NickMiddleton

Decide how many can actually contribute to the task, and whom is the primary participant. The others make effort rolls - if they succeed they get to add their chance of a special success to the primary participants effort score for their roll. Once all the assisting characters have rolled, the primary participant rolls. One could look at refining things further based on the specific outcomes of the assisting characters rolls - my feeling is that is too much faffing / detail on something that should be quick and is peripheral to the main action / drama (does the overall TASK succeed or fail) so I'd say only the Primary participants roll can produce a result other than Success or failure. Cheers, Nick

The BRP monographs (tape bound versions and the later perfect bound ones) were simply the text of the equivalent RQ 3 booklets from the Avalon Hill Deluxe boxed set with the word "RuneQuest" and "Glorantha" removed, and "Basic Role Playing" replacing "RuneQuest". There was also a BRP branded "Magic Book" as a full release which was a revision of the RQIII Magic Book to bring it into line with the BRP BGB. Magic World was mostly derived from Elric! and its supplements but the creatures chapter was adapted from the RQIII Creatures booklet. Nick

Whilst in terms of the wider market I can see why this wasn't made more of, but I confess to some degree of surprise that the community here was not aware that the BGB was available via POD - was there any sort of announcement? Also, are other "legacy" titles, such as Magic World, available via POD? Regards, Nick

My bad - page 16. It's the section "the Main Criteria" in the Strike Rank section:

Every printing I have of RQ2 lists it as a (strictly optional) rule - page 17 in the three I have to hand here. We liked it: on initial "contact" in a melee reach and weapon length (and RQ2 emphasized LENGTH in weapon SR a lot) matter but rapidly these factors were overwhelmed by the fundamental speed of the combatants as the dominant factor. It seemed a reasonable, PLAYABLE approximation. Certainly, when I started steel weapon reenacting a decade or so later my experience in skirmishes reinforced that feeling: I could regularly thrash a swordsman with my bill hook NOT because it was longer but because I was faster with it. Mind, most of swordsman I fought weren't very good! I know a bunch of HEMA enthusiast now and they are all significantly better than any of the reenactment fighters I knew back in the early 1990's. Nick

So did no one else use the RQ1/2 rule where after the initial round, you drop SIZ and weapon length from Strike Rank, and only use DEX SR? Nick

The BRP version was square - 210mm x 210mm - and produced a rather lovely hardcopy when I privately printed myself one via Lulu last year. cheers, Nick

D'Oh! My apolgies to you and Charles, I did know it was Revolution it was going to, dunno why I mixed it up! Its a very good piece. cheers, Nick

The one of the main "original" components (i.e. written specifically for it) of the Chronicler's Companion (on Religion, by Charles Green) he chose to withdraw and he has re-purposed it for Classic Fantasy I believe, so would NOT be available. The rest of the draft of the CC I was aware of consisted of a lot of material Ben had revised from the RQIII Game Masters book - which is copyright to Chaosium; some excellent stuff on campaigning in the Southern Reaches (by Dave Ackerman) and some fantastic setting /scenario material by Richard LeDuc. So a straight "issue" of that draft simply cannot be done, and it would be a non-trivial task to revise it so it could be released (both in terms of negotiating suitable permissions / licenses AND in terms of the layout work required). HOWEVER, the draft I know of was ~116 - in that the religion / expanded allegiance chapter was ~22 pages, so there's a potential ~96p supplement there. So there's the viable basis for a book that COULD Be released: I alas have neither the time, resources nor the complete set of skills required to achieve it but I will publicly state that I am more than willing to help if I can if there is a serious attempt to get the material released in a respectable format. The other project I'd love to see go somewhere was the bestiary / creatures collection various of us had submitted stuff for (Ben was unofficially referring to it as All the Worlds Monsters, Volume 1). There was rather a nice blend of classical stuff (converted from the old Gateway Bestiary), some more obscure stuff culled from mythology and given a slightly different spin and some entirely new creations. As a contributor I'm biased - but I thought it had a LOT of potential and was far more interesting than the typical cookie-cutter bags of hit points for PC's to beat up that creatures books often are. Cheers, Nick

Indeed: I'd be intrigued to read some more meat on that particular bone, as it were... Cheers, Nick

Weird, I thought this had been said in some official capacity a while back, but apparently I was mis-remembering things. Ah well, congratulations Jason, best of luck with the new gig! Nick

Unless Chaosium have had a radically change of heart since late last year / early this year, there will be NO revamp of the BGB - they have explicitly, repeatedly, said their model going forward is a modern equivalent of the 16 page pamphlet as a sketch of the core baseline mechanics (BRP Essentials - quite possibly a bit more substantial that the old 16 page booklet, but still concise) and then a bespoke. complete implementation for each new setting. Mythic Iceland 2e will be standalone "BRP" game, as will the new Chaosium RuneQuest as will any other further worlds. Now, if PDF / POD sales of the BGB etc / other indicators suggest the market appetite is there for a revised BGB, I would expect NuChaosium will consider it: but they have been pretty unambiguous in the last 9 months or so that they do NOT see it as the right direction for their business at present. Cheers, Nick

River of Heaven is "on the cusp" - there ARE trans-humanist elements, but there are also anti-transhumanist forces at play in the setting which have pushed back quite hard against the whole of humanity taking that route. That's one of the things that's really cool about it. Without being a direct lift of Alistair Reynolds / Richard Morgan et al it captures a lot of the feel of that type of "new" Space Opera from the last twenty years or so. For various reasons it is highly unlikely I will be revisiting Outpost 19, but having read BRP Starships 2.2 and written Outpost 19 I can't think of any significant hurdles to using them together. cheers, Nick

It is a hold over from the text of Elric! - on page 151 on wards of that game there were two paged of commonly used Terms, an index, character sheet and then a series of tables from various parts of the game gather together in one place. I assume Ben intended to include revised equivalents but they didn't make it in to the released version for some reason. Much of the same material was reproduced on separate card stock sheets as part of the Elric! GM's pack as well IIRC. Regards, Nick

Really? Referring to the "6+1" (or "8-1" if you prefer) published distinct edition of a game to use that brand name as the seventh edition is confusing? *shrug* referring to it internally as RQ4 (the fourth purely Chaosium edition of RQ) made a sort of sense I suppose, but is only relevant to Chaosium staff, realistically; from a corporate perspective simply referring to it as "RuneQuest" is a sensible brand strategy. And since the trademark owner (Moon Design) now owns the publisher (Chaosium), its entirely up to you what you call it. But trying to "disappear" editions the current owners seemingly want to pretend aren't part of the brands history just looks a bit naff, to be blunt.

Given how Chaosium's design decisions and my preferences have diverged in the last year or so, this is the only thing left that Chaosium own that I have any interest in, (and given that divergence, this too may pass). I was at UK Games Expo today and it was a sobering realisation that for the first time in my 37 years playing tabletop RPG there is nothing current or announced by Chaoisum I have any current interest in buying. Especially poignant as they had a nice stall with some pretty product on sale. Nick

Well, as far as BRP BGB goes there are references on pages: 154, 156, 232, 250ff (varios Shock and electrical weapons). I can't see that its called out anywhere though as a separate generic spot rule, so one would have to infer something from the weapons and powers stuff in the BGB.

Jason was always pretty explicit that the two "foundational" documents that underpinned the bulk of the default system choices in the BGB were Elric! / SB5 and CoC 6 - it has some OPTIONAL systems from RQ3 (and other games more closely related to the RQ strand), but the base line is very obviously Elric! / SB5 / CoC 6. Structurally it was a spiritual successor to Worlds of Wonder. The 2nd edition Magic World probably deserves a mention, as it blended some ideas from RQ3 and the BGB back in to the Elric! / SB5 system. cheers, Nick

Pretty much all the content of the Bronze Grimoire ended up in either the Magic World core book (some of the additional spells) or Advanced Sorcery. The ENTIRETY of the Elric! demon summoning system (core+Bronze Grimoire revisions & additions) is in Advanced Sorcery. IIRC the scenario that went with Dave Morris' original RQ2 "Dealing With Demons" article series got republished in the Magnum Opus collection of material for Dragon Warriors. The "Tekumel" influence is more obvious in that version of the article IIRC, but its been a while since I read any of that material. cheers, Nick

The Green ROnin d20 stuff is well worth a look if you haven't already got it: http://greenroninstore.com/search?x=0&y=0&q=Thieves%27+World These are exceptionally well researched and written, and cover both the Rankan, Beysib and Sanctuary-novel era's. Yes they are for d20, but a significant chunk of the content is setting, not rules. Alas, only available in PDF, not hard copy anymore. I found them a worthy addition to my original Chaosium boxed set. cheers, Nick

About to start running the next chapter of my 2300AD variant setting powered by my BRP SF rule set (a minor evolution of Magic World and the BGB). This is the third installment of an episodic campaign I have been running with the Wednesday guys since, 2012 Currently playing CoC 6e (well, pre 7e anyway) World War Cthulhu: Darkest Hour - started last Autumn, trying to get to a break point before the clocks change... Cheers, Nick

BGB BRP - Knockout Attack Spot Rule, page 226 Magic World Knockout Attack spot Rule, page 88 IIRC both are (minor) variations of the CoC 6 & earlier Knockout Attack Spot Rule. My standard House rule in Call of Cthulhu and similarly gritty strains of BRP is that between humans with positive SAN hand to hand combat is assumed to be all knockout attacks unless the combatants are suffering a bout of insanity or has passed a POW x 5 roll (i.e. has willed themselves to deliberately take a life). Cheers, NIck

Here's the thing - this has only become "the RuneQuest (Chaosium game focused on Glorantha) forum" recently. It was for quite some time specifically the DM's RQ6 forum, and a LOT of the historical content in this particular forum is DM / RQ6 specific. Of the 209 threads in this sub forum all bar the first two pages are overwhelmingly RQ6 / Design Mechanism related (include RQ6 close relatives MRQ2 & Legend and its even more the case). Leaving those first two pages here, renaming this as "Chaosium's RuneQuest", and relocating the rest of this sub-forum in to the Extended Family as tDMGFKaR ("The Design Mechanisms Game Formerly Known as RQ6") or whatever the official name ends up being strikes me as least disruptive and of greatest utility to most users.

So how do we square this with "... BRP Central will continue to supporting discussions for the entire BRP family and this includes hosting subforums for the major non-Chaosium d100 systems." ? A substantial number of threads in this forum are for what will shortly be a "non-Chaosium d100 system", from a usability point of view surely it would be better to have them in a separate area to the tsunamai of Gloranthan / CRQ / RQ7 stuff here? Or is the Design Mechanism's new game going to get shunted to a bare new sub-forum in "the Extended Family" and users who want material previously posted here more conveniently placed over there will have to manually move it themselves?

Gatan! nick