TrippyHippy

Broadly speaking, physical books for core rules (and not more than 10 these days), and electronic supplements.

Sorry, the title was ‘What we do in the Shadows’ Here’s the trailer:

Incidentally, go see My Life In Shadows. Hilarious NZ movie about a group of vampires living in contemporary Wellington, filmed in mockumentary style. It has Jermaine Clement in it, of Flight of The Conchords fame.

The downloadable PDF is available on the Chaosium site.

Well, it’s not entirely new - insofar that it’s a distillation of John Snead’s work on the Nephilim game, specifically Liber Ka. That said, it is very much a distillation of the good bits, and more importantly the authentic occult bits that would serve many purposes in different settings. It’s very easy to read and apply, too.

Well, apart from Romero’s Martin (which was my main fictional source), there were also lots of references to Hannibal Lector being vampire-like in both books and movies. I’m sure I’ve played in a Cthulhu or possibly Unknown Armies scenario where that was the case too. Beyond that, however, there are real world cases. E.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rod_Ferrell

I like the approach to vampirism as a form of psychological disorder. There may be some sort of root biological issue - sensitive to light, etc - but I find the scariest ‘vampires’ these days are the people who have constructed a whole world view trying to convince themselves of having a particular condition, or belonging to a particular race giving them reason to commit psychotic acts on their victims.

It's strange to see a Kult thread on a Legend forum, but there you go… Kult is, along with HoL, probably THE cult game from the 90s - insofar the content was controversial, and that you can't (legally) get hold of a pdf these days. It has, in my view, the most coherently designed horror setting of any RPG. The general system is a bit bland, although related to BRP (using a single d20 for everything) and as such an easy conversion. If you wanted to take the premise for a medieval period it would fit right in - noting that it's largely based upon a literal Judeo-Christian paradigm. The Gnostic elements are mainly held in the magic system, which essentially allows you to break free from reality in a variety of ways (Dreams, Passion, Time & Space, Death, Madness). In later editions, they laced these concepts into real world occult practices (Kabballah, Tarot, Astrology, Voudun, etc) which gave it a very authentic (believable?) feel, while introducing a freeform element into casting. The result is very evocative. The only difficulty is that the negative impact of magic was to affect your 'mental balance' and give you various psychological flaws - all of which is written in very 20th century psychological terms. You'd probably be able to keep the light side/dark side dichotomy, but the traits would have to be changed to reflect the times. Personally, I wonder how long it will be before a BRP based writer adapts something like Dante's Inferno as a RPG setting…it would work, brilliantly!

People have their own tastes and perspectives, but RuneQuest only get's significantly more rules heavy than the other games you cite in the combat, and possibly magic systems available. It is completely, effortlessly compatible with OpenQuest/Renaissance - noting that a) both games are based on RuneQuest rules in their development, and the stats blocks are the same, with only a few variations on things like skill lists, etc. You can pick and choose what various subsystems you want to use in your own game - but the 'family' of RQ derived games are pretty adaptable to personal needs.

Heh! FATE fans being out-shilled on a public vote. Who'd have thunk it?!

They use flip-flop rolls in Unnown Armies, albeit only for selected 'obsession' skills. I think it adds about 10% or so to the odds of success.

I guess the closest BRP-based game to Vampire: The Masquerade was Chaosium's Nephilm - insofar that you were also playing politics amongst super-powered immortals with an occult/biblical bent, presented in neat 'splats', and an element of social satire and dark conspiracy.

I'd say that Advanced Sorcery is more likely for an early release - it's been in the pipeline longer. I'm hoping for COC 7e around May, or possibly earlier if we're lucky.

I'm still making up my mind whether to get the hardcopy of this. Fortunately the long campaign gives me plenty of time to ruminate on upgrading from the pdf copy.

Good. Long wait for this one.

I cannot see the point of holding out for a monograph hardcopy. The design is so basic, you may as well take the pdf down to your local printing shop and get it bound yourself.

I don't see BRP based games as introducing house rules or differentiating themselves for the sake of it. I just see all BRP-based games as operating under a root language that continues to evolve.

I'd say Magic World is a pretty good place to start in BRP if you're a fan of Savage Worlds. The systems are obviously different, but the sensibilities are similar. Magic World offers an easy to understand and flexible set of mechanics tied in with a fantasy setting that operates as a decent platform to run all types of fantasy stories from. It's actually a re-imagining of the old Elric game, with the magic system taken from there too - although it's not specific to Moorcockian fantasy anymore. The setting material in the back suggests House affiliations, similar to Vampire Clans but not as many. It is a very self contained game, however. With regards to the magic system, it uses 'Sorcery' which is a pretty powerful system. You need to have a prerequisite high POW score, but if you qualify the system is flexible and can be fairly unrestrained. There isn't any 'fire and forget', and the scholarly approach to learning through Grimoires and the study is not compulsory (you could receive magic as a 'gift'). The spells are controlled by the expenditure of Magic Points. If you like dark fantasy there's a lot of it within the book - demon summoning, etc - and the effects can be quite flashy. There is an Advanced Sorcery supplement due soon that collates a wide variety of expansions to the core book, along with a host of alternative magic systems and styles. The types of stories you can play are varied, but one thing I like is that you can play a wide variety of non-human characters. Basically, any intelligent creature in the bestiary could be played as a PC template, within reason (or GM approval). While this is true in most of the BRP-based fantasy games, it's explicitly made into a feature for Magic World. Beyond this, it's worth noting that most BRP games are cross-compatable to a degree - each has their own variations, but they all 'speak the same language' if you know what I mean.

Icidentally, the imperial measures for mass (as opposed to weight) are 'slugs' and 'blobs'. 'Stones' are still, technically, units of weight!

I've got no issue with some of the more subtle rule changes, but others just seem overbearing - especially when they are overtly included on the character sheet or NPC stats. The 'rules-lite' 7e character sheet looks more complicated than the full standard CoC rules. Likewise the bonus/penalty dice system just seems to add complexity to the rules, and I'd have preferred them to expand the use of Magic/Power points to include more general 'luck' style effects, rather than create a new Luck resource stat. If anything, I'd have preferred them to disassociate the Sanity aspect to the POW stat, and make it it's own stat - to remove the issue of powerful but insane sorcerers. They could also have forgone with the extra 50% skill category in my view and I certainly think the 20/50/100% notation is as convoluted as it gets really. Contested rolls could have been introduced more elegantly as the did with RuneQuest 6 (roll-highest-but-under-stat), and they could have just included all the Characteristic % rolls as per normal BRP. As it stands they've removed the 'complicated' Resistance Table and replaced it with something that appears more complicated. In all, I'm looking forward to getting CoC7e (I backed the kickstarter for $150), but the rules are not the ideal and seamless development that they could have been. It's a shame that the play testing set up had a few too many people willing to effectively discredit critics of the new system as being luddite-like, rather than actually address the issues of concern. It's far from a disaster, it's just not ideal - and the increased number of Mythos-based RPGs on the market these days is going to make the future interesting. C'est la vie.

Another series of games that pops into mind as not being BRP, but being percentile is the Warhammer 40KRP games. Thematically, one could also argue that they are linked or at least influenced by iconic BRP games like RuneQuest, Stormbringer and call of Cthulhu, so possibly it could be what people are after too. They are very heavily setting-based games though, and the 'science' aspects of the setting could be debatable.

I'll be reviewing my hardcopy library in the new year. 99% of my rpg books are electronic these days, so I'm quite selective in what I get hardcopy-wise. I'm also awaiting the Kickstarter products I have ordered for Glorantha, RuneQuest (Indiegogo at least) and Call of Cthulhu 7e, and I'm not much inclined to get much new stuff till they arrive. That said, a hardback version of the Renaissance rules alongside RuneQuest would suit me to a tee as it covers a more modern niche, and I've been a big fan of Cakebread and Walton's output for a decent while.

I prefer D100 systems to Shadowrun's dice pool system, although it clearly isn't an issue for Shadowrun fans who buy the game books with such enthusiasm and abundance. It's main selling points are the art, the frequency of the supplements and the fairly unique blend of cyberpunk and fantasy genres. It's arguably one of the most successful urban fantasy rpgs ever. The genre can be done with BRP, without too much difficulty, although there hasn't been much published support for it within the BRP community itself. Maybe 'Punktown' will fit the niche when it comes out: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1799183063/punktown-an-rpg-setting-for-call-of-cthulhu-and-br

The 7e rules are OK, I suppose, but they're not something to enthuse about. The new stat blocks are more convoluted than they need to be, and I'd have preferred they handles some things differently. I can see the argument for including % score for Characteristics, and it follows on that you could include 1/5 values for all skills too going on the special success rules that were already present. I don't like adding the 1/2 score values though. If they wanted to make contested rolls elegant, they should have done what RuneQuest/Legend/OpenQuest/Pendragon did and have 'highest rolls, below stat' rules. They've now disassociated Luck from POW and made it a trackable resource..though only as an option, and not in the Quickplay rules. It is however, present on the Character sheet which suggests it's not intended as much of an option as the text states. I would have handles the sub-POW stats differently myself. Indeed, I would have separated Sanity from POW altogether, and made it it's own stat. That way, you can avoid the problem of insane old Sorcerers (high POW, no Sanity - "How did they get that way?"). I'd have integrated POW as the core stat for Magic and Luck, and made it into a single resource stat with optional rules for what they could be spent on - including spells, luck boosts or whatever. No need to make a new stat. The pushing rules are fine, the bonus/penalty dice are not. I don't mind the new combat rules, I'm interested in what they've got to offer in the Chasing rules, but I wish they could have spent some time pruning down and refining the skill list - or at least co-ordinated it with BRP. The final product is already a commercial success, going on Kickstarter, but there may be implications for the BRP Gold book not being 100% compatible anymore. There may also be some fall out with other Cthulhu games being released next year.

Thanks for all the answers guys. Possibly should have read the info-box, but thanks to pointing it out. I think the 2d6+6 method is useful for creating heroic character generally, so I'll probably go that way. Looking forward to Advanced Sorcery too.