lawrence.whitaker

Anthony Boyd, aka Runeslinger, has produced a terrific overview/review of Mythic Britain's character creation process over at his blog.

http://runeslinger.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/overview-mythic-britain-character-creation/

This is recommended reading for anyone remotely interested in Mythic Britain and RQ6 more generally. It gives a very well balanced and well written introduction coupled with a character creation walkthrough showing the versatility and depth of the system.

Don't take my word for it: check out the blog for yourself...

Happy 2015!

At the moment, all we can say is 'This Year'. However, later today I'll be previewing the cover... watch this space.

This idea has been raised before and while it's laudable, commercial, trademark and licensing complications mean that it's very unlikely to happen.

I'm still somewhat surprised that the Corum sorcery rules didn't make it into Advanced Sorcery.

More than likely because, although Corum is a supplement for Elric! it wasn't a Chaosium-published book. It was produced by Darcsyde, and would require separate permissions from Liam Routt and Geoff Gillan, the publisher and author respectively.

I tested both Lulu and Drivethru/Lightning Press when we first got ready to publish RQ6. Lulu was fine, but didn't offer hardcover. Lightning Press offered hardcover, but the quality was shocking. No transparency on images and the binding on the HC completely broke within a year. This is why I don't offer DTRPG POD.

But the recent Lulu books are printer-grade. Good, crisp detail and overall well worth the money. The set-up process is also much improved. I hope this continues. Plus, Lulu offer distribution into Amazon and Barnes and Noble, which DTRPG doesn't.

When a current print title, such as 'Book of Quests', depletes its conventional print run, we'll migrate the title to Lulu so that it remains available in a print form. Smaller releases, such as scenarios or shorter books, will be offered in PDF on our store, at DrivethruRPG, and as POD via Lulu. Larger titles, such as 'Mythic Britain', 'Shores of Korantia', 'Adventures in Glorantha' and so on will remain as traditional print books available through us and FLGSs.

Marketing our works in this way gives us extended presence. Previously, I haven't been overly impressed with POD books, but a couple of recent Lulu purchases have changed my mind and test runs of a couple of our own titles convinced me.

Spanish, French and Italian.

I am currently getting the old Age of Treason material ready for PDF release. Watch this space.

http://www.thedesignmechanism.com/products.php#!/RuneQuest-Deutsche-PDF-Only/c/11615132/offset=0&sort=normal

The Bundle goes live at 11am EST, 4pm GMT on Friday 5th December 2014.

So, having said in March that we wouldn't be repeating the Bundle of Holding for quite a while, we find that the very nice people who run BoH have convinced us to repeat the deal in a bid to raise much needed funds for our charities in the run-up to Christmas.

The Bundle of Holding Resurrection starts tomorrow, December 5th 2014, time to be advised. It will include RQ core rules, Book of Quests, Monster Island and Ships & Shield Walls. It will be a one-week offer and is a great opportunity to buy into RuneQuest at a ridiculously good price just in time for Christmas.

Our charities are MacMillan Cancer Support and Electronic Frontiers Foundation. They will benefit directly from your generosity and support. Design Mechanism has also made a product donation to Toronto Sick Kids, this Christmas, and we're keen to give more to these excellent causes.

Watch this space and the Bundle of Holding page http://bundleofholding.com for more details.

I'm curious about something, if you don't put any range into a Sorcery spell it turns it into a touch attack?  Wouldn't that allow a sorcerer to use a precise attack to target a specific hit location?

Range is Touch by default; you increase range by using Shaping. To target a specific location you would need to gain a Special Effect using the Unarmed Skill (or unarmed Combat Style) and then Choose Location. It wouldn't be an automatic strike to a named location.

In Legend (just found a copy of MRQ2) Damage Enhancement can be used on spells. Clearly we decided to (rightly) tone it down for RQ6.

RQ6 doesn't permit the Damage Enhancement spell to work on magical damage. It expressly states that it affects physical weapons only. I don't have the Legend rules available so cannot check specifics but I wouldn't be surprised to find the same restrictions there. So whoever came up with this combo may have misinterpreted the rules. Would need to check exactly, though.

In typical Arthurian legend, Lancelot was a French knight who came to England because he'd heard about Arthur's ambition and befriended him (and became very friendly with his wife....). Since these times don't really have France (not sure what was there at the time)

 

 

Armorica (current day Brittany in northern France) was a Celtic kingdom that was overrun by the Franks during this period. There are still Roman outposts in Gaul, which forms much of middle and southern France.

 

You have many options. In the 'Warlord Chronicles' by Bernard Cornwell, Lancelot is from Armorica, the son of King Ban of Benoic (Mont Saint Michel) and he escapes to Britain when Benoic is overrun by the Franks. Mind you, he's a very different take on the traditional Lancelot (and, in my opinion, far more interesting than the saintly knight of the Medieval tales).

 

Franks, Irish, Dal Riadans, Romans, Iberians, Moors, Byzantines... lots of exotic lands to choose from. One of our Mythic Britain campaign characters is a Roman exile seeking to avenge a great wrong done to his patrician family. Although Rome had evacuated Britain, it still dominated mainland Europe and there has high mobility across the continent for several centuries.

That got me thinking about the non combat skills, why not have special effects for those too.

You're certainly welcome to try, but I think it'll be quite a tough job for several reasons, and, perhaps, not really a necessary one. Here's why.

1. If you read the skill descriptions (page 57 onwards) you'll see that each has the Critical, Success and Fumble consequences outlined. These tend to generate their own kinds of special effects anyway, so a separate system isn't necessarily that important.

2. Special Effects in combat result from differential levels. Non combat skills often don't need a differential comparison (it's just a straight roll, or an opposed roll) - and what I've described in point 1 handles the different success grades very well.

​3. Diversity. All the skills are diverse, so you'd need to work out a HUGE list of effects. And the attendant mechanics. Some Special Effects rely on comparing dice results in an opposed roll to see if a particular effect is successful: how would you replicate that if a skill relies on a standard, unopposed, non-differential roll?

4. Use the Existing Combat Special Effects and tailor. I do this when running Spirit Combat sometimes, rewording the effect and its consequences to take into account the nature of the contest. You could do this for non-combat contests too. For example, two characters are in a debate using Influence and Willpower. The Influencer scores a critical success and the resister fails the Willpower roll. The Influencer chooses 'Blind' and 'Disarm'. The Blind simulates the Influencer completely dissembling the resister's arguments, and Disarm simulates completely rubbishing the resister's evidence or point of view so that there's no come-back. Not all Special Effects can be used in this way, and some or more useful than others, but there's no reason why you can't port across the SE mechanics for certain situations where effects and consequences would add value.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from starting a thread on Special Effects for non-combat skills; I'm simply pointing out that a) it could be a very involved job and you actually already have some of the tools in the Combat chapter and all it takes is a little creativity tailored to the circumstances.

and yes I have watched the abysmal Clive Owen film.

 

 

Terrible, terrible film...

 

When you read through it, you may change your mind. This isn't your typical Arthur and Merlin, and I don't think you'll picture the former in gleaming armour or the latter in a pointy hat (or sterling silver skull cap)

 

Thank you!

The manuscript is almost complete and the editorial process will soon begin.

 You just unsold me on MB! 

And Clannad.

Poor old Enya gets a bad rap. The mournful track she sings when Arwen and Aragorn part at Rivendell in Fellowship of the Rings is spine tinglingly sad and very evocative of the Mythic Britain mood.

This sounds a bit like Pendragon Runequest 6 style.  The passion rules from the core book sound like they'd work really well with this setting.

It's nothing like Pendragon...

Pendragon is knights in shining armour riding through the cherry blossom to the strains of Orfe.

Mythic Britain is warriors crawling from the ruin of a shield-wall, caked in blood, to a soundtrack by Enya and Clannad...

But the Passions work brilliantly...

None from me.

RQ2 is still and excellent set of rules. And your friend was right: it's not the rules that make the game, but those who are using them.

I agree with you 100%.

I have been thinking of setting something in the Volkerwanderung period... How much info is there for "off island"?

Nothing, unfortunately. It's focused completely on Britain - hence the name of the book!

The HC of Mythic Britain will be out in about 6 weeks.

Pretty sure the HC Mythic Britain came out at the same time as the PDF.