vagabond

I believe that was my idea. And shield riposte should be difficult. On the flip side, a weapon parry should be difficult, but a weapon riposte should be easy. This was to differentiate shields and weapons when used defensively. Ian

It will be made available for consumption gratis. Miles has already given his blessing, and I have permission to reuse his artwork if desired, giving proper credit of course. I am still waiting on Andrew's blessing as well, but he has yet to return my email. I suspect I will go ahead anyway, and if he objects, I will pull it down. Generally, though, he is not opposed, based upon older correspondences and other Jorune fans' works. Ian

Due to some people recently firing off queries, I guess I should contribute to this thread. Work on these projects has languished due to real life, but I hope to get back in the swing of things soon. My projects currently include: Port of Skyrealms of Jorune to BRP, complete with some revisions and additions based upon conversations with Andrew Leker and Miles Teves. Consolidation of years of house rules, various iterations of published material, and new ideas based upon rules discussed here and elsewhere, with the intended purpose of releasing a PDF of my "Ultimate Stormbringer". Merging of some ideas from Victory Games James Bond 007 RPG into BRP. Ian

Shannon has given his permission for you to put up the stuff he has written: ------------------------------------------------- For the new site: He's welcome to host the Chaosium Digest stuff I individually wrote. He's welcome to either link my recent AP or host a copy of it. Just the stuff I wrote in that thread, of course: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=255803 If he wants to more generally host the complete Chaosium Digest, he should ask the current administrator: http://chaos-digest.blogspot.com/ If he can't get in contact with him after a reasonable amount of time (say, a couple of weeks), I'd be happy to then give permission for the complete archives of what I edited (but not the individual articles, as I can only give permission for mine, of course). Shannon --------------------------------

Shannon believes the ZIP file here is pretty complete: http://pages.prodigy.net/gobackstage/chaos-digest/index.html It appears to go back through 1993. Ian

I pinged Shannon A to see if he has the old archives anywhere. Ian

I can get you Shannon's contact info. Also, you can ping Liam Routt - I have his contact info as well. Gives me an excuse get in touch again ... Ian

Another thought for the StormbringerRPG site - contacting Shannon Appelcline and Loz to see if reprints of some of their old Elric/Stormbringer works could be put online. Shannon has written some pretty good stuff, some of it published in various magazines, and Loz has plenty of things - maybe some of the stuff published in the various Ye Booke of Tenctacles. Maybe contact Richard Watts as well ... Ian

"The Madcap Laughs" was written by Matt Williams. It was a four parter - issues 95 - 98. Ian

Probably too many to list, but: Murphy's Irish Stout (I like it a tad better than Guinness - Murphy's is a little smoother). Newcastle Brown (but in a bottle, for some reason it's better in the bottle than on tap) Stone Brewing's Arrogant Bastard Ale Ballast Point's Belgian White (sadly, no longer brewed) I had a great Espresso Stout once (brewed with real coffee), can't recall who brewed it though. I also enjoy Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. Finally, I have brewed much of my own with friends, and plan on starting up again. The fun of once managing a pub ... Ian

I'll give it a read through or two. Ian

Note regarding two weapons, the Golden Book notwithstanding, I specifically stated "and the GM allows". In all versions of Stormbringer and Elric!, two weapons allows for two attacks. Another thing you seem to be ignoring: In other words, if not engaged in hand to hand combat, a character with a high enough DEX can potentially use a skill with the GMs discretion (assuming it is a quick action), take a DEX rank penalty, move 5 meters to engage an opponent, and attack. Otherwise, that last sentence makes no sense and should not have been included. Ian

Almost. You can perform more than one action as long as you have a high enough DEX. An Attack is an action, but not all actions are Attacks. So, if the weapon wielded allows for multiple attacks, or you have two weapons and the GM allows each weapon to attack, then you can attack more than once in a round on. However, you can attack and perform a non-attack action, again, assuming you have a high enough DEX and apply the necessary modifiers. Again, a DEX rank is not a round. You need to remember that. Ian

I graduated from high school in southeastern MA, and I have a few friends from college that live in and around Boston. I'll fire off some emails ... Ian

I answered this question over at RPG.net. 2nd edition boxed set came with the RQ rulebook, errata packet, Apple Lane scenario, Fangs (booklet of pregen monsters), the BRP booklet, Apple Lane, 8 monster and character sheets, and 6 dice. Ian

Another option for shields, especially when used in formation, but easily applied to man to man combat, would be to use the "Cover" rule. Essentially, shields, especially large ones, provide cover. Let me think of a good way to use the "Cover" rules with my earlier use of difficulties modifiers, to come up with a decent rules for shield use. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier ... Ian

I like to handle experience rolls thusly: 1) Ticks are given if a skill is used successfully in a stressful situation 2) At the end of a scenario, the GM can award each player a number of ticks to apply as they desire (I usually keep this to around 4 or so, but for much longer scenarios, I up it. Campaigns are treated as a chain of scenarios, so no need to add any more per scenario). 3) Skills can have two ticks at most. This allows for growth through use, with heavy use potentially granting double growth, but also allows growth of skills that may not have played an important part, but the player decides that for whatever reason, those skills are important. This method can help quell the need to just do things in order to get ticks. Ian

First, make sure you read what each of those actions means. For example, Attack means the character can make an offensive attack AND move up to 5 meters without penalty. Second, and unengaged character can move 30 meters in a combat turn if he does nothing else during his DEX rank. If moving between 6 and 15 meters, that action occurs at half DEX rank, and between 16 - 29 meters, occurs at quarter DEX rank. Other actions can be performed, if the character has enough DEX ranks available, but penalties for additional actions and movement modifiers are applied. In other words, if a character has a high enough DEX, they can do multiple things, but have modifiers. Engaging in Combat as Attack above - the character can move up to 5 meters and attack and/or defend without penalty. Anyway, a character with a high enough DEX can attack and then move up to 5 meters, or possibly move less than 30 meters and then attack. Move, attack, move probably cannot be done due to not enough DEX ranks and excessive modifiers. For example, a character with a DEX of 17 can act on DEX ranks 17, 12, 7, and 2. There is no contradictions since the first rule says "During a combat round your character can perform any one of the following actions on his or her DEX rank". Ian

I would say make parrying with a shield normal difficulty, and parrying with a weapon a difficult one. A shield is a bigger object which can cover more area, and while slightly harder to move into "perfect" blocking position, allows for a fair degree of "slop". Weapons, in general, are smaller and thus easier to move into "perfect" blocking position, but that position needs to be more precise. So, effectively, a lesser skilled combatant might prefer a shield, while an expert would prefer a weapon. On the flip side, a riposte should be normal difficulty with a weapon, but hard difficulty with a shield, for the same reasons - the weapon is normally smaller and easier to maneuver. Again, this favors the expert combatant and the preference to use a weapon for parrying. One could extend this to the equipment charts such that each weapon that can parry (as well as shields) might have different difficulty levels for parrying based upon size and speed. I would still add something to model the shield's advantage in formation fighting. And, perhaps, allowing shields to "parry" missiles. Ian

This is also why it is usually a good idea to rotate GMs. That way, if you have some players who play one way, and some who play another, and both sides agree to respect each others styles, you play one way for a time, and then switch gears (or games, etc.) so the other side gets a chance to really enjoy things. The GM as final arbiter is OK, but there still needs to be an almost consensus, or at least some compromises made. The GM cannot just put his foot down. Ian

The problem is there is no constant/unique definition of what good roleplaying is since it can change based upon the game, the GM, the group, the setting, etc. If the game were set in an ancient Rome type setting, the PCs were gladiator type slaves, and the premise was pitting the PCs against all sorts of opponents, 'playing the tactical combat role expected of your character class' might be appropriate. So, again, a social contract is needed. The GM and the players need to sit down beforehand and discuss play style and expectations. If everyone is not on the same page, and some just cannot accept how others like to play, or some create a situation in which others are no longer enjoying the game, then either people have to adjust to the situation, or leave the game. Ian

http://basicroleplaying.com/showthread.php/1476-Missing-table/ Had to do with SIZE calculations and such. It wasn't until page 4 that the whole MRQ/D&D stuff came up. Ian

Elric! had Impales (roll of 01), Criticals (20% of chance), Success, Failure, and Fumbles (99 & 00). Ian

For the most part, the combat in MRQ1 was not very good. There were corrections made when Mongoose's Elric was released, and those changes either made it into MRQ1 errata or a the Companion, or in a later version. MRQ2 combat is definitely better, and the combat actions are pretty cool. But, I am not 100% enthralled with how the combat actions are implemented. Just a personal preference kind of thing, it's not that they are broken. The rest of the rules are pretty good though. I use a combination of BRP (Gold Book, Elric!, Corum and Stormbringer, as well as MRQ2 for my core rules now. Ian

Another point in favor of shields - that bash attack can cause knockback. So, if you riposte with your shield, or just bash attack, you can also disengage from combat with that aprticular foe, or even gain the upper hand by knocking him down. Ian