The Design Mechanism Seminar

The Design Mechanism's panel was held on Saturday night. Loz highlighted what happened since last year's panel, when the RuneQuest 6 rule book was about to be published.

✠ RuneQuest 6 core book: the sales have better than anticipated, with customers evenly split between dead tree and electronic format. There are customers from all over the world, but the core market is obviously constituted by the English-speaking countries.

✠ the Book of Quests is out. It consists of seven linked scenarios, written by new authors; since the reception has been good, a "Book of Quests II" is likely to see the light in 2014.

✠ the Design Mechanism are busy preparing Monster Island for release in September. This is a 100% Pete Nash product. It is NOT a mere book of monsters; it is a pulp/S&S sandbox populated with monsters, over 80 of them. It was actually thought of as a homage to Griffin Island. The PDF map will have layers so that the GM can customise his printouts. Also, the book is illustrated by legendary British illustrator Russ Nicholson.

✠ There are quite a few other setting books in the pipe [thank you bloody iPad for having eaten up all my notes on this part of the panel]:
    ‣ a Luther Arkwright setting book. The Design Mechanism managed to get hold of the licence of this famous (at least in Britain) steampunk/plane-hopping/sci-fi comics series by Bryan Talbot. It will include rules for firearms, vehicles, etc.; everything needed for a contemporary setting.
    ‣ Shores of Korantia, a new campaign/setting book by the author of Age of Treason
    ‣ The Fall of Byzantium, by Michael 'MOB' O'Brien. This is going to be a historical campaign/supplement focusing on the two-month siege of Byzantium in 1453 by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II.
    ‣ I'm pretty sure another book was mentioned, but the evil iPad ate my notes.

✠ There is going to be a KickStarter for a hardback edition of the RuneQuest 6 rule book

✠ There are quite a few translations of RQ6 in the pipe: French, Spanish, German, possibly Swedish.

✠ The above are the plans for 2013. The plans for 2014 are as follows: more historical settings (Mythic Briton), a RQ6 sourcebook for Glorantha called RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha, RQ6 articles in Wyrms Footnotes, and a RQ6 campaign pack set in a particular area of Third Age Glorantha.

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The last panel (on Sunday night) was a common Moon Design/Design Mechanism panel. I missed it because I was busy GM'ing Arrows of Indra. Apparently, the panel involved a large crowd of Glorantha drunkards enthusiasts who managed to mob the Design Mechanism into writing more Gloranthan stuff, and earlier than expected. As a result of the common panel, RuneQuest: Adventures in Glorantha has become a top priority; Pete Nash is taking the reins of the project, and he will start work on it very soon. The idea is to release RQ: AiG as close as possible to the Guide to Glorantha (see the relevant blog entry). Also, the area the Design Mechanism will focus upon is going to be a different one from the one initially expected.
A side effect of this focus on Gloranthan material for RQ6 is that Luther Arkwright: Role-Playing Across the Parallels and the historical settings will be delayed.