rust

You mean the rumours of 5E being a classless, skill based system, using percentile dice isn't true?

Not exactly. D&D 5E requires only some basic computer input ("I am an invincible

and handsome hero who wants to kill nasty things and take their stuff"), and the

computer then generates the character, the adventure and all of the action and

shows it as a 3D movie - just lean back and enjoy the game.

P.S.: The movie technology will be licensed from Disney, so no sex.

Well, you know ...

Well, WotC had to do this. Their D&D system is no longer profitable, so in order

to survive as a company they had to aquire another system which really sells

extraordinarily well, and the only one of this kind right now is BRP.

Oh, and there are already rumours that WotC representatives are secretly con-

tacting Alephtar Games shareholders to prepare for a hostile takeover.

This would probably depend on the type of creature and natural weapon, I

see it as something the referee has to decide according to the specific si-

tuation.

Although they evidently think we're a bit thick ...

Well, with one of my least favourite online shops for roleplaying games and PDFs

one first has to order the PDF, then gets an e-mail with the bank data for the

money transfer, then has to wait at least a week after the money was sent for

the e-mail with the download link for the PDF ...

"Kingdom of the Blind" has 135 pages. Almost 60 of these pages are a very inter-

esting description of Britain and its society between the wars, another almost 60

pages are Mythos related material, and the rest is an appendix with alternative

rules for drug addiction, war service and many new occupations.

The first part deals mainly with sociology and gives a good impression of how the

people thought and felt, and why they did so, but it does not cover geography

and thelike very well. The appendix is quite useful, with some good ideas for new

professions. The Mythos part ... well, you do not want it anyway.

Since the PDF is not really expensive, I think you should give it a try if you feel

that "Green and Pleasant Land" did not include a good introduction into the "men-

tality" of the Brits and the "feel" of their society between the wars. However, if

you are more interested in something like a "gazetteer" of Britain during this ti-

me, I would hesitate to recommend "Kingdom of the Blind"

My team of experienced lawyers told me to plead "Not Guilty", Your Honor.

Has anyone ever run or played CoC in the classic between-the-wars era, but without the Mythos elements?

Yes, of course.

In fact, the great majority of my CoC campaigns were of this kind, very similar to

"pulp" scenarios, but with the comparatively "gritty" Call of Cthulhu system to gi-

ve them a little more "realism". We had the Arabian Peninsula, the Arctic, the Hi-

malaya and Central America as locations, and everything from scientific expediti-

ons to guerilla wars as the plots. It worked perfectly well, especially because the

many good supplements covering the period provide all the background knowled-

ge one needs, and deleting the SAN rules and all Mythos references does not da-

mage the playability of the system at all.

Here you go ...

Wind Child

STR 2D6

CON 3D6

SIZ 2D6

INT 2D6+6

POW 2D6+6

DEX 2D6+10

APP 3D6

Move 2/9 flying

Hit Points 9

Fatigue 18

[Agility +9] Boat 00, Climb 40, Dodge 25, Jump 10,

Ride 00, Swim 00; [Communication +6] skills as per

human; [Knowledge +3] skills as per human; [Mani-

pulation +9] skills as per human; [Perception +6]

Listen 20, Search 40, Scan 40; [stealth +7] Hide 05,

Sneak 05

[typical spirit magic 65 %] Disrupt, Mobility, Shimmer,

Speedart; [typical divine magic 100 %] Command

Sylph, Heal Area, Storm god spells. Wind Children may

have bound a sylph. All Wind Children can learn the

spell of Summon Sylph at no cost in INT.

Armor: None natural. Rarely wears any, as it grossly

inhibits dodging and flying ability. Each point of ENC

over a Wind Child's STR subtracts 5 percentiles from

any skill used in flight.

The typical weapon is an extremely long and thin lance

with 8 hit points, SR of 1, doing 1D8+1 points of dama-

ge on impact.

The Wind Children from the Runequest Vikings box also are winged humanoids.

If you want me to post their stats here, just tell me.

After some months of fantasy stuff I am now moving back into science fiction,

and your conversion rules are an excellent opportunity to use the 2300 AD ma-

terial for a new low-tech setting - Thank you very much indeed.

Very nice indeed.

Here are a few magic items, and if you browse this website you can find many

more of them:

http://www.soltakss.com/magicit.html

I doubt that a heroic effort would make much sense in such a situation. A limb

reduced to zero hit points almost certainly means serious damage to bones, ten-

dons and muscles, and in this case no effort of will can cause the damaged limb

to function, only magic or Hollywood pseudo-reality could do it.

A (rough) translation of the skill list for my current Asornok fantasy setting looks

like this:

Animal Lore

Animal Training

Appraising

Area Knowledge

Art*

Athletics

Bargain

Boat

Craft*

Dancing

Dodge

Dog Sled

First Aid

Foreign Language*

Healing

Intuition

Legend Lore

Magic Script

Mother Tongue

Music

Nature Lore

Navigation

Oratory

Perception

Plant Lore

Repair

Sign Language

Sky Lore

Spirit Lore

Stealth

Storytelling

Survival

Tracking

Trapping

* covers several skills

Is there any truth to this?

Well, no. BRP has been available as a softcover for a couple of years now, and

the hardcover is published right now. I suspect they were either talking about

one of the BRP supplements or about the time when they expect to have the

hardcover available (although I think this should be earlier).

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. But the thing is my mom sent me a bunch of data on I.Q.s that suggest that genius is a lower I.Q. number than what I thought, which would be 180. According to my mom, genius starts at 150. What do other people think about their 150 INT characters?

Well, on the scale commonly used over here, which is corrected for the age of

the person and the statistical distribution of the test results, an IQ of 150 would

already put a person at the outer edge of the scale:

Over here we tend to be a bit sceptical about IQ tests and test results, because

intelligence is still neither well understood nor well defined, different tests produ-

ce different results, and the same person tested at different times with the sa-

me tests usually also has different results. As we were told during our training,

all you can rely on is that IQ is what a specific IQ test attempts to measure, but

beyond that all we have is guesswork.

So IQ - or any other numerical value for intelligence - is quite useful for a role-

playing game, but I would very much hesitate to consider it important in the real

world.

anyone here know where i can buy a paper copy ?

i really want it BAD

I think Cjbowser is right, even my favourite and usually quite well stocked online

shop has only the BRP books with colour covers (Celestial Empire, Laundry, Rome,

etc.), but none of the monographs.

any idea how many weapons will be in this one?

The first one had no weapons, only equipment.

For each of the items the book usually contains a picture, a short description,

the game stats including the price, and where necessary usually also short ru-

les for the item's use - in short, all one needs to use the equipment in a game.

The Big Book of Powers for BRP.

A BRP hardcover about Austin Powers ? - Oh, behave !

I thought Call of Cthulhu would be available as hardcover only - or is this only

the German edition ?

Is Malleus Monstorom for Call of Cthulhu a good bestiary for BRP in general? Of course it has the Mythos beings, but does it make a useful animal/monster book for general purposes?

In my view, no, not really. A major part of the book describes mythos deities, ob-

viously much too powerful creatures for a normal BRP campaign, and even most

of the monsters are obviously mythos related beasties. I think there are not more

than perhaps a dozen creatures which could be used for a non-Lovecraftian or

at least non-horror setting without major modifications.

By the way, does anyone know who has the copyright to Future*World? Chaosium or Steve Perrin? Or someone else?

In 1982 Chaosium held the copyright, but since Future World currently is available

as a free download, whoever now has the copyright obviously does not intend to

defend this right - at least not where non-commercial distribution is involved.