NickMiddleton

I also posted at RPGNet - In the UK Dragon Lines is listed in this weeks "New Releases" mail shot from Leisure Games, and Travelling Man can order a copy although I don't believe they have stock at present (they don't in York). Rome was listed by LG a while back and I saw a copy in TM York not long after. Patriot Games in Sheffield have Rome I think... Cheers, Nick

Clearly not for many people. Where the exact utility lies can vary depending on the conversation and participants, but many people clearly either find it useful or at least worthwhile to NOT lump Stanislaw Lem's the Chain of Chance, Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder, Burrough's A Princess of Mars and Star Wars together as the same thing. Most serious discussions of fantasy will very rapidly draw distinctions between different subcategories actually - again because it is useful to be able to discuss REH's Conan, Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, LeGuin's Earthsea and Holdstock's Mythago Wood without treating them as indistinguishable from each other... Now, SF has, as the more "junior" genre, more of a chip on its shoulder about being taken seriously and so its fans and practitioners tend to get more defensive when fantasy with ray guns and spaceships (mostly what the mass media refer to as science fiction) gets lumped in with the SF where there is a real effort to respect and extrapolate from our current understanding of (or plausible speculations about) the way the universe works. But then there are plenty of fantasy fans and writers who are openly dismissive of the mass market fantasy that gets churned out by the likes of WotC and get very precious about there particular sub-genre... *shrug* Any field of human endeavour will evolve its own nomenclature to aid discussion - and pretty much all of them go beyond practical utility and use the smokescreen of jargon to build their own protected sense of unique value. The trick is to use enough of the jargon to facilitate communication, but not so much as to obscure the actual object of discussion. Cheers, Nick

Interesting - RQI & II are seventies games, Chaosium did a lot of experimenting in the early eighties, which is when Worlds of Wonder and subsequently the standalone Superworld appeared (along with Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, ElfQuest, Ringworld and of course RQIII). ElfQuest and RQIII's take on SR are essentially identical. Ringworld uses an action point system IIRC (there's a similar system in Niall Shapero's Other Suns), where as CoC and SB used differing variants of DEX rank system... I just picked up a copy of Superworld from eBay - I'll be interested to see how the details of the system differ from the other BRP games I know better. Cheers, Nick

Yes - it's in the section describing the Strike Rank system that starts in the box out on page 199 - I think the relevant bit about powers is on page 200. I like the Strike Rank system - it adds a degree of extra detail but in many games I've found it worthwhile. The original version (in Chaosium's first two editions of RuneQuest) was slightly different and more narrowly focused on sequencing combat between engaged opponents. ElfQuest and RuneQuest III revised the system and expanded its remit to sequencing all actions in combat rounds, which lead to a few oddities. And the re-write in BRP has tweaked a couple of things further... I also thought (during the play test and subsequently) that "Combat Actions" in MRQ were a mistake, and I still think that . Have a read through of the Strike Rank rules, maybe try a few mock combats and post any questions here - there are plenty of us with lots of experience with the previous incarnations of Strike Ranks so we should be able to help! Cheers, Nick

Err - I think there's a glitch in the description / tables. The Bolt Action is listed as having an "Attacks per Round" of 1/2, but a Strike Rank of 1/SR AND a magazine of 5. Since this means (per my earlier post re the long bow) that a typical human firing under the SR system would get TWO shots per round, I can't see how that squares with 1 shot every 2 rounds under the DEX rank system - but I CAN see unclipping and replacing a magazine taking a round or two under typical combat conditions. Further, see page 254 - the sections of Reloading Firearms and unaimed fire should supersede what's on the weapon table I'd suggest, as that's clearly a hang-over from the rather inconsistent Call of Cthulhu firearms table (where there are Bolt-Action rifles listed with RoF's of 1 and 1/2...). I'd just come up with revised stats for the specific weapon. Cheers, Nick

Note sure about "lame", but it's not entirely accurate. Under the Volley Fire spot rule a Long Bow can (in most characters hands) shoot more often than once per round - admittedly the rule is a rather unclear blend of the Call of Cthulhu "unaimed shots" rule and the Elric! Volley Fire spot rule (see previous discussion here). If using the optional Strike Rank rules, most humans will manage two shots per round with a Long Bow. And, from a "historically plausible" starting point an effective clothyard arrow per six (or even 12) seconds is quite an achievement and quite devastating against targets without adequate armour and about right for the Long Bow. I've seen skilled archers push their rate of shot higher, but only against a fixed target and with the arrows prepped specifically to hand (e.g. stuck in the ground directly in front of the archer) and even then not much beyond 15 - 18 arrows per minute... Hmm - not tried it exactly - but I'd be more tempted to first try simply upping the rate of fire of Long Bows. Cheers Nick

The third edition "Role Playing Expnasion" adds what is basically the BRP skill system (crediting Chaosium and Tadashi Ehara "who made possible the form this expansion takes"). Ringworld is sadly never going to see the light of day again I suspect - the rights are tied up in hollywood, which blocked the last serious attempt to get it re-released and I can't se that changing any time soon. Quite why Chaosium have not re-released at least PDF's of Questworld and / or Worlds of Wonder I'm not sure - they presumably still retain the rights to the text. Mind, I've still never understood, given the re-issue of RQIII as the BASIC monographs, what the status of Land of Ninja and Vikings is... Funnily enough, a large chunk of what was to be the Games Workshop expansion material for Questworld and long thought lost was recently rediscovered by one of the authors#. It's most likely that'll now see release for Dragon Warriors I suppose. Cheers, Nick #Dave Morris, co-author of Dragon warriors and at one time editor of "Rune Rites" RQ column in White Dwarf, as well as author of the seminal "Dealing with Demons" article for RQII...

There have been three SF BRP based games - Chaosium's Ringworld, FGU / Niall Shapero's Other Suns and Other World Games Worlds Beyond. Plus the Future*World portion of Worlds of Wonder. All are long out of print and exceptionally difficult to get hold of I'm afraid (Noble Knight are currently asking $50 for a copy of Other Suns...) Likewise, Chaosiums Questworld is rare and expensive. Their boxed set of Thieve's World is a little easier to come by and whilst there's a lot of wasted space (it includes stats fro something like 18 different RPG's!!) there RQ stats are easily converted and the non-system specific material is excellent. Plus, the Green Ronin d20 Thieves World stuff (which ads lots of setting detail and is fairly easy to convert) can be picked up VERY cheap at the moment. Sanctuary has been one of my staple fantasy cities for many, many years... In addition to the Cthulhu Rising stuff some of the other Cthulhu monographs might be of interest - Ripples From Carcosa has three scenarios in three different time periods for example. Nick

Correct Elric! was released in 1993. Largely the same text was released as Stormbringer 5th edition in 2001. There was a previous game of the same name that went through technically four editions with a broadly similar (but notably different in the details) rule system between 1981 and 1991, all from the same publisher... Chaosium - Perils of the Young Kingdoms has some great scenarios in it that could be fairly easily adapted to BRP. Noble Knight Games also have some OOP Elric! stuff. Nick

Well, not sure internet forum polls tell us anything that reliable... The only options were "pick all you want" or "pick one", so I opted for "most preferred genre" and "monograph you most want an adventure for", as the alternative seemed even less informative. Shame I couldn't say "pick n" where n would be a sensible limited value (say 3 or 4)... Cheers, Nick

Oh, don't mind us - there's nothing worse than struggling to do something your hearts not in. If you want to do a Classic Fantasy adventure, go for it! The polls are purely a bit of fun - and Fantasy is the top genre by some margin anyway Nick

Given that there is also a Cthulhu Invictus adventure contest running in parallel, and Miskatonic River Press have a CI campaign in editing, I'd say that, if you are willing to put up with some Cthulhu Mythos in your Roman material (or are willing to de-Mythos it) there should be plenty of Roman material about soon... Oh, I quite understand that apprehension. And part of the fun of these adventure contests is that people can indulge themselves and try anything. I just thought it was an interesting companion question to the one about genre to see which of the current monographs people are keenest to see an adventure for... Nick

This is sort of a companion to the other poll - which of the published monographs would you like to see a new adventure for most of all, whether it's a companion adventure to a monograph that was itself an adventure, or a "how to..." adventure that shows how to implement ideas from a monograph that was purely a rules supplement? Not sure I can fit all the relevant mono's in one poll mind... Nick

So, what genre would you like to see supported with adventures in the next BRP Adventures monograph? This poll has no official status with Chaosium, it's just a bit of fun...

Actually, I just had a thought - is it worth encouraging submissions for a particular genre, or even previous monograph? We have no actual control of course, but purely as a bit of fun and way of inspiring people, we could have a couple of polls: a "which genre would you most like to see adventures for?" and perhaps a "which BRP monograph would you like to see an adventure for?". Run them for a couple of weeks and see what happens? Just a thought. Nick

Well, there's also a Cthulhu Invictus Adventure contest running at the same time, which is quite specific, and it's pretty clear there will also be the annual halloween adventure contest for Call of Cthulhu Best to seek clarification direct from Dustin I think. Nick

Announcement here. So now we know what Jason's been working on for C7 - very pleased to see Gareth Hanrahan and John Snead are involved as well. Really rather looking forward to this. Nick

It's definitely Pale Rider / High Plains Drifter (i.e. gritty, plausible if somewhat non-historically specific "real" western with an occult / paranormal edge) more than it's Deadlands garish walking zombie's and the magic came back and history has radically changed schtick. Albeit a lot depends on how the GM chooses to handle things of course. Cheers, Nick

Monographs are printed in small batches and restocked when there are a number of small print jobs that need doing - and Chaosium's rather quirky web site management software removes out of stock items from the catalogue ENTIRELY (to prevent people ordering stuff that's not currently available, I assume), rather than say just marking stuff as "Temporarily Out of Stock". It wil no doubt be re-printed fairly soon, that's what usually happens. Nick

The only caution I would offer is that there is a pretty good Necromancy system as an extension of the Sorcery system available in the now OOP Bronze Grimoire supplement for Elric!/Stormbringer, so it's conceivable Chaosium might re-issue that material reworked to be non-setting specific (as they did with the RQIII Magic Book): indeed, if there is an old BRP game supplement that's begging to be "BRP-ified" and released to support BRP it's The Bronze Grimoire (closely followed by Liber Ka for Nephilim). Contact Dustin - there's certainly an opening for such focused supplement at present. Nick

Over at the Tavern, Newt posted earlier today that he'd sent for a proof print and that pre-order details would be going up soon... Nick

Err, so why not use those (plus perhaps a Spot Hidden to garner additional specific nuances)? If these elements are important to the game, breaking them out in to separate skill rolls seems to foreground them in the appropriate way - if they aren't central then why bother inventing a new skill that is largely a duplication / specialisation of existing skills to cover them all? Personally I think I'd just tailor the profession list (there's no scout in the core book for example) and may be give the players some additional notes on appropriate uses of existing skills, maybe widen a few skill definitions even, rather than create new skills. Cheers, Nick

I am 99.9% certain (but Paolo will correct me if I'm wrong) that Alephtar have a BRP License - Rome and Veni, Vidi, Vici are BRP, as is Charles Green's Dragon Lines and the Mecha game Alephtar are working on IIRC. Also, Jason has made reference to working on something yet to be announced for Cubicle 7 that is BRP. Nick

Having been briefly involved in some of the early brainstorming I'm really excited that River of Heaven is moving forward to publication and I can't wait to see the final setting. Cheers, Nick

My standard advice for running BRP with PC's that are less fragile than standard: THP=SIZ+CON for PC's and Major NPC adversaries Use THP only, no Hit Locations Consider using "mook" rules if the desired style is highly cinematic. Look at using the Fate Point option. Look at adjusting the Fatal Wound rules (pg 209) so characters reduced to 0 or negative THP are not instantly daed but e.g. are losing THP at 1 per round until -CON before irreversible death Adjust melee damage bonus to be a single die of increasing size (so the progression becomes 1d2, 1d3, 1d4, 1d5, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12). cheers, Nick