RosenMcStern

Very strange. I can access it with both PC and tablet. Did you try from your iPad?

The PDF is now available via YourGamesNOW and DriveThruRPG, along with an expanded errata on the web page, and some more clarifications on the Alephtar forums.

An official errata is now online. Get it here. It will be kept up to date if more errors are spotted.

Thanks to all who helped spot mistakes and ambiguities. I am glad that they seem to be limited to the first two chapters. This excessive amount of typos plagued also the Italian version of Nameless Streets, produced at the same time as Merrie England. The reason for this has been determined, and steps have been taken to ensure that such a mess cannot happen again.

Sigh. Please post these considerations (i.e. complaints) on the Alephtar forums, too. One of these points has already been addressed with an errata, and we will add to the correction list if new issues are found. Since the issues are many, it is better if the list is kept in one place.

Christmas present for everyone: the new preview is now available on the Alephtar Games product page, along with the hi-resolution, full colour map of Merrie England drawn by Emperor Mi.... er, Colin Driver.

Keep an eye on DriveThru, I will start selling the PDF soon - probably on Monday.

On the contrary, I would really dislike to have BRP stuff around labeled as "Old School". We already have all those nice reprints of Chaosium Glorantha materials from the early 80s as an example of "Old School" d100 - and they are the real thing, not a revamp. Let us make all products that come out now for BRP labeled as "Fresh and New", not as "old".

I think TrippyHippy's opinion is absolutely true - in the Orlanthi acception of the term, that is I agree with 85% of it.

Apart from some considerations about companies mentioned that I will not make public (hint: there will be a new player in the league in 2012...), there are two points that deserve more attention IMO.

First of all, the statement that BRP "Will never be as popular as...". Well, we have just had evidence that this is not necessarily the case. Which is the Fantasy RPG that sold the most in electronic format in 2011? Easy, it is D&... er, no, Path... no, uh, ... Legend? Is it possible? Well, while I do not want to overestimate the success of Mongoose's marketing campaign, I think it should not be underestimated, either. My only regret is that they could have done that while still partnering with Issaries, and they did not.

The second point is about boxed sets. It is something I have considered doing myself, but in the end i abandoned the idea. The reason is simple: RPGs are headed in a different direction than boardgames - they started as a variant of tactical wargames, but they are no longer one. The question then is: is a box a good format for them? There are two conditions that make the answer to this question become a "yes".

a) You want to make a collector's edition that appeals to people who started playing when RPGs were all boxed. This may be a good business practice, but I would rather like to get more young players involved than to bleed old schoolers dry.

You want to make an edition that allows people who have never played an RPG to start without any further help - which includes providing several copies of the character sheet, including dice and counters, etc. I think the model for this is the Pathfinder beginner's box, which is a very good tutorial that opens the doors to this option-filled game to newbies. In this case, a BRP beginner's box would be a good product. However, the genericity of BRP as a toolbox makes it less suitable for this kind of operation than Pathfinder is, as Path is a fantasy RPG with a definite flavour, while BRP is generally used for historical, high fantasy, sci-fi, pulp or whatever - so you do not know in advance what genre your players will use it for. Could work for Legend, OpenQuest or RQ6, though.

Oh, and one more thing: in case anyone was wondering, I will announce the 2012 Alephtar plans between Christmas and New Year. Do not expect anything too exciting, though.

My take on all of this proliferation of RQ-like systems

Crisis of multiple Runequests

Yeah, really. OpenQuest has carved its own niche in the d100 ecosystem, and it will continue to thrive within it.

I am not so sure. Right now it seems that BRP could well be the most expensive

of the d100 games, and for many people the price is important. Besides, BRP is

more of a toolbox for the design of a system than a system which is ready to be

played, and I have the impression that many players prefer a less complex sys-

tem where the design decisions (choice of options, etc.) have already been ma-

de.

Some people prefer that the designers make all the choices for them (but is this true? how much do the guys who say "hey, I prefer a game without those many options" actually houserurle in their games?). Others prefer to craft their own variant, and BRP is the perfect tool for it. Besides, you usually do not play "BRP", but rather "Classic Fantasy" or "The Laundry" (an exception because it has the base rules in it) or "Mythic Iceland" or "Dragon Lines" or whatever. And all these have many of the options already ruled in or out by the designers.

Argh, we messed it out. The cover is the same but the subtitle changed, but Dom did not update it on the product page after I told them. Oh well, I think everyone got the idea.

As for the comparison, I think Eleanor would win in anything implying strategy. On the other hand, I would really love a game with King Richard facing Saladdin with his Big Scary Sword and shouting "Come get some!" at him. Too bad that cigars and sunglasses had not been invented in the 12th century.

Copper seller in 4 months is not bad for a supplement. It means about 100 copies in electronic format. But you can do better than that. I think Age of Treason is not (yet) linked to Legend in the "collective imagination" of the d100 public, so it is not benefitting so much from the Legend burst. But things could change in the future, especially because now Legend lacks a good fantasy setting - so AoT is the only non-historical setting out there on the shelves.

By the way, the "Parpuzio Game System" is currently on hold. Maybe I will resume work on it, maybe not. The reasons should become clear soon.

Yeah, I tried to convey the idea of "based on false assumptions", not of "total b******t". Sorry if anyone read it that way

Anyway, all this sounds even less fact-based than the previous attempts at statting Prime Ministers, so we should just wait and see what happens. The only fact-based point is that round 1 goes to Mongoose, as everyone is talking about Legend at the moment.

I haven't seen a copy of Merrie England yet, so I am still in the dark at the actual contents.

Actually, you have, as you have the print PDF.

It does have a Toc, albeit not a very deep one. We are in the process of adding bookmarks to the PDF version, and these will have a deeper structure. In fact, this is one of the reasons why the PDF is not yet available.

dmccoy,

I do not want to speculate about the correctness of what Rust said (the bad reputation of Mongoose), but your analysis is absolutely misled. The point is that all that you mentioned may be true for other game companies, but not for The Design Mechanism. The reason is very simple: they will not handle printing, marketing and distribution themselves, but they will rely on another, well-establish company. TDM does the production job, others handle marketing and distro.

And rest assured that all the troubles you mentioned will simply not happen for RQ6. I can tell you precisely, since I have been working with the exact same partners for more than one year, and we had no trouble whatsoever for those reasons.

Mongoose has one great advantage: the head start. And they managed to use that advantage to the greatest possible extent by offering the PDF for a more-than-bargain price. In the end, this is another signal that competition is good for end users. And luckily, there is some sound competition in the d100 market at the moment.

Sverre, I agree that we were really trying to compete with Duke Nukem Forever for "most delayed game of history" this time, but the book was actually published in December 2011, not 2012

Ah, and this edition's subtitle is "the Age of Chivalry" not "the Age of Eleanor".

You can now find two versions of the Rome character sheets on the product page. One has classic BRP base skill percentages, the other has a RQ-lilke approach to starting skills.

I have set up a poll about Merrie England character sheets on the alephtar forums

http://www.alephtargames.com/phpbb/viewforum.php?f=5

The old edition is 80 pages. The new edition is 210 pages. 10 of these are the Alephtar medieval christianity magic system, which you already have if you own Crusaders of the Amber Coast. The rest is new. I'll leave the maths to you.

Ouch! I thought I had transferred the Rome character sheet to the new web page. But in fact, only the maps are there.

It will be online again in 12 hours.

As for Merrie England, there are not many differences from the regular BRP character sheet. Basically, you may want to add the Piety and Holiness scores, but the rest remains the same. So a specialized character sheet may not be necessary. We did not include one for Crusaders, either.

Also note that we now have a forum for our games. Keeping it clean of spammers is a hard job, so please help me find a justification for my hard work and use it

The pre-orders are handled by Cubicle Seven. Alepthar Games handles only the book+pdf bundles, which we have not offered (yet) for Merrie England.

The late arrival of the pre-order copies may be due to the fact that you live in the US and the books are printed in the US, but the pre-orders copies are sent from the UK (so they cross the Atlantic twice - the environment is grateful to us). Or to the fact that Cubicle Seven co-founder left the company on friday and they have still to recover. You will have your book, though, do not worry.

Only in Legend format please. RuneQuest 6 will include rules for Passions, an I do not want to see the Passions of the Italian PM statted, lest this turns into porn...

..oh, wait, we have sacked THAT Prime Minister

What about continuing this interesting political debate on a more appropriate media like someone's Facebook profile? I offer mine, if needed.

Just not here.

The one big advantage that Legend has over RQ 6 is the OGL - if the game builds up some momentum, it is possible that we will see an ecosystem of third-party material develop around it. It's a pity that RQ 6 isn't also released under the OGL, but it looks like Design Mechanism is happy to enter into licensing arrangements with publishers who want to produce RQ 6-compatible products, so it's all good.

The way you describe the situation is not completely correct. As I have used both licenses, allow me to clarify the difference. What the Legend OGL permits and the RuneQuest Gateway license does not, is to build a new system based on the core rules, like d101 did with OpenQuest. The Gateway license implies just that you do not write anything offensive in your supplement, put the RQ logo on the book, and send a copy or two to The Design Mechanism, and you are ok. No complications, and no lengthy negotiations needed. What you _cannot_ do under the Gateway license is to write an entirely new game...

...but since you can do it under the Legend OGL, actually you need not do it

Its not simply nostalgia; it is about offering quality - both in the execution of the rules, and the supplements we then produce to support them. I have no interest in doing an Arms and Equipment book. I've no interest in producing a conventional monster manual ('Monster Island' is intended to be as much a campaign setting as it is a bestiary). I have tons of interest in producing setting and campaign packs, and books of good, standalone scenarios, that hark back to Chaosium's most innovative days.

Trif, this board really lacks a "Like it" button.

Ahhhh, I knew the can of worm I was opening would be big...

Are you talking about the skyrocketing sales of Legend and its PDF. You don't think that might be due to the PDF's price? And just as a marketing note, my FLGS has NOT been overwhelmed with requests that they bring in Legend core books; the owners are generally quite responsive to those types of requests.

I think FLGS are quite angry with what happened with RQ lately: three editions in a row, and lots of unsold, OOP remains on their shelves (some have still some MRQ1 stuff). So this kind of reaction does not surprise me at all. But the book is selling in print format, too.

However, the general response to Legend by the users is rather good, and I am sure you will see it appear more often on the shelves as a reaction to the excellent PDF sales (boys, gold medal on DriveThru is a LOT of sales). The $1 pricing was a winning move, as it helped wash out some of the bad reputation that accompanied MRQ (both 1 and 2) due to some poor editing. And this time they DID listen to customers! Both the license and the cover were changed according to popular demand, and mistakes in the PDFs were fixed in a matter of hours. If only he had behaved this way before...

I fail to see what sort of "taint" has been removed in the passage from MRQII to Legend. The only thing that was removed from this last edition is Glorantha, and certainly I would not call Glorantha a "taint".

Furthermore, Legend is a BRP derivative, currently the best derivative available for fantasy (till RQ6 is out) so I cannot see any way it can be considered "not real RuneQuest". It is just not labeled as RuneQuest. But, as the Bard wrote, "What is in a name?"

As for the tactics being aimed at hurting TDM, well, maybe you are right. But aggressive competition is still _fair_ competition, so I see nothing wrong in this. TDM has deliberately chosen quality over time-to-market, allowing Mongoose a head start. Time will tell which product is more successful.

Oh, and by the way. Allow me to be very blunt. For the first time since 1978, we have seen an edition of "RuneQuest" without any Glorantha content. Sales have skyrocketed at once. Is this enough evidence to persuade the "old skoolers" that being inextricably coupled to Glorantha is not vital for the survivability of RuneQuest, and that the problem that lowered sales when moving from RQ2 to RQ3 was not the "generic" approach?

So Mongoose has proven you actually can sell sand to an arab, heh heh - top marks, really!

I never doubted Mongoose Matt could sell sand to an Arab. Even dried sand, in fact. What I still wonder is why he did not do that with the "RuneQuest" brand when he owned it. Glorantha? I doubt this is the answer.

But, well, as this is a "What if", we will never know the answer

Cool! Except that my PDF has no page 240. Pp. 238-239 are the character sheet, and then you have the back cover. Ah, well, I suppose it will be there if I re-download. So much for being an early bird.