I posted back in January about the new edition of the RuneQuest rules. Chaosium has since released a slipcase set including that rulebook, the Glorantha Bestiary and a Gamemaster Pack. Let’s tackle the pack first.

Inside: lots of goodies. First and foremost is the massive screen, depicting the Gods Wall and a religious procession. It is a great image for players to stare at every game, underscoring the importance of the various Gloranthan religions and their often monumental impact on the world (in this case, literally). There are several maps, a calendar (to track Glorantha’s unusual year), character sheets (both regular and deluxe) and some pre-generated characters, as well as a hefty book of adventures. One revisits Apple Lane, the setting of the first RuneQuest adventure, another tackles some cattle bandits and the final one considerably ups the ante and puts players up against a dragon. Dear god.

In general, I find RuneQuest fascinating while also intimidating. The new edition of the rules does a great job of reducing that intimidation – the way it tackles mechanics builds your confidence up to run it pretty effectively. At the same time, shifting the start date of the campaign world to several years after all the existing RQ material kind of messed me up (despite, you know, never having played RQ), because that earlier material – Snake Pipe Hollow and Borderlands in particular – so perfectly teaches you what you need to know about the campaign world, often without you even realizing it. The Gamemaster Screen Pack attempts to do the same and, though it does it in a different way, I think accomplishes its goal. I feel like I could use this to run a pretty solid opener for a RQ game (even though, at the same time, I lament that I will probably never run Snake Pipe Hollow or the Borderlands campaign now).