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I'm not sure if the Mythos really works as pulp-at least in the heroic sense. It wouldn't be hard to do something similar with heroic, larger than life PCs, and horrors that aren't quite so mind bending and invulnerable. In fact, a few RPGs lend themselves towards that approach (Justice, Inc., Spirit of the Century). But it's probably too "bright and cheery" for a Lovecraft tale. Maybe an August Derleth tale, but not Lovecraft. In Lovecraft mankind survives through a combination of luck, blissful ignorance, and the fact that the stars aren't right, yet. Nothing that man actually does makes much of a difference, specially in the long run. That's pretty much the exact opposite of most pulp stores,where one brave and true hero can make all the difference.

Sounds a lot like the method used in Spirit of the Century. In SotC character have aspects (trades) that can be "tagged" by the GM or others to force the character to react to something, earning a fate point. Just how the character reacts is up to the player. Resisting the tag, if it is a valid one, costs a Fate Point. Fate points can be used for a +1 to a roll, but if a character can invoke one of his aspects he can get a +2 instead. Fate points can also be used in other ways. One neat thing was that a character could attempt to make a declaration, spending a fate point and making a skill roll. If the roll was successful (beat the difficulty set by the GM. Just what the difficulty was depending on how neat the declaration was). the said declaration was true. For instance, rather than rolling for an info dump from the GM, and then having to work out some puzzle to get out of a trapped tomb, a character could make some sort of declaration about a "master switch" or some such, spend a fate point, and roll against his Academics/Archeology skill. Success means that yes indeed, there is a master switch. It probably on the other side of the room, past the pit filled with poisonous snakes (you get a lower difficulty that way), but that's what heroic characters are for.

Yeah, the various other elements in the game desing all helped to contribute to the style of gameplay. The Ease Factor system, the Quality Ratings, and all the other aspects of the game. The designers notes in the Q Manual shows to just what extent everything in the game was warped slightly to give the PCs an edge. For example weapon damage was skewed to make pistols a bit better vs. rifles than they should have been. And the draw system helped PCs with pistols get off the first shot before guards armed with SMGs or assault rifles. The way the damage was done (by quality rating and weapon damage class) had a big impact and also was quitew realistic. Someone like Bond could be quite lethal with a PPK or even Beretta .25 ACP, yet some thug totting around an AK-47 wasn't quite as lethal, since he wasn't likely to get in a decent hit. I once thought of altering BRP damage so that the number of dice rolled were based on the success level. For example a normal success is 1 die, a special 2 dice, and a critical 3 or 4 dice. The die size could be varied by weapon. A small pistol might do 1D4, with a rifle doing 1D10 or so. I've adapted the Bond RPG to other cinematic settings. It would appear to be a good base for a swashbuckling campaign or even Star Wars. The game had the best Seduction rules I've seen in an RPG, too. It took a little work, but in a Bond Mission there are few things an agent can do that can help with the mission more than sleeping with the Major Villain's girlfriend.

One system that was cinematic yet gritty and realistic was the old James Bond RPG. What it did was allow players to spend Hero Points to shift the quality rating (think critical/special/ normal/failure) of die rolls. This gave players some influence of the course of events, and the ability to get lucky when the needed it (like when on the receiving end of an AK-47). Since the points didn't renew automatically (but new points could be earned) the players usually had enough to do what they needed, but rarely enough to do all that they wanted. Since damage (and everthing else) has results that were tied to the Quality Rating, even 1 Hero Point could turn a serious injury into a minor one or even a miss. It worked out really cool in play. A thug behind a M-2 machine gun was very dangerous, and the weapon extremely lethal (something like a 50% Kill/50% unconscious chance on a hit-assuming the shooter is spraying a group and not going for just one target), but a PC with a couple of Hero Points would be able to avoid the first burst or two-just long enough to take the guy out. The PC wouldn't feel invulnerable through, since once the points ran out, he had no more protection and was just like everyone else. IMO it is probably the best method I've seen for cinematic games, and it is easily ported over to BRP.

What I've seen is that different people set the trade-off bar at different levels. Also, just what people consider complicated can vary tremendously based on other factors. Back when I was running RQ3, most of the gamers in my area were playing AD&D. Now I consider AD&D to be at least as complicated as RQ3- probably more complicated. Yet most of the players thought the opposite. The real reason why they believed that was because they had years of familiarity with AD&D, and each player had his own copy of the rulebooks. As a result most thing went much faster in AD&D. Later, when I had two or three players who had copies of RQ and were familar with the game, it went as fast if not faster than AD&D.

MoonPest-the RPG about exterminators in the 23rd century. Just don't roll "Space Slug" on the encounter table.

Yes. Thing got cruchier and cruncheir until they got too crunchy and then went off in other directions. I think the industry has gone through several phases since then. The current trend is for rule-light simply RPGs with some player input into the story. I get a chuckle when I see people here common on how simple BRP is. The original system, RuneQuest, wasn't really simple. It was logical and easy to grasp, but not simple. Said system was gutted and revamped multiple times, hence the reason why BRP isn't really simple. I don't see why simple is considered good. Most of the really simple RPGs that have been introduced over the years have died a quick death. Simple might be easy, but is is almost always limited.

Just as long as the support is regular.

Panzer's & Dragons? You should see my (wait I a sec. I've got to put up Protection and Countermagic) Napoleonic RPG, Donjons & Dragoons.

Needs go nothing to do with it. Its more what is popular and what people expect. Case in point, for years I had trouble getting people to play RQ. Partially because most gamers expected there to be a distinction between spellcasters and non-spellcaster, and mostly because people expected levels, classes and increasing hit points. As soon as most people heard "fixed Hit points" and "you'll have about 12 HP" they got very leary of RQ, even though I tired to explain parrying and armor soaking damage. That the "non-cinematic" field is underpopulated right now is probably a strong indication that such games are not successful. I think what is really happening in the RPG field is that OGL D&D sort of finished off most of the alternate systems a few years back, when everybody jumped on the 3rd Edition bandwagon. Now that that's settled down, there is a market for alternatives again.

I think I used the term once of twice on the MRQ forums a few years back. My nastiest comment on MRQ was probably when I counted the number of authors listed, got 7, and made a reference to the "Seven Mothers". Just how Triff managed to get banned escapes me. :lol: Considering my handle, and that I've been accused us using the name of some Aztec deity, am I in there? Maybe I'll do a WWII RPG and name it RhineQuest?

I think you made a good point here. BRP is the sort of RPG that was popular 30 years ago. The style of RPGs that are popular today are much more cinematic. We like it because we liked it way back when. But to someone looking over the game for the first time today, it doesn't WOW them the way it did us.

Quite true. While I don't like everything that in BRP, Jason did a good job in compiling it. In fact, most of the bugs and inconsistencies were thing that existed in the game before Jason got his hands on it. It just that they had gone unnoticed before. For example the SIZ table bug that I spotted goes back to at least 5th Edition Call of Cthulhu. The only reason why I noticed the bug was that I was working on stuff for vehicles and superheroes. Otherwise, I wouldn't have looked twice at the SIZ table. In play, once you hit SIZ 30 or so, the value becomes academic. Once you are talking superheroes, it suddenly becomes important to know what STR 60 can lift. So yeah, Jason certainly deserves credit for the work he did.

No problem whatsoever legally. The wording is the only copyright issue. Someone could copy all the rules from Elric, assuming that they change the wording. Where they would get in trouble is with the characters and setting. As far a morally, I doubt everyone will have the same opinion. I for one thought it was pretty shoddy for Greg Stafford to be able to buy the right to the RQ name (after Chaosium let them lapse) and then lease it out to Mongoose to do whatever they wished with. Legally, Mongoose could do anything with the name they wished, including putting it on a line of D&D 3.5 supplements. Legally they can also call their RPG RuneQuest or RuneQuest 2, or even RuneQuest 12 if they so desire. That's what they paid for. Personally, I don't think it is morally right for them to call their RPG RuneQust or RuneQuest 2 or RuneQuest II, and would prefer that they use something else, in order to avoid confusion with the previous games from Chasoium. But that's me. Other don't see this as a moral problem. Likewise, not everyone sees GORE as a moral problem. The authors followed the letter of the law. System can't be protected by copyright, so legally are fair game. Personally I found Mongooses advertising of MRQ to have been misleading and morally objectionable (I think even legally actionable), with exaggerations as to the involvement of Steve Perrin and Greg Stafford in the development of MRQ. Yet most people didn't have a problem with it.

In theory because someone liked the way GORE did something better than the way OpenQuest did. Personally I'm not a GORE fan, but if I were running something as a GM, I'd use whatever I felt would work best for my game. If I thought GORE was better than OpenQuest I'd use it. From a publishing standpoint I could see someone using GORE because it better suited whatever they were trying to write. After all, it's not hard to write a supplement that doesn't even refer to the rules as such, and just lists stats. That said stats are fairly compatible with a host of RPGs isn't actionable or even objectionable.

Yes, but Joe Average gamer won't do that. We can't except the average gamer to automatically be a big Chaosium fan. We might be, but we're atypical. The typical gamer isn't likely to suddenly order an RPG that he knows nothing about, sight unseen, from a company he might never have heard of.

I see your point. It is one of the reasons why I don;'t think the "each GM make his own area" approach is a good one. I think for it to be a shared world the countries (technology, religion, etc.) would need to be worked out by committee so that we could have the lands interacting with each other. I like Sky Mountain, it's very RQ2/Glorantha-ish. But it isn't going to work out well if every other land is completely different. At least it won't be much of a "shared world" if everyone just goes off into a corner, makes something up and just tacks it onto the project. A Worlds of Wonder/multiverse concept can also work, but again there is very little "shared" about it. Unless we make it shared. Whatever concept we go with, I'd like to see it become a truly shared setting with a lot of interaction between the various sub-settings, rather than a bunch of setting that have nothing to do with each other.

Just couple of thoughts: The various setting could all be on different "planes", "dimensions" or what not. One possible way to Map them would be something like in Time Bandits with maps of portals that link different settings. Note that what maps that do exist would be incomplete, so that GMs could limit how much the PCs are aware of. Certain areas could be "hubs" with gateways to multiple worlds. Such hubs could be (or have been) major centers for trade and commerce. If some sort of calamity resulted in a break down on the system in years past, we could have "gate magic" or "gate tehcnology" at various states of use in different campaign areas-allowing us to tailor the amount of impact this would have or any given setting. Some places could be like a multi-gate European Union with a common currency and lots of trade. Others could be completely unaware of the gates. Perhaps some cultures have even developed vehicles that can cross the aether without the need for a portal.

The key difficulty in an unregistered copyright case is in proving that you are the author of said work to begin with. Thus you are correct in that by not copyrighting something you can be left vulnerable to someone else. You would need to be able to prove that you wrote said item, and that you did so before the other claimant. Also, as Nick has pointed out, having deep pockets helps. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter much who is in the right if one side doesn't have the cash to be able to fight it out. But, considering just how limited copyright protection is in regards to RPGs, I don't see much to be afraid of. As I've said before you cannot copyright systems (it says so under US copyright law), so there would be little problem with an open, generic RPG.

OI think it is also because us old fans are a bit cautious. This isn't the first time that the promise of a bright new future, and a renaissance for Chaosium has popped up. I recall how when BRP zero came out some people snagged it just in case BRP proper never materialized. BRP has been slow getting support from Chaosium, most of which isn't available at local RPG shops. Frankly, if there were any other RPG company we'd probably all be wondering just what the future was for BRP. Just compare it to the support that companies like WotC, Mongoose, SJG, HERO, and White Wolf give to lines that they are actively supporting. Or worse still compare it to the type of support Chaosium used to give games like RQ or Pendragon. To the gamer who doesn't surf the net regularly, and buys products based up what he sees on the shelf at the local RPG store, BRP doesn't exist.

What happened was that I took a break from it. Lots of number crunching and plugging in/testing stats for a variety of vehicles can make me punch happy. When, in the real world, I was helping a friend move some rocks in his pickup truck and worked out how many trips, travel time, etc. in my head using my ideas for vehicles I realized I needed to take a break. The scary part was that my estimates were correct. But the project is still alive. Ground vehicles are working out well, water vehicles aren't working out too bad, airships are coming along okay, and other aircraft are being a pain. The problem with aircraft being that I can work out a way to design them that is accurate, but it is essentially the same formulas used in real life, and a bit too complex for RPG purposes. I haven't put much thought into vehicle performance on other worlds. I should try to factor that in. I'd probably try to approximate it, since I usually don't factor in for things like gravity. For Mars: Atmospheric Pressure: About 1% of Earth's means lower air resistance for higher top speed. It would also mean that radiators might not work as well (less air going over them to transfer heat too). Gravity: About 38% of Earths means less weight, but also less ground ground pressure (meaning that it takes larger wheels/tracks to move the vehicle). The differences in temperature would also require a vehicle to be able to operate in a wider temperature range than on Earth. So how do all these factors affect ground vehicle performance? Beats me. I'd suspect that probably for the worse, but I don't have enough engineering knoweldge to know for certain. Fortunately, the folks at NASA have been nice enough to have designed a pair of Mars Rovers (Spirirt and Opportunity) that I can use as test models to work with. the Mars Exploration Rovers have real world Data of: Total Mass: 180.1 kg (=SIZ 22 by my SIZ table) Peak Vehcile Power: 140w =.14kw (+STR2 by my Power/STR table) however most of this power is used to power the computers, toos, radios and other goodies. Only about 10W is used for the drive wheels. So Drive Wheel Power : 10w = 0.01kw (= barely STR 1 by my Power/STR table) Top Speed: 30 m/hr. (= .03kph or MOV .033) Going back a few pages I find my ground vehicle MOV formula of: MOV= square root (mass/power)*21 Pluging the Mars Rover's numbers into my ground vehicle formula: MOV= square root(.01kw/180.1kg) *21 = 0.156 Since the real rover's have a MOV of .033, not .156 we can guesstimate that it is only about 20% as fast as an earth vehicle. Since the Rover is also designed to go over rough ground, we probably should use the modfier for tracked vehicles (.75% or K=15.75 instead of 21) so. MOV = square root(.01kw/180.1kg) *15.75 = 0.117. Since .033 is about 28% of that we can use a K-Factor of 4.44 to get vehicle speeds on Mars. So for ground vehicles on Mars we could use: MOV= square root (mass/power)*4.44 Plugging in the stats for the Rovers we get: MOV= square root(.01kw/180.1kg) *4.44 = 0.033 Ta-dah! Now, I have no idea how accurate this really is. I've only got one test model to go with, but that means practically no one else has any idea how accurate it is either. So it will be hard for anyone to disprove it, and heck it's only a game.

If rules weren't important, then RQ/BRP, etc. would be long gone. Try running something with a system that isn't suited for it and see how it goes. I recall a bad experience with Heroes: Unlimited simply because the system didn't handle non-lethal combat. For a superhero game, that is a big problem. Except both RQ2 and RQII have been used to refer to Chaosium's RQ game. In fact, RQII is more common than RQ2. Personally, it bugs me, and is just another reason not to bother with Mongoose. All this is going to do is add more confusion. Neither do I, but some people seem to feel that doing so is morally wrong. I wouldn't want to see that. It would be bad for BRP. It means BRP supplements will end up in direct competition to MRQ products. Since Mongoose puts out products at a faster rate, BRP would loose sales. For example, someone might buy MRQ Pirates instead of waiting for the BRP Pirate book. When the BRP book is released, said person probably won't want to buy another Pirate book, and so not buy the BRP book. Eventually, companies stop making BRP books since they "don't sell".

What "impinge". Have a generic Fantasy RPG on the shelves is probably critical to BRP's popularity. So it is certainly on topic. I think Chaosium's decision is a good sign for BRP's future, too. IMO no RPG is going to be successful unless the parent company gets products on the shelves.

Consing how often we disagree it's amazing how much we tend to agree on things. My view exactly. I've got RQ2, RQ3, most of the RQ supplements, WoW, CoC, Stormbringer, Elric and possibly ElfQuest kicking around. The BRP core rules doesn't change anything as far as my gaming goes. Yeah there are a few new wrinkles, but frankly, I wouldn't use most of them.

That's good. THe more stuff that hits the stores, the better off BRP will be.