Runequest and the Irony Of Open-Source

[RPGPundit]

So now Mongoose is taking a crack at doing a new version of the Runequest game, which has had a long and varied history of ups and downs: Its original publication by Chaosium was revolutionary on many levels.  Then came the second edition, which was even better.  Then the Avalon Hill version, that wasn't.

Then things got wierd: Heroquest, not to be mistaken with the vastly superior milton-bradley boardgame of the same name, was a narrativist piece of junk that took the Glorantha setting away from Runequest and put it in a land of superheros.  The whole thing was actually the Swine's rehersal for Exalted, the first time they clued into the fact that you can be a pretentious cunt AND a total powergaming munchkin freak, combining the most despicable and second most despicable archetypes of our gaming hobby, previously thought to be uncombinable opposites of the great spectrum.

And now, Mongoose somehow got the rights to the name Runequest. As far as I understand it, that's all they had the rights for, though they apparently are also publishing the  Glorantha setting so they must have worked out the rights for that too.

One thing I know they DON'T have the rights for is the Chaosium rules for Runequest. Those rules being the "basic roleplaying" system, the same one that powers Call of Cthulhu and Elric.

So what does Mongoose do? It rips off the rules anyways.

You see, little known fact here: game companies can't actually copyright the rules of a game.  They can copyright the specific rulebooks, so you can't just cut and paste the rules and publish them yourself.  But as long as your actual rulebook is original, your RULES don't have to be. Anyone can publish D&D, or Call of Cthulhu, or Vampire the Masquerade, or True 20, as long as they re-write the rulebook.

Frankly, I'm surprised that more companies haven't decided to do that.  I'm also kind of surprised that Mongoose would be the first, and not some small-time no-name company.

But here's the kicker: Mongoose has now released a statement, in the ultimate of hypocritical irony, that their upcoming Runequest rules will be "open source".

Well, fuck. Of course they will be you stupid shits. If you've ripped the rules off someone else, you can't well declare them "closed source" and complain when someone else rips "your" rules off.

Still, what dire or marvellous consequences does Mongoose's radical move hold for the future of gaming? Will it be a flash in the pan, or does this mean that now the fundamental illusion of "open source", namely that somehow game rules can be "closed", has been blown away forever, and are we about to usher in a new age of rampant rules-borrowing without "open content" licenses?  Will it mean that now, EVERYTHING is Open Gaming Content?

Only time will tell.

RPGPundit December 15 2005

[beejazz]

Hell... that might not be so bad.

[ChalkLine]

A friend of mine was a playtester, they pleaded Mongoose not to include some of the systems they were using and pointed out logical incostencies within the mechanics. No avail.

He said to me 'Don't buy it, it's crap' so I didn't. So take my comments with a grain of salt. Obviously though, I trust his judgement.

HeroQuest is exactly what we deserved for letting GS be such a tosser for so long. That and the 'I can change the setting as we go along and you have to beg me to include it in my vision' attitude. Yech.

I still play RQ3 weekly.

[droog]

I still play RQ3 weekly.

So do some friends of mine.

[Kyle Aaron]

"exactly what we deserved," etc... Why the hate for HeroQuest? :huhsign:

[Spike]

I've got RQ4, and I fail to understand the 'logical inconsistency' comment.  Like any RPG it shows its designers prejudices a bit, but to be perfectly honest, I've printed out an older RQ character sheet this morning and I fully expect to be able to use it with almost no modification for the Mongoose RQ. It's that similar to me.

The big issue with RQ4 for me is the damn thinness of the books. There are too many books for too few pages of information, and it's DAMN annoying.

[Casey777]

Right now I'm just downloading the MRQ SRDs and mixing it with BRP core and other sources to taste. The early books esp. seem to have a bit rushed* and are thinnish, some could've been combined (RQ+Companion, Cults I & II, Monsters+Equipment together or at least put into RQ, etc.). But I'm not running Mongoose and what do I know.

http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/

RuneQuest SRD PDF - combines the Runequest and Companion SRDs into one nicely formatted PDF
Monsters SRD PDF

That wiki has some good houserules as well.

From what I've seen RQ4 usually referrs to the botched late Avalon Hill attempts to make another Runequest, sometimes also used to refer to Runequest: Slayers (Runeslayer). The History of Runequest goes into this in detail. MRQ is the more common abbreviation for Mongoose's Runequest.


* I do have general concerns about Mongoose products that could really have used 1-2 more passes, a touch more time on the art (direction), some wonky rules and general m3h - Arquebus as s shorter musket rifle "We know it isn't a rifle but used the term most familiar with gamers" being a recent example (but yet arquebus and musket are? )

[arminius]

Nice work, Casey777.

[jhkim]

On the original topic, I have to concur with "open source" rules being a redundancy.  (Agreeing with Pundit?  Gasp! :-)  I've got a section of my RPG site on Games & Copyright where I cover the topic.  The only consequence I can see about Mongoose's move is that more people may realize that the OGL is pretty hollow and go back to the pre-OGL practice of just taking ideas from other games.  

Right now I'm just downloading the MRQ SRDs and mixing it with BRP core and other sources to taste. The early books esp. seem to have a bit rushed* and are thinnish, some could've been combined (RQ+Companion, Cults I & II, Monsters+Equipment together or at least put into RQ, etc.). But I'm not running Mongoose and what do I know.

http://mrqwiki.pbwiki.com/

RuneQuest SRD PDF - combines the Runequest and Companion SRDs into one nicely formatted PDF
Monsters SRD PDF

That wiki has some good houserules as well.

Nice.  I've added a link to the wiki to my SRD page (which includes an HTML version of the Runic SRD).  

My SRD Page

That said, I don't have much interest in the Mongoose RQ -- it looked pretty pointless to me.  For my RQ-variant Vikings-in-the-New-World campaign, I had cobbled together a BRP set of rules using bits from the Avalon Hill RQ, which had the nicest components and a decent Vikings module, but pared down to a much more rules-lite set.

[Casey777]

To clarify, none of that's actual work of mine, I'm just the link poster. MRQwiki is run by Tim Huntly of Sereaphim Guard. Not connected with them, and I've yet to buy *any* MRQ/derived works.

The "mixing it" is an ongoing BRP homebrew/houserules thing of mine with nothing ready for online yet.

I've added a link to the wiki to my SRD page (which includes an HTML version of the Runic SRD).  

My SRD Page

Excellent. Your HTML version is good too, and that SRD page is handy. I usually point people if I use more than one link to both the MRQwiki and your HTML version.

On topic: Some of it might be not wanting to wind up like Palladium vs. WotC or T$R's later days (with GDW in particular). Sure there may be no real legal grounds to a case but that matters little when a lot of RPG companies are just a step above one person working during spare time if that.

- Casey "Hunter-gatherer of URLs"