Simlasa

My favorite 'standard' fantasy game is probably Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay... I haven't seen the new edition but the old one had a tone that I found very palatable. It was dark and gloomy but still pretty silly in the corners and would make fun of all sorts of fantasy tropes. It hardly ever feels bright and shiny and 'full of wonder'... it's mostly creaky and dirty and old. If I was gonna get drug back into any game that fostered elves/dwarves/orcs... that would be the one I'd go to.

I read this essay the other day that I thought was kinda interesting... I've had these thoughts myself: http://ptgptb.org/0026/narrativists.html Though I'd definitely agree with, and stress, his caveat that not ALL narrativists are like that.

So if skill is the prime factor in damage... would some weapons give a negative modifier... like attacking someone with a pellet gun?

Hmmm.... seems like I've got an old wargame around here somewhere that did it that way... quality of troops was the leading determinant on the wounds they did, modified by the weapons they carried. I'll have too look for it in the vaults and see what it was... It kinda makes sense...

Our games are similar... the monsters are there, but you ain't gonna run into them casually... Combat is dangerous enough that we usually try something underhanded like dynamiting the old house they're meeting in... rather than go toe to toe in a firefight. When we have had gun battles the results have seemed pretty plausible... IMHO.

I think he was just saying that damage/hit location matters to some extent for every weapon... not that they did the same damage. As the proud owner of a big stack of Phoenix Command books (and having actually played games with them on a few occasions) I agree with Badcat... it's plausibility vs. playability every time. I think the stats in BRP are sufficiently believable and very playable... and I can't think of any modern game that didn't get arguments from some gun enthusiasts saying it was inaccurate... even Phoenix Command.

Never said detail is bad, I like detail... it just isn't, inherently, fun... it might be fun... might not... If you want to write up a complete and lengthy treatise on the languages of your fantasy setting that's fine, but I don't think it belongs in an introduction to the setting... A basic guide to the governments, yes, especially if the characters will be involved in politics to any degree. I think the setting needs to be presented in a big picture kind of way, that hits the high points... and stresses the kind of adventures the setting was designed to encourage... My idea of the fun parts are the different cultures that might be present... and bit's of folklore/customs that reflect how the people think... detailing the really novel aspects of the setting that people might not grok right away.

Some people like 'hard' sf for the flavor it brings... it tends to be gritty and kind of dark (from what I've seen). Others like it because they can 'believe' it... Where does the 'science' end and the 'fiction' start? I think the people who need it to be believable are a source of misery for themselves... it's the same tail chasing that seems to go on with weapon stats... believability vs. playability vs. believability... everyone is going to draw the line someplace different. Something like Stephenson's 'Diamond Age' setting would suit me fine... not because I thought it was particularly believable/unbelievable but because it had some cool adventure hooks and was strange/alien/exotic enough to spark my imagination. I say START with what's fun, and work backward from there...

yep... never gonna happen... one man's hyperspace/AI/wormhole/anti-grav is another man's pixie dust/magic wand/unicorn/bag-o-holding... that's why some people say 'firm' vs. 'hard'... though there's probably not much agreement there either. Maybe just call it all 'space opera' and just get on with it...

They might also try something like Worlds of Wonder with a few distinct settings in one book... and if one or another gets more positive feedback then flesh it out in a sequel. Maybe the settings could have some common tie (again like WOW)... such as being different eras of the same setting... ancient/modern/future... with a common evolving dilemma/plot/nemesis. Somewhat like GW's Warhammer and Warhammer 40K... where Warhammer was (at one time at least) supposed to be a planet within the Empire. One of our GMs ran a Whispering Vault campaign years ago that spawned several distinct settings that continued to see play after the WV games ended... they were scattered over a couple of different worlds at different points in time... and only one ended up dealing much with the occult/paranormal.

I don't think a 'strong' setting requires loads and loads of detail... more importantly it needs a distinct and obvious 'flavor' that pervades it... lots of obvious adventure hooks and things that grab the imagination. I've read one page descriptions that did more for me than books with hundreds of pages... Then again, what tickles one person's fancy might bore the tears out of another.

I'm strongly in favor of Chaosium not taking on any more licenses for a while... let Mongoose eat them all and pay through the nose, BRP needs some of it's own original content... I'm not sure if CR counts as that or not.

Or make them available as a PDF you can buy and download... I've gotten lots of obscure stuff that way, though some people still don't like reading off their computer.

There were plenty of things I liked about Glorantha... and 'stole' from it... but never really played there much. I think BRP has outgrown that era of it's development and since it's no longer formally linked, and there are Glorantha forums elsewhere, it might as well not have any special place here.

Clark Ashton Smith is pretty much an untapped resource of adventuring potential isn't he? Lord Dunsany too... I think Deadworld will cover my desires for a post-apocalyptic setting... at least as a base to start from... so I'd probably most like to see someone come out with a really high-tech but 'firm' science setting... something that features the potentials of nanotechnology and AI... but not with the seeming darkness of GURPS Transhuman or Cyberpunk... something more positive, like Star Trek or Ringworld in flavor. The (upcoming?) RPG Sufficiently Advanced is the closest thing I can think of right now: http://www.wombatzone.com/archives/2005/11/review_sufficie_1.html The old Xro Dinn Chronicles and the never publised A1 were also along similar lines... I think.

WOW! That looks like a cool resource of ideas... very useful. Thanks!

Well... what are the basic features you need in place to start a game in a 'believable' setting? I remember the old GURPS basic rules had a list on the back... something like Government, Religions, Languages, Tech level, Local flora and fauna, Laws, and Customs. Of those the hardest one for me has always been religions... most fantasy religions either sound silly to me or sound like a thinly veiled retread of a RL religion. It probably stems from my being something of an agnostic... But what is an example of a fantasy religion that is actually intriguing and works well to flavor the story?

Not to start some picky arguement... but to me 'Classic Fantasy' is fairy tales... not Tolkien... Less tales of large scale warfare and evil... more small scale personal stuff. Less concern about the complexities of believable non-human races... no orcs or hobbits or historian elves... If someone wanted to start something based on all the Grimm's tales and the stuff from Lang's Fairy books I'd be really happy with that... more folklore based... stuff about the Black Forest and Baba Yaga and lost princesses... Kind of like that Firefly's game Faery's Tale: http://www.firefly-games.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=48&osCsid=7d37a4c7a61f7469b3064286378e7320 I'd love to play something like that. I know after seeing Terry Gilliam's Brother's Grimm movie I wanted to do up a setting that had the Napoleonic wars as a backdrop... but focused on the fluttering vestiges of the old world that still lingered in the darker corners... alchemists in Prague... vampires in Romania... goblins in the woodwork.

I don't recall there being a lot of superhero games around when Champions came out... so it wasn't just another drop in the bucket the way a standard fantasy setting would be nowadays. I'm thinking a game like Exalted is as popular for it's mix of genres as it is for its setting... and the rules are much less of a draw (I'm basing this on what I've heard and read because I'm not very familiar with the game)... it's also probably a big bonus for some people that it comes from White Wolf. (Which, saying that, brings me to wondering what sort of 'street cred' if any Chaosium has... except for COC). That said, I don't think there's any surefire genre/setting BRP could take on that would guarantee interest... except for being 'edgy and new and unique'... hah. The current suggestion of a Cthulhu Rising setting seems like it might have legs...

What's CDA? EDIT: Nevermind, figured it out from the other thread... yeah, I could see a Cthulhu Dark Ages campaign that had some sort of Lovecraftian menace that was never named as such... in the eyes of the church it's just plain old demons. Long ago we were going to start a campaign in... Cumbria? Some dark cold place on the Eastern coast of England/Scotland in the early hundreds A.D. period... I did a bunch of research, we wanted the flavor of the time... no magic or 'real' monsters... and it seemed pretty gameworthy, though we never did get around to doing it.

GURPS having all those great setting books, and some of the licenses, like Conan, certainly caused me to buy a lot of their books. As for Hero, I certainly don't think they'd be in the position they are if they hadn't had Champions... and yes, it's a genre... but to me that's splitting hairs a bit... people I know started playing Champions because they wanted to play superheroes... they stuck with the Hero system because they knew the rules and they didn't suck bad enough to drive them out (I'm not saying the rules suck by the way). I know very few people that shop for games based on rules first... setting/genre second... 'let's go down to the game store and see if there are any new dice-pool systems out!' No, people pick up the game because the cover looks cool, it has an interesting name, the blurb on the back of the book sounds cool, the interior art gets their imagination going... I can't ever remember picking up a book that looked great from me and then thrusting it back on the shelf because it was 'roll over' or some other mechanism I don't care for (not saying I don't care for roll over either).

I've read through most of the Cthulhu Rising stuff on the website and think it's a pretty decent 'middle tech' science fiction setting. Chaosium could do a lot worse than to take it on as an 'official' one. Military science fiction isn't my favorite flavor but a lot of people like it. I'm tempted to agree that I'd prefer it to have the Cthulhu scrubbed out of it... but then I remember that Lovecraft was a big influence on Giger and his designs for the original aliens. Somehow I think that it would be an easier sell of the alien menace was 'Lovecraftian' without being overtly related to the Mythos... kind of like Alien/Aliens/Species. I'd be inclined to agree that a fantasy setting might be more... imperative, but I don't know of any similar readymade fantasy BRP settings that are nearly as interesting as Cthulhu Rising is for Sci Fi. As an aside, High Colonies was a pretty neat RPG setting... the rules might have not be all that, but in the way-back we played some nifty mini-campaigns there (using Traveller rules IIRC).

What I was getting at... in light of my own purchasing habits... For years most of the games I've bought have been because they had intriguing settings/genres. I can't remember worrying about what kind of systems they had or whether or not they had some mechanic I'd hate. Even the Chaosium games I've bought were because I liked Lovecraft, Moorcock, Glorantha... I had no particular opinion about the rules themselves, except liking that they didn't have levels/classes/alignments. It's only relatively recently that I've latched onto a couple of systems (GURPS and BRP) that I now try to convert most other things to. That hasn't kept me from seeking out all the stuff for other games settings I enjoy, like Tribe 8, Fading Suns, or The Whispering Vault. I still buy a lot of different games, I just don't use their rules. So in light of that, I'd guess that if you're going to market your generic system, all you've really got to sell it are the rules... the rules become that much more important... and it probably helps if they can lay claim to some particular niche... which I might think is 'transparently simple yet gritty and realistic' for BRP.

That's basically what I said... I'm wondering how much the 'generic' label is a factor. GURPS seems to currently be one of the most popular multi-genre-capable generic systems... but are generic systems ever as popular as systems that catch on because of having a really popular setting or genre? Something like Exalted seems to be popular almost in spite of it's rules... because it governs a setting/topic that lots of fans are interested in. Same thing with White Wolf's World Of Darkness setting... How much does lacking a specific subject hurt the fan potential of the game?

I had no idea there was any similarity there... hmmm... I was mighty tempted by that game, back in the day.