Mankcam

Totally agree. I could easily play a good fantasy setting with just the BRP Quickstart Rules + BRP Classic Fantasy monograph. You will have to make up your own stats for opponents and monsters however, unless you also grab the BRP Basic Creatures monograph. There are some spot rules included in Classic Fantasy, and in the true spirit of 'old school' you can just hand wave anything that's not in there

Do you have a copy of Call of Cthulhu? If so, I would just use that magic system, and you can easily change some of the entities names to be more Hyborian rather than Lovecraftian. It's a pretty good fit for Hyborian sorcery. Sounds like you are already aware of this. If there is no common magical healing opportunities, then I would recommend checking out the Herbalism chapter from Advanced Sorcery, as it gives some samples of narcotics, stimulants, and medicinal preparations. Ideal mundane skills for priests, sages, or village hedge healers in this kind of setting. You definitely will need some other form of healing besides natural recovery for the player-characters, and Herbalism offers a faster recovery process in a non-magical setting. Or you could use similar game mechanic rules as RQ3 does for Poisons, except reverse it for Healing Concoctions. You can have Healing Concoctions matching POT vs the character's CON, and success indicates that the character recovers HP by allowing natural healing rolls occurring on a daily basis, as many accumulative days equal to the healing concoction's POT (or if unsuccessful, equal to half of the healing concoction's POT in days worth of natural healing rolls). So successfully ingesting a POT 4 healing tonic would grant a natural healing roll for four days in a row, whereas unsuccessfully ingesting it would yield a natural healing roll for only two days in a row. Much quicker than the typical weekly natural healing rate, yet not miraculous in nature. It should not grant automatic natural healing in my opinion, but each day of convalescence requires a roll of CONx5% in order to gain the opportunity for natural healing. If the character is not resting (such as general travel), then make it a roll equal to (CONx5%)/2 instead. These mechanics keep medicinal preparations firmly in the realms of the mundane, although more simplistic cultures could perhaps view such lore as 'magical'. Of course, fumbling the intial ingestion roll (CON vs POT) may have disastrous consequences ranging from allergic reaction, nausea, confusion, etc etc up to the devious mind of a GM For healing Limb HP, I keep the Potencies low (POT 1 - POT 4), and the trappings for this are typically things that are applied with the carer's First Aid skill (salves, ointments, bandages, splints, etc). For Healing Total HP the trappings are typically tonics and potions. With these I allow for greater Potency (POT 1 - POT 10); I keep the 'average' Potency range POT 3 - POT 6, with any greater Potencies being preparations made only by the highly skilled. These tonics & Potions all require an Ingestion roll ( as previously explained). Only Total HP are affected, not Limb HP. In this manner I tend to find impairments such as broken arms and such heal only slightly quicker than at the natural healing rate, even after the character's Total HP are recovered to maximum value. Characters need to rely on convalescence and their carer's skills such as Knowledge (Medicine) if they are to receive any bonuses to their natural healing rolls. I use these mechanics with medicinal preparations in my settings, as I previously used RQ3 for many of my fantasy campaigns, and it worked fine so I've kept the rule with my current games. With a way to allow quicker healing, RQ3 is perfect for a sword n sorcery setting where magic is not a typical player-character option. Expect lots of damage done in combat however, and unless you have cinematic rules ( Mooks, Luck/Hero Points, etc) then the player-characters may end up quite injured. You might be in for a very brutal game, something G.R.R.Martin or R.E.Howard would be proud of All good fun

I would probably take my cue from gaining Spirit Magic during the RQ3 Previous Experience process in character generation: 'Accumulate 1D3-1 points at age 15yrs, and an additional 1 point per 10 yrs thereafter'. Then just multiply each point by 15% for characters who are unlikely to have magic, and use that figure for additional skill point allocation of player's choice. It looks like a reasonable fix, so I certainly would be inclined to calculate it with something along these lines.

Yes that's a good solution. I think each 1 point of spell should be equivalent to either 15% or 20% of skill points; Off the top of my head that sounds like a reasonable figure Someone else on this forum may already have worked this out actually, so you might get a better answer, but if not I think my figures are in the ballpark

In that case I recommend you get it, and while you are at it you might as well hunt down the Monsters Book as well. You might as well get the complete set, and you can probably still find them on Noble Knight or eBay I think

Yes, it is the companion volume to the Games Workshop RQ3 Basic Edition. It expands the rules, and makes it much more playable than the Basic Rules. Between the editions (and including the GW RQ3 Monsters Book) it covers the same content as the AH RQ3 Deluxe edition - it is almost word for word in fact. The GW books had much more colourful art and were hard cover books . Much better than the AH boxed sets with which were quite bland and had flimsy paper covers. AH reprinted it later under one cover which was much better however, but still not as good eye candy as the GW books. Although I greatly preferred the GW production standards, I disliked that they were evoking a much more generic fantasy feel (akin to Warhammer, Fighting Fantasy, etc ), rather than the ancient world setting flavour intended by the original authors. The GW RQ3 books are worth having in the book shelf if you are a collector; although if it is primarily for playing purposes then you're still better off with either the current editions of BRP BGB or RQ6 in my opinion.

That's a great overview of Mythic Britain, I follow the posts from Runeslinger on G+ and YouTube. He's very articulated, concise, informative, and also quite reflective at times. Makes this hobby almost respectable :-) Another good post from him

Your system would work well, but you could also just use the Magic from BGB. It covers what you are describing. You could easily add some minimum requirements according to Allegiance however - perhaps you need minimum Allegiance 30% to have a 1pt spell, and for each variable pt beyond this perhaps another 15% of Allegiance is required? Okay, those figures may be wrong - I just pulled them out of God knows where, but you get the idea. Just bond the BGB Magic system to the Allegiance benefits, and you pretty much have your mechanics; the rest is Ancient Egyptian trappings, knock yourself out with those.

I'm not sure how Enlightened Magic would go in a general Fantasy setting where magic is already in play. I have a homebrew Pulp Horror/Adventure setting which uses two magic systems: Mythos Magic from Call of Cthulhu, and Enlightened Sorcery & Alchemy from Enlightened Magic. They work fine in this setting, and would also work great in a very gritty Sword and Sorcery setting (Enlightened Magic describes how to make it more powerful in such a setting). However I don't think throwing either of those in a fantasy setting would be good if other magic systems are already in use - it certainly wouldn't work Glorantha, for example. Like in Ghostbusters, it probably isn't good to cross the streams You could use the magic from MW Advanced Sorcery however, as that would be sticking to the genre and I would not see any issues there. There are more sorcery spells that use the sorcery system from Magic World and BGB, although if you just make them skill based then they fit the build for BGB Magic system. There are heaps of other ideas that make Advanced Sorcery worthwhile. The Deep Magic rules are excellent if you want to introduce a free-form magic system like 'Wild Magic' or 'Elder Mages' etc. Think of a magic system along the lines from White Wolf MAGE, and you pretty much have a working variant for BRP with the Deep Magic rules. Yes it could overbalance other pre-existing magic systems unless you work in some setting-specific checks and balances, but overall its worth it, as Deep Magic is pretty cool stuff. I really like both Enlightened Magic and Advanced Sorcery, although the later may be more along the lines of what you are after.

Chaosium System is what I knew it as before the BRP BGB came out. Most people I knew referred to the system as this, but more often than not, people tended to refer to the individual game names like RQ or CoC I think now people think of the BRP family of games as being BRP, not just the BRP BGB, or the games that Chaosium owns. I would like a unifying title beyond Basic Role Playing, as the system is certainly not Basic by today's rules-lite standards. However it probably doesn't make much difference all the same

I have the PDFs and it looks great, visually. I am on the fence regarding how the scores are presented xx/xx/xx, but I think it will be okay in actual gameplay. I really cannot see the point of replacing -/+ modifiers with bonus die, I think they should of just gone for simple modifiers like with OQ. Bonus Dice are a nice touch, but really are out of place with all other editions of BRP or CoC. But on the whole I think it's a great version of the game. The art direction is superb, and some of the optional rules for Pushing Rolls and Luck are very good additions, especially if you prefer a low-pulp flavour rather than straight horror. In my opinion they made some unusual decisions, but overall it's a step in the right direction for updating an RPG that has barely changed since its inception. It holds its own very well with competing with other RPG systems who now use the same setting (ie: Trail of Cthulhu, Realms of Cthulhu, etc). I am really going to enjoy holding the hardcover and having a detailed look through it when it arrives

Wow, I assumed 'Free Shipping' only pertained to Europe, UK, and USA. As an Aussie I'm pretty happy to see that we were included; great news!

I thought the BRP version was the latest version of Merrie England? I think the previous version was either MRQ or MRQ2.

I would probably buy this as a PoD book if its reasonably priced, it does look quite good

I personally like the 'ping-pong' of combat between notable characters, and I think BRP does it quite well, especially if you make use of the spot rules or use situations to create advantages. For more cinematic settings I use the Mook rules from Astounding Adventures (or RQ6 if I am playing it) for background opponents/fodder, and that keeps things moving quickly. You can easily come up with a rule of the fly for your own Mooks, however, something like a Major Wound incapacitates, or Half HP, etc

Enlightened Sorcery is a great system for quasi-realistic low magic settings, and also contains guidelines for increasing the potency for play in more high magic settings. It is skill based, although not for individual spells, there are a few magic skills that cover various Categories of spells. It also has rules for Alchemy as well. It's quite different from magic portrayed in standard D&D games. Thoroughly recommended. (BTW Harnmaster does have a great system as well, and porting that over to BRP should be relatively easy, although it is more fantasy flavoured. Also Tooley's suggestion works quite well with the standard MW Sorcery rules)

Ok, ordered. Hopefully the pdf will be in my inbox soon, and the physical book at my address before Christmas perhaps... Looks like potentially another good expansion to the Fantasy Earth series . Every setting can do with a few Huns or Mongols, even if re-trapped to fit a fictional setting Hurry up St Nick

I hear you guys, these books are amazing. Weighty tomes, easy on the eyes but not on the back heh heh. Great artwork as well, truly superb, but also great content. Totally puts Glorantha in the same league as the other more notable fantasy worlds such as Middle Earth, Westeros, Lanhkmar, Young Kingdoms, or the Hyborian Age. Perhaps even a league of its own, it feels akin to reading a non-fiction text about the Bronze Age and early Iron Age eras of Rome or Egypt etc. Love what they did with the Malkioni. Well, not initially, as it disrupted my previous interpretations of Malkioni with a sledgehammer. But now that I have got over that I really dig the way that Malkioni are more in keeping with the ancient/mythical world flavour of Glorantha. This was a great update on the old Glorantha Box that I have been referencing all these years. In all aspects, this publication is truly a fanboy's dream come true!

LOL

I was just waiting for that quote to reappear again heh heh

I have had mine for a few months now, they are a pure joy to behold. Far exceeded my expectations, words cannot describe how happy I was to receive these books. Moon Design truly outshone themselves with this release And yes, they are massive!

Yes, sorry,my bad. I meant to say that no English language rpg exists that I am aware of that uses Sumeria for a setting :-)

Although it generally covers a later period, Green Ronin's 'Testament' is certainly one of the best mythic-historic Near Eastern ancient world settings with some great source material. Easy to Ignore the mechanics and use the mechanics from the BRP BGB or, ideally, RQ6, Then again, a nicely illustrated children's Old Testament tales or numerous ancient history websites can also give you what you need, as you already identified Pity it's not all under one cover Unfortunately no rpg exists AFAIK that uses Sumeria as a setting, BRP or otherwise, I suspect. But someone could prove me wrong...

I usually dont mix the spells up for combos, but theres no reason why it can't be done if the setting allows for it. I would probably limit it solely to spells with the same Sphere or Runic background trapings (ie: Fire Magic, Mind Magic, etc), and perhaps decrease your spellcasting skill by 10% per additional Magnitude of spell combo. Maybe. Depends on the setting. You could really free form with something like this Its hard for me to think of any great combos off the top of my head, but I'm sure folk here can come up with some

Excellent !!! I have been waiting for this publication for a long time Great to hear that its getting released soon!