When Games Workshop published RuneQuest Third Edition for the UK in 1987, I bought it without any hesitation. It’s a thin hardback book but it contains the core of the BRP-powered rules without the Gloranthan lore. This was the moment I departed from Greg Stafford’s world for more than two decades.

Having gone to university in 1989, the truth is that through all the long years since I have never played RQIII. My next contact with RuneQuest‘s legacy was with the publication of RuneQuest Sixth Edition sometime around 2012-13. I believe that RQ6 (later rebranded as Mythras) was built on the chassis of MRQI, itself hearkening back to RQIII’s generic roots… but I could be wrong.

For my own purposes, RQIII introduced me to RuneQuest without the Gloranthan lore, severed me from that world whose Dragon Pass had seduced me in 1980, and propelled me deeply into the idea of creating my own fantasy worlds. Now I am returning to that old book, having unearthed it from boxes that have laid hidden in our home for more than 25 years.

When some friends on the RPR Discord started talking about playing Ducks and Baboons in RuneQuest, my curiosity was peaked. As I was opening those old boxes a couple of weeks back, I found my old copy of RQIII and reunited it with a recently obtained copy of Griffin Island.

It seems that now we have some fellow players who might like to give these old products an outing. I don’t fully understand why I am so drawn towards exploring this old book and that old supplement, especially given the poor esteem that Gloranthan fans of RQ hold towards them. But drawn I am and in the re-reading there lies much to reflect upon.

For all the claims that the Old School favours minimalist rules, it seems to me that the 96 pages of RQIII are an overlooked treasure. It lacks a world, certainly, but it does offer the basis to create one and provides all the fundamental tools necessary. There are creatures, three types of magic, a full game system of rules, and a brief introduction on how to use them.

What RQIII lacks is any form of scenario structure, goals beyond the vague invocation of “Quests” for “Runes”, and any form of treasure. It’s a game rules set without any of the earlier tradition of procedure: no tools for dungeoneering or exploration, just the building blocks of a roleplaying game’s rules. Perhaps that is where Griffin Island proves necessary, offering a setting and goals for players to pursue.

But RQIII has a place in my heart and it’s a game I’d like to play, at least just once. I wonder what the other players will make of it, all these years later. For in truth, throughout the 36 years since I bought it, the BRP-based D100 engine that it presents hasn’t changed all that much either.

Even the latest edition of BRP lacks clear guidance on how to run a classic fantasy campaign. But perhaps that’s an entirely separate discussion, for it seems to me that most modern RPGs lack this kind of guidance. Everyone seems to assume that the GM will know what to do… and that’s simply never been true.

Here’s to an old treasure: RuneQuest III and the promise of D100 fantasy worlds untethered from Glorantha.

Game on!