TrippyHippy

Will they make special editions with leather covers?

What about the second edition!?

Please, please, please give all due respect to Greg Stafford’s Pendragon and The Great Pendragon Campaign with whatever direction you choose to take this game. It is, in my view at least, the very best fantasy roleplaying game ever penned.

Are the POD books going to go through drivethrurpg or some other company?

Aquelarre is a gem, although its not pure BRP - just very familiar for those who play BRP and is clearly influenced in its design. My understanding is that it is being distributed by Chaosium, after being translated by Nocturnal games into English for a Kickstarter (which has since been fulfilled). I don’t know its current ownership status, but would suggest that the original Spanish game has its own writers and production team, so they are likely to be it.

The main one I want is an updated Cthulhu by Gaslight.

There is far too much material and development left to do in this current edition and, if sales are good, it would be folly to break all that for a new edition at this stage. Debates about specific rules pale into insignificance when you consider the whole picture. What we want is updated and new material - of which we know this is all in the pipeline anyway. That said, 2021 will be a 40th Anniversary for Call of Cthulhu, so it could be an idea to make a special publication - whatever that would be - to mark the occasion.

This is a question, notably asked on April 1, that could quite authoritatively be answered using emojis.

No, sadly!

My favorite edition happens to be the very first RPG I ever bought - the Games Workshop version of the third edition. It had this cover: It was the art above all that sucked me in, and there was some pretty good full colour plates within. The system was stripped down and simple, although the random character generation led to some very random results. I loved the Demon-based magic, and the general psychedelic tragedy and darkness of the setting. It’s no surprise that I went for the World of Darkness games a few years later, but Stormbringer was doing the same sort of thing earlier. In terms of what I own now, it’s the 5th Edition which is quite classy. The best written version of the setting was with Mongoose’s Elric of Melniboné, although the production standards in art and layout weren’t as good as they should have been. Then again, my 3rd edition fell apart at the seems after a few months, so what matters about production values?

Other companies already do this in abundance. They just don’t put a label on it that says ‘BRP’ because they don’t have to. The 'BRP family’ is already there, as this very website proves.

It's being disingenuous because the purpose behind the document is not to encourage third parties to use an open system, it’s to encourage third parties to not publish things that challenge your IPs.

I think the basic criticism here, in a nutshell, is that this BRP document is being disingenuous. I’m being frank, but that is what the criticism around the net is saying about it. We’ll see if people will take up the opportunity to be 3rd party publishers using the BRP logo or not. My doubts that they will are based on the evidence that we haven’t actually seen any notable product produced for the ‘BRP’ system (by which I mean the Big Gold Book) for years . All the notable supplements that would be nominally ‘compatible’ have gone elsewhere. If you think this document is going to turn all this around, then good luck to you.

And you are right to do so - I’m not trying to burn anybody here on the matter. I’m just questioning whether “Cthulhu” and more especially “Deep Ones” (as ‘Cthulhu' is often synonymous with the game itself, on at least some levels) are Chaosium IP, in the manner that you can enforce them not being used in the context of BRP? Same thing with “Merlin" or "Camelot”, really, which is almost akin to saying you can’t use “Peter, Paul, Matthew and Luke” as terms in a BRP product. Can it actually be legalized in that way?

That circumstance occurred 40 years ago when Lovecraft’s work was not in the public domain. Now it is, and circumstances are different.

Clearly explained and understood. I just don’t know how the legal process would work, really, when Chaosium doesn’t actually own these terms or concepts. The same is true for King Arthur Pendragon. Say, somebody makes a scenario using BRP and includes a reference to Merlin or Camelot in it, would there be legal precedence from the BRP document to stop them?

As explained before, it’s only 'a can of worms’ to those who want to make it so. Indeed, if any can of worms have been opened it was the release of the BRP document that did it. I’m just asking questions and I’m not interested in a flame war about it. If you have a 10’ pole and want to keep your distance then do so, but there is no need to try and shut others down.

It isn’t being a troll to ask a question about the wording of something. By the same token, you could argue that saying ‘just sayin’’ is trollspeak too. Its the way people choose to respond to it that makes it so. The comment I cited was weird as there is already lots of competition for Cthulhu Mythos games and I can’t see how Chaosium or anybody else can claim others cannot use ‘Cthulhu' or 'Deep Ones' in their games, regardless of what system they use (including BRP). Is there a current trademark status on those terms or not? It’s not a question about whether Chaosium is any under obligation to license competition for Call of Cthulhu, it is a legitimate question about whether they are in any legal position to prevent it? Whether it is a trolling question, I dunno. It isn’t intended to be, but again, it depends on how people choose to respond to it.

I just asked a question.

Isn't Lovecraft’s work in the public domain?

I think it goes without saying that a lot of postal orders will be delayed currently anyway. I’m awaiting on one from Aeon Games currently, but I’m in no rush.

So we can look forward to a new game that has a different title, scraps DEX because knights wear armour? You want to shout about rules? Yes, it’s a turnoff. If you wish to cite comments that Greg wanted a new edition, then fair enough. Otherwise, I’m out of this. I’ve seen how RuneQuest and Call of Cthulhu have been changed - not for the better.

So now we are going to have a wonderful series of arguments about rule changes and pet peeves with the game. Let’s even change the name of the game too. Joy of joys. You’ve just changed the goalposts on the Chirurgy rules. Yes, unhealthy characters get Deteriation, but the Chirurgy roll itself merely stops Natural Healing if you fail - as per the original game- as stated. You said DEX isn’t used, but it is used for every athletic movement - Pendragon doesn’t use skills for these things as other versions of BRP does, and depending on game circumstances, Knights don’t always wear armour anyway. Im not going to itemise every other complaint, but just say that this very line of argument is why a new edition, at this stage, is such a turn off.

This looks awesome, but I can’t afford the travel from NZ this year. Maybe next year?

Firstly, you are incorrect about some of those rule changes. A failed Chirurgy roll still means you don’t heal naturally. You basically roll to avoid failure - which stops you getting your healing rate back - as it was. Secondly, whatever changes were made, were made by Greg Stafford for his game. You don’t seem to want to acknowledge this - it’s not an open game system. It’s a lasting legacy to Greg Stafford. DEX is how characters dodge and do anything athletically. There aren’t separate skills for these things - it’s continually useful for determining all sorts of physical movement. Climb, Sneak, Jump - all done with DEX rolls. King Arthur is detailed in the book (“Which Arthur is This”) but the main setting details, including stats for characters are found in The Great Pendragon Campaign or the extra supplement detailing Famous personalities. As stated the start of the campaign begins in the Uther period, but the main part of the campaign centers on the reign of King Arthur. Indeed, the game begins in 485 and Uther does in 495, leaving a timeline that carries on for another 70 years. The core rules don’t include stats for Uther or Merlin either, or anybody else, because it’s focussed on presenting the rules not the full campaign. I am really dismayed, right now that we are here picking at a game that has been almost uniformly praised, an edition that Kickstarters may have only received less than a year ago after waiting for nearly five years for it in some cases, and doesn’t need fixing.