People seem to be interested in reading about what my
friends and I were doing with our RPGs “back in the day”, so I thought I would
write a few words about a game we liked, and about what we played while others
were in being “old school”.
Call of Cthulhu was first published in 1981 and by
1982 my mother was dying of cancer, I was a nerdy teenager, my social life and gaming
world was shifting and everything in my life around then can be broken into “before
mom passed” and “after she passed”. And one of the last things before mom
passed was “Will’s Runequest game”.
There were a few stores in the next town over that would
have a rack or two of roleplaying books, and whenever I could I’d head over to
one or the other and search out new and exciting things. This was before the
advent of the information age. There was no way for me to know what games were
coming, or even what games already existed, except what was on these racks. I
was only occasionally able to afford gaming magazines, and it would be another
few years before I discovered Berkley Games down in the Bay Area—which I might
get to once a year if I was lucky. So I just discovered games on these racks.
And I still have a flash memory of discovering Runequest.
There was a short-lived hobby store in Old Town (the tourist part of the city
of Eureka) and it was a beautiful sunny day—so it must have been summer—it only
rains once a year in Humboldt County, starting in October and ending in April—so
if it was sunny, it was summer. In one of those old, rotating magazine racks,
just below a sealed plastic bag containing White Bear and Red Moon,
which was a military board game and therefore definitely of no interest to
teenaged me, was the original, staple-bound Runequest.
I remember it took me a while to save up/acquire enough
money to buy it. My memory was that it took forever, so realistically it was
probable only a week or two. But I got it. Still have most of it. Here’s a
picture of what is left.
An aside about my other copy. Greg Stafford is said to have bought the first copy of D&D directly from Gary Gygax, don’t know if it is true or not, but I’ve heard that. But Chaosium was definitely an early player in the RPG world and is an old and major company. But Ken St. Andre did publish the second ever RPG, Tunnels and Trolls. And when he was downsizing his life a few years ago, he sold a lot of old things. He was sharing parts of his collection of memorabilia from the origins of this hobby. And I bought Ken St. Andre’s original copy of Runequest. And I think that is a neat little piece of gaming history.
Here is a picture of the inside. I asked, and he graciously
agreed to sign it for me. (Thanks again Trollfather—for everything you have
done.)
Will’s Runequest Game. Chaosium has re-released this version as Runequest Classic, so if you want, you can pick up your own copy cheap. By modern standards it’s not a complete game and a lot of what it is lacking is what made Will’s game so much fun. Will Handrich was my best friend for several years there (I was basically his nerdy side kick). He was a classic working-class intellectual. Studied languages, read the classics, and played classical music on both piano and recorders. He passed too early a few years ago. Eventually he became deeply involved in the Society for Creative Anachronisms and move on from being an avid TTRPG player, but not before this one campaign.
The first edition of Runequest missed one thing. One important
thing. There was no pre-game character development. It had a great combat
system, very nicely reflecting SCA combat—the Society for Creative Anachronisms
was developing just walking distance from Chaosium down in Berkley and Oakland.
It had a metaphysics based on “real world” animism. Characters could become
priests or priestesses, shaman, Runelords, all sorts of wonderful things. But
characters started as, what we would today call, “new adults”. You had your
attributes, your base skills, but nothing more.
Further, although it was implied, Staford’s famous world of
Glorantha wasn’t explicitly in the book. It was generic. As a GM you were to
create your own Bronze Age world. Later, I would run mine, Telemeta, for
several years. If Will named his, I don’t remember.
Organic Character Progression. Runequest is a skills-based
game. No classes. No races. Just roll up a person, note their starting skill
percentages and drop into the world.
“Hey, there are bandits camped down by the river. We’re
going to attack their camp and drive them off before then rob the town.” And
off your characters go.
The skills you used in play were the skills that you rolled
to improve at the end of the session. And as they improved, you were more
likely to use them in the next session. Characters didn’t start as fighters or thieves;
they evolved into them. I wanted a sneaky thief but just couldn’t get one. I
would miss my sneaking rolls and get into fights. My characters became pretty
competent fighters, but never sneaky.
In D&D I always tried to play Magic Users (the
old name for wizards). In Runequest I could never get there. My best character
eventually learned a little Battle Magic from a spirit, but never any deep
magical secrets, but she got wicked-good with a staff.
Characters over Roles. For me, this was where
characters started taking over from roles. (A wrote about roles before characters here.)
This character wants to become a magic user, so whenever there is anything
happening that might help me down that path, the character is up in front
leading the way.
“Let’s try and figure out what these old scrolls say.”
“Let’s investigate this ancient magical site.”
If you had a role you wanted your character to develop into,
and since skills mostly only improved by using them, you had to drive your
character’s story towards doing things that would allow your character to
become the person you want them to be.
It was great fun in-play. Given that we were all “new adults”
at the time, it was easy for us to accept untrained characters. And I think “driving
your story towards doing things that allow you to improve the skills you want
to become good at” is actually solid life advice here in the real world.
As always thank you for taking the time to read this, and I
always invite you to leave any comments or questions below.
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