rust

This is no problem with "direct fire" at a short distance, but the historical war bows and arrows were designed for "ballistic fire" at a long distance, where the weight of the ar- row falling onto the target determines the arrow's armour penetration. The power of the bow was required to get the arrow as far and high as possible, but its impact was most- ly a matter of gravity. For example, according to early Chinese military handbooks the archers began to fire at a distance of about 200 meters from the enemy force, and as far as I know European longbowmen used the same tactics.

I very much doubt it. The normally available modern bows are designed for comparatively light arrows, not the kind of armour piercing heavy war arrows used by the famous archers of the past. However, a graphite compound bow designed for the right kind of arrows might well be better than one of the historical bow types. Edit.: Just looked it up, the average modern compound bow has a draw weight of about 65 lbs, whi- le the average longbow found in the wreck of the Mary Rose had a draw weight of more than 100 lbs (up to ca. 170 lbs), and Chinese sources give draw weights in the 120 - 140 lbs range for Mongolian composite bows.

Looks very much like the kind of material I would love to buy.

Unfortunately I was unable to continue with this setting as planned, the players decided to prefer another one, and so the magic system is still unfinished.

There are also some nice things in the forum's download section, one I would recommend is Fergo's work on Middle Earth magic, which has a somewhat dif- ferent feel than most BRP based magic: ME-BRP - Chapter 7 - Magic-image free version - Downloads - Basic Roleplaying Central

Hmm ... The Piper at the Gates of Dawn is the title of the debut album of Pink Floyd, and they took the phrase from the book The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graha- me. I would probably take a closer look at this book, especially at the chapter titled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, to see whether this chapter's content provides so- me inspiration for a campaign. Unfortunately I do not know the book, so I do not ha- ve any more concrete ideas. Edit.: The Piper at the Gates of Dawn tells how Mole and Rat go in search of Otter's missing son Portly, whom they find in the care of the god Pan. A search for a missing person who has been taken in by a deity ... I think this could well become a campaign plot.

Sometimes a single letter makes a lot of difference, as for example the difference between Empire Rising and Empires Rising.

Suitable clothing for below freezing weather would be the equivalent of Inuit outdoor clothing. And take a look at the exposure rates depending on the temperature, the wind speed and thelike, see page 129.

The same here, and if one really needs some obscure rule for an unexpected situation, it is usually better for the game flow to wing it than to interrupt the game to search the library.

I am currently working on an "alchemists and clockwork in space" setting, the outer bounds of the system are really far out ...

This is certainly true, but, well, that's how it goes. Just try to find the music of Quicksilver Messenger Service or Kaleidoscope at a normal media shop, or to see a movie with Spencer Tracy at a cinema, or to ask a teenager what he knows about them. We are old farts now, partially living in what today's teenagers are likely to consider the distant past, so our games are not their games, and rather unlikely to become their games, no matter how hard we try to convince them of their merits.

Not really, I am aware of at least a dozen old RPG companies which are still in the business, for example Columbia Games, Fantasy Games Unlimited, Fly- ing Buffalo or Tri Tac Games.

One of the settings I intend to convert to the Renaissance system requires permanent magic items and the player characters' ability to design and create such items, and I am currrently looking for a way to make this possible with the right "feel" for the game system. At the moment I think I will introduce an "advanced" kind of Philosopher's Stone, more difficult to create than a normal one, but able to draw "magickal energy" from the en- vironment and use it to power a magic item. In theory this kind of Philosopher's Stone could function indefinitely, but since it is impossible to create a perfect stone each of the stones has a "burn out probability", which is determined during the creation of the stone and rolled for each time the item powered by the stone is used. Once the item's stone has burned out, it has to be replaced with another advanced stone of the same power to make the item function again. Each advanced stone is made for one specific item, it cannot be used to power any other item. I think that this concept would fit into the "feel" of Renaissance's system of Alchemy, but I am not yet sure - comments would therefore be most welcome.

True, but my decision to buy a product or not is based upon the relation between the product's price and that part of my income which I can spend for my hobby, not upon the relation between the product's price and the prices of competing products. Unfor- tunately the fact that the price of gaming has risen has not caused my income to rise by an equivalent amount ...

The same here.

Hmmm ... I think I would prefer something a little more exotic. Like for example the very early days of the East India Company, with a sea voyage around Africa to In- dia, first contacts with strange cultures (and creatures), hunted by the Portugue- se and by pirates, a bit of the spirit of Sinbad the Sailor's adventures in the mix, a lot of opportunities to use social and other skills in unfamiliar situations ...

It is even more scary over here, where the price tag in my favourite online shop (no FLGS anywhere near me) is 50.95 Euro, about 67 USD.

If you have Renaissance Deluxe, but not Clockwork and Chivalry, all you miss is setting specific material for a campaign during the time of the Civil War in England, like for ex- ample the various factions involved in that conflict. I did order Clockwork and Chivalry after downloading Renaissance Deluxe because the player characters of my Selonia setting are likely to need at least one other country for activities like diplomacy and trade, and a well detailed fantastic wartime England and Scotland fits perfectly into the setting and offers lots of interesting opportunities for the player characters - otherwise Renaissance Deluxe would have been all I needed. So, if your intended setting has nothing to do with England and the period of the Civil War, you do not need Clockwork and Chivalry, except perhaps as a very good example of how to use the Renaissance Deluxe system for a specific setting.

My players told me that they got somewhat tired of Medieval fantasy settings and would prefer another period for a change, so I downloaded first Renaissance Deluxe and then also Clockwork and Chivalry to convert my Medieval Selonia setting to a Renaissance setting. After reading through Renaissance Deluxe and Clockwork and Chivalry and beginning to convert my setting I just wanted to congratulate both authors to their excellent system and great presentation of the material. A very well deserved ;t);t) (no star emoticons here ...)

I am now using the Pendragon 5.1 edition, but with some of the material from the 4th edition which did not make it into the later editions, like the more detailed descriptions of the lands beyond Britain.

According to Triff's post at the end of this thread here from Alastor's Inn it is a known server problem others have run into, too, and we will have to wait for the server guys to solve the problem: http://basicroleplaying.com/alastors-skull-inn/how-do-i-post-avatar-3002/

The main difference between my previous pseudo-historical settings and this one is that the Selonia setting is much more "personality driven", while the most impor- tant factors in previous campaigns were the environment and the "grand strategy" of the background, this campaign's development will be determined mostly by the personalities and motivations of the various player and nonplayer characters. This is also the reason why I decided to use the Pendragon system with its focus on the characters' traits and passions instead of BRP or Cthulhu Dark Ages.

Yes, I think this really is the best way to handle this with the Pendragon system - thank you very much for your help. It is a simple .png, one of the allowed formats, but when I attempt to upload it I get a long and (for me) incomprehensible error message. I do not think that Triff intended to prevent this kind of upload, to me it looks more like an unintentional software problem.

I have posted a short description of my current ideas for this campaign in a neighbouring thread, titled "The Selonia Campaign". I also intended to upload a first map of Selonia, but unfortunately the forum software does not accept the upload.

Phase Two – Courtly Intrigue With the death of Robert de Plancy the new rulers of Selonia lost their acknowledged leader. Robert, the legitimized bastard son of a French count, was married by his father to the heir- ess of the County of Plancy in the Rosello region of France, and Robert has a young widow named Agnes and a newborn son named Reynaud there. It was his wife's inheritance which made the conquest of Selonia possible, and most of the income of the County of Plancy is used to support the new overlords of Selonia. While Reynaud de Plancy is the legal heir of Robert, and Agnes de Plancy the most likely re- gent for her son, not all of Robert's followers are willing to hand their power over to them. Sir Athelstane sees himself as the best possible ruler of Selonia, Sir Isarn's loyalty to the young heir is also in doubt, and the remaining Moorish nobles and the Selonese have their own dif- ferent ideas about the future of the island. The situation comes to a point when Agnes de Plancy leaves the stewardship of the County of Plancy to her brother Raymond and arrives on Selonia with her son Reynaud. The outcome of the power struggle will be determined by the player characters, they will have to choose a side - or become their own side – and their choice and their actions will decide who will rule Selonia. Phase Three – Nation Building Unless Phase Two ends in a desaster, Selonia will have to be governed, and the player charac- ters will almost certainly be among the young nation's landed leaders. Conquering a realm is much easier than ruling it. Some kind of administration has to be crea- ted, the island's economy has to be rebuilt, diplomatic relations and trade routes have to be es- tablished, and so on and on. What exactly the player characters will be up to is decided by the players in this sandbox pha- se, although I will of course continue to provide the important events of a background history.