What was Questworld in the RuneQuest days?

[Ian Cooper]

I split this from Archaic Glorantha, but I'm guessing Mike might be interested in this because of his Otherworld material.

Questworld was a reaction by Chaosium to the fact that other companies wanted to publish RuneQuest scenarios, but the approval process for Gloranthan material was too difficult. So Questworld was borne as a RuneQuest world freed from those restrictions. The term Gateway was also used to indicate non-Gloranthan material at times. Originally described in a Different Worlds article individual publishers were assigned their own continent. The only people to really publish a supplement were Chaosium with the Qustworld boxed set: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000EK7AXQ?v=glance

The QuestWorld boxed set didn't attempt to really explain the mixing of Gloranthan cults into another world it just allowed it. I recall the adventures as being entertaining, though I was 15 at the time and the mythic aspects of Glorantha were a little more lost on me

Games Workshop, who had the UK licence to print RuneQuest 2, produced some articles in White Dwarf that covered their continent. One was a preview of Oliver Dickinson and Bob McWilliams ideas for GW's Questworld (WD38 - sorry don't have a copy) that, IIRC hinted at their explanation for how the gods came here (part of the Great Compromise I think). There was a supplement in the offing, but it never saw light of day. Most popular was their demonology magic additions to RuneQuest: www.concentric.net/~slposey/Games/WD-Dealing_with_Demons.pdf

Google  throws up some RuneQuest-Rules Digest links that say pretty much the same thing: http://www.crashbox.com/pipermail/rq-rules/2004-October/004757.html

Of course HeroQuest's Questworlds is closer to Worlds of Wonder in feel. But the idea of being able to use Gloranthan cults and religions or cultures, but not be Glorantha has popped up in the past.

Interestingly Greg is trying to step back from controlling Glorantha in rpgs. A recent HeroQuest-RPG list post suggested that after 30 years of telling us how to use it for gaming, he felt we were able to go out and develop the setting for gaming ourselves. YGWV is becoming more concrete as a result I suspect. He gets a veto, but isn't expected to wield on the detail. So the pressue for a old-skool Questworld may be less (see Mongoose getting the Second Age for example).

[Web_Weaver]

I remember one player going into great detail about how there was a clearly defined multiverse-like construct for the various chaosium games Call of Cthulhu, Runequest, Stormbringer and others, as well as worlds where the concepts overlapped. He even began to detail where the portals were and how you traversed them before the GM politely stated that he ignored these things in his RQ game. I suspect the germ of this idea was one such Quest Worlds article, designed to allow players to pick, choose or swap their background but I have never identified the source. Is this kind of thing in the QW box?

[Ian Cooper]

No. I seem to recall the multiverse appeared with Stormbringer and the points where it appeared in Glorantha were mentioned, but I don't recall. I'm sure it was a game line thing over a Greg cosmology thing and long outdated.

[Mike Holmes]

Thanks Ian, that's some fascinating perspective you've provided.

Mike