RosenMcStern

One vote in favour of Rod's proposal! :thumb:

Doing it quick, playable and for several genres is the way to go. A solo adventure would be ideal for a "flier", a multiplayer one for a convention quickstart.

I like your draft, but it has a problem - it is a textbook example of what is

called a "Bleiwüste" ("lead desert") over here, a very long text without any

space (e.g. illustrations, etc.) for the eyes to recover from reading.

The real problem here is that the reader has no reason to actually read all that stuff. If the exact same information was changed into an exciting, interesting story introducing character creation and mechanisms one step at a time, it would work better. Think of the tutorials of PC games, like Oblivion, that are integrated into the story.

Very few to add to what Loz said. But there _is_ one detail.

At least one setting should be available at the conventions to play, and to purchase. Better if at least two. So we go back to the original question: what setting?

Gentlemen, thanks to Avalanche Press, this thread is bordering the territory of NSFW.

Try http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/supplements-monographs/1523-aces-high-weird-wild-west-supplement-brp-system.html

It is western, and it is BRP.

I still don't see this as necessary. Many people like this part of GURPS. Others don't. BRP does not have this mechanics, and most people like it this way. It's a feature, not a fault.

Which does not mean that you cannot write the list and put it on the wiki, of course.

It should be more correctly labeled as "35D" rather than "D20" system, given the "attributes" displayed by the priestess in the cover art.

Yeah, a decent hero point style mechanic can do a lot to mitigate this problem. The Fate Point system is just too conservative to be up for the job.

Don't say that if you have not really tried Fate Points intensively. They may seem weird but they do their job, in a setting that does not use powers a lot. BRP Mecha will use Fate a lot, and the base mechanics will be a slight variation of the core BRP mechanics.

Lots of things in the current version of BRP work better than they look. I discovered this fact while designing giant robots. You will see.

Characteristic point within racial average: 5 points

Characteristic point above racial average: 10 points

Professional skill point within 75%: 1 point

Professional skill point above 75%: 2 points

Free skill point: 2 points

Super power: 10 points per power point (racial abilities must be "bought")

Magic spell: bought as skill

Sorcery spell: 10 pts. per level

Psionic power: bought as skill

Should be enough. An average character is about 800 points.

The best combination to play is, IMO:

Rules: do not fiddle with RQ2/RQ3 mish-mashes and just use straight BRP. It is RQ3 with some improvements, and it contains RQ2 Defense as an option.

Spirit Magic: you will not find a satisfactory ruleset anywhere in any published setting, except MRQ Cults of Glorantha 2, but this has some well-known editorial issues. Basically, do-it-yourself or us Sandy's shamanism if you can get hold of a copy. Or, better, wait for MRQ2 and use its spirit magic.

Theist magic: use the cult writeups from RQ3 River of Cradles and Elder Secrets, and you are ok. Those are long cult writeups, not abstracts.

Malkioni Magic: use Sandy's Sorcery, and you will avoid all the issues that plague RQ3 sorcery. Besides, it is well suited for Glorantha. MRQ sorcery is good, too, but it has bugs.

Well, the world of Outpost 19 is Niven-esque (and Herbert-esque, somehow) and very good, but if the author himself is not so sure, or is waiting from a nod from Chaosium (and Charlie is really busy these days, so do not hold your breath), then we need a plan B.

If I were to propose something in this brainstorming phase, according to my tastes, it would certainly be John Varley's Eight Worlds (a future history that runs very different from Hinleins's one). It was considered the most promising SF saga in the '80s, lots of prizes won. Maybe not today's piece of cake, but it would make a superb RPG.

Rod, you are right in saying that Chaosium showed some long-term commitment to the MM licenses. I think Moorcock's resentment towards Chaosium was misplaced. But, unfortunately, this is how things go.

However, onw may still prefer SB over EoM (and since the latter was written by Loz, I see no great reason to dislike it), but Mongoose has plans for the EC line that will not last for just a few months. I doubt the thing will die out so soon.

Alephtar Games seems to concentrate on (and get a good reputation for) historical settings

This will change soon.

Pity it's for that daft HQ system, too.)

Whether you like HQ2 is your opinion. But the amount of text in Sartar that has a direct relationship with the HQ rules (and should therefore be ignored/changed) to play it with BRP/RQ/BoL/SW/youNameIt is not more than 10%. I suppose your could find the remaining 90% useful.

And anyway, why couldn't RoH span a third system - BRP?

Conversion from OQ to BRP is semi-automatic. I do not think different editions are needed. In any case, we are looking for a "Flagship" sci-fi product for BRP, not for "Yet-another-version-of-a-good-setting-that-spans-several-systems".

My personal vote is for expanding Outpost 19. But who publishes it? Chaosium directly? Alephtar Games? The Unborn Collective?

And I seem to remember that John Ossoway (Rising / Jovian Nightmares)

plans to move over to OpenQuest instead of BRP, but this could also be

a misunderstanding of mine.

No, it was no misunderstanding. Newt stated this fact, so it is an official d101 statement.

Outpost 19 could be evolved into a very good setting.

Please understand him, Pete. Having your players hide in the restroom hoping for you to just give up rolling any damage at all can be frustrating.

Plus, the recent discussion on the Mongoose forum showed that there is a rule interpretation that could actually solve frogspawner's problem. Just roll the attack, the damage and the location together, and then decide which manoeuver(s) you wish to apply. After the first beheading or two, you will notice that players will no longer go to the loo when an attack against them is being rolled

Loz/Pete seem to have done good things with combat manoeuvres and the various types of magic, though.

You now have four types of magic, and the combat rules are great! You may still find BRP a better fit for your personal taste, but this ruleset is very good.

But then, even the HeroWars/Quest "3rd Age" stuff isn't proper Glorantha anymore, either... ;-(

Buy Sartar: Kingdom of Heroes. It is absolutely true to the RQ2/3 spirit of Glorantha - lots of cultural details, but nothing so overwhelming as to be unplayable. And it is almost systemless, so you can use it with RuneQuest.

After all, precisely the point is NOT to try and create something that will truly cover the entire genre - it's futile task and deeply unlikely to sell. What I'm talking about is crafting a "non-specific" SF setting that captures the "centre field" feel of SF that would appeal to most gamers, in the same way that Classic Fantasy has for Fantasy Gaming...

I do not think it would work for SF. Classic Fantasy has success because it is retrogaming, and it smells like D&D. What would this "classic sci-fi" smell like? Is there a product that has had the same success as D&D in the Sci-fi genre? Traveller? GW?

Are the creatures in the monograph any different than the ones in the BRP book? It looks like they are the same.

There are many more, but only fantasy beasties. You also get missile location tables for all, for those who love details.

One solitary copy of BRP high, high up and basically lost amongst it all. Even with a copy-or-three of Classic Fantasy next to it, BRP would still not have any significant 'presence'.

Throw in a copy or two of "Rome" with its superb cover, add also a copy of Dragon Lines, garnish with Trollslayer, stir, bake in the oven and it is served

By the way, Dario has reworked the Dragon Lines cover with a new background, and it is now even better. It _will_ make some people look at the games.

We should probably make allowances for him, considering people buying books is what allows him to eat.

If I had to survive upon what Alephtar Games produces now, I would have solved all my dieting problems

Would Uncounted Worlds also be a suitable place for such things? After all, it is freely available from the Chaosium site, and may reach a bigger, or at least different, audience. (Mr Middleton?)

Both Uncounted and monographs have one problem: they do not reach the people who buy from FLGS. Those who buy Uncounted Worlds from Lulu can also get their info from our wiki, FWIW. My appreciation for the Classic Fantasy solution is due also to the fact that it will be in the shops soon!

I still think some BRP genre primers (discussed earlier) could address some of these issues. They should be available for free.

Absolutely. The problem is that "for free" means also "not in the stores". Which means that most gamers that would need them will not get them. The "Classic Fantasy" way would be better, as it attracted enough attention to be upgraded to a full supplement status.

Also, we should keep track of these confusing issues as people present them, if only to have all these FAQ's addressed somewhere in the same place rather than looking through threads. I suppose this is what the wiki is for. More of these are bound to crop up.

Superb idea. Chief Beetle Breeder, are you around? This one is for you

I think Redstone here wanted basically to run a Fantasy game. In this case, Classic Fantasy is the correct solution, as it is more focused and easier to understand. However, it still requires the core book to play. Basically, it is Chaosium's choice if they wish to go back to their old approach of settings as standalone games, or they will go the GURPS way and require the purchase of the core book when you want to use a setting (note that you can still use the lite version). Us poor third parties do not have this choice because we cannot make standalone games with BRP. But honestly, I would not do this even if allowed. Having people get the big book will make them wish to try BRP for different genres, and ultimately improve sales of supplements.

I would very much prefer this approach, too, but in my view it would not sol-

ve the "newcomer confusion problem", because it could tend to create a se-

ries of (at least seemingly) incompatible BRP variants ("Fantasy BRP", "Scien-

ce Fiction BRP", "Pulp BRP" ...) with different rules (sub-) sets.

Erm, it is the situation that has been in effect so far: RQ not totally compatible with CoC which was not compatible with SB, which etc. etc. And people were perfectly happy to play CoC, SB, RQ, ElfQuest etc. The point that was missing was the core book with the "cover-all-genres" ruleset, like GURPS.

Not only are you telling him he needs another book, but its a book from another system and you will have to fudge some of the rules.

There is one point you should understand, though. It is absolutely impossible to put a complete bestiary in a generic RPG core book. A 80-page Fantasy Bestiary is worthless if you wish to use BRP to play sci-fi, and the Cthulhu Mythos are hardly useful if you are playing pulp. So it is perfectly understandable that you need an extra book of opponents for your setting. This is not true for Classic Fantasy, which is - ahem - Fantasy.

As for my third issue, once again you need to look at it from the perspective of someone who is fairly new to rpgs. When I created my first character, and I was looking at the starting percentage being capped at 75% (if I am remembering that correctly) I incorporated the base weapon chance into that 75. Now if pick up a similair weapon that has a better base do I ignore the points over 75?

There is an unwritten rule that all of us veterans do not need to read any longer, but that is not evident to one who has not played BRP yet. This rule is very simple: once character generation is over and game play begins, no limits are in effect any longer. This is not true in D&D for instance, as the profession (class) you chose can limit your options in play, not just at character generation time. Maybe this should be clarified in the rules. Thanks for pointing this out, it could be a good addition to a future release.

The rules should clearly state how to handle this, and then give optional rules.

Jason should have given all weapons in the same broad class the same base % to avoid confusion, and given the different percentile as an option. But again, I see this as hardly relevant. In a game, you should spend 1 hour to create your character and 50+ hours on average to play it. So the confusion affects only 2% of your game time. Decide he is something% in his skill, and use that figure from that point on. If you later discover it was not the correct one, don't bother changing it. It's not D&D, where your skill is determined by class and levels of proficiency/training you get in it. Here your skill is exactly what is written on your character sheet. Just don't bother t o"do it right", and your game will be more enjoyable.

As for rust's suggestion, I am not very in favour of straying from the path traced with the current edition. I would rather see genre-specific books that re-trace character generation using only the options that are more appropriate to that genre/setting. Classic Fantasy could be a good example. The generic ruleset should contain all the options, as there is no way to determine an "optimal minimal subset" that fits all genres.