Mankcam

Sounds great. I really love the flavour of your setting, and many of the rules tweaks make alot of sense. It's a strong entry for the first LEGEND setting, and the whole LEGEND line will benefit as a result. You certainly had big shoes to fill after Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash departed Mongoose, but I think this work is a great finished product that bubbles with potential. Try and plead with the Mongoose Superiors to make your companion volume a hard cover as well, it looks so much better in the shops (and in my bookcase! ).

Ain't that the truth...

Oh, I forgot to throw in the 'Ye Booke of Monstres' (both volumes) from the mid 1990s, they were great. By the way, is the 'Malleus Monstorum' essientially a compiled reprint of these? There are plenty of critters between all these supplements, although a compendium of all of them would be a worthy purchase. Especially if it includes some of the optional stats as well (such as SR and Hit Locations for those who prefer RQ). I have only found the system lacking on occasion, but have managed to create stats up using other creatures as a guideline. It hasn't really been such a big deal, but a big book of critters covering all published creatures and more would be a nice addition to the book shelf.

German...? Noooo, my Bilingual Skill fumbles yet again!

My wife is from El Salvador, so we have visited the country several times. My Spanish is poor (much worse than the average US citizen, as down here in Australia we're not as bilingual as USA or Europe...), so the language barrier can be played up to pose major communication issues for the PCs. Given the fact that the police are generally corrupt and need to be bribed every 5 minutes then getting from A to B is even an adventure scenario. Many parts of the capital are dangerous after dark, and the threat of civil war has now become the threat of gang war, which is not as prominent as the danger inherent during the civil war, but tends to be more brutal when it spills over on the streets - not uncommon in many areas. Many villages outside the capital still don't have electricity, and its like jumping back in time in many ways. Even the ramshackle capital has an inconsistent electrical and water supply, so its wild west at times. Anyway the El Salvador-esque setting is a great concept for a rpg game, I do remember a mountain called 'Puerta Del Diablo' (The Door Of The Devil), which was important to the Pipli peoples from pre-colonisation times. There was a little village near it's base which was quite a step back to earlier times, and the villagers were pretty wary of outsiders. My wife told me that it was rumoured that a minority of the people in that village still practiced secretive cultist traditions from the early times, very voodoo-like in some ways where there was animal blood sacrifices for divinations and blessings. Some americanos went missing in the region, and the rumour mill was that they had been sacrificed on The Devil's Door mountain, possibly to appease rumbling volcanic activity. Google 'Puerta Del Diablo' and you may find some juicy stuff I reckon. Anyway it makes for a great horror setting, good luck with your work on this (I'ld love to see this setting published).

Yes, not really a large list in Basic Creatures, although it covers alot of situations. It is a reprint of the Creatures Book/Chapter from RQ3, but for many years I've been reasonably happy with that and the RQ3 Gloranthan Bestiary, between the two there is a fair ammount of beasties. If you hunt around for Call of Cthuhlu and Stormbringer rulebooks you'll also get useful additions to your creature supply, and you'll find this in many other supplements (eg: Rome, Amber Coast, etc). It's been raised before that BRP needs a really BIG old fashioned creature compedium with more critters than you'll ever need - I guess one of the licencees is bound to compile this one day.

I just received my copy from Mongoose. A great looking hard cover book, with some great content. Very sword'n'sorcery feel from what I have seen, more Elric than Conan however. This looks like its gonna be a really good setting...

Well thanks for all the advice, I think I'll just veto rolling over the strike ranks in subsequent melee rounds, and just play it as written (in RQ3). It's worked well for the last 25 years, so I'm not changing it now!

BRP Optional SR sysem isn't the same as RQ3 SR system? That's news to me, I'll certainly have to look at both sources now, I quickly perused BRP BGB and thought that Jason Durrall had just ported the RQ3 SR system in there as an optional rule. Well I guess then I should clarify this better, if I am using RQ3 SR system do you reckon it will bust the bank? I'm particularly interested in your comments Rosen, seeing how you're a writer/publisher which means you've got more than a passing knowledge with this system.

Yes, I think I can remember that Rosen's 'Command' rule he wrote in Amber Coast worked pretty well actually, I quite liked that, it sounded like it would make 'Command' more useful, I'll have to look in there to peruse it as I may need something like this in an upcoming session. Grab that book, it's full of good stuff actually ( ...and no, I don't know the author, it's just a good recommendation). Perhaps you could mix the ideas: do something like Rosen's rules for use with NPCs, with the other PCs receiving an additional combat action bonus instead which increases depending upon the level of success, along the lines like you described, but a bit weaker. Off the top of my head I'd go for +10 A% for a success, +20% for a special, and Easy A% for a critical Command roll. The bonuses you describe are a little too potent for skill use in my opinion, but perhaps magic could enhance the commander's presence etc to provide benifits along those lines. The command effects should last longer than one round however, perhaps half the commanding character's POW or CHA in rounds might be more appropriate. Maybe if you roll under your Command and your Orate (mechanically like using Martial Arts) then perhaps you score a Special success (dunno...). Food for thought

Just for clarification, is the BRP Optional Strike Rank system the same as the RQ3 Strike Rank system? My RQ3 is packed away and the BRP BGB is at hand, but I thought it read very similar to RQ3 (or exactly the same) from my memory. I understand it is an abstraction of how fast you act in that instant (melee round), and is not measured in seconds per see as a definitive measurement. I do have conflicting views on it myself and was initially willing to see how it pans out in gameplay, but I can see the logic when RosenMcStern indicates that in some cases it could 'break' the game, such as a Polearm wielder attacking more times than a Knife wielder. I've 'broken' a system before with house rules, so I'm generally cautious altering game mechanics these days, restricting most changes to character generation or magic rules - combat tends to work well and I guess if it aint broke then I shouldn't try to fix. So I guess the jury is still out on what to do with this one, however I appreciate all the advice with my query.

I've been GMing Strike Ranks since RQ3, and I kinda like the 'nuts and bolts' feel of them, they're a big part of fantasy combat scenes for me. The rules have always stated that your strike ranks do not carry over into the next melee round, which means if you can't act upon SR 10 the you can't have an action at all during that melee round. This is contradicted (well, in AH RQ3) by saying that magic actions such as spellcasting can have strike ranks carried over into the following mekee round. One of my players has queried that if you can do this with spells, then why not with other combat actions? Will this break the system? Does anyone else use the strike rank initiative system, and allow for strike ranks to be carried over into the next melee round?

Yes, I think Jason Durrall did a great job with BRP BGB, and I like how he collated many different Chaosium games to bring us a great generic rules toolkit. If another edition is ever published, however, I would prefer a revision based upon input from the gamer population; this would be much better than just putting a new cover on the same rules. Not meant to be viewed as a criticism of BRP however, as I love the BGB and BRP still remains one of my favourite rpg systems. I guess BRP is great at simulating down-and-dusty combat scenes, and perhaps that's not the usual way the Superhero genre is portrayed, so I can see why it isn't the best fit for a Supes game.

Yes, the more I look into Powers, the more I see there is alot of work here to do the Superhero genre justice. I can see your point about it being 'more than a few tweaks', thats for sure. I guess the BRP Powers are taken from the Superworld rules, and it's showing its age - maybe if the BRP BGB gets revised down the track it will look at updating some of the rules to overcome the obstacles inherent in the system.

Surely you could tweak it by giving the characters more creation points to play around with during character creation, and you could make a few Powers up if need be?! I thought you would need a wider range/scope of Powers, but starting from scratch seems a little dismal. I've played GURPS Supers, WW Aberent (excellent setting) and Savage Worlds Supers, I haven't played BRP Supers but it looks like it could do the job with a few tweaks. Apparently Mutants & Masterminds is the bible for creating Supers these days, it has been applauded quite a bit on other rpg forums. Sad to hear you shelved the project. Having said that, I keep saying I'll run a BRP Supers and never get around to it. It would probably be more Watchmen-level with scope to power-up, but I must concede that I love the visceral combat of BRP/RQ3, and whenever I do actually run games it tends to be a fantasy ancient/medeival setting, so maybe that is more a BRP strength than Supers. I have been thinking of using Super Powers for RQ3 to emulate abilities gained from Heroquests and such, I'm not sure if that'll work or not. But that's not really a Supers game though.

Yes, but a rather long one. But I cannot think of a better excuse to go to the UK!

Arrgh! I'm on the wrong side of the world - that's some line-up, what a great convention this is gonna be...

Any more news on a release date? Will it only be available in pdf format or will we be able to purchase hard copies for our collection? I am quite looking forward to this release.

Now this looks like an excellent sword n sorcery setting, I've seen a preview on the Mongoose site and it looks like a worthy purchase

Excellent!

This also looks like a great setting, and I'll grab it fure sure as there's not much actual sci-fi settings for BRP (and BRP related systems). I'll be interested in how biotech/nanotech is handled, as well as having a large sci-fi equipment list. The setting itself sounds fascinating as well. I wonder if this will be a hardcover. I picked up "The Book of Glorious Joy' recently from D101 Games and I was impressed by the hard cover and internal presentation of that book, certainly one for the gaming bookshelf. Hopefully this one will have similar production standards. Looking forward to it.

Great setting sladethesniper, I would love to be playing this campaign. By the way, if you see it cheap you should pick up a copy of the Savage Worlds campaign setting called 'Rippers'. It's a similar setting that has lots of elements you can easily port into your setting. Actual mechanics conversion from Savage Worlds to BRP is a no-brainer as well. Just a tip. Keep up the good work with this one!

I do like the idea of adding a bonus to make the characters get a sense of their own attributes, but I've shifted my stance somewhat since my earlier enthusiatic post. I was thinking about Vile's second point earlier in the day before I checked the forum again tonight, and came to the same conclusion, it would be just too fiddly in actual ongoing gameplay, especially seeing how the bonus will only be quite small. I tend to like my bonuses in 10% increments, so the Skill Cats wouldn't work all that well after all. By the time I've re-entered the banter here it looks like this has certainly already been acknowledged. For the record, I guess I must also be a 'game-fogey' who prefers many of the rules straight from my old RQ3 as well. It has its flaws (yes, Fatigue, Divine Magic, etc), but overall I love the system and consider it the best BRP system at heart. I do like some of the ideas from MRQ2 however ( I also had a distaste for the term 'MRQ2', especially since it should be called RQ5, it felt sort of 'rude' somehow, as if ignoring the previous editions. But people know which ruleset you are referring to when you say MRQ2). Perhaps Zit's idea of using Skill Cats with Skill Checks may be more along the lines actually. Didn't think of that before, but it should more or less work. Not a bad way to approach the idea, and certainly much less fiddly than adding tiny bonuses in the middle of a combat scene.

You may rue the day you said that once your message box fills up ...

Well MRQ2 were on the right track with having a skill's base chance equal the sum of two attributes. I like this because of simplicity. It's kinda like your first idea except it's taking into consideration two attributes instead of one. I do, however, like your second idea Vile where the Skill Category bonuses are a constant bonus to the player-character's roll, rather than an inherent calulation to the skill. That's a really great way to maintain no change in actual skill chance, yet make the players feel they are receiving an ongoing bonus to their rolls due to their attributes - I may instigate this in my campaign, I think it could be a winner for me. Nice work mate