The stereotypical default "adventure start" for D&D is, "You are all at an inn when...!"
The exact same starting default in Runequest is, "Your tribe declares this hill next to a river shall be their new home!"
Runequest is a much lower-level experience. Its iconic start is similar to another beloved game, where you start in the middle of nowhere and build, craft, and explore the world.
Runequest is a lot like Minecraft.
When you have D&D, you assume this pseudo-modern Renaissance setting, with the typical British castles, thee and thou, those Ren Fair theme park towns, bustling markets, tall ships, jousting, knights, princesses, comical bards, and every other trope across a thousand years of history jammed into one time period.
D&D is a game of stereotypes.
D&D is, by default, set in a time of plenty. If a town doesn't have it, traders will bring it in, and people will have enough money or resources to trade for whatever they want. Almost every D&D setting (outside of Dark Sun, but even that is a wealthy setting that does not worry about food) is like this. Trading routes have been long established. There is a vast "fat and wealthy" class. The towns and cities are enormous, and the borders between kingdoms are often drawn on well-established maps.
In Runequest, that starting scenario means your tribe is worried about the number of cows, oxen, sheep, chickens, and horses it has. People are building houses. People in your village go out in the hills and forests to forage. Others are tilling the land to plant crops. A few are building defenses. Some are making primitive tools and clothing.
You, the town's young adventurers, are called upon to go save someone who went missing, deal with raiders trying to steal your food or animals, explore the wilds looking for resources, and investigate ancient sites of mystery on your land. You help out where you can, but as your power grows, the town sees you as more important, being the problem solvers and people they call upon during a crisis.
Sound familiar? Yeah, that's Minecraft.
Oh, and by the way, you are likely crafting your own weapons, learning magic from things you find in those ancient sites, becoming more robust to deal with threats, and finding treasures lost by heroes of old in those ruins. As your town expands, the threats grow, and you begin working with surrounding settlements or fighting with them. You start to discover the secrets of the land and universe. Your power grows. You can craft better weapons and armor and enchant them.
That is all, um, Minecraft.
Runequest is Minecraft with a Bronze Age "mod" put on top of the game. Granted, this is a very simplistic way of describing the game and sort of unfair because it offers so much more, but it is far easier than describing it as "sort of like Conan and Ancient Greece, if you read the Odyssey, but not really that way." But when you look at how the lowest level of the world works, the day-to-day life of people is a lot like what you do in a Minecraft game.
Take care of the animals, till the fields, build houses, craft weapons and tools, build defenses, cut roads, explore, deal with dangers, threats, and hostile forces, learn magic, fish for food, hunt, trap, craft a bow and arrows, train, and explore ancient places of mystery.
This is your jam.
And that Runequest jam is Minecraft. Minus all the crazy builds, those are still possible if you play on longer arcs and open your mind a little. But the gameplay loop of the typical Runequest village start is surprisingly similar. You don't have iron, but you do have bronze as your "quality metal" and magic.
D&D is far too cosmopolitan and modernized, especially in its modern form. In Pathfinder 2, I get the feeling that Steampunk DoorDash is operating with spider mechs, delivering food from a magic Internet communication system, and the world is the Industrial Age. D&D has this "Age of Sail" feeling where worldwide trade brings commodities from distant lands to local markets. D&D is fat, wealthy, affluent, civilized, and with established governments and social norms. The towns are immaculate, built up, and look like tourist towns with dressed-up cosplay actors and many stereotypical Ren Faire things. Starships fly in from out of space. Gates connect the planes, and the outer planes are places everyone knows about. Gunpowder exists. Magical healing means no one gets sick. Parts are a parody of the fantasy genre, while others are so modern or sci-fi they don't belong in the game. D&D is more of a 1900s Victorian fantasy these days.
D&D and Pathfinder 2 are modern-day genre games that wear fantasy cosplay.
We are one step away from the designers of these games introducing cell phone magic items because characters can't be expected to not have those, and players won't know how to function in a pretend world without them.
Go ahead and laugh.
I will be right on this one day.
With Runequest, you are stripping away two whole technological ages. The Renaissance and Middle Ages have never happened, nor will they ever happen. You don't even have organized churches. Faiths are personal. Sea travel is hazardous, and with smaller boats, it is short-range. People need help to keep their animals cared for and in pens and must store food for longer winters. Tribes move into unsettled areas and try to settle them.
There is no iron or steel.
If you live in a small town, you won't have an "adventure shop" selling weapons, tools, torches, and armor. A smith will craft all these, and other tradespeople will craft essential gear like ropes and leather goods like packs. You won't have a wandering magic item merchant. Trade caravans exist, but only along major routes. There is no "industry" in this world. There are no "world-spanning governments" or "massive organized religions." People fight hard to scrape out survival.
You may even craft and sell your own goods. Get crafting skills, gather or buy resources, and tell your referee that your character will be crafting between adventures or during downtime.
You will be able to make quality gear and make coins on the side.
You add the technology level of D&D and all the trade, social, governmental, and world-spanning advancements with it. Once you have mass-produced iron, you will have an industry, universities, worldwide trade, exploration, colonization, a settled world with nations, and a powerful church. And you say high magic is added to this? That is an accelerant towards mass colonization and conquering the world.
The best model for relating Runequest to others is Minecraft. This is a survival game in which you need to craft your technology yourself out of the things you find. There is an "urban and social" part of Runequest that ignores the survival aspect, but 99% of the world is made up of these small towns and settlements fighting for survival in a hostile world.
