New English Rule Book for Tsukuda Hobby's Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro Simulation Game

Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

My translated Jabro rule book, reference sheets, and custom game counters.

I've completed my English translation of the rules for Tsukuda Hobby's Mobile Suit Gundam: Jabro (1981) game, covering both the 1st and 2nd editions of the rule book.

First and foremost, here is the link to the download page hosted on BoardGameGeek.com. You need an account on the site in order to download the file, but if you are reading my blog, you probably already have one: 

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/246707/tsukuda-jabro-1st2nd-edition-english-rule-book

Gundam Squad Leader?

Can you tell which game is which?

Hobby Japan started importing American hex-and-counter wargames for the American market back in the mid-1970s (source). These "simulation games" proved to be popular, but the strengthening value of the American dollar vs. the Japanese yen at the time made imports expensive. By 1981, three Japanese companies started making their own lines of domestic simulation board games: Bandai, Epoch Co., and Tsukuda Hobby (source).

Both Bandai and Tsukuda started developing games based on the hit TV anime, Mobile Suit Gundam (1979). While Bandai's own Mobile Suit Gundam (1982) game would feature scale plastic models like an "actual" game (Japanese term for a scale miniatures wargame), Tsukuda Hobby wanted to create "Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1977) for Gundam." They began work with one designer, but instead decided to contact Atsutoshi Okada for the job. At the time, Okada was hobby "actual" game designer (again, miniature wargamer) whose convention games had been featured in Popeye and Hobby Japan magazines (source). He and his doujin circle, THQ, set to work to create what would be Tsukuda's flagship release in their new series of hobby games.

I'd often heard that Jabro was based on Squad Leader, but how close are the two games? I analyzed Jabro and found the following similarities:

Player Turn Sequence – This is nearly identical between the two games. The only differences being that Jabro collapses the Close Combat Phase into the Advancing Fire Phase and that Jabro does not feature the Rout and Advance Phases.

Movement Costs – Jabro’s movement costs are essentially double what Squad Leader’s infantry movement costs are.

Support Weapons – The concept of carried equipment as “support weapons” is nearly identical to Squad Leader, but with set weapon loadouts rather than the concept of portage costs.

Line of Sight – Rules for elevation levels of terrain, height levels of obstacles, and blocking line of sight follow very similar rules in both games.

Morale – Morale in Jabro represents a pilot’s ability to remain conscious. Contrast this to Squad Leader’s typical morale rules for keeping troops in good fighting order. However, the mechanical results are similar. Units often make morale checks to avoid damage (which gives the unusual situation where a pilot must check morale to avoid getting their mobile suit’s legs blasted off with a beam rifle). Jabro does not have the concept of routing.

Defensive Fire During Movement- This is nearly identical in both games.

Breakdown – In Squad Leader, a support weapon breaks if its attack roll equals or exceeds its Breakdown number and broken weapons can later be repaired. In Jabro, a separate breakdown dice roll is needed in addition to the attack roll and once broken, a weapon is destroyed and lost.

Armor Modifiers – Squad Leader’s AFV Armor Modifier to resist damage is very similar to Jabro’s Armor Thickness.

Overall, Jabro is like a somewhat simplified version of Squad Leader with 30-foot tall robots instead of WWII infantry squads.

Upgrading the Game Components

My custom-made counters and carrier

I was fortunate enough to get an unpunched, mint condition copy of this 41-year-old game and decided not to punch out the counters for a number of reasons. For one, I can keep the game in pristine condition. For another, the pilot counters all have the Japanese names of the characters and it would be easier for me if I printed them in English. For another, the original counters are somewhat plain (mostly black-and-white) and I wanted to add some color.

Three different Zakus, weapons, and pilots

I scanned in all the counter art and added some color to the main units (mobile suits, vehicles, and artillery guns) in Photoshop. I also added the English translations of all the pilot names. I then printed everything out on cardstock and mounted the units to thick pressboard.

Edition Wars

Tsukuda originally released a 1st edition rule book (printed in green ink) for the game, but later upgraded the rule book to 2nd edition (printed in blue ink). In my translation, I analyzed both editions and all text that is only found in the 2nd edition is in blue type.

The biggest difference is that 2nd edition has many, many more examples and illustrations of the rules (especially movement and line of sight). The game is very complex, especially for a target audience that may not be accustomed to playing complex board games (like Squad Leader). I imagine that they received a lot of questions and complaints and felt they needed to amend the rule book.

Getting into the game

Denim's Zaku, with shield and heat hawk axe, gets its arms blasted off with a missile.

Almost every mobile suit can be customized by equipping them with different "support weapons" (ranged weapons, like Beam Rifle or Hyper Bazooka) or "melee weapons" (such as the Beam Saber or Gundam Shield). Unfortunately, this means that each unit is represented by a teetering stack of 1/2" counters - you can imagine the leading tower of cardboard that is created if 3 Earth Federation mobile suits (each with two weapon counters and one pilot counter) stack in the same hex as 3 Zaku mobile suits!

The game comes with three reversible, fold-out, two-panel map boards. All three map boards can be put together to create the map for the underground Jabro base hidden in the jungle (see top image). The back sides of the map boards can be put together to create woodland, desert, and urban environments.

The game includes nine different scenarios that closely follow some of the battles seen in the TV series. Some of the main Earth Federation pilots (especially Amuro) grow and develop their abilities in combat as the scenarios progress, and this is reflected in different pilot unit counters for different scenarios.

Results

Much like the Armored Trooper Votoms game I translated before, shooting a target and determining a hit can take a while and have room for error.

First, the shooting player looks up their chance to hit based on range and terrain the target is in (for example at range of 5 hexes, the chance to hit a target in the woods is 9).

Then, there are so many possible combat modifiers affecting your chance to hit:

• The shooting pilot's shooting skill
• The weapon's hit adjustment
• If the shooting unit is moving
• If the shooting unit is jumping
• If the shooting unit is taking a defensive action
• If shooting at the previous target from last turn
• The target pilot's evasion skill
• The target unit's evasion value
• If the target unit is moving
• If the target unit is jumping

After accounting for all modifiers, the shooting player rolls two dice and, if less than or equal to the hit chance, a hit is scored.

But, even if the weapon misses (unless it is a beam weapon), it can still affect the target at 1/2 firepower (a "grazing hit")!

Once a hit is scored (or not, in the case of a grazing hit), the damage outcome must be calculated. The shooting player looks up the weapon's firepower at range (for example, a Beam Rifle at 5 hex range has a firepower of 13).

The shooting player cross-references their firepower and rolls two dice on the Damage Resolution Chart, modifying the dice roll by the following:

• Target with shield gets to attempt a shield block to add to their unit's armor
• Target in forest modifier
• Target in partial cover modifier
• Target unit's armor thickness
• Target pilot's piloting ability

The result may have no effect, destroy a target's weapon, stun the pilot, immobilize the target, make the target unable to fight, or destroy the target.

Also, for every attack, the attacking player must make a breakdown roll to see if their weapon suddenly jams, runs out of ammo, or otherwise becomes unusuable. If the total on two dice is greater than or equal to the weapon's Breakdown number (usually 10, 11, or 12), the current attack is unaffected but the weapon becomes unusable in future rounds (this is almost exactly like the rules in Squad Leader).

In itself, none of these rules are that complex, but it would be quite a lot to learn in aggregate for a player that is new to simulation games.

I think that Tsukuda Hobby realized they needed a more intuitive game, first with the printing of the 2nd edition rule books and then what is essentially a 3rd edition rule book later. In Tsukuda's game magazine Operation (issue 1, 20 June 1983) featured yet another version of the rules for Jabro. This one had few rule changes, but instead the rules were broken up into basic, medium, and expert level rules. A beginner could play the early scenarios with only the basic rules until they had enough experience for a greater challenge.

Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of that magazine and wasn't able to add the changes to my translation. Something to do in the future!

New English Rule Book for Takara's Votoms Simulation Game Manual from Dual Magazine

 Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

My translated rules and several games in the Votoms Simulation Game Manual series

I've completed my English translation of the rules for Takara's Votoms Simulation Game Manual, covering the complete rules set to allow one to play games no. 1 through 5. These games were originally published in Japanese as articles in Dual Magazine issues no. 6 through 10.

First and foremost, here is the link to the download page hosted on BoardGameGeek.com. You need an account on the site in order to download the file, but if you are reading my blog, you probably already have one:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/245358/votoms-simulation-game-manual-english-rule-book

Armored Trooper Votoms wargame in a magazine

Takara's Dual Magazine published issues quarterly in the early 1980s with a "dual" focus on Takara's 2D (board games) and 3D (model kits) anime products. Many of Takara's products were licensed from Sunrise animation studio, such as Crusher Joe, Panzer World Galient, Ideon, Armored Trooper Votoms, and Fang of the Sun Dougram.

Starting with issue no. 2 in 1982, Dual Magazine began publishing hex-and-counter wargames, often called "simulation games" in Japan, in each issue. Each game could be played standalone, but would also add more rules, units, and game mechanics to the overall game system with each issue. The Votoms series of five games were published from 1983 to 1984. Different games covered different terrain, from urban fighting in the city of Uoodo (sometimes spelled Woodo) to the marshy wetlands of Kummen to outer space battles in orbit around the deadworld Sunsa.

Upgrading the Game Components

Select game counters

Since the games were published in magazines nearly thirty years ago, the main components are printed on thin cardstock. I'd rather not watch all the game components blow away if I sneezed too hard, so I decided that the game needed an upgrade.

Metal figures from Plotters City Woodo (not a magazine game!)

I opted to use some old Battletech game boards and miniatures figures from Takara's other Votoms board game: Plotters City Woodo. This game in development while the Dual Magazine game series was published and uses completely different rules, but the miniatures work perfectly.

If you've read my blog for a while, this post may sound familiar to you. That's because I did the exact same thing when I translated the earlier Dougram Simulation Game Manual series and posted about it here!

Testing the game

Setting the battlefield.

I started with a simple test scenario, based on the recommended scenario in the first game. Two Armored Trooper (AT) units face off against each other in combat. I chose two Scopedogs and gave one a shoulder-mounted rocket pod and the other a machine gun. Both units had pistols as secondary weapons (and it is not a bad weapon in this game!).

This game is fairly complex - much more complex than the earlier Dougram games in this series. While it was easy to manage a handful of "Combat Armor" mecha in Dougram, these Votoms rules presumed that each player would usually manage only "Armored Trooper" at a time.

The player starts by choosing an "Action Pattern" for the unit in secret. This is a clever design, first developed by designer Atsutoshi Okada for use in the Tsukuda Hobby game Macross: City Fight (1983). The action pattern defines a certain "behavior" for the unit to take during the turn, such as running, walking, zooming around on roller wheels (think mecha on roller skates), or concentrating on shooting a weapon or engaging in hand-to-hand combat. This chosen action pattern defines how the unit may move, shoot, fight, and dodge incoming weapons for this turn. Like, running doesn't stop a unit from firing a machine gun in the same turn, but your accuracy is going to suffer.

Next the player secretly plots the exact movement the unit will make, what type of camera lens the mecha is using (lenses are a whole thing in Votoms - you must choose between standard, telephoto, or wide angle), and how many shots you plan to fire from a weapon (if any).

During the movement phase, all units are moved simultaneously, based on their secret movement plots. This can be a real surprise as the enemy can and will move wherever you least expect it to. Trying to outguess the opponent's moves adds a level of tension and unpredictability not seen in simpler games, at the cost of added complexity.

Last is combat, including shooting and hand-to-hand "battling." Even if you didn't plan to have a valid target this turn, your unit can always shoot one snap shot off if you have line of sight on an enemy.

In my first test game, both units cautiously maneuvered around the dense patches of forestland between them for two turns. On the third turn, both were ready to approach within weapon range. The machine gunner ran at full tilt, attempting to outflank the opponent and blast them in their blind side. However, the rocket pod AT didn't advance very far and had readied a volley from their short-range pistol.

The units were only one hex distant, and both were in each other's front arcs. The machine gunner unleashed a burst of 5 shots, but only 1 hit its target. The rocket pod AT fired 4 shots with its pistol, which is less powerful than the machine gun but highly accurate at this range. 3 shots ripped through the machine gunners armor, destroying the mech. The pilot did not escape the wreckage.

Results

This is a surprisingly complex game, especially for the anime fans reading this magazine and maybe starting out with their first board wargame ("simulation game," as they are called in Japan). Designer K. Otomo bemoans this problem in some of his designer's notes in the series, all of which I have translated and included in the rule book.

Much of the complexity comes from plotting one's moves in secret and having a rich choice of actions and equipment that closely resemble battles in the Armored Trooper Votoms anime. If the players are patient and experienced gamers, this pays off with an exciting game that is true to its source material.

However, just shooting a target can make my head spin. It is simple enough on paper, but breaks every intuitive notion when I try to figure out what number I need to roll to hit. First, each weapon has a certain hit chance at short, medium, or long range. This is the number you attempt to roll less than or equal to on two dice in order to hit the target (for example, at range 5, a machine gun has a base hit chance of 8).

Then, there are so many possible combat modifiers affecting your chance to hit:

• The shooting pilot's shooting skill
• The shooter's AP for this turn
• Any damage previously suffered by the shooter's AT
• The target pilot's dodge skill
• The target's AP for this turn
• Any damage previously suffered by the target's AT
• The number of shots fired
• The relative velocity between shooter and target (if in outer space)

But what doesn't makes sense is that these are modifiers to the dice roll not the hit chance! That means that negative numbers are bonuses and positive numbers are maluses, which is never intuitive. Also, if you want to figure out your hit chance, then you must subtract your modifier total from the hit chance to figure out what you must roll on two dice.

It just seems like it would all be more logical if all negative modifiers were positive and vice versa, then you added the modifier total to the hit chance and immediately know what number to roll. It may not seem like much, but it would help streamline something you do a lot of in this game.

New English Rule Book for Takara's Dougram Simulation Game Manual from Dual Magazine

Get the Rule Book on BoardGameGeek.com

I've completed my English translation of the rules for Takara's Dougram Simulation Game Manual No. 4: Omnibus Edition, originally published in Dual Magazine issue no. 5.

First and foremost, here is the link to the download page hosted on BoardGameGeek.com. You need an account on the site in order to download the file, but if you are reading my blog, you probably already have one:

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/219911/dougram-simulation-game-manual-no-4-english-rule-b

Fang of the Sun Dougram wargame in a magazine

Takara's Dual Magazine published issues quarterly in the early 1980s with a "dual" focus on Takara's 2D (board games) and 3D (model kits) anime products. Many of Takara's products were licensed from Sunrise animation studio, such as Crusher Joe, Panzer World Galient, Ideon, Armored Trooper Votoms, and Fang of the Sun Dougram.

Starting with issue no. 2 in 1982, Dual Magazine began publishing hex-and-counter wargames, often called "simulation games" in Japan, in each issue. Each game could be played standalone, but would also add more rules, units, and game mechanics to the overall game system with each issue. The Dougram series of four games were published from 1982 to 1983. The first game introduced the basics of the system and a few units. The second game introduced desert combat, infantry, and transport units. The third game introduced combat in the snow and the fourth game is an omnibus edition that combines the rules of the previous three games. This fourth game is the one that I've translated and can be used as a rule book for any of the four games.

Upgrading the Game Components

Instead of playing the game with the thin game boards and flimsy cardboard counters included with these near-thirty-year-old magazines, I opted to use some old Battletech game boards and miniatures figures from Takara's other Dougram board games: Battle of Stanrey (1984) and Battle of Kalnock (1985). These games were published a few years after the Dual Magazine series and use completely different rules, but the miniatures work perfectly.

Close-up on a Kolchima Special Soltic Roundfacer

Battletech fans will recognize many Dougram mechs (or, "Combat Armors") as being the "unseen" mechs from the game's earliest editions:

• Shadow Hawk - Dougram
• Griffin - Soltic H8 Roundfacer
• Scorpion - F35C Blizzard Gunner
• Wolverine - Abitate T-10B/T-10C Blockhead
• Thunderbolt - Hasty F4X Ironfoot
• Goliath - Abitate F44A Crab Gunner
• Battlemaster - Soltic HT-128 Bigfoot

Down, Periscope!

The two newer Dougram games use tree models and periscopes for determining line-of-sight checks. Place the periscope in the shooting unit's hex, then look through to see if the target is obscured by cover or not. It's a neat gimmick that can be applied to other miniatures games. Also, my kids thought it was really cool.

Periscope view of an Iron Foot unit partially hidden behind a tree. Note the "control panel" sticker at the base of the mirror to help simulate being in a mech's cockpit.

Test Scenarios

I enlisted my daughters to help me playtest the game rules that I translated before I published the new rule book. First, we used an open game board. My oldest daughter, as the heroic Deloyeran rebel forces, took the unique Dougram combat armor unit. I played the role of the corrupt Earth Federation with two Soltic Roundfacer units. I didn't stand a chance, as the Dougram's linear gun tore my armored units to shreds.

We chose a new board with light woods so that we could add some tree miniatures to the board.

Two Roundfacers spring forth from the woods with two quad-leg Crab Gunners (the miniatures are actually Blizzard Gunners) covering their right flank to face down Dougram and two Iron Foot units at close range.

The final game was a Deloyeran ambush on a convoy of Kolchima Special Roundfacers and two Crab Gunners in a thick forest. Mostly, this was so we could place ALL of our little trees on the game board (much to my daughters' delights).

How it started: Earth forces in lower left, Deloyer forces hiding in upper right.

This ended up being a disaster for the Deloyerans. It became clear that woods help the Earth Federation with their relatively short range weapons, compared to the longer range Deloyeran Dougram (with added Turbo-Zack system) and Iron Foot units. Even after I removed a Roundfacer when I realized our forces were unbalanced, it ended up being an unfair fight. Oops.

How it ended: five fallen combat armors in the river with only the two Earth Crab Gunners left standing.

Results

This is not a very complex game. Each combat unit is rated for Attack Strength, Armor Thickness, and Movement. Moving through difficult terrain, such as up hillsides or through woods, slows a unit down. To attack a unit, the target must be within the shooter's fire arc and there must be a clear line of sight between them. Count the range in hexes, then consult the unit type's hit chart to find the chance to hit on one six-sided die (-1 to hit chance if shooting unit is moving). If the shot hits, subtract the shot range and target Armor from the shooter's Attack Strength. Use this final, adjusted Attack Strength and roll on one of the two damage charts to see if the target is undamaged, loses its ability to move or attack, or is completely destroyed.

As mentioned earlier, there are additional rules for infantry units, transport units (to transport infantry or combat armors into battle), different terrain types, and rules for expert pilots. It is easy to come up with new variant rules and scenarios while watching episodes of the Fang of the Sun Dougram, TV show, where most of the action is skirmish-level mech combat. The rules are simple enough to easily handle a handful of units on each side but rich enough for tactical planning and decision making. 

The Dougram Simulation Game Manual was designed by K. Otomo and Atsutoshi Okada, one of the most prolific Japanese simulation game designers of the 1980s (I've translated some of his other games and written about him before).

[CORRECTION posted 8/22/22: I had been under the impression that Atsutoshi Okada had a hand in designing this game, but that is incorrect. Otomo and Okada both designed games at the THQ dojin circle and Otomo was heavily influenced by Okada's designs (as Otomo freely admits in his design notes, but Okada did not work on this game directly. Okada has stated in an interview that he worked on "putting together" this and the similar Votoms game together for Dual Magazine, but he is not credited as a designer on them anywhere.]

Like many of Okada's other games, each side gets to attack twice per round, making for fast and frenetic battles and is an interesting variation on the "I go, you go" turn order concept:

Turn Order

• Side A Moves
• Side B Attacks
• Side A Counterattacks
• Side B Moves
• Side A Attacks
• Side B Counterattacks

All in all, it is a fun game that I will certainly continue to play. As a bonus, I now got my oldest daughter hooked on the Dougram anime and is insisting on watching the entire series. What could be better?

Three New English Rule Translations for Tsukuda Hobby's Star Wars Simulation Games

History

The history of official Star Wars strategy games typically begins with works by West End Games, starting with Star Warriors in 1987. This starfighter combat game features a hex grid poster map of outer space, a familiar piece of game equipment to science fiction board wargamer fans of Star Fleet Battles and Starfire. West End Games followed Star Warriors with two more "hex-and-counter" Star Wars games: Assault on Hoth (1988) and Battle for Endor (1989).

Tsukuda Hobby's Original Trilogy in hex-and-counter format
Photo by the author

It turns out that board wargame ("simulation game" in Japan) fans in Japan played their first official Star Wars game in 1982 with the release of Death Star (a.k.a. "The Game of Death Star Combat in Star Wars"). As you can surmise, this starfighter combat game recreates the Battle of Yavin as a ragtag bunch of Rebel Alliance snubfighters dared to strike against the Galactic Empire's dreaded battlestation, the Death Star. The somewhat complex rules rival Star Warriors in complexity, though the two games are quite different.

In 1983, Tsukuda released Hoth (a.k.a. "The Game of Battle on Hoth"), my personal favorite of the three. The Imperial walkers are huge in this game, each one has six different counters for the locations of the torso, head, and feet. The walker feet smash any other units they step on. A Snowspeeders may fire its harpoon at a walker's foot, circling its cable ("wire" in the original Japanese) around the vehicle and trip it up. If Luke Skywalker's speeder is shot down, he can become a terror on the battlefield, attacking Imperial units with his lightsaber.

Tsukuda also released Endor (a.k.a. "The Game of the Combat on Moon Endor") in 1983. The game starts with the players constructing a new game board by using terrain tiles of bushes and forest surrounding the underground bunker entrance that leads to the Empire's shield generator. The Rebel units are all hidden on the map with decoy counters and traps to spring on the Imperial forces. The Empire units are powerful, but must hunt down and find the Rebels and ewoks camouflaged in the surrounding forests. Speeder bikes have a 1-in-6 chance of smashing into a tree for every forest hex they travel through.

Who Made These Games?

Tsukuda's games were designed by the prolific game designer Atsutoshi Okada. He was a fan of Avalon Hill wargames (published by Hobby Japan) and anime (he refers to himself as an otaku) so he designed a Mobile Suit Gundam miniatures game for play at conventions. This led to getting hired by Tsukuda Hobby and designing "Squad Leader for Gundam," which became Jabro. This first game led to a wave of science fiction and anime "simulation games" in Japan from Tsukuda and others, popular enough to have their own television commercials. Okada had a six year career with Tsukuda, designing countless games for them. He also created  inspired the creation of [edit 5 Oct 2022] new Dougram and Votoms games for Takara's terrific Dual Magazine. By my count, Okada-san designed and published more than 40 games in the 1980s. He took a break from game design during the 1990s, then created Panzertales: World Tank Division in 2003.

Translated Rule Book Downloads

Okada-san's Star Wars games have never been translated into English, until now! You can download my new translations of the Tsukuda Hobby trilogy at these links (Note, a Board Game Geek account is required for downloading as that site is hosting the files. If you cannot sign onto BGG, send me a message):

Death Star: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/207946/tsukuda-star-wars-death-star-english-rule-book

Hoth: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/175579/tsukuda-star-wars-hoth-english-rule-book

Endor: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/207945/tsukuda-star-wars-endor-english-rule-book

And More in Print!

Also, I recently wrote "Destroy the Death Star," an article for Star Wars Insider magazine #195. This piece is a historical record of all the different ways players have been able to blow up the Death Star (and Death Star II) in electronic games, board games, card games, and video games over the years, including Okada-san's Death Star game. You can order a copy here: https://titan-comics.com/m/33-star-wars-insider-195/

#12A - California Gaming Part I - Steve Perrin's Conventions - #RPGaDAY

Tracing the California Gaming Scene, part I: Steve Perrin in NorCal

I still read a number of old RPG supplements in my study of the early history of gaming. While many game historians study the origins of the hobby that spread from the wargame groups of the Great Lakes region (specifically, Lake Geneva and the Twin Cities of St. Paul/Minneapolis), I focus on the gaming scene that developed in my home state of California. West coast gamers created their own "flavors" of playing. I'll cover these in several posts and see how they wrap back into the official D&D game.

1976 Berkeley: Dundracon I, An Unconventional Convention for Perrin's Conventions

 

DunDraCon (Dungeons & Dragons Convention) was first held in Berkeley's Claremont Hotel in March, 1976. There, the public first encountered The Perrin Conventions, a set of D&D house rules handed out by organizer Steve Perrin (who was also a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA)).

Location of the first Dundracon

The Perrin Conventions included details for D&D combat, like: breaking up a round into phases, adding a "dexterity roll" to do other actions, knocking down opponents and two-weapon fighting. These were likely inspired by Perrin and his friends' experiences in mock battles with the SCA. This initial set of rules modified the magic system and included Dave Hargrave's critical hit rules(1).

 Perrin's own Dundracon bio admits that he didn't design all the rules, he was just the guy who typed them up for distribution. The rules received some notice from the convention attendants, but this was a limited group of mostly gamers from the Bay Area and surrounding regions. Still, it served as an early mutation on the original D&D rules from 1974 and showed that some players were interested in a less abstract combat system.

Steve Perrin and his wife Luise in SCA regalia at the 1968 Worldcon (source)

Steve Perrin wanted to become more involved in the nascent RPG industry and teamed up with fellow gamer Jeff Pimper to edit together a book of monsters, complete with stats for D&D and two newer games: Tunnels & Trolls (T&T, first published 1975) and Arduin (first published as The Arduin Grimoire in 1977).

In addition to their own creations, Perrin and Pimper compiled creature designs mostly from APA zines (The Wild Hunt and Alarums & Excursions (A&E)) or from local gamers. The designers included Dave Hargrave (local gamer and creator of The Arduin Grimoire), Clint Bigglestone (Dundracon organizer), Sean Cleary (A&E and Wild Hunt), Hilda Hannifen ("The Ignoble Mockturtle" A&E zine), Roger Harvey (later, an illustrator for Judges Guild), Steve Henderson (another SCA and Dundracon founder), Dan Pierson and Glenn Blacow (both from Wild Hunt), and others.

Jennell Jaquays (using the name Paul) contributed a few designs from her RPG fanzine, The Dungeoneer (about one year later, this became a Judges Guild magazine). Jaquays went on to a prolific career designing and illustrating RPGs, authored classic modules like Dark Tower, became one of the first tabletop designers in video game design (at Coleco). (12-11-14 edited for clarity)

They had more than one book's worth of material, so the editors decided to only print monsters that were never published before. Thus some of Jaquays and Hargrave's designs were left on the cutting room floor with some others from A&E. The monsters were given only D&D stats, though each entry included ranges for "IQ" (Intelligence) and Dexterity. They just needed a publisher.

1977 Albany: Chaosium publishes a Monster Manual or two before TSR

Greg Stafford founded his company The Chaosium in 1975 to publish White Bear & Red Moon (later reprinted as Dragon Pass), the first board game set in his fantasy world of Glorantha. Stafford was an D&D player and maybe purchased the first D&D set ever sold. Perrin, Pimper and Stafford met through mutual friends and when Stafford heard about their project, he was eager to have Chaosium publish it and get into the RPG supplement business.

Stafford was trying and failing to get a Gloranthan RPG off the ground. First, Dave Hargrave tried to make a Gloranthan version of his Arduin system and Chaosium had planned to publish The Arduin Grimoire; Chaosium house magazine Wyrm's Footnotes issue 2 notes: "THE ARDUIN GRIMOIRE will be the first of our new products." A few months later, the very next issue states: "When we finally received the manuscript to ARDUIN GRIMOIRE, it was not quite what we had hoped for... we have decided not to publish the rules." Hargrave had to self-publish The Arduin Grimoire (more on this later).  It is said that Chaosium felt Arduin was too derivative of D&D; issue 3 doesn't say this directly, but it does refer to Arduin as, "a supplement, if you will," and highly recommend it for, "experienced dungeoneers," (i.e. anyone who already owns the D&D rules?).

Stafford's design team of Hendrik Jan Pfeiffer, Art Turney and Ray Turney worked on the Gloranthan RPG as a D&D supplement but Stafford's world was unique and needed its own unique game system. Impressed with The Perrin Conventions, Stafford asked Perrin to "look in and see if he could help the situation" on July 4, 1976(2).

Perrin came up with revolutionary changes to the new system, like doing away with experience points, having no character classes and flat hit point values that don't increase linearly with experience. Slowly, Perrin was put in charge of the project. Only Ray Turney stayed on from the original design team and Perrin added fellow SCA members Steve Henderson and Warren James. Stafford was very pleased with the team's work on his fantasy world.

Chaosium published Perrin and Pimper's All the World's Monsters sometime in 1977, getting to market before TSR's official monster collection, the AD&D Monster Manual (released in December, 1977).

All the All the Worlds' Monsters, volumes 1-3

All the World's Monsters vol. 2 followed that same year and maybe hit the shelves before Monster Manual as well. In addition to adding in cut designs by Hargrave, Jaquays and others, the second volume included T&T conversion notes (by Ken St. Andre) and a refined, revised set of The Perrin Conventions (dated November, 1977) that focused mostly on D&D combat, less Hargrave's critical hit rules. Now, the house rules were available to a much wider audience.

RuneQuest, 1st printing cover. Illustration by Luise Perrin

In 1978, the new Perrin-led Gloranthan game RuneQuest was born and, with it, Chaosium's in-house Basic Role-Playing (BRP) system. This BRP system was also modified into Worlds of Wonder, Call of Cthulhu, Elfquest, Stormbringer/Elric!, Hawkmoon, Pendragon, Superworld, Ringworld and many other games. This was also one of the earliest "universal" RPG systems (though many of the different games were only barely compatible).

The combat system was quite detailed, with parries, fumbles, critical hits, hit locations and more. RuneQuest the first totally skill-based RPG without classes (Traveller (1977) had character skills but no way to improve them) where the player could develop their character as they desire. For some years, RuneQuest provided competition to TSR's sales and Chaosium is one of the few game companies from that era still in business today.

12-11-14 Update: 
I'll let Dr. J. Eric Holmes, editor of the first D&D Basic Set and a SoCal gamer, describe RuneQuest's combat system as he compared it to D&D in 1981.

The combat system requires a little more bookkeeping than D&D and is, therefore, more "realistic."(3)

Could you elaborate, Dr. Holmes?

Combat rules are extremely complex. There are die rolls for each hit and its parry, for the location of the hit as well as for the extent of the damage. There are special scores which indicate a "critical hit" or a "fumble," and then another roll to see what the nature of the critical injury or fumble might be. Special training will increase the character's ability to hit with a particular weapon. Each weapon must, realistically, be trained for individually, at a cost of silver lunars (the coin of the realm) or maybe by doing some more die rolls to see if your character has learned from experience after a successful fight.

 All of this takes a lot of bookkeeping, die rolling and calculation with every blow struck. This is not necessarily a criticism. A great deal of any game is spent in the calculations and die rolling involved in combat... A pocket calculator might come in handy. Many game players revel in these complicated calculations. The more complex the computations of each weapon blow, the better they like it.(4) (emphasis mine)

So, Holmes found players in Southern California that, like many Northern California counterparts, preferred a complex, "realistic" combat system. Holmes did not share that opinion, himself:

What are the advantages of this game over its (inevitable comparison) competitor, Dungeons & Dragons? In terms of basic game mechanics, character generation, experience, combat, magic, I would say none. Some fans of the game would cry that it has greater "realism," but I think these are minor differences.(5)

Holmes appears to like the RuneQuest game and speaks highly of its clarity in writing, numerous examples and the novelty of a game manual with an index (something he wished for his own Basic D&D(6)). Besides the combat complexities, his main complaint was he didn't feel the RPG captured the "feel" of Glorantha (as seen in White Bear & Red Moon). It missed out on the "eerie feeling of reality to his imaginary world(7)" that Greg Stafford brings when he writes games, himself.

Note: Holmes probably played 2nd edition RuneQuest as opposed to 1st edition. As far as I understand, the differences between the two are minimal.
End 12-11-14 Update 

Conclusions:

 

First of all, RuneQuest did not evolve directly from The Perrin Conventions. It may seem obvious, but the internet is full of quotes like, "Runequest's rules were made from The Perrin Conventions," or, "RuneQuest is a codification and development of the Perrin Conventions." (quotes slightly obfuscated) These statements imply that RuneQuest is nothing more than a D&D variant, but that simply isn't the case. There are similarities between the two, but no more so than with countless other systems. If Chaosium just wanted a D&D variant, they would've used Pfeiffer, Turney and Turney's design and gone to market with it back in 1977.

Second, SCA members and wargamers play differently. D&D evolved from wargame rules by members of the Castle & Crusade Society, founded by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz as a chapter of the International Federation of Wargaming, itself founded by Gygax, Scott Duncan and Bill Speer in 1966. These gamers got together around a sand table (usually in Gary's basement) ordering miniature armies into mock battles. Abstract combat was simple and made sense.

Conversely, the SCA was founded in Berkeley in 1966 with armored members going outside to fight mock battles with padded weapons. Their point of view was not that of a military commander with a bird's eye view of battle, but as a common soldier who has felt the heft of their shield and the sting of a (padded) sword. Combat seems abstract if you aren't the one fighting. The reenactors saw something missing in abstract combat and created their own rules and games to fill those gaps.

Maybe it all comes down to the weather. In sunny California, you can go outside and play practically all year round. When it gets cold up North, it is best to hunker down next near the heater and go to war with some good friends around the sand table.