Enpeze

Ah, but was it FUN? I love BRP as a game, but having played with some complete buffoons, the system does not guarantee a fun game. Likewise I have played exceptionally fun games using D20, Palladium games wonky rules, etc.

Granted, some systems make the fun easier/harder...but it the game master, fellow players and the adventure that make the GAME fun or not, the rules set can hinder or help, but claiming that 4E is an abomination of gaming and will doom all who play it is a bit disingenious...I am positive that there are some very good DM's out there that will have great and fantastic games using it, just as I am sure that there were people who had fun playing Phoenix Command in the early 90's (or not...it was the hardest and most unfriendly gaming system I've ever seen).

With that said, I won't be running any games in 4E, but I am sure that I will play in several games using it, and after the learning curve levels off, I may even have fun during it.

I am still a hardcore BRP fan, but bashing a system is rather pointless...a GM's skill and ability to craft a fun story is far more important.

-STS

Of course you are right in your opinion that a good roleplaying game could be also a d20 game. I can make even a roleplaying game out of just randomly rolling some d6 or tossing a coin for combat. I can make a good roleplaying game when I push around marines a Space Hulk boardgame or the Alien boardgame from Leading Edge, provided I am good GM and have good players. No problem with this.

So maybe I was exaggerating with my assumption that the new 4e is not suited at all for roleplaying and I am sorry for this. But using the rule set for roleplaying will be extremely difficult, especially if you play it according to the vanilla rules. (eg. every player heals automatically max hitpoints once per day - without magic, and heals additionally as much wounds as he want - up to his healing surges - each 5 min )

But what 4e is instead? A damned good boardgame design. Cudos to the designers.

Yes, yes, we know, a game focused on combat and adventuring isn't a roleplaying game.

You know, trying to stake out the term "roleplaying games" for only those systems one approves of is an old tactic; I was seeing it at least as far back as 1985.

D&D, even D&D4, is as much a roleplaying game as any on the market; roleplaying games are defined by the degree to which you control your character design and development, and the freedom you have to play them as your vision dictates within the mechanics. Any attempt to define it finer down that that would exclude most games on the market--including, I might add, BRP.

Just because a game labels itsself as "roleplaying game" it does not mean that it is one. And just because a game allows for "character design" and "developement" it does not mean that it is a roleplaying game at all. Advanced Heroquest, Avalon Hills Magic Realm and many other mini-, board and skirmish games have "character design and development" too. I mean the game company put even a sticker on the AHQ box labeled "3D Roleplaying". Maybe for you all these games are roleplaying games?

Face it, some few rulesets are good for roleplaying (BRP), most are very poor (like D&D3.5) and some are not suited at all. (like D&D4e)

Regarding 4e I would like to add:

Why does anybody here think this game is a roleplaying game? Is Advanced Heroquest a role playing game? If you think that AHQ is one then maybe 4e is one for you too. But for all those who are opposed to such a thinking, I can assure you that 4e is farther away to be real roleplaying game than any of the previous editions. And those have already been the antithesis to a good roleplaying ruleset.

The first 4e module "H1 Keep on the Shadowfell" is centered fully around combat. About 10p out of 64 are explaining NPCs and a little village in the borderlands. And on the remaining - 54p - you find 24 detailed combat map setups and 140 monster stat blocks, nothing else. Is this a roleplaying game? If anybody here says "yes this is a rpg", he should immediately make a SAN roll.

But I love 4e. I play it as skirmish game and NOT as roleplaying game. This means I play with plastic miniatures and battlemaps and without acting or portraying much the characters. For us its a funny shining board game with alot of videogame influence, great tactical rules, bashing plastic monsters and leveling up. Deep immersive rpg? no thanks. If I want this, I play BRP.

I am so glad that they went the way in direction mini game. The presentation of this game is so much more honest, than say 3.5 or AD&D. No more idiotic fluff which claims to be "roleplaying". (and is of course none) You have healing surges which every toon can use during combat to get 25% of his HP back. Every toon (not only clerics) can even heal hitpoints between combats up to full, which lasts only 5min. Every 6h you can make an "extended rest" where you go back to start and regenerate ALL damage of the day (regardless how bad you have been hurt) and all daily powers and spells. Its great for bashing monsters and pushing plastic minis around in a tactical fashion.

To the TO. Learning for BRP? What? Nobody can learn anything for his BRP roleplaying game from 4e. But you can safely play it as mini game and have alot of fun.

Well I've been running a Fading Suns game with BRP on and off for several years now and the only things I had to do was a life path for character generation (Noble Houses, Guilds, alien races, etc) and some rules for energy shields

How did you intergrate the magic and psychic powers from Fading Suns?

I'd definitely recommend picking up Worlds Beyond from Chaosium's store.

The system is essentially BRP, and it does have a pretty solid (appearing) starship construction and combat system.

Worlds beyond? I looked at this at the chaosium site but didnt find it. Maybe I should improve my searchgle-fu.

More like, the world of real rpgs is fading fast, the last glimmers are disappearing fast...

Whats a real rpg? I dont know. But I think this term depends on the personal preference of the players. Many of us are not even able to agree on what makes a rpg worth playing or not despite beeing the hardcore fanbase of BRP. So everone has his own "real rpg" style. And his rpg style is most probably not the same like those of most others. This was 1990 not very different than today and I can preserve my way to play in just keeping playing and...playing and...playing (/bunny clap with hands...)

For me the only thing which has changed is myself. So I would not like to play the same games today I played back in 1990. Of course I like talking with my friends about the games in the past, but the more I look at them the more I see that we remember this good old stuff as idealized and somewhat distorted.

For me the different styles to play a mmorpg or play a board game "Junta" with a Fidel-Castro cap on their head are not more alien than those of roleplaying groups which employ a tactical D&D or "player-empowered" WoD style. (actually I prefer a fun game of "junta" or cutting my toe nails instead of playing WoD anyday)

So for me there has not been much change in my personal roleplaying world except that I am not the same as 20 years ago. But for my style of roleplaying till 2050 I just need the BRP basic book and a set of dice. Additional material is fine but not really a-must-have.

These are some of the things that differentiate between people:

• Skills
  
• Background
  
• Culture
  
• Religion
  
• Personality
  
• Species

Skills are only one part of it.

Yes, I like templates. I'm not that keen on generic backgrounds and prefer the idea of Homelands from HeroQuest.

Yes this is the best way to handle the topic. The cultural background defines if one is a good sailor to earn the titel "master sailor" or just an poor amateur who bought the titel from the authorities. The term "master sailor" is purely arbitrary because there are no guidelines in the rules if a "master" is 50% or 150%.

The term get only some sense if you know if this "master sailor" comes from dry Mongolia or from 15th century Venice.

Woo! This makes me look forward to running it!

-Its one of the deadliest adventures in CoC. I heard that nearly none of the start PCs is able to survive it in the long run and you have to plan for replacement PCs on a regular base.

-Its long.

-Some says its extremely good. Some say its bad and very linear. I didnt play it, but after reading it, I think I like it very much and I will surely play it.

In my opinion, balance isn't really that important.

I agree. What counts is roleplaying and portraying characters in a certain cultural environment. This neverending call for "balance" seems more like roll-playing to me.

A group of PCs working together will bring down a far more powerful NPc most of the time and a more powerful NPC group some of the time.

Why should this be?

Of course, a group of PCs not working together will be beaten by a reasonably organised group of NPCs no matter their relative strength.

Well then the PCs made a mistake by engaging them. History shows which destiny the loosers which overestimates their own abilities will have. More often than not, fighting should be not the primary solution for solving a problem and this is true in roleplaying too.

Another matter is of course if GM does not give the group any chance to get around the combat. This is then plain bad GMdom and should also be avoided.

One of the things on my plate is a revision of the 16-page BRP booklet, featuring the basic-est version of the rules (no options, simplified somewhat).

I'm hoping it'll be available either cheaply or free via .pdf, and will be one of those "you could technically run a non-powers game from just this if you wanted to" sorts of products.

Jason, if the text/pictures are ready and if you like a professional layout for this 16p booklet, let me know. I am graphic designer in my normal job and layouting this should be no problem for me. I use the usual programs like Photoshop, Xpress and Illustrator and the end format would be an pdf optimized for screen and fast download. And I would do it for free of course.

That sounds like a great idea. I play mostly on-line now and have been in several GURPS games. Many potential players express interest but haven't got the rules but with the GURPS lite rules they can still take part.

I suspect their presence sells the real game, though I've no evidence of that.

I am sure you are right. A 16p booklet as pdf for download would be great for newbies. It would also important not to forget a simplified character sheet for this project. i was always fond of the minimalistic A5 character sheet which was part of the old online BRP rules.

Many thanks for the reviews. I think I will buy Granbretan.

So we can agree that BRP for the Moorcock license has gone. :shocked: Well not that Chaosium was very prolific with it, but at least the material they released has been good.

I always wished my french would be better because of the many excellent Hawkmoon books (about 16) which appeared in this language.

Recently I browsed through the Mongoose site in search of some material and info about the young kingdoms and found that 5 new books are coming for Elric and Hawkmoon the next few months.

Elric:

-Magic of the young kingdoms

-Elric of Melnibone companion

-Cults of the young kingdoms

Hawkmoon:

-Secret of tragic Europe (hawkmoon campaign!)

-Castle Brass

While I found not much use of the new Mongoose Elric core rulebook, I would really like to know if those new books are worth a look.

So my question. Has anybody bought Bright Shadows or Granbretan from Mongoose? If yes, do you think they are good?

I ran to the FLGS and purchased the gift set of the three core rulebooks for D&D 3.5.

You seem to be one of the younger gamers on the board, no? My first version of D&D has been the red box.

Nonetheless I am thankful that the answers here dont come solely from the generation 40+

Talislanta. WOW! So much setting, and yet so much freedom. Sechi's love for the world makes the reader love the world. He shows how vague detail can spark the mind. I ran it and my player, this time a very talented gamemaster I met while I lived in Japan, disliked how his magic was "too weak" and stubbornly pushed his magic into levels where Mishaps occured very often. This makes for a very un-fun game.

It looks like your GM has not been very sensible in those days.

Call of Cthulhu. The masterwork. My first games as a kid were AD&D 2nd Edition. Here were the stats I was so familiar with, and yet applied in a way that was so different. The game is a beautiful narrative system that places the power of the story squarely in the GM's hands (the Idea, Knowledge, and Luck rolls are powerful tools) and the slow spiral into insanity as characters explore the apathetic universe is breathtaking and entrenching. It's very hard to find players for this game where I am. d20 is really the only game and few players like failing and dying. Thanks to the path of games I've read I now find failure to be just as interesting as epic success, if not more so.

You are on an interesting and very good path I think.

My failures with Call of Cthulhu groups have been terrible. One player said he hated it because he didn't like failing. I looked at him oddly. What fun is a game where you can only win? This player was a fiercely competitive person and prone to sighing loudly when things did not go his way in-game and out-of-game. Another product of today's gaming.

I agree. I have a friend who has the same character trait as you described and I even if he asks me every half year or so, I dont let him participate in my games anymore.

Ugh. This kind of controlling, yet strangely controlled, gamer seems to be a product of the new kind of gaming.

This is my observation too. The modules of today seem overbalanced and "overdesigned" (sorry for the probably unsuitable term, but english is not my native tongue)

Sorry for the rant, but it felt good!

No prob. Feeling good is an excellent reason for posting here.

My only true lament for the longevity of our hobby is that there are some games that have fallen by the wayside and we no longer find in the shops. I would love to be able to go and buy a copy of Ringworld and have it sat on my shelf. Or direct new players to purchase RQ2, IMHO the most complete RPG for the small number of pages in which it was contained. Still I guess that's what Ebay is for

Yep. God bless ebay. And the people which sell their rare roleplaying stuff at ebay. I have alot of old RQ/BRP from ebay.

Sometimes I thought about scanning it in to prevent it to be lost in time. and have the pleasure to read it still in 30 years too. (you know only digital data is REAL data at all)

I don't see the anime thing as anymore than one section of the gaming market. None of the games I've read recently seemed to have much anime influence... but then anime is a pretty wide open field.

Of course its easily possible to circumvent anime-influence. But its present in many new style products. Just look at the covers of the games your FLGS has on its shelfs. Even D&D has with Eberon anime influence.

Since then I've gravitated towards those same sorts of groups... I don't care for cinematic games... I like knowing my character can die... even for ridiculous, meaningless reasons (though none of my characters have ever been killed by a car as they walked out of their house!).

I'm fine with that... but I know a lot of people aren't, and never have been.

Its good to hear that there is another hard lonely fighter in a world of softies.

Always been that way. Most of the early D&D adventures were incredibly linear.

Maybe I played other D&D modules than you, but I remember modules like "adventures in the wilderness" or "dangerous island" (or whatever the names has been) in which you could go whereever you want in a generic country/island drawn on hex paper. (ok, only 6 directions to be honest) This I would call non-linear.

Well, the truth is that its just that many modern games are more honest about this rather than having it occur by GM fudging.

My GMs in those days never fudged. They let you die with an evil grin.

I've noticed no anime influence. But then I don't play the anime influenced games and I've never lived in Japan, nor has any member of my gaming group.

I dont care about anime too. I find most of it cheesy. But many younger players dont. Eg. Exalted is one of the most successful roleplaying games. Even D&D has some anime influences with the new Eberon world. Cthulhu-Tech is a crossover of anime and lovecraft. The SF and fantasy media is full of anime elements.

There are a wider variety of games that support different role-playing styles - some people love Herouest, it leaves me mostly cold, and some people hate it.

And there is another group of people which dont even understand the HQ rules from a technical POV. (like myself )

At the same time that RPG was radiating into different niches and becoming a hobby {like model railroading was when I was growing up} that makes you merely slightly odd as opposed to downright weird; it has lost its original niche of weird college students who had two much time on their hands to World of Warcraft.

So we can say that roleplaying as we know it is dying slowly but steadily out?

As for character death, it has probably become more rare for four reasons. The first is that in a fairly complicated system it can take a long time to create a character, so character death costs you something. The second is that as more decisions are made, and characters acquire personalities rather than being simple power gaming avatars, losing a character costs more. The third is that we just have less time to play the games - meeting once every three weeks if I kill off a character it might take 6 months for the player to get as good an understanding of his next character as he has of the one he is playing now.

I agree. These 4 points are very valid. The games has become more and more "character-centric". Just regarding your first point "more complictated character generation" I think is it is the other way round. Its because the change of emphasis of todays games from the module to the character the chargen became more and more complex.

Let me rephase thing. Now people are more likely to use long term character goals and themes for a series of adventures. The more character driven the campaign the more important those characters are.

I agree, this is another change in roleplaying games the last 25 years. In these days you could feel that the center of roleplaying was not always directly on the character. It was rather the adventure module. You could complete with it with any other character you rolled up during the campaign. Not so important as long as you played through the module.

RPGs have a lot in common with fiction. We are introduced to a central character (heroic or otherwise) and we watch him (her, it) face challenges until we get to the end of the story.

Maybe we should explain what "heroic" means in this. Or if non-heroic means that a character could get killed at every moment in the story or not. I think if you answer the question with "not" then the character is not non-heroic anymore. Its just a low skill hero in disguise.

If we see the central character get killed off early on, it can derail the story.

I think it depends on the story and the flexibility of the GM/player if this happens. Additionally "story derailing" has a very broad spectrum of interpretation. Eg my interpretation of "story derailing" is that it is sometimes even necessary to play a story upside down and totally different from your plan in order to immerse players. I am always ready do this and change a plot for 180 degrees because of various cirucumstances (actions and ideas of the players, death of a PC or NPC etc.).

Now the same holds true in an RPG game. Maybe more so, since the players have a vested interest in their characters that a viewer usually doesn't. No one really want the PCs to die, especially not the GM (if a GM brags about how many characters he is killing something is wrong).

My experiences are different. Its not that I want somebody see dying, but I am a believer of dice rolling and destiny. Never fugding the dice is my credo. Fudging dice means railroading and this I absolutely hate. In your system the players are dealing the whole time with dangerous stuff and live dangerous lives but they should not suffer any consequences untill they approach some idealized final fight. (if this concept of final fight is always necessary is another can of worms) I would not call this a very realistic resolving of situations. Its sounds rather scripted.

In order for the game to be exciting there needs to be an element of the unknown and some risk.

But not too many, no?

Recently RPGs some RPGs have looked into other ways to maintain the risk other that death.

I absolutely agree and this was one of the main points of my question in my first thread post. (the point "refusal to let a player die")

For instance in most films, novels and legends we know the main character is going to be around, at least until the end. That's how stories work. Yet we can usually be kept interested in see how the character gets out of whatever mess he got into. we know Batman, King Arthur, James Bond, etc. is going to survive the current peril and make it to the end of the movie.

Thanks. Now we are at one of the main reasons of the change. Cinema! I am convinced that gaming is for many people just a replacement for interactive movies/TV. It was different 25 years ago because movies/TV has been not so prominent in our brains because there were fewer shows. A good example of this is that every even slightly successful TV show, book and movie gets his own roleplaying game today. 1980 there was not much sign of this. The players didnt play "firefly", "buffy" or "Battlestar Galactica" immortal serial heroes. They didnt play anime heroes or Conan d20. They played generic characters in generic worlds like dwarfs, fighters in ravenloft or a traveller merc.

Sometimes after reading through many threads on this board or rpg.net I have the impression that roleplaying changed alot since its beginnings. Which changes?

-extreme influence of anime on many games. Best examples are the advent of Exalted or the new Cthulhu Tech.

-scripted/railroading approach to adventures - gone are the days where in a module you just could not predict the outcome and stories have been simple, chaotic and non-linear. Are the adventures "overdesigned?".

-refusal to let PCs die - even in old D&D (spit) you could die in the first levels very easily - and later too to some extent, because the evil enemies became tougher. I played D&D (spit) 2 decades ago for one or two years (you know I was young and needed the money....) and I remember that the modules have been a very bad dungeon crawling and our GM has been bad...yaddayadda...but death of PC was never a problem. If you died you died, basta. Roll up a new one. This approach was cool and was the aspect I liked alot (ok...I liked all these egg-nogg drinks at our GMs house too...).

What do you think? Do you know of other aspects which changed the way roleplaying games are played from 1985 till now?

Step 6 is similar to the way of SB5 chargen I guess.

I think I heard that George R. R. Martin played some RuneQuest at some point. There are certainly a lot of RuneQuest-like elements in the books ... so I thought when i read them, anyway. Can't remember the specifics, now.

The brutal fighting descriptions maybe?

I always thought its a shame that such a good book series is released with the d20 (spit) rule system.

I would like to have Transhuman Space or something similar as setting for BRP. THS is an ultra-hard SF setting based on realistic assumptions and some transhumanistic ideas. It is a extremely detailed description of the status of the world at the end of the 21st century.

It appeared from SJG several years ago and it is absolutely fantastic. It is written mostly by David Pulver and others who took much time to make technological and political research and plausible extrapolations of these topics. As soon as DBRP is out I will try to transfer the THS setting from Gurps lite to DBRP.

Here is the website for the setting if anybody is interested.

Transhuman Space

Well you never really know. But most guys who pretend to be female I understand pretend to be 16 year old cheerleaders and not 50 year old grandmothers. And how many guys pretending to be female would constantly talk about their new grandson?

Well, maybe some very feminine males.

In truth you cannot know it for sure, you can only hope that your real life GM rolls under your INTx5 during the online-chat with this person.

The trick is length of stride isn;'t entired based on height (SIZ) or muscle (STR) but also on the flexiblity of the body centeri of gravity and so forth.

Interesting article. Now the question is what ATT is "flexibility of the body and center of gravity". DEX?