OpenQuest 2 pre-order now open!

It is with great pleasure I formally declare the pre-order for OpenQuest 2 open!

The pre-order will run until October 26th, with the rule book going to print shortly afterwards. At the bare minimum OQ2 will be available as a tided up version of the current rules, with new art to replace the clip art in the current version and in pdf/soft-cover and HARD-COVER.

What’s more if the goal amount of the pre-order is exceeded then things start to get interesting, as I will then start adding new and expanded content to the book. Also up for grabs is a new cover by Jon Hodgson, which the campaign banner/logo below previews part of.

So if you are an OQ fan and want to see a new expanded edition, that is 99% backwards compatible, with the first edition, please visit the pre-order page. Even if you just want to get the new content by downloading the new OQ2 Dev Kit, its worth donating as the more the Goal is exceeded the more content will be made available.

Magic World character + RuneQuest 6 detailed review + Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition podcast

Over at that hotbed of BRP grognards, The Tavern , there’s a couple of recent threads that may tickle the fancy of D100 lover.

Ben Monroe editor in chief of the upcoming Basic Roleplaying Magic World, has posted an example character.

OpenQuest editor/rules consultant Graham Spearing has been enthused by RQ6 and is posting his chapter by chapter thoughts on the book.

Also yog-sothoth.com has posted the recording of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition seminar given by Mike Mason and Paul Fricker

OpenQuest 2 IndieGoGo campaign, why?

Later today the OpenQuest2 IndieGoGo.com pre-order will go live. This post goes into why I’m doing it this way.

OpenQuest has gone through five mini-editions since it was released back in 2009. With each incremental update we’ve trapped more errors, clarified the rules, and added more content (monsters, spells, adventures and additional optional rules). One thing that people have always asked me for is a hardcover version, but I’ve always resisted since it would have meant reformatting the book from A4 to US Trade, something that takes time. In the first couple of years after OQ’s release time was in short supply as I worked on other games to establish D101 Games.

For various reasons time is now available to do a hardback and I thought it be a good time to address some of the art and layout issues that still exist in the book. John Holmes who has a razor sharp eye for typos and game logic mistakes has gone through the entire text. Meanwhile OQ’s artist Simon Bray has touched up his existing art where necessary and replaced all the clip-art with new pieces. Now that we have a tidied up or ‘Remastered’ version, thoughts have turned to doing a proper second edition of the game. Now don’t get me wrong this will not be a radical re-write of the rules, merely a tidy up and expansion. For example take Magic. I plan to keep the three magic approach, revise some of the problematic spells and add a supplementary magical approach for evil magicians (Blood magic), rather than collect all the spells into one unified magic system that does away with magic points.  So you could conceivably keep your old copy of OQ1 and get the new OQ2 content via the OQ2 Dev Kit (although note the setting Empire of Gatan + some of the examples is not going to be part it this time round).  So that brought me into a state of dilemma. I could conceivably work on OQ2 implementing people’s requests and either write too much or too little.  OpenQuest had a strong tradition of open development involving the game’s community. So as answer I thought that doing an IndieGoGo.com campaign would determine how much the community wants to see certain features.

Please note this is a PRE-ORDER. No matter what happens if you put your money down you’ll get the tidied up OpenQuest Remastered in print or pdf dependent on the pre-order you buy. This book is already in layout. If we raise more money than the initial goal, I take it from there 😉

From the crypts of DOOMMMM!!!!

Update from the Old School arm of D101.

OpenQuest 2 is about to go into IndieGoGo preorder mode by the end of this month. You the gaming public will decide if I release OpenQuest 2 proper, and what form it takes, or if I simply do OpenQuest Deluxe( tidy up of the last mistooks, replace the clip art with new pieces by Simon Bray, available in Soft and HARD COVER). If we surpass the goal there’s a hole load of stretch goals to see how content filled OQ 2, along with promises of an OQ 2 online SRD, a low art compact version of the rules called OQ Basic which will be available free as a pdf. Either way a new version of OQ will be with us by my birthday on October 26th of this year 🙂

Here Be Dragons – Simon Bray’s & Paul Mitchener’s OpenQuest adventure/setting. Think Ray Harryhausen meets Clark Ashton Smith on an island where the main city is ruled by a great Golden Dragon. Going for Nov/Dec 2012.

Moar OQ. I seriously want to ramp up the amount of OQ out there, so as well as upping my own output, I’ll be opening the hallowed doors of d101 submissions. Watch this space (or email me at newt@d101games.com if you can’t contain yourself ).

Crypts and Things
Starting tomorrow every Friday is “Fiendish Friday”. New magic items, new spells, creatures and other mini-articles for Crypts and Things. Submissions welcome (newt@d101games.com).

Blood of the Dragon goes into layout tonight and should be available in a couple of weeks 🙂

The next module “Fort Boneguard” goes into play test next week at Continuum as part of Our line up of games,more about that soon. All in all I reckon I’ve got three or so modules on the go, which should be out before the end of the year 🙂

Like OQ I’ll be throwing open the doors for sumissions soon ( again contact me at newt@d101games.com if you can’t contain yourself 😉 )

Finally the I’ve got a new C&T book in mind that should blow minds in the pipeline. I’m going to keep it under wraps for the time being but just I’d tease you with that 🙂

RuneQuest 6 preview: First impressions

Ok admissions first. I’m a huge huge RuneQuest fantatic, so much so that when I played the game solidly in the 90s I dropped everything else except Cyberpunk 2020 and casually forgot that I had ever played any D&D. In fact I was disdainful about it, in the big playground punch up that was D&D vs RQ, I would have argued that RuneQuest was superior in every way conceivable. It wasn’t an argument born out of logic, but one of pure passion. I simply love RQ and leafing through my old editions of the game still brings a shiver down my spine. I’ve got an aching summer cold and merely typing this and thinking about RQ is making me feel vastly better.

Secondly I know both authors Lawrence “Loz” Whitaker and Pete Nash from the Tavern bulletin board and the Continuum series of conventions, and I’ve a very healthy respect for both of them. Pete’s the author of the Ennie Winning Rome supplement for BRP and both of them worked on the Mongoose Runequest 2 line,as well as a number of other books for their other lines before striking out on their own as Design Mechanism to do RuneQuest 6.

So don’t expect a eye wincing critical review of RQ 6 from me 😉

I’ve got hold of the final pre-publication internals pdf from Loz and Pete, who’ve been very gracious to give me a copy.

The book is a generic implementation of RuneQuest over 456 pages. There’s an implied setting, an Ancient style Fantasy world alluded to by pictures of Greek Hopilites and ladies in long flowing linen dresses, but otherwise the book apart from the appearance of Gloranthan Runes as presentation elements and in the Rune Magic chapter is Gloranthan free. Don’t worry though armed with the requisite background material, such as the 2nd Age Glorantha books, you can run Glorantha out of the box. If you are not interested in Glorantha or find it off putting, its not there to get in the way.

Art is black and white through out, and by a small stable of artists. The impact on me personally is from Good to a bit meh (some landscape pieces). There’s an obvious play on nostalgia with all the Ancient world images, which after doing a similar thing with OpenQuest I can understand 😉 What does impress me however is the layout, which is clean and readable,scaling nicely on my IPAD. This is very important when I’m working from the pdf, and will probably pay off in spades for me when I use it in this format at the gaming table.

The core book is the complete rules, so no crafty hiving off of magic item rules in a follow up supplement for example. Three chapters detail character generation, there’s a fairly meaty chapter on combat (more on that later in a separate blog post when I look at in detail), chapters for the five magic systems(Common, Animism,Theist, Sorcery and the new Mysticism rules), monsters, equipment and a chapter on running the game. I’m sure I’ve left something out, but I’ll pick this up as I go through the book in detail in later posts. Notable exceptions are there is no dedicated setting chapter (but there’s an implied setting throughout the examples and flavour text ) or starter adventure. So you’d be expecting a dry rulesy book? Nothing could be further from the truth. The book reads smoothly,with lots of entertaining examples and rules advice throughout. Each page builds on my understanding and desire to bring these rules to the gaming table.

RQ 6 lives up to Loz’s and Pete’s promise of building on and streamlining what they wrote for Mongoose RuneQuest 2. If you are a MRQ2/Legend ref,you’ll find a much better implementation of what they actually wanted to produce. There’s lots of additional bits, Passions and Mysticism (for all those Kung Fu hero settings) for example, that makes it worth getting. It’s the Pathfinder RPG of the D100 family. The big crunch heavy sibling who carries it off with grace and style. While I still in my heart of hearts prefer my own lighter OpenQuest, I’m excited enough by RQ 6 to play it as written and have fun exploring its depths.

Next up: a detailed look at character generation.

Related Links

UPDATE!

RQ 6 now available in PDF format & Print Pre-order (with free pdf now) over at the Moon Design Publications site.