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If I were looking for a way to connect this kind of shared world with the Call of Cthulhu settings I am currently working on, I would treat the different ver- sions and parts of the shared world as regions of a kind of Dreamlands. Some magic, drug or gate would enable the characters to travel to the sha- red world, perhaps with a slightly different spell / drug / gate for each of its versions or regions. On entering a version or part of the shared world, the characters would "ma- terialize" at or near the same location, preferably near the center and as far as possible from the "border mists" - they would not have a direct way to travel through the mist from one version or part of the shared world to ano- ther. The Inn on the Island could be something like a central hub, a place that can be reached comparatively easily, and from where it would be easier to visit any of the other versions or regions - sleep in the right room, and you wake up there in the morning, for example. Just some thoughts ...

Yes and no. Many genres developed their own material within Call of Cthul- hu, from fantasy (Dreamlands, etc.) to science fiction (Cthulhu End Time, etc.) to modern (Cthulhu Now, etc.), and it was easy to play them without using the Cthulhu mythos at all.

On a certain level, they doubtless can. I know of a few people who bought Rome after I told them about it, and also told them that they could easily adapt it to the Call of Cthulhu system (which is well known over here). Thinking of it, perhaps a slim BRP version could be sold as a Call of Cthulhu supplement ... - but this is not what this thread is about.

Only if there were also supplements, adventures, a web site and all that in the local language, otherwise it would probably not make much of a diffe- rence.

Ah, well, you know ... it does not mention whether the car has a refrigera- tor ... :D:D But even with a translation that is better than gibberish, one would still need a publisher and distribution channels. This is not exactly easy over here, where there are several small publishers, but not a single big one with enough resources to take a serious risk, and where the experiences with translations have recently been quite bad - even D&D 4 fizzled and was discontinued. Sorry to say, but I do not see much of a success chance for a German trans- lation.

Oops, that would be a long list with several dozen titles ... In the Fantasy genre I would mention Arcane Codex for those who like a ga- me that feels similar to D&D, and Midgard for something more gritty (and a bit "math-heavy", unfortunately). For Science Fiction my choice would be Lodland (underwater, very realistic) or Perry Rhodan (far future space opera). Since Dark Future / Post-Apocalyptic is currently the fashion, there is a lot of choice for every taste. Frostzone is somewhat like the old Gamma World, Heredium is rather more sinister. These are just a few examples of genres and titles, there are lots more.

Well, it is a bit of an unexciting "academic thought experiment" for me, be- cause without a German version of BRP and the BRP material the chances to recruit new gamers over here are very, very slim. There are now so many good roleplaying games available in German that one which is only available in English will remain a fringe thing, no matter how good the marketing.

@ Rurik & Atgxtg: You misunderstood my post. If you use common words, there is of course no problem. However, if you use names that are used only by one other game, and nowhere else, for example "Kenser's Gloating Disc", you have used the other author's IP. @ Atgxtg: I still think that Mongoose bought a lot more than just a name, they bought an entire setting with all the names and descriptions of people, places, crea- tures, and so on - the result of decades of creative effort.

Of course, provided you take care that neither the skills nor the spells have names that are used only by one other game.

It is extremely confusing. In most European countries the "creative depth" of a work of art or of a part of it decides whether it is an intellectual property worthy of protection. Unfortunately it is rather difficult to measure "creative depth", and therefore different lawyers - and different judges - can come to very different opinions about the creative depth and IP protection of something. Moreover, it is still unclear how far "backwards" the protection does extend. In the extreme case, could Tolkien's heirs today sue the publishers who use obviously "Tolkienesque" material, even when this material meanwhile has been copied so often that it seems to have become public domain ? And there are lots and lots of similar strange questions that are likely to keep lawyers and courts busy for decades ...

I do not know your expectations, but everything that has a unique proper name that is not commonly used anywhere else would be "off limits". I am not aware of the details of the license deal, but I think it included the entire setting, with all the terms like "Glorantha" or "Pavis", and so on ? Rules mechanisms are not protected, only their expressions are.

Mongoose bought their Runequest license from the IP owner, they did not just copy it without asking ...

Besides, apart from being the polite thing and the right thing to do, it is also the safe thing to do. Otherwise it could happen that one day someone decides that "IP borrowing" happened one time too often, "too much is too much", and you could get a letter from a lawyer. No matter whether this could stand in a court, the consequences could prove quite detrimental to your bank account, your business credit, your reputation and some other things you need when producing and trying to sell stuff. So, if you want to use a system that looks like BRP, smells like BRP and beha- ves like BRP, you really better talk to the people who own BRP.

In my view it would depend somewhat on Mongoose's terms for a commercial MRQ II license and their willingness to support third party products, for exam- ple with a concept like the one they use for Traveller products in their Flaming Cobra network. If a MRQ II license turns out to be significantly more expensive than Chaosi- um's model, and the support (e.g. distribution through Mongoose's channels) not equivalent to the cost, it will hardly be and option, but otherwise I would not count it out. On the other hand, personally I would very much prefer to see all BRP mate- rial and material that can easily be adapted to BRP "clustered around" Chao- sium, where it is easier for the customer to find it and to keep aware of what is there, than to have it scattered over a wider array of distribution chan- nels, where it is much easier to miss interesting indie products. For example, I might even miss something like Alephtar's Rome if it did not ap- pear on Chaosium's website.

There seems to be a third one. Asked about the possibility to buy a Rune- quest II license, Matt Sprange posted in return (on the State of the Mon- goose discussion thread): ... whatever that does or will mean.

I somehow managed to miss D&D completely, I only learned of its existence about five years after I had started roleplaying. The people I played with came from wargames and were into "serious" stuff, they considered D&D a game for children, never bought it and never mentio- ned it. And since we had to mail order all games from England in the early years, and could only order what we were aware of, I remained happily unaware of D&D for several years.

I had started roleplaying with Traveller, liked the concept, and looked for other roleplaying games - and Runequest simply was the only one available at the time. I used it to design a pseudo-medieval setting, completely ignoring Glorantha ... Edit.: Or did I get Empire of the Petal Throne before Runequest ... ?

Sad news, both of them.

Remembering the SNAFU with the Mongoose Traveller licensing, where it took a couple of months before it became clear what Mongoose really meant and intended, with lots of contradictory signals in between, I think nothing is re- ally certain right now when it comes to the MRQ license.

Perhaps the artists among the BRP fans should consider "donating" some of their works for the free (or at least inexpensive) use in monographs and si- milar amateur products, and begin to collect such works in the forum's gal- lery ?

I suspect that this is true for all genres, not only the historical one. Once a campaign has started, and referee and players have made the setting their characters' world with unique inhabitants, locations and events, commercial adventures rarely fit in well without a lot of modification. Therefore a setting probably needs an "entry adventure" as a part of the set- ting book itself, to get a campaign started, but afterwards supplements with additional "setting content" (e.g. regions, equipment, organizations, etc.) could be more welcome and sell better than adventures.

Sorry to say, but it is probably just "tradition". I have been using BRP for about thirty years now for almost all of my settings and campaigns, and so I know how to make it do the tricks I want it to do. Using any other system would mean to give up my "experience advantage", so I stay with BRP - although I have to admit that there are other systems that can deliver the same or equally good results in the hands of those who know them well.

By the way, concerning additional genres for BRP, I did just see this one: The Modern Equipment Catalog Chaosium Inc.

John Ossoway, who seems to visit this forum at least now and then, and there may also be some input from others, for example the visitors of his website.

Remember, all authors believe that, because they know all too well where the hidden weak spots are. From what I have seen, I would be very surprised if Chaosium would not publish The Green.