tzunder

Orc 1, DX 13, Combat 45%, HP 12, AP2 Orc 2, DX 9, Combat 35%, HP 12, AP1 Orc 3, DX 11, Combat 35%, HP10, AP0 Axe, 1d8+1 OR Orcs, DX11, Combat 35%, AP1, Axe 1d8+1 Orc1, HP12 Orc2, HP10 Orc3, HP11

In BRP there is less need to create endless reams of new monsters. Cos the monsters are usually people too! Any intelligent or even semi intelligent creature may be a cult member, and layering a cult spells and items and stuff all over one broo or orc makes it quite different from the next one. Another thing to remember is that any BRP creature grows with experience just as a PC. So again your orc, who may be a cultist in a death cult, maybe 25-30 years old, and will have experience and skills to reflect that, not to mention spells and magic items. He may also be utterly different from another orc from a tribe that worships the moon, tends to have madness spells and a propensity for using spears and arrows, and wears lunar silver armour.. As always, keep the opposition much weaker than the PCs, so a part of 4 PCs may go up against 4 orcs, 3 of which should be crap, maybe 25% in weapon skills, and minimal armour, maybe 1 low powered spell between them. The 1 who is good, can be at the same sort of experience and skill mix as the PCs, but with interesting spells or one nice item. The PCs wil kill the cannon fodder and you decide as a GM if the tougher guy stands and fights or runs or offers ransom for his life if he surrenders. Now, dumb monsters.. look at previous examples in the rulebooks you have, or some of the older BRP books, or maybe Monster Coliseum for RQII/Legend.. and these critters that are non sentient will be more instinctive, their stats and skills are always the same, and you can model their funky 'effects' from spells or powers (but they're probably not magical). When converting a D&D monster, be very very careful. A critter built from BRP can be lethal, but also a direct mapping of D&D skills and powers to BRP can make for a TPK! So.. best to get a feel for the system and your players before making a new critter, just tweak the BRP ones for now.

Savage North is icy cold Conan Hyperborea with some jokes about Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead thrown in. [Angel of the North anyone?] The Empire of Gatan is more Roman/Greek/Persian [think RQ Lunar-like]. You can basically ignore the connection and treat each as utterly separate, or you can merge and build. Newt had a very light touch there, so don't feel any need to make them integrated, or do so if you wish.

Jeez! My POW is utterly overcome, I shall be buying this in a flash.. I adore this kind of fantasy (but with SF roots) stuff. I've wanted to get some of Sarah's work for a while (I didn't go for Starblazer so Mindjammer was a no no) so this is going to be my chance. An excellent choice for Chaosium, it riffs off so many similar games from the past and yet also introduces new elements and new ideas and settings. Done.. I am sold.

Another quick update. We have a full gaming timetable for Furnace, we have 58 attendees, leaving 12 spaces free, and we have a growing collection of items for the Con Book. We'd love to see you at Furnace 09, but spaces are going fast.. so come along and sign up now.. Furnace

It's like many rpgs. However it is a game where as a ref you can rely on the players to just play from their character sheets rather than you or they checking the rules too much. As has been said, players can get very into using their skills, which can be a double edged sword sometimes. BRP has plenty for those that like to 'game', and yet is also quite able to vanish into the background for those that like to 'play'.. Be careful of the deadliness factor. Low hitpoints (compared to many systems), critical hits, armour bypass and the rather all or nothing nature of armour means that PCs are vulnerable to a lucky crit from a NPC.

Furnace 2008 Celebrating its 3rd year in business, Furnace 2008 was our largest to date, with approximately 70 attendees. A huge variety of games were on offer, and we were lucky enough to have no less than six authors running their own games, including: Newt Newport with both SimpleQuest (now OpenQuest) and Monkey, Neil Gow with Duty and Honour, Mark Galeotti with Mythic Russia, Graham Spearing with Wordplay, John Ossoway with Cthulhu Rising, and Andrew Kenrick with Six Bullets for Vengeance. Other games included Savage Worlds, Heroquest, Hot War, Fate 2.0, RuneQuest, and many more, in a wide variety of settings. This is an opportunity to buy a copy of the Con Book with various gems of articles, including Glorantha, HeroQuest, Monkey, UK Roleplayers Forum and Convention Gaming Advice. (see picture on auction for table of contents). 75% of funds received from this auction will go to the convention treasury to help make future Furnace events better, 25% will go to the Water Aid charity. Furnace 2008 Con Book on eBay (end time 02-Jul-09 16:31:46 BST)

Just a quick note to say that Furnace 2009 is now open for registration. I hope you can all make it this year and get in some realy good gaming in a welcoming atmosphere. It's our fourth year and we plan to follow the same format with a few minor enhancements. We always seem to have a really good time, so if you haven't managed to make it before then rest assured that you'll have a fun and refreshing weekend with us. Furnace is a full-on tabletop roleplaying con in Sheffield, UK, October 10-11 2009. We run 5 sessions of games Saturday-Sunday, no panels, no guests of honour, no auctions, just pure concentrated roleplaying. The con is friendly, in a converted gaol, beautifully quiet and has a strong preponderance of d100 games (CoC, RQ, SimpleQuest, BRP), indie games (Collective Endeavour have a stand every year), Savage Worlds and many more. Have a look at the website and see the Furnaceers at play.. Furnace

Ray I definitely wasn't stating an objective preference for one or the other. I like your combat exploits option, and I like Perrin's SPQR variant. My friends do swing metal sword and axes at each other and as such we sometimes meander through the whole simulation vs simplicity vs cinematic debate. However my view is always to try what you like and then review. I like your point about the game objective, since a clear game focus makes for better game in my experience. L8r

I liked how Steve stripped out all the special/impale/critical effects in his SPQR and simply said: "You get a good roll, choose from this menu of effects." I applaud it wholly, as long as we aren't saying that these aren't the only ways to get these effects.. just that in this way you get them for free.

Yes! Yes! and Yes! again. Simple, local, and with enough gaps at the edges to bolt it onto, under, over or next to another similarly small package, or even into a more detailed wider setting. It's the old D&D approach of building a world dungeon by dungeon.

Chris Pramas of Green Ronin muses a Freeport book statted for BRP. Go and leave a comment and persuade him that it makes sense, and maybe even recommend an author: Ex-Teenage Rebel: Stuff and Things

Elric! or SB5 is in my opinion the best version of BRP. In fact it is part of the reason I am not leaping to buy the new BRP book.

I note that Throwing is the default fall-back skill for most thrown weapons. I'd leave it and I'd leave Unarmed as it is. I'd then use Throwing as the default for thrown weapons and Unarmed for brawling but maybe also anything that you pick up and use but have no skill in, like a sword when you've never used one. Of course if you get an Advanced skill higher than the defaults then you switch. I think Newt rolled Athletes and Acrobatics together. I'd suggest that you roll Bladesharp and Bludgeon into one but put the old spell names in parentheses after them for help when decoding old RQ stuff. I haven't got this far but is there a skill equivalency table between SQ and MRQ? One between SQ and BRP would help too.

I own www.basicroleplaying.org.uk It expires 31 Aug 2008. Does anyone want to take it over? I have no use for it. No charges from me, but the domain registration fee is 20 quid every 2 years.

I shall be there and I shall be running Gwenthia. Damn, now I need to read Mongoose RuneQuest again and get my head around it..

No, not in gaming where I see co-operation much more fun than competition. I think one thing that needs to be done is to arrange for a BRP conversion for the Freeport setting to be written. I think Green Ronin would publish it, it probably needs an approach and an agreement between Chaosium and Green Ronin. I know that sometimes Chaosium seem lethargic, but they do have a good history of shared settings and co-operation.

I'd also like to say that since the Tavern is the core forum for Continuum 2008 then you can chat about anything at all there.. but if you don't like forum BBS then you might want to use the Tentacles list or the old Yahoo! group or one of the endless places that have some kind of Continuum content. It's gonna be a blast! >:->

I think a good d20 magic to BRP conversion set (or sets) is crucial. These schema look like good broadbrush starters.

Go for it! Many of the MRQ authors (like Lawrence Whitaker) know BRP very well and the systems are very interchangeable. I liked MRQ RuneMagic, and having looked at RQ Slaine I like the EarthPower magic. In reverse if you like MRQ and yet want to use the magic systems from the Unknown East for Elric, go for it. As for hit locations, well they are in the BRP rulebook (as an option I think) so then you could simply use the BRP hit locations, or even port the MRQ version over into your new mix and match game. Personally I'd try and do it the other way (I've grow out of hit locations). I know that any BRP games I run personally will probably be a mix and match between MRQ and BRP.. it's great tha there is so much d100 based gaming stuff out there.. even if it may have stolen Chaosium's thunder. Worth noting is that this summer an OGL game will come out called SimpleQuest which may well be a simpler and refined system to hang your gaming off, whilst staying within the fold of the d100 trope. SQ is from Newt Newport and will be 100% OGL.

Against the Sorcerer Tom Zunder 4 hours dead A Gwenthia RuneQuest adventure for 4-6 players in which the HagHunters track down and investigate Dark Cultists who have occupied an ancient barrow mound. Their slaving raids, rape and pillage have led the villagers to aid them. The barrow lies just 3 days away from the village, but no-one will venture there.. it is after all the resting place of an Evening Culture sorcerer. The game is a classic adventure scenario realised in the world of Gwenthia using the new Gwenthia RuneQuest rules, magic systems and religions.

When you cross the road and think 'what is the saving roll to avoid a car?' [i was very young and we had only played Basic D&D..]

Yawn. Do we need to do this?

Just buy Rq3 on ebay.. the Games Workshop editions are fine and cheap. Then when you have BRP you will have the magic stuff from RQ3 as an option. In other words, use RQ3 as a sourcebook for DBRP!