General Panic

Please feel free to visit the new Age of Treason blog, where you can avail yourself of Strictly Courtroom, a free scenario to slot into the published campaign. You can find us at: http://draconianpress.net/ageoftreason/ Simply click on the Strictly Courtroom link when you get there to access the pdf With best wishes GP (Simulacrum)

Many thanks Mankcam - the feedback is really appreciated. Pete Nash was kind enough to review a section or two I thought may be problematic and his notes were of course very useful. If the book stands up to what well respected professional games writers are turning out I'm more than happy. And if it brings genuine pleasure to people as a good read for inspirational purposes and gives people fun times around a gaming table, that's the prize. It's a shame not to have had, in the end, a book with RuneQuest engraved on the cover and my name next to it, as RQ has been with me since about 1981 as a way to spend quality time with my best chums. But things changed when the book was still in draft - in the end there's a lot to be said for being first out the door for Legend, and I hope it does well.

I'd like to keep it large format, but for a companion book probably soft cover (all to be discussed with Mongoose) - something over 100 pages. Current content at draft: 1) Treasonous Thoughts - describes some of the key treasonous, nefarious (or not, depending on your point of view) or just odd plots to subvert the empire that Adventurers can get caught up in 2) Goods, Commerce and Money - money and coinage, cost of living, how to advance your SOC, price lists and descriptions for common items (including arms and armour), trade goods, services (including magical ones), land, transport etc 3) Agriculture and Earth Magic - Why agriculture is at the heart of - well, most things - new spells, info and reasons why its relevant to adventurers 4) Adventuring on the Frontiers - three story outlines, plus stats and info (e.g. Sheng spirit Magic) to help kick off developing a campaign in these wild and dangerous regions 5) "Niadra's Scriptorium" - a short scenario set in Zarina that will set the Adventurers off on the road to Sorandib 6) Sorandib section - a city guide and adventure pack comprising cult/organisation details for The Artificers, Beggars and several others; city details, maps, plans of key locations/buildings, rules for Artifice, personalities, and at least one fully detailed scenario, "Twilight's Assassins"... This not exhaustive, but it's what is drafted right now. Aiming for latter part of Q1 next year. The gap between then and now apart from the production requirements of illustration, editing and layout is deciding what else to pack in there. In the meantime I will be posting a free pdf scenario to slot in to the adventure thread in the main book to coincide with the availability of the Legend rules. Should be up later this week.

Many thanks - I'm glad it's appreciated. I'm working on Artifice at the moment for the next volume, in which the main adventures are set in the Artificers' home city of Sorandib.

Thanks for the thread, Trifletraxor. I think the re-jig of the site with this specifically non-BRP forum is a really good idea (I'm the Age of Treason author, BTW) J

Legend

Mongoose have now posted an updated preview of the final Legend-badged version with new pages, also a high-res setting map you can download for free - links at the bottom of the following page: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/rpgs/legend/age-of-treason/age-of-treason-core-book.html

Actually it does - anyone with average Characteristics can master a skill (using the old school notion that 90%+ = mastery). That, in my view, is an entirely reasonable proposition, unless you consider a skill to be something that only someone with special talents can even attempt. However anyone with deficient characteristics cannot master the skill - let's say an 8 in STR plus a 7 in DEX - gives you a max of 75%. And to excel (attain something reasonably over 100%) you need above average stats. The fact that PCs are generally able to get away with a full set of above average stats is neither here nor there - in my games I generally don't like stat inflation in which a score of 10 on 3D6 is regarded as "poor".

In Age of Treason for TRPGFKARQII I have put a cap in how high you can take a skill - which is basic percentage x5%, referred to as Aptitude. It works fine (so long as you don't prefer a game where your character can be infinitely good at whatever you want) as the basics are always the sum of two Characteristics. It also allows, if you like the extra crunch, to compare technical proficiency (= progress towards your Aptitude) to raw ability.

He even refers to the "Kingdom of Rome". It's all just loose talk... But you can reasonably talk about Rome as an "Imperial state" from the 1st Punic War onwards (and could argue it earlier if you count conquest of Italy). It's just that "Romanisation" in any meaningful sense is more characteristic of the Empire.

Ladies and Gents Mongoose have placed a preview of this new MRQ2 settings book on their website - you can take a look at: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/detail.php?qsID=2065 I hope to see it in all its physical printed glory some time in August. There's some discussion of the contents over at TheRPGSite, if anyone wants to post any questions here I'm more than happy to lurk about and answer them!

I know nothing about WFRP, but just to look at the categories of magic styles you can cover them all off by slicing and dicing MRQ2 sorcery and categorising spells - Necromancer gets Animate Corpse, Elementalist gets Animate Fire (etc). You could very easily determine some basic spells that any magic user (apologies for the phrase) should know - Mystic Vision, Spell Resistance etc, but other spells split by type into specific grimoires for each style. Necromantic Arts would help you pull together some stuff for the Necromancer type to add depth and colour. A&EII has alchemy rules (but they are not terribly well placed for use by PCs rather than NPCs), Cults of Glorantha, Abiding Book etc would have plenty of info on sorcery orders you could loot for creating your styles too - not to mention the Elric stuff. And Age of Treason (forthcoming) has alternative Alchemy, Enchanting and Conjuring approaches. So there is probably more than enough to construct what you want, even if you take little steps with the MRQ2 Core Rulebook. The basic spell list is very malleable.

Forthcoming book for RQ2, Age of Treason (as announced in S&P88), will include rules for creating golem constructs. They are setting-specific, but portable if they fit with your world. They are not geared towards making it easy, but a major feat of enchantment - and what you usually get is a basic working model that can serve as a platform for augmentation spells that can make it very powerful. But they are very flexible - pick your basic material (flesh, stone, wood, metal etc) and the characteristics you want it to have - then the functionality (skills) you need.

While my group of AHRQ3 grognards took a bit of time to get used to the combat system in MRQ2, we didn't find it more deadly - it played a nice balance between realism and cinematic fun. Character stats tended towards average, so only one character had a damage bonus, and weapons were mostly on the damage range of 1D6-1D8. Hence with no general hit points to erode, even with limited armour it takes some effort to put people down unless you make good use of CMs. The two key fights in the last session both ended well before anyone was actually dead - but there were participants helpless or hors de combat, or weakened by, for example, two impaled arrows that thanks to armour were not going to kill (yet) but rendered the victim extremely vulnerable. Skills were low, hence a -20% penalty to their use from these arrows was fight-finishing for that particular character. It was clear already who was going to win this fight, that for the losers hanging around was now likely to result in death, and it was time to run away, or at least to try and parlay. In fact it seems the big question arising is the roleplaying challenge of helpless or badly wounded characters or npcs who are not at death's door but are now at the mercy of the winners. Not as neat as having lopped off a couple of legs and arms and watching them bleed out. The Adventurers are now faced with whether they kill in cold blood, burden themselves with prisoners or simply loot and let them go. That's where things get interesting, but also fiddly - the GM needs to think thru what consequences each path might lead to.

I believe "if...were to do" would render a conditional subjunctive in this instance. But I'm sure there is a linguist out there who can put me right on that score. But to go back to the original question - as has already been pointed out there is a lot of material out there from the various BRP/RQ/D100 variants, and more coming out every month. I don't know how much of this is purchased for use or as collectables - is there any data or anecdotal evidence on that?