The Runequest Starter Set. A review.
Mar. 5th, 2022 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gridloreBuy it.
Need more? OK, it's fucking awesome. buy it.
For those not familiar with it, Runequest (RQ) can be intimidating. Over forty years of lore and details have been written for Glorantha, the world of Runequest, and some of the concepts are hard to handle for newcomers. For example, Glorantha is not a planet, it is a rectangular place under the dome of the Sky and above the underworld. It is solidly in the Bronze Age, with Gods and Heroes being a very real presence, along with spirits of varying types. It's a firehose of information, and alongside that, you have to learn a new system. So there is a lot to handle.
The Starter Set turns that firehouse into a few glasses of water that you can drink in at your own speed. It's amazingly affordable for the amazing amount of stuff you get. Let's begin.
The Books
There are four softcover books included in the Set. The first is the rules of RQ. This is a stripped-down version of the hefty core rulebook, but it includes everything you need to play. It explains characteristics, Rune affiliations, passions, skills, and how the skill system works. Then you get a comprehensive listing of the skills in the game.
Next comes the rules for combat, which take up about twelve pages. Studying this will have you ready for almost everything you will face in combat. RQ combat is fast, violent, and deadly. That's a bonus for me. There are a few things in the core rulebook that don't appear here, like the rules for being in a shield wall, but still, you will know how to fight in RQ after digesting this chapter.
After that is magic. Glorantha is infused with magic. Everyone knows a song to summon a spirit to mend a broken bowl or bring down a fever. Many people have their spirit magic matrixes tattooed on them. Almost every clan will have a shaman who dwells half in the spirit world. Above them are the Gods, and the powerful Rune Magic they give to their followers. Once used, Rune Points can only be restored through worship. A summary of both common spirit and Rune spells is given. Divine Intervention (and its dangers,) dealing with the spirit world and a short section on sorcery (using the power of the Runes without invoking a deity) round out the chapter. Finally, some spot rules covering things like chases and drowning and other useful bits tie up the book.
This is the book you keep at the table with you. It will have page markers, highlighted sections, notes scribbled in the margins, and post-it notes on every other page. It is useful not just to learn the basic rules, but as a resource to have at hand during a game.
Book two is The World of Glorantha and is a great brief introduction to this unique setting. The first twenty pages or so gently teach you about the social order, technology, Runes are and why they are so important, the common Gods and cults of the Dragon Pass region, and more about the unique flavor of Glorantha. Then the next section closes in the focus to Dragon Pass, with brief sections on the various homelands and important sites. Then we are treated to a brief overlook of the region's history and myths.
The second half of the book is a detailed description of the city of Jonstown in Northern Satar. Jonstown is the perfect place to begin a campaign and for the characters to return to. It really drives home the "start small and local, and build outward" approach this book has to teach about the world. Reading this, and having an excellent set of maps, Jonstown really feels like a place your characters know well.
Reading this won't make you a scholar on the topic of all things Glorantha. Hell, I've been into RQ for close to forty years, and I'm way behind. But it gives the new player a solid base of knowledge and a place for his character to call home.
Now we hit gold. Book 3 is Solo Quest. You take one of the pre-generated characters (more about them next) Vasana, Daughter of Farnan, and you enter a choose your own adventure style quest that uses all the things you learned in the first book. This is an utterly brilliant way to teach the rules and concepts. I've run through it three times now, both to try different paths and to work on parts of the game that were giving me pause. Seriously, this one book is why this Starter Set is so useful.
Book 4 is a set of four adventures designed for starting characters. While some purists might shriek at letting players see the adventures, I figure they are for beginning campaigns, so who cares. The adventures are all set in or around Jonstown. All four are pretty straightforward and mildly challenging. Good stuff.
As a bonus, the back of the four books are map sections that create a map of the Jonstown area. Fun design choice, I thought.
Pre-Generated Characters
The book of rules doesn't have the character generation rules. In return, we get fourteen excellent, detailed pre-generated characters in unique folios.The backside of the folio features a full-body portrait. Go to the other side and things fold out into a triptych of information. You have, and a very easy to read format, Runic affiliations, Statistics and attributes including armor and hit points for each hit location, skills and passions, reputation, cult affiliation, what the character's ransom is, a block for any unique companion or spirit the character might have, Rune and spirit magic known, a back story, and best of all, a "How to Play" section listing off what your Rune affiliations mean and how best to run the character. This last part is my favorite, because again, for a new player this helps them ease into an unfamiliar system by knowing that because Nathem son of Nhean has a high Beast Rune, he's more comfortable around animals and the wild and his affinity for the Movement and Disorder Runes make him a natural wanderer.
Every character included is just as detailed, just as interesting, and to me, just as intriguing to play. I literally grabbed Nathem to use as an example, now I want to play this initiate of a Bear God (Odalya) who is a master of the bow and shuns most of society but is fiercely loyal to his home and temple. He'd be amazing to play! I'm not kidding, every single character here has that kind of "grab." There's one who is an initiate of Eurmal, the Sacred Trickster. their backstory is they were sold by their family to a necropolis, where they trained in placing sacred tattoos on the dead. Yes, they are a tattoo artist, something very important in a world where tattoos tell your life's story for many tribes. And yes, the gender-neutral pronouns are deliberate. They hide who they are, and have a spell to change their gender.
Does anyone want dibs on them?
Rounding Things Out
Just to make things even better, there are a few more goodies. A gorgeous 2-sided map of Northern Sartar on one side and Jonstown on the other, a map of the Rainbow Mounds for one of the adventures in Book 4, a four-page sheet of charts to help with gameplay, a sheet giving all the Runes and how they are seen or used, and finally, a Strike Rank track on good heavy cardstock. Strike Ranks are sort of like initiative, but less random. Your personal SR is based on DEX and SIZ, but what weapon you use, spells you cast, all can modify it. So having your own tracker to count off to when you can do things is great. One less job for the DM. You also get a tube of bronze-colored dice.
On the back of the tracker is a little message from the Chaosium, which I will not repeat here.
Like I said, buy it. Get the physical copy. Trust me, this is one of the best buys in gaming you will ever find.
And a toast to the spirits of Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin for making this all happen.
Need more? OK, it's fucking awesome. buy it.
For those not familiar with it, Runequest (RQ) can be intimidating. Over forty years of lore and details have been written for Glorantha, the world of Runequest, and some of the concepts are hard to handle for newcomers. For example, Glorantha is not a planet, it is a rectangular place under the dome of the Sky and above the underworld. It is solidly in the Bronze Age, with Gods and Heroes being a very real presence, along with spirits of varying types. It's a firehose of information, and alongside that, you have to learn a new system. So there is a lot to handle.
The Starter Set turns that firehouse into a few glasses of water that you can drink in at your own speed. It's amazingly affordable for the amazing amount of stuff you get. Let's begin.
The Books
There are four softcover books included in the Set. The first is the rules of RQ. This is a stripped-down version of the hefty core rulebook, but it includes everything you need to play. It explains characteristics, Rune affiliations, passions, skills, and how the skill system works. Then you get a comprehensive listing of the skills in the game.
Next comes the rules for combat, which take up about twelve pages. Studying this will have you ready for almost everything you will face in combat. RQ combat is fast, violent, and deadly. That's a bonus for me. There are a few things in the core rulebook that don't appear here, like the rules for being in a shield wall, but still, you will know how to fight in RQ after digesting this chapter.
After that is magic. Glorantha is infused with magic. Everyone knows a song to summon a spirit to mend a broken bowl or bring down a fever. Many people have their spirit magic matrixes tattooed on them. Almost every clan will have a shaman who dwells half in the spirit world. Above them are the Gods, and the powerful Rune Magic they give to their followers. Once used, Rune Points can only be restored through worship. A summary of both common spirit and Rune spells is given. Divine Intervention (and its dangers,) dealing with the spirit world and a short section on sorcery (using the power of the Runes without invoking a deity) round out the chapter. Finally, some spot rules covering things like chases and drowning and other useful bits tie up the book.
This is the book you keep at the table with you. It will have page markers, highlighted sections, notes scribbled in the margins, and post-it notes on every other page. It is useful not just to learn the basic rules, but as a resource to have at hand during a game.
Book two is The World of Glorantha and is a great brief introduction to this unique setting. The first twenty pages or so gently teach you about the social order, technology, Runes are and why they are so important, the common Gods and cults of the Dragon Pass region, and more about the unique flavor of Glorantha. Then the next section closes in the focus to Dragon Pass, with brief sections on the various homelands and important sites. Then we are treated to a brief overlook of the region's history and myths.
The second half of the book is a detailed description of the city of Jonstown in Northern Satar. Jonstown is the perfect place to begin a campaign and for the characters to return to. It really drives home the "start small and local, and build outward" approach this book has to teach about the world. Reading this, and having an excellent set of maps, Jonstown really feels like a place your characters know well.
Reading this won't make you a scholar on the topic of all things Glorantha. Hell, I've been into RQ for close to forty years, and I'm way behind. But it gives the new player a solid base of knowledge and a place for his character to call home.
Now we hit gold. Book 3 is Solo Quest. You take one of the pre-generated characters (more about them next) Vasana, Daughter of Farnan, and you enter a choose your own adventure style quest that uses all the things you learned in the first book. This is an utterly brilliant way to teach the rules and concepts. I've run through it three times now, both to try different paths and to work on parts of the game that were giving me pause. Seriously, this one book is why this Starter Set is so useful.
Book 4 is a set of four adventures designed for starting characters. While some purists might shriek at letting players see the adventures, I figure they are for beginning campaigns, so who cares. The adventures are all set in or around Jonstown. All four are pretty straightforward and mildly challenging. Good stuff.
As a bonus, the back of the four books are map sections that create a map of the Jonstown area. Fun design choice, I thought.
Pre-Generated Characters
The book of rules doesn't have the character generation rules. In return, we get fourteen excellent, detailed pre-generated characters in unique folios.The backside of the folio features a full-body portrait. Go to the other side and things fold out into a triptych of information. You have, and a very easy to read format, Runic affiliations, Statistics and attributes including armor and hit points for each hit location, skills and passions, reputation, cult affiliation, what the character's ransom is, a block for any unique companion or spirit the character might have, Rune and spirit magic known, a back story, and best of all, a "How to Play" section listing off what your Rune affiliations mean and how best to run the character. This last part is my favorite, because again, for a new player this helps them ease into an unfamiliar system by knowing that because Nathem son of Nhean has a high Beast Rune, he's more comfortable around animals and the wild and his affinity for the Movement and Disorder Runes make him a natural wanderer.
Every character included is just as detailed, just as interesting, and to me, just as intriguing to play. I literally grabbed Nathem to use as an example, now I want to play this initiate of a Bear God (Odalya) who is a master of the bow and shuns most of society but is fiercely loyal to his home and temple. He'd be amazing to play! I'm not kidding, every single character here has that kind of "grab." There's one who is an initiate of Eurmal, the Sacred Trickster. their backstory is they were sold by their family to a necropolis, where they trained in placing sacred tattoos on the dead. Yes, they are a tattoo artist, something very important in a world where tattoos tell your life's story for many tribes. And yes, the gender-neutral pronouns are deliberate. They hide who they are, and have a spell to change their gender.
Does anyone want dibs on them?
Rounding Things Out
Just to make things even better, there are a few more goodies. A gorgeous 2-sided map of Northern Sartar on one side and Jonstown on the other, a map of the Rainbow Mounds for one of the adventures in Book 4, a four-page sheet of charts to help with gameplay, a sheet giving all the Runes and how they are seen or used, and finally, a Strike Rank track on good heavy cardstock. Strike Ranks are sort of like initiative, but less random. Your personal SR is based on DEX and SIZ, but what weapon you use, spells you cast, all can modify it. So having your own tracker to count off to when you can do things is great. One less job for the DM. You also get a tube of bronze-colored dice.
On the back of the tracker is a little message from the Chaosium, which I will not repeat here.
Like I said, buy it. Get the physical copy. Trust me, this is one of the best buys in gaming you will ever find.
And a toast to the spirits of Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin for making this all happen.
