Issues 1 to 10 of French RPG Magazine "Runes" Online

French humour

Runes was a French RPG fanzine/magazine that lasted but ten issues, from issue No.1 of January 1983 to issue No.10 dated “Q1 1985”. The short existence of Runes coincides with my discovery of role-playing games (I had only been playing wargames before that).

Runes was written and published by the Toulousian circle of gamers. At the time, in France, there weren't many RPGers, and they were mostly centred in Paris, Nice and Toulouse. I also happened to live in Toulouse at the time, and I remember vivid fan discussions with the Runes team at the Relais Descartes gaming shop in the centre of Toulouse.

Despite its name, Runes published almost only AD&D and Call of Cthulhu articles and scenarios — it made sense since AD&D and CoC remained the two most popular RPGs in France for a very long time. Yet there were also a few Traveller articles, a DragonQuest one, several RuneQuest ones, one in particular that I remember that described all the classic RQ campaigns in issue No.8. RuneQuest was also introduced as “the most elegant RPG” in issue No.3.

From a graphical point of view, the layout was rather crude, but the covers were beautiful, and there were some funny vignettes (see above).

To drive down nostalgia lane, it's here.