August 2007: D100 / Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System has been announced for Fall 2007. A licensed game based on the Deadwood comic book using the new D100 rules has been announced by Seraphim Guard for Summer 2008.
Chaosium no longer has the rights to Michael Moorcock's Eternal Champion setting, and those rights have been acquired by Mongoose Publications. They are using that setting for some Mongoose RQ supplements.
RuneQuest versions currently in print:
Basic RolePlaying monograph editions - These books from Chaosium are NOT the simplified RQ2 which were published in 1980 as "Basic Role-Playing". Instead, they are the Player, Gamemaster, Magic, and Creatures books of Avalon Hill's RuneQuest III, word for word with the following alterations: The name "RuneQuest" has been removed throughout and replaced with "Basic RolePlaying". This substitution was presumably done because Issaries, Inc. (which is not associated in any way with Chaosium) acquired the trademark to the RuneQuest name, although they did not acquire the copyright to the RuneQuest III books or system.
The other difference is that all references to Glorantha have been removed. But if you're looking for newly-printed copies of the RuneQuest III system, these are the ones to get.
Mongoose RQ (aka "MRQ") - Published in August 2006 by Mongoose Publishing under agreement with Issaries, Inc., this system has some rules which differ from classic RuneQuest mechanics and seem to have been included only to provide compatibility with Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The system features the second age of Glorantha, and other settings have also been published. Some of the system has been published online as "open source" system reference documents.
Fan reaction has been mixed. If you're interested, read the RuneQuest-Rules mailing list (the oldest and most active RuneQuest rules discussion forum) to see for yourself. The average grade given seems to be a C-minus; disappointing, but maybe it will bring more people in.
It should also be noted that the provenance of Mongoose RQ represents a break from the previous ownership of the RuneQuest system - MRQ was announced as being "the same system using different words". This was apparently done because the copyright to the actual text of the RuneQuest system still remained with Chaosium. Roleplaying systems and rule sets themselves apparently cannot be copyrighted or trademarked, and therefore if different specific words are used to describe the system, the creator(s) or copyright-holders of a system have no legal recourse.
RuneQuest-compatible system soon to be available:
D100 / Chaosium's Basic Roleplaying System (formerly known as "Deluxe Basic RolePlaying") - a multi-genre non-Gloranthan advanced BRP system from Chaosium. It has been officially announced by Chaosium for Fall 2007. Full disclosure: I was a playtester for this system (and I was also part of the initial playtest group for MRQ, although I was not included in the later, "inner circle" group), and while I was not impressed with MRQ at all, I'm very excited about D100 - so far every design choice has been extremely well made. This may be the version of RQ that many have been waiting for.
It's a modular system, allowing the duplication of any previous game based on any version of Basic RolePlaying - and that does include RQIII.
For more information about RuneQuest, see The History of RuneQuest.
rqpete@gmail.com Copyright 2006 by Peter Maranci. Revised: August 06, 2007. version 1.2
