What D100 system to play?

[Robsbot]

So I've been away from the hobby for some time  but I used to love Magic World. I looked at Chaosiums site to see no new supplements even after all this time so I did some research. Turns out Chaosium imploded, scrapped MW, and took on the banner of RQ. I don't like Runequest - RQ6 is a well made supplement but way too rules heavy for my taste and I pretty much despise older RQ rulesets due to various design choices with the mechanics. However, RQ6 also got rebranded to Mythras, old RQ stuff is being re-released by Chaosium and Gorlantha is being shoved into the limelight. I also don't like the newer editions of COC which is fine, because my old copies haven't stopped working.

 

In short, I'm completely unhappy about the current state of BRP based fantasy and Chaosium has lost most of the good will I've given them over the years. I also have no idea what is going on with "Mythras" and if it is going to be it's own line, or be absorbed into Chaosium? I was looking forward to "BRP essentials" as well as the possibility of a Magic World like Sci Fi or Science Fantasy package. Although MW continues to run, I like continuing to add to my campaigns and nothing Chaosium is putting out will tickle my fancy. 

 

I love the D100 system, but I'm kind of at a loss as to where to get good, regular supplemental content from. I loved the direction Chaosium was going with the "Worlds" supplements, Enlightened Magic re-release, and MW supplements and now it's all kind of... Gone. Is there any material or publishers making good high fantasy content (or content used in high fantasy) that would bolt into MW with ease? I already bought classic fantasy for Mythras just to support the author, but as stated previously I'm unlikely to run Mythras in any capacity.

 

Any suggestions you guys could provide would be great. I know my thoughts are kind of jumbled but I feel like the rug was yanked out from under me and all excitement I had about jumping back in has been dampened.

[Mugen]

You could try OpenQuest or D100 Revolution. 

OQ is a very simple version of BRP, with the 3 magic systems of RuneQuest 3 added (and a much simpler version of Sorcery).

D100 Revolution is a multi-genre, BRP-related game which offers modular complexity. At its lowest complexity level, every context works the same : each protagonist gets "hit points" equal to one of its characteristics, and will lose some after each successful attack by its opponent. It also uses few skills and "traits" which are used to increase skills.

[Jakob]

I'd also suggest OpenQuest, especially if you're after content beyong the rules - I really liked the OpenQuest Module "Life&Death", which has elements of horror, sword&sorcery, ancient mysteries and post-apocalyptic wasteland; and they have published some more fantasy modules (crucible of dragons, the savage north).

If you ant an interesting campaign world, you could use Mythras's thennla (described in "Shores of Korantia" and "The Taskan Empire"), that should be easy to use with OpenQuest or other BRP systems. It is however, a kind of low-key setting in many regards. Weird and original in some ways, but it spends a lot of time explaining how the different peoples and cultures work, while there are relatively few direct adventure hooks.

[g33k]

Something worth noting is that "BRP" as a family of rules is currently supported not only by Chaosium but by a BUNCH of other companies.  Note also that there's a dedicated (and reasonably active) MW subforum here at BRPCentral, so if that's your choice of editions that forum might be where you'll get the answers most-relevant to your tastes & interests.

What is it you dislike about the older "Runequest" rules / design-choices?  Does it just boil down to Glorantha-centricity?  Some good options are suggested by others (above).  Here are a few more BRP items to consider...

Mythras / RQ6 -- This is an entirely different company, Design Mechanism.  They have their own core ruleset (which was never a "supplement", but its own general-use ruleset), their own quickstart mini-core (Mythras Imperative) and their own line of supplements & expansions.  So no:  it's not likely to get "absorbed" into Chaosium or BRP-core!  You might take a look at the (free do download PDF) "Mythras Imperative" rules, for a lighter-weight version.  N.B. -- This was NEVER part of the Chaosium business -- for a while, D.M. had the "Runequest" license, hence the name; and the mechanics are by way of the Mongoose edition of the rules (which also had the "Runequest" license for a while, now re-named "Legend").

Renaissance -- This may be an interesting one for you.  The company is Cakebread&Walton, and they have a bunch of stuff -- mostly, as suggested by the title, in/near the renaissance timeframe, rather than pseudo-medieval; with clockwork and/or Cthulhu element (and also look at "pirates & dragons," but note that setting is implemented in both a BRP and a OneDice version, so be sure which edition you get!).

The Laundry -- based on the excellent Chtulhic-horror / British-Spy / satirical adventure stories by Charles Stross, Cubicle7 has a real winner here.

From the Chaosium BRP core-line, consider "Mythic Iceland" (2e coming soon) book, and the older "Blood Tide."  Further out in the pipeline is rumored to be something in the "noir detective" genre, but NOT a CoC book.

If you could narrow down or specify your dissatisfactions with the existing offerings, and/or what you particularly liked about MW, we might be able to narrow our suggestions, instead of giving you the Grand Tour of the dozen or so BRP-based offerings available today...  

 

Edited March 9, 2017 by g33k
editing incomplete edits.

[rsanford]

We recently played In Search of the Trollslayer. Very good BRP title that easily runs in Magic World. Wish there were more titles like that!

[Robsbot]

Sorry, I thought I put in there somewhere - I'm looking strictly for fantasy at the moment. So that's a no on Blood Tide and some of the other supplements you mentioned.

You'd have a shorter list of things I liked about the older RQ supplements. Magic was handled terribly IMO, sacrificing stats for anything more than minor magic, you were basically shackled to your organization to advance in magic at all, and a lot of the spell effects were highly costed for their effects. RQ6 / Mythras magic is basically the 100% better version of that entire system and I have used those magic systems in Magic World and intend to do so again if I stick with it.

Combat likewise was equally terrible. It added things like fatigue, strike ranks, and other bookkeeping that didn't enhance the gameplay as opposed to the current BGB combat. Again, if I wanted to go with combat with the extra overhead I'd just go with RQ6. It is wholesale the better system. However, I don't want the extra overhead and bookkeeping and I don't feel it adds value to the combat light campaigns I tend to run. MW / BGB combat works much better in my opinion. 

Character creation for both RQ3 & RQ6 is also more overhead with hit locations, individual armor locations, and some extra skills I wouldn't really use in my campaign. Health pools and major wound tables cover my needs just fine with substantially less overhead. I did like RQ6's weapon styles, but MW has a similar system that covers what I would need in a combat light campaign. I also prefer resistance rolls and the grade checking system in MW combat to RQ6's "price is right" style of rolling.

Overall, I thought MW covered my needs with less mechanical complexity but had enough rules to sufficiently cover most issues I would run into in gameplay. However, with Gorlantha / RQ being the default BRP fantasy from most major publishers now, nothing really bolts into MW as easy. Both the BGB and MW are being sunset, and those had IMO the most concise rulesets. Yes, you have things like legend, OpenQuest, etc, but they don't have the same kind of streamlining, quality control, and consistency across supplements like MW / BRP essentials looked like it was going to have.

For example, I have the basic creatures supplement from Chaosium. That might work OK for legend or openquest, even though it isn't made for it, and I could do some minor conversions to get the creatures running in Magic World, but it would have been much nicer to have a bestiary pre-tuned for MW. I feel like this is the biggest issue with D100 systems at the moment - yes everything is compatible-ish, but there is no central standard with GOOD quality control and consistency across supplements. I have to scour supplements across dozens of tiny publishers or crawl through DriveThruRPG to find content and then hack it into Legend, OpenQuest, Magic World, RQ6, what have you. If you swap genres it's even worse - barely anything is compatible outside of the characteristics and some of the skills. Mechanically you might as well be playing an entirely separate system. BRP essentials / expanded MW content was going to provide that more centralized and streamlined set of content I was looking for. 

Edited March 9, 2017 by Robsbot

[RosenMcStern]

One word: OPENQUEST. That's your beast. Plain and simple.

[Robsbot]

Spent some time paging through OpenQuest. It's pretty much exactly what I want. Feels pretty close to Elric / Magic World, handles skills over 100%, combat is very similar... The free PDF feels like a stripped down version of MW. I also look forward to going through the additional genre books.

Thanks everyone.

[Simlasa]

I'm kinda in a similar boat as the Robsbot.

It's not like my copies of the BGB and Magic World are going to turn into mice at midnight... but it's fun to anticipate new stuff coming out for games you enjoy. 
I suppose that's the lot for fans of any game that isn't top of the charts (whichever/wherever those charts might be).
Then again, I wouldn't want to have to dig through the vast quantities of shovelware some 'new hotness' games generate.
In general it means you're going to have to put in a bit more work... convert stuff or write up your own. It's not like 'official' or 'professional' products won't require some tweaks anyway.

Openquest, and Renaissance in particular, ARE pretty great... Mythras-lite as I've seen others put it.
I'll look to Renaissance when I pick up my old Lamentations of the Flame Princess campaign again this summer. But I'm not really clear how strong the future for those systems are either.

Also, be sure to check out some of the good hard work Tooley1chris has put in on Magic World stuff in the downloads area... such as his HUGE collection of traditional RPG monsters.

 

Edited March 10, 2017 by Simlasa

[Mugen]

One thing I'd change in OQ, though, is the way starting experience is assigned. I think it doesn't allow for much character diversity.

I also don't like the fact it uses the Mongoose RuneQuest versions of the sorcery spells Fly and Tap.

Oh, and base skill values. I prefer the more homogeneous Stat1 + Stat2 or Stat x2 from RuneQuest 6.

[Conrad]

If you're not looking at spending too much cash, then OQ is the fantasy rpg. May I also recommend Crucible of Dragons, which is a setting for OQ that you could get lots of mileage out of.  https://d101games.com/books/openquest/crucible-of-the-dragons/ 

[Robsbot]

Not to derail the topic at hand, but any suggestions for D100 Sci Fi systems while we're at it? It's not a burning need but I'd like to run something in the future.

I prefer science fantasy so I was going to try to do some Numenara conversion (been planning this for a while now). Shadowrun of course has some ideas I can steal but I wouldn't run it as is. I don't know of any science fantasy D100 systems though so I'll probably hack together something myself.

As far as material I could cannibalize (or possibly run wholesale) I have OpenQuest's sci fi supplement as well as M-Space on the docket. Is the Mindjammer stuff any good? How's the Traveller edition? I've heard good things about Traveller as well, but not the latest edition. Chronicles of Future Earth seems abandoned for the near future but I might grab a physical copy off Amazon. Is the Swords of Cydonia monograph any good? What about Fractured Hopes? Any other suggestions? 

[Simlasa]

Yeah, I liked both Fractured Hopes and Swords of Cydoria. 

Hopes is pretty wild... more fantasy than scifi.

Cydoria is 'planetary romance'... kind of like the lamentedly never-to-be Interplanetary was aiming for. There is more out there for Cydoria but the author has moved to a different system.

[colinabrett]

On 09/03/2017 at 6:48 PM, Robsbot said:

In short, I'm completely unhappy about the current state of BRP based fantasy and Chaosium has lost most of the good will I've given them over the years. I also have no idea what is going on with "Mythras" and if it is going to be it's own line, or be absorbed into Chaosium? I was looking forward to "BRP essentials" as well as the possibility of a Magic World like Sci Fi or Science Fantasy package. Although MW continues to run, I like continuing to add to my campaigns and nothing Chaosium is putting out will tickle my fancy. 

Glad to see I'm not alone in feeling a bit let down at the moment.

1 hour ago, Robsbot said:

Not to derail the topic at hand, but any suggestions for D100 Sci Fi systems while we're at it? It's not a burning need but I'd like to run something in the future.

I prefer science fantasy so I was going to try to do some Numenara conversion (been planning this for a while now). Shadowrun of course has some ideas I can steal but I wouldn't run it as is. I don't know of any science fantasy D100 systems though so I'll probably hack together something myself.

I have written crossovers for 40K RPGs and Cyberpunk 2020. The latter contains Elves, Dwarfs and so on ready for Shadowrun-esque games. You might find them useful.

Colin

Edited March 10, 2017 by colinabrett
Added sig

[tooley1chris]

Check out the MW files section here. While Chaos did away with MW there are some great fan made materials available if its been awhile for ya.

[Mugen]

.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Mugen

[SDLeary]

Eclipse Phase is % based, though it seems much more crunchy than any version of BRP.

SDLeary

[Robsbot]

29 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Eclipse Phase is % based, though it seems much more crunchy than any version of BRP.

SDLeary

Any good bits in particular to yank out? Spaceship creation (probably one of the main reasons I'll try to track down old Traveller), cybernetics, good hacking rules that don't make a separate game within a game the other players can't participate in, a good comprehensive weapon and armor set, anything of the like?

[Mankcam]

Eclipse Phase is a mind-blowing concept to run, given it is a Transhumanist tech level. Great narrative, but not an easy plot to GM. It has a D100% core skill mechanic, but is a very complex game in terms of game mechanics as well as concept.

Traveller remains one of the best scifi settings to game in IMO, esp its char gen has alot of flavour.

However if wanting to do scifi with BRP then I quite like OQ River of Heaven for smooth game mechanics and it also has a good premise. Plus it would be quite easy to retrap for Shadowrun or a Cyberspace setting if that is desired.

I hear M-Space is great as well, it is also on my radar for scifi, but given it is Mythras then it will play more crunchier than OQ, so it depends on GM preference for these things.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Mankcam

[Simlasa]

There's also the old Future World part of the World of Wonder box.

...and Worlds Beyond, if you can find a copy.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels for Mythras is also a pretty great scifi setting and resource.

 

[SDLeary]

13 hours ago, Simlasa said:

There's also the old Future World part of the World of Wonder box.

...and Worlds Beyond, if you can find a copy.

Luther Arkwright: Roleplaying Across the Parallels for Mythras is also a pretty great scifi setting and resource.

 

And Ringworld if you can find a copy.

SDLeary

[Simlasa]

8 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

And Ringworld if you can find a copy.

SDLeary

Oh yeah... why not... a person can dream. (got my copy in a box... somewhere... need to go on a hunt for that).

Edited March 11, 2017 by Simlasa

[g33k]

On 3/10/2017 at 1:40 PM, Robsbot said:

Not to derail the topic at hand, but any suggestions for D100 Sci Fi systems while we're at it? It's not a burning need but I'd like to run something in the future.

I prefer science fantasy so I was going to try to do some Numenara conversion (been planning this for a while now). Shadowrun of course has some ideas I can steal but I wouldn't run it as is. I don't know of any science fantasy D100 systems though so I'll probably hack together something myself.

As far as material I could cannibalize (or possibly run wholesale) I have OpenQuest's sci fi supplement as well as M-Space on the docket. Is the Mindjammer stuff any good? How's the Traveller edition? I've heard good things about Traveller as well, but not the latest edition. Chronicles of Future Earth seems abandoned for the near future but I might grab a physical copy off Amazon. Is the Swords of Cydonia monograph any good? What about Fractured Hopes? Any other suggestions? 

M-Space has a lot of "Traveller" DNA visible, and the spaceship-design rules are where it looks (to me, not having read the book) like it is at its most-evident.  I have M-Space on my radar, but I'm not jumping on it quite yet.  FWIW, I believe the core rule is more a "sci fi toolkit" without default setting or universe.  I think the upcoming "Reflux" supplement is where we get the first look at the "official" universe; the supplement is reportedly about half-and-half setting & adventure.

I believe there is some Gamma-World-inspired support-material in the Downloads section here on BRP Central ...

 

 

Edited March 11, 2017 by g33k
clarification

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, SDLeary said:

And Ringworld if you can find a copy.

SDLeary

Other Suns, too.

Is Space Opera % based ?

[Robsbot]

I'm going to grab Fractured Hopes, Swords of Cydoria, Chronicles of Future Earth, M-Space, and River of Heaven for my initial needs. I'll probably tap Numenara and Shadowrun for concept stuff. If none of those scratch my itch I'll probably reach out for Eclipse Phase and Traveller. (Who am I kidding - I'll end up with them eventually...)

 

Thanks again everyone.

Edited March 12, 2017 by Robsbot