NickMiddleton

Bear in mind that releasing them as the BASIC monographs was I think a somewhat "off the cuff" decision. They were originally scanned, OCR'd and released as the Basic Role Playing monographs bask in 2004, several years before the Big Gold Book saw print, and were meant then to be literally RQIII sans Glorantha and the name "RuneQuest". They have only ever been a way of ensuring that this material for a previous BRP game that's highly compatible with BGB BRP are easily available without scouring eBay. And at least the egregious formatting errors introduced in the 2004 scanning / OCR'ing have been corrected. There is clearly however an opening for a good BGB compatible Bestiary... Cheers, Nick

Buy it. But it now. I've just finished skim reading it and it's a little gem. It sketches out a setting that has wonderfully evocative echoes of Vance, Wolfe et al without being a simple pastiche and possesses its own distinct feel, leaving great swathes open for the GM or future published material to flesh out. There's a fun scenario, and now I've finished reading it I want to a) run a game in this setting and read some more about it. If any one has had qualms about Chaosium publishing full distribution support for BRP that was as good as that coming from Alephtar, this should definitely placate you. I can't wait to try this out and I'me VERY keen to see the PDF adventure for CoFE Dustin has (project 9). Cheers, Nick

Picked up my copy in Travelling Man in York (UK) today. Nick

You are mixing up abstract game management divisions of time that affect the player and GM (the four phases) with the sequencing that affects the characters and NPCs actions "in" the game (DEX Ranks). Of course the GM or player controlling the orc would get to make statements / declare actions in phase 1 - but those actions would be constrained by the fact the orc is stunned until DEX rank 10. Cheers, Nick

Yes please, that would be very cool. Cheers, Nick

Nick Nacario has IIRC posted here, I think as NickofChaosium, but not in any official capacity... and the last activity was in 2009. Cheers, Nick

Not necessarily. Depending on how the files for the current soft back are structured it might be possible to save some space by adjusting sections of the whole. Mind, since page 384 in the current book is actually the Resistance table (the page numbering does actually go from the frontispiece in the hard copy, where as the PDF counts the cover), it could well be that the remainder of the reference tables are being excluded, perhaps for release as a separate PDF and / or maybe as a book of useful tables to include in a BRP GM's screen? Well, I can dream... Nick

That mark down is the standard (some what disingenuous) calculation RPGNow / DTR have always used for their PDF pricing - Chaosium sell a hard copy of the quickstart for $11.95, so they quote the hard copy price as the original price, to hype up the discount on the PDF price. that in this case Chaosium make the PDF version available free seems to have been missed... Cheers, Nick

Yes please! Nick

Leisure Games in London usually carry Chaosium stuff and most UK games shops who deal with Esdevium will get Chaosium books - I'm expecting to see it in my FLGS (Travelling Man York) sometime soon... Cheers, Nick Middleton

I haven't yet statted the Sauriki in the gate warden universe, nor the Quertzl, but Outpost 19 does include stats for a very Quertzl-like species native to Jeterieff V. But one could certainly use the stats from Future*World they are teh original inspiration in both cases. I do intend to do more, but as I mentioned up thread my writing's largely driven by what my local group play (and they aren't as big fans of SF as I am, sadly). Plus in the last eighteen months my life has been a bad soap opera, so free time has been scarce. But I'd still liek to do more in teh gate Warden setting. Cheers, Nick

Happy Christmas to you all. Here's to holiday season full of joy and hopefully a great 2011. Cheers, Nick

I got confused? The cover images was a detailed scan of the hand painted / drawn original and even after processing in to the final cover for Lulu was still quite big. I DO have a "compressed" version wit the cover but given it was compressed by Acrobat 9 standard to be accessible to Acrobat 4.0 or later I'me a little sceptical... But I had meant to make that version the PDF generally available! I have added that one to the downloads here as well. Cheers, Nick

I have every intention of continuing with UW. I'd like to get the next one out more quickly! Beyond that, other than my usual aspirations to have a diverse body of contributors and stuff that is useful in peoples games, I have no particular plans at present. I didn't manage to get a scenario in UW2 so I'd like to have one of more scenarios and some scenario seeds in UW3. Also, more SF / non-Fantasy stuff. Cheers, Nick

PDF copy is also available here at BRP Central - http://basicroleplaying.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=379 BRP Stress Rules by Ben Monroe and I Enhancing Your Game by Sarah Newton QI - Some Notes Toward an Oriental Flavour for BRP by Gianni Vacca Expert Skills In BRP by Bo Rosen End of Days: Post-apocalyptic Call of Cthulhu by Jason Durall Tombs & Tentacles: Sword and Sorcery Call of Cthulhu by Jason Durall Foul Spawn: Occulis and Rh'knaus by Darell Floyd Cheers, Nick

Dear All, have mailed PDF to Dustin at Chaosium and finally uploaded it to Lulu as well here. Now in "US trade paperback" size (i.e. 6" x 9") - hopefully Lulu will sort itself out and make the PDF version available soon as well, but if you prefer PDF I'd wait and get it from Chaosium or here at BRP central, as for some reason Lulu is now charging for downloading the PDF Mind, they've not made the PDF available as yet)... the print version from Lulu however is pretty reasonable at £2.03, albeit as ever with Lulu the postage is a bit steep I'm afraid. Still, this size is (they claim) universal so there should be no issue printing outside the UK as was a problem with the previous A4 format I'm afraid. Here's hoping I can manage a third issue a bit quicker than the previous 2!!! Cheers, Nick

Ordered my copy. Used the discount thingy Lulu sent me recently so got it including shipping for a little less than £15 as well, which was a bonus. Really looking forward to this Newt! Cheers, Nick

Hmm - GM's screen is a cracking idea, and an optional bundle of the new hardback and screen might well be a cool promotional gimmick. What they really need however is more stuff like Chronicles of Future Earth, Devil's Gulch, Rome, Dragon Lines etc Normal distribution books that can sit on the FLGS shelf next to the core book... Still, the hard back is clear vote of confidence in BRP sales from Chaosium, so I'm looking forward to it and do hope they include the errrata. Cheers, Nick

Er, what? Haven't seen that in the Chaosium twitter feed - got a link? Nick

As far as I recall from discussions with Jason before, during and after the BRP play test, the core of BGB BRP is synthesis of Stormbringer 5th edition and Call of Cthulhu 6th edition, and it's primary inspiration is Worlds of Wonder. Optional rules are taken / adapted from pretty much the entirety of Chaosium's BRP catalogue of games, but that trinity is clearly the core inspiration, not (directly) RQII OR RQIII. It is true that, bar the Super Power defence power I can't think of a single exclusively RQII feature that made it in to BGB BRP, but equally, beyond the optional Fatigue system, I can't think of an exclusively RQIII feature either (LHP, Skill categories, stacking specials and crits etc are all features of BRP games besides RQIII). I think that does suggest that the general consensus of the editors, writers and play testers at the time anyway was that the book was NOT deficient for being less like RQII... we certainly didn't argue about it in the play test as far as I recall. *shrug* As I have said before, I was a vehemently anti-RQIII grognard (at the tender age of 17!) in 1984 but once I finally did mature and properly explored RQIII in the late 80's I switched and I can't see any reasons now to play RQII - RQIII (or BGB BRP with the right options and add ons to emulate everything I like about RQIII if I'm after that feel) works fine for me and most of my RQ-aware acquaintances. I'm sure I'll read Glyphmaster, but it's unlikely to appeal to me personally. Cheers, Nick

In the BGB as written, Shield Parry and Dodge are far closer in effect than in other BRP games, hence there is less "rule mechanic" re-inforcement of the differences. My preferences are to allow Ripostes with their primary weapon by a character using a weapon and shield combination who successfully parries with the shield (the normal riposte rule requires that the character be a master with the parrying weapon and that the riposte is made with the weapon that parries). This gives a specific advantage to having a weapon and shield combination. Cheers, Nick

BRP with tweaks for a more heroic feel - PC and Major NPC THP=CON+SIZ; no hit locations; major wounds; ripostes; shield parry's allow a riposte for non-masters; irreversible death only occurs at -CON THP. Using RQIII magic. SO far it's worked rather well - the players got a bit carried away at character generation and really didn't take enough healing, and the scenario is really NOT suitable for starting Heroic characters on reflection - I should have bumped them up to Epic. Hah! I'm always grumbling we don't do enough SF, and the others have recently been complaining that this group, which we set up to be the group that would return to things, in the last few years has only managed to consistently go back to the 1920's Yorkshire Call of Cthulhu game. Albeit at a recent group discussion we resolved to do better from next year! Outpost 19 was my original play test game for the BRP rules. I've never got round to running Gwenthia itself - my bits of Gwenthia were very loosely inspired by a home brew fantasy game I wrote in the early nineties, and I never managed to persuade my groups to try it. I suspect that contributed to my personal frustrations with the setting. We were improving after a rocky summer, and then a bereavement and subsequent family fall-out for one of the group members has stacked with some work and holiday commitments amongst the rest of the group and it looks like we'll wrap the Savage North and take a hiatus of 4 - 6 weeks. During which time I will of course be thoroughly conscientious and both write the entirety of this winters Cthulhu scenario AND pre "After the Scouring" for it's return next year... Nick

Whilst this was a very common house rule, it was not what the rules said - it was actually rather enlightening re-reading them carefully when we had the big debate in the BRP play test about special and critical results stacking. It's also IIRC pretty much unclear in RQI/II whether Impales (specials) and critical effects stack... RQIII RAW they DID stack, but AFAICR BRP RAW they do NOT stack: but one is obviously free to house rule. When I get home I'll see if I can find my notes from the play test discussion. Cheers, Nick