RuneQuest Product Reviews
Send comments and/or criticism to Simon E. Phipp
Created On 17 September 1997
Last Updated On 17 September 1997
Copyright (c) Simon E. Phipp 1997
These reviews are meant to reflect my own views on the products in question - I make no claims for impartiality or even fairness. However, the marking system is given below so that people can see how I came to my scores for each item reviewed. Occasionally, I will bend things by giving certain categories higher marks than I should, for instance I give the Vikings Pack a Gloranthan Content of 7, not 5, simply because there is so much that can be applied to Glorantha that I thought it deserved a higher mark.
There are 5 categories for each review:
Gloranthan Content
- 0 - No Gloranathan Content, cannot be applied to Gloranatha.
1-5 No Gloranthan Content, but can be applied to Glorantha.
6-10 Some Gloranthan Content, could be set anywhere.
11-15 Heavy Gloranthan Content - Cultures and Places.
16-20 More Glorantha than you can shake a stick at.
Availability
- 0 - You will never find this product again.
1-5 Only available from people selling their old supplements.
6-10 Advertised in Fanzines from time to time.
11-15 Available through Mail Order.
16-20 Available in games/hobby stores locally.
Usablity
- 0 Cannot be used at all.
1-5 Can only be used in a gaming setting with too much GM work.
6-10 Can be used in a gaming setting with a lot of GM work.
11-15 Can be used in a gaming setting with a minimum amount of GM work.
16-20 Just slots in with no work at all.
Originality
- 0 Nothing Original at all.
1-5 Reprints of earlier published material, perhaps reworked slightly.
6-10 Mainly reprints, but some original sections.
11-15 Mostly new material, but with some reprints.
16-20 Totally new/original.
General
- 0 Absolutely rubbish, not worth considering buying.
1-5 Very bad.
6-10 Poor, not up to standard.
11-15 A good product.
16-20 Excellent product, up to the Golden Age standard.
Recommended For
- Beginners - Good introduction to RuneQuest/Glorantha
Experienced GMs - Heavily into background/Challenging Scenarios/High Level
Gloranthan Fanatics - Very obscure, loads of good information but very confusing.
No Recommendation - A general supplement, not necessarily bad but has not been categorised.
Obviously, some of these categories are not needed by everyone. For instance, people who have the opportunity to buy a product will have the availability raised to 20 as it is available. People who do not have the original works will not care if a product is a reprint, so Originality would be raised to 20. So, someone who has the chance to buy RQ3 Trollpak and who has never seen the RQ2 version would see its score raised from 64 to 92 (originality + 20, Availability + 8).
The scores are arranged so that any users can roll percentile dice to see whether or not to buy the product, in typical RuneQuest fashion.