tedopon

I get the push for incorporating graphics into the game as a way to drag video gamers over (theoretically), but I guess my question is "why?" I haven't needed Space Chess from Star Wars to determine where stuff is in a combat thus far, why will I need it in the future? Will my imagination and grasp of semantics regarding spatial relation be taken from me sometime in the very near future? Is there some sort of hypnotic/analgesic affect drawn from watching 3D sprites move on a plane that I haven't experienced yet? I don't want anything else from online gaming suites. Voice chat and at times a crudely drawn map are all I ever use as a GM.

As for pdfs on a small screen... I actually prefer reading pdfs on my 7 inch tablet over a computer screen. Mainly because there is the tactile element of having the thing in my hand and manipulating it with my finger gestures. Every single time I have read a book in epub that was a conversion from pdf, it has been torture. There just isn't a handy way to represent tables and/or page setup/formatting in an epub without completely redoing the layout manually almost from scratch.

Do you have any of the d100 branded back catalog you would consider adding for the stretch goals? I'm not interested in adventures, maps or minis all that much. To be honest, the only thing I found all that interesting was the T-Shirt, and I don't wear many graphic Ts. It's just that a RoH T is effectively unique, which is awesome. That's been pretty much shot down, though. I just want to see this game in print. RoH has been in my top 3 anticipated games list for a couple years now. I'll try and think of some ideas and comment on any others that appear here. So glad you guys didn't give up. EDIT: I would totally be on board with a sandboxy piece of supplementary material down the pipe as a stretch goal. Scripted adventures just don't appeal to me as much, as a matter of fact the setup of the playtest scenario as scripted was the only thing about the game my group didn't love.

@frogspawner Those are hilarious. Well done. One of my friends ran a 2e AD&D game for years that had a crit chart like that. Takes me back. ...to a dozen or so characters who were killed or maimed horribly due to random dice. Good times.

I started with Fantasy Grounds six or seven years ago. It was the best thing out there for quite a while, but that is not saying I like it. I have a GM license and three or four of the BRP based rule sets and a Star Wars set that I paid for. We moved to maptool about two years ago. Not as pretty as FG, but far more features. Maptool is nice because it isn't patched with dozens of megabytes worth of bug fixes every couple weeks. Also runs a lot smoother overall and establishing connections aren't an annoying pain in the ass. A couple months ago we switched to roll20. Unless you are a control freak and need access to all the player's stats 100% of the time as a GM (but, to be fair, you could set that up as well with a little work), or you're too lazy to use pen and paper instead of having everything automated, it's got enough of the features of the other two to work just fine. It also runs a lot faster and smoother than the other two being browser based. We don't use the hangout end of it because one guy has a corporate Skype account, so I can't comment on that. We have never used the built in chat functions of any of the suites, save for a brief experiment on G+, so I can't comment on their recent functionality. FG's chat system was pretty lousy in 2007, which was probably the last time I used it.

I think it's just a matter of the technology getting better. Over the last year, my online group's games have gotten to the point where we probably run at 70-80% the speed of a face to face game. I am more than happy with that, because for the first few years were slow going. I don't think games should adapt at all, it's the technology that needs to catch up with how we've been doing things forever.

Platonic Pedophile

There is nothing currently supported. At least as far as I am aware, I'd love someone to prove me wrong. There's a game called River of Heaven coming out probably some time this year that uses Open Quest, which is very similar to BRP. Other than that, nothing. You're better off adapting whatever IP/homebrew you want to the ruleset. That sounds like more work than it actually is, as I bet there are a lot of people on this board who would be willing to help or at least be sounding boards for any ideas you pitch if you go this route. There is also a book called Worlds Beyond that came out in the early 90s. It was decent, but it was only one book.

Play the Haunted House scenario. It's fun, easy to hammer out in a session or two at the most, and it's kind of a rite of passage. ...and I'm not a huge fan of prewritten adventures. I guess the best advice is to not worry about getting rules right. No matter how long you play rpgs, you will have rules questions at least every other session (in my experience, anyway). The main thing is to make sure everyone is having a good time and the story is moving along. And don't be hard on yourself. GMing a game is not a board meeting, high art, a religious experience or a scientific endeavor. It's an outlet for fun with your friends. In most cases if you're relaxed and having a good time, everyone else around the table will be too.

I like to have two or three things on the back burner I can shoehorn into the game whenever I feel it's appropriate. Enough familiarity or self confidence to bluff the players into believing you're familiar with whatever they're wanting to explore. Ability and willingness to think on your feet and improvise ad infinitum. If you use published stuff, ignore any and every little thing that you want to. It's your game. Always remember that it's a game and it's supposed to be fun for everyone putting in their time. That includes the GM. If you're not having a good time, you're doing something wrong. Everyone can get overwhelmed from time to time with paperwork and maintaining logical consistency, but that stuff isn't really the draw for most of us. My main goal is to have everyone assembled to demonstrate their buy in at least a few times a session. If people are laughing, or talking over one another trying to formulate plans, heatedly arguing over some point of minutiae I don't even remember, namedropping some NPC for one reason or another etc then I feel like the game is a success. As lame as it sounds, I think that what it boils down to for me is having a positive attitude/self confidence when I GM. I run the range between 100% improvised to 100% written in cramped longhand in the notebook. There is no real style of preparation that I always default to. My main thing is to go into the game knowing I want it to be fun for everyone.

Seems there's a lot of "derailing" at Chaosium. Points for the sweet wordplay, though.

Yeah, they actually figured it out last session.

It's in Pathfinder, but I'd be glad to post stats for the alchemist/witch Jorma and his cat familiar Magog in that system. I also have stats for some of the named pixies like Twinkles, Jiggery Panky, Ninny Thrush and Chatty Patty Redbeaver.

Gargamel all day. I have an NPC in the campaign I'm running right now who is Gargamel with the numbers sawed off. The neighboring community of pixies are his Smurfs.

Is the ETA still early 2013 at this point?

I have been working away from home for the last two months. I have just finally had a couple days to start in on reading this book. It was well worth the wait. Thanks for putting so much blood, sweat and tears into this work, I am really impressed and love everything I have read so far. This isn't without a complaint, though. As a general rant let me complain once again about how poor of a job Chaosium do on their products. The formatting in Chaosium books is of such low quality that if it were submitted for an entry level college course, it would receive very poor marks, if not outright fail. But that has nothing to do with how great this book is. I would have stopped buying Chaosium products years ago if I cared at all about visual aesthetics and/or quality proofreading. So let me say one more time, just to be clear, this book is excellent and it was worth the excruciating wait it took during the production process and the last five weeks it was sitting at home waiting on me. Thanks Pedro.

Good news! Thanks for everything, Triff.

The file link that you requested is not valid.

It just came out a few years ago. While I agree that a truncated version with better layout would be nice (and much better for dragging in new folks, pipedream that is) I don't think that will happen any time soon.

What time are you wanting to do it? I'm in Illinois, so we're in nearby timezones. I don't know anything about Age of Shadow.

The page count of CoC is getting out of hand (or maybe not): There are two ways they can go. Either they make another "edition" to the game that is almost identical to the previous with a new cover (and sixty or seventy extra pages), or they can try to integrate it with the BRPBGB and only use the page count as more of a Cthulhu Sourcebook. Neither of these options are all that attractive, but at least with the latter option, you can have page count dedicated to modular systems like the one you suggest to tack on to the core engine. The problem with that approach is (at least) twofold. First, CoC is the flagship. It is why Chaosium is still in business, and is most of the reason BRP/d100/WTF you want to call it survived the 90s. CoC needs to be its own game to drag people in through name recognition. Second (and the reason I have never understood), is that people don't want to essentially pay twice for a game system. 60USD to play an rpg _forever_ seems like a lot of money to people who will drop the same amount of money on a videogame (the vast majority of which have limited replayability), dvds/movie theater visits, concerts/sporting events, alcohol etc. So we are left with a book with a huge page count. And now that I am this far in my response, I realize that most people nowadays don't mind a huge page count. Pathfinder, which is arguably the most popular game system currently, clocks in at like 500 pages for the core rules. _And very few people only use the core rules_. It just seems to me (without a shred of even anecdotal evidence to back me up) that they should shoot for something smaller and easier to pick up and play. I think that the page count bloat we see now is targeted more at people who are already gamers, and that this is another symptom of the inevitable decline of the pastime. In that case, sign me up for a BIG ASS version with a ton of extra stuff like you're asking for, plus why not throw in Pulp CoC as an appendix? I may actually shell out cash for a CoC product if that happened. I've used something similar since the mid 90s in my games. People were getting angry at being nickel and dimed out of small amounts of SAN at every turn and I threw in what's called a Composure roll. Composure equals CON+POW/4 and checks are made on a d10. Anything that isn't putting the fear of God(s) into the PC just forces a Comp roll. A critical success gives them a little bonus for a while, a success means they shrug it off, a fail has mostly minor effects, and a fumble means the potential for something really bad, and a lot of times generates a SAN roll. I only have them roll for SAN when it is a big deal, and since there is the Comp cushion giving a kid glove feel to the lesser events, SAN rolls are usually at a penalty and you don't want to have to throw the dice for them.

I got an email from Chaosium today that said Mythic Iceland should go to the printer in 8 weeks or so.

I'd be surprised if Pulp Cthulhu is ever published. they've advertised it for years as "coming soon".

It IS worth watching just for Valerie Leon.

For the record, I want to be clear and say one more time that I appreciate the software and think it is a nice piece of work. I have stated at least twice in this thread before this post that I think it is great software and I _want_ to use it, but have had more luck just using Skype and a whiteboard. The news that all of the files on the GM's end frontload to everyone else's machines now is encouraging. I can already hear the groans from my group when I ask them to give it a try again (FG has been where games go to die for us). I _want_ to like this software and consistently use it. I _want_ to have the need to spend the extra money to buy the Alephtar mods coming in the future, considering I have bought all the books except Dragon Lines. Anyone installed it on Linux in the last six months? The last two times I tried it, I was not successful.