Thalaba

February 29th today

Sucks we have to wait an extra day due to leap year!

Whe's spring this year, March 1st right!?

Depends where you live. Where i live it's been spring since December - but Pete lives in norther Sweden, so don't hold your breath!

Lawrence posted a Feb update at The Design Mechanism Forum (The Design Mechanism) which, by the way, you can add your +1 to if you are interested in pre-ourchasing a limited edition hardcover when it's released.

chapter of the MoNC serves as either a Secrets of... book for a given location in MoNC or offers a lot of advice to keepers for getting the most out of the campaign. For locations that have a currently in-print Secrets of... book (ex. New York), the chapter focuses less on general NYC and instead delves straight into the Nyarlathotep connections. For locations without a currently in-print Secrets of... book (Shanghai, Cairo, etc), the chapter provides general information on the setting and then delves into the Nyarlathotep connections. Want to know what type of guns Shanghai police carried or what secret, internationally famous guest was supposedly staying in Cairo at the same time the investigators are there? Then you might want to check out this book.

IIRC, it weighs in at 400+ pages. It is a beast.

Sounds groovy! - good concept, too.I like the idea that some supplements are so cool they get their own supplements!

Is this the historical project you had me guessing about last year (or was it 2 years ago now?)

But any entries in last year's BRP adventure contest apparently aren't on the list.

That list seems to have only full 'books' on it - no monographs (including the long-since-submitted-and-now-lost-in-limbo Grimoire).

What's the joke? And what's with the beetles?

Oh, it's not as interesting as some would have you believe. After MRQ1 was announced, the Mongoose forums were fairly crowed with RQ lovers wanting to see what it would be like. As news and previews were released, many of these people grew increasingly dissatisfied with what they saw, and some were quite vocal. There was a lot of arguing over rules minutiae and vision and so on, and eventually threads that had a lot of critical content started disappearing. As I recall the mods had quite a time trying to keep things from getting over-heated, while some grognards were throwing more wood on the fire. One of those more vocal in discussion was named (my memory slips a little here - was it 'The Beetle'?). He got banned, but what seemed like within minutes a guy named 'Banned Beetle' showed up, who also got banned. Then more kinds of beetle showed up and led the mods a merry chase. I think they finally gave up, and Trifletraxor was the last incarnation (I always assumed it's the latin genus of a particular beetle). He still refers to himself as the beetle, and you'll notice we have beetle smilies here!

But as humour goes it's probably a 'you had to be there' kind of thing - which I guess is why it remains an inside joke.

With this statement, you have appointed yourself as "Chief Reminder of the Old Days".

Thalaba, this kind of insider joke is not polite to those who have not been around for several years

Meh. I'm sure the newcomers won't begrudge the grognards from having an occasional chuckle about the old days.

Rude would be refusing to let them in on the joke after they asked.

The site never looked better.

I was a little surprised to see Mongoose Matt as the moderator of a Legend forum here, though. It puts an end to my hope that he'd get kicked off the site, then would come back an hour later under a new but only slightly different name, only to be kicked off again and come back again, and get kicked off again, and come back again, and get kicked off again, and come back again...

Can't always get what you want though, I guess.

I like this site because it pretty much never has flame wars and you always feel welcome.

Amen!

I'll chime in with a big thanks to Trif for all his efforts in keeping this site going.

Perhaps I've been a little harsh because although it was good it could have been great.

No, I don't think you were harsh at all. As it happens, I agree with almost every opinion you've expressed over the years, including what you've said about COFE, so I was being sincere. And I would like to buy more Future Earth product, but at this point I'd rather it be independently reviewed first, thanks.

Now if these supplements appeared I'd buy them without a seconds hesitation, especially the Players guide.

Well, that's a relief - I like it when someone I trust buys the book before me and gives a proper review - that way I know they're being honest in their criticism, and not just singing praise as some reviewers are wont to do. I'm counting on you, now, my friend!

Do people read the stories differently, see the fights differently, view the comics, the movies or the stories as more important?

Yes - I think that Conan now has so much baggage attached that people read what they want from it. Also, when you get people's opinions on the internet, you can almost never establish what their credentials are - so some people have only read the comics and say 'Conan must be this!', while others have read the stories only (like me) and say 'Conan must be that'. All I can say is that I read the original Howard stories in the recent re-releases (without the influence of other authors) and I found the stories to be fairly gritty. Certainly, Conan was often getting wounded in various locations, I personally don't see a need for mook rules - I don't really remember him mowing down enemies willy-nilly - instead I think he ran when overwhelmed by numbers - but honestly I'm not sure I remember anymore - when I read the stories I wasn't thinking about how to model them in a game.

Another thing to keep in mind is that many people want to play Conan himself - and so think the system needs to model invincible characters. Others, like me, want to play Hyboria, but not Conan himself, and so don't think any such thing is needed. From my perspective, Conan was in no way invincible - he got wounded regularly in specific locations, he ran away so he could fight again another day, he was crucified once, he lost the love of his life, he was outwitted by his enemies from time to time - from the original stories, anyway, you felt like shit could stick to him - but he always fought his way back. BRP/RQ can model that just fine, IMO - and usually does.

The situation last Friday came about as the result of the OPPOSITE of railroading. I was ad-libbing, responding to player choices and throwing plot twists in to spice up the situation. Let's just say PCs robbed a pawn shop, one of the PCs murdered the pawn shop and his friend and the other PCs tried to cover it up. When the authorities arrived, a witness accused the PCs of being involved, the authorities wished to detain the PCs for questioning. I wasn't even accusing them of anything, just detain them for questioning. The entire stand off was the result of a combination of player-driven story and my ad-libbing the response.

The stand-off was terribly not fun. Ending the campaign with a TPK after the entire episode would have been terribly unsatisfying for everyone. I just wanted to get everyone back on a less skeevy track.

You may not have been railroading just prior to this event, but your player clearly thinks you were railroading: "...never, ever put the PCs in a situation where NPCs will take their toys...keep writing in to the story that... please feel free to write in to your "script" ..."

So if you aren't railroading, there's clearly some disconnect here between you and your player that needs to be resolved.

It might be worth pointing out to him that you didn't script that event at all - that, in fact, he authored it through his actions.

I know if this had happened in my group - if a PC had robbed a shopkeeper, then murdered him, and been spotted and reported to authorities, and then the whole group cornered, all the other players would have blamed the player for bringing this down on them - not the GM. I'm also pretty sure that this guy wouldn't last long in our group, given his attitude - the other players would ditch him. Personally, I think it's worth finding out what's at the heart of his attitude, though. Did you ask him why he committed murder and robbery to begin with? He seems to have trouble separating PLAYER from CHARACTER, so maybe he's acting out something from real life that doesn't really belong in the game.

It's difficult for us to really understand what's going on at your table from a distance, of course, but it seems that you and this player at least have a disagreement about play style (real or perceived) and rather than tell you straight up, he's acting it out in game. He might not even be reacting to you, but projecting some other GM's syle on you - maybe even his own!

Either way, by holding the game hostage, he's putting you in the exact same position he told you not to put his character into - and that really is a standoff!

Ultimately, I dropped the plot-hammer on them and explained that they needed to give up to get to the next phase of the story. The whole side-story in the town that ended in the stand-off was an unexpected side trip that was NOT the main focus of the story I wanted to tell and the players wanted to play, and I was trying to get everyone back on track. They agreed and we proceeded.

Personally, I think this is the root of your problem right here. Unless you and your group really likes railroading (and from the response of your player, he doesn't, though certainly others do) then you shouldn't allow yourself to get caught in a situation where the characters need to do something in order to advance your story. You should think of it as their story - a story that unravels as the PCs perform actions - and just roll with the punches. My personal opinion is that you should have played the NPCs according to their own motives. If that meant shooting and killing PCs, then so be it. If that meant maintaining the stand-off while they called in reinforcements with teargas grenades, then so be it. If that meant letting them go, then so be it.

And who do you think obliterated the Obliterated God in the first place, oh blasphemous one

Uh... try 'himself'! Sheesh.

I can see that the Atroxic Church needs to pay you a little visit, to help amend your heretical ways...

(cracks knuckles) Sure, bring 'em on. I'll introduce them to my sister!

Phht. The Obliterated God laughs at your invisible god. All things come to him in the end.

I think licenses are over-rated, but I'll admit that 'Dungeons and Dragons' is a much more exciting and evocative name for attracting kids than 'Basic Roleplaying' is. If you're going to prepare a boxed set for kids, it needs to have an exciting cover, and exciting name, and your product needs to look like something that a mother or father can pick up off the shelf of the store on a whim for their kids and feel secure about. You don't need a license for this - but you do need a decent name/concept. 'Worlds of Wonder' would probably work.

February 2012 – Kidnapping in al-Halisa, ported to BRP, in PDF and for Fantasy Grounds

June 2012 – The Zone, a post-apoc style setting and adventure for BRP, in PDF and for Fantasy Grounds

Can you expand on these two, please? The former sounds like an adventure - what kind of setting/theme? As for the zone, 'post-apoc' is very vague since it seems now to indicated everything from 'the day after' to the far future gamma world like stuff, and even fantasy worlds and zombie games are now considered post apoc. Since we have Rubble and Ruin for near future, Chronicles of the Future Earth for far future, and Ashes to Ashes for fantasy, where does The Zone fit in?

Lastly, I'm one of those tired of medieval settings, but only of the Western European variety. A book on the nomads of the steppes is something I would definitely get in print format.

Hi. I for one would like to see more adventures and less campaign settings -- I think much has been covered by now both in historical and geographic terms. What is lacking in the BRP part of the indie hobby is the incredible frenesy of the OSR movement. There are scores of high quality (crappy too of course but I tend to concentrate on the interesting stuff) "original frp" adventures out there and since I do not use that system it is a pain to have to produce BRP or T&T (my favourite systems) stats for those.

I agree that some good adventures would be a plus, but adventures are so setting dependent that they must go hand in hand with settings. I think the last thing BRP needs are more generic adventures like In Search of the Trollslayer or the various Adventures monographs, which I think suffer from being too broad and not focused enough. I disagree that we have enough settings - at least, I'm always looking for the right settings. I think we need to create more imaginative and detailed settings - not just generic settings. Dozens of fantasy and sci-fi authors manage to do it - so why not RPG writers.

Oh, and one more thing: in case anyone was wondering, I will announce the 2012 Alephtar plans between Christmas and New Year. Do not expect anything too exciting, though.

Well, in another thread, you mentioned that Parpuzio is on hold for 'reasons that would soon be made clear', so I'm expecting at least an announcement in that regard, and it seems it could be potentially exciting, no? Alephtar makes consistently good product - more consistently good than most - so I can honestly say that I expect your announcement to provide at least a little excitement!

Lastly, I'd just like to say I love boxed sets - but please make the box durable. My most recent boxed set is The One Ring, and it's a thing of beauty. Furthermore, from a system perspective, it's giving me some ideas that I think could apply to BRP games, and that's always exciting...

I've homebrewed my own ideas on this into RQ3 for a while,

I'd like to see these, if you're offering.

A 'messer' sounds like the kind of things that ruffians use when they steal your wallet in Bowness-on-Furness.

Knowing how back luck can get in the way at Chaosium, this is a possibility, though the "official" release states Winter 2012.

SDLeary

A combination of bad luck and back logs? I guess if things weren't chaotic over there they wouldn't live up to the name.

Well, I thought it was an interesting analysis - it pointed at several things I wouldn't normally think about, so thanks for that. I'm not sure I would come to the same conclusions, but that's me.

I have much the same impression as Rust regarding Mongoose's quality, and I'm not likely to buy another book from them, unless things change dramatically. But that said, I've come to the conclusion that the broader RPG community is no more fussed about quality than the movie-going community, who tend to give mediocre films all their money while the critically acclaimed films languor at the bottom of the heap. Any there probably is something to what you say about the FLGS, too. The biggest game shop around here just sticks with the big guns, as far as what they put on their shelves. They've got a lot of mongoose and cubicle 7 books, but you'd be hard pressed to find much from Moon Design and you certainly won't find anything indie.

Having said all that, I'm moving forward with a Legend supplement and I've talked with Loz about RQ6. I'd suspect that both will have a sizable enough of a customer base that both will be happy in the end and "winning" won't be important.

As I suspect that the two communities overlap by something like 80%, I'm not sure how to predict a winner, either. I like to think that quality over quantitiy should win every time, but that just isn't the case, is it? There are just too many unknowns at this point, starting with how RQ6 will be received when it's released. Will Mongoose stay the course with Legend? How soon before they release another edition? Will either company release a setting book that takes the community by storm? Will Legend become the gateway drug for RQ6?

There are also competing systems to factor into this equation - many of them - that will be released, including Aeon, D100Rules, Parpuzio - or which are already avaiable, such as Gore, OpenQuest, and the older RQ editions which still remain popular. They are all very compatible and the existing fan base knows this, so I suspect that 'best system' will not be the deciding factor, but rather access to the broader 'unplugged' community who don't practice on-line punditry, and in making setting/supplementary material that people want to play and talk about.

If I could sort it all out and pick a winner - well, I'd be better off applying those talents to the stock market, wouldn't I?

I am new to this site and the forums and I recently purchased the MRQII product after many years playing other systems. RuneQuest isn't widely known here in South Africa so I will attempt to convert my current group from D&D.

Here is a South African RQ resource for you: http://www.runequest.za.org/

The creator of the site, Tony Den, is based in Pretoria, but he mentions that several of his group have moved to Cape Town. You might be able to use the site to form link-ups.

He also has several RQ resources on the site (mainly for 3rd Edition RQ but can be adapted), including creatures, adventures, etc.

Personally, since I already own the Big Gold Book, the BRP Quick-Start Edition, GORE, and a PDF version of Mongoose RuneQuest I, I don't see the benefit of "upgrading" to Legend or RuneQuest 6 or whatever else is in the works.

That's a fair enough comment and IMO reflective of the broadening of the hobby in general with so many games of different stripes.

I'm not sure if 'upgrading' to a new set of rules is really the point, though. All of the BRP systems are so compatible that they are almost interchangeable with little work, and the system has always been very popular with tinkerers anyway. Which means the value in the rule books isn't really in the rules themselves. I think this is reflected in the fact that Mongoose is selling theirs for as low as they are. The value for them is in the supplementary material, and they can reach a broader market by making the buy-in to the supplements lower. And as Pete said, this benefits everybody.

Loz and Pete, from my understanding, are choosing a different model - a value-added model, where the rule book comes not only with the rules, but more things besides, including evocative artwork, GM advice, and so on. Although they are spending quite a bit of effort to improve the rules, I suspect that's in part professional pride (they want to build a reputation for quality over quantity) and in part because they want to appeal to the grognards as the bearer of the RQ name. But I suspect that even so RQ6 is intended to be seen as much more than just a rulebook.

Well, that's my take, anyway. I could be completely wrong!

ps, you wrote the Hollow Earth RPG ? I must admit I keep looking at that and thinking about buying it.....

I got it and thought it was very well done. And if you ever seriously think you'd run it, I've got another book to reco you - a factual history of the belief in a hollow earth - which is full of strange cult-type organizations whose leaders believed in that sort of thing.

Welcome, Dale. Thanks for asking...

Are you interested in Legend material from an additional publisher beyond Mongoose?

Yes. Actually, I'm only interested in Legend material from an additional publisher beyond Mongoose. I'm more inclined to be interested in RQ6 or BRP compatible products, but as all three will be broadly compatible I don't need to be too picky.

How about RuneQuest compatible material that is not set in Glorantha?

Yes, definitely. I think Glorantha is a great setting, but I probably have all the Glorantha material need from past RQ editions.

If so, what are you interested in? Alternate settings?

Compelling setting material that is thought provoking. I like things that capture the mind-blowing effect that good speculative fiction has. I like settings that have a 'what if' factor. I also really settings with verisimilitude - which include enough depth to feel real. In that vein, the settings for Artesia, Mechanical Dream, Jorune, Harn, and Hot War all appeal to me. I love fantasy, but avoid the traditional stuff these days. Unless I'm playing Tolkien itself, I'm done with Orcs, Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, and so on.

I'm not interested in franchises from film/TV. I like original material. I want RPG settings to inspire me - not to copy other things that already inspired me. I do love historical settings, though. I suspect my tastes run in the minority, but if I don't speak up for them nobody else will, either.

Cults/Guilds? Deities? Towns/Villages you can plunk down into your home campaign? Pre-stated NPCs/Monsters? These things are very setting specific, in my view. I probably wouldn't buy such things for fear of them being too generic, or geared too much to generic medieval fantasy. That said, maybe you can surprise me.

These things would interest me:

-Something that allows simulation of ancient/medieval battles (and logistics) - without leaving the perspective of the individual character.

-A dystopian industrial themed setting, riffing off Gilliam's Brazil and Lang's Metropolis (etc.).

-Thought provoking semi-hard sci-fi focused on a single planet, colony, or ship. Think more like 2001, Solaris, Event Horizon, Pandorum, and Alien than Traveller, Star Wars or Star Trek.

Sorry guys, but my Acronym Fu is weak this morning. What does IANAL mean ?

IANAL = I Am Not A Lawyer.