Mankcam

Yup, that was it. I could not remember where I had seen that. A pretty nice little toolkit you did there, I forgot how comprehensive it was. Great stuff! Saved!

Wasn't there a RQ Sci Fi homebrew pdf doing the rounds a while ago...? Perhaps someone may remember it...

I have really enjoyed the content from all the BRP supplements so far that Alephetar has published. So if that is anything to go by then the book will be probably usable across homebrew settings as well as its intended setting, and the book will likely be a good addition to any BRP library. I'm looking forward to it as it greatly expands the setting builds for BRP.

Check out Magic World, the Skill Categories are calculated simply, and the skill allocation is pretty quick, probably the quickest I have seen for a BRP game. I'ld suggest Magic World is a good purchase for a quick char gen for BRP. RQ6 is pretty good for this as well, and the base chances for skills are calculated in a similar fashion to what you have suggested. But Magic World character generation is about as quick as it gets, I think you should look at that

Mespers? Minders? Gleaners? Psions? Viewers? PsyUsers? Evolves? NeuroEvolvers? NeuroSynchs? CogPaths? HyperCogs? PsyCogs? (probably my favourite out of this list for SciFi Psionics)

I was hanging out for RQ6 Briton but you can't have everything. The fact that 3rd Age Glorantha is going to be supported again by RQ is just awesome news for me. I would love another Genertelan setting. Moon Design HW has focused on the Lunar Empire vs Colonies settings (Dragon Pass, Prax); I would love to see the Design Mechanism's take on Kethaela, Manira/New Coast, and Ralios, perhaps even on Fonria or the Janube River States. Regional sourcebooks could be good, as would urban gazettes for locations like Nochet, The Vent, Handra, or Sog City. In any case, RQ Adventures In Glorantha will be a great line, there is so much to expand upon. This news certainly has me stoked!

How did I not see that ?!!!? You just got my money again Paolo!

Wow, that's a pretty good price for print-version, pdf, and shipping...does that include international shipping? I could not see any different shipping rates with this product...the preview looks great, this will be a good book to have, its such a different genre to the other BRP settings

Ah, the Voice of Reason...!

G+ for me as well

I've had the Magic World pdf about a week after it's release, and I've been glancing at it intermittently, enough so that I think I'll source out a hard copy. I'm not much one for the Major Wound Table, preferring the optional Hit Locations from BRP, but I see why this has been chosen to remain consistent with the BGB core rules and easy for players to jump from CoC over to MW, and that was a good game design choice. I do slightly prefer the BGB Magic mechanics to the BGB Sorcery mechanics, but not overly so, and I really like the collection of spells in MW. I've had a long standing dislike of the Variable Armour Rules since they appeared in Elric/Stormbringer. I have no issues with having them included in the BGB as Optional Rules, but I thought that in order to remain consistent with the core BGB rules that MW would have the standard AP rules, and I was surprised that Chaosium went with the optional rules as default here. I just found it a bit unusual in that respect. It looks like the game will play pretty much like Elric/Stormbringer without The Young Kingdoms setting, which is a good thing. I really like the Southern Reaches setting, perfect for fantasy gaming, a lot of unmarked territory for a GM and players to sandbox. One of the main kudos from me is the character generation, it seems very clear and simple, making the char gen up there with some of the 'rules-lite' systems around, although with beefier actual game mechanics. I really like the basic approach of "Pick one skill at xxx%, two at xx% etc", that works nicely, and helps prioritise main skills with the character concept. One of the drawbacks with newbies playing BRP is all the fiddling over putting minor skill points in numerous skills, taking a long time to do so, and all the time moving away from their initial character concept. What's great for experienced players isn't always a boon to novices, and I think MW addresses this. Magic World is quite simple in its character gen, I think players used to rolling up Savage Worlds or FATE characters could easily jump over to MW. I'ld probably make it even easier for them by giving narrative descriptors for skill allocation, correlating to the bonuses described in the MW book, using the Skill Rating terms from BGB. That way a GM can say "Looking at the Occupational Skills, choose 8 skills: * 1 at Professional ability, * 3 at Amateur ability, * 4 at Neophyte ability." Then I'ld go through the same situation for Personal/Hobby Skills. It's descriptive enough for newbies to grasp, and quick enough for players who have played rules-lite systems to quickly stat up their PCs skill list. I also like how the Skill Category Bonus are much more simply calculated than they were in the BGB (which was RQ3 inspired). Another good fix in my opinion. Bringing Cultural Skill bonuses back (previously seen in RQ3 as well) was a good move, although I would have preferred an additional skill or two here, considering how much culture impacts on a character. But no big issue, easily tweaked according to tastes. I also like the way you roll different dice for successful skill checks, depending on whether that skill is a Occupational skill or not. I initially saw a similar idea in the Classic Fantasy monograph, and I like how it has been picked up here, it is well suited for Fantasy play and I guess it stimulates experience growth along the lines of the fantasy archetypes without straight jacketing them into 'Classes', this rule suits the genre well. It's probably something that could suit any pulp genre actually, whether its High Fantasy, Sword n Sorcery, Space Opera, Classic Jazz Age Noir Era etc. I like the standard +1d6 gain for Skill Checks, but the rate is best for gritty play, which is probably the default for BRP, but having higher dice rolls for archetype related skills certainly suits the more 'pulpish' games. I wonder if Chaosium will perhaps consider this with the upcoming Astounding Adventures book. So I think the slimmed Character Generation is a great boon to BRP, and I think I'll probably run my fantasy games using the char gen guidelines from this book due to its ease of use. Its pretty much consistent with the BGB, yet flows much smoother. I'm quite impressed overall

I think Ben/Zomben just invoked that on us all with an '80s Pop Ballad Summoning...

Long Live Hassium!!!!!

You may be right, I'm usually way out on these things

Perhaps you could port the Harn magic system over almost as-is. From memory, Harn used a D100% skill system, and had a very good magic system. Nice, meaty char gen as well, perhaps a little overcooked for some :-) My dislike was that it was a bit too fiddly with combat. and BRP certainly wins out here. If you have the Harn setting but not the actual rulebooks, then I'ld go with RQ or Magic World and just port the setting itself over. If you have the Harn rulebooks, then perhaps the Magic system could be easily plugged into either RQ or Magic World. As I remember, you rolled your Sorcery/Wizardry skill % minus 5 times the spell magnitude/level (ie A wizard with casting ability 80% casts a Magnitude 2 spell at 70%). So this doesn't really need to change at all. Then you took Fatigue if you failed, so perhaps you only lose Magic Points when you fail a roll, which could be double spell level (eg level 2 spell drains 4 MP upon a failure, perhaps 8MP on a fumble, in addition to the spell mishap table). So that part could port over fairly smoothly as well. The modifiers for the enriched magic rules could work as well, such as Cant bonus, Convocation bonus, etc as its all D100% based. The modifiers for casting different effects also work well, being D100% skill based. I guess damage calculation would be the most difficult to port over, but it probably works out roughly 1d6 per Spell level I suppose. In any case, if you like the Magic and Religions then perhaps they can be ported over with minimal ease, and you use BRP, Magic World, or RQ6 for all the rest of the mechanics. Otherwise, just go with the Sorcery as written and don't try to convert too much, just let the BRP Mages/Sorcerers be analogues of the Shek-Pvar, for instance. I do like how fmitchell has done Religion though, that's good focusing on Knowledge (Theology) and Allegiance (Piety: Deity). It really makes religion feel quite different to Wizardry, thats a good thing.

At least I think Zomben directed you to the Chaosium online store. He wrote 'Hassium', which I think is a typo. The only Hassium I am aware of is a synthenised chemical element with the symbol 'Hs'...I suppose it could be a store somewhere though...!

There you go Southpaw, Zomben is the actual author of 'Magic World' (in case you hadn't worked that out), so he certainly knows the lowdown with 'Magic World' Sorcery. I have been flicking through it and seeing the similarities with 'Elric/Stormbringer' magic, but I didn't want to speculate if it was an expanded version of the BRP BGB Sorcery, or if it was a variant of those Sorcery rules. So if you like the BRP BGB Sorcery then you'll love 'Magic World'. I'm waiting for the 'Advanced Sorcery' book, and that 'Enlightened Magic' book Zomben discussed, I'm sure it is the one I was thinking of that is a re-working of 'Liber-Ka' for BRP. If you want less fantasy sorcery and more esoterica then that will be the volume to get, although as Zomben says you can probably order 'Liber Ka' directly from Chaosium - if this is your thing then the pdf might be a wise investment in any case. Otherwise, expand the BRP BGB Magic with 'Classic Fantasy' and the BRP BGB Sorcery with "Magic World'. I think the 'Witchcraft' monograph also contains additional spells for the BRP BGB Magic system, and there are probably numerous other monographs that expand on either BRP BGB Magic or BGB Sorcery. If you are going to run a fantasy campaign then 'Magic World' is a good buy anyway. I'ld at least grab the pdf if you don't want another hardcopy in addition to the BRP BGB, it's worth it.

Welcome back to the hobby Southpaw, and welcome back to BRP! I think the other books replace magic systems, rather than expand them...I'm away from my copies at present, but I think perhaps Magic World could have an expanded Sorcery rules, I'm not sure. I know the upcoming Magic World supplement 'Advanced Sorcery' will detail more Sorcery and provide some alternative Sphere/Rune magic stuff. I think it will be heavily influenced by some of the magic described in Elric/Stormbringer's 'Unknown East' supplement from the '90s. The monograph 'Classic Fantasy' certainly does a good job expanding the BRP BGB 'Magic' system with heaps of additional spells which alone make it a worthwhile addition to the BGB, even if you don't want to play the other rules in it (which do a good job of making BRP into D&D or pnp WoW; it depends on your tastes if that's a good thing or not). The spells can easily be renamed and given different trappings to make them feel less D&Dish if you don't want that feel. If you can source out the Nephilim magic book, 'Liber Ka' then that provides an esoteric sorcery system that can be easily adjusted to fit BRP, its a very mature approach to the subject and not for those who want High Fantasy Magic-User tropes. I think the author was involved in updating it to fit BRP BGB, but I haven't heard much on that project for a long time, so I'm unsure if it is still going ahead. Liber Ka is a pretty good catch in the meantime if you want a very plausible and mature tone to ritual magic, it is about 90% compatible with BRP BGB. Unlikely to see it just sitting in a store though, you would have to source it out online from places like Amazon, Troll & Toad, Noble Knight Games, etc.

This looks like a really fun setting. I have the original '50 Fathoms' campaign book for Savage Worlds, and I was considering porting it over to BRP. However I might wait for this product to be published, as its a similar genre and it will be custom made for BRP/Renaissance. Yes, it would be good to keep it in the Clockwork & Chivalry world at a later time period, just for consistency. In any case, this sounds like a great pulpy setting for BRP, I'm certainly gonna back it!

Short Answer: 5 and 1. Rationale: 5 - Dieselpunk World War One? This sounds totally cool and fairly unique. Could be a niche market for better or worse though. However, its a totally cool idea though, and very in keeping with the other Renaissance RPG games which have gone for left-of-centre themes, such as English Civil War/Clockpunk, Clockpunk/Cthulhu, Edwardian Cthulhu, etc. I think it will be in line with the expectations of current Renaissance players, and could easily grab the attention of new ones. I would certainly like to see this setting see the light of day. 1 - Age of Arthur? I chose this because Arthurian myths are timeless and always sell. Arthurian Myths are just one of those genres of Fantasy that always will bring in the crowds, just like Tolkien's Middle Earth. I'ld lik eto see it done in a BRP-related RPG system rather than all that great narrative going to waste on something like a D20 system. The Pendragon rpg was great, but as its no longer in production there's an opportunity, and someone will definitely produce Arthurian games if you don't. (But here's the remainder, it may help or complicate matters...) 4 - Classic Steampunk. You can't have enough Victorian Steampunk games on the market. Newbies will buy it if the artwork is attractive and pulpy. Oldies love it, and its an all round winner, although there are already a few competing games out there doing Victorian Steampunk (but not as much as the glutted out Fantasy market). 3 - I love Sword n Sorcery, but this has been covered by many other games. I tend to play The Hyborian Age using the setting books from Mongoose with BRP or RQ mechanics. There are numerous sword n sorcery settings already out there by multiple publishers, so unless you get rights to REH or E.R.Burroughs settings then it will be hard to stand out from the crowd, no matter how good the setting/game actually is, 2 - Roman/Barbarian Briton with Cthulhoid elements... sounds great, but I think Design Mechanism is already working on a pre-medieval Briton setting, and Chaosium already has Invictus for a Roman Cthulhu setting. I know your idea is marrying the two, but it may not have all that much market potential with the other two settings out. I'ld hold back on producing this one, despite it being something I'ld like to play.

To Ghost Sword, I'm starting to get tired of seeing this thread's title. I think its a tad inflammatory, and not much more I can add other than I admire both Moorcock's work AND Ben's work with Chaosium, and I think Magic World is a step in the right direction, particularly with having a new fantasy setting. There are heaps of Young Kingdoms stuff out there with the original Chaosium lines and the Mongoose lines if anyone wants to chase down pdfs on them. Time for a change I think, and I don't see how this is disrespecting the previous lines or Michael Moorcock's body of work at all. To 1000buffalo: Before this thread croaks it, you need to post an update of your next session, sounds like alot of fun heh heh

Given that Soltakss is actually Simon Phipp, author of Merrie England, its plain to see his RQ3 leanings with the included hit locations etc in his own books. Given that Soltakss is a self-confessed 'RQ Fogey' then it comes as no surprise that Simon would flame up the old RQ vs SB war on April Fools Day. I'm sure Simon is well aware of what Magic World is about, and I'ld be surprised if he hasn't already purchased the pdf of it when it was released. All good fun, heh Simon?

This is kinda like stirring up a hornets nest. Makes me wonder if this is an April Fools Joke that I have just fallen for ....!

I'm a little like you Simon, I prefer my BRP with more of the mechanics from RQ3 than Stormbringer. Combat just works much better with hit locations and static AP for me. I did however buy the PDF of Magic World for brand support, and I'm happy I did. I'll never use it as written, but there are some parts I can use in my games, and I'm looking forward to Advanced Sorcery as well. You may not like it if you want a re-skinned RQ3, but its worth the price of the PDF if it keeps Chaosium in action I think. Ben did a nice job.

I wonder when it will be listed on Amazon.com, as the postage costs of buying international directly from Chaosium are certainly a killer for me The book price $38.95 USD + postage $44 USD, just makes the hard copy not a viable purchase for me... I'll certainly grab a print copy once I can get it for a reasonable price!