Ars Mysteriorum

Or at least it feels that way. The BRP system is really the last system I plan to throw my money at. I have stated in another thread in the Gamer's Cavern regarding how deeply impacted I was at the fall of Warhammer RPG's. I actually bought into that line because I thought it was secure. Now I realize that pretty much any old school game is not secure. Without miniatures, successful video game tie-ins (Baldur's Gate I and II were brilliant), computer support, and a successful MMORPG either in the works or out in the world, a game's longevity is severely impaired. Games Workshop's failure to commit to anything outside of direct support for its core miniatures games (which are no doubt extremely lucrative) pretty much seals its fate in the RPG world. And it's an understandable perspective. Plus, it doesn't have an entertainment monster like Hasbro backing it and helping aim it at the vast numbers of kids out there. Without revenue-belching peripherals, many RPG's live with a very short life expectancy. Except for BRP. BRP has been around nearly as long as D&D. Call of Cthulhu manages to keep chugging along thanks to a large number intensely devoted fans. Who are, no offense, aging. Myself included. I no longer care about all the scripted abilities, feats, talents, and doodads I can add to my character sheet. I don't care what level my character is. I don't even care about "winning." I want a story. I want a struggle. Games' systems are not going this direction. Oh, yes there's always White Wolf, but that angsty, uncertain, and dark struggle just doesn't appeal to me. If I want that, I'll go back to middle school and high school (which I'd much rather not). BRP for me, is representative of the optimal game. It provides struggle. It doesn't focus on k3wl p0w3rz. Every action has possible severe consequences. When the dice are rolled, you care more about what the result is and "success" is so much sweeter, while "failure" is much more interesting than in other games I've played. It makes for an approachable narrative drama that is more epic than any game can attest to, in my opinion. And with the death (or deformity) of my favorite RPG's, I can use BRP to homebrew settings the way I remember them being when I played them as a kid. But, how long will BRP last? Do you think it will survive another generation? I think I'm the youngest poster on this board, and I'm 25. Most people my age are more concerned with getting a house or an apartment, making car payments, getting a big TV and stereo system, finding a wife, and tacking down a job. And not playing old-school RPG's. MMORPG's, sure, but not old-school ones (Call of Cthulhu, Talislanta, etc). With a rapidly vanishing marketing niche, what place is there for these old (but fantastic) games? Am I being negative? Am I overreacting? Please give me your thoughts.

I think it's possible that such settings like Star Trek, and yes Star Wars, would require the most minimal of fleshing out. However, for sci-fi like Warhammer 40K: Inquisitor, the flavor, details, and politics of a planet are highly important to communicating the feel of the setting. Warhammer is a very detailed game fluff-wise. I think it depends on the feel of game you're going for.

I was being sarcastic. Personally, I think an even playing field is boring.* *This statement brought to you by the My Opinion Is Like God's Own Word Institute. If you don't agree with it, obviously you're just a heathen.

I know why some people would want to go this route. I understand why some people would use point buy... No wait... actually I don't understand why.

Hmmm. I think it would have been better served had we received the next step in the setting (being Rogue Trader). I think the freedom would have been in that game, as players would by then be used to the setting and more apt to pick careers with backgrounds suitable to the milieu, rather than "Oh my god, I have no idea what does what and why." This is something, unfortunately, that we will never, ever know. And that makes me sad. Playing as an Adeptus Astartes would probably have been the most option laden piece of Warhammer material we would ever see in RPG form. All the different chapters you could come from (hello supplemental material!) and all their different traits and powers. The sky would have really been the limit. I can only begin to imagine just how epic it could have been.

Exactly. On every point. *And you're right. Gritty fantasy is the coolest fantasy. ZOMGLOOKITMAHKEWLPOWAZ is not cool. *This announcement brought to you by the My Opinion Is So Much Better Than Yours Foundation a.k.a. The Best Foundation in the World.

I have a question. I remember "failing" to be a source of fun when I was a kid playing games. We usually pointed and laughed at the player who "failed" and spent the next 30 minutes nearly hysterical with our attempts to reenact just how the person failed. The person who "failed" was always in on this and laughing just as hysterically. Last night, I had a crap game of Warhammer. We had just gotten into the sewers of Middenheim in the first chapter of Ashes of Middenheim in the Paths of the Damned campaign. One player brought the entire game down every time one of her rolls failed. Her Apprentice Wizard gained a few sanity points thanks to whiffed casting rolls, and despite my telling her that she wasn't at all near insane yet, she asserted that she was and ran away abandoning another character, an Initiate of Morr, to his demise. She would also argue with me of where everyone was in combat because it didn't match the image she had in her mind. The GM has the image and shows it to the players, not vice versa. Maybe the player has some control issues, who doesn't? OK, that could just be written off as roleplaying. Understandable. The Halfling Thief in our group did not want the Initiate to die, and so attempted to convince the Apprentice to save him. The Apprentice's player then attempted to dictate another player's actions be telling the Thief's player to have her character slap her Apprentice. I hate this. Allow me to elaborate. Nothing bothers me more than playing a game, and then being pissed off when things don't go the way you envisioned them. Or worse, rather than angry, the player becomes silent and/or mopey. Then telling other players what to do with their characters to conform with a new envisioning you've created to justify the apparently negative things that have happened compounds my dislike. Now, if everyone was laughing and having a good time, I would have no problem with this. But the player was taking the game personally. Rather than killing the Initiate, I had him captured for enslavement and the characters will attempt to rescue them. I hope. The offending player is all for abandoning the entire trip in the sewers, which is central to involving characters in the plot. Ugh. Games are like a democratic government. The consent of the governed is required to make things run smoothly. A game is a bit more fun when everyone agrees to cooperate in order to unfold the story being presented and to have fun. Fun, of course, overrules everything. Being selfish and making an entire game about one player and ruining the fun (not only for yourself, but also the other players) does not contribute to the game. Personally, I have seen this trend in gaming increasing. Everyone is a capable hero, everyone gets what they want. Death is temporary, permanent injuries are non-existent. These things become simply negative rather than interesting things about a character. Sorry if this is kind of a vent, but I also think that today's games are catering more to players getting what they want pretty much all the time. I fail to see how this is fun or interesting.

Well played.

Regarding the first item: No. And no one can. Regarding the second item: I completely agree. I would have liked to have seen a more free-form method of careers, a la WFRP... but I think they wanted to try to draw some of the d20 audience into it. Who knows? But yes, it looks fun. I'm going to be transposing the critical tables for ease of reference. Wee, gory death! I love splattery results.

That reminds me of when I was a curator of a naval museum for the battleship USS South Dakota. Sound like a busy job? Not when it's a museum roughly the size of a living room in the middle of South Dakota. Granted, the history of BB57 is indeed amazing and it's a wonder no one knows anything about it. A nasty twist of political geography would obscure it from the annals of history forever. Sad, but this was good for me. I would take two 300-to-400-page books with me every day. I would finish one and read half of the next one. It was the summer of trilogies, where I would read a trilogy in two days. Not a bad gig. Also, about Lure of the Liche Lord. PK, you were so right. So very, very right. This book is incredible.

Despite my initial scoffery at reading this, I can actually understand it. Still, Unknown Armies manages to breathe new life into the game on a daily basis as though it were still brand new. If you haven't checked out the website (which I'm sure you probably have), please do. As for me, I'm still trying to figure out a way to run Unknown Armies. There's a lot there!

Not inappropriate at all. I think it's especially a good connection to make considering how lucrative making and selling RPG's is at this point. A lot of time and effort goes into development, where either you're paying people to focus on the game, you're spending a lot of time just developing the system without a paycheck coming in, or you're working at another job and developing when you have a moment to spare. Regardless, at the end, the margin of profit is small. The more books you put out, the more profit you can make, but the more time you have to dedicate to it. Hiring a team minimizes the time between releases of support material, but increases the cost. Doing it yourself kills interest in the game due to the time it takes to finish something (whether you're working or not) and the payoff drops off with every release. It's an ugly market, but only when one looks at it as a market. Some people just love the game. They develop products because it's what they love to do. This is why the so-called "indie" RPG market is receiving a lot of attention these days. By and large, independently developed and published RPG's are made by people who love the hobby. Big games like Dungeons & Dragons make all their profit on the integrated peripheral merchandise. Miniatures usable as their own game and usable in the RPG were a brilliant marketing stroke. Development of a system that allows you to manipulate effects in multiple ways was also brilliant from a marketing angle. But when everything's said and done, you end up with a creature that is not an RPG, but a tactical wargame with overtures at being an RPG. If Games Workshop had integrated their miniatures game into the RPG more directly to supplement their main line rather than contend with it, the RPG would have probably flourished... but at what cost? I suppose I can be happy with what I have of Black Industries (which at this point is every book thus far). It's still sad to see something wrought with the passion characteristic of games of old disappear.

Ta-da! I'm exactly 25. Oh wait... technically that's over 25, isn't it? Damn.

Heh... I'm going to see if I can work out something with my RPG supplier where he'll reserve me a copy. He sells it cheaper and ships with great care

I'm a huge dork and spent a truck-ton of cash. Now I am the owner of every Warhammer FRP book in print. Oddly, this makes me hope beyond hope that they really are dead... I will feel very cheated that I dropped this wad of cash if it isn't.

And now I have the song in my head. Thanks for that.

Nobilis. Hands DOWN. Here is a game where you are literally god-like. And you can create your own universe as your hometown. Do you like space opera? Are you the Power of Destruction? Guess what! You are Darth Vader, cloaked in darkness with all the power of the Dark Side of the Force in your hands. None of that Midichlorian bullcrap. You are a Dark Lord in all his Evil Majesty. You're bearing down on Yavin 4 and this time, there's not going to be a Luke Skywalker. That's right. Those rebel bastards are really gonna get it. BOOM! Their impending screams of fear and agony make you drunk with power. You put your finger on the shiny red button labeled "Kill Rebel Scum" as Moff Tarkin's skeletal face pulls into an expression you can only interpret as glee. You begin to push the button. Then you feel a tingle in your spine like someone just shanked you from behind with a knife made of ice. The very concept of Destruction is being undermined in reality and is beginning to exist less. Well, crap. So you scream a curse word, get in your TIE fighter and go back to the crappy real world to find out nasty fey-like beings (called Excrucians) from outside "reality" have conspired a plot. They have managed to start making the idea of Destruction exist a little less by turning the War in Iraq into Entertainment rather than Destruction through some terribly clever means I do not have the capability of mapping out here while I'm at work. So you force choke a few of the right people and twist the media coverage into showing the horrors of destruction and death. There we go. That's not so bad. But then, in order to really screw over the Excrucians you have to do a ritual. Involving flowers. A very detailed ritual with very detailed flowers. Seriously. There's a whole appendix dealing with it. Flowers...?! FLOWERS?! DARTH F$#%ING VADER DOES NOT USE FLOWERS! So when Darth Vader gets done fondling some pansies, he returns to his happy little universe he arrives just in time to see a squad of X-Wings and the Millenium Falcon gunning for the Death Star. Well, crap again. This is game is the very idealization of what an RPG is. Masterfully crafted and beautifully written. And I absolutely REFUSE to play it. Nor will I part with it. Naturally, it sits on my shelf in a place of respect, but out of the way from my other, more used books. It's the greatest game I will never play.

I got Paths of the Damned mostly to help me get out of the D&Dist idea of gaming and to help me get a grip on the setting in play. I don't regret it. Not because the adventure is great... it's actually kind of average... if I want great I have a beautiful copy of Masks of Nyarlathotep No... I don't regret it because my players are amazing. My wife is playing a halfling thief and she is probably the best player I've ever gotten to game with. It could be because we have no compunctions against acting like complete dorks, which is very, very helpful in a gaming setting. I actually encourage my players to invent menial NPC's to interact with and I completely play along. It usually ends up not being so menial, as my wife's character's rant on the existence of flying squirrels (which included the presentation of etchings) at The Scholars ended up with her and her comrades being sponsored and quartered to further educate an interested, erudite noble. Yay for free housing. It took us a whole night to get through three pages of the adventure. Which is fantastic, considering it wasn't because of players cracking wise or wasting time with ridiculous plans. It was because they were really playing their characters. I've never been happier as a GM.

Ah... the three I don't want are: Renegade Crowns, Lure of the Liche Lord, and Karak Azgal. I'm just not that interested... I mean, if I had more money I would buy them, but I am not, by any means, rich. So those three didn't make the cut.

Yup. I just managed to get every WFRP book out except the three I don't want, pretty much rounding out my collection. I am a slave to Warhammer, even in its death throes. Suddenly I feel like I'm the one riding the nuke in Dr. Strangelove.

How about: The Now of Suck. Atgxtg's is a sufficient alternative as well.

Atgxtg is a Cylon!:shocked:

Your reasoning seems sound in the capitalistic sense. In the gaming sense, it's a huge, stinking, steaming pile of crap-filled crap. I really loved the game. A lot. I went from not knowing a thing about the setting to being able to recite a brief history of the Storm of Chaos off the cuff in a matter of months. I really was itching to see what BI would have done with the Space Marines centered game. Their god-like power levels would have been an interesting incarnation of the system... Hmmm... I wonder how far I could push the BRP system... And yes, their novels are heaped in the aforementioned pile of fecal matter in my opinion as well. Seriously. What does it take to get intelligent prose these days?

I'm currently running a small group through Warhammer FRP's Paths of the Damned campaign. Here's the lineup of characters: Arabella "Bella" Tabbeck: Human Apprentice Wizardess who aspires to become a Druid of the Jade Order, or the Order of Life, and help those in need. She is no stranger to combat and has used her quarter staff to great effect against mutants by forcing them off a bridge to be impaled on the rocks below. Pippriadoc "Pippit" Knickerbocker: An incredibly charming Halfling Thief who carries about etchings of flying squirrels as proof of their existence. Pippit's knowledge on the topic of flying squirrels has won him sponsorship and quartering to educate a noble in the biological mechanics of how exactly a squirrel can fly. His famous maneuver is hunching down behind a mutant so Nicodemus could more easily push his foe over the edge of a bridge to join his comrade in death. Nicodemus Falkenheim: An initiate of Morr, God of the Dead, from Sylvania who is training to become a warrior-priest, join the Black Guard, and strike back at the undead which lord over his homeland. He wields two blades and intimidates his opponents by chanting their death rites as he engages them. They're about to enter the sewers beneath the city of Middenheim and face off against legendary horrors that are not supposed to exist to solve a case of murder.

My good friend managed to get me a copy of Dark Heresy. Bless the bugger.