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My Runequest 2nd Edition pages
NOTE: We have now left GURPS Saduria
territory. To return, just use the Navigation links at the top as normal. Steve Perrin's Runequest 2nd
Edition was published by Chaosium and was set in Greg Stafford's gameworld of Glorantha. The IP rights for Runequest were sold on to Avalon Hill (now part of Wizards of the Coast) who published the 3rd edition but with major rules changes and severe restrictions about using Glorantha, and so Avalon Hill
attempted to use more generic backgrounds which ended up almost killing the game.
Neither of these companies are now
publishing or supporting Runequest, and the Runequest name and licence has been taken up by Mongoose Publishing. They have released a new version of the game, Runequest II, which again uses Greg Stafford's Gloranthan
gameworld (but set in a different age to the original). To make things more complicated, Greg Stafford (who wrote the original
gameworld) is now part of Issaries and has published Glorantha, which uses the original gameworld but the HeroQuest RPG system (not to be confused with the old Games Workshop/MB games miniatures boardgame).
No intention
to violate the IP rights of the existing licence holders with this website should be assumed, although god only knows who
owns what any more with regards to the original game!
At the time of writing, old 2nd edition classic
sourcebooks were still available as reprints and .pdfs, and the occasional original turns up on eBay or Amazon.
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Runequest 2nd Edition Rulebook
Here are scans of the old Runequest 2nd
ed. rulebook. Note that I only scanned the book fairly recently and so time (I bought it in 1981) has taken its toll on the
poor old thing.
There are two versions of the scan, Player and Full. The Player version is different in that it
does not contain the "monsters" section (pp 71-90), thus allowing the Referee to keep the stats of "everybody
else" a mystery. Given that RQ does allow you to play a member of other races, however, some Referees may choose to allow
players to have access to the full version.
The file is in .pdf format for use with Adobe Acrobat. A reader for the
format is available for free (use the "Viewer Downloads" link on the Navigation bar).
RQ rulebook (Player's version) .pdf
Character Sheets
Possibly no original design in an RPG gets modified quite as much as the character sheet. Different players
and groups may have a different emphasis to the designer of the original sheet, but whatever the case, there are usually
many different designs to be had. If you have a better (or just different) RQ 2nd ed. character sheet, feel free to contact
me to have it included below.
The first Character Sheet listed below is basically the original, with the addition
of a coloured header to tie it in visually with this site and thus my own Runequest game material.
The second character sheet, the one linked to below, is
my own creation. It is an Excel sheet and strongly based on the old 2nd ed. sheet but "cleaned up" and altered to
suit my houserules.
Mike's RQ character sheet
Maps
The original book included a two-page map of the
area of Dragon's Pass, which I have (crudely) cropped and pasted to give the single page map below. Other supplements
have expanded upon this map, and I have drawn my own more detailed maps to accompany scenarios.
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My Houserules
Almost every GM/DM/Referee/Viking Hat wearer feels that
the existing rules can be improved in some way and I'm certainly no exception. I like the classic RQ 2nd ed. rules
and have tried to keep them as they are as much as possible, but I was never particularly happy with the old Strike Rank system.
In addition, I have added a few Houserules to better mould the game to my preferred way of gaming:
1. Strike Rank
(SR) is the value that determines when your blow or action occurs; the lower the SR, the faster you go. What the rules
designers originally proposed was that longer weapons had lower SRs. This works well enough when two opponents meet, but not
so much when in melee when a smaller weapon should be faster. My proposal, therefore, is to use the Enc of the weapon to determine
its SR. This makes small weapons like daggers and shortswords faster than great axes and maces, and gives you justification
for learning to use fists and daggers (you might be able to get a disabling blow in before being chopped in half).
I have included a few other rules to allow for long weapons attacking incoming opponents first and so on, but the above change
is the main one.
2. I have also included some basic aiming rules. These slow down your blow or shot, but give you
a slightly better chance of hitting a particular area - something very useful in a system with variably armoured locations.
3. Also there are my rules for APP (appearance) and a few rules to cover its use. I like the use of APP as well as
CHA, because it allows for attractive but unassuming characters.
4. The existing Defense rules are a tad broken
when strong but heavily armoured characters can twist and dodge like a gymnast. My rules lower the ENC limit for Defense penalties
and allow weak but dextrous characters to out-dodge the brone-clad tanks.
RQ Houserules
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I will be adding to this page as often as I write new material (or polish existing material
so that it is worth publishing).
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GURPS is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and the GURPS-related art here is copyrighted by Steve Jackson Games.
All rights are reserved by SJ Games. This material is used here in accordance with the SJ Games online policy.
All original material is copyright. I am happy for you to download files for your own use, but please do not use them commercially
without contacting me first.
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