Post originally by Jay Triplett at 2003-05-21 07:41:12
Converted from Phorums BB System

I suppose this could be a separate and interesting thread. I originally believed that Pendragon was evolved from RuneQuest, too. However in reading some comments by Greg Stafford (See the Stafford quote thread), I am beginning to think that RuneQuest evolved from Pendragon, even though RuneQuest was published before Pendragon was. If that were the case (and I strongly suspect that it is)Pendragon would have sprung from D&D. Stafford suggests that he established Chaosium to produce Pendragon, which means that it was on the drawing table before Chaosium was created. Greg, Steve Perrin, and Sandy Petersen would probably have this info, though I have never talked to them about it.

If you look at the Pendragon character sheet, there is some evidence of using the Dungeons and Dragons character sheet as a guide in its creation. Note the familiar DEX, STR, CON, next to a large shield shaped box and the words Current Hit Points. And you also have the d20 resolution system which is unified and more elegant than basic D&D but still operates on the principle of rolling less than or equal to characteristic (stat) which is what we used to use in Basic D&D rather than skill resolution... (Characteristics in this case also include Personality Traits which may have been an attempt to better define the Wisdom stat.) Also the first edition RuneQuest, I think, had increases of 5 percentiles at a time rather than d6 percentiles, which indicates a conversion of the Pendragon experience system from a d20 to a percentile system.

The first version of the D&D game went on sale in January of 1974 and the copyright on RuneQuest is 1978. If Greg already had Pendragon in mind when he established Chaosium, its quite possible that he was originally working on some improvement to the D&D basic system when he created Pendragon. It may have even sprung from "house rules" for D&D. This is my line of reasoning anyway. I don't have it sealed in cement, but I don't think that it's clear that Pendragon evolved out of RuneQuest, and it's possible that Greg is being underated in his contribution to RuneQuest. He many have done much more than just develop the Gloranatha world.

It would be interesting to know if anyone who worked on RuneQuest or maybe has more info to share is reading these threads and would like to comment.