Agentorange

Yup indeedy. it was a good way of going on crusade without all that tedious travelling to the Holy Land.

I think it's the Teutonic Crusade supplement for Stupor Mundi that was mentioned a while back. As Alephtar games isn't going down the MRQ route following the recent changes I suspect it's now being ported over to BRP I seem to recall Amber was a big export for the Baltic coast region at one time.

About 1982 I guess. A friend talked me into playing D & D which was fun. I decided to buy some stuff myself. Knowing nothing about RPG's, not even the the fact there could be more than one ! I went into my local hobby shop and bought Balastors Barracks ( the old green cover with the zombie on ) got home thought " hang on, this doesn't look like what we've been playing...." And the rest is history. Bless me I've come over all nostalgic so I have. Bushido, Traveller, Aftermath...aaah those were the days

No idea, I might drop them a mail to correct the error

RuneCress: An ecologically sound game of vegetable growing

Nah, that sounds much more like the niberliberthingymebob. Sigurd, dragons, dwarves, cursed treasure hoards all that stuff.

In wake of the ongoing what can be done to make BRP more popular thread, here's one thing we can do. Namely, write a review of the product if we see it advertised somewhere. Here: Basic Roleplaying (Chaosium Roleplaying System): Amazon.co.uk: Charlie Krank: Books Is my fairly complimentary review at Amazon UK ( hey I know it's not the greatest review in the world, but I was tired ! ) One thing BRP needs is more publicity, people spreading the word and so on and this is one way we can do it.

What if there were no hypothetical questions ? sorry

This is true but presents a problem in it's own right. Namely: people are essentially having to pay twice for the same product if they want the new improved version. Now with Classic Fantasy I'll probably fork out for the mainstrean version as it has ( by the sound of it ) got a fair bit of new stuff in it. But, if this becomes a regular occurrence, well I'm not so rich that I can afford to keep doing it

So then, the 'Wilderlands' setting licensed for use with Classic Fantasy, mmmm...... Anybody got Judges Guild phone number ? Ah well, it's a nice idea.

Back in the prehistoric days of the 80's when I started gaming, Judges Guild had something similiar to this with a series of D & D modules called the Portals series : Portals of Torsh etc etc. That said if you're going to do that why bother with a shared world ? In effect you've got several worlds. My idea of a shared world is something that has a common base or start line with different people tackling different parts of the same world, not lots of different worlds. I still reckon Judges Guild 'Wilderlands ' setting would make for a good gritty BRP setting.

As long as you're going to be suitably recompensed it's cool. This presumably means that classic fantasy vol II is going to get the same treatment ( hooray ! )

Put me down for a copy...it sounds good.

Good for you ! Though it begs the question...does it still count as a monograph then ? Or put another way with the addition of new cover and artwork they've got a professional product, but they've only paid you knock down monograph prices. If you'd wrote it as a chaosium product from the start how much would they have paid you ?

Completely off topic I know ( so if Trif wants to move this post that's fine ) But what german RPG's are there ? and which do you feel are the best and why ?

and when you consider that Basic Magic, Basic Creatures and Basic Gamesmaster ( or whatever ) are literally the RQ3 supplements with the name Runequest removed it gets even more confusing

Well, After all the talk about BRP/OQ/MRQ/D100 etc etc my curiousity got the better of me and I've ordered a copy of OpenQuest from Lulu, and as I was there I went for a copy of HOG3 as well.

Excellent, I'm looking forward to this.

Fun ? What is this fun ? We're not here to have fun. We're here to nod meaningfully about the works of Joseph Campbell, and via a series of narrative based externalised shamanic experiences reveal to ourselves hidden truths about our lives and how we engage in the hero's path in our everyday actions. Hang on, thats Herowars/Heroquest isn't it ? Sorry..... You're quite right of course. Fun is the name of the game, and anything too complex, whilst fun to read, may not translate very well into actual gaming. As with all things I suppose it's about striking a balance. I do think there is room for slightly more complex magic in BRP. One of the things I liked about RQ3 was the addition of the Ritual magic rules. I think they worked for several reasons. Firstly they added a bit more depth to the game, gave a hint of the magic behind the magic as it were. Secondly they were magics that implied long term progress and character development. Your fledgeling character wasn't going to be interested in an Armouring enchantment ( unless he could pay for one to be cast on him or his gear ) But a character with a bit of money and POW and some improved magical skills would look on one as an investment that could save their bacon in a gaming situation. Which brings me neatly to the third thing about them: all the rituals be they enchantments, ceremony or summoning had an impact ( either long or short term ) on actual gamesplay, people could see advantages to using them. So I think a certain amount of complexity is ok as long as people can see in game benefits at the end of it. EDIT. I do actually own several books by Joseph Campbell namely The Masks of God series, interesting stuff as it goes.

I think by their very nature rituals are going to be complex. Nobody expects them to be as easy or quick as sparking up a Fireblade spell or whatever. So a certain level of complexity , be that casting time, weird ingredients, having to make a ritual magic skill roll ( maybe more than one ) goes with the territory.

I just ordered my copy and the CYBERUK code definately works for UK purchases. Actually saved £4.36 ( I think ) which considering the starting price is a fairly big saving. Looking forward to a good read now

Well, perhaps I was being a trifle harsh there. But I do stand by what I said, the amount of official Chaosium material that's come out in support of BRP hasn't exactly been overwhelming has it ? Now I know that there have been many monographs released ( I've got most of them, including yours ). But let's be honest here, the monographs are semi pro works, some in my opinion are pretty damn good but they are not professional supplements for the game. Some are riddled with typos, the art is fairly basic and the maps...well. Could I do better ? I very much doubt it. But I'm not a long standing professional games company am I ? A company can't survive by relying on the inspiration, dedication and imagination of others whilst paying them what is in effect a token fee for all their hard work. Some of the monographs could I think have been polished into proper supplements. The two that most spring to mind are Aces High and Val du Loup. At the end of the day the vast majority of the material for the BRP line is either coming from a dedicated few fans with their own personal vision or from a third party licensees. Whilst this is of course a good revenue stream for Chaosium it woulds be nice to see them putting as much effort into the system themselves. The monographs themselves are only practically available from Chaosium and as others have pointed out shipping costs and import tax make that a risky and expensive proposition for people outside of the USA. Offical chaosium products would be available via FLGS either off the shelf or mail order. I have for example bought as much stuff from orcs nest: Orcs Nest Online Roleplaying Games Shop via mail order as I have by going into the shop. But if there is no product in the shop then people aren't aware of it and consequently aren't going to buy it. BRP was released in what ? July 2008 ? Since then what have Chaosium given us ? One dungeon crawl, it might be a great dungeon crawl ( and the blurb in the book suggests that there are more to follow ) but I was hoping for more than that in 16 months. Umm...for a start they could have given us a basic magic supplement that wasn't a simple retread of the old RQ3 magic book without even the most basic and cursory editing to make it compatible with BRP. I felt the release of that product was almost contemptuous towards the buying public. It was clear that nobody had spent any time working through it to overhaul it to BRP standards. we now have two systems called sorcery. Many of the spell names for Spirit magic are the same for 'Magic' I could go on about this one but you get the idea. Likewise the same criticisms can be made of the Basic Creatures book: duplication of creatures, hit points calculated using the RQ ratios instead of BRP ones etc etc. If I was a newcomer to BRP who then bought those products I'd be thinking " WTF ? Is this a different game? a different edition ? have I missed something " In answer to the question what products are they not doing that would help and considering my rant above here's one: Basic Magic A supplement for BRP featuring: New 'Magic' spells More Sorcery spells ( balance of spells from Elric and The Bronze Grimoire including necromantic spells ) Runic Sorcery ( from Bronze Grimoire, expanded and enhanced ) Spirit magic ....BRPised Divine Magic ....BRPised Thaumaturgy ( Ok it's the old RQ3 sorcery but it stops name confusion ) Chi Skills ( from land Of Ninja ) The spirit magic, divine magic and thaumaturgy would include all the errata that came out in the wake of RQ3. Indeed as you can't copyright a system I can see no reason why Chaosium couldn't have culled through old RQ 2 and 3 products for extra spirit magic, divine magic and thaumaturgy spells to expand those sections. obviously you'd have to de gloranthasise them and perhaps have a few name changes. Now you might say " well there's not much new there is there ? " and that's fair enough. but what it would do is collect together all the material that's scattered over 20 odd years and god knows how many products all of which are out of print, update it, make sure it's fully compatible with BRP and release it in one easily accessible source. For the newcomer to BRP it'd a be a great add on to the BRP rules and even a old grognard like myself would buy it for convenience sake and because it had been updated.

Can you throw us a few bones about the systems without giving everything away ? Whatever you choose to divulge about the setting would be read with interest as well.

It's not that we're not interested, because we are ( well, I am at least ) it's just that it's your baby so we figured you'd tell us stuff when you're good and ready. EDIT Go on then tell us something then. :-) Joking aside, perhaps a little about the magic systems ?

How could BRP be more popular ? Possibly by it's parent company actually supporting it with some products ?