Ars Mysteriorum

I tend to like creating reference sheets for potential players... I'll see if I can wrap my head around recreating the charts and whatnot as well as a quick reference for combat, skills, and magic.

I like it just the way it is

Dustin resolved my issue quickly and is sending me out a replacement!

My thanks to the Chaosium team for being so gosh-darned awesome!

This is ominous. However, Chaosium's books usually have great bindings, so fingers crossed it's an isolated case.

I think it's isolated. Any company worth its salt gets blank sample copies of books to make sure it's up to industry standards with a page pull of 3lbs per square inch.

And yeah, Skunkape, hardcover books are actually more fragile in some ways. They are built to withstand the test of time, but they're complexity makes for a greater potential of something being flawed in printing. People aren't aware that it is only a thin layer of glue and a sheet of paper that holds the signatures and binding to the cover. The spine itself is not glued to the cover at all. This leads to me cringing when people lift a book up by one of its covers without supporting the spine.

These days most "hardcovers" are casebound, meaning they're just paperbacks glued to a hardcover. These are even less durable than traditional hardcover, sewn books.

Books are tremendously fragile things. That people think they're tough because they're heavy is a bit of a misconception... unless it's a Talislanta 4th Edition book by Shooting Iron Press. Those suckers are built for resilience.

Sorry, I'm a bit of a book nut... It may be that what I see as a problem most people would miss until a few months later (or even years, with some luck) a book comes undone.

EDIT: One of my favorite sewn books is actually H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands by Chaosium. That sucker is stitched inside and out using a technique I've never seen used elsewhere. You can actually see the stitching connecting to the bindings on the bottom and top of the books, making for a very sturdy book capable of laying flat (though in some areas the pages lay in an interesting way). It's a very unique book.

I don't have a copy to check, but I'd send an email to Chaosium about it.

It may be a glitchy copy, in which case they'll likely straighten you out and will need to be in touch with their printers.

This only is so sorely disappointing because of how wonderful the material is inside the book.

I've just e-mailed Dustin at Chaosium to see what's up.

OK, this is weird. The glue on the inside cover is about the consistency of stiff taffy. It comes undone right before my eyes.

This is more than extremely perturbing.

On the inside front cover, I can see the glue which attaches the title page to the cover... and it appears to be peeling?

Has anyone else experienced this?

I have already done one. But in Italian. Are non-English articles allowed here, Trif?

And yes, I am too lazy to translate it.

Ah, I meant on RPG.net!

Thanks Rosen!

So... who wants to write a full review of this beast?

Wow. I've been reading my copy since I received it this afternoon.

I find it to be well compiled, modified, and simplified with the concept of creating one's own setting evident in every chapter.

Reading the entries in the pages, the flavor of the system filled me with nostalgia of all the old homebrew settings I made with my buddies when we were kids. Now I can have them again with a system that facilitates play much in the same way we modified AD&D 2e, but crafted to suit the genre.

I have shifted all of my books around on my shelf to accommodate this book a place of honor on my "top shelf" between my Call of Cthulhu books and Unknown Armies 2nd Ed.

For spiking my Nostalg-o-Meter and giving me usable, highly accessible tools to recreate the settings that only existed in my imagination as a junior high student, I've given this book a 10.

Huzzah! My copy arrived. Good times ahead.:thumb:

Really?! I hope mine comes too today!

I've worked in creating fantasy and science fiction settings, and I'll say unequivocally that creating sci-fi worlds is much, much harder.

Fantasy worlds inhabit a strange space in between history and myth, and are well-supported. Genre tropes such as magic, enchanted weapons, traditional fantasy races, etc. are all so commonly understood that usually one has to work hard to explain why things aren't the default (i.e., Tolkienesque fantasy).

You really only need to see a guy with some sort of leather/metal armor, a sword in his hand, and a wizard next to him and you've pretty much got a generic fantasy universe in a nutshell.

Science-fiction, on the other hand, has so many tones, sub-genres, and tropes that it requires a huge amount more explanation and buy-in from the reader. Is it trans-humanist? Cyberpunk? Utopian? Dystopian? Far-future? Space opera? Hard sci-fi? etc.

I think the difficulty of selling science fiction settings to the audience is why there have been relatively few successful sci-fi RPGs that aren't based on licensed properties.

Art's effect is mostly a neutral or negative one. Bad art will sink a game, while good art can't save it if the prose and creative vision aren't there.

After Traveller, Fading Suns, Battletech, Spacemaster, and Alternity, I draw a blank trying to think of successful science fiction RPGs. And even the latter of those didn't do that well. Aeon/Trinity? Hard Nova? Space Opera? Shatterzone?

My name is Ars Mysteriorum, and I approve of the above statement.

Brought to you by the Council for Advancement From Genre Cliches.

Fantasy Game Consists of:

Game Creator: WIZARDS! SWORDS!

Bulk of Players: YAY!!!

A Few Others, as well as some of the Bulk of Players: FANTASY HEARTBREAKER!

Sci-Fi Game Consists of:

GC: LASERS! SPACESHIPS!

BoP: Dude, lasers are lame.

GC: Oh... RAIL GUNS!

BoP: We have rail guns, NOW. They're kinda lame.

GC: Hmmm... rocket guns!

BoP: Had them years ago. They didn't work at short range.

GC: How about bullets that explode when they hit a target?

BoP: Bolters in Warhammer 40,000.

GC: Fine LIGHT SPEED!

BoP: Not really feasible due to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, how about using a jump drive or wormholes instead?

GC: Aha! SPACE WIZARDS! LASER SWORDS!

BoP: That's Star Wars.

GC: FINE! A bunch of stupid monkeys take over the planet.

BoP: Planet of the Apes.

GC: *HRGRK*... OK. How about a setting where Androids have rebelled against humanity and now there's a huge war between the two?

BoP: Dune, and, subsequently, Warhammer 40,000, the Matrix, and Blade Runner to a lesser extent.

GC: Dark, evil entities at the edges of space threaten the sanity of mankind!

BoP: That's Call of Cthulhu, and there's a monograph called Cthulhu Rising and another game called Cthulhu Tech.

GC: WIZARDS! SWORDS! IN A MODERN SETTING!

BoP: LAME!

And it goes on.

What's funniest about this whole thing is that Fantasy is considered "original" and maintains popularity provided it adheres to Tolkienesque races. If it gets too original, it eventually fades to a very, very small niche.

But when a creator makes sci-fi, it seems 100% originality is expected, as well as adherence to at least some science. The best one can do is combine ingredients that haven't been around for a while and look "new" enough to appease the public, but not so "new" that players can't relate to it.

This, of course, is coming from my limited perceptions on the gaming market, and thus I may be full of large, wet bags of flaming poo.

I feel obliged to make the following statement:

Holy CRAP NUGS, man!

I mean... cuz you... and it...

HOLY CRAP NUGS!

Done. I was the first one to leave a comment :cool:

Hehe. Sensibly, I'm going to wait until I have it before I comment

I just put the recently released BRP entry up on RPG.net's index, along with the new cover.

RPGnet RPG Game Index: Basic RolePlaying

Show your love. If you own it, go on up there and rate it!

Oops.

Thanks for pointing that out. It's been a long time since I preordered. I don't remember what I specified, and it doesn't say on the invoice (including clicking "View" on my online account history), but I guess that's my problem...

Move along, nothing to see here.

Nothing except ANOTHER TOTALLY STOKED BRP PLAYER!

*snip*Anyone can write*snip*

Have you SEEN the internet!?

Right, I read that earlier. I see that they use USPS and UPS, but it doesn't say what method they use. Not even on the "detailed invoice" - it just has an entry for "Shipping Method: Shipping." Priority? Media Mail? Parcel Post? It's not specified. I guess I'll pester them myself... :ohwell:

You're required to specify shipping when you order your product, at which point there are multiple selections for UPS and USPS methods of shipping.

I got my shipping notification yesterday afternoon. Does anybody know what shipping method Chaosium generally uses? I'd ask them directly, but I don't want to bother them with such a trivial question.

I think you can find your answer here:

Chaosium Inc.

Specifically:

"Chaosium can ship your order to any place in the world reachable by the U.S. Postal Service or by UPS. The following paragraphs describe our product warranty and return policies. By using this site, you consent to the following terms."

I'm shipped here as well! Even with a message from George!

Have any of the folks who pre-ordered received notice that their book has shipped?

Chaosium.com: News - Basic Roleplaying Now Shipping

WOOO HOOO!!!

I is interested.

WOO HOO! It's in Sacramento!

New George the trucker update!

Chaosium.com: News - BRP Rollin

Day Six is up!