How do you run Runequest?

[vladtolenkov]

I'm wanting to run Runequest 2nd edition (NOT Runequest II) if I can convince my group.

So. . .how do you run Runequest? And how is running it different from running D&D?

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome!

[coffee]

First of all, don't make it all about combat. The way the combat system is written, you'll have limbs flying everywhere.

Otherwise, I'd say to run it like any other game: Provide an objective for the characters and adjudicate their efforts to reach it.

[bert]

Don't treat it like D&D dungeoneering, as coffee said that way ends in a bloody heap of severed limbs. If you have seen any recent editions of D&D they witter on at excessive length about 'skills challenges'; RQ pretty much had them and the game mechanisms for using them from the start; if you are going to have a dungeon and a fight make working out where said fight is via social skills, getting there using riding, climbing, swimming and hiding and the native savvy of the players the biggest part of the adventure.

If you are using Glorantha and one of the scenario packs just letting the players bimble about Prax, Balazar or Pavis sand box style can be a perfectly fun campaign in and of itself. Let adventures arise 'organically' from the campaign background material rubbing against the PC race/nation/religious background and the aims and objectives they may derive from them.

[jjarvis]

Runequest combat is no more lethal than 1st and 2nd level AD&D combat. Keep that in mind and all is good. The only frustrating thing for new players is lopping off their own or ally limbs. Magic is everywhere in runequest, it just doesn't pack as much punch most of the time. Anyone and everyone can learn spells and that can be hard for some D&Ders to get used to.

Start everyone off as newbies in a small town with a couple guilds, a couple not too powerful factions, a few nearby bad asses, a handful of dangerous monster menacing countryside, and one or two really dangerous places not too far off should fit the bill to see if you and the players are up to a larger rune-quest campaign.

[thorswulf]

Remember starting characters probably only have a 35% chance to do most things. They probably won't have much in the way of arms and armor either, or spells. Finding a paron, guild, or temple should be extremely important to them for survival. Aside from that remember too that Glorantha (If that is where you are playing) is a place where magic is all pervasive. Make it focal to the storytelling. Don't explain it, just let it happen and let the players fathom its mysteries.

[vladtolenkov]

I've heard that combat can take a long time. Is this born out in your experience? How does it compare to D&D in term of combat?

I've played in a BRP fantasy game using a mashup of the Stormbinger/Elric rules and Magic World and my memory is that combat ran pretty quickly. However, we weren't using the hit location system or Strike Ranks. How much do they slow things down?

[jjarvis]

I don't recall strike ranks being much worse than tracking weapon speed in AD&D and not as pointless. They are also pretty easy to ignore (which would probably make some purists shriek, but oh well).

It definitely slower to:
* Roll to hit
* Roll to parry
* Roll hit location
* roll damage
* subtract armor from damage
* resolve damage (subtract from total and location)

There is a certain added degree of satisfaction and imagery to lopping off arms and heads instead of whittling away abstract hit points.
There is certainly a bit more to combat but compared to many other games it's far from overbearing.

Get folks to roll hit location along with attack rolls and it speeds up combat.