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Monday, July 18, 2011

Runequest - The Schism

It appears that Runequest will be coming in multiple flavors. We have Openquest, which is built on the Mongoose Runequest Rules (1st edition I believe but I may be wrong) using the OGL. Then we have Legend (formerly Wayfarer), which will replace MRQ2, as Mongoose lost the license for Runequest but apparently owns the rights to the rules - but as they are OGL now, anyone can publish them.

Which leads us to Runequest 6e, a joint venture with the trademark owners of Runequest (Issaries assuming I spelled it right). RQ6e will be written using the MRQ OGL rules, by some of the folks that wrote the MRQ2e rules.

Confused yet?

All of these revisions should be fairly compatible, and both Legend and RQ6e are seeking to be backwards compatible with MRQ2e.

Releasing your rules under an OGL lets out the genie out of the bottle and theres no putting it back. The question is, does this dilute the value of Runequest or enhance it? Or does it just muddy the waters to all shit?

I expect a lot of confusion myself. Still, I've owned RQ since the original Chaosium 2e and the Avalon Hill 3e. I like the system. I hope it survives the latest transition.

1 comment:

  1. OQ uses the MRQ OGL, but as I understand it, the rules take inspiration from RQ2, MRQ, Stormbringer and the author's own work with the system. Akrasia or Newt himself, would be better able to explicate.

    I've got OQ and Stormbringer 5e. I'm really set for d100 games, though I'd like to get a copy of Chaosium's RQ2.

    If some of the d100 gurus in our neck of the woods, come out and really, really like and endorse the new RQ, I might pick it up, but I don't need it. I'm happy with OQ. :)

    ReplyDelete

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