From: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
Sender: RuneQuest-Request@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RQ Digest Maintainer)
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To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (Daily automated RQ-Digest)
Reply-To: RuneQuest@Glorantha.Holland.Sun.COM (RuneQuest Daily)
Subject: RuneQuest Daily, Fri, 10 Dec 1993, part 1
Message-ID:
Precedence: junk
X-RQ-ID: Intro
This is the RuneQuest Daily Bulletin, a mailing list on
the subjects of Avalon Hill's RPG and Greg Stafford's
world of Glorantha. It is sent out once per day in digest
format.
More details on the RuneQuest Daily and Digest can be found
after the last message in this digest.
---------------------
From: MOBTOTRM@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au
Subject: Lost City Stays Lost
Message-ID: <01H6BO5L9QXM91XBF3@vaxc.cc.monash.edu.au>
Date: 11 Dec 93 05:23:55 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2602
Colin Watson writes:
>For the record, I really liked "Eldarad". I've only played it (not read it)
>so my impression could be more due to the work of the GM & the antics of
>the players rather than the material as published
As I consider Eldarad not only the worst RQ supplement, but one
of the worst RPG products ever published, I can only assume this was the case.
>; however the GM who ran it for us considers it to be his favourite RQ
>publication.
How many does he own? One? Have you seen Big Rubble, which Eldarad is a
shameless and very poor copy of?
>I get the impression that most of the published Gloranthan stuff is really
>nice to read, but only so-so to play.
Whereas Eldarad was so-so to read (putting it kindly), and for you, nice to
play.
In my opinion, Eldarad marks the absolute nadir of RQ, brought out under
Ken Rolston's predecessor, who, through no fault of his, found himself in
charge of a product line he had never played, with virtually no editing
or publishing experience.
Just in case Colin's comments prompt you to go out and buy that yellowing
remaindered copy of Eldarad that's been gathering dust in your local game
store (next to the $24.00 character sheet pads from 1984), here's a review
from the time, and a letter to AH from a disgruntled purchaser:
ELDARAD, THE LOST CITY
In several ways, THE LOST CITY OF ELDARAD is a radical departure from
previous AVALON HILL RuneQuest products. Unfortunately, it is not a
successful departure.
Written and developed without CHAOSIUM influence, ELDARAD is set firmly
in RuneQuest Gateway, although, as with Griffin Island, the usual half-
hearted attempt has been made to find a place for it in Glorantha. Like
Griffin Island, this section smacks of contrivance and probably won't wash
with most ardent Gloranthaphiles. I guess then, ELDARAD is aimed at those
who play RQ outside the Glorantha campaign world. Such players must be
warned, because although the NPCs described within might be worshippers
of the "Storm God" or "The God of Mercenaries", they use divine magic
right out of GODS OF GLORANTHA and TROLL GODS, and there's no "Deluxe
Rules" section in ELDARAD to help out Gamemasters who haven't got
access to these works.
Unlike previous productions, ELDARAD comes in a card wallet, which unfolds
into a full-colour 22" x 17" map of the lost city. In addition, there are
also two smaller maps on the inside covers. James Holloway's cover art
is polished, yet generic, and shows a mysterious man standing in front
of the ruins of the city. Sadly, the ruins themselves are all but
invisible, obscured by the back-cover blurb. This minor quibble aside,
I am very impressed with this new packaging concept. Like a box, the
wallet still protects the flimsily-covered books within, yet doubles as
the maps which, being printed on heavy card stock, should last a lot
longer than those printed on paper.
Inside, you get the 54 page "City Book" , the 57 page "Adventure Book"
(not 64 pages, as claimed in the blurb), a 32 page Map Book, a nicely
painted map of the lands around Eldarad and a game aids chart.
The campaign map really shows off D. Dobyski's skill at Graphic
design
(shame about the glaring AVALON HILL GAME COMPANY logo stuck on it that
upsets the whole effect). Unfortunately, the rest of the maps don't come
up to this standard, in particular, most of the building plans in the Map
Book are quite uninspired. In fact, the map book as a whole is a
shambles. Unlike the other two books, it is devoid of both an index
and page numbers, which makes finding your way around it difficult.
What's more, although you may be reading about a specific place in
either the "City Book or the "Adventure Book", it's up to you to go to
the Map Book to see if there's actually a map of the place you're reading
about! One wonders why an omission such as this was not picked up and
rectified during the editing process.
The illustrations are again the full-page format of recent AH
productions, although they are a slight improvement over those in
TROLL GODS or ELDER SECRETS. Unfortunately, both artists have
elected not to ink their sketches, which give them an unfinished
look. Evidently production constraints force AH to only use full-
page illos, but I couldn't help thinking these pics would have
looked better in reduction.
Well, what exactly is THE LOST CITY OF ELDARAD? To quote from
the introduction, "Eldarad is an ancient, ruined city, famous world-
wide... ...Eldarad is no longer a functional city... it is a great
mass of ruins, haunted by looters, ragged warriors, adventurers,
beggars, and worse, all searching for gain or trying to survive."
Hey! Hang on a minute, doesn't this all sound familiar? I draw your
attention to the 1983 RQII production "BIG RUBBLE". In its
introduction we read "The Big Rubble is a vast area enclosed by
giant-built walls... only thousands of acres of ruin and destruction
remain, full of robbers, outcastes and inhuman monsters." Yes,
unfortunately,
, ELDARAD is a lot like BIG RUBBLE, and it is inevitable
that comparisons will be made.
After suggestions as to where Eldarad could be placed (including 3
pointless maps showing various routes to the sea), the "City Book"
begins with a potted history of the Eldarad region. It's a dull read,
lacking the flair, imagination and scope of the background material in
either BIG RUBBLE or PAVIS. Who the original founders of Eldarad were
is left vague, except that they were "great tomb builders" who left
"much wealth". We are told that "knowledge of their habits, language
and even their appearance has been lost in the river of time". They
must be pretty featureless tombs then!
The author recommends that player characters should not be Eldarad
locals, because of unexplained "inherent problems". My guess is
that much of the adventuring activity suggested involves looting
tombs, and the locals take a dim view of grave robbers. Why is this
necessarily a problem?
Why couldn't an adventuring party consist of outraged locals
defending their sacred sites against the greedy outsiders?
What follows next is perhaps the best feature of ELDARAD. Eldarad has
a barter economy, and the author has devised an interesting system of
"Barter Classes" to determine the relative value of items. For example,
an item from Barter Class 1 is equivalent to 1 day's labour (1 silver
coin, 5 candles, bundle of firewood, stabling for one night, etc.). An
item from Barter Class 5 though, is worth 500 day's labour (500 silver
coins, a freight wagon, a complete suit of bezainted armour, 75 carats
worth of gems, etc.). Even information can be purchased by Barter class.
For ease of reference, the Barter Class listings are repeated on the game
aids chart. This Barter system could be adapted for use in many RQ
settings. Next time you buy a drink at Gimpys, you might pay for it
with a small bag of salt, or a cheap knife!
Another interesting idea is that of the Withered Oak, an old tree at a
Trading Post which has messages stuck on it; this tree is meant to be
used as the focal point for adventurers seeking employment. My only
reservation is that in a largely illiterate society, how effective a
means of communication would such a tree be?
The rest of the City Book is taken up with encounter tables and
unnecessarily detailed building descriptions. Moving around Eldarad
seems to be a little like the randomly generated D&D dungeon of old.
Locations are randomly rolled, which must make a consistent mapping
approach to the city difficult. Specific locations are also detailed,
including a Storm God temple, a section of the Artisan's Quarter, a
sorcerer's tower, a thieves' den, a chaos garden (in which encounters
happen at the incredible rate of one per melee round!) , and so on.
Whereas BIG RUBBLE gave the Gamemaster a 96 page book with 7
separate scenarios, the ELDARAD "Adventures Book" contains but 2
scenarios which occupy only 24 pages, 13 if you don't count illustrations
or stats. There are also 2 1/2 pages of Scenario Ideas, which look as if
they were added as an afterthought. The rest of the book contains
descriptions of areas around the city, similar in style and format to
that in the City Book. I suspect that the only reason why this section
was included in the Adventure Book was to pad it out to a respectable
length.
The first scenario "The Gray Plague" has been designed for
characters newly-arrived in the lost city. The characters are hired by
a resident to break up a protection racket. The scenario contains a far
more menacing sub-plot (given away in the title), but the players have no
way of knowing this. Because they are given no clues about the gray
plague, even if their actions prevent it from happening, they'll never
know they did. If the plague does appear it's unlikely the PCs will
relate the event to themselves, and in any case, once it's begun they
have no way of stopping it.
The second scenario, "Power Play" is a lot better, albeit confusingly
written and padded out with tedious room descriptions. It involves
the characters in a kidnap, then, as an interesting plot twist, the
victim's father hires the PCs to get his daughter back!
ELDARAD is something of a treasure bonanza for player adventurers. The
tombs might be difficult to find and get into, but hold amazing quantities
of loot, including extremely powerful magic items. However, I suspect that
many PCs won't bother risking life and limb out in the wilderness when
they learn what many of Eldarad's local inhabitants carry about on
themselves. Take out one 67% rapierman and you get his sword, which
instantly withers any hit location it strikes (exactly how this item works
is not very clear). His 53% pal possess a 7-point divine magic matrix
worth 25,000 L to the grain cult!! Interestingly, neither has a weapon
parry better than 26%. Eldarad also has its resident sorcerer, who
naturally possesses both a Create Vampire and an Immortality matrix.
True, the grossed-out Halcyon Var Enkorth in Griffin Island has both,
but the ELDARAD sorcerer is a pushover by comparison.
Unlike PAVIS, BIG RUBBLE or that masterpiece of RQII scenario
packs BORDERLANDS, ELDARAD is a chore to read and, I suspect, would
be a chore to play. It is not helped by the unimaginative layout and
generally clumsy writing style throughout. We can perhaps forgive the
odd typo, e.g. nomads consistently "wonder" about in ELDARAD, but the
author has an annoying habit of putting superfluous detail in brackets
all the time, sometimes up to three times in a paragraph. As an example,
in The Adventure Book we are told "The tomb contains the corpse of a
woman (determined by the mode of dress)". Surely it would've been
simpler to write, "the tomb contains a corpse in woman's clothing".
We also have to contend with contrived dramatic devices, such as the
plot device who speaks using... ...irritating pregnant... ...pauses...
...for no apparent reason. I thought it was only in games like PARANOIA
that NPCs spoke like that. There are also some quite bizarre mixed
metaphors.
We are told during the description of Old Irnal the shearer
that "...one can make a right pigs ear of a fleece if one does not know
what one is doing"?! Particularly grating is the author's refusal
to acknowledge the existence of compound words or hyphens:
instead of "down-on-their-luck bodyguards", you'll have to struggle
through "down on their luck body guards". The author is also not
afraid to split infinitives or insert, commas, in the most unlikely of
places.
I tried to like ELDARAD, honestly I did! It represents a new
editorial direction at AVALON HILL(Nick Atlas, whose since gone
through the revolving door at AH) , and is part of a sincere attempt
to bolster RQ's flagging sales. Unfortunately, it lacks almost
everything the old RQ II top-sellers had: clear, concise writing,
imaginative background, exciting scenarios and impressive production
standards. When one thinks of the projects AH could have run with -
PRAX PACK, PENT PACK and several others of an equally high standard -
one wonders why the heck they chose ELDARAD. I suspect the reason might
have something to do with ELDARAD being non-Gloranthan, and therefore,
not subject to the stringent, high standards CHAOSIUM demands for
AH's Gloranthan pieces.
Sadly, if ELDARAD bombs, and I have every reason to think it will,
AH's newly-found enthusiasm for their troublesome role-playing game
could quickly wane. For this reason, I hope it sells like wildfire.
But I doubt it.
ELDARAD - ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE
By Graeme Prowse
This article is taken from a letter sent to Nick Atlas, the RuneQuest
Editor at Avalon Hill.
I fairly recently acquired a copy of the latest release for RuneQuest
(RQ) i.e. "Eldarad The Lost City". This is my reaction about the release.
This feedback takes the form of my impressions of reading the whole
supplement, start to finish. At least, that was my intent.
To give you some idea of my background, I have played RQ since 1984,
and own copies of almost all published information about both RQII and
RQIII.
Firstly, the cover/map. The cover artwork is very impressive, conveying
an air of mystery about the grim figure striding out of the mist.
However, there seems to be no connection between the figure a lost city.
Where is it? Is the man looking for it? Is he lost?
>MOB: If you look very carefully on the back cover, you can just pick out
what look like ruins, obscured by the mist and by the very badly
placed advertising hype slapped on top of it. Other writing on the back
cover also proclaims that Eldarad was "created and developed by
CHAOSIUM Inc." Like the claim on the back cover of Daughters of
Darkness that Daughters contains NINE scenarios, this too is
misleading. CHAOSIUM "created and developed" the original
RuneQuest system: it had *nothing* to do with Eldarad at all.
The description of the supplement on the back cover states that
"multitudes" have come to Eldarad to seek their fame and fortune.
If the city is truly "lost", as the title states, how did so many people
get there? The basic inconsistency strikes at the very base of the
reasoning behind the supplement, which appears to be a large lost city,
waiting to be plundered by a group of hardy fortune-seekers.
Opening up the cover, maps of the Artisan's Quarter and the Slums are
seen. These appear to be fairly well thought-out and eminently useable.
Minor quibbles that occur to me include:
1. A ruin-grading system similar in concept to the one used in the
RQ2 supplement "Big Rubble" may have had application here. Many of the
people who play RQ do so for the realism that it provides. This
gives scenario/supplement writers a high standard to aim for. Breaking
down ruins into "useable" and "unuseable" seems a bit too simplistic. I'm
sure that CHAOSIUM would have allowed the use of the rubble grading system
in Eldarad. In contrast, the random character charts have *five*
different levels of ruins. Consistency is a necessary part of any
good supplement.
2. Perhaps the two maps could have been combined into one. This would
have made tracking the movement of player characters easier.
The main map is quite well-executed, and easily gives the GM the overall
feel for the city and what general areas it contains.
The map of the Chaos Quarter and Lost Quarter is very poorly done. It
appears to be hastily put together, and nowhere near the quality of the
other maps. The main map gives much better quality information about
these areas. The location lists could have perhaps been incorporated
into the main map.
A basic problem that reduces the usefulness of all the maps considerably is
that *none* of them has a scale of distance that can be related to any
other. For instance the main map shows the Artisans Quarter to be
approximately 1.5 kms in size east-west, the specific map of that
quarter shows it be over 3 kms wide, whilst the CHaos/Lost Quarter
map shows it be less than half a km wide! These maps should flow
together better than this. At this point I began to question whether
the supplement was proofread at all. A GM of Eldarad cannot trust the
published maps at all without recalibrating the scales and proofreading
any of the published adventures to confirm the accuracy of distances.
The "wandering monster" charts are fairly straightforward. Presumably
the books have backup information for these encounters, such as frequency
and general description of the encounter (such as appeared in the
"RuneQuest Cities" book). I was surprised at the frequency of encounters
in the Chaos Garden - one every melee round. That equates to one every
ten seconds! This raises the question: if there are that many of them
that a party encounters some every ten seconds why haven't the chaos
hordes put the whole city to the sword (or at least taken over) ? Even
five Death Lords and their followers would be hard-pressed to survive,
let alone clear the area of chaos.
The "Lands Beyond" map is physically of high quality, and shows a
number of places that the name alone would lure an intrepid adventurer
to explore their mysteries. The fact that there appears to be three
established trade routes gives me the impression that the city is not
even misplaced, let alone lost!
The "City Book" and "Adventures Book" appear in the by-now familiar low-
quality and low-durability paper cover. Surely thick cardboard doesn't
cost that much!
The "City Book". An index on the back cover is appreciated. The artwork is
a slight improvement on recent offerings. Perhaps some smaller drawings
could also have been used to break up the slabs of text. This is
especially apparent as all the maps have been placed in a separate book.
Page One. The first sentence blows away the myth about the city being
at all lost. The rest of the first paragraph is nonsensical. If the
"City Dwellers" were that keen on death and the afterlife, why don't
their tombs reflect this, and provide clues about "their habits,
languages, and even their appearance"?
It would, quite frankly, be impossible to place Eldarad into Glorantha.
Any city that was "famous worldwide" (quote from page one, line one) would
have to figure prominently in either or both of the history of Glorantha,
or in AH's supplement 8 "Glorantha:Genertela". As is patently obvious,
this is not the case. Wouldn't the God Learners have at least visited
the place during their long years of domination. The "unnamed sea" to
the north of Peloria is actually named the White Sea, as any map of
Glorantha will tell you.
The maps on page two are so basic in concept that any GM with the
ability to hold a pencil could have coped admirably without the
prompting provided.
The history/development section is unlikely to be used by anyone.
Any GM who tries to fit Eldarad into his/her campaign will have his/her
own general history of the world and will continue to use it.
Glorantha obviously has its own history, into which Eldarad does not
fit. The tone of this history reads like an early AD&D module - it
is superficial and no other releases for RQ has a compatible background.
For example, where did the trolls that Boarn allied with come from, and
why did they build and then abandon their temples in the city, especially
as they are still living in the city?
At this point I gave up on Eldarad, and decided that it wasn't worth the
effort that would be required to run it properly.
Overall, Eldarad appears to have been an attempt to follow the format
used in the RQII supplement "Griffin Mountain". However, it is not as
complete, as well thought-out, or as well put together.
Whilst the continued viability of RQ requires that new material be
published on a regular basis, poor quality releases serve only to
damage the credibility and reputation that RQ has gained over the last
dozen years. Whilst I realize that Nick Atlas has only been in his job
for a short time, he must be more stringent with his publishing
guidelines in future.
Avalon Hill should perhaps consider releasing updated supplements
originally published in RQII, such as an expanded "Borderlands", or
completing Prax Pack or Pent PAck, both of which have been rumoured
for well over a year.
Phew! That wasa longer post than I first estimated! To finish off,
20% of our respondents to the TALES questionnaire said they burnt their
copies of it!
MOB
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From: venturi@cs.unibo.it (Mirko Venturi)
Subject: CHANGE !!!!!!!
Message-ID: <199312090957.AA01354@ramphis.cs.unibo.it>
Date: 9 Dec 93 11:57:47 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2595
Please Henk unsubscribe
venturi@cs.unibo.it
and, at last, subscribe
finelli@cs.unibo.it
Thanx !!
May Issaries protect this letter from chaos.
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From: scuw5@central.sussex.ac.uk (Jonathan Eyre)
Subject: Runequest Encyclopedia
Message-ID: <6976.199312091245@solx1>
Date: 9 Dec 93 12:45:33 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2596
Just a thought. Or two. First off, all of the stuff should be in
ASCII, so as as many people as possible can use it. Secondly, what
about using a similar structure to that of the guitar tab lists on
Nevada.edu? These have a list of directories from A to Z, with
subdirectories for artists. Since the entries for the encyclopedia
will be along similar lines, perhaps this might be an idea. It'll all
be online, so you can find and print out the bits you want, and for
those who want a whole printed copy, they can do that too. There
could also be a NEW.THIS.WEEK directory, so that people can keep
their printed version up to date without having to scan the
directories for new arrivals. Whaddya think?
Jon Eyre (scuw5)
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From: raphael@research.canon.oz.au (Andrew Raphael)
Subject: Re: Gorp
Message-ID: <199312091333.AA28230@mama.research.canon.oz.au>
Date: 10 Dec 93 11:33:04 GMT
X-RQ-ID: 2597
Time for me to stop lurking, & say something. :-)
>And the thing's an amoeba. A move of 1 ? (Wild hysterical laughter in
>background). Active attacks ? (falls off console). I MEAN, come on.
>No, I don't like gorp.
No, it's not an amoeba. It would have organelles (nucleus, mitochondria,
etc.) then. They're described in River Of Cradles as "like a bag of water
without the bag". Not even a membrane holding them together. Magical.
Creatures of Pocharngo The Mutator. Perhaps gorp are Chaos elementals?
Giant amoeba would be creatures of the god/goddess of protozoa.
Not Swems (goddess of worms), but her mother. A Darkness or Water deity,
I remember.
--
Andrew Raphael
"She's probably not what she seems, though she tries"