TrippyHippy

Right. The GPC could certainly be worked on an expanded - that was entirely what Greg Stafford said he wanted and was planning for. Leave the core rules alone though.

Not really. The rules of 1st edition are pretty much in tact for what they are now. Greg Stafford, himself, pulled back on the rules towards how he wanted them to be in 5th edition. The changes since then have merely been in presentation. King Arthur, of course, appears in the game but, if you are playing the game as designed through multiple generations then the first generation begins with his father’s era. Just like in Mort D’Arthur, in fact. APP is critically important for wooing and the marrying at a high station - which again is part of the long term campaign of building family legacies. DEX is a lot more useful than what it is in other BRP games, and is used frequently. Regarding the rest of the rules changes you have started listing - this is precisely what I mean. If somebody who isn’t Greg Stafford comes in and starts ‘tweaking’ or altering Greg Stafford’’s work, I will not regard it as Greg’s game. In his commentary he was most proud of Pendragon because he designed it alone. He had 5.3 editions to make the edition he wanted - it’s his game I am interested in. Not yours or anybody else’s.

The game wasn’t dying - and the current edition only came out recently. I would be very skeptical of changes made post-humously, and beyond anything else - what is wrong with the rules right now? Our group has started playing The Great Pendragon Campaign a few months ago. Although the campaign book could certainly be updated/reorganised in several ways, I don’t see how the rules are anything other than perfect. What is it that people propose should be changed.

If the rules get altered one iota, I’m out. It would be disrespectful to Greg Stafford. Updating/uplifting The Great Pendragon Campaign is fine.

Pendragon 5.2 for a French audience is great, and I would hope to be quickly added by Paladin? For an English speaking audience, we don’t need a new Pendragon edition just yet. What we, or at least I want are some new supplements (which are mooted) and a new edition of The Great Pendragon Campaign. Hopefully in a slipcase.

If the central forum for discussing all things Chaosium is unable to verify the truth in an announcement or not, it’s not a very good official announcement is it?

That was supposed to be the point of the current edition.

Well, there may be a bit of irksomeness among fans who had to spend an age waiting for the 5.2 edition, only to see a quick turnaround to a new edition so soon. Beyond this, I sincerely hope they don’t muck around with the rule-set - which was personally designed by Greg Stafford as his self-expressed masterpiece.

I just find the Luck rules problematic for two reasons. Firstly, especially when playing with the Pulp rules, they tend to dominate play. Players are constantly monitoring their Luck pool, and it changes the context of the game. I am saying this after running Masks of Nyalathotep for the last year using the Pulp rules. The game is less skill driven and slightly more metagamey as was pointed out above. Secondly, I felt they were a messy implementation. Luck used to be based on a character’s Power (POW) characteristic, which was cool to me as you could infer that Luck was a latent psychic or supernatural aspect affecting the character. Now, Luck is it’s own stat and has a curious way of defining itself in a non-simulationist way (how can ‘external’ factors be a measurable characteristic?). It’s also somewhat undermined the Magic Points - which are hardly used in the game by comparison. For me, it would have been a lot more satisfying if they had combined Magic Points and the uses of Luck in some way - maybe allowing players to spend Magic points for re-rolls, etc.

Call of Cthulhu sells. BRP doesn’t, at least anything like as much. Simple as that really.

I’m less inclined to buy into this because of the design team announcement, if I’m going to be bluntly honest, but I’ll wait and see what it comes out like.

I think Nephilim remains quite big in France, but the US version struggled a bit after the 1990s finished.

Well, I think it was confusing for the developers when it was being made, because the original idea was for the core rules to be spread through the two books in a manner not dissimilar to D&D. However, playtesters complained so they had to reformat the Keeper's book to being a standalone core rules. As such, you don't need the Player's book, it just gives more player characer options. Indeed, you could buy the Keeper's book, skip the players book and buy Pulp Cthulhu instead, if you were in that way inclined. Anyway, for me, I have got a few issues with some rules (expressed ad nauseam previously), but I'd still prefer this edition a chance to grow - and it's supplemental releases have been generally excellent so far. The things I miss from previous edition's core books, really, is some of the 'fluff' - like the complete Call of Cthulhu short story or some of the classic scenarios. I did appreciate seeing some of those scenarios return to print in the Starter's box set though. But anyway, no new edition planned, and no new edition needed at the moment.

I could list a bunch of changes I would like in any given new edition, but I wouldn't want to see it happen for a good while anyway. New editions are a big deal and hard work for developers. They often cause conflict in the fanbase, and they tend to bring any other book sales to a grinding halt while fans stop investing in older edition books and wait for new edition ones. There are plenty of good potential supplements still to be made for CoC7E - so lets give the game a good full cycle first before we all consider starting over again.

Well the Gods of Glorantha is mooted, and then I expect for some campaign material - probably in the form of some updated classics. It's worth noting that Call of Cthulhu has been out for a while and has had time to rev up and build up it's supplemental support. RuneQuest: Glorantha has only just been fully released (in it's box set form) recently, and you can't rush things if you want quality.

No. I mean, I don't want to be blunt but….

The Great Pendragon does detail some good faerie lore and scenarios. Tales of Magic & Miracles also had some good faerie tales too. Following on, and it's not a Pendragon supplement per se, but there is some excellent material in Ars Magica RPG supplements for various editions, generally entitled "Faerie" or "Faeries" or "Realms of Power: Faerie" respectively. All are very well researched, atmospheric and useful for Pendragon games. Note that the Ars Magica historical period is nominally late 12th century, although Pendragon's Authurian setting is anachronistic anyway, so it won't matter much. I also prefer the faerie realms to be quite dark and weird in my games, akin to the "Chaos realms" of other game settings. As such, there could be some inspiration here too.

Knights can do anything in armour. In the Excalibur movie, they even had sex in full plate armour!

Well, there is the writings of Robert W. Chalmers, who is referenced through Call of Cthulhu too, and to be honest there is enough scope in CoC to do most gothic horror tales. TSR did make a Masque of the Red Death box set for it's Ravenloft, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story, although it had little to do with that story, truth be told. Other games have close influences - like Vampire: The Masquerade being similar to the writings of Anne Rice or Kult being similar to the writings of Clive Barker. Ken Hite's Night's Black Agents directly references Dracula in a campaign too. There isn't many as a result of direct licensing though. As much as anything, I think many horror writers tend to write individual stories rather than trying to create an overarching mythos. It would be quite difficult to create a unified 'Worlds of Stephen King RPG' for example, because the stories he tells aren't really connected in terms of backstory.

I’ve got the physical copy of King Arthur Pendragon, as I backed Aquelarre ages ago, and Prince Valiant and Paladin and the Mort d’Arthur book set. I requested that it could be sent as soon as any shipment made it possible, so it arrived with Prince Valiant. I am thankful for that, although I do note lots of people are still waiting on it.

It's a good sentiment, and I would welcome more traffic here. I'm not sure it's true that most new players to any game actually go looking for it online though. I think the percentage of players who discuss games online is but a fraction of the whole.

I backed Prince Valiant, as much as anything, because I regard it as a seminal RPG that influenced a lot of future game designs and I collect classic games like that. It's also a beautiful book which is well written. I've not played it though. I did intend to this year, when I take a break from running the Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign and playing in a short Shadow of the Demon Lord campaign. So maybe in the next month or two (although I have a list of games I want to run/play in). My analysis of Prince Valiant, certainly compared to King Arthur Pendragon, is that it's more of a one shot, pick up and play game. It has simpler mechanics and is easier to run off the cuff, while I don't think it really sets itself up for long term, multi-generational campaigns like KAP does. The comic strip elements are also novel, and again I haven't really read them, but I like the appeal of running slightly more gonzo, unhistorical Aurthorian adventures in the mode of Conan or He-Man ("By the Power of the Grail!"). I would ask, how do people flip their coins? All at once, or individually one after another? .

Our group have been playing the new edition of Masks of Nyalathotep with the Pulp Cthulhu rules. The campaign has been going pretty well, but compared to my memory of playing through the campaign in earlier times, it seems less deadly. This, one would argue, is the point of beefing up the characters and so on, but to lend a criticism the reduced likelihood of character death and generally increased competance in violent situations does change the tone of the adventures somewhat. Character deaths may be unpallatable to some groups, but it adds a degree of punctuation to the pacing and makes them feel more horrific. When the characters are more competant it feels like a slightly different story you are telling. That is, it becomes more of an action-adventure tale than a horror tale. For Masks, again, some would argue this is entirely appropriate, but yet again, it just feels a little different to previous experiences. The other point I'd note is that the new game rules of 7E feel more 'complete' in terms of what I think the creators were trying to do, when you put them in the full context of the additional rules found in Pulp Cthulhu.

Physical appearance is such a pervasive, and empowering aspect of the real world that it seems curious that APP doesn't have much utility in a modern game. It should really form the basis of most social skills, and have a general influence over any human reaction or encounter. People with a high APP should be able to draw attention, open doors and compel weak-minded fools to do foolish things. Low APP should find the opposite is true, although in a practical sense, having a very average, non-descript APP should have the advantage of carrying out discrete actions without being noticed.

New license?