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lawrence.whitaker

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Everything posted by lawrence.whitaker

  1. Some more preview pages are now up on our website. This time focusing on the magic systems.
  2. Which is why I said it depends entirely on circumstances. :-)
  3. As ever, it depends entirely on the circumstances. The great orators can stand-up and deliver a rousing speech with zero preparation or scripting. It comes from having clarity of thought, confidence, and the passion to deliver a message in a particular way based on the mood of the audience. It doesn't necessarily rely on pre-written or rehearsed material.
  4. Churchill was the arch-orator. Once, on making a speech in Parliament, he apologised for the length - 'Because I didn't have the time to write a shorter one.' Which is as true as it gets. Some politicians are exceedingly poor orators and very good fast talkers, but more often than not, they're poor at both without a great deal of rehearsal and pre-briefing. A very good Fast Talker, and a good Orator, can perform both skills more or less off-the-cuff. The difference is that, in oration, its a one-way speech. In Fast Talk you're likely to be responding to questions and attempts to catch you out or trip you up. Like I say, very different skills, although yes, Frogspawner, they're both examples of Clever Speaking.
  5. This has been raised before on the Mongoose boards. Its very simple to handle: advise players that improvements can only be made to skills if the appropriate tools/resources/opportunities are available. And even then, as Deleriad says, it can be a non-issue. If the improvement rolls are doled-out at a point where the characters are likely to have significant downtime, such as between campaign chapters or scenarios, then it shouldn't be an issue. If you give rolls more frequently, and they crop-up mid-way through a scenario in a specific locale, then its easy enough to rule as above. I disagree. Oratory is public speaking; Fast Talk is gift-of-the-gab. I'm pretty good at the former and not so good at the latter. Oratory is a specific craft that I believe needs differentiation. You may have a wily con-artist who can sweet-talk his way through any improvised situation but stick him in front of a hostile audience at a politically important event and he may clam-up pretty darn quick. I've seen plenty of real-life instances of this happening.
  6. Yep, I understand. The rights concerning Glorantha are a lot more complicated than they might appear especially if your experience of the world is via RQ. The game system and the world are separate, but related, properties. I'm not going to post Greg's contact details here. Drop me a PM and we can take it from there.
  7. Yes, you'll need to talk directly with Greg Stafford at Issaries. Anything Glorantha-related needs to be go through Greg.
  8. Thanks for your feedback Al. Excellent. We have tested the previews on a variety of tablet devices too, and even on a 7" screen it remains clear and readable. Yes, brawling in this context is a combat style, hence why we left Unarmed as it is. It could've been, but isn't. They're very different skills. Conceal is used to physically hide things. Deceit is used to lie, cheat, deceive, obfuscate and so on. Maybe, but RQ and BRP's traditional ordering (clearly inherited from D&D) has been STR, CON, SIZ etc. You can tinker with the established order a little, but re-ordering into alphabetical would probably push quite a few grognard buttons a little too forcefully.
  9. Thank you for the feedback. We have changed the Fatigue rules and believe me, if we list the levels and effects then the character sheet looks very cramped indeed (and, in fact, would mean losing another, more important, play-related element). The margins in the character sheet are the narrowest I can get away with to maximise usable space. You're not viewing a full-sized sheet in the preview. The original is a full letter-sized page so it doesn't look as squeezed as the preview suggests. It also runs to two pages with equipment, magic and other areas accommodated on the second page. That's good to know! No-one's yet commented on the renamed skills or the creature stat-block. I actually though the stat-block might attract more criticism than the character sheet! :-) Oh, there's time.
  10. Hardback is simply too expensive for us at this stage, but we may make a collector's hardcover edition available a little later. RQ will be available as a print option via Drivethru, and I believe their hardback format is reasonably good, so you can still get a hardback by going down that route if you prefer. This is on the cards... Poster, perhaps (in fact quite likely. I'd like one, if nothing else), but slipcase? Don't push it... A map of where...? I can do some nice ones of southern Ontario... Book of Quests and Monster Island are our next two projects. Work is already underway on both. These would be cool. If only we could think of some game mechanics for using a rune-engraved d20... Ah - y'see? You pushed it. None taken! :-)
  11. There are lots of examples using Anathaym throughout the book. They're one of my favourite elements. The combat styles are simply examples of where they can be taken and developed. The rules contain a lot of advice on how to structure them for the culture and campaign.
  12. We've posted some pre-prod preview pages here. Look forward to the feedback.
  13. Thanks Ben - I take it the enormous royalty cheque is in the post?
  14. We're hoping so. At the very least Pete will be there in person (I can't be, sadly, although I intend to attend the RQ panel virtually) and we hope the book will be ready by then. If not, we'll be armed with previews.
  15. I must say I am also enthusiastic about a new edition of RuneQuest - considering the job you did on the last edition, which was terrific. Thank you! I'm not sure if the play testing is all done and dusted, but some questions: 1) would it be possible to have cheat sheets made up for combat maneuvers, and a character design sheet to allow you to add up the skill scores stage by stage? The appendix will contain all the most useful charts in one place, and CMs (now renamed Special Effects) will have their own section. A character design sheet is an idea we're considering; much depends on structure, but it would be a good appendix addition and website download. 2) Is Mysticism going to be similar to that used by the Dragon Cults in Glorantha, or will it be broader to encounter things like Zen, Sufi-ism etc? The latter, most definitely. 3) Somebody asked in your forum about Chargen being based upon 3d6 for all Characteristics. Personally, I thought this was a good idea (with the stipulation of re-rolls for any score 6 or less). What do you think? We've opted to stick with 3d6 and 2d6+6 for INT and SIZ. 4) What about a sidebar suggesting throwing attack, hit location and damage dice all at once? Also, in the interests of it being a book that beginners can pick up, might you include a brief line or two describing the dice that are used? Fundamentally, the game uses % dice, plus d20 for hit location and polyhedrals for damage. Nice idea. Better in the GMs' Chapter though. 5) Will the PDF come out first? No. Print first, then PDF. 6) How about making some reference to the Hero's Journey (Joseph Campbell) in the inevitable GMs advice section? Funnily enough, I've been watching a 4-hr PBS documentary/interview with Campbell which goes, in-depth, into his many works on mythology and I was musing on how incorporate his themes and ideas. We'll see. 7) I notice you're name in the credits for the BRP Advanced Sorcery book. How compatible with RuneQuest 6 would it be? News to me! I suspect my name's in there because I gave Zomben permission to use the Unknown East magic system. In terms of compatibility though, all the BRP family of games are highly compatible, although there's no overt attempt to make RQ6 and Magic World 100% so. Both have been developed independently. 8) How soon is now with regards to Pete Nash's Ancient Greece book?! Any thoughts of also encouraging him to do Ancient Aztecs, Ancient Polynesia and Ancient Egypt too? Its a little way off. Pete's keen to do the Ancient Greece book, but we have other projects before attempting Aztecs, Polynesian, and so on.
  16. We'll leave the Ducks for the Glorantha supplement. They really are divisive little bastards and I don't want to start alienating a section of the customer-base if I can avoid it. :-)
  17. Thought I'd share with you a little of where RQ6 is at. First, several chapters are now in layout. Some artwork is still to come in, but the design and structure of the book is taking shape. Others chapters are still being edited, and the final chapters are in the hands of the playtest crews, but we're nearing the home straight. What this means, in terms of publication, is clearly not the 'Early 2012' we'd promised. Real Life intervened for both Pete and I which slowed some things down. What we're now looking at is 'Early Summer' - and the vague goal I've set is for RQ6 to be available, in print, for GenCon (which I'll be attending), if not a little before. So we're still shying away from specifying a particular release date, because a whole mountain of things could happen to cause it to slip: but I am hoping that June/July is reasonable. It should be. A great deal of work is being done and we want to make the best book possible, which will mean detailed proofing and final error-trapping before I send finals off to the printers. We will open pre-ordering before publication. Once the book is fully laid-out we'll know its complete size, and can therefore price it accurately. How pre-ordering will work is dependent on a few background factors, one of which is how well the e-commerce facilities from our Site Provider work. They have new tools that I've yet to test, and it could be that we plug into Moon Design's e-commerce facilities instead. But rest assured you'll be able to order RQ6 from us, in advance, using a variety of payment methods. So we're chugging along nicely. I know its frustrating waiting for is to say 'Guys, it'll be out on X of N, send us yer money...' but it will be worth the wait. We said from the start that we wanted to deliver the most complete and best edition of RQ that we can, and we're sticking to that goal. But we do appreciate your patience and are looking forward to rewarding it. We will post some layout previews soon.
  18. I was in Boden a couple of weeks ago, Chorpa. I arrived on the day it hit -36 at Lulea airport. A group of us had our annual trek to Pete's for a week of roleplaying goodness. And yes, Spring will be Canadian/Northern Sweden spring, which means when all the snow has gone, temperatures are above zero for more than 6 days in a row, and the bears come out of hibernation. Everything hinges on the bears.
  19. Its very common in this industry for writers, whether freelance or salaried, to be paid either a flat fee or a per word rate. Royalties on sales are very much an exception. Pete and I were both salaried and paid a flat fee. So, Mongoose owns, quite fairly and legitimately, MRQII and can take it and do with it as it pleases. So it might seem bad, but in reality we know the score. I've freelanced in RPGs for over 20 years and I've never once been on a royalty deal.
  20. Not really. We should agree to disagree, shake hands gentlemanly, and continue with our endeavours in the way we each prefer. There is one thing I'll comment on though: Pricing an electronic product at $1 is hardly overflooding the market. Its a very canny marketing move, and if it brings in new people to this side of the hobby, then its to be applauded. Our chests swell with pride, and then we realise that we don't get a cut of the sales, and they deflate again. Hopefully they'll swell even more when/if the Platinum Selling title is RQ6...
  21. No, I don’t know that there’s been a precise pattern. If anything its been quite haphazard. And I’m not trying to be obtuse Paolo; I genuinely haven’t seen much of a clear pattern at all. Not really. Your statement: ‘but it would deviate from how the game is meant to be played.’ Is very clear. Its also tantamount to prescribing how one should play RQ, BRP or anything else under the d100 banner correctly. There is no correct way. All roleplaying games should be played how the GM and players want to play it. No version of RQ or any other BRP game, come to think of it, has prescribed exactly how it should be played. Your statement is implying that if you use generic cults then you’re doing it wrong. Bad gamers! You’ve heard the term ‘Bad Wrong Fun’… well, your statement was precisely that! Again, I disagree – and not for the point of disagreeing. The success or popularity of settings such as Elric and Glorantha is more to do with the depth and creativity of the original source material or the approach taken to the game supplements. As for historicals being used as a model for high fantasy; perhaps, but its probably more to do with the quality of research and presentation of the material, allowing for satisfying historical games to be played in those settings. Yes, ‘Cities’ was pretty good. ‘Cults, Factions and Guilds’ was a companion volume to ‘RQ Empires’ which, from the outset, was designed to be a metagame. I would think that a generic supplement, done well, with useful information, presented in an appealing way, has every chance of being successful. But I think you're also missing a key point, which I'll come onto later. The market is changing. What applied last year, two years ago or when MRQ first came out does not necessarily apply now... Hmmm. ‘Eldarad’ and ‘Daughters of Darkness’ are ritually burned not because they’re generic, but because they’re very poor examples of settings and scenarios… However I think the market is shifting. As Prime Evil points out, people are coming into Legend from different avenues where the old tropes of RQ/BRP just don’t apply. These, more than the likes of you and me, are the market where generic sourcebooks of any kind are likely to find an audience.
  22. A few observations. First Dale, I really like the Bronze Star. Its a great little fellowship organisation with a clear purpose, structure and hierarchy. You could slot it easily into many settings without coming across as 'vanilla'. I could see it working in Glorantha (Fronela someplace, or Seshnela), the Young Kingdoms (Jharkor), and mythic Europe. Nice job: clear, uncomplicated, and a great example of cult flexibility. Second, is there a market for generic cults? Contrary to what Paolo believes, I think there probably is. MRQ1 didn't pull-in that many new people and probably managed to alienate a fair few more. Cults in that iteration of the game were not handled well. The format was difficult, and the Cults of the Glorantha books Mongoose produced were deeply flawed. However, MRQII and Legend have brought in many new people who've discovered the 'RQ/Cults' paradigm for the first time and like what they see. The revised, MRQII 'Cults of Glorantha' PDF on the RQ Archives has been a top seller for Design Mechanism: that signals interest in using cults but not having the time or inspiration to develop bespoke ones. Another factor is the number of times people have, on the Mongoose forum, queried how to go about cult design, how to create them, use real-life examples as inspiration and so on. Yes, there's a market there. Yes, its probably the kind of market you're after. How big it is is the $64,000 Question. But to me, a book of generic cults, ranging in size and complexity and covering different socio-religious aspects would be a good thing. How could it not? The cults can either be used as they are and slotted into existing worlds; they can be tweaked so they do fit according to GMs' needs, and they can serve as inspiration for making your own. That's lots of utility. People do find cult creation either laborious, daunting or both. Having created more cults than I care to recall, I can fully appreciate their need for something that takes away the bulk of the effort. Paolo also wrote: I really don't understand what you mean Paolo. Just how are MRQII/Legend and, if you like, RQ6 meant to be played? I can tell you now that RQ6 will contain generic cult and other organisation examples designed to do what Dale's looking into. And, because RQ6 will be a generic ruleset, does this mean that I'm making a design choice that goes against how the game is meant to be played? I think you need to explain precisely what you mean by this statement. Loz
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