Camillus

I'm more than happy to help with reading and I can organise a play test with a (very) small group who are all interested in modern techno-thriller settings.

I agree that the path of least resistance is to take out the Gloranthan stuff and rewrite/insert new material as necessary to preserve as much of the original as possible. That does mean, though, that we might need some clearence from Mr Peterson to make alterations and additions to his work.

I think your suggested team structure is right and I'm also with you on setting a private area to keep things controlled. I guess that will have to wait until Trifletraxor gets back (jumps on table, breaks glass).

That's an important point and I think that the first thing the project has to decide is what materials are useable and what needs to be cut. I don't know what Issaries attitude to fan projects is.

So, how do you want to go about this? I think we need some ground rules before everyone goes off on their own bat.

I agree. What we need is a project team who are working to a clear set of style guidelines.

I presume we will be using American English for proof-reading?

I would assume so. I can't think of any reason not to use American English.

What about a standard Word document format?

I was going to aim for a PDF - we can use Scribus or something similar to produce the finished document. It would look more professional than Word and if we could grab some illustrations it would look even better.

And is there an order for the files?

Looking through them there seem to be two or three variants of the rules, various descriptions of different schools of sorcery and some general advice. We can work out a general order on the rules files by looking at the date of creation and assuming that any differences in later files supercede earlier drafts.

I was going to go for a rules, general spells, schools and specific spells approach with advice scattered through the text.

My personal goal was to produce a coherent manuscript that Trifletraxor could send to Mr Peterson for comment and hopefully approval.

I think we need a project coordinator, someone to do layout in a DTP programme and minions to sort the text into something coherent. I suspect that the three of us who have volunteered here would be about the right number, more than that and coordination could be a problem.

Any news on this project? I'm standing by to help and Rurik looks like he's in the zone on the motivation front.

I'm happy to help out, I have plenty of free time so that wouldn't be a problem. However I am a bit Douglas Adams about deadlines so sometimes need a poke with pointy stick.

I use a roll high system where the person rolling highest without failing wins. Obviously a special or critical still beats a normal so there is a benefit to rolling both high and low.

1000 miles high and 500 miles wide is more of a pillar than a mountain. Olympus Mons is 16.7 miles high and 332 miles wide, although it does have a fairly shallow slope (only 2-5 degrees). It might be better to make it 2000 miles wide, which at least would give it a more triangular shape and still make it pretty steep.

There are other thing to bear in mind as well. In a semi-realistic world the atmosphere is likely only to be breathable up to 5 miles or so and the boundary between the atmosphere and space is likely to be at around 60 miles or so (assuming Earth like conditions).

How about this:

The Martians invaded 30 years ago. At first they defeated and enslaved mankind but then they grew sick and died. New and old empires rose from the ashes and began to exploit the Martian technology left behind. Now Victorian engineers and scientists have created hybrid machines that humans can operate.

In the Near East the great Russian steam tripods threaten the Crimea while Western powers stand against them with their death-ray carrying airships. In the Far East the Japanese Empire seeks to overbear the heroic resistance of the Chinese Nationalists while in the Americas the United States seeks to rebuild itself after a catastrophic civil war fought with barely understood Martian technology. In the Jungles of the Amazon an old religion stirs a new empire and in Antarctica an altogether darker force is waking...

In truth I'm not sure how to get around this :confused:

You can't get round it. IP law lets you do what you want for your own personal use but the moment you start distributing it in any way you're risking the powers that be releasing the hounds.

Should a Viking warrior with a longsword have the same effectiveness as Miyamoto Musashi? I do not think so. Common use and mastery are not the same as knowing secret techniques. And martial arts is the latter, not simply "being very clever at using that weapon".

Note that a seasoned viking warrior with a longsword can still make mincemeat of dozens of inferior opponents. He simply is not Musashi

I don't think that we should develop general rules from specific situations. Miyamoto Musashi was an exceptional individual, largely self taught, who lived in a time and place where it was acceptable to wander from place to place picking fights in order to hone your skill.

That does not mean that we should ignore codified methods of teaching combat with swords from other parts of the world. There's no reason to believe that those methods are inherently inferior to kenjutsu or that the Japanese had some secret skill that the rest of the world lacked.

So, in answer to your question: yes, a sufficiently talented viking warrior could exist who could take out Musashi and we should allow not place barriers in the way of that.

Note that very few cultures should have access to Martial Arts techniques for swords.

Why would that be? Swords were important weapons in many cultures so I don't see any reason to limit availability of martial arts based on them anywhere that they are in relatively common use.

Jorune could be interesting. It was always handicapped by having a crap "system" riddled with typoes. I'd be surprised if anyone wanted to officially resurrect it but BRP would be my choice for Jorune or any genre.

I doubt there is any chance of an official new version of Jorune, the owners have no interest in doing one. There was a fan produced GURPS conversion that was in the offing but it seems to have disappeared. Personally I agree that BRP would be a better fit for Jorune.

I'm amazed that it took so long for an official Conan RPG to arrive.

I'm not sure it did take that long. TSR's Conan* game appeared in 1985 and GURPS Conan was 1989. We then had a long gap until 2004 and Mongoose's offering but I suspect that's reflection of the value of the license rather than a lack of desire to produce a game.

Although Moorcock is well known amongst fans of fantasy literature he doesn't have a lot of recognition outside that group whereas Conan is a name that many people have heard of. I'm pretty sure that the REH estate took a lot more persuading than MM did to grant a license for a game.

*You can pick up a copy of the rules (without setting information) for free here.

Hi,

Thought I'd introduce myself. I've been playing RPG's since 1980 and for most of that time, if I wasn't playing Traveller, I was playing a BRP variant.

Looking forward to the new book from Chaosium, although like most people long term BRP players I've got my own set of house rules that are nicely broken in. Still I'm always looking for ideas to improve the ruleset that I'm using.