Reading Playing Against the World and the Arduin thread got me to thinking. Runequest came out in 1978. It was arguably much better produced than D&D at the time and had a more complicated but richer system. Why didn't it do better? I remember for a long time that it was labelled the second most popular fantasy RPG but then it faded. Why?

Was it mishandled by Chaosium? Did the deadly, limb lopping combat system not appeal to the masses? Insights or thoughts?

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;592256Runequest came out in 1978.

"Get there the firstest with the mostest." - J.E.B. Stuart.

OD&D had 4 years of market kinetic energy propelling it along.  It had probably a half-million adherents.  The Monster Manual and Players Handbook had come out, the Dungeon Masters Guide was around the corner; fantasy gamers were salivating, waiting for whatever Uncle Gary had for them next.  Promises and rumors of "adventure modules" from TSR were floating around, and Judges Guild and other companies were either brazenly or on the sly producing D&D compatible stuff.

Fantasy role-play was (is) D&D, D&D was (is) fantasy role-play.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;592256Reading Playing Against the World and the Arduin thread got me to thinking. Runequest came out in 1978. It was arguably much better produced than D&D at the time and had a more complicated but richer system. Why didn't it do better? I remember for a long time that it was labelled the second most popular fantasy RPG but then it faded. Why?

Was it mishandled by Chaosium? Did the deadly, limb lopping combat system not appeal to the masses? Insights or thoughts?

Glorantha is weird combined with the fact D&D was first and good enough.

Drawing a maze with room on a piece of graph paper combined with the simplicity of D&D stats is several order of magnitude easier than anything Runequest had or could do. And this was largely true of many D&D competitors.

With the notable exception of Tunnels and Trolls, most of the RPGs that tried to compete directly with D&D tried go head to head by offering more details. More "realistic combat", more character option, etc. What this did was made their game more complex and less appealing to the novice. About the only game I recall, that came close to D&D in simplicity yet was distinctly different was Melee and Wizardry however that had a history of being a wargame first.

Quote from: AnthonyRoberson;592256Reading Playing Against the World and the Arduin thread got me to thinking. Runequest came out in 1978. It was arguably much better produced than D&D at the time and had a more complicated but richer system. Why didn't it do better? I remember for a long time that it was labelled the second most popular fantasy RPG but then it faded. Why?

Was it mishandled by Chaosium? Did the deadly, limb lopping combat system not appeal to the masses? Insights or thoughts?

One of the guys in my group loved runequest so we used to pay it between D&D when I was younger. I think, in addition to not being first, the "more complicated but richer system" is a big part of why it never fully overcame D&D. I think it faded because that kind of complexity fell out of fashion. But a lot of people still like runequest. I happen to think it is a great system.

Runequest seems to have been enormously successful. It had a lot of active players and a lot of supplements. Here are two reasons it may have fallen out of favour:

• A lot like Tékumel, Glorantha moved from being a culture-infused adventure setting to heavier cultural simulation. That was probably good for the most vocal audience, but not for many others.
• In the 80s, Chaosium sold RQ to Avalon Hill, who produced a new third edition that was more historical and less about Glorantha, but did not meet with as much approval as the older editions. It also had less good support, and as it dwindled, so did the player base.

Quote from: estar;592261Glorantha is weird combined with the fact D&D was first and good enough.

Drawing a maze with room on a piece of graph paper combined with the simplicity of D&D stats is several order of magnitude easier than anything Runequest had or could do. And this was largely true of many D&D competitors.

With the notable exception of Tunnels and Trolls, most of the RPGs that tried to compete directly with D&D tried go head to head by offering more details. More "realistic combat", more character option, etc. What this did was made their game more complex and less appealing to the novice. About the only game I recall, that came close to D&D in simplicity yet was distinctly different was Melee and Wizardry however that had a history of being a wargame first.

Not a comment yet on the OP, but just a +1 becasue this is exactly how I started.  I was introduced to T&T and Melee/Wizard (in that plastic pouch that I also got GEV in) right before D&D.  I played Runequest and a few others, but this is how I remember it, and the straightforwardness of the system was still what attracted me and many others to it,. along with the fact that D&D lent itself to houseruling easily and had a steady pipeline of new stuff and Dragon Magazine coming.

The ironic thing is by 83 I had houseruled my D&D game so much I scrapped it and went Skillbased since then.  But in the later 70s and early 80s, D&D was plain old easier to play, easier to find the books and rules, and most of all, easiest to get a game going with.

Sort of two different questions here.
1) Why didn't RQ do better than D&D?
As most people said, never underestimate the power of first, the power of availability and the power of good enough. One way to see that in action is in the UK from 1980-82 when RQ outsold D&D. It was produced cheaply by Games Workshop and you could find it everywhere. I got my copy from a shelf in a newsagent (convenience store.)

Complexity is a bit of a misnomer. I would argue that Stormbringer 1st ed is less complex than AD&D. Indeed, if it had been the first version of what became BRP released and had been released as a 'generic' fantasy system, I think it might have done better than RQ. So at the risk of arguing with myself, a less crunchy form of the system might have sold better as a direct competitor to D&D or it might just have imploded on the basis that it would have looked too much like D&D in drag. RQ was very definitely different from D&D which meant that in some ways it wasn't a direct competitor; there were very different pleasures from playing RQ instead of D&D.  It was Dr Pepper vs Coke rather than Pepsi vs coke.

The second question is possibly why, after such a good start, didn't it do better than it did? That's a long and sorry story which has been well detailed on the intertubes. Pretty much everything which could go wrong, did. It's a testament to the strength of the system that it has survived as well as it has.

My playing gang converted from D&D to RQ in about 82 and never looked back. The products put out by Chaosium back in those days were astonishing for both quality and fun (when Glorantha was mostly about fun). I couldn't wait for each new thing...but I often had to.

First this happened:

QuoteIn the 80s, Chaosium sold RQ to Avalon Hill, who produced a new third edition that was more historical and less about Glorantha, but did not meet with as much approval as the older editions. It also had less good support, and as it dwindled, so did the player base.

I disagree about approval of the system - for many of us, it was the ideal tool to play RQ without Glorantha without having to do nearly as much houseruling as with Chaosium's original. The rules were pretty good. I still use them now occasionally (with my kids). But with the exception of great boxed sets on Vikings and Land of Ninja, the product issued by AH was either just revisions of older material in a less attractive format (some legendarily bad art), or simply crap. It took a long time for a brief renaissance to appear, which was excellent material with improved art, but all Gloranthan (Sun County, Dorastar, River of Cradles, Borderlands, Strangers in Prax). Nothing new for anyone else.

But at the same time, this was happening:

QuoteA lot like Tékumel, Glorantha moved from being a culture-infused adventure setting to heavier cultural simulation. That was probably good for the most vocal audience, but not for many others.

It took the fun out of it. And you'll still sometimes see stuff on the forums (one on TBP recently) where people are being advised how to 'teach' their players how to play in Glorantha - ie to conform to the cultural simulation. You can keep that.

Then Mongoose fluffed the revival of the System with MRQ1, nearly saved it with the excellent MRQ2 before losing the licence, and by their account were OK to lose it because it wasn't shifting. And BRP was (is) out there, Legend, Openquest and more on the way (Magic World).

There are still a lot of people playing RQ, they just call it something else.

New RQ6 (from the Design Mechanism) is excellent - the polished, Rolls Royce rework of MRQ2. And much as I don't wish ill on all the other RQ-derived games, the system's premier problems as a product line is that RQ (and BRP/OQ/Legend etc) has a fraction of D&D's share, and that's now fragmented across many actual products and publishers. It's competing with itself even as it competes with other systems in the "non D&D" market.  I hope the RQ name coupled with a great rework of the system and two very talented guys in charge (Lawrence Whittaker and Pete Nash) will gain some momentum and encourage new people to try it out rather than just force old grognards like me to put a new shelf up.

Quote from: Iron Simulacrum;592276New RQ6 (from the Design Mechanism) is excellent - the polished, Rolls Royce rework of MRQ2. And much as I don't wish ill on all the other RQ-derived games, the system's premier problems as a product line is that RQ (and BRP/OQ/Legend etc) has a fraction of D&D's share, and that's now fragmented across many actual products and publishers. It's competing with itself even as it competes with other systems in the "non D&D" market.  I hope the RQ name coupled with a great rework of the system and two very talented guys in charge (Lawrence Whittaker and Pete Nash) will gain some momentum and encourage new people to try it out rather than just force old grognards like me to put a new shelf up.

I've been told by Lawrence Whitaker that Design Mechanism plans to get RQ6 on solid footing before going into Glorantha stuff. So, it seems to me that this will be the RQ that you've been wanting.  The only issue I think is the competition between RQ6 and Legend, but with Legend's low cost $1 rules PDF, I think fans of one will be fans of the other, stealing ideas from Legend for their RQ6 campaigns.  I will let folks know how things turn out, as I will be running a twice monthly RQ6 game over Skype.

First, simple, come on.  Yeah those are factors, but hardly insurmountable ones.
The 800lb walktapus in the room is, Glorantha is simply "too weird to be big".  

Which is the more popular group of fantasy authors?
A. Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, Howard
B. Campbell, Jung

Which is the more popular group of fantasy characters?
A. Tolkienian Elves, Dwarves, Halflings
B. Tree-Elves (literally), Metallic Dwarves, Ducks

Structure of the world, names of things, iconic monsters, just line them up side by side and it's easy to see why.

Quote from: CRKrueger;592288First, simple, come on.  Yeah those are factors, but hardly insurmountable ones.
The 800lb walktapus in the room is, Glorantha is simply "too weird to be big".  

Which is the more popular group of fantasy authors?
A. Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, Howard
B. Campbell, Jung

Which is the more popular group of fantasy characters?
A. Tolkienian Elves, Dwarves, Halflings
B. Tree-Elves (literally), Metallic Dwarves, Ducks

Structure of the world, names of things, iconic monsters, just line them up side by side and it's easy to see why.

I'm a huge Glorantha fan, but I generally agree.  Campbell nor Jung are not fantasy authors, however.

I think Glorantha will do fine in it's niche, and I'm glad that RQ is back and is a viable alternative to the D&D games.

Quote from: CRKrueger;592288First, simple, come on.  Yeah those are factors, but hardly insurmountable ones.
The 800lb walktapus in the room is, Glorantha is simply "too weird to be big".  

Which is the more popular group of fantasy authors?
A. Tolkien, Leiber, Vance, Howard
B. Campbell, Jung

Which is the more popular group of fantasy characters?
A. Tolkienian Elves, Dwarves, Halflings
B. Tree-Elves (literally), Metallic Dwarves, Ducks

Structure of the world, names of things, iconic monsters, just line them up side by side and it's easy to see why.

Or if not 'weird', less related to the dominant industry/cultural paradigms.  And early D&D was very easily associated to those paradigms.

Its about greed.

In D&D the class & level system meant players got better and could measure their better-ness the people that played longer and more got much better and could bully the newbies. In RQ you can do that to a degree but a lucky arrow or a well planned ambush will kill you because its more relaistic.

Also in D&D you got more stuff, magical stuff.

its the same thing you see in MMOs. I recall when Everquest stopped you looting the bodies of fallen PCs because althought it was far more realistic it cost them players and it cost them the players that had invested most time and therefore were likley to go on investing time and money.
the nerdy kids that play most get a direct benefit in a levelling system where collecting stuff is key. RQ doesn;t give you that direct correlation.

Quote from: CRKrueger;592288First, simple, come on.  Yeah those are factors, but hardly insurmountable ones.
The 800lb walktapus in the room is, Glorantha is simply "too weird to be big".

I am not so sure. A lot of D&D represents a huge departure from mainstream fantasy - beholders, spell memorisation, gelatinous cubes and all that. They are familiar now, but I know a lot of people who had trouble with the game because it didn't do fantasy 'right'. In many respects Glorantha may be closer to that mainstream.

Quote from: Kaiu Keiichi;592292I'm a huge Glorantha fan, but I generally agree.  Campbell nor Jung are not fantasy authors, however.

That was my point.