RuneQuest - Legacy

Legacy

Chaosium reused the rules system developed in RuneQuest to form the basis of several other games: in 1980 the RuneQuest system of rules was simplified and published by Greg Stafford and Lynn Willis under the name of Basic Role-Playing (or BRP, for short). BRP was a generic role-playing game system, derived from the two first RuneQuest editions (1978 and 1979). It was used for many Chaosium role-playing games that followed RuneQuest, including:

• Stormbringer (1981)
• Call of Cthulhu (1981)
• Worlds of Wonder (1982)
• Superworld (1983)
• ElfQuest (1984)
• Ringworld (1984)
• Pendragon (1985) -see below-
• Hawkmoon (1985)
• Nephilim (1992)
• Elric! (1993)

Minor modifications of the BRP rules were introduced in every one of those games, to suit the flavor of each game's universe. Pendragon used a 1-20 scale and 1d20 roll instead of a percentile scale and 1d100. In combat, it used a single STR-based damage value where weapons only gave bonuses or penalties to the number of d6s. Prince Valiant (1989), which used coin tosses instead of dice rolls, was the only Chaosium role-playing game that didn't use any variant of the BRP system.

In 2004, Chaosium released a print-on-demand version of the 3rd edition RuneQuest rules under the titles Basic Roleplaying Players Book, Basic Roleplaying Magic Book, and Basic Roleplaying Creatures Book. The same year, Chaosium began preparing the most complete version yet of Basic Role-Playing. This new BRP edition was provisionally named Deluxe Basic Role-Playing (DBRP) but was finally released on June 24, 2008 as a single comprehensive book with the title Basic Role-Playing. The book offers many optional rules, as well as genre-specific advice for fantasy, horror, and science-fiction. Currently Chaosium is selling both a printed and pdf version of the game. No current version of BRP includes any Gloranthan content.

Steve Perrin, one of the authors of the original RuneQuest game, later developed a similar system known as Steve Perrin's Quest Rules (SPQR), which some RuneQuest fans consider to be a successor to the original game.

Since losing the license to use the RuneQuest name and Glorantha setting, Moongoose Publishing have announced that they will release a new series of books under the title of Legend, which are designed to be 100% compatible with the RuneQuest II ruleset. Legend will be released in late 2011 under an open license so that others will be able to release books based on those rules. As well as a new series of titles to be released for Legend, current Mongoose titles for RuneQuest II, such as the Vikings sourcebook, will be re-released as Legend-compatible books.