HierophantX

Sweet!  Is there an estimated delivery date?  Can you give us some teasers?

Well really what I want to know is how much "meanwhile, back on the continent" do you have?  Anything about the push factors and other tribes?  

I'm in East Northamptonshire (Kettering)

Having recently done a detail related to my job involving data recovery, my view...

Depending on the method of transfer, if the person entering the data knows the source language they should suffer negative effects.  If not it's just character groups.  Mitigation for the worldview of the individual.  Debunkers think it's all bs but when they SEE a Deep One then maybe a cumulative omg is in order.  

Seems absurdly charming.  A place like Oundle can really turn an American's head.  If all goes well tomorrow I may be living in the former rectory of a 15th Century church by the end of the month.

Just got to England.  I'll be living somewhere between Huntingdon, Peterborough and Kettering.  Anyone in the vicinity?

I really liked the book.  Detailed nationalities.  Lots of great background material to work with.  Bravo.

Touché.

I have been thinking of setting something in the Volkerwanderung period... How much info is there for "off island"?

So do you gentlemen suppose this might be a fair supplement to upon which to build a Temeraire setting?

Or has anyone begun such a project?

Some things you're just going to have to "let go" of, and finding a way to port over damage is one of those things. Shek-Pvar work as a Cult or more specifically as a system of Sorcerous Brotherhoods with mutual understanding. Runes even have several Pvaric connotations, though some don't fit exactly.

And then there's the problem of cultural differences. As a Viking, I might just geld my noble captive and sell him into slavery, unless that monk that I just gelded and am about to sell into slavery can quickly explain this whole ransom thing. Because, you know, if I get the idea that kidnapping nobles can net me huge ransom profits then I might be inclined to arrange a parlay so I can "negotiate a peace" with these sheep-men. It would be much easier to extort ransom from a larger number of these fools if I can first arrange for them to be gathered together... preferably in a large church with lots of glitter about...

I use bits of Cthulhu Dark Ages, Val du Loup, Merrie England and Crusaders of the Amber Coast along with the House generation rules and elements from the Green Ronin game.

Maesters are basically Scholars and to forge a link in a discipline they have to be at least 40% proficient. At that point they face what we in the Navy referred to as a "murder board" and get drilled by 3 of their better. Once they are posted to a house or whatever, they can gain further links through what amounts to correspondence. Essentially presenting essays on a topic and circulating them among certain senior Maesters until they get recognition from 3. I'm kinda cribbing that from the books and from Harn.

So, I'm thinking of doing either a one-shot or sort series set in the Aubrey/Maturin or Sharpe settings . But I wonder about a way to represent in-game the advantage of superior training. It's not enough that a Redcoat would have a higher Musketry skill, or the crew of the Melpomene should have a higher gunnery rating than the Naiad. How might one reflect the impact on rate of fire that superior drill and training have on black powder combats? Has anyone considered this previously?

Maybe i'm over-thinking and this really only applies to a mass-combat situation, but it is on my mind.

For game purposes it's your pWorld, so do what you want. Personally, I find it incongruous that people can make the Elder Sign like making the horns or crossing their fingers and it's also the same symbol that can be carved. If it were something that came up, I would consider the likelihood that there were many forms of Elder Sign but unless it's something involved in a spell with the words craft, elder and sign in it, or something carved into something that the words eldritch or cyclopean could describe, it's about as effective as giving the finger to an oncoming shoggoth.

If that guy got a percentage off of all of the books on my shelves with his name on them, I may well have paid his rent or mortgage one month. Lynn Willis is likely responsible for about 35% of what I was thinking about in the late 80's and early 90's. Considering that the rest of what I was thinking about was female, bravo him!

I'm rather interested in the chapters on character creation and professions, though I didn't see them in the downloads section...

Your method looks sound to me. I also ported Harn over to MRQ and BRP. I toyed with connecting certain Runes to Convocations, which actually worked quite well and was close enough for government work. I probably wouldn't bother so hard if I had it to do over though.

Scaphism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is my favorite ... well maybe that's not the right word, but it's frakking horrible and attested to in historical sources.

And after a few days, in a Medieval setting, it is probably irreversible, just slow death from infection and gangrene while being eaten alive by insect larvae. The other character who swore to stand by him would really have to stand by him because any interference would actually prolong the agony because no medical treatment would save the suicide, just prolong the suffering. Lots of room for dramatic roleplaying

I like it. It seemed like "too much" somehow just to completely port over the Pendragon system. This has enough meat to it but isn't too cumbersome. I like to think of it as a method of holding characters accountable for their actions without the manichaeanism of a Dark Side Point or something. And, a character having a famous characteristic starts to develop a reputation. A high "Just" score helps establish the character's reputation for fair-mindedness and influences how NPC's treat him and his companions. Peasants less likely to revolt against a fair lord, invitations to intervene in the disputes of others. World-spanning religions and great empires have been built on such things.

Did you start reading before or after you watched the movies? All of which (including Colonel Wolodyjowski from 1969, which is a great film), are available via Netflix.

There are several relevant Osprey publications you might check out:

Osprey Publishing - Unexpected Error This link isn't working, but the title is "Polish Armies 1569-1696"

Osprey Publishing - Polish Winged Hussar 1576

If you go to the Osprey website there are several worthwhile titles in the "16th Century" section. The Armies of Ivan the Terrible would also be useful, as well as anything about Sweden, Pike & Shot tactics, Ottoman Fortifications, anything about 16th Century Ottomans or the Wars of Religion would all be good. I would check your local library as well. Your loc says Minneapolis, I would not be surprised if the quality libraries in the Twin Cities metro area carried many Osprey publications. Granted Osprey stuff isn't exactly RPG-focused, but it's probably the best that you'll find for gear details and gives some history and the important battles.

Bear in mind that the wars between Sweden and Russia also take place in this backdrop so they would also be useful as well as anything about the 80-Years War or 30-Years War because mercenaries in those conflicts got around Europe (as you would know from watching the film 1612 which I just finished watching 2 days ago, granted it's Russian propaganda, but the film looks good and it's a great on-screen example of period costumes and warfare).

I was also thinking heavily about this period and looking for "The Trilogy" in English. Keep us updated.

I guess my question wasn't clear... I meant to ask what experiences people have had with using this system?

So, while pillaging my old Pendragon books for tidbits to use in an upcoming medieval campaign, I got to thinking all wistfully about Traits and Passions. I think I'm going to dump them into the mix. I kinda like 'em. Ultimately I may just run a KAP campaign for my son and a couple friends but has anyone else used this aspect of Pendragon with BRP?

Of course there's also the temptation to develop some sort of system that accounts for regional cultural differences, like in KAP, but that's probably too much to work on.

So the upshot is that there is one generic Status that affects wealth and general economic class and then there are several possible relationships you can have with different groups as "status." The problem is that it doesn't seem like you can realistically increase your generic status, only your social statuses...

Well, Paolo's got it. Iwanted to emulate the CotAC status system but my setting might be too complicated.

Factions:

Savinac Order/Furness Abbey

Cistercian Order

Augustinian Order

Archbishop of York

Archbishop of Nidaros

Kingdom of Scotland

The Isles (which has a modified status in Scotland, Ireland, Norway)

Angevin Kingdom

And those are just the baseline. Once, er, I mean if, the characters fail in their scheme, then they're off on Crusade II and they get a whole new setof factions.

What's the best way to deal with this?

So Simon, you're saying that there's Status-Wealth and that's just generic wealth lvl and should be maintained as a separate skill from Status(culture/faction)? Presumably then wealth lvl should have a basic modifier towards your social status in every context (I don't know who that foreign savage is, but he's wearing good armor and rich garb...)?

It really gets complicated when your setting includes many factions or nationalities where Status is relevent.

Here are some setting details to illustrate the problem...

Setting AD 1140, Coastal Cumbria.

2 of the characters in the story are exiled Gall-Gaels of good family whose Grandfather was granted Tarbert Castle in Kintyre by Magnus Bare-Leg King of Norway (and the Isles). 10 years ago, Scots raiders out of Knapdale in their contempt for the laws of hospitality, treacherously gained admission to the fort and you know the rest. The family priest, also an uncle, got the boys out and took them to his home Abbey, Furness, where the boys are raised and educated.

When the story begins, basically the boys have the following Status-relationships:

Furness Abbey/Savinac Order - Where they have spent the past 10 years and an organization that has a plan for them.

Gall-Gael(Culture) - Their native culture of the Isles, their standing among "their" people.

Norse(Culture) - As Gall-Gaels they are sort of country cousins to their Norwegian kin. Default modified -5 or -10 from Gall-Gael Status

Presumably their Status in England (Furness is IN England after all) would be modified by their relationship with the Abbey

So when they are blowing 50 points or so on Status in chargen, to where do these status points acrue?

It's my game so I can tweak the rules as I like, but I'm trying to understand the intent of the rules as written.

Is this Status just meant to represent social class? But in which society? How do they generate the awards necessary to enhance their social class when it seems (as illustrated in CotAC, for ex), that you get the rewards for doing things that advance the interests of the organization. It almost seems like Status could function abstractly like Glory in Pendragon, for instance, but it doesn't really work because of how you have to spend points on it and how difficult it is to advance. If a character gets knighted, on the battlefield, for example, even if he isn't granted land, that could be more than a 20 point bump in Status as it's written. But it isn't clear how a character would get their "generic" status increased to the level where a knighthood would be appropriate, whereas, it's totally clear that a character could increase their status with "England" by having a good reputation word of which would get to the powers that be and eventually a land grant or the right to bid on a royal office might someday matriculate to the character.

Before I make official my own interpretation of this system, I just want to understand what the original rule meant.