While not the largest entry to the awards this year, this certainly ranks as the heaviest. This is the Runequest Slipcase Edition from Chaosium.
We are aware that Runequest has been put in for the awards before, but that was as a lone book and not a full box set. The Judges did debate for some time on whether or not this could be classified as a different product in light of this and decided that with the additional material presented, it added a new dimension to the game and as at least two other entries had been given the same consideration, it was allowed.
This set is Immense, there’s no other way to describe it, from the amount of material that’s in it, to the price that’s being charged for it, it’s Massive. The question primarily for the judges was whether or not the amount of material within justified the cost of it.
What do you get for the money?
The Core Rules of Runequest, the Glorantha Bestiary, A GM’s screen, 128 pages of adventures, a Gloranthan calender, pregenerated characters, full colour fold out maps of the most famous locations in Glorantha and a reference booklet for all the tables and charts.
It represents one of the most complete packages for getting into a game and never having to buy anything else for it again that most of the Judges had ever seen. The comparison that was laid by the Judges was to see if you could get a similar volume of material for any other game for a significantly lower cost. The problem that was encountered is that most games simply don’t have this amount of material out there to offer. The closest they came was Dungeons and Dragons and that was about the same cost when you took everything into account.
Production values are superb, everything to the highest standard. Full colour artwork throughout, and years of refining have made all the tables and charts concise and easy to use. It is, of course, impossible to not look at the wealth of years that this game has had to evolve, and the question of whether or not a game that’s been around this long should be still considered as a viable entry for best RPG. To the Judges, the point became that if you disallow the games that have had forever to improve, you deny the other entries the chance to stand against them and carve their own legend. This did not take top marks from many judges, the cost was a serious factor in the awards, and while this is undoubtedly a premium product, that also places it well out of reach for many who are just starting in the Roleplaying world.
It is worth the high cost for the amount of material that you get from it, but the Judges felt that the product was more for those who have been around for a while and know what they like to play, rather than those just starting out in Roleplaying.