d10tavern

I actually have the Avalon Hill boxed-set version of RuneQuest, though I haven't pulled it out in a really long time, and I have a copy of Stormbringer. I think overall though, especially based on some of the things that have been said in this thread, BRP is the most attractive option to me because not only can it do fantasy just fine, but if for some reason he wants to start playing in another genre then we can do that while still keeping the same set of rules.

That's really interesting information about Ken Rolston. I had no idea the creator of The Elder Scrolls also worked on a BRP system. That's really cool.

I'll have to keep a look out for Magic World. Right now I'm wanting to buy BRP and Iron Kingdoms, and when Magic World comes out, I'll be adding that to my list too.

Thanks for all the great information!

However, keep in mind that Legend and RuneQuest do not have the "improvement by usage" system of old RQ3. They use GM-assigned improvement points that you distribute among your favoured skills. If that system is what you really wish in your game, then you should stick to BRP.

However, the magic system of Elder Scrolls is better emulated by Legend Sorcery, as it allows you to group magic skills by "schools" (grimoires in Legend) and to personalize spells. You may wish to pick the magic from Legend and adapt it to BRP in order to obtain a decent Elder Scrolls simulator.

This is sound advice, esp if you prefer the BRP Skill Check system (my favourite) to Improvement Rolls in regards to character experience.

Improving skills through usage is a must, as that's one of the things he really likes about the Elder Scrolls system, so thank you both very much for the advice.

When it comes to tabletop role-playing he tends to like fantasy. The thing that made me think of BRP is right now he's playing Oblivion, and he keeps mentioning how much he likes that character advancement is based on skill usage. That added to the fact that Oblivion uses stats in the 100s range reminded me of when I played some old RuneQuest and its skill advancement system, and I think he would probably really enjoy the BRP system.

Hey guys, which form and version of BRP do you think would be best to use to introduce a new player to the BRP system?

True, but over here we had a court case where a publisher accused

another one of intellectual property theft with arguments like his ga-

me also used an Armbrust (= crossbow) as a weapon and also had a

skill named Reiten (= riding). The case was of course dismissed, but

the victim had several thousand Euro of legal costs, which most pro-

bably was the actual intention of the entire case, to spend some mo-

ney from the war chest to make the less wealthy competitor bleed dry.

Yeah, the games that some businesses play.

The defendant should have at least been reimbursed for costs. I'm guessing things work a little differently over there though.

Note that this did not prevent Altar Games from making a lot of money from X-Com clones that do not bear the name X-Com.

This is a good point. Even if official D&D had disappeared, someone could have made a D&D clone and everyone would have known that it was basically a D&D clone, and things would have continued from there.

In America, its not the ruling that is would prevent me from doing something like that. Its the process to get to the ruling. Say TSR hadn't been bought by wizards and someone else tried to buy it years later. They thought they untangled the web and got all the rights, but they missed someone that owned 1% of something that owned the company that owned the term Armor Class.

"Armor Class" is actually too short a phrase to copyright. It would have to be trademarked for TSR / Wizards to own the phrase, and I haven't seen any trademarking applied to it. However, your point is still a good one.

I love the Baen Free Library. It's a good way to discover new authors, and thereby buy some of their other books.

If I do turn this into a text-only epub, I'd be happy to share.

This also isn't a bad idea for building my own epub so I can read it on my ereader.

Isn't that basically OpenQuest? Granted, OpenQuest started with the original Mongoose SRD, but their modifications are classic RuneQuest. Grafting Legend magic systems and combat rules onto OpenQuest would probably be easier than hacking Legend from scratch.

But isn't OpenQuest also fantasy? I meant BRP as in, a generic system that would work with any setting.

If you wanted to write something quite like BRP, you wouldn't need to re-engineer Legend. You could just write your own, original, BRP-ish rules. Using an OGL product is only necessary if you actually want to use elements of those rules as written, if you're going to re-write everything anyway then you may as well go the whole hog and be original. Like, um, AEON ...

Very true.

True. But Legend is only a fantasy game, while BRP can be played in any setting.

Wouldn't it be interesting if someone took Legend and, because it's all open content, re-engineered it into basically something quite a bit like BRP.

Why? We should make ePuP and Kindle magazines. My Lenovo tablet looks fantastic for reading and Kindles are the BOMB. The world is moving away from paper my friend. I don't always read, but when I do, I read digital. Stay Techie my friends.

I agree I love epub and epub ereaders like the Kobo and Nook, but I still have a certain affinity for papery magazines .

Funny, somewhere in the last ten years I forgot how we did things in the "old days".

Speaking of the old days, one thing I really wish they would bring back are print gaming magazines, like Pyramid. Not in electronic form, but in print form. But that's way off topic.

Good Point. So why don't you call in or fax your order to Chaosium at the following numbers:

phone 510-583-1000

fax 510-583-1101

Don't forget to tell Charlie that Silent Bob sent you

As tedopon alluded to, when doing business I'd rather do business with Amazon.com. The free shipping is nice too.

Just use DriveThruRPG.com. I think they have Chaosium's complete catalog

The problem with that though is not everyone can read PDFs comfortably. For some people, such as myself, reading a long text on a backlit screen is very uncomfortable, and unfortunately PDFs don't work very well on ereaders yet.

It doesn't hurt that they have also diversified into miniatures gaming around the time that there has been a resurgence of interest in that aspect of the hobby.

Miniatures also tend to be a bigger money maker than RPGs. I was in my FLGS a couple days ago and I was talking to the owner and I asked him if he sold more RPGs or miniatures. He said he sells more miniatures because with RPGs once you buy the book you have the book, and what else do you need, but with miniatures, there's always a new army coming out, or a new set of figures coming out.

And they managed to use that advantage to the greatest possible extent by offering the PDF for a more-than-bargain price. In the end, this is another signal that competition is good for end users.

+1

I have much the same impression as Rust regarding Mongoose's quality, and I'm not likely to buy another book from them, unless things change dramatically.

I currently have three Mongoose books: Traveller, Paranoia, and MRQI. I've heard people express concerns in the past about the quality of Mongoose books, but I have to say the three books I have are excellent quality. I remember there being concerns about MRQI specifically to which Mongoose said, if I'm remembering correctly, that the problem was with the company they chose to do the printing and so they switched printing companies. In the thread I was reading about all this in they said if someone had a problem with one of their books they would be happy to replace it, and other people in the thread acknowledged that Mongoose replaced their books without any problems, so that gave me a favorable impression.

I can understand people that have had negative experiences with their books in the past not wanting to do business with them again, but based on my own experience with them, I'm happy to buy a Mongoose book, as long as the price is right.

As I suspect that the two communities overlap by something like 80%, I'm not sure how to predict a winner, either.

I believe the real winner here will be BRP. We'll have all these books and all these supplements that are mostly compatible with each other, with BRP being the common element. I believe after a while people will say, "Which one should I get?" and a lot of times the answer will be, "Just get BRP, then you can use all the supplements from all the different games." So I think BRP is the real winner.

I'm not sure if this really counts or not, but it uses a d100 system so perhaps it does.

I've slapped together another game, called Smeg! It's based on a popular British sci-fi comedy TV show, and uses a system inspired by the AR game introduced in series 6.

For the curious or bored, the page is here.

I don't know if this is gaining new customers though, or if it's spiking the curiosity of the current fan base.

I'm a new customer that wouldn't have bought otherwise. I haven't been following RuneQuest so I wouldn't consider myself to be part of the established fan base.

I hope Mongoose does very well with these sales, both of the cheap PDF and the lower-priced print book. So many companies seem to forget these days that if they make their products reasonably priced, they can sell more of then and end up making more money.

I'll probably be buying the PDF too for that price, even though I've never bought a gaming PDF before because my eyes get sore reading on a blacklit screen and PDFs don't work very well on ereaders, and I really wish there was an art-free epub version available.

Has it been mentioned already that you can get the full Legend core rules book in pdf format for just US$1 from drivethrurpg.com?

If only it were available with no art in epub format.

Also, the books are now digest-sized.

I really like this. Makes the books much easier to hold and store.

The difference is that Wiggles are quite a bit taller

Don't they all wear different colored shirts too? I never understood why C.S. Lewis invented those guys. I guess some like their singing and dancing.

I encountered the Duck issue, and unfortunately still do. I got around this by making the Durulz a Halfling fisher-folk culture that lives in the marshes, a bit like Tolkien's Hobbit Stoors, but no 'old english' feel at all. It kinda worked, but generally I steer clear of all things Duck, lest of all I lose my gaming group. I personally find Ducks ridiculous, and I guess it shows that Greg Stafford has one hell of a quirky sense of humour.

I would be really interested to know why he decided to include ducks in the setting. Has he ever said?

Yeah I meant it to be a light game, with settings and templates to follow.

I've had a lot of downloads so far, so I figure the lack of feedback might be a decent sign, because I've noticed people tend to be more passionate about things they don't like than things they do. As in, when people don't like something they're far more likely to make a point of voicing their opinion than if they like something or at least think something is okay.

I do appreciate the reply . Perhaps I'll bang together a sci-fi setting for it sometime. Right now I'm working on the mini Mick's Mystic Bowling Alley setting which won the setting vote on another forum. It was between that and a knight that got teleported through time to become a fast food employee.