TrippyHippy

Well, it's the edition that everybody loves and talks about so it's always going to be worth a look in. First time experience for me. Hopefully, I can pick it up along with the new Pete Nash penned edition (alongside my Guide to Glorantha set).

I could, however, see the Magic Points and Luck linked as the same resource. Just allow Magic Points to be spent as Luck points in effect, where spending a Magic Point would give a +/-5% increment to any roll.

I have an issue with this insofar that Sanity and Magical affinity are actually polar opposite. I like the way they reach this dichotomy in the Aquelarre RPG, which is being translated and Kickstarted currently. In that game there is a two ended stat for Rationality and Irrationality. The former presents willpower and resistance to magic - akin to Sanity - and the latter towards an affinity for Irrational things - like a belief in Magic. The issue has always been highlighted in CoC as an issue - the whole "How did Sorcerer's get that way?" when they have High POW but are insane. So a Sane person, grounded in a rational perspective of the world, would not have a great affinity to an alien, magical paradigm. They wouldn't believe in it!. They'd be resistant to magic, as well as other psychological trauma but wouldn't have more innate magical Power. You can't make that distinction while Sanity and Power are linked, especially if the two are combined into one pool.

My view on Sanity is if your going to introduce it, have it entirely separate as a mechanic to the existing POW rules - which are all about Magic and Luck in other BRP applications other than CoC. The whole Sanity mechanic could then be entirely modular with the introduction of the Sanity Characteristic et al. when desired. I could live without the Education stat too in fact. Indeed, they notably removed it from the new Delta Green rules, along with Size. It does make it easier to calculate secondary stats (HP, etc) when you only use one Characteristic as a base rather than two.

If I could summarise one thing I'd wish for in the Cthulhu rules it would be to remove all the clutter. With regards to the Characteristics, I get what the writers were trying to do - but it could have been done more subtly. The fact is that having Characteristic scores being multiplied by 5 to make a % score was not that taxing, and skills rules did make use of a fifth (1-20) score anyway for special successes. I could see an argument to have both sets of scores noted down with % and 1-20 scores included. Of course, we then had an addition half threshold added, which made everything quite heavy handed in my view. There is also the bizarre character generation based on rolling stats on a 3D6 method, multiplying by five for the % score, and then asking the player to divide the score by five again to calculate things like Magic Points! The illusion of complexity lives on.... What I like about the RuneQuest rules is that the Characteristic Scores all have a function, are tied directly into the skills as base scores, but still manage to remain as one clear and distinct score. You can scan the scores quickly to get a quick overview of the character, because there is no clutter beyond that. You never roll against a Characteristic directly in RQ6, but they remain fully functional in terms of their influence throughout Attributes (HP, Strike Rank, Experience Mod. etc) and the skill bases. That is elegant. Anyway, in my ideal world, CoC would have Characteristics based on a 3-18 scale again, like RuneQuest. I'd have nine separate scores (Strength, Constitution, Size, Dexterity, Intelligence, Power, Charisma, Education, and Sanity) and use these to determine Attributes: CON+SIZ/2 = Hit Points STR+SIZ (ref table) = Damage Bonus STR+DEX = Base Athletics % (inc Dodge %). INT+EDU/2 x5 = Idea % (including general knowledge), POW+CHA/2 x5= Luck % and Magic Points SAN x 5 = Starting Sanity %.

They do. But that does not stop people wanting the similarities to be greater still.

Good news if it happens. Call of Cthulhu is the greatest science fiction rpg that hasn't ever, formally, happened. Alien vs Predator, eat your hearts out.....(literally).

Another one to think about - when time becomes available, I guess - is to reboot the Aces High monographs. There is some excellent material in there and it is an eminently playable setting, that could be rebranded as something like 'The Mythic West' or 'Classic Western" or somesuch.

I would call it 'BRP Essentials'. BRP has brand recognition and the Essentials bit brings in the RQ6 crown a little too - it ought to be a unifying publication. Moreover, "Basic Role Playing Essentials" would doing exactly what it says on the tin - while suggesting an entrée level (and one would hope cheap, if not free) for beginner gamers. Never underestimate the number of people who would buy into the game at an entrée level. The trouble with 'Worlds of Wonder' is that it implies a tone of play - which doesn't always suit different settings - and along with 'Magic World', 'Super World' and so on it sounds a bit cheesy and vapid, if I'm being honest. I have always had the same feelings about 'Hero Wars' and latterly 'HeroQuest' as names too, incidentally. RuneQuest sounds cool, and always has done - but I'm actually coming round to thinking that the more they re-associate that name with the original Glorantha setting the better now. Making the RQ essential rules available - albeit under the BRP moniker - would allow compatibility without sacrificing brand identity.

Woah! Hold on! Does this mean that Chaosium will now be doing separate rulebooks for RuneQuest: Glorantha.......... and RuneQuest 2?! And, while I'm thinking about it, will RuneQuest: Glorantha follow a similar interior layout and design to Guide to Glorantha and HeroQuest: Glorantha? Will we be able to buy pdfs of all the RPG stuff? Will the God's War board game be broadly compatible with Cthulhu Wars? What sort of games will the boardgames be like? Finally, will there be much fiction in the line - including the comic presented as a graphic novel?

Definitely. Pete's Mythic Greece was right up there on my list of excitement, but it got put on the back burner due to the Glorantha work - for a couple of years now really. I do like Glorantha, and will be exploring those titles too, but the Mythic Earth series is really central to my hopes about RuneQuest's potential. Mythic Mesopotamia, Greece, Constantinople, Egypt......the list could be endless, but so evocative, and I'd lap them all up! Indeed, I do feel that Moon Design feel the same way - they list a bunch of historical, mythical settings in their reading lists - and that allowing for these historical settings to develop actually enhances people's appreciation of the Gloranthan setting more.

Chaosium makes RuneQuest and Glorantha stuff, which is designed and written by Pete and Loz and Jeff for the main part. Loz and Pete still run their own company (The Design Mechanism) that supports the RQ line through non-Gloranthan settings and supplements. Chaosium will do this sort of thing too (eg Mythic Iceland). Simples! However what is still to be determined is the exact nature of theses non-Glorathan settings and supplements, with the question as to whether they will be stand-alone products or dependent on a core rules book (BRP Essentials?). Anyway, one point I noticed is that they are continuing support with Mythic Britain, along with some more stuff about Saxons. If they could reboot the old Vikings supplement that Pete wrote for Mongoose RuneQuest II (as Mythic Scandinavia?) and combine it also with Chaosium's Mythic Iceland.....all within the remit of the same BRP Essentials (RQ) system - this all equates to one magnificently huge, grand Dark Ages setting... hey, why not chuck in Mythic Francia (Charlemagne) too?

It's obviously a big game in Spain, as evidenced by it's lavish design and by virtue of it being described as the 'best RPG still not translated to English'. This campaign obviously seems to want to do something about that, and notably Stewart Wieck has something of a notable track record as previous owner of White Wolf game, the original creator of Mage: The Ascension and champion of classic medieval games such as Pendragon and Ars Magica. The rules, as said, are clearly based on RQ although the stats are a little different and they seem to be going for things like Health Levels and Advantages & Disadvantages which link it a little more to Ars Magica in my mind. The % skills, with crits and fumbles, is obviously the same as RQ though, and it seems that all skills are linked to the stats in some way. Not sure exactly how the magic works but it's based upon an opposing stat of Rationality (resistance to magic) and Irrationality (being able to use magic). This is quite neat. The setting is a mythical, medieval Spain before it became a unified nation, and I'd imagine that much of the intrigue comes from the five warring states at the time. The other conflict comes from a clash of literal religious beliefs (Christian, Muslim and Jew) and the machinations of demons and other creatures of Spanish folklore. It's medieval paradigm, art and setting, along with the use of Latin terminology do make it feel similar to Ars Magica with a more specified drive and a dark tone. "Aquelarre" means 'Coven" and the book is presented like an occult tomb. An old review on RPG.net suggests it's a bit like playing In Nomine. I'll be backing it, for sure, I'm just not sure at what level yet. For a 500 page, full colour hardback, however, the Kickstarter price is a bargain. You could even get a new version of Pendragon thrown in as an add on. If you can speak Spanish, here's an unboxing review: That'll be the book you'll be getting.....but in English!

Just discovered this as it's being kickstarted by Stewart Wieck at the moment, who also publishes Greg Stafford's Pendragon. The campaign is here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861515217/aquelarre-the-dark-and-mature-medieval-rpg-now-in Basically, I'm just interested in someone with experience of it telling me all about it. The system is clearly a BRP/RQ derivative, but it looks like a very demonic-themed Spanish sort of Ars Magica to me. Also, notably there's a new version of Pendragon being offered in the same campaign, based off the Spanish version. Anyhoo, feel free to move this to an appropriate thread if you're moderating this - I just didn't quite know where to post it!

I'll preorder it! Question though: will it include any newly designed RuneQuest Essentials rules or be dependent on the RuneQuest core?

Cool! Will the name or URL address change at all? Also, what about The Design Mechanism forums. I like the forums and involvement of the creators but, to be honest the forums in all these separate places can be a little slow. If we can get one centralised forum to discuss all these games, then traffic might be cross pollinated a bit?

Snead's work on modern magic orientated games is always worth a look at. For me, they'd also be applicable for adding a few empowering aspects to a Call of Cthulhu game too - although this does require a bit more system conversion these days. Still, Cthulhu Dark Ages, Enlightened Magic and After the Vampire Wars would make for good purchases when they get fully released.

And the point I'm making is that you still have to make these calculations in CoC7E - as such the advantages of actually using bonus/penalty dice is somewhat compromised.

Agreed, and noting that BRP and RQ: Essentials will most likely still be reasonably translatable anyway. Having the BRP Gold book and back catalogue still available in PDF and POD ought to allay fears of it being completely airbrushed away.

He didn't rant as such, but he always made sure that people were aware that his rules were 'official' and he was very dismissive of criticism. Noting that the old AD&D 1st edition files have all been made commercially available again recently, it's a reminder just how very arbitrary and restrictive the original rules were too. Yet, at the time (the 80s) about 90% of all roleplayers were playing AD&D, so what could you do?* * Answer: Play RuneQuest!

I myself much prefer D&D5E over 4E (heh! lets have a D&D edition war!) :), however, I think BRP is already a marked difference in terms of the tone in the way fans have behaved towards each other in the past anyway. Essentially, the schisms between Chaosium's BRP, the newer editions of RQ and the other related systems out there largely mirrors the schism between D&D4E and Pathfinder/3.5E over the last few years - except it never became so bad that gamers fell out or became acrimonious about anything especially. People just accepted other people had different preferences, while others cross-pollinated the systems as they desired. It always felt like a 'family'. The advent of Chaosium's take-over and subsequent re-organising RQ and BRP under more co-ordinated rules also largely mirrors the advent of D&D5E which, in fact has a mix of ideas from all editions in it (despite what hard-core Edition warriors might argue) and earned a general acceptance as the official D&D rules now. If Chaosium can also get broad acceptance of the Essential merging (heh! see what I did there?) of RQ to BRP rules among fans, then the future for themselves and the fans of both groups is quite rosy. I do accept that there biggest brand, Call of Cthulhu, won't be operating under these rules as of yet, and it would be foolish of Chaosium to even consider a new edition after the shenanigans of the Kickstarter campaign. However, if the RQ/BRP Essentials rules become an accepted norm over the years, then they might consider them for CoC too in good time. I'm thinking like 2021 maybe (CoC 40th Anniversary edition.....). On a similar matter, has there been any official celebration of it being Chaosium's 40th Anniversary this year?!

I'd be curious to know where the advantage/disadvantage dice in D&D has been criticised, because I run weekly Adventurers League D&D games and the rule is largely praised thing as the best thing about D&D5E. It is, from my weekly experience, every bit as elegant a mechanic as it sounds. But it's application is different to that used in CoC7E because of it's intent to replace ALL modifiers in the game outside of the bonuses PCs apply for stats. A Dungeon Master assigns a DC, the players roll the dice and add stats bonuses, and any other factor is assumed to be advantage/disadvantage. Simple and elegant. In the case of bonus/penalty dice for CoC, however, these are placed in on top of existing rules that are not as simple as D&D. The Difficulty of each task is not set, but calculated against full/half/fifth values, while the combat chapter has a chart for different factors about when to apply bonus/penalties. Along with the fact that it only applies to additional 'tens' dice - which aren't always at hand - its just a little bit clunky. If they wanted a more elegant gimmic, more suited to percentile dice, then Unknown Armies 'flip-flop' mechanic (where tens are swapped with the units dice where advantageous) would have worked better. Anyhow - in terms of being NICE about 7E - I'll say that the full colour layout is very attractive, while the Investigators Handbook is actually very useful as a sourcebook on 1920s America as much as anything, and is pretty flawless if taken on it's own. At least they didn't cut out the Lovecraft tale at the beginning of the book - which, for me was an egregious mistake in the Keeper's book - no original Call of Cthulhu tale! I do have issues with the rules in the Keeper's book, and wished that the writers had taken more heed of the more critical feedback they were given before moving on with the project, but hey, they aren't a disaster - they aren't as problematic as D&D4th Edition or Traveller 5 for example. They just aren't as elegant as the rules used in RQ6 or Pendragon, by comparison.

Loz change the base scores! Actually, I'm not fussed. However, for a beginning game (BRP Essentials) it may be worth reviewing these little details just to make it easier to pick up. I have no doubt that most people can handle simple edition, but there quite a few calculations that need to be done in RQ character generation. One of the factors in the original BRP was to strip down out all the complications of the original RQ rules. So, in the case of skills, we had flat base scores introduced. On the other hand, the % skills weren't actually well linked with the 1-20 range Characteristics anyway - unlike RQ6 where the relationship is clearer. I do wonder whether the character sheet could change a bit to help with chargen though - include all the advanced skills on the sheet (so that you don't have to check the book for what combination of stats are needed to calculate the base - it'll be on the sheet already), include more space for adding up totals (from Culture/Profession and Free skill bonuses), and create an inclusive, alphabetic list maybe? The easier you can generate a character straight onto a sheet, without referring to the printed rules, the better the generation process is for beginners. If you only have one rulebook to a group, then individuals don't need to wait for it to be handed around.

The main market for RuneQuest has always been ex-D&D players, to be honest. Players who have become jaded with and/or disappointed by D&D for any variety of reasons and are looking for a new game. Finding ways to tap into that, based upon RuneQuest's strengths is always a challenge - as they are competing with a whole bunch of other RPGs out there. RQ6 was critically well received, but there is still only limited awareness of the game amongst gamers - especially new gamers who have no underlying interest in RPG history or system design. Shelf presence in game stores help this, but demo games do moreso. Moreover, I don't see any quick fixes overnight. I could see the impact of the upcoming Classic Fantasy being significant, as it directly taps into a D&D-esque fantasy. It was, I think, comfortably the best selling BRP supplement for Chaosium (when they used to run charts) - and it's possibly the most likely avenue for new players to enter into the RQ rules (along with Essentials). Whatever the merits of Magic World - and I do think it had plenty of good ones - I always thought that Classic Fantasy presented an equally valid approach for an intro BRP fantasy game, without the complexities of Glorantha or other specified settings attached. The question is, for me, whether it will also be compatible with the BRP Essentials book? If so, why not just include an extra 32 pages to make it a self contained entrée point? (And on a similar vein - why not make Luther Arkwright a self contained game too!?) I see this trend happening everywhere in the RPG hobby actually. The Onyx Path (a de facto new White Wolf) has chosen to release all there 2nd Editions of NWoD games (Vampire: The Requiem, etc) as stand-alone games, rather than linked to a core WoD rules book as before. Cakebread and Walton's Dark Streets - which was formally linked to their Renaissance generic book, has now been upgraded to include it's own rules. If more of these settings were self-contained games, we would never need to have the anxiety of core systems shifting around because of business reasons again. We've seen the commitment of Chaosium to now release Mythic Iceland (their best BRP setting release, in my view) as a stand alone book, but I could see it being done for other BRP titles too. Just include that extra 32 pages.....

Ok..and I possibly may be going out on a limb here......but honestly....I'm a little bit....well... enthused by the direction Chaosium/RQ/BRP is heading now. I'd still like clarifying a few things about upcoming products, and I will keep asking about them, but there was enough information in those recent announcements that I can work with (at least). Not talking for anyone else here, obviously.