I've been spending the last few months working at tracking down some of the stuff for the game, and now I am in the stage of waiting for things to come in. I am very excited about learning the system. This is the worse part of buying a "new" game, the wait for it to arrive.
I was talking to Ben Monroe about my new interest in RQ3 and he pointed me to this great essay about the game written by Sandy Petersen (Call of Cthulhu and DOOM creator). I think that it brings up some really interesting points about the system.
Sandy Petersen on Runequest
Few RPGs permit playing a non-human with the facility of Runequest even today [1996!]. In fact, the trend is rather away from playing non-humans. 'Tis not necessarily a bad trend, given the rather lame interpretations of these beings that have infested the RPG market. Partly as a result of the difficulty in playing them.
You see, most games render non-humans as variations on humans. Example: 'dwerlfs are like humans, but with -2 from STR and INT' or whatever. RQ nonhumans are completely independent -- you could set up a RQ game with no nonhumans at all, and never make any reference to humans, and character creation and play would be smooth. I think that the psychological aspects of this difference have had an effect on scenario designers, essayists, and gamemasters.
There is another way in which RQ affected Glorantha. By the nature of most of Greg's early stories, plus White Bear & Red Moon, Nomad Gods, etc., Glorantha seemed to be a place where titans battled far above the level of mere mortal fodder.
So, are you a Runequest III fan? I would really like to hear your thoughts and experiences with the system. Share your stories, exploits and adventures. I will be writing more about the system here as the box sets start trickling into my mail slot.
Also, Ben has started a RQ3 discussion list on Yahoo. If you are interested in joining discussions on the game that don't necessarily focus on Glorantha, check out the discussion list.