Curious about OpenQuest?

There is a very good OpenQuest ‘bundle of holding’ deal available until April 4th.  It consists of four PDFs – the 2nd edition rules and three adventure packs – for only 8.95 USD. 

So if you’ve been curious about OQ, the ‘rules-light-ish’ OGL version of RuneQuest published by D101 Games, then this would be an excellent opportunity to satisfy that curiosity! 

And for some interesting background on OQ – why and how Newt Newport created the system – check out this post at Newt’s ‘Sorcerer Under Mountain’ blog.

Can Gandalf be a 5th edition D&D magic-user?

Cubicle 7, publishers of The One Ring role-playing game, will be coming out with a series of Middle-earth products for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition.

Here is the official announcement:

Cubicle 7 Entertainment and Sophisticated Games have announced plans to make a Dungeons & Dragons® compatible roleplaying series for J R R Tolkien’s legendary fantasy world of Middle-earth, the setting for The Lord of the Rings® and The Hobbit®.
Cubicle 7’s CEO Dominic McDowall said, “We’re all very excited to be building on the success of The One Ring Roleplaying Game and bringing Middle-earth to D&D® players. Uniting two things very close to the hearts of gamers, me included, is very cool – I can't wait for the summer.”
The best selling The One Ring Roleplaying Game will continue as a separate and independent line, with some very exciting announcements coming this week. The new series will be based upon Francesco Nepitello’s highly praised work in The One Ring®, with Francesco acting as creative consultant.
Further details will be released in the coming months, with the release set for Summer 2016.

This is exciting news, at least for me, as I played a ton of ICE's Middle-earth Role-playing ('MERP') during the glory days of my gaming youth (from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s). I haven't used Middle-earth  for my gaming in fifteen years, but I still very much like the world, and look forward to seeing what Cubicle 7 produces for it. (I assume that the standard 5e rules will be heavily tweaked, as they are quite inappropriate for Middle-earth as written.)

Do you remember the classic Dragon article: "Gandalf was a 5th level magic-user"? I guess we'll soon find out whether Gandalf can be a 5th edition magic-user...

[Gandalf by Frank Frazetta.]

Are you in a Viking Saga?

"How to tell if you're in a Viking Saga."

I especially liked: "Greenland is horrible, but you have persuaded people to move there with false advertising."

[Picture by I, Berig, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2287417] 

Review of Curse of Strahd

My friend Christopher Robichaud has given me permission to repost the following short review of WotC’s new 5th edition D&D adventure, Curse of Strahd.

CURSE OF STRAHD REVIEW 

The significantly disappointing thing about Curse of Strahd is that it's just the 5e version of I6: Ravenloft. And the thing is, I'm exhausted with that scenario. 

I6: Ravenloft, for its many flaws, is among the greatest D&D adventures of all time. And since no good deed can go unpunished, its popularity and success have made it the single most remade D&D module ever. The 2nd edition remade it with House of Strahd. The 3rd edition remade it with Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. And now the 5th edition has remade it again with Curse of Strahd. 

All these adventures are basically the same story, with the same maps, told with a different rules set, and getting ever more bloated. (I6: Ravenloft is 32 pages, House of Strahd is 64 pages, Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is 220 pages, and Curse of Strahd is 256 pages.) 

I longed for something more. Princes of the Apocalypse was, in my opinion, an ultimately disappointing reboot of Temple of Elemental Evil. But at least it tried to do something new with the mega-dungeon, as did its predecessor, 3e's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, a direct sequel to the original and quite good in its own right. We've gotten very little of that with Ravenloft. The original module has a weird and wild sequel, Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill, and of course, House of Strahd was part of 2e's entire Ravenloft campaign setting, which in addition to featuring lots of other villains, revisited Strahd on occasion with From the Shadows and Roots of Evil. But that's about it. 

Of all the 5e campaigns WOTC has put out, this one is the biggest letdown. It's just a rehash of I6 with more of Barovia fleshed out, an idea already explored at length in Expedition to Castle Ravenloft. We don't need a 5e version of the same story. You can convert any of the 1e, 2e, or 3e Ravenloft modules just fine. What would've been great would have been a reboot along the lines of Princes of the Apocalypse. Even if it fell short, it would've been something fresh. Alas, it was not meant to be. Curse of Strahd, I'm afraid to say, is as stale as the air in the catacombs beneath Castle Ravenloft. What a shame.

In a follow-up message, Robichaud added:

I didn't mention that I think, as far as it goes, it's a fine 5e version of the module. It nicely expands the lands around the castle in a way that allows players to play in a sandbox more than just showing up and then heading right to the castle.

So perhaps there is a reason to get the adventure after-all (namely, if you want to use I6 in your 5e game, but can’t be bothered to convert I6 to 5e yourself).

Cthulhu 2016!

I'm not an American citizen. But if I were, I know that I would be supporting Cthulhu for president! The stars are right.

I look forward to reading this on the US dollar bill after 2017: "Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!"

Kudos Max!

I did not watch the Oscars (I never do, as I find award shows painful). But I was delighted to learn that Mad Max: Fury Road received six of them.

Chaosium explains its decision regarding RuneQuest

Since I previously criticized Chaosium (under the new leadership of the gentlemen from Moon Design) for their decision to abandon RuneQuest 6, and to produce yet another version of RuneQuest (the fourth within a decade!), one embedded within Glorantha, it seems only fair that I should link to their official explanation for that decision.

I don’t have much to say about the rules-related reasons offered. Since I think that combat special effects are the best thing about RQ6’s combat system, and I have no interest in Glorantha, this forthcoming version obviously is of no interest to me. And even though my earlier post was strangely interpreted to be a comment on Chaosium’s financial condition (even though I said nothing about that in the post itself), a new Glorantha-based, 2^nd edition-compatible RuneQuest may very well be a grand success for Chaosium. After all, there seems to be a healthy number of fans of Glorantha with deep pockets out there. I hope that those folks are happy with the new version of RuneQuest.

That said, there are some puzzling things about Jeff Richards’s explanation of Chaosium’s decision. He writes, “we had imagined that the new RQ would be a streamlined RQ6,” but that, in part because “RQ Classic was a smashing success,” they decided that “the new rules had to be backwards compatible to RQ2.” 

This suggests that the decision not to proceed with RQ6, at least in part, was motivated by the outcome of the RQ Classic Kickstarter. Yet the decision to not use RQ6 came well before the Kickstarter. I knew this already (as a semi-regular RQ6 play-tester with Loz’s group in Toronto). But MOB publicly stated this in a recent post at RPGnet:

We actually formed the design team last year directly after Gen Con and we first met in person (including Ken, Sandy, Jason and Chris) in late September. It's only Steve who is a recent addition, and we're delighted to have him on board!
 MOB
VP - Chaosium

So “directly after Gen Con” (August 2015) the new design team for the new RQ was formed.* Yet somehow, according to Richards, “The RuneQuest Classic Kickstarter resolved the question” – despite the fact that that Kickstarter did not happen until many months after Gen Con. 

Hmmm...

While Chaosium’s decision not to use RQ6 obviously was disappointing to fans of that system, what many found especially annoying (including myself) was how Chaosium miscommunicated this decision. As late as December 3^rd – long after the decision to not use RQ6 had been made (as MOB’s post indicates), Chaosium’s Rick Meints publicly stated the following:

The RQ6 "Glorantha" project is progressing. We have it as a 2016 release, most likely later in the year. Lots of writing and editing is underway.

What could have motivated Meints to post such a misleading statement? Even if Chaosium did not want to make public their decision at that time, surely some other, less misleading statement could have been made. (And of course the decision did become public very shortly afterwards.)

To summarize: 

(a) Chaosium’s ‘official explanation’ for their decision not to use RQ6 suggests that that decision was made, at least in part, because of the success of the RQ Classic Kickstarter -- yet the decision not to use RQ6 was made months before the Kickstarter. 

(b) Chaosium unnecessarily put off announcing their decision -- and in fact made public statements that suggested that they were continuing with RQ6, long after they in fact had decided not to proceed with RQ6. 

Perhaps I've misinterpreted Chaosium's public statements, or there is a straightforward explanation for the prima facie contradictions of those statements?

[Finally, I should note that I stated in my comment on December 14: "I don’t intend to post anything more about Chaosium’s new direction for RuneQuest here (unless something especially newsworthy occurs)." I took Chaosium's recent statement to be "newsworthy," hence this post. Barring any further developments on this matter, though, I do not anticipate writing more about the new RQ here.]

* UPDATE (2016-03-01): MOB informs me that the team that formed directly after Gen Con included Loz and Pete (the Design Mechanism). I had assumed that they were not part of the team, as they were not mentioned in MOB's post. I thank MOB for the clarification. 

About that forthcoming Dungeons and Dragons movie...

Last year we learned that a new Dungeons and Dragons movie will be coming out, produced by Warner Bros., and set in the well-known 'Forgotten Realms' setting.

Now it has been revealed that the film will try to not take itself too seriously:

This new Dungeons & Dragons will be a Guardians of the Galaxy-tone movie in a Tolkien-like universe. Because when you think of all the Hobbit movies and The Lord of the Rings, they have an earnestness to them, and to see something fun, a Raiders romp inside that world, I feel is something the audience has not seen before.

Well, if one must make a new D&D movie, then I guess that this isn't a bad way to go. After all, actually playing D&D often can be quite goofy and hilarious. Indeed, the sessions of 5e D&D that I ran last year were among the most amusing RPG sessions that I've ever experienced, whilst being genuine 'adventures' nonetheless.

While the film could still turn out to be a disaster, of course, this strategy certainly sounds more promising than Gary Gygax's original film idea.

RuneQuest 6 to become Mythras

The game now known as RuneQuest 6 will soon be known as Mythras.

Here is the official announcement from the Design Mechanism:

Mythras is the new name for RuneQuest 6th Edition, the acclaimed roleplaying system developed by The Design Mechanism.
From July 2016, the name Mythras takes over from the previous trademark, but the same great rules continue, bringing you d100-based roleplaying adventure centred on logical, consistent, straightforward mechanics, coupled with innovative approaches to character creation, combat, magic and monsters. The name may have changed, but the song remains the same.
Why did we choose Mythras as a name? First of all, the game has always been about adventuring in mythic landscapes, with characters shaping their own stories, creating their legends and forging their own myths. It comes from the authors’ deep love of real world myths and ancient stories and so is the natural starting point for a new name.
Next comes Mithra or Mithras, a deity found in Persian, Greek, Roman, and Celtic mythologies. Mithras is a god of warriors, a divine protector of oaths and covenants, a protector of cattle and of waters. In the Zoroastrian Avestas, he is described as Mithra of Wide Pastures, of the Thousand Ears, and of the Myriad Eyes.
Bringing these two sources together gives us Mythras, a game concerned with myths, protectors, oaths, great deeds and wonderful stories: the perfect name for our game system.

While I'm dismayed that the DM didn't go with my suggestion "Mythic Quests" (no, not really!), this name has the virtue of being evocative and short.

In terms of rules, Mythras will be RQ6; this is not a 'new' or heavily revised version of the system. The main changes between the two core books will include:

Layout (cleaner, fresher, better, no ligatures, better use of space)
Art (some brand new pieces)
A couple of brand new Special Effects
General Errata
Most likely a renaming of the term 'Strike Rank' to 'Initiative'.

So nothing substantive. (But "no ligatures"? Oh no!) 

If you already own the RQ6 core rulebook, there'll be no need to pick up Mythras -- unless, of course, you want an attractive new book!

Interview with Cakebread and Walton

There's an interesting interview with game designers Peter Cakebread and Ken Walton of 'Cakebread & Walton' over at the Precis Intermedia blog.

I'm a big fan of the Renaissance system (which is a 'blackpowder' variant of Newt Newport's OpenQuest RPG) that Cakebread and Walton use for many of their settings, including the superb Dark Streets.  In fact, Dark Streets, which involves investigations into unnatural crimes in mid-18th century London, probably is my favourite non-1920s 'Cthulhu Mythos' setting.