Verderer

Ok, so to qualify as paladin, I'd imagine you have to have a certain level of allegiance (20 points higher than the others), or even be committed to single alliance (100 points in that allegiance) as per BRP rules? Can there be anti-paladins? Do all classes have special abilites, by the way? (grr... still no CF in the mailbox!)

Thanks for the information, Rod. I thought the conversion stuff might go in the second volume. My intention with the Book of the Righteous is really to use the pantheon and 'mythos' (or 'cosmic order' or whatever you want to call it) in there, because I really like how it's written, I feel that's one of the many strong points of the book. I am in fact less interested in what feats each cleric would get and other rules technical stuff, and luckily the book is full of really useful fluff text, don't you think? About aligment, you described it as 'actions defining aligment' and not the other ay around. I am really liking this aspect. It gives the player the freedom to choose to do whatever he/she wants, but also the consequences and responsibility involved with each decision.

Hey, I ordered my copy of CF from Chaosium's sale. :thumb: While waiting for it to drop in my mailbox, I am wondering about couple of things: firstly, does the book contain conversion notes for bringing various D&D and AD&D games into it? Secondly, I have a load of d20 stuff which I intend to use with my campaign, such as Freeport and the Book of the Righteous, The City State of the Invincible Overlord, and so on.. how well would CF work with converting them? I realise CF more of a homage to the old D&D stuff, so it won't have anything to do with those feats or pesky prestige classes. But other than that, the leap from AD&D to d20 isn't that huge, is it?

I noticed the sale too, and grabbed Classic Fantasy and Val du Loup! Both should help me in cooking up a couple of campaigns I have in mind...

I received these monographs in the mail this week. By quickly skimming the books I came to the conclusion that these are simply re-prints of the old RQ 3rd edition booklets with little or no rewriting or editing? Is this correct? I have nothing against re-printing RQ material. In fact I quite like having these, as I don't have my RQ stuff with me now. However, the Basic Magic book can seem a little confusing, since it appears not to mention how the four Magic systems described (spirit, sorcery, divine & ritual) relate to the magic styles in the BRP rulebook. Also, the Sorcery in Basic Magic is totally different from the Sorcery in BRP rulebook, with different mechanics and spell lists. So it seems there has been no effort to update these to full compability with BRP? Mind you, I haven't had the time to read these monographs, so all this is based on first impressions. So please feel free to corrrect me, if I seem mistaken.

Thanks, Angus! That's interesting information, and a pleasant surprise to find you here at BRP central forum too.:thumb: Looks like Cubicle 7 forum is under some reorganisation, so it's not working atm?

As far as I know, the makers of SLA Industries are currently looking into making either a revised 2nd edition of the current rules, or entirely new rules set. I suggested BRP on their forum (Cubicle 7), but have not received any answer... :ohwell:

Vault Boy, of course. What was I thinking? Thanks for the info, Rod. This would really make a good game, I feel. And there are at least two post-apocalyptic sourcebooks on the make for BRP, they might well be useful for Fallout too?

Yep, looks good. I put some comments on the other thread in the general BRP section. Thanks for putting that up! I think I will use it, and maybe convert it a bit to include some things. I think I want to go for that 50's retro look that's used in Fallout documents, like here:Fallout PnP

I checked out the character sheet, and it has some nice ideas, like using the Pip-boy for the hit location character, and including radiation levels.:thumb: I'd be interested in reading any material you care to put for download, but you know that already. Incidentally, I got to browsing yesterday, and found some Fallout pnp material (paper and pencil, I assume) on some sites. The Vault has them here: Fallout PnP, and Duck and Cover has loads of links to pnp stuff. I got the impression that the makers of the original Fallout PC games published a pen and paper version as a bonus material? Later there was an attempt to release d20 version (yuk!) of Fallout, but that folded, I think.

Thanks, that will be interesting see. Did you include the Fallout Perks in any form? Cheers, Juha

A Fallour sourcebook would be fantastic, althought to be honest, BRP would work pretty well straight as it is, I think. I am seriously considering GMing Fallout. Maybe do character generation along the lines of the GOAT test, maybe add some perks etc, and the create some creatures, items and locations. What else would be required? You can steal quite a lot straight from the computer games, locations, people etc...

Yeah, I too would love to have an FP BRP supplement, and wrote to Chris's blog about it. It's been a while now... Maybe one way to go about it is to use the upcoming Chaos & Catacombs and Runequest Pirates?

I got thinking about Stalker too (not the video game). Did you know there already is a Stalker RPG, but the slight problem is that it's in Finnish. Dunno know if it's been translated in other languages. This isn't a problem for me personally, as I am a Finn, though. So I was thinking of using the campaign bits from the Stalker RPG and apply BRP rules to it. I am not sure what the game system of the Stalker RPG are, but apparently it is a quick, diceless system. Might be perfectly ok, but I am still interested in using BRP with it.:thumb:

Hey, that's great! I'll be wanting those witchcraft rules too. And I have downloaded your Alchemy rules, so you have a crowd of fans!

Yeah, sure, I don't expect everyone at Chaosium was around 20 years ago. Maybe none of them were. But that wasn't exactly what I meant. Surely people at Chaosium would have transferred their knowledge and experience, to their successors (at least parts of it), so that they wouldn't each have to invent the wheel again, so to speak? Companies usually do this, in my experience. And by producing I didn't mean that Chaosium stuff actually writes everything they print, I know full well they commission writers to do the actual writing and drawing etc, just like any publishing house. I could indeed start writing them material, if they commissioned me. Getting paid for your writing is part of the deal, you don't suggest all those writers work for free just for the love of gaming, do you? So yes, writing is really that easy, if you get your commission. (Note that I didn't say anything about the QUALITY of my writing...) And finally I'd liek to correct you that I wasn't talking about criticising a published product, I was saying that as experienced gamers we know what kind of games/books we'd like Chaosium to write, so we can offer them advice and ideas. And we have bought one RPG product after another (and played them to pieces), and have seen game systems raise and fall, so I think we're pretty damn qualified to advice Chaosium which ideas would work, and what they should go publishing. And I'd go even so far as to say that our experience allows to criticise Chaosium for sitting on their hands and doing very little about making BRP a success (as far as any RPG can be a success these days). And speaking of experince, in my opinion it's pretty much an established fact that no game licenses based on a movie or a TV series (most of them suck bigtime anyway) will carry very far, I can't really remember any that would have lasted long. Many novels have done very well, some not. But they could go licensing an existing RPG campaign, which is what I was talking about earlier with my d20 rambling. Other than that, I'd agree it is best to come up with your own original game world. But they're the hardest and most time consuming to develop.

Kyle, I don't quite see your point, Chaosium is the business after all? And have been for decades. They have the knowhow to produce game books, and indeed they seem to do so very well (CoC). I don't see why we can't offer our opinions and advice, even if many of us have never produced a single book? We have years of gaming under our belts, and we know what we want and like, wouldn't you agree? Or did I miss your point?

It occurred to me, would there be any idea for Chaosium to co-operate with some of the game companies that were left hanging out there with the d20 license, when D&D 4th edition came out? For example, Green Ronin has been less than enthusiastic about jumping in the badn wagon with the 4th edition, and their relatively popular campaign Freeport has been moving towards generic statless sourcebooks with companions for various game systems. They haven't made an RQ or BRP one yet, more's the pity, despite there having been some requests on the forum for it. I feel there could be some mutual benefit, if the two companies did produce such a book? GR provides the campaign, and Chaosium the rules, sort of thing? GR has other campaigns too which might be interesting. For example, Thieves World campaign (the original TW was for various systems, including RQ, I think?) Or maybe the Black Company? Of course, lots depend on what said company is planning to do in the future, at the moment it seems GR is hanging in a kind of limbo. Lots of game companies are in similar situation, I wager? So why not pick the companies with the most promising and original d20 campaigns (I know at least some exist!), and together with the company convert the campaigns into BRP? In general, I agree that BRP needs some high profile campaign to lift it from relative obscurity. CoC is too much identified as game of its own, something new is needed.

PM sent!:thumb:

I sure have, and own the pdf versioon. It forms a good basis on my campaign. That's pretty much my reasoning too. I also might include a few suitable spirit magic spells to complement divine magic.

I am pondering about this very thing for my own campaing I have described in another thread. But to put it shortly I am going to run a campaign in medieval 'mythic' Europe (meaning magic works in it). I haven't come up with a way to use BRP magic or sorcery for divine magic, they don't really fit in with my conception of divine magic, or if you will, 'miracles' tied with any of the real world religions of the era. So I am going to use RQ 3rd ed. magic for it, and perhaps I will also use sorcery and spirit magic from the same book. I haven't yet decided whether I will discard the two BRP types of magic entirely, or try to fit them in with the RQ kind. To be honest, I don't know either magic system well enough to decide yet, so I gotta read more, and perhaps get some good pointers from the more experienced players!

I agree entirely, the game is going to be about fun, not just a history lesson. But I think real history is so full of fascinating stuff which is just begging to be gamed. For a GM who's into detailed settings there's almost nothing better than a historical setting. (Hey, it's like Harn, only extremely interesting! ) But at the same time I will use the Stupor Mundi book (and hopefully any additional material published!), the other unpublished resources mentioned in above posts, and add my own stuff and remove historical bits I don't like, to make it my own, a sort of mythic Europe. I think GMing Call of Cthulhu trains you to juggle with real history pretty good. Our gaming group contains a couple of history buffs, and a couple of guys who will be happy to game pretty much anything I throw at them. It is naturally my intention to keep all of them happy, but I also want to keep myself happy. I love think of these things (as you must too), most of the fascination with game mastering is inventing stuff (or in my case using historical stuff in imaginative ways). I am sure my players won't even find out most of the stuff I come up with, but that's ok. And it's there in case I need it. I won't attempt to invent the world entirely, I think it's enough to have the basic premise, and then just try to keep one step ahead of the players.

No worries, rust. These historical periods aren't that exact a science, and in different countries some eras can be said to have started in at different times. History is a continuum, and any periods are artificial constructs anyways. Best not wander too far to the Renaissance, as we were discussing the Middle Ages after all. :thumb: So to return to the topic, I have now a start for my 'mythos', so I can continue building on it, placing the various Allegiances and their relations to the world, and how various types of magic are connected to this system. Then I can start filling in the details, the benefits of each allegiance etc. I am not sure how much of this I will put on paper, as for a homebrew system, it's usually enough to have these ideas sloshing around within your skull. I am now comparing the spell systems of BRP, RQ3 and MRQ. It seems there is a lot of overlap within the last two, but BRP looks a bit different. For now, I think I am going grab Spirit Magic for 'witchcraft' (the wise woman kind), and Divine Magic from RQ3 for various church traditions, and then use any compatible Sorcery bits from all three books to form one or more 'occult' or 'hermetic' magical traditions. I'd like all three systems to have different flavour, and naturally I want to select spells that fit each tradition. Oh, and add the BRP Alchemy download to that, of course. Then all I need to do is to sort out the professions, and read tons of historical books on the period, and I am set!:cool: About converting RQ professions to BRP: that seems easy, as BRP uses skill point pools and skill lists instead or skill bonuses. Just use the RQ professions as they are, but without the bonuses or multipliers, right? I thought I'd let the players first choose (or roll) a cultural background as in MRQ, so they would get a set of basic skills and bonuses appropriate for that culture. After that they would choose (or roll) a profession from that culture, and use their skill points to buy the appropriate professional skills, and then some extra points to buy any other skills. maybe I have adjust the skill point pool down a bit, to account for the extra skill bonuses from culture?

I guess it would useful to make a distinction between a wise woman/man, and a Witch at this point? Wise women would be your village healer type of persons (but sometimes misthought as witches by the ignorant and narrow-minded), and proper Witches/Warlocks would the ones who have made a pact with the Devil (Satan, Dark Man, whatever), and/or practice dark and blasphemous sorceries? As to Renaissance, there's no doubt that the classical ancient and Arabic books had a huge effect on the birth of this 'golden era'. But equally important was the liberation of thought from Christian control. The sciences & arts were practiced for their own sake, not just to praise the glory of God. For example in the visual arts, sculpture and painting would more and more move on to secular subjects, portraying reality and beauty as worthy values on their own. To be sure the ancient and Arabic books had a large part in this, especially as they were for the large part free of Christian values. In the context of Stupor Mundi, we're beginning to see signs of this liberation or severance from the Church in various forms. We have several heresies and religious reformation movements, we have the increased trade with the East and the Crusades, we have the Universities, and we have the power struggle between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope. I am eager to read more of Frederick II, as he seems to have been a very controversial person, perhaps even some sort of pre-renaissance man?

That's a good question, BroCoyote. I think I want to limit the availability of magic quite a lot, especially compared with RQ3. Sure, the common folks might know some folkloric ways which could well be certain low key spirit magic spells, and the village wise women/men might know more. I haven't quite figured out yet what I want to do with the so-called Witches. Are they in league with Satan, or are they more of the white magic shaman types? So like the Templar question, it depends whether I want to make them the bad guys or not. Divine magic I would reserve solely to priests etc, so no divine magic for laymen. And the knowledge of Sorcery and Alchemy would be extremely limited, only a few scholars or other special enlightened persons would know of these. I do want to make religious issues and Crusades an important factor in my campaign, even if they weren't the central theme. So hopefully my players are interested in these things. I can certainly direct them to these themes by the choice of adventures and available character classes, and as there will the a great secret or conspiracy which they get lots of hints of, I am sure at least some of them can't help getting curious about it. And I think religion is an ever present factor in the lives of medieval men, it will be inevitable that matters of faith play a part at some point. I think religion is a major factor in portraying the lifes of medieval people. It can be hard for us to understand how throroughly religion permeated their lifes, I think. Everything was seen through the mirror of religion, it affected how people thought of the world and each other, and of issues such as philosophy, medicine, politics, and indeed alchemy and magic. And most academic thinking was limited to following certain approved classic sources. There were precious few of 'free thinkers' and those were quickly condemned as witches or heretics, I guess. But the I guess at the same time the seeds of scientific and free thinking were already sown in the form of Universities? And in addition, contact with other cultures, trading, the exchange of knowledge or even the Crusades, would broaden the Western people's world view, and eventually lead to Renaissance?