Baragei

I think BRP is very newbie-friendly. Pros: easy to grasp and easy to use percentile system, default powerlevel makes characters act like characters, low on metagaming and "uhm.."-situations, and a wealth of background material to use/steal. Cons: first impression (character generation) is more than a bit more involved and amorphous than many competitors, doesn't really do 4colour and high heroics out of the box and, most pressing, it isn't D&D.

I think the defensive only-clause is an attempt at the dreaded game balance. I don't see that many situations where this rule would make things that much more balanced to begin with, and even in those situations I don't have much of a problem with letting characters who have spent the skill points and XP to be bad ass act appropriately.. I can agree with your rambling. Until one of my friends rolls up a fetish-laden mystic with a greatsword, then I might think differently. But I'll deal with that when I have to.

By RAW, these extra APs are only available for defensive actions..I think? And you can make any number of defensive, reactive actions, at any time, as long as you have APs to burn. I wouldn't restrict these bonus APs to be used only when you've run out of normal APs, it doesn't make much sense. I'd treat an extra AP as an extra AP to be used as seen fit, but that's just me

I'm not a huge Trek-fan, but if Modiphius could just get themselves a Mythras Gateway-licence, that would be great...

Well, I finally got my hands on M-Space. What is it with the swedes and sweet design? And from a preliminary reading, it seems like money very well spent. All my thumbs up!

I like the concept of combat styles. There are however two things that irk me about them; If I'm trained in one style and decide to learn another one, what percentage does the new style start at? Base percentage? I'd be much better off eating the penalty for using my primary style with an unfamiliar weapon. A higher percentage, like half the primary style? It sounds better, but what does my skill with axe and shield got to do with my starting percentage with spear and mounted archery? And if I start at anything other than base percentage, what is the point of wasting points during chargen on separate combat styles? The other irky thing is the inclusion of a separate Unarmed Combat-skill. Going from fighting with your fists to picking up an improvised weapon like a knife and using that instead is fairly non-trivial. And if you can use a knife, you can use a dagger, and you can pick up a buckler as well at no more than a Hard penalty. Oh look, a shiny shortsword... There is also the vast number of historical treatises and schools of combat that include unarmed combat as part of their basic curriculum. But apart from that; all my thumbs up for combat styles.

I take no credit, but I am listed in the credits. I have a RQ6-hack in the download-section here as well if you're extra interested.

Morrowind presented an amazing setting and managed to tell its stories equally well. By modern standards the actual gameplay might occasionally be a bit dodgy, but Morrowind still - more than a decade after its release - stands as a benchmark for CRPGs. Just because that's my opinion doesn't make it wrong. Michael Kirkbride (one of the better known writers for TES) has mentioned trying to convince Ken Rolston to cobble together a proper pen n'paper-version of Morrowind, alas to no avail. Now Ken is "retired" and back with his tabletop buddies, so maybe...? edit: Obligatory mention of The Unofficial Elder Scrolls RPG

Yes and no. To take an example; a Sorcerer would rely on his Invoke-skill to effectively cast his magic missile, and rely on the same skill to determine the damage inflicted. But without relying on his Shaping-skill, he wouldn't be able to cast it as a missile at all - he would have to add range. He could add more targets, combine it with a spell zapping the targets' strenght, give it oomph to punch through magical shielding etc. With Mysticism, the main casting-skill also determines basic strenght of your spell, while your second skill determines how much magic you can internalize before it stops. There are differences that make the magical disciplines feel different mechanically as well as thematically.

Magic is skill-based as everything else, so you could have an effective 37% chance to cast your magic missile. The five different types of magic are Folk Magic - cantrips and folk charms. Low-powered and often utalitarian in nature, but depending on circumstances can be very useful. Mysticism - spells and rituals of self-improvement and empowerment. Mysticism can be used to create Kung-Fu monks, seers and certain individuals in a galaxy far fra away.. Sorcery - the skill of bending reality to your will. Theism - powerful spells granted to you from a divine (or infernal) power. And lastly Animism - interacting with the world of spirits, bargaining for knowledge and power, and binding spirits to tap their abilities. With the exeption of Folk Magic, all the magic arts are reliant on two skills - one skill representing your understanding of the discipline and how to effectively cast your magic, and one for how much oomph you can put into a spell. Each magical discipline will have its own selection of available spells (basicly a Magic Style), these spells are all cast with the same skill, and learned by expending XP-checks (and probably some time studying). If you want to learn other spells, you have to learn a new discipline. Casting a powerful spell is often an extended action over several turns - the more oomph the longer it takes to cast.

Fair enough. For what it's worth, I agree with your stance here. Your resources will probably be better spent focusing on self-contained games. Still, I don't want to see the BGB go the way of the dodo, because it is an excellent core book. So I hope you keep it around.

As of now, you still can. And I assume the pdf will be available or the foreseeable future. But the question being raised here is not if whether the BGB is available for the general public or not, but what is going to happen with it. Will it get a reprint? Are you going to pare it down into an "essential" BGB? Are you going to scrap it and put out a new one based on the latest CoC/RQ? Are you not going to do anything, and just keep the basic framework and put out separate games? I realize that these are questions that you may not have answers to yet, but that's the discussion here.

"Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space!"

With the exception of MRQII, this has been the case of every RuneQuest, no? But everyone loves RQ2, RQ6 is the one currently in-print, and everyone is up in arms over RQ47. I don't think this discussion is about what's going to be printed in big letters on the cover, it is about making the game accessible for people who don't have an MD in wonky RPG-history. Starting to mess around with the fairly standarized way numbers work is not the best way to increase accessabilty and interest.

I have always referred to this project as RQ7. If they insist, I'll give and start referring to it as RQ47.

I know what it is! Something else I have to get my paws on.

From the latest Ab Chaosium: "A Company worth saving We want to close this brief review with a word of thanks to the many many people who supported us all along the way. As we heard numerous times, it could have been far easier to just turn off the lights and call it a day, but Chaosium is a company worth saving. There is a lot of work left to do, and the kind words of encouragement and support truly helped us bring a little order into this wonderfully chaotic and iconic company. For so many things, we thank you. And I personally can’t begin to thank all those involved in allowing me to have the job of lifetime, Rick" I might have been (and probably will still be) harsh at times, but thank YOU for keeping Chaosium's lights on. That is all. I feel it needed to be said.

Two years ago we had less than 10. So there's that.. Either way, comparing to RQ to D&D isn't really fair. For many people, roleplaying is synonomous with D&D. It is owned by Hasbro - it being pretty much the only proper company with a horse in this race. And D&D as a game is plagued with edition-warring, because that game has an actual metric ton of editions, clones and spin-offs, so going by your argument there, no one should be playing D&D. When it comes to the reddit-community, RQ is fairly respected. It regularly comes up as an alternative to anything else, and even people who don't like the d100-system grudgingly acknowledges its qualities. It's just that it isn't as pop as D&D - it doesn't have the visibility, availabilty and massive inertia of the big dog. I could see RQ6 starting to gain momentum as a quality game - whether new Chaosium manages to kill that off remains to be seen, but I suspect the majority of their prospective customers don't hang out on reddit. Still hurts, though..

You're saying that the combat mechanic in a fight between two moderately+ skilled opponents still consists of "roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, roll, critical roll, done!", as in core BRP? I hope some effort is spent on expanding one's non-magical options in that regard.

Chances are that you won't see me there, the investment and travel time across the pond are a wee bit on the heavy side. And by all means, having RQ6/Mythras exposed like this is great. I just hope Chaosium, for their own sake, has a leaflet ready for the wut's of people coming from your games to their stand.

It is interesting to note that all the events are RQ6 - which will, at the time of playing, no longer be the official RuneQuest. Weren't Chaosium planning on showing off the new RQ7 at GenCon?

How come the swedes are able to pull this off again and again; small companies produce small games for a small group of customers (in swedish, a language spoken by 9-10 million people on a good day), and manage to blow international publishers out of the water with concepts and looks? Is there some sort of govermental stipend for this, or do they just have that rare combination of luck and raving lunacy?

The key to BRP's task resolution/supposedly non-existing conflict resolution might not be hard mechanics for partial successes and failing forward, but defining your tests, successes and failures. Which is more a GM/player-skill than a mechanical gadget.

There is also the fact that RQ6 has a lot more moving parts than just skill level. And even in a whiteroom, all-things-equal combat, the way RQ6's opposed differential rolls work will not make it lag more than a "stock" BRP-game. Quite the opposite IME.