They do sound somewhat similar. All I can add is that Magic Realm (1979) preceded both Ars Magica (1987) and Magic: The Gathering (1993) by some years.

8 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

So pretty much like Mugen said, it's Magic the Gathering. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

So how do you get the magic to power stuff? For instance, if a human wizard finds a tome of elish spells (Gold), how does he get gold magic to power the spells that require gold magic? 

In BRP POW has no affiliation, it just is. But with colors will each caster devote themselves to a single color,  and their power gets that affiliation? Or can they be affilated to multiple colors (and if so what the point of the colors). Are there schools that teach spellcasters special techniques to attune their magic? The cloest we have to this in BRP is the cult affiliations in RQ.

I'm not knocking it, I'm  just trying to figure out how this would work in game for the player characters. 

 

 

The different colours swirl around. Certain times, places and artifacts emanate particular colour power, which can be used by any spellcasters in that location/time. There might be spells or rituals which convert one colour of power to another. Additionally some spellcasters can 'bottle' a bit of localised power to make it usable later -- the POW is locked away until it used.

In the case of the wizard with the tome of Elvish spells, which use Gold colour magic to power them, the wizard would have to learn Elvish Lore magic skill. Then he or she would have to learn the individual spells in the tome (INT limit). Then to actually use the spells, he or she would have to journey to a place where Gold magic flows (eg. a forest), or wait for Gold magic to manifest, or find an apparatus or relic which emanates Gold magic. If the wizard also had skill to manipulate Gold magic, he or she could 'bottle' that magic to use later, when outside the influence of the Gold (each 'bottling' costs a temporary POW). The referee can decide how common these events/places/artifacts are for the different colours. The overall effect is that magic generally has to be planned for, or magicians will seek out natural sources of colour magic and live near them, so that they always have access to their power.

11 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, if the OP wants to go with that idea. That way mages could get some clue about a spell by the aura it gives off. So if you see a spell with a dark yellow (mustard?) color aura you know it some sort of mix of elf/faerie magic and infernal magic. . A healing spell could be palet green (or pale grey) and so on. That could be a cool form of shorthand communication to spellcasters. 

That's exactly what I thought, except some of the colors are different. Still, I think the core concept is sound, that is subdividing the spells by their effects. Ars Magica did something similar with Techniques and Forms. Come to think of it Ars Magica's spell domains (Magical, Faerie, Infernal, Holy) are also similar, but concered more with the source of  a spell rather than the effect. 

 

The difference is there's divisions of the spells by Type (eg. Diabolic Ceremonies, Malicious tricks etc) and by the colour of magic which powers them. In some cases there is complete overlap, like all of the Elvish Lore spells are powered by Gold colour magic; but in others there are multiple colours that work, as for Malicious Tricks, where some spells use Black, Grey or Purple magic, or any colour in one case. Also the spells themselves need to be found and learned individually. The designer of Magic Realm was trying to model fantasy literature, but in the case of the magic system I think he just made it up. Still did a pretty good job though.

In the Magic Realm game your character was basically a collection of chits for moving, fighting and magic. Different combinations of magic chits made for very different spell casters. For example the Magician had chits for many Types of magic -- but no duplicates so they couldn't both have the correct Colour of magic and use a chit for a spell. So they could cast a lot of different spells but only where they could power it from the area or time or a magical artifact with the right emanation. Other characters could do only one Type of magic but had multiple chits of the same type so could carry the correct colour around. Of course the more Magic chits you had, the fewer for Moving and Fighting (I think each Magic Realm character had 12 chits total). In BRP terms these translate to skills in the Types and separate skills with manipulating the Colours. Then you'd learn each spell (with the normal INT limit); your chance to cast it would be your skill with its Type.

16 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Just wondering but do some things overlap?

 

For instance what if a spellcaster were to raise a thrunderstorm. Technically, it's controlled natures, so it's Grey Magic, but it's unleashing elemental energies so it would be Purple Magic.  Is such magic in both colors? If not, what if the rule to determine what color.

If a spell can be in or require multiple colors then you might want to make your colors White (Silver), Blue, Yellow (or Gold), Red and Black so that you can mix colors for spells that mix categories. So a spell that is both Yellow and Blue would be Green, and so forth. 

 

 

 

 

There are some spells which can be powered by multiple colours, or any colour. So with the thunderstorm it might be made active with either Grey or Purple. I would probably give it a single Type though.. in this case probably I'd make it Type II Pagan Rites, since it's mostly to do with natural phenomena.

On 9/3/2013 at 3:00 PM, Questbird said:

Thanks for showing interest. I would probably start by classifying existing spell lists; Elric! RQ3 or the Big Gold Book are the sources I have to hand. Since the Big Gold Book is the only one in print, I could start there. In my own campaign I often use Rolemaster's Spell Law. I didn't list the spells from the original game, because they are mostly specific to that, but some of them would give me a clue about how to classify similar spells.

(Later)

OK, this didn't take too long. Here's the Big Gold Book spells classified by colour and type according to this system. It's a first cut, you may not agree with the classifications but it is a demonstration.

Big Gold Book sorcery spells (p.129) classified for Magic Realm colour and type

Spell	Type	Color
Cloak of Night	Pagan Rite	Grey
Sorcerer's Leap	Pagan Rite	Grey/Gold
Sorcerer's Sureness	Elvish Lore	Gold
Sorcerer's Beauty	Elvish Lore	Gold
Sorcerer's Plasticity	Elvish Lore	Gold/Purple
Sorcerer's Soul	Diabolic ceremonies	Black
Sorcerer's Speed	Elvish Lore	Gold
Sorcerer's Strength	Elvish Lore	Purple
Sorcerer's Suppleness	Elvish Lore	Gold
Sorcerer's Vitality	Diabolic ceremonies	Black
Sorcerer's Wisdom	Diabolic ceremonies	Black
Sorcerer's Armor	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Sorcerer's Bulwark	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Sorcerer's Hammer	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Sorcerer's Razor	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Sorcerer's Sharp Flame	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Sorcerer's Talons	Good luck knacks	Purple/Grey
Make Fast	Energy-binding alchemy	Purple
Make Whole	Righteous invocations	White
Midnight	Pagan Rite	Grey
Moonrise	Energy-binding alchemy	Purple/Grey
Bounty of the Sea	Pagan Rite	Purple/Grey
Flames of the Sun	Energy-binding alchemy	Purple
Gift of the Earth	Pagan Rite	Purple/Grey
Wings of the Sky	Pagan Rite	Grey
Curse of Sorcery	Malicious Tricks	any
Fury	Malicious Tricks	any
Liken Shape	Malicious Tricks	Grey
Muddle	Malicious Tricks	Grey
Pox	Malicious Tricks	Black
Unbreakable Bonds	Conjuring techniques	Purple
Brazier of Power	Energy-binding alchemy	Purple
Chain of Being	Energy-binding alchemy	Grey
Undo Sorcery	Conjuring techniques	Purple
Ward	Conjuring techniques	any
Summon Demon	Diabolic rituals	Black
Summon Elemental	Conjuring techniques	Purple
Bird's Vision	Pagan Rites	Grey
Breath of Life	Pagan Rites	Grey
Rat's Vision	Pagan Rites	Grey
Refutation	Conjuring techniques	Purple
Sorcerer's Ear	Pagan Rites	Grey/Gold
Sorcerer's Eye	Pagan Rites	Grey
Witch Sight	Conjuring techniques	Black/White

 

Each of the 'types' of magic could be a separate skill:

1. Type I Righteous invocations (white)
2. Type II Pagan rites (grey)
3. Type III Elvish lore (gold)
4. Type IV Energy-binding alchemy (purple)
5. Type V Diabolic ceremonies (black)
6. Type VI Conjuring techniques
7. Type VII Good luck knacks
8. Type VIII Malicious tricks

Additionally each 'colour' of magic would have a skill associated with chanelling it and storing it for magical use

+ White - Power from On High, working beneficient magic
+ Grey - Natural Laws, controlling nature
+ Gold - Woods Sprites, working elvish magic
+ Purple - Elemental Energies, twisting and reshaping reality
+ Black -Demonic power, working infernal magic

You might therefore have the skill to use a particular type of magic eg. Pagan Rites, but not necessarily the skill to channel the appropriate colour magic for your spell; you would have to rely on naturally occurring phases of the right colour, magical apparatus or perhaps the activity of other sorcerers to create the right conditions.

With the combination of the magic skill types, the classified BRP spells, and the magic colour channelling skills you could construct a range of different types of spell casters.

 

On 4/13/2024 at 4:13 AM, Sheelba said:

Thanks for chipping in everybody. I just had The Magic Book when I started this post and have subsequently picked up an old copy of the RG3 box set. The more I think the more I prefer RQ3 in almost every area, strike ranks instead of DEX ranks and INT ranks, all three magics (spirit, divine and sorcery), basically everything. The only thing I prefer about BRP is the character generation which is very similar to the current CoC rules which I am using for my 1920's game. I can simply use the Student or Wizard professions and tell them to use personal skill points for the sorcery skill. Or I will simply invent a new profession. After all, the formula is simple enough. The rest will be pretty pure RQ3 although I will look more closely at world stuff (falling, disease and the like) to see what I prefer. 

You all promoted me to reflect on what I want by making suggestions or querying what I was thinking or wanted. So you have helped considerably. Much appreciated.

 

Maybe a bit late to the party, but whenever magic system discussions come up I post the systems I use (plus one I just muse about) I run a fairly low-power campaign where magic-users are feared and shunned.

On 2/10/2024 at 3:59 AM, AndreJarosch said:

Just go with Affinity Publisher, it is WAY cheaper, and does (almost) everything InDesign can do. 

 

 

Or, if you use Linux or open source software, Scribus. Ah, too late you have Affinity. Never mind.

It just requires a bit of common sense. If the statement of intent was to attack, and the target changes to another within range, sure do the -5 DEX rank and allow it. It's still an attack in range, still very close to the original 'intent'. If the player wants to pivot to something completely different like run across the room or perform first aid on a fallen comrade, then don't.

In BR:UGE, Random Armor Values are an option, described on p.132, and the random and nonrandom armor values are listed in a table on p.175.

It recommends you don't use hit locations if you use Random Armor Values.

3 minutes ago, LivingTriskele said:

Yeah, the moment they start starving because they can't find a job, I think the importance of being well-rounded might kick in. I could do something arbitrary like require players to spend at least half their default starting points on noncombat skills. So, 250 for Normal characters would be 125. Or maybe 1/3^rd rounded down, so 83 points. That might make sense.

 

Don't worry about setting such limits. After a few games of BRP (and maybe some dead or starving characters) your players should naturally start making more rounded characters.

7 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

Another thing I need to navigate is how to incorporate different species/races that are on average just more powerful than most humans. Giving them more points to allocate over Characteristics doesn’t seem fair, but neither does forcing them start of weaker than the average member of their species.

I suppose I could use in-game disadvantages, like being the subject of xenophobia or having unusual dietary needs.

 

 

As @g33k said, don't worry about balance for such things.

Old One (Elf, similar to Vadagh from Corum)

Aloof, intellectual, distant and long-lived. Must have a special reason to leave Whispering Earth and mingle with the lesser races.

Instead of selecting a set of natural abilities and a cultural background they add 30 skill points to each of the following: Conceal Object, Dodge, Evaluate, Insight, Million Spheres, Natural World, Other Language, Own Language, Physik, Potions and one class of weapon.

They can never begin the game with Chaos points

Old One (Quarmallian)

Now shadows of their former selves, this race now lives underground in ancient Quarmall. A very few agents and exiles creep around the surface world.

Instead of selecting a set of natural abilities and a cultural background they add 30 skill points to each of the following: Bargain, Dodge, Fast Talk, Move Quietly, Million Spheres, Other Language, Own Language, Potions, Scent/Taste, one Mentalism magical skill and one non-Chanelling magical skill from Spell Law* (learning each of which earns a Chaos point).

They can never begin the game with Law points. They cannot learn Chanelling/Divine magic.

* I use BRP-adapted Spell Law from Rolemaster as one of the magic systems

10 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

This got me thinking that I’d actually like to use both. The campaign setting I’ve been working on emphasizes psychological archetypes, and the Personality Types optional rule fits nicely with what I have going on here. But I also want to use Cultural Skills.

I can think of two ways of doing this. Allow the players to take their 40 Cultural Skill points and use them either on Cultural Skills or Personality Type skills OR split the 40 down the center—20 points for Cultural Skills and 20 points for Personality Type skills.

 

That's what I did -- use both but at half the original bonus

I run an Elric! campaign set in Nehwon. Elric! (and Magic World) have skill bonuses for 'natural abilities' which add 20% to a set of skills depending on whether a character is crafty, cunning, physical or persuasive. However I also wanted some cultural skills. So I ended up with adding 10% for culture and 10% for the 'natural abilities' (which I like).

Example:

'Natural ability':

His or her first impulse is to try to outsmart an opponent or to gain an advantage. Give 10 points each to Bargain, Conceal Object, Disguise, Evaluate, Fast Talk, Hide, Insight, Natural World, Oratory, Own Language, Pick Lock and Search, and to any one class of weapon

Cultural:

Barbarian (Cold Waste)

+5%: Search, Move Quietly, Hide
+10%: Climb, Jump, Natural World
Pick Two +5%: Sailing, Art (Dance), Art (Sing), Dodge, Oratory, Swim
Pick One +10%: Craft, Known Kingdoms, Art (Play instrument), Track
Pick Three +10%: 1H Axe, 1H Hammer, 2H Axe, 2H Hammer, Bow, Dagger, Shield, Sling, Spear, Staff, Throw, Brawl

And then they get the 250 points to spend on their Profession skills.

On 3/23/2024 at 5:02 AM, Eddy said:

I GMed Harn back in the 80s using classic Runequest, and it was always a bit of a problem with the magic system then. I just used battle magic and ignored Rune magic. Nowadays, If it was me I would use the BRP based  Renaissance rules for Alchemy which uses the elements and is very close to the Shek Pvar magic system. There is a free version available somewhere. For anyone who knows Harn, it's the religions that are the real problem!!

 

I'm curious: what do you think is the problem with the religions? I do know Harn reasonably well.

1 hour ago, clarence said:

Thank you, Questbird! I’m happy to hear you like the book. I’m a longtime user of Eno’s Oblique Strategies, so you are spot on.

I often design scenarios with TREY as a guide and it’s the most enjoyable way I’ve found to create new material. Playing a game to create content for a game makes a lot of sense. And it takes away some GM chores.

Regarding the random tables, Mattias and I discussed how many to include in the book. We ended up with a quite minimalistic approach, to keep the core rules focused. But there are more to come. We have some useful ones lying around. Did you see the location and landscape generators in my recent email?

I would love to hear what you come up with in your solo excursions! And any problems you run into of course. 

 

I did see the locational tables in your mail, which is why I was a little surprised not to see them in the book. Actually just now I used those tables to help my son who was stuck on a theme for a homework short story 😀 So it has already been useful!

I understand though, that having the emphasis on the open-ended, imagination-stimulating roll rather than the more limited generator table (and especially if there are too many of them) is a good design choice for a game like this.

I bought TREY and I am quite impressed with it. The Oracle dice (d10, d8, d6) is an interesting way to answer questions. I liked the idea of having the physical orientation of the dice sometimes a factor in the answer. TREY seems like something that could be used when designing adventures or testing games. Rather than being a set of generator tables*, which no matter how varied are ultimately limited by their contents, TREY is a more open-ended imagination stimulant, a bit like the I Ching or Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies (or the classic Magic 8 Ball), though specifically aimed at RPGs. Thanks @clarence for a thought-provoking tool!

* Although maybe I did expect a few more generator tables than there were.

On 3/8/2024 at 11:44 PM, Scout said:

Have to agree. Part of me loves the HM crunch, and at one point I was quite comfortable practising combat (before GMing the game for our group), but at that point, I realised the rules were just too crunchy for my tastes and so moved on. 

 

You might want to try something like Mythras, with its moderate crunch level, hit locations etc. The Mythic Britain supplements could help with the atmosphere of Hârn.

I reckon Aquelarre with its gritty medieval vibe would work very well with Hârn (also has hit locations; does it in a superior way to RQ/Mythras in my opinion)

Cthulhu Dark Ages might work also.

For non-BRP systems, I've refereed Maelstrom (these days Maelstrom Domesday) and Dragon Warriors in Hârn in the past. Each of those has a 'British' vibe which suits Hârn quite well.

As for the magic system, well that's where you need to do some work. Magic systems are very specific to a setting and make a big difference to a fantasy campaign. Hârn is supposedly a 'low magic' setting, or one where magic is at least relatively uncommon. I usually find the default BRP system to be inadequate. However using your table as a guide, the BRP way would be to have those 6 convocations as separate skills, with whatever strictures that allow you to acquire one or more of them.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

n.b. the Coyote & Crow RPG does an alt-history North America where Colombus & the Euro-colonists never happened.  They explicitly did not cover Mesoamerica, but are now actively looking to write an expansion book set there.

I might hope to repurpose that material onto the BRP chassis.

I expect the "conquistadores era" would be extremely problematic to write, however.  I'd be leery about such efforts.

 

 

Probably right about the Conquistadores era. My particular interest is the Inca Empire and that area of South America, more than Mesoamerica. Maybe an alt history where Waska beat Atahualpa in their civil war and Pizarro got defeated at Cajamarca? Then rather than erasing the Europeans, they could be the unknown enemy to watch out for.

On 10/31/2023 at 2:24 AM, AndreJarosch said:

Settings all D100-Systems miss:

...

600 – 900 oder 900 – 1697 : Aztheks/Maya/Inca
1519 – 1571 : Conquistadores in Mesoamerica
...

 

 

Yes please!

Unfortunately in these litigious times all of these properties are owned by some corporation or another. The history of RPGs is littered with examples of games which have used some licensed IP or other -- with the blessing of the owner, mind you -- only to lose the rights to someone prepared to pay more, or for some other reason. This sometimes means entire games can no longer be sold by their original publishers. Eg. Lord of the Rings (ICE, Cubicle7 and now Free League), Elric of Melnibone (and various other Eternal Champions -- Chaosium), recently Conan (Modiphius recently lost the rights to another company which I think is making a D20 game), Lankhmar (TSR, Mongoose, Savage Worlds, Goodman Games). It's exacerbated by RPGs not traditionally making much money compared to their source material books or films, so the rights holders shop around for something which gives them more bucks.

@colinabrett was very into Cyberpunk for BRP. He even uploaded some of his work here:

On 1/12/2024 at 5:53 PM, Ravenheart87 said:

The extremely generic title Magic World didn't help either. If I saw it first today it would remind me of a classic Gunshow comic strip line ("Dare you enter my magical realm?"). Stormbringer? RuneQuest? Dragonbane? Now those sound cool as hell and immediately catch my attention. Magic World? Not so much. Before someone wants to hold a history lesson: yes, I know where the name comes from. But MW ended up being quite different from the little booklet in the Worlds of Wonder boxed set, which is a product only BRP/RQ grognards remembered by the 2000s anyway.

 

My players were already playing Elric! when Magic World was released. They weren't aware of the history of the name and they just laughed at it.

On 1/9/2024 at 4:52 PM, g33k said:

As Nick points out, very VERY few BRP variants use the d20 in place of the d100' there is absolutely no indication that BRP games, broadly, will move to d20's.

 

There's an excellent free BRP variant called Fire and Sword, available right here on BRP Central. It's by Ray Turney, one of the original creators of Runequest. It uses roll-under d20 mechanism (you can use d10 for super easy tasks and d30 for super hard ones). Ray's design notes are fantastic too, explaining his d20 choice among other game design decisions.

I like Elric!/Magic World for Sword and Sorcery. OpenQuest is another rules-light d100 variant which would probably do what you want with Conan. It also has the advantage of being currently in print and supported. There was even a Conan-with-the-serials-filed-off adventure setting called The Savage North for it.

The fonts are quite small in BR:UGE, especially in the tables. But there is a lot of information to pack in.

Disclaimer: I do need to use glasses these days 🤓