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RosenMcStern

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Everything posted by RosenMcStern

  1. Do not hold your breath. Current release has no locations in the stats. If, and I stress IF, we have the time for minor changes, and a couple pages' room, we might add hit locations for armor sets or for creatures/foes. But there are more important matters to look after before we can add any content to what Pete has already written.
  2. Chaosium gets a stock of printed copies, as per its standard license deal. At least this is the last agreement we made with Charlie. US customers are advised to buy directly from Chaosium, EU ones are morally obliged to come to Tentacles. But we'll also sell it directly via lulu.
  3. Well, now that Pete the Author has "spilled the beans", I can add one more detail: barring direct intervention by Nyarlathotep himself, you will have BRP Rome available at Tentacles as a dead tree supplement (200 pp. or more). Non-tentacles attendees will have it available through Chaosium or as a PDF or POD by the same date. So you have yet one more reason to hurry up and book one of those last places available for Castle Stahleck. That's what I call "third party support". Enough for you fans?
  4. Nick already gave a very good reply on this subject. I do not want to put the blame on Greg, but they did not split up into multiple companies. Greg left to pursue his own goals with Issaries: history will tell if he was right. But again, no blame on the current Chaosium crew. Jason never stated he will not work for them any longer. And who told you this is the right way to go? They aren't an indie publisher, they are the oldest company on the market since TSR disappeared as a brand. Their current policy is to have indies publish stuff and oversee the quality. Nay. It's in the hands of fans who can provide more mature support than newbies. Us. Should we buy them a lottery ticket and start hoping?
  5. True. But there is a Big Difference here. People all around the world are more than willing to circumvent the laws against WotC or Epson or <name it>. Maybe they even deserve it. Is anybody here willing to do the same against Chaosium?
  6. Yep, it should work as Dalmuti explained. The mechanics for the opposed roll is there, in the basic rules. It is just that the rules do not suggest which skill should be used to oppose the investigator's Insight Roll. Performance? Fast Talk?
  7. This was not their fault, it was Avalon Hill's. This is absolutely true and proved. This, and the really, really unfortunate Jovanovic incident (unfortunate for Jovanovic, mostly) almost killed RuneQuest, and left only CoC as a viable D100 product. But it was absolutely not Chaosium's fault. All small companies suffer from payment delays sooner or later. Even big companies do, sometimes. Let's hope to have some.
  8. Whether they paid Jason or Loz is their business, and only theirs (Jason's or Loz's I mean). If anybody suggested we should buy BRP to help Jason get his money, he was wrong. Jason will get what is due to him because Charlie & Co. are honest guys. Period. In what timeframe they get it is another story, and I'll not hold my breath. Sorry. Whether we should buy more BRP is not linked to this problem. We buy games because we like to play (or simply own them). We like BRP because it is a good game, not because Charlie or Greg are good people (they are). I am sure Gary Gygax was a splendid person - I am on good terms with one of his former employees in another Internet community, and he never complained about the salary he got. This does not make me like D&D.
  9. Have you ever wondered whether they get paid on time for what they do?
  10. People, don't be too harsh with Chaosium. They do all this because they love their jobs. They will sort things out, eventually. And we will see more BRP on the shelves, one way or another.
  11. That's a real SHAME Anything we can do about this? Kidnapping Charlie at Castle Stahleck and feeding him vegetarian food until he publishes the book? Does this mean that it is going to see the light under another system? Perhaps another publisher? Or that it is cancelled? Have you considered self-publishing? It is a viable option nowadays, as several people (including me) pointed out.
  12. If you like precision, the best idea is to find one copy of the old RQ3 Creature Book, which has melee and missile hit location tables for all sort of creatures. Having a double location table at least for the basic four-legged animals, which are encountered quite often even in realistic settings, could be a good idea for everybody. Perhaps a good article for the next issue of Uncounted Worlds? However, since this involves usage of previously published materials that is technically still copyrighted by Chaosium (ok, you cannot copyright game mechanics, but reprinting the old tables with minimal changes would not be that fair), this is exactly the sort of thing that requires an explicit permission from Chaosium.
  13. This is why we use only OpenOffice and Adobe products. No Micro$oft Incompatibleware Maybe some more if some of the artwor is commissioned, but your point is correct. In any case, third parties can produce books that are more ambitious than a monograph without incredible expenses. Quality is lower but still acceptable (do not forget that we old RQers have a Mystic Word of Power to make our artwork look nicer: DOBISKY)
  14. A mace is swung, not thrust, against an opponent, so it adds considerable momentum to the attack. A heavy gauntlet can have the same effect of a cestus, but it is not specifically designed for it. I would go for +1 to punch damage for plate gauntlets, +2 for special armor like powered armor (which also increases damage bonus). But I would also assign the Physical skill penalty to the Brawl skill of anyone who did not specifically train to brawl in heavy armor.
  15. What is your source of info about this? Did you ever take loans as a company manager? In my regular job I have hard everyday evidence that banks are less inclined to give loans to companies, too. Dunno how it works in California, but here banks loan money to companies (at least small ones) only if a) the company's finance is healthy (they don't even know that something like "name in the industry" exists) the CEO or some stockholder signs a liability agreement in case the loan is not repaid. Chaosium does not negotiate licenses. The conditions are already fixed, are rather favorable and are there for anyone to read. Did you check whether CoC started as a side project back in the days?
  16. Too early to say. Man, this is the WORST moment in the last 80 years to ask for a loan. Don't you read your newspapers? :confused: No one prevents you from mortgaging your mother (except your mother, I hope) to buy the franchise and then negotiate with Chaosium for a BRP license for BRP. It costs 100 copies for each 500 copies you plan to sell, so less than 10% of the total revenue you expect from your game. They expect third parties to publish stuff, not just to give advice. Your ideas are sensible, but if you think it's so easy to go out there and make business, just do it. I bet Dustin will love your products and grant you a license any moment. Ask him if you don't trust me.
  17. Well said!!! You get an experience check in Persuasion/Oratory/Whatever you use to phrase it right! I only have a few points where I disagree, and here they are. RQ and Elric sold and sell well, it is just that they are now owned by another company. Interesting enough, that other company, which is one of the most successful non-WotC publishers of D20 stuff, is still publishing these two settings with its own D100 variant. There's a meaning in this. Not exactly the truth. We all know what happened and it could have gone better, but that's how it went. This is a perfect strategy, and I subscribe your opinion. But there is a non-trivial point: licenses for successful franchises cost money. Does Chaosium have enough bucks to buy a fresh franchise? Maybe yes, maybe no. Most, if not all, authors do not give away their intellectual property out of love. They usually like to get paid for it.
  18. Check with Chaosium if they would be pleased with this first. This is not a supplement but a rules extension. BRP is not OGL.
  19. I might add that in the Real World each medieval guild had its patron saint, possibly a different one in each city. A saint is not a god in the Christian tradition, but a Christian character is usually portrayed as being a "Devotee of ST. xxxx" rules-wise, either in the HeroQuest game system (Mythic Russia) or in D100-based games. This means that even in a realistic setting, most members of a profession are devotees of a certain entity, be it god or saint.
  20. Val-du-loup is a true mine of good ideas, and a valuable resource for medieval games. But not everyone is at ease with hypertexts, so having all the info compiled into a PDF (at affordable prices if sold) provides a more generally exploitable support.
  21. How to write I cannot teach you (it's an art, not a science). And I could add that you don't need any lessons from me or anyone, as hundreds of people have been using your RPG materials for years. Layout and artwork I can provide for you, that's certain. And I bet that I'm not the only one. So just knock and the doors will open, Simon. Aaahhh, self-publishing facilities are a refreshing breeeze for RPGs, aren't they?
  22. Absolutely true. Seraphim Guard is an active indie publisher and was the first to throw third party materials into the arena when RQ went OGL. Losing its support was really bad news for BRP. Let's hope someone else takes its place. To prevent the question: Alephtar Games has other plans at the moment.
  23. These are the rules we use for our Dark Wind Knight campaign. The elements are clearly Gloranthan but the system can be adapted. Substitute Allegiance (Element) / 5 to Darkvalour and you have a template. Balance is not perfect, though.
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