RuneQuest 6 Special Edition Hardback Critical Success!

The RuneQuest 6 Special Edition Hardback indiegogo campaign has surpassed its funding goal!  And there is one more week to contribute, if you'd like a copy for the very reasonable price of 50 USD (plus shipping).

If you're curious about RQ6, this "let's read" thread at RPGnet may be helpful.

Cthulhu meets Conan?

News here on a forthcoming setting entitled 'Primeval Thule', which purports to be a world in which 'Conan meets Cthulhu'.  (Of course, the Cthulhu Mythos always were part of the original Conan stories!  But whatever...)

As fellow fans of the fiction of Robert E. Howard no doubt know already, 'Thule' is one of the nations of the 'Thurian Age', the era of REH's 'Kull' stories (set thousands of years before the 'Hyborian Age' of Conan).

The setting purports to be compatible with Call of Cthulhu, which is why it caught my eye.  But given how radically different CoC is from Pathfinder and 4th edition D&D, I have no idea how one could create a setting that would work equally well for each of these systems.

Nonetheless, since Richard Baker claims, "Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea stories were perhaps the most direct inspiration for Primeval Thule", I am curious to check out the final product.

Addendum: I can't believe that I forgot to mention that, should this setting prove to be worth using, Crypts and Things would be an ideal (OSR) game to use with it.

RuneQuest 6 Hardcover Edition

Design Mechanism has launched a crowd sourcing project via Indiegogo in order to produce a hardcover edition of their excellent RuneQuest 6 system.  The campaign is now live, with further info to be found here.  (Also available at the Indigogo site are a couple of links to reviews of RQ6.)

I would like to emphasize the high-quality of the RuneQuest 6 system.  It is, in my judgement, the best fantasy role-playing game to have been produced in the past two decades.  The softcover version of RQ6 is wonderful -- it has an attractive matte cover, and is extremely well laid out.  While the length of RQ6 may seem overwhelming at first, the core system itself is intuitive (it is a BRP-derived game, after all), and the length of the book reflects its completeness (in contrast, say, to its threadbare close cousin Legend).

If you are curious about RQ6, here is a video overview.

To get a hardcover copy of RQ6, one needs to commit $50 (plus shipping, which is $15 in North America, $25 everywhere else).  This is a great deal, as it means that the hardcover version actually is less expensive than the softcover version presently for sale!

Best of luck to Design Mechanism on this endeavour.  I'm looking forward to holding the tome in my trembling hands sometime this autumn...

Old School Cred

Thanks to estar (I think) for tracking down the very first online mention of the ‘Old School Renaissance’.  Here it is at Dragonsfoot.

It's a bit trippy to see that discussion now, to realize that that was (apparently) the first mention of the ‘OSR’ – a term coined, appropriately enough, by an anonymous ‘guest’.

It also is worth noting that Castles and Crusades was the catalyst for the OSR.  I rarely mention C&C here, and haven’t really thought about the game much since receiving the Castle Zagyg box set almost 5 years ago.  Yet I was once an enthusiastic supporter of the game.  It came along just as I found myself burnt out by 3.5 edition D&D (early 2005, if I recall correctly).

The failure of Castles and Crusades in the eyes of many fans of TSR AD&D and D&D was what prompted the retro-clones.  It led initially to OSRIC, intended at first simply as a tool to enable people to publish 1e AD&D material without fear of legal retribution.  OSRIC was soon followed by other ‘retro-clones’, such as Labyrinth Lord (B/X D&D) and Swords and Wizardry (0e D&D).  Even more retro-clones and quasi-clones came along … And 8 years later, here we are.

C&C is still around, and apparently doing reasonably well, though it never came to be the preeminent OSR game.  (But True20 as an ‘old school game’?!?  What were people drinking back in 2005?).

Iain M. Banks Succumbs to Cancer

Sad news today.

Iain M. Banks, author of the 'Culture' science-fiction novels (among them, Player of Games, Use of Weapons, and Consider Phlebas) and, as 'Iain Banks', many 'mainstream' novels (including The Wasp Factory and Complicity), has passed away.  He recently had been diagnosed with cancer (mentioned here in April).

This link provides a nice overview of some of the themes of Banks's Culture novels.

EDIT: The BBC obituary.

EDIT 2: I just realised that I had misspelt 'Iain' in this post and my earlier one.  After 20 years of reading his novels, I still make this mistake.  As someone whose own name is misspelt regularly, I should know better!

EDIT 3: Economist Paul Krugman also is a fan.

EDIT 4: Charles Stross on Banks.

Blood of the Dragon Review

Bryce Lynch reviews the first (and so far only) module for Crypts and Things, UK-S01: Blood of the Dragon, here.

And speaking of Crypts and Things, Newt Newport has been posting about it weekly in his 'Fiendish Friday' column.

Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter

It seems that their kickstarter for their forthcoming revamp of The Horror on the Oriental Express was such a smashing success that Chaosium has decided to do one for their forthcoming new edition of The Call of Cthulhu RPG.

The most important piece of information about 7e CoC (at least for me) is this:

It's important to note that the 7th Edition rules remain backwards compatible so that previously published scenarios and source books all remain playable with the revised rules.

If this is indeed the case – and I certainly trust Chaosium that it is – then I don't mind the changes introduced in 7e.  If I like them, then I can use all my old CoC books with 7e.  And if I don't like them, then I can use any new 7e CoC material that catches my fancy with the pre-7e rules (viz. 5.6e/6e).

Some additional thoughts:

• I like that the Keeper’s Rulebook includes all the rules needed to play, but that an Invistigator Handbook will be available for players.
• The ‘pushing’ skill rolls mechanic sounds potentially quite cool.
• I’m pleased to learn that there will be two new adventures in the book (“Amidst the Ancient Trees,” and “The Crimson Letters”).
• Nice to see that some colour plates will be included in the Keeper’s Rulebook.

As for the other changes, I have adopted a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude.  But overall, I’m glad that 7e is not simply a tweaked and reformatted version of 6e, that they’re offering some new things, whilst retaining backwards compatibility.

So, in short, I’m pretty excited about 7e CoC.  Just call me a ‘slobbering shoggoth’!

Jack Vance departs

Jack Vance, author of such fantasy classics as the Dying Earth stories and the Lyonesse trilogy, has passed away.

The Jack Vance official website statement.

Of course, I'm also grateful to Vecna, er, Vance for his contributions to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game (the  'Vancian' spell system, graciously allowing Gary Gygax to use his 'Ioun stones' as a kind of magic item in the game, etc.).

Thanks for all the wonderful tales, oh great arch-mage!

Essay on Lovecraft

My fellow Lovecraft fans, I think that this piece in the Los Angeles Review of Books may be of interest to you!  It is a fine essay on Lovecraft's work (posing as a book review).

As an aside, I thought that I would note that I agree with the author that "Clark Ashton Smith was a better stylist" than HPL.  It is regrettable that more of CAS's work is not available in published form today.  Fortunately, most of his work is available online at 'The Eldritch Dark'.

OSR Con III in Toronto August 3-4

OSR Con III will be held on August 3-4 in Toronto.

Ed Greenwood will be returning as one of the guests of honour, and will be joined this time by Frank Mentzer.

I had a great time at last year's OSR Con II, and very much regret that it is unlikely that I will be able attend this summer.  However, if you can make it to Toronto for that weekend, I very much urge you to go!  It's a wonderful 'little' con.

I believe that my friend Lawrence Whitaker (co-author of RuneQuest 6 and many other RPG books) will be there.  If you have a chance to play in one of Lawrence's games, I recommend that you take it, as he's a superb GM.