Non-D&D D&D, maybe

 

As I have mentioned before, I really like playing in a D&D-like manner, but I'm not that great a fan of D&D as a system. Never really have been, after a brief infatuation with each new incarnation. (Except for 4th Edition. We speak not of 4th Edition.)

Similarly, I do like Runequest (and the generic nature of the d100 system in general) as a system, but I'm not fond of its attachment to Glorantha and its cults and what-not.

So, I thought I'd give Mythras a go for my fantasy roleplaying, 

The Classic Fantasy supplement is designed to make the game feel more Gygaxian, for those who like a heapin' helpin' of dungeoneering in their FRPGin', and the Unearthed Companion extends the power levels available.

I haven't yet organised an actual Mythras campaign, but I do have the glimmerings of an idea on the horizon. What's the worst that could happen?

Runequest III vs. Mythras

 

I found my old copy of Runequest. This is the English softcover version of the third edition, produced by Games Workshop back in the day. The day, in this case, being 1989.

I was interested to note just how little of it there is compared with Mythras, which is essentially the latest edition of Runequest. Once upon a time, 96 pages was deemed to be plenty to present a one-book roleplaying system, including monster stats and what-not. Mythras weighs in at 304 pages for essentially the same purpose.

I make no moral judgement one way or the other, though I do suggest that maybe a large hardback costing more than a hundred bucks isn't necessarily as essential to the function of a RPG reference book as publishers these days seem to imagine.

Mythras

 

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a roleplaying game called Runequest. It was very popular, probably second only to AD&D at the time. Somewhere I have a copy of Runequest II but I haven't looked at it for years and years.

It went through several iterations, the latest of which is (I believe) Runequest 6. Mythras, as far as I know, is pretty much RQ6 renamed — there may well be some minor differences; I haven't kept up with the changes in Runequest through the ages.

I just ordered a copy of Mythras, though whether I'll ever actually use it to play a game is uncertain. There were elements of the Runequest milieu that I didn't much like, the heavy emphasis on cults and their relationships being one of them, and I think that when played straight, Mythras carries that on. But I don't know for sure to what extent — I shall have to read the system in more detail.

There's a freebie quickstart PDF version available from from DTRPG called Mythras Imperative.

In common with others of its ilk, it's intended to allow you a "try before you buy" experience. It contains enough information to get into character creation, and to run the beginnings of a campaign.

I guess, if you were willing to put in the work yourself, you could use it as the basis to create your own fully-fledged game, but I think that would be a lot of work to save a few dollars on the complete rules.

There's a companion volume called Classic Fantasy which is basically intended to enable those who want to play AD&D with the Mythras mechanics.

I also ordered a copy of that, because I've found in the past that I tend to end up trying to force whatever fantasy game I'm running into a D&D mould. And that's why I've been running an AD&D campaign for the last few years — because I figured that I might as well just use AD&D to play AD&D.

However, something I don't much like about D&D in any of its manifestations is the way that characters fairly rapidly become enormously overpowered. If you want to play a game in which characters can mow their way through armies of mooks without breaking a sweat, and completely ignore the perils of curses or disease or what-not it's fine, but I prefer a less superheroic campaign style. Unless I'm playing a superheroic campaign, of course.

There's a possibility that a Mythras-based AD&D-style campaign might be a solution. Maybe.

Chaosium, the owners of the Runequest brand, appear to have republished the d100 engine used for Runequest and Call of Cthulhu et. al. into a sort of universal, non-genre-specific game they've just called Basic Roleplaying. It looks interesting to me, a lot simpler than games like GURPS or the Hero System, both of which are phenomenally accounting-heavy when it comes to character creation and maintenance.

I nabbed the PDF of it from DTRPG because it was on sale for 99 cents, but I really prefer physical books when it comes to RPG manuals. It's available in hard-copy from Chaosium, but they want to charge an additional $US85 for postage, and though I'd like a copy of my own, I don't want it that much. It doesn't seem to be available in print anywhere else: Amazon lists it, but as usual when they're listing a book they can't actually get but don't want to delist, they show it at a massively inflated price, in this case about $350. Absurd.