NickMiddleton

Yep - and I only recently discovered the existence of the other supplement (Moorguard), and the fact that there was a second edition apparently... There was a big complicated table one cross indexed the attacker and defenders abilities IIRC... but that's about all I can remember. Nick Middleton

Significant games played at one time or another (ie campaigns): RQ1/2/3 (NOT Glorantha) Traveller (CT) (A)D&D 1e-ish (we had the Eric Holmes 1 book intro of D&D, plus the PHB and MM and had to wait ages for the DMG) Space Opera Stormbringer (I-V + Elric!) Other Suns Bushido Gamma World (1st Ed) Fantasy Trip CoC Pendragon BootHill (1st edition) GURPS Dragon Warriors Space: 1889 Arcana Unearthed / Evolved (d20) D&D 3e Skyrealms of Jorune (2nd & 3rd editions) Ars Magica (2nd) Other games played: 2300AD Gangster Hawkmoon MERP Paranoia Dark Conspiracy Lords of Creation Star Wars D6 Stargate SG-1 (d20) FASA StarTrek Vampire the Masquerade (1st *spit*) the Babylon Project Dark Continent Metamorphosis Alpha High Fantasy T&T C&S Games Owned But Not Played: Elfquest Nephilim Powers & Perils Earthdawn Farscape d20 PsiWorld Daredevils Tribe 8 Iron Heroes (d20) Talislanta Worlds Beyond Serenity Burning Wheel Savage Worlds (EE) Tekumel (reprint of EPT rules, S&G and GoO) Unknown Armies Ganbusters 3rd Boothill 3rd Everway I did own Bunnies & Burrows once,but I don't think we ever played it and I no longer have a copy: like many other gaming gems it was sold off when I disposed of my entire gaming collection in the mid '90's... only to end up replacing most of it via eBay five years later!

Yes. The powers chapter contains five different systems of "powers" - two magic systems (based on 'MagicWorld' from Worlds of Wonder and Stormbringer 5th edition) , a psychic powers system (developed from the system in ElfQuest), a mutations system (elaborated from Hawkmoon) and a super powers system (based on the two versions of SuperWorld). All five power systems are based on previous BRP games, but re-written to integrate with the revised core rules and to provide the same degree of "genre functionality": that is any one of them can function as the system of choice in a campaign (none of them are incomplete) but all of them have potential for expansions (none of them, given the available space, could be exhaustive). Not that I've heard of as yet - albeit several people here and in the play-testing group are keen super-hero gamers so I wouldn't be surprised if someone did. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Doug Anderson's Northern Crown is a rather flat commercial publication of the MUCH more interesting "Septentrionalis" setting he posted on line a few years back - a sort of "Mythic" new world in the 17th century, with its historical features intact, but the folktales and myths of both the European settlers AND the Native Americans ACTUALLY being true. The Northern Crown version rather over played the fantasy elements, tying it in to Atlas' previous Nymabe setting and it's d20, so a bit pooh really. But something like the original "Septentrionalis" but set in say the 1840's or 1850's - grounded in the real history and events of the time but that plays High Plains Drifter / Pale Rider type ambiguities with the reality of both the European settlers superstitions and the Native American's beliefs, that could be really compelling and could have a broad appeal. Actually, both historical and "mythic" Old West would be good projects for monograph submissions (combined or separate). Cheers, Nick

Now THAT, well written and a single book setting would make a STONKING BRP supplement. No exagerated steam punk, no clownish modern survival horror riffs (fun though they can be) - almost like Doug Anderson's "Septrionalis" (which morphed in to the less interesting Northern Crown from Atlas) a century later when the magic is dying or retreating from the Plains in the face of the encroaching Iron Roads and the white settlers... I'd buy it. Cheers, Nick Middleton

There's also a GURPS source book - GURPS Old West. There have been some articles in Worlds of Cthulhu on Western CoC and there's a monograph (Night of the Kachina and other stories) set in the 1850's (in New Mexico IIRC). I think there s a monograph in it - but I'm not sure it would attract enough interest to warrant a full book. I remember suggesting (back in October 2002, on the RQ Rules list) that Chaosium should do a "Cowboy" world along side a rerelease of Worlds of Wonder. In fact, that post is quite ironic now: "...I hope they follow it [the 2002 reprint of the BRP pamphlet] up by re-releasing, in similar format, the components of Worlds of Wonder (Do Chaosium own the rights?) and then follow it up with further similar booklets on other genre's (Horror World, Spy World, Cowboy World). I think it would do quite well for them and would boost BRP in the market place, with out requiring the sort of large scale commitment that an extensive re-launch/re-write of BRP would need (and which is beyond Chaosium's scope I suspect)." Nick Middleton

Nick Middleton

Definitely getting a copy of this when it's out Jason, sounds fabulous! Cheers, Nick Middleton

SB5 and CoC have some skills (Dodge, Speak Own Langauge IIRC) at a multiple of a stat. Don't like the all stats method - characteristics only play a roll at creation, and then base chances are all about the individuals capabilties (and can vary wildly between mebers of teh same species). I prefer base chances plus skill categories, as stats remain relevant (and visibly contribute to skills) and base scores can then be set for a species or culture. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Cool! Can't wait to learn more Jason! Cheers, Nick Middleton

Personally I'm not a huge fan of Fate / Hero points. If lethality is a concern I tweak other rules (THP = CON + SIZ; use MWL not hit locations; trading FP for HP after a fight, using a single die DB table...) rather than use a hero point system. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Hm, so one to watch the second hand book shops for then... Thanks everyone. Cheers, Nick Middleton

They are one of the optional sub systems that were in the play test draft: I used them in some of my play test games, but not in others. Likewise, Strike Ranks were in the play test draft as an optional system. Cheers, Nick Middleton

OK, so assuming that I really know virtually nothing about KEW, but happened to read Bloodstone assuming it was an early pulp S&S novel from a contemporary of Howard's or Leiber's and thoroughly enjoyed it - what KEW would people recommend next? Cheers, Nick Middleton

Thank you both, very much appreciated. Looks very good to me. I think the font looks fine for headings etc. on interior text - my problem was always the rounded "3d" colour version on the previous cover mock up we saw as a step too retro, but cruel hobo on it's own isn't a problem and the rest of the layout is classic Chaosium: sparse, clean, readable (heretical notion in a book I know...). And that looks like a decent index as well - very promising I'd say. Also, my complements to the artists Chaosium has used for the interior illustrations - from the ones we can see there is a lot of excellent work in that department as well. Very wise - albeit would I be correct in inferring from this that that previous cover mock up is definitely out and that, whilst the painting may be used, the actually cover may well be quite different? Oh, and I like the look of the character sheet - I tend to do custom sheets for specific settings, but a good basic sheet is always a useful fall back. Really promising and exciting Jason, I can't wait to see this book in my FLGS (albeit I'm also hoping there'll be a web-site only pre-order as they did with Malleus Monstrorum... ) Nick

If I had enough money, and a wand of "nullify idiocy by IP owner" Dark Sun is one of the currently fallow settings I'd have redone for BRP... I still may try and do a version of it once the books out actually. Cheers, Nick Middleton

It's happened to me as well - the boards telling me I haven't been here since 17:02, but the threads up to a week old are marked unread... Cheers, Nick Middleton

Open a copy of Call of Cthulhu and it acknowledges the debt its design owes to Steve Perrin's original RuneQuest. OPen any D&D 3 or 3.5 book and you will find an acknowledgement of Arneson and Gygax's original design work. Open SJG's GURPS 3rd edition core book, or GURPS Space and you will find acknowledgements of the key games that inspire, influenced or blazed a trail for Steve Jackson. It used to be that in RPG's, as in fiction (such as amongst the Lovecraft circle of writers associated with HP Lovecraft), that there was a degree of mutual respect and co-operation between writers and publishers which the fans appreciated and respected. Now, largely thanks to the Open Game License and the attitudes it has encouraged, there seems very little respect for people's creativity and publishers and fans alike seem to regard ripping other people's ideas of without due credit (or even recognition of the original creators moral rights) as acceptable. And then gamers whine about the talented writers who leave the field to work in computer games or movies or TV... "This book is dedicated to Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax, who first opened Pandora's Box, and to Ken St. Andre, who found it could be opened again." That's the dedication in my 1980 copy of RQII, and IIRC it was there in RQI as well. MRQ, which clearly has a far closer relationship to that original RQ than RQ did to either OD&D or Tunnels and Trolls contains no such gracious acknowledgement, and indeed was (by one of the parties to the licensing arrangement that allows MRQ to exist) described as being intended to be "the same system but not the same copyright words." Personally I think whether it was done then or now it's a shitty way to behave. Funny how Steve Jackson managed to acknowledge his "inspirations" in the introduction to GURPS 3rd edition by name, where as MRQ omits them entirely and the closest GORE gets is some weasel words ("...special thanks are owed to all authors of late 1970s and early 1980s game systems."). And Steve Jackson's GURPS is an original system (for all it's influenced by his previous design TFT and stuff like Champions). "Plagiarism (from the Latin "plagiarius," meaning "a plunderer" or, an older term, "plagium," meaning "kidnapping," or possibly "plagiare," which is "to wound") is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement." (from Wikipedia) I have no idea if that is how the term is legally defined in US, UK or European law but morally that's the definition that makes sense to me. To quote Wikipedia on Plagiarism again: "Plagiarism is different from copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they emphasise different aspects of the transgression. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of the copyright holder, when material is used without the copyright holder's consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarising author's reputation that is achieved through false claims of authorship." (My emphasis) Nick Middleton

To quote the acknowledgements section of the clear credit box in Call of Cthulhu (5.6 and later at the very least): Cheers, Nick Middleton

Follow up question - has anything major that the playtest group saw had to be cut for reasons of space? I'm obvioulsy hoping not... Cheers, Nick Middleton

As a suggestion, perhaps people should do some research on the following terms: "Author's Moral Rights", "work for hire contracts" "minimum terms agreement", "trademark", "copyright"? That way some of the current misinformation and ill-informed opinions might be dispelled. For example, in most jurisdictions (certainly US, UK and Europe) some degree of acknowledgement of the "author's moral rights" is enshrined in law (albeit not enough according to various Writers lobby groups). And in all three writers are advised by their trade bodies / unions NOT to agree to "work for hire" contracts, and these days a LOT of RPG writing is no longer done under such contractual arrangements. Further, copyright is distinct from trademark. Trademarks CAN lapse, and require vigorous defending in most jurisdictions. Copyright generally persists until a period after the authors death (typically seventy years), and within that time frame cannot lapse, even if the work is out of print: copyright can only be explicitly relinquished. In addition, people seem to be labouring under a bizarre misapprehension about the size of the RPG market and in particular the size of the RPG market outside of D&D: it's really not that big and is highly dispersed such that it is hard to reach, especially through the traditional three-tier model (of publisher, distributor and retailer). Across the industry whilst the actual market may not be shrinking rapidly, there is a downward trend and from the smallest outfits to the big three (WotC, WW/CCP and Mongoose) there are clear signs of retrenchment. Margins are wafer thin in RPG publishing, even more so than in other specialist publishing sectors, as the market has increasingly high expectations of physical quality and very fixed ideas about price#. In such a climate a small outfit like Chasoium has to pick its options very carefully. However they have reached their current circumstances (and by far the most considered account is Shannon Appelcline's History, over at RPGNet), if they want to survive they have to pick their risks carefully. They've grown the website, developed a lot of direct only sales items (far more profitable than conventional sales, and the direction the industry as a whole is moving). Given they are a publishing house, I don't see any issue in sustaining their current fiction line, Call of cthulhu RPG line and developing the BRP line - provided they get enough quality submissions for the BRP line. To significantly grow their market they may well need third party support - but garnering that in a fashion that doesn't jeopardise their own sales is the Gordian knot we've already commented on. Personally, I'm sceptical about licensed settings: they have a significant overhead interms of resources and costs, as they require license fees and approval processes that can soak HUGE amounts of time (which can kill a product - look at what happened to AEG's Farscape and Stargate licenses), and despite what frothig fan boys think, only some licensed IP works as an RPG. For a company with the resources (such as Mongoose), or with the right license terms and relationship with the IP owner (SJG) they can work - but they are not the sure thing that people tend to think IMO. So I think compelling original content is Chaosium's best option, along with deals such as the Seraphim Guard Dead World license, that lets third parties use BRP with licensed IP. Plus, as discussed here, some sort of BRP license that will allow third party BRP supplements without harming Chaosium core sales. Cheers, Nick Middleton #Tell an academic publisher that a typical full colour 256pp RPG hardback retails for £25 and they will blanche in disbelief and question how on earth it is economically viable: the answer being of course that RPG publishers generally cut far more corners than most niche publishers and pay atrocious rates...

No its not. This was what was claimed would happen, but in practice, several suppleirs used the OGL/SRD to produce rulebooks that competeed head on with WotC own core rulebooks (the ones the OGL was supposed to promote sales of...) and WoTC very rapidly started publishing exactly the sorts of supplelemnts tha tthey'd origianlly claimed they wouldn't need to publish, as the third party producers would do them... Chaosium are still in business, still actively supporting Call of Cthulhu and about to release the new BRP - so BRP is clearly NOT an "abandoned" rule system such as OD&D or AD&D. GORE specifically and explicitly (without ACTUALLY infringing copyright or trademarks) clones large portions of Chaosium's BRP, in part thanks to the MRQ SRD and in part thanks to the legal nicety that copyright covers the form of expression, not the idea. This strikes some people as morally dubious. Also, bear in mind that the original release of GORE didn't allow anyone to use ANY text from GORE - ALL the new text was claimed as Product Identity. This struck some people as both legally AND morally dubious, and pretty clearly against the intent and spirit if not the letter of the OGL. All credit to Dan Proctor, GORE and the GORE licenses WERE revised, and the whol text is now OGC, plain and simple. Utter nonsense - Chaosium own the copyright on the text of the BRP monographs! The reason they put them into print was precisely because Hasbro told Chaosium that they regarded the AH (and thus Hasbro) claim on the copyright of the RQIII rules text to have lapsed and thus that the rights had reverted to Chasoium (from whom AH obtained them during the acrimonious settlement in the mid nineties). Indeed - but crack open a GURPS book, or a D&D book, or Call of Cthulhu and you will find open acknowledgemnt of the original authors of those games, and in the case of several SJG books, acknowledgement of the influence of other games. And SJG and other game companies (such as Pelgrane Press) license IP and brand names, even though by the letter of the law they don't have to: because it is courteous, and because treating existing works and publishers respectfully costs little and reaps much in the way of respect from customers and fellow publishers. Others tread as close to the limit of the law as is possible ("the same system but not the same copyright words...") and regard it as acceptable to take Open Game Content and use it to clone other publishers books. All of which is entirely legal of course. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Cthulhu every time - Why choose the lesser evil? Nick Middleton

There are very important and subtle distinctions between copyright and trademark in US and European law, on which I am not an expert. However, Chaosium definietly have the BRP logo registered as a trademark I believe, and I'm pretty sure they have the title registered in the context of table top RPG's as well, so publishing your own game and calling it "Basic Role Playing" would be an infringment they could action, but calling your game "Tales of Tertaran, the Basic Role Playing Game" would be marginal. As with all these things, the law is in the end a guide - what is or is not an infringment is proved in court. The fact that one intends no harm is not (under US or European law anyway) a defence. That website breaches Chaosium's copyright under US and European law, the only question is whther Chaosium choose to action it. In deed, I stringly suspect that one the ne BRP is actually released, Chaosium may well politley ask that the files be taken down. Why? What actual concrete benefits would Chaosium releasing BRP material as Open Game Content under the OGL bring (especially to Chaosium, who need some clear incentive) and can you actually garuantee that it will do no harm to Chaosium's core business? Because as far as I can see all it would do is make available for free stuff that otherwise Chaosium might have got income from - not a strategy for a business to survive... Yes, absolutely. Becuase let us be honest - the OGL is irrelvant, as rule systems are not copyright. Write a d100 / BRP based game and you are free to publish it, you just can't copy from someone elses work without their permission and you can't use someone elses trademarks without their permission. If you want to advertise your game as BRP compatible, you need (and actually, that's a dubious assertion in some jurisdictions I believe) permission to use that trademark - for third party publishers that's where the added value lies, in being able to associate their work with the trademark brand, and for the trademark owner the value lies in setting terms for access to the trademark that benefits them (sucha as all licensed works carrying a plug for their core book). Err, have they actually posted any public statement about licensing? Last time I looked there really wasn't anything. And I quite agree it's rather frustrating. Didn't Dustin say they were working on a formal licensing policy to be announced soon? Cheers, Nick Middleton

It also means people can (and are already) publishing works that effectively copy stuff Chaosium are doing, without Chaosium having any legal recourse. This, to me, is morally dubious. The fact that it was apparently Greg Stafford's intent ("the same system but not the same copyright words") in granting Mongoose a license to use the RuneQuest trademark doesn't make it any less unpalatable. Hence my personal decison not to support MGP and MRQ STL products. If you go beyond fair use / fair dealing in quoting Chaosium copyright works, or post material that uses their trademarks (such as BRP) without correct permission or which could bring their trademarks (such as the BRP logo) in to disrespect, then yes they probably could I think (IANAL). If it misused the BRP trademark, or again went beyond fair use / fair dealing in quoting Chaosium copyright work, yes I think (IANAL). But bear in mind that it's an open question as to whether Palladium would actually win a court case, as stats and a simple note saying "compatible with Chaosium Inc's Basic Role Playing system" may well NOT constitutue a breach of Chaosium's copyright / trademark - Bottom line, consult an actual lawyer or better yet, ask Chaosium in advance... As I undertsand it, if you want to quote any of their copyright works beyond fair use / fair dealing, or use their trademarks beyond simple reference, then yes I think (IANAL). Bear in mind that Chaosium have always had a remarkably relaxed and decent attitude towards not-for profit fan ventures that communicate with them. I've always found them very sympathetic to anything that doesn't infringe their rights. I think that's actually more "didn't think it was worth the fight...", bearing in mind that the copyright breaching files are hosted on a Russian server, and they thus have almost zero chance of enforcing any order for the files to be taken down. Could people please drop this fixation with the OGL? It's a complete red herring! Its benefits are debatable, and its applicability to Chaosium and BRP's circumstacnes are dubious, and far more likely to be harmful than beneficial. What BRP fans and Chasoium need is a BRP license - a way that lets third parties support Chasoium's BRP without having to jump through too many restrictive hoops, but which also protects Chaosium's core investment in BRP. As I've said before, Green Ronin's True20 license, or WEG's d6 would be good starting points. A two tier approach - a "Compatible with BRP" logo for PDF's and semi-pro fan material, and a more costly "Approved for use with BRP" for por-3rd patry PDF & print products. Neither would allow a full BRP game (that I'd suggest they should still do via separate specific licenses), but it would allow people to publish their own settings as BRP compatible, or a series of adventures (a la the Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics for d20). That would allow third party support, whilst protecting Chaosium's core book sales, and still leaving room for specific licenses like Seraphim Guard's Dead World Cheers, Nick Middleton