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Thank you, I will take a look at it ... ah, listen to it.

In the "State of the Mongoose 2009", published on the Mongoose website today, Mongoose has announced that they will publish a new, revised ver- sion of Runequest in 2010 - details here, under "State of the Mongoose": Mongoose Publishing : For All Your Gaming Needs ...

This is not necessarily the case, I know quite a lot of people who buy all of the available material for their favourite rules system because they like the rules and what they enable their player characters to do.

I think these are problems of the past. At least over here the d20 wave and the debates caused by it have ended a long time ago, and Mongoose will pub- lish a revised edition of Runequest in 2010.

I have the impression that the best (= most interesting and useful) material is the material that was written by someone who really wanted and loved to research a certain subject and to write about it, for himself as well as for us others. The problem with this is that it cannot be planned as something to fill a cer- tain market niche at a certain time. One cannot tell authors to write some- thing of that kind about some subject, one has to wait and see what authors are fascinated by and able and willing to offer. This makes me a bit sceptical when it comes to determining what should be published for BRP.

Yes, this was my impression, too, and the main reason why I usually avoided that kind of debate. If one tries really hard, one can construct a "breaking point" for every system under the sun and then claim that the system is "broken", but this is almost always meaningless for the normal, common sense use of the system.

Hmmm ... over here the most often repeated complaint about BRP has something to do with the mathematics of percentile "roll under" systems, but I have to admit that I was never interested enough in this debate to try to understand what all this was about ...

I think roleplaying games are "a bit like food". Some people, perhaps the ma- jority, like their meals "ready to eat", others prefer to do the cooking them- selves. I usually play roleplaying games because I have an idea of a specific setting and would like to know what would happen to this setting under the influen- ce of a certain kind of player characters. To make this experiment, I have to work out the setting as well as the cha- racters' options (abilities, skills, equipment, etc.) within the setting, and for this I need a toolbox like BRP. As for "out of the box" games, well, they are other people's fantasies, not mine, and I usually find them not very fascinating. Positive criticism of BRP ... I have no idea, all I would want to criticize [this word looks strange, I hope it does exist] is the lack of material for some of the genres I am interested in, but this material will most probably be produ- ced in the not so far future (or I will have to produce it). Otherwise, there are so many options, and it is so easy to design additional ones, that I am missing nothing, and can easily replace what I do not like.

It could be the first draft, which has now been replaced by the versions linked in the last post ?

Thank you, a very good idea. The two pieces mentioned above are just the "general themes" of the setting, and I am still looking for other pieces for specific campaign situations. "The Mission" and "1492" are indeed good soundtracks to start with, with a variety of pieces with different "feelings".

Yes, I know what you mean, and "background music" probably was the wrong description. I use music as the introduction to a setting, when we sit down at the table and get ready for the evening's session, and I use specific themes to begin or - less often - to highlight specific situations during the game, but the mu- sic does not play all the time. Almost the only exception are situations where there is a background music in the setting itself, for example when the player characters visit a bar where jazz musicians are playing, or some native religious ceremony with the beat of drums in the background.

When I design a setting, I usually also look for a piece of music that could help to create the right feeling for the campaign. For example, for the Mesoamerican setting for Call of Cthulhu I am currently working on, I was searching both for a "Native" and a "Spanish" theme to start the sessions with and / or to use as a background music. Right now I think I will use these two: "Native": "Spanish": YouTube - Sting - Saint Agnes and the Burning Train There are many interesting pieces to be found on the Internet, and more than a few traditional songs would make a fine addition to a fantasy adventure. This one, for example, seems perfect for a Viking-type setting: YouTube - KrummavÃ*sur - Iceland Folk Song And here is something with a bit more "power" for other types of fantasy: YouTube - Kiri Te Kanawa - Tarakihi

I doubt that Status and Influence are identical. For example, take a look at a typical fantasy town. The local ruler, usually a noble, and the local high priests of the various religions will probably have the highest Status of all the inhabitants of the town, who will usually defer to them. However, under normal circumstances the noble ruler will not have much In- fluence with the local Thieves' Guild, and the high priest of a pacifist deity will hardly have much influence with the band of mercenaries who use the town as their base. Of course, the thieves as well as the mercenaries will acknowledge the high Status of the noble and the priest (e.g. bow to them when they encounter them, not speak to them unless being spoken to first, etc.) - but they will not let them have much - if any - Influence where it comes to their "busi- ness matters", I think.

An additional twist would be the relations between various groups of a set- ting. For example, Influence with Group A could give a character 1/2 that Influ- ence with Group B, which is friendly with Group A, but at the same time re- duce his Influence with Group C by 1/2 of that Influence, because Group C is hostile to Groups A and B. If I remember it right, some Star Wars RPG version had a rather elaborate system of that kind.

No way ... California rock lizard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Well, how is Brave New World going, hopefully still on track ? While I am more interested in the Colonial Period of Central and South Ame- rica than North America, and mostly as a Call of Cthulhu setting, I think that much of your material could be most interesting and useful for me, too.

While working on a Call of Cthulhu setting, I "discovered" this website: Cthulhu Files The Cthulhu Universalis part with its alphabetical index / encyclopedia of creatures, names, places and thelike from the Cthulhu Mythos made it a lot easier for me to connect my setting to Lovecraft's fictional world - and it also was rather interesting to browse ... Perhaps this could be something for the Links ?

Ah, Eleanor, one of my favourite medieval characters - as soon as my role- playing games budget has recovered ... By the way, should it not be "Aquitaine" (not nitpicking, just asking - most historical books seem to use Aquitaine) ?

By the way, rapiers do have a tendency to break when a powerful straight thrust hits armour but does not penetrate - perhaps one reason why rapiers were common civilian weapons (e.g. for duels), but rarely used in battle, where many people did still have some armour (e.g. breast plates).

"Empires" treats nations / states and "Guilds, Factions & Cults" treats orga- nizations like characters, with characteristics and skills and rules for develop- ment and important events. One could use the books to "roleplay" a nation or an economic / political / re- ligious organization, but the more interesting parts are those that connect this "metagame level" with the lives of the player characters. For example, "Empires" contains rules to play the life of a noble, and "Guilds, Factions & Cults" has rules about what the organizations can provide to the player characters - and what they expect their members to do for them. I do not use the Mongoose Runequest rules (it is "BRP-enriched Call of Cthul- hu" for me), but the rules from these two books are very easy to modify for BRP or any BRP "clone". Both books can be had as PDFs: RuneQuest Empires - Mongoose | DriveThruRPG.com Guilds, Factions & Cults - Mongoose | DriveThruRPG.com

Yes, I think Mongoose Runequest's "Guilds, Factions & Cults" and - for the very high social levels - "Empires" have some interesting and useful ideas when it comes to player characters and the social framework of a setting.

Yes, we did, several times, with a modified Call of Cthulhu system. It worked quite well, although I learned from experience that it is prudent to make as many non-combat skills as possible important for the player charac- ters to distribute their experience over a wide array of skills and to award ex- perience rolls only for success with difficult actions under especially stressful circumstances (the "axis events" of the campaign's plot). It also helps to offer a good "exit strategy" for the older / very experienced player characters, for example by providing ways to turn them into some of the setting's influential non-player characters in time to open up the "cam- paign slots" for the younger and less experienced generation of player cha- racters.

Well, at least the New England guy has a slim chance to survive, while the ... ah, let's call it "heroic" ... Texan doubtless becomes a "statistic" ... :cool: As for the publication date of Pulp Cthulhu, I think it will be soon after the day of the Pope's marriage ...

If I remember it right (long time ago ...) GURPS Magic had some interesting ideas on magic rituals, perhaps you could find some inspiration there.

I think this specific Cover Trollkin has already entered the Trollkin Hall of Fame and become immortalized by now ...