Where I’m upto with OpenQuest

So I had a sofa day yesterday, an enforced stop due to an upset tummy.

In between blissful bouts of sleep, where somehow family life carried on without me, I realised that I like OpenQuest as written. That I spent a lot of time writing, musing over it, playtesting, releasing into the wild to great critical acclaim and yet I’ve been knocked back by a few bits of criticism (a bad review here and an ill thought out comment there) and a whole bucketful of self-doubt. I’ve worked on variant rules, complete rewrites, rewrites from scratch, getting further and further away each time of what I want out of a D100 system. Its kinda like what my mum used to do when we went shoe shopping for me as a lad. We’d spend a whole morning sizing up the possibilities, then get the best shoes possible. There would then be a short period where we were blissfully happy about the outcome. Then next time we out in town, my mum would then start criticising our choice, pointing out shoes that she thought were a better deal. I’ve done the same with OpenQuest and that’s wrong of me and I’ve had a spectacular own goal moment as a result.

My red-flag moment, if you’ve been following my last couple of vague posts about it on G+, was a couple of months ago when there’s been a whole lot of nonsense over at BRPCentral about MRQ1 SRD no longer being valid under the OGL and by extension OpenQuest itself. This triggered me into opening up the InDesign files, cut and pasting the text back into Word and giving the whole game another through self-edit (finally dealing with all those pesky Capitalisations which I used to be a big fan). There will be a few rewrites of rules, but not many because as I went through the text it slowly dawned I like the rules as written. Yesterday’s enforced stop meant that penny finally dropped. I love OpenQuest 🙂 This will probably see great sighs of relief from my co-conspirator Paul Mitchener who has patiently listened to all my plans for revitalising/rewriting OpenQuest when all I need to do is get on with writing adventures/settings for it 🙂

So what does this mean? Probably not a great deal immediately. I’m working on a cleaned up version of the main rulebook, which I’m going to also add some new monsters (I’ve about twenty or so planned), add back in the Empire of Gatan chapter (seeing as my plan last year to do a whole supplement based on it has fallen through for the time being) and the introductory adventure The Road Less Travelled. This “Maximum” (as in Fun geddit?) edition will probably go back to using the wraparound Dragon cover last seen on OQ2 Deluxe.

The main one which I can start work on now, even as I noodle away doing the Maximum Edition, is getting adventures out for it. This was the main thing folk wanted for OpenQuest whenever I asked on forums was new adventures. I’ve got three adventures nearly written up, as well as the previously announced Green Hell. Without the bottleneck of me worrying about the underlying system, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t get these out by the end of the year 🙂

And if you are a fan of the Company and River of Heaven, there’s news coming about these too 🙂

 

 

5 thoughts on “Where I’m upto with OpenQuest

  1. This is very good news Newt. I have tinkered quite a bit over the last year+ with OQ, trying to find my own sweet-spot–that personal set of rules and mechanics which resonate with “Yeah! Like that! Ha-ha!” and feel right. I believe a desire for that kind of MGF is what inspired you to write OQ in the first place. I’m closer to it than ever, and I’m finally pulling the trigger on a mini-campaign to put what I’ve come up with to the test–fingers are crossed. Thanks for writing OQ. I’m glad to hear you are returning to your original love for it and that it’s still an ongoing concern. I look forward to the next additions to the line. Here’s to Maximum Game Fun.

    Cheers!
    Sunwolfe

  2. OpenQuest is a great game and you should be proud of it.

    I consider it, alongside Mythras and RQ, to be the third major branch of “good BRP” fantasy gaming happening today, and has helped inspire me in my own houserules by providing a consistent minimalist option.

    I predict BRP gaming is going to be on the rise the next couple of years, and the adventures and settings and whatnot you put out for OQ are going to be a big part of that. I can’t wait to see what you come out with next.

  3. I think openquest is a mighty fine system as it is. About the only bit I’m not so keen on is the Major Wound stuff so I’ve house ruled my own version of that. If you’re doing a bit of tweaking can I ask what your take is on opposed tests when both characters are over 100%?

    • Major Wounds are going to get a hard look into. In all my games, I’ve never actually used them, apart from in playtesting, because players being the cunning individuals they quickly avoid them by spending Hero Points. I’ve got a prototype Hit Locations system, which replaces the Major Wounds table. It needs playtesting however.

      Skills over 100% are also going to be getting a good look into, with a large chance of skills over 100% being eliminated completely. I’m favouring implementing a system where once you’ve achieved Mastery (100%) in a skill you can then purchase special abilties that come into play whenever the skill, which is now automatically successful, is used.

  4. I’d like to ask you two things for a new edition of OpenQuest, but both of them is related to layout and design. First, please make the tables aesthetically more pleasing to the eye. The simple black border is simply ugly, try alternating row colors or just underline the rows. Second, that magenta color is painful. Keep up the good work!

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