Enpeze

Alternatively you could instead use the SB5 rules for demon creation. I am sure they are perfectly suited to the BRP sorcery rules. Why re-inventing the wheel?

Maybe Zothique would suit fine for the Chaosium line of CoC products because of its "dark content". But is this all, BRP can do? Delievering another "dark" setting beside CoC? I dont think so. IMO the majority of people dont like it too dark (me included) and a whole setting full of necromancers and a "dying earth" theme would not be very successful. If done well, maybe such a setting could get a honor medal for beeing "exotic" but nothing more. I would love to invest my money in a "planetary romance" setting, a "mythical history" setting or maybe even in a "the Green" setting. But not in depressing zothique. And I dont think that Stormbringer is as dark as Zotique (at least not for my taste). SB has alot of colourful and open positive content - like the Mio Spheres, Tanelorn as a city of heroes of the balance etc.

I second this. Normally conversion into BRP dont make much sense IMO. I would rather recommend to see what the intention of the designer is and in what context I want to have it. Eg. In system xy there is a standand swords fighter with average game values. (In D&D maybe a 2nd level guard) Its easily transported to a BRP standard sword fighter with STR12, DEX11 and Sword 50%. But is it the same? I am not sure. The problem is that the average 2nd level guard is not that much of a danger. But an average BRP sword fighter can be a deadly foe for any other BRP fighter regardless of its skill. He can kill him outright. So what I mean is that the most adventures out there which rely on heavy combat are not really good translated to BRP on a formularic or 1:1 base except you dont have any problem that your PCs die like flies. Better would be to look at the intention of the setting and then make an equivalent BRP situation. Additionally even BRP has no hardcoded values. It depends on the rule set. So in SB1 even elric has only 112%. In SB5 it is not unusual that a good fighter has 150% or more. (let alone elric with his 880% sword)

Yeah, Zothique is too depressing for me. IMO its also too far away from the vanilla genre to have any chance to become really popular.

Oh yes. This could also be very good. I hope they feed it with modules too. Or maybe a campaign?

4e is really nice. I makes fun to play. But you are right, its not much of a roleplaying game anymore. Not that the previous editions have been a rpg, but 4e is even less one. They write "roleplaying game" on the cover but I think thats just a kind of WotC insider joke. But it has good rules for bashing monsters and collecting treasure...yeah! Additionally it has the advantage that you can just sit down and play without spending much preparation time. The new h1 module is a ready to play adventure with a great optical layout, coloured battlemaps and with not more than 1h prep time or so. This results in 20 combat encounters and 2 (so called) "roleplaying" encounter. :thumb:

I think you are abolutely right. I see it similar. To have a real success with BRP Chaosium should create a main setting. Some hours ago I had a similar discussion on the Gurps board. They said to me that Gurps is a "generic" system and thus cannot and should not concentrate on some main settings and ergo on any adventure modules. Is BRP in a similar one-way market niche? I dont have this opinion. I think that focusing on a setting is good for business and winning new gamers. At the moment they have CoC. But this is not enough. I think focusing with BRP on a fantasy setting should be the goal. Maybe the Green is right, I dont know. I have heard something about this setting. Maybe its good, but I would rather prefer if Chaosium fleshes out "historical fantasy" settings like Mythical Iceland or Myhtical Rome.

oops sorry double post.

Perfectly. This is like I would do it.

why not? BRP with its hitlocations offers the possiblity to cut off heads and arms as much as you like.

How about that? First luring new players into your roleplaying base with the newest shiny module of 4e in front of their nose and after playing through it attack them with BRP!

Absolutely not. I am not caring about D&D 1-3.5 as roleplaying game. It have no interest to discuss previous editions of D&D. My opinion about them is that they are roleplaying games (of course very weak ones, but still rpgs). No, I am interested in discussing 4e only. 4e is a break with previous D&D editions and rpg traditions in general. And this makes it interesting. just because some wikipedia authors think the above points are enough to define a roleplaying game it does not mean that it is, no? Or do you think that Wikipedia is the definitve source about this matter? According to the above criterias Advanced Heroquest is a roleplaying game too. Do you think this? And again before you think that you can compare 4e with the previous editions of D&D you should read the core books, then decide, not before. I am wondering that the most "pro D&D4e" people here didnt even read the 4e books. But they claim to know something about it. But this opinion is not more than a prejudice resulting from what they know from previous editions. Maybe I should wait some weeks, when the official version is out and the peeps here can take a look at them. This probably make the discussion more interesting.

No. They took it out in 4e (you know why...)

D&D was never a very honourable rpg so a final discharge is not that extreme. On the other hand, now it finds its proper place as a rising star in the boardgame genre .

Not really true. In the DMG there is a valley and a city description. Additionally a 4e forgotten realms sourcebook and module is coming up later this year. Next year will be Eberron the focus.

I think you should first take a look at the 4e books before answering your own questions with "yes".

This focus on "what is important" is perfectly suited to a skirmish game. And for this D&D 4 is great. I play 4e since several weeks as skirmish game and our group loves it. Its a much better designed game than 3.5 or earlier versions. Well controlling the things the players do from 1st level heroic path dungeon crawl to 30th level destiny path crawl is an old trick for achieving an integrated game experience which has a similar quality for everybody. Many good boardgames do this. For example Talisman ends when you get the crown of the country after going through 3 tiers of difficulty. D&D 4e ends when you reach your destiny after going through 3 tears of difficulty (heroic, paragon and epic). Nothing special except that the quality of 21st century D&D4e rules have improved dramatically in comparision to AD&D of the 90ties. They are not more complex than previous editions but are offering you more possibilities (for example with the help of predefined keywords, eg if a monster gets the keyword "dazed" because beeing target of one of your powers it means that you and others in your team gets "combat advantage" with +2 to hit)

No, please dont confuse it. Miniature Games like D&D4e ARE roleplaying games. At least according to Wizards of the Coast and some participants of this thread. And next year WotC is producing a MONOPOLY variant with some castles for houses, dragonlair for jail and gold pieces included and label it at the front cover as "Dungeonopoly - the new 3D roleplaying experience". I am sure some people will love this game for its potential for roleplaying. The rules of this game would be not that important, as long as you can play you character between movement from hotel- ahem- castle to lair and vice versa. I mean hey why not? Its Wizards of the Coast. They know what a rpg is, no? If they are putting their rpg label at the front of game box/book, it IS one! Other examples of this exceptional tolerant view what a rpg is, are WoW, Everquest, Advanced Heroquest, Warhammer Mordheim, Fighting Fantasy Books, this thread and of course Talisman. (at least I heard from people who used to play out their Talisman characters ingame and with a game master)

Perfectly said. This is true in every aspect. The thing that most people dont seem to realize is that 4e is not just "another" D&D version. Its a holistic experience with all its computer assisted content and premade battlemaps and minis, a revolutionary concept and it goes in a different direction than traditional rpgs.

Agreed. On the other hand if you ignore the ridiculous fact that it still labels itself "rpg", D&D4e is a great and extremely clever designed combat system as such. I really like the rule mechanics for my weekly wargame session.

For me 100% is a high skill but of course not the cap. Not many PCs or NPCs had ever over 100% in any of my games. But I like it gritty and not "heroic" or cinematic. So beeing comfortable with 100%+ or not is a matter of playing style IMO. Regarding the rule mechanic for experience: For me it was always the question too, how often anybody has to roll experience dice to go ever over 95% or higjer. So if a single samurai (perfect fighting style or not) has 150%, how did he get it? Mechanical wise he has maybe to fight (and survive the deadly BRP rules) hundred times in order to have such a high skill. I am always laughing at SB5 NPCs which are just 25 years old and have skills over 100%. How hand waving. So if anybody allows high skills and wants to play in a "believeable" environment and not in a movie, then he should adapt the given experience rules of BRP or requiring the high skill PCs to be very old.

You speak mainly from 3rd edition, no? I agree this is a rather cumbersome and not easy to use game. But its still a kind of roleplaying game for many people. 4e does not maintain this. They changed the 3e rules extremely. Its not more a rpg than say Advanced Heroquest or Heroscape or Warhammer Mordheim. Eg not using Miniatures and battlemaps is not intended, its a must. I would say playing it is a mix between a mmorpg computer game and board game. And DDI (D&D Interactive) the new subscribable online service of Wizards contributes to this feeling Yes I observed similar things. The D&D crowd is sometimes a strange kind of roleplayer.

Well your experience is from previous editions of D&D. They are not very good for me, but have a limited value as rpg system, so I agree that you can have fun with it. This changed with 4e. Its not the same D&D as you know it. It plays more like a board version of mmorpgs with elite monsters, boss fights, autohealing, DOTs, HOTs etc. (if you know what I mean) Of course for wargamer the change is not bad and its reveals a phantastic tactical skirmish gaming, much better than Advanced Heroquest.

Runequest was designed with focus on miniatures use originally? This is new to me. If this true, then I am glad, that they dont stress this anymore in the newer incarnations of the game. No sorry, you cant. Remember I am playing the game. You could rather play Monopoly without hotels. Maybe not totally impossible but really hard.

Well both is normally connected to each other. E.g. if there is a rule system where no injury for PCs exists, only dead, beeing "fatigued" or at full strength you cannot play all the fear and suffering of receiving serious wounds in combat, no? So rules and roleplaying emotions have an intense connection. Rules backup emotions and give truth to them if the rules are good. But in D&D4e a typical conversation between 2 players could be: "well I have just 2 Hitpoints left and this means am really tired now. You too, Sir Lance-a-lot? Lets bash the monsters in 5min after the break, when we have back our full hitpoints." (and this is no exaggeration!) This I mean D&D4 will be extremely difficult to play as a serious roleplaying game. Of course you can play it satirical. Or as a boardgame - as we do. Another example is that D&D4e is designed from the beginning as a game with map and minis. In D&D3 you had the choice to play with or without board. Not in 4e anymore. They closed the obvious gap and every combat encounter (24 in the first adventure module!) you play is designed for using the tabletop rules and boards the company provides. You can use 90% of the powers of monsters or PCs only in conjunction with a exact positioning and pushing around minis. A third example is that each class has a defined role on the board. There are tanks, strikers, AoE and Leaders (healers) like in my beloved WoW MMorpg. Btw. I play WoW also not as a roleplaying game. So I would say that D&D4 is not more rpg than say Advanced Heroquest. If AHQ is one for you, then go for D&D4 and use it as rpg.