Ars Mysteriorum

Try this

Dark Heresy

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar!

Though, I have to say about Dark Heresy... If you thought you were underpowered in Warhammer, hoo boy.

With 4 advances at most, we're looking at a top end of 60% for any skill. Either the GM is going to get modifier happy to ease players into the low-powered system or the players will be mature enough to deal with the fact that most people do in fact miss in combat.

I have players that gripe about not hitting anything as it is...

I'm guessing chainmail bikinis. Because of the history.

Great sanctified cow nips, why didn't I think of that?

Where did you hear about a Third Edition?

Edit: Ohhhhhh. You mean Fading Suns. I thought you meant Warhammer FRP.

Whew! You had me sweating for a moment.

The Call of Cthulhu rulebook.

Seconded.

Ooo. Red XIII. That brings back memories.

Oooo. Cthulhu Tech? With rules I like?

I would be interested in this.

Unfortunately no, not really.

They have a sad tendency to suddenly give up on games which do not sell

"good enough". However, Warhammer will doubtless sell well, and therefore

should be "out of danger".

Hmmm. For older fans this sounds like deja vu.

FFG does create quality products. However, I'm concerned because they have put time and effort with the slightly vaporware-ish Anima RPG that has marketing elements of D&D. If that anime-based piece of crap ever gets off the ground, I fear for Warhammer's well-being taking into account its lack of lucrative peripheral support. Anima looks highly marketable and would appeal much more to a younger crowd of gamers than Warhammer ever would, as well as being better suited to FFG's style of marketing.

Any RPG that is not D&D or WoD is never "out of danger" anymore. This brings up a shadow of a possible conundrum. Will future RPG releases simply act as supplemental for card games, video games, and miniatures? RPG's are most definitely not where the money is at. I see this especially in the case of D&D. They are streamlining RPG rules likely to allow the miniatures game to run more parallel to the rules as a whole. With simpler, more similar rules, it's likely many D&D players will see no reason not to use their miniatures for a skirmish (especially in the all-to-frequent case of not having all the players show up). Sales for miniatures, especially with more integrated support from the RPG itself, will very likely increase tremendously as a result.

Warhammer, because of Games Workshop's deep focus on its overpriced, complex miniatures line and little else, is simply too much of a stubborn beast to achieve similar results as D&D. Because of this, Warhammer RPGs will always be in danger. If the Warhammer MMO manages to really get off the ground (and I think it will), I wonder how this will impact the RPG. More security I hope.

I guess we'll see.

By the way, Arkham Horror RULES.

Are ya happy now?

Just a touch.

Fantasy Flight Games has been granted the rights to Warhammer Fantasy and 40,000 Board Games, CCG, and RPG products!

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/PDF/pr-2008-GamesWorkshop-Sabertooth.pdf

LONG LIVE THE WARHAMMER!

Hi Ars M. I had to comment....

[big, big, big, bigbigbigbigbigbigbig, BIG comment]

It's always interesting to hear another person's take on the world of gaming. I agree that the internet presents a massive potential for expanding into a network of like-minded gamers. I'm just a big, stubborn child and like rolling my expensive, collector's edition Call of Cthulhu dice and the interesting person-to-person contact that playing at a physical table offers.

I think BRP will be a culmination of my existence as a gamer. May we all glory in its awesome old-schoolishness.

Recently I've decided to stop being a d20 basher and see how D&D 4th Edition pans out. They punted gnomes out of the PHB (when I was in high school my friend and I actually thought of creating a class of warriors called "Gnome Punters," with a partner gnome-only class called "Gnome Projectile"), which I agree with. I hated gnomes. A lot.

Still... the prospect of ponying up for all new supplements is a bit daunting...

We'll just have to see.

But he spoiled the symmetry ...

Sorry about that...

Ahhhh Fading Suns, which has finally risen from the ashes, and is now fully supported once again. I love that setting.

I've heard the system sucks a nice big piece of donkey butt though.

Rust, we're talking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. The system is reminiscent of BRP, and while it is most certainly relatively new, I would argue that the fashion of play is more in line with "old-school" style gaming than any other game that has come out recently. I don't count Mongoose games because... well... I just don't like them

Not would I have put Warhammer in the "story driven" section of RPGs.

*Gasp of shock, horror, disbelief and other extreme and dramatic descriptors!*

Good to know that I am not alone. I find WoW about as fascinating and en-

tertaining as watching paint drying or reading phone books.

It was very interesting to read your posting, because over here I usually hear

the opposite complaint: Modern RPGs have too much setting and not enough

"action", young players love "narrativism" instead of going out and killing mon-

sters, the good old days of "powergaming" are gone, and so on.

Perhaps you had just a streak of extremely bad luck with the players you met ?

I'm moving to Germany now.

And yes. Very, very bad luck. South Dakota is not known for its hardcore RPG gamers. It's known for it's hardcore weird-stuff-happening in the middle of nowhere.

As a guy who remembers that he was not too happy in the late 1970's and early 1980's, it is hard for me to get into the frame of mind to appreciate this thread.

Yes, the old way of doing things is dying, but a more dispersed system based mostly on PDF's is not exactly a disaster. PDF's are cheaper. If a game becomes popular enough, low cost print on demand makes small print runs attractive as a sideline business, so someone will print copies on demand. From a strictly consumer viewpoint, it is hard to bemoan the replacement of TSR and Gary Gygax by a combination of WoW and a lot of internet based independent gaming outfits.

While we are nostalgic for the old days when we were first discovering RuneQuest, the reality is that there was a lot of ill considered divination to the Great God Gygax in the old days. RQ I was impressive for its day, but it is now apparent that it was not that good.

WoW is a pretty good substitute for hack and slash D&D or Runequest. The graphics are good, and if the social interaction is not impressive, that's not a big change from the old days. MMORG's may yet evolve to offer a richer experience.

Let's not kid ourselves. As the Buddha taught, everything is impermanent. It is easy to remember the old days as better than they were. We were in good physical shape, experiencing less back and foot pain than we do now. If we went to an all night game at a convention, we would recover by Monday. We were making exciting new mistakes {at least they were new to us} instead of boring old mistakes. But we've learned something, the games are better, and things are slowly getting better.

Soon enough, we will be dead, and some guy will be bemoaning how things were better in the good old days of World of Warcraft. Let's get on with life.

Allow me to elucidate with my perspective.

I never saw the 70's, I was born in 1982. I started playing RPG's in the 90's in the age of White Wolf's birth and AD&D 2E. I only was exposed to the newest of games (The new White Wolf games, D&D 3E, Exalted, etc) until a few years ago. In 2006 I started buying older games. I was tired of D&D 3E limited expression. I disliked the new White Wolf, not for its nice core (which is simple, very playable, and rather clever... save for the morality system), but for its supplement games (Vampire, Werewolf, Mage, etc.), which required every player to own and know the books in order to reduce the amount of time spent passing around a book for reference. Mage especially, the spell system and list, while very evocative of the setting, is terribly cumbersome.

Exalted. I refuse to even begin to talk about Exalted, lest I be placed on blood pressure medicine by the age of 26.

My friends that I grew up gaming with love MMORPG's and are in their mid-twenties. They think they're cool. I don't. I saw one and was perplexed as to how it was a game (which are fun). Most of the people I noticed speaking via the in-game voice-chat were unkind and criticized each other harshly. It sounded more like a childish pissing contest (forgive my language, but it simply did) than a game. I grew tired of attempting to play traditional RPG's with these friends due to their sheerly tactical perspective of gaming (which included reference to their characters as "toons"). This was no longer roleplaying at all, but rather a waste of time. I have no idea why I worried about planning a story any longer, simply giving them masses of inexplicably present monsters followed by powerful weapons, armor, and gold seemed all they cared about. It was sad for me, because I had had my best and most imaginative games with these same friends in my youth.

I think today's gamers no longer care about stories. My experiences have only shown me that the gaming trend is best served by thinking in terms of raw, blunt, clumsy power. Get more powerful to fight bigger monsters to get more powerful to fight bigger monsters to get more powerful, etc. Ugh. It's a capitalist game with capitalism as its main gameplay feature. I find that disgusting.

I want more than that. I want a story that's immersive and helps me care more about what's going on in my character's environment. Games from yesteryear have given me that with their simpler systems and deep settings. You can see the passion the writers felt, and luckily, their writing ability was of a caliber capable of expressing the idea eloquently (for the most part).

World of Warcraft, according to what I would perceive as the average demographic, is the game I am supposed to look back upon and reminisce about. It's simply not. I find it to be a trite game with no depth and no personality. This upsets me because I love this hobby and am now feeling a bit abandoned by it. In my opinion, the hobby is now pandering to a new kind of player that wants more control over their power gaining than their MMORPG of choice allows, which has led to new games that concentrate more on powers, feats, magic, psionics, Basic Hitstuffery, Focused Killdeathery, and Improved Advanced Grandmaster Swordyclangsmashery.

Strangely, I find this does not impair my ability to get on with life.

Stuff about kids.

I can say I would rather have high schoolers and university targeted for this kind of game. Mostly because I have to play it too and kids like the k3wl p0w4z I hate.

I'm 20 years old. I GM for a group ranging in age from 19 to 22. All of them have become fervent fans of BRP, and some have even begun proselytizing for the system.

Then the Seven Gods of Gaming (D'i Twunn Ti, D'i T'Wellvv, D'i Pur Sen Taj, D'i Taenn, D'i Ayt, D'i Sykks, and D'i Fo Irr) have provided a generous bounty in a new youthful and splendiferous generation of gamers, blessed with wisdom beyond their years.

May the power of the Critical Success be with you all.

Not really. Go take a lotk at the info on armor penetration formulas. Or all the ballistics formulas and data out there.

Its a very complex subject. It all comes down to what degree of detail you want, and how much error you can accept and where.

I did up the table to try and fit the data points given in BRP and to make something compatible with it.

Anything with more detail accuracy would require throwing out the data in the book. Thats okay for something down the road, but I'd like to at least wait for the book to come out and read it before doing any sort of rewrite.

I was just inserting my insipid little joke to help lighten the 12 ton topic... I meant zero offense!

I worked my magic, but I'm a little low on POW right now. So don't expect to see results for about two years.

Two years?! I said Necromancy. Not Necroeunuchcy. Pah! Two years indeed.

Hey, just look at BRP. For all practical purposes this line has been dead for decades. CoC wasn't doing to bad, but RQ, various editions of SB, Pendragon, and all the other games were long gone. A good chunk of the people here are RQ players and that game was dead a long time. Some would say it still is.

Now all are back in some form. I'll admit that I don't like the MRQ line, but it does keep the name on the shelf and thus alive. Pendragon still rocks.

Someday I'd like to try Runequest. I'm still trying to wrap my head around Man-Ducks with Death Magic... but I get your point.

You still in shell shock. We all go through it the first time we see an RPG that we like go up in a puff of smoke. I felt a pang a few months back when FASA went belly up, and I haven't bought anything from them since their Star Trek line died off in the 80s. You'll get used to it. You still have what you have bought already, and can still run to you heart's content.

Of COURSE I'm in shock. I was betrayed by two games in short order (D&D 4e and Warhammer). As far as the books I have... well... that would be every single book Black Industries has printed to this date. Because I'm bat$h!t crazy and I convinced myself for about 1 week that money is candy that also grows freely from cracks in the pavement and couch cushions.

Yeah... I was surprised FASA bit it. I was also suprised how quickly their licenses went back into distribution. I wish GW wasn't so snare-drummed about Warhammer...

As far as running it, you're right. Bit I don't run games often. I READ them far more than I ever run them. Game books for me are superior to novels, and I eat them up with a spoon. No more happy books makes me Mr. Killstabbydeathkins.

I would just like to state, as one firmly grounded in reality (I couldn't type that with a straight face), that this thread is likely being monitored by the government in order to create new super-weapons.

The level of detail regarding firearms is going far beyond what the thinktanks the government gathered to design M16's before Vietnam could begin to even fathom.

Guns, Bullets, and thick metal plating everywhere is/are rejoicing at the sheer amount of attention they are receiving in this thread. They're now forming a political party.

Oh crap. Did you hear that?

You people have fondled the concept of Arms and Armor so much that they've manifested as a Chaos Gods in the Warp. Great job, guys. Way to go.

Begin Childish Whinery:

Fine. RPG's coming back from the dead? Would a Developer-Necromancer be kind enough to throw some Ju-ju powder at Warhammer? Even in zombie form, I can still love it. That's love man. Necrobibliophilia. Dead Book Love, baby.

And while they're at it, how about making a supreme system for Talislanta? Something capable of emulating the RIDICULOUS number of races and career-types that populate this game with minimal headache. And monsters in ONE section. And get rid of that stupid add/subtract modifier crap. It makes me cross-eyed.

End Childish Whinery.

You have a point. I just had been spoiled by the idea of constant supplement support by playing D&D. Even that game betrayed me with it's 4th Edition shenanigans. Sigh.

Yes, Atgxtg, but I'm young and, therefore, so very stupid. I have just now realized the tenuous grip on existence my hobby has after I got sick of mainstream MMORPG/Emo RPG's.

All the good ones go out of print so fast.

And that SUCKS.

For some reason, in my weird little brain, Mongoose Games just doesn't count.

Mostly because it seems they rehash old games in new, shiny packaging. Mostly it seems to be shiny to hide the many printing and system errors they make.

But that's probably just me.

They're probably out doing youngstery things like getting drunk, chasing girls and playing videogames.

It's only old farts who need to log onto forums to escape their drab and dreary lives.

What about us really eccentric, young folk? I proudly represent 2.5 percent of this community (as of this post, anyways).

EDIT: Ah, there may be hope yet. There are some people actually in their TEENS that still play BRP. Woo!