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Newt

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Posts posted by Newt

  1. It is the dawn of the 28th Century.

    The Third Renaissance, or Bright Age as future historians will call it, is at its zenith.

    After the catastrophic first contact with extra-terrestrial life that led to the horrific Solar System war, humanity clawed its way back from the brink and finally reached the stars. For millions of people, Earth’s sun is no more than another star in the night sky, a mote of light, a spiritual birthplace that they will never visit in their lifetimes.

    It has been over a century since the Machine Civilisation gifted humanity technological marvels such as the Visser Cube, allowing wormhole travel across the vast chasms of interstellar space. Now interstellar distances grow ever shorter. How the myriad of splintered cultures view this gift varies. Some see it as a blessing, a way to draw humanity into a united whole. Others see it as a curse, robbing them of their individuality. And then there are those who would use it as a means to subjugate humanity and impose their own will upon all…

    Across the river of heaven, humanity clings to a scattering of islands in a sea of stars. Players can take on a multitude of roles in this future: a crew member on an interstellar trader, a member of the mysterious Engineers’ Guild, a body-hopping Intercessionist agent – out to manipulate human cultures to its own secret ends, a Renouncer Zealot – intent on destroying Artificial Intelligence in all its forms, or perhaps one of the Reclaimers – planetary engineers dedicated to terraforming any viable planet they happen upon…

    River of Heaven uses D101 games' OpenQuest rules engine; a sleek and streamlined D100 rule set that enables you to maintain the tempo of your stories whilst keeping the rules simple and in the background.

    In the core rulebook you will find:

    The OpenQuest rules engine - tailored to a hard sci-fi setting.

    Simple Character generation

    Enabling you to go from concept to fully finished character as quickly as possible.

    Augmentations

    Humanity has found many ways to improve upon what nature created. Quickly augment your character with the latest biotech/nanotech upgrades.

    Equipment

    All the weapons, armour and other types of equipment your character might need to go adventuring in the 28th century.

    Transportation

    Information on how to get around the River of Heaven universe, be it lowly pack animal on a frontier dirt farm or an interstellar trader equipped with exotic stellar-tap drive.

    Background

    In addition to a timeline spanning 1000 years of future history, River of Heaven includes an introduction to the Bright Age, the default play setting for the game. It also includes a campaign setting – the Kentauran Hegemony – and information about all the colonised star systems at the start of the 28th century.

    An example adventure

    Reunion is an introductory adventure designed to get you up and running River of Heaven as soon as possible. It can be played as a one-off, or as the start of a campaign.

    Adventure Seeds

    Ideas for adventure ideas set in the River of Heaven universe, covering a wide range of styles and themes.

    ETA late 2010. Written by John Ossoway.

  2. Ever wondered what it is like to jump out of an aircraft 50,000 feet above a stricken oil tanker? Or how you'd handle defusing an IED? Or what it is like standing between a visiting VIP and that sniper's bullet? Well now you can because The Company will put you right at the centre of the action.

    In The Company you play an employee of The Company – an elite independent Private Military Service Provider, a global security concern capable of dealing with any situation from a high octane firefight to the tracking down of serial killers. If you can think of it, The Company can handle it.

    The Company uses D101 games' OpenQuest rules engine; a sleek and streamlined D100 rule set that enables you to maintain the tempo of your stories whilst keeping the rules simple and in the background.

    The Company Operations Manual contains:

    The OpenQuest rules engine - tailored to a modern day setting, and including combat rules covering all aspects of modern warfare.

    Simple Character generation – enabling you to go from concept to fully finished character as quickly as possible.

    Equipment – a comprehensive list of vehicles and equipment, providing your character with everything you will need to prosecute a successful mission; be that the latest in covert surveillance or the most accurate of rifles.

    The world – in which The Company operates within, the global flashpoint locations that Company Operatives may visit, competitors to The Company, Company customers and organizations that Company customers may come into conflict with.

    Story seeds - covering a wide range of possible genre, from the classic war-story,adventures with corporate espionage, helping with disaster relief and close protection work.

    Two example scenarios - 'Operation Bluebeard' and 'F.I.S.H & C.H.I.P.S' which will introduce you not only to The Company but to the workings of the OpenQuest rules engine.

    ETA Late 2010. Broadly compatible with other D100 systems. Written by Rik Kershaw Moore.

  3. Tidied up and expanded, includes new errata + 16 new pages (a new adventure and optional rules).

    Buy a copy or download the free update pdf and/or download the free Errata Pdf to update your OpenQuest experience !

    Buy a copy from Lulu.com £12 print/£6 Pdf

    Download the free update Pdf

    Download the errata Pdf

    OpenQuest is a complete and easy to play Fantasy Roleplaying game, with monsters, magic and exotic locales. OpenQuest uses the classic D100 rules mechanic, which uses percentages to express the chance of success or failure.

    Open Quest is based on the Mongoose RuneQuest SRD (MRQ SRD), with ideas from previous editions of Chaosium’s RuneQuest and Stormbringer 5th, mixed in with some common sense house rulings from the author’s twenty years of experience with the D100 system.

    OpenQuest is OPEN!

    Everything in the core OpenQuest rule book, except the illustrations by Simon Bray, is open gaming content under the Open Gaming Licence.

    This means that you can use all or part of the book to produce your own games, rules, adventures even for commercial release as long as you include the Open Gaming Licence included in the back of the book.

  4. As author of OpenQuest I'm going to be lazy and point you in the direction of the two webpages that explain what Openquest is

    The main game page

    D101 Games » OpenQuest

    and this page which sums up the main features of the game

    D101 Games » Contents

    I'm sure others will explain the subjective merits of OpenQuest in comparision to other D100 systems, but in short I was aiming to produce a cleaned up version of old skool BRP/RQ mixed in with some of my own house rulings and that was completely OGL so others could use it freely (which they are are I have knowledge of at least four games in development using OQ as a base).

    Finally here's the link to the OpenQuest Developers kit, which has the free text only version

    http://d101games.co.uk/books/openquest/openquest-developers-kit/

  5. No, it was no misunderstanding. Newt stated this fact, so it is an official d101 statement.

    Opps sorry folks I think I may have made a bit of a garbled statement a couple of posts back. Let me clarify;

    John's new Hard-Sci Fi setting RIVER OF HEAVEN is going to be OpenQuest powered and published by D101.

    Cthulhu Rising remains CoC/BRP.

    I've yet to make the big announcement about River of Heaven, mainly because John is nailing down the setting/system into a playtest draft as we speak, but I plan to do so over the XMAS period.

    Sorry for any misunderstanding.

  6. .... and I am not very willing to go the OpenQuest way.

    .

    Without wanting to sound too harsh, then don't.

    I'm going to say this more for the benefit of people who've been talking about using OQ in place of MRQ as a Brand, because I know you understand such things with the number of very high quality books you've already put out, but you should only use OQ if you like what it brings to the table. I was talking to John Ossoway (author of Cthulhu Rising) this lunch and he told me that he was using OQ for his upcoming hard sci-fi game River of Heaven because he genuinely liked what it brought to the table. Same with the other folk who have contacted me to tell me what they are doing.

  7. While on the topic of intellectual property, the following game maybe be of interest as a game in its own right, or as source material for a BRP game.

    Sufficiently Advanced - A Game of the Far Future

    "Each player in Sufficiently Advanced is an agent of the Patent Office, an intergovernmental organization that polices and enforces intellectual property law across the universe. It is an open secret that the Patent Office is run by the Transcendental AIs, whose very beings are spread across time itself. The Transcendentals desire the survival of humanity - as much of it as possible - into the distant future, in order to ease their loneliness. Towards this end, they have hired you, so that you might save humanity."

    Sufficiently Advanced: Welcome to Sufficiently Advanced

    Review of Sci-Fi Week: Sufficiently Advanced - A Game of the Far Future - RPGnet

    You might want to check out River of Heaven, which is a Hard Sci-fi OpenQuest game being authored by John Ossoway (Cthulhu Rising) for D101, when it comes out next year :)

  8. Um, the rules aren't as good?

    Oh common that's a subjective matter, but I'd cheerfully admit that OpenQuest is a happy amateur fun project that was written mainly in my lunch hour at work :P

    And, being derived from MRQ1e, they render it out-of-date when they publish a "Mongoose 2E"...

    This one I'm going to be a bit more serious.

    OpenQuest was never 100% compatiable with MRQ1, and that wasn't a design goal since the early days of when the game was called SimpleQuest. One of things that came out from feedback, from this very forum, was that the game should break compatiablity with MRQ to become even more streamlined and simple.

    These days I'm promoting the game as being 'broadly compatible' with other D100 systems. In that its got the characteristics of other d100 systems, but may differ in some areas of the implementation. And no before anyone asks I'm not going to highlight the differences, go check out the free plain text version - most of the rules are in the first 50 pages or so.

    This means that when the adventure/settings books come out you will be able use them with the D100 system of your choice.

    This post I made on OpenQuest Companion about the Making of OpenQuest has some bits about compatiblity with MRQ and the process I went through putting it together.

    OpenQuest Companion » Blog Archive » The Making of OpenQuest

    To conclude

    If you want to put out a BRP supplement, go talk to Chaosium and either do it via the Monograph or liscensed route (I'm actually considering doing this myself ;) )

    If you want to put out a fun happy D100 project that is BROADLY compatible with BRP/MRQ1/MRQ2, go download the OQ dev kit.

    The original poster has choosen the BRP route because they are want to do a BRP product which is the right thing to do.

    Please please do not use OQ to do a product that your really want to do with BRP. Its not BRP and the levels of disappointment you will feel will detract from you getting your product out.

  9. I deliberatly set OpenQuest up to be completely OGL to avoid lisencing nightmares futher down the road, the hint's in the name ;)

    That be said I did wake up in a bit of a cold sweat this morning worrying that Mongoose could pull the plug on OQ by withdrawing the OGL that it sits on, then had a quick read of it and realised this is not the case.

    SO TO REITERATE OPENQUEST IS COMPLETELY UNEFFECTED BY MONGOOSE'S DECISION NOT TO OGL/SRD MONGOOSE RUNEQUEST 2

    re:lisencing and BRP I'd fully recommend getting in touch with Dustin and having a quick chat about what you plan to do. You never know unless you ask ;)

  10. Gadzooks Rurik!

    Just put Hit Locations back in OQ, its not hard to do.

    Either that or I'll do the donkey work and put them back in as an optional rule, which I'll post on them on the OpenQuest Companion.

    Sure OpenQuest is designed with how I like to play D100 these days in mind. This does mean a few of old RQs sacred cows (Hit Locations, Tick Skill advancement, golf bags of indivdual weapons) gots slaughtered along the way, but I also made it easy enough to put those sacred cows back in the game if you miss them.

  11. Hurrah for Pete and Loz!!

    While I'm slightly sadnened there doesn't seem to be a SRD of the cards, I had plans to do a BIG fantasy setting a sort of once in a life time sort of thing, the prospect of a new RuneQuest fills me with glee :D

  12. from Friday 2nd July 2010, until Monday 5th July 2010.

    What are the exact times? (in case I should be so bold as to come -- that would be useful to know before booking plane tickets)

    Yes, the con starts midday/mid afternoon Friday and although it offically ends on Sunday night, with a big closing ceremony, people go leave after breakfast on Monday morning.

    I'll be there with the gang of D101 demo people, running lots of OpenQuest and other bits beside :)

  13. Want new rules, new monsters, adventures and other miscellaneous bits for your OpenQuest games all released free under the Open Gaming License?

    Well the OpenQuest Companion, a new online web resource is just what you are looking for.

    Currently we have:

    * Spending Hero Points for Plot edits a new optional rule.

    * Motives a new optional rule that adds Goals to your characters.

    * Two different sets of Mass Combat rules.

    * The Making of OpenQuest.

    With more to come in the coming weeks.

    Visit the OpenQuest Companion at OpenQuest Companion

  14. Newt is still supporting OpenQuest. .

    Damn straight I am! Savage North is nearly complete, so it should be out by year end. Life and Death the next setting/adventure book is already written and just needs maps and art and Empires Rising is being worked on by our own Wolverine for a Summer/Continuum release. Remember its all D100/MRQ compatible :)

    Other bits are in the pipeline and I'm currently in the process of setting of a OpenQuest Companion Wiki. This will be for bits that didn't make it into the main corebook, mainly due to lack of development time or that they would have made it less classic D100 (I'm thinking Optional Plot edit rules using Hero Points and the Motives rules) and bits that have been written since OQ's release by others (I've got some cracking Mass Combat and Ships rules for example). All will be Open Gaming Content :)

    Oh and this is before we get onto the subject of Complete Games Powered by OpenQuest....more on that soon.

  15. Hearts in Glorantha issue 3 is nearly amongst us!

    I’m running a pre-order up until Sunday 30th of August. Books will then ship the following week, wc Monday 7th September.

    £6 +p&p (£2 UK/£3 Europe/ £4 Rest of the World) for a Printed copy and FREE Pdfs (print quality & ebook versions) of the issue.

    Hearts in Glorantha is a fanzine that includes articles for both HeroQuest and RuneQuest as well as systemless background information suitable for any Gloranthan game.

    At 92 pages long this softcover book includes:

    Poisonthorn Forest

    One of the two groups of Dorastor Elves detailed by Shannon Appelcline.

    Within the Poisonthorn

    Creatures of Poisonthorn by Shannon Appelcline.

    Iron

    A look at this magical Gloranthan metal by Jane Williams.

    Not Plunder

    A series of short flavoursome pieces of equipment by Stewart Stansfield

    Wonderous Statues

    Two plunder items by John Harding.

    Chaos Competition Top 10

    Results of the recent Gloranthan Community competition.

    The Three Legs of Vice

    Details of the Lunar Imperial Army ‘supplies’ by Stewart Stansfield.

    The Dragonsnail a part of the Devil

    An in-depth look at these Chaos creatures by John Harding.

    Uphold the Yellow Standard

    Dara Happan morality by Newt Newport.

    The Tomb of the Empty Emperor

    A D100 ‘Gloranthan Heresy’ Adventure by Newt Newport.

    Casting a Spell

    Part 3 of Greg Stafford’s ‘How to do Magic’ series.

    Undersea Adventures feature

    We all live in a Brass Submarine

    An epic HeroQuest Dwarf adventure from Gemborg to Prax via the

    Middle sea by Richard Crawley.

    Monsters of Magasta

    Ten sea monsters for RuneQuest and HeroQuest by Nick Davison.

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