Questbird

10 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, Harn is like Pendragon, but without the Arthurian backdrop, and with more detail, and more RQ like rules. 

I only wish they would do a version set in Medieval Europe instead of Harn. 

 

 

You might be interested in Maelstrom Domesday (review at: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16059.phtml) which is wound back five centuries from the original sixteenth century English setting. Still Britain rather than Europe but interesting. Certainly has historical prices etc. though probably not to the level of detail of Harn.

Cthulhu Dark Ages is the other one I was thinking of for 'dark medieval'.

On 12/7/2018 at 1:20 AM, Atgxtg said:

Low/High fantasy doesn't matter so much as how much money and what type you have, and why it changes. If you are using a D&D type model with thousands and thousands of gold pieces, then where does it all go?  You might be going from an economy where 1 gold coin won't get you a room at an inn to one where 1 gold coin can provide for you and your family for a year. 

If you are unsure as to what to use for money, you could invent some new metal that cam about during the catastrophe,or has been recently discovered. 

 

 

In the old Dragonlance D&D modules there were thousands of gold pieces lying around in various old treasure hoards -- but post-Cataclysm people only traded in steel.

On 12/6/2018 at 1:56 PM, g33k said:

My understanding is that for "accurate medieval-esque" data, Harn is hard to beat... Or even to match.  I haven't done the research needed to verify that, but I believe it to be true...

 

I would agree with that. There was a comprehensive price list in the old Encyclopedia Harnica vol 5, which I have but can't find online; also a supplement for running a medieval Manor (review here: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/classic/rev_5171.phtml) or household (http://columbiagames.com/cgi-bin/query/harn/cfg/single.cfg?product_id=4918-PDF)

The Alchemist does have Air spells..

I'm just about to start the Kingdom and Commonwealth campaign, so War Torn England it is for me. My players have a Puritan (but also Noble) spy, an ambitious Alchemist and a Warlock.

On 10/11/2018 at 2:35 AM, RosenMcStern said:

"Halve soft armour vs. mace" was the official rule (after errata) in RQ3, and I have used it for 15+ years with extreme effectiveness. -2 could create trouble because it would make a gambeson ineffective, whereas when you wear mail it is actually the gambeson underneath the chain which provides a minimal protection against the crushing effect.

 

I like simple yet effective rules like this.

Anything weird and magical could be called a demon by superstitious locals, including undead but on the more powerful scale you could include elder gods etc, such as your average cult shrine demon, ranging up to Nyarlathotep or Cthulhu -- super powered science-fictional beings with godlike powers. It sort of depends on religiousness of your campaign too. In the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe and also in Chronicles of Future Earth, 'demons' are aliens or interdimensional beings; but in paintings by Hieronymous Bosh, demons have a religious or moral function of punishment. Having said all that, I use demons only for magic in my campaign, when I use them at all, and I just explain them as amoral other-dimensional beings with needs that seem to  us bizarre, obscene, dangerous or all three.

There was a Hawkmoon game released by Mongoose related to their Runequest release. I think it was pretty much a standalone game.

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Kinda. It's mentioned that the ring, as part of Sauron, wants to be found, and subtly works at returning to him. The idea was that the ring chose to slip off of Golum's finger, as Gloum would have stayed underground forever, while someone else might travel about, making it more likely that the ring could return to it's master or be discovered. I believe Gandalf states that the Ring choose Bilbo over Golum. 

 

The implication was that in those Misty Mountain tunnels there was more chance that it would be picked up by an Orc than by Bilbo Baggins, and therefore more chance of getting straight back to Sauron. The One Ring has a kind of evil intelligence but is still a fairly passive artifact. It's still a ring, not a robot.

It's an interesting settin but it's not exactly sword and sorcery. It would require some effort to make it so. There are black-powder guns, pirates, voudou. Classic swords and sorcery generally represents all sorcery as evil and profane. Voudou as described in this book is not entirely that.

Cosmic Fantasy is closer to the mark than Science-Fantasy for this one. I have the BRP original but haven't managed to use anything from it yet.

53 minutes ago, Simlasa said:

That reminds me of Earthdawn's magic items, how you have to learn about the item, 'weave a thread' to it.
I wonder if a piece of demon equipment might care who its owner is and perhaps find a way to get itself into the hands of a preferred owner.

 

Like the One Ring!

Areas such as battlefields, mass graves, medical schools and cemeteries (possibly only unconsecrated ones) would be locations where Necromancers could get the most 'raw material' for their spells. Perhaps the spells could animate all in a particular area (or all who fought and died in a particular battle) for a single POW investment. A budding Necromancer wanting an army of undead would need to research and seek out such places. I like using situational or strategic magic systems where the spellcasters need to plan ahead. Certainly an 'army of undead' is not some random occurrence in fantasy films or literature, but a planned and dangerous exercise of power.

Fortunately Harnmaster isn't really necessary to enjoy Harn. I've played it with Maelstrom and Dragon Warriors; and BRP would be pretty easy too. Before Harnmaster the Harn world was envisioned as system-agnostic. From what I've seen of Harnmaster it has percentage rolls and levels of success, but I don't have the game so can't add more.

But POW can be gained back in various ways, eg. POW:POW struggles on the Resistance Table.

On 9/5/2018 at 5:25 AM, g33k said:

I think I'd want to ask a simple question:  When I pick up an adventure/campaign/supplement/etc for the system in question, can I run it as-is, converting in my head (maybe with a 1-page or so "conversion guidelines doc" or something, some tables of equivalence, etc) with one of the rulesets in the "clearly IS d100/BRP" extended family of games?

I mean, to a certain extent all it takes is to really know both systems well, and you can approximate well enough in your head.  Someone who has played 1000+ hours of AHRuneQuest3, and 1000+ hours of SJGURPS3 can probably run content for either in the opposite system -- they know what all those numbers MEAN mechanically in-world, intuitively; and so they intuitively know how to make an equivalent in the other system, despite the mechanical differences.

But for those of us WITHOUT encyclopedic knowledge of both systems... notsomuchso, no.  🙂

 

 

I agree. When I look at games or adventures to buy there is a certain calculus required as to how easy it will be to incorporate it into my favourite Elric! campaign. Some systems do provide that 'conversion chart'. I remember seeing a Rolemaster -> Runequest conversion chart in one of their supplements for example. Even between 'close relative' modern BRP systems such as OpenQuest, Mythras, Runequest and d100 Revolution there are subtle (albeit minor) frictions that make it harder to just 'pick up and play' an adventure from one of the others. Fixed armour or variable? Hit locations or no? Different names for equivalent skills (Spot, , spot hidden, search etc.) or skills separated in one system but combined in the other (eg attack and parry skills in RQ3). But it will still be easier to use any of those than an adventure designed for Savage Worlds, D&D5e or, dare I say it, Aftermath.

On 8/25/2018 at 9:15 PM, Runeblogger said:

In my thinking of whether to include some suggestions or not, a set of basic criteria for what constitutes a "good degree of compatibility between D100 systems" is in order:

• List of skills
• Percentile skills you have to roll under to succeed. You usually roll with a D100, but D20 is OK because you get skill in % if you multiply those skills by 5 (as in Pendragon).
• Attributes like Strength, Intelligence, etc. (the list may vary a lot from one game to another)
• Hit points

Do you agree?

 

In that case you could include Fire and Sword by Ray Turney, one of the original Chaosium designers of RuneQuest. It's 'published' on this BRP site, in the Downloads section, but it is a complete fantasy game with roll-under d20 skills and many other interesting innovations such as hitpointless combat and social mechanics. 

On 8/25/2018 at 3:58 AM, simonh said:

I got epub and PDF copies of some stuff from Pelgrane and ended up reading all of them in epub. The PDFs are great for printing off pages here and there and I wouldn't be without them, given a choice strictly between the two I'd get PDF, but I found actually reading through the rules dramatically easier with the epub, and I was highly skeptical after reading PDFs on my iPad for years.

 

PDF just doesn't cope with books well. It's fine for things like printable character sheets and reference tables.

Swords of Cydoria is a great pulp/science fantasy setting, which was released as a monograph for Chaosium and later as a separate game called Exiled in Eris. You have others in your list which are no longer in print, so you should include Swords of Cydoria. I still play it!

19 hours ago, Chaot said:

I have no idea on who is responding to who but I think that we can all agree that it's a great thing that BRP is out there.

Even though Elric!/Magic World is the superior rules set. 

No judgement though.

 

Yeah I'm still playing Elric! and that hasn't been supported for years. I have two copies, which helps to reduce wear. Plus I only play about once a month. 😥

OK I haven't done any work on this for a while now and must admit that it's a dead (or at least not alive) project. There are a few other things around for RQ. I think Hkokko has an encounter generator. I was getting close to a 'generic' character generator which could account for the differences between Magic World, BRP, Mythras etc which are small but slightly annoying. I still think an online thing would be more useful than a run-on-<fill in your OS platform here> application. And Python seems to be the language of choice for many BRPers.

On 8/1/2018 at 2:03 PM, Raleel said:

wasn't there one ranged weapon that went through the shield in the movie?

 

I think there was a 'Maula pistol' or some such; some kind of slow dart weapon. Remember the hunter-seeker? Maybe some sort of short range self-guided projectile might be usable against a shielded user, though it certainly wouldn't be good etiquette.

I like simpler systems. How about these principles:

1. Shield Fighting skill is added to weapon skill when attacking a shielded opponent
2. An activated shield blocks all fast-moving ranged weapons
3. An activated shield makes parrying or dodging melee attacks Easy for the defender
4. Medium and Long melee weapons are Difficult to use against a shield

5 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

Another reason these won't work for an official BRP have is that there's already highly successful RPGs for them.

 

Yeah I was going off-topic a bit and just saluting creators who have exited this planet. 

I would love to see BRP Dune, but there is a long history of licensed properties not mixing well with RPGs. The license holders are always trying to maximise their profits, and can raise licence fees on the slightest pretext. RPG companies don't make a whole lotta dough in general. It's not a match made in heaven. I think the old days of the Tolkien licence being granted to Iron Crown Enterprises because they were the first to ask nicely, or the Lankhmar rights given to Greg Stafford (and TSR at the same time, oops) by the author -- are gone.

A BRP Tékumel would also be nice, but its rights holders, along with the remaining copyright floggers of R E Howard (Conan) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (Barsoom) and Dune can still cause problems.

(A brief pause to remember and salute some outstanding world builders 😢)

Hyboria: R. E. Howard (d. 1936)

Barsoom: Edgar Rice Burroughs (d. 1950)

Middle-Earth: J. R. R. Tolkien (d. 1973)

Dune: Frank Herbert (d. 1986)

Lankhmar/Nehwon: Fritz Leiber (d. 1992)

Hârn: N. Robin Crossby (d. 2008)

Tékumel: M.A.R. Barker (d. 2012)

Lyonesse: Jack Vance (d. 2013)

Earthsea: Ursula LeGuin (d. 2018)