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Deus Vult This is a fairly thick hardback with a nicely restrained cover. Inside, it looks good, well laid out with some internal artwork.The artwork is, by and large, OK, but a bit modern for the setting. There are some maps, of Western Europe and of Mount St M ichel, which are good but it could have done with more. Introduction - This is written from the viewpoint of the Order. It covers areas such as On the History of the Order, On the Nature of the Order, On the Duties of the Order, On the Structure of the Order, On the Teaching of Initiates, On the Abbey of St M ichel, On the Blessed Ring and the Order's Salvation and On the Furtherance of Our Blessed Task. These are very interesting and give a flavour of what it means to be part of the Order. Character Generation - Characters start as Seasoned, with all Characteristics over 6 or more, as the Order only accepts the best. Order Training is interesting with skills increased based on your highest Characteristic rather than being in a profession. Later Recruits can be from the backgrounds of Poor, Outlaw, Urban, Educated or Noble. Order members can belong to different Professions of Acrobat, Alchemist, Animal Trainer, Bard, Bandit, Beggar, Blacksmith, Clergy, Courtier, Craftsman, Diplomat, Farmer, Fisherman, Herdsman, Hunter, Knight, Nobleman, Noblewoman, Monk, Mercenary, Merchant, Miner, Physician, Sailor, Scholar, Soldier/Warrior, Spy, Thief, Thug, Tracker, Wife, Whore, Witchhunter, Woodsman and Village Priest. There are tables showing random events that could have happened to you in the past, with an Order Event Table and an Occult Event Table for each background, these can add some flavour to your personal history. The community of Faith allows you to generate allies, contacts, enemies and rivals, rounding off your character nicely. This chapter allows you to roll up a character with a lot of flavour, having professions and backgrounds suited to the period and with a lot of extra fluff and history. This is how Character Generation should be done. Solis Sacerdotis - This describes the history and structure of the Order, with sections of A History Noble and Unknown, Structure of the Order, Hieromonks, The Order and the World, The Master, Claustral Priors, Obediantry Priors, Preceptors, The Superior General, Breviary, A Demon-Haunted World and The Enemy. These contain a short history of the Order, together with excerpts from the Gospel of St Thomas, an interesting take on a Catholic Order, as well as a description of the structure and hierarchy of the Order. There are many things about this that are good, some of the background pieces introduce outside events in an easy to read way. This is a very good background chapter. The Instruments of God - This contains descriptions of the tools and equipment in the Order. It covers a number of weapons, magical items, weapons, weapon improvements, armour improvements, wondrous devices, alchemical compounds, and relics. What can I say? These are crunchy, useful, fit the setting perfectly and would make an old roleplayer very happy indeed. Excellent stuff. The Mont St-M ichel - Yes, there is a space in the middle of Michel, this is repeated in each of the chapter headings containing the word but not in the text, this must have a hidden meaning in the game which, I am sure, will be revealed in a later supplement. This is a very short chapter showing the layout of the Abbey that acts as the Headquarters of the Order. Short but sweet, this could have been expanded on. Brethren of the Order - This is a series of NPCs, some are members of the Order, others are contacts and even rivals and enemies. Overall, these are good, well-balanced, well thought out sets of NPC statistics. This finishes off with a number of playable pre-generated PCs which could be used in a convention or one-off game. Gifts and Miracles - This covers Preternatural Gifts, the equivalent of Legendary Abilities and Miracles, the equivalent of Divine Magic or Merrie England/Stupor Mundi Blessings. The Preternatural Abilities are OK, but are heavily combat-oriented whereas I'd have preferred some that reflect the period. Miracles work well, with some new spells and a list of standard RQ spells available to the Order. The Church - This covers the Catholic Church of the period with sections of The Inquisition, The Templars and Witch-Hunters. This is a very short section and could have been a lot longer and more detailed. The Church and Crusaders are very briefly covered but these are very sketchy descriptions indeed. I'd have liked this to have been expanded on, to be honest. The Enemy - This describes the enemies of the Order. It splits enemies into Monsters, Cultists, Sorcerers and Heretics. It covers Cults, Sorcerers, Heresies and Impediments. The Cults section describes what cults are, gives some cult structures, shows how to use cults in the game and gives some sample cults. There are tables on Cult Brands, Ritual Sites, Force and Supernatural. The Sample Cults are OK, nothing special but could be used in most games. Sorcerers contains a very brief description of how to locate. observe and eliminate the sorcerer. Heresies also contains a very short description of the main heresies of the time. These are very short and contain no information about how these heresies work. Impediments have a couple of examples of people whose presence threatens the Order. Overall, these are very brief descriptions of the enemies of the Order and should have been expanded on. The Occult - This describes the Occult as seen from the Order's perspective. It covers Lore (Occult), Lore (Alchemy), Witchcraft, Grimoires, New Sorcery Spells, Horrors and Magical Items. Lore (Occult) describes how to cast minor spells. Lore (Alchemy) describes nothing but has a table of alchemical compounds. Witchcraft briefly covers how witches work and what magic they can use. Grimoires lists a number of sorcerous tomes with the spells and skills they contain. New Sorcery Spells gives some new spells, which seem reasonable. Horrors describes supernatural overspill that causes horros in the world. These are pretty good and could be used in any campaign. Magical items contains a few items that could be used as loot items. These are all pretty good, standard occult things. Bestiary - These describe those creatures that oppose or help the Order. It is split into Servitors and Making Monsters. These are not very well organised, I'd have thought that it should have been split into Servitors, Demons, NPCs and Making Monsters, but hey-ho, I didn't write it. Servitors has descriptions of Ghouls, Goblyns, Hellhounds, Lesser Spirits, Genii Loci, Shades, Wraiths, Melusines, Nightfolk, Werewolves, Woodwoses and Worm-Men. These are pretty good and would make good monstrous opponents. Making Monsters describes how to create new Monsters, covering Concept, Characteristikcs, Drawbacks and Traits. Then follows a number of other individual monsters - The Beast of Gubbio, Naberius Demon of Wise Counsel, Balash, Tiews God of Justice, The Shade of Archbishop Adalberon, The Ogre Heretic and the Linton Worm. These are reasonably good and usable. Secrets of the Order - This includes Doom of the Order, The Prior of the Crypts, The Eastern Order, Does God Exist, Ex Malum Bono and the Divine Path. These are Secrets with a large amount of potential mystery and scenario hooks. Standings describes how members of the Order can fall from grace, either through Impurity or Impiety, and gives each a series of levels measuring how impure or impious a character is. This is a nice idea and could be very useful. Running Deus Vult - The role of the Deus Vult Gamesmaster is: To Create missions to challenge the Adventurers; Throw fiendish puzzles, horrific foes and moral dilemmas in their path; Roleplay the various members of the Order, cultists, nobles, priests and commoners. The World of Deus Vult basically says that any real world event of the time could have a magical/occult explanation. The Order contains different ways to use the Order in games. Mission framework is a template of each mission, how it should be broken down, but if every Mission used this it would be incredibly boring. Campaigns gives some sketchy ideas of using campaigns, with Order Agents, A Preceptry of our Own, The Tide of History, Renegades and the End of the World. These are interesting ideas, but hardly groundbreaking. Finally, there are tables to generate random plots and missions for those Gamesmasters too lazy to think up their own. Overall, what can I say about Deus Vult? It is a good supplement and captures the flavour of the setting very well indeed. What is done well is done very well indeed. However, what is sketchy is also very sketchy. There are a lot of things which could have been expanded on and a lot of things that have been glossed over. There is also no scenario and precious few scenario hooks and it could have done with a short mission to give it flavour. I'd give it an A-, if it had a scenario it would have got an A and if it had fleshed out some of the sketchy areas it would have got an A+. But it didn’t so it gets an A-. I'd recommend anyone interested in the era to go out and buy this, though.

Thanks

Please excuse my ignorance, but what is Fantasy Grounds? I could Google it, I suppose, but you'll know the answer ...

Funnily enough, I've never had any problems converting HeroQuest scenarios into RQ* ones. The basis is the same - you have a plot, the PCs follow the plot and do various things. All you are changing is the mechanism by which they do it. Magic is very easy to convert (at least it was for Hero Wars/HeroQuest 1) and most other things convert to skills or abilities. Skill levels are a bit trickier, but I always convert to the skill level of the PCs in my campaigns rather than to a speficis skill level. HeroQuests are even easier to convert as they are just stories with mundane or magical benefits. I've even run HeroQuest scenarios in RQ with conversion on the fly. It turned out very easy to do. * BRP should be the same as BRP and RQ are so similar to be virtually interchangeable.

It might be worth looking at Deus Vult as well. Although it's very specialised, and for MRQ2, it has an interesting take on the period. It would suit either as the basis of a medieval campaign or as an excellent source of NPC foes. Val de Loupe, for BRP, would also make a good campaign setting, but set in central Europe.

Stupor Mundi is set from about 1220 onwards. Crusaders of the Amber Coast is set a bit earlier, but I don't have it yet so can't give dates. Merrie England covers from 1154 to 1216, so it covers the period before Stupor Mundi and overlaps slightly with CoTAC. Converting is easy, as Paolo says. In fact, you could pick up a copy of any and pretty much run with the stats in a BRP/RQ3/RQM1/2 game. You might have to use a few different spells and things like magic point/power point costs will be slightly different. Hit Points, locations and weapon stats are also slightly different, but you could either rationalise these as being slightly different types of the weapon or having slightly different body types/builds. In any case, they are minor differences.

I'll probably convert some key areas into RQ3, which is close enough to BRP and MRQ to be useful. It won't be soon, though, as I haven't much time and have a lot of things I need to do.

Think whatever you want.

The quote, in context, comes from Dead Blue Clown's rant on the Mongoose Forum.

It's the number of the Limited Edition copy of BRP Zero that they bought. There were only 420 printed, each was numbered, and people are so proud that they advertise that they bought it. Sort of like Personalised Numberplates, but not as cool.

Good news , that's the easiest bit, though - teling my wife that I am going, that's the tricky part ...

In any case, I would want martial artists using these abilities to be overpowering. In fiction and films/TV they are overpowering, each being the equivalent of 10-20 normal people.

I use Excel as it is really easy to line things up and we can calculate bonuses etc using formulae. Each of my players have customised their sheets slightly, so every one is different. We use basic fonts for text (Arial is the normal one, I think) but Gloranthan Runes use the old RQ Runes font, whatever that's called. Since I found out, from this forum I think, that Excel allows you to mix fonts in individual cells, I tend to put a Rune and its description in the same cell, to save space.

I've got pretty much all the stories as text files - some kind person sent me them - so I sometimes have a read if I've mellowed and think "Lovecraft's not that bad" just to put me straight.

Well done, that sounds like quite a bargain, I hope you enjoy it. On a similar note, I didn't get the Complete Works of HP Lovecraft and so saved $12.95 and I'd probably enjoy it more.

Hmmm, I was hoping to wait until June before booking, but what the hell? I didn't need to go on holiday this year, anyway. Payment sent ...

I'd have a "dying" status that lasts for a while, where someone could be healed, so that PCs don't die immediately, to cut down on PC deaths. Of course, having your head chopped off could be immediately fatal. Bringing the corpse back to a particular place sounds OK. Healing it first is fine. Fighting Death is a reasonable idea, although it doesn't have to be a combat. Remeber Bill and Ted challenging Death to a game of Twister? That's as valid as any other contest and is a good "trickster" solution. Where the character ends up might be important as well. It might be harder to get the character out of the Hell of an enemy religion than it would from the character's own Afterlife. Characters who find themselves in a medieval Hell might want to come back, those who find themselves in Heaven might want to stay there, especially if served by 72 virgins. I'm not sure if Death should necessarily get more powerful, it makes sense to a certain extent. The spell should definitely be rare and hard to obtain, but not overly rare. Remember Miracle Max in the Princess Bride, he could raise the "mostly dead". Medieval Living Saints could possibly raise the dead, but probably not after 3 days. Another way would be to physcially go into Hell/Heaven/Purgatory/The Afterlife and reclaim the dead soul, binding it back to the body. That would be a HeroQuest in effect and would take several sessions to run.

I've been busy at work, with no time to post, and haven't turned on the PC at home, until now ... That's the thing, if a SciFi supplement contains elements of multiple genres then I'd say it was generic, or just SciFi. So, a supplement based two hundred years after an alien invasion of the Earth, culminating in the driving out of the aliens and the eventual emergence into space using captured alien ships and the subsequent exploration of space would Space Opera. But, cybernetic implants gives it a cyberpunk flavour, especially in the final years of the rebellion. Hence the original question. I suppose that writing something and letting other people decide what it is would probably be the best option. I'd prefer Easy SciFi, but there you go.

I've already explained the term "anal" as being very mild English slang. Sorry if it caused offense.

As a matter of interest, the reason why I was asking was because I was thinking of writing a SciFi monograph or supplement and I was wondering whether it could be a general one of whether it should be tailored for one of the categories. I'll not be bothering now, though, as it would be seen as clownish. By the way, I should probably have used "touchy" or "sensitive" rather than "anal", but over here in the UK "anal" is seen as a mild slang term for "anally retentive", meaning "very uptight". Sorry if I offended anyone.

I see you've taken a leaf from Banned Beetle's book and created a new logon. Well done. Although you'll need an I* ********er to get around Banned Beetle's beetle sense. I'm glad that after a couple of months of depressing work-related and home-related issues, I can still find time to amuse you. Be sure to point out any more clownish comments I make while trying to understand issues, as it really does help. I'm going now to my weekly games session where I'll unleash a hellstorm on my unsuspecting players. When they ask why, I'll point them your way. They'll appreciate that.

Well, in my day we had Physics, Chemistry and Biology at school, now we just have Science ... Not particularly. Well, I'm a SciFi fan as well, and have been for a long, long, time. Was I? I didn't realise. Thanks for telling me what I was trying to do, that's bery helpful. Oh, insults as well. Never mind. I just wanted to know why people prefer to have very distinct categories for SciFi genres where, in general, people don't have particular categories for fantasy genres. It appears that different people want/understand different things from each term and those terms define a very specific kind of genre/seting, so that explains it. No need for any more insults ...

From another thread and taken absolutely out of context ... Why is it that SciFi fans always make distictions between Hard Sci Fi, Science Fantasy, Space Opera and so on? It's all SciFi, isn't it? You don't get fantasy fans splitting hairs about different types of fantasy, even though they do exist, so why are SciFi fans so uptight about this?

Reply with Quote, copy the whole reply, cancel the reply (or use the back button), click on the edit button on your post and paste the copied text in with the quote and hey presto! Added the quote after editing to show it can be done

If my fading memory serves ... RQ2: Max for each die + 1 per die, + 1 per increase of 3-6 RQ3: Max rollable + Min rollable. So, nD6 in both gives 7n, 3D6+1 gives 21 for RQ2 and 23 for RQ3, 3D6+3 gives 25 for RQ2 and 30 for RQ3, 3D6+6 gives 28 for RQ2 and 33 for RQ3.