colinabrett

A great write-up! Thanks for posting the link here.

The only thing I disagree with (and this is pointed out by one of the commenters at ENworld) is that Stormbringer wasn't a demon weapon. It was just "created" with a different set of rules  .

The GW version of Stormbringer is the first RPG I ever ran as GM. Unfortunately, my rulebook fell apart and is now clipped into a 4-ring binder. (As an aside, the same happened with my copy of Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader, so perhaps GW's production quality wasn't that great at the time.) I still love the rank-based magic system. The effort it took to increase in rank and the risks associated with dealing with demons remains one of my favourite mechanics.

Colin

I voted Variable. As others have said, it's a Stormbringer/Elric thing. 

Colin

I don't know if this has been mentioned upthread but it looks brilliant: Digital Map of the Roman Empire . You can zoom in/out and pan the map in all directions.

Colin

A great review for a wonderful piece of work.

Well done, Clarence.

Colin

Reading this thread, the idea came to me that Critical and Special successes could allow higher experience rolls. The BGB says the a successful experience roll is normally adds 1D6 but could be D8 or D10. Therefore, a normal success grants 1D6, a Special grants 1D8 and a Critical grants 1D10. Perhaps this way even a Fumble could provide experience rolls. When the character has a chance to think "Oh! So that's where it went horribly wrong," could grant a 1D4 (or 1D6-2) experience roll (in the latter case, the potential loss of skill indicates a clash of training versus experience ... "But I was taught that. Why did it go wrong? I'm confused now").

Colin

3 minutes ago, 1d8+DB said:

Of course,  this could exactly what the OP wants; a initial blood-bath to get the Player Characters over-confident before they get rolled over.

And then the campaign could become focussed on the underground/resistance movement(s) against the invaders.  Opportunities arise for espionage and "spycraft" scenarios, resistance cells, out-and-out raid/sabotage actions, perhaps even a final confrontation between the PCs and the Evil Emperor (which I'm sure I've seen in a movie somewhere :-)

Colin

10 hours ago, smiorgan said:

Let me say something quite heretical for BRP Central. I am a great fan of BRP/d100 systems and I was looking forward also to a slim BRP generic book (BRPE if you want)...

BUT

... for the future I care more about seeing a creative and innovative Chaosium rather than about a Chaosium producing a lot of BRP content.

If there was a generic BRP, we, the players and GMs, could create our own BRP content with a centrally-supported ruleset to hang it on. (Admittedly this is what the BGB is for but that's a hefty tome.) This is without having to buy RQ4/CoC and tweaking those rules to our setting. We'd probably be unable to sell our own content but it could be made available through BRP Central for others to play and adapt.

Colin

2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

You might  want to consider having fantasy creatures have some sort of detrimental effect on high tech. For instance, maybe they can't be detected with modern radar, sonar, IR imaging and so forth, and therefore can't be locked onto or tracked. Or maybe they even warp reality a bit around then, scrambling or knocking out high tech in a fashion similar to an EMP burst.

 

 

Stealth dragons 

Regarding modern firepower and werewolves, the silver bullet would work, but which modern armed forces routinely equip troops with silver bullets?

The various tropes of vampires being immune to normal weapons, were-creatures being vulnerable to silver, head-shots being most effective on zombies, and so on, could all be used to great effect. I could see the modern armies being pushed back quite severely, trading space for time, while scientists work with occultists to design some effective weapons.

The magic system, I feel, would be sorcerous in nature and may even involve dealing with the Forces of Evil's rivals on another plane of existence in order to counter the invaders powers. A lot of esoteric research into "tomes of forbidden lore" (like the BGB, the D&D Monster Manuals) would be needed to find these evil creatures' weaknesses and launch a counter attack.

Colin

8 minutes ago, girtablilu said:

Actually, I noticed that the free PDF is no longer available on Chaosium for the Quickstart Edition.  The print edition is $11.95 and does not come with the PDF version.

The free PDF is still available, just a bit tricky to find. If the OP is interested, it can be found here

Back on topic (sort of).

I must confess to having had some reservations about a 32-64 BRP Essentials book. The BGB, while hefty,  covers everything and I felt a slim Essentials volume wouldn't be as versatile.

Now, in working with @Vile on the scanning and conversion of Worlds of Wonder, I am frankly gobsmacked over the amount of material that can be crammed into just 32 (ish) pages. So, I'm glad to have had my reservations firmly staked with garlic in its mouth. 

If Worlds of Wonder (or even Essentials) comes to pass, I'll be there, cash in hand!

Colin

@Vile

I've finished the SuperWorld draft and emailed it to Rick.

Colin

I've finished my copy of Magic World. As @Nakana says above, the PDF is incomplete but it might make a good start point. It has very basic formatting (which I hope someone more capable than I can make better) and runs to 21 pages. 

@Rick Meints: Should I upload them to this thread or would that encourage further illegal downloads?

Colin

PS: What is the preferred format? DOC or DOCX?

15 minutes ago, Vile said:

Well, I shall start scanning my books tomorrow. In case anyone else is doing the same, I intend to start with Future*World.

I'm working on the Magic World PDF.

Colin

16 hours ago, Nakana said:

I would much rather have a high quality and legal PDF. 

If this can be somewhat of a loyal fan team effort then @Vile I can take your scans and do the rest of the work. (Full text file and high quality imagery). 

@Rick Meints would you have a problem with this?

I second the call for legit PDFs. Or, as a wise man once said:

I have managed to get the PDFs I have OCR-ed and I'd be pleased to join a fan project. The quality is quite good but it will take some time to get the docx files reformatted to something useful.

Regards,

Colin

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

If you want to see Worlds of Wonder reprinted sooner, rather than later, please feel free to volunteer to help get it recreated (personally message me). If someone is willing to volunteer to create a single Microsoft Word file of all of the text from the boxed set, in a simple clean format, we are half way done. I am happy to work with volunteers willing to scan, OCR, and then clean up the material. My only caveats are that I cannot send you a physical copy of the boxed set or even a subset of its contents. You would have to have access to that yourself, plus have a scanner and the related software. 

@Rick Meints

Errrm ... at the risk of getting sued to smithereens, I have PDFs of Worlds of Wonder.

I originally got the pdfs from Basic RPS , which is now inactive but can still be found on the Internet Wayback Machine (going back to at least 2002). The Wayback link supplies the Rules, Magic World, Future World and Super World settings.

Please don't unleash a SWAT team of lawyers. I have never distributed (or even used in games) these files and they have just been sitting idle on my hard drive since 2002.

I can look into OCR-ing them into Word docs (I have a Linux box and there are several packages available) but really don't want to go further in case I get in trouble.

Rick: it would be great if you could advise.

Regards,

Colin

Hi,

I've just uploaded Bad Acid as a follow-up to the Downtown Saturday Night scenario I posted up-thread. There'll be more on the way over the next few weeks.

This scenario contains a rough map of a warehouse, which was not in the original hand-written notes. Instead, I used floorplans from Games Workshop's Slaughter Margin scenario and Citi-Block set for their Judge Dredd RPG. If the GM has these or similar floorplans, I'm sure they would be useful here.

Regards,

Colin

On 22/10/2016 at 7:05 AM, Vile said:

Better get on with this A:e thing, then.

@Vile, please explain A:e. What have I missed?

Colin

4 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Now, my question still stands. If we want to use BRP outside of the core of Chaosium (Glorantha and Lovecraftian Horror), how is the Company going to assist its fans?

SDLeary

This is exactly the point I was trying to make up-thread but you've put it much more succinctly. 

Colin

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

We MIGHT publish BRP Essentials some day, but we're not 100% sure how much of a priority or a necessity it will be. 

Now this is something of a disappointment for me. I was really looking forward to an Essentials book so I could unify the Cyberpunk and 40K conversions I've worked on (and others that are in the pipeline). BRP Quickstart doesn't cover everything I need: there are a few bits missing (EDU and skill categories for instance) that I consider "essential" BRP components (IMHO). I'll can remain with the BGB for some time to come and/or adapt features from Magic World, of course, but neither solution is as satisfactory as an official BRP Essentials to use as a base.

Regards,

Colin

2 hours ago, jux said:

My loyalty must be earned. So much competition out there.

A fair point, Jux. I suppose my loyalty was bought years ago! 

I've been thinking about this whole topic and have come to the conclusion that, for me, it doesn't make much difference what BRP Essentials will or will not contain. I'll buy the rulebook anyway and any support material Chaosium produces. I suppose this shows "brand loyalty", both to Chaosium and BRP in general. While I salute the work done for Mythras, Revolution D100, OpenQuest and the wider family, none of these really scratch the "BRP itch" in the way the BGB did.

Colin

14 hours ago, Akerbakk said:

I agree. That's why I wrote up Unified Powers. Check out the doc and see if it helps.

 

Thanks for that Akerbakk. I've downloaded your document and will give it a read over soon.

Colin

I've just uploaded Downtown Saturday Night , the first scenario for a BRP/Cyberpunk crossover campaign, using the rules and background developed in this thread. Useful resources for a GM in this scenario would include

Cyberpunk 2020

Shadowrun Seattle Sourcebook

Shadowrun Sprawl Sites maps and encounters

and, of course, the rules discussed here. The sourcebooks above are by no means required to run the scenario but they do add extra background and details.

If this scenario proves useful to you all out there, I have several other missions from the same campaign ready to convert and publish here.

Colin

4 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I think you could potentially get away without magic in a primer, but I won't complain it is included.

I know this has been discussed at length but would it be possible for the essentials to include "generic powers", rather than specifics (magic, sorcery, mutations) in an Essentials book? After all, a "Magic Missile" spell can have the same effect as "Laser Vision" but listed in the rules as "Focussed Energy Attack" (which is distinct from a "Fireball" spell versus "Power Blast", described as an "Area Energy Attack"). The players can choose a power and a suitably descriptive name.

Savage Worlds does this sort of thing but I truly don't know how well it works in-game and between different genres. It just seem to me that a "generic assault rifle" is just as Essential as a generic "Multi-shot Energy Attack" power.

All that slurred (hic), I'll still have the BGB as my go-to system.

Colin 

On 03/10/2016 at 1:57 PM, clarence said:

Yes, you are right Chris! Thanks for spotting that. I'll make the change. (You can also raise Thrust Rating if you want to keep the Speed value at 8).

Errr ... My bad, I think. I believe I used the "pick a speed and calculate the number of modules needed to make the ship go that fast" method from the capital ships section. Unfortunately, I've binned the hand-written notes I used when designing the ships, so I can't go back to see exactly what I did.

Apologies for the over sight,

Colin