Out of the Suitcase #38: 'What happened to RuneQuest' – An unexpected find in the Chaosium vaults

Chaosium President Rick Meints shares stories from a life-time as a collector of all things Chaosium.

An unexpected find... As shared here earlier, Jeremiah Evans and I went through the Chaosium vaults and archives this weekend preparing items for the Chaosium Con 2023 auction.

We made sure each item has all of its contents, and the Chaosium boxed games were our primary focus. We verified the presence of each die, booklet, handout, and similar*. 

Quite delightfully, in one of the Avalon Hill RuneQuest RQ3 rules boxes I came across something totally unexpected and unknown to me.

In 1983 and 1984 Chaosium often provided sneak peeks at their efforts for updating the RuneQuest rules for the new Avalon Hill published 3rd edition. Such updates usually appeared in Different Worlds magazine. The most comprehensive article being in DW#37 (Nov./Dec. 1984).

I didn't know that Chaosium produced a similar flyer in 1984. I suppose they handed it out at conventions or other PR opportunities, most probably at Gen Con and/or Origins.

The flyer and the DW #37 article contain most of the same text and I suspect the flyer was written before the article was published. Regardless, it's now in the big binder of catalogs and promo materials with many other such items.

Since it deftly explains the key "improvements" made for RQ3, I have shared it here for your viewing pleasure. As always, if you have an original copy of this from the mid 1980s, I'd love to know how you acquired it.

*Going through most of the boxed sets re-affirmed that there is no consistent color of dice used in the boxed sets. Once again proving, "We are the Chaosium, not the Orderium."