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Ugh! I consider that to be the decline of Games Workshop.Before that they were a good little gaming company with soem games and an independent magazine that gave Dragon a run for it's money. ONce Warhammer came out GW just turned into pushing overprices lead (and later plastic) minis in a highly fantasy punk style that I never got into. Somehow draws with rainbow coloured mohawks hefting oversized weapons to big for them to wield, wearing inch think plate armour loaded with so many spikes that even a glancing blow would catch, just didn't fit the more realistic vibe I was going for. Oh yeah, I knew quite a few people who really got into the minis and painting. So much so that they spent way more time paining minis than they did gaming.

I saw the ads for them all the time in the various gaming magazines of the day (i.e. Dragon, Different Worlds, White Dwarf, Space Gamer) but didn't realize they were anything that I would have been interested in until I saw them up close. I didn't either until I saw them at a convention and notice the "Includes basic role-playing" bit on the boxes. That intrigued me enough to buy them, and once I got a look inside I was so pleased with the content. I mean, back in 1981 RQ content either came from Chaosium, Judges Guild, or an article in one of the gaming mags of the day, so this was a quite a pleasant surprise.

We used battlemats too. One cool thing though was that the scael used for the carboard was pretty close to the ones used on battlemats so we could (and did) place tower and wall sections over a battlemat. I wish these things got more of a in store presence though. I think they really could have been a good intro set.

Those bring back menories! Really great deal for the price.

I think that's a bit misleading, as you would need to be familiar with those other games in the first place to get something like hit locations to retrofit. If someone is already familiar with the ruleset then WoW gives them a nice springboard for a rules light system. But they probably need at last a passing familiarity with a more advanced BRP game to know what to port over, be it hit locations, piecemeal armor, new weapons, damage bonus, or whatnot. It's kinda like how the BGB is a great toolkit for those who are familar with the various Chaosium RPGs but all those options can be a bit daunting to a GM new to the system. Magic World can be great to grant other BRPish stuff onto, but you have to be aware of the stuff you want to add to it in the first place. BTW, anyone familar with the old Fantasy Paths boxed sets of map tiles? In a way they did what WoW/Magic World did but, in some ways, better. For those who aren't familiar with them they were sets of double sided cardboard tiles that could be assembled into various locations for gaming. Each box would come with a set of the BRP rules and a short adventure that made up of the map tiles. THe adventure would also have a rudimentary version of RuneQuest Battle Magic spells, and BRP stats for whatever new creatures were used in the adventure. THe set would even include some cardboard counters specific to the adventure. I think the old Fansty Path sets might be a better start up set that Magic World, as RQ's Battle Magic system was superior to the magic system used in Magic World.

Which Magic World? The original post was about the short booklet that came as part of the Worlds of Wonder boxed set back in the 80s, not the current 250+ page game.

Yeah, pretty much. The magic might be a bit overpowered as a wizard can pretty much fry anything with a 5-6 point spell, but it works.

That's pretty much RQ2 spirit combat, too. Strombringer had the one roll determines the outcome thing, and that is fast, but has it's own drawbacks. I dunno, I don't think it's much worse that two characters slugging it out with swords. Now considering the opposed nature of the roll they could streamline it by having only one roll and having the outcome decide who takes the damage. Stormbringer has a one roll wins all approach, but that also wasn't all that fun to roll or narrate. If PC fails his binding roll, there is an angry elemental or demon to fight. And that is wrong with that? I mean it is combat. If if were physical combat you'd end up with the same situation. SO basically the magician defeats the spirit and then binds it and it takes a day or so for it to recover it's magic points.

Me too. It really seems to fit in with how spirits and spirit combat worked in RuneQuest. I could see a shaman enter sprint combat to drive out the possessing spirit from some type of undead. Oh, and while my above info might help to explain why skeletons don't have a CON in BRP/RQ that doesn't mean that things couldn't work different in another word with a somewhat different magic system. I could easily see some sort of ritual spell where a necromancer summons up a spirit to inhabit a dead body or skeleton. There should probably be a certain POW to other characteristic ratio required (for instance 1 POW per 4 SIZ or STR just to prevent necromancers from animating dragons with a POW 1 spirit as it would be easier to bind and control. MAybe something like 1/5th the total characteristics of the dead creature must be POW to animate? That way really big creatures would require powerful spirits. You know, it wouldn't take much to turn that into a new magic system, necromancy. The game already has spirit combat rules, and the binding rules from sorcery (ala Strombringer/Elric!) would cover most of it. Just put in a handful of create undead (type) spells and some sort of general of POW requirement for the sprints and it's done. It could easily be rolled into the existing sorcery rules.

Not really. CoC7 is an experimental offshoot of the BRP rules, and does some things different from all the other BRP games. If they "updated" the BGB to be more in line with CoC7 then it would be less compatible with other BRP games including Magic World and, especially, RuneQuest. Plus. I believe Chaosium is more into promoting stand alone rules with settings rather than generic mechanics, as the former sell better.

It looked pretty short. It was 16 pages I believe and added to the original 16 page BRP rulebook. So in that 16 pages it had character creation, gear, prices, magic system, species and monster stats, plus an intro adventure. You really didn't get that much, although they did cram about as much as they could into a 16 page book. Overall that was the problem with Worlds of Wonder. Great ideas for expanding upon the RQ/BRP system to other settings, but limited by the space available. That's probably why Viking World was cut from WoW and instead was expanded and released as RQ3's Vikings! It could be fun for awhile. In my experience, after a month or so we started longing for stuff from other BRP games to flesh things out. Not so much hit locations and such, but more things like skill training, higher quality weapons, more species and monster stats, splitting off STR and SIZ for NPCs (Magic World combined them into one stat for NPCS and monsters). Category modifiers were a bit thing for us as well, since without them characteristics don't mean as much. The good thing was that is is fairly easy to port over characters from Magic World to another BRP game system. Generally speaking, the characteristics and skills are the same and port over directly. You might have to convert INT and SIZ there was a conversion table with RQ3) to adapt from 3D6 to 2D6+6, and the shift from CHA to APP but otherwise it's pretty much the same stats, and you don't feel like you lost something in translation they way you might with other game system conversions.

I've used the original Magic World. It's okay, but it really is just a trimmed down version of RQ. When I ran it we always ended up porting the characters over to RuneQuest or Stormbringer both of which had more robust game systems, and saved me the trouble of reinventing things that existed in other BRP games I wanted to flesh out Magic World. . Original Magic World Magic was also a bit overpowered, with some spells doing 1D6 damage per magic point. Pretty much any other fantasy RPG from Chaosium would be a step up from the WoW Magic World, so I'd suggest going with something else. The BRP BGB is an upgrade from WoW MAgic World, as is the current Magic World (basically the Elric/Stormbringer game system without the Moorcock stuff). Questworld was just an open game world to use with the RuneQuest rule system, as an alternate to Glorantha, and one which third party writers could have a bit more say in how the world worked that they could have in Glorantha. Most writers couldn't just pop new species, cults and cultures into Glorantha, but they could (and should) do so in Questworld.Other that the new world it had a couple of new cults and some adventures, all very compatible with Glorantha if desired. Overall Questworld was a good idea but came out at the wrong time. A year later RQ3 came out and made Questworld both moot and obsolete, as RQ3 wasn't tied to Glorantha the way RQ2 was, and had multiple settings. You are not alone. THat are a few of us who like RQ, especially RQ3 as a game system for settings other than Glorantha. Yup, but not as many of us around here as there used to be. The powers that be have decided to go in another direction with the rules and RQ3 is mostly dead.

Undead do not have a POW stat. The old in game explanation used was that POW equal Life Force and they are not actually alive, being incomplete creates In fact in RQ3 if you somehow give undead a permanent POW stat, say through a Creat Familiar (POW) spell it becomes a complete, living creature, although probably with odd abilities and appearance. Instead of POW then, maybe just go with Hit Points equal SIZ? Hmm now that I think about it, undead not having a POW stat doesn't really make sense according to the RQ rules. I mean, zombies and vampires are dead bodies reanimated by spirits similar to possession, and spirits have a POW stat right? Maybe something to do with the nature of animating the dead locks up the spirit's POW somehow, so it is not available or noticeable? Probably so it can't be driven out with spirit combat or show up with standard detection spells..

I believe it is a holdover from RuneQuest, where skeletons were not actually Undead, but instead were enchanted magical items (sort of like a magically animated robot). That is (probably) also why animated Skeleton STR and DEX scores were based on the POW points used to create them, rather that those of the deceased, and why they don't have an INT score.

Believe it not the Tower of Yrkath Florin sample scenario (by Ken St. Andre) in the early editions of Stombringer was/is a favorite of mine. While the text as written is a bit bare bones and dungeon crawly (well, tower crawly), if a GM fleshes it out with the stuff that Ken cut from the published version (i.e. the pirates and cave with dragon), and some sort of motivation for the PCs to go there, it becomes a very good introduction. That is assuming the group can deal with the POW 30 Demon Door. The adventure gives you quite a bit of Young Kingdoms/Melnibone vibe without needing the players to know that much about the setting.

It might be good to have conflicts that use multiple conflict pools too. For instance a small fighter trying to dodge a battleship using Speed/free POW as opposed to BODY.

Say clarence, On the off chance that you haven't thought of it yet, you could revamp the ship stats from M-SPACE to match those of the Comae Engine. Ships could be given combat pools (BODY would reflect the structure of the ship, INT the computer system, POW the generators and engines, and CHA the AI and interactive software), tags, lenses, etc. just like characters. The weapons, shields and armour stats could all port over to spacecraft scale as well. There are even a few tricks like base Speed and Handing off of POW-BODY which might give you similar stats but with simpler math. I'm just mentioning it in case the thought didn't occur to you yet.

Maybe but that's not the point.The OP wanted a method for adapting 2d20 Conan stuff to BRP. As there is no conversion from 2d20 Conan to BRP, but there is one from 2d20 Conan to D20/D&D Conan, and as people have been converting from D&D to BRP for years, D&D can be used as a Rosetta Stone. No judgments were being passed on the 2d20 game system. Just a desire to adapt 2d20 Conan stuff to BRP.

Yeah, which is one of the reasons why conversions are more than just number crunching, and even under the best circumstances there will be differences. D&D 3E/3.5 is probably the easiest to covert to BRP in part becuase the designers were influenced by RQ. In 3E carry capacity doubles with each 5 points of Strength while in BRP lifting ability doubles with each 8 points of Strength. So a 8/5th mutiple plus offset is probably the best way to line the games up.

I don't have to imagine it, I've played through it. Generally speaking most experienced players get used to having an experienced GM and ten to be somewhat unforgiving of inexperienced GMs. Especially if the group has one or more good GMs, who then set the bar rather high. Even other GMs can be rather unforgiving, as they tend to pick up on the mistakes first. And as GMing is kinda a thankless job to begin with, player being more likely to complain about their troubles (even when having fun) than to acknowledge the good stuff the GM is doing, it makes players even more gun shy of GMing, and more crtical of their own efforts when they do. Even Seth Skorkowsky did a video about it.

It was called Advanced Sorcery and edited by Ben Monroe. Basically it was a revised version of the Sorcery rules from Strombringer/Elric! with some new stuff, such as necromancy, thrown in. Not all that surprising at Magic World was basically a new edtion of Strombringer/Elric with the Moorcock specfic stuff removed. As Elric orginated as a rot of parody of Conan any of the Stormbinger Magic systems would give the right sort of fell in a Conan game. As for general conversion, I suggest reverse engineering the d20 to 2d20 conversion system that Morphidus came out with (edited by Jason Durall) . It can get you from 2d20 to D20/D&D which should make it easer to adapt to BRP. Attributes: STR, CON and SIZ are based off of BRAWN. For more variety you could triple the value given below and divide the points as desired. For instance a character with a 11 BRAWN would have a BRP STR, CON and SIZ of 16, or 48 points to spend between them. INT is based off of INTELLIGENCE POW is based off of WILLPOWER DEX is based off the average of AGILITY and DEXTERITY CHA (if used) is based off of PERSONALITY. If you want to use APP instead you could average WILLPOWER and PERSONALITY, or generate randomly, and modfiy for any applicable Talents Multiply the 2d20 Conan stat by 2 and subtract 6 to get a D20 (or BRP) score. Like So: 2d20= BRP 7= 8 8=10 9=12 10=14 11=16 12=18 13=20 14=22 15=24 16=26 As for Skills/Expertise, I'd suggest adding about 20% per level of expertise to the base chances. It's crude, overlooks much of detail of 2d20, is not a perfect fit, but it will probably get you in the right ballpark, especially for one shot NPCs. . If you need to make the NPCs more or less skilled for your PCs then you can use +15% or +25% or whatever best fits your group.

OH, certainly so, if a GM is willing to do that. One way would be to would be to convert 1 week of prep/sleep time into one or more magic points/POW. Lifeforce (and Traits) could be ported over easily enough, or discarded in favor on basing spell limits onto the relevant magic skill. Oh, and the damage/armor ratings would probably need to be converted (say half) to reflect the differences between the game systems. +1d6 damage in Pendragon is nice but +1D6 damage in BRP is phenomenal. Another way would be to keep the traits, lifeforce and weeks payment, and have a relatively low magic campaign where the magician PCs are only part time characters. It really comes down to how powerful and common the GM wants the magic to be. In Pendragon, a powerful magician can pull off some amazing things but pays for it with lots of prep time, magical sleep, or aging (I failed to mention before the bit about magicians who fail to pay the proper weeks cost in prep work or sleep instead pay with aging rolls). Depending on what the GM want's and what take on Celtic Myth being used, the magic system could even be adapted as a form of super powers. Lots of legendary Celtic Heroes had innate magical abilities that could be modeled using the magic system. Gawaine's solar based strength for instance.

Yeah. Greg went into a lot of detail about Celtic/Faerie Glamour in Pendragon, and how it isn't so much illusion, but only temporary. The Pendragon Magic system from KAP 4 is very different mechanically than other BRP games though (Pendragon doesn't have a POW stat with spells being paid for in weeks of prep time before hand, or magical slumber afterwards (think Merlin's line about sleeping for nine moons after helping Uther reach Igraine in the film Excalibur) You also need to use the Pendragon Personality traits (or adapt the RQG ones) to calaculate a Lifeforce stat, which is the limit on how poerful a spell a magicain can cast (modfied by time of the season, location and such). So Faerie Magic would work fine as a GM thing to explain away the magical nature of Faerie, but might not be something that a GM would want to run in other BRP games.

That's rather clever. Tie it in with the previous history stuff and you could break up the backstory into eras/events, what the PC did at the time, and what skills and abilities they picked up.

LOL! I think that is one of the more telling criticisms of Tolkien. Most events seem to unfold over many many years. I think Tolkien did it to give Middle Earth's history depth. The problem with it though is that it leads to years going by without anyone doing much or coming into contact with other cultures. For instance it appears than no one in Rhoan or Gondor had seen an Elf, and although Arnor fell over a thousand years ago, no new kingdoms of any sort spring up in the time before Aragorn restores Arnor. Another interesting bit about the family history of elves is that since elves are so long lived, an elven PC might actually have been at some great event years ago, rather than (or in addition to) one or more ancestors. Elrond was at the battle 3000 years ago, where Sauron was struck down.