Its with great pleasure and excitement that I'm able to announce that The Design Mechanism, the new company formed by myself and Pete Nash, has successfully reached an agreement with Issaries Inc to become the new licensee for RuneQuest. The full Press Release can be found on the RuneQuest page at //www.thedesignmechanism.com along with a detailed Q&A sheet for those who want to know more about what we have in store for RQ.

Greg Stafford, Issaries President, had this to say on the agreement: "RuneQuest is an old, highly respected brand that requires creativity, dedication and knowledge of the product. I know that Loz and Pete have that, plus enthusiasm and professionalism that will keep up the reputation and good name. I am pleased."

Clearly its early days for both Design Mechanism and RuneQuest's 6th edition but we have exciting plans for the game building on the work Pete and I have already done with Mongoose's RuneQuest II and we look forward to sharing them with the roleplaying community as we develop the new rules.

Lawrence

OK. Make it "roll high" instead of "roll low". You take the roll, you add your skill, you add your modifiers, and if you get over 100, you succeed. This has exactly the same probabilities as the system that RuneQuest has always had, except that it is demonstrably superior in several ways:

• Opposed Rolls, such as parrying checks, are much easier. Because the last two digits of your result are your "degree of success".
• Adding multiple modifiers is easier, because you only have one running total.
• Retroactively adding modifiers is much easier, because the player only needs to report one number (the final result).
  
• Hidden modifiers become easier to implement. You start climbing and then you find out that the wall is crumbly (-10%), so you apply the modifier after the player rolls. That is substantially more difficult when the player is rolling against a target number that is already on his character sheet ("If you had had a -10% penalty to your skill, would you still have passed?")

RuneQuest has been through a lot of editions, but it could still seriously be improved by abandoning some of the THAC0ish ideas from the 1970s.

-Frank

Am I the only one to sound a little ungrateful here and unimpressed by the announcement of yet another version/edition of RuneQuest?

There are enough versions in and out of print to fuel my interest, and with another edition looming the prospect of buying a whole new set of books again just doesn't sit well with me.

Quote from: Lawbag;468415Am I the only one to sound a little ungrateful here and unimpressed by the announcement of yet another version/edition of RuneQuest?

There are enough versions in and out of print to fuel my interest, and with another edition looming the prospect of buying a whole new set of books again just doesn't sit well with me.

:confused: Is anyone forcing you to buy "a whole new set of books again"?

RQ6 will be largely compatible with MRQII (based on the FAQ and the fact that the same authors are behind both games), so if you already have MRQII you should be fine.

Now that MRQII is out-of-print, I'm delighted that a version of RQ will be in-print and supported by the same people who made MRQII such an excellent game!

Quote from: Loz;468412Its with great pleasure and excitement that I'm able to announce that The Design Mechanism, the new company formed by myself and Pete Nash, has successfully reached an agreement with Issaries Inc to become the new licensee for RuneQuest. The full Press Release can be found on the RuneQuest page at //www.thedesignmechanism.com along with a detailed Q&A sheet for those who want to know more about what we have in store for RQ.

Greg Stafford, Issaries President, had this to say on the agreement: "RuneQuest is an old, highly respected brand that requires creativity, dedication and knowledge of the product. I know that Loz and Pete have that, plus enthusiasm and professionalism that will keep up the reputation and good name. I am pleased."

Clearly its early days for both Design Mechanism and RuneQuest's 6th edition but we have exciting plans for the game building on the work Pete and I have already done with Mongoose's RuneQuest II and we look forward to sharing them with the roleplaying community as we develop the new rules.

Lawrence

Thank you for letting us know!

I'm of two minds. On the one hand, you did such a great job with with MRQ2 that I'm leery of yet another edition of RuneQuest. On the other hand, you did such a great job with MRQ2 (and other things you wrote), that I only expect the highest quality from you.

Reading the RQ6 FAQ. So RQ6 is not going to be Glorantha-only? Good!

Quote from: Lawbag;468415Am I the only one to sound a little ungrateful here and unimpressed by the announcement of yet another version/edition of RuneQuest?

There are enough versions in and out of print to fuel my interest, and with another edition looming the prospect of buying a whole new set of books again just doesn't sit well with me.

It's true. MRQ2, Legend, RQ6, BRP, OpenQuest, there will be a lot of competition.

If buying more books doesn't sit well with you, you can always stop buying books, or just buy the books you want to. Nobody is forcing you.

Knowing Loz, I expect that the emphasis will be on quality, not quantity, in the new RQ6 line.  (In contrast to a certain other company that recently produced the game...)

The key to it will be different books.

We won't, for instance, be producing books that are remotely similar to the Legend line from Mongoose. Our first releases will be a Griffin Island/Mountain kind of setting and also a book of loosely linked, original, S&S scenarios.

As far as competition goes... yep, its a crowded market. We know that. We're also confident that we can produce an edition of RQ that goes above and beyond what's been produced before, improving on the work we did on MRQII (which, I have to say, got rushed through somewhat and isn't the game Pete and I wanted to put out).

Quote from: FrankTrollman;468414OK. Make it "roll high" instead of "roll low". You take the roll, you add your skill, you add your modifiers, and if you get over 100, you succeed. This has exactly the same probabilities as the system that RuneQuest has always had, except that it is demonstrably superior in several ways:

• Opposed Rolls, such as parrying checks, are much easier. Because the last two digits of your result are your "degree of success".
• Adding multiple modifiers is easier, because you only have one running total.
• Retroactively adding modifiers is much easier, because the player only needs to report one number (the final result).
  
• Hidden modifiers become easier to implement. You start climbing and then you find out that the wall is crumbly (-10%), so you apply the modifier after the player rolls. That is substantially more difficult when the player is rolling against a target number that is already on his character sheet ("If you had had a -10% penalty to your skill, would you still have passed?")

RuneQuest has been through a lot of editions, but it could still seriously be improved by abandoning some of the THAC0ish ideas from the 1970s.

-Frank

Ah, so, RoleMasterQuest...

No, the core mechanics will be staying as they always have been. The system you suggest above was actually tried as part of the original MRQ playtest, back in 2005, and although it works, it introduces all kinds of complications for other elements that lack the overall elegance of the D100 mechanic.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;468414OK. Make it "roll high" instead of "roll low". You take the roll, you add your skill, you add your modifiers, and if you get over 100, you succeed. This has exactly the same probabilities as the system that RuneQuest has always had, except that it is demonstrably superior in several ways:

FUCK. THAT.

Roll-over has the same probabilities as roll-under, but it's not superior, nor inferior. I think you're mistaking your tastes with reality.

QuoteOpposed Rolls, such as parrying checks, are much easier. Because the last two digits of your result are your "degree of success".

Wrong!

Opposed rolls aren't easier nor harder with roll-under. You roll, whoever gets a better degree of success wins, and if the degree of success is the same, he who scored the higher roll wins. I know it's easy, I'm running an MRQ2 game, and it works very well.

QuoteAdding multiple modifiers is easier, because you only have one running total.

Wroong!!

It's easy either way, you just add all the modifiers to your skill, stop making things up.

QuoteRetroactively adding modifiers is much easier, because the player only needs to report one number (the final result).

Wrooong!!!

You can do the same with your final result with roll-under.

And frankly, retroactively adding a modifier after the roll is bullshit.

QuoteHidden modifiers become easier to implement. You start climbing and then you find out that the wall is crumbly (-10%), so you apply the modifier after the player rolls. That is substantially more difficult when the player is rolling against a target number that is already on his character sheet ("If you had had a -10% penalty to your skill, would you still have passed?")

Wroooong!!!!

I fail to see how it is more difficult.

QuoteRuneQuest has been through a lot of editions, but it could still seriously be improved by abandoning some of the THAC0ish ideas from the 1970s.

Like I said. You're mistaking your tastes with reality.

Quote from: Loz;468421The key to it will be different books.

We won't, for instance, be producing books that are remotely similar to the Legend line from Mongoose. Our first releases will be a Griffin Island/Mountain kind of setting and also a book of loosely linked, original, S&S scenarios.

As far as competition goes... yep, its a crowded market. We know that. We're also confident that we can produce an edition of RQ that goes above and beyond what's been produced before, improving on the work we did on MRQII (which, I have to say, got rushed through somewhat and isn't the game Pete and I wanted to put out).

If I understood you correctly, it looks like RQ6 will be very similar to MRQ2, like the MRQ2 you would've published if you had had the last word. Am I right?

If so, I hope Combat Maneuvers will be kept, they were the best part of MRQ2. And if you admit a little suggestion, I would like to have random rolls for culture and profession. Those who like to choose, can choose, and those who like to roll, can roll.

QuoteIf I understood you correctly, it looks like RQ6 will be very similar to MRQ2, like the MRQ2 you would've published if you had had the last word. Am I right?

Yep.

QuoteIf so, I hope Combat Maneuvers will be kept, they were the best part of MRQ2.

Oh, they're staying. We'll be tweaking the way some of them work, adding some new ones, and fixing a few issues that have subsequently emerged since MRQII was released.

QuoteAnd if you admit a little suggestion, I would like to have random rolls for culture and profession. Those who like to choose, can choose, and those who like to roll, can roll.

Thank you! I'll take this onboard. Character creation in general is going through an overhaul, although it will retain the MRQII - erm - character and basics, but with more options and depth. But this is a nice little idea, and its a welcome suggestion.

Just ignore Trolldude.

I'm personally looking forward to buying a slightly different ruleset all over again, because I know Loz and Pete love the game and have serious writing and game design chops.

Quote from: The_Shadow;468431I'm personally looking forward to buying a slightly different ruleset all over again, because I know Loz and Pete love the game and have serious writing and game design chops.

Thank you for your confidence.

We want to make RQ6 more than just slightly different to MRQII/Legend, but we do intend maintaining compatibility. The trick is in making RQ6 as compelling as possible, and there are various ways of doing it.

It will certainly flex our writing and design chops!

Nice to see this represented as "6e".

I got MRQII more for the character generation system than anything else, since it seemed to offer an elaboration/cleanup of the AH RQIII system. Further development would be nice, but I can't see 6e becoming my preferred BRP-derivative unless it offers streamlined options à la Elric!/SB5e/Chaosium BRP.