Armchair Gamer

There's a Corruption mechanic in the Mythras Companion that hooks into the Passions and merits a closer read.

The soulless felt like Hickman either recycling early Dragonlance War of Souls ideas or giving vent to his dislike of the 2E/3E setting by really amping up the 'bleak and hopeless' fanon. And the idea that the Mists create people was largely 'fanon'--a close read of the early material suggests most of the domains are initially populated by a mix of abductees and refugees from adjoining domains who figure "better the devil you don't know."

I'd been looking at the Complete Story of the Grail for a while and nabbed that ... but the real find was that this finally brings the tempting-but-pricey Perceforest translation into range!

The copy I bought from my FLGS a few months ago has that same cover and border.

Madness shows up primarily in integration with psychic/psionic powers, so it can be easily left out if you don't want to use them. The 'Dead Calm' psychic ability in the BGB is a nifty way to translate a Ravenloft-specific benefit given to psionicists in 2E's [i]Domains of Dread[/i], though (the ability to burn PSPs to avoid a failed madness check).

Perceforest sounds fascinating. I've just added the affordable selection of English tales to my Christmas list, and will be eagerly looking forward to more news about it.

I really liked what I saw of RD100, but I think I hit my personal problem of having trouble reading through and absorbing systems from a PDF. I'm looking forward to the relaunch for streamlining, a better English translation, and a hardcopy version. Back on the main topic, most of the systems I've seen that rely on backgrounds or careers as opposed to skills seem to use stats more heavily. Crossbreeding that with RD100's Traits and the character building system from Magic World, perhaps set baselines at a fixed percentage and then add stats based on the specific task? So Stefan would have something like Minor Noble 50%, +(Dex+Cha) or (Dex+Cha)/2 at a formal dance, +(Dex+Con) for a hunt, etc.