Baulderstone

If you don't want all the posts related to TDM's game to be split out, perhaps the solution would be to continue to allow TDM's game to be called Runequest so that it still made sense for them to be in a subforum called Runequest. If, however, it has a new name, it only makes sense for it to split out into an appropriately named subforum and take any related posts with it.

Seems to me that the APP advantage is because you are male and find women more attractive. A woman would be more likely to see men as having an APP advantage.

Yeah, he tends to say things like that when he needs attention. There are some interesting points in that confused article, but nothing that hadn't been said better by Robin Laws in Robin's Laws of Good Gamemastering 15 years earlier. Robin Laws also managed to make his points without being a jerk. The key problem with Wick as a GM lies in his question: "How does the story help me tell stories" (Emphasis added). You only need to hear a few of his favorite GMing stories before you see that Wick comes up with a story, then bludgeons his players into playing out the story he wants. The only rules he likes are ones that help him do that. Having rules for things like armor, range and so on allow for emergent things to happen in combat that can effect. Maybe your armor gets damaged during a fight. Do you carry on with your quest or divert to a town to get it repaired or replaced? As a GM, I like stories that arise unexpectedly. To Wick, this is a diversion from the story he is telling. They idea of an RPG setting with moving parts that aren't under his control is an anathema to him. Having equipment with mechanical traits can also help tell stories. Just take a look at the weapon table in RQ6. All the weapons have stat for the era of history they are used in. The setting for my game might be the Ancient World, however there may be one smith capable of making Medieval long swords. That simple fact can spin off a number of stories. Maybe the PCs want to kill him to stop him making swords for their enemies. Maybe the PCs want to recruit him to their side. Maybe he is on their side and they need to protect him. Maybe they want to learn from him, but he insists they reach a level within his crafting cult before he can pass his secrets to them. All that from looking at a table that Wick would smugly cross out with his sharpie for not helping him tell the story railroad he built. Now, having defended traditional games, I thoroughly enjoy HeroQuest and Hillfolk. They scratch an entirely different itch. The fact that I like a wide spectrum of games means I have no patience for people that want to turn my hobby into a smug ideological battleground. I need to add, I get why Mankcam linked to it. It is valuable to look at your rules and ask how they support your game. It's a good message. It's just that Wick takes a basically good message and twists it around to attack D&D, which while not my favorite, is a perfectly good RPG.

That's where my tastes tend to lie. I'm certainly up for playing something with a more DC/Marvel feel, but when I run something, I like to explore what effect these powers have on a setting. Alan Moore's works were what drew me into comics, so I am a bit biased.

I agree. About the only thing you need to be sure you translate precisely is the way for determining Initiative, as you can't mix and match those. That's really easy to on the fly though.

You'd certainly need to use something along the lines of HeroQuest if you wanted a Supers game that captured the feel of a comic-book. Interactions between characters in comics tend to be far more driven by narrative concerns than by attempts to simulate "realistic" interactions of their powers. Revolution D100 might be a good choice as well for that genre. Of course, not all Super games are actually going for the comic feel. Sometime you want to run a game exploring what a world would really be like with these kind of powers in it. Godlike is a game where your character might be able to toss tanks around, but still be taken down by a single bullet to the head. More traditional D100 sets might be ale to do this if an appropriate way to handle scaling is included.

I don't really find that an issue. Even when I running a game using resources from a single game, I still need to make up character stats on the fly sometimes. For example, the players may unexpectedly decide to buy something, and I need to adjudicate some haggling with a merchant that didn't exist until a minute ago. I just fill in a number that feels appropriate. When using a character from another D100 game, it's the same process, but I only occasionally need to pull a number out of the air. It's worth noting that even for NPCs that I have prepared before a session, I rarely go through the full character generation process. I just jot down some numbers for the characteristics and skills that are likely to come up based on their role in the adventure and my conception of the character. If I need to improvise a number during play, I write that in as I go.

I just ordered a hardcopy of Crucible of the Dragons this weekend, and have been looking through the PDF while I wait for it to show up. It's good enough that I am having a hard time not picking up the rest of your OpenQuest supplements right away. It manages to both be something that can be dropped into any classical-era campaign with ease, while also being usable as a solid place to stage an entire campaign. I'm very glad to hear that you will be putting out more.

I remember when this story broke, and I have to admit that I don't see why some people think it is a special kind of evil for them to sue day care centers. They are businesses that charge parents a lot of money. Yeah, they are providing a service to children, but grocery stores sell baby food, clothing stores sell kids clothes, and construction companies make houses that kids live in. Nobody would balk at the idea of suing them.

You have your gaming history backwards here. ArM is a product of the '80s, around the time that AD&D 2nd came out. It was more than a decade before D&D 3e began using the d20+StatMod+Skill method. In fact, ArM was co-designed by Jonathan Tweet, who went on to be lead designer on D&D 3e. What you are citing here is a case of ArM influencing D&D, not the other way around.

This is what intrigues me about the system. While I haven't had any chances to roleplay in the last two months, it looks like the system can be as narrative or simulationist as you need on a scene-by-scene basis. I like both styles of play, and am often torn on what system to use for a campaign. Being able to go with a system that allows me make the decisions as needed once play begins would be wonderful.

If we are casting that wide a net, I would throw Reign in there as well. It's core mechanic is very different, but I felt a lot of philosophical similarities to RuneQuest. It's schools of magic are very tied to either societies or philosophies within the world, rather than just being bags of PC power. Both the schools of magic and the company rules encourage PCs that have a place within the world rather than being vagabonds. Mechanically, it does have hit locations as well. I've never heard anyone else mention it, but the game had a real RuneQuest vibe for me when I read it.

It's a very different situation though. When the D20 license was created, WotC was the sole company making games for the system. There was a clear company is a position to extend the rights to use the system and logo. With D100 games, we have already have passed that point. No company is in a place to create a logo and make others use it. There is also the issue of quality control. One reason the D20 OGL was seen negatively was that it allowed a lot of terrible product to come out under the logo. When a logo is an indication that there is a good chance the product is garbage, it diminishes the logo's value. Getting all the d100 companies to come together and agree on a logo and the rules for using it would be difficult. For the logo to have any value, it would need to have restrictions on its use. That would mean companies coming on board would be giving up some power of their creation. That seems overly negative to me. The split into alternate rule systems was underway by the time Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer were released in 1981. Yet, here is BRP, still existing all these years later. That's my experience. Out in the general RPG community, I hear people put of RQ by the continual edition changes, but I don't hear anyone out in the general community complaining about RQ differing from CoC. I'm a little puzzled that some people are pointing at GURPS as a model. How many GURPS products were even printed in 2015? How many are on the schedule for next year? Haven't they dwindled down to a PDF only model? The D100 scene feels a lot healthier to me.

Knowing that it's the kind of setting that meshes well with Enlightened Magic increases my interest. I'm certainly going to pick this up when the new version comes out.

I think they have announced that it will be a POD product, so hard copies should be available indefinitely. I realize it might be awhile until they have that set up, but for now, you can still get new copies easily from Amazon. I expect the POD version will be ready before available copies dry up completely. In any case, if there were to be a sudden rush on remaining copies, it would probably encourage Chaosium to bump up the priority of making Magic World POD.

Sounds like an interesting setting and a worthwhile project. It's just a shame you won't be able to share it outside your gaming group.

I'm not sure if I am actually disagreeing with you, or simply using terminology differently, but I am glad to have multiple brands, by which I mean companies or game titles. While Chaosium has created a rich variety of products over the years, I don't think BRP games could have ever reached their full potential without spilling out to other companies. To give a concrete example, When Pagan Publishing began putting out The Unspeakable Oath in the '90s, it added a particular new flavor to Call of Cthulhu that I don't think we would ever gotten from Chaosium. That is by no means a slam on Chaosium, as they were on an absolute roll in the early '90s. I still regularly wake up in tears at the fact that I lent out my Kingsport book and never got it back. But having both Chaosium and Pagan Publishing brands of CoC was an absolute delight to me at a time when it was about the only game I running. To some degree, I think having more brands out there also gives more chance to draw people in to the BRP ecosystem. I think more people are drawn to a particular title than they are to system, at least initially. Hainv both Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green out there provides two inroads to BRP, and once someone is in the door, they are going to look sideways at was else the system has to offer. I think the only issue is when a specific brand, like Runequest gets spread too thin over too many editions too fast. We are going to have four editions RuneQuest in ten years, which to the casual consumer, is a huge turn-off, even if it is, in actuality, fairly easy to use books between at least those first three editions. It erodes confidence that you can buy that corebook without getting hit up for a new on in only two and half years. A new edition was the absolute last thing RuneQuest needed to improve its image in the larger gaming community. Now, I know that it isn't like the way WotC has a policy of completely redesigning their game regularly so they can sell core books over again. Everyone working on the new edition of RuneQuest are true fans putting together their vision of what it best for the game, as was the case for RQ6. It's just a problem of perception for people that aren't already part of the scene. But getting back to my main point, I think the more recognizable brands using BRP, like CoC, Delta Green, RuneQuest, etc.. the easier it is to pull people into the system. Nobody will ever hesitate to buy RuneQuest because it used a system very similar to CoC, but with some differences. But once somebody is playing CoC, they will be more likely to give RuneQuest a look and vice-versa.

Thanks for sharing that and making it available to others to use. Out of curiosity, why does Legend lead into OpenQuest 2? Does OpenQuest 2 use parts of Legend, and if so, what parts? I'm not questioning your accuracy, as I simply don't know. I've bought a PDF of OpenQuest, but I have only used it to reference specific bits and pieces. I haven't read it cover-to-cover yet (Which might not be a bad use of a long weekend ). It's interesting how BRP and Runequest seem to have so little cross-fertilization. The only mentioned game that draws from both is GORE, and as I understand, it has seen little use due to the MRQ OGL. I'm actually surprised to see GORE came out a year later. In my imagined history, I thought GORE has a little time to itself before MRQ came along.

Happy New Year! This promises to be an exciting one on the BRP front. Just thinking of core books alone, there is the new Delta Green, new Runequest, and Revolution D100 on the way. And TDM has their new core book out, although it will be a familiar game in a new package rather than a new ruleset. Basic Fantasy will be a supplement for TDM's game, but it will likely feel almost like a new game in the family as well. Lots of opportunities to bring new players on board the system.

They talked about doing that, but never seemed to get around to it what with all the professional books they have put out for actual sale. Some of the material did make it into Luther Arkwright though. They both have the same basic vehicle combat system as an example, although the one in [Supplement Withdrawn], or [SW] for short, has some small extra tweaks for dogfights. That's my feeling both as a player and as a GM. It makes it a lot easier to actually go where no one has gone before on your five year mission. In sci-fi games, I usually let players make up their own alien species for their character. Like Spock in Star Trek or Chewbacca in Star Wars, they set the template for that species and any NPCs I add riff off of that. They can make something new, or just make a Not Vulcan. Whatever is fun for them. The appeal would be in having an interesting crew with differing viewpoints all working together to explore the universe and solve problems. Farscape is another show where the appeal is in the situation as much as the specific setting. If I were to do a Farscape game, I wouldn't worry about modelling all the specific races on the show, as much as letting each player come up with their own character with a dangerous background that has reason to be sent to space prison, put them all on a ship and let them run. Having a limited list of aliens from the show for the character to pick from seems like missing the point if you really want to replicate the feel of the show.

If you ever Kickstart this, you can consider my pledge a foregone conclusion. I'm pretty sure you could unload a copy of this on Kenneth Hite without to much effort as well.

Out of curiosity, what is the old dead game? As to go with MW or GORE, I guess it depends on your intentions. If you actually want to make money off it one day, then GORE would be best. If you just want to share it for free, I'm guessing there would be more people happy with a MW conversion.

It is a good question. Tooley has made an abundance of Magic World material, and they are fine what that, but I don't know if any of that actually deals with the Southern Reaches. Fan rules for systems and fan rules for settings can differ.

The best sheet I have found is this one by Chris Harvey. It does all the calculations as you make your character. If you look under the Luck Point box, you will see a Difficulty drop down menu. You can set the difficulty rating there and all the skill values are adjusted for a check of that level. It's very convenient.

My apologies to skoll then, and thanks for all content you add to it.