I wonder what is the rationale behind the heavy changes in RQ4. The only answer I can think of is that someone among their marketing managers thinks that the RuneQuest Trademark, having cost them a high price, and having had a greater success than their homemade RPG systems (was there one named Lords of Creation or the like?), can guarantee a good future for the new system.
Allow me to object, if this is the AH marketing gurus' opinion. For all their potential new customers, the name RuneQuest has little or no appeal. If they have heard of it, they probably know it as "an old-fashioned system, with overcomplicated rules, which my uncle Tom used to play in his college years". And a totally new system will not attract RQ2/RQ3 fans, who have had their share of AH's previous product quality (BTW: any news whether Mr. Dobisky is in the artistic team?).
So I am afraid the new RQ may turn out to be a marketing flop, unless it is a real advancement in RPG, which everything lately has claimed to be. Nevertheless, it will stop any form of support for our "beloved" game system in favour of something that has little chances of lasting more than a couple of years (may Orlanth disprove my words).
Can we do anything about this? Well, this is my modest proposal: why don't we all (those interested in RQ, at least, and I shall repost this message to the newborn RQ list as soon as possible) send an e-mail or a slugmail to AH with the following content:
"Dear Sirs, I have greatly appreciated your RuneQuest mark 3 Game, and although I know you are not going to publish any more Gloranthan supplements or co-operating with Chaosium any longer, I would like to see and purchase more fantasy supplements for this system, set in Fantasy Earth or elsewhere. However, since you have clearly stated that the new RuneQuest mark 4 will not be like RQ3, I regret to inform you in advance that I am not interested in another game system or another game world, and so I am not going to purchase the game at all, unless you change your backwards compatibility policy."
"A (hopefully not former) Customer,"
[ add name, age, RPG experiences and type of credit card(s) you own ]
If we can gather enough messages this can show them that there is still a market for the old RQ even without Glorantha, and that the same market, possibly made up of $$$-owning adults, would react badly to an alien system labeled RQ4. Maybe we can convince them to call the new game "AvalonQuest" or the like and restart supporting RQ3. That would be fine, at least until Issaries Inc. produces the new RPG :)
Sincerely Yours (starting on Strike Rank 7)
Paolo Guccione p.guccione_at_geco.it http://www.geco.it/~guccione ------------------------------
Powered by hypermail