Jakob

While after reading the new Quickstarter, I'm very much looking forward to the international edition, I'm also quite curious about that license ... so this new stand-alone RD100 game will incorpate the revisions, anyway, right?

I've taken a closer look at the rules segments of this, and it has rekindled my interest in RD100. I'm looking forward to the revised rules - I didn't really warm to the "first edition" (or however it should be called), but I still like a lot of the ideas behind the system.

There are probably good reasons for that. If Chaosium is okay with the Legend OGL, it may still not be wise to state that publicly, because that might imply that it is waiving intellectual property rights it might or might not be able to claim; and that might have further repercussions in case someone else tries to publish their own derivative works. Personally, I can't imagine chaosium trying to pull the plug on Legend and products based on the Legend OGL; for one thing, I guess it's a much more murky case than Open Cthulhu, because the only thing really connecting Legend to chaosium's intellectual property is that its rules are derived from the rules Mongoose has designed based on earlier edition of RQ (and the way I understand it, general rules mechanisms aren't really copyright-protected, only the wording and specific trademarks like "RuneQuest"). Also, it is clear that chaosium and The Design Mechanism (developers of RQ6/Mythras) came to an agreement that allowed TDM to re-brand RuneQuest 6 as Mythras and continue it. It would seem strange if Chaosium would suddenly decide to consider the whole bunch of Legend-OGL-based games (Mythras, OpenQuest, Renaissance) an infringement on their copyright. However, I don't have any inside knowledge, nor any in-depth knowledge on the legal side of these things ... To me, it seems to make most sense that Chaosium won't state outright that they're okay with Legend-derived games, but that they very well might just keep letting them do their thing - but please don't take this as legal advice! I don't expect Jeff or anyone else to answer to this post or further direct questions about the Legend OGL; I guess in business, there's sometimes no way around speaking legaleeze - or not speaking at all about some things.

Actually, the German edition of Stormbringer had very similar covers, and I think they took the core box cover from the french edition that was current back then: http://www.drosi.de/systeme/sturmbringer.htm

I'be been toying for some time with the idea to try and extricate the mythology of Laird Barron's horror cosmos from his works ... that would make for a great modern horror setting in a Lovecraftian tradition that is still quite distinct (and contains no Cthulhu mythos trappings at all). But I'll never get around to it. Maybe someone else will do it for me ...?

Well worth the effort!

No, but I might give it a try at some point ... I don't know, it just turned me off that the cover of "The Two-Headed Serpent" looked so specifically "Indiana Jones" to me. There's nothing wrong with that, I just thought: "meh, again someone using Indiana Jones aesthetics to signal pulp." It feels a little worn. The cover above looks fresher, to me.

This looks ... unexpected. I'm curious, at the very least. The Two-Headed Serpent didn't really catch my interest, I think mostly because the cover screamed "Indiana Jones" a little too loud.

Great - really looking forward to it!

A while ago, an Italian Renaissance inspired city setting called Fioracitta was announced ... is it still happening? It sounded intriguing, but I can't find anything about it on the internet anymore.

Since OQ3 is coming soon, what are the plans for Gatan? If I remember correctly, there was a bit back and forth on whether to include a small setting chapter in the core rules or to make Gatan a separate, meatier release. I also remember that at some point, at least to Gatan scenarios were mentioned, "Green Hell" and "From the Darkness to the Light".

No one else yet? I'm actually really starting to hope for a wedensday playtesting group so I can take part ... I've been playing the the new RQ:RiG for a while now, but OQ remains my go-to system whenever I want to run a d100 fantasy game myself. I'm really curious about what the 3rd edition will bring to the table.

Sounds good! One thing I'd really like would be some more thought on specialisation. Nothing wrong with keeping the generalist as standard PC, but characters that are more focussed (on combat, magic, general skills ...) always seemed to be an afterthought in OQ. I feel that providing guidance on specialisation is always a good thing for a potential introductury rpg.

I'm extremely tempted, but it would probably be impractical ... If it turns out to be on wednesday, however, I'd be in if there's a spot left. I might be a tad late occassionally, depending on if it get the children to bed in time. I might have to add that I'm not a native English speaker, so you'd all be in for some awkward phrasing.

Yes, I would say so.

Thanks for providing the links - I'm often too lazy for that ... Yes, there's no pdf option for the full book. However, if you download all the scenarios, the only thing you're missing out on is a short and very general introduction (that, however, has something interesting to say about the notion of putting out system-less scenarios). From my ongoing reading, I think that "Revelations" is the most outlandish of the scenarios, while "The Fall without End" ist very much a solid horror-movie scenario (I reminded me a little of Neil Marshalls "The Descent" in its setup, but the creatures are much more original). The Wives of March is an excellent, highly investigative scenario, but also very complex and demanding of the GM. The other's I haven't taken a closer look at yet.

I'm just reading Caleb Stokes' scenario collection "No Security" - featuring five scenarios set during the great depression - and boy, am I impressed! The scenarios are system agnostic, but would definitely work wonderfully with classoc CoC (or ToC, or whatever you prefer). I skimmed through them and right now, I'm reading through the first scenario, "The Wives of March", in earnest. Its mythology works in a Lovecraftian world (although it might be, in some ways, an even better fit for the settings of Esoterrorists or Unknown Armies), and it makes extremely good use of some classic subtle horror tropes - like the idea that They're Everywhere and There's No Way to Escape, or that you keep seeing strangely familiar faces. The antagonist is pretty interesting thematically, and the historical elements of the scenario are spot-on, as far as I can tell; also, it talks openly about how to deal with the racism and sexism of the times. It's also a very well-organized scenario. I really can't recommend this enough. There's a POD version availabe on DTRPG, but the adventures are also available for free as PWYW pdfs there.

Thanks for the explanation - it actually makes a lot of sense, though it doesn't alleviate my irrational dislike of rolling a handful of dice ... but knowing the reasons behind it will at least make it easier to look past it.

Well, since the question was "Magic World or OpenQuest"; it must be said that OQ doesn't use hit locations, either, and makes major wounds an optional rule. Also, Combat in OQ is probably a little simpler (there are no armor rolls, for example). Finally, OQ's character creation rules are definitely simpler than Magic World's, doing away with occupations. OQ's skill list is shorter, there are no separate weapon's skill (as opposed to MW). Overall, I'd say OQ is much simpler (in parts a little too simple for my taste). The one thing that seems to be less complex in MW is the magic system, which is very straightforward.

Okay, this may be ranting, but I'll still take the opportunity to mention the one thing that truly bugs me about RD100. I first have to say that I never quite read the rules through, even though I love a lot of the concepts, and I'd be very happy about a more accessible version 2.0. But there's one actual, very minor rules thing that I can't wrap my head around: Why do so many creatures must have damage bonuses like +5d2? I know that a lot of people don''t mind or even enjoy rolling buckets of dice, but D100 systems are traditionally relatively free of such things. Furthermore, it's just not that glamorous to roll a lot of d2s ... is there any reason why this isn't converted to, say 16d+4, which has the same range? I know that it is unreasonable of me to complain if I don't even really know the system behind the dice; it's just that every time I leaf through RD100, I see this pesky +5d2 somewhere and thing "eww, now I can't read on." Strange but true.

I guess I'd say yes, but I have no idea what an AMA is ...

Thanks, I didn't know about that document - it's a great help!

That's a good point. Though shields offer only relatively little missle protection as well, there's a fixed chance depending on shield size that goes from 10 to 30, I think (or to 60 when ducking behind it - I don't have the book at hand at the moment, but I read that part of the rules today and at least remember it like that). Another thing that might figure into it is armour. In the armour table, there is a skill penalty listed; now, while I can't figure out when it would apply, according to RAW, and it even says explicitly in the rules that there's no armor penalty for combat actions, I'd tend to apply the penalty to dodge, at least. It just seems to make sense, and it would also mean that there can be a meaningful decision between fighting in light armor and focussing on dodging or fighting in heavy armor and using a shield or you main weapon to parry.

That's an angle I really like for sword&sorcery settings: Ancient starfarers, if done non-cheesy and sparingly, can provide a lot of sense of wonder. Just don't put them in starships that look like future earth technology, because than you get that kind of genre-mix that feels a little too meta-textual for my taste. Maybe they flew around in giant, hollowed-out trees powered by rune magic, or in some kinds of cocoons. Maybe instead of AIs, they had bound demons for interstellar navigation (and what are these demons up to now ...?). Certainly, there will be crashed and buried ships to be found, or maybe even deserted ships in orbit that could be reached by some kind of magic (MW's "Breath of Life" spell could substitute for a space suit). Sorry for going off on a tangent, I just entered brainstorming mode ... anyway, I like these frost giants, they sound sufficiently alien, not just like "really big, strong northland barbarians with blue skin."

Next question: Dodge simply seems to be the best defensive skill - its effects in the combat Matrix are the same as in parry, but you don't have a weapon that can be damaged or broken. There are two downsides: You can't make a riposte, and Dodge is a separate skill to put points in at Chargen. Still, Dodge is definitely superior to shields - you need to learn a separate shield skill, as well, and, like a weapon, a shield can be damaged and broken. Am I missing something? In terms of effectiveness, is there a good reason to put your starting points in a shield skill instead of Dodge?