Simlasa

I think taking on some particularly interesting 'what if?' question at a significant point in history... and following wherever that question leads... can often yield interesting and unique aspects to a setting. Rather than having a buffet of thinly disguised historical cultures maybe take some real moment of history and toss in a monkey wrench that twists it all around... drop a meteor on medieval Spain or let Atilla's empire stick around a lot longer... see where it leads. It's not medieval fantasy but one of my favorite takes on alternate history of late has been Better Mousetrap's 'Lowell Was Right!' RPG which starts with the simple question of what the world would be like if the scientific assumptions of the late 1800s had turned out to be correct... which leads to a modern era that is very different from our own.

I'm another with no real interest in another implementation of D100. The spectrum of D100 games we have now cover all my needs and more. But I WOULD be interested in new settings using any of the existing variants... but probably not THAT one... at least not from that description, waaaay too vanilla for my tastes.

It's issue 14 of Imagine... Talbot has an article about Firefrost and a Traveller scenario based on the Arkwright setting. I bought my copy the other day... happily reading the PDF till the hardcopy arrives. Great stuff but I'm already looking for ways to graft on Moebius' Airtight Garage somehow.

I've been looking forward to this since I first heard it announced a while back. I read the comics years ago and tracked down earlier attempts at translating the series to an RPG. This looks like it will be quite glorious in scope and possibility for expansion.

OK... perhaps I was a victim of some misinformation then... still, seems like most games eventually end up with some sort of errata document.

I've repeatedly heard River of Heaven had some editing problems and bits of it were inconsistent or not clearly explained. I've searched around for collected errata for it but found nothing except for some questions and answers on this forum. Are there collected errata somewhere for it that I'm overlooking?

OH! Well... that's one I'm particularly excited to hear about! All new stuff or will there be some converted content from the originals? I ran into someone the other day online who was spouting off negatives about MW... and when I pressed him where he'd gotten his opinions (since he had never looked at the book himself) he brought up that #&*@ing anonymous review/post on Tenkar's Tavern. That makes the second time this month I've seen someone regurgitating that crud.

Any thoughts on any big changes from the original, individual, modules for the campaign... besides being revised for Renaissance?

Thanks for pointing that out. I finally picked up Blood Tide and a hard copy of Mecha.

Yeah, I don't think it's about conversion so much as establishing more of a presence... just basic promotion and boosterism. Running some demo games over on Roll20 wouldn't hurt. I've been playing in a number of short campaigns over there and it's a great way to check out a new system/setting. It's not perfect, it doesn't replace face-to-face games, but so far I'm enjoying it and I've had a chance to play a bunch of games no one I know locally is running... DnD 5e, CoC 7e, Dungeon Crawl Classics. The site seems oriented towards DnD (of course...) but it seems to work well with just about anything. I know there is a working CoC character sheet on there... I'm doubting there's one for Magic World but it shouldn't be too hard to make one, I'm not sure if there is a cost for folks wanting to create that sort of content (seems odd they'd charge someone for expanding the tools of their site). There's also the option of running Magic World games online in Google Hangouts. I've been in several games on there and they've been great. There's even a group that runs an online gaming convention, Contessa. Are there any good one-shot adventures that would spotlight the strengths of MW?

The Saints write-up and some other stuff are on this page: http://www.nikkeffingham.com/runequest/cults.htm

I wish I could sign up for this but it's a bit too early in the day for me to guarantee attendance... BUT... I notice you mentioned you're using the magic system from the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG and I'm curious if you could please describe what tweaks you made to make it fit with RQ? I love DCC and other 'weird' incarnations of D&D (Lamentations of the Flame Princess for example) and would like to bring some of that gonzo flavor to RQ/BRP, which sometimes feel a bit 'straight' in comparison. Thanks for any thoughts on that.

I'm in a couple of ongoing campaigns on Roll20 but neither are BRP related. One is Dungeon Crawl Classics (in Thundarr mode) and the other is D&D 5e. Both groups have given up using audio over Roll20. One uses Skype and the other uses Google Hangouts. Roll20 is mostly where the game forum is hosted and where the maps and character sheets are displayed. It's been OK... but IMO it's slow and a bit clunky/quirky. Really, the best games I've had online have been using Google Hangouts and leaving the rest analog... roll actual dice, have an actual character sheet. It's easy for the GM to put up a static map/graphic if necessary... but otherwise it struck me as being awfully close to sitting around a table with folks.

The 'Push' thing isn't anything new... as the idea of giving a Player a last ditch roll is something folks have been doing all along (at least the groups I played with did such)... but it was always up to the Keeper and was situational... not a given. "Want to try to pick that lock again? OK, but it's fragile and if you try again you might break it to where it's jammed shut"... "Forced into the dirt during the car chase? Want try to keep up the speed? OK, but if you fail you might lose control of the car altogether." The copy I saw had examples for Push/Failed Push for most every skill... which was at least good for dissuading that old saw about how failed skill rolls are always something catastrophic... though some examples had effects outside of the realm of the skill - such as failing a Pushed Accounting roll resulting in knocking over a cup of coffee onto the record book and ruining the ink (?). It seems like something that could have just been side barred or mentioned in Keeper advice... vs. hard-wiring it into a mechanic. The 'Push' terminology is too cute and 'meta' for my taste so I'd just ignore it. I don't much care for the ad/disad dice (I agree, they don't 'feel BRP')... they're fine for D&D 5e though. It does seem like Chaosium or Playtesters reigned in a good bit of what I'd heard rumored early on... some of the statements from the Designers had me thinking they wanted to turn it into some cross between Savage Worlds and Fate. Still... the Keeper's book has a good bit of language that echoes the 'Just say 'Yes'' and 'Fail Forward' mindset... and there's this bit from the section on using Skills: "If the player has rolled equal to or under the target set by the Keeper, their investigator has achieved the goal that was set and agreed before the roll. The player should be encouraged to participate in describing the outcome. This can include aspects of the story beyond his or her investigator, such as the actions of non-player characters and the environment." I'd just kibosh the PCs dictating what NPCs do or how the environment reacts... but still, it's there in the text... pestering me. Keep your Fate out of my BRP! Things I do like, so far: Chases sound fun... something of a mini-game the way combat can be. It's reminiscent of Machina from Two Hour Wargames. Getting rid of the taxonomy of Mythos races... Servitor and Independent races. That always felt to be overreaching... trying to impose some hierarchy that's seldom in the source material.

What don't you like about the WFRP system? I always liked how deadly and unforgiving it was (in 1st edition at least). It's D100 centric... so maybe not such an effort to move it over to Magic World and keep the flavor. A bestiary and something like the Careers (occupations?)... limited to Warhammer-style occupations. Dropping some spells and altering others. Expand on spell fumbles to make using magic scarier (something I'm doing anyway for my homebrew). What else would be mandatory? Here's a previous discussion of the differences:

Thanks so much for making these! Sometime soon I'm hoping to run a bizarre 'Dungeon Crawl Classics' inspired setting, so all the weird monsters will come in handy.

I don't really want any changes. I certainly DO NOT want more complex details to combat or more 'player agency' stuff that dials down the consequences of violence. I want it to remain primarily a Horror game, not action-adventure 'guns against Cthulhu'. I don't want it to be more like Savage Worlds or Fate or whatever other RPG Darling is trending popular at the moment (there are Lovecraft spins for those systems already). I'm not feeling any need to buy 7th at all. I'll spend my cash with Chaosium on other materials I DO want... which might include CoC adventures and setting material. I wouldn't mind some more non-mythos (Clive Barker? Thomas Ligotti?) horror or stuff aimed at doing CoC 'sandbox' style campaigns. As OPTIONS all the suggestions in the OP are fine for the core BGB... or a book aimed specifically at action-adventure style play.

Isn't this 'ad/disad... roll 2, keep 1' thing a mechanism from the 'hot 'n new' version of D&D? Not that it's a new idea but I'm guessing that's why it's getting mention here. I'm not sure I see the attraction... and aesthetically it puts me right off.

Ideally I want both. If I'm going to run a game I want a hard copy at the table... and a PDF on my iPad. If I'm just mining it for ideas then PDF is fine... I buy lots of cheap PDFs just out of curiousity. If I really like something... even just the art in it... I'll want it in hard copy eventually.

I can see that working quite well... being very atmospheric, somewhat creepy even. Magic that comes from afar on stealthy unseen feet... vs. the fireball artillery variety.

I've been reading through Enlightened Magic and getting all sorts of ideas. Some of it I can see pulling into Magic World as flavoring... but the spells themselves, the rules for the rituals... I'm not so sure they would be a good fit with more wiz-bang spells of Magic World... which are more immediate and overt (though Enlightened Magic's spells are both weaker and much more powerful... depending on how you look at them). IMO It feels a bit like dropping 'hard scifi' elements into a Buck Rogers serial.

What is it that you don't like about Education as a stat? Is it because it's acquired rather than inherent?

I'd read that where it's a reworking of Liber Ka as well as some unpublished alchemy rules for Nephilim. It seems like a good system for pulling off magic as depicted in 'Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell'... or 'Strange Toys' (though that has a bit of Voudon influence as well). I'm only a third into it but it's giving me all sorts of ideas... including flavorful bits I'll likely pull into my Magic World games... and easily a magical-espionage variant of Call of Cthulhu that drops all/most of the Mythos and concentrates on competing sorcerers and their retinues.

Mine arrived yesterday (along with a bunch of other stuff) and I've only had the briefest of moments for a lookthrough. Mr. Snead is an interesting fellow so I'm starting with good expectations.

Yes, thanks for making this! I think going the extra mile of adding pictures of each subject is pretty impressive and adds a good deal of value.