RosenMcStern

This thread is sorely off topic. However, I wish to add my 2 clacks now.

If you do not want to use the full range of BRP levels of success, there is nothing wrong in it. However, like all rules, this mechanics has also to do with combat balance, and changing it will impact combat in an unpleasant way. First of all, the impale rule is now an inherent mechanics in how BRP damage works. Even CoC, that does not have specials, has it. The point is that much of the damage dealt by arrows and bullets (especially small caliber bullets) depends on the fact that one hit in five does double damage. Changing this to one hit in ten will make some weapons way less effective, and make some techniques like backstabbing or using sustained fire with small firearms or low-power lasers not viable.

Secondly, there is the issue of the combat matrix. In a fight between two rune levels, there will be an unparried blow every three rounds or so, and the chance of not having any roll below 20 for more than 5 consecutive rounds are negligible. If the threshold goes down to 10, then it is entirely possible to have a combat that lasts 10 rounds without a wound. Definitely less fun than doing some maths now and then.

In short, there is nothing wrong in wanting a less variable range of specials. But simply porting over the MRQ / Legend criticals to BRP will not result in an improvement. The correct (and really obvious) solution would be to use MRQ and _ALL_ of its rules for combat.

Mmmh, not quite. First of all, what do you mean by SIZ? Enc?

Melee weapons of SIZ 2 or larger cannot be parried by another weapon (their mass means they have too much momentum when swung to be stopped successfully), but can be blocked by a shield or dodged. This makes a shield much more useful in primitive, medieval, and fantasy combat than it currently is.

First of all, a spear has no additional momentum due to SIZ, so a long spear (or thrusting halberd) should not be included. Secondly, you can parry a long weapon with a shorter one, it is just harder. I would rather make the roll Difficult, and not for thrusting weapons.

If a character is armed with two weapons, and the off-hand weapon is smaller than SIZ 1, he can attack and parry once with each of them per combat round. Off-hand weapon attacks and parries are considered Difficult, unless the wielder is ambidextrous (i.e. has DEX of 16 or higher). If the wielder is ambidextrous he gets an individual attack and a parry with each weapon per combat round at no penalty to either, though the off-hand attack is at 5 DEX ranks later than the main hand attack - see BGB pp. 233-234. This allows dextrous duelists to use the rapier & main gauche combat style effectively, though they will still be dependent on dodging to defend against large heavy two-handed weapons, which seems realistic enough.

All of this paragraph is heavily unbalancing: a DEX 15 character cannot fight effectively with two daggers, two sais, or any other combination of weapons that were historically used. With one more points of DEX, he becomes a killing machine that can eliminate two opponents per round, without even incurring in the halving penalty that a 100% swordsman incurs when attacking twice. Definitely NOT balanced with all other BRP rules.

If a character is wielding two weapons each of SIZ 1 or larger, all his attacks and parries are Difficult, it's just too hard to balance the weapons efficiently.

This whole story of the secondary weapon being shorter is a D&D construct. You can use two medium weapons at once, it is just that when you have the opportunity to carry two, you usually choose two different reaches to be safe from closing opponents, or even close yourself with the shorter one.

If a character achieves a Critical parry result with a shield or off-hand weapon, he has succeeded in turning his opponent's weapon away and created an opening to riposte. The character is allowed an immediate free riposte attack with his main hand weapon which is Difficult for his opponent to parry or dodge. This helps simulate real fighting styles better, and also helps rebalance combat tactics in BRP which currently favour dodging too highly over other forms of defence.

This has been discussed earlier, with a proposal from Jason. The semi-official rule is that you riposte on a Special, and the opponent can parry regularly. Again, this version is rather unbalanced.

Then I'll keep the offer valid also after the Chaosium sale is over

The licencing for Legend seems a bit looser and less expensive than the one for BRP (no up-front cost, no giving books to sell, no restrictions on the number of supplements produced every year), so is there any chance of seeing some Alephtar supplements for Legend?

No. I have already made it clear with Matt. We have our own plans, and this new license will not change them, despite the great value of the game system.

The Celestial Empire is now available also from the Alephtar Games web site. For a limited time, all purchases of the print version get also a free PDF. Take advantage of this offer.

Alephtar Games had told Mongoose about Merrie England: Age of Eleanor before they pulled the licence - in fact I hand-delivered two copies that Mongoose were expecting on the day they announced that they were pulling third party licences.

I think he was referring to Asterion Press with that comment.

Anyway, I was in direct contact with Matt Sprange yesterday via email, and he is now explicitly trying to make things smoother for third parties willing to publish for Legend. I cannot restrain myself from noting that he should have done this before, but late is better than never, so...

I originally expected it to be a new edition, taking the best options from the past and making them better (and keeping the page count lower). The BGB does work, but I still think I would have preferred the former.

You say this because you expect that Jason's judgement about "best" options and making them "better" would have been coincident with your own judgement. But what if he had chosen something different?

With the current format, the BGB is "a good BRP for everyone". With another format, it would be "the best BRP for someone, a missed opportunity for everyone else".

I doubt that this debate about people with various impairments is of any use here. People with various physical impairments can be athletes. No problem. There is a notable case of a guy who lost an arm and continued playing soccer as a pro, after some training. I doubt he could have continued playing basketball, though.

There are plenty of games you can play without maths. But not all games should be designed to accommodate those who have trouble with maths. It is great that BRP has variants with a lot of maths, and variants with less. Long live the Resistance Table! As long as it is not mandatory.

For those who liked the Glorantha setting, the game is now dead

I fail to locate the announcement by ISSARIES that there will be no more RuneQuest books for Glorantha. Has anyone seen such a statement?

For example, using the Search of my ho-

me forum, I find a number of posts where Glorantha has been mentioned, but on-

ly one post where MRQII has been mentioned, the Burg Stahleck program of this

year.

If you check rpg.net or the Mongoose Forums, you will find many posts asking "where to start in Gloranthta" that indicate that a gamer has started to grok RQ, and is becoming curious about Glorantha. If you check the Italian forums, you will see that we have launched a pre-order campaign for Monster Coliseum. We already have 60 supporters, and only three of them have played in Glorantha so far. So there ARE fans who appreciate the game system but know nothing of Glorantha.

his decision to basically kill MRQII by removing all Glorantha con-

nections and turning it into a generic fantasy system was not exactly applauded.

To strengthen what Loz already stated, the perception of the decline of RuneQuest in the 80s as caused by its decoupling from Glorantha is a common thought among old hardcore fan. But it is not the truth. The reasons were different. A lot of people like RuneQuest, but not Glorantha, so making the ruleset generic is no "seppuku". The reason for most skepticism is the relationship between MGP and other actors, not the quality of the product or the appeal it may have to the public. Fans will still like the game.

I only used the Logo license, which was public so no trade secret, and it says that publication should cease. In theory, I could sell them all at the auction in Castle Stahleck, as that is a private affair, but this would give Rick a sore throat.

I do not have the details about negotiated licenses (C&W and Asterion) and, basically, it is their business, not mine, but I know that both parties have found a settlement.

Apart from that, not keeping an eye on what the third party publishers are doing

with the license ("our property") would seem rather ... unwise.

IANAL, but I think that under US law, it might even invalidate your rights to your IP, as you are not protecting it.

And put the blame on you, see Planet Mongoose, 24/05/11:

LOL. That publisher is Asterion, not us (although the "accuser" is possibly me). They are the only other 3rd party publisher using RQ. Also, I may be mistaken, but I remember Ken Walton stating on the C&W blog that they were informed by Mongoose the day before they made the announcement. Oh, and the statement that the publisher fell off their radar is horse poo of the finest quality. He knew that they were publishing stuff. He has a darn copy of anything they published, just as he has a darn copy of everything we published for MRQ1. He just ignores the stuff submitted to him by anyone (except Angus).

And BTW, I have 30-something copies of books in the warehouse,so my complaints are purely a matter of principle, not of money. On the other hand, Asterion has 2400. Coupla orders of magnitude of difference...

Good grief that's hideous. Why would anyone agree to that licence?

Apart from Rick's reply above about short-time notices, I have dealt with licenses issued by Issaries, Moon Design, Mongoose and Chaosium.

Guess who is the only one of the four mentioned above who actually did pull a license and left me with stock in the warehouse?

IIRC Moon Design DON'T use the OGL though. SOme sort oif license, if you wish to protect you trademark is essential I agree, but I'm not sure that's where MGP are going:

Moon Design uses a license that has some validity, i.e. it binds both parties. Actually, IANAL, but the person who made the policy and paperworks for the lightweight (but functional) HQ Gateway license _IS_ a lawyer. OTOH, would the fact that Matt Sprange said in his blog "Just put Compatible with Legend on the front cover", without any signed agreement whatsoever, protect the third party in case Mongoose changes its mind? Not that it has _EVER_ happened that Matt Sprange changed his mind, of course.

"Legend" would be challenging to register a trademark on I suspect

I suppose Ridley Scott would agree with you

What they DON'T want is Clockwork & Chivalry switching to BRP or OpenQuest and at this stage they can't openly admit that the core text is likely to remain "closed", but that they are planning avery relaxed "referencing / claiming compatibility" approach

I.E. the same license model as BRP, except you do not pay for it.

Which to be honest, is what I thought was the only sensible move when they first mooted some sort of open license for notMRQ2. They want to encourage third party support, NOT third party cloning (albeit the irony of this, given it's Mongoose is hilarious...)

Changing the licensing model every other year is a sure way to ensure third party support

We'll see what they do come the autumn - I'm still waiting for an announcement related to this that has the "Wow!" factor that convinces me not-MRQ2 will still be around this time next year to be honest...

The appearance of this new game is a Legend...

RQII is now Legend! Still, the sound of it has some sinister implications.

As for the license, I had hoped they would understand that the OGL is not a complication but a necessity (Moon Design requires a written acnowledgement of the HQ Gateway license for very good reasons, even though there is no SRD). They did not. Best wishes to those who want to make Legend-compatible products. This will definitely not include Alephtar Games.

- no good vehicle rules

- no vehicle creation rules

- no starships

Technically, these details, like mass combat, are not intrinsically needed in a RPG. Although they are always handy if present.

- the shield rules seem to be odd and always rise questions

This is the only point where the system actually has bugs.

- ENC is a muddy mess

- Fatigue rules are missing (?)

Most players do not use these rules in any system. No matter how well written the rules, the majority of players hate tracking Enc.

-Resistance Table

Like it or not, it is the only realistic way to solve some problems quickly. Using skills, like in MRQ, yields unrealistic results or forces you to adjudicate penalties on the fly. Just think of poison rules...

being a pain with the right group of players who want to use a different system and are trying anything to get you to switch.

In this case, the problem is not the rules but the players. Tweaking the system is not the answer: either change players, or change system.

All in all, there is only one real flaw: two-weapon use.

The Mongoose blurbs I've read seemed to be at pains to assure everyone that the books you already own and the books you might be buying in the meantime won't become worthless.

Devil's Advocate question: if the truth was that the books you might be buying will become worthless, what would they say?

Yep, and in many periods the shield was made of cheap materials and considered

disposable anyway. For example, some medieval duelling protocols mention the

number of shields each combattant is allowed to "use up" during the duel, and a

fighter taking a new shield because the original had been "spent" is mentioned

quite often in medieval descriptions of a combat.

Note that this totally contradicts the rules given in some versions of BRP, where a shield is never damaged or broken by a parry, whereas a weapon is. But I think this interpretation is correct, at leasta AFA wooden shields are concerned. This means that, basically, a shield is used to soak off damage that would otherwise go to the weapon.

The Viking Round shield had the ability to "catch" weapons in RQ3 on a special parry.

Hey, no, guys! This is unfair. You are taking advantage of me being at Eternal Con (with the moderator) to bash my Avatar. This is personal attack! I invoke the Forum rules to have all of you banned, all of you, and offer a beer to the moderator to reinforce my argument! I will eat your BRAAAAIIINS!

(Sorry, this zombie game we are playing had me involved a bit too much).

[Posting from Stahleck]

The materials in Age of Eleanor is in Age of Chivalry, too.

All of our titles after Rome have been produced in US Letter format.

Yes, from Chaosium, too. We are now hammering the last few beasties into the stat block grid (Simon REALLY went amok with demons, this time) and then it goes to the printer. You should be able to get it in some weeks.

Face it, RosenMcStern, some people disagree with you and feel they are not satisfied with initiative as handled in the BGB and that is perfectly ok. I respect your opinion and I love BRP overall. I just like my initiative handled a tad differently.

Er, I want to be very unpleasant here. And I will break my own rule of never posting sentences whose subject is "you".

I have no problems with people having different opinions. The point is that I am not the one posting about the same subject on three different forums stating "I have never tried this well-tested system but I think this well-tested rule is nonsense: what is everyone's opinion?"

I think it was you who expected a great deal of agreement.

If you are so adamant about the options you want to have in your game (which are entirely up to you, of course) why start the debate? Just use the bits and pieces you prefer, and that's it.

Have a nice game.

Daddystabz, but apart from repeating the thing for some dozen posts, have you actually tried to play a game with Statement of Intents and penalties for movement and non-combat actions?