NickMiddleton

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/jackals-9781472837400/ is SPECTACULARLY unhelpful in getting to buy the EPUB / PDF file... ...but I eventually got to this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=9781472837431&i=digital-text&ref=nb_sb_noss OpenQuest is based on the "MRQ" fork, rather than the "Chaosium" fork of BRP... So no resistance table or Stat x 5 rolls, skill base scores are based on stats, skills are only divided in to broad categories (Resistances, Combat, Knowledge, Practical) not RQIII / SB1 / Magic World style categories which is an option in the BGB version of BRP), only catgeories (Unamred, Melee and Ranged) combat skills not per weapon or weapon class... That's a very quick thumbnail of the differences off the top of my head.

Chaosium's existing CCP's have a simple explicit clause prohibiting ANY "Products that infringe on the intellectual property of others", as do other CCP's with much smaller libraries of content than Chaosiums.

Precisely the point is a Community Content Program operates by allowing a publisher to clearly and narrowly define what they allow, and a platform for fans willing to comply with its requirements to publish material for their favourite games with a reach and profile they would not otherwise get. And both publisher and fan get a modest return. I can’t conceive of any CCP that would allow tBDBoM in its current form (my recollection is that there’s stuff that plays to loose with copyrights in a way that a purely informal fan work can get away with, but that sort of thing will not wash with a CCP), but the success of the existing CCPs shows that it’s an entirely viable option. The issue of course is that setting up and running a Community Content Program, even with two already running, is a non-trivial exercise that requires resource from the publisher. I can only assume that Chaosium, at least until now, have calculated that the returns / benefits to their business of a generic BRP (let alone a specific MW) CCP do not warrant the resources required to set one up, modest as one may infer they ought to be given they have two running already. A program that says you can refer to the BGB (and maybe a few other key texts, e.g. the Magic Book, plus the monographs the Creatures Book and Gamemasters Book) and nothing else, and that specifically precludes any currently or previously published Chaosium setting IPs (no Cthulhu, no Ringworld or ElfQuest) and no IP that belongs to anyone else (no Delta Green, no Forgotten Realms, no Earthdawn etc etc) looks, from the outside entirely feasible. From within Chaosium, one assumes things look somewhat different.

Rick obviously can speak to exactly what was available to Chaosium at that time. As a free lance contributor, I was aware of a monster / creature collection (I had some entries in that); a Chroniclers book; also a mini-setting plus adventures in the Southern Reaches (again I think was in layout); plus Kevin Ross’s Xyserderon and there had been discussion of a more general “Companion”, styled after the old Cthulhu / Stormbringer companions (albeit iirc that was at the “kicking ideas around stage”). I also had / have a port of Richard Watt’s “Curse of Chardros” adventure (originally included in the Elric! GMs kit) to the Southern Reaches I originally pitched to Ben Monroe as a possible web freebie or similar, but things changed before anything happened with that and I’ve always assumed that it’s not something Chaosium would be interested in anymore. Nick

In this case “cracking” means “very good”.

Armour in Magic World is rated by a die value. So if a blow lands (and is not a sufficiently exceptional success to by-pass armour entirely) after the weapon damage has been rolled, the defender rolls their armour dice and subtracts the result from the weapon damage. The remainder is the damage actually inflicted, and if it exceeds half the characters total hit point it is a Major Wound, which can immediately take the character out of combat and or have long term consequences (ranging from a major scar to permanent characteristic changes etc). So, Mail with a coif provides 1D8+1 protection for example.

AS Ben has pointed out - the original plan as far as he was aware was to produce a low cost entry game, comprehensive and concisely laid out (channelling the games fore-bear Elric!, rather than the loose, flabby Stormbringer 5th edition) to hit an appealing price point, and then follow up reasonably rapidly with support to diversify its appeal and support actual play. The then Chaosium management changed that plan at the 11th hour, insisting on a layout that pushed up the page count (thus "justifying" a higher price point) but skimped on production resources (Famously not paying enough attention to make sure the most up to date errata had been included in the files sent to print) and then never followed up... RPGs live or die on their support - the great paradox of RPG publishing has always been that, despite the received wisdom that adventures are the least profitable / most risky product category, every substantially successful RPG with any degree of longevity or market persistence has done so in part because of a substantial library of support material, in particular adventures... Settings, despite what my legion of fellow home-brewers endlessly crafting our elaborate creations at home for years on end think, are themselves not the primary thing that gets people to buy RPG books: what brings games and settings to life, makes them compelling and appealing, is material that makes them accessible (easy to understand, easy to use at the table). RuneQuest has Cults of Prax, but it also had Pavis & the Big Rubble; Call of Cthulhu had Shadows of Yoh-Sothoth (and Masks); (A)D&D had the G series (and many others)... Were the name and re-used art fatal strikes against Magic World? Not necessarily, but combined with the page-count inflation, sloppy over-sight of production and poor follow through, they made it easy to dismiss and forget, and clearly harmed its impact. Unlike Jeff I like Dave Ackerman's Southern Reaches for what it was: a sample sketch of an initial premise, for a Chronicler and group to shape to their tastes in their own games. And I thought it had real potential, as much as the sketchy settings in many other early core fantasy RPG books had done. But for the game, and setting, to succeed they needed that initial release to be followed up with support, with material that showcased the strengths of both, that built on the promise and potential of the Southern Reaches and the Magic World rule set. And, yes, I believe that could have outweighed the negatives of the name and the poor production values of the core book, if done well... Ah well, the road not travelled.

Er, no... In ancient Rome it was ~1.5 Roman miles IIRC and in common English usage it is(was) 3 miles (so ~4.8km): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_(unit)

In issue two of Uncounted Worlds I published an article by one Jason Durall (who he? ) entitled Tombs & Tentacles, Sword-and-Sorcery using the Cthulhu Mythos. It was aimed at CoC 6e but might be of interest. Alas, the planned epic Sword & Sorcery setting for Magic World by Kevin A Ross, Xyserdon was still born thanks to the MW line being moth-balled back in 2015.

I have long maintained that a flaw in "modern" (post circa-1990) game design is this weird obsession with fitting all resolution on to a single schema or mechanism at any cost... it presupposes that every question one might ask the rules of an RPG to answer impartially for us in play should have the same texture and feel in the answer. So whether a character can out fight a demon, seduce the Comte de Lacy, build a better mousetrap or win a land war in Asia should (nay, must according to some rhetoric) be treated as mechanically interchangeable... ... absolutely one wouldn't want to return to the insanity of stuff like FGU's Space Opera (every topic has a new sub-system, variant or even entirely new resolution mechanic)... but I still maintain there is merit in treating different activities differently. We play tabletop RPGs sat round a table (most often virtual these days): playing out a diplomatic conference (where various people have conversations) requires a modest amount of imagination and maybe a few accents, but the reality of the players and the fiction of the game are pretty congruent; playing out a daring heist by airship to retrieve the invasion plans from the ambassadors suite is far less congruent to us sat round our table (virtual or otherwise) and thus has different requirements. And whilst some groups may be entirely happy with resolving the two situations with the same mechanics and levels of abstraction or detail, in my experience most groups prefer to vary the level of abstraction and the mechanical reinforcement / support depending on the specifics. One of the things I like about BRP is that we have a palette of resolution techniques (skills, stat rolls, resistance table etc) to draw on to lend different emphases to different aspects of an event we are playing out. Exciting, hi energy stuff like combat etc tends to get handled with detailed skills rolls, possibly with combat / action sequence timings and the tracking of specific resource quantities like power points and hit points etc... High tension, dramatic but less timing sensitive stuff like seducing the off duty guard to reveal which cell the prisoner is in don't need that level of minutia, but still specific skills and talent it feels right to emphasise... sudden dramatic moments of punctuation (can a PC bend the bars to unblock the sewer entrance and allow the escape?) are nicely emphasised by a simple Strength Check, or a resistance table check... BRP reduces every question, ultimately, to a percentage test: a target number, and one outcome for rolling lower and another for rolling above... But part of the art and creativity (and fun) of playing an RPG (rather than simply collectively making up a narrative) is the different ways we arrive at that target; the differences in emphasis and nuance they afford.

Depends on how crunchy / specific I’m dialling the rules (which in turn is a function of genre / feel I am trying to evoke). I think an early version is up at basicroleplaying.net... This is how I ran in in the late 1990’s, early ‘00’s with Elric!/CoC 5e: ”Self-loading weapons (those that reload themselves after discharging, so all automatic weapons and revolvers) are capable of Area Fire. This has little to do with the firer’s skill per se as it involves simply filling a volume of space with shots, rather than aiming at specific targets. The intent is keep opponents behind cover and thus unable to shoot either at the firer or her comrades. Single shot weapons with at least 5 rounds in the magazine can be used by an expert character to perform area fire but doing so expends ten rounds (or empties the weapon if it contains less than ten rounds). Fully automatic weapons can be used by any character to perform Area Fire, expending as many rounds as the GM deems appropriate to the weapon within reason: for most weapons from WWI machine guns to modern assault weapons I’d suggest between 15 and 30 rounds, with up to another five deducted from the magazine as additional “wasted” shots for a typical combat rounds Area Fire. As with burst fire, wasted shots are lost from the magazine, but are not considered in factoring chances of hitting targets etc, they are simply an overhead on the rounds expended caused by the firing technique. Any character in the area fired upon must overcome the number of rounds fired (halve the number of shots if the firer is moving) with their POW or immediately (on the DEX rank the Area Fire occurred) duck behind cover and remain there for the rest of the round, losing their actions (PC’s may move behind cover at the GM’s discretion). GM’s should allow a small bonus to this LUCK roll for characters with firearms combat experience. Characters subjected to Area Fire can CHOOSE to duck behind cover, even if they win the resistance roll; either way, such characters may still act normally in the round, but are penalised in DEX rank by -5 (possible 10, depending on the GM’s ruling on the circumstances e.g. how far/dramatically they have to dive to reach cover). Any character NOT behind hard cover must make a Luck roll for every group of five rounds or fraction thereof (per TEN rounds or fraction thereof if the firer has moved this round) fired: success indicates they have not been hit at all; a failure indicates a single hit and a fumble a hit by 1d5 rounds.” Taken from: https://basicroleplaying.net/basic-roleplaying-workshop/basic-roleplaying-additions-supplements/rules-law-two/ - these days I’d probably simplify things further.

My house rule is some variation of "volume of fire in to interdicted space" vs POW of each individual in the interdicted volume: if the suppression fire wins, the individual MUST duck / remain behind available cover until the shooters next action. Depending on genre / setting / style may be different details, but that's the core principle. Any weapon capable of multiple (3+ shots) per round can be used.

That system also got made "generic" and is included in Advanced Sorcery, assuming your are referring to the Runes from Bronze Grimoire? The old "Ruins of Rathdor" from Demon Magic (the Second Stormbringer Companion from way back) have never to my knowledge been republished.

You do know there’s a version of skill categories in Magic World, right? 😉

Try it in play. The “switch values” mechanic on d100 goes back to at least WFRP 1e and has its fans, so I wouldn’t be overly influenced by one nay sayer on the internet! 😉 I got into DP9s Silhouette system very late (like, last decade or so, bearing in mind DP9 stoped actively supporting RPGs in the early to mid 00’s...), and one of the features I liked was how that handled specialisations in its skill system. I spent a decade (1990’s) steel weapon re-enacting the Wars of the Roses, and one of my oldest gaming buddies has a lot of HEMA & LARP combat experience and a common complaint from both of us is RPGs tendency to make specific weapons separate skills, when a huge amount of what matters in ones competence in hand to hand melee is independent of the specific weapons in hand. Absolutely there are specific techniques that apply to e.g. a one handed axe that do not apply to a long spear and vice versa: but the degree of distinction that a skill per weapon, or weapon class in Magic World, impose seem to us excessive. Unsurprisingly we are both big fans of RQ6/Mythras style Combat Styles. I would definitely do something like that - in fact, <shameless self promotion> I did in the Arete rules in Advanced Sorcery </ssp>. The exact thresholds were different, but the basic principle of simply being skilled enough got you a benefit was there. So I might say you get your first specialisation at 51%+ (I divided skills: 50 or below was Inexperienced, 51-100 was Professional, 101+ was Master). So a Professional gets one specialisation, a Master gets a second and each 50 threshold thereafter would add another. But the specific thresholds are obviously up for debate and tailoring to the specific feel and pace of development one desires. Actually, in my current house rules any skill one has improved in character generation (i.e. had actual training in, is not at base score and is marked as a profession skill for advancement) I give a free specialisation in. I would be tempted to see what the player group thinks, maybe try it in play. My regular groups are generally not fans of that sort of “meta-currency” type approach, hence my “always on and it contributes to when and against what target you roll”, but if it works for your group, it’s all good.

I like specialisations, I loath dice manipulation tricks (too many players over too many years getting stressed by them)... but leaving aside that personal aversion to a mechanical detail, I have a similar house rule where skills are general and specialisations have a variety of effects: some specialisations are requirements (without the specific specialisation you do NOT get to roll), with some not having them makes the roll more difficult and with some having it makes the roll easier. So if the character does NOT have any languages in the same group, they can't even attempt a languages roll to understand the strangers; a language in the same family would allow a roll but its hard (halve skill) and if the have the language they get a normal roll. A character without a specialisation in the High Nines can attempt a Navigate roll to find the high pass at Tan Hill, but without the specialisation its a hard roll. An Apothecary with a specialisation in healing poultices can use spherum to making a healing poultice with an easy roll. One thing I want to test in anger once I can game face to face again is reducing weapon skills in MW to Melee, Unarmed, Missile (thrown / self-powered things like darts, slings, bows) and Projectiles (Cross bows and other stored energy weapons), with MW weapon classes as specialisations.

As kross says, Magic World introduced a very compact short hand that I now use all the time:

I have used pretty much exactly that system in the past, and IIRC advocated for it during the BRP BGB "play test" / "manuscript review" way back when Jason was pulling the BGB together... but even then I hope I acknowledged (and certainly do so now) that its a bit fiddly for some groups. But I really like the "smart people can _read_ a fight better, but they may not have the reactions to exploit that... and some folk may have lightning fast reactions, but aren't mentally agile enough to properly read what others are doing"...

Splendid! I for one think you should post more often under the influence of “something something”... assuming that’s not detrimental to your health and well being! 🙃

I always meant to do something with it, but never got round to it, and it is a long time since i read it... but it is by Richard Le Duc, who was one of the monograph era contributors I rated highly: he wrote some very good stuff for Magic World, only some of which (the Fishsinger's Daughter in the MW quickstart for example) saw the light of day alas, and I recall being rather impressed by R&R. My recollection is that it is at the RQIII end of the "crunch" range of options in the BRP BGB (hit locations, fixed armour, cultures and skill categories etc) and its setting is within a generation of the apocalypse, so very much a "bleak devastated world" rather than a "several generations after the fall" feel. It also has a genius system for fatigue It also has quite a lot of more "Gamma World" like tech than one might at first expect as well, so its worth reading the whole thing carefully and then exercising ones judgement as to the exact features to use.

Given Chaosium have just shelved the SPL, it would be a nightmare IMO - under the fan use policy / licensing you cannot distribute via DTR / Lulu etc, nor charge, so there's no way to recoup any production costs (so art etc will be solely amateur / unpaid for / at ones own expense, and no easy PoD options). And frankly, doing the whole "lalala I'm not touching you" thing of "for D100 games such as Sorcery Realm" rather misses the point of supporting Magic World - if one wants to do generic D100 fantasy there are plenty of options already.

Technically I only added one: the “just pick thirteen skills” option is in Elric!, it just isn’t numbered separately as a fifth option. 😉 As Questbird points out, the core Elric! Rules were written to evoke the feel of the Elric saga: yes, a brutal dark fantasy setting, but also an epic, grandiose affair where gods and destiny are challenged and, literally, worlds end ... and Magic World is a refinement and evolution of that rule set. Ben’s changes added nuance and detail, but there’s no huge structural changes: Magic World is an engine designed for quite exaggerated, bold, broad strokes stories. +/-5 points, on skills likely to be well above 50, and a few of which will start play above 100 and may climb some way above 100, seems neither here nor there. Even if one deprecates certain aspects (apotheosis etc), it’s a robust system that I think works best when one leans in to it boldly, rather than fiddling with minutiae. All that said, there is a separate conversation to be had about trimming / rationalising the Magic World skill list, which would logically have implications for Cultures, Outlooks and Occupations as they are all, ultimately, just lists of skills.

Lets not get in a flap about this...

Must.. resist... urge.. for Duck.. puns... GAH!

Free League have tweaked their approach to skills in the Year Zero engine (the underpinning rule set for Coriolis also used in their Mutant: Year Zero games, Forbidden Lands, Vaesen, Aliens, Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood and, heavily tweaked, Twilght: 2000) - but in general have stuck to the basic idea of sixteen skills, and in more recent games linked to one of four stats such that there are four skills for each stat... IIRC WotC were similarly restrained / abstracted with skills in the edition of Gamma World they did based of D&D 4e.