Simlasa

I'd go for that... especially if it could dial back the D&Disms. Aarklash, the setting for Rackham's defunct Confrontation/ Cadwallon / Hybrid games. Kind of like Warhammer's Old World setting, but with less dirt and disease and more old-school Disney. The Incal / Metabaron's setting, from the comics by Moebius & Jodorowsky (sneak in The Airtight Garage as well).

Naw... having no confidence in what's coming down the pipe from Chaosium I'm just laying in for a long winter. Buying up whatever BRP/BGB related stuff I'd missed... hunting down xtra hardcopies of the BGB... and cozying up to Openquest and Mythras. There is loads of great stuff for not-Chaosium BRP coming out. Whatever happens, I'll have plenty of stuff to read/play.

I HAD loyalty to Chaosium for years and years... but it's all used up of late and I'm done with buying stuff based on sentimentality. Not that I'm angry, I just see their business interests diverging sharply from my gaming interests. Oh well. After The Vampire Wars is probably my last purchase from them for a while.

That bolded bit brings to mind 'The Whispering Vault'... often described as "Clive Barker's Superfriends."

I love CoC (pre 7e) and Lovecraft's stories... but cheeeez wiz! I'd really, really like to see some non-mythos horror. There are other horror cosmologies out there that are just as cohesive as Lovecraft's (probably more so). Pull from ideas from slightly more modern authors like Ligotti, Cisco, Vandermeer... Clive Barker. File the numbers off Stephen King's ouvre and stitch it all together into a frankenmonster (a lot of his stories already weave to each other). So yeah, I'd like to see a Mythras superhero game... that managed to stay dark/gritty like Godlike/Wild Talents... but I'd just as soon see the fucking Cthulhu left out of it.

Using CoC 7e as the base would be a sure-fire guarantee of me not buying it. I still see it as a move away from the strengths of BRP (and horror gaming specifically) and toward stuff other games are already top dogs on. If I want to play a game with that flavor I'd just go for Savage Worlds. I voted for BRP-based... which ain't gonna happen... but basing it on RQ2 wouldn't put me off.

I grabbed it as soon as I heard it was out but haven't had a chance to do more than glance through it. I think I'm less interested in the Cthulhu angle and more interested in playing out the struggles of the neighborhood... PCs running gangs and pushing votes for Tammany Hall. Real life horrors of the era.

I'm still really excited for this. I'm kind of indifferent about the Cthulhu aspect but if the setting is anything like the one covered in Gangs of New York (the book by Asbury, which is much more wild and colorful than the movie) then it should be ripe for some fun gaming.

I really liked how Earthdawn dealt with magic items... how you'd have to research and establish a relationship with them that unlocked increasing power. Paying some POW to get that going makes sense... but I like taking it beyond a straight up transaction and using them to spawn adventure hooks.

Very cool! Thank you for that.

I've wondered about that book. I'm generally interested in Underdark stuff. The reviews I read of the 3.5 version were mixed, implying it assumes the reader also has the Quintessential Drow book. I'd be curious to hear if the Legend version is complete unto itself or not.

Agreed. I'm not a fan of a bunch of visual clutter just to fill the page. This appeals to me the same way Classic Traveller did with its LBBs.

Looks really nice! Clean. Lotsa white space but I'm fine with that (it's something I see people complain about a lot in reviews for some reason).

Handouts and imagination for us... though I was thinking 'maps' meant battlemats, we do use maps of locations sometimes. No miniatures though... even though I've got a collection of tiny Mythos critters. If there is any atmosphere and dread going on, plunking down a 1 inch high deep one just puts a damper on it. I'd rather use bottlecaps as abstractions.

I'm not clear on what the situation is for fan created content... DIY stuff. Could a person just put 'D100' content, avoid using the name 'Magic World' or other specifics... and be good to go? Kind of like what all the OSR bloggers and such are doing. It seems like Magic World has way less IP to worry about than D&D... no iconic monsters or spell names or setting characters to tempt.

oops

Those are the only two I'd be curious about, though not enough to bother with the prices I see that book going for.

Yeah, I went and bought those MRQII Elric books today... they'd been on my list for months. Curious to see what I can yank out of them.

Truthfully, the B&W appeals to me more in that instance. I'm not saying I don't like game art, or sturdy rulebooks, but if I want to look at atmospheric pictures for inspiration I'm more likely to go hunting on Pinterest. I know they're what sells... but I think it edges out creative folks without the means to produce stuff at that level... no matter how brilliant their actual content might be. I guess I see it as a regrettable trend.

Nothing against beautiful books but they seem to be a bit of a fetish in some gaming circles... with people turning up their noses as games with less elaborate art and layout. It's great for the readers/collectors... but is seldom applicable in play. I suspect that sometimes the praise for a new game has more to do with its appearance than how it actually plays. It seems odd to me that, in some circles, games now seem to require full color hardbacks to be taken seriously. Not saying that the new COC books fall into this trap... but a lot of the 'squeee!' energy I've seen over them seems primarily over how they look (and I'd agree that COC 6e was a mess visually).

I've been going around with myself over the same thing using Magic World. The Patrons themselves don't seem difficult to implement but I also want something closer to DCC's magic system... where spells have widely variable effects depending on the dice roll (some spells are actually multiple spells under one tent, with higher rolls being able to choose the desired result). There's also a potentially nasty backlash on failed spell casts as well as bizarre side effects. It all adds up to much wilder magic and fairly personalized magic users. There's also Spellburn, but the Blood Magic book for Legend has that pretty well covered.

That's something I know NOTHING about but sounds fascinating... a whole other frontier than the one we're used to hearing about... AND it would give me an excuse to play characters using a ridiculous Russian accent. Are there any good movies or books (in English or with subtitles) about this? EDIT: It looks like Kurosawa's ' Dersu Uzala ' might be a good one.

I'd be surprised if Moorcock is all that big of a draw these days... unless there's some huge blockbuster movie version of Elric on its way to generate some name recognition.

Clockwork Mecha, yes. Stuff for Dark Streets, yes. Any early Americas stuff would be interesting... like maybe dealing with the Hudson's Bay Company and exploration into native territory.

OK... after giving the C&S book a quick read (very cool setting/book!).. I'm not seeing its clockworks as a clear path to Warmachine's Warjacks. The stuff in C&S doesn't seem nearly as autonomous or humanoid and there's no obvious role for a Warcaster either. I'm thinking Warjacks might be better served by expanding some rules for golems... 'Steam Golems' and their Warcaster creators.