camazotz

Don't you mean The River Terror? River Kingdoms is for Paizo's Pathfinder isn't it?

Woops! yeah that's what I meant. There are several scenarios in it that I really, really liked though...I no longer have access to the book or I'd point out specific ones (need to find out if my cohort is ever going to return the loan...)

Good to hear this, and glad the errata is incorporated! I just got a note that my order has shipped as of today, so hopefully I'll have mine in a week (my wife plans to take control of the soft cover once I have my new hard cover....gotta talk her in to running something!)

Well, I've personally enjoyed many of the following monographs and consider them well worth considering, so I'll offer up these "micro reviews:"

Modern Equipment Catalog--this book is very handy for a modern day setting that might require a bit of gear. I can also use it with R&R below for relics and junk PCs find while combing the ruins.

Rubble & Ruin--hands down my favorite monograph to date, a very concise and useful treatment on post-apocalypse adventuring with a feel that is very much Mad Max and Fallout.

Witchcraft--a good look at the subject and rather well done (and researched). Useful for a variety of genres. The only bad thing I can say about this one is the formatting (single column across the page) is kind of annoying to read. I'm looking forward to his next Necromancy book.

The following books may be less useful, but I wouldn't say they're bad by any stretch...they just either have such a specific focus or some peculiarity that their use to you depends greatly on whether or not the book offers something specifically that you might want to use:

Lords of Tarsa--this is a nice low-magic setting book for BRP that although I have no plans to use (I prefer to design my own fantasy settings) it looks pretty structured and useful to a prospective GM who would like a read-to-go setting for his games.

The Basic Books (Gamemaster, Creatures, Magic)--these three books are reprints of the older BRP monographs that predate the new rulebook, and are basically just generic versions of the older Runequest 3 material. I like them, because they add more options that are easy enough to use for fantasy games with BRP, but they might not appeal to everyone.

Classic Fantasy--I personally wasn't that happy with this one, as I am of the opinion that if I want to play D&D I will, basically, go play D&D...so this book served little purpose as I see it, since I prefer to use core BRP without a D&D-themed taint, but the book itself is thick with details on how to do the classic classes, races and magic of D&D with BRP as the core mechanic if that's your thing (in contrast I welcome the second book in the series, whenever threedeesix (sp?) brings it out, as it looks like it will contain meaty content for any fantasy game I might want to run).

River Kingdoms--this scenario book struck me as a mixed bag, but there are a few gems in here; other players in my group liked it less, though.

Aces High--So far this is the only book that has really disappointed me, although my feelings are really mixed. One the one hand it's got lots of useful stuff for a western game, and some interesting ideas and beasties for making it more of a supernatural western. On the other hand it makes some odd gaffs--such as the date the Civil War ends, and using redskins constantly rather than some other....any other!...appelation for native Americans/Amerinds/plain old indians; it also doesn't really try hard to base the magic and myth of the Native Americans on any single authentic source, unfortunately, although it does seem to get the "feel" in an EC Comics kind of way down. I was also floored at the confusion between wicca (a modern phenomenon) and witchcraft in another section. In the end, this was a book I really wanted, but as it stands with errors like this I just can't use it. I game with some very knowledgable players, and showing them Aces High would just be embarassing. Plus, based on the errors I know about, I would be concerned there are other factual errors that I don't recognize that are waiting to be discovered, too. So this is the only one that really gets a hard thumbs down from me.

Malum Umbra--I liked the scenarios inside, and plan on using them soon in a C.I. campaign.

Veni Vidi Vici--I loved the scenarios in this PDF, and plan on integrating them in the aforementioned C.I. campaign to serve as the non-supernatural "foils" to the spookier stuff (keep the players on their toes!)

Fractured Hopes--This is actually a really cool concept book, but it is missing a lot of what I feel would be necessary to kickstart a campaign in the setting. What Fractured Hopes does is present a great write-up full of interesting ideas, but offers only a skeletal structure on new rules, tech, foes and features to make it happen. Still, I have a couple players really interest the setting, and I may see if it is feasible to use the book as-is to run a short campaign.

I have other monographs for CoC especially, but haven't looked at them in some time. A few were fairly disappointing as I recall, but I'd need to dig them out and look through them again before making any comments.

Got my copy yesterday, and it looks very nice. Im reading through it now; if I use it with RQII instead of BRP, I think it will work fine as long as all characters are derived from or benefit from the martial arts in Dragon Lines. That said, I may just stick with BRP, although the reason I was considering RQII initially was to use Dragon Lines to buff up a Three Kingdoms-analog in my RQ campaign setting.

Anyway, I'm working out a planned campaign down the road, after our new Ruins & Rubble campaign plays through. Very happy that my gaming group has wholly embraced BRP/RQ as our primary game system these days!

Also waiting with baited breath for the fixed pdf!

In the meantime, ordering the hardcopy. Saturday game went down quite well! It's definitely a hit, although my poor gaming group is overwhelmed right now since Dragon Lines and my print copy of BRP Rome all showed up at the same time as well.

Group had a fracas over a fuel depot and an oppressed village of locals being forced to engage in slave labor by some local thugs. Excellent gritty and classic Mad Max style stuff. More sessions are being planned for the future!

If you make it to Albuquerque, New Mexico let me know. There's always room for one more!

Ordered mine through one of my favorite online retails, now waiting patiently. I really love the concept behind this book, enough to order site unseen, but I figure with a cover like that it can't be half bad inside, either....not to mention I'm dying to see how DL injects BRP with Kung-Fu. Also interested in seeing how easily I can use it with RQII.

Well, here's to Charlie getting it back up soon, and to the print copies hopefully being intact! I'll wait a bit longer to see if fixed updates get on site that I can snag first, but if for some reason it looks like it will take longer I'll PM you. We're tentatively planning a BRP R&R intro game this Saturday. Ahhhh the elation of getting my post-apocalypse fix.....

Just picked up a copy of the PDF, and it looks great! I did notice 6 pages with major formatting errors (like half a page or more of text missing) and contacted Chaosium about it to let them know. Hopefully this isn't a bug that will show up in the print edition, which I plan to order.

Just for the record, this is probably the nicest post-apoc setting book I've seen in a long time. I'm already talking my Saturday group in to starting a campaign in the R&R universe. Great book! My favorite BRP monograph to date, actually.

Just to confirm, I purchased BRP Creatures two days ago and have noticed no errors, so it looks like Chaosium did get this fixed.

Unfortunately, I parted with my RQ3 book a few years ago on Ebay in a mad fit of seller's mania (but got a nice sum for it, admittedly) so BRP Creatures is useful for my planned BRP Fantasy game coming up....although it still includes data with regards to character generation that applies to RQ3 and not the current BRP mechanics. Other than that, it works fine to expand the range of creatures for a BRP fantasy game.

Ah, threads like this are the reason I stay away from here....and am getting rather soured on the BRP thing, unfortunately. Each time I pop in to the BRP forums I end up slogging through more MRQ bashing, BRP-on-a-holy-pedestal (and I actually think it belongs there, ironically!) and enough Glorantha this and Glorantha that to choke a horse.

Personally, it would be great to see more constructive activities going on in this forum, like new scenarios, builds of creatures, campaign ideas, and what-not. And it would be awesome if the old guard RQers could accept that there's a newer edition that does exist and people like to play it (like myself) who unfortunately do not find fault with the system as it stands, and rather like the idea of physical runes among other things.

Also, The OP was asking about Runquest, but I didn't get the impression that his wanting to play RQ necessitated him getting a crash course on Glorantha. He might have preferred RQ3 or MRQ, both of which support non-Glorantha content (especially MRQ, which does so very well).

Well, I guess I am once again done here until the next time I get one of those messages asking me to come back.

Hi Ars M. I had to comment....

When I was 25 and a gamer (also graduating from college) it was 1995 and I definitely didn't feel the way you do now. My wife, who is your age, doesn't feel the way you do (she's a hardcore gamer) but she's also a woman who is happy with the same 5 games she's had in her possession and feels no need for more and shinier to replace them. But I think you probably managed to get in on the hobby and see a bit of what it was like before things started changing, which is why you and I feel similarly now.

I think a lot of today's problems arise from media competition. We have a glut of numerous forms of entertainment today that are very flashy and often do all the mental work for the participants. Video games are (imo) the single biggest threat to the table top hobby today, and part of the reason it's not growing and expanding. I think you make a very succinct point that rpgs today are not always a labor of love so much as part of a marketing process, one which will abandon them if they don't seem to be making enough cash. True, I agree....but....

Back in the 80's, (I started gaming as a kid in 1981) every company was tantamount to a small start up, and the level of fun one could imaginatively have with RPGs was far in excess of the kind of interest that games like Zork, Wizardry or Ultima could produce. There simply was no competition for RPGs in terms of entertainment...if anything, books and comics where the biggest direct competitor for time, along with movies. And movies always have been and likely shall remain a separate market for a long time...although it's interesting to note that films today are being challenged by video games, as well, for dollars and time.

Today, as I see it, the growth in the industry is mainly in independent and smaller press publishers; look at all the cool RPGs out of IPR, for example. Some smaller game companies that are entirely focused on the RPG experience are still doing okay, or at least staying focused (Hero, Chaosium, SJGames + or - Munchkin, I suppose; and Mongoose) but I tend to think of WotC with D&D as now being more "mainstream," as it must need to be to survive the expectations of it's parent company. This makes for some really strange times, since it means the market for RPGs has changed so much in the last decade.

I also think that the median age of gamers is older, now. To enjoy an RPG these days, I think you have to have a keen interest in a broader story or more calculated game experience. You need to want to interact directly with real people. You have to be willing to use your imagination. And you need to be willing to be a bit geekier than the nutty Warcraft players, who will call you a geek for playing D&D and other tabletop games while they spend their time in an all-day raid on WoW....without a trace of hypocricy.

I also think that the internet is turning, bit by bit, in to a new sort of lifeblood for tabletop gaming. It's now much easier to produce and get some recognition for your game or product via the web than it ever was before...and easier to make it look good in the process.

My personal method for dealing with this has been to try and focus my purchasing support exclusively on those companies which still fit the "niche" I feel I am in. So I buy interesting games from IPR and continue to support Hero Games, SJGames, Chaosium and Mongoose (when I am confident the book won't blow up in confetti after I open it, that is )

I also try to just relax and find like-minded gamers, who tend to simply enjoy playing whatever games they've always enjoyed....I'm really amazed at the number of people out there who are slowly no longer being fazed by the trendiness of new editions to games.

All that said, I do kind of like the idea of making BRP "The Last Game I'll Ever Need." But I love being a consumer, so I guess I'll keep buying other stuff I like, too....and holding on to the old stuff that's fun. Just because BL stopped publishing/supporting WHFR, for example, doesn't mean it's not still a good game and viable....you just need to be a bigger supporter for it to rally in players and show them how cool it is. If enough people showed loyalty to their faovorite systems over time, they'll get ressurrected eventually, guaranteed. I think BRP is a great example of how loyalty to a system works.

EDIT: Not sure I had a point. Just liked your thread and wanted to comment thru a bit of free-association...

I just downloaded Warlords of Alexandria and am perusing it now...plan to absorb this thing in full this weekend.

Anyway, I just wanted to make the comment that I am thoroughly impressed with this PDF; it looks remarkably well thought-out and researched. Kudos! Any plans to offer it at a POD location like lulu.com, or would that require some lisencing considerations? Just curious.....hope you see this, Paul, and can let me know. I would definitely grab one if offered in print form.

I loooove Traveller. I just took the 'flat' space to be 'galactic plane 0' so to speak, leaving all those lovely star system generation rules to be used to create the planes above and below it.

That way I can have the rich background, and do my creative thang too.

I fixed...no, really, patched....my problem with Traveller mapping by adding the third up/down axis to each hex. Then I threw out the jump drive rules anyway and worked out something else entirely. Then I ditched it all and did GURPS Space....that fixed it.

So I guess add Traveller to my list! Same with Tekumel/EPT; I love it, have read it all, even have M.A.R.Barker's two fantasy novels in Tekumel, but have not, for the life of me, been able to coerce, convince, or threaten one living mammal in to trying it out.

Ah, well I guess ymmv with Ian M. Banks. Still, I've found him considerably more readable than many current new-wave space opera writers, right behind Charles Stross.

I think a great deal of current SF posits the notion that the grand curve of progress will inevitably lead to runaway AI and a future society in which notions of control are rendered moot, at least for humans, who in turn become the topic of control issues for the dominant AI. Despite some excellent visions of such futures, I still think the "smart yet dumb" AI works best in terms of gaming. The closest any setting book for rpgs has gotten to the topic of advanced AI with an impact is Transhuman Space, and honestly, I felt much the same towards that setting as you did about Mr. Banks' works...

Put an Ai in a ship and you are limited by space and power.

Put an AI on a planet and you are limited only by the number of components you can put together.

So, I can see planet-based AIs as being a lot more powerful than ship-based ones.

Also, there is the overwhelming Salesman Factor. AIs are made by companies/organisations and are sold by salesmen. Now, salesmen want to charge for absolutely everything they can, so any extra modules will have a cost associated with them. This means that, although AIs could be unlimited, in practical terms you get what you pay for.

For a really good look at just how interesting AI-based ships can get, you should look for Ian M. Bank's novels, especially Excession and it's related novels. Yes, humanity may start with building AI on the planet....but the AI may find that rather, ah, constraining...

I think Greg Stolze's ...In Spaaace! setting is pretty vital to understanding AI.

It's not the AI we need to worry about....it's the Artificial Stupidity that makes 'em pass the Turing Test!

(That aside, neat ideas Shaira, I like the way you think!)

As one who acquired the proof-release edition of BRP, I can say it has all the necessary background and equipment stats (and some essential vehicle data) to do far future. But to handle world generation and other data I am supplementing it with GURPS Space 4th edition, which provides a nice set of rules that work cross-system for just such details.

I'm working on a near-future hard-SF based space exploration setting for BRP right now, to kick off next week on New Year's Day.

The BRP core book also has a few alien and robot ideas included, rules on mutations and psionics, a sampling of how to do mecha in the vehicle and gadget rules, and models a variety of SF campaign settings in the campaign section. So it's got a good baseline of support, even if it is not specialized in the genre, specifically. Nonetheless, I think you could easily do Sci fi straight from the book if you borrow world generation from GURPS, Traveller, or Space Hero (for 5th, another good sf book).

When I was ten, I was gifted basic D&D by my parents, but failed to "get" it until a month later when I found Gamma World 1st. It was all down hill from there. During that time, I had just discovered Robert E. Howard, Tolkien, Lovecraft and Piers Anthony's Xanth. Subsequent influences at that young age included Robert Aspirin's Myth Adventures and Philip Jose Farmer.

Now, the overall influences on my gaming habit are too numerous to count, but I can look back and see trends in my "younger" days. When I went to college in 1989, for example, I studied anthropology and archaeology. My games and campaigns were suddenly much more tightly defined, and I ran adventures where the ancient past was more involving, or where historical elements became very important.

I also had a new round of "profoundly influencing" authors, who contributed to a more surreal and darker approach to many games, including Hunter Thompson, William S. Burroughs, Tim Powers and Neal Stephenson. These guys still influence me as much as Howard, Farmer and Lovecraft do.

These days, I'm probably most influenced by the new-wave science fiction of Ian Banks, Jack McDevitt, and Charles Stross. I'm also very happy with the state of modern horror fiction as defined by Brian Keene, Simon Clark, and others. Of course, now I've reached the point where I really can't tell you if my taste in fiction is inspired by my gaming habits or vice versa....it all seems to have melded just a bit to much!

There's a basic magic system, which resembles (to me) the spirit magic options in earlier RQs. Then there's the Sorcery, which looks like it stems from RQ sorcery and SB65 sorcery. The latter is a spell based, with no chance of failure by skill, and the former is skill-based.

Got mine. Think I'm through collecting games now....I have at last purchased the one book I truly need, heh! Until more BRP stuff comes along....and the official book, at which time I guess I'll deposit my proof edition in to a storage crate for safe-keeping.

Boy, it's really nice to see this finally come to fruition! The book looks very nice, I love how they manage to touch upon a variety of optional rules from the many iterations of BRP, while retaining the core framework as is, and how it appears to contain all the necessary essentials to run whatever campaign I feel like. Absolutely awesome.

Conan, Hammers Slammers, Coramonde, Nifft the Lean, Tekumel, Talislanta, Atlantean Trilogy, Jhereg series, Black Company............

Word!

Seriously, great line-up. I'd add: Ringworld/Known Space, the Pricilla Hutch Universe of Jack McDevitt, and the Repairman Jack universe.

Hi, Camazotz here, alias Tori Bergquist. I've been gaming since 1980, when I started with the Otus D&D set and Gamma World 1st, then graduated to Traveller, RQ2 and Tunnels & Trolls (among others) around 1983-1985. I published a fanzine (The Sorcerer's Scrolls) from 1984-1989 and have been published over time in a variety of media. In fair disclosure when it comes to MRQ debates, I did write a couple books for Mongoose (Tales of the Black Kingdom and books 2 and 3 of Messantia) but I agree that as a publisher Mongoose has issues, but I tend not to assume it's because their evil....just learning.

These days, I'm playing GURP 4E, an occasional CoC game, MRQ semi-weekly and AD&D 2nd edition once or twice a month with some old diehard hippy grognards that I only just convinced to move on from 1E AD&D. When BRP comes out, I fully expect to start running it weekly, of course!

That is the drawback to pushing out product. One reason why stuff used to tricky out was that the same half dozen people wrote it. The best stuff for RQ2 is all written by the same people. That's why the quality is consistent. Open the floodgates and everything goes down except for quantity.

I'd rather buy one book like the Great Pendragon campaign then a dozen half-assed OGL Pendragon books. Same with BRP.

Seriously, you don't have to buy them if they come out. That's why the D20 flood died...people stopped buying stuff that was bad, and the phenomenon dried up and went away. Personally, I think I'd trust an aspiring author who wants to produce a product for BRP a bit more than some D20 fan barfing out another prestige class splatbook. BRP-based setting have always been a bit more developed, story focused, and generally expected it's fans and proponents to be a "cut above the rest." Take an example at the OGL-MRQ/GORE based POD books at lulu.com, for example: The Stupor Mundi setting is a ver neat and well developed idea, and the other offering, setting during the cold war....whadda concept.

Still, I just proved that BRP probably doesn't need to be OGL, I guess, since people can use MRQ and GORE to net the same effect, I suppose.

Wow, very interesting thread. It's nice to see a bewlidering variety of opinions on which edition of RQ/BRP is better, worse, and so forth; I cam on over to these forums in anticipation of BRP eventually showing up at last, and am pleased to see that the BRP-fandom strife over the One True System is rampant in a more evenly spread manner, even if MRQ continues to be the red-headed step child of the lot.

I am one who enjoys MRQ btw, played RQ 2 and 3 and do not do Glorantha, never have, never will, and wish people would stop associating Runequest with Glorantha, in the same way I prefer not to have Greyhawk in my core D&D books. In fact, it's the focus on more than just Glorantha for MRQ that appeals to me the most. I also think accusations that MRQ is "D&Dified" are coming from old RQ fans who haven't actually played D&D in 20 years anyway and might be surprised at how incorrect and unfair this assesment is. That said, I can respect someone's view that, say, Legendary Abilities add a level to the game they are uncomfortable with, but I personally like their addition to the system, and feel it opens up interesting new pathways for players and GMs alike that allow MRQ to feel old school while having elements that can compete with more current systems like Exalted....which is what legendary abilities make me think of, to be honest. Feats in D&D are not, by and large, unique and heroic talents that provide the character with some sort of fabulous (though often duplicitous) trait that can be spoken of in epic poems....they are more like Magic:TG cards that you play at the right time to do an interrupt or extra damage. The Legendary Abilities don't work like that; they are heroic effects with a stroy-based purpose to the game. D&D feats are tricks, and can not be so easily described in game terms (for the most part; there were plenty of neat D&D feats that did work well in a story sense....but the combat feats by and large were all just interrupt/enhancement tricks with no real basis in reality. I mean, come on, you have to have the Cleave feat to ever have a chance of striking two guys in a row in D&D...such a thing in actual melee is better left to chance, or fortuitous circumstance, but D&D codifies it as a feat, which then unerringly happens with every oportunity that the miniatures say it can. I always hated that.)

Out of curiosity, for those who feel the OGL is a bad idea, do you really feel that the OGL option is really going to lead to a flood of products for a system that, while superior to D20 imo, is not so popular as to have such a high volume of spin-off. Likewise, despite assertions that there were no products for Glorantha over the last two decades, I have certainly seen a ton of fan-based material, small press, and of course the whole Hero Wars phenomenon, a game which I feel is truly worthy of the setting in an integral way (unlike RQ....imo!). Anyway, my contention is that the OGL option serves primarily to stimulate interest in the game by aspiring authors, but that the net output is unlikely to be large, an I think the last year of negligible output from 3rd party publishers for MRQ only proves it.

Anyway, all my griping aside, I will just summarize my take as follows:

1. I like MRQ, it's a great current iteration of the system, but while it may appeal disgruntled D&Ders it is not due to any game similarity (otherwise, it would probably not appeal to them, I suspect)

2. I was very fond of RQ 2 and 3 but prefer the sreamlined approach of MRQ, which also makes it easy to sell to my current body of players, who are all guys that never played RQ back in the day as it was perceived to be overly complex. Hell, they don't even like 3rd edition D&D for the same reason!

3. I am really, really looking forward to BRP, although I hope it's final system is closer to the BRP iteration seen in books like Stormbringer and CoC than in RQ3.

4. I like OGL. It does more good than harm, and will benefit a less-popular system like BRP much moreso, I feel, than it did for D20. People say it's better to limit creative control of content to a handful....sure, but that can also lead to stagnation. Crap games may surface....but there could be some good stuff that materializes, too. It really boils down to being a discriminating buyer, I think.

5. Can somebody license Ringworld for the new BRP setting? Please? Or maybe Jack McDevitt's Priscilla Hutch universe....that would be awesome.