fmitchell

Other game systems use fatigue to power spells, which generally has consequences beyond how close to zero one gets. Power Points (a.k.a. Magic Points) have no such effect: at 1 you're fine, at 0 you're out. (Unless I missed something.) Here's one "remedy" I came up with in the last few minutes: every character has a Major Drain number equal to POW / 2, analogous to Major Wound Threshold. Losing that many PP in a combat round imposes some sort of skill penalty, e.g. all Easy tests become average, all average tests become Difficult, and all Difficult tests are impossible. If using Fatigue points, perhaps losing more than POW/4 PP at once spent subtracts 1d6 FP. In Legend, one could simply subtract one fatigue level instead. When a character reaches 2 PP or less he automatically suffers from the effects of Major Drain or hits the penultimate fatigue level before unconsciousness. 0 PP is automatic unconsciousness, as in the current rules. Certain creatures might be exempt from these effects. Constructs and undead, for example, never tire, and a sapient spell-casting octopus might suffer no physical skill penalties because its arms are largely autonomous. However, this is just off the top of my head. Are there any play-tested rules that address the relationship between losing magic/psychic/super power and physical/mental weakness? Or am I the only killjoy?

Most of the "mystical" rules I've seen, notably Dragon Magic / Draconic Mysticism, looked just like Battle / Common / Folk Magic with a draconic theme and dire backlash results. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole Mysticism system (and the whole RQ6 book). FWIW, I've thought about my own rules for Mysticism, but only got as far as the basic themes I wanted to hit: control of self, progressive "immunity" to the veil of illusion (starting at magic and ending with basic physical principles), at least three paths based very loosely on Gnosticism (independence from the Fallen World), Eastern practices (martial arts and emotional/material detachment), and Sufism a/o Western religious traditions (visions and knowledge from union with the Ultimate Reality), and perhaps at least one "corrupted" path (e.g. manipulation of the Illusory World). Maybe I can build some or all that on top of the RQ6 rules.

FWIW, I like durations of "one scene" or "one combat" instead of game-minutes or game-hours. The duration of a combat round itself is a bit vague, so precise units of game time add more bookkeeping without any real benefit. Resource management is all the rage among "old-school" gamers, but if the GM wants to track hours of lamplight or rations at all a rough notion of when they'll run out will suffice. Also, just browsing the preview, I like how Mysticism is shaping up. The few rare discussions of Mysticism I've unearthed made it sound unplayable, either a useless waste of time or an ultimate transcendence of time and space. The preview suggests a system distinct from Folk Magic or the other types that's subtle enough for other magicians to sneer at but potentially as profound at high levels as sorcery or divine magic.

RuneQuest, CoC, and what would become BRP diverged early in their histories. So, for example, RuneQuest elementals have a SIZ measured in cubic meters and a few characteristics based on that "size", while other games simplified matters by making elementals more like other creatures. Likewise, each game adapted "vampires" in their own particular way: RuneQuest vampires started as creations (priests?) of the Gloranthan god Vivamort, while CoC vampires developed to emulate gothic literature. Stats for all imaginary creatures will always differ depending on the game's concept of how dragons, corporeal undead, ghosts, vampires, elementals, robots, etc. "work". Even real creatures might differ depending on how a particular variant interprets STR, SIZ, DEX, etc. In the downloads section I have a short document presenting robots without CON or POW to reflect that they typically lack self-healing abilities and psychic/magical presences; in the comments someone asked me to work them up with CON and POW apparently because he/she thought CON and POW didn't imply biological mechanisms or supernatural power. The same document presents golems which differ from those in OpenQuest, Age of Treason, Merrie England, Jelmre of RuneQuest, Abominations from The Bronze Grimoire, etc. So, short answer, there's no real "official" version across all lines. Each line, sometimes each book, stats out creatures depending on the authors' interpretation of each creature. Pick whichever version you like best, or whip up your own; it's not hard.

No. It's the aforementioned pre-existing RPG, which harks back to 1st edition D&D.

Ironically a bunch of guys named their revision of D&D "Legend" shortly before Mongoose did. Naming your game with a single word from the dictionary is always fraught with peril.

It seems to have fallen off Mongoose's release schedule. On the other hand, it's still listed in their catalog. On the third hand, "Arcania Of Legend: Blood Magic" came out in PDF two months early, so who knows?

I must have read the lame 1912 ending, because I remember the whole story literally going up in smoke. BTW, the Hammer film Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971) is hard to find, but well worth it. (And not just for Valerie Leon.) It's loosely based on The Jewel of 7 Stars, but with twists that largely improve the story.

Regarding Glorantha: the Second Age As of this writing, it still looks like only the MRQ1 version is available. I'd really like a PDF of the MRQ2 version, to complement my hard copy, but I'm not going to make extra work for anybody. You may want to talk to the Drivethru folks again on Monday.

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.

Why would they remove Spirit Magic? Space? Too many Glorantha references? Is there some issue with the rules themselves?

Short answer: Modified OpenQuest for a new version of Clockwork & Chivalry. Long answer: http://www.clockworkandchivalry.co.uk/renaissance/

Yet another Catch-22 ... Chaosium can't afford to support other lines until they're popular, but they won't become popular without support. Existing popular lines belong to other companies: Issaries has Glorantha, Mongoose has Moorcock (AFAIK), and other licenses cost money. Short of adapting something in public domain (Allan Quartermain the RPG?), they'll probably have to throw brand new worlds into the market and hope one becomes successful enough to justify sequels ... in the ever-shrinking RPG business during a recession verging on depression.

Sorry to necro this thread, but I've uploaded the current draft of "Constructs in BRP", based upon this thread. Please take a look, and send me any questions, complaints, suggestions, or extravagant praise.

QFT Like its "inspiration" BRP, MRQII is a fine generic RPG system (slanted somewhat toward fantasy). Whatever the business maneuverings involved, cleanly separating the system from a specific game world can only be a good thing. (Unless Mongoose does its all-too-common slapdash job on Wayfarer / Legend, or somehow screws up on their promise of making the whole system open content.)

I sprang for the "BRP Magic" PDF not too long ago for reference purposes*, so this new one doesn't make my list at all. Yes, an updated version of Sorcery and Ceremonial Magic might be nice, but until I start using BRP for reals it would be just another book gathering dust on the stack. * My RQ III boxes are in a storage unit, so consulting the dead tree Magic book is a bit inconvenient.

These math-challenged players should play trolls: GM: You see some humans on the other side of the bridge. Player: We rush the bridge and attack! GM: Are you sure? Don't you want to count and see how many humans there are, first? Player: Dur, OK. How many? GM: Many Many Three. Player: Bah. Three for me, two for the other many ... wait, they don't have billy goats, do they?

10% of skill = first digit 20% of skill = 2 x first digit, add 1% if second digit is 5 or over. 05% of skill = first digit divided by 2, round down. Skills over 100% are left as an exercise for the reader.

In "real life", Intelligence is an asymmetric bell curve with a long tail toward higher numbers, judging from IQ and personal experience. IQ is normalized to 100 (i.e. 100 is always the statistical average). I'm sure there's a way to simulate that with dice. (4D6 drop lowest?) Alternatively, one can pitch the idea of "fixed INT" for non-humans and re-scale for the full 3-18 range; animals may have no INT at all, or an equivalent for numerical calculations. (BTW, in one short-lived campaign where player built their orc characters with point buy, orcs had an average of INT 10, while randomly-rolled human NPCs had an average INT of 13. Humans were naturally cleverer, and more technologically and socially advanced.) The same solutions could work for SIZ, although adult humans can range from about 1m/3' to 2.5m/8'2'', with most in the range of 1.52m-2m/5'-6'7''; weights vary even more. In the case of SIZ, 2D6+6 fits the actual curve better.

Seconded. Repeated erasing can bore a hole in the character sheet. As a player I prefer to keep track of running totals with tokens or counters, and write the tally only at the end of play. In one game I played in the GM had made a "big board" tracking HP and other conditions of all the PCs. Perhaps it makes sense to leave expendable resources off character sheets entirely; players track HP and the like with tokens, and the GM tracks totals between sessions. But that's outside the scope of this thread.

Were I to run CoC, I'd borrow more from Tim Powers and Thomas Ligotti than the classic Mythos. Creatures of the Mythos (by HPL and others) have become trite and even kitchy. A GM describing tentacles and alien geometries isn't scary; slowly unfolding magical conspiracies and persistent existential dread have more potential. Heck, why not hark back to Poe, wherein the GM becomes an increasingly unreliable narrator as the PCs drift away from consensus reality?

These days I prefer supplements that describe a world*: a Gazetteer, Scenarios, Timelines (a place needs a history), and variant or new powers if necessary. (I'm never happy with generic magic or psionics; tweaking those is another way to make a world different.) The other stuff, if present, should flow out of the world description, or events in that world. * A "world", here, could be a single island, valley, or town ... any sort of sandbox I can play in.

OK, I'll try to carve out some time to convert to BRP and generally clean up. Do you also want my notes on robots, androids, and full body replacement cyborgs?

The "Homogeneous" trait implies its the same substance all the way through: solid clay, solid iron, etc. It bends its limbs through magic. Think of a Ray Harryhausen animated statue. Sunder might weaken a hollow metal statue; a Wood & Metal armature might break on a Sunder or Impale. A related trait, "Unliving", describes a magically or technologically animated creature that does have joints, a hard shell protecting vulnerable innards, and so forth. BTW, I borrowed the terminology from GURPS. In that system, damage that penetrates armor is multiplied by a wounding factor: crushing x1, cutting x1.5, impaling x2, piercing x0.5 to x1.5 depending on size (mostly bullets). UPDATE: Correct errors: An "Injury Tolerance" advantage reduces damage from specific weapons and to specific hit locations, and takes multiple forms. Unliving means "not made of living flesh", e.g. undead or constructs, which reduces impaling and piercing damage. Homogeneous means no differentiated organs at all and severely reduced impaling and piercing damage, plus no special damage for reaching the brain or vitals. "Diffuse" creatures, like an air elemental or a micro-bot swarm, take only 1 points of damage from any piercing or impaling attack, and 2 points of damage maximum from other physical attacks except explosions or other area effects. Other forms include No Brain, No Eyes, No Head, No Neck, and No Vitals, which removes those hit locations and their effects, and No Blood, which removes bleeding damage, blood poisoning, and so forth.