RosenMcStern

The players like the system. I find it a bit tricky keeping track of number of combat actions - I think I like the OpenQuest method of you have an attack and defense and one more if you have two weapons or a shield...

I often play with a fixed number of actions (three is the best) plus shield. The best way to keep track of actions is to use beads: have three dark beads for every player, and one light one for two-weapon users, and that's it.

You mentioned that the issue of having books for 3 seperate systems had somewhat diluted the impact having those historical supplements out, but that you had resolved that. Are you planning to have dual system books produced or something similiar ?

No. We are trying to unify the system, instead. There _will_ be some differences (there are no pagans in Merrie England and no Muslims in Crusaders of the Amber Coast, so some parts of the magic rules are missing from each supplement) but the overall approach to religion, that is a major factor of medieval life, should now be totally consistent, and usable with all rulesets although we are now writing only for BRP.

This all leaves me with one of my original questions - 'Who is BRP actually written for?'

For everyone who appreciates one or more of the setting specific games made with it, and wishes to have a more generalized ruleset that allows him to expand his game: using locations in Cthulhu, or firearms in runequest, or sanity in superworld. BRP is not an alternative to the setting books, it is the building blocks used to make them.

Where can I find this scenario?

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=59276&filters=0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=2555

The electronic edition includes also the maps and cardboard figures to play it.

For the sourcebook: http://www.alephtargames.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&catid=39%3Ahistorical&id=52%3Astupor-mundi&Itemid=59

P.S: it is for MRQ 1, but the differences are not so great.

Why without a board? MRQII works well with miniatures, too. You know how far you can move, and you have several manoeuvers that push oppponents back, so a combat grid is a help, not a hindrance, if you want to use it.

Here is the Celestial Empire.

And here is Merrie Vatican. Simon has added plenty of angels and stuff for this edition.

I explained the old RQ strike ranks system to them and they didn't want to touch it with a 10ft pole.

I think he meant the Chaosium version of Strike Rank.

Here is my experience with MRQ2. I will not report my personal comment, only the results of the two last playtests/demos I ran. Both groups know the base mechanics of CoC rather well but have never played RuneQuest consistently.

Playtest 1 (Aug 31): I ran "The Beast of Gren Dahl Mor" from Tradetalk 1 (1996, and still fun) in a non-Glorantha setting. The players had the creature fall into a pit trap with a successful Disguise vs. Perception opposed test, then two of them jumped into the hole and administered several criticals to the beast before realizing that their weapons were ineffective. Then the magicians hit it with Wrack from outside the pit while the others kept it still.

Result: even a player who has an entry named "I hate RuneQuest" on his blog admitted that the combat options and the manipulative magic were cool.

Playtest 2 (Sep 12): I ran my "Kidnapping in al-Halisa". The player broke into a magician's house by dismantling the lock with Form Iron, and engaged the guy's spirit and undead servants with (True)sword, bow and sorcery. We experimented "over the top" combat when the paladin almost beheaded a spellcasting bad guy, only to suffer a Palsy spell when his opponent made both his Resilience and Persistence roll to continue casting, and the magician Neutralized the control spell on a spirit, only to see the enemy magician recast it with Manipulation Magnitude in order to make it undispellable. After a while they settled the dispute with the magician (once they realized that the tough guy that they had had a hard time downing was in fact the familiar and not the boss) and proceeded to the real target. There they had another exchange of blows with some bandits, using both melee and missile weapons and defeating them. Lastly, they uncovered the bandits' employer and broke into his house, neutralizing a 2m tall guard in unarmed combat.

Result: again, the players liked the Combat Options very much.

OTOH a company like Alephtar games has now started publishing connected books: a GM may start his campaign in England using Merrie England and after a while have his party move on to the continent and use Crusaders of the Amber Coast...

In truth, a part of the advantage of the three "connected" books about medieval Europe has been lost in the transition between three rulesets (MRQI, MRQII, BRP). But we are now fixing this.

Also, I will soon announce a second Rome book. Pete cannot write it because of time restrictions, but we could find a replacement.

So...what we need to do is sweet talk Soltakss into writing: Merrie Scotland, Merrie Wales, Merrie Ireland, Merrie Vatican states and many others ....

What makes you think that he has not done it already?

I think it would be much better for everyone involved to try and produce one ruleset, so that all the Gloranthan material is released for that set, thus eliminating any potential incompatibilies. Plus, the publishers could tweak all the existing materials for this new ruleset and get ready to reap the bonnaza! I suspect it would attract many more people too, seeing a coherent system with many supplements available for it.

It has already been done. This system is called HeroQuest, it is streamlined, and a lot of supplements were published for it. You can judge by yourself if it was a good move or not.

I love Rick's books, but I suspect that owning the RQ2 ruleset makes them all the better. What about people that can't get hold of the original RQ2 ruleset? There are significant differences between RQ2 and RQ3. Don't know about MRQ2, but I guess this is substantially different too.

Honestly, I do not see any real problem in running the old Gloranthan classics with BRP. You have to choose the right mix of options to emulate RQ2, but I do not think it is so difficult.

Besides, using the current, in-print version of BRP has one great, unsurpassable advantage over any RQ2 retro-clone. It allows you to insert into it, seamlessly, the myriad of advanced options that have been developed in the last thirty years. And I stress it: allows, not forces.

Admit it: would you play RQ2 by the rules, now, or would you houserule a lot of stuff? Is it not better to have a usable corpus of customizable rules that can more or less emulate the "beloved system of the seventies", rather than a verbatim copy of it where you have to tweak every other paragraph?

Tah-dah! Pavis & Big Rubble is #1 of small press. Like Rome one year ago. Next step will be Ed Healy calling Rick for RPG Coundown, and everyone knowing that RuneQuest had all these great supplements back in the days.

This "second youth" of BRP sounds exciting. Or is it the third?

The classic PDFs are slowly making their way towards the top of the sales list on DriveThru. Apparently, a lot of people appreciate "Vintage Glorantha" as much as new products.

Can figures be moved around on a virtual map? If so I need to look more into it.

Precisely. Figures like yours are extremely useful when playing with Virtual Tabletops, because you can add them to the game by simply placing a PNG image in the right directory, and voila, you have a new PC or NPC figure. There are several sites, like Four Ugly Monsters or RPG Map Share, that specialize in providing free figures and maps.

They are indeed very useful also for VTTs. Can you arrange a front-rear version?

Cubicle 7 should have just released the press announcement to the distributors. It will be in the shops for Christmas.

Providing Fabian is free to summon Greg, Sandy and Charlie (or Meghan as a replacement for Charlie) as he usually does, yes.

Just invite Fabian, and he'll do the magic

So, we have won this award. And we won by popular vote. So first of all let me

Thank all those who voted for Rome!

You were many, oh so many! Thank you

And BRP is often (er, always) among the first three every time you run a poll about game systems on RPG.net.

So, let us rephrase the usual question.

How popular is BRP?

Apparently, a lot.

MRQII is basically what MRQ1 should have been.

With some notable exceptions, I agree with you.

However they didn't update sorcery.

In fact, Jeff K had already fixed this in Cults of Glorantha 2 by stating that all spell skills were subsumed in one Read (Grimoire) skill. Loz & Pete completed this by unifying the manipulation skills.

Day four was fantastic despite the infection. We ran a game of Prax Wars and it was really, really fantastic. Kudos to the god Gregenert for creating such a fantastic blend of Freeform and wargame elements.

After dinner we celebrated our victory at the Ennies, but Pete was so busy writing for RuneQuest that he missed the party. Too bad for him.

In the night I had a game of Call of Cthulhu set in the woods of Main in 1924. Six players in it. We failed our goals and were slaughtered, while one consisteng portion of Maine was devastated by the Outer Gods. A normal day in Call of Cthulhu.

Day five is the last gaming day. Professor Petersen's freeform lasted all day, and provoked a lot of laughters. Have you ever played Dinosaur Poker?

In the afternoon we could finally meet the heir to the Richard dinasty, and see all the original maps of Glorantha, hand drawn by Greg. An exciting experience.

So, unless I want to play with the Shoggoths and Investigators we painted before, the last remaining event for me is playing 3:16, the only non-d100 game I will play in this con.

The food was really great, and it mixes perfectly with the atmosphere: we are in a nice glade, like in the Hansel and Gretel tale, and they are literally stuffing us with food. And there is also a nice old lady who is now heating a very large oven....

The Broos infected it

So, day 3 ended with a fantastic game of Mythic Iceland: we kicked some troll arses and completed a bloody vendetta, then had to justify our violent actions in front of the Law of Men (the gods were already with us). Cool stuff (well, it is ICEland...). Especially the magic system, which is very fun and requires a lot of creativity.

During the night Malia stroke, and today half of the attendees, who failed their Stamina roll, are sick. Sandy's Dino-freeform is postponed, so the few of us who rolled their CON are working and waiting to play Prax at War. Gianni is completing Tian Xia, and I am working on something secret (ok, I'll tell you, it's RQ in Italian) in the meanwhile.

The food is really exquisite, and can satisfy even the greatest gourmets.

Gold medal for best setting was a SW product by Ken Hite. Impossible to beat in the popular vote But you fans at least got us second in the race!

Today at 20:00 (German time) celebration of victory at Schloss Neuhausen. Join us on Facebook to congratulate and celebrate.

Well, Pathfinder won almost all gold medals (and it deserved most) so I am incredibly happy with this silver medal. We will now celebrate at the Kraken.

Pictures here.

http://basicroleplaying.com/album.php?albumid=42