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Well, we have a real deluge of post-apocalyptic settings over here, some people have even coi- ned the new term "New German Endtime" for this subgenre of extremely dark (and often rather silly - think of Roland Emmerich movies ...) settings ...

Thank you very much, I like this idea. Meanwhile I settled for about 1625 as the starting date of the setting, but my little research showed that most of the important ports around Sokotra were already under foreign control at that time - Aden by the Ottomans, Surat by the English of the East India Company, Goa by the Portuguese, and so on. These nations would probably not welcome another bunch of Europeans on Sokotra, especial- ly the Portuguese might well decide to eliminate this potential competition immediately. There- fore it would by prudent for the colonists to avoid such contacts and search for other trading partners and potential allies, and the Chinese would be a very interesting and colourful option.

Thank you, a very nice idea. The settlers will be in for quite a shock when they discover what is killing their goats, and since bats usually prefer caves, there is an opportunity for a very special kind of "dungeon crawl" ...

I doubt that he would have left them behind, it seems he cared quite well for his crews. However, Chinese traders should indeed be a part of the setting. I am not sure how far or how often they travelled the real world's Indian Ocean, apart from the Treasure Fleet, but in an alternate earth setting Chinese junks en route to Arabia may well be normal - they had all the necessary technology and skills, just not the Emperor's permission, if I remem- ber it right.

A few days ago I was looking at a map of the Indian Ocean, and there was this island, Sokotra. Almost desert, 80 km long, 25 km wide, mostly plains, but with a mountain 1,500 m high, lots of caves, a very unusual vegetation, bats as the only native mammals - a very strange and ex- tremely remote place. Remote, but in a fascinating location. To the south west is the Swahili Coast, to the west is Ara- bia with the ports of Aden and Muscat, to the north west is Persia, to the north east and east is India, and to the south east are the Maldives. Lots of different, fascinating cultures, just close enough to visit, but still far enough to be no immediate threat for the island's inhabitants. Sokotra could be perfect for an alternate earth setting. Historically the island was inhabited by Christian Arabs (must have surprised the first European visitors somewhat), but for a possible alternate earth setting I would not hesitate to remove the natives and turn Sokotra into an un- inhabited island, with perhaps only some ruins left by the previous inhabitants. Well, there could also be the occasional pirate crew visiting the island for fresh water ... The setting's main ingredient could be European settlers, either intentional colonists like the Pu- ritans of the Mayflower, or unintentional ones like the mutineers of the Bounty who settled Pit- cairn Island. They would have to explore the island, start their settlement there, and finally to contact their various neighbours (the pirates would contact them ...) to trade with them for the goods their new home does not offer to them. The best time period for a setting of this kind would probably be around 1600, when ships from Europe could reach the region, but the Europeans did not yet control the entire region - a few Dutch, English and Portuguese outposts would add some more colour and opportunities for di- plomacy to the setting. The ships could be European caravels and carracks and native dhows, the weapons would be musket and rapier - the usual swashbuckling outfits. The players could start with a ship and crew, a few dozen settlers, some money to buy what they consider necessary to build their small colony, and a convincing reason to leave Europe be- hind and search for a new home. Perhaps they did hear rumours of a remote island inhabited by friendly Christians ... Well, this is where I am right now. I am not yet sure whether to write this setting, but the basic idea seems interesting to me. Comments and ideas are most welcome.

There is ony one licensed science fiction setting I would really jump at without hesitation, because it would be truly perfect for my kind of roleplaying: Mars Trilogy - Kim Stanley Robinson

I would call it a string of very bad luck. There have been several attempts, including Ringworld, Other Suns and - for the post-apocalyptic genre - The Morrow Project, all using the BRP system, but all not exactly commercial successes, for widely different reasons.

I understand this, and the quality of the content is usually excellent, but the price makes it very hard to find new players for the game.

Thank you very much. I have come to the same conclusion, to use the Harn prices whenever possible and the RQ II prices only as a guide when Harn does not provide a price for something, which is quite rare.

Ah, well, I do not really want to stress the point that I am about 30 years older than most of the other users of most of the German forums I visit ...

Not all of them, as RosenMcStern explained. In fact, we also have a second, weaker trend towards "old school" games ("the true roots of roleplaying ..."), where games like the older versions of D&D, Tunnels & Trolls and similar new games like for example Labyrinth Lord are considered the only good roleplaying games in the world - pure hack & slay dungeon bashing, mostly. Ironically most of these roleplayers are not interested in BRP because they see it as "not old school enough" ...

Indeed. I was lucky to get the German editions of Harnmaster and Harnworld, which were sold at normal prices, but everything published in English is truly expensive.

Thank you for the link. I have no problems with the complexity, only with the price range of the Harn line - almost 20 Euros for a PDF of 86 pages means this one will have to wait a couple of weeks until my roleplaying budget has recovered.

Thank you, I will take a look at it.

For one of my settings I would like to use both the material on ruling a noble fief from the up- coming RQ II Empires and the very detailed price list from Harnworld. As far as I can see, a silver piece from Runequest II and a penny from Harnworld are about equivalent in value, which should make it possible to use both of them as the same currency, with the prices adapted somewhat to better fit the setting. However, I tend to fumble my mathematics rolls, and currencies are something I do not really understand ... So, is there perhaps some major problem that I failed to recognize ? Thank you for your advice.

Over here BRP is still very much a niche game for a small minority of roleplayers, although it seems this minority is very slowly growing, thanks both to our Call of Cthulhu community that knows and likes the system and to the good new material now available. I have no doubt that it would grow faster if all of the material were easily available from other sources than Chao- sium, too. As for the future, I think much will depend on the general development of the roleplaying sce- ne. BRP is really not well supported when it comes to "public relations", so whenever a new game is published with lots of support and hype it draws the attention away from BRP. For ex- ample, last year Savage Worlds was the big fashion, and the discussion about it cluttered eve- ry forum and made it very difficult to raise interest in BRP. Moreover, at least over here there is still a trend towards very rules light games, preferably ones with new "indie" features. Sooner or later this trend will end, but until then BRP is out of the current mainstream, considered by too many roleplayers as "old fashioned".

I have a setting "on ice", waiting for the material from your monograph ...

Thank you, I added it.

This is probably a Runequest format, AP (Armour Points) / HP (Hit Points).

a1 books in the USA offers Crusaders of the Amber Coast as new books on the German Amazon website, and they are even a bit less expensive than Amazon itself. I think this is their US website: http://www.a1books.com/CRUSADERS-AMBER-COAST-RPG/1907204636/catalog

Thank you very much for your offer. However, I think I would end up with words I do not really understand and do not know how to pronounce correctly, and they would be even more "alien" for the players, who would play characters who have this language as their mother tongue. As much as I would like to use the right language for this setting, I am afraid that using it badly and without even a minimal knowledge of it would damage the "feel" of the game, and that some French is about as far as I can go with a foreign language for this setting.

Thank you, a good idea.

I would like to do it, but my French is very bad (enough to drive a Spanish cow mad ...) and my Provencal nonexistent. So, in order to stay at least somewhat consistent, I probably have to use French, because I do not understand enough French to research all the Provencal words that I would need for the setting - at least I was unable to find any good English or German sources for Provencal words.

I use Paint.NET, it is free and not as complicated as Gimp and similar programs: http://www.getpaint.net/

By the way, this is a first sketch of the city's plan. The city, called Avennio, is (very losely) based on an alternate history of Avignon and the sur- rounding area, one where the city remained a part of the Holy Roman Empire and was not sold to the Popes. Therefore it is now an Imperial Free City as an enclave in southern France, which should pro- vide a lot of opportunities for adventures aimed at keeping the city independent and preven- ting its conquest by France - quite challenging, because the war between France and the Habs- burg dynasty in the Empire and Spain is already on the horizon in 1625 when the campaign will start ...