SDLeary

They seem to be trying to follow the same format that they did with iTunes. We will honestly have to see how that turns out, though they do seem to have three major Textbook publishers on-board, or have at least convinced their CEOs enough to interview for the Apple produced video shown at the event. Until the licensing and distribution issues are ironed out, its certainly not going to be relevant, save for small independents. What I'm more interested in at the moment are the capabilities of the iBook Author program itself and what that could show us is actually possible with the (psudo) ePub format that Apple has presented. InDesign has decent capabilities, but even it has to be tweaked somewhat after export. I would love a more open distribution scheme and ePub3 export. To be fair though, I'm not aware of any readers that support ePub3 yet. SDLeary

Shelved! At least for now (or again?!). SDLeary

Yes, hence the licensing and distribution questions issues I mentioned in the first post. On the other hand, if used to produce non-commercial or free items, you don't even have to go thru their ecosystem. SDLeary

Speedy second impression... Its PDF export is poor when viewed in Acrobat Pro X; looks fine in Preview. At least it was when I exported one of the built in templates. And, cannot seem to find a way to start with a blank page. SDLeary

I just finished watching Apples Education press conference/announcement and came away really impressed. Despite several questions/issues with licensing, distribution, and file format, their new authoring program, iBooks Author, could be a real boon. Why? It supports tables! Now I just downloaded the app to my Mac and started playing with it. Has anyone else delved deeper into it yet? It would seem that Gaming books would be relatively straight-forward for this app to handle. SDLeary

Sounds similar. The One Ring is the two perfect bound books with a section above the books for an insert that holds the dice. Now that I've thought about it a bit more.... a good intro, packaged in this way, would be a cleaned up Quick Start edition (and slightly expanded) of BRP, and perhaps Val-du-Lup, cleaned up and typeset by Chaosium. They could include maps, perhaps a couple of hand outs, and a set of dice. SDLeary

I think the discussion here on boxed sets is a bit on the narrow side. Take a look at how The One Ring has been packaged. A sleeve, complete with dice. It wouldn't be hard to put hand outs in there either. It would still sit on a shelf, and be much less compressible than an old set. Now, I will admit that is more expensive, and would be only for an intro box or limited run. Love to see Cthulhu 7 coming out that way, or as someone upthread mentioned, a WoW set. Things don't have to be like the old-style boxed sets. SDLeary

Still in the formative stages on that. Much more tentative than the rest! No. But if it get ripped away by the fumbling of a spell, or through normal Soul (Sanity) loss over an hours period. So, if you make a roll, not only would you get a check to increase that category, but you also might loose between zero and three points of Soul, based on the beastie or situation. Loose so many points in an hour, something happens. Loose 5 points at once, you are shaken (stunned). I said beastie above, because those that would normally feed on MP would feed on Soul here. Currently, figuring out how Spirit Combat works without the PC going totally bonkers is a major stumbling block. SDLeary

Interesting. I think for me though, you've just added another roll, especially if someone is using Hit Locations. Roll to hit -> Roll for Prowess -> Roll resulting damage -> Roll location (if using) Alas, I can come up with no other methods to achieve this at the moment. SDLeary

This has grown out of a house ruled revision that I've been thinking about that utilizes Pendragon type magic at it core, hence the large numbers of Soul Points. Pendragon's magic, at least the higher end stuff in the Talents, tends to use a lot of points. The other issue I wanted to resolve is the bookkeeping. Two matrices of points is slightly easier to administer than three. Yes, you could. You could simply dispense with the large matrix and utilize Madness Meters. I'm would like to tweak things so it also works as a unified Mental Fatigue pool. That way, system shocks, use of magic, spirit combats, beasties that feed on your Soul, etc. all have an effect, and as you become more "fatigued" mentally, you become more susceptible to short term issues. OTOH, I have also thought of dispensing with the matrix and simply applying effects as bonuses or penalties to Personality Traits. That is somewhat the way the core works. Each value is a skill, or to use that forbidden term in BRP, a Save. These values are NOT trainable. The higher the percentage in a value, the more you have failed in that category and received Checks, whereby the value might increase; or simply increase by a value set by the GM. In the case here, the only time the shit would really hit the fan is if you Fumble the roll... then the character "Snaps". Otherwise, a failure simply involves a loss of Soul Points, which would function like Sanity or Stress Points (As in Nick's and Ben's Stress Rules) possibly causing something to happen over time. I am in favor of this. Isolation seems to be the weakest of the situations to me. I personally think that Mad Hermits are Mad when they take up the profession! Not because of it. In fact, I am going to strike it from my write up! SDLeary

Manuscript translation issues? SDLeary

I have to agree with this statement. Annoying, but I'm much happier to have the information it provides. Now... just an FYI for Alephtar. Some of the errors look electronic in nature. A program "helpfully" prognosticating what you are going to type, ala iOS or Android tablets. SDLeary

A little late, but here it is. This is a very very very rough description, but I hope it conveys how I want to take it. ------------------------- Soul Soul is the spiritual (psyche in modern and future scenarios) foundation of the character. A representation of both how powerful and how healthy the spirit is. A high Soul value represents a strong life force, a low value a weak one. Soul may increase or decrease based upon issues that crop up during the game. The starting value of Soul is equal to the character’s POW x5 (or average of CON and CHA x5; or sum of characteristics). This Attribute replaces Sanity. Soul Points This scale shows the relative magical power available to the Character to power spells, as well as displaying how fatigued their Soul is. The fewer Soul Points available, the more fatigued the character feels; the fewer points available to power additional spells, to defend against possession, etc. This replaces both Sanity Points and Power Points (Magic Points). Soul Points may be reduced in several ways. The most common is to power spells. Other ways might be as a sacrifice to a deity, a gift to a helpful spirit, or placed into a vessel for future use. In a Cyberpunk campaign, they would be use as a power source for Enhancements and Wetware. If used to power spells, they are reduced by the cost of the spell if the characters succeeds in casting. A casting failure costs all the points required by the spell, without the desired effects occurring. A fumble of the casting rips the points from the caster, causing a shock (stun) to the system, and a roll to see if they are affected in any other way. Certain monsters also feed on Soul in one way or another. Soul Points return at the rate of 1/hr, to the maximum of your current Soul value. Shocks to the Soul In addition to magical issues listed above, there are other things that can cause shocks to the Soul: Violence, Unnatural situations, Isolation, and Self recrimination. Each of these values start at 50%, modified by the game environment (setting, culture, etc.) A situation that the GM thinks should be matched against one of the categories would be rolled against its current % value, with possibly a loss of Soul Points resulting. A Critical roll would would cause no loss of Soul Points, and should give the character an Increase Check or immediate Increase in the category. A Success would cause a 0-3 point decrease depending on the severity of the shock. A failure would reduce Soul Points by the full amount called for by the shock. A Fumble means that the situation has caused the Character to “snap”, and Something Bad ™ should happen (Madness?). A loss of 1/10th of the Characters Soul Points within one game hour is a terrible shock, and their Soul becomes Troubled. As the categories increase in %, the character becomes more “hardened” to that type of stressful situation. Over time, a high % can cause the character to be treated as a sociopath by the society around them. High values can be mitigated by magics, or treatment, and receded to more acceptable levels. Fumbled rolls may also decrease a value. Lower % means more susceptibility to that kind of stress, and shows a weak will. ------------------------- Questions, additions, proposed changes? SDLeary

Merry Christmas! SDLeary

Still typing down the basics; I'll try to get something posted when I get home tonight. I still suggest taking a gander at Nick's and Ben's Madness rules in Uncounted Worlds 2 though. An interesting take that is somewhat more in line mechanically with Sanity, and thus may be an easier transition for some. SDLeary

I have not tried the UA Madness rules in BRP, but have thought about it. Have you looked at Nick's and Ben's Stress rules in Uncounted Worlds #2? Certainly a better stress mechanism for general use than BRP Sanity. SDLeary (I almost decided to bore you with my brainstorming on an adaption of the basic concept!)

Whoops! No... back luck is when they mess up their back at the warehouse! Thanks for the back-up! SDLeary

Knowing how back luck can get in the way at Chaosium, this is a possibility, though the "official" release states Winter 2012. SDLeary

Never mind. I was incorrectly thinking about some of the Avatars of Nyarlathotep... Black Man, Horned Man, Green Man... I thought there was a Servitor Race as well that stated that race could have prompted the legends of the Faeries, but obviously can't find it now. SDLeary

I'd have to double check, but weren't their "faeries" in Mallus Monstrorum? I'll check it out and let people know. SDLeary

Your right! My bad... actually his reinterpretation of the issue was to make the traits Otherworldly/Worldly, which actually fits better with the Fae scenario listed above. Piety becomes a Passion that REPLACES Love: Diety The write-up is here. This came about from discussion on the Pendragon forums. SDLeary

No, but for game purposes, you could assign a Fae creature a high Worldly, and a higher than "normal" cruel, and probably get the desired game effect. In a discussion on the Pendragon boards a while ago, Greg decided to change Pious/Worldly to Spiritual/Worldly. The argument being that Piety is really the Passion Love: Diety. Using this pairing, you could even give a Fae a high spiritual, and just omit the Love: Diety passion. SDLeary SDLeary

Nick beat me to it! SDLeary

I believe the "taint" being referred to is the "community outreach" conducted by Mongoose pre-RQI, then ignoring all the advice given on those forums and releasing a severly sub-standard product. That taint was removed when mRQII came out though. Are you talking about the skyrocketing sales of Legend and its PDF. You don't think that might be due to the PDF's price? And just as a marketing note, my FLGS has NOT been overwhelmed with requests that they bring in Legend core books; the owners are generally quite responsive to those types of requests. SDLeary

That sounds like a comment I made.... Brainstorming really. Someone then chimed back that they thought thresholds were too high. It should work really well (YES! That means its not tested!). A single pool of points to maintain, locational value, etc. Have to figure out how to track the major wounds... Tick boxes perhaps. I've also been thinking about making these Major Wounds more Pendragon-y, that is they require treatment above and beyond "simple" heal magics or first aid. This. And you get the "benefit" of locational armor, for that mix-n-match Road Warrior look! SDLeary EDIT: here is the thread from Sept -- Introducing... wound threshold:a change in major wound.