WisdomOfWombat

Does a two-book release really qualify as a product-line? EH doesn‘t seem to be doing product-lines except for generally talking Fate. But to individual settings there is rarely a follow-up.

Regarding Dresden Files and Evil Hat: I think that was never planned as line, but only as 2 books. The third book was quite a surprise. Back when Dresden Files was published, Evil Hat regularly published their sales numbers. Dresden Files was doing extraordinarily well compared to all their other products. But by now that was over 10 years ago, and Evil Hat hasn’t been doing very well for the past five years or so.

But on the other hand, a lot RPGs that use cleverly filed off serial numbers are flourishing. Everybody who knows the franchise(s) quickly realizes what this is intended to be and celebrate it. Additionally, if you go that route, you can bundle different similar „properties“ into a complete game. All you have to do, is being a bit creative about how you call things. Then use public domain artwork, and you are good to go. In most cases this won‘t lead to cries of „ripp-off“, but rather an admiration for a good design. Examples include Scum & Villainy (aka Firefly by way of Blades in the Dark), Sigil & Shadows (World of Darkness by way of a D100 system), Liminal (essentially inspired by Rivers of London and other British Urban Fantasy with a lot more freedom in the setting), MonsterHearts (Buffy done in PbtA), Urban Shadows (World of Darkness using PbtA) or Mothership (which is really a more open version of Alien). All these games are stronger for just being inspired by instead of trying to be the real thing.

In the Handouts Pack on page 3 the sentence "Characters’ lives are measured in hit points. These are lost through injuries and other harmful situations. When a living being runs out of hit points, they die." is doubled.

The screen is beautiful. I am awed.

I ran RoL at a very small convention, I set it in Munich, Germany. I used a fairly straight forward case involving web designers, spiders, spiders as web designers, a river godess and her son, who is another river god, and a nuclear plant with a slight malfunction. I reminded the players of the procedural work, coffee of course played a part, but not so much magic. I think, I brought all the rules to the table. But there was no fight this time. Unfortunately, only one player knew about RoL beforehand. She enjoyed the case.

I would love to see a greenish sheet for demimonde characters.

Just a quick question: the character sheet for the new edition only lists powers on the second page. Is there any chance that we'll see official variants of the second page for magic or sorcery?

The PC sheets seem to be geared towards Superpowers. Is there any plan to release PC sheets for the other power options like magic or sorcery?

I just finished book 9 last week. I‘ve basically devoured the series in preparation of the game. The novels are great. I‘ve started on the comic books.

My first scenario concerned a manticore that was the result of Ahnenerbe experiments. It was set in Germany near Nördlingen. The investigators of the BKA KDA also met the genius loci of the city wall, a pig.

Is there a video from the Dragonmeet panel available? I was hoping that would shed some light on future releases.

Just something I realized looking at the unicorn stats. A unicorn has a STR of 200. Thus, a unicorn will succeed on a damage roll on a 01-99 (either a hard success or a critical) or fumble. Together with a damage bonus a unicorn will regularly inflict 3 damage on a hit. So I am note sure that an adversary can be over the top… on the other hand, a unicorn will also ever take 3 damage before being taken out (of course they are naturally tough). So, all things considered, I am not sure if an adversary can be overpowered. 😉 What I would like to know is how to rank the combat skills. So far we know: 30% is an untrained beginning character, 60% is somebody with training, 40% is somebody who sometimes resorts to violence (from the introductory solo). But when should I hand out 75%, 80% or higher? Of course I could take the skill values on page 79 as guideline. But anyhow GM guidelines for creating opponents are a bit missing. Especially since Rivers of London is an introductory RPG. Personally, I have 30 years of GMing experience and I am versed in at least 50 different systems, I have less difficulty looking at the rules and coming to conclusions. But there are those with a lot less experience. I can also see the argument that combat isn‘t the core of the game, and that the system is abstract enough to handle fights quickly. But even Peter gets into a couple of fights in each book.

I really like the introductory nature of the Rivers of London rulesbook. But what I am missing is a bit of advice on crafting NPC stats. The text gives some general ideas in regards to opposed skills, but not really any instructions on how to come up with stats, or how the combat skills should scale. In particular, I need to stat a Manticore for my first adventure idea.

Also the day of the last official Beatle concert... 😉

What I noticed in the books, not all practioners are reverse-aging. Certainly neither the first Faceless Man nor the retired practioner from Foxglove Summer are doing this. I suspect (without having anything to base that on) that the German director of the BKA KDA is also reverse aging and might be a Night Witch. I think it has something to do with actively practicing magic as opposed to simply knowing spells and not using them. I suspect that the second component you need is the rise in the general level of magic that has been observed. So a rising level of magic (cause unknown) and practicing your magic leads to reverse aging. That's my working theory.

I would love to see a book on Germany and the KDA, and of course a GM screen.

Thanks for the advice on turning the layers off in the PDFs. I hadn't noticed that. Also you are right about the greyscale character sheets. On my monitor they looked speckled... this was more an issue of the monitor. In the blue and green character sheets, the background cannot be turned off though. And I really would rather hand out those to my players. So, if there is a way to get the blue and green character sheets without the speckled background, I would be a very happy customer :)

Formfillable versions are part of the downloads and can also be found on the product page. I would have one request regarding the character sheets: the backgrpunds are all tinged, either in blue, green or grey-scale. Would it be possible to get sheets with a white background to safe ink/toner?

I‘ve found them. They are called Mint & Purple or Soapy Mint at another store. But at least in my corner of the world they aren‘t that widely available. Now, they are the „Rivers of London“ dice to me 🙂

@Lynne H I just have to ask, which set are the dice shown on page 13 of the rulebook? They look nice, and I would like to get a full set of them.