Thalaba

BRP is the core system that drives CoC, Runequest, and other games. The Big Gold Book presents this core system, plus a number of options that a GM can use to tailor the game to suit their taste. It's designed and presented as a toolkit for GMs. Some people find this intimidating - particularly those that want only the rules they want in a tightly designed package. But GMs who like to build a rule-set to suit the campaign they have in mind love it. You could definitely use it to run Deus Vult. As Tedopon mentioned, the quickstart guide gives what is probably the lightest iteration of the rules - no frills. You might also look into OpenQuest, which is a light (and free to download IIR) version of MRQ1 that doesn't have hit locations.

Welcome, all. Good to have another local join the fold! I can sympathize - when the book first came out I checked my two local shops: Hairy Tarantula (who didn't have it in stock - and still don't) and 401 games (who said "It doesn't sound like the kind of thing we'd carry" bwaa?). So I asked a friend to pick me up a copy at GenCon and he returned empty handed because Chaosium didn't have a presence at GenCon. So I looked on Amazon.ca and there it was. Twenty six bucks later and it was delivered to my door. Sadly, the price on Amazon.ca is now much higher ($42), but at least they still have it.

I'm interested in picking up some of the remaining printed work. I have Borderlands and Beyond and love it. What I'd like to know, though, is how much of the other 3 books cover material I already have. I have a nearly complete set of 3rd Ed. stuff. How similar is Griffin Mountain to Griffin Island? Would you estimate 90% duplication, or something lower? Similarly, does Pavis & Big Rubble contain a lot of additional material over River of Cradles for 3rd Edition? If one already has Gods of Glorantha, Lords of Terror, and all the Tales of the Reaching Moon issues, how many cults would I find in the Cults book that I don't already have? Thanks,

Well, actually, the reason he preferred the sword was because he was sick of his spear getting stuck in the people he impaled. There were times when he forgot to change weapons or was too hard pressed to want to chance it, too, so he didn't always get the check in spear, I don't think. I suppose if you want to make check-hunting worth it, you have to be diligent about it. Kind of like coupon-clipping.

I've seen limited check-hunting in the form of weapon use. Recently, I had a player who started with a spear and then picked up a sword he liked. He would use the sword in combats where he didn't feel too threatened just to build his skill. As a GM I didn't have a problem with this - I'd probably do the same in real life if I wanted to improve with the sword. By the end of the 2 year campaign, he had a sword and spear skill which were both lower than the guy who only used the spear for the whole campaign. He knew how to work the system to get a very well-rounded character, but he wasn't 'the best' at any more skills than his fellows, and thus not dominant. For the most part, check-hunting isn't especially profitable, in my experience. But then we set a very measured pace for skill improvement rolls (typically every 3-5 sessions) and stick to the 'stress situation' rule.

There was a lively discussion about this some time ago. I didn't find the original thread, but here's a rebuttal thread that Simon started that nicely summarizes the points from the previous thread. This thread is in the context of people saying that MRQ1 was a D&D-ified version of RQ - and certainly to many of us grognards it was, though not all by a long shot. Maybe someone with more patience than I can find the link to the original thread that these comments came from. http://basicroleplaying.com/showthread.php/1486-Why-RQM-is-not-like-D-amp-D

Welcome James! Sounds like you've jumped in at the deep end - some say its the best way to learn how to swim! There are many experienced GMs around here, so don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions; hopefully you won't mind getting a wide range of answers. Out of curiosity, which review did you see on YouTube? Thalaba

Send Dustin Wright an enthusiastic e-mail. dustin@chaosium.com

Oooh, cool. Didn't someone here suggest doing that waaay back? Maybe they're listening.

Why not - it worked for the people behind Day After Ragnarok and Goblin Markets, didn't it? I don't have much faith in the ENnies, myself, but one hopes that the quality of the product matters more than what genre it is. RE: the amount of product available - This is gradually increasing, so I wouldn't say (anymore) that BRP was stagnant. Chaosium is slow at putting our new product due to financial contraints, but not stagnant. The number of available monographs has increased significantly in the past 6 months (including a post-apoc: Rubble and Ruin). Remember, though, that monographs are only available on the chaosium website and are not in general distributiuon. In terms of actual in-store product, they remain very slow, but things are progressing as per Dustin's blog and Chronicles of the Future Earth should be out soon(ish) - another post-apoc/fantasy/sci-fi setting - and also Devil's Gulch. Cubucle 7 and Alephtar also have books on the way, and this speeds things up a bit. Personally, I don't mind the slow pace - I already bought more BRP product than I can read for the next 6 months, so I'm happy. I'd rather wait for a quality book than have a mediocre book that was rushed out the door. More fantasy and sci-fi for BRP would be very welcome. I'm not sure it's ugently needed, but it would be welcome. But as far as historical, goes, I'm glad BRP and its fans have stepped up to the plate, here. Really, the system and the historical genre are made for each other.

Awesome! Congratulations to Pete and the Alephtar team!

Spirit Magic from the Basic Magic book should do the trick, as it has spells. BTW the old Spirit Magic worked quite well - it just didn't reflect some people's view of how Shamanism should work. But it is a perfectly servicable magic system and has been used by many RQ3 enthusiasts over the years without complaint. BM Spirit Magic feels more like Ancient Middle Eastern/Mediterranean Spirit Magic and Ancestor Worship than Druidism or Shape Changing.

If Mongoose offered you a full time wage to write the stuff you thought was fun, what would you do?

Someone will correct me here if I'm mis-remembering, but...: Traditionally, you got 2 combat actions in a round - one attack, and another for parry or dodge. You could modify that by going all defensive and parrying with both your attacking weapon and your offhand weapon, or you could go all attack and attack with both the main and offhand weapon. But you always only hads 2 actions, which meant that if you attacked with your off-hand weapon, you couldn't also parry with it or dodge that round. Having skills over 100% allowed you to claim and additional action by splitting the attack (or parry) percentage. So with 120% in SWORD and 80% in SHIELD, a player could now attack twice with the sword at 60% each, and still parry with the shield (at 80%) or dodge, thus, now having 3 actions. Hope that helps. Sometimes the BRP waters can get pretty muddy due to all the different versions and houserules over the years. Thalaba

It's not the same as this, is it? (http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=5132) Two viking age dark age monographs at the same time. And a MRQ2 Vikings book by Pete Nash on the way, too. Good time to be a fan of the Norse!

The full skill is always the measure when rolling for skill increases, since that's what you are trying to increase. It's just not worth keeping track of every difficulty level and every modifier you used during the game for each skill check, believe me. While using bladesharp to boost one's skill, I would still grant the skill check. In those cases I would justify it as the character observing as the sword did something cool and learning from the experience. The actuall skill increase roll would still be on the 75% (the actual skill), though. Thalaba

Some links: Lots of famous people on this site, esp. saints: http://www.cushnieent.force9.co.uk/CelticEra/ 160 pages worth of Vortigern?: http://www.vortigernstudies.org.uk/vortigernhomepage.htm And here's another obscure saint from SW Scotland who rode across Luce bay on a rock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Medan

Talk about them? I would suggest finding all references to any of these things in the texts you want to use as the basis for the games, and then listing those references here. From the references, people should be able to build a proper writeup. But without knowing what the Gododdin et. al. actually has to say about these, I'm not sure I can contribute much. I have many historical/speculative books on the period, but non mention faeries, elves, or giants.

Personally, I think it would be better to keep everything in one place (meaning here). Also...You can Edit Trif's message if you're the admin for the forum??!! That's cool. I can't wait until I have my own Forum!

Here's a link to a website on the ancient kingdoms of Britain - including maps through the periods: http://www.earlybritishkingdoms.com/maps/600_kingdoms.html

Wow - this thread grew fast! I would like to throw in a couple of comments. I think all the discussion of Arthur has been a bit of a red herring. This discussion began with a desire to recreate the world of the Gododdin in a game, and that's something I could support. Whether Arthur existed, when he existed, and where he lived and operated are still completey speculative, despite the fact that I have about 10 books on my shelf all claiming to reveal the real Arthur. Personally, I would cut him out of the equation altogether, or at most give a brief mention summarizing the many theories surrounding the man. What I would like to see is an effort to describe Britain c.500-600AD that is as historically accurate as possible. I know that we don't know a lot about the period, but we know enough to begin a re-creation, and can surely fill in the blanks without resorting to high medieval romance. So give me your hill forts, roman ruins, and roman artifacts handed down from generation to generation (a Roman Crossbow was found in a Crannog somewhere near Ayr, Scotland). Tell me what the political divisions were, what cultures lived where and what languages were spoken. Tell me what the weapons were. Give me what is known about history and leave the unknown for the GM to fill in. Give me some sense of what pagan celtic religion was like, and then tell me about Candida Casa, Padraig, and Colm Cille and other early Christian sites/priests, for surely Christianity was more widespread at this time than Druidism. Give me specific places and placenames - tell me about Din Phris, Din Rheged, Trimontium, Alt Cluit, and Din Eidyn in the north, and don't just focus on the old Brittish-Saxon conflict in the south. I think there's a lot of ground to cover here without worrying about trying to emulate Chivalry or Arthurian Myth. Couple of other points: There's nothing un-cinematic about hit locations. When heroes in movies get injured, they get injured somewhere. My feeling is that you should include hit locations in any stats you give as they can easily be dropped by those who don't want to use them. Using CON+SIZ for tallying hit points is also probably the way to go. Regarding Cults: I imagine there would be 3: the cult of Christianity, the cult of the old religion, and possibly (and very rarely) some adherence to old Roman cults here an there. I would probably be inclined to keep magic to a minimum. Whatever you choose to do, though, I wish you luck with it. I'll be watching with interest. Cheers! Thalaba

Why couldn't ADS/DISADS simply have their own pool, like they do in Ars Magica (at least, in the second edition they did)? Pick 7 points of positive virtues and 7 points of flaws. Some of these virtues and flaws might affect attributes or skills or powers, some might influence gameplay and story.

Welcome to all the new people! As someone with a fondness for southern Scotland, I'd also love to see we well-done, as-informed-as-possible supplement covering c.600 Gododdin, Rheged, and Alt Clut! But then I'm a sucker for the darkest ages of history, too, and prefer my history to be pre-medieval as well.

Oooh. Is it a musical?

I had a fun adventure I was thinking of submitting, but it was tied to my setting and I didn't like the idea of giving up all the rights to that setting specific material. Adapting the adventure to a more generic setting would have been possible, but more work than I currently have time for. Ultimately, for me, it boils down to a lack of quality free time for writing.