Simlasa

He gave a listing of what critters were in the book farther up-thread... I'm not sure if they were the ones out of the monograph, which would have been most of the non-Gloranthan critters from RQ3... yes?

I'm inclined to think a lot of science fiction games (like Traveller) are inherently multi-genre when they provide rules for dealing with a wide range of technology levels and types of adventure.

But is the gun-combat system really all that broken? Most of the complaints against it seem to come from guys who want it to figure in all sorts of detailed ballistics minutia... arguments which seem to break down into lots of competing opinions over itty-bitty factors are the most important... and in the end it comes out sounding like the COC gun ratings are not so out of wack after all (and I don't necessarily disagree that certain martial arts attacks SHOULD potentially do more damage than some gun attacks). Even if BTRC thought the ratings in COC were wrong I'm not sure I understand why they wouldn't do new ratings using the G3 rules... wouldn't that supposedly yield a new set of 'accurate' ratings?

Bruce Baugh is a good designer... dunno what if anything he has against BRP and doubt I'd back him up on it, but he is (supposedly) writing the new version of Whispering Vault... that will come out, maybe, someday. I've liked most of what I've seen him post on other forums... EDIT: Now that I've read the linked article... it seems to me that Baugh is more of the RPG.net ilk who seem to like more cinematic games and lots of mechanics to support 'genre'. It should be left as a matter of taste but some people seem to have to make it an imperative. It also sounds like Baugh hasn't done a very close reading of COC or really explored the variety of supplements it has spawned.

I'd think that the actual, etched in stone, rules are relatively small... it's all the optional rules that take up the space.

RPG.net is consistently one of the most irritating game forums for me to read... there is this constant juvenile one-upsmanship regarding what is 'best'. All the statements I've read there about older systems (BRP) being 'dated' are no different than saying recent popular games (SOTC) are merely 'trendy'. Liking a certain mechanic (ad/disads) or not is fine... but saying it's somehow manditory for an RPG to be 'modern' is just a load of crap.

Almuric was good stuff... I'd love to see a game setting flesh that out. I don't mind elves so much as I do dwarves... for some reason I've never cared for them... they don't make sense to me. Maybe if they were weirder... less human... more like Morlocks... yeah...

Any changes to the way automatic weapons work in COC?

On a side note... Jason posted a link to one of the artists doing the interior illustrations and, though they were just initial sketches, I thought they were awfully good... interesting, energetic, and just a bit quircky. As for graphical examples of better covers... that might be worth a try... I'll fire up my paint program and see what I can do.

There a LOT of other cultures on Earth with interesting folklores to explore... personally I've got a growing interest in Hindu mythology... it's wild and colorful and passionate and chock-full-of-flavour. My own fantasy campaign, going way back, is and eclectic mishmash set on 'the planet with a thousand names'... There are several distinct human cultures... A few different groups of large centipede/grub like creatures... Airborn nuedebranch/jellyfish that enslave/partner with the smaller cousins of the centipedes... and lots of 'magic' created object-spirit-creatures (such as horseless chariots that are sculpted to look like demons and birds or baroque metal jars that can be ridden through the sky)... and mutants spawned in a huge 'magic' disaster. None are just elves/dwarves/orcs under different colors... Other games I've played have been set in much stranger places... and then there is the whole 'urban fantasy' thing too... stuff like Hellboy and Beauty And The Beast (the tv show) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer...

Exactly! It's to the point that when you say 'fantasy' to someone the picture that comes up in their head is elves and dwarves and orcs... and the genre is so much richer and deeper than that. I know Chaosium needs people to buy into the system but I'd hope they could be a bit more creative than to jump on the same old, overcrowded, bandwagon.

I like Tolkien fine... I'm just tired of all the 'twee' copies I've seen... the elves always having the same sorts of culture (Windsack Morningdew invites you to his enchanted treetop abode) and the vaguely Gaelic/Scandanavian motifs... At one point I tried playing World Of Warcraft with my friends and it was like being trapped at a Renaissance fair(e)... if one more person says, 'Well met' to me I'll scream! On the other hand, if the races were a LOT more like the original folklore... or something like the setting for the Leviathan/Chronopia games... that would be appealing to me... much less 'twee'... and yet possibly familiar enough to draw people in... I remember some old ad from a White Dwarf (before it became an catalogue) that mentioned a game where the elves were scary and had no souls... don't remember the name but THAT intrigued me.

I own a large pile of the GURPS stuff and a lot of the good stuff isn't all that mechanically specific... I mean, I figure I can stat up Julius Caesar in BRP just as well as the next guy... but all the info on the settings is invaluable. That said, I'd really like to see BRP develop something of their own 'house' fantasy setting... NOT Tolkienesque... something evocative and flavorful... unique... that could pull in some interested newbies as well as giving Chaosium stomping grounds for a non-licensed set of publications. I don't see the need for lots of different BRP specific historical/cultural books though...

Yeah, I can't say any of the Great Old Ones have ever made an appearance in the COC games I've run... our games are more like Holmes and Moriarty... where Holmes knew he was out there, somewhere... but didn't really come face to face with him until that last fatal moment (which we've never gone too)... Also, I think people assume that every game of COC has to be about some Earth shattering plot they need to thwart... whereas I think it works just as well, if not better, to keep the focus more personal... closer to home... a lot can be done with just wierd cultists and minor Mythos entities... as well as the occasional string of games that have no Mythos content at all. I think the D&D legacy sets people up to expect 'over the top' adventures in their RPGs... bright colors, lots of magic... then they get to COC and the magic is kind of off-limits and the colors are a lot more subtle... some people thrive on that and other get turned off...

Lots of designer have font's they love/hate... the woman who trained me HATED Helvetica... just wanted it banned forever. I'm guessing that the art is bought and paid for and their ain't a lot of cash sitting around to come up with another one... I agree that I'd just as soon them leave the cover blank except for lettering... compared to this attempt. White with an INTERESTING font... not that cheese-whiz thing they're using in the example. True it's the rules inside that are the only thing that really matters to ME in the long run... but I'd really like to see the game take off and grow a wider community of fans. This cover ain't gonna help with that.

It's nice to see, sometimes, what other people are doing with the rules... which options they employ... regardless of what the rules offer.

Yeah, I voted for the Captain... it just feels wrong to vote against him...

Yeah... I mean, it's well done... not to harangue the artist... but if I was the art director I'd have to give it thumbs down... I'm kind of thinking it needs to be less of a cohesive scene and more of a collection of images... either of evocative but disparate elements/objects or several smaller scenes representing different genres (of which the current cover image might be one).

I loved LOTR when I first read it as a kid... but even then it didn't mean that I wanted the next 50 books I read to be EXACTLY the same. There was this huge 'Tolkienesque' ghetto to wade through as I tried to find new fantasy books to read. Eventually I found my way to Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard and Lord Dunsany and Lovecraft... and all was well. Back on topic... I can definitely imagine a gritty game of Icelandic fantasy... a kind of spaghetti-western-fantasy... epic but doomed heroes... man against the elements... enchantments and curses... and trolls.

Actually, I liked her stuff a lot as well... and in general I've always liked the art in Chaosium books (much more than in the older GURPS books!)... the stuff in the COC books has usually been really good too... but I don't think Chaosium has the reputation for lushly illustrated games/supplements the way some companies do... which I think is just fine. I really prefer not to have full color glossy pages with unecessary background art gumming up my ability to read the text.

Why couldn't they just use a new version of the Worlds Of Wonder box cover? That was simple, got the point across right away, and was just stylish/attractive enough that it got my imagination going...

I'm looking forward to seeing this if it goes back to the original source material and gets away from the re-warmed-over-twice-distilled Tolkien-via-D&D that pollutes the fantasy game (and literature) market.

I think the image is more appropriate than the earlier one... competent painting but still not particularly eye-catching... it doesn't have much mood or style. Kinda reminds me of a GURPS book (not known for their art... but I guess Chaosium isn't either... but since I like both systems maybe less-than-interesting art = good game?). What I still don't like is the font used for the name... that's just a pug ugly font to me...

I've been reading the 'Warlords Of Alexander' PDF and I like it a lot... a much more interesting background for me than your usual by-rote elves/orcs/dwarves... and the large scale battle rules are interesting to see how BRP can be abstracted to that level. Most of what I've tried is just fights between small gangs/warbands... PCs from our RPG sessions might be involved... but often as not we're just fighting out some scenario using whatever miniatures we like... though we seem to have done a lot in the 40K background... as well as some pulp/gangster stuff... We're still figuring it out, and not really writing anything down in stone... but I think it shows the versatility of Chaosium's rules in a good light.

Do any of y'all ever just use the Chaosium rules for small wargames... in addition to playing it as a straight up RPG? Our gaming group plays wargames and RPGs about equally... and a while back I was jonesing for a small scale skirmish game, kind of like the old The Fantasy Trip or GW's Necromunda/Mordheim... someone suggested just using an RPG combat system and so I started messing about with the BRP/WOW/COC rules for a 'lite' skirmish game... and it really works the trick. We've left off all the hit location/encumbrance stuff so far... but otherwise it's pretty much straight up. On one of the Yahoo forums a poster who was involved with some of the early RQ development said that the potential to just play a fighting game was pretty much designed into the rules from the first. Anyone else using BRP for this? What sorts of things have you tried? (Lately I've been slooowly converting the forces from Confrontation into BRP stats...)