simonh

You're quite right, but I think it might be enough. Just as RQG only supports gaming in and near Dragon Pass in the core rulebook, the core rules for Fantasy Earth would necessarily need to be somewhat limited in scope. Rune Magic rolling against your planetary/divine affinity would work just fine. I like the idea of alchemy in the core rules as well. I'd really like to see a better name than Fantasy Earth though.

That's not the same as looking at the strengths of an existing rules set, and then selecting a setting that suits those strengths. I think I may have let my fingers run away from me. I'm not suggesting a single universal magic system based on the planets (including the moon) as the be all and end all, however the game will need at least one magic system in the core book. I think one based on the planets could be very flexible and adaptable to different cultures. Most ancient cultures had some form of astrology, had correspondences between the planets and various gods, and often these associations were similar in nature. It wouldn't have to work exactly like spirit magic, or rune magic or sorcery though and could be very much it's own thing. A common basic default magic system is a very valuable thing though. If I want to play an Egyptian sorcerer, I'm fine with learning a custom system for that. Some people just want to play a soldier, thief, merchant, sailor, etc and it would be nice to be able to play one of those from a wide variety of cultures without having to learn a new magic system every time. Beyond that, custom systems for Egyptian sorcerers, Kabbalists, Zoroastrian Magi, etc would be a must. The nice thing about BRP is that it has very flexible architectural underpinnings (POW, Magic Points, Skills, and now Passions, etc) that can be used to express a whole variety of magic systems.

I made a critical Phlegm roll! I don't know, it lacks a certain je ne sais quoi. EDIT: Of course here are many alternatives. The Egyptian portions of the soul, the Kabalistic Sphirot, the Greek elements (as used in modified form in Glorantha and Nephilim), the signs of the Zodiac. The planets might work well because they are universal and are associated with various deities in different cultures in the ancient world, for which we have fairly well established contemporarily accepted equivalencies. This makes them a standard universal key into a whole range of different cultural religious traditions.

One whole category of options we haven't discussed is computer game licenses. I'd have thought a lot of those would translate very well to pencil-n-paper, but it seems to be a rare occurrence. Doom, Borderlands, Castle Wolfenstein, Half Life, Elite, then actual RPG-s like Zelda or Skyrim. I think there are a few tabletop RPGs of computer games out there but they're fairly marginal.

Again - kind of. For those who don't know Jason wrote Lord of Gossamer & Shadow, an RPG adapting the ADRPG diceless engine to an original setting. As I understand it the ADRPG community couldn't produce supplements for Amber because they didn't have a license for the setting. Jason to the rescue!

The Wall in Game of Thrones is 700 ft high, surely we can beat that.

Sure, but at a mundane level even a 1000ft dyke would save a significant chunk of Esrolia. Where to build it though? To put it at the optimal contour you’d need to know how high the water will go.

The dykes would have to encompass Heortland as well to block it's way into Drago Pass.

I'd have thought impaling weapons would hit the rolled location, whereas slashing and bashing weapons would hit the shield arm.

Good point, that could be a real problem. The same reason anyone buys the rights to a franchise - marketing. A generic dune-a-like would maybe find a niche in the market, but an official Dune game would get attention. That may not be enough nowadays though. Game of Thrones is huge, and there is a licensed game but I hardly ever see anything about it.

Hi, there are many different forms of spirit and spirit-like entities. Below is my personal understanding of this. Vogue and Sprul Pa are best thought of as forms of elemental, and it pretty much says this in the descriptions. Thus they can merge with or travel through their associated element much like an elemental, but this is not a form of discorporation. It might be possible for them to discorporate or to encounter incorporeal forms of them, but this is not described so I think it's unlikely. The description of Nymphs says "At will, a nymph can form (or dissipate) a human-like body from the substance of her home." The physical stats will only apply while the Nymph has formed a body, otherwise it will only have INT, POW and CHA as per the notes on disembodies spirits on page 164. Nymphs are best though of as spirits that can possess a body, but the body is formed from local materials.

I wouldn’t call that a long discussion, it’s just a few posts and doesn’t cover a lot of the concerns I have on this. Having shield fighting skill act as a limiter on weapon skill is one way, but I don’t think it’s a complete solution. Here is a summary of the issues as I see them: Attacks on shielded opponents by necessity have to be slower, so shouldn’t they be easier to parry? Shouldn’t shield fighting attacks do less damage, since they are slower and the shield limits available lines of attack? Fast contacts with a shield are repelled by it, so shouldn’t it be possible to parry with a shield, by using fast movements to knock aside an opponent’s weapon? It should also be possible to do a knock back or bludgeon attack using a shield, I think this was shown in the movie when a character wearing a shield charges into a group of opponents like a human bowling ball and sends them all flying. I had a lot of problems with the movie, but I thought they did a decent job with a difficult topic in addressing shield fighting. Here are a few ideas for resolving these issues. Attacks against shielded opponents do half damage. That means a normal hit does half normal rolled weapon damage, while a critical success does normal rolled weapon damage (instead of double damage or maximum rollable). if shield fighting skill is not known (base is 0%), simply make all attacks at half chance. If Shield fighting skill is known as a separate skill, it is usable in combination with any other weapon skill but acts as a limit when fighting shielded opponents, so the attack roll must be less than both shield fighting and normal attack skill. If the roll is a special success against shield fighting skill, then ignore the normal halving of damage against shielded opponents. E.g. Knife skill is 80% and shield fighting is 50%. On 1-10 do double normal rolled damage. On 11-16 do normal rolled damage. On 17-50 do half normal rolled damage. On 51-80 the attack is blocked by the shield. Characters parrying or dodging an attack while wearing a shield get a +20% bonus. Shield fighting skill can be used with the unarmed combat attack and parry skills, and to make knockback attacks. The example merits further discussion. A roll of 1-10 is both a critical on attack skill and on Shield Fighting, so both effects apply. The shield fighting Crit cancels the half damage rule for shields and the attack Crit causes double normal damage. On a roll of 11-16 the half damage rule for the shield applies and drops down damage from double on a Crit attack to normal rolled. I think shields should grant a bigger bonus for parrying longer weapons such as swords and spears. Maybe +40%. This is because the tips of longer weapons are harder to control and attack slowly with for the attacker. The extra leverage and speed that is an advantage in normal combat actually works agaisn’t them. Also they are easier for a shield wearer to bash aside and close past. This is why fighters in the novel always use shorter knives, maybe up to short sword length. Chopping and slashing weapons should also be at a disadvantage. EDIT: shield skill base of 0% doesn’t work very well with the half skill rule for characters that don’t know shield fighting. What happens when they learn it at 1%? One problem with the above system is that if I know shield fighting at a low level and I’m at say 50% skill with my weapon, there is very little difference between my ability against a shielded opponent, compared to another character with 80% weapon skill. That extra 30% skill gives them hardly any advantage. That doesn’t seem right. So while I think I’ve identified all my concerns, I still don’t have a fully satisfactory solution yet.

Has anyone ever done shield fighting rules for BRP? There should be a shield fighting skill and the higher it is the more damage you can do in combat against a shielded opponent. Maybe a bit like the Martial Arts skill, but capping instead of increasing damage. Also I think it would be good if shields had some sort of rating, so that high quality shields are more desirable than cheaper basic trooper shields.

Decipher we’re burning money like no tomorrow. Ken Hite worked there and said the office for the RPG section was like a corporate headquarters or a bank, with big glass offices, board room style meeting rooms, an IT department and such. RPGs just simply don’t make enough money to support an operation like that. Maybe at Hasbro - maybe - but along with supporting the costs of top tier licences as well there just no way it could have been sustainable.

The standout feature for me is the inclusion of cults and specialist magic for key entries, albeit in a very abbreviated form. Even so, it’s a hugely valuable addition relative to previous Gloranthan bestiaries.

The question is does that mean the rules for active spells need to change, or does Fireblade need to become a passive spell?

Pretty sure there’s more accumulated knowledge of real history, characters, religion and politics than there is for Glorantha.

The Miskatonc Library is pretty much an evolution of the monograph come ncept though. Independently produced material supporting a Chaosium game line. The commercial arrangement and governance are a bit different, but it’s still an avenue to publication for independent authors. I have the same questions about Fantasy Earth. I’d love to be able to play Arabian knights adventures, but also in ancient Egypt and Babylon, but those are temporary and geographically mutually exclusive. My best guess is that we will get both, and therefore it will be a game and supplement line rather than a cohesive single setting. It is tricky though. To be a proper setting a game needs to have major NPCs, politics, culture, national rivalries and such to make it a living world. The problem is that locks you in temporally very specifically, compared to a more generic ‘Ancient Egypt” setting book that is just rules and magic. This was the problem with the GURPS supplements and Land of Ninja. Etc. They were really half of a setting, to male it alive you also need campaign resources and scenarios.

I think it’s a “we’re not utterly slammed with a hundred other projects” perk.

That's the one!

I played a Lyonesse game years ago, it was in French, but the GM spent some of his childhood in France and is multilingual so it wasn't a problem. A I remember is was quite lightweight fairytale fantasy and loads of fun. The system used a sort of prototypical version of the dice scale in Savage Worlds. Nehwon is a great setting for RQ/BRP. I ran a game like that back in the 80s.

I understand the motivation and I can see why you think it’s a good idea, but from experience doing this myself in practice I really don’t think it’s worth it. However the stats turned out, I’d have to evaluate them and possibly adjust to the combat capability of my party anyway. Ok characters in RQ3 have a few more HP than in RQG, but if my RQG party are really kick ass, maybe that’s a good thing. I might want their opponents to be a bit beefier anyway, so down rating them for me isn’t doing me any favours in that situation. IMHO the main function of the rules is to establish a consistent base line for the players and their characters to work within. As a GM though I can set whatever stats, skills, magic etc I like for NPCs, to suit the logic of the challenge I want to present. There’s no set of rules that dictates what kind of armour I have to give these Broo the party will be fighting. Published NPC stats are just a handy baseline for me to work from. They save me 90% of the work, but I still need to put in the extra 10% to check and adjust for my needs. Someone doing an extra 10% work adjusting for my specific game system by adjusting stats a point or two here or there isn’t saving me having to put in that 10% anyway adjusting for my particular needs within that system. anyway giving like 3 different HP ratings, 3 different weapon damage dice, etc is just going to be a mess and much harder for me to check and annotate or adjust. Plus the extra space taken means I get less content.

The 'Hardness' of any SF setting is on a spectrum. I consider The Expanse to be pretty hard SF. It picks a few very specific things to fudge and then for the very large part sticks with that. What I really dislike is fiction that arbitrarily shifts the rules around on you.

I met Scott at Eternal Con in Germany. I actually read it through, saw the name, then looked at the photo again before the penny dropped - hang on, I know that guy! I'm really looking forward to following the series and seeing how it turns out.

I think there's a lot of flexibility around that. It will be up to the authors, so a cult type framework might work in some cases such as ancient Egypt maybe, but not others. The full palette will be available to whoever develops the line. Jeff discussed this a bit at Eternal Con, it looks like again it will be up to whoever the author(s) are. I think it would be good if the 'Fantasy Earth' games as a group had a common set of core game mechanics, but it's still open what form that will take. I prefer a DEX rank system for initiative per Elric, but even if they go with Strike Ranks it's no big deal for me. I used the Elric core mechanics, mated with the RQ3 magic system very successfully for over a decade and can easily do the same with RQG.