NickMiddleton

Hmm - I think you are confusing the Bradford Players (and other) game audio recordings Paul & Co have done with the regular Yog-Radio pod-casts: Yog-Radio is precisely the sort of discussion pod-cast Azhen describes, but focused on Call of Cthulhu and things Lovecraftian. And there's a bit of a running gag about the fact that Paul was always planning to produce a tight, focused, 45 minute show and it often manages to sprawl out to (well over) and hour or more... "Market" in this instance is a rather dubious term. As I understand it Yog-Radio (indeed everything YS.C does) is funded by voluntary contributions from fans and site patrons - it's not done as a commercial exercise. The real question is whether there's a team with the right combination of technical skills & resources to produce a Pod-cast about BRP that BRP fans will enjoy listening to: listening to Yog-radio I'm always struck by how well the regular presenters cope with the discipline of microphone discipline etc.. Not to mention that fact that their banter seems both naturally engaging and spontaneous. I'm sure the Yog-Radio guys would be happy to offer advice, and they've recorded non-CoC games before now, so chatting with them would be a good starting point for anyone thinking of taking on the idae of a BRP pod-cast IMO. Cheers, Nick

Most of the die hard fans of Yog-Radio apparently, as it seems to most please them when Paul and & Co produce another 2 hour epic... Nick

Also well worth looking at is TSR's A Mighty Fortress - yes it's for AD&D, but it's none the less an excellent sourcebook for Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Cheers, Nick

My guess is it should be 10 for a Normal level campaign- certainly appear to be the value I was assuming when I wrote the simple BRP life path system for UW. Cheers, Nick

"flawed" however is NOT the same as: Besides which, my experience is that far more people retain RQIII Divine Magic very close to the rules as written (with a few trivially easy tweaks re reusable spells etc) than change it wholesale: the RQIII magic system that gets ditched / re-written significantly often in my experience is Sorcery... <shameless self promotion> Have you read the Ulfland article in Uncounted Worlds Issue 1? That's pretty much exactly what the revision of BRP Sorcery I included was intended to do - since I converted Ulfland (and RQIII setting originally) to BRP before the Basic Magic monograph was (re)released, I had to find something that had a similar feel.</shameless self promotion> The system I use for Ulfland is not exactly the same as RQIII Divine Magic however - and to be honest, I can't see any reason if something like what I did isn't close enough to what you want to NOT just port the RQIII Divine magic system over. Bar tweaking the re-usability rule and adjusting a few specific spells, it will work fine IMO. Cheers, Nick

I believe Jason's correct - Trollslayer was always intended as a full release IIRC: the monograph edition was simply to get hard copy available for the cons. Secrets of Morocco, for Call of Cthulhu is the first full release book that had previously been released as a monograph (Secrets of Kenya was originally proposed as a monograph but Chaosium chose to upgrade it to full release before publication if I remember correctly). Cthulhu Invictus will be the second monograph to be upgraded to a full commercial release. Cheers, Nick

the Paston Letters are quite revealing AND a primary source - the Wars of the Roses era is indeed ideal for a gaming. Against a back drop of civil war you have enormous cultural change (Gutenberg's bible is released in 1455), social upheaval (the Wars of the Roses are as much a symptom of the death of Feudalism in England as anything) and the beginnings of radical religious change - the Wittenberg church door might lay claim to be the official beginning of the Reformation, but the later half of the fifteenth century across Europe foreshadows the schism in many ways. Not to mention the rising power of the merchants and trade guilds. And all that's WITHOUT adding any supernatural or fantastical elements... Mind, I did steel weapon re-enactment in a Wars of the Roses group for ten years, so I'm a little biased... Cheers, Nick

Great news Rod, really looking forward to this! Chers, Nick

Yes. I was thinking about trying to do both letter and A4 page versions but since I've the afore mentioned real life issues AND switching to Scribus I'm shelving those plans for the moment I'm afraid - but there will definitely be both a free PDF and at cost PoD edition. Very definitely. My ambition remains to put out two issues a year for the forseeable future and I certainly have no plans to stop at present. Cheers, Nick

Yes. I have issue 2 complete in terms of material (just about) and 3/4's edited - layout and other progress has been some what stymied in the last couple of months because of real life issues but I'm hoping to get back on track in the next couple of weeks... Cheers, Nick

That would be so cool, albeit I'd got the impression that GMS was heading down the bespoke system route... Also, the C7 announcement simply says "unannounced licensed game - it's a perfect fit." So it might not be a book: it could be a comic, TV or film... Ah well: I'm sure we'll find out soon enough... Nick

AS pointed out, when CON increases, Stamina will increase. As far as tolerance to systemic poisons like alcohol go, I'd look at giving such characters a a "tolerance" score - depending on how you calibrate it this could be the number of standard drinks before they have to start making Stamina rolls; or it could be the amount of POTency the character ignores when matching their CON vs the POTency of the drink (poison) on the resistance table... These are skills in BRP - SPot is under Perception (pg 78) and Sense Motive is largely covered by the Perception skill Insight (page 63 "Your character will use this skill to evaluate another person’s character, emotional state, and motives based on body language, speech patterns, and other intangible factors. Insight allows a gambler to sense a bluff, or a detective to sniff out a lie.") Indeed. You'll also find that BRP is more forgiving of tinkering with this flexibility than many RPG's as well. This can be the hardest thing for players unfamiliar with BRP to cope with - others take it entirely in their stride. If, further down the road, you or your group are really unhappy with the random nature of character generation don;t forget their are other methods you can use. Provided the players take it in the right spirit this can be the most gratifying thing about introducing BRP to new players: combat suddenly has an edge it can all too easily loose in other games. I don't - flat adds are VERY powerful in BRP, and it eliminates the possibility of glancing blows from larger opponents. But this is an area that many BRP fans tinker with (you'll find several existing threads on this topic). My personal preference, if I can be bothered, is to use a flattened weapon damage table (that reduces all melee weapons to one or at most two die rolls with NO flat additions) and a DB table that steps up the DB by die type (d2, d3, d4, d5, d6, d8, d10, d12). Usually however I can't be bothered... Cheers, Nick

Access to the Interplanetary play test forum was fine last night from my iMac at home (Camino) and this morning from work on Safari 4. Likewise the Wright Institute. NB - with both I get asked for the password when I enter the specific forum, not the play testing forum in general. Cheers, Nick

Not really - given how imprecisely and poorly ALL RPG stats map to real world qualities (so DEX is speed of reactions, except when it's hand eye co-ordination... except when it's proprioreception: because of course someone with a noticeable deficiency or capability in one of those areas is ALWAYS as strong or deficient in the others as well...). And if we reduce Jorune's dyshas / ishos to simply BRP Sorcery (hyperbole I know) with the names changed, it would for me rob the setting of a unique feature - isho is central to Jorune as a setting, even for the races that don't use it. It's played a crucial role in the history of BOTH waves of invasion / colonisation and their aftermaths, it still intrudes into the daily lives of every living creature on the planet. And it needs to be handled in a way that reflects that and preserves its distinctive character. Personally I'd dump SIZ, INT and EDU before I chose NOT to make Colour a primary attribute alongside Isho (POW renamed). Nick

This however is an RQIII-ism - in RQII, there was no casting chance for Spirit Magic (Battle Magic as it was then known). Plus, like Sorcery spells, BM/SM spells have either a fixed power point cost of a few points, or can be cast with a limited variable range (1-3, 1-4 power points), very like BM/SM variable spells. Most people familiar with RQII saw the Elric! spell system (which is what BRP Sorcery is based on) and immediately recognised that it had significant similarities to RQII Battle magic - and many such people ran RQIII Spirit magic more like RQII Battle magic anyway... As for adding spells to Sorcery, if you can track down a copy of the Elric! supplement the Bronze Grimoire it's a pretty much the perfect extension to BRP Sorcery (as it was to Elric!'s magic system...). Cheers, Nick

I'm not convinced they should tally, actually. The problem is tying together too many systems that weren't originally used together. Fixed AP works well with Hit Locations. Random AP works well with NO hit locations and Major Wounds. In both cases the randomisation (did you hit an arm or the head with hit locations,did they roll a 1 or an 8 with their armour die with random AP) add in a necessary degree of randomisation to combat. I'd never use Random AP with Hit Locations, and I have considered in the past adjusting the random AP values to something more centred (so all armour rolls are two die plus some degree of off set): but in practice, random AP have always worked well enough for me. Cheers, Nick

But we do have INT and POW, which both describe different aspects of a personality / mind; and STR, CON, SIZ & DEX all describe different attributes of the same physical organism. I've always felt that Colour is central to any adaptation of Jorune's "magic" system precisely because it's what makes it distinctive, that it has both a quantitate measure (Isho / Isho points) AND a qualitative measure (Colour / Moon skills) of the supernatural... Cheers, Nick

Other Suns (Niall Shapero's BRP-like SF game) had two rolled stats - Length (length of body along longest axis) and Build (mass of body), and figured a third stat, Size, from the two. It's one of the details from Other Suns I've always liked. Cheers, Nick

Not with the same weapon, unless they have 90+% attack. And with two weapons (e.g. Rapier / Main-gauche), sacrificing ALL opportunities for an active defense in a round is a high risk strategy, especially as the second attack is deferred by 3SR (in RQIII) - but also reflects the fact that, if a target CAN'T defend and you wish to kill them, and you had a weapon in each hand, why wouldn't you use both? Cheers, Nick

Well there's the old RQ / Call of Cthulhu approach - you get TWO combat actions a round (two of three from Dodge, Attack and Parry), so if you want to defend against two opponents you have to sacrifice the option to attack and against three opponents you have to pick one not to actively defend against... But that's probably a bit more brutal realism than you might be after Nick

For a while, possibly inspired by Other Suns, I ran a system where by the players maintained a running total against each skill - a normal success was worth one point, a special was worth five points and a critical twenty. When the running total equalled or exceeded the skill, they got an experience check and the total reset. Possibly fumbles were worth twenty as well... It was a LOT of book keeping really - but it headed off the tick hunters whilst also making experience substantially more "objective". These days I tend I use the RAW pretty much as written (tick hunters will generally be asked to leave), plus I give out a additional number of free checks as I deem appropriate at the conclusion of a scenario which the players can assign to any skills they can convince me is appropriate. Cheers, Nick

Ian - life of is traumatic and hectic at the moment so not sure when I'll get a chance to properly sit down and read / follow this but fel free to use anything I've done previously and I'll hope to be able to pitch a bit soon. Cheers, Nick

You are confusing quantities (a strength score, an amount of damage, a skill score) with a randomiser threshold value. The roll on the dice for skill checks is a randomiser, providing a threshold value that decides something about the world - given something rated on BRP's standard percentile scale (a skill, ability roll, resistance table target - all of which are also "higher is better" like stats and damage), what happened? Does the outcome fall in the percentage range covered by the skill (rolling under the target, generally "a success")? Is it an exceptional success, represented by a small subset of successes hence rolling under a fraction of the full value? Or does it fall outside the defined range for success (roll over) and is thus a failure? You and your players will have you own views - mine has always been (in nearly thirty years of running and playing BRP related games) that because the key threshold makes sense to most people new to the game ("If x is my skill, I want the randomiser to come up equal to or less that that"), they find the extension ("if I roll a LONG way under the target it's better") makes sense for them. So I'd recommend trying it in play for a few sessions before changing it: but if at that point it's still not sitting right with the group, I can't see any issue with changing it as, for example cjbowser suggests - in your games you can do what you like. Nick

It's still possible (at least here in the UK) to pick up the Moon Design reprint of Griffin Mountain, which includes not just all those bits missed from GI but also a few extra bits and pieces from magazine articles etc. I'm not a huge Gloranthaphile either - but GM is something special and whilst not an essential purchase is definitely worth picking up at a reasonable price if you can afford it. I wouldn't in your shoes pay collector's prices, but I've always been very glad to have both GI and GM in my collection. Cheers, Nick

Slightly off topic - I think in a lot of ways, as a stand alone supplement Griffin Island works better, but it suffers from that lack of a sense of a wider political and cultural context that Griffin Mountain had. Plus there were some details skipped from GI that were in GM (Gonn Orta's castle, some of the trade maps etc), which was a shame. If I though Chaosioum could get away with it, I'd love to see GI back as a generic BRP fantasy supplement - but I think it's too clearly a derivative of GM for that to be possible. Nick