Deal of the Day - M-Space (BRP/RQ/Mythrus SciFi Ruleset)

Three Deals of the Day in three days. I don't think that has ever happened before at The Tavern.

The latest Deal of the Day, M-Space, is a sci-fi ruleset based on Mythrus, which in itself, is built off of the Mongoose RQ/Legends rules. I'm on a bit of a RuneQuest kick recently, and this looks like a good fit. Normally 15.95 in PDF, until tomorrow morning at 11 AM Eastern, M-Space is on sale for 6.38.

M-SPACE is a d100-based science fiction roleplaying game. Everything needed to play is included. 

With this book, you can create imaginary universes and play characters from a variety of cultures and careers. They can pilot starships, meet strange alien lifeforms and travel deep into unknown space.

Contents include: 

• Rich character generation, with unique, personal characters driven by Passions. 
• Rules for extended conflicts, applicable to any type of conflict, including social. 
• Intuitive, modular starship design. 
• Quick-paced and creative starship combat, based on the acclaimed Mythras combat rules. 
• Alien and culture creation. 
• World building. 
• Rules for how to create and run Organisations. 
• Modular vehicle design.
• Creative combat rules - in both classic and simplified flavour. 
• Psionics. 
• Equipment. 

The game engine used for all this is Mythras Imperative. If you are familiar with any closely related d100 game, you will feel right at home. 

M-SPACE is published under a Mythras Gateway license by The Design Mechanism.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern. 

You can catch the daily Tavern Chat podcast on Anchor, YouTube, or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. - Tenkar 

Bundle of Holding - Mythras (RQ6)

Mythras is RuneQuest 6 under a new label. If you are a RuneQuest fan or are interested at all in RuneQuest, Mythras is considered by many to be the ultimate edition of RQ. Bundle of Holding is currently giving us a Bundle of Mythras.

"For just US$14.95 you get all five titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $47) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the 304-page Mythras core rulebook, three adventures -- Madness & Other Colours, Xamoxis' Cleansing, and A Gift From Shamash (that last one is even science fiction!) -- and the 336-page Classic Fantasy supplement (Old School dungeon crawls in Mythras!)."

"And if you pay more than the threshold price of $25.40, you'll level up and also get our entire Bonus Collection with seven more titles worth an additional $52, including Mythic Britain (and the Mythic Britain Companion), Mythic Rome (plus the Mythic Rome Maps), and three Classic Fantasy adventures: These Violent Delights, The Terror of Ettinmarsh, and Tomb of the Mad Wizard."

News - Jack Vance’s Lyonesse (High Fantasy) to become a new RPG from The Design Mechanism

I must admit, I've never read any of Jack Vance's work. I guess that gives me an Appendix N demerit or something.

In any case, The Design Mechanism has secured the license to produce an RPG based on Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy. It will be a stand-alone game built on the Mythras RPG, which itself is a descendant of RuneQuest 6. Then there are the Mongoose OGL versions of RuneQuest (later named Legend) that came before.

In any case, here's a bit of the press release:

Jack Vance’s high fantasy masterpiece, Lyonesse, is brought to life in a new roleplaying game by The Design Mechanism. Licensed and approved by Spatterlight Press, Lyonesse is a standalone game based on the acclaimed Mythras system.

Using The Design Mechanism’s Mythras mechanics, the Lyonesse roleplaying game is presented as a standalone game with all the rules necessary for play.

The development of the Lyonesse roleplaying game will be documented from time to time on the Design Mechanism’s website and forum. Work is well underway, and the game is anticipated to appear between late 2019 and early 2020.

You can read The Design Mechanism's blog for a larger summary here or the press release here. Or go to ENWorld, where there is a summary and no links to the source. Almost makes one think they had an exclusive...

Free OSR RPG - RuneQuest Essentials PDF (Free RPG Day Alternative Picks - Post II)

As is my usual, I try to find some free RPGs in PDF to highlight for folks that don't have a FLGS participating in Free RPG Day. Or maybe you're like me and just not all that impressed with this years offerings.

This time I'm highlighting RuneQuest Essentials, the stripped down version of RuneQuest 6. RuneQuest was one of the early alternatives to Dungeons & Dragons and has gone through nearly as many versions as D&D. BTW, I may call RuneQuest Essentials "stripped down" but it still comes in at over 200 pages for the PDF.

The full version of the RuneQuest 6 rules are 40% off this weekend only, but certainly grab the Essentials version. Can't beat the price.

Bundle of Holding - RuneQuest 6

I like RuneQuest 6, but I find the character generation to be a tad tedious. Others will find it extremely thorough and just their cup of tea.

At $6.95 for the core book and the Book of Quests (basically a campaign's worth of adventure right there) it's probably hard to go wrong.

Free RPG Day Pick #5 - RuneQuest Essentials

RuneQuest 6 is an amazing RPG that is as intimidating as it is awesome. I gave up on it.

Then came RuneQuest Essentials, a "Pay What You Want", stripped down but still complete at 200 or so pages.

So yes, you can check out the new RuneQuest for free. I advise that you do so, as it is the granddaddy of d100 based RPGs and the price is right at free ;)

From the blurb:

This special, 'Pay What You Want' version of RuneQuest 6th Edition is designed to introduce players and Games Masters to the essentials of the game. In this book you will find the core of the RuneQuest engine, in a stripped-down format, but still complete enough to create characters and begin adventuring with one of roleplaying’s most enduring and respected systems.

The intention is that this book will give you a taste of the mechanics and encourage you to move onto the full edition of the rules. The full rulebook contains much, much more: more game options, more magic, more monsters more cults.

But for now let RuneQuest Essentials be your gateway to fantastic adventures with heroes and magic!

Free RuneQuest 6 Essentials (fully usable RPG ruleset)

Huge props to +Nicholas Bergquist for linking to the Free RuneQuest 6 Essentials rules over at his Realms of Chirak blog. 

I'm pretty sure free RPG rules is not a new trend, but WotC stating that the core rules of D&D 5e will be free to download have certainly drawn attention to the concept.

Very cool. Now maybe I'll be able to read through the RQ rules without dozing off (they are just super detailed ;)

At over 200 pages, this is still a vary complete ruleset.

New Bundle of Holding - RuneQuest 6

RuneQuest 6 is a good game - I just don't have the time to absorb the rules. OpenQuest 2 is more my speed for d100 style gaming. That being said, the accessory products being offered are enough for me to jump on this latest Bundle of Holding.

Maybe I'll convert some of this for personal OSR use...

RuneQuest 6 PDF (and others) On Sale for $4.99 on RPGNow

There is much to like about the RuneQuest 6 ruleset, but the price of the PDF was never one of those things - $25 is steep, no matter hoe you cut it.

$5 is cheap, way cheap for what you get, and it's this price for 1 day only. If you are at all interested in RuneQuest, this is you chance to check it out. Do it.

There are other rulesets that are one sale for 4.99 for 1 day only:

Broken Shield - Superhuman Sci-Fi Noir Roleplaying

HELLAS: Worlds of Sun and Stone 2nd Edition

Midgard Campaign Setting - from Kobold Press

There's a lot of stuff on sale at RPGNow at the moment. Let me dig through and present some more highlights later ;)

RuneQuest 6 Softcover Edition in Hand!

 RuneQuest 6 is in hand.

A bit of  let down if you sk me, but maybe that's because I've had the PDF for a month.

Good news is the book lies open pretty well.

Bad news is the cover is going to take a beating just being on a shelf.

$62 is a bit steep for what you get.

Ah well - at least I can read it in paper format now ;)

Where O' Where is the Next Part of the RuneQuest 6 Review?

Good question.

I'm waiting on the previously announced interactive RQ6 character sheet PDF to appear on The Design Mechanic website (it's been nearly 3 weeks since it's been mentioned on the forums). I plan(ned?) on generating a character and screenshoting the character sheet as part of the hands on review process. If you have ever seen my penmanship, you'll know why I want the interactive PDF.

So I wait. You wait. We all wait.

Sigh.

Maybe I'll do some some more reading of Other Dust for my Faux Rifts Mahup...

RuneQuest 6 - Review - Part the Fourth - Working on Skills and Rolls

RuneQuest 6 is a game built on skills. That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that has heard about RuneQuest, Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, Basic RolePlaying, Legend, Elfquest, OpenQuest and I'm sure a slew of games that are a variation of the above. They all have their roots in the first release of RuneQuest.

There are some basic things to note about skill use in RQ, especially for those coming from the D&D side of the table - it's percentile based and you want to roll low.

Going back to D&D and it's many offspring. In D&D, you usually want to roll high, a natural 20 always hits and a natural 1 always misses. That is D&D combat broken down to it's simplest core.

In Runequest (and it's related siblings and offspring) you pretty much want to roll low. A roll of 01-05 is always a success and a roll of 96-00 is always a failure. Equal to, or less than your skill value on your D100 roll means you succeeded and rolling greater than your skill value means you failed. That is RQ skill resolution at it's simplest core.

D&D variations sometimes have criticals and failures. Generally a natural 20 is a crit (sometimes there is a range, say 18-20, but it is always a natural roll that you are looking at, not adjusted by bonuses) and if there are fumbles, they occur on a natural 1.

In RuneQuest 6 criticals happen when the roll is 1/10th the skill value (adjusted after modifiers - this shit I remember from older editions of the rules). This applies both in combat and with non-combat skill use. Fumbles occur on a roll of 99 or 00 (2% chance, compared to D&D's 5% when applicable).

RQ6 includes grades of difficulties from Automatic (no need to roll), Very Easy (double your effective skill value) all the way through Herculean (skill effectively reduced to 1/10 value) and Hopeless (no chance, no tries, no can do). There is also an alternative chart if multiplication slows you down too much.

As you can probably see, RQ6 is much more granular than D&D, which is where I am firmly based. It's funny, but reading through the RQ6 rules makes me want to break out my copy of Basic Roleplaying and whip up some cross-genre game, with fantasy elements taken from RQ6 and stealing ideas from Rifts. I do think BRP or RQ6 could handle such a setting better than Rifts current buggered beyond redemption rules, but I have suddenly veered off on one hell of a tangent!

Where was I? Oh yeah, RQ6 skills. The rest of the chapter describes the skills that you assigned points to in the previous chapter. It includes examples of what may happen on a crit, a success, a failure or a fumble. The examples are pretty much good enough for a GM to extrapolate what he needs for his unique situation.

There is a section on Skill Rules for Different Circumstances and Situations at the end of the chapter. I'm just going to list the different rules, as some are fairly obvious what they deal with based on their title, and in any case, I'm not trying to repeat the book, but show what it has inside.

So, that being said, here we go - Reattempting Skills, Augmenting Skills, Capping Skills, Contested Rolls (always a biggie) and Group Rolls. Some of these are broken down further (Contested and Group Rolls for example) but that should be enough to get an idea.

RuneQuest 6 Game Master's Pack - Free Download

Yep, the fine folks over at The Design Mechanism have posted the RQ6 Game Master's Pack. It's a free download that includes 2 adventures and a crapload of charts all in one neat place.

I'm still waiting on the form fillable character sheet to get posted :(

RuneQuest 6 - Review - Part the Third - What Did I Do Before Questing For a Living?

Chapter 3 of the RuneQuest 6 Rulebook is titled Careers and Development. If you followed the first 2 Chapters that I reviewed, you'd be safe in guessing we are still dealing with character generation. If RuneQuest 6 has something to hand it's coat on it's character generation. It's full and deep. Random tet it gives the player control on direction. This has been something that has separated RQ from D&D and it's offspring since RQ first hit the scene. RQ Heroes are not as disposable as their D&D brethren.

In Chapter 3 we are offered a list of careers, which is broken down by Cultural Background. As an example, Fisher appears on the list for all four civilizations, while Sorcerer just appears on the Civilized list. If the player could make a valid argument, it's possible to have a career that isn't standard to the Cultural Background, but that is the exception that proves the rule.

Here's the Civilized list of Careers:

Agent

Alchemist

Beast Handler

Courtesan

Courtier

Crafter

Entertainer

Farmer

Fisher

Herder

Hunter

Merchant

Miner

Mystic

Official

Physician

Priest

Sailor

Scholar

Scout

Shaman

Smith

Sorcerer

Thief

Warrior

The Careers come with a list of alternative labels - So the "Agent" could also be known as an Agitator, an Assassin, A Detective, And Informer, A spy or something else that you feel you can effectively hang your hat on.

You can select up to 3 skills from among the Professional Skills listed with that career in addition to getting access to all of the Standard Skills listed with that career. Wanna guess how many skill points your get to distribute? Yep, you're correct - 100 points. Again, as usual, no skill can be assigned more that 15 points during this stage.

As you get 7 standard skills can can pick up to 3 (out of a list of 7) you'll have 10 skills in which to drop those 100 points. As 10 points each would be the average, a cap of 15 points in any individual  means your probably will stay around that 15 pt average with some tweaks.

Later in the chapter we get to determine age. Age Categories are important, as they decide how many bonus points the character gets, the maximum skill increase (from the bonus points awarded due to age category), background event rolls and if the character is suffer from the results of aging. I wouldn't worry about the aging part - I don't see it affecting most starting PCs unless the player is looking to roll with someone past his prime. Most characters will start in the Adult or Middle Aged categories. 

These bonus points can be applied to any skills a character has previously learned as part of the Culture or Career. So when the text says "Choose up to 3 skills" choose 3, even if you just dump a single point in the stray one or two. This is the stage to boost those skills (and others) up.

Next up is starting equipment. there is a chart for reference as to what characters of a certain social standing can expect to own. It's more a guide than anything, but useful none the less.

The chapter aslo touches briefly upon magic and cult membership, but apparently these are discussed in detail later in the rules.

I may need to take a break from the review to generate my own PC, as things tend to fall in the place in practice more so than just reading.

Summer Gaming Thoughts - Of Missing Players and Tempting RPGs

Last night there were only four of us for the ACKS game - summer has that effect on gaming. So we did some maintenance and one hell of a lot of yapping and called it a relatively early night, which is ok, as I was still exhausted as all shit from Friday night's events.

We are toying with the idea of running some DCC RPG for the next few weeks. I'd rather not run the ACKS campaign short two players and the summer being what the summer is, I expect we will be short for the rest of the summer in some manner or form. DCC feels like it could support smaller group play with the simple tool of giving everyone multiple PCs, which I am most certainly NOT comfortable doing in most RPGs, but fits fine with DCC.

Then of course there's my renewed interest in RuneQuest, thanks in large part to the release of RQ6. I know at some point I'd like to run a short campaign / long arc using the RQ rules, but character gen in RQ is a lot more in depth than DCC or even ACKS. Does that long generation process include an assumption that character death will be less common. Is there a bit of "Aura of GM Protection" that must go along with it? This is one of those times that WFRP type "Fate Points" become a useful tool, I think.

Ah well, stuff to read, a game to prep for and weekend chores around the house. Too bad I slept half the afternoon away yesterday ;)

RuneQuest 6 - Review - Part the Second - Let's Add Some Background to That PC

Alright, last night we looked at the basics of character generation. Tonight, we look at fleshing out that character in Chapter 2 of RQ6, Culture and Community.

Culture is the first aspect of that background that we come across. It's divided into Barbarian, Civilized, Nomadic and Primitive. Your choice of Culture will give you a list of Standard Skills and Professional Skills that you can choose from (and possibly a Fighting Style - not quite sure what Fighting Style does but I'm sure i was as we go through all of this). 100 Skill points to play with in this step to allocate among the skills you have chosen.  I'm beginning to think I need to read up on skills next.

Oh, there are also Cultural Passions, which are optional. They include one Loyalty, one Love and one Hate. They are also dealt with later in the rules. I'm going to assume that they are there for roleplay and story hook purposes, but I guess we will find out for sure later.

Next up is Background Events. They're optional but useful for fleshing out your character's background and possibly even generating a campaign hook or two. You may roll or choose from the table, or roll until you like a result I guess. Which would be like choosing your roll ;)

Ah, Social Class. I remember when AD&D's Unearthed Arcana added that to AD&D. Didn't fit there. Seems to fit here. This is generally a random roll, because wealth does equal more power, or at least better starting equipment.

Starting Money gets determined by a 4d6 roll multiplied by anywhere from 10-75 silver pieces, depending on the PC's culture. This is then modified by the Social Class result - x 1/4 if you are an Outcast all of the way up to x 5 if you are of the Ruling Class (Civilized Culture). See, I told you Social  Class meant power ;)

You can also determine your family size, if you have living parents, if you are married (what spouse would let their significant other go adventuring?), family reputation, allies, contacts, rivals, enemies - all the crap that a good DM knows to make sure the players are part of a campaign setting that feels real for them. This part is easily yokeable to other RPGs.

Passions - didn't have to wait nearly as long as I thought to find out more about them. They get rated like skills, and generally start at around 50% + or -. Wait, they really are dealt with in Chapter 6 - this is just the initial generation of them. Ah well.

Damn, that was all of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is Careers and Development. Tomorrow we'll get get to distribute even more skill points. I don't remember all of these points back in RQ 2+3, but I'm not complaining.

RuneQuest 6 - Review - Part The First - Make Me a Character!

As I stated earlier, RuneQuest 6 is a pretty sizable book to digest. I'm not going to attempt to break it down by chapter, as there are 16 Chapters and that will take forever, but there is no way I'll be able to cover this in two or even three parts for review purposes. It takes however long it takes ;)

The first three chapters cover Character Generation.  Chapter One is Basic Character Creation and probably the best place to start.

I'd like to remind you that my RQ experience is with RQ2 and RQ3. MRQ and Legend, pieces of which I may own, are not part of my play experience. Additionally, My RQ experience probably topped on in 1992 at the latest - some I'm at least 20 years removed from the game. I might not be new to it, but I am far from conversant in it. I may bring less baggage to the review, but I probably also bring  game memories that have been buffed and sweetened with the passage of time.

Oh, almost forgot something about the layout of the RuneQuest 6 PDF - it is two columns with a sidebar. The sidebar during the initial character generation chapter deals with Anathaym, the female warrior that graces the cover. Se is uses as the example to follow as one goes through the steps of character generation.

On to the Chapter 1. We are introduced to the usual RQ Characteristics of STR, CON, SIZ, DEX, INT, POW and CHA. Not horribly different than the attributes on associates with the usual OSR style games. Most are generated using the 3d6 method, but INT and SIZ use 2d6+6. (I don't remember the boost to POW and INT in RQ 2+3).

From these Characteristics you determine your Attributes: Action Pts, Dam Mod, HP, XP Mod, etc. It's a list of 10, and some seem very new to me.

Action Points determine the number of actions a character can take in a combat round. Most characters will fall in the range of 2 actions, but some with high scores in INT and DEX will get 3. I haven't gotten to the combat section get, but I would assume an extra action is a nice boon for a PC.

Here's something I don't recall seeing in most RPGs - The Reasons Why... Why does INT and DEX affect your number of action points? In RQ6, it's spelled out for you:

The Reasons Why…

INT: Clever characters can more easily exploit openings and opportunities that lend them an edge in combat 

҉҉DEX: Agile characters react more quickly and can therefore act more often during combat

After the Attributes we are shown the Standard Skills. The starting score of these skills is equal to either 2x a Characteristic or the sum of 2 Characteristics. These are things like Ride, Unarmed Combat, First Aid and the like.

The chapter concludes with a with visual aid for the basic character generation process. This is probably one of the better character generation aids I've come across in an RPG - as very few included anything like it. I'm including a screen shot below for review purposes.

Crap - that was just covering the first chapter ;)

First Look at RuneQuest 6

Coming in at 458 pages for the PDF, the RuneQuest 6 core rulebook is a large game to read through. To put things into perspective, the DCC RPG PDF comes in at 488 pages (I've run 2 session and have yet to read the full DCC RPG rulebook). It is not a light weight book. Also, it is priced similarly to the DCC RPG Corebook, coming in at $25 for the PDF. Neither is cheap. Neither is what I would classify as an "Impulse Buy".

Still, as PDFs go, this one is definitely user friendly, which certainly adds to the value. Not only is it bookmarked but it has an extensively hyperlinked Table of Contents (something the DCC RPG certainly could use).

The designers of RQ6 state a number of goals they had in mind when designing the latest edition of RQ. I'm going to quote that piece from the introduction below, as these are some of the things I'll be referring to as I review RQ6 in later posts:

In designing RuneQuest Sixth edition we had several aims foremost in our minds:


To recapture the spirit and feel of the earlier editions of RuneQuest.


Provide a comprehensive fantasy roleplaying game that capitalises on Rune-Quest’s strengths.


Streamline the system, but also introduce new mechanics and systems that reflect what is happening in 21st Century roleplaying games.


Bring RuneQuest to a new audience, and continue to care for its old fans.


It will be interesting to see if they accomplish their goals, especially as I'm a RQ Game Master from the 2nd and 3rd editions of the game. Guess I better get reading ;)

Did I mention I love the cover?  Yep, it rocks!