Byron Alexander

Not very in-depth, similar to say Rolemaster, Midnight or Conan RPG (D20 system). I think as a relative newbie, it is defining the effects that worries me as I don't yet have a good feel for game balance.

Well, the potion system in witchcraft will help you with that. The effects of the potions are balanced by the fact that the OMG AWESOME ones require very rare or even unique ingredients whereas the lesser effects require more easily acquired ingredients. It also gives rules for what happens when a potion goes wrong.

You've done the ground work for me and I can just flush out my own "flavor" and "style" to add to what work you have already done.

That's the intent really, I much prefer to have a framework around which I can add my own style and I assume others do too. I like the toolkit approach BRP has and I want anything I write for it to be a toolkit as well.

I can well appreciate wanting the dead tree version. I'm not a HUGE fan of PDFs myself (even though I own some).

Witchcraft has potion rules which touch on herbalism (you need to harvest herbal ingredients for some of them - I don't go into specific ingredients, though). You could always have people with only the Craft:Potion skill rather than full-on witches. How in-depth a look into herbalism are you after?

Ok I had the time to read the book and it is great...you did a awesome job. It will be extremely useful resource. Now if I could just get a book on BRP - Knighthood that would be AWESOME too! Any takers...I would love to see that next. Witchcraft is well worth buying and adding to anyones library.

Penn

High praise indeed. Thank you very much, coming from someone who's been gaming as long as you have it means a lot!

Blurb is up!

SGL.

A thousand thankyous! I love the picture you've chosen to go with it, as well.

Glad to hear it, that means other people should be getting their copies!

Well, at the moment I'm looking at doing 3 sections : Real World Necromancy (which is the historical/spiritualist stuff not many go into), Gothic Necromancy (Frankenstein-esque stuff) and Fantasy Necromancy (which is where most the overlap with other works will likely be but, hey, people love liches).

Even if there are plans for the Bronze Grimoire to be re-released I'm sure you could still work on "Auld Reekies' 500lb Gorilla Liches" as a niche product.

You know, if this does go ahead, I think I'll have to include stats for a 500lb undead gorilla as an in-joke.

EDIT : Just got an e-mail from Dustin giving me to go-ahead on Necromancy so it's pretty much confirmed - this will be my next BRP project! Great suggestions here so far, please keep them up. I love to hear what people want from these things.

But, one big thing to cover is how different cultures might define and respond to necromancy differently. A civilized culture that mostly follows orthodox religions might call a shaman summoning his ancestor a necromancer and freak out about the evil of disturbing the dead, but surely his own tribe will have a drastically different perspective on it when said ancestor teaches a new spell to a warrior of the tribe. But, the same tribe might revile a rival tribe's shaman for capturing and binding one of their ancestors's spirits. These sorts of culture clashes can create plot hooks and open the door to interesting stories. So talk about that! Tell us what social roles necromancers fill and how they might fit into different societies and environments. Give us ideas for interesting ways to use them in our adventures and game worlds.

Similarly, talk about how there can be different kinds of undead, some of which might not be intrinsically evil. Imagine the willing spirit that animates a corpse to defend a sacred tomb - that's way different than binding a near-mindless, blood-mad spirit into a body to create a ghoul that feasts on the flesh of anyone intruding near the necromancer's lair. They're created differently, they're likely to have different powers and weaknesses, and they should act differently too. OH, and bring on the liches!

I certainly planned to go into the morality of Necromancy. For example, animating the dead might be an act of Black Magic if in your world this is achieved by binding the unwilling spirit of the departed. However, if the spirit is willing or it is simply an act of animating the dead without involving the departed soul at all then it is not intrinsically evil. I really don't think you could produce a good all-worlds Necromancy supplement without going into the ethics of it - if you ignored it's just be the 500lb gorilla in the room!

I'll e-mail Dustin now.

Well Necromany should have more basis on Paranormal and Occult issues and elements I would think. Dealing with talking to the Dead, such as Ghosts or Haunts. I would try to focus on the New Age views, rather than the Fantasy D&D view!

Honestly, if I were to concentrate on this kind of thing - real-world New Age necromancy, spiritualism, etc. etc. I could easily go on for an entire monograph (I'm curently in training to become a ghost-tour guide and I actually know a real-life necromancer who looks like Baron Samedi... seriously). However, I suspect there is more of a market for the fantasy angle so I wouldn't concentrate solely on it. I could make that bit bigger than I had planned, though, in deference to the fact that you (and some others at least) would be interested.

Thalaba,

HELL YEAH LICHES! I've always liked them as a concept and would definitely go into them were I to do this monograph.

Following up on Witchcraft I'm thinking of asking Dustin if I can do a Necromancy monograph. It'd go into real-world Necromancy (which was, essentially, divining the future by asking the dead) but concentrate mostly on the fantasy definition of all sorts of Death Magic. I'd also create a system for Liches for BRP. Everybody loves undead sorcerors/magicians, right?

Would people be interested in this? Would I be stepping on the toes of any monographs still in the works?

I think I started 91-95, but honestly I could have been 8 or younger and fall into the 86-90 category. Yes, I wasn't even born in the 70s! Does that make me a young upstart since I've written a BRP monograph?

I can see what a lot of people mean about RQ. I've never played it, never had the chance to play it. CoC got me into BRP and it was the lure of those rules as a catch-all (and the fact that while I like GURPS as a concept I find it a bit... heavy) that drew me in. If most of its starting fans are coming from RQ then they are going to be older.

I do have another idea about our high-experience threshold, though. This board is largely frequented by hardcore D100-system fans who have had a long time in gaming and decided, "this is the system for me" and people who are writing/have written monographs (obviously, there's overlap there... a lot). I've no problem with that demographic - I like that on this board I'm talking to people who are also keen on expanding what is an awesome system - but I suspect it will tend towards older members.

I thought YOU wanted to be a writer - why are you passing the buck?

Honestly, I think this would be an awesome project for either a BRP monograph or even a Pendragon-scale seperate game. However, it would be a BIG project (bigger than Witchcraft by far) and at the moment I have two jobs and several projects on the go, I simply can't do everything.

I'd completely forgotten about that; you're right, that would work well in a Homeric setting! I now charge you with writing it.

(See how I passed the buck there?)

I'm not especially familiar with Pendragon (the game), but maybe you could have a go at concretizing the idea and explain it? There is a definite similarity between Homer and Monmouth/Mallory.

Well, it's a long time since I've played Pendragon and I don't own it so bear with me if I get anything wrong/misremember. However, Pendragon is a game about King Arthur and the mythology surrounding him which also does its level best to be as historically accurate as possible (including being relatively low-magic). It also allows for generational-playing, you can play the sire of a lineage of knights and then his children and grandchildren. Lineage is, of course, important to Greek myth.

As you say, there are parallels with Homer and Monmouth - both wrote a history that had a basis in fact but was heavily altered and influenced by myth. Both Arthurian and Greek myth centre on the actions of heroes.

It would be the work of at least a year, maybe two, but a game could be written that is as historically accurate to the heroic age of Ancient Greece as it can be while also including the magical and mythological elements of it. It would also be a good setting to play generationally just as Pendragon can be played.

EDIT : As for having a big frontal lobe, I'm actually just insane.

You reckon doing a Pendragon with the Greek epics would work well? If that's what you're saying it's an intriguing proposition.

A surprising amount of support for an Ancient Greek sourcebook... I actually know a fair bit about Ancient Greece.

With regard to them not answering queries I think that's normally Dustin's department and I know from Chaosium's twitter that he's been busy with family stuff recently so has fallen behind on his e-mails.

This sounds like a fun world, and those are nice spells.

A few comments:

Digest Scroll I and III have the same point cost, I don't think you meant to do that.

I'd like a little more info on when Ritual Beheading is cast. The name suggests that you cast it on a captured enemy right at the moment you cut their head off but the description suggests you just cast it on the head of any recently deceased spell-caster - which is it?

The Green has not sold as well as Witchcraft though

How on earth do you know this? I have, honestly, no idea how well (or how badly?) Witchcraft has sold.

I expect it being bigger is a factor in delaying it - stands to reason, to me, that a bigger book takes longer to prepare for print at the printers. They probably put them on sale as soon as they have the physical copy in storage, so I'd guess The Green should be out within the month. Like you say, though, Chaosium are mysterious. Fingers crossed we'll see it soon, man.

Always the last to know...

EDIT : And they've got it at the top of their homepage... bloody hell!

I hope that this work comes out soon as it has been out now since before Christmas 2009.

Penn

Me too. I tell you what, I'll get in touch with them about it soon and see what's happening. Thanks for your interest, that people want to read my stuff always makes me smile.

Do you still have this problem now that the CMS is "up"? The default destination for http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/ is the "Home" (CMS) section, that haven't worked previously.

Funnily enough, when I accessed the site about a minute ago I did still have the problem. However, just now I followed that link AND used my bookmark and both took me to the homepage. So it seems to have been fixed in the last minute by my reckoning.

Just to let you know I just got 'Byron Alexander, you do not have permission to access this page' when I went to http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/ (which is the page I have bookmarked).

It isn't a big problem, I'm here obviously, I just clicked on the 'Forum' button and got to http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/forum.php

As it is a bug, though, I thought I'd let you know its happening.