RosenMcStern

, and since I don't think you will elaborate on the reasons you keep hinting at

As a matter of fact, Rust has already explained them clearly enough. I could provide dozens more examples, but it would not be very interesting. It is just a matter of perceiving (or not perceiving) the relevance of such comments. And no amount of debates here will alter anyone's perception.

I just hope you folks are right and it is a matter of my attitude. But if it is not, then the consequences might be more relevant than you think. Forgive me this arrogant statement, but I do not publish fan projects any more, and I have a "slightly" higher point of observation than most of you. And if I am afraid that presenting Glyphmaster as an introductory ruleset instead of a vintage game constitutes a threat, I have damn good reasons to be!

In the way that I explained above: Chaosium could use RQ2 (its second best success after Call of Cthulhu) as the foundation for BRP. It did not, preferring to merge RQ3 and SB5. All of you tried to avoid this simple fact in your replies, but it is there, plain and simple: the publisher appears to think those other iterations of the system are better. Nuff said.

And honestly, do you really think that Chaosium RQ2 is better than the new Mongoose RQII? The combat system is light years ahead, and the magic system finally got rid of the "Pay POW for divine spell, and you only have one use of it, and you might also fail the MP vs. MP resistance roll" nonsense that 90% of us houseruled somehow. We stopped using that rule in 1994, and I can remember almost a whole issue of TotRM devoted to fixing that problem with Divine Magic.

Another very important point: in RQ2/3 your divine magic depended on how much points you permanently marked off your POW characteristic on your character sheet. In MRQ2, and partially in BRP if you use Allegiance, finally you have a score on your sheet that actually says how much you believe in your god - which is not the same as how many points of POW you sacrificed, as you actually have to roleplay it! And it determines how powerful your magic is. Don't you think that, in a game that is 70% about religion, this detail is non-trivial, and that the old versions have sorely lacked something similar for 30 years?

That said, the existence of Glyphmaster poses no threat to anything. The SRD is free to use. It is your project, and it takes away your time, not someone else's. Just point out it is a "vintage" game for grognards.

If the retro clone operation is a pdf and is a only of interest to a very small group of gamers, how could it possibly have the major impact that you are hinting at ?

Exactly. If Glyphmaster is what you are saying here, it will be an overall benefit: it's a historical game, and you can play it to re-create the feel of what gaming was "back in the day". Good idea.

But if the forums and conventions start to fill with people who preach that "You cannot understand d100 if you have not played the historical version of RQ2", as it actually happens for OD&D in the Old School D&D Forums, then you will create the (WRONG) equation "d100 = old, musty stuff" in the minds of newcomers. I will post something more precise later.

And, while MRQ2 is in the shops, so are the Gloranthan Classics (well, in the e-shops, anyway).

"In the shops" and "on DriveThru" is not the same, Vile. You should know that. PDF books make up only 10-20% of RPG sales nowadays. They are no longer "mainstream", despite the fact that books like Cults of Prax or Griffin Mountains were true milestones of RPGs. The future of RuneQuest is not in reprints.

Again, there is nothing wrong in making a retro-clone of RQ2 in order to make the Gloranthan Classics playable "as they are".

But if the idea is using a "nostalgia" retro-clone as an introduction for new players, you will always find me strongly in the opposite camp. It is exactly the kind of operation that helps people who say that d100 is an outdated system spread their lies. And believe me, this is not a trivial problem. I say this having some knowledge about the sales of the Italian version of RuneQuest (BTW, Gianni, Luca was very glad to learn that you received the books).

Rick Meints could have some copies left. Contact Moon Design directly.

Of the 15-30 age range which game do you think more of them would recognize Runequest or Basic Roleplaying ?

RuneQuest. But they recognize it because of Mongoose Edition, not Chaosium. Guys, the RuneQuest brand is still alive because the new edition is in the shops, not because the old glorious one is sometimes on e-bay. Get over it.

Inability to have skill percentiles that are not multiples of five, "generic" spirits, NO SKILL-BASED MAGIC. I could go on, but dissecting the "great old classic" in search of bugs benefits no one. Seriously, you may have loved that book, but most of its contents have seen a definite improvement over the years. Chaosium had freedom to use the RQ2 version of the rules in making the BGB, but they chose the RQ3 or SB5 version of almost everything. Does this tell you nothing?

Gianni, how do you define "most gamers"? I doubt many gamers in the 15-30 age range know of RQ2. Thirty years have passed since its appearance. Its heritage is still alive, but as a ruleset, it's outdated.

Yes, but it is a 30-year old "self-contained set of rules". Once you take away the "nostalgia" effect, and without Glorantha it would not be there, what is left is a bunch of rules that, for the most part, have a better version published elsewhere.

If the problem is that the BGB "scares" newbies, BRP Quickstart and OpenQuest are better options.

I do not see any advantage in such an operation. 90% of the people who still love the book state that its advantage was that the system was integrated with the setting. Reprinting the book without Glorantha in it would mean taking away the best part of it.

Glyphmaster is a book specifically designed to let people who do not have the old RQ2 book play the reprints produced by Moon Design "out of the box". Without the Glorantha books, it is just a collection of outdated rules that have a much better incarnation in the Big Golden Book.

Interestingly enough, this is exactly the kind of problem I am trying to address with the new ruleset I am working on now.

Basically, I am trying to separate "what you can do" from "what you are", and model the latter as traits and not skills. Historically, in BRP a farmer and a sage hava always had a good deal of the Lore (Nature) skill, and the task of applying background-related modifiers to a common skill has always been among GM's duties. Unfortunately, this leads to an approach that is very similar to the old question that rids the DM in D&D: "Is this appropriate to this character's class?", even if BRP has no character classes. By crystallizing and codifying these aspects into traits (think of Fate Aspects, the concept is very close), these problems could perhaps be eliminated.

So for instance, you can have "Manipulation" as a skill, and "Thief" and "Bowyer" as Traits. This clarifies what a character is good at without any need to create dozens of different skills. I wanted to try this approach in the new version of Merrie England, but this would have changed Simon's work too much and we chose to go for a classical skill-based design.

Then where can I find these rules? In RQ2?

They are in the Golden Book, too. Defense is a super power, but you can use it as a special kind of skill. Please note that Jason has explicitly stated in this forum that he considered putting Defense back in the rules, but discarded the idea. Take the opinion of people who have 30+ years of experience into account when judging if a rule works or not.

frogspawner, are you sure that in BRP I can attack and dodge (or parry) in the same round?

Yes. It states that you cannot Dodge and Parry in the same round, but you can Attack and Dodge or Attack and Parry. Your "Flash the superhero" example is simply not applicable to BRP: there is no reason whatsoever why Flash would decide not to Dodge. You are simply thinking of rules that belong to other systems you are more familiar with, but these do not apply to any variants of BRP published by Chaosium since 1990.

this because everyone is able to wear an armor but not all are so skillful in evading/dodging attacks while in active combat.

Actually, this is better modeled by BRP's Dodge skill than by D&D's Armor class...

What would this add to the game?

Once you have active defenses in a game system, you no longer need passive ones. The rules in the new BRP allow you to Dodge any blow unless you are on the ground, tied, or otherwise restrained. So what you fear (you choose to attack instead of dodging) will never happen.

As for big or small targets, there already is a rule for these.

Have you discussed this with Smiteworks? You need an agreement with them to do so. Also, would this be a generic module or a BRP one?

Try info@asterionpress.com, they will answer.

Or try http://stores.ebay.it/La-Grotta-di-Merlino, it has Italian products and sells abroad.

All this sounds much like "Campanile sera" to me. Why the @#@@ should Italian publishers make so good editions and then fail to ship to FRANCE or GERMANY???

http://www.gdrshop.it/

It ships at the speed of light.

Redunancy? Don't you mean redundancy?

Well, this further proves that a roll is necessary to avoid typos.

It is only mildly Tolkienesque, in fact. You have elves and dwarfs, but the Goblins (equivalent to the orcs of other settings) are not evil creatures, they are somehow like Gloranthan trolls. What is really, really interesting is that you have "dark" elves similar to D&D Drows, the only difference is that they live beyond the sea instead of underground. The book contains also the theme of the Redemption of Dark Elves (Shazir), so you can play the equivalent of, say, Drizzt'do'Urden, or Viconia DeVir of Baldur's Gate, without having to use D&D. This is absolutely the best part of it, as the dark elves are more three-dimensional than the other races.

The magic is all pyrothecnics and flashbang. There are seventeen schools of magic (which cost me several long nights of writing) and "instinctive" magic (Ajaran) that you may possess without even knowing it, and can kill you if you lose control of it. And "do-it-yourself" demons like in Stormbringer. The black people (Warantu) have a shamanistic culture, and they look almost done on purpose to test Loz and Pete's new Spirit Magic rules

It does not require much study to play, but is peculiar enough to avoid the deja-vu effect of some other settings.

The only problem is that I do not know if and when they will translate it.

It's a Warantu lady, not Agimori. The price is promotional, basically meant to make you buy all the supplements. Or at least so says the publisher.

Having just written or published a wagonload of pseudo-historical fantasy supplements for both systems, I can say that: er, essentially what Loz said. Both sytems work very fine for the job, MRQ requires less effort as it is more specialized: more rules for melee combat, more detailed rules for Pact/Allegiance, etc. If you are already done creating magic for your races with BRP, then go with the Golden Book. If you are starting from scratch, MRQ is the quicker route to Fantasy. Both will give you a lot of fun.

I'm pretty confident you see it by Summer 2010 at the very latest.

Gentlemen, Newt has just shown us that having to roll for Speak or Write Own language is not a redunancy. You can actually fail the roll. Thank you, Newt

I suppose it was Summer 2011, isn't it?

I do not have the book here, but I am fairly certain that the RAW say that you can replace the special effect for the effects of a critical. I usually rule that a crit ignores armour and does either max damage or special effect (bleed, impale, stun, knockback).

Never say "Impossible" when it is just "not done before".

In Latin, "Dei voluntas fiat" means "God's will be done". But in Turin they usually translate it as "FIAT is the will of God"...

Just to clarify, do you mean that GMs not ready to make the GM calls would leave the system open to abuse by the players, or that the GM would abuse the system as he'll have to much control?

Both. If something happens very often, then it is better to write it down in the rules, and not to leave it to spot determination. You know that when you are lying on the ground, attacking is Difficult. Why should modifiers for knowledge be more vague?

The GM would need to make a lot of "GM's calls" though.

This is exactly the issue I have with a generic Knowledge roll. What is really important is how the GM feels about the subject, and this leaves the system open to abuse.

I am trying to address this with a neat solution that tells you what to roll and when to roll. Playtest will begin soon, and I am really tempted to make everything OGL and make the SRD available long before we "freeze" the rules into a published product, so that everyone can give feedback.