rust

For English material I usually prefer PDFs, simply because the cost of the postage

otherwise tends to make the material more expensive than I am willing to pay -

and PDFs are also much more easy to store and to keep in pristine condition than

printed material.

I rarely have an entire PDF printed, I usually copy only the parts of the material

I intend to use for a specific setting or campaign into my own material, which I

then have sometimes printed.

Colour or black and white ... well, I do not really care. I like good art, no matter

whether it is in colour or black and white, and I strongly dislike both the "soft

porn approach" and the "gun porn approach" often seen in roleplaying material.

Anyway, good text (and, where useful, good maps and thelike) are a lot more

important to me than general illustrations.

Thanks for the prompt reply, but: why do the spells have levels at all?

For example because the effect of a spell (e.g. SIZ of object it can lift, strength

of opposite spell it can cancel, etc.) is calculated in increments, and these are

called levels ?

As I understand it, the magician does not have to relearn the spell.

Edit.:

I did just reread the part on Spell Levels on page 89 of the BRP book, and

in my view it only mentions additional POW and time, but no need to learn

the spell at a higher level.

If you are looking for something simple, you could just use a roll against POW or

a multiple of POW and some modifiers whenever the situation could cause fear.

Why would creating overlapping source books be an issue ?

I suspect the question of IP ownership could easily become a problem, for exam-

ple if one of the companies involved changes hands or closes down - this could

become the kind of stuff that makes lawyers wealthy.

I am not aware of any such collection of creatures, but it would not be difficult

to create them with the Mutation rules from the Powers chapter of the BRP book,

and it would have the advantage that you could design precisely what you want

for your game.

As regards the map : my print run has one and very nice it is too. Puck, it might be worth your while contacting Chaosium and mentioning that some books are going out without the map.

This problem seems to have been solved, meanwhile I downloaded the PDF again,

and this time it had the map on pages 140 and 141.

And I wonder how many more might do so if the BRP book was a slimmer, focused, cheaper product.

Yes, indeed. Over here we are lucky, because most roleplaying gamers know

Call of Cthulhu and have played it at least once, so they are somewhat fami-

liar with BRP and not as likely to be confused and overwhelmed by the BRP to-

me, but I think that someone who is a true newcomer to everything BRP may

well have serious problems with the labyrinth of options and not much of a red

thread to guide him through.

If BRP itself isn't going to expand the community, any supplement you aim at it is limited to that community. To use BRP Rome you need BRP. You don't have BRP - you aren't going to buy BRP Rome.

My experience is completely different. I know quite a lot of people who bought

BRP because they wanted to use settings like Crusaders of the Amber Coast or

Rome, and so these settings have indeed expanded the BRP community.

It's at the very back of the book, isn't it? Right before the advertisements for BRP and the Monographs ad? Or is that just a segment of the Green?

Strange, my copy ends on page 139 with an armour table, no map,

and there is no advertisement for BRP, only for Cthulhu Invictus.

With my Thule setting mostly completed, my next little project will probably be

my own version of the Tragic Millenium Europe setting from the Hawkmoon no-

vels. Since I do not want to use the plot from the novels and the locations of

that plot, I am currently looking for alternatives - and I think The Green could

very well be somewhere on Tragic Millenium Earth, or in one of Moorcock's ma-

ny dimensions of his Multiverse that can be reached from there.

I would not be surprised if some Guardians of the Kamarg would be sent to The

Green by Bowgentle, on a mission to obtain some rare ingredients for his expe-

riments, or by Count Brass, on a mission to hunt down some dangerous scientist-

sorceror from Granbretan who has his secret hideout and laboratory there ...

Edit.:

By the way, I seem to miss a map of the entire Green - or I am just too stupid

to find it.

Since I wanted to mine Merrie England for ideas to use in my Thule setting, I did

not wait for the BRP version and downloaded the Runequest version from DTRPG.

Merrie England turned out to be a very useful addition to Stupor Mundi and Cru-

saders of the Amber Coast, and it really has a lot of nice ideas which I can "bor-

row" for the Thule setting, for example the informations about the Jews (there

will now be a Jewish moneylender in my setting ...).

A very nice supplement, highly recommended.

Maybe Interplanetary, when it comes out, could be mined for material for a straight swashbuckling game in BRP?

I was originally hoping (and waiting) for the Pirates supplement for BRP that had

been announced quite a while ago, but then suddenly disappeared from my radar

screen - it would have been most welcome for two of my other partially finished

settings, too.

As far as I understand it, Interplanetary could have some very useful material on

combat, but I would still need either a supplement or a sudden inspiration for ac-

ceptable seafaring rules. While I can mostly "handwave" such rules for my other

pseudo-historical settings (e.g. the Thule setting), a true swashbuckling setting

would need such rules.

So I am still hoping that the Pirates setting will reappear somewhere in the not all

too far future ...

I have one, but unfortunately it is in German.

In most cases I begin with a description of the physical layout of the territory

covered by the setting, including at least one map, and followed by descripti-

ons of the important or especially interesting resources, plants and animals.

The next chapter describes the population of the setting's territory, the histo-

ry and the general politics. I usually add descriptions of the main settlements,

wherever possible with maps.

Then come the economy, including lists and prices of the available equipment,

and the trade and trade routes, often with another map.

The next part is the culture and religion of the population of the setting, from

everyday life (houses, clothes, food ...) and special occasions (festivals, etc.)

to the scientific knowledge and the theology of the society or societies.

The last part covers the modifications to the game system used (available and

new skills, etc.), the game stats of important personalities of the setting, tem-

plates for generic non-player characters (e.g. "peasant" or "town watch mem-

ber") and the stats for any unusual animals or creatures.

Since I normally do not use magic or psionics in my setting, there is no chapter

to cover this, but in the few cases were I use them I add them to the cuture

chapter.

There is no special reason for the order of the chapters, it is just the way I tend

to work through my notes to arrive at a semi-finished setting.

The basic framework or "skeleton" of a setting usually is between 20 pages for

historical and pseudo-historical settings and 50 pages for science fiction settings

(which need a lot of descriptions and explanations of the technology used).

Once this framework is finished, I usually put the setting aside until I have a new

idea I want to add or have a group of players interested in the setting. In the

latter case, we discuss the setting, and I add the details and changes the play-

ers consider necessary to have fun with the setting. This tends to expand the

setting to between 50 and 100 pages at the start of a campaign.

I see your point, but I tend to be a bit more strict when it comes to skills.

That said, I always use the Complementary Skills option (BRP p. 50), and in all

but modern and science fiction settings I bundle the natural sciences into one

single skill "Natural Philosophy" (or "Quadrivium" for medieval settings) without

any specialization of skills.

Would it be reasonable to allow a player that has bought up Science (Astronomy) to 70% to then buy up their related skills from the base level of 35% during character generation?

I would hesitate to allow the use of related skills at half chance in all situations,

in my view this does not always make sense. For example, not every problem in

astronomy or physics can be solved with a good mathematics skill alone, often

more specific knowledge from the problem's field is required. Therefore I would

also hesitate to allow a player to use a related skill's half chance as the base for

learning a skill, because the basic knowledge even of closely related skills is not

really identical. Just as in the real world, where someone who has studied mathe-

matics will hardly get a second degree in astronomy or physics in half the time.

This is one of about half a dozen partially finished pseudo-historical setting pro-

jects on my shelve. I was not satisfied with what I had at the time, so I put it

on ice and hope to return to it when I have some more convincing ideas for it,

including a better system than the mix of BRP and Flashing Blades I was working

on (and also players potentially interested in this setting).

The only possible trace of the author I am aware of is a post of "Manilianus" on

the Yog-Sothoth forum:

Have they maintained the quality you guys are attributing to the original said RuneQuest?

I think this is very much a matter of personal taste.

In my view, Mongoose Runequest I was definitely not as good as the original

Runequest, it had lots of problems which even lots of errata could not solve.

In my opinion Mongoose Runequest II is a much better system than Mongoose

Runequest I, and I really like what I have seen of it so far. However, it is also

quite different from the original Runequest and has a different "feel" - some

people are likely to welcome the differences (like the combat actions), others

will continue to prefer the original.

That said, Mongoose Runequest II is doubtless a very good system.

What Trifletraxor wrote. ^^

In my view the Gloranthan Classics (see some links below) include some of the

best roleplaying material ever written, and the original Runequest gives you easy

access to these treasures.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83383

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83384

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=83386

Is it worth the cost?

Frankly, the three "Basic" supplements (Gamemaster, Creatures and Magic) are

only really worth the cost if you ran out of fuel and urgently need something to

burn in order to keep you warm.

My bad. What about now?

Yep, thank you, there it is.

I don't see that option. I don't have the book, but I doubt the forum software knows that

I see a gray bar, with the menus Thread Tools, Search Threads and Display options (and View First Unread or something similar)

The same here, I also do not see the option for rating the product.

You can now rate the products there from 1-5 stars (it's an option when you post to the threads). Please rate all the products that you have!

I attempted to do that in the Crusaders of the Amber Coast thread, but I missed

the option to rate the product. Could you perhaps give me a short "How to Rate

Products for Dummies" ?

Test post to find out how to rate a product ... missed to find out ...