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Cat, I said "in terms of setting and rules". It was Moorcock from whom games got things such a Law & Chaos from. And if you do look at the works of authors in the genre, including much of the work of the ones you mentioned, you didn't see too many heroes in heroic fantasy who didn't swing a sword. Twains work hardly would be considered Heroic Fantasy. I didn't say that they did not have an influence on fantasy, I an saying that is was Moorcock who gave us a hero, or actually an anti-hero who was the wizard, rather than the wizard being the villain of the piece. And it was Moorcock who opened the door for a lot of authors to write Heoric Fantasy with heroes outside of the BUrrough-Howard mold. But I said in terms of "settings and rules"-as in regard to RPGs. Consider just how many of the authors you listed have had RPGs written based on their works. Dickson had Dragon & the Sword written up for D&D. Jack Vance had his magic system used for the basis of D&Ds and eventually there was a Dying Suns RPG. As far as RPGs go, I'd probably put Fritz Lieber 3rd. Lhankmar seems to be always around in the RPG field.

It was like this. Back in the late 70s when RPGs were getting started, both Chasoium and TSR went to Moocock to ask for permission to use his Elric/Eternal Champion setting. Back in those early days, it was looked at more as flattery than as a business venture, and he let both companies use his setting for free, pretty much expecting a game or two. The contract was of the verbal agreement and handshake variety. TSR got stuff out of the gate first with the Deities and Demigods book, but eventually pulled it (and the Cthluhu Mythos stuff) when they became aware that Chaosium had a deal to produce some RPGs. Now in 30 years Moorcock was never paid a dime, err. 10p. He never expected that Chasoium would be producing Elric games for 30 years or that the hobby would turn into an industry, or even that the people who he made the deal with would no longer be the ones making the games. So last year he made a Deal with Mongoose and got some money. He also tried and apparently succeeded in getting Chaosium to stop producing Elric games. Personally as much as I prefer Chaosium over Mongoose, I have to say that after 30 years of ELric RPGs I think it is only fair if one of the people making money off of Elric is his creator and author. As for Moorcock's work. Well if not for Moorcock it is doubtful that we be playing RPGs today. His works were second only to Tolkien in terms of setting and rules, and he was a pioneer in breaking the "Fantasy Hero" stereotype. Up until Moorcock, your Hero in a "Swords & Sorcery" story (and most "Science Fiction Romances") was a big brawny guy, often a barbarian, who started off with nothing and worked his way up to being a king. Elric broke all those molds. No he didn't write a lot of his stuff in one sitting. What he did do was write a lot of the early Elric stuff for the Sci-Fi pulp magazines of the time. Prior to the late 60s or so a lot, if not most science fiction and fantasy stories were sold in anthology magazines. Sort of mini-pulp books. The original Eric stories were serialized in one such magazine, and published in regular installments. Moorcock actually killed Elric off rather quickly, then moved onto other things, only to be drawn back to Elric by the fans.

Do you do that with the Kingdoms in your fantasy campaign? Do you send your adventurers to an arctic environment and worry about the detail when they get there? I know a DM who does that. He couldn't figure out why the group stopped in mid-adventure and started backtracking the river that flowed from the sea to the mountains. We figured that the wizard we were chasing had to be responsible for a making water flow uphill. If you are running a campaign set in a location, like at a particular station or patrolling a certain sector of space, it is nice for the players to have the major star systems and planets worked out. World generation does have some perks. For one thing if you know a little science, it can go a long way to springing other adventure ideas. Things like where resources are, what stars can support life are all useful bits of info. Plus a lot of good adventures can be had when something happens that shouldn't. Like a world with a Earth-like climate being somewhere that it has no business being, like out past Saturn. Sadly in mos RPGs how far apart they are determines how long it takes to travel from one to the other. Not all RPGs use "jump" drives. If you are running something like Star Trek, where ships travel at multiples of the Speed of Light you need to know how far apart the system are. So you can tell how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B, or C, and from point B to C. If you are using a specific setting, like a Space Station or patrol sector then this is useful. If you are doing "Episode of the Week" then you can get away with making it up as you go along, until the PCs decide they want to go back to the planet with the green animal women. Probably the easiest solution for non-jump/hyperspace games is to just do up a "master table" of the area and write down all the distances/travel times. Then just refer to the chart. That's what I did for a couple of Star Trek campaigns. Most of the locations were mapped out and distances charted. Oops. Yeah like that. Pretty much like any other RPG there is a certain amount of detail that you need; then a certain amount that you want for color; then all the rest that you would like to have but don't have the time for. For most of my Sci-Fi campaigns I needed to know who was near whom, who like/hatred whom, and what they all had to play with, deatils for species and cultures, etc. Most of the tech stuff was for color. It is nicer to say "a Red Giant Star" than "Yeah, it got a sun." Some basic knowledge of science does help, though. Since if the GM doesn't have it and the players do, they might take a abnormality (like the Earth planet out past Saturn) as a plot hook rather than being something insignificant. For instance it is good to know what stars can't support habitable planets if your players know.

Generally the 2D maps get used because most players and GMs don't like figuring out distances with X, Y ans Z coordinates. And there are some other ways to do 3D maps other than a 2D map with +/- coordinates. There is graph paper made in 3 quarter perspective (diamonds) that can be used to give good depth.

I think Jason said there were 3 different options. I also thing everyone with the book is either busy ready or preparing for the holidays.

Yeah, D&D keeps the stat mods separate, so they are always a factor. Most other games do something similar. In CoC or worse SB5, INT is pretty much a throw away stat, unless you are a sorcerer. And APP simply is a throwaway stat. Speaking of APP, I think they should either do something more with it, or dump the stat entirely, and let players describe their characters appearance. One thing that might work would be to average stat rolls with skills. the old Star Trek RPG did that with combat skills. So you would average your 40 sword skill with your 60 DEX to get a 50% Attack rating. It's nice but too much math.

Oh yeah. No argument. It is just that such things are not guaranteed to prevent the other guy from shooting back before he drops dead. That is the real bitch in gunfights. Getting killed by the guy who you have already killed by who didn't have the good graces to fall over and die like he should have. Most wounds take time to kill you. Modern police forces training warns them that even if they shoot someone, they can expect the guy to be functional for a minimum of 10 seconds. Pretty much all the one hit stop% numbers you see are fictitious. Especially for handguns. In fact, pretty much all the "this weapon does have stopping power" case example over the years involve shooting at highly motivated/fanatical people who didn't drop when they got hit. If you look up real word data, from any era you will see that the vast majority of fatalities happen after the battle. In the modern era, survival rate from gunshots is over 98% if they can get the victim medical attention. I used to work in a trauma center, and I can only recall one or two people actually dying from their gunshot wounds. Some pretty good games use a WIL roll mechanic to handle things like stopping power. If we wanted to go that route in BRP we could require a Luck roll or match POW vs. the damage on the resistance table to see if the character can act. It really is mostly "Will he act" not "can he act".

Looks like a golden window for a supplment. Pretty much every RPG setting needs a couple of pages of Joe and Josephine Average. A rough rule of thumb would be: STR 10, CON 10, SIZ 13 (10 females), INT 13, POW 10, DEX 10, APP 10, EDU 13 Hit Points: 12 (10 females) Skills: Add 45% to one professional skill, 35% to another and 25% to the rest. Add 30% to any skill, 20% to any two skills, and 10% to any six skills.

Yup. That's why I was in the "hit locations make BRP Less deadly" camp. Even if someone is "gonna die" they usually have a few rounds where they can be saved through First Aid. Of course Major Wounds will do the same sort of thing for BRP.

The Firearms Table covering the 1873-1885 period has been uploaded and is available in the Downloads/Other section. This is the first draft, so people can look it over and see if it looks to be heading in the right direction, or if I need to adjust some numbers. Note that this is the "master" table, and that I plan to do a "handbook" with photos of the firearms and a bit more detail, as well as some explanation of some new terms, add-ons, and rules for fan-firing, etc. Most of the terms on the table are self-explanatory. But here is a little more info that will help. Damage (CoC): This is the weapon damage in Call of Cthulhu terms. Note that the weapon damages are slightly lower in the Old West, due to the use of blackpowder rather than nitrocellulose, and most weapons had lower pressures than their modern counterparts. Damage (rev); THis is an alternate Damage Value I'm been toying with. Attacks Per Round 1-2: Typically a Double Action revolver. Limited to one shot on the first turn, but allowed two shot thereafter. A 2* means that the shotgun can fire both shots in a round but suffers a -10% to the second shot for doing so due to excessive recoil. Era Cost: The price for the weapon "out west". Prices at the point of manufacture would be much lower. The Colt 68c Open Top Revolver could be order for as little as 68 cents from Sears & Roebuck, plus S&H (that P&P to those in the UK), assuming you have time to wait. Malf: Malfunction chance. Yeah these look high to me, but then so do the number in CoC. For the most part the older weapons are slightly less reliable than modern ones. There will be info on using certain high powered loads that do more damage but reduce the reliability of the weapon. Draw: This is the weapon's modifier to the shooter's Fast Draw skill, and will be used in "Draw" situations to determine who gets off the first shot. Useful for when a town just isn't big enough for the both of you. Con: This is the weapons modifier to the conceal skill of whoever is trying to carry the weapon unnoticed. Note that this is assuming that the character is wearing something that is capable of concealing the item. So if someone wants to "conceal" their Winchester Rifle they had better be wearing a longcoat, and keep it closed. Reload: The first number it the number of combat rounds it takes to fully reload and ready the weapon for use. The number in the parenthesis tis the time it takes to open and empty the weapon plus the number of bullets you can reload in a round plus the number of rounds it takes to ready the weapon for firing). The second value is useful for when your gun is empty, but you need to load a round or two fast, like when someone is running at you waving a knife. Note the typo for the Colt Pocket Pistols. The full reload time for the Open Top pistol should be 10 rounds, and the New Line 9 rounds. I'll fix this on the sheet when Triff gets back and can delete the original. Sorry. Weight: is the Weight in kg, rounded off to the nearest 0.5 increment as in RQ ENC. The Colt Navy, Peacemaker, Frontier, and the S&W American can all have stocks attached to then. Stocks cost $5 and increase the base range by 15m (20 for the buntline special), but reduces Draw and Con by 10%. The Sharps Buffalo rifle was often fitted with a tack, or peep site that aids in long distance shooting. Tack sites cost $4, and increase the base range from double to triple when used with precision aiming. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The blank section of the sheet mean that the stats are identical to the ones above it. This is for weapons like sawed off shotguns or pistols with a alternate caliber cartridge that are otherwise identical to the original weapon. How's that for a start?

I've got a second formula that also seems to fit the data points given in CoC. It uses a cube function rather than a square root. AP=Cube root (mm) Steel x5.14 Concrete x1.69 Hardwood: x1 Both the square a cube root formulas have advantages. The cube one seems to fit the required thickness for submarine hulls better. Or I might just use the sub formula for APs. That is AP= Cube Root (mm*100) Steel x1 Concrete x0.35 Hardwood: x0.20 I'm also playing around with a few more HP options. I'm trying to fit the values in CoC better. Either a tech era factor and/or factoring in the size of the Engine (something like +5 HP/cubic liter in the 1920s, and about 10HP/cubic liter c.2000, or maybe just uses the Engine L as the base for the Engine HPs. ). One thing I wondering is if we need total Hit points for a vehicle. Unlike a person, a vehicle doesn't "bleed to death" and unless some vital is taken out, it will continue along. Shooting out the lights or tires doesn't have the same effect as shooting a man in the eyes or feet. If we just limited total HP to whole area attacks like explosions or driving off cliffs, then the vehicles would be pretty tough indeed, only stopping after their engine, proplsion or controls got shot out. My goal is to get it so someone can take a real vehicle plug the stats into a couple of formulas and get BRP game values that are reasonable enough for game play. I'm nearly there with a rough draft. Not surprisingly Tank and Battleships with their heavy armor are the big sticking points. The armor sets the damage range for the big guns, in turn setting the scale for the weapons in between. I figure that if I can get a Kawasaki, Ford Escort, Ferrari, M113, M1A2 and Iowa-class Battleship to work out then the ratings should hold up for anything in between.

I grant you that the "shootout at noon" os mostly fiction. But at for the moetality rates of gunsdhots, that is also a fiction caused by the pulps, Hollywood, TV, etc. THe information avaiable from real world shootings, both in the Old West and in the modrn era show that very few gunshots actually kill someone right away. Instant kills are limited to within the crtical hit % and most other deaths occur later. THat is actually one of the problems with shootouts. Unless you can severe the guys spine, he is going to have at least 10 seconds of so to act before he passes out from blood lost. And that is the "best case" scenario. So if you want to play "how it really was" then you need to reduce the instant kill rates.

That is why I want to base the damage on the military standard ball ammunition. Once we do that, it becomes easy to do... I know a few RPGs that do that, some quite well. 3G3 for Timelords is probably the best of the bunch in that line. Yup. Shot placement is #1. And I do like the idea of better rolls doing more damage, but that would be more along the lines of a major revision to all of combat (skill certainly counts with swords). We do sort of have that anyway with special and critical successes. From what I've read only the Brain and Spine hits are instant kill/disablement. Everything else is psychological, since it is going to take at least a round for the target to bleed out. Usually longer. Probably a Will roll. Since Will is POW in BRP, then a Luck roll. If using CoC SAN rules they would world too. Being hit by a bullet would certainly be a shock. But agian, that is if we wanted to go to that level with it. Getting your arm hacked off with an axe is at least equally traumatic, and lethal.

But did you ever notice if they were waiting for something?

Agreed. A .45 also inflicts larger wounds that a 9mm. What I was referring to was the the myth of how .45s would "knock a man down", or "send him flying". That's fiction. It you blow out a kneecap or something you might make someone fall, but it isn't the force of the bullet. And if the bullet could send a man flying backwards, firing the shot would send the shooter backwards as well. I also agree with it reason for being used by special forces, although I think that has to do with the subsonic nature. Basically if you need to silence a pistol, why not take one that already is subsonic and has the heaviest bullet? Plus the same forces who use the .45ACP also use 9mm pistols and SMGs. Also for good reasons. I don't think I want a .45 SMG that wasn't using at least semi-jacketed ammo. That's what I thought. Most of the data I've seen points to a 9mm being better at penetrating body armor. Again, this is all subject to load. Some .45 rounds can penetrate really well, and some 9mm rounds, such as Glaser safety slugs don't penetrate that well. If someone has something that shows otherwise I'd like to see it. As it stands I don't accept that a .45ACP has the same penetration ability as a .357 Magnum. The same wounding ability, maybe. Possibly even better, since it has a bigger, heavier bullet.

So what. Instead of discussing the matter you get into a huff?

Then back them up. Basically the "I think this because some I trust told me so." isn't any sort of solid evidence. I know lots of guys who have fired different weapons, from police, army soldiers, marines, the navy, hunters, etc. That doesn't prove anything. Heck, I know one guy who switched from a 9mm to a 38 Special because it was wider. Now the 9mm is .355 and the .38 Special is .357 and in that case width isn't a factor. But that was his reason. I know a guy who was in Military Intelligence who is the one who believes that the .45 can stop a heart. I can't just take you word on how good your sources are. I'll take data that is backed up like ballistics tests and NIJ ratings. I know a very reliable four year old who believe Santa Clause is going to stop at her house on Christmas Eve, and who has seen Santa. I don't doubt her reliability, or her veracity. That doesn't prove that Santa exists. If you have some sort of evidence that supports a .45 penetrating deeper than a 9mm, please show it. Otherwise, I'm going with the vast majority of evidence to the contrary. Truth be told, the actual load being use is more important than caliber in regard to the 9mm/.45 thing. Especially considering how long both rounds have been in service and how much the charges have been upped over the years. You talked before about the errors of "conventional wisdom" but seem to fall back on the same fallacy that created them. Believing things without evidence. Perhaps the biggest abuse of "conventional wisdom" is the .45s reputation as a "manstopper". It right up there with bullets "knocking" people back or down.

The "basic" rule in RQ3 was that every time you took something a step away from it place of manufacture you mutiplied the cost by 2.5. While I'm not sayingg that was the case in the US in the 1800s< it does make the price descrpancies clear up. If a Peacemaker was $6 in the East, 6=2.5=$15 in the est, and 15x2.5=$37.50 for those hard to reach places. I've got 4 Western RPGs, and some sourcebooks, but don't have much in the way of authnetic prices.

Uh, not sure I can. The good points: 1)It is streamlined. Think of the CoC rules. 2)Magic has been downgraded to keep sorceroer from being as overpowering as they were in SB1 3) Specific summoning spells/magic for the being that pop up in the Elric books. 4) They altered the cultural notes to better fit Moorcocks works. Argrimilans are no longer the Young Kingdom's answer to the USA. The bad points: Well, pretty much everything else. Stats don't mean much, there is a rip off of RQ spirit magic grafted onto the game that doesn't belong there. Also, since Mogoose is now publishing Elric stuff I doubt you'll see any support for it from Chaosium. Not that they have done a good good of supporting the game. They certainly never lived up to their claim of it being the new in house fantasy RPG setting that they claimed it was going to be after the AH deal. I'd say save your money and just use BRP.

Maybe, but then it makes stat improvement pretty pointless. What it the advantage up upping your DEX? What I liked about RQ3 was that each point of stat meant something. One thing I don't like about CoC and most of Chaosium stuff based off of it is that except for hit points and damage bonus, you stats are meaningless. The statx5% rolls rarely came up, as there was usually a skill that replaced the stat roll. So if a character had a 13 or 17 Strength tended to make little difference.

A lot of "conventional wisdom" about firearms, well, most of it, is just crap. I'm with you there. RE: The .45 Penetration. A lot of combat vets don't know crap about ballistics either. You get a lot of weird anecdotal stuff that doesn't hold true. I know one guy who swears that a .45 can cause your heart to stop from "blunt trauma" right though a ballistic vest because of some story he heard about a guy who died under such conditions. Personally, I think it was probably the years of streak dinners that did it not the .45. As for recoil, that is highly subjective. You probably already now about perceived recoil. Much of that varies by shooter. It one reason why most shooter experts recommend that people use a gun that they feel comfortable shooting rather than a cannon that they can't control or makes them flinch when the fire it. All the ballistics tests I've seen put the 9mm ahead in penetration, although not in wound cavity. Of course if you are not using standard ball loads it's a whole different story, but the Geneva convention prohibits most of those. Not that it would matter much against first world armies. RE; THe 5.56 For instance the 5.56 tumbling thing. Lots of guys from 'nam swear the bullet tumbles in the air. Not true. If it did you couldn't aim the thing. What is true is that the 5.56 bullet does have as much spin stabilization as some other rifle rounds and it tends to break up on impact. I've read that it penetrates As for CoC, gun stats are pretty much a non issue. Most mythos creatures only take 1 point, or are just immune, assuming that the character made the SAN roll and can still pull the trigger. . So the stats are academic. I'm tweaker for purposes of doing the vehicle rules. TO get those to work right, we need to work out what sort of scale/progression is being used to make everything else fit. For example, I did up a M113APC writeup. To make it work, it needed to be able to stop pistol and rifle rounds, yet be vulnerable to 12.7mm rounds. With 7.62 and 5.56 rounds both maxing out at 16 points, and 12.7mm rounds doing around 2D10+4 or +5 then 17-20 was the "window" left to work in. And that assumes that you can't impale a vehicle like a person. With 20 APs the M113 can stop a rifle, but not a M2 MG, Dragon, or a Superstrong hero. All possibilities with BRP. Right now, it looks like they used a square or cubing formula for damage and armor progression. So that is what I'm going to try to use to get a "master scale". Elephant's and one shot kills. Actually the rules aren't too bad on this. If you assume the 4 pt armor from CoC (looks like it is 8, halved vs. firearms), use hit locations, allowing for telescopic sights and aimed shots, then the chances of dropping one is fairly good with a Elephant gun. The problem is that with BRP damage is all at once. Realistically, the Elephant is probably alive when it hits the ground and dies sometime while the shooter is walking up to it. Same is true with a shooting people. Almost no one dies from the bullet. Rather they die from the blood loss and from the loss of certain body functions. That's why casualtiy lists are "X killed, 5 times wounded". One thing I liked about the Bond Rules and wish that BRP had was that you could take a penalty to hit to up your damage class. Something like attacking at 1/2 chance but shifting your damage die up to steps.

I don't thing Defense will work. All you end up doing is dropping the hit chances a little. Personally I favor the 1 Luck/POW point to shift the success rating approach probably with a Luck roll to limit it. For the BRP Old West threat, I suggested swiping from Boot Hill 3rd edition. If an attack would kill a character you make a Luck save, and if successful turn the hit into a 1 point wound for a MP.

It's nice to please somebody some of the time. Now if only I could find some authentic prices lists and see what they say. I suspecting that the differences I'm seeing could be partly due to import costs (a Springfield Rifle was probably a lot cheaper in Massachusetts than in Texas or New Mexico).