smiorgan

Whisker, I sent you a private message!

Smiorgan

In this age of board coups, purges, and revolutions... I invite you to JOIN THE RESISTANCE! It is time for d100 players to OPPOSE dice tricks and reclaim their rightful place at the TABLE OF BROTHERHOOD!

Since the times of the infamous MRQ1 every faction coming to power resorted chiefly to one policy in order to persuade you that they were new and cool: "We have done away with the resistance table!"

2006 Mongoose RuneQuest does away with the resistance table...

2009 OpenQuest does away with the resistance table

2014 Call of Chtulhu 7 does away with the resistance table

2015 Revolution ... BRP Essentials...

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Stop being a passive charactersistic! We are already pitted in a struggle against the venomous potency of innovation for the sake of innovation!

JOIN THE RESISTANCE!

Why, why everybody hates the poor table! I love it dearly!

:-)

Supported!

S.

I think this is a very sensible choice. I felt that Age of Chivalry was at the same time too much and too little. And I look forward to the Robyn Hode campaign. 

LOL I have a certain fondness for that crazy cover we should ask Rick Meints for a limited edition of BRP with that cover! It really tells a story!

Here's my take: Private Vasquez from Alien and the half-elf Yaqui uncle of Little Red Riding Hood were exploring the Aztec ruins once visited by Signy and Cormac during the RQ3 glory days. Vasquez had recovered Signy's sword, and they were so absorbed that they both fumbled (!) their Listen and Scan check when attacked by a flying saucer directly from the 1940s. Luckily for the strange pair of heroes the green little man in the saucer had a Laser Cannon 12% skill  and failed both attack rolls abysmally. 

Nope. It will look like D&D4 Essentials. It will have kewl powerz for everyone and will come in a box with cardboard tokens. 

LOL, I'm still waiting for the "Castle of Eyes" mega-campaign for Stormbringer!

Very interesting points about the popularity of BRP. It seems you believe that the "less than 10%" figure was not entirely accurate. In fact, it surprised me a little bit. 

For some bizarre reason (possibly oversight) the old Chaosium catalogue showed publicly the sales data for PDFs, and BRP monographs did not sell less than CoC monographs. In particular, Classic Fantasy was selling VERY well.

BTW, one of the "killers" of Magic World could be the upcoming Classic Fantasy, which occupies the same niche - at least seen from outside.

That's an interesting point. Regarding compatibility of BRP Essentials they are in a quandary:

1. They make it back-compatible with BRP gold book. This would help selling existing stock, and appeasing fans for which the gold book is the ruleset of choice.

2. They make it compatible with CoC7. So that certain BRP supplement appeal also to CoC players. 

3. They make it compatible with RuneQuest, basically RQ-light. So you can maximise cross-selling with RQ players and, at the same time, offer a lighter alternative to the rather "heavy" RQ6 rules.

4. They make it its own thing. So that it develops its brand identity. That move would surprise me.

In part, this is the result of the merger, in part Chaosium painted themselves in a corner by disregarding compatibility of CoC7 with BRP. That still baffles me. There are many innovations in CoC7 that could have been done in a BRP-like fashion obtaining essentially the same effect (e.g. % characteristic rolls) and seem to be different "just because". I have my own theory on why it happened, but I will keep it for myself...

Let us put things into perspective...

Like many of you I have mixed feelings about the latest Chaosium developments. While I look forward to more Mythic Iceland goodness, Gloranthan RQ and general influx of new blood and new ideas, I lament the loss of MW, the end of the Alephtar license, and Ben not being with Chaosium anymore.

Even with those negatives, the situation is MUCH better than it was, say, around 2002-2005. Let's turn back the clock...

- Chaosium was already in a rather bad financial situation. 

- Call of Cthulhu was the ONLY supported d100 game, and it had gone largely d20 around 2002!

- After the publication of the fifth edition in 2001, Stormbringer remained unsupported (except for the sole third party Corum supplement), with Michael Moorcock publicly lamenting that the license was mishandled.

- RuneQuest was a ghost of the past. Nothing was in sight for it. We would have to wait 2006 to rejoice for a new version of RQ, a version that came out of a farcical playtest and whose combat system was simply broken in the most basic sense (as in "you can't play that"). I'm speaking of MRQ1, which has many merits, but not that of being a sleek implementation of d100.

- Glorantha was supported via the rather ugly and enigmatic HeroWars. I still remember the bonus maps in the boxed set... oh dear!

-Obviously, without MRQ's SRD there was no GORE, no OpenQuest, no Renaissance, Nothing. Zilch. Nada. No Alephtar, no d101 games, no Design Mechanism. Nothing to see here, move along!

- We would have to wait 2008 to buy the uncorrected proofs of the BRP book. Uncorrected proofs! No, I mean, there were sentences that would not end. We would have to wait I don't know how much longer to play 'In Search of the Trollslayer" with pre-generated characters that got the BRP magic rules wrong!

If we survived that, we can survive BRP essentials, MW being unsupported and CoC7's unnecessary but largely innocuous innovations. I'm sure!

;-)

Smiorgan

All in all, it's a very sensible choice.

The good: 

1. With the slim booklet BRP goes back to its origins and purpose. Calling "Basic" the gold book was kind of a misnomer.

2. They keep in print the gold book via print on demand, That's very sensible.

3. They develop Mythic Iceland. Which is GREAT NEWS. Mythic Iceland was the best BRP setting, on a par with Alephtar's BRP Rome. It really deserves to be relaunched.

4. They try out new things, be they BRP or not. Things like 13th Age in Glorantha are a breath of resh air.

The bad:

1. It seems they drop Magic World. I 

I'd approach Loz about that as he posts in this forum and knows Stormbringer inside-out and is at the same time closely in touch/ working with the new Chaosium.

Sorry, I did not notice the other thread on Chaosium's translocation. Please remove the thread.

I hope they do a Worlds of Wonder hardback. Sadly, the Stormbringer material will likely remain unpublished. 

Just some wild guesses about what could be in there, in the early 1990s Chaosium announced two Stormbringer campaigns that were to remain vaporware forever:

River of Tears - of which nothing is known

Castle of Eyes - which was to be set in the world of Penelope Love's eponymous novel, which Chaosium published. You can see the novel in the same picture on the right! I've read somewhere that the novel itself was originally based on Love's own Stormbringer/ RQ Vikings campaign.

But maybe it's more recent stuff, like

Loz's Hawkmoon manuscript that Chaosium published only partially as a monograph.

The unfinished manuscript of 'Straits of Chaos" - if it ever existed.

Chaosium has closed its brick-and-mortar office, and look at this picture of the translocation:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112389437586870813551/posts/D5eecysZKbn?cfem=1&pid=6198432447824214002&oid=112389437586870813551

Left of the Pendragon 1st edition box you can see a brown cardboard box marked as "Unpublished Stormbringer Materials". I'm very curious about its contents!

Chaosium as brick-and-mortar company is gone. The end of an era...

Google + post:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/114390571812620079517/posts/RKjnCc3kwuZ

More photos:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/112389437586870813551/posts/D5eecysZKbn?cfem=1

Wow! Paolo, I didn't see this coming! Very interested in seeing how it pans out.

And I will as well be happy to support Alephtar where I can.

Does this have any connection/ impact on the Italian language Rune Quest 6 programs of Alephtar?

To make experienced characters more powerful/ survivable try the following:

1- As in older editions of Stormbringer, let the magic-using characters increase their POW stat more easily (after POW:POW rolls against stronger opponents or after training immediately increase POW by 1d4-1 instead of using the normal method of rolling below 21). Furthermore, POW goes beyond the normal human limit of 21. High power is essential for lots of powerful magics, including Deep Magic and demon binding.

2- Every spell occupies 1 INT slot irrespectively of how many levels it has. This reverts to the Elric! rule and is crucial for using effectively moe powerful magic.

3- Having implemented the above critical fixes, use all the options in Advanced Sorcery. Including Arete rules for non-magic using characters.

4- Be generous with allegiance points, and, once per session, allow to roll under their allegiance to avoid a deadly blow (they are unconscious instead). You can also use the BRP Mythic Iceland allegicance rules with a starting allegiance of 25+1D6 to a specific deity. Mythic Iceland proposes specific allegiance benefits for the various Norse gods. They are easy to translate/ adapt to Golarion's pantheon.

5- Skills increase by 1d10, professional skills increase by 2d6.

Awesome stuff!

 I'm very happy that Ben is still onboard (as we all hoped) and that BRP/ MW are still in Chaosium's plans. Slow trickle is not a problem as long as the quality is consistent and each game line has a clear direction.

Such a situation reminds me of the old good days when Chaosium published several different games with variants of the BRP system. Stormbringer was not Elfquest, which was not RQ or CoC and Ringworld had its own rules and Pendragon was marledly different. There were family resemblances rather than a common core.

Funnily enough with CoC7, RQ6, BRP and MW we go back to a situation that is similar to the old days: games based on similar systems, rather than on a generic core. Maybe the idea of the BGB as the core system is over but this is not a tragedy.

Great! I especially like the "just as RQ2 was" bit, if it's indicative of the spirit.

RQ6 is a damn fine game and very apt to capture the Gloranthan feeling. I'd just love to see options/ advice for simpler and faster combat in the new book for those who are not inclined to bring the full depth of RQ6 combat to the table.

Hi fellow BRP fans,

I think that Chaosium are taking the most reasonable direction as a business and as a steward of a creative heritage. And I think so despite some of my personal gaming preferences.

1. I quite like Magic World. It's a great ruleset which further improves on the already excellent Elric! rules and The Southern Reaches is a beautiful little setting.

BUT I also feel that it deserved better than the lacklustre presentation it got in the corebook and Advanced Sorcery books. Contentwise these are very good books, but they deserved better art, better layout and additional proofreading. Magic World  also needed quickstart rules that actually made sense (the adventure in the MW quickstart is very nice, but the rules don't make sense). 

2. I like the BRP Big Gold Book, and I think that Mythic Iceland for BRP is a masterpiece. I like my resistance table.

BUT I also think that the production schedule of BRP in the last seven years or so had no rhyme nor reason. The game has no identity nor recognition except for the small community of excellent folks posting here. There has been little innovation, with some of the most interesting products not adequately supported (Chronicles of Future Earth, Classic Fantasy and Mythic Iceland deserved better!) 

3. I don't think CoC 7 needed most of its quirky innovations. A CoC 7 based on BRP would have been better for me.

BUT still, CoC 7 is a perfectly functional game and 90% of CoC players don't care about BRP. I've played the "Alone Against the Flames" solo and it feels...well.. exactly as an old CoC solo. The new books will probably be very beautiful and the number of backers shows how popular CoC is. 

4. I do think RQ6 is slightly too rules-heavy and I would have liked it to be more similar to my beloved RQ3.

BUT I can see very well it is a very consistent and inspired game, faithful to the RuneQuest heritage in many ways, full of nice touches (e.g. passions from Pendragon), clearly written, beautifully produced and magnificently supported. And who does not want a Gloranthan RuneQuest supplement to go back to the Borderlands and Balazar??? 

IN SUM, Chaosium is and will be remembered as the company that brought Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest and Glorantha to the world. Connoisseurs will add the magnificent Pendragon and the immensely fun Stormbringer to this list. It's clear that developing these brands (those that are still owned) is the way to go from a business viewpoint, but also from a creative one. 'In search of the Trollslayer', 'Devil Gulch', 'Astounding Adventures', 'Blood Tide' were nice, but they did not make history. 'The Magic Book' is better left forgotten. And perhaps the 'Liber Ka' did not need reappearing as 'Enlightened Magic'.

I will be happy if the BGB BRP remains in print and if Magic World finds its niche as a rules-light, introductory fantasy game addressing a younger audience. Maybe paired with a fast and furious Superworld game. But maybe in the long run it will be better business to bring these rulesets closer to Rune Quest. 

To tell it all, I will miss a fast-paced Stormbringer/ Hawkmoon/ Corum game. But that's very hard to revive.

Go Chaosium!

Smiorgan

(I posted a similar message on Tom Zunder's Tavern)

Same here. I remember reading the optional rule in BGB on "eliminating statements of intent completely" and realizing that I had ALWAYS played like that in all my BRP games.

Hi All, 

My two cents on the subjects of BRP support and monographs.

I don't think the new management will sideline BRP. Sandy Petersen mentioned it in the interview saying that it has been the "red headed stepchild" of Chaosium without a line editor and that they are going to change this. He also mentioned "Magic World". What I expect is that they will give more thematic focus to the BRP line.

If they scrap the monographs I'm not going to cry. Contentwise some of them where great (for instance Val-du-Loup, Basic Fantasy, Gods of Law, Old Hrolmar), but as a publishing product they were just sad. In an age of freely available professionally laid-out publications by fans you had a publisher charging for horribly laid out stuff with horrid covers. So, I hope to say goodbye to monographs and welcome to professionally laid-out POD products.

Smiorgan