Re: Anyone like to Review Mongoose's Runquest?

From: Dave Bell <bellplace_at_...>
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 18:35:35 -0000

It's worth pointing out that the game is designed to be a generic system with the first source material being Glorantha. As such there is some G-ish stuff in there but the Glorantha sourcebook will be published separately (maybe Sept-Oct). A bit like RQ3 from AH.

> There are runes but they don't work like in
> Glorantha. They are items which you find and if you sacrifice 1
> Power you integrate them. This then allows you to have certain
> special powers and you are able to learn 'rune-magic' which is
> pretty much like RQ3 battle magic. You have a % chance of casting
> these spells which is pretty low. There are no obvious restrictions
> on which runes you can integrate so it looks like anyone can
> integrate a chaos rune if they find one. Sometimes you need wierd
> runes to cast common spells e.g a disorder rune to do a disrupt.
> There is also a metal rune which you need for most weapon spells.
> The spells cost lots of cash to learn - e.g. 800 silver pieces for 4
> point spell such as Bladesharp 4. Its not clear where this cash goes
> exactly - someone spends 4 days teaching you the spell and there is
> some cost for 'materials'. Unless 'materials' cost a lot then people
> who teach spells are going to live in palaces! There are some
> generic RQ3 type gods/cults in the book - these aren't associated
> with particular runes. There is a cult of the Storm King wo have a
> duty to 'fight the forces of Chaos'. They have a cult spell (this
> means they teach it) called Skybolt which calls a bolt of lightning
> from the sky. The rune for this is chaos so to cast it they have to
> integrate a chaos rune as best as I can work out the rules!

As above.  

> The actual game system is 'broken' in several places and in others
> unclear. I don't want to go into the ghastly details too much so
> I'll just state a few of the issues (they are discussed at length on
> the forums on the Mongoose site):

The discussions have been long and laboured with many statistical analyses of the system outcomes. For more info go to http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=79

That said, polls on the site and the general discussion suggests to me that most people are fairly happy or better about the rules, and the concerns are held by a minority of the posters, sizeable but still a minority. IMHO "broken" is a much-overused epithet amongst roleplayers. The rules have problems - which new/revised system doesn't (cough**hero wars**cough!). However there is nothing in there going to bring my games crashing to a halt and Mongoose have been very quick to issue a FAQ pdf addressing most of the issues. There are still one or two rules I might alter or ignore but I assume that will happen with any game (even when I write my own rules).

> 1. The game has a painful process of opposed rolls for deciding the
> success or failure of opposed tasks which involve making two
> separate rolls on the active skill %. It isn't clear what the result
> of 'criticals' is in the first of these rolls and anyway the whole
> thing is pretty laboured.

Both sides roll %. Highest success wins. That's it. Sound familiar? There are no "...two separate rolls..." (there was a question of this in combat but Mongoose clarified it). Criticals are clear in combat, up to the GM in other skills though some guidance is given on faster outcomes or achieving more - pretty much as in RQ really.

> 2. Dexterity is a true killer stat in the game because it decides
> the number of attacks and parries or dodges you get in combat. If
> your DX is low you are probably doomed because opponents will get
> unopposed attacks against you.

Low Dex AND Int (the determinants for the number of actions and reactions in combat) will make a very slow character and may well lead to an unopposed attack, though you don't use up reactions (parries or dodges) on failed attacks. Overall though if you are slow against a faster opponent, going head to hea is probably a stupid thing to do.

> 3. Melee weapons other than some two-handed weapons do very low
> damages (even on a critical hit). For example an average person in a
> metal helmet can take several critical sword blows to the head
> without going down. With all the parrying and dodging going on many
> fights will take absolutely ages.

Many weapons do 1d8 (warsword, bastardsword, shortspear, rapier), others 1d6 (hatchet, light mace, shortsword). Some get +1 or +2. A few  do 2d6, 2d8 or 1d10+. Generally damage is down _at_1-2 points. Criticals do max damage + rolled bonus. Some weapons Impale - nastier than old RQ. Roll to extract the weapon. Success does normal damage to the victim, fail does 1d4 and the weapon is still stuck, giving -20% to any actions. First Aid allows the weapon to be removed without causing more damage.

Armour is also less effective. Heavy leather 2 points, Ringmail 3, Chain 5, Plate 6, so the weapon damage is really little different from before. All damage is applied to hit locations (there are no general hit points). Levels are _at_1 pt up on arms, 1-2 pts up on chest/Abdomen. Damage results are pretty much the same as RQ3, there is a Resilience roll to stay alive after losing 2xhp in chest/ab (but it's every round).

> 4. The game has a wierd system where if your chance of hitting is
> over 100% then both parties to a conflict half their chance of
> hitting. This is broken because it means that as you go over 100%
> you start to get worse vs weaker opponents. e.g if you are 98% and
> your opponent is 40% that's a lot better than if you are 104%
> (halved to 52%) vs 40% (halved to 20%).

I think this is the single area most people aren't too sure about. half both parties chances till both are sub-100% Most people seem to be ignoring/houseruling this at present.

> 5. They got rid of the opposed stat rolls out of older versions of
> RQ without replacing them with anything that makes sense.

The notion is that the GM rules on a close skill to use where necessary (e.g. Athletics for physical stuff). Ok-ish. Many people are simply going Statx5 and making opposed rolls. Easy enough.

> The game has hero points in it which you can use to make re-rolls or
> save up for special abilities.

Par for the course these days. Love 'em or hate 'em.

> It had advanced character generation rules in which a hero level
> character is at least 31 years old, has about 8 or 9 different
> integrated runes, has some skills at about 110% and may be a
> runelord if they spend all their hero points on it. Of such things
> are heroes made!

It's a fast track system; rules only. If a GM doesn't insist on background info, that's their concern.

> You get some creature stats in the book. Most of these seem to be
> Gloranthan but others don't - especially the dragon!

Yes but it's an OGL ruleset, not just for Glorantha (Mongoose have announced that they will be publishing a Lankhmar setting, other material is already out for the Diomin setting, and there are rumours that their Conan D20 system might reappear as Runequest).  

> A table of incomes and tables of costs are given. For example a
> plate breasplate will set you back a 4500 silver pieces and it
> appears that average income is about 4 silver per day.
>
> Overall it seems pretty unlikely that we would play this game
> without making a lot of changes. However it could be useful for
> interpreting the meaning of any scenarious etc. published.

You must make your own decisions, ofcourse. IMHO there are minor problems with MRQ but nothing to stop a game and much to recommend in terms of smoothing out the old RQ rules and reducing the need to look up tables. The support schedule looks encouraging and the prospect of other OGL licenses is exciting (the SRD is promised on the web in _at_ a month).

I'm sorry if this is a bit of a novel, but I felt that the review needed a response from another point of view, with a bit more detail for those interested. I recall when HW was first published, the debates raged on about what feat names meant and how bidding was supposed to work.

All rules need time to bed in. Some may be errata-ed or ditched by the second print run. There is the RQ forum mentioned above, preview PDFs on the Mongoose website. Go see for yourselves.

Cheers

Dave (who hasn't posted here since Nov '01. Wow)

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