NickMiddleton

Talk to a local print bureau or two near you and find out whether they will consider converting a PDF you have bought legitimately to a hard copy book. If they express similar doubts to those Kinko's in the US often raise, it may be worth contacting Chaosium to see if they can supply some sort of permission to get a single copy printed and bound for personal use. As far as I can recall, it would be technically a breach of Lulu's terms and conditions: That reads to me that at the very least trying to use Lulu would require Chaosium's explicit permission... Cheers, Nick

Depends on how well written the "fluff text" is, and how intrusive it is... Personally, if you stick great gobbets of your (or any else's) attempts at "a fantasy masterwork to rival Tolkien" at the front of the book or even each chapter I won't read it, and it might actually put me off the book as a whole. It's certainly one of the things I most despise about White Wolf books. Small blocks of illustrative fiction can work well however. Rurik the Restless, Cormac's Saga, The Travels of Biturian Varosh - specifically tailored bits of text who's sole purpose was illustrating the rules, and thus the world they describe. As Harshax says, side bars - short, concise pieces positioned in the text where they need to be to illustrate the relevant rule are best I feel. Cheers, Nick

Bad Jason, no biscuit! I like the monographs, and I think they fill a much needed role in providing Chaosium a way of providing low volume cost effective support for CoC and BRP - which I'm afraid makes them problematic to get in print outside the US, unless one can manage to club together with friends and put in an order that qualified for free shipping... I'm glad we've left the b&w tape bound card cover era behind, and I'd be happier if Chaosium made more of a distinction between monographs like BRP Adventures, where they did the editing etc, and ones where the editorial and layout is entirely down to the author ("Faculty papers" and "Student papers" perhaps?) but given the current physical format and there availability in PDF as well I really can't complain about the monographs! Just need more normal distribution books... Nick

To add to Vagabonds point - Nephilim was published by Chaosium in 1994 and had seven supplements by 1997. Pendragon in total got a similar level support over it's 4 editions at Chaosium. These are not GURPS / WotC D&D4 levels of support - but they are not atrocious. Certainly, we'd all like more but lets not forget that, pretty much until the release of BRP, Chaosium was regarded as the dinosaur who had not embraced PDF publishing. Now they have and that's allowed them, despite very difficult circumstances in the past year to get BRP and five new supplements out (and two of those five supplements had some Chaosium editorial input, for what that's worth). Chaosium have to grant approval of a license before a 3rd party can publish a BRP book - I even asked their permission before doing Uncounted Worlds and in some cases they need to take a more active role than that and have a definite part to play in fully distribution 3rd party products. This appears to be why the Deadworld project was stymied and, on a more positive note, RosenMcStern has indicated that he and Chaosum negotiated a specific license for Pete Nash's Rome. So they have definite part to play in enabling 3rd party support and lets hope that Rome is the first of many. BRP is frequently talked about at RPGNet and on other internet forums; the new book has been reviewed by both Ken Hite and others; it's in the distribution channel and showing up in local game stores... But there is no advertising channel for RPG's anymore that hits all, or even just major chunks of the target demographic (very few print zine's are left and the breadth of their audience and thus the cost effectiveness of advertising in them is suspect). And where is this "market place"? Five to ten years or more ago it may well have been primarily focused on bricks and mortar shops, but I really don't think it is anymore - it's Amazon, DriveThruRPG, RPGNow, Noble Knight, Infinity Games and ARG in the UK; it's here, and RPGNet and EN World: the market place is primarily online these days. Local game stores still have a crucial role to play - but they are now playing second fiddle to online retailers and PDF 'books' which can be delivered immediately and without the at times extortionate cost of over seas shipping. Again, not saying Chaosium have got it exactly right - but I think the last year has seen them move to embrace the modern market more than at any time in the preceding decade and that gives me hope that they will continue to adapt and improve their market presence. That's a question for Chaosium, but at a guess - they don't like the cut that RPGNow / DriveThru (actually a single entity called One Book Shelf, as the two merged some time back but continue to trade under both brands) now take of PDF sales, hence not expanding the range they originally made available via that outlet. Many other small publishers have also not liked OBS's terms and have gone elsewhere. Chaosium's second reason I would guess stems from the secondary purpose of the monographs - which is that in addition to making money for selling them, because they are exclusive to Chaosium's website, purchasers have to go to Chaosium's website and thus may buy something else direct from them. And Chaoisum makes more on direct sales. As a strategy it has pro's and cons - I wish they were a little more consistent (some recent books such as Secrets of Kenya and Malleus Monstrorum are available as PDF's from OBS, but not the BRP core rulebook?) but I think the idea of having a line that is exclusive to the website (i.e. the monographs) but is effectively free delivery any where in the world (because you can but them as PDF's) is a shrewd idea. And I don't see any Steve Jackson Games PDF's at OBS or Paizo either... Chers, Nick

Reduce it one die step? So if your melee damage bonus is +1d6, your missile weapon bonus is +1D4? Cheers, Nick (also a fan of the "linear dice" damage bonus idea)

Is it a technique that has limited distribution in the setting? Or is it a unique technique TO the setting? In general, Skill list creep is a bad thing - it's one thing to stats NPC's with quirky specific skills, but adding skills to the list a player character has to divvy points between should be approached with caution. In a modern campaign, Abseiling is simply part of the Climbing skill - any climber beyond 25% has probably used the technique and certainly Professional Climbers (51%+) would know it well, know what equipment they need and be able to talk novices through using it. In a 15th Century, wars of the Roses era campaign the technique has not been invented, so no one knows it - you could consider allowing a master Climber (90%+) to invent it. In general, specialist, specific techniques I'd restrict by skill level, rather than as a skill. Cheers, Nick

I voted that it over complicates matters, simply because I think too many people use it without thinking through the impact "compound" rolls have on success and failure. If, in your example, the character is 51% in both skills, the chance of rolling BOTH successfully in a "compound roll' is only 25% - suddenly the Professional Spy is only an amatuer... As Al. says, the better approach is to match a SINGLE roll against multiple skills: in which case, the Professional Spy would still have a 51% of successfully placing the bug, but his protégé from local LEO with minimal Tradecraft (22%) would likely hide the bug (get less than 51) but quite likely in an position a skilled agent would look (roll less than 51 but greater than 2). As a further consideration, I'd be wary of adding skills that could conceivable be covered by others, or subsumed by broad skills. For example, I'd prefer to write up Tradecraft as a specific Craft skill (in the sense that it's a body of practical skills and procedures one can teach), rather than add it as a new stand alone skill. Cheers, Nick

Cool - life and work are manic at present but expect a PM by the end of the weekend - but only on the condition you also keep working on The Green! ;-) Nick

Print edition of Outpost 19 is now available from Chaosium. Cheers, Nick

The Print Edition of Outpost 19 is now available from Chaosium. Cheers, Nick

The results are worth it - those are excellent! Cheers, Nick

Simon (Soltakks here) and I have both emailed Eduardo through his (last know) Yahoo email address so we'll see if he gets in touch. Cheers, Nick

s'OK - I always knew I wasn't happy with Outpost 19 maps, just wanted to explain the process I went through. I can draw things in my sleep in Microstation - but it's really a high end 3D CAD package, used for Civil Engineering and rail Transport projects. I have acess to it through work, but it's NOT a package I'd recommend for private use (it's expesive, and massively over specced for most home use). I used AutoREALM a lot when I had a PC and whilst it's a little quirky, it's actually very effective and powerful. It's also worth looking at just plain bit map or vector based drawing packages as well - currently on my Mac I do a lot with Inkscape, Seashore (a glorious little GIMP compatible low end bit map editor) and Artrage 2.5, which I got as a freeby with my Wacom Bamboo Tablet. I still tend to produce a base map in Microstation, but then I end up touching up teh final graphic file in Artrage or Seashore. Hopefully. Nick

Most of the Ulfland maps were done in Bentley Microstation, then converted to a more "production friendly" graphic format - the originals are in colour. The floor plans and the map of Tarinport are doctored scans of hand drawn maps. The Outpost 19 maps are also originally colour Microstation diagrams, but I was never happy with them and meant to rework them but we ran out of time. I keep meaning to overhaul them and send Dustin a copy to put up on Chaosium's site. Nick

hehn - I believe Charlie is currently wrestling with converting Outpost 19 to more monograph appropriate / printer friendly b&w graphics. They add to the atmosphere when reading as a PDF, but are definitely a bit of a pain as far as printing is concerned. Mind, IIRC Chaosium also struggled with Ashes to Ashes as IIRC that's a colour interior as well. Cheers, Nick

That's your choice - but I think it's a mistake - as cjbowser says, BRP is very well suited to Horror. Just don't use physical monsters to create the horror - ghostly presences, possessions, twisted influences and situations that put the characters in moral dilemmas and confront them with unpalatable choices. There are lots of ways to side step a particular players gun focused tricks - send in a dimensional shambler next time and both characters are grappled to the shambler when it shifts (and once it starts shifting, it finishes shifting whether it's alive or dead...) Nick

Ahses to Ashes is a fantasy supplement (a complete "dark fantasy" setting), but only available direct from Chaosium (in print of PDF); Malleus Monstrorum is ostensibly a Call of Cthulhu source book that should be available from all usual RPG outlets, is entirely numbers compatible with BRP and makes a pretty solid creature collection for BRP. There is some fantasy content in the first issue of my BRP fanzine, Uncounted Worlds. There are also several supplements "in development" that are fantasy orientated. Sadly, at present, after that you are left looking for supplements to previous BRP games on eBay - the RuneQuest III Creatures Book (also briefly published as the BRP Creatures Book monograph by Chaosum) would obviously be useful. Trawl through the downloads section here, ask in these forums and also other BRP Internet related sites (there are several Yahoo Groups for BRP and BRP related games). Several folk here have talked about conversions from D&D (3.x and earlier). No idea as I don't own them - but several other people here do buy MRQ books for use with BRP. The Open Gaming License is a bit of red herring IMO - the fact that A N Other publisher can sell a book with great swathes of copyright text previously published by someone else does not guarantee their books are any good, and as the d20 collapse of '03 showed it mostly just choked the market and distribution chain with mediocre derivative crap. Also, whether Pathfinder will get significant support has yet to be seen (they've only JUST announced their trademark and fan use licenses IIRC). Find a game you like playing that involves a level of effort you are comfortable with and play that. I'd recommend giving BRP a serious try as I think it's very good and, whilst not as heavily commercially supported as others there is quite a lot of at least basically compatible material out there. But in the end, find a game you and the rest of your group enjoy playing and have fun: that is, after all, the point. Nick

Excellent news! Really looking forward to this, and gives me just the excuse I need to read my Fantasy masterworks anthology of Leigh Brackett stories! :thumb: That sounds really good as well. Things are definitely looking up. Nick

Ooh! Ooh! Cool! Tell us more please! Nick Middleton

There's a file in the file section of the Alternate earth Yahoo Group you might find interesting (http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/alternateearthrq/files/), entitled "RuneQuest Bronze Age Rules Source Book" It's by Eduardo Chamon who was a regular poster on that list but I don't think is a member here as yet. Cheers, Nick

Err - I couldn't remember exactly how the RQIV:AiG system worked when I was reworking my old "Ars Magica" influenced rules, but when I looked at them for writing up Outpost 19 I realised I'd based them on RQII (where ENC was, basically, limited to STR x 1.5), rather than BRP. In the new BRP Jason points out that a character has a 50% chance to lift 6 x STR in Enc (since ENC/6 = SIZ), so I pegged set STR x 3 as the notional "maximum load" (whilst acknowledging that one could bench press potentially much greater weights) and defined six load levels (from unloaded to maximum load). I defined seven levels of fatigue levels in BRP terms, with penalties based on Circumstantial Action Modifiers (page 177), from fresh to unconscious. I then just use a Stamina roll (penalised by current fatigue level penalties, if any) to avoid "dropping" another fatigue level after appropriate exertion; I also emphasised the idea of imposing a "maximum" fatigue level to represent harsh conditions etc. In the end, (albeit I'd have to re-read AiG to be sure) I simplified the system a bit but mostly I tweaked the numbers so the system I was writing would work with the numbers in the BRP book - although I will confess that I haven't actually ever gone through them with a fine toothed comb to be sure they are robust... Cheers, Nick

I thought it was probably the single best feature of RQIV:AiG when I finally managed to get a copy and read it, and I'd already been using a not entirely dissimilar system (inspired by, amongst other games, Ars Magica). I think I suggested a variant be included in the new BRP during the play test. I certainly included a further revision of my house rule as an appendix in Outpost 19, tweaked to bring it more in line with the new BRP core book. Cheers, Nick

Rather surprised that no ones mentioned Ken Hite's Out of the Box about the new BRP - unless of course I've been dim and missed it... Nice positive write up I thought, as ever with Ken Hite gently incisive about the positive aspects of the game he's writing about - "BRP remains excellently suited for any game in which combat is dangerous and something important reliably happens outside combat." Cheers, Nick

A few bits are logged here but that's as close as we currently have to an offcial errata record as far as I'm aware. Cheers, Nick

Monographs are specifically intended to drive up traffic through Chaosium's web site (on which they make far better margins than normal distribution sales). As such, they don't sell the monographs through normal distribution, but they don' prevent it - Leisure Games of London in the UK (and IIRC FanBoy 3 in Manchester) have previously carried some monographs. But it's an expensive way of getting them. Cheers, Nick