GianniVacca

Keyword?

Ooops. This is what happens when you're trying to follow a thread without having read the initial document in the first place

"Gift" seems fitting then, as in "this character has a gift for this or that".

I suggest:

• character ability
  
• character speciality
  
• character talent
  
• character specialisation
  
• professional ability
  
• professional speciality
  
• professional talent
  
• professional specialisation
  

Unless I'm mistaken, this will function in a similar way to MRQII's heroic abilities, so character/professional ability is probably my preferred choice.

Hi,

I have visited the Cinquantenaire Museum this morning. There is an absolutely fantastic scale model of the city of Rome inside.

Very much recommended!

I don't have the Elric material, but I'm a big fan of the books. What is "dream magic"? Is it canonical?

When they go crazy/die, as they inevitably will, [...]

They could also find some alien time travelling machine (à la Brian Lumley).

I see everything as moving on two parallel paths:

1. New system with lavishly coloured book for new/young players
   
2. Pavis/Griffin Mtn PDFs and Glyphmaster to revive the interest of grognards and gamers involved in the old skool renaissance
   

Inability to have skill percentiles that are not multiples of five, "generic" spirits, NO SKILL-BASED MAGIC.

Er... actually I prefer skill percentiles that are multiples of 5, and I prefer the RQ2 battle magic system. Spirits were expanded upon in supplements. Cults of Prax is _vastly_ superior to _anything_ Gloranthan written in later editions.

I could go on, but dissecting the "great old classic" in search of bugs benefits no one. Seriously, you may have loved that book, but most of its contents have seen a definite improvement over the years. Chaosium had freedom to use the RQ2 version of the rules in making the BGB, but they chose the RQ3 or SB5 version of almost everything. Does this tell you nothing?

Gianni, how do you define "most gamers"? I doubt many gamers in the 15-30 age range know of RQ2. Thirty years have passed since its appearance. Its heritage is still alive, but as a ruleset, it's outdated.

Well, it's still *my* favourite set of rules.

At least where I live this is not the case, RQ 2 is almost unknown here.

Right... And everybody knows about the BRP Quickstart rules

I fully agree that BRP Quickstart is an excellent introductory version of the BRP. The problem is that 99.9% of gamers have never heard about it, whereas most gamers have heard of RQ2!

Paolo I slightly disagree with you. The BGB is full of optional rules (some of which are mutually exclusive). RQ2, even w/o Glorantha, is a self-contained, easy-to-access set of rules. Actually RQ2 spawned the BRP booklet, which itself spawned the BGB, so we've come round circle

OK, I haven't read the novel, but I've received the parcel this morning. Unfortunately I've only been able to skim through the setting book, but it looks promising... I maintain it's pretty "generic" fantasy with brooding elves and warlike dwarves, but there is a dark and gloomy overtone to the setting which makes it quite interesting. More "Warhammer" than "Forgotten realms"

I certainly enjoyed this play transcript: http://firedrake.org/panurge/Moonlight.pdf

Actually I enjoyed it so much that it spurred my interest on writing an Imperial Chinese rolegame.

The Sartar one is more extensive it sounds like

Yes, you have a scan here of the clan questionnaire we did at a convention: http://www.glorantha.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/20091106162321738.pdf

I think it depends a lot on the game/on the campaign/on the setting. If the game/campaign/setting is centred on a group of adventurers that have gathered for other reasons than "let's kill monsters together" and/or if the game emphasises social interactions, a detailed background will be a necessary part of character generation. HQ2, as you have pointed out, is a good example, eg, the Startar book. I have something similar (alas not on such a scale) for my upcoming Chinese role-game with suggestions: a judge and his constables, a merchant and his bodyguards, a member of the gentry and his retainers,... rather than having it as part of chargen.

But if you're playing classic fantasy just for fun, you don't need a detailed background, do you?

They have neither France nor Belgium nor Germany amongst the list of countries they ship to

BTW Paolo could you recommend any reliable internet site where I could buy these books? IBS doesn't carry them

No, unfortunately I haven't read it (I live abroad, so it's quite difficult for me to buy Italian products). I guess it's "generic"/Tolkienesque fantasy, with elves, orcs, etc.

Paolo definitely does know a lot about it.

...in case anyone spoke Italian and should be interested:

http://www.gdrshop.it/runequest/91-la-ruota-del-fato.html

I'm mostly a player these days, so little to share... unless you're interested in my T&T/HQ mash-up

I'll be there with son.

drool...

Was it worth the work?

I'm asking this because one of the things I've been doing in odd moments is, effectively, a project that's more or less a modified update of the old FutureWorld setting; an exploration based campaign set in a future where people explore alien worlds through stargates.[...]

(As an aside, how many people would be interested in such a product?)

If it's anything similar to Iria or Cowboy Bebop I'd certainly be interested.

I7m running a camapign now with one player who just wants to roll dice and kill things. HE honestly doesn't care about role playing, get involved with the NPCs, or care much about anything other than fighting things. He has been gaming for about 30 years, and hasn7t changed despite the efforts of several GMS to try and get him more involved in the game.

That's where the setting is important. In Glorantha, a PC that kills indiscriminately would be chased by the relatives of the dead person looking for weregild if the dead was a Barbarian, or by the Lunar police, if the dead was a Lunar citizen, to be tried and jailed/crucified. In Imperial China, a murderer would be tracked by the police constables of the local magistrate. If he managed to kill them, he'd be then tracked by martial artists who'd like to be "the one who killed the famous assassin".

The Celestial Empire has stats for Chinese creatures.

It also features creatures from the Indian mythology, brought to China through Buddhism: asura, gandharva, nāga, rakshasa...

2) MP usage -> it makes your magician thoroughly dependent on items; this issue is fixed in (both) Mongoose versions of the rules; MRQ1 is, strangely enough, more versatile than MRQ2 in this as you do not spend MP to cast basic spells - a rule that was criticised but worked very well in practice for me

It fit in well with the setting: magic-rich GodLearners!