Out of the Suitcase #51: RuneQuest's Apple Lane - a tale of two editions
Posted by Michael O'Brien on 2nd Jul 2024
Chaosium President Rick Meints shares stories from a life-time as a collector of all things Chaosium.
A few weeks ago another collector asked me about the differences between the first and second editions of RuneQuest's iconic Apple Lane supplement. After thinking about my basic initial answer — you have to look at the inside front cover to tell — I didn't feel my terse response adequately explained what changed between the first edition that debuted in January of 1979 for RuneQuest First Edition, and the second edition that debuted in January of 1980 for RuneQuest Second Edition.
So last weekend I grabbed the books off the shelf and took a few pictures. I aim to show easy ways to spot the differences between the first and second editions of Apple Lane.
The above photos show the inside front and back covers. As I said previously, you can't tell which version you have based on the front or back covers other than the paper cover stock used. The first edition cover uses slightly thicker paper that has a rougher texture to it.
The inside covers are where it is far easier to see which edition you are looking at. The first edition inside front cover has boxed text at the bottom. The second edition does not have that boxed text and it also states it is the second edition in the second paragraph of Greg Stafford's introduction.
The differences between editions on the inside back covers are more pronounced. The easiest "date related" difference is the reference to the first issue of Different Worlds being due 1 Feb. 1979. The second edition inside back cover has references to the 1980 editions of White Bear & Red Moon and Nomad Gods. Chaosium were planning on reprinting a second edition of Nomad Gods around 1980, but it got cancelled. As for the changes made to the rest of the contents for the second edition. There are a number of them:
- Page 19 - Boxed text at the top of the page moved to the bottom of page 20, where it is presented unboxed.
- Page 19 - Heading updated from "Gringle and Duckjohn in Defense" to "Gringle and Quackjohn in Defense". The whole section was rewritten for clarity. The info for the Gargoyle in Room 3 was converted from shaded boxed text to just regular text, plus the info was slightly rewritten.
- Page 20 - Gringle stats and info slightly updated. Gringle gets Rune Spells, including Issaries cult specific spells. He also gets an Allied spirit and another magic item. Duckjohn renamed to Quackjohn. His spells are tweaked, and he gets a POW storing crystal. The Gargoyle stats are no longer in shaded boxed text, but otherwise unchanged.
- Page 42 - The full page blank RQ character sheet (on 42) is deleted and replaced with Villager stats for The Sheriff, his wife Oolina Gentle, and Avareen Bosom.
- Page 43 - The Sample Player Characters are moved to page 47. They are replaced with Villager stats for Pretty Aileena, Bingood, Carsten Goodie, and Navarok One-hand.
- Pages 44-47 - The Sapienza Character sheets and monster stat sheets are all deleted. Pages 44-46 are replaced with Villager stats for Bulster Brewer, Bertha, Ben Leadhead, Postal, Mineera, Lippicus, Varaneera, Pico Gastapakis, Valeeda, Pramble, Squinch, Kareena, and Shuffle.
Thus, the only substantive changes are the revised stats for Gringle and Quakjohn, plus all of the added stats for the formerly unstatted villagers. They tried to change as few pages as possible. A keen eye might notice that most of the changed or replaced pages have a different font used for the page numbers.
As much as I like John Sapienza's character and monster sheets, once they were included in the RQ2 rulebook they didn't need to be in Apple Lane. Regardless, they were of limited use in the adventures, and I wonder if they were added to get the page count up to 48 pages. As a final note, Apple Lane is one of the few Chaosium RuneQuest supplements, along with Snakepipe Hollow, that had multiple printings in the RQ1-RQ2 era (1978-1983). As for which edition of Apple Lane I prefer? My favorite is actually the Games Workshop 1980 edition; the third edition of Apple Lane (shown on the far right in the image at the top).
The Games Workshop edition features nicer formatting and it includes all of the Villager stats with their descriptions in each village location, as opposed shoving them all at the back of the book. It even manages to do all that in only 32 pages instead of 48. It even manages to do all that in only 32 pages instead of 48, including removing all the remaining references to Duckjohn.
All 4 printings of Chaosium's RQ2 boxed set included the exact same 32 page printing ofApple Lane. It is ALMOST identical to the GW UK RQ2 version of Apple Lane, with the following differences: No yellow cardstock cover. Imagine that just the 32 internal pages were printed. Chaosium replaced the Table of Contents page with the cover. It was cheaper to make this way, and it was never intended to be sold separately.
Apple Lane is available again, fully remastered!
"...an excellent introduction to roleplaying in Glorantha in 1978 and like any good classic, it remains still very playable today." — Reviews from R'lyeh.
"It would be easy to list TSR's Tomb of Horrors (1978) as the top scenario for 1978... (but) Instead, I suggest Apple Lane, for Chaosium's RuneQuest game (1978). A year before TSR published Village of Hommlet (1979), Greg Stafford revealed a village from his own campaign, filled with NPCs to interact with: NPCs who even had names. Add in a unique adventure for the time, where the players have to defend a pawnshop from attack, and you have a milestone in the industry." — Designers & Dragons.