Chaot

I'm kicking off a short campaign this summer and I'm not happy with my previous attempts at modeling fear in the game. Previously I had taken the Madness Meter from UA. Ultimately I found it too busy for my tastes. I don't feel like directly converting the system that came with Ravenloft because I feel like Fear / Horror is a little too splitting hairs.

Any systems come to mind that I might look at and *ahem* borrow from?

On 4/24/2017 at 11:43 AM, g33k said:

am I the only one who originally hit this thread wondering if it was going to be some semi-crazed mashup of the "Fate" game mechanics with BRP???

 

I want to do this, and I suspect it's really doable, but I haven't quite groked Fate yet. I've found that now that I have hundreds of roleplaying books picked up over thirty years I dislike reading them. This is detrimental, when you want to steal cool things from Fate but find yourself falling asleep reading it's not very productive. I need to play it or pretend to run it.

One of the biggest differences is the combat round. In Elric! it's INT ranks to declare actions then DEX to track when they happen. I believe MW is just DEX ranks. 

Not sure I've ever met someone who played combat by the Elric! rules. Personally, I only use one combat round but track DEX and INT separately depending on if the PC is physically fighting or using spells.

5 hours ago, Vile said:

Or just use the Elric! system for another licensed property.

 

We need a system for Berserking!

Can we swap Tanelorn for Hy-Brasil?

I'm not sure how you can say that sitting down to play the Basic Role Playing System is different then sitting down to play Runequest. It's like arguing the difference between lions and tigers. They are both Panthera. Doesn't matter if we named lions first or tigers first. On a fundamental level RuneQuest and Elf Quest and OpenQuest are BRP.

32 minutes ago, K Peterson said:

I should have probably been more clear. I meant that factor in the other direction. In case someone wanted to sell MW as an art/layout improvement over Elric!.

It's not. Elric! was laid out by the late Lynn Willis and it is a masterpiece. No disrespect to MW, but Elric! looks fabulous and it is insanely easy to find information in it once you've familiarized yourself with the book. I don't know how well this actually translates to the digital version, but the physical version is by far my favorite rpg book. I firmly agree with Questbird on this account.

The thing that was great about MW was that it showed that the system was still relevant and it brought Advanced Sorcery into the fold. In my opinion, between the two Advanced Sorcery is the superior book because it brings new things to the table. MW was all about reestablishing a rules set. For that reason alone, MW is an important book.

Character skill assignment is good in general. I don't really go into the tribe, rural, city stuff. I'm also one of those weirdos you like stats divorced from skills so I use base skills from Elric!

In Elric! as writ there's two phases to a road. The first is the declaration round and then the action round. MW combines these two, which is the way I always play.

Even though you forbade it as a factor, Elric!'s layout is a work of art.

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

No, it's more than semantics, since both terms are used as titles for RPGs. If you order RQ or BRP from a store, drivethru, etc. you are going to get two differernt (but related RPGs). That is unless you are talking about RQ3 and that BRP monograph that actually was RQ3 without the copy writable stuff.

Still Semantics. I can order Magic World and I can order Call of Cthulhu and I can order The Green and I can order Rubble and Ruin and I can order Open Quest and I can order RuneQuest and I'm still buying a variant on the same game. Luckily, we have a term that encapsulates all of those. That term is BRP.

A prime example of this is the BGB itself. It embraces all of these variants and says "Hey, everyone! Look at all this cool stuff. It's the same game. You just have to make of it what you want."

So, while trademark/copyright RuneQuest is not trademark/copyright BRP it is still directly related, when the dice hit the table it means exactly the same thing. But like I said, I've no skin in actually convincing you. This conversation is cyclical. I just have to take comfort in the fact that, someplace in the cosmic scheme of things I am correct! Despite our differences, I still love you Atgxtg.

Thank You.

Oh yeah. That's a mash up between Rod's Classic Fantasy and Snead's Nephilim magic system (the sympathetic magic bonus bits). It goes along with some enchanting rules, which I should post some time for feed back. They seem to work though they are probably a bit more overpowered than people prefer.

Lucky items come from here.

https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/2374-lucky-trinkets-heirlooms-and-named-items/

34 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

It isn't. Or at least in the case of RQ, RQ2, RQ3 and Strombringer it wasn't. BRP was a derivative of RuneQuest, as was Stormbringer. It was only later on, with WoW and CoC did we see RPGs built around the "BRP engine". 

Same difference. It's semantics. RuneQuest was around before the term BRP but BRP describes RuneQuest. I think I have this discussion once every five years or so. One of my favorites.

Great questions. Weapon styles is lifted from RQ3. I had always had a problem with how weapons worked in the main rules but have never been thrilled with the house rules I came up with to tweak them. Then I read RQ# and the combat section was a bit of a revelation.

Brawn and Finesse are a house rule I started using a long time ago. There was a phase in which all my players were making huge bruisers for that damage bonus. I got tired of all Fafhrds and no Mousers, so I split the damage bonus. Brawn is determined with Strength and Size as normal. Finesse is Strength and Dexterity, and can be added to light and short weapons.

Fonts: CelticHand, StienAntik, Moon Flower Bold, Camelot, Colwell, Bibliotheque, Atlantix Pro

That's a lot of fonts!

Just readjusted Intelligence, Power and Charisma, as they were not lined up right. Thinking about getting rid of the categories under Background and listing a couple of them like I did with Acquaintances.

Edit: Also realigned Sorcery on the back page so it works better with the image.

Jpeg images

Looking at starting a game up. Looks like it will be a small group. Feedback is welcome.

41 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

But it's also possible that if the new RQ does well, Chaosium might go through something of a renaissance, and keep supporting BRP and expanding into new lines, much like they did in the early 80s. I doubt it will happen that way, but it could.   

This would be ideal.

The monograph Rubble & Ruins has some cybernetics and stuff.

*Edit* Sorry. Got a funky internet connection right now.

On 4/4/2017 at 3:00 PM, jagerfury said:

"More spells" is my shorthand for what I really mean; a dense magic chapter in the Magic World rulebook which details all sorts of magic "systems" so a game master has many templates to work from when designing their fantasy campaign.

If you decide to tie in allegiance to magic and you want to expand your repertoire check out Virtues and Focus Skills from Gods of Law.

Couple thoughts about the escape.. they could be trying to activate a Vadhagh relic. Alternatively, perhaps they are invited to speak with The Grey Lords, perhaps due to the sorcerer's attempts at opening a portal. The party could be victim to a summoning from another plane, much like Erekosë or Corum. Maybe instead of the Grey Lords a faceless avatar of Mabelode appears. Mabelode is unhappy with Arioch and is searching for pets of his own.

As for where to put it, Lormyr was the first nation to rebel against Melniboné. Someplace there might be appropriate. You could also put it in The Pyramid of Law in Bakshaan or tie in the Grey Defenders in Rignorium. Whatever you end up doing, you've got a great starting point there. I admit that I remove any presence of the albino when I've run a YK game in the past. I started doing this when some potential players complained that there was no point playing the the YK because everything was going to be absorbed back into primal chaotic soup.

Don't get me wrong, there may be a buyer out there. It's a rare book and there's never been a PDF made of it. It's easy for me to say I won't pay 100 for it, I've got two copies myself.

1 hour ago, Thot said:

Hm. So, can anybody describe what makes its (non-setting-specific) content... unique?

Magic systems. Followers of Chaos gain mp depending on their allegiance. Spell system that lets you weave magic effects together. Lawful contrivances that allow PCs to create both magical items and automata. Fetishes and elemental tattoos. Awesome alternative to summoning chaos critters. Lots of great stuff in there. One of my favorite books. Not sure that I would pay $100 for it on my current salary though.

Nope. Both because I agreed to a nondisclosure and because I sadly no longer have the files to remind myself of the details due to a hard drive crash.

Jason might say something about it if you ask nicely though!

Edit: The point is, Jason has an incredibly solid handle on BRP design.  Smart move bringing him in.

There's that other little thing he did. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened had we play testers gone with JD's unified BRP power system instead of reprinting old rules...  

5 minutes ago, Conrad said:

Writing as an unpaid shill

How do you make a million dollars by opening a roleplaying business? Start with two million.

On 3/10/2017 at 5:10 PM, Simlasa said:

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.

Fractured Hopes is a wild ride. When it first came out I had a whole campaign idea I wanted to run loosely based on the the idea that New York City had consciousness, magic-science factions had arisen through the 5 boroughs (looking a bit like the 70's film The Warriors), and that there was a mystical neutral ground formed around a Starbucks warrior cult. You could find a neutral meeting place where these factions could come together and talk, trade, arrange marriages and allegiances, etc.

There was a secret temple though, located at 37th street, which was a real location called The Neutral Ground. It was a gaming store that had a large area where people could come together and play. Sadly, it's closed now.

Anyway, my goal was to throw as much NYC stereotypes at my players turned up to 11.  Never got a chance to run it though.