Richard

Yes, it is more than a little Robert E Howard. Coincidentally a gamer friend and big Howard fan was explaining to me at the weekend that circumventing historical consistency and anachronisms was a major motivator for the Hyborian Age. I guess the idea was exactly that, to come up with a broad revisionist European/Mediterranean historical fudge that would allow us to cherry pick history and fuse all that juicy Mythras/RQ background. In the unlikely event that I ever have enough clones made to give me time to work on it I'll post the results. Andre's walking through magical barriers is intriguing - Perhaps an Arkwright scenario might involve time travelling through different eras sealed off in such a fashion by some mighty disruptor technology to right some serious temporal wrongs.

I realise that this is probably a bit obvious and that I may have missed an earlier thread but just in case...has anyone considered butchering European history to allow the simultaneous use of Mythic Britain, Mythic Rome, Mythic Constantinople and the upcoming Mythic Babylon? To really complete the anachronistic madness this 'parallel', which could also be lots of fun for Arkwright fans, could even incorporate elements of the good ol' RQ Vikings set, Monster Coliseum, Alephtar Games Stupor Mundi and their Teutonic Knights versus the Baltic state barbarians book (The name of which escapes me but I always regret not purchasing it). Merrie England is likely to be a step too far if we're already going with Mythic Britain instead. Of course this would require visiting the kind of ultra violence upon the history of Europe and North Africa that would have serious academic historians filling the Mediterranean with tears of blood but think of the fun of having a continent sized campaign with the kind of readily available geographic and background material on hand for each of these cultures. Then all we really need then is Mythic Greece, Mythic Egypt and the Reconquista to pretty much complete the madness and deliver the Mythic Europe setting we were tantalised with back in the old RQ3 Avalon Hill days.

Thanks Raleel.

Just a quick question. How useable, if at all, are the Design mechanism Classic Fantasy scenarios with RQ6/Mythras alone without the Classic Fantasy supplement? I'm not intending to retrofit my RQ campaign with a 'classic' feel, introduce levelling up or run a straight Classic Fantasy campaign, just wondering if these can be plopped in to create lairs, add one off bashes, encounters within larger campaigns or be easily adapted for my own nefarious ends.

Hopefully some enlightened BRP forum worthy will be able to answer this one. What happened to the new Cthulhu By Gaslight project which Choasium said was to be released in late summer? I must confess I was rather gagging for this one (More so than Dreamlands which has hit the shelves). Any info about the contents would be handy. I was really hoping for a realistic, gritty down and dirty 'true to Victorian life' setting. Not focussing on the well to do but rather on the backbone of slaving workers who made the modern world possible. Factory minions rising up against mythos minions, that kind of thing. The dark underbelly of the British Empire seems like a sensationally good setting (About the only one I can think of that actually sounds, to me, more horrifically suited to Lovecraft's tales than the original). I remember liking the original edition but thinking it felt a bit 'pulp' and fictional in style. Anyone in the know?

Why not just use the Mongoose RQ2 related skill mechanism? You get 1/10th of your best combat style as a bonus when using an unfamiliar weapon to reflect your greater experience in battle. You can house rule the bonus to taste; if you think 1/10th not enough make it 1/5th (RQ3 special) or if you think that's too much go for 1/20th (Ye olde RQ3 crit). You get a decent approximation of the benefits of experience without vanishing up your own ****hole with unnecessary calculations and modifiers.

Are we allowed to PM this chappy the Charnjibber stats or will litigious Gloranthan Chaos Spirits of Reprisal descend and feast upon our benighted souls?

Yup. It's in the Gloranthan Bestiary. Utterly bonkers chaos beastie (Well that's Glorantha for you...how my players trembled when I reached for that book. Mind you Dorastar...now that was truly ludicrous!). Might dig it out if I have time.

I reckon RQ3 pretty much got it right on this one. Nothing to stop you adding further levels of realism by houseruling on specific weapons/combinations such as halving parry chance or APTS for poorly matched pairs such as a maine gauche against a Troll maul. It might be a good way of evening up damage effects for large blunt instruments as pointy-nointy weapons already get all that juicy impaling damage. I do like the idea that shields and weapons can be worn down, damaged and require replacement and repair. It seems convincing and reasonably realistic and adds a gritty edge to gaming. Materials and quality become important and it gives flavour to weapon use, fighting style, maintenance and purchase.

This does look problematic. I guess a lot depends on the exact meaning of being 'stunned'. Are you helpless, in which case this is a serious problem, or just at a penalty on your rolls? Off the top of my head maybe a simple 20% penalty for the victim, or whatever you think appropriate, on all rolls for the duration of the 'stun' would be believable and effective. For bleeding you could forego CON rolls and just say that the victim bleeds dependent on the minimum damage of the weapon. eg A dagger doing 1d4+2 causing bleeding would mean you bleed 1pt a round for 3 rounds. It would take into account the nature of the damage to some extent. CON is really already affecting the situation by helping to determine your Hit Points in the first place but maybe allow an initial CON roll to successfully 'congeal' or get lucky and only bleed for a round. Or it might be more realistic to have blood loss occur over turns rather than rounds.

Richard Gorman, have posted on Mongoose Forums and GURPs Tarveller as Captain Skip. Started in 1980 on arrival at Aberdeen University where I set up Aberdeen University D+D Society with friends. Obsessive playing of D+D (I was young and naive...and it was fun!) the wonderful Traveller for some years. Since then Cthulhu, Runequest (3rd preferably), Ars Magica, Trinity, Space 1889, Golden Heroes, Judge Dredd, Boot Hill, Gamma World, Middle Earth, Rolemaster, Paladium, Harn, GURPs, Bushido, 'Spacequest' (My SF BRP adaptation), Skyrealms of Jorune, Paranoia, Star Trek, Chill, Mage etc etc. (Of course, inevitably, wrote own system ('Gladius') and unique (Obsessively detailed) setting which almost saw the light of day in the 90's and played well for many years). Love BRP which, like most I suspect, I got into through RQ and CoC. Adored RQ3. It had a few flaws (Some daft spells and confused magic rules, slightly over complex fatigue and character improvement systems...some way of introducing character background quirks, a less melodramatic version of the Ars Magica virtues and Flaws system would have been nice ) but these were easily fixed with simple house rules making it adaptable and detailed. I guess I had hoped this is what Mongoose would have done. Two decades of in depth hardcore campaigning followed around my own fantasy world (Which later introduced bastardised Gloranthan elements). Joy. Got my hopes up but was seriously disappointed by what I saw of Mongoose Runequest with its broken combat table and very poorly thought out armour, high skills and crit rules. Excited to see BRP realeases on the way...just before my birthday to! Family circumstances have rather ruined my gaming opportunities but methinks I might be buying myself a wee birthday present on June 13th! Good luck with the forum and publications.