Quote from: Cole;453475Just how bad are the flaws of the thing?

It's not fatal, it's just a lot of stuff like "Dodge" instead of "Evade" for the skill name. I think the weapons table had some bigger or more sustained screw-ups, since it's reproduced in full in the errata.

Quote from: Benoist;453474Vikings' really, really good. And about A&E guide: isn't all that boats and marbles and all that stuff just a matter of extrapolating from the price lists in the main MRQ2 book? Is there more to it than that (beyond attributing a damage value for a gun, I mean)?

Yes and no. Magic weapons and making them are in the book. If you're good at making stuff up, it's true, you can get by without it. I'm planning to hand it to PCs for them to look through though, instead of having to come up with ideas themselves and ask me if they exist.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;453477Yes and no. Magic weapons and making them are in the book. If you're good at making stuff up, it's true, you can get by without it. I'm planning to hand it to PCs for them to look through though, instead of having to come up with ideas themselves and ask me if they exist.

Would it be any use to someone playing the BRP version of runequest or is it very dependent on elements unique to MRQ?

Quote from: Cole;453478Would it be any use to someone playing the BRP version of runequest or is it very dependent on elements unique to MRQ?

Mainly useful if you're interested in MRQ2, just because a lot of the value of the book is the stats for things. It's a good gear list, but there are a lot of those around anyhow.

Quote from: Cole;453475Just how bad are the flaws of the thing?

The text is sometimes inconsistent with RuneQuest II Core Rules or has descriptions of things that are not in tables, entries in tables that are not described or table entries that don't match their descriptions. The naval battle section is incomplete, and was not intended for inclusion in the volume.

It appears Mongoose is not planning a new printing. I would probably go with a PDF if the errata is incorporated.

A&E Errata can be found here

Quote from: Benoist;453398You read Blood Magic already?

It's a book full of alternate magical systems for MRQII written by Pete Nash and not rewritten by Kevin Siembieda.  Yeah it's a must-have.  

To add to what others have said, I have found that picking up the A&E guide pdf at a not entirely unreasonable price combined with the errata is actually pretty dang helpful, especially if you have a pdf editor like I do.

Quote from: CRKrueger;453529It's a book full of alternate magical systems for MRQII written by Pete Nash and not rewritten by Kevin Siembieda.  Yeah it's a must-have.  

I concur. Based on what I know about Mr. Nash's writing through owning several of Pete's books, combined with his own description of this book, I would buy it right now, sight unseen, without hesitation.

For me, part of the beauty of MRQII is that you really only need the Corebook and Monster Colosseum to run a pretty rocking game. Anything else is just gravy.

Beyond those two, I would recommend:

Arms and Equipment: For all its flaws, I quite dug its enchantment system. I've also yet to run an RPG for a group that doesn't have at least one player who is obsessed with gear.

Elric of Melniboné: Not essential by any means, but the summoning system in the game is pretty hot, dream magic is pretty cool and the pacts provide some great options and inspirations if you want to veer into gonzo, cosmic, multiversal fantasy. A good book to plunder for other settings.

Finally, I wouldn't recommend:

Empires: I really, really wanted to like this book. The section on Guilds and Factions is kind of useful, but generally I found that this supplement too cumbersome. It largely layered on a separate war game that was a bit too detailed and dissociated from the PCs for my tastes. It reminded me of Traveller 4th Edition's Pocket Empires when I wanted something looser like Reign's company rules or Starblazer Adventure's organization rules. YMMV, of course.

Quote from: Benoist;453317In terms of setting information, are they inventing stuff that was not in Moorcock's novels?
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Doesn't Elric use runes in Troos?  
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All of that stuff about the variety fo magic and all sounds cool to me. Thanks for the detail. Is demon and elemental summoning working in a similar way than it was with Stormbringer, or is it a completely different system altogether?
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Well, the material in the novels relating to the powers available to the agents of Law is much thinner than the mass of information available about the Dukes. I imagine the authors of the game extrapolated a fair bit there, yes?  
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Certainly sounds worth a look, that's for sure. Weren't you a huge fan of Stormbringer before you found out about Elric of Melniboné? The game must have really struck a chord with you, that seems pretty clear.

I think, Benoist, that Loz and Pete have answered your queries far, far better than I ever could hope to.

As for your final question, yes, I was a huge fan of Chaosium's Elric!, ever since I first purchased it in 1994.  It's my favourite game that I never actually managed run.  (I did run Hawkmoon in the 1980s, though, but that version is more related to SB 1e/2e).

But, yeah, Loz's Elric of Melnibone book surpasses Elric! (and Stormbringer 1-5e) is every respect.  (Well, except one: the Chaosium covers were much better than the Mongoose one.)