. it's easy to ignore.

Plus, they got Steve Perrin, so I think they'll be ok, no matter what the new guys think.

Even using stats isn't really an answer. It's still "which button do I press" with a bigger button.

I would say--there's no sign of specifically narrative new school in evidence though I wouldn't rule it out. We're more in a sort of Gaming Den phobia of Magical Tea Party.

However, it probably sounds worse than it is likely to be. In fact there are some areas where I'd welcome a little extra mechanical touch such as in areas of reputation and social standing.

Quote from: Arminius;879478Even using stats isn't really an answer. It's still "which button do I press" with a bigger button.

I would say--there's no sign of specifically narrative new school in evidence though I wouldn't rule it out. We're more in a sort of Gaming Den phobia of Magical Tea Party.

However, it probably sounds worse than it is likely to be. In fact there are some areas where I'd welcome a little extra mechanical touch such as in areas of reputation and social standing.

I meant the company in general, with Chaosium changes to CoC7, the primary system of Moon Design being Heroquest, etc.

This new way of looking at Runes can have incredible potential if they extend it beyond just a way of making Pendragon Virtues work.  Reputation, Social Standing, Cult and Cultural rankings, all could potentially be affected by a good Rune system that really makes the Runes as building blocks of Myth and Reality more than just backstory, but actually interwoven mechanically.

The big challenge there would be to integrate them organically without taking the easy way out of just making a complex OOC metagame layer.

Quote from: Arminius;879458Okay, so now here is something to worry about:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4338-new-rq-designer-notes-part-two/

I saw the bit about "everything you can do is on your sheet" in the blog and just winced slightly, decided Jeff isn't au courant with the raging RPG theory debates of the day. But in the thread he doubles down on the modern design dogma. I'm still hoping he doesn't really understand the full implications and the actual game will be--at least--malleable.

nDervish put it very well:

Quote from: CRKrueger;879465Yeah, they're showing themselves to be very much influenced by the New School/Narrative/Cult of the Designer camps, which have a great track record of failing hard with long-established traditional systems and IPs.  The damage to CoC7 was minimal though, so I'm hoping more of a "speaking the babble without knowing how idiotically the meaning behind those terms is usually applied". :D

Any d100 system has always had a "use some kind of stat derivative for the general stuff not covered" option, so unless they completely get rid of stats, even if they go Full.Retard. it's easy to ignore.

Plus, they got Steve Perrin, so I think they'll be ok, no matter what the new guys think.

Ahem, "press those buttons" is quite explicitly not what you do in narrative games (and is what bothered me about at least two editions of D&D). Just wanted to clear the confusion:).

Cue "Apocalypse World" for a game that tells you outright not to think of Moves, but of what your character would do, and describing that;).

Quote from: AsenRG;879519Ahem, "press those buttons" is quite explicitly not what you do in narrative games (and is what bothered me about at least two editions of D&D).

I agree.

I think it was a D&D Next designer's blog that discussed the problem that "You can't push the invisible buttons", which is where inspecting your character sheet for options gets you. So  - that was WoTC, and a few years ago...

Quote from: AsenRG;879519Ahem, "press those buttons" is quite explicitly not what you do in narrative games (and is what bothered me about at least two editions of D&D). Just wanted to clear the confusion:).

Cue "Apocalypse World" for a game that tells you outright not to think of Moves, but of what your character would do, and describing that;).

There's no confusion, I used the word "camps", plural.  There's more than one influence there. Drop-down menus or push buttons are more Cult of the Designer influences.  If they don't make the mechanic, you can't do it.  As was said, WotC was really the epitome of that in 3.5 and 4, although they dialed it back with 5e.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879530There's no confusion, I used the word "camps", plural.  There's more than one influence there. Drop-down menus or push buttons are more Cult of the Designer influences.  If they don't make the mechanic, you can't do it.  As was said, WotC was really the epitome of that in 3.5 and 4, although they dialed it back with 5e.

I misread you, then. I read it as you claiming the "camps" you mention are synonymous:).

Objection retracted, and I really hope no edition of RQ would ever adopt the philosophy that you can only do what your character sheet allows, instead of the other way around;).

I think AW is an exception here and can hardly be taken as characteristic of "narrative" games. It arose out of Vincent Baker having a "come down from the mountaintop" moment where he started preaching "fiction first" in conscious contrast to prevailing storygame culture & design. (That's all aside from whether in this respect AW still has one foot in the SG camp or if it's fully traditional.)

Quote from: Arminius;879553I think AW is an exception here and can hardly be taken as characteristic of "narrative" games. It arose out of Vincent Baker having a "come down from the mountaintop" moment where he started preaching "fiction first" in conscious contrast to prevailing storygame culture & design. (That's all aside from whether in this respect AW still has one foot in the SG camp or if it's fully traditional.)

Frigging Sorcerer advises the GM to "just play the NPCs". I don't know where, exactly, you're drawing the line, given that it's the granddaddy of all narrative games:).
The narrative part in all of them is just an attempt to set up a situation that has narrative potential when you add PCs to the mix, IME;).
Which just might be why AW and some of its descendents, coupled with Sorcerer, are my favourites of all the so-called "narrative" games. I prefer to call them "hand-holding" games, lately, because they do that for the Referee:p.

Admittedly, I've missed lots of games between those two, so some of them might have disproven the point, but it's just the nature of the beast called "RPGs" that some people are always doing it wrong:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;879519Ahem, "press those buttons" is quite explicitly not what you do in narrative games (and is what bothered me about at least two editions of D&D). Just wanted to clear the confusion:).

Cue "Apocalypse World" for a game that tells you outright not to think of Moves, but of what your character would do, and describing that;).

What's with that big list of Moves on character sheets then. If he doesn't want players thinking of Moves, it seems he is using the "Don't think o a purple cow" method.

Quote from: Baulderstone;879564What's with that big list of Moves on character sheets then. If he doesn't want players thinking of Moves, it seems he is using the "Don't think o a purple cow" method.

Why are you thinking of purple cows while playing a game, does your GM suck so much:D?

Seriously, that's like saying that a Wizard in D&D can't think of anything but his or her list of spells, or once these are gone, of his AC, HP and attack bonuses, and his saving throws;). I'm not even planning to discuss that point.

Quote from: AsenRG;879566Why are you thinking of purple cows while playing a game, does your GM suck so much:D?

Seriously, that's like saying that a Wizard in D&D can't think of anything but his or her list of spells, or once these are gone, of his AC, HP and attack bonuses, and his saving throws;). I'm not even planning to discuss that point.

The difference I *think* Baulderstone is referring to is that in a traditional game, the player says what the character wants to do, and there are rules in the game for the referee to adjudicate what happens.  Rules as "physics engine", with no other concerns.

AW came out at a time when storygames were just that, mechanics that determined who got to tell a piece of the story, the roleplaying aspect became less and less important.  Like Arminius said, AW was an epiphany of sorts that got the system back to "player says what character does, GM says what the world does".  However, AW still had metalayer mechanics like Hx and some world-editing capabilites that still placed the players partly in the role of story author.  Dungeon World cut down on this to a large degree, but the rules *are* different.

In a more traditional system, if I want to jump, I use the jump skill or some relation of strength, agility, size, etc...  It's an attempt (no matter how abstract) of modeling how you do something.  Even the most basic system is still relating things directly to the character.

Xworld has some very broad moves that don't really point to HOW a character is doing something but WHAT he's trying to accomplish.  In other words, even though it seems very close to a traditional result, it is approaching that result from the Conflict Resolution side, not the Task Resolution side.

Now if someone like Old Geezer runs say Dungeon World, I can imagine it's not going to look all that different from how he runs OD&D.  

One of the key aspects to how Xworld plays is how you treat the middle tier of results, the "Success but" results.  If the GM simply takes control of those and says what happens (or rolls), then it reduces the narrative aspect considerably.  However, as written, you get things like never running out of ammo, fumbling, or having certain bad things happen unless you choose to, or you roll so bad the system says "The GM may now slam you".  

The concepts of fail forward, blocking, "Yes, but" are all coming from the story side.  Tasks are only interesting if they "move things forward" in the shared story we're making.

If you're not consciously making a story, if you're just pretending to live a day in the life of your character, you might spend a whole session never leaving the bar.

A lot of people enjoy roleplaying with that minor authorship layer, that shared knowledge that we're not living a life in a fictional world somewhere, but we're inside an actual form of story and we're making it as we go, and our decisions as players keep that in mind to various degrees.

I don't.  So the Xworld system for me is going to fall flat, because all the baked in "permissions for the GM to bring the pain", "choose your complication" etc all is interfaced with as me, not the character.

If you bring that narrative mindset to any system you roleplay, well then, it's really no biggie at all, they're just adding some mechanics to make easier what you do anyway.  

If you don't bring that narrative mindest, then those mechanics become niggling reminders "hey, you're playing a game", "hey you're part author here, do something dramatic", "decide what would be cool to happen to your character".  I just think "leave me the hell alone, I'm roleplaying here". :D

Quote from: Arminius;879458Okay, so now here is something to worry about:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4338-new-rq-designer-notes-part-two/

I saw the bit about "everything you can do is on your sheet" in the blog and just winced slightly, decided Jeff isn't au courant with the raging RPG theory debates of the day.

Too many electrons have already been wasted on people being au courant with RPG theory. More practice, less theory say I.
I also think we need more information before concluding whether to be alarmed or reassured by the statements. I can see how it could be read either way.

Getting away from games that require 4 page character sheets or fequent flipping through pages and pages of spells, feats, specific or special moves, and combat options sounds like a really good thing to me.

Restricting what a character can attempt to only and exactly what is explicitly written down on a sheet seems rigidly stultifying.

Time will tell whether we should be reassured or alarmed.

Quote from: Bren;879596Getting away from games that require 4 page character sheets or fequent flipping through pages and pages of spells, feats, specific or special moves, and combat options sounds like a really good thing to me.

Restricting what a character can attempt to only and exactly what is explicitly written down on a sheet seems rigidly stultifying.

Ken and I were talking about the former, not the latter. This isn't some bit of esoteric game theory - this is just an observation that Ken and I have made over the past 30+ years. You express something on the character sheet, players do something with it. You don't - they don't. You ask players to remember lots of rules that aren't easily inferred from the character sheet, and they tend to drop those rules from the game. Not always, but often enough. This is something the RQ2 and RQ3 character sheets were very good about (Ken thinks they were the gold standard for this). So is Pendragon.

So basically, if there is something that you as a designer want players to be doing with a game, make it easy for them to do it. Don't hide it on page 240 of your rule book - make it obvious and express it somehow on the sheet.

I hope this thread won't get too much more derailed by this...

http://lumpley.com/index.php/anyway/thread/350 is basically where "lead with the fiction" is presented as a major departure from then-current indie fashion. (Don't be distracted by the Bakeresque rhetoric and begging of questions.) And https://corvidsun.wordpress.com/2008/05/03/are-we-ready-to-lead-with-the-fiction/ confirms this (from one of the leading sympathetic observers and participants in the indie movement).

From the first:

QuoteIndie rpgs are hypermechanized. Imagine a couple, dancing, and they're the fiction and the mechanics. Indie rpgs are strict ballroom, and the game mechanics are the man. He leads.

It only takes a few moments either in Google or the search facility of your favorite forum to find a jillion other examples of how "fiction first" or "lead with the fiction" is a really difficult concept in the storygame world.

I haven't played any of the *World games or even read them cover to cover, but in spite of Vincent's efforts, I think it's an open question how far they succeed in casting off the shackles of mechanics-bound play--based not only on readings by cranks like me but also reports of how people are really doing it. But that would definitely belong in another thread, and really, not one I'd be particularly interested in. I'm only posting this here because AsenG's reflexive apologia relies on a clearcut distortion.

Jeff--good stuff!

Stupid Question Time, starring Yours Truly!

What does 'Cult of The Designer' mean?

It's a bit like the idea of egoism in architecture (look it up): the idea that the designer knows best how people should use the thing, instead of anticipating and allowing for people to "colonize" it and make it their own.

From an audience POV the notion is very much one of trying to discern the intent of the designer and judging the game based on how well it enforces that intent. Rather than just saying, "What kind of fun stuff can we do with this thing?"

Quote from: CRKrueger;879594The difference I *think* Baulderstone is referring to is that in a traditional game, the player says what the character wants to do, and there are rules in the game for the referee to adjudicate what happens.  Rules as "physics engine", with no other concerns.

Sorry, but that's quite different from his objection. Which consisted of, mind you, "having a huge list of Moves".
Seriously? When this is a rule of the game, that applies even to the GM?

QuoteBegin and end with the fiction

Everything you and the players do in Dungeon World comes from and leads to fictional events. When the players make a move, they take a fictional action to trigger it, apply the rules, and get a fictional effect. When you make a move it always comes from the fiction.

It's a re-phrased "fiction first" from AW, BTW. It's in the whole family of Something-World games.
If you're not playing the game in this way, you're literally breaking its fucking rules. And in this case, who is responsible that you're getting results you don't like?

QuoteAW came out at a time when storygames were just that, mechanics that determined who got to tell a piece of the story, the roleplaying aspect became less and less important.  Like Arminius said, AW was an epiphany of sorts that got the system back to "player says what character does, GM says what the world does".  However, AW still had metalayer mechanics like Hx and some world-editing capabilites that still placed the players partly in the role of story author.  Dungeon World cut down on this to a large degree, but the rules *are* different.

Yes, there are those capabilities of the game. They're non-essential.

To explain what I mean by "non-essential", let me tell you about a similar game, Savage Worlds. It basically runs on "bennies", which allow you stuff like "I recover from stun", "this is just a scratch" (usually the time to use this one is when you get hit by exploding damage), and so on, character-related stuff. Basically, we've always treated them as "bennies".

SW also has setting-specific rules. Some of its setting versions allow you to do "Story declarations" by spending a bennie (you have three guesses which game was "TBP darling" at the time those supplements appeared:p).
Once, we sat down to play one of those supplements. Bennies flowed as expected. Two-fisted pulp heroics - of the gritty type, Savage Worlds is a meatmincer - were performed. My character died, out of bennies and alone, under a flurry of Indian steel, wielded by an Indian maharajah, because he didn't persuade his friend that the Indian maharajah is not to be trusted (we had fought thug assassins earlier). So my wrestler went to investigate him alone, jumped on his car...ran out of bullets against his bodyguard, chokeslammed the bodyguard, but didn't manage to grapple and the sabre-wielding Nemesis.
All in good fun. Meanwhile, the other player was sitting on a pile of bennies.
Nobody even thought to use a bennie for Story Declaration like "a pair of gangsters appear with illegal alcohol and open fire". It was even plausible.
We just weren't thinking that way, and there's that.

So, based on the above, do you think we were playing a story game? Or were we just roleplaying and using bennies like you use Willpower in V:tR, P:tB and others of its ilk?

That's what I call "non-essential". You track Hx in AW, because when it goes up by enough, you mark an advance. You don't have to play to gain Hx, so you don't do that. (And BTW, if you do that, it's close to be "breaking the rules" in AW. That really is a game that's anti meta-gaming).
And paradoxically, in the end, the story is also better for it. Which is what the book itself is telling you, at several places - "keep the story raw", is the one I can think of without effort, because of the unusual wording.

QuoteIn a more traditional system, if I want to jump, I use the jump skill or some relation of strength, agility, size, etc...  It's an attempt (no matter how abstract) of modeling how you do something.  Even the most basic system is still relating things directly to the character.

And in AW systems, you roll +Tough, +Physical, or whatever.

QuoteXworld has some very broad moves that don't really point to HOW a character is doing something but WHAT he's trying to accomplish.  In other words, even though it seems very close to a traditional result, it is approaching that result from the Conflict Resolution side, not the Task Resolution side.

Unlike 4e powers, no, they're not pointing only how you are trying to accomplish something. Some of them are straightforward, like the Basic Moves - seriously, "going aggro" on someone doesn't need explanation of how you can do it...you just scale it according to the severity of conflict, but you can "go aggro" on someone in a dispute, in a fist fight, or in a shoot-out. For the dispute version, go to the RPG Pundit's Own Forum...:D
The rest of them are character-specific. You're playing archetypes. Think of what extremely well-trained people should be able to do, then turn it up to 11. Here's an example from the DW SRD, because I don't have any AW-family books here with me.

QuoteThrow Down The Gauntlet

When you challenge someone to a duel, roll +cha.

✴ On a 10+, they choose 2 if they do not accept.

✴ On a 7-9, they choose 1 if they do not accept.

    You take +1 ongoing against them until they defeat you
    They lose the respect of their peers and underlings
    They retreat

"Monsieur, I believe my honour has been sullied by your words. Mon gant, monsieur - et preparez-vous a une rencontre avec vos ancestres!"
Said while leaning on a sheathed blade, and looking him square in the eyes, with a look of "sorry I have to do that".

(OK, I got carried away...the above is French for "My glove, mister-and prepare for a meet-up with your ancestors!")

What's not roleplaying here?

QuoteNow if someone like Old Geezer runs say Dungeon World, I can imagine it's not going to look all that different from how he runs OD&D.  

I'm not Gronan, but when I ran Dungeon World, it was no different from running ZeFRS and BoL the previous two weeks. We were doing a "S&S one-shots" serie;). If anything, ZeFRS was the most stumped, but I think it was because some players had worse hangover than usual that week:D!

QuoteOne of the key aspects to how Xworld plays is how you treat the middle tier of results, the "Success but" results.  If the GM simply takes control of those and says what happens (or rolls), then it reduces the narrative aspect considerably.  However, as written, you get things like never running out of ammo, fumbling, or having certain bad things happen unless you choose to, or you roll so bad the system says "The GM may now slam you".

And that's what I mean when I said "don't think of purple cows" to Baulderstone.
I mean, "if I do that, the system gets completely unrealistic" is a thing...
But the answer is simply "stop shooting yourself in the foot". Choose a "running out of ammo" option already, when it's available!
In fact, doing so is in the rules. "To do it, do it."
If you can't explain how you never run out of ammo...start describing how you just ran out of ammo. I don't need to be the GM, I can just ask you after you roll. "Aren't you running out of ammo now?"
And then, since "playing is a conversation", you have to answer me.

QuoteThe concepts of fail forward, blocking, "Yes, but" are all coming from the story side.  Tasks are only interesting if they "move things forward" in the shared story we're making.

Earlier this week, we were discussing how you "don't roll for stuff that's not interesting"...in The Fantasy Trip. No, that's not story logic.
Fail forward? Yes, it happens in real life, sometimes (and much more often the complete failure when you're talking well-trained people, which the PCs are).
And so on, and so forth. Put yourself in the mental space of a character like the ones in the Playbooks, and do what you should. The Moves will follow.

QuoteIf you're not consciously making a story, if you're just pretending to live a day in the life of your character, you might spend a whole session never leaving the bar.

Happened in an AW game. Of course, it helps that I owned the bar:D!

QuoteA lot of people enjoy roleplaying with that minor authorship layer, that shared knowledge that we're not living a life in a fictional world somewhere, but we're inside an actual form of story and we're making it as we go, and our decisions as players keep that in mind to various degrees.

Conversely, we can learn to play games that have that minor authorship layer without using these. See my example above.

QuoteI don't.  So the Xworld system for me is going to fall flat, because all the baked in "permissions for the GM to bring the pain", "choose your complication" etc all is interfaced with as me, not the character.

Just tell the GM to pick your complications, and be done with it.
And I can tell you that I've had situations when I had to choose between getting pain, and losing situational advantage.
No, I'm not a superhuman, it wasn't a fight. It was practice during the first 6 months of doing ground grappling. Guess what - I'm pretty sure a trained fighter would have seen it even better, and would have had more control over the outcome. You can't stop everything that's coming, so you pick what you can live with isn't exactly an uncommon situation.
So, again: get into the mindset* of the people that can do this kind of stuff, while mostly keeping control over its effects (as my partner at the time did). Many of those problems will simply go away by themselves! Not because magic, but because most stories we consume are written about such people.

*I remember coming to this conclusion in Uknown Armies, but then I forgot it. Then I was reminded about it in a MRQ2:Vikings campaign. Nobody was thinking about numbers during a major fight, we were choosing Manoeuvre after Manoeuvre...and it all seemed natural to all of us. Later that day I read someone complaining how picking Manoeuvres isn't how it goes.
Which is weird, because all of us, including the Referee, had experience with some kind of European or Japanese fencing. And neither of us had any issue telling how a given manoeuvre was scored.

Or at least that's my experience. I get more distracted by having a list of spells than by having a list of Moves. It might be that it works differently for someone else. In fact, I'm sure a lot of these people are going to post within the hour:p!
I can only ask them one thing. "Have you tried getting into that mental space and roleplaying from there?"
And if you tried and it didn't work, well - then a whole slew of RPGs aren't for you. But IMO, it's better to try and learn how to use those games than complain how they're not RPGs. They are, even if they're done with the people that want a bit of shared narrative in mind. And we can learn to play them without using the shared narrative;).


Also: when I started writing this, I was replying to the last post in the thread! Well, that's something.

Quote from: Arminius;879603I'm only posting this here because AsenG's reflexive apologia relies on a clearcut distortion.

And I don't care how the author thinks it's a major departure or stuff. I don't even follow his blog;). I am very much "death to the author" (and I take the XP for the kill, thanks:p).
It's not apologetics: I'm telling you how we've been playing this kind of games since Spirit of the Century. If you played them differently, and they felt jarring, maybe you should try playing them our way;)?

Sure, you can simply tell the GM "tell me what happens in the partial-success-with-complications", but if the table prefers to go RAW, ie. the player chooses, that's a completely different mindset.

If no matter what game you play, ammunition supply is assumed infinite, then that's a different game then running out of ammo depends on (how much you started with)-(how much you fired) or based on whether you or the GM thinks it would be a good dramatic complication.

If you're a "death to the author" type gamer, then it doesn't matter what game you play, you tweak it to serve, *but* saying that because I can throw the rule out doesn't mean the game wasn't designed with certain things in mind.  Rule Zero doesn't mean all games are just some flavor of an Ur-system.  Full-blown RMSS is not Barbarians of Lemuria and it never will be, unless you cut off and switch covers and lie.

The Rule Zero fallacy always goes like this:
Question: Why do you like Game A and not Game B.
Answer: Game A is different than Game B in the following ways...
Reply: But you can change Game A and Game B in those ways, so any difference or attempt at distinguishing characteristics is moot.

In other words any defense of SystemX that includes "but you can put the work in to change SystemX into SystemY" - isn't a defense of SystemX.

As far as Savage Worlds goes, yes Bennies are a form of OOC metagame economy usually meant to simulate genre, whether they move into full-blown narrative authorship or not.  Whenever you spend a Benny (unless you really cut down on their usage to represent something like stamina, effort, or whatever) you're not roleplaying.  Because your character doesn't have access to Bennies, it's not an In-Character decision, therefore by definition, you're not roleplaying when you make that decision.

Some roleplaying games include a whole lot of OOC mechanics, in other words, they put a whole lot of non-roleplaying into their roleplaying games.  When I interface with a mechanic, I want it to simply be task resolution to figure out if a decision/action my character makes succeeds or fails.  I don't need the mechanics to tell me if the results are interesting or dramatic, the result that simple success or failure leaves my character and what I do with it is the part that will make it interesting.

That's where Cult of the Designer comes in both from The Gaming Den side and the Forge side.  The whole point of the Edwards/Baker movement is "system matters".  You want X, you design for X.  You want drama and story, you give players mechanics to affect drama and story outside of just roleplaying their characters, because just roleplaying their characters wasn't cutting it for them, which is why the Forge got made in the first place.

So yeah, they may be designing a game where you do a lot of roleplaying, but it's roleplaying+.  I don't want or need the +, and prefer systems that come without it so I don't have to remove the + myself and potentially alter the whole foundation.

One thing I've found is pretty difficult is explaining the whole "roleplaying+" side of things.  Again, for people who always play games with some genre mechanics or other types of metagame currency like Fate points, Bennies, whatever, the definition of roleplaying to them always includes the +, the shared 4th wall idea that we're playing a game on two levels, the character level and the player level.

It's trivially easy for someone who like to solely roleplay with as few OOC decisions as possible to see that line.  Some people (not saying AsenRG is one of them) just can't see that line.  Which is when things usually get nasty with regards to brain damage, delusions, etc...

Quote from: richaje;879601Ken and I were talking about the former, not the latter. This isn't some bit of esoteric game theory - this is just an observation that Ken and I have made over the past 30+ years.

Good to hear, it's just that there's two ways to look at it.

One is...
Gm: What do you do?
Player(Looks at sheet): I do {something on the sheet}

The other is...
GM: What do you do?
Player: I do {whatever the player wants to try}
GM: Do you have {some type of skill, power or mechanic}?
Player(Looks at sheet)

The difference is the player chooses the course of action from his mind, not his sheet, the sheet is going to contain some kind of mechanical value that the GM can use to determine the roll, but it's not a case of "If I don't see it, I can't do it."

However, I've always been a proponent of good character sheet design, and you're right, RQ2, RQ3 and Pendragon are examples of "charsheets done well".

So on the one hand, you have a tendency towards tight, rules-based exception design (WotC being the main culprit) where your narrowly defined actions in 3.0 become narrower in 3.5 and eventually become, in the case of 4e, literally, a deck of powers you tap, play and recharge.

On the other hand, you have a "If the players need it, put it on the sheet" design ethos.

The problem is, those two approaches share some terminology, so it's easy for people who worry about the WotC approach to see shades of that in the "smart charsheet" approach.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879646It's trivially easy for someone who like to solely roleplay with as few OOC decisions as possible to see that line.  Some people (not saying AsenRG is one of them) just can't see that line.  Which is when things usually get nasty with regards to brain damage, delusions, etc...

I find some of these conversations puzzling. I can't say that I "like to solely roleplay with as few OOC decisions as possible" but I prefer staying in character at least some of the time. Yet I think the line between what are clearly OOC mechanics and what are clearly in character mechanics is clear.

Granted there are a few fuzzy places in some popular rules e.g. are Force Points in WEG Star Wars IC (i.e. known to and accessed and sensed by the PC) or are they OOC (i.e. known to or accessed and sensed by the PC (I'd argue that Force Points are IC, while Character Points are not). Are hit points in D&D IC or OOC (seem like a bit of both to me since in real life I never sensed a health meter that I could rigorously track). But the fuzzy places never seem to be what most people focus on. The disagreement seldom gets past what seem clearly different types of mechanics.

Quote from: Bren;879596Too many electrons have already been wasted

All my electrons are 100% recycled.:)

Quote from: CRKrueger;879594The difference I *think* Baulderstone is referring to is that in a traditional game, the player says what the character wants to do, and there are rules in the game for the referee to adjudicate what happens.  Rules as "physics engine", with no other concerns.

.... snip ....

If you don't bring that narrative mindest, then those mechanics become niggling reminders "hey, you're playing a game", "hey you're part author here, do something dramatic", "decide what would be cool to happen to your character".  I just think "leave me the hell alone, I'm roleplaying here". :D

Krueger... you know what? You are a perfect example of a rare type of player whose existence is denied by many authors.

You have a full, undeniable grasp of all the theory behind forge/story/narrative/younamethem games. Unlike some people who bark against the swine all the time, you understand them. You know how they work.

And you don't like them :D

I have spent some time in the last years investigating why some kind of approaches and mechanics break suspension of disbelief for that small-but-yet-existent subset of gamers who have the same problem as you. And I have come to the conclusion that it is entirely subjective. You, and a distinct portion of the RPG community, simply do not have fun playing in that way. Even the slightest hint of author's stance breaks the game for you. Why, I do not know. I only know that it it true "because of experimental evidence".

Yet people like you do exist. And a designer should take into account that if he uses some techniques in his game, then the game will automatically become "non-fun" for a distinct portion of his potential audience.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662I have spent some time in the last years investigating why some kind of approaches and mechanics break suspension of disbelief for that small-but-yet-existent subset of gamers who have the same problem as you. And I have come to the conclusion that it is entirely subjective. You, and a distinct portion of the RPG community, simply do not have fun playing in that way. Even the slightest hint of author's stance breaks the game for you. Why, I do not know.

Speaking for myself there are, broadly speaking, two types of mechanics.

A) A mechanic that is connected to something that the character in the game world is aware of and has control over or that is used to resolve something that the character in the game world is attempting is an in character type of mechanic.

B) A mechanic that is not connected to something that the character in the game world is aware of or has control over and is not used to resolve something that the character is attempting in the game world is an out of character type of mechanic.

The first type tends to be less disruptive of feeling like I am my character in the game world and facilitates acting solely as my character in the game world.

The second type includes mechanics that require me as the player to make decisions not as my character in the game world but from some out of character (OOC) perspective - be that OOC perspective as an author, as a director, or as a player managing some source of metagame currencies that the character in world would not be aware of and could not himself access.

OOC mechanics like character building or creation and character improvement and growth tend to little or no problem for me in maintaining an in character perspective because (with rare exceptions that are often themselves somewhat in character) those build, creation, and growth mechanics do not occur while playing the character but in between or outside of play.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662Krueger... you know what? You are a perfect example of a rare type of player whose existence is denied by many authors.

Well, it's denied by more than just authors, and has caused a lot of forum flames over the years. :)  More on how rare I am down below.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662You have a full, undeniable grasp of all the theory behind forge/story/narrative/younamethem games. Unlike some people who bark against the swine all the time, you understand them. You know how they work.

And you don't like them :D

Well, I may not prefer their games, but I have gone on record as saying that the Xworld system is a great piece of design because it does exactly what it set out to do.  I usually have more of a problem with fans then designers, but stuff like Poison'd kind of speaks for itself and while I don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about Edwards in general after the whole "brain damage" thing, I thought S/lay With Me was an interesting read.  A guy who loves Conan can't be all bad. :D  

I've also on this site, talked about using a narrative system to, in Forge terms, teach a Gamist to enjoy roleplaying (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=351169&postcount=44).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662I have spent some time in the last years investigating why some kind of approaches and mechanics break suspension of disbelief for that small-but-yet-existent subset of gamers who have the same problem as you. And I have come to the conclusion that it is entirely subjective. You, and a distinct portion of the RPG community, simply do not have fun playing in that way. Even the slightest hint of author's stance breaks the game for you. Why, I do not know. I only know that it it true "because of experimental evidence".

Well, you're right, we are out there.  For me personally, it's pretty simple.  Roleplaying=Playing a Role.  When I'm not playing that role, I'm not roleplaying.  Every decision you make at the table could be made for a variety of reasons (a lot more than the GNS three, which is what Zak was pointing out a while back) both IC and OOC.  
I prefer the OOC decision-making to be under my control and coming from me for my reasons, not mandated by the game system: because I like roleplaying.  I play a ton of games that stress other things than roleplaying while including or allowing some roleplaying, from 40k, to Necromunda, to MMOs to CRPGs to boardgames, etc.  When I roleplay I want to roleplay, and OOC considerations take me away from that.  As JKim and I put it, I allow a lot less ketchup in my wine before it stops being wine and becomes "wine with ketchup".

Now as to how rare I am, I honestly don't know.  There's a lot like me on this site for example, but then again, there's a lot of popular games out there that don't include much authorship.  
GURPS, HERO, Traveller, WFRP1 and 2, most flavors of D&D, Rolemaster, older d100 based games, pretty much any game without personality mechanics or genre mechanics could qualify.  

One of the things I've noticed is that a lot of people don't care one bit for the game theory behind things, and so as a result, they can't articulate in the same terms you or I would exactly why they like Game A as opposed to Game B.  Not everyone plays Savage Worlds, Fate, Xworld, or other games with robust OOC meta-point economies or outright narrative control mechanics.

You'd almost have to do surveys where you asked people what games they prefer not to play and then look for patterns.  I don't have any illusions about being in the majority, but I don't think I'm that rare in having a "narrative allergy", I just may be the most severe case on record. :cool:

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662Yet people like you do exist. And a designer should take into account that if he uses some techniques in his game, then the game will automatically become "non-fun" for a distinct portion of his potential audience.

It comes down to two questions.  
1. Can the OOC, metagame, narrative etc. mechanics be cut whole hog from the system without affecting standard task resolution and probabilities?
2. Is what's left if you do cut out those mechanics preferable to a system that didn't have any to begin with?

CoC 7th, you can cut it out and you still have CoC. - No Harm, No Foul

Atlantis, the Second Age, has HUGE authorship and narrative control abilities, all can be freely cast aside without affecting the core resolution mechanics. - Ditto

The Modiphius 2d20 system is pretty thin when you cut out the narrative escalation and heroic engine of dice pools moving back and forth. - Probably what I lovingly term a "narrative shitshow" :D, but I'm a couple revisions back so they may have adjusted it some.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879646Sure, you can simply tell the GM "tell me what happens in the partial-success-with-complications", but if the table prefers to go RAW, ie. the player chooses, that's a completely different mindset.

I've never seen such a table. All tables I've seen are "let's try it RAW, and then we'll change it if it doesn't work". To me, that's not even like a houserule, just a "can you do that for me, it bothers me" request. I've had those, never said no:).

QuoteIf no matter what game you play, ammunition supply is assumed infinite, then that's a different game then running out of ammo depends on (how much you started with)-(how much you fired) or based on whether you or the GM thinks it would be a good dramatic complication.

I just said the exact opposite. I might or might not track all the arrows, but "ammunition supply considered infinite" is against the DW per RAW.

QuoteIf you're a "death to the author" type gamer, then it doesn't matter what game you play, you tweak it to serve, *but* saying that because I can throw the rule out doesn't mean the game wasn't designed with certain things in mind.  Rule Zero doesn't mean all games are just some flavor of an Ur-system.  Full-blown RMSS is not Barbarians of Lemuria and it never will be, unless you cut off and switch covers and lie.

The Rule Zero fallacy always goes like this:
Question: Why do you like Game A and not Game B.
Answer: Game A is different than Game B in the following ways...
Reply: But you can change Game A and Game B in those ways, so any difference or attempt at distinguishing characteristics is moot.

In other words any defense of SystemX that includes "but you can put the work in to change SystemX into SystemY" - isn't a defense of SystemX.

No-stop right here!
First, I hate the "it's not broken, you can houserule it" fallacy about as much as you do (or more). That's not what I was saying.
What I was saying is: Once a book is written, it's just a text. Sometimes, the author doesn't know what the text is saying (case in point: D&D3.0, its playtest, and the arcane classes...:D)
Who is the final arbiter? Me, the reader!
That's what I mean by "death to the author" - working with the text only. I mean I don't want to hear them explaining what the game is: if you need to explain it more, you should have explained in the book.

So, based purely on the text, I've found my own ways to play a lot of supposedly narrative games - from a purely IC perspective.

(If I find that in the text, I assume that's what the author meant in the first place...but you can prove to me that he didn't mean a pure IC perspective, and I wouldn't change my way of playing. I'm playing AW, or Sorcerer, or TRoS, not the game of "find out what Ron Edwards' intentions were when writing Sorcerer, then play only that"! The game is what the text says. And my way of playing is supported by the text. That means it's RAW, even if it's not RAI. I can only work with whatever has been written).
Even if it's not the intended way, so what? "The street finds its own use for things."

QuoteAs far as Savage Worlds goes, yes Bennies are a form of OOC metagame economy usually meant to simulate genre, whether they move into full-blown narrative authorship or not.  Whenever you spend a Benny (unless you really cut down on their usage to represent something like stamina, effort, or whatever) you're not roleplaying.

We do use them as stamina, effort and the like. Check.

QuoteBecause your character doesn't have access to Bennies, it's not an In-Character decision, therefore by definition, you're not roleplaying when you make that decision.

But my character has access to stamina. And being a sportsman, he knew roughly how much stamina he has...as well as that sometimes, you can push yourself beyond that.

QuoteSome roleplaying games include a whole lot of OOC mechanics, in other words, they put a whole lot of non-roleplaying into their roleplaying games.  When I interface with a mechanic, I want it to simply be task resolution to figure out if a decision/action my character makes succeeds or fails.  I don't need the mechanics to tell me if the results are interesting or dramatic, the result that simple success or failure leaves my character and what I do with it is the part that will make it interesting.

Yeah, got it. But I find that having only a "succeed/fail" result actually harms my suspension of disbelief. Because sometimes, it is "no, but", sometimes it's "no, and", and so far, and so forth.
Let's use swords as example. When you swing a sword, you can hit, or get parried. But sometimes, that's just a parry and neither one gets advantage, sometimes you push the enemy's blade our of line and have advantage, and then sometimes the parry takes your blade out of line and you've got a problem.
These simple facts have been represented by "critical success" and "critical failure" almost since there are RPGs. Talislanta already includes the "but" results, too - under "partial success" on the success table...and it's an old game that has no meta-currency.
You can say the same about ZeFRS and its colour-coded results, too.
AW is actually offering less options in its rolls.

QuoteThat's where Cult of the Designer comes in both from The Gaming Den side and the Forge side.  The whole point of the Edwards/Baker movement is "system matters".  You want X, you design for X.

Well, yes, system matters - your argument about RMSS and BoL was just a proof for that.
It doesn't always matter the way some designers assume, though.

QuoteYou want drama and story, you give players mechanics to affect drama and story outside of just roleplaying their characters, because just roleplaying their characters wasn't cutting it for them, which is why the Forge got made in the first place.

Maybe. Again, I'm basing my opinion on their games. (I tried to participate on the Forge forum, read a few posts, and concluded that I can untangle snakes more easily than the circular arguments there. Maybe I just was unlucky with the threads).

QuoteSo yeah, they may be designing a game where you do a lot of roleplaying, but it's roleplaying+.  I don't want or need the +, and prefer systems that come without it so I don't have to remove the + myself and potentially alter the whole foundation.

And I don't care, as long as the + is small enough, or situated in such a place that I can use it to hang my coat from it;).
There's a plus, so obviously the designer wanted me to hang my coat on it! What do you mean he said otherwise? I'm not reading his blog, and I needed some place to hang my coat from. So, I'm going to use the + for what I wanted to, and have fun. And that's still using "roleplaying +" as written.

QuoteOne thing I've found is pretty difficult is explaining the whole "roleplaying+" side of things.  Again, for people who always play games with some genre mechanics or other types of metagame currency like Fate points, Bennies, whatever, the definition of roleplaying to them always includes the +, the shared 4th wall idea that we're playing a game on two levels, the character level and the player level.

Nope. I was unused to those to the point that I was looking askance even at the Willpower in V:tM;).
Then I thought about it, and the Willpower thing made sense.

QuoteIt's trivially easy for someone who like to solely roleplay with as few OOC decisions as possible to see that line.  Some people (not saying AsenRG is one of them) just can't see that line.  Which is when things usually get nasty with regards to brain damage, delusions, etc...

No, I can see it - I actually agree that if you play in the assumed "story-game" style, the game is different from roleplaying. I've tried that - it just wasn't as much fun, so I'm back.

What I'm suggesting is, you can re-use that line. Or you can hide it behind the right glass...
(Not my best analogy, this one;)).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879662I have spent some time in the last years investigating why some kind of approaches and mechanics break suspension of disbelief for that small-but-yet-existent subset of gamers who have the same problem as you. And I have come to the conclusion that it is entirely subjective. You, and a distinct portion of the RPG community, simply do not have fun playing in that way. Even the slightest hint of author's stance breaks the game for you. Why, I do not know. I only know that it it true "because of experimental evidence".

So have I. Do you also have a similar player in one of your groups:D?
What I'd like to see is whether such players can learn to adapt. Experiments are called for, in the name of Science, Superior Refereeing, and the Hard-Boiled Egg!

Quote from: CRKrueger;879670while I don't have a whole lot of nice things to say about Edwards in general after the whole "brain damage" thing, I thought S/lay With Me was an interesting read.  A guy who loves Conan can't be all bad. :D  

I think we can all agree to that;)!

QuoteI've also on this site, talked about using a narrative system to, in Forge terms, teach a Gamist to enjoy roleplaying (http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=351169&postcount=44).

Well, I should note that you started with a non-narrative system (TRoS). Seriously, TRoS is about as much of a "storygame" as Pendragon. And anyone who tells me you're not roleplaying in Pendragon, will get a recommendation to play Pendragon until he begins to get it.

QuoteIt comes down to two questions.  
1. Can the OOC, metagame, narrative etc. mechanics be cut whole hog from
the system without affecting standard task resolution and probabilities?
2. Is what's left if you do cut out those mechanics preferable to a system that didn't have any to begin with?

And my point is, that a lot of "narrative" systems are as easy or easier to reskin as "regular" systems;).

TRoS not narrative? :hmm:
Well, the way TRoS works is highly dependent on the SAs.  Yeah the system is a highly crunchy ARMA/HEMA simulator, but the title is extremely important.  The Riddle of Steel of course gets it's name from the Conan movie.

Conan first has the riddle posed to him by his blood father, a blacksmith:
The secret of steel has always carried with it a mystery. You must learn its riddle, Conan, you must learn its discipline. For no one, no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts... This you can trust.

Conan has the Riddle of Steel answered by Thulsa Doom, the spiritual father of the reborn Conan:
Steel isn't strong, boy, flesh is stronger! What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Look at the strength in your body, the desire in your heart.

In Riddle of Steel RPG, the question manifests as "What is worth fighting for?", "What is worth killing for?", "What is worth dying for?"  You define that via the game's Spiritual Attributes (Passion, Drive, Faith, Destiny, I forget the 5th type).

Since the game is extremely brutal as far as combat goes, running down an alley to fight 4 guys is NOT a good idea...unless somehow you can invoke a Spiritual Attribute to get additional dice.  The main problem I had with the SAs was that
1. You raised them by using them, and then spent them down to get XP.
2. As they lower, you can even swap them out.

So last week, I ran down a dark alley and WTFPWNed 4 guys because I was invoking multiple SAs, but I spent those down and swapped one out, so I don't care about protecting the innocent and cleaning up the city as much anymore so I'm gonna get deathmopped by those same 4 guys this week even though I'm now a better swordsman.

It's a crunchy combat simulator built on top of a completely narrative engine. Can you flush the SAs and just run TRoS as is? Sure, but you can't not at least look at the narrative structure underneath the whole thing when we're talking game design theory.

Quote from: AsenRG;879681And my point is, that a lot of "narrative" systems are as easy or easier to reskin as "regular" systems;).

Some yes, some no.  Some are worth the time, some aren't. :D

Quote from: AsenRG;879681Yeah, got it. But I find that having only a "succeed/fail" result actually harms my suspension of disbelief. Because sometimes, it is "no, but", sometimes it's "no, and", and so far, and so forth.
Let's use swords as example. When you swing a sword, you can hit, or get parried. But sometimes, that's just a parry and neither one gets advantage, sometimes you push the enemy's blade our of line and have advantage, and then sometimes the parry takes your blade out of line and you've got a problem.
These simple facts have been represented by "critical success" and "critical failure" almost since there are RPGs. Talislanta already includes the "but" results, too - under "partial success" on the success table...and it's an old game that has no meta-currency.
You can say the same about ZeFRS and its colour-coded results, too.
AW is actually offering less options in its rolls.

True, a lot of systems offer criticals, fumbles or even multiple levels of each to give a variety of possible outcomes and "narrative complications" themselves go back to WEG SW or James Bond as genre conceits.  But when I am playing with genre conceits, I concede I'm playing inside a literary form, by definition.

The idea of Success with minor or even major complications, or even Failure with minor or even major advantages (like the "funky symbol dice" games) however, is relatively new, and comes from the philosophy that the mechanical results should push the story.  

If the GM and players are doing their jobs, the mechanics don't need to push anything.  I hear people say things like "I tried to pick the lock and failed...boring."  If you have unlimited time to stand in front of a door and there are no possible consequences for failure, then yeah that's boring, but that's never going to happen outside of training yourself to lockpick your own door where noone can see you.  A realistically envisioned setting will always have some consequences for failure, and personally I find it's far more enjoyable to see how players will react to failure and what comes next, then us looking to the game designers to tell us "when cool and interesting happens" through mechanics.

I guess we should probably go back to talking about RuneQuest.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879691I guess we should probably go back to talking about RuneQuest.

Because we're confident the new Runequest isn't going to have any of that 'Fail Forward' stuff?

Quote from: Simlasa;879696Because we're confident the new Runequest isn't going to have any of that 'Fail Forward' stuff?

Dunno about confident, but haven't seen a lot of evidence of it.  Plus it is a RQ thread. :)

Quote from: Arminius;879613It's a bit like the idea of egoism in architecture (look it up): the idea that the designer knows best how people should use the thing, instead of anticipating and allowing for people to "colonize" it and make it their own.

From an audience POV the notion is very much one of trying to discern the intent of the designer and judging the game based on how well it enforces that intent. Rather than just saying, "What kind of fun stuff can we do with this thing?"

Oh.  So like what the Vampire: Masquerade Humanity track was meant to do, because Rein-Hagen had this 'one true way' to play his game and you were not meant to deviate from it?

I guess, except that I gather the idea failed to gain traction and people played Vampire in whatever way. On top of that, I gather the design itself was such that it was easy to use it for whatever.

I missed the whole WoD era and I really have no interest in the theme or style of WW games.

Quote from: Arminius;879732I guess, except that I gather the idea failed to gain traction and people played Vampire in whatever way. On top of that, I gather the design itself was such that it was easy to use it for whatever.

I missed the whole WoD era and I really have no interest in the theme or style of WW games.

The Humanity mechanic was similar to Sanity in Call of Cthulhu. Your Humanity score helped you avoid having monstrous vampire freakouts. Doing horrible things eroded your humanity. Therefore Vampires needed to monsters to survive but needed to moderate their actions to avoid losing all their humanity and become beasts.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to work. As your Humanity fell, you had to do even greater acts of horror to risk falling another step down. The basic result was that unless your character was committing crimes on the scale of Hitler, you were never going to hit 0 Humanity. The toothlessness of Humanity loss was the reason the game became Trenchcoats and Katanas.

Quote from: Baulderstone;879757The Humanity mechanic was similar to Sanity in Call of Cthulhu. Your Humanity score helped you avoid having monstrous vampire freakouts. Doing horrible things eroded your humanity. Therefore Vampires needed to monsters to survive but needed to moderate their actions to avoid losing all their humanity and become beasts.

At least, that was the way it was supposed to work. As your Humanity fell, you had to do even greater acts of horror to risk falling another step down. The basic result was that unless your character was committing crimes on the scale of Hitler, you were never going to hit 0 Humanity. The toothlessness of Humanity loss was the reason the game became Trenchcoats and Katanas.

You are forgetting that a Vampire's Humanity stat was directly tied to resisting Frenzy. As it falls, your character becomes increasingly susceptible to Frenzy and, as such, becomes compelled to commit more monstrous crimes.

Quote from: Bren;879666Speaking for myself there are, broadly speaking, two types of mechanics.

Justin Alexander created the terms associate/dissociate mechanics to describe what you are explaining here. I prefer the terms "intra-diegetic" and "extra-diegetic" rules, created by my friend Claudio Freda, but they sound more like something that explains why you should take an Alka Seltzer than something about RPGs, so for the sake of clarity we should stick to Alexandrian's wording. Whether you like Justin or not, he was the first one to describe the thing and he gets to "name the bug", like in entomology.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879670You'd almost have to do surveys where you asked people what games they prefer not to play and then look for patterns.  I don't have any illusions about being in the majority, but I don't think I'm that rare in having a "narrative allergy", I just may be the most severe case on record. :cool:

I think most players tend to the "i prefer to roleplay this rather than have the rules intervene" side. You and others are somehow special in the fact that you know that even a little bit of "author's stance" will break your fun. Suspension of disbelief is an all-or-nothing thing, and one must take the player's word for genuine when it comes to "this made me stop having fun".

Yet I think it is quite important to be aware that there is a spectrum between "I prefer game A" and "I really can't play game B". And that the latter case exists.

Quote1. Can the OOC, metagame, narrative etc. mechanics be cut whole hog from the system without affecting standard task resolution and probabilities?
2. Is what's left if you do cut out those mechanics preferable to a system that didn't have any to begin with?

As we have already discussed, in my games this is almost always true. I prefer to have the intra-diegetic part of the rules (the "physics engine") to be self-consistent, and the rest of the rules as totally independent. This has the added value of leaving the game enjoyable to "narrative-allergic" players.

I can remember of only one case when I designed with the narrative mechanics actually driving the action and not accompanying it in order to adjust things slightly in the background. And I really had no choice: no associate mechanics would have worked, because the reference fiction is completely non-self-consistent. Some things happen "because cool", and only a system that measures "cool" could lead the table to the expected result.

Quote from: AsenRG;879681So have I. Do you also have a similar player in one of your groups:D?

Yes. And I know at least one game author (one who makes money from his games, not a vanity press author) who has the exact same problem. Of course, it shows a lot in his games.

QuoteWhat I'd like to see is whether such players can learn to adapt. Experiments are called for, in the name of Science, Superior Refereeing, and the Hard-Boiled Egg!

I doubt we would be able to strap Krueger to a lab table and put electrodes in his brain to measure his "fun".

But most important of all, why on earth should we check whether they can adapt? It's their ****ing fun, telling people how they should have fun makes no sense.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879691I guess we should probably go back to talking about RuneQuest.

Too late! I have already managed to hijack this thread and many others on Basicroleplaying.org. Now I have to check with Akrasia if he's on schedule with his sub-liminal PMs that instill hate for Chaosium in the readers' minds. If he has reached his assigned quota, nothing can stop us now. This round belongs to The Evil Competition(TM). Muahahahahaha. All your RPGs belong to us.

Quote from: AsenRG;879130I'm now almost sad, because that might have persuaded me to bash my players into learning Glorantha. They know and like RQ6 already, I think it was their first exposure to D100 games:).

Making them learn a slightly different system and a foreign setting at once is something I could do, if I wanted to - I am that kind of GM and make no excuses about it - but I know they have the most issues with "slightly different" systems, and I try not to subject them to unnecessary stress. So I guess RQ7 Glorantha will be a no-go for a while at least.

So, stick with RQ6 and convert anything that comes out in the new form of RQ.

It should be pretty easy to do. You can use the concept of Special Effects and Combat Styles without needing them in RQ7. Sorcery might change, but sorcery has changed in every version of RQ except in RQ1 to RQ2, so no change there. Other things can be converted on the fly.

You might want to use some of the concepts from RQ7, but you don;t have to use the entire thing.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879687TRoS not narrative? :hmm:
Well, the way TRoS works is highly dependent on the SAs.  Yeah the system is a highly crunchy ARMA/HEMA simulator, but the title is extremely important.  The Riddle of Steel of course gets it's name from the Conan movie.
(snippped for brevity)

Thanks, man, but here are some relevant bits:

• I managed to track and buy TRoS. I have used it for two campaigns since. The above isn't something I ignore.
• "The Riddle of Steel" is my favourite part of the whole Schwartzie movie, so I kinda know the connection. Did I mention I like the game's name as well?
• The SAs are not motivation...but when you use them as measuring your motivation, they actually add to the realism. I'm explicitly not talking genre emulation, I'm talking superior morale beating superior technique. Having been on both ends of this, I can confirm being on the receiving end sucks!

QuoteSince the game is extremely brutal as far as combat goes, running down an alley to fight 4 guys is NOT a good idea...unless somehow you can invoke a Spiritual Attribute to get additional dice.  The main problem I had with the SAs was that
1. You raised them by using them, and then spent them down to get XP.
2. As they lower, you can even swap them out.

Raising them by using them does make sense. On the rest of them - yes, it's not perfect. Just nearly so (said the HEMA guy:)).
I have come with my own justifications for this. When you train to improve, you need motivation to make the leap, so you're "spent" emotionally. Then you need to re-build.
Is the above universally true? Not nearly, but I've had periods that roughly mapped to this, so it doesn't exactly bother me, either (though I see it as more of a game engine than a narrative one - otherwise, you'd need to get your SAs higher and can dispense with the need for skill, and raising those is the point). If it did, I'd switch to improving them by use, lowering them by neglect, and so on. XP per session wouldn't be a new concept.

QuoteIt's a crunchy combat simulator built on top of a completely narrative engine. Can you flush the SAs and just run TRoS as is? Sure, but you can't not at least look at the narrative structure underneath the whole thing when we're talking game design theory.

Again, I see it more as a gamist thing (that serves to get you through battles you're not ready for, since some PCs enter those), but I'm ready to admit there might be different readings.

QuoteSome yes, some no.  Some are worth the time, some aren't. :D

The exact same thing can be said about all games and settings, indeed.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879691True, a lot of systems offer criticals, fumbles or even multiple levels of each to give a variety of possible outcomes and "narrative complications" themselves go back to WEG SW or James Bond as genre conceits.  But when I am playing with genre conceits, I concede I'm playing inside a literary form, by definition.

Read above my previous post: that's not "genre conceits". It's the normal effect of ever trying to perform a task. I'm not talking genre, I'm talking reality.
Alas, it has been neglected in supposedly simulationist games, for reasons that I can't really explain (except maybe by inertia, but I kinda dislike that explanation:p). I mean, I can kinda understand why you wouldn't have "success with complication" or "failure with a bonus" in a gamist system...but why you don't have those in GURPS is frankly beyond me.

QuoteThe idea of Success with minor or even major complications, or even Failure with minor or even major advantages (like the "funky symbol dice" games) however, is relatively new, and comes from the philosophy that the mechanical results should push the story.  

Again, I could care less where it's coming from. It maps better to reality.

QuoteIf the GM and players are doing their jobs, the mechanics don't need to push anything.  I hear people say things like "I tried to pick the lock and failed...boring."  If you have unlimited time to stand in front of a door and there are no possible consequences for failure, then yeah that's boring, but that's never going to happen outside of training yourself to lockpick your own door where noone can see you.  A realistically envisioned setting will always have some consequences for failure, and personally I find it's far more enjoyable to see how players will react to failure and what comes next, then us looking to the game designers to tell us "when cool and interesting happens" through mechanics.

Yes, consequences for failure and success are present more often than not. I'm talking about "consequences for success" and "bonuses to failure" which are often omitted.

QuoteI guess we should probably go back to talking about RuneQuest.

OK! So, why don't we have a "I parry, but my sword is now out of line and I lose initiative" in RuneQuest:D?
Why don't we have a "he parries, but his sword is now out of line and I must press my advantage" result, either? At least we don't have that in most versions.
(OK, technically we have that latter...in MRQ2 and RQ6 only, when you parry an attack that succeeds critically, and the attacker picks Overextend. But we don't have the "parry at a cost" result, yet).
 

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879784I think most players tend to the "i prefer to roleplay this rather than have the rules intervene" side. You and others are somehow special in the fact that you know that even a little bit of "author's stance" will break your fun. Suspension of disbelief is an all-or-nothing thing, and one must take the player's word for genuine when it comes to "this made me stop having fun".

Yet I think it is quite important to be aware that there is a spectrum between "I prefer game A" and "I really can't play game B". And that the latter case exists.

Oh yes, I'm either cursed or blessed by knowing it... That is, I'm the same - it's just that my suspension of disbelief is ruined by illusionist techniques by the GM.
And yes, lots of GMing chapters recommend those. (Which is why I tend to say that lots of GMing chapters are a waste of perfectly good paper). In fact, not recommending those and insisting on a consistent world was what drew me to the OSR first.

QuoteAs we have already discussed, in my games this is almost always true. I prefer to have the intra-diegetic part of the rules (the "physics engine") to be self-consistent, and the rest of the rules as totally independent. This has the added value of leaving the game enjoyable to "narrative-allergic" players.

I'm almost sure I have some of your games, but am unsure about the specifics now. So, how do you account for the effect of motivation?

QuoteI can remember of only one case when I designed with the narrative mechanics actually driving the action and not accompanying it in order to adjust things slightly in the background. And I really had no choice: no associate mechanics would have worked, because the reference fiction is completely non-self-consistent. Some things happen "because cool", and only a system that measures "cool" could lead the table to the expected result.

...you were designing an Exalted engine, weren't you? Right?

QuoteYes. And I know at least one game author (one who makes money from his games, not a vanity press author) who has the exact same problem. Of course, it shows a lot in his games.

Is it John Snead;)?

QuoteI doubt we would be able to strap Krueger to a lab table and put electrodes in his brain to measure his "fun".

:D
Hmm....CRKrueger, how much do you weigh:p?
Also, would you help willingly? We need to conduct some experiments, it seems... For better games, science, and a hard-boiled egg?

QuoteBut most important of all, why on earth should we check whether they can adapt? It's their ****ing fun, telling people how they should have fun makes no sense.

Because they could then play more games and have fun more easily? Seriously, that's a no-brainer. CRKrueger is prepared to be disappointed in a Conan game, and he likes Conan (and so do I). I'm prepared to adapt to it so it doesn't ruin my fun. Which one would need to do more work to have fun, in your opinion?
And if we could develop such an adaptation technique...well, even then they'd be free not to use it.

QuoteToo late! I have already managed to hijack this thread and many others on Basicroleplaying.org. Now I have to check with Akrasia if he's on schedule with his sub-liminal PMs that instill hate for Chaosium in the readers' minds. If he has reached his assigned quota, nothing can stop us now. This round belongs to The Evil Competition(TM). Muahahahahaha. All your RPGs belong to us.

Or we could simply, you know, discuss that using RQ2/5/6 examples;).
(Whatever is between you, Akrasia and Chaosium, better stay between the three of you. Or else, I'll have to defend my games;)).

Quote from: RosenMcStern;879784Justin Alexander created the terms associate/dissociate mechanics to describe what you are explaining here.

I'm aware. But using his terms doesn't explain which mechanics I find problematic for my character immersion. Additionally, some people aren't familiar with his terminology. And a few people get conniption fits just seeing the terms in print. So I avoid the terms and just explain what sorts of mechanics work better or worse for me.

QuoteI prefer the terms "intra-diegetic" and "extra-diegetic" rules, created by my friend Claudio Freda.

Why do you prefer those terms?

Those terms are new to me. Is a player who uses the same gestures as their character is supposed to be using in the game world or who stands or moves as their character is supposed to stand or move in the game world intra-diegetic or extra-digetic?

I think Plato would describe performing actions as mimesis which is supposed to be contrasted with and different than diegesis. Yet it seems to me that performing the same gestures and motions as my character is a strongly associative activity.

Hell, hook me up!  I'd love to get some good data on what parts of the brain are used at various times and points during an RPG session, especially if we're going to compare and contrast with reading, watching a movie, listening to music, public speaking, acting, etc...

As far as "Success with failure" or "Failure with success" I don't argue that such results can't happen.  They can.  Accordingly, a spectrum that includes them would be more "realistic".  

However, take any aspect of a setting or system, that aspect could be fine-tuned and made more granular to better map to reality.  You do that with everything and you get an unplayable game, so it's always a case of picking your battles and coming up with the right mix of extreme focus, focus, and hand-waving that works for you and your table.

In this specific case of "Success with failure" or "Failure with success" (hereafter called Sf/Fs) results, here's where you can't just ignore intent and structure.  In every case I can think of off the top of my head, whenever I have encountered an Sf/Fs system, the intent wasn't to better map task resolution to reality, the intent was to push story and drama, to place hooks used just for that purpose.  Now you (AsenRG) don't care one bit about intent and purpose, I understand that, but if you're not aware of it or not paying attention to it, then you might miss that because it is supposed to be one of the main sources of narration generation in a game that has narration as a focus, then those results come up WAY more often then they would if we were working to map to reality.

Now, you're a HEMA guy, so obviously you know combat is never just a set of static moves that succeed or fail, it is a flowing event where morale, momentum, initiative can rise and fall, and dramatically affect outcome.  In that sense, TRoS is right, what you are willing to fight, kill and die for does affect your ability.  Personally, I contend that this specifically is why you are so, accepting for lack of a better term, new school things like Sf/Fs, conflict resolution, genre conceits, etc because they make a lot more sense when the action is combat.  When the action is picking a lock, accessing a computer, sabotaging a car, not so much really.

Also, if you love tinkering with systems, then making them work despite themselves can be fun.

As far as the new Conan, fool me once(WFRP3), shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  You're looking to make that system work.  I could do the same I guess, to be honest I think it would be easier to make work than WFRP3, for example.  However, the time I spend doing that is better spent IMO, in taking the non-system elements and using them to enrich a RQ6 Conan game I already have going. YMMV.  I love tinkering with systems too, but sometimes you're just not using the best or even the right tool for what you're trying to accomplish and so you just put down the butter knife that was at hand and go to the toolbox to get a philips screwdriver. :D

Quote from: Bren;879844Those terms are new to me. Is a player who uses the same gestures as their character is supposed to be using in the game world or who stands or moves as their character is supposed to stand or move in the game world intra-diegetic or extra-digetic?

Probably means them in this way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diegesis#In_video_games):

QuoteIn video games, "diegesis" comprises the narrative game world, its characters, objects and actions which can be classified as "intra-diegetic". Status icons, menu bars and other UI which are not part of the game world itself can be considered as "extra-diegetic"; a game character does not know about them even though for the player they may present crucial information.

Quote from: ptingler;879872Probably means them in this way (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diegesis#In_video_games):

That was my reading of the terms as well, not a strict Platonic definition.

I do like those terms, because the "Interface Overlay" of a computer game that doesn't exist for the character in the game, but does exist for the player can perfectly describe OOC mechanics, whether the point is tactical, narrative or whatever, and doesn't carry with it the baggage of a thousand gaming forum flame wars.  

Too often the first battle of RPG arguments is definition debate, and going to the mattresses over terms means you never actually discuss anything, so it's used as a shutdown tool quite frequently.

I'll probably start a thread on this soon because I see it intersecting with discussions here and predict it might be useful in discussing the new Conan game.

I recognize the terms from art/film school... diagetic and non-diagetic music, being the music that is being played by some obvious source in the movie (car radio, lounge band, orchestra) vs. a soundtrack that exists outside of the cinematic space being viewed (pretty much all John Williams and Ennio Morricone music in films).

Quote from: CRKrueger;879849Hell, hook me up!  I'd love to get some good data on what parts of the brain are used at various times and points during an RPG session, especially if we're going to compare and contrast with reading, watching a movie, listening to music, public speaking, acting, etc...

I'm sure we can discuss what to compare and contrast with, when you meet the scientists. My job was only to provide your informed agreement;).

See, Mr. McStern? We needed only to ask nicely...:)

QuoteAs far as "Success with failure" or "Failure with success" I don't argue that such results can't happen.  They can.  Accordingly, a spectrum that includes them would be more "realistic".  

Yes, that was my point.

QuoteHowever, take any aspect of a setting or system, that aspect could be fine-tuned and made more granular to better map to reality.  You do that with everything and you get an unplayable game, so it's always a case of picking your battles and coming up with the right mix of extreme focus, focus, and hand-waving that works for you and your table.

Right. So you focus it as much as possible on things that go in the system's fundamentals, and not so much on stuff that only applies in some situations - because those fundamentals will apply across the widest range of cases.
The biggest fundamental is the rolling mechanic.
Which is why I like the "ands" and the "buts" to be included in the core resolution, Talislanta-style (and I can let the "butts" be one of the exception cases:D).

QuoteIn this specific case of "Success with failure" or "Failure with success" (hereafter called Sf/Fs) results, here's where you can't just ignore intent and structure.  In every case I can think of off the top of my head, whenever I have encountered an Sf/Fs system, the intent wasn't to better map task resolution to reality, the intent was to push story and drama, to place hooks used just for that purpose.

True, not all systems for achieving that are equal:)! The two I can think of off the top of my head, where the intent wasn't to provide drama AFAICT, are Talislanta and Mongoose Traveller 1e and 2e. Are you familiar with those?

QuoteNow you (AsenRG) don't care one bit about intent and purpose, I understand that, but if you're not aware of it or not paying attention to it, then you might miss that because it is supposed to be one of the main sources of narration generation in a game that has narration as a focus, then those results come up WAY more often then they would if we were working to map to reality.

That's why I pointed to Talislanta and MgT1&2, they seem quite realistic in frequency to me. For a game of MgT, you only have 2 numbers out of 11 that deal such a result - now, depending on the bonuses and difficulty, those might be up to 11/36...but that would mean you're completely average at the skill.
In Talislanta, it's almost fixed to be 25% of the time, which is only slightly higher than I would make it - but I suspect the reason is more to make the numbers on the table easy to remember. Of course, if you're seriously skilled, the odds fall sharply (and the odds for "success and bonus" raise correspondingly).

QuoteNow, you're a HEMA guy, so obviously you know combat is never just a set of static moves that succeed or fail, it is a flowing event where morale, momentum, initiative can rise and fall, and dramatically affect outcome.  In that sense, TRoS is right, what you are willing to fight, kill and die for does affect your ability.  Personally, I contend that this specifically is why you are so, accepting for lack of a better term, new school things like Sf/Fs, conflict resolution, genre conceits, etc because they make a lot more sense when the action is combat.  When the action is picking a lock, accessing a computer, sabotaging a car, not so much really.

Also, if you love tinkering with systems, then making them work despite themselves can be fun.

You're right on both accounts:D! What can I say?
Well, maybe I can add - from experience - that sometimes, when you make a narrative system work in a, shall we say, unexpected way, it has really cool features pre-installed;).

QuoteAs far as the new Conan, fool me once(WFRP3), shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  You're looking to make that system work.  I could do the same I guess, to be honest I think it would be easier to make work than WFRP3, for example.  However, the time I spend doing that is better spent IMO, in taking the non-system elements and using them to enrich a RQ6 Conan game I already have going. YMMV.  I love tinkering with systems too, but sometimes you're just not using the best or even the right tool for what you're trying to accomplish and so you just put down the butter knife that was at hand and go to the toolbox to get a philips screwdriver. :D

If you have a RQ6 game going, I'd agree with you. Changing systems in the middle of campaign sucks.
Me, on the other hand? I don't have a Conan game going, so I can afford to tinker in the meantime;).
Unrelated info, last time I had to deal with such an issue, I didn't bother looking for a screwdriver, because the butter knife worked just fine. And I had just used it, so it was literally at hand:p!
Most importantly, I didn't need the screwdriver after that.

In short, there's time for tinkering, but once you've started work and it's going well, no need to change instruments. Of course, you can pick another set of instruments next time. I see that as applying to RPG systems just as much as it does to using physical instruments.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879849As far as the new Conan, fool me once(WFRP3), shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.  You're looking to make that system work.  I could do the same I guess, to be honest I think it would be easier to make work than WFRP3, for example.  However, the time I spend doing that is better spent IMO, in taking the non-system elements and using them to enrich a RQ6 Conan game I already have going. YMMV.

I'm loathe to get drawn into a debate about the new RQ, but as the line developer for Modiphius' new Conan game, I should clarify something here.

Conan uses the 2d20 system, which has no relation whatsoever to the system from WFRP 3rd edition and the new(ish) Star Wars games. You can check out the Conan quickstart here (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174829/Robert-E-Howards-CONAN-Roleplaying-Game-Quickstart?cPath=8425_25091).

Jay Little was involved to some degree, but the earliest bones of the system can be found, interestingly, in a less-than-serious free game published a couple of years ago by Modiphius called Drifting Through Space (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114499/Drifting-Through-Space--A-Free-SciFi-RPG?term=drifting), written by Michal Cross.

Quote from: Jason D;879961I'm loathe to get drawn into a debate about the new RQ, but as the line developer for Modiphius' new Conan game, I should clarify something here.

Conan uses the 2d20 system, which has no relation whatsoever to the system from WFRP 3rd edition and the new(ish) Star Wars games. You can check out the Conan quickstart here (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174829/Robert-E-Howards-CONAN-Roleplaying-Game-Quickstart?cPath=8425_25091).

Jay Little was involved to some degree, but the earliest bones of the system can be found, interestingly, in a less-than-serious free game published a couple of years ago by Modiphius called Drifting Through Space (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/114499/Drifting-Through-Space--A-Free-SciFi-RPG?term=drifting), written by Michal Cross.

Right, but the system does have
1. Jay Little
2. Cinematic Design
3. Cumbersome Zone and Range band system instead of just...distances.
4. Funky symbol dice
In other words, similar crossovers between WFRP3 and FFGSW since the same guy designed to certain degrees all three systems.

But...those games didn't have the team you guys have, and you're the line developer, so my confidence in the final results is rising substantially.

BTW, how many drinks do we have to get you, to have you weigh in on the RuneQuest situation? :D

Quote from: CRKrueger;879989But...those games didn't have the team you guys have, and you're the line developer, so my confidence in the final results is rising substantially.

Thanks! I think it's going to be a hell of a game line. You would not believe the standards I'm holding the scenarios to.

Quote from: CRKrueger;879989BTW, how many drinks do we have to get you, to have you weigh in on the RuneQuest situation? :D

To quote The Bowler, "There's not enough booze in the world."

I think enough has been said that should probably have been privately discussed between the parties involved.

I'm not really in enough of "the know", and have no interest in weighing in on the situation with speculation or even venturing an opinion beyond that prior sentence.

Quote from: CRKrueger;878689The guys who wrote the RQ6 toolkit system, took the setting they loved the most and wrote the most complete and comprehensive collection of spells, cults, monsters for a setting probably ever.  It would have been the "Master's Class on adapting RQ6 to your favorite system."

This is for me one of the worst things to happen about all this. As it happens, I'm not concerned about Chaosium deciding that a new RQ is going to be based on RQ2 (even if I prefer RQ3 because it's the one that got translated into Spanish and the one I fell in love with and I'm currently running). I still prefer RQ6 to any other version of RQ, but if Chaosium's RQ is good I will buy it and play it. After all, Moon Design has done a terrific job regarding Glorantha: both HeroQuest Glorantha and the Guide are masterpieces, and the other stuff they published is really good. So I will wait and see.

OTOH, I'm happy that the RQ6 system remains in Pete and Loz's hands, because those guys are awesome and they have my business like, forever. So I will floow closely any product they release, and support them by buying their stuff.

Quote from: soltakss;879791So, stick with RQ6 and convert anything that comes out in the new form of RQ.

It should be pretty easy to do. You can use the concept of Special Effects and Combat Styles without needing them in RQ7. Sorcery might change, but sorcery has changed in every version of RQ except in RQ1 to RQ2, so no change there. Other things can be converted on the fly.

You might want to use some of the concepts from RQ7, but you don;t have to use the entire thing.

I hadn't noticed that post.
Yes, that's one option, for certain, and one I might decide on. But that's not my point.

My point was that the decision to scrap RQ6 Glorantha/AiG makes it harder for me to run any game in the Glorantha setting. I don't like it when people make it harder for me to run settings I like, and I like it even less when they're doing it by stopping the release of a book that was already written, or mostly written:).

So to be honest, I'd probably settle on running a different setting for my next campaign, and we'll see after that;).

So the guys at Design Mechanism have come up with a new name for their system, and released it into the wild. See here for more details: http://designmechanism.freeforums.org/and-the-new-name-is-t1465.html

Mythras then, it's going to be. I must admit it doesn't immediately grab me. I like the thinking behind it, but I'm having a hard time imagining this being the name of my go-to system for some reason. I'm not sure what it is, perhaps that it's the name of a god slightly befuddled with a y. Still, lest there be any doubt, I'm going to be in the front lines supporting the system and their fantastic line of supplements. DM have made a habit of great, well-written game materials, and I'm in their corner.

RuneQuest 6 is dead, long live Mythras!

Quote from: markfitz;880254RuneQuest 6 is dead, long live Mythras!

Yes, and to be honest, RuneQuest used to sound just as funny to me years ago, since it's a compound word with a non-obvious meaning:). GURPS also used to sound funny, for other reasons.

In either case, then I got used to playing them, and forgot that the name has ever bothered me;).

Quote from: Imperator;880062Chaosium deciding that a new RQ is going to be based on RQ2

Ironically, I'm convinced that Chaosium's claims that this new RQ7 will be based on RQ2 are just marketingspeak. What traits will RQ7 share with RQ6, that RQ2 doesn't have?

• Combat styles
• No separate attack and defense skill
• No general hit points
• Skills based on characteristic + characteristic

To me, this future RQ7 will resemble RQ6 without Special Effects, according to what the Chaosium people have said.

Quote from: markfitz;880254RuneQuest 6 is dead, long live Mythras!

The new name didn't grab me right off, but it also didn't annoy me... unlike whatever Alephtar is calling their new D100-ish Frankengame.

Mythras is short, foregrounds the MYTH bit... and is just distinctive enough without being goofy. No articles or ampersands cluttering it up.
I like it.

MYTHRAS...not sure if this name Mythras really grabs me yet, but it's certainly not the wrong name... I was holding out for it to be called 'MYTHICA', so I guess close enough is good enough for me

At least the name resonates with the 'Mythic' line

Perhaps we may see Pete's excellent BRP ROME and MRQ2 VIKINGS fully ported over into this system, to compliment the brilliant MYTHIC BRITAIN and the possibility of MYTHIC GREECE.

Magic systems can be fiddled with, but as long as the core system remains consistent with RQ6 then I'll be counted as a MYTHRAS customer.

It's gonna be exciting days ahead!

Quote from: Claudius;880282Ironically, I'm convinced that Chaosium's claims that this new RQ7 will be based on RQ2 are just marketingspeak. What traits will RQ7 share with RQ6, that RQ2 doesn't have?

• Combat styles
• No separate attack and defense skill
• No general hit points
• Skills based on characteristic + characteristic

To me, this future RQ7 will resemble RQ6 without Special Effects, according to what the Chaosium people have said.

Just a few clarifications. RQ has combined weapons (sword and shield, frex) as a single skill, which is functionally the same as combat styles. But not the other elements of combat styles.

Weapon skill includes attack and parry.

RQ has general hit points.

Skills have base chances, skill category modifiers, plus cultural modifiers. We initially were using characteristic + characteristic, but changed that after early playtesting feedback.

Quote from: richaje;880390Just a few clarifications. RQ has combined weapons (sword and shield, frex) as a single skill, which is functionally the same as combat styles. But not the other elements of combat styles.

Does it mean that you have to develop, let's say, longsword+shield and spear+shield, as separate skills?

QuoteWeapon skill includes attack and parry.

Will attack and parry be separate skills, to be developped independently? This is what I meant.

QuoteRQ has general hit points.

I think I read somewhere that the new RQ7 was going to have no general hit points. Did I dream it? If that's not the case. I stand corrected.

QuoteSkills have base chances, skill category modifiers, plus cultural modifiers. We initially were using characteristic + characteristic, but changed that after early playtesting feedback.

OK.

Thank you for your answers, Jeff.

Quote from: richaje;880390Skills have base chances, skill category modifiers, plus cultural modifiers. We initially were using characteristic + characteristic, but changed that after early playtesting feedback.

Are the skill category modifiers going to be based upon Characteristic + Characteristic, or are we going to fall back to the slight irritation in RQ2 that most Characteristic scores have no influence on the skills outside of extreme scores?

Quote from: Claudius;880395Does it mean that you have to develop, let's say, longsword+shield and spear+shield, as separate skills?


Will attack and parry be separate skills, to be developped independently? This is what I meant.

Yes, long spear and shield, and broadsword and shield are separate skills.

Attack and parry are not separate skills. They are normally trained and used together - and any iota of verisimilitude gained by tracking separate skills is lost by having to track (and develop) separate skills. So if you have Broadsword at 70%, you can attack and parry at 70%. If you know a skill like Broadsword and Shield at 7%, you attack with your broadsword at 75% and parry with your shield at 75%.

Quote from: TrippyHippy;880397Are the skill category modifiers going to be based upon Characteristic + Characteristic, or are we going to fall back to the slight irritation in RQ2 that most Characteristic scores have no influence on the skills outside of extreme scores?

Skill category modifiers are RQ2.5. They calculate like RQ3, but include a broader number of (and often different from RQ3) characteristics. They are, as in RQ3, far more important in determining rate of improvement - especially at the higher skill levels.

I'll be doing a few more design notes in the next few weeks, although probably will focus initially on Rune magic (which interesting enough has a massive impact on RQ2 and 3's problems with higher power characters).

Quote from: richaje;880390We initially were using characteristic + characteristic, but changed that after early playtesting feedback.

Are you able to say anything more about that?  I'm curious about what people disliked about stat+stat.

Quote from: Claudius;880395I think I read somewhere that the new RQ7 was going to have no general hit points. Did I dream it? If that's not the case. I stand corrected.

If I've read recent comments on BRP Central correctly, it looks like that was the original plan, but they recently changed their minds and decided to include Total HP after all.

Quote from: richaje;880390Skills have base chances, skill category modifiers, plus cultural modifiers. We initially were using characteristic + characteristic, but changed that after early playtesting feedback.

Hmm...one of the things I thought was a great change was using Characteristic+Characteristic as the base. But I guess it will be nice to have this game, Mythras, Classic Fantasy, and OpenQuest all on my shelf to pick and choose stuff from.

Quote from: richaje;880399I'll be doing a few more design notes in the next few weeks, although probably will focus initially on Rune magic (which interesting enough has a massive impact on RQ2 and 3's problems with higher power characters).

Jeff's latest design notes, discussing the changes to Rune Magic, now available here: http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-4

Cheers,

MOB
VP - Chaosium

FYI, there has been several new RQ Design Notes posted recently:

In Part Five Jeff discusses combat: http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-5

Part Six discusses what rules are being used from which previous edition: http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-6

Part Seven discusses the "zeroes to heroes" trope: http://www.chaosium.com/blog/designing-the-new-runequest-part-7

Cheers,

MOB
VP - Chaosium