RuneQuest 6th Edition Now Available for Pre-Order

I never got into RuneQuest. Sure, I owned some of the books, but for us in high school it was all AD&D all the time when it came to fantasy, and that was all she wrote. Still, I know that RuneQuest and Glorantha hold a special place in many OSR gamers’ hearts, so I thought many of you might be interested in this news from The Design Mechanism:

RuneQuest 6th edition is now available for pre-order.

All direct orders are handled through our partner, Moon Design Publications.

Physical copies will ship from our distributors around the 20th-27th July. Please allow up to 28 days for delivery.

PDF orders are available for immediate download.

In addition, the Mongoose RuneQuest material will be made available in pdf format through the RuneQuest Archives (handled through DriveThruRPG.com), some of which are only $1 a piece. And all, supposedly, are going to be compatible with the new rules (although I confess I’m not enough of a RuneQuest afficinado to grasp the nuances, and RuneQuest has had a rather convoluted publishing history).

I’ve gotta say this seems like a good time to be a RuneQuest fan!

Written by 

Wargamer and RPG'er since the 1970's, author of Adventures Dark and Deep, Castle of the Mad Archmage, and other things, and proprietor of the Greyhawk Grognard blog.

3 thoughts on “RuneQuest 6th Edition Now Available for Pre-Order

  1. Bought it. Best, most comprehensive version of RQ since RQ2 IMO.

    Hope the quality of the physical product (binding, etc.) is up to the layout, interior art and writing. . You're right: Great time to be a RQ fan.

  2. I'm definitely interested to read a meaty review of this product. I'm currently using Open Quest, mainly because I love how streamlined it is. But I've heard some comments about this version of RQ that have my attention.

  3. I don’t know about meaty, but I have read over the rules and RQ6 seems to be a very complete compilation and streamlining of various MRQ releases. It is definitely a lot crunchier and more fiddly than OQ—almost to a bit of an extreme in terms of multiple success levels and so forth—but it IMO more elegantly explains troublesome areas like Movement, Charging, Ranged Attacks at extreme range, etc.

    Organization is excellent, and some pages are definitely made to be passed out among players as references. One page distills almost all character generation into a single graphic. Really, excellent.

    Magic is divided into even more disciplines, with about nine pages describing how these disciplines can be mixed and matched to provide a specific flavor to a campaign—common, high, low or no magic. Combat styles are similarly described as ways to emphasize campaign specifics.

    One thing RQ offers that OQ does not are Combat Maneuvers, here described as Combat Special Effects, and there is even a broader and more complete range of them than ever. It’s a bit of an excess of riches in games where players always select the Choose Location head strike, but some explanation is given about why CL is not always the wisest choice in combat.

    Options are given for passive defense, a welcome addition. One thing that was a bummer about earlier RQ was that when you were out of Combat Actions, you were essentially a sitting duck, your shield or cover essentially disappeared, and—moreover—your opponent got a whole number of stacked CMs to employ against you. This change gives players a bit more of a fighting chance.

    I actually prefer the simpler Skills selection of OQ; and RQ6 tends to exacerbate the complexity by offering even more flavors and colors to Skills. even an option where Skills can be added together and stacked. Seems a bit fiddly to me.

    Sorry for the lengthy commentary on someone else’s blog :-/

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