Runequest: Putting The Reality Back Into Fantasy Gaming

There has never really been any other role-playing game that has reached the heights of Dungeons and Dragons. After all, can you imagine prime-time TV shows like The Big Bang Theory being able to drop any other gaming reference and be sure the audience understands the connotation? When a game reaches that profile, you know it is in an altogether different league.

But popular doesn't always mean best, something born out by the existence of Mcdonald's and Desperate Housewives, and while D&D was working its way into popular culture, another equally as long-established rules system has been plotting another quieter but perhaps more meaningful course. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Runequest.

There are other game systems that also have their roots in the mid-seventies formative years of the tabletop role-playing game - Traveller, Chivalry & Sorcery, and Tunnels & Trolls could all claim to be D&D's original rivals. But Traveller is set in space so we can rule that out; T&T was created in response to accusations that D&D took itself far too seriously, and C&S because some said it didn't take itself seriously enough. So they cancel each other for being responses to the 800-pound gorilla that is D&D. Only Runequest can claim to be the genuinely alternative fantasy system to survive from those early days.

Like most gamers, I'm a stickler for historical accuracy in films. I'm not sure why directors and scriptwriters feel the need to elaborate so much to make a movie feel sellable to the mainstream when, with a bit of research, they would see that the period they are writing about was as fantastic and exciting as anything that might come out of their imaginations.

I'm not sure what period of history Mel Gibson's The Patriot was meant to be set in, but it didn't feel much like the American War of Independence to me. Similarly, did the people who wrote the TV series Vikings believe that Scandinavia was once the home to thousands of extras from Sons of Anarchy?

And the same goes for RPGs. Obviously, in a fantasy game, we are dealing with, well, the fantastic, but such a world still needs to have its internal logic. If magic is so widespread and influential, why even have stone-built castles when a Warband of mages can teleport into its depths and cause havoc?

This is why I always warmed to Runequest. Sure, it is set in a time of great deeds and where magic is accessible to most adventurers, it is a place of strange creatures and where the gods walk the earth, but there seems to be a logic and a balance to it that makes it seem…real!

The paradigm shift away from most gaming systems is in Runequest, all characters have a percentage chance to do something - hit someone with a weapon, ride a horse, climb a wall, read a book, know some important piece of information etc, rather than their potential being rigidly set by levels and character classes. The idea that someone could be the master of one set of skills as dictated by their character's class limits but not have the slightest clue in other areas does seem odd in the extreme. Life doesn't work like that; what about unplanned life experiences? What about transferable skills? What about people who prefer to be jacks of all trades rather than masters of one particular career? Runequest avoids such strictures and allows characters to evolve according to the players' tastes, with skill advancement based on the idea that the more you do something, the better you get; players are free to shape their character's skill set in any way they see fit.

It also does away with the idea of high hit points. In many games, you find characters akin to super soldiers or heavily armored clerics, but in the Runequest combat system, even seasoned characters need to be careful. You may have built up some skills with weapons, acquired some decent armor, and carry around all manner of magical defenses that you can turn to when the going gets tough. But a lucky blow or an overwhelming wave of attackers will still put you out of the game. Perhaps forever. To counter this, combat is based on a system of parries and blows, dodges, and armor absorption, which means that more often than not, an incoming blow must first defeat the opponent's parry and then get through his armor, each absorbing some of the damage on the way. You might find yourself regularly repairing or replacing equipment and weapons but are not likely to lose a limb. Again, it is a more realistic system if you ask me.

But most of all, it is the approach to magic that won me over. Everyone has some magic, and most of it doesn't give an unfair edge to the character. The divine nature of the magic system, its blend of paganism and shamanism, cult worship, animism, and divine favor, seems to work so well. Power isn't just scooped out of the air or comes from the fact that your character appears to have a degree in quantum magic but is borrowed from the spirits and divine beings that hang on the periphery just out of view…though sometimes in all too plain view, too. And everything has a price. Sacrifice, worship, dedication, and devotion to a god or spirit are just some of your part of the bargain. And if you don't pull your weight, you don't get your magical benefits.

The world it creates is both fantastic and well-realized. Glorantha, the name of the world Runequest is set in, is the product of decades of writing, playing, and evolution, and it shows. One of my issues when playing D&D back in the day was that it seemed to be a collection of things borrowed from all manner of myths and cultures and held together with goodwill and tenuous logic. Paladins in 15th-century plate armor went into battle with Viking-like Barbarians at their side. Medieval European clerics sparred with Middle Eastern Illusionists. Middle Earth mythologies danced with Dante's Infernos. It all seemed a mess.

Glorantha has a logic to it culturally. It takes much of its influence from the classical Mediterranean world (Rome and Greece) and the ancient Middle East (Persia) plus a bit of Asian Steppe culture and plenty of other races and tribes of its own making to help keep things interesting. But as such, the towns and cities that you find seem fitting. It is a land of fortified hilltop towns and market villages rather than the massive walled bastions that films seem to love so much. Watch a movie like Troy, and they would have you believe that the ancient world was entirely of high-rise city walls, dozens of feet thick and impenetrable, save for the trickery of a Trojan Horse. Read a history book; the reality is more Gloranthan than you might think.

On a side note, the approach toward non-canon content creation speaks volumes about the nature and attitudes of the gaming community that surrounds Runequest. D&D has been navigating some choppy waters of late regarding ownership of content. Whereas Hasbro seems hell-bent on taking ownership of anything written in the D&D sphere, Chaosium, the creators of Runequest, have gone the other way. As such, a wealth of player-written content is produced via a print-on-demand publisher, Jonstown Compendium. Hundreds of such books dovetail into and expand the lore and history of Glorantha, adding to the wealth of information available, should you want it.

Some gamers might be put off by the low technology, sensible weaponry, limitations on magic use, and the fact that even experienced adventurers can still get really messed up if they take too much for granted. For me, that is its beauty.

Post written by Dave Franklin, you find them here.