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Yeah, I can send you a very rough Family History table that goes back to 367. It's got a lot of typos, and is in the old format- I haven't updated ito to be like SIRES yet. Oh and please take down your email address from a public post, just in case.

Depends on the crature Yup, but the ones that are impressive can be really impressive. Not to much the Investigators can do against a Shoggoth, let along Cthulhu himself. Generally speaking the weakest things in the game tend to be humans. Not many Mythos creatures are weaker than we are.

Yea, but in those circumstance it is usually better to sprinkle the Mythos into another game, rather than run CoC. Most everyone who wrote Lovecraftian Horror other than Lovecraft tended to brighten up the outlook a little. That's not to say it was raninbows an unicorns, just that it was less doom & gloom that Lovecraft's own works. BRP was created from RuneQuest so if you can get an old RQ2 or RQ3 Bestiary you can get a lot of creatures for BRP. Even RQG stats can port over. Many of us who platy BRP have RQ, Stormbringer, CoC, etc. so we have a lot of stats that will work in BRP. Some might use a little fine tuning, but they are functional as written. So you can swipe some stuff it you want or need to. MAybe customize an existing animal to make it a monster.

What happens after the cosmic planet eater? One thing about going big is that it is a tough act to follow, especially if you have to power the PCs up to do it. Yes, although as you get more f amilar with the game this becomes less of an issue. It's just that it is easy for a GM new to the game to overdo it. If you give the PCs an even fight then it could go either way, and even if they win, the PCs will probably lose a few people. It's just general GMing. You get the hang of it. Plus to pull a Yoda, "unlearning what you have learned". D&D teaches DMs and players things that do not work elsewhere, and it usually catches some of them by surprise and causes confusion. For instance, charging the archers with melee troops isn't such a great tactic in BRP as a couple of arrows can actually take a character out of a fight. IMO D&D players have a harder time picking up BRP than even non-gamers, because they tend to assume things that don't apply anymore.

Yeah, but that doesn't really tell us how the show will come out. I have hope but often when a book series is turned into a film or TV show it gets changed and doesn't come close to the original. Especially with Science Fiction and Fantasy. And these days...we could have a Black gender swapped lesbian Elric, in the name of cultural diversity and inclusivity. Not that I have anything against a black lesbian, just that she wouldn't be Elric.

Really. I would think that Hawkmoon might be the most approachable. He is more the typical hero, and one of the few major ECs who is actually a human and not as much of an outsider as a typical EC. Koln to Kamarg is only about 1000 km away, as opposed to being from a different plane of existence or species. Not that I'd turn my nose up to a good Corum series. Oh, that would be a interesting one. It would probably be very hard to follow, probably impossible for most viewers. I wonder if we'd get some Hawkwind music for the credits?

I don't know per say, but some books have been mentioned. AFAIK: The Book of the Magician: Rules for running a magician in the game including player magicians. It is supposed to be different than the magician rules in 4th edition, and is allegedly going to allow the magician character to some how send PKs on a quest similar to how Merlin sometimes does. The Book of Castles: A book with fortifications and siege rules. It is based upon the earlier fortification rules from earlier editions but has been updated and adjusted. I worked on/seen a very early version of this a decade ago, and I have to say that just from what's been revealed in Book of the Estate, it seems to be a big improvement over the older rules. The Book of Salisbury: A more detailed guide to the lands of Salisbury. I've no idea what it actually has inside, but I suspect it probably give a more detailed breakdown of the area per Estate/Warlord, plus lists some notable manors and knights in Salisbury, and have a map a gazetteer with many of the terrain features listed and described. Maybe a bit of history on important local events. But that's just speculation. Pendragon related.... The Ancient Greek RPG: Possibly called Myrmidon, or something else, this is a stand alone RPG that adapts the Pendragon rules to handle an Ancient Greek/Age of Heroes setting. Just exactly when it is set, and what Heroes exist, I don't know. Maybe Jason, Haracles, and Odysseys are about, or maybe it comes later during the time of one of the Athenaian Leagues? The Feudal Japan RPG: This is another stand alone RPG, similar to Charlemagne, that adapts the Pendragon rules to a Feudal Japan setting. Player will probably be playing samurai instead of knights.

Back them probably not much security. It actually amazing how lax modern airport security was pre-911. If you watch a movie from the 50s or 60s you can see that just about anybody can get on an airplane with just about anything. Probably why they could keep making all those Airport movies in 70s.

No problem. Glad to help. Besides, I have hopes of one day using my early campaign stuff as the basis for an supplement. Early Family History Tables emailed. They still have some typos and bugs, but I wan ted to get them to you now, so you have them to work with, rather than polish them off and get them to you late.

They might. It depends a lot of which options you use, or even which ruleset as there are several games based on the core rules. I once killed Cthulhu in a permanent way in RQ, but it was a special case crossover that should really have happened. Yes, but very dangerous. The problem is that with a big jump a PC could get caught in between power levels and be vulnerable. It's usually better to just let experience and time work to increase the pwoer level over time. Uh no. That's why we mean about odds. In D&D it doesn't matter because it is about hit points number of attacks and damage done. If a PC has five times the hit points of the opposition, attacks three times as often, and does twice as much damage, they can effectively, offset the odds. If something unexpected happens, it can usually be fixed up with healing magic or even a raise dead. But in BRP all the extra attack from grenades, SMG etc, do not offset the increased chances of a bad guy getting a critical or impale, nor do they offset the lack of defense for the PCs. It's not so much that the fight is even or not, only that, ultimately, it doesn't matter if a NPC or twenty get killed in an adventure, as that is what they are for, but just one PC death can causes some problems. Either a player isn't playing or they have to create a new character. Dead characters tend to stay dead, and lots of plot threads and such might not matter any more, and so on. Even be careful if they are important. In most cases an ambush will kill at least one PC, and is the best chance for a Total Party Kill you'll generally see. Even Conan isn't so tough in BRP if he take an impaling arrow to the head. Just do a playtest ambush with your players and see what happens, and how quickly. Mary Sues tend to be boring. Railroading in general is bad, since players like to have (or at least believe) that they have some sort of freedom and can choose what they do. Otherwise they don't need to be there. Now as GM you can craft adventures in such a way that the players have a strong incentive to take the path you want them to take on an adventure, but ultimately it should be up to them, and any strong-arming should be done by NPCs in game, as opposed tot he GM. I run a lot of Pendragon, a sort of cousin to BRP (if you saw it you could figure out most of it just by knowing BRP), and, because it has a setting with a somewhat fixed timeline, there are a lot of scripted events- that is things that are going to happen. It also has it's own Mary Sue figures, such as Lancelot, and the Christ-like Galahad. Now as GM one of the tricks to running a good Pendragon campaign is to make sure that the characters always have some choice of action and that their actions can impact the adventure in some way. The players should never feel that their characters don't matter or can't affect things. Art times they might have to take orders (although they can choose to disobey and suffer the consequences), or just be a small part in a big army , but they still get to make choices and those choices matter.

I should have some family history tables for you by the end of the day. I'll need somewhere to send the document. I'ts mostly done. I'm filling in the "slow" years of Constatin's reign, and fixing (lots of) typos. It won't be pretty but it should be functional. It goes back from 367-438, and you will need to be careful about ensuring that sons are born before killing off fathers and grandfathers.

Sounds like something I'd see on the History Channel, with some unqualified "expert" explaining how it was used by Ancient Aliens."Was King Arthur an alien. Merlin a genic hybrid with some alien race? Was Stonehenge really a spaceport for extraterrestrials? And did an airport exist in Gaul?"

That depends upon which rule tweaks you use, but overall BRP isn't really well suited towards Cosmic Elder Gods. They can be done, and in several ways (Strombringer's Lords of Law and Chaos write ups, Chthlhu's Elder God stats, Gloratha's stats for semi-divine beings such as the Crimson Bat), but most are beyond the comfort zone of the game mechanics. But usually, when the game is adjusted to handled superheros and elder gods, the common thugs are sort of left behind. I'd try to avoid that. Realistically, and not surprisingly, it's a situation that would kill most heroes. One thing I would try to do is give the PCs some sort of terrain where they could bottleneck the horde and face them a little at a time. There is a point where it turns into an exercise in the laws of probability rather than a fight. For instance, a hundred orcs, each with only 5% skill, fought in succession, will probably take down a master swordman just through the nature of dice and random rolls. So it no longer becomes about how the characters fighters or skill, but more a matter of when those critical hits show up. Oh, and along a similar note, don't ambush your PC very often. I know D&D loves ambushes and does a ot of them, but in D&D it is because an extra round of attacks can make a minor menace more of a threat. In BRP a good ambush means people getting hit with no defense other than armor, and can often wipe out half a group of PCs before they even get to react. Mary Sues are bad for storytelling and adventuring purposes, so I'd wouldn't try to run that sort of situation. When you get to the point where you know the characters cannot fail or be beaten it becomes very boring. Yes, we all know that in most stories the hero has a certain degree of script immunity, but most stories also make some effort to hide that, and many will surprise us by allowing a hero to lose or at least suffer a major set back or injury. If a GM wants to run a Mary Sue in their campaign, then just dictate it, like they do in those sorts of films. Just don't be surprised when most of your players are less than impressed.

It's one of the reasons. Generally an impale or even just a high damage normal hit are all factors. The main reason why numbers are so telling is because of the limits to the number of attacks and parries a character can make, and the effect of multiple actions on a character's skill. A warrior with 100% skill fighting two guys with 50% skill is almost in an even fight. That doesn't happen in , say D&D, where two 5th level fighters do not equal one 10th level fighter.

It's in his contract.

Yes, maybe. Christianity also tended to lump the fae in with demons as they didn't fit within "celestial hierarchy". They weren't angles, or men & women, so they had to be demons, especially as they other were malevolent, or malicious. Merlin miraculous conception wasn't all that miraculous at first. That kinda came later, when they merged him with Ambrosius and had his mother become a nun ASAP. There are so many variations on most of these stories that it's pretty easy to justify just about any interpretation of any character, with some old source. Especially if not being to picky about context. Yes, the story of Myrddyn Wylit, among others. It seems like the "Mad Prophet/Magician" idea goes back even earlier than the written record too.

It's just the learning curve, and getting used to how things work. Down the road you can use opponents in the 50-70% range, but you really don't want to do that until the PCs are better than that. Significantly better. Also keep in mind that things like better armor make a huge difference, as it can let someone ignore some hits. Magic also can have a huge impact. One of the pitfalls is that a fight that is close in BRP might look like a cakewalk if the players roll good. For instacne a monster that doesn't hit or get any damage through shield and armor when it does, might seems weak, but had it connected solidly, it could have dropped a PC. So the fight might look less dangerous that is really was.

Yes, and that is something of a general rule for a campaign too. In D&D it is the overall attrion that makes combat scary, and weak monsters are little threat as PC's will be able to take multiple hits without being affected. In BRP one good hit past the defenses from practically anyone or anything can drop a character. So that wimpy goblin or starting bandit is always a threat. A 30% opponent vs. a PC with 75% in his combat skills is very different than a 1st level opponent against a 10th level fighter. Thus you can still use them against highly experienced characters and they will still be something of a threat.This will allow you to be able to use a somewhat fixed scale for competency instead of continually raising the bar as the PC improve. The town guard can always be in the 40-60% range and never really turn into a joke.

Licensed settings tend to be a bit of a risk for RPG companies, as they need to pay for the license. In practice this works out to less profit per sale, and it turns into a balancing act between the increased sales due to the license vs. the cost of the license. Plus there is always the risk of a successful line being halted due to licensing issues down the road.

I agree that does look nice.

So am I. It' seems far more likely that the whole thing will be heavily modified to fit with current cultural political tastes as opposed to keeping true to the stories.

Liscensing can often by per country too, so the French liscense might not affect the BBC thing. Or the project is stuck in development limbo. I think there was talk of a Elric movie a decade ago. Most project ideas don't make it to the screen, so these shows will probably never become a real thing. Maybe they will, but I wouldn't be holding my breath. Not that it wouldn't b e a nice thing so see some MM stuff adapted, provided whoever did it did a good job.

My advice would be to let most roll be worth a check. Basically if it wasn't important enough for a check, was it important enough to roll? Also, since skills can only improve by 1 point per year with experience, then handling out few checks limits the characters ability to improve. Plus in the long run if a player is rolling a skill ten times a session it doesn't really matter if it is the first roll or the last onej that awards his a check, but if a player rolls someone once a session, then if he gets a check or not from that roll is more important. Overall I's say be generous with skill checks. Greg always was in the published adventures and the restrictions are there more to please GMs who want to restrict them for one reason or another. As far as automatic changes go t here are really only a few with the rules. Training an Practice, glory awards, and some passion rolls. The passion rolls are somewhat controversial, both for the critical automatically raising the passion as it becomes a self feeding monster, and as Morien mentioned for the failed roll as it just pushes the passion down, which usually just means the player ends up deciding to "go big or go home" with that passion, raising it to 20 or just letting it fade away. Glory is actually much easier to be consistent with. The main thing will be how much your players decide to share. Mine usually share glory for group encounters with individual awards mostly from duels and other one one one fights.

All generalizations do. Okay, and your point? Look, if all the old RQ players preferred HQ for Gloantha, then there wouldn't probably be a RQG. RQG and MRQ before it came out because there were still people who wanted to play in Gorantha with RQ despite HQ being available. That's not a slight on HQ, just an acknowledgement of the situation. Reversing it, are you and you player giving up HQ now that RQG is out? I suspect not. Yes, everyone has their own favorites, and I'm not raining on your parade. I'm not saying here that RQ was superior to HQ or some such, only that a sizable segment of RQ fans didn't make the switch to HQ or preferred RQ to HQ. Just like how some didn't switch from RQ2 to RQ3, or now from RQ3 to RQG. Some gamers prefer D&D to RQ, or 13th Age Glorantha to RQG. Such things do make a difference is sales, and support, as they represent a potential customer base. Any company would take a look at revving an old line of they thought there was a strong market for it. Ford would at consider bringing back the Model T if they thought it would sell and be profitable. Don't intepret that an as attack on your preferenbces or anyon elses, just good business. As far as what happened in the past and what could have happened, well some of it is history and much of it speculation, but the reality is that probably the biggest thing that hurt RQ and lead to it's demise was the Avalon Hill deal and the decisions made under AH's watch. Could things have gone down differently, sure. Would it have meant thing would have been better or worse, no one can say. We can only speculate based upon what we know from those times. And that benefits from hindsight. Greg never would have made the AH deal if he had known how it was going to work out. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and that it would allow RQ to challenge D&D. It just didn't work out that way.

Okay, I'll try to get some basic timelime stuff and the tables for 367-410 avlaible ASAP. That would be the stuff he would "need" as opposed to other stuff he may or may not want. I'll look at the tables tonight I've got two or three tables to fix, a duplicate event, so it shouldn't take long to update. Maybe I can put the othe rstuff onto the table too.