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Nick J.

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Posts posted by Nick J.

  1. On 12/26/2018 at 9:53 PM, Coronoides said:

    Entirely true. However, the same issue with rolled characteristics raises it's ugly head with other character concepts too. Say a player really wants to play a Conan-esque warrior and rolls 7 STR or a player who wants a cat burglar character but rolls 4 DEX. I'll add these examples to my house rules document better make my point. Simply, put I want players to be able to create the PCs they want to play.

    I actually really like the POW 16 and no skill approach to spell casting in RAW. Its streamlined and provides a ready explanation for magic use being so rare that it does not affect culture or technology too much. This is especially true if only a small percentage of NPCs with sufficient POW to cast spells get an education that teaches them to do so.

    That said differing approaches will suit different worlds imagined by Chroniclers, including possibly myself if I start work on another world.

    ***********************

    Today's pregen is a Morg a young giant slave sold to the arena to pay for his master's gambling debts. There he has recently won his freedom and a purse from the Emperor.

    MagicWorldCS Giant Slave.pdf

    Another thing to consider in MW: characteristics can improve through training and during experience rolls (rolling a critical on a characteristic roll gives a 21% chance), so even if your character doesn't start out as Cugel or Conan, there's a chance they can grow into the role organically through play.

    But I take your point; a lot of people like to have more control over how their character is built on the front end and there's no harm in doing a point-buy if that's how you want to handle it. Personally I've always leaned more towards systems and games where I let the dice gods have their say, and then I look at the numbers and interpret a character concept from what I roll, but I have a player that leans more towards the "total control" end of the spectrum, so I've learned to moderate my own preferences and be flexible. For instance, for the next game I run I'm just going to adopt the Elric! method of 2d6+6 and then let players arrange to taste.

    • Like 1
  2. On 12/25/2018 at 3:17 PM, Coronoides said:

    Another look behind the curtain at how these were made...

    Characteristics
    I have an issue with randomly rolled characteristics because the rolled characteristics might not let a player create the character she wants to play. If you want to make a wizard and roll POW10 you’re just an apprentice or theorist who can’t cast spells yet. Not very satisfying.  
    House rule: 83 points are distributed between characteristics while remaining within the ranges that could be rolled. Non–humans characters also use 83pts but the rollable ranges of each species are different. Using the same number of points puts all species on something closer to a ‘level playing field’.
    In either case you may use the Sorcerous Heritage rule (MW103) exchanging 2pt from any one other Characteristic for a point of POW. This may take you to one higher than what could be rolled for your species and therefore may be useful even if the point buy system is used.

    I’ll edit this post to add another character, a wizard, later this morning (Eastern Australia Time).

    magicworldcs(form-fillable-no-calc)v2.3.1wizard.pdf

    Certainly that is the RAW, but there are sidebars that list a few optional rules you might want to try. Personally I'm a fan of the Casting skill approach or POW+INT=26. Point being, MW is pretty forgiving of house-rules and there's really no wrong way to tweak it, so long as everyone at the table gets some enjoyment from it..

    Enjoy. It's still my go to system, even if I haven't been posting here on these forums much any more.

  3. 13 hours ago, Simlasa said:

    That makes me think of the end of Cemetary Man (which has a strange/silly/non sequitur ending.
    My past couple months have been confuzzled anyways... but all the game groups I'm in have been on hiatus or worse. So it will be good to get back to it.

    I've never seen the movie, but my life feels kind of strange and silly lately so I probably should watch it.

  4. Alrighty. Just finished stripping out all of the JavaScript in the sheet. I also stripped out some tool-tips to avoid confusion, and deleted stuff like the radio buttons for Heroic or Standard hit points, and converted all of the read-only fields to standard forms. Everything in the sheet should now be fillable, but there are no calculations of any kind in the document. You can still click on the portrait box and import an image however.

    Hopefully other people find this useful.

     

    MagicWorld CS (form-fillable-no-calc)v2.3.1 .pdf

    • Thanks 2
  5. On 12/20/2018 at 7:05 PM, Coronoides said:

    Had a bit of a look. To edit I'll need to upgrade my subscription to $22AUD a month. For something I need just once and am not sure I have the skills to use even then its just not worth it. Looks like pencil and paper is my solution.

    Well, if it would be useful I'll tinker a little bit tonight and strip out all of the calculations in the sheet. It'd still be form-fillable, but would allow people who want total control over the fields to do whatever they want.

     

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  6. 11 hours ago, Coronoides said:

    Got a lot of use out of this already. Any chance of a *less* automated one for use with non-humans who have different base %’s ?

    Pretty please.

    Like what exactly? If you mean removing just the base percentages from the skill totals I could do it, but it wouldn't be a trivial amount of work. If you mean removing all of the JavaScript calculations in the skill totals then it would be a lot easier. For what it's worth the sheet is unlocked and can be edited by anyone for their own purposes; you can get a monthly subscription to Adobe (something like $15 a month IIRC) or Foxit Phantom ($8 a month).

    Currently I'm awfully busy with a huge multi-year project that I'm trying to wrap up, so I don't really have any bandwidth to devote to this, otherwise I wouldn't mind tinkering with it.

  7. On 11/3/2018 at 12:49 PM, Atgxtg said:

    An interesting view. I'm not sold on it though. I think it might hold true for some demons but not all. One interesting tidbit in one of the series (Hawkmoon or Corum, I forgot which one) is that one of the baddies summons Yyrkoon as a demon. If this is the same characters from the Erlic saga is unknown, and if so, if the  the summons occurred before or after his death. If it is the same Yyrkoon, then either way, it opens up some interesting lines of thought. Maybe sorcerers themselves are vulnerable to being summoned, or maybe those who follow Chaos or are slain by Stormbringer can be summoned? 

     

    I don't blame you. But I do think as this is Moorcock's Multiverse that we are dealing with beings from some other plane/dimension/sphere.

    If this was Stormbringer/Elric! we were talking about I'd fully agree with you, but in Magic World all we're left with from the old games is the mechanics and not a lot of guidance on what something "is." As a generic fantasy RPG it seems like this was done intentionally to leave it up to the GM to define.

    • Like 2
  8. In Magic World terms I tend to think of demons as being something like jinn; amorphous entities of some otherworldly plane/dimension/reality that lack individuality until they are drawn forth and formed in the material world. Mechanically this explains sorcerer's being able to define a demon. in Cosmological terms, maybe this is one reason why they are so eager to make deals with sorcerers or allow themselves to be summoned at all? They become "real" (or at least more real) once they are summoned.

    Whatever demons are and where they come from, I tend to want to rebel against the carefully laid out cosmology by Gary Gygax for the Dungeons & Dragons game with its outer planes and their clearly defined hierarchies, species, politics, etc.

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  9. The rights were lost ages ago, and I don't know really know how amenable Michael Moorcock is to licensing his IPs to Chaosium (or anybody) these days. My guess is that there's not a lot of profit to be made even if they did re-acquire the rights.

    "Who knows?," is the only answer most people are going to be able to come up with is my guess.

  10. 22 hours ago, Chaot said:

    Check out Gods of Law and the Virtues system there. It goes a long way towards something like this.

    I searched for this but I'm not sure what came back is actually what you're referring to. Do you happen to have a link?

  11. 4 minutes ago, colinabrett said:

    Isn't this how magic worked in Stormbringer 3rd edition (and perhaps earlier). I seem to remember the rules saying, to the effect, that Man was incapable of performing magic in and of himself; he must summon demons and elementals and higher powers to do the magic for him.

    Magic had its variety by allowing the player to choose the demon's form and some special powers.

    Colin

    I'm not sure, I never played Stormbringer and only became aware of Elric! and SB5 by picking up Magic World first.

  12. This thread has me thinking about how the game would look if the only spells available were summon elemental, summon demon, and summon spirit? I'm kind of thinking it would function the same way as the sandestins in Jack Vance's Dying Earth or Lyonesse novels.

    I think I've got one player who might balk - he loves his Deep Magic users, but I can envision some interesting dynamics in play.

  13. I can definitely see an argument for removing the POW cost or at least include it as an option in the interest of allowing the "dread necromancer" trope who raises scores of undead to harrass his enemies. Maybe there's a middle ground? Allow the POW investment for more permanent undead and without the POW investment, any created undead only persist for POW hours, or they decay at the rate of 1 HP per hour or something? I need to look at the necromancy rules again and refresh my memory about the possibilities, but I think there's a lot of minor tweaks that could be made to enhance the proposition of being a dedicated corporeal necromancer.

    • Like 2
  14. 9 hours ago, Mikus said:

    Thanks guys,

    While I can see all of these points the RAW do not state that if an opponent chooses not to parry or dodge than my paltry 30% should go to 100% or that it becomes an automatic backstab or easy task.  No, it remains an unmodified 30%. I'm not talking about a guy sticking his hands up, just not performing parry or dodge.  Do we just assume that the default 70% to miss is due to my lack of skill and the stress of combat?  If so, I can roll with that it just seems HIGH!!!!

    As fo 40% being 'I think I know what I am doing' and 60% means 'really, really good' I still fail almost 1/2 the time against some noob who is not even actively defending so perhaps not really very good at all?

    Perhaps everyone should start with a minimum 75% attack which could then be resisted or not.  Old D&D 1st level characters against an unarmored foe had to roll 10, (or maybe 11) on a d20 to hit.  This is against someone assumed to be actively defending.  That means they must have had 75% or higher to hit against someone not defending I would think???

    In BRP having low weapon skills unless specifically trained is a standard.  If you check some old character sheets I'll bet many seasoned characters have low skill with an ax or stick, preferring to advance with sword and dagger.

    As for a glancing blow on the wood I think that is why armor deflects damage.  The damage roll is for glancing, (1 point), or full contact, (6 points).  The 30% means hit wood or 70% miss wood when chopping.  Do you really miss the hunk of wood 70% of the time when your chopping or simply hit it 95% of the time but roll low damage because your not very good at it yet?  I would think the latter is more likely.

    Anyhow, just running this through my logic filter and I do appreciate the thoughts.   BRP is great but this is one of the main issues with skill based systems which turn off many players.  I'm trying to conceptualize in a way that cannot easily be disassembled and discarded as illogical.  Its a game but I must admit this seems a valid clunky spot.

     

    And yes, lets hope all my foes forgo Parry and Dodge!

    I guess if you take only the narrowest interpretation of the rules, then it's not explicit, but attacking a "defenseless" opponent is an "easy" roll in the RAW. How the victim of an attack gets to "defenseless;" either because they've run out of parries/dodges, or just choose not to parry/dodge (for some crazy reason) doesn't seem all that difficult to draw a line between the two concepts. As for your D&D character example. needing to get a 10+ on a D20 roll is 55%. Sure some characters will have bonuses from Strength, etc.but it's not an average of 75%.

    Anyway, no system is perfect at modeling physics/reality. If you don't like something then make your own rules -- In this example you could easily state that the only way to fail an attack roll vs. a defenseless opponent is to fumble. A house-rule like that won't break the game, I promise.

  15. Maybe read the section on backstabs and helpless opponents (pg 215 of the BGB). A character who chooses not to parry or dodge is basically identical to a character who can't parry or dodge, so all attacks against them would be "easy." So in your example above, the chance to hit rises to 60%.

    As to how I would conceptualize the idea of not automatically succeeding? Well, maybe the attacker winds up and swings and doesn't actually hit with the sweet spot of the weapon? Hell, there's plenty of times I've been choppiing some perfectly defenseless firewood with a splitting maul, and hit at a slightly odd angle which deflected the blade into the chopping block and didn't cut the piece of wood at all. So while I might have "hit" a glancing blow against the piece of wood, I didn't "succeed" and no real damage was suffered by it. Why should it be any different if you were trying to whack somebody with a stick, a bat, a sword? Even without somebody actively avoiding a blow, you could accidentally slap somebody with the flat of a blade, or hit with the haft, or do something else that connects, but doesn't inflict real damage.

    I think the key point is that achieving contact is not the same as achieving a "success."

    • Like 3
  16. 6 hours ago, g33k said:

    No offense or criticism of you was intended; I apologise if you took what I said as such!

    I was just remarking in-thread, as follow-up to your remarks; I thought both of us were more or less addressing tooley1chris ?and any other interested parties who happened to drive by).

    No worries, it just seemed like a reply to something I hadn't said or implied.

  17. 15 hours ago, g33k said:

    I believe somebody said that RQG has had more sales in the month or so it's been available in PDF-only, than all hard- and soft-copies of MagicWorld across the entire lifespan of the product.

    If these products are paying your own salary -- your rent/mortgage, your food on the table, your healthcare, etc -- which are you going to pursue?  🤔

    IIRC, Chaosium said that "BRP" as a concept is planned to move forward as games with setting+rules integrated into each core-book, with rules tweaked per-setting.  So, Runes for RuneQuest, Sanity for Call of Cthulhu, Futhark&Seidr for Mythic Iceland, etc...  No "nuBGB" or other "generic" edition of the rules is currently planned.

    This seems to be based, not on what fans SAY they want, but what they (we) buy... And apparently, we buy Chaosium's kick-ass setting-based RPGs more than we buy their more generic-y DIY-ish games.

    As noted above, Mythic Iceland is coming, and "Runequest Fantasy Earth" is in early planning/development stages.

     

    I have no idea what you are replying to me for? @tooley1chris said he wasn't sure where he wanted to put his energy: BGB or MW. I said I didn't think it would matter to Chaosium's sales one way or another (and then explained Chaosium's current strategy, which doesn't criticize or question their strategy).

  18. 2 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

     

    Thanks g33k!

    i can't imagine porting MW over to another genre.... I think BGB and Cthulhu handles this wonderfully by itself. (And honestly BGB handles just about EVERYTHING wonderfully as is. IMO)

    I dunno. Maybe I'll just move my game and attention to BGB... I still love MW but... if I'm not helping one I'm just hurting the other and that is NOT my intention. I've ALWAYS been about increasing Chaosium sales/attention, even when I don't think they are (No offense to staff) Gotta follow the $. I get it but it still hurts so bad, like Firefly getting cancelled ((WELL SORTA))  :) )

    I am Curious if Chaosium has reached out to Lone Wolf at all for their character generator. I havent seen any action since Cthulhu way back when...

    If you're not growing, you're dying.

     

     

    The BGB ain't exactly a priority for Chaosium either. But since the two games are so broadly compatible, I doubt there's any harm in putting your efforts into one vs another. For what it's worth, Chaosium seem to be pretty zeroed-in on RQG and CoC (which makes financial sense) and there's a couple of other things in the pipeline that seem to be moving away from generic systems towards games with tightly integrated settings and rules. Fan-support of MW or the BGB isn't going to hurt (or help) their bottom line, it's all about finding players who want to play in your games, and running whatever system clicks for you, whether it's old or new, supported or not.

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  19. 32 minutes ago, tooley1chris said:

    Yeah, rendition isn't the proper word more than...replacements? 

    I don't know. I remember Classic Fantasy was getting revamped. Glorantha (sp). Rune Quest was redone? There was rumors of some older system getting redone, was it the Melbourn stuff? I don't remember...

    Guess my question is did MW people make the move to a "supported" system or is MW still the shizzile?

    I've been trying to think today what new MW project I might work on but I think I've tapped out additional resources for the game. Maybe make modules...?

    I still play Magic World (and I worked like hell on my form-fillable character sheet, and an NPC generator that I just uploaded a month or so ago here in the downloads section if you want to give them a look).

    Personally, I'm just about to start a new campaign adapting Gavin Norman's Dolmenwood setting to MW and I'm excited for it to begin in a few weeks. As for Classic Fantasy, it did indeed get released by The Design Mechanism, and it's pretty good from what I've read, plus they released several adventures for it. RuneQuest: Glorantha is in the process of being rolled out and the main rule-book and the bestiary are available; it's tailor-made to run games in Glorantha and doesn't seem like it's suited for any kind of homebrew game settings, but there's some interesting ideas in it.

    With respect to modules, adventures, settings, I think they'd be appreciated by the people that still play Magic World, and it's always easy enough to convert stuff from one D100 system to another. Follow your bliss I say.

    • Like 1
  20. Welcome back! 

    What exactly do you mean by "newer renditions?" The MW mainbook got a single revision to its PDF, but there's been no new printing, or did you mean newer renditions of other d100 systems? Anyway, it's good to see you back around these parts.

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