smiorgan

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

The same here. Ben and Dustin solved my issues very quickly. These guys are working like crazy to fully restore the confidence of us fans. Yä Chaosium! Go guys, bring back this venerable company where it belongs.

I have QuestWorld and I kind of like it. But it was far from perfect. The scenarios are kind of disparate offerings, put together and hastily adapted to Kanos' world map. There are also some inconsistencies between the maps and the scenarios. The solitaire is delightful - I had a lot of fun playing through it - but is pure Glorantha. It has nothing to do with Kanos.

I've just checked on Chaosium's website. The BGB seems to be out of stock. Is it recent or it's been for a long time?

I'm pretty sure the Superworld PDF available from Chaosium is just the scan of the old boxed set. While it's pretty close to the current edition of BRP, it's not 100% identical as a system. With the big golden BRP book you basically already have an updated version of Superworld - probably more streamlined than the old game. Still, you might want to pick up the PDF for inspiration or for additional super-powers and rules you want to add to your game. Check also the Pulp Era BRP supplement "Astounding Adventures". That is made for the current edition and is quite cool if you like puplp heroes with or without super-powers.

LoL! Please, don't. You have Chaosium to save!

For one, I like the cover of Magic World. I had immediately noticed the Chaosium logo, but it took me a while to get the "standing on the shoulders of giants" message. What I don't like too much is the interior art. I know too well the original context of the recycled pieces to appreciate them, and most of the new ones I simply don't like.

Apart from the Chronicler's Companion, I'd like to see a relatively high-level and high-magic mini-campaign set in the Southern Reaches. Something like 'War of the Fey'. Heroes passing into the Fey Lands where the wall between the worlds is weak to save the Southern Lands from the encroaching chaos. Something like Lord Dunsany writes about Corum teaming up with Slaine in the Feywild of D&D 4e (which strange as it may seem is a great setting). Weird islands with beaches full of bleached bones. Strange Driad groves where tree branches bleed. Standing stones. Misshapen Fomorians and talking ravens. Mad bards and singing harps that kill the loved ones of heroes. Ah, and cauldrons that regurgitate undead warriors.

Yes, please! Smiorgan

Ben, Magic World is my preferred fantasy incarnation of d100, at least among those in-print. I really hope it will have the support it deserves. I wish the new Chaosium a great success with this great line, but also with CoC7 - which is essential for supporting the company. You deserve to succeed in this noble mission! Best, Smiorgan PS: MW PDF errata are a very important move. A signal that you care about the line and its customers. Kudos for pushing that. There is however a problem related to that: my older orders - including the Magic World PDF are gone from my order history on the Chaosium website. So, I wouldn't be able to re-download the corrected PDF. I think this is a general problem for all Chaosium customers (I've seen it mentioned on the net by others).

Look at what Sandy Petersen says about the Chaosium reboot on Yog-Sothoth: Surely we do recognize Ben's name at BRP central! Great to see that he is closely involved with the New/Old Chaosium. That gives me good hopes for Magic World and BRP, by the way. Ben, can you add anything to the news? Smiorgan

It is difficult to overstate what these two guys represent for Chaosium and for the rpg industry in general. They are true heroes of the 1st age of rpg. They are part of the fabled dream team of Chaosium's heyday (together with Lynn Willis, Steve Perrin and obviously Charlie Krank). It easy to let expectations rise unreasonably with such a comeback. I'm trying to keep them in check. It's strange that there are no quotes from Charlie in Chaosium's announcement. Let's hope for the better.

Ouch! I hope he is.

Thanks for the translation. Not sure I agree about the supposed drawbacks, though. - a number of basic stats that are barely used -> Well, you're supposed to use them with the resistance table! - derived values that follow a different set of rules -> Not sure what they mean here. But, if they mean that in the old BRP Magic World the derived values are class dependent that is a feature for me. Like, only Warriors start with Ride at DEX x5% and only Sages start with 3 languages at INTx5%. It's an elegant way to deal with professions and skill bonuses - flavorful and less fiddly than RQ's skill category modifiers. - a resistance table -> Actually, I love it. Creative GMs can set potencies to all sort of physical or abstract obstacles: like the snobbishness at the party is POT 20 vs Charisma. - quite boring battles -> Never, ever had this problem. The constant threat of dying is enough for the players to devise all sort of crazy tactics and far fetched plans. Sure, if I want tactical RULES I'm not going to play BRP, but D&D4!

Hello Aini, My honest opinion is NO. Irrespectively of how good the system is. We now have BRP, Magic World, Call of Cthulhu 7th edition, which makes 3 systems from Chaosium (BRP and MW are very similar but not identical, the new CoC is significantly different). Then we have Open Quest and the Renaissance System derived from it, with First Age, which is also based on OQ. Last but nost least there is Rune Quest 6 and RQ2/Legend that is still supported by Mongoose. GORE from Goblinoid Games is still available in pdf and pod. It's a generic d100, with a touch of horror. This makes 9 in print d100 systems: 2 generic, 1 geared towards horror, 6 are fantasy oriented. When "RQ Classic Fantasy" will be out, it will be another fantasy variant. Not to speak of the many out of print d100 games that people are still playing.

Cool! Too bad I don't speak Swedish!

Stormbringer and Hawkmoon 1ed are great games indeed. For one, I love the random character generation in both. Flavorful. And elegant in an old school way. I'd like to play them again. Stormbringer takes liberties on demon magic. True. But only in the sense it takes ideas that are in the saga and runs with them with the aim of creating a cool game as opposed to a faithful one. A demon in a sword? Let's have demon weapons galore! Myshella of Law has a mechanical bird? Let's make clockwork animals for lawful characters! That said. I've always found that old Stormbringer matches quite well the sword and sorcery vibe of the early Moorcock stories as opposed to the more recent ones, Dreamthieves and moonbeam roads? Cocktail party at the End of Time? Native americans and green giants? No thanks, I'll keep my degenerate savages from Org and mad Pan Tangian sorcerors! Hawkmoon, as written, lacks a simple system for creating magic-like tech wonders/ gadgets. The French edition of Hawkmoon added that to great effect, using the demon powers of SB4 as a rough guideline. To emulate that I'd use the Super Powers rules from BRP's big gold book. Shattered Island supplement for Hawkmoon 1ed has great material on Granbretannian Orders that adds a lot of depth to granbretannian characters. EDIT: To clarify, I do like dreamthieves - "Fortress of the Pearl" is one of my favorite Moorcock novels. I was just trying to contrast the early stories with elements that appeared later on.

BTW, despite DLOM being a really wretched incarnation of the Eternal Champion... Slaves of Fate is, in my modest opinion, a VERY good adventure, well worth playing with the Elric! conversions. Alas! I never had the occasion to actually run it.... Maybe I should do something about that. Smiorgan

Straits of Chaos never materialized. Its cover was recycled for the BRP (RQ3) monograph. Smiorgan

Who will check their Latin? The authors of Cthulhu Invictus, and particularly Oscar Rios, have been prone to terrible howlers in the language of Cicero and Vergil. Don't get me started with 'Malum Umbra' and ahem ... 'Extrico Tabula'. When I tried to point it out on fora I got the impression that they did not realize that looking up word by word on the dictionary just doesn't work for Latin. In contrast the Latin of BRP Rome was impeccable. A real gem of a supplement.

The short stories and novels are great in my opinion. They are immensely fun to read and really want to be used as a BRP setting. (Too bad that there is a stupid gap in the English translation. The second short story collection - which would be "The Sword of Destiny" - was not translated which makes some events in Blood of Elves hard to understand.) My system of Choice for the Witcher would be Magic World, using the Advanced Sorcery supplement for the ultra-powerful magics of the glamourous sorceresses. MW - which can also stand for Major Wound - is gritty and fast and perfectly fits the Witcher world.

Dowloaded. It's nice to have an introductory adventure. BUT It seems there's quite a few issues with the rules section though. Or to be more brutal: the rules section is a lazy cut and paste work. Combat is not described in an intelligible way. The combat rules on page 10 do not even mention the attack-parry matrix on page 29. Nowhere it says that armor is a dice roll. There are weapons descriptions (page 11) and a description of soft leather armor descriptions (page 12) but no table with stats for the described items. Neither there are stats amid the descriptive text. Characters for the scenario have armors that are not described. This after a quick glance. The great potential of the MW corebook was hampered by a not so nice book layout, bland to ugly art and too many typos and errata. A quickstart that does not actually get you started certainly does not help to promote the line. Personally, I much prefer MW to RQ6 as a fantasy ruleset. Both are very good d100 rules implementation but my tastes lean towards the ligther MW. But let's face it: RQ6 material is of much higher editorial quality. (And they give you a complete playable version of the game for free) Smiorgan

Evvai!