Sean_RDP

I doubt it, but I don't and won't speak for them. But is anyone stopping people from doing that now? I find MW interesting but am not a hard core fan like many others. I wouldn't think that free fan made content would be an issue at all.

I would think licensing would be a very difficult and troublesome process for all involved. The easiest way might be to hand it totally of to someone else, to do the printing and publishing all on their own. Problem is, what is the level of expected success? Is it a free product(s)? The same rules or new ones? What happens when someone else has a setting they want the license to print or publish? How successful was Magic World? Is it a viable product? If it is, giving someone else the license could hurt the product if they don't handle it well. On the other hand if it makes loads of money and wins awards, won't Chaosium look dumb for licensing it out and missing out on the success? Also right now, Chaosium needs to get its house in order. That is not a show at the company, but there is a slight image problem and certainly they have business issues to take care of. Oh AND design a new version of RQ and BRP. People only have so many spoons AND they have their own visions of what to do with products. Trying to make Art (and game design IS art) run on a paying business can be a tough task for even experienced designers and marketers etc.. Now having said all that, if a person or people came to them with a solid plan, a fair licensing deal, and a determined solid core of potential customers, that might make a difference. Just my .02 lunars

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 40% - Finally have my names as opposed to old school place holders. Now I have to write a short but sweet description of each. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Resistance - 100% - REAL happy about this also Item Creation - 40% - This chapter will be huge but will not be in the Quickstart rules. In some ways items may become more important than spells Soul Magic - 100% Sorcery - 50% Spiral Magic - 50% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 75% Salt Island - 20% SRD/Design Doc - 30% Skaerune' Setting 35% Quickstart Guide 35% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 75% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website and copyrights and trademarks.. 0.001% As mentioned I managed to come up with the names of all four of The Cities for Skaerune', which was way more work than it may seem. I am thinking mid to late January for the Quick Start Guide. I am prioritizing it over getting all three Adventures ready. The rules and one adventure will work and the next two play test adventures will work great as a follow up. I still think this puts me on a good footing for a June low art Skaerune' release.

The cities are finally named! Kupaya Luki – First City Dreizig – Second City Pal – Larsam – Third City Ghallenjar – Fourth City

Wow I really need to edit some of those entries lol Very ashamed right now. Well the editing phase is coming up.

You make a great point. I know as I am designing my own things, it is all very heavy and serious. I guess you get so tangled up in the ancestors way of doing things you sometimes forget it can be different and fun and people will still play your game. Although one thing I have enjoyed about OQ is that it seems a lot less heavy and serious than some of the games and that is a good thing. I dunno, like a lot of things in life we tend to go to one thing or another to feel a certain way and it can be hard to change. Still, its food for thought.

So I began work on the Item Creation chapter, tentatively titled Forged & Fantastic Power. I have long wanted to weave item creation into a game design as something more meaningful than just making your own magic items or potions or gaining an advantage in the game. I have always wanted it to be an end (or a journey) unto itself. As I was working on the chapter,which deals with forging everything from mundane trinkets to powerful soul eating weapons, I found myself for a moment considering the heretical idea that all magic ws in the form of item creation, that it made something concrete and bringing magic a little closer to science, but also upsetting some fantasy tropes. I took a step back from that ledge, but just a step and realized that item creation could be important for other (future) Q21 games. However, it is important for Skaerune' as well. With skill Synergy item creation will not be a sideshow for players, but a reason for their character to be. I also realized I need to name the other three cities. The First City, which will still me a common way to refer to it, is Kupaya Luki, which is a very bad translation of Copper's Landing or Copper's Rest. The other three cities still need to be named and the Fourth City will likely need 2 names, the original name and the name the Rakshasa give it. So over the holidays as I spend some time with my little dragon and her second Xmas, I will be doing some research and coming up with those three names. Happy Holidays everyone

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 33% - Finally have my names as opposed to old school place holders. Now I have to write a short but sweet description of each. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Resistance - 100% - REAL happy about this also Item Creation - 40% - This chapter will be huge but will not be in the Quickstart rules. In some ways items may become more important than spells Soul Magic - 100% Sorcery - 50% Spiral Magic - 50% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 75% Salt Island - 15% SRD/Design Doc - 30% Skaerune' Setting 35% Quickstart Guide 30% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 75% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website.. 0.001%

Sure you can power game BRP in all of its iterations. You can generally do that with any RPG. Some are even design to encourage it. There is a difference between something that is a system issue and something that is a play style issue. Of course that one sentence could define 90% of the acrimony every RPG system has received ever :). It has never been an issue in games I have played or run using BRP in any version.

Spirit / Battle Magic equivalent. It gets its name from the spiral tattoos that contain the actual magical notes. It can be as large or as small as you want. The spell can be changed (improved) by adding more arms to the spiral. Spiral Magic spells are called Weirds.

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 33% - Finally have my names as opposed to old school place holders. Now I have to write a short but sweet description of each. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Resistance - 100% - REAL happy about this also Soul Magic - 100% Sorcery - 50% Spiral Magic - 50% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 75% Salt Island - 15% SRD/Design Doc - 30% Skaerune' Setting 35% Quickstart Guide 30% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 75% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website.. 0.001%

I have Superworld somewhere but its been a long time since I looked through it. I have never played it. My Supers game of choice was always Marvel Super Heroes, though I dabbled in a few others too. The primary issue I see with BRP as the basis for a supers game is lethality and scope. BRP games can be pretty lethal bits and in a genre were the good guys try to not kill everyone they meet, that takes a bit of careful planning. "Opps you cut off the Joker's arm, roll a POW x5 to avoid pissing your pants since Batman said to bring him in alive and unspoiled." Scope is also an issue: can you make one set of rules that works for gritty street level no powers games to galactic godlike beings blowing up galaxies? That might be difficult to pull off. So variable characteristic levels would be important, with a guide on using characters in the same game from different power levels. I would also layer another Health mechanic in. So Bruising and Lethal, where people cannot die from being bruised but criticals can do Lethal damage. Kind of like RoleMaster with Concussion Hits, which don't really kill you for losing them but the crits will do you in for sure. And then powers... I would think powers would have to have more than a linear progression. A Level 2 or cost 2 power is twice as powerful as a Level 1, and Level 3 is twice as powerful as level 2 or even three times as powerful. Yet the low tier powers should still be very useful. Just some thoughts, not as coherent as I would like.

Although I voted for Settings and Adventures, I would not mind seeing more of the Empire of Gatan. Just saying.

I always thought RoleMaster was an interesting reflection of the early styles of rpg, though I say that now not having played it back in the day. I picked up RM in the 90s and enjoyed it enough that some of it has come back into the design for my own games. There are definitely elements of both D&D and RQ (and some others) in there.

Also figured out Resistance today, I am happy to say. With Experience last week and Resistance this week, it really ticks off the major issues I wanted to be sure of.

And that is what all three will be. A general campaign, something of a sandbox though Crodspear's Lament will be the most sand boxy of the three. The idea is that each will represent one way to play in Skaerune'.

Delivery to the Sea will actually be an intro scenario in the Quickstart guide that should be done in early January. I have not decided yet what ntro scenarios should be in the Salt Island book yet. Likely something dealing with the Zero People/Caretakers' ruins.

Day 1 would have been the Broo for me but isn't there a giant and a cave troll in the Big Rubble? And some dwarves nearby? I admit it had been a long time, but those are the ones I would touch on.

So while working on the game this weekend, I came up with some goals I want to reach, so that I do not wear myself too thin making content no one is playing or reading. I decided that if PDF and POD versions of Skaerune and Salt Island sell 500 and 250 units respectively, then it might be worth it for me to pursue more content. I would be honored if others liked the world enough to create content for it, but I will not presume people will do so. Along those lines, here are the three potential adventure packs I came up with. The Vagabond Series Crodspear's Lament: Adventures in the Badlands Past the reduced borders of the Second City lay the ruins of civil war. When the Second City fell from prominence the Wroleclaw family and their allies fled into the Badlands to the west. Here they carved out some territory from the trolls and Cormoran giants of the Cold Lands. Now they live in a valley with seven keeps and a dozen villages that are constantly at war with each other. The land is dotted with ancient ruins and more modern ones and mercenaries are treated well. A bloody and vicious land where the only thing of value is a sword, a heavy coin purse, and the promise of a warm meal. Chief among the temptations is an aged keep once home to the powerful Duke of Mreghome, Crodspear Wroleclaw. Now it is a troll infested ruin that still holds the secrets and possibly the Torc of Wroleclaw, possession of which could alter the balance of power and portend more troubles for the Second City. The Myth Walkers Series City on A Mountain of Clouds There are many rumors of failed cities. Some sages suggest as many as seven such cities exist around the world, though no one has mapped them all. One such city known only the City of Turtles lies on the great Cloud Mountain. It is a flat plateau that reaches so high clouds obscure its top. All that is there are bones and stone dragon turtles, one for each direction. Deep in the eastern wastes, few come here except the Fire giants who see it as a holy place. Of late there have been strange tidings in the area and the Fire giants have seen lights on the mountain. Rakshasa caravans have disappeared into the wastes on secret missions for the m'Raaj. This is of interest to the Emir of Setch and his ally, the Khan of the High Days. They are seeking out heroes brave enough to walk the Eastern Wastelands in search of the City of Turtles. To find the city wll require more than digging in dusty and lonely mountains; it may require walking through time itself to when the world was much different and today's allies may be yesterday's enemies. The Cosmic Countdown Series Empire of the Drowned Kej Veho has long been thought dead, drowned in the Sea of Woes by his one time ally the dwarf Orobok. Orobok himself soon faded from view and is thought to have been destroyed long ago. With the cleansing of Nightmare Isle and the transformation of the Orange Princess, much that was hidden has come to light. Apparently Kej survived and had been creating an army of drowned men and women, along with beasts from the deepest parts of the sea. The Drowned Leiche has not forgotten Orobok nor has the dwarf forgotten his former ally. Working through agents the two enemies have each set into motion events that could summon the Fifty City far sooner than anyone has predicted. Black Dukes, angry Archons, and an army of elves all could become involved in a war to end the world.

Rough Draft of Design Document - 100% Skills: 33% - Finally have my names as opposed to old school place holders. Now I have to write a short but sweet description of each. Experience - 100% - REAL happy about this lol Soul Magic - 100% Sorcery - 50% Spiral Magic - 50% Hit Points & Hit Locations - 100% Armor, Weapons, & Equipment - 75% Salt Island - 15% SRD/Design Doc - 20% Skaerune' Setting 32% Quickstart Guide 25% First Short Adventure: Delivery to the Sea is 50% done. Bestiary 25% - Like my new format Getting a Domain and perm website.. 0.001%

SAN loss per spell seems pretty solid an idea as well. You could really do both a MP and per spell, if you were heartless and wanted to make Sorcery really feel like it cost you something. I might also suggest a sliding scale of sorts for SAN loss (again based on MP spent) MP 1 2 3 4 5 6 SAN 0 1 2 4 6 8 So low levels cost you little or nothing of SAN where as a powerful spell really rips your mind apart. SAN is going to be an optional rule for Skaerune' and I am not even sure how I am going to tie it in. Maybe even just two paragraphs and a chart.

I don't think you need a complex rule. Each MP of say Sorcery or equivalent you use causes 1 SAN loss. At the end of the session roll 1d6 for each 6 SAN lost to see how much you gain back. There may also be healing of a high level or soul binding spells that mitigate or return SAN or you can pass it off to someone else, but that makes it even more complex. Simple is better.

One of the things that was a big deal in a lot of Indie game design talk was the idea that there shouldn't be separate rules for combat and non combat situations. Such an idea is difficult to implement with a system like d100 where the tradition is one that depends heavily on combat and conflict, but all the essentials are there. You could redesign the whole system to de-emphasie combat and instead play up conflicts of all kinds. OR you can use the tools that already exist. Especially since social interaction can be so messy from a RP point of view. Often times it is chaos, with less interested players reading comics (old school) or eating your cheese dip or more likely playing on their mobile device. So I suggest using the rules as they are, with sight tweaks: -Three ruffians come down the road. The group drops into rounds, and on the character's SR (base, no weapon add) they can talk, converse, move, use a skill. Depending on the success of skill and counter skill things may turn violent or not -The party walks into a bar. Two characters want to gather information, one wants to visit her favorite barmaid, the others just want to drink. Again on their normal SR or using social SR based on INT or POW or APP/CHA/PER, the characters use relevant skills to actually make something that could be chaotic and putting some order to it. These are just ideas. Before any change in mechanics will work however, the paradigm of the session/campaign/game system has to change as well. These need to reward non violent conflict resolution. Adventure design needs to be on board as well.

PER = Personality. It is not just how likable or not a character is, but how strong their personality is both in terms of how they interact with others and how strong their convictions are. It plays a roll in two skill sets (Communication and Intuition) as well as being part of the base for both SRN and AUR. SRN = Strain. This replaces Fatigue that some folks are familiar with. Some magics use Strain as does combat and Parrying in particular causes strain loss. It is a mixture of physical and mental doggedness. SRN = (CON + PER)/2 AUR = Aura. Aura simply began as a way of codifying how much presence a person has and at one point was called Presence (many iterations ago). Now it is important in magic, especially Soul (Divine) Magic. The way I am working Soul Magic, the spell level determines how much of the Aura is used in effects. For example Heal / Harm 1 costs 1 MP to use and its effect is equal to 1/4. rounded up, of the caster's AUR. So if the caster has an AUR of 12, that would be a net effect of 3 (Heal or Harm). Some Spiral and Sorcery will suppress or increase or even destroy Aura. Aura is also used for detecting someone physically or magically. The higher your AUR the easier you are to find. And thanks! I really like how the bestiary is coming along.

Possibly, but it also gives all involved an opportunity to market to those outside the niche. We can all come strong with a d100 revitalization as it were and lure in players who only spend time and money on other games. \