smiorgan

I think I'll go for a game bringing together some of what I think are the best features of each "incarnation" and then add on it with things that have nevere been properly explored. I'll start with Stormbringer 1-3 and 4. They were amazingly flavorful games. Here is what I see as the strong points: - The simple, fast and furious d100 engine. Brutality and randomness. - Random character generation. Regional traits. A reasonable but limited number of professions. - Magic centered on summoning and invocations rather than on anything remotely similar to RQ battle magic or D&D spells. Magic is violent, powerful and crazy. When you do magic you are never fully in control. As rooted as they may be in the actual saga, the Mongoose Elric "runes" don't really work for me. - Demon weapons. Yes there was demon weapon inflation and that should be addressed, Demon binding should probably be more restrictive. But losing demon weapons in the Mongoose version was a big loss of flavor. Here I'd go towards the Bloodlust route. The weapons should have passions and goals and affect the character who will be as bound to the weapon as it is to the character. From Elric! / Stormbringer 5 I'd take - The smoothed combat system. Still fast and brutal. - Possibly, some necromancy from Bronze Grimoire and chaos magic from Corum. - The way Law magic is handled in the Lords of Law monograph. From the Mongoose versions I'd take severa things: - Passions! - Pacts with the Lords of the Higher Worlds and other supernatural entities. - Random life events at chargen. - The cleverly designed economy of magic points in summoning (much better than in Elric!) - Dream magic and dream realms. Al this for a game centered on the Young Kingdoms and the Elric Saga. I'd like to see 4 levels of play: 1) Scoundrel. You play a beggar from Nadsokor or a farmer from Vilmir. And try to survive. 2) Adventurer. You play the Smiorgans and the Avan Astrans of this world. You rub shoulders with champions and supernatural heroes but your destiny is tied to this plane. 3) Minor Champions. Say, Rackhir you visit strange interplanar places and maybe end up in Tanelorn 4) Eternal Champion and Companions.

I honestly could think of real life acquaintances who are way more "exaggerated" in that department than the incriminated picture... well, but that's kinda not the point.

It's a well known historical fact that during the D100 Revolution, the revolutionary Ninja-Nuns wore special bras under their black leather armor... Joking aside I hadn't noticed the silly breasts. Maybe because it's mostly back on black, maybe just because I'm a guy and I've grown accustomed to Seoni-esque sorceresses gracing mainstream rpg's covers. A distinctive, less stereotypical style of female depiction could be nice di R100.

Great tool! Smiorgan

Ditto. I've just upped my pledge. I hope to convince a few people to support.

Neat. The skills & traits system simplifies chargen a lot. And the character sheet looks complete and compact. I'm quite curious to learn how life points and strike rank work in advanced combat!

Yes, sure. It's just common sources. King of Sartar. This is exactly what I was thinking when reading it: "This is like the Silmarillion".

Hi Richard! It's great to have you here. P.S. Just yesterday I was thinking about selkies and I remembered Calisander, the Old Hrolmar monograph, and all. I am still super-proud to have contributed two or three NPCs to that book.

Great setting. Actually, I did quite like the Second Age Safelster/ Ralios setting that was in Mongoose's Glorantha Book. It made a great job in showing Glorantha as a gameable setting. It was really funny how Mongoose's release schedule completely ignored it as foundation for a campaign. For a while I mulled ideas of a campaign there centered around Arkati intrigues and Trolls. That could work quite well also in the Third Age. P.S. I did quite like some of the Second Age stuff published by Mongoose - even if it was atrociously edited and sometimes nigh unplayable. I hope this does not make me a bad person .

I really need to get the Guide to Glorantha! There are certain aspects of the West that are very evocative and very gameable. The Melancholy of the castle coast, with memories of the lost empire. The brutal war between Logic and Chaos where the Kingdom of War is in a dark mirror image of Loskalm. Sorcerer knights - sorry, sorcerer warriors. Monotheism. To the extent that these aspects remain, it remains a fascinating setting.

Interesting. Westerners did feel somewhat less organic than other Gloranthan cultures, but I would have never imagined that they were the result of a close deadline!

Based on what Jeff said in the other thread. Can you explain me the what and why of the changes to the Malkioni? My first approach to Glorantha came with the RQ2 rules and there was not much on the Malkioni. In the RQ3 Genertela box they were pseudo-Medieval (pseudo-Christian or Pseudo-Islamic) with a bit of Byzantine flavor. In the Hero Wars book it was more or less the same. I remember cool stories about the Order of the Swallow and the Kingdom of War. In Mongoose RQ Second Age the God Learners were basically the Spanish Empire of the late XVI century with a little Dutch thrown in, which was kinda cool in its own way... So, what happened and why? I apologise in advance if I'm beating a dead horse or the question is seen as inflammatory. I'm cool with whatever happened to the Malkioni (also because I can still have knights in shining armor in my home games ). I just want to learn about the new (or perhaps old?) vision.

That's really nice. I've got two RQ2 softcovers one sepia without errata, the other with color cover and errata, but I'll buy the reprint immediately. If anything to let the fragile originals rest and have a sturdy copy for gaming and casual reading. Will you try to reproduce the original layout exactly (à la AD&D reprints), or go the Gloranthan Classics route and add new layout and art? Or something in between? Go Chaosium!

Too bad! I was eagerly anticipating a reprint of Daughters of Darkness! Seriously, on the other hand 'Vikings' and 'Land of Ninja' were cool. P.S. Obviously we will have a ton of new Viking goodness with Mythic Iceland2.

I prefer the first one. More elegant formulation and more tactically interesting.

Cool. Anyway that was just my superficial impression, I'm sure it's a cool game.

Opposed roll: Compare levels of success of the rolls. If the level is different the highest level of success wins. If the level is the same, highest dice roll wins. Differential roll: Compare levels of success of the rolls. Each level of difference grants an advantage to the winner (e.g. a combat effect). If the level is the same the difference is 0 and nothing happens .

Surely a great piece of work but not my cup of tea. Defnitely too dark for me. I would not want my medieval game to have such a strong diabolical theme. For one, the Middle Ages are so rich and colorful that looking at them through this prism diminishes them a little. Also, I can live with the incomprehensible horrors from beyond of the CoC mythos. They instill a sense of wonder and fear. But I can't bear too much corruption and depravity, personal, historical and very human evil. That inspires me more revulsion than cosmic horror. That's also why I hesitate with games featuring the Nazi. They're too human and too evil.

OK, so no stalemates. That makes the game run quicker.

I see your point. It could be gradual and modular and the shades could do the work. Still, maybe... having a barebone sheet showcasing the bare minimum could be nice. An unrelated question: does Revolution have opposed rolls (as in RQ6) or you only use differential rolls with characteristics as hit points? It seems to me that opposed rolls become kind of superfluous when you have social combat and escalating range of special successes.

Thanks a lot. That's a cool update. Some feedback on the character sheet and suggestions. They concern both content and presentation. - I like how hit locations are presented. - I like that there is space for character portrait. I'd leave a bigger one. - I generally quite like the short skill list. I'd make it even shorter: why separate Drive/Pilot skills, for instance? I guess drive is for things on wheels and pilot for flying things. And where do you put shiphandling? Maybe there could be just one Vehicle Handling skill. - I'd put close combat and ranged combat visually together instead of having them in alphabetical order. For most role players "combat" is a thing. - Visually, I don't like the point tallies on the margins. -Again, visually, I'd prefer a slightly more "curvy" character sheet. Square/ boxy charsheet suggests a game where there is lots of math/ accounting. Which revolution is not. A few circles, rounded corners and serif fonts are sufficient to do curvy. It's not necessary to go crazy with organic/circular layouts. - I think the flexibility of the game would be better showcased by providing 2 sheets one geared towards more rules light campaigns (say, OpenQuest or original Magic World) and another for mega-detailed games (say RQ6 or Ringworld). Advanced Combat and Advanced Weapons need to go from the basic sheet. Even without changes in the rules, the character sheet influences a lot how a game is perceived. I remember starting to want to play D&D4 when I first saw this "curvy" and basic sheet: Instead of this one, which reminds me of taxes rather than fun: That was in part a trick because the rules did not change. Yet the sheet did suggest me a different attitude about the way the game plays or the kind of campaigns you can do with it. In Revolution rules do change and the different charsheets can effectively convey the feeling of different styles of play.

This is a very exciting schedule. Especially Mythic Greece, and sword and sorcery stuff. I have a few questions: Scourged Earth is Meeros' world, right? And what about The Realm? You don't mention Classic Fantasy. So I guess there are things underway for this title that you cannot mention. I hope it will end up as a self-contained rpg, And, I know it's not published by DM, but do you have any news of Future Earth? The BRP version was a lot of fun.

Yes. To bring it to the extreme. Turin son of Hurin in the Silmarillion bears many similarities with Elric. Doomed guy? Check. Black sword? Check. Kills friends? Check. Dragon helm? Check. Consanguineous/incestous lover? Check (Nienor sister/ Cymoril cousin), Dies by falling on his sword? Check. Sword finally speaks when he dies? Check. I've always found that quite ironic, considering how much Moorcock despises Tolkien. Actually, the story of Turin is the perfect counter-example of Moorcock's view of Tolkien as sanitized / comfort food fantasy. Probably the similarity depends on the fact that both Tolkien and Moorcock took inspiration from the character of Kullervo in the Finnish Kalevala. I did not know about Kaleb D'aark. But they (GW) also perpetrated the embarassing High Elf Gilead! http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/75899.Gilead_s_Blood

Ok, I was distracted by RQ6 ... and actually by work...but I'll go back to learning the Mournblade rules. First impression is that they are good and fit the setting but that you could play exactly the same kind of campaigns with MRQ2 Elric. In fact many parts of the system are inspired by MRQ2 Elric. The game is meant for high-level campaigns. Players are not random dudes going to die in clakar infested Melnibonean towers. They are elect agents of the cosmic forces in the YK. They all start with an active pact to a cosmic power. And with de-humanising compulsions. The setting material has a very political and cospiratory take on the Law-Chaos struggle, which is called the "hidden war" - we are pre-Elric, after all. So it's more double-deals with corrupt merchant princes in Bakshaan rather than rampaging Pan-Tangians on tour. It feels a bit like Nephilim in the Young Kindoms, or Vampire. Core mechanic is roll over TN, with a twist. You can be either cautious and roll 1d10+skill or reckless and roll 1d20+skill but all odd numbers are failures and 1, 11 are fumbles. This is called choose your dice system.

Having read all the Witcher books except the last, I agree ... to a point. Better. I agree with everything you have said about the inspiration of the Witcher except that there is no Moorcock in that. Let me articulate. Very true about the Eastern European / Baltic vibe. Northern kingdoms are Poland, Prussia Lithuania etc. Nilfgaard are the Germans. The Holy Roman Empire or the Nazi. Dwarves are Jews. Also a lot of slavic folklore, etc. True about the D&D tropes. There are Tolkien-like halflings. Dragons of various colors. Doppelgangers that look very D&D and so on. To a large extent Sapkowski does to Fantasy what Sergio Leone did to Western. It's your usual Tolkien-land but everyone is dirtier and badder and there's a lot of gallows humor. It's spaghetti fantasy or, given that he's Polish, pierogi fantasy . True that it's not a Moorcock rip-off, as some ill-informed Moorcock fans that clearly have not read the books have said. The stories have not much of cosmic struggle and are not very Moorcock. That said. Well.. He is still a anti-hero type. He is an albino, as repeated several times. His hair (in the books) is white, not grey. He is a mutant and regarded as not fully human by people. He is called the White Wolf. He uses drugs to enhance his combat capacities. He is superhmanly quick with the sword and has command of magic. He is regarded as somewhat of a jinx and feared by the common folk who recall fearsome episodes of his career "the Butcher of Blaviken" a bit like "Elric womanslayer". So, I find it difficult not to think that Elric was an inspiration for the 'character' of Geralt of Rivia, as opposed to the stories.