Jason D

To the best of my knowledge, there's no restriction about using Cthulhu Mythos material in BRP. Dustin wanted to keep the Cthulhu stuff out of the BRP adventure books to ensure there was some brand identity. I suspect if someone pitched a Mythos-heavy BRP setting they'd approve it easily enough.

I had lunch with Charlie at Gen Con this year, and he mentioned that the feedback that they've gotten from retailers is that BRP continually sells well. They're very happy with how it sells, and Charlie was very specific in letting me know how much they wanted to get source material out.

Congratulations! It really is an astounding piece of game source material.

Working on it every day! Been eaten alive at work as of late, but it's coming together.

That's what I said.

Yes. Sanity is a bit cleaned up, but is essentially the same. Agents of Capital Laundry Services, however, are trained better to withstand soul-searing horror.

It's my favorite iteration of BRP, in any form. We played a ton of it. Had awesome times. Made some of the most munchkin-esque characters the world has ever seen. I remember playing a Melnibonean Warrior-Noble with all of the demon summonings. I had a demon of travel/teleportation in ring form, with a DEX 1. He'd teleport his enemies 20-30 feet into the air, and let them risk the DEX x 3% chance of avoiding a teleportation mishap.

I'm not a rep for Chaosium, but I believe you can do all of that. It's only when you try to charge for such things or claim original authorship over copywrit material that there would be a problem.

Thalaba has the way of things. The rates for a sample steam engine is an approximate, not a blanket rate. The MOV rates assume top speeds on ideal terrain, something I should have made clearer. Rarely, too, in the Old West were trains able to go at their uppermost speeds, just as cars rarely drive at their top speeds possible. The base MOV rates for humans and animals are their normal walking speeds. You can indeed double or quadruple movement rate.

Adamant Publishing is working on a game for this setting.

As noted above, Dustin tried in vain to contact the original author, but no one seemed to have contact info for him.

I know enough people who've dealt with Japanese companies over RPG adaptations to comfortably say that if Chaosium said they were licensing a Japanese anime IP, I would call them up and plead with them to reconsider. It was possible to do more than that, but the GM advice was horribly brief, and the game wasted something like 50 pages on episode-by-episode descriptions, rather than game content. Both games are, I think, owned by the same publisher now, and they're technically still "live" game lines.

Wow... that combination makes my head explode. I can't imagine any two settings as fundamentally different in tone.

Aliens was published as an RPG from Leading Edge Entertainment a couple of decades ago. It was astonishingly crunchy, and even had neat little minis packs of Colonial Space Marines and aliens. I don't necessarily think it would be a particularly great RPG, though, unless you broadened the scope so much it became unrecognizable.

Here are a few of the names of "high profile" game settings that might work as RPGs, and have never been attempted (to the best of my knowledge): Logan's Run - post-apocalyptic setting, science-fiction elements, etc. X-Com - the computer game... an established IP, alien invasion and action Heavy Metal - a grab-all name that wouldn't need to be tied to a specific IP or comic strip within the actual magazine... just a crazy mix of pulpy sci-fi and action, with a sexy quasi-European rock-and-roll angle Fallout, Mass Effect, Starcraft, etc. - probably outside the budget of any RPG studio to afford as an IP

I'm curious if anyone can list a "high-profile" sci-fi setting that isn't either already licensed or has enough name-brand recognition to warrant the license fee. Star Wars - licensed by WEG, then WotC, now sort of abandoned Star Trek - licensed by FASA, then Decipher, died with Decipher... now probably out of anyone's price range A Princess of Mars - protected by Disney now, probably out of anyone's price range Battlestar Galactica - licensed by MWP, now abandoned Dune - licensed by LUG, then by WotC, abandoned due to problems with licensor Ringworld - licensed by Chaosium, unavailable due to problems with licensor Serenity/Firefly - licensed by MWP, successful game line that ran its course The Matrix - licensed once by Decipher, problematic, was never published Riverworld - done by GURPS Planet of Adventure - done by GURPS Doctor Who - licensed by Cubicle 7, still in development Starship Troopers - licensed by Mongoose, has run its course Babylon 5 - licensed by Chameleon Eclectic, then Mongoose, has run its course Red Dwarf - obscure RPG, not a big seller Farscape - licensed by AEG, poor-quality game, game line retroactively killed before release After those, I have a hard time thinking of name-brand sci-fi settings... Buck Rogers? Flash Gordon? Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Blade Runner? Terminator? I have a short list of a few interesting sci-fi licenses that haven't been made into RPGs, but I'm curious if anyone can name others I might be overlooking.

It's a California thing.

Charlie sent it to me, saying "Mark this up!"

I didn't buy mine, but it's nice to have.

I'll be hanging around the MWP booth for some of the convention. I've done work for them (Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural), and agreed to run some demos for them.

Who's going to be there? Aside from me, that is...

Technically, the spider venom is the active characteristic (it is attacking), while your character's CON is the passive (defensive) characteristic. However, the % chance is the same, whichever label you give either side.

And for fun, here's the list of Psychic Abilities from later in the powers chapter. Psychic Abilities Summary Following are ten new psychic abilities presented in this sourcebook. These work exactly as other psychic abilities in the core rulebook and can be utilized by player characters, at the gamemaster’s discretion. BEAST CONTROL: Befriend and guide a non-sentient creature through a psychic link. FINDING: Discover the location of a specific thing. FLESH WEAVING: Reshape living tissue and bone into new shapes. HEALING: Restore lost hit points through psychic healing. MESMERISM: Hypnotize a target. MIND TRAP: Create a psychic prison to ensnare an intended target. POSSESSION: Take over the mind of a target by switching places. PURIFICATION: Remove disease, poison, or harmful contaminants from a living being’s body. SHAPING: Mold and reshape a natural substance as if it were clay. SHROUDING: Cloud perceptions to avoid notice. WOUNDING: Create psychic wounds with physical manifestations.

Each of the planets and significant locations in our solar system* are described in enough detail to inspire and run adventures, but it's not a full-fledged world book. * and to be clear, these are Earth, the Moon, the Sun, the asteroid belt, the Kuiper Belt, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Planet X (otherwise known as Pluto). Some of the larger celestial bodies such as Ceres and Vesta are also included.

There's a section that covers a number of methods, from straightforward (rockets, space guns, etc.), weird science (crystal "star elevators", teleporters, etc.), paranormal/supernatural (astral projection, celestial kidnapping, dreaming, etc.), and simply unexplained passage ("I fell asleep in a cave and woke up on Mars!"). The mechanics of how players get from one world to another is entirely determined by the nature of the campaign.