HeroQuest is out!

Hero Quest, the new RPG set in Glorantha is out. Although billed as a brand new game, it's really the second edition of Hero Wars, the game released about three years ago. I was very disappointed in Hero Wars; the appalling editing and layout made it very difficult to figure out quite how the system was supposed to work.

The new game is a big improvement. Although the basic game engine is the same, the actual rulebook has been completely rewritten, and the whole thing is much clearer. They've also changed the very freeform magic system quite a bit, introducing "common magic", which means I can now convert my old RuneQuest character Javin, something I could not do with Hero Wars (Javin was a character with a lot of Battle Magic, but wasn't initiated into any cult)

A lot of old time Runequest players will find Heroquest a quite different system. It's more cinematic in power levels, and it's very much a dramatist rather than a simulationist system, with a very abstract system for handling combat and magic. It's possible to handle combats in a single die roll (roll well and you win the fight, roll badly and you lose), although there's an extended contest rule for more dramatic situations which involves betting 'action points' on a series of dice rolls. You can use this system not just for fights, but for any dramatic contest, from some arduous physical task to trying to win the love of the princess.

Magic is totally abstract; rather than a long list of spells that do precise things and do X points of damage, you have a list of 'affinities' or 'talents' which simply have names, and it's up to the players and the GM to decide what these abilities can do.