BRP The Edition Wars To End All Wars

[Mankcam]

As a person who does a podcast which is practically known for derailment I approve

I think I might have to subscribe to your podcast. I totally forgot you were doing it, and I expect given your Mythras leanings then the content will be my thing.
The derailment banter will just be an added bonus

 

[Raleel]

I think I might have to subscribe to your podcast. I totally forgot you were doing it, and I expect given your Mythras leanings then the content will be my thing.
The derailment banter will just be an added bonus

Bilharzia and i have done a few more episodes currently in editing, and we have another coming up we are doing as well. it's very... conversational

 

[Mankcam]

I'm just gonna park this unboxing vid here in my BRP thread.
This is the finished product of a kickstarter project that I skipped backing, and the collector in me is now truly triggered off

 

[Bilharzia]

I think I might have to subscribe to your podcast. I totally forgot you were doing it, and I expect given your Mythras leanings then the content will be my thing.
The derailment banter will just be an added bonus

We are amateurs in the original sense of the word, and episodes have been slow, most due to my glacial pace, but we also stopped entirely for many months. At the moment it is slowly coming back to life and the pace may pick up a bit. It's likely we will branch out a bit into wider d100 territory and perhaps other related subjects. We in no way wish to compete with the official Mythras podcast, Mythras Matters, which is so much more professionally produced it makes Opposed Roles look comical in comparison. The release regularity of MM is daunting and I've no desire to replicate that.

Opposed Roles grew out of the frequent reddit & forum exchanges Raleel and I had about Mythras, and we have both been guests on Mythras Matters, so that making our own stuff seemed to be a no-brainer. It also allows us to ramble diverge as much as we like.

Opposed Roles

Discussions about Roleplaying Games - Games podcast from United States

www.listennotes.com

 

[mostlylurking]

Opposed Roles grew out of the frequent reddit & forum exchanges Raleel and I had about Mythras, and we have both been guests on Mythras Matters, so that making our own stuff seemed to be a no-brainer. It also allows us to ramble diverge as much as we like.

I'm eagerly awaiting the next episode (it's a continuation of the interview with Dan True, right?). To me, Opposed Roles is like an after-party to Mythras Matters. MM provides the official rules and settings, and OR the tweaks, connections, and side notes.

 

[MoonHunter]

Okay, a quick bit.

My Hill to Die On in this conflict is - BRP Gold. (You know, that big gold book.)

While I liked and played RQ (the first couple of editions) a few times, I liked Future World and Magic World (Both Iterations). I played and disliked Super Worlds (not bad but did not fit my genre needs as written). I have played various BRPs for various GM Developed settings that adopted various things. I Did a lot of work for Land of Ninjas, but that ultimately went nowhere. I did a steampunk variation for my Boy Scouts Chronicle (a few years). (I have a passionate hate for all things Mythos, so I am blind to that. Even though I have played it twice).

I do like the Legends version of the game. Of everything I played, I have found the coherence of Gold to work for me. I didn't have to search for things across various books. Is it perfect? No. Is it close? maybe. Is it better than most versions? Yes.

I will take consistency and completion over moments of brilliance found in various rules across the years.

 

[Spellslinging Sellsword]

Chaoosium could have totally made that their core book and did setting supplements with the options page from it highlighting what the setting default used.

 

[MoonHunter]

Chaoosium could have totally made that their core book and did setting supplements with the options page from it highlighting what the setting default used.

Indeed. I am surprised that it didn't happen. As I understood it, things got complicated at Chaosium soon after Gold was released. I think they were counting on the monographs to carry the day. That model did not seem to work they way they implemented it.

 

[Acmegamer]

Chaoosium could have totally made that their core book and did setting supplements with the options page from it highlighting what the setting default used.

Strongly agree. I feel that they missed an solid opportunity with that.(sigh)

 

[SJB]

Okay, a quick bit.

My Hill to Die On in this conflict is - BRP Gold. (You know, that big gold book.)

While I liked and played RQ (the first couple of editions) a few times, I liked Future World and Magic World (Both Iterations). I played and disliked Super Worlds (not bad but did not fit my genre needs as written). I have played various BRPs for various GM Developed settings that adopted various things. I Did a lot of work for Land of Ninjas, but that ultimately went nowhere. I did a steampunk variation for my Boy Scouts Chronicle (a few years). (I have a passionate hate for all things Mythos, so I am blind to that. Even though I have played it twice).

I do like the Legends version of the game. Of everything I played, I have found the coherence of Gold to work for me. I didn't have to search for things across various books. Is it perfect? No. Is it close? maybe. Is it better than most versions? Yes.

I will take consistency and completion over moments of brilliance found in various rules across the years.

If only they had made it the SRD.

 

[Mankcam]

Yeah the BGB is one of my treasured rpg favourites - for me it is a hard call between all the BRP rules compilations: the BGB, OpenQuest, Legend and Mythras. Either of them are great, and I totally agree that the BGB is one of the biggest missed opportunities in RPG history

 

[AppleJax]

If only they had made it the SRD.

Doesn’t the BRP SRD use the 2008 4e rules aka BGB as its basis? It definitely seems to and hasn’t incorporated any of the changes from the latest edition of CoC (which are apparently controversial in places). I can tell because the SRD has separate Art and Craft skills

 

[Mankcam]

Doesn’t the BRP SRD use the 2008 4e rules aka BGB as its basis? It definitely seems to and hasn’t incorporated any of the changes from the latest edition of CoC (which are apparently controversial in places). I can tell because the SRD has separate Art and Craft skills

Yeah the current BRP SRD is pretty bland and sparse, it looks like it was derived from the BRP BGB - which was a bit of a surprise after the direction Chaosium have gone with the CoC 7E mechanics.

In some respects Chaosium BRP presents a bit of a mess these days, as CoC 7E has gone in one direction, whilst RQG has gone in another.
It's like they went a step forward, then a step backward, then a step to the side. Not sure if that's dancing the Time-Warp or the Hokey-Pokey, heh heh

I really thought it was much better having a same core BRP mainframe, and adding setting options to it.
So far it hasn't really panned out that way with the current Chaosium BRP.

In some ways that's why Mythras Imperative (2019) appeals to me, as it feels less clunky and it's a consistent core engine to build from.

 

[SJB]

Doesn’t the BRP SRD use the 2008 4e rules aka BGB as its basis? It definitely seems to and hasn’t incorporated any of the changes from the latest edition of CoC (which are apparently controversial in places). I can tell because the SRD has separate Art and Craft skills

You are quite right. I was getting at the fact that the SRD is incredibly bare bones. For instance, if one wants a short spear in the rules that’s immediately a grey area. The BGB with IP exclusions would have been a really useful toolkit.

 

[AppleJax]

You are quite right. I was getting at the fact that the SRD is incredibly bare bones. For instance, if one wants a short spear in the rules that’s immediately a grey area. The BGB with IP exclusions would have been a really useful toolkit.

There’s no point in being so sparse. Rules aren’t protected by copyright, text is. Chaosium is just making things unnecessarily complicated by forcing us to go to the effort of reinventing the wheel.

Paizo had an exceptionally generous SRD and it didn’t backfire on them.

 

[Bilharzia]

My understanding of the Chaosium BRP SRD is that it's more of a "get off our turf" statement than an attempt to encourage or permit other writers and publishers to use BRP. The SRD is so restrictive and minimal you would have to be very, very keen on the "BRP" name tag. Chaosium themselves put little value in BRP outside of their Glorantha/CoC lines.

The Cthulhu Eternal people are making an effort to carry an open licence d100 vaguely BRP-derived flag. Their SRD is based on Mongoose Legend (based on Mongoose RQII), and the OGL portions of the recent Delta Green books.

https://cthulhueternal.com/

 

[remial]

I just (well a week or 2 ago) got Destined from Drivethru (took almost a month for the printing) I really like it.

I was on TBP when the BGB was being planned, and at the time was not well off financially, not that I am all that great now, but I was worse off back then. I went without food for a few days so I could order the test print of the book, which upset a couple of the guys in my game group a great deal, but I didn't regret my action. I also have it in hardcover, and that is the one I read through the most. the test print is squirreled away somewhere safe from harm.

now if I could just get anyone in my area to play anything other than D&D5...

 

[Acmegamer]

now if I could just get anyone in my area to play anything other than D&D5...

I feel ya brother, I feel ya.

 

[raniE]

So the Swedish publisher Eloso is putting out more BRP stuff. Specifically, the second edition of Expert Nova, a rule set for adventures in the near past, present and near future. The game is by Anders Blixt, the grand old man of the Swedish rpg industry (also editor for the new Swedish RuneQuest line), and based on the old Drakar och Demoner Expert he wrote, the first version of the Swedish BRP line to move from a D100 to a D20. The first setting published for the rules will be Partisan, an alternate history about a Soviet invasion of Sweden in the 1980s.

 

[Endless Flight]

I went without food for a few days so I could order the test print of the book, which upset a couple of the guys in my game group a great deal, but I didn't regret my action.

Please, if you ever get in a spot like that again and want something, send me a message and I will be more than happy help you out. That goes for anyone else here. I want to see people here take care of themselves and enjoy their hobbies at the same time.

 

[Raleel]

Please, if you ever get in a spot like that again and want something, send me a message and I will be more than happy help you out. That goes for anyone else here. I want to see people here take care of themselves and enjoy their hobbies at the same time.

Indeed, put me on the list of folks to help. We don’t need people starving themselves for rpgs. We can get it figured out.

 

[SJB]

Is it just me or is there tumbleweed blowing through BRP Central these days?

 

[Raleel]

I only monitor one channel on there, and it's been pretty quiet.

 

[Nick J]

Is it just me or is there tumbleweed blowing through BRP Central these days?

It's really just CoC and Glorantha/RQG central these days. Chaosium making it their official forum kind of killed off the broader "BRP family" vibe that used to exist there. There's way more action on the Mythras Discord if you want to discuss that game for example.

 

[Raleel]

There's way more action on the Mythras Discord

 

[Mankcam]

It's really just CoC and Glorantha/RQG central these days. Chaosium making it their official forum kind of killed off the broader "BRP family" vibe that used to exist there. There's way more action on the Mythras Discord if you want to discuss that game for example.

As much as I love both RQ and CoC, there was a much more creative vibe going on years ago at BRP Central amongst forum posters, possibly due to the proliferation of all the BRP monographs. Also with the publication of Magic World there was a sense that this was a perfect foundation for building home brew classic fantasy settings - people were posting their fantasy settings for BRP/MW, converting old D&D modules, porting Wormskin (Dolemwood) fanzine stuff, etc. There was quite a prolific world builder for Magic World who went by the moniker of tooley1chris and he was always posting BRP/MW stuff in much the same way that Dumarest was a prolific poster here.

With BRP Central going under the Chaosium banner, it kind of nerfed all that. The Chaosium moderators didn't push the BGB or MW, as these properties were not part of the intended publication schedule at that stage, overnight they had become 'dead titles'. All the wind were taken out of the sails of posters who were being creative with home brew settings. Which was a real shame, and this led to declining numbers over there. Getting rid of the feeling of being able to homebrew is never a good thing for a rpg company.

Even I got a bit deflated at that time, as I had been using the BGB to develop a small homebrew fantasy setting that had a whimsical Brothers Grimm dark fable vibe to it. I envisioned presenting it to the forum as a setting ideal for Magic World, but I kinda lost my mojo for it when the BGB and MW got dropped.

The next kick came when TDM were taken off the RQ project - many of us already had RQ6 and were eager for what RQ7 was going to look like - it seemed a perfect marriage of having the RQ6 mechanics immersed in the new direction and setting lore of Glorantha.
But then there was creative differences in how the new managers saw the RQ mechanics, and TDM were shelved, with Chaosium producing a clunky RQ2.5 instead. They thought because many of us bought the RQ Classic book (RQ2 reprint) out of nostalgia, then we must of wanted that as the current game as well. Although true to some extent, this was also not the case for many of us. Many wanted some of that RQ2 flavour, but were very happy with how things had progressed in RQ6, so game mechanic-wise stepping back was definately not stepping forward.

Yay for RQ6 being reborn as Mythras, but for people like me we were so looking forward to that being the Glorantha game.

Many posters faded away after that, which is kind of how I ended up here. I still visit BRP Central about once a fortnight just to keep up with RQG and CoC 7E, but the mojo to regularly post on there just doesn't appeal to me at present. As much as I love the current version of Glorantha, I really don't like it when posters go too far down the canon lore rabbit-hole. I interpret my Glorantha books when I read them, and not all that interested in debating stuff which is meant to be vague anyway.

Some of the Jonston Compedium stuff is quite creative however, but one is never sure on how much to invest in unofficial Gloranthan setting lore, as company policy canon could just wipe it away at a moments notice. However I do have some Jonston Compedium books and they are quite good for amateur writers, so that is where the hombrewing is now.

BRP is still a great family of rpgs, one of my favourites, but BRP Central just doesn't have the same connectivness that it used to have.

 

[raniE]

Yeah, I don’t like to use official company forums, they always feel off. I much prefer general forums like this.

 

[ffilz]

...
The next kick came when TDM were taken off the RQ project - many of us already had RQ6 and were eager for what RQ7 was going to look like - it seemed a perfect marriage of having the RQ6 mechanics immersed in the new direction and setting lore of Glorantha.
But then there was creative differences in how the new managers saw the RQ mechanics, and TDM were shelved, with Chaosium producing a clunky RQ2.5 instead. They thought because many of us bought the RQ Classic book (RQ2 reprint) out of nostalgia, then we must of wanted that as the current game as well. Although true to some extent, this was also not the case for many of us. Many wanted some of that RQ2 flavour, but were very happy with how things had progressed in RQ6, so game mechanic-wise stepping back was definately not stepping forward.

Yay for RQ6 being reborn as Mythras, but for people like me we were so looking forward to that being the Glorantha game.

Reasonable people can differ... :-) I get the desire for RQG to have been built on the RQ6 chassis, but I personally am glad it's RQ2.5...

Long live the BRP edition wars!

Many posters faded away after that, which is kind of how I ended up here. I still visit BRP Central about once a fortnight just to keep up with RQG and CoC 7E, but the mojo to regularly post on there just doesn't appeal to me at present. As much as I love the current version of Glorantha, I really don't like it when posters go too far down the canon lore rabbit-hole. I interpret my Glorantha books when I read them, and not all that interested in debating stuff which is meant to be vague anyway.

Yea, that's mostly where I am. I appreciate some of the discussions and some of what gets shared, but other stuff is way too much of a deep dive.

Some of the Jonston Compedium stuff is quite creative however, but one is never sure on how much to invest in unofficial Gloranthan setting lore, as company policy canon could just wipe it away at a moments notice. However I do have some Jonston Compedium books and they are quite good for amateur writers, so that is where the hombrewing is now.

I've got several JC items on my radar if the PCs go in certain directions, but at the moment, either RQ1-3 material, or home brew stuff is fulfilling my needs. But I do think there is some good stuff. If I do end up using something that later conflicts with canon, well, I've already ditched canon left and right, so what's another little tiny bit...

It helps that I don't give a flying flip about the timeline. Adventures are either usable in my campaign or they aren't. Cult write ups will be useful to the extent they are compatible with Cults of Prax. Hopefully the RQG cults will at least be more useful to me than RQ3 cults. Maps are always cool. Setting depth and detail, well, a lot of it I'll ignore, but there's sure to be something of use in the Sartar Box when it comes out.

 

[Simlasa]

Yeah, I don’t like to use official company forums, they always feel off. I much prefer general forums like this.

There are some 'official' forums I don't mind... Goodman Games, The Design Mechanism, LotFP's... they've kept the DIY feel to some extent... but BRP Central lost its vibe for me and MOB is a bit of an asshole, so I pretty much don't go there anymore. No interest in Glorantha and the CoC they're pushing isn't the one I want to play (I'm not just talking editions either).

 

[Mankcam]

Reasonable people can differ... :-) I get the desire for RQG to have been built on the RQ6 chassis, but I personally am glad it's RQ2.5...

Long live the BRP edition wars!



Yea, that's mostly where I am. I appreciate some of the discussions and some of what gets shared, but other stuff is way too much of a deep dive.


I've got several JC items on my radar if the PCs go in certain directions, but at the moment, either RQ1-3 material, or home brew stuff is fulfilling my needs. But I do think there is some good stuff. If I do end up using something that later conflicts with canon, well, I've already ditched canon left and right, so what's another little tiny bit...

It helps that I don't give a flying flip about the timeline. Adventures are either usable in my campaign or they aren't. Cult write ups will be useful to the extent they are compatible with Cults of Prax. Hopefully the RQG cults will at least be more useful to me than RQ3 cults. Maps are always cool. Setting depth and detail, well, a lot of it I'll ignore, but there's sure to be something of use in the Sartar Box when it comes out.

Don't get me wrong, I actually do like RQ2, but I just feel alot of the direction things went with Legend/RQ6 work better mechanically.

For me stuff like using a variable initiative roll feels smoother than the old Strike Rank system, but that's not a big river to cross.
What I really prefer is the emphasis on core characteristics as base skill chances. It's also quite easy to run at the table - player-characters just add two characteristics together to do any action the GM requests - the GM may indicate which are the most relevant core charactersitics, but that's about it, it's very easy from a GM perspective - the players check to see if they have a skill that supercedes this or not; it just seems logical for me, it's easy to GM as I don't need to remember Skills as I run a game ( the players will do that bit), and it makes the core charactersitics feel quite meaniful.
Also I quite like the combat manuver options, they occasionally slow things down but overall they lend themselves to encouraging all kinds of cinematics, and generally speed up combat rounds as a result. So the combat scenes tend to be resolved more quicker and encourage lively narration.
So all that is now in the Mythras system.

For me RQ2 works well being kept simple, rather than with RQG bolting too much new stuff onto it.
In RQG all those Runes added on to the character sheet really add a fair bit of clunk when glancing at that RQG character sheet. I really wish they just had a list space allocated for the most prominent Runes for each character, but listing all of the Runes was crazy stuff, and having values in each of them. They took Pendragon's Virtues & Passions system and retrapped it, but Pendragon only has half of the number of skills that RQ has on the character sheet, so the Pendragon sheet isn't cumbersome to read as the RQG character sheet.
Additionally my old gripe from years back returns (because RQG is using the core RQ2 build), I find there isn't much point in working out fiddily skill category modifiers based on the core chractersitics when they only add 5% or 10%, it just seems like the core charactersitics are not important until you need to make resistance rolls.

Other than that, I quite like the classic RQ system, I'll happily play either RQ2 or RQG, it is still a great bunch of mechanics, even if it gets a bit clunky at times. For me, the clunky parts of RQ2 are part of it's charm, but just not sure I wanted those bits present in RQG.

The fact that the NPC stat block for RQG is pretty compatible with RQ2 is a good thing as far as getting mileage between the supplements
(although RQ6 was about 90%% compatable, so it still worked for me)

Yes, long live the Edition Wars!!!

RQ variants are really more like different blends of coffee. If you are a coffee-lover you will have your favourites, but at the end of the day most blends suit your taste!

I always admire you sticking to your guns with what you do with RQ1 and a few of the RQ2 supplements. Your homebrew version of Glorantha sounds a million times more interesting than if someone adheres to canon Glorantha yet feels straightjacketed. At least you keep to the spirit of homebrewing settings which inspired many of us back in the day; that has been lost to some extent with the homogenisation of the rpg hobby in general.

I'll probably use Mythras with the RQG supplements (I'll just fit the Mythras Cultures to the Gloranthan Cultural Backgrounds, and I'll give beginining characters three additional Passions, specifically for portraying Runes). So I guess that's an easy fix in some ways. Although if I have to, I'll play RQG as written, depending upon what my players want, so it's no real biggie.

Whether I'll be running Mythras, and you running RQ1, we'll still likely be pillaging any goodies Chaosium sends our way regarding the new RQG books, so life ain't too bad!

 

[Bilharzia]

Unfortunately RQ6 never got a chance to go through a process of revision, integration with Glorantha, and playtesting with perhaps some compromises to make it more palatable to the old RQ grogs who were not familiar with it. The reasons it didn't make it, from an outsider's point of view, were more to do with politics ("we don't like XYZ about RQ6", "we don't like Mongoose") or marketing (hello RQ2 fans) than the way the game actually plays. Hence the mess that is RQG despite the (3 years?) of development from when RQ6 was dropped.

 

[Mankcam]

Yeah the legacy of MRQ did hang heavy over subsequent editions, even though Loz & Pete ( who obviously later became TDM) were brought in to clean it up for MRQ2, which they did reasonably well despite the cheesy art production. The core system changes in MRQ were not all that bad, but their portrayal of Glorantha in that original edition was way off. MRQ2 was much better, but the stain of the previous edition left a bad tase in the mouth for those who had bought the earlier versions of RQ. It was a pity, as MRQ2 was decent in many ways, and that collaboration led to them leaving to independently produce RQ6, which was just great, pretty much what has now become Mythras.
I guess those who had followed the system development could see the respect they had for the original system, and also why certain parts were altered after years of ongoing play testing and fine tuning. For many of us it was not a different system, but a more fine-tuned version of the one we had always been playing.

But if people had not given it a good look, all they could see was some parts were changed, and they didn’t like that. This coupled with the bad taste of MRQ1 probably did play a role, at least in the minds of Chaosium. It’s hard to say, and I guess it’s all water under the bridge now

Chaosium temporarily getting back an original RQ2 author to be involved to lend some cred to RQG was a bit dubious. I’m not sure how much involvement Steve Perrin actually had, but trying to pick up game mechanics from the mid 1980s was really the opposite of what should have happened.
Ray Turney & Steve Perrin’s core game engine was always solid, and remains so, that iwill never change, but trimming the edges requires the eye of someone involved in the gaming industry, not returning someone to it after a long absence.
Sometimes I wonder if Chaosium were more after Steve Perrin”s name more than anything else, it’s hard to say, just pure speculation.
It should also be pointed out that he previously wrote the Forward in RQ6, so he was definitely not opposed to it as a system.

It seemed such a shame when RQ6 was already the result of a lot of previous fine-tuning of the RuneQuest system, it really just needed to be firmly imbedded in the Glorantha that Chaosium is currently presenting. As far as compatibility with earlier editions, the NPC stat block was about 90% compatible anyway, so any RQ or BRP GM could have wave those NPC stats on the fly.

I guess I probably should stop rambling now, as the fact is that Chaosium have made a fine book with RQG, the art direction is superb, and it certainly feels like they have the setting and game line in hand. Their Guide To Glorantha was a labour of love, and everything after this has been really good. Glorantha feels alive and authentic like it did in the early products and in the Gloranthan fanzines like Wyrm Footprint, so I am very grateful for what they have achieved with the setting.

To outsiders looking at this situation it must seem quite minuscule and pedantic, as the differences between RQ editions pose a far less challenge at the gaming table than is trying to run a game like D&D cross-system.. Running D&D NPC/opponents stat blocks between editors really isn’t too hard, so that shows the gaps between the RQ editions are much less, and DMs probably wonder why the topic is even discussed, but hey, this is a rpg forum, so gripes over minor changes between editions is what we do, heh heh

 

[Bilharzia]

Mechanically there are big differences, even to newbies. As for complete outsiders seeing the differences as pedantic, that goes for all RPGs - I see all versions of d&d as the same, and I don't care about the difference, an attitude that would doubtless send devotees of the old cave crawling game into fits.

Special Effects, or combat manoeuvres completely changed combat, older RQ doesn't model this at all, and you are left with hacking things into pieces. More subtle but almost as significant is the de-escalation of damage in Mythras. It removed armour and damage stacking, so that it is almost impossible to get gross levels of AP/HP and damage, with RQG it's the norm. As players, you may of course prefer the high-magic and combat-hacking of older RQ.

Spirits are completely different in Mythras and fit perfectly into Glorantha, RQG sticks with sprits-as-spell-banks and that's it. A shame because Animism is one of the best magic systems in Mythras.

Sorcery, although I am still not a fan, is far better in Mythras than RQG. The uselessness of sorcery for PCs in RQG caused so much grief on the BRP forums the sorcery thread was locked. Why sorcery is in there *at all* is a mystery, it's from RQ3 for a start.

I do not agree that Chaosium's RQG is simply a great presentation of Glorantha - the art is great admittedly. It has changed the feel of the game from a player's and PC's perspective. Gone is the ordinary adventurer, to be replaced by the Runic-Bound-Ass-Kicking-Lightning-From-Fingertips-Hero. Again this may be attractive to new and old players, but it's very different from the old Glorantha RQ experience, and it has come from a design directive of "this is what the Glorantha experience should be like" - essentially Magical Runic Superheroes Save the Day.

 

[Simlasa]

Even though I'm not a Gloranthaphile I have to admit that I DO have an ongoing... skepticism about anything Mongoose puts out. That goes waaay back.
So while I might otherwise have engaged with MRQ, just for its mechanical bits (being BRP related) I didn't, then I heard it was kinda wonky, and saw how it looked... so I didn't pay much attention to the rumors about MRQ2 being much better.
Looking back on it now, I still see places... like the Blood Magic book for Legend... where the authors' original intent was undercut by Mongoose in a particularly ham-handed way. So I'm thankful they managed to escape that situation (Mongoose) and take control of things.

 

[Bilharzia]

No one disputes Mongoose put out shoddy and rushed RuneQuest books. That is no reason to call RuneQuest 6 and Mythras the "Mongoose branch of RuneQuest", since Mongoose as a publishing company and their authors aren't the same thing. Gareth Hanrahan has written for Mongoose (and even wrote Mongoose's "Legend" based on MRQII) but it a highly regarded RPG author.

I have maintained a long time grudge for Mongoose's abysmal conversion of "Spider God's Bride" to Legend, which is just a travesty. I'm sure it does better in other areas (like Traveller), but it's RQ Glorantha books were extremely variable.

 

[Simlasa]

No one disputes Mongoose put out shoddy and rushed RuneQuest books. That is no reason to call RuneQuest 6 and Mythras the "Mongoose branch of RuneQuest", since Mongoose as a publishing company and their authors aren't the same thing.

Oh, I haven't noticed folks doing that... is that a thing within the Glorantha fan community?
I had some initial resistance to RQ6/Mythras... I wasn't sure about combat maneuvers and other bits... but I don't remember the Mongoose connection being a block.

 

[SJB]

I do not agree that Chaosium's RQG is simply a great presentation of Glorantha - the art is great admittedly. It has changed the feel of the game from a player's and PC's perspective. Gone is the ordinary adventurer, to be replaced by the Runic-Bound-Ass-Kicking-Lightning-From-Fingertips-Hero. Again this may be attractive to new and old players, but it's very different from the old Glorantha RQ experience, and it has come from a design directive of "this is what the Glorantha experience should be like" - essentially Magical Runic Superheroes Save the Day.

Personally, I find the the presentation and art of RQG godawful: the worst kind of overproduced kitsch. The porno pig sacrifice killed it for me even before I’d fully grasped the horror of character generation. Indeed one might say that the art and layout are an accurate representation of the rules.

 

[3rik]

porno pig sacrifice

Do tell!

 

[Brock Savage]

Personally, I find the the presentation and art of RQG godawful: the worst kind of overproduced kitsch. The porno pig sacrifice killed it for me even before I’d fully grasped the horror of character generation. Indeed one might say that the art and layout are an accurate representation of the rules.

Can anyone provide links so those of us who don't own it can weigh in on this?

 

[SJB]