There is a little bit of inconsistency in the ways magic is used/portrayed.
In Dungeoneering, I can use Telekinesis to move a set of massive tiles, yet not use any runes.
In Rune Mysteries, we see Arianne use telekinesis to gently lower a massive statue to act as a makeshift bridge. There's no conclusive evidence her controlled effort burned any runes or not.
Races such as demons, the Gorajo stormbrigers, and Mahjarrat are brimming internally with magical power, so they do need to use runes to do anything, unless they want to.
Though it is possible there are scenarios where even they would need runes to augment what they plan to do.
One other thing you see in fantasy (in any media) is that the more complex the ritual is, the more effective it is, though it may not require much input from the user.
Sure you use magic symbols, bones/items/totems, say a few words, and dance around a funny way, but the end result is pretty big compared to what you put into it.
Rune Mysteries/Memories went into the teleportation problem: they needed a way to anchor a person while teleporting.
They solved that by going thru the Abyss.
Now, if you use Runic energy, you quickly provide power to go to a location that require A LOT of work to predetermine where it is. (Another detail covered in those quests.)
So going to a certain 3x3 or 5x5 spot in Varrock or Falador took a lot of planning decades ago to get right.
The Lodestones however combine things: it already has magical energy in it.
you can further augment that with Vis Wax to go from a slow ritual spell, to a quick teleport.
Otherwise, you have to perform a rather simple, yet silly, little ritual to go to the same specific spots.
14-Nov-2016 21:49:03