Steve Perrin Joins RuneQuest Development Team

In the spirit of bringing the band back together, Chaosium is delighted to announce that Steve Perrin is joining the design team for Chaosium's new edition of RuneQuest. "We knew that Steve Perrin’s place at the table, as both the creator and lead author of the original groundbreaking ‘78 and ‘79 editions of game, was a natural fit that harkens back to the genius and originality of RuneQuest", said Rick Meints, President of Chaosium.

In late 2015 Moon Design Publications and Chaosium successfully Kickstarted the RuneQuest Classic Edition campaign, a triumphant reissue of the iconic 2nd Edition of the RuneQuest rules and the supplements produced for it: Cults of Prax, Pavis, Big Rubble, Griffin Mountain, TrollPak and many others.

"We want to usher in the newest exploration of Glorantha with a tribute to the masterpiece opus of work that has come before. Part of Steve's role is to help insure that this edition contains the best possible game mechanics while maintaining backwards compatibility with RuneQuest 2", said Jeff Richard, creative director at Chaosium.

The new version of RuneQuest maintains backwards compatibility with earlier editions, while also containing a number of unique innovations that resonate with Glorantha, Greg Stafford's mythical campaign setting where RuneQuest started and to which it returns. This new edition incorporates Runes directly into both your character and the magic system you use, including their passions and motivations.

"The rules reinforce immersion in the setting even more than the original RuneQuest rules did, and ideas experimentally brought forth in Griffin Mountain reach their fruition", said Richard.

Seizing this unique chance to get this right, Chaosium has brought in a team of notable game designers to support Chaosium's rebirth of RuneQuest, including Sandy Petersen (Call of Cthulhu), Ken Rolston (Paranoia, Elder Scrolls, RQ3),  Chris Klug (James Bond 007 RPG, DragonQuest) and Jason Durall (BRP, Conan).

A special pre-release version of the new rules will be revealed at Gen Con later this year, along with introductory scenario sessions. A wealth of all-new campaign material and supplements for the new edition will follow.

Sandy Petersen Mini Interview

I had a chance to ask a couple of questions of Sandy Petersen, of Petersen Games's Cthulhu Wars and Call of Cthulhu fame. I'll be seeing him at Gen Con in a couple of weeks, so I will try to talk with him some more there. Mostly I asked him a few questions about Call of Cthulhu, past and present.

Dorkland: What is it about the Cthulhu Mythos, the works of Lovecraft and associated authors that make them so enduring?

Sandy Petersen: He evokes cosmic terror - a different type of fear, and a new style of writing. No one before him even tried.

DL: What is it about the Call of Cthulhu game that makes people so passionate about it?

Sandy: I think much of the appeal is that it is contrarian by nature. In other RPGs, you seek out combat. In CoC, you avoid it. In other RPGs, you adventure.  In CoC, you solve mysteriies. In other RPGs, you acquire powerful weapons and items. In CoC, you find musty old books that are dangerous even to read. In other RPGs, your character gets stronger over time. In CoC, your character gets less stable and in many ways weaker. I have no problem with the other RPGs - but there are plenty of them around. If you want something different, then CoC is it - it does almost everything "wrong" from a normal RPG and I think that's what its fans love.

DL: When you first designed Call of Cthulhu, did you think that there would still be so much interest in it after all of this time?

Sandy: When I designed Call of Cthulhu almost no one  even knew who Lovecraft was. I thought it would an obscure cult game that would sell maybe a thousand copies and vanish.

DL: What would you like to see for the future of Call of Cthulhu 7th edition?

Sandy: I want to see an awesome campaign with scenarios set in the Cthulhu Wars world, after the Great Old Ones have returned!

DL: What non-Chaosium games are interesting you currently?

Sandy: Well most obviously my own games, from Petersen Games - Gods War, Cthulhu Wars, Orcs Must Die! the boardgame, Dicenstein, and Theomachy. But probably you meant what games that I didn't work on, in which case I just played Terra Mystica and had a great time.

The Sale of Cthulhu (And Other Fine Chaosium Consumables)

It turns out that Chaosium has a warehouse that is overfilled with books and stuff. To fix this they are having a huge sale that can only benefit you, the gamer. They're getting rid of a lot of their old remaining Eternal Champion stock, among other things.

Forgive all the caps, its copypasta.

THE STARS ARE RIGHT… FOR A BLOW-OUT SALE!

WE’RE HERE TO SELL GAMES, AND CHEW BUBBLEGUM. AND WE’RE ALL OUT OF BUBBLEGUM.

OVER THE YEARS, OUR WAREHOUSE HAS BECOME STUFFED FULL OF MORE CTHULHUY GOODNESS THAN THE MARTENSE MANSION. WE’RE BURSTING AT THE SEAMS AND NEED TO MAKE ROOM FOR THE NEW THINGS COMING IN!

WE’VE DECIDED TO BLOW THE DOORS OFF CTHULHU’S TOMB, AND CLOSE OUT ALL THE “NON-STANDARD” ITEMS IN OUR WAREHOUSE.

SO NOW’S YOUR CHANCE TO GET DEEP DISCOUNTS ON MONOGRAPHS, FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES’ CTHULHU GAMES, NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDITIONS OF OUR GAMES, CDS, MAGAZINES, THE LAUNDRY RPG, MINIATURES AND MUCH MORE!

THUS, WE HAVE 50% OFF THE FOLLOWING: ALL BRP AND CALL OF CTHULHU MONOGRAPHS! NOVELTIES & ACCESSORIES! ALL LICENSED CALL OF CTHULHU PRODUCTS, INCLUDING FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES BOARDGAMES AND MINIATURES, CUBICLE 7 BOOKS, GOLDEN GOBLIN, ARC DREAMS, AND MORE! ALL NON-ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKS! NEPHILIM!  (THESE BOOKS WILL NOT BE REPRINTED OR REORDERED ONCE THEY’RE GONE!)

ALSO, WE HAVE 75% OFF ALL THE REMAINING STOCK OF ETERNAL CHAMPION GAMES AND D20 CALL OF CTHULHU GAMEMASTER’S PACKS! (LAST CHANCE!)

PLUS, LOOK FOR SPECIAL BUNDLE PACKS OF ETERNAL CHAMPION AND NEPHILIM BOOKS!

LASTLY, AS AN ADDED INCENTIVE, TAKE 10% OFF EVERYTHING ELSE WE SELL. JUST BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH.

IA! IA! DISCOUNTS FHTAGN!

Read that carefully because the discounts aren't listed (but will be applied in your shopping cart). There is a lot of really good gaming stuff there, so don't miss out.

Further Rumor And Speculation About Chaosium Games

Sandy Petersen, of Call of Cthulhu and Cthulhu Wars fame, game an interview to the owner of Yog-Sothoth.com the other day about the changes going on at Chaosium.



It is an interesting interview, I suggest giving it a listen. Some of it lines up with my own blatant and baseless speculation about some of the classic Chaosium lines like Pendragon and Runequest at least being distributed through Chaosium once again. I know that the rights to Runequest and Glorantha have been assigned over to Moon Design (who in turn has been licensing the Runequest name to the Design Mechanism people. But while Runequest is under and excellent stewardship with Design Mechanism, they don't seem to have gotten the penetration into the American marketplace that the game had once upon a time. Would Chaosium distributing Runequest get the game the attention that it once had? Maybe. I think that a lot of the lack of luster that Runequest has had of late is lingering from the Mongoose era. It seems that the once mighty RPG is having difficulty in recovering from the "control" of Mongoose.

This is all still rumor, of course, but I think that it could help not only Chaosium, but the individual game lines as well. Gamers could see the reunion of these lines and their original publisher as the return of a dream team, and it would give a spark to everything. There really is no lose in this situation.

With the resurgence of interest and popularity of "old school" games, there is a lot that Chaosium could do to ride on that wave again. Even a publisher like Flying Buffalo has produced "facsimile editions" of their early editions of Tunnels & Trolls and Monsters! Monsters! for new audiences. Chaosium already publishes Runequest 3e in everything but name with their Basic Fantasy monographs: Basic Gamemaster, Basic Creatures and The Magic Book (unfortunately it doesn't look like the Player's Book is offered through DriveThru/RPGnow). The Magic Book also makes a nice supplement for Magic World and the BRP gold book as well.

Doing a Runequest 2e "facsimile" would probably make for a lot of very happy gamers. I know that I would personally love a copy.

Now, with further rumor-mongoring...

I have heard that there is renewed interest as well in Greg Stafford's other Arthurian role-playing game. For those who may not know, Chaosium once produced a licensed RPG based on the Prince Valiant comic strip, using another stripped down variant of the BRP system (closer to the rules of Pendragon than Runequest, but still built from the same foundations). Obviously they couldn't bring this back as Prince Valiant, but the system is really (I mean really) good for that sort of low/no magic style of fantasy play and would make for a great game even stripped from the previously published setting. It wouldn't even have to be an Arthurian game. Maybe a game in the spirit of Prince Valiant's a-historical approach, you could set the game in the court of Charlemagne and introduce Viking and/or Native American warriors to the mix. Yeah, I know that it sounds like a fan-favorite comic from the 80s (please keep in mind that this part of this post isn't even rumor, it is me saying what I would love to see done with the game).

Could we see a new/old "Courtly" fantasy game from Chaosium? Maybe. Time will tell.

Magic World Errata And Clarifications

It is probably not a surprise for any of you to discover that I'm a fan of Chaosium and their latest fantasy game, Magic World. The Magic World game is almost as if Chaosium is retro-cloning themselves. The game is the old Elric!/Stormbringer 5e game from them, with all of the Moorcockian references stripped out and a fine fantasy game let in it's wake.

If you're looking for a lightweight BRP game that has everything you need in one book (including compatibility with the Big Gold Book BRP book), this is the game for you.

As a service, I have come across a document of errata and clarifications to share with you. Click here and find it on Google Drive. Three pages, not too bad really.