Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine

Has Chaosium considered doing a Kickstarter to get this on Roll20? The lack of content for BRP might be a chicken-and-egg issue. If you build it, they will come. I am pleased to see the design contest Chasosium is doing for BRP, but a great many people play online, and Roll20 is the big dog in VTT. I would love to use this system for all of my games, but we play on Roll20, and it is not supported at all (with the exception of a very rudimentary character sheet, as referenced above). 

Goodman Games just kickstarted their Dungeon Crawl Classics rules on Backerkit, and made plenty of money. You guys could do the same! 

Well, we have been playing Dragonbane for several months now, and my players and I really like it. We are playing on Roll20 due to geography and general middle aged guy stuff, and I have been quite pleased with how well supported Dragonbane is on that platform. AND: I can just add spells and monsters from any Chaosium game, like Magic World, Stormbringer, even Call of Cthulhu (not 7e because...someone decided that attributes would be 1-100 instead of 3-18, which is how GOD ORDAINED IT!) 

I love Chaosium, and I have loved Chaosium since I was 14 years old. Runequest looks lovely, but it's just not my jam, so Dragonbane is allowing me to play a Chaosium-style game, supported on a VTT, and compatible with all my stuff.

My heart is full. Sometimes, I weep with joy. 

Thanks everyone. I am a Chaosium junkie: favorite game system for 40+ years! I am happy to find the Discord community! 

Hey, all. I just went to my first gaming convention since 1990(!) and I was bummed that Chaosium didn't have any kind of presence. Does the company do gaming conventions? Or maybe just the big ones? There were several hundred eager TTRPG gamers in attendance (Total Confusion). It was fun! 

Also, unrelated: Does Chaosium have a Discord channel?

I have been playing Dragonbane, and I have found it very compatible with Magic World and Chaosium in general (I believe the original Dragonbane in Sweden was an iteration of BRP or Runequest). Dragonbane is fully supported on Roll20, not overly complex, and easy to run. I don't love their monsters, but I've been plugging in BRP monsters with little effort. Check it out! 

Brothers, I bear tidings from Sweden. The Free League game Dragonbane is based on an iteration of Rune Quest from way back when. Long have I wished for Chaosium to re-create a fantasy game like Magic World, but it just doesn't seem to be in the cards. This is a fantastic use of the BRP engine, with a few modern updates (pushing rolls, advantage and disadvantage, etc.) I think Rune Quest is a beautiful game with an incredibly well-supported world, but it's just not my jam. If you are of a mind, check it out! (And: I play tons of Cthulhu, so I am very happy to support Chaosium Games. You all are the best!) 

I sent an email to the president of Chaosium, and he said this book was in a list of other books that they are going to bring to Roll20, so that sparks total joy in my world! My favorite system, hands-down! 

This is great news, but will it be available on VTTs like Roll20? 

Dude, this is gold. Thank you so much. 

It's cool. I've been playing 5e on Roll20 for a few years now, and it's really simple with D&D Beyond, the Beyond20 extension, etc. BRP is a much more narrative game, so it won't be such a big deal to do a bit more theater of the mind. Not having rollable spells is a bit of a bummer, but like you said, just roll the dice. Probably can cut and paste spell descriptions directly from PDFs, too. 

I am still trying to figure out the best way to run this system on Roll20. One year later, the best I can come up with is a lot of work on my part: creating monsters as characters (that is, making a character sheet for each monster I want to use), writing spell books that aren't rollable, adding a lot of PDFs. I wish Chaosium would update the Gold Book and get it on VTT. <Sigh> 

Here is my final decision: I bought some Kobold Press stuff on Roll20, but I'm going to skin it and use my Chaosium stuff as the engine. Should be interesting. When/if Chaosium comes out with a fantasy engine of some kind on Roll20, I'll happily switch to that. For now...I am adding monsters one at a time, and trying to figure out how to do magic so it doesn't slow the game down to a crawl. 

I think I'm just going to use Magic World as my base and go from there.  I did a bastardized Dreamlands game (like CoC characters but with a fantasy feel) using CoC 7e and it worked fine. Thanks for all of the ideas and insights. This is a very helpful, nontoxic community, which is refreshing and rare! 

10 hours ago, g33k said:

If it's really about the best ONLINE engine (with f2f tabletop the 2ndary concern), then I think Call of Cthulhu is your jam.
CoC has (afaik) the next-best online/vtt support, after D&D5e and (maybe) Pathfinder.

I'd look for the best online platform for CoC -- any edition -- and focus there.

My brother, I started playing CoC in 1984. Great game. Trying to come up with a fantasy game. I love, love, LOVE Chaosium's system. Love. My favorite. 

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Or is it the "dark" more a matter of the narrative structure, the fluff&flavor, the kinds of monsters, NPC motives & methods, etc etc etc?

This. The story is easy. The mechanics of playing on a VTT are hard. I am going to have to build out monsters and spells, which isn't the end of the world. It's just time consuming. Rollable monsters and spells are hugely helpful when playing online, but I will make the best of it. Thanks to all for the ideas! I have the Mythras core book and I really like it. 

Long story short: WotC is insane, so...no.

I want to create a dark fantasy game using Chaosium's rules. I play on Roll20. No having any kind of rules/monster compendium available is hard (although the recent ability to upload PDFs is helpful). I am mostly convinced that the Magic World character sheet is the most malleable route to take, but the BRP one is good, too.  While I do like the CoC7e rules, character sheets, and support on Roll20, the core attributes are d100 not 3d6 (because Paul Fricker and Mike Mason hate me and want me to be sad). I am hopeful (?) that in the near future, Chaosium will get the Runequest ruleset up and running, and--maybe, someday, if I am very good--an updated BRP compendium. 

Any insights, ideas, suggestions, experiences, lessons learned, wisdom, insights, warnings, portents of doom, words of encouragement, thoughtful suggestions, or dire prophecies would be most appreciated. 

That would be great. Thank you!

42 minutes ago, Imaginosmusic said:

I am starting a plan to update the M-W sheet so it can have rollable spells. May take a week or two to get done, then up to a week to be published. Is there any specific spell information you like to be able to record or display in the chat?

Good luck with your game, ask questions if you like.

That's fantastic. Since I play using Roll20 for a VTT, it's nice to have spells that we can just click on. With that said, MW/BRP spells are much easier to use narratively (vs. D&D, which is super tactical). MW is such a great game. I am a Chaosium junkie. Let me know if you want me to test anything, or if I can help in any way. I am not terribly technical, but I have enthusiasm!

🙃

I am setting up a Magic World campaign on Roll20 (using the mechanics, not the specific game world). I wish I had rollable spells, monsters, weapons, etc. (like an actual compendium) but it is what it is. Any advice, good people? I am so fucking done with 5e. Chaosium's BRP is the best system out there, but it's not supported on Roll20. Because God hates me. 

22 hours ago, MOB said:

When we have stuff to announce about other VTT developments we'll announce them. 

(btw as I understand it, Astral is for all intents and purposes defunct)

MOB, can you at least give us a hint about which VTT platform(s) Chaosium may be developing product for? I only use Roll20, so naturally I'd like to see more stuff there. Throw me a bone, dude! (and thanks!) 

Any plans to get Runequest up on Roll20? Amazing game, but I can only play online (middle aged dude playing with other middle aged dudes). Please tell me this in the works? 

So according to...sources, Chaosium is working to get the Rune Quest starter set and a few other products (core rules, bestiary) on Roll20 this year, AND they are thinking about updating BRP for inclusion on Roll20 as well. That's fantastic! This sparks joy.

I can definitely do it that way, since that's how we played for 38 years! With that said, we've found that we like the VTT (which we use in conjunction with Google Meets for video and voice). 

Very helpful, brother, thank you. I actually asked someone working at Chaosium if they were working on Roll20 support for RQ, and he said yes, so that's a hopeful sign.

Hello, friends! I am about to start designing a hybrid BRP/Runequest campaign. I have been using Roll20 to run both Call of Cthulhu and D&D5e. Sadly, neither BRP nor Runequest has a ton of support on that platform. There are character sheets, but not much else. Does anyone have any suggestions--different VTT platforms, or some resources--to make running a BRP/Runequest game on a VTT? 

Roll20 (the platform I am most familiar with) makes it easy to play Call of Cthulhu and D&D. I am hoping that Chaosium is going to jump into this particular ring and get some support out there for their other games. I am a bona fide Chaosium junkie; I love their games and their gaming system...but it's hard to play online, and as a 52 year old dude playing with friends from all over virtually, it makes it difficult to continue using their system.

This does not spark joy.

Any suggestions will be most welcome!