p_clapham

Star Trek and Call of Cthulhu? That could work.

I'm pretty sure one of my buddies from Boston used the CoC rules for a Trek game a decade ago. Quite a few of the old non-humanoid trek baddies would work well in a CoC game. The Salt Vampire from Classic Trek stands out in my mind.

Just realized my spelling error in the title. ::Facepalm:: Any chance a mod can correct it?

I like how portable the pdfs are. I also like how Paizo gives their subscribers a free copy of the pdf with every hard copy they buy.

That would be lovely if Chaosium did that. At this point I'm strongly considering purchasing some of the Core Books as PDFs just so I don't have to lug them around.

So what was your first game you ran or played in using the RQ / BRP system?

Mine was eight years ago when I was working the Fish Ladder with another Ecology student. There was lots of down time so using the blue box Runequest set, I ran a Nine Princes in Amber game.

He's in the Mallus Monstorium too isn't he?

You hit it right there with the Virility, Outlook and Determination. All things a mentally fragile Lovecraftian Protagonist lacks. In regards to R.E.H. it's a good comparision. Lovecraft seemed to be preocupied with his characters flaws and weaknesses, where as Howard was more interested in their strengths.

But Howard's protagonists -- Kull, Conan, Bran Mac Morn -- battled and defeated what essentially were Mythos critters. The difference wasn't in the monsters themselves, it was in the virility, outlook and determination of the heroes. The Worms of the Earth were terrible enough to rob a tough Roman general of his SAN, but Bran Mac Morn held his stuff together after the initial shock and kept on going. How many gods did Conan slice in twain when he was unable to outrun them? Now, one can argue that the ornery barbarian wasn't exactly sane, but he didn't fall apart in the face of supernatural adversity and frequently fought back successfully. The pulp adventurer may not be as wise or educated as a Lovecraftian antiquarian but he's too stupid to realize that the creature can't be beat ... so he wins.

Much like one's taste in H.P.L. It does also depend on your take on his tales. One of the things I do keep in mind are the main characters in each story. Not all of Lovecraft's main characters are gibbering "unreliable narrators", some like Randolph Carter are made of Sterner stuff, and are able to triumph after a fashion.

Mechanically you can do this in Call of Cthulhu, BRP and other RPGs. In the former a character with a low Pow and high Int would work nicely as a doomed intelectual. The Higher the Pow, the more likely survial in most cases. A few of the other games I play make use of a Power or Willpower type attribute. In those cases I once again go with a high intelligence character, but with weak resolve.

Resolve does seem to be the name of the game genre wise. It's what seperates the sterotypical mad Lovecraftian protagonist, from the other horror Pulps. Granted a good amount of this will also be up to GM fiat. Someone who wants to create the Misery of Delapore from "The Rats in the Walls", will likely dislike a Doc Savage style PC; and make an example of him.

Another way I think of it: If the universe is so chaotic, insane and random. Doesn't that mean the human race wins a certain amount of the time? :thumb:

Any Luck on the email? I'm curious to know whether my guess was spot on or not.

Depends on your individual taste really. I did enjoy "Herbert West: Reanimator". Then again I also liked "The Nameless City", which Lovecraft was aparently fond of.

I've been thinking about what I'd want mechanics wise for a ritual magic system. Depending on what my free time looks like this winter break I may end up detailing it a bit. I pretty much it down like this.

Ritual magic consists of spells / enchantments / hexes / what have you, that take an extended amount of time to cast. They often require certain ingredients, a link to the target, and sometimes multiple casters. Mechanics wise I divide the creation and casting of ritual magic into three catagories.

1) Ritual Effect

What the spell does exactly. Ultimatly this is what I would use to define the cost and difficulty of the spell. Right now I'm calling them levels of Intensity. For each one a 1mp cost and -10% difficulty is applied to the relevant ritual magic roll.

2) Ritual Requirments

What is needed to cast the ritual. This would include the time needed to cast the spell, ingredients, participants and unfortunate side effects. For each Level of Requirment, a -10% penalty is taken off from the Effect Penalty.

3) Ritual Modifiers

While Effect and Requirments are fixed aspects of the Ritual. Modifiers are variable in either direction. These can range from the caster being impaired in some way, to the rite being cast at a ausicious or inaspicious time.

If folks are interested. The books that I drew the ideas for this were: Gurps Spirits / Voodoo, Buffy The Magic Box, and MRQ Lankhmar rpg.

Interestingly enough:D, it was the pact rules from the recent Elric rules that I got the idea from.

Quite looking forward to the new rules set. I've been a long time fan of the runequest and brp system. The changes outlined in S&P 75, sound dead on. And while Mongoose isn't able to to produce the new Conan book with the upcoming rules, that doesn't stop me from running Hyperborian Fantasy with MRQ II. :thumb:

Okay - I see where you're coming from now.

I think CHA tends to be a dump-stat in many games, not just RQ and BRP. However, the CHA-based attribute isn't the only way of curing this problem. You'll find that CHA forms the basis of several magical skills and is directly influential in Pact.

Regarding the Combat reactions. Prior to MRQ1 I used the Nephilium rules for combat actions. So when MRQ1 came out, I thought the characters were underpowered combat action wise, untill I realized they had an equal number of defense actions as offensive actions.

As far as Cha based attribute, I don't know the details on it, and will reserve any critique untill I get the book in hand. By a

simpler fix I was refering to the issue of Charisma being a dump stat in MRQ1. I felt in making Pow+Cha equalling a starting characters Divine and Spirit magic, it would create more of a demand for Cha in game. Further it's thematically apropriate, as petioning gods and spirits depend just as much on strength of will as they do strength of personality.

Come to think of it, in past games I've considered having Magic points equal Pow+Cha divided by two, just like hit points.

Don't be. Combat becomes far more tactical now, and the book keeping is reduced. Furthermore, Combat Manoeuvres help compensate for a loss of reactions: you get both offensive and defensive manoeuvres.

I really don't understand your consternation here... if you're referring to the new Attribute tied to CHA, it has nothing to do with the magical skills. And the magic skills do use INT, POW and CHA in varying ways, so I'm not sure what you mean by 'a simpler fix'.

I'm impressed. I don't know what else to say. It sounds like they've fixed all of the issues I have with MRQ I, and threw in some other good changes. I am sad to see the combat reactions go, and I don't know what I think about the new rules for Cha. A simpler fix would be to use Pow+Cha for Divine and Spirit magic rules.

Ghost of Albion, and Buffy's The Magic Box, both from Eden studios. The magic/ spell creation rules are one of better I've seen. A balance between ease of use and complexity.

Now if anyone actually sat down and cranked out an awesome, detailed, micromanaging system for something like this, I'd like it a lot. But I don't think I actually need it:)

Heh, I prefered the Box set method over the books. My blue box set is in much better shape than my RQ3 core book.

I picked up the mongraph during a sale, so I don't feel too upset about the reused content. This just means I've got Five....maybe Six versions of the same rules floating around... :cool:

Good to know. Still going with the Dedicated Pow rules then? I rather liked Gods using their worshipers as spiritual batteries under those rules. >:->

It is the case but in a modified form, because Elric cults mechanics have some specifics that don't fit other settings and vice versa.

Charles, have you tried emailing William Jones directly? Just a thought...

Cheers,

Nick

Sounds like a Plan! :thumb:

Hardcover, Leatherbound, made in the U.SA.? I'm tempted to call shenanigans.

If they have indeed fixed their binding issue this time around, and have done a bit of cleaning rules wise, I'll likely come around. Overall as a long time player/gm of the runequest / brp system I liked most of the changes they made. Mostly it was that messy bit with combat, opposed skills and the binding issues that turned me off.

There would be some specific things I'd like to see in a Ritual Magic Monograph.

First I'd like either a customizable system, or a book containing multiple versions of ritual magic. In fact the best of both worlds would be a base system and a series of ritual magic traditions created through the rules.

Second it would allow for a set of rules that could be used in Fantasy, Ancient, Modern and other genres. As well as allowing for cross cultural systems of ritual magic, such as the Lodges and Voodoo systems from Gurps Voodoo.

Thirdly such a set of base rules would provide a sense of balance and continuity rules wise. The spells in Call of Cthulhu often times seem fairly random in their effects and power levels. I'd like a set of rules that made sense mechanically across the board. If the GM wanted to change things to address the power or mana level of the campaign, it would be nice for it to be as easy as possible.

That depends on the story actually. Lovecraft was under constant pressure from editors to simplify his stories. Some of the "Pulpier" tales such as "Herbert West, Reanimator" were hated by Lovecraft. He felt his talents were being cheapened to write tales like that.

I assume "cheap" in this case means low cost. From magazines printed on cheap pulpy paper. Not a comment on the quality of the stories themselves?

Pulp being powered down SuperHeroes is entirely appropriate thematically. The Heroes in Pulp narratives were the precursors to the comic book heroes. Elements of Doc Savage for example can be found in Batman, Superman and the Fantastic Four. Batman himself owes as much to Zorro as he does the Shadow and the Spider.

Actually most 'pulp' rpgs seem to be slightly powered down supers games to me, but actually pretty much the entire genre selection of rpgs could be termed 'pulp' on one level or other. D&D is pulp, Traveller and Star Wars are pulp, CoC is pulp, Champions is pulp, Deadlands is pulp, etc.

I wonder if they are going to use the Cult system from Elric for MRQII Divine magic. That was one of my favorite changes from the original version.

I think it was Worlds of Cthulhu four or five, had complete rules for playing cats. The Call of Cathulhu game it was called.

I would just scale things for a Rescuers Game. If rodents are going to be the main characters in the game use the human or halfling level stats for them. Humans can be represented using the stats for Giants and so on.

If you are looking for a set of rules or book for inspiration, I'd recomend Gurps Bunnies and Burrows. It's less Recuers / Secrets of Nhym and more Watership Down. Still it's a fantastic book, and well worth it for the inspirational background material. Theres also a section on combining Bunnies and Barrows (or any animal game) with Call of Cthulhu.

Taking a stab at it. My guess is that the traits are added to the relavant skills or attribute rolls. This would provide a contrast to other games using edges, feats, legendary abbilites and so on. It would also be more in line with the Chaosium d100 system. So our reanimator with his agile of 24% adds that to surgery rolls and hand to hand attacks using a scalpel.

The sample from Pulp Cthulhu posted back in the day had a new rules system called "Traits," and the one described Trait was for "Weird Knowledge".

Does anyone know anything about these or how they were supposed to have worked? I was going to buy the book and see, but that seems less and less likely as time passes.

I suspect they were supposed to work similarly to Spirit of the Century's Aspects, which I think are pretty cool in and of themselves.

You can find the article in question here.

Anyone have any ideas?

As far as the book coming out. I have serious doubts about this. It's not like I'm bitter or anything.