SDLeary

No! Its better when we get things first! SDLeary

I have think I detected some variation. Does anyone remember when he served as the Galley Slave? I remember that being before meeting Alfred. SDLeary?

I know. Just providing a bit of background as to personality/social mechanics in BRP in general. And yes, they do appear in the Gloranthan Classics. In Griffin Mountain, pp.82-83, NPC Record Form. Listed as Personality Factors and Attitudes. IIRC, this was the first appearance in a supplement (c.1981). Prior to that I recall a magazine article (White Dwarf??) that talked about things in terms of trying to describe the odd dragonewt personalities. SDLeary

Opinions? Being a history guy, I have my own pet peeves, but they are relatively minor. SDLeary

This game should really be based on Cthulhu Rising! John! Put the web site back up! SDLeary

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Its not over yet! In the home stretch so you can still get in on it. SDLeary

I think this has to due with exposure. Personality mechanics in BRP started out in RQ2 as a mechanism to help describe the personalities of Dragon Newts, moving from there to a GMs tool for general NPC description. Its still in the BGB, stuffed into the GMs section. These are what would become the Personality Traits in Pendragon. I'm not sure where Passions came from, but it could have been tied to Sandy's exploration of Pamaltella, and the Jelmere. It would be really nice if Chaosium further codified these in the base system and put them into the BRP Compaion. SDLeary

Only if they can do it better than FFG... Warhammer feels like an abomination to me. SDLeary

Come now! This is BRP! We don't level up, we just age gracefully! SDLeary

In this particular instance though, with regards to brick and mortar game and bookstores, Loz is right. This is not a new phenomena. It has been this way in the game industry almost as far back as I remember it. In addition, the minimums that Alliance and others insist on often make it prohibitive for a small shop to experiment with new lines unless they have people coming in pre-ordering. The only real targets are small independent booksellers. The issue with them, is that they often have similar cash flow issues as small game companies. Its not really an issue of being negative, but at some point a business a business has to be realistic. If things haven't changed then treading the same path again only eats up resources better focused in another direction. Monitor things, such that if they change you can take advantage, but focus on what keeps the companies and their lines going. SDLeary

Yup... only 5 or six people. Each with other things to occupy their time (Glorantha). Which makes it even more perplexing that they would try to create a NEW BRP, when the OLD BRP is serviceable and less expensive to manage while Chaosium is in the state that its in right now. If they had stated that it was their long term intent to switch over, it would be more understandable, but this seems to be something they want to accomplish relatively quickly; again while also managing CoC, and RQ, Glorantha, and day jobs if they have them. Complainers... so anyone who expresses a concern about the new direction a company they have supported for over 30 years is a complainer? Really? This is a public forum. We are here to discuss the games we like, in this case BRP based and inspired games, and the companies that produce them. I may not agree with the opinions of everyone here, or they with mine, but I don't see them as complainers. I see them as people who care about these games and companies expressing their opinions. SDLeary PS: Oh and by the way, some of us have jobs that require we work weekends, so some of us can't support the convention circuit quite as much as we would like.

Actually, I think they did. Years ago, around here (SF area), both B&N and Borders had Cthulhu on the shelves. SDLeary

Basically because it will be very hard for such a small team to support two different systems simultaneously much less three. IF BRP is being aligned around RQ6, then it would only make sense at some point in the future to "bring CoC back into the fold". Doing this sooner would make design logistics easier. SDLeary

Well, now they have two different systems to support. BRP as it exists in CoC (still recognizable if you don't use the x5 characteristics), and RQ, which while similar is not BRP. It also means that there will probably sadly be ANOTHER new version of CoC in the not too distant future, which shifts the rules again... this time to RQX (shorthand for Not-RQ7). SDLeary

Yes. If they stuck with BRP, support overall would be much easier. Now they will have to support two different lines. SDLeary

<SIGH> This is what I was afraid of. SDLeary

This seems to be slightly different than what was said by nClarke. Hmmm. SDLeary

Very true, but it does have its Blog section, that has been used as a place for announcements for some time. Many of us in the Chaosium world have become used to looking there. And thanks for shedding more light on whats going on. SDLeary

I think they are all d100, but not all BRP. BRP is a Chaosium system that has never been opened up. All the others are derived from mRQ, and the mRQ SRD, which was a re-write with... what was the quote "Similar system with different words"?? Nick, help me out here. In fact, mRQ was designed to be in direct competition with Chaosiums BRP derived games. A from the ground re-write to make sure the systems were similar, but didn't step on Chaosiums IP. Remember, BRP/RQ3 were in publication at the time as the 3 reprinted Basic Roleplaying books. So while certainly inspired by, there is no direct descent from BRP. SDLeary

But the suggestions on Narration have existed to some extent for a while, with varying degrees of chunkiness. There was going to be more of this kind of suggestion n the Chroniclers Companion IIRC. And while there was room for further example, suggestion, and streamlining of Sanity, it certainly wasn't "broken". I also fail to see how the style of presentation of the stat block, and changing the characteristics to x5 would help in this fixing. The bonus and penalty dice are different, but fine and really don't change the game much, though does make it difficult to integrate older material which might list flat bonus' or penalties. SDLeary

Honestly the compatibility is there, if somewhat hidden. The presentation is what will throw people off. Especially those new to the system. And yes, I agree. There seems to have been no compelling reason other than to simply change and or look different. SDLeary

They never took the risks because they never had the money, things were that tight. Then that turned into complacency, which they weren't able to shake despite the two successful Kickstarters, one of which is hindsight is a major contributor to their current situation. After the June Revolution, things were open, there was plain spoken communications about what was going on. We were still worried about the various lines, Greg, Sandy, and Ben were open about what they were looking at, with their intent to get HotOE shipping done, and CoC7 out the door and to save more if possible. Then we have the July Revolution, and it seems like the curtain has been drawn again, at least to a point. We still have communications, but they seem less open and sometimes cryptic, to the point that its really difficult to infer what is going on. Are the intents of the previous revolution, other than CoC7 at this point, still being pursued? SDLeary

It had the implied setting that you played in; that of a pseudo-western medieval/early-renaissance world with Tolkien influences. It had Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings. Later this was expanded with more races and beasties. This was thin enough that it could be ignored or altered. I played in several SciFi D&D games long before anything official came out. People could play it historically, without the other races. With something more tied to a single world, this would not be as easy to accomplish. The Wargaming style of play wasn't really encouraged as much as inherent. D&D as an RPG evolved out of the mini's gaming of the 60's, via Chainmail of the 70's (broad strokes here. Go read Shannons histories for more details), and it was much the same core of folks doing the gaming. Roleplaying was new. I'm not sure of actual percentages for token setting vs. no settings. I'm buddies with a FLGS owner though, and he has said on more than one occasion that games that provide a ready out of the box experience sell better than those that are generic or pure rules guides, at least at the beginning of their lives. SDLeary

They might not know, or only have a clue as to what their new BRP Essentials is going to be based on. Their opinions might be evolving as we are bitching and moaning. SDLeary