BMonroe

Just curious. Some folks loved the old RQIII Sorcery rules, some hated them. I remember when I was first playing RQIII, I just couldn't figure them out, but they made perfect sense to me when I returned to the game many years later.

So, I'm curious, what about the RQIII Sorcery didn't you like?

Yeah, it seems really cool. The original 'alternate magic' system I wanted to do for 4th edition Stormbringer was very much inspired by 1st edition Ars Magica, and had some similarities to this one. It's worth exploring further.

Was digging through some of my older BRP games recently, and came across the Unknown East book. It came out after I'd stopped playing Elric/Stormbringer/Multiversal stuff, so I didn't really pay much attention to it.

However, as I flipped through it, I discovered the new magic system in the book. Sort of an Ars Magica-lile abstract magic system. I've always loved such things, and am finding this to be pretty cool, and an interesting addition to my canon of BRP powers systems.

I'm curious if anyone here's used it, and what their experience with it was?

You don't need to do a straight mechanical conversion, just try and get the 'feel' right. If it's really that big a deal to you, map the characteristics across equally, and multiply all the D&D skill bonuses by 5 to figure out their percentile bonus (added to base chances and category modifiers). Then just use BRP for the rest as-is. If you want to replicate the spells and such, either use Classic Fantasy (which has all the OGL D&D spells converted to BRP) or use the Super Powers system in BRP, and let the players make up their spells with it, based on the D&D versions.

The expanded Nephilim magic system is BRP ready. It's probably ready built for your needs but it comes with some extra stuff that you might not want for your setting. Ka aspects and such.

I was just going to mention the Nephilim supplement, Liber Ka for just this reason. It's mostly concerned with ritual, and subtle magics, with a bit of flash-bang stuff to spice it up. It would be easy to excise what you don't need.

I played a ton of Stormbringer in my teenage years. 'Course, I was a total BRP fanboy at the time (still am, in many ways) and SB and RQIII filled most of my fantasy gaming itches. I found that for introducing new players to BRP, Stormbringer was much easier to grasp. The system was much simpler than RQIII, and the setting was less complex than Glorantha.

As I don't post a lot to this forum (something I hope to change) many of you may not know that I'm the same John B. Monroe who designed the magic system for 4th edition SB.

That being said, I've not played any version of SB/Elric in fifteen years or so. But it is a fabulous game.

FWIW I just got my grubby mitts on a copy of "Aces High" along with a few other monographs. Looking forward to reading it!

Cool! I've been meaning to stop by Chaosium anyway and say howdy. I'll have to see about getting a copy of this.

Yeah, I know I scrawled my notes directly on my 'zero edition' book, and took it down to Charlie for him to go over and input where appropriate. So, I don't even have a record of my edits.

It was the first species introduced to the Star Wars universe outside of the movies. Aside from that, I've no idea.

Hey you have the style that I like, now can I get you to maybe write a book for BRP on Knights<BG>?

Penn

I have to say I'd love to see something like this as well. A book covering all sorts of chivalric paths, maybe an adaptation of the Pendragon Passions rules, stuff about Quests, Treasures, and monsters. I'd pick that one up in a heartbeat.

Yeah, I seriously need this book. I've said for a long time that Horror and Westerns are the Chocolate and Peanut Butter genres.

I'm not sure that using SAN in a traditional fantasy setting is really an issue. Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and the like are pretty close to one another, not much of a shock at all. Orcs/Trolls, etc, might provoke a small loss, if they are particularly ferocious. A Lich or a feeding Ghoul more so. Demons and Mythos creatures even more. It can work well to convey horror even in a fantasy setting, you just have to determine how different the creatures really are from the baseline.

In Glorantha for instance, because the base races are so different, I can see a human needing to make a roll if they see an Aldryami drop from its pod, or a Mostali lifted from the vat full grown... etc.

SDLeary

Steve speaks wisdom. Now, the question that arises for me is what is B-Dog really trying to do? A "Fantasy with Mythos Elements" setting? Or a "Mythos with Fantasy Tropes" setting?

If going for the former, just plug shoggoths, deep ones, mi-go, etc. into your fantasy setting of choice, forget the SAN rolls, and just call them all 'demons' or whatever.

If doing the latter, then you're probably better off reskinning fantasy races entirely. Elves are more akin to Grey Aliens, who fell from the stars, and bred with the primitve ancestors of humanity. Orcs are vat-grown Mi-go experiments. Their own version of building slave labor, like the Elder Things' Shoggoths. Perhaps the Orcs are mountainous, and arctic-tempered, as they were bred to assault the Mi-go fortress city at the icecap at the bottom of the world.

So, that's my suggestion: figure out exactly why you want to mix up the mythos and traditional fantasy, and make the setting to reflect those themes.

It appears your wanting to do what I do not, and that is add the Cthulhu Mythos into your D&D. If I understand everyone, by added the Sanity Check system and all that goes along with it your basically adding that element of hopelessness into your game. Eventually the Sanity elements will end up destroying your gamers PCs and causing them to loose their characters. Seems like you could do that just the same with the tone and flavor of your game without using the sanity check stuff.

Bah. If Robert E. Howard can add mythos elements to -his- fantasy world, so can this guy.

;-)

For those who're interested, I wrote an alternate Sanity/Stress system for BRP. It was designed to give more of the feeling of a desperate "Survival Horror" situation, rather than doomed cosmic dread. It would actually probably work pretty well for Mythos fantasy.

It's supposed to be included in the 2nd issue of Uncounted Worlds, which I gather is nearing completion.

Just remember keep building that gaming reference library. You never know what one day might come to be useful material.

Indeed!

It's definitely Pale Rider / High Plains Drifter (i.e. gritty, plausible if somewhat non-historically specific "real" western with an occult / paranormal edge) more than it's Deadlands garish walking zombie's and the magic came back and history has radically changed schtick. Albeit a lot depends on how the GM chooses to handle things of course.

Nick -- sounds awesome. Funny, when I first saw Deadlands, I was hoping for something more "Pale Rider" or "High Plains Drifter" and was almost instantly turned off by how over the top it was. I'll definitely add this to my 'have to get' list. I should probably swing by the Chaosium office and say hi sometime soon anyway, so picking AH up is a good excuse to do so.

Cool!

I'll definitely add this to my 'must get' list.

Very much the former, but to me it's different enough from Deadlands to actually be interesting. I find Deadlands a little over-the-top, but Aces High is more subtle, which to me is good. There is a lot of historical details to inform your own game. (but no free blacks?) It also has rules to through in numerous types of genre-appropriate magic.

Okay, apparently I really need this book...

Can anyone give a better idea what the focus of this supplement is?

I keep hearing 'mythic Western', which conjures images of anything from the "Man With No Name" trilogy to the "Dark Tower" series. I also see the tagline of "weird wild-west", which sounds sort of Deadlands-y.

Is this a supplement for Westerns with supernatural/paranormal elements? Or more of a straight-up, down-to-earth Spaghetti Western sort of thing?

As Greg Stafford himself once told me: "Game balance is for pussies."

My very first roleplaying experiences were with 4th ed. Stormbringer, and I find myself being consistantly drawn back to the game and the setting after periodic deviations with other games.

As the editor of that book, and the author of the 4th edition magic system, let me tell you how thrilled I am to hear that.

Hey all,

I finally got around to registering for the forums, which I should have done a long time ago.

My name's Ben, and some of you might know me from other forums (RPG.net is where I spend most of my forum time). I've been a big BRP fan since discovering RQII back in 1981 or so, and I've done a little work for Chaosium over the years.