jux

Actually there are modern games which don't have skills at all! Shadow of the Demon Lord and Symbaroum for example. It gives much more freedom actually. But we are talking about BRP and RQ, so yeah. Skills it is.

Have that. Am using it in my OQ game

Yes! I wish RQ had something similar to SAN for example. Something simpler and more elegant.

Dump stat was too harsh and poorly chosen word for what I meant. But I wish POW would be important attribute in a zero-magic setting, because one's mental power matters very much also in mundane world. For example I like how in Savage Worlds there is "spirit" attribute - it has basically the same meaning as POW in BRP. But Spirit is very crucial stat in combat. In SW when you receive a hit, you must mentally overcome the inner instability and pass a Spirit attribute check, otherwise you are "shaken", meaning you are too afraid to a attack in return. You can run for cover though. While I'm not fan of the "shaken" rule in SW, I very much like how physical strength and mental strength must be in balance, for that character to function efficiently.

I on the contrary like all the random effects/tables. I don't want them to be too harsh - I don't wish to roll which limb I have lost for example. But I want them to enrich some small details of narrative into the game. DCC is very successful line and is full of awesome tables. Unfortunately I hate d20 system.

Yeah, for traditional games, personality is mainly used for communication or social encounters. I'd be interested in something more interconnected. Like learning magic effects your corruption which should be big deal, not some number for role-playing that can be easily ignored. The weaker one's empathy, the more easily corrupted this person is. BRP basically has that - it's POW. I wish it was more important. It seems only magic users need that and for the rest it is a dump-stat. It should reflect how frightened a character can become, etc.

Yeah, you are actually right. Animal handling and Command skills that actually stood out to me. But I don't even know how Conan game uses these skills. My point is that for traditional games, personality properties are still so under-developed. It still too much "I hit it with my axe" focused. For example I'd like to see an Empathy attrubute/skill. I want to see more bipolar characters, that are strong and skilled in combat, but are mentally so week that freeze up in real fight. I want to see a character having a nervous breakdown - mental damage.

I agree that it is extra book-keeping. In the end I may prefer generic HPs with major and why not minor wound chart where one can record injuries. I think it all comes down to injuries, rather than the "1 hit point left" parody. But one silly side-effect for hit-location is the case where if generic character has let's say 10 HP-s, but the equally strong character with hit locations would have actually more. For example, you do 3 damage to left leg, then 3 to right leg, then 3 to each of the arms - that's already 12 damage. So instead for the combat to be over sooner, it can drag more.

I'm not sure if I am doing any good by raising question about the new RQ edition. But the backbone of the system and how character is defined is the skill list. I understand how the old CoC had too many skills and I am very surprised of the skill list in the old RQ2 (visible here). So the trend has been on reducing the number of skills, but I'm not sure that RQ6 or OQ has it right either (boating, ride, singing?). Now, as you all know there is a new Kickstarter for Conan game currently running and it left me quite cold (because I have RQ to play that stuff), but then I saw the Conan skill list: AGILITY - Acrobatics - Melee - Stealth AWARENESS - Insight - Observation - Survival - Thievery BRAWN - Athletics - Resistance COORDINATION - Parry - Ranged Weapons - Sailing INTELLIGENCE - Alchemy - Craft - Healing - Lore - Linguistics - Siegecraft PERSONALITY - Animal Handling - Command - Counsel - Persuade - Society WILLPOWER - Discipline - Sorcery Wow! To me this is much more descriptive. There are stats for personality! This is something I am always looking forward from a RPG. Anyway, I guess I'm just impatient for the next RQ dev notes.

Yeah, I'd really like something like that. Why not steal that from the AGE system? If it is success and there is 11,22,33,44,xx, etc then trigger a random special effect? But I think it will be too rare case for my taste. Anyway, I really would stress Chaosium to make the new RQ combat something special, because we have RQ6 with quite exciting combat mechanics. I'd prefer something faster and yet give the same amount narrative. To me DCC is good example of all sorts of fun and exciting charts. I wish RQ had stuff like that - fumbles, corruptions, curses, magical side-effects, etc.

I am unfamiliar with the POW as currency rules, but it seems like something I would not like at all. This just seems so meta. It should reflect story, right? Why do we have to have rules for everything, tracking them numbers! Why not have something simple and elegant instead. You want a risk, trade-off right? Why not add corruption or back-slashes or something? Something that is real, not abstract number.

Yeah, I fully agree. I was talking from the new player perspective. Once you have "mastered" the chart, you just keep taking mostly the same option. I do agree it is a bit boring. I want my battles to be chaotic and full of surprises. I like some degree of meaningful choice of tactics, but not full control.

My problem with Special Effects is that they are not special. They are very common - I mean they happen often. They mostly always happen when you hit. And this bogs it down, at least with beginners. You open up the special effect sheets (if you have printed them out, otherwise you start flipping the book) and then comes the agony of choice. You have to mix and match some 3-4 applicable moves and choose which you prefer the most. To me this is a bit too much. (I still like RQ6 and pay it with certain gourp) At the same time I would prefer some more flavor in combat than just scoring hits and damage. For example rolling hit location is already a great fun. I would not mind if there are some flavor charts where you can roll - critical success and fumble tables for example. Minor wound tables, etc. Some combat options, like which location to hit, grapple, full attack, full defense, etc. Note I have not played RQ2/3. My RQ is v6 and OQ.

Yeah, managing the "feedback" stuff is already a work of it's own. For dnd it may have pissed more people off rather than give certain value, but polls surely showed something that the crowd wanted. Sure it will be a bigger effort, but I think succeeding with this product is Essential for the future of Chaosium. I really like these "designer notes" blog posts. I would like to see teasers and polls for certain things as well (character generation ... cough cough).

I meant it in "base system" context. Yeah, Renaissance has some neat stuff - sanity for example.

OQ2 and Renaissance are the same thing. This is what I prefer and want the BRP Essentials to be based on.

Then I would ask, why RQ6 was an option in the first place It just seems very chaotic way of doing things, that just this Kickstarter is the basis of big design decisions. And also it is strange how fast they plan to finish this product. In few months, right? Does not look like they have correctly planned it out. It can be debated how much of a success D&D5 really is, but how they did the development really shows how they did it right. No rush, open discussion with fanbase, free testing releases. I have assumption the 5e is very solid release and fans of the game are generally happy with it. I think Chaosium could learn from them. Also, as the devs are not working together, but are separated and meet only online, is something I am doubtful.

My question is, why you even reprinted RQ2? I understand it was additional cash-grab, but it clearly backfired as now the overall strategy for the new RQ product line had to be re-worked.

To me it looks exciting. I really like how the new RQ seems to be more rules light and beginner friendly. I really like RQ6 as well and I think it is very complete. It has it's nice simulative tone that fits perfectly with the more historic settings that RQ6 has. I like it to be a separate product line. RQ6 is also very rules heavy - not over the extreme, but it is the maximum I can chew. So I like the new RQ to be a lighter version and without combat maneuvers. As a "new blood" in the hobby (Mongoose Legend was my first RuneQuest), I want to emphasize one thing that the grognards here may disagree with. I think the key to success for this version of RQ is the accessibility. The core book must be simple, short and sweet. But I am afraid this product can very easily become a big tome, which means it will cost much and so do poorly to win over the "new blood". The book is not out yet, but you can see how many are already scared away with the choice of including the monster of a setting that is Glorantha. This is what I am looking forward from the new RQ: Minimal setting burden. It (mechanics, magic, etc) should be recognizable for Glorantha fans, but setting understanding should not be required. No one should buy the ridiculous Guide to Glorantha volumes, to enjoy this game. This RQ, while married to Glorantha, should be playable in other settings as well. Very, very good setting introduction. You want your target audience to be actually new to Glorantha. The old grognards are alrady sold, but you must sell that monster setting to the new players. Maybe they even go full-crazy and buy these big boring setting books of yours. So do it right. Don't overload it with information. Rather keep them hungry. Give a setting teaser or something. Keep it thin, yet fully playable with the core book alone. Make many expansions, but keep the core book thin, cheap, accessible. That means below 200 pages. (RQ6, while work of art, is totally dysfunctional as a reference book to me). You know your target audience, right? The gamers - they have jobs now, wifies, children, taxes. Pages cost money and they cost time for players. Modern RPG games try to focus on that. Least amount of material for playing the game! I want to see 10 page adventure supplements - not 300 page campaigns. Don't expect your gamers to be full time GMs, because we are not. Well, that's only from a newbie point of view. You still can do stuff that all the old fans expect, but have opportunity for the beginners to be included in this as well.

Just to comment about settings and adventures, I'd like to point out one thing that while in BRP there are many great historic settings, they are very "wordy". They are not so much a gaming material, but more like work for a GM. With settings and adventures I'd like to emphasize this - as much gaming content with least amount of words. Unfortunately gaming time / preparation time ratio for BRP is very "expensive" on the contrary to "bang for the buck". That is why I will never get into Glorantha

I would assume there is still quite a lot of work to bring things to modern standards. But it is good, that there will be new projects in the pipeline as well.

Seems like with this KS, Chaosium will have their hands full for the whole year.

Yes, I really like DCC adventures, but I prefer OQ system. It would be awesome to have some optional bits inspired by DCC.

Companion. I want magic items, fumble tables of all sorts, magic backslashes, curses, fair/sanity rules, corruption, traps ...

This is an interesting point about BRP that the OP has pointed out. I have noticed it myself. To me the problem is not that many characters end up similar when they all develop their skills to maximum - this is an absurd scenario. As BRP is more on a simulation side of things, character development goes very slowly. How much time would it take get the majority of most important skills to +80% ... I'd say more than 100 sessions, so already this is something a system should not worry about. (I recently read about Shadow of the Demon Lord RPG, where the author designed a game that assumes the average campaign takes about 10 sessions - I fully agree on this philosophy) Ok, but my problem with BRP is when the starting characters start to look too similar. The selling point of BRP has always been that it is dynamic and open - you can build any character you want! Right? I have witnessed that instead of getting to be good at anything, you are denied of being good at anything. If you want to be #1 fighter, you may have the strongest attributes, most suitable background, but you still get your ~50-60% fighting skill and the master fisherman in your party is only ~15% worse than you. So I think the challenge of BRP future design would be to provide a way to create a character that could be very good at something. But as in real life and simulation - all characters are not equal, but in our game we would prefer this, at least on some level. To provide some balance, min-maxing should be very 'expensive'. I like that part in Savage Worlds - you can be average or weak/strong either mentally/physically, but not in both and all abilities are equally important. This is the key thing I find lacking in d100 where there are so many skills but 3-4 of them are at least 10 times more important than the rest. While BRP has very solid skill system, I find it needs something additionally. Everything is not a skill - perception is not a skill! Listen is not skill. Yeah, just some thoughts ...