Thalaba

Maybe an all-dwarf adventure - if only to see what kind of bloodbath Triff turns that into.

I picked 'other' because what I'd most like to see are some adventures for Rome, which isn't a monograph. Yes, I know that Veni Vidi Vici is available, but sadly only in PDF format which I know I'll never read (I already have a lot of pdf's I bought and have never read - and probably never will). As an aside, if I was going to submit an adventure, I would probably prefer to use my own material than riff off someone else's setting. I think I would have this nagging fear of not quite getting their setting right. But maybe that's just silly.

Sketchup - 3D modelling software available free from Google - mainly used for houses and buildings, but people have been making spaceships and all kinds of things with it. I'm sure you could make a 3D star map. Looks like someone already made one or more for Star Wars: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=50200eb42761bfeba285502e52d80ccd&prevstart=0 For sure you will find ship models for both star wars and trek. Just search the 3D warehouse!

Why - are you dissatisfied with your home setting, or finding it too much work?

Hmmm. I would have preferred a genre specific competition. I felt the previous two were maybe too wide ranging. When they say that all entries 'become the property of Chaosium', does that mean they they get the copyright over concepts/names/creatures etc that you introduce - or does the author retain those? For monographs, the author retains the copyright. Anyway, thanks for the heads up.

That's pretty much how we play it. 'Closing' is a combat action that someone can chose to do. If someone does choose to close with you, you can prevent this by putting your weapon in the way (a defensive action, but resolved like an attack) or stepping backward. If you chose to put the weapon in the way, treat it as an attack. If this attack fails, or if the closer parries or dodges, they have close with you. Thus, the act of prevening an attack is considered a defense action, even though it is resolved like an attack.

Only human skin will do. Preferably with a single finger sewn to the top of the spine to turn the pages and hold your place when you put the book down.

Well, I was thinikng more about 'do you grab the arm with the axe or the one with the dagger'. Obviously if the assailant only has one weapon that's the one you'd grab, but the guy could still punch you with the other. BRP has rules for if the guy has an axe - his weapon is longer, so you have to use the Closing Rules to close with him first - i.e. you must dodge past his attack to get in close, or back him against a wall. Mind you, I'm often confusing which rules are from RQ and which are from BRP, but I'm sure BRP has closing rules. The second part of the post was more in consideration of when you play without hit locations, then there's nothing to specifically address which part of the body you grab. So if you grab someone armed with an axe and a dagger, there's an assumption you immobilized both.

RQ3 uses hit locations - so when you grapple someone, you only grapple that hit location. The danger of grappling an armed man is he can still attack you with his other arm, or leg, or whatever. Trouble is when you remove hit locations from the equation, it's harder to model this. (brainstorming) You could rule that someone who is grappled can try to break free by using their STR, DEX, or Grapple (chance = to special) on the reistance table. Perhaps either party can chose the stat they are best at. On a success, the grappled person can either break free or attempt an appropriate close attack instead.

If you want lists of plants and herbal effects, look no further than Culpepper's Herbal - a medieval (I think) treatise on the subject that sees broad circulations today. Free reference copy here: http://www.bibliomania.com/2/1/66/113/frameset.html You'd have to apply the mechanics of the effects yourself, of course, but this book's got all the fluff you'll need, I think.

Cool! I look forward to seeing it, then. Mine's probably about three years old and continues to grow every week as the players explore new places I never thought they would go and ask questions I never thought they would ask. This is a really interesting point (and good examples). Are you advocating for lists of random events to be included with published settings? That never occured to me before, but it sounds like a great idea. I can't think of any published settings that I've seen that have this, but I really like it.

That's a long time! So has the campaign world changed much over all that time as you've changed, or would you say it has stayed the same? Was your taste different when you started? The political aspect (at least on the level of a kingdom) is something I've never really done. It seems to me like a unique challenge, and something I struggle with a bit. I find that the players sometimes come into a foreign land on a quest and often the first thing they want to so is have an audience with the local king to elicit his help. I struggle with this because I think it would be unrealistic. Getting that audience ought to take a lot of politicking, and getting the requested help even more. Got any advice for a noob on how to run politics? Your religion set-up reminds me of the one in Artesia. Do you get clashes between old and new religions? I like to make sure the creatures we have are new and interesting, too. Sure, we face a few old standards, but I either put them into a place where they are totally in context or I give them a twist to make them fit the context.

That setting sounds quite interesting. Simulationist would be a good word for me, too I guess. It's probably what draws a lot of us to BRP. Hmm - this is an issue of semantics, maybe. You say you're settings are "never 'true' fantasy with all the flash bang magic etc." but I reject the notion that those things define 'true fantasy'. I'll grant that they're a very popular form of fantasy, but I think there's room for a lot of different kinds of fantasy. And yes, Harn - I'd forgotten about that one. I really like that one, too. I'll subscribe to your newsletter. Reign and Warhammer Fantasy are two more I like - and that despite the fact that Warhammer bends or breaks at least three of my 'rules'. I'm not really familiar with BOL. When it first came out it was pdf only so I ignored it. For some reason I'm under the impression that the BOL game world is only very lightly described. Would you say it's evocative? That reminds me of another setting which IS lightly described, but very atmospheric - The Dictionary of Mu - which I enjoyed. That's a pretty good effort at describing realism. Regarding this latter point about 'unforseen events', is this not rather a function of GM style (being willing to let the dice fall how they may) rather than a function of setting? Although granted the GM's style would have a lot to do with how much players enjoy the setting. I guess it's a question of 'interpreatation' of the setting, rather than 'presentation' of the setting. So, other than that, pretty much anything goes?

No purpose behind this thread except curiosity and to generate some discussion. My own taste (currently) steers away from 'traditional' fantasy as it usually seems to be defined. I like to explore the fringes. Some settings I've enjoyed that were a little more off the graph were the setting for Mechanical Dream and Tekumel. Similarly, I like fantasy settings that are not technologically 'medieval'. This is one of the reasons why the original Runequest has always appealed to me. I also like Jorune. Thirdly, I like my settings to feel real. This is a hard one to describe - probably what feels 'real' varies from one person to another. For me, this means that the setting must have a plausible rationale behind it, must be internally consistent, and must be fairly detailed. Published settings that feel 'real' to me include The Known World of Artesia and Middle Earth. There are a lot of things about Glorantha that I really admire, but somehow it's always fallen a little short for me on feeling 'real' - I'm not sure why, maybe the names, but there's something. I do find that settings which are 'historically informed' feel more 'real' to me. Next, I find that I like settings that are serious. Comedic settings don't do much for me. I don't like settings much which focus on good and evil or similar extremes (although Lord of the Rings would be an exception, I suppose). I prefer if the people in the setting are all kinds of shades of grey. I don't think "because he's evil" should ever be someone's motivation. For me, how 'good' and 'evil' are defined should vary a lot from one culture to the next, from one person to the next, and from one day to the next. Lastly, I like to explore 'adult themes' (for lack of a better word). I don't want the setting to shy away from horrors, sex, betrayal, sacrifice, culture shock, etc. I want all that stuff in there. My group is currently playing in my homebrew setting, which captures most of this: 1. It draws on Middle Eastern and Indian myths and history for inspiration. 2. It's technologically late Bronze Age and tries to be historically correct in this regard (although some fudging happens). 3. We have to usual fantasy races - only humans, monsters, or demons. 4. I think that drawing on a lot of historical sources helps the setting feel real. I've also spent a lot of time drawing up the various cultures of the game and giving them myth. Glorantha and Artesia have lent a lot in this regard - each culture has it's own 'what the priest said' type description and this really helps the players bring the cultures alive, IMO. They don't all believe in the same gods, myths, cosmology, physics, or other truths about the world. They disagree on a lot of these things and argue their character's point of view in game. That's really entertaining for me to watch as a GM. 5. I try to introduce morally ambiguous ideas into the game and we've explored such things as racial tensions, domestic abuse, corruption, theological disagreements, grabs for power, and even genocide. At the same time, we've also explored love, pregnancy, etiquette, kindness, and other forms of more interpersonal relationships. Now these, I suppose, are not necessarily a function of the setting, but I think the setting plays a hand in facilitating this kind of game. Anyway, that's my bag. In ten years I might like something very different. What do the rest of you think? What do you want in a fantasy setting? What about those of you who don't normally go for fantasy - what would it take to get you into a fantasy setting? My curiosity knows no bounds. Thalaba

Heh - I hit my players with a poison that had a mind altering effect once and had 'em doing skill increases in reverse: rolling D6's and deducting the amount from skills that had recently gone up. They did NOT like that. They're not too afraid of bodily wounds because they're a known factor, but any hint of poison or similar effects and their skin crawls.

No worries mate! I like it that you express your enthusiasm for the hobby so openly. I think a lot of us like to take care of our RPG books - that's partly why it rankles when a book degrades so quickly.

I own a few things in the RQ line which have warped covers, typos, and so on. But I'm not speaking only from my own experiences with Mongoose, but rather what I've read. This is from the thread you pointed me to: Furthermore, there have been several threads over the years on RPG.net describing books falling apart at the binding, warped covers, loads of typos, etc. I was under the idea that the Conan Atlantean edition was released very quickly after the first edition in order to fix what was really a very poor release. This very positive review of the Atlatean edition of Conan makes a reference to what came before: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10974.phtml Here's a thread on the mongoose forums: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=31210&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 Matt Sprange has even acknowledged the problems publicly, and offered replacement books free of charge to many people (for which their customer service was applauded). I'm sorry if I gave umbrage, but I thought the poor physical quality and proofreading of Mongoose's books was pretty well known. While you might not agree with my comment, it's hardly 'unfounded'. I have read that their production quality has improved a lot lately, so I guess I was wondering if this was partly as a result of the comments by these Conan people.

Scanning through most of it, that thread seems to bear up what I was saying. Mongoose's problems are that (1) it wasn't trying to stick to only REH material (hell, a series of 13 atlases would have been more written material than REH ever wrote for Conan, so they are clearly drawing on other intellectual properties besides just REH), and (2) an intellectual property owner finally pulled the plug because of Mongoose's shoddy production quality.

Is Star Wars their mythical 'Holy Grail' then? I can't believe someone thinks they were the 'six finest films ever produced'. I mean, did they see episodes 1-3? How could all of REH's work be public domain except for one word, a word which happens to be a common Irish name?

I made a 3D computer model of a building that was inspired by a monastery in Bhutan for my campaign. You're welcome to it if you think it would be useful. I've attached a still, but the whole thing is modelled inside and out. PM me if you're interested.

Disagreeing is allowed, and healthy!:thumb: If my facts are wrong I'm happy if someone can lead me to the truth.

Looks pretty good. Will you be running an adventure/campaign in this country?

In the United States and in Europe, Australia, and others, a copyright can only be held for the duration of the life of the author of the work + 70 years. Since Howard and Lovecraft both died more than 70 years ago, their work has become public domain - nobody can hold the 'rights' to it. They could hold the right to Hyborian material that was produced by other, later authors, though. But if someone wanted to produce a strictly Howardian Hyboria, there should be no impediment. This is why we've seen a proliferation of Lovecraft material in the last few years - his work has became public domain in 2007. I suspect that if Mongoose is letting someone else pull the strings on Conan, it's because they want to include a lot of additions to Hyboria that were added by later authors. And this makes some sense, since a setting book from Howard's work alone would leave a lot of holes to be filled in.

Both the RQ and Stormbringer variants of BRP are ideally suited to run Conan. All you need are the three books containing the Conan stories (complete with maps) and you're done. I'm not sure why you need to wait for someone to publish an 'official' version. I also don't understand how Lovecraft could be public domain due to its age, but Conan and Hyboria not be. Howard died in '36, Lovecraft in '37. Why does Mongoose, or anyone else, need anybody's permission to write up a Conan game?

They appeared in one of the Kull stories - if they were in Hyboria, I would suspect they went from Hyboria to Lovecraft and not the other way around.