Blood axe wrote:So many books & editions. I need some advice, and to do some research myself.
Im intrigued by the Durulz, the Ducks.
Me, too. Unfortunately, they were left out of
RuneQuest 6 as too odd. The authors felt that that aspect of RQ's Gloranthan heritage might drive off new RuneQuest fans who felt it was weird or silly. The Durulz did make an appearance in
Mongoose RuneQuest I; Mongoose even published a specific supplement for them. Since they're a Glorantha thing, they aren't in the current version of Legend, either.
http://www.amazon.com/Ducks-Durulz-Rune ... uest+ducksThere's also an adventure pack for
RuneQuest 3:http://www.amazon.com/Legendary-Duck-To ... uest+ducksI believe Ducks originally made their appearance in the first
Dragon Pass supplement. There's an 2003 updated version for HeroQuest, a different game system:
http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Pass-Gazet ... n+Pass+rpg... but Moon Design is putting out even more updated material.
Stats for Ducks appear in the (free)
Mongoose RuneQuest I Deluxe SRD, downloadable at BRP Central. They also appear in Chaosium's
Basic Creatures, a poorly edited reprint of RQ3 critter stats.
The good news is that with the free stats from the Deluxe SRD or one of the Duck supplements, you can insert the Durulz into any D100 campaign. I even used them to write up Darkwing Duck for
Superworld. No current RuneQuest family member includes Glorantha material. However, supplements from Mongoose, Issaries, or Moon Design can easily be adapted as background. As far D100 game systems and products go, most of them are 80-90 percent compatible with each other, with only minor tweaks for such things as whether you're using hit locations or a hit point total for characters. If you want depth and crunch,
RQ6 is the Cadillac of the bunch; the softback would be hard for a troll to tear in half and costs about $60.
Legend is much less expensive and a much more compact book, but you'll have to buy the bestiary supplement separate. And like
RQ6, it doesn't have a setting included in the main book.
Chaosium's
Basic Roleplaying (known as the Big Gold Book) is a thick rules toolkit for multiple genres and costs $40-$45 softback. However many of the supplements (monographs) such as
Swords of Cydoria and
Chronicles of Future Earth can provide a setting. For that matter, you could grab a setting and use it with another version of the rules, if you wanted to.
Magic World is a stand-alone product that includes a rudimentary setting.
If you want to keep it simple, rules-wise, OpenQuest might be the way to go. It's got setting and adventure supplements in the pipeline.
Keep in mind that both the
RuneQuest I SRD and the
Renaissance SRD can be downloaded for free. That way, you can get playable versions of each game to examine, giving you a chance to decide if you like this whole post-
RQ3 thang:
http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php? ... _id=169435Just to complicate things, there's also
Fire and Sword, an RPG by RQ's co-creator, for free:
http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11Sooo ... you could grab the basic rules for free, then add whatever Glorantha and/or Duck material you wanted to create your own RuneQuest campaign. (What can I say, I'm a cheapskate.)