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 The History of
AQ!
The Amazing Quests! Multigenre
Universal Rolegaming Framework is a universal role-playing game system designed to
operate within the boundaries and fictions of any genre or game setting. AQ!
is the culmination of years of work researching role-playing games and
working to develop a universal system that represented the majority-ruling
concept. This was accomplished through years of asking gamers from all over what
they liked or did not like in various systems and their components; e.g., magic
systems, combat, attribute scores, etc.
After years of data-gathering and trying different ideas, playtesting began. The
character creation trials were long and in-depth, combining all the popular
ideas garnered during research and weeding out the problems. This went on for
two years. After three revisions, the fourth was ready to go out to other
playtesters in 1998, most of whom most of us had never met.
Playtesters around the world downloaded the beta versions of the core rules and
let us know what they thought. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and I
incorporated more changes based on what the majority thought—or, in many cases,
what a strong minority thought.
Life got in the way in late 2001, and the AQ!
project was put on hold. The core rules were done and as streamlined as they
could be, but they were just generic core rules without much in the way of
source material. I had been developing a supplement called The Spyran System
that would combine many genres into one, with the intention of publishing it
alongside the core rules. But TSS wasn't done, and needed loads of work.
I also no longer had offices, as I had gone on to work for The Man instead of
myself, so everything paused for a while.
Meanwhile, video games became ever more popular,
and sucked young people away from primitive paper-and-pencil RPGs. From 2005 on,
I worked as a writer and photographer for the Special Sections department of the
Bangor Daily News (and still do). But the AQ! project was always there.
Occasionally, I'd work on TSS, knowing I'd finish it some day.
It was nearing completion in 2009, and all it and
the core rules needed was artwork. I'd lost contact with the artist who had been
working on it, and needed another. I was lucky enough to meet Leah Sutherland of
Thistlebred Fantasy Art Studios, a talented artist in Bangor who agreed to work
with me to illustrate the 120+ playable character races in TSS, which I
had then renamed Astroscape Zero. As it stands, AQ! is done and
waiting for a few more illustrations, and Leah is furiously working on the huge
numbers of illustrations for AZ.
What's With the Long and
Goofy Title?
The same fate has
befallen the Amazing Quests! Framework as did Steve Jackson Games' GURPS
eons ago. While developing GURPS, the SJG crew needed a working title for
their game system, and named it "Generic Universal Role-Playing System," or "GURPS" for short. By the time the game got into print, the
name had stuck. It's sort of like calling a
Top Secret spy job something like "Operation Snailslime" or
"Project Oily Robot" or "Mission: Syphilis." They
sound goofy but mean some serious stuff to those involved.
We needed a working
title. I initially chose "Adventure Quest!" purely because it sounded funny, and also
because it was patterned it after the many popular RPG-related
games from the 1980s and on, such as RuneQuest, RoleQuest, SnarfQuest, ElfQuest, etc. There was even an RPG called, simply,
"Adventure!" a while back, not something of which I had
been aware at the time. At any rate, since my universal RPG's focal point
was, essentially, the vehicle with which players quested for adventure... well,
you get the idea. But I never expected the name to actually stick.
By the time we got to the point in playtesting when I needed
to come up with a permanent name, the working title had just stuck. We usually
called it AQ!, but would often trumpet in melodramatic/overheroic
fashion, "AdVENture Quest!" and had so much fun poking fun at the thing's name
that I decided to keep it. In 2001, I learned there actually was an RPG out
there already called Adventure Quest, without an exclamation point. I
didn't want to get sued, so I knew I had to change the name. But we were so
attached to "AQ!" that it had to stay.
There are many words beginning with "A." There aren't too many
beginning with "Q." So Amazing Quests! was born, which retains the "AQ"
abbreviation and still sounds amusingly goofy.
The subtitle is even goofier. It was also
a temporary thing that sort of stuck. I started calling it a "universal
multigenre rolegaming framework," but later realized that its abbreviation was "UMRF."
That was hideously close to "MURF," the nickname of one of our playtesters (he
and his brother, also a playtester, have the last name "Murphy"). So I figured,
what the hell, let's embrace hideousness. After all, the thing was already
called "Amazing Quests!"; why not goof with it some more?
So it's officially the Amazing Quests!
Multigenre Universal Rolegaming Framework. Call it AQ!, call it Ackmerf,
call it anything you like. Make fun of it, in fact. We all do. But chances are
it will stick in your noggin.
Feedback
Is it wrong to
put up feedback from several years ago? I don't think so. I've taken
something of a break from AQ! for a few years, and now that I'm
working to get this project done and published in case I get hit by a bus
tomorrow, I want to let everyone know that I'm not just patting my own
back here. Amazing Quests! and the Astroscape Zero
supplement are the products of a lot of work—not just by me, but also by
a core group of playtesters and friends who helped get it rolling.
But just as important are the myriad people I've polled
and questioned over the years to learn what they liked and didn't like
about various RPGs. And when I made AQ! and the predecessor to
AZ available for free download on this Web site, the playtest group
then spanned the globe. As a result, I received literally thousands of
emails from around the world, telling what they loved about the system.
Most didn't hate anything, but of course there were tweaks to be made, and
thanks to those folks, they were fixed.
From the old Web site, I still have some of the feedback
that playtesters around the world emailed me. For a bit of flavor about
what it was like, and what the current game has in store for you, check
out those pages.
Feedback for Amazing
Quests!
Feedback for the
predecessor to Astroscape Zero
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