RobP

This brings me back to one of my earlier points, that BRP is nearly always eclipsed by the specialist systems from which BRP derives its rules. In the above case, Devil's Gulch and Chronicles of Future Earth (CoFE) may well catch on, but they will be Devil's Gulch and CoFE - they will not be seen as BRP, but as product lines in their own right. I think the D100 rules upon which BRP are based on are amazing, when I got on the bandwagon in the '80's it was nice to have a system without character classes or levels. But I think BRP by itself isn't enough. Its like a rulewriter's toolkit than an RPG in its own right. I'm sure most of the specialist products that derive from it will do well, and whilst one can allude to them being BRP based, I suspect many people will not actively use that connection. They will just refer to their game as RQ, CotC, Devil's Gulch or CoFE. This all leaves me with one of my original questions - 'Who is BRP actually written for?' I suspect for people that write and run their own campaigns or people that want to dip between several short and dare I say more shallow campaigns from different genres. I'm genuinely interested in BRP (through RQ and buying Fantasy Ground's BRP module) and am currently hoevering on the fence for a purchase. The key question I keep asking myself is 'Would I use it?' Followed by 'Would I be better off investing in CotC instead?' which I have to say is very interesting. I don't know - will have to do some more reading up! RobP http://AncientArmies.co.uk

I'm a bit late to the party on this one... The problem with BRP imo is that it is a generic ruleset. Because of this it lacks the atmosphere of any of the specialist BRP variants like CotC or Runequest. I think this is quite important to an RPG. Atmosphere is enhanced by many orders of magnitude if there is a unique and detailed world associated with the game. Both Traveller and Runequest prove this to a certain extent. Both of these systems did well when linked to the Imperium/Spinward Marches or Glorantha. But once divorced from these settings their sales dropped. When I first heard of BRP my instinctive reaction as a long time RQ fan was to ask 'What is it?', 'What's it trying to be?' I thought if I wanted fantasy I'd go RQ, for Horror CotC or maybe even Ringworld for Sci-Fi - which kind of leaves BRP out in the cold. I think its the genericness that is both BRP's greatest asset, yet its greatest weakness. Kind of jack of all trades but master of none. Most RPG'ers want to pick up a set of rules and play. They don't want to work through a ruleset trying to figure out which rules to enable and which to disable. Its just too much additional work. On top of this there is the other problem of dilution. How many 'monographs' are out there now - quite a few by the look of it. But each one is its own campaign setting. Most GM's myself included, only have time to run one campaign at a time and these normally last for years - so once one buys a monograph why would they want to buy anymore? With a focused ruleset a number of addons and scenarios can be released, each enhancing and reinforcing the central campaign theme of the chosen system. This in itself entices new players because they see a ruleset and campaign setting that is well supported by a number of publications. In BRP's case by contrast, it is well supported - it's just that each publication is standalone - like its own little island in a very big Ocean. There are so many of these single publications, that none stand out, none get very famous and none get well supported - at least compared to other systems. I wonder how many GM's would opt to go for BRP and a monograph or two for their campaign rather than say a fully supported campaign world such as RQ and Glorantha with its myriad of publications? Another commercial angle on this is collectability. Where a single setting is the theme, most people want to collect all the publications related to it so that they can get as much information about their setting as possible. I would suggest that this factor does not occur in BRP as nearly all the addons are standalone and separate - so there is never that urge to buy 'that' supliment to discover something new about one's game world. Early on in this thread someone posted that if they advertised a BRP game at a convention they would get very few respondents. I can see why. BRP in itself is like a glass of water - utterly transparent, very versatile, yet with no real character of its own. It desparately needs some colour and taste to attract people. RobP http://AncientArmies.co.uk

I guess that is what I really mean I had presumed that because the original team haven't collaborated in such a long time, that there may have been 'issues' - I guess not. From an RQ standpoint there is a lot published right now, but I'm guessing many people focus on just one version of the RQ/HQ ruleset and stick with that. Which means that to get the full benefit of all the material lots of tweaks have to be made. I think it would be much better for everyone involved to try and produce one ruleset, so that all the Gloranthan material is released for that set, thus eliminating any potential incompatibilies. Plus, the publishers could tweak all the existing materials for this new ruleset and get ready to reap the bonnaza! I suspect it would attract many more people too, seeing a coherent system with many supplements available for it. It could just be me, but I don't think the current fragmented approach is a good thing for RQ. I suspect for newbies it causes more than a bit of confusion! About the only benefit of the fragmented approach is that if a company goes down - heaven forbid - material will still be available from the other companies. I love Rick's books, but I suspect that owning the RQ2 ruleset makes them all the better. What about people that can't get hold of the original RQ2 ruleset? There are significant differences between RQ2 and RQ3. Don't know about MRQ2, but I guess this is substantially different too. I was being naive to expect Chaoism to carry on as they were 20 odd years ago, but one can only dream Also, as another poster said, some more released adventures or campaigns wouldn't go amiss! RobP http://AncientArmies.co.uk

Hardly surprising. I have all of Ricks stuff in hardback - all very good quality and use it to save my RQ2 originals from wear and to plug the gaps in my RQ2 originals set. When I get some more money together I will probably buy the PDF's so that I can use them with the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop. I think what these sales say is that there is a real demand for Gloranthan supplements in general and Chaoism RQ2 in particular. I just wish all the copyright holders could bury their axes and get on and re-release an updated RQ2 rulebook and all the original supplements. Once they finished that they can then get to work on some new original material - I don't want much I'm sure all this would sell like hot-cakes. Right now I get a choice of using my RQ2 rules - I'm one of the fortunate ones that have access to them - or try to adapt BRP - which I'm not sure works very well for RQ2 or alternatively try Heroquest which from what I hear sounds like too much of a departure from RQ2 or try Mongoose's RQII(4) which I have heard good things about, though I'm not too sure how well it deals with modelling Glorantha. I've only been waiting since the late '80's for an RQ2 resurgance, but instead all we got was RQ3 - which I considered a disaster - just seemed completely soul less to me - probably because Glorantha got removed and the other pretenders that are out now. Don't get me wrong about BRP, its a good system, but its hardly 'Basic' compared to RQ2, nor is it RQ2. (The BRP that came with RQ2 was Basic!) RobP - Still waiting.... http://AncientArmies.co.uk

Thanks for all the replies. I think I will buy - if only to see how it can be leveraged for other settings and to see some of the rules used in Chaoism games (I've only ever bought RQ from them). Although it looks like Mongoose are doing a good job with RQ2, I sometimes wish Chaoism would get it back RobP

Wow this thread seems to show that we are all relativelly old! It also seems to indicate that perhaps the heyday of pen and paper RPG's has probably passed. Either that or BRP attracts a much older and sophisticated player RobP

Hi All, I have been a long time player of RQ (since late '70's) and have always felt the most comfortable with the original RQII. Recently I became aware of BRP which I have heard some claims that it is RQ3/4 (depends how you number ) in all but name. I guess my question is: Is it worth buying BRP to run a RQ campaign? Or would I be better off sticking with my current books? Does BRP bring anything new to the table or is it just RQ without Glorantha? If it is the latter I'm not entirely sure of its value. On the other side of the coin I guess I could be missing the point - and that is BRP is a Generic system which can be used for anything - something that the original RQ rules cannot be used for. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Thanks RobP