fmitchell

Thanks for your replies. The sentence quoted above is why I think all this fear, uncertainty, and doubt is unwarranted. The new Chaosium is still trying to figure out what they can do as well as what they want to do. They don't want to make any statements they have to walk back later ... especially since we nerds tend to take the statements they do make and conjure nightmare scenarios with them. As somebody (besides me) said upthread, RQ6/BRP/CoC7 are basically the same framework with different details. (Yes, even CoC7; why record INT 13 and Idea 65% if you'll mostly need the 65%?) Theoretically you can house-rule one into the other with relatively little difficulty: Regular/Critical Success vs. Regular/Special/Critical Success vs. Average/Hard/Extreme/Critical Success, Luck based on POW vs Luck as an independent characteristic, skill checks for every skill used vs. a few per adventure, Magic Points vs. a MAG score and fatigue levels, etc. The major virtue of d100 games is that you can add or remove most elements without breaking the system (even the d100 part, as Pendragon demonstrated).

It's the probabilities that shake out of opposed rolls, modulo my ability to manipulate probabilities. (A brute force approach gave me slightly different numbers, about 1-2% difference.) You don't need to refer to the table, just roll the active and resisting skills and determine the winner based on degree of success. Higher skills have significant advantages because, to quote the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Keeper's Guide, "In the case of a tie, the side with the higher skill (or characteristic) wins." (p 91) I created similar tables for RQ6 and BRP; the difference was less severe, but still non-linear.

FWIW, here's a "resistance table" using opposing skill rolls, based on CoC 7 rules (hard = 0.50, extreme = 0.20). Actual numbers would probably look a little different under BRP (special = 0.20, critical = 0.05) or MRQ (critical=0.10). Note that equal percentages are 50/50 as expected, but chances of success fall/rise sharply even with only 5% differences ... and the smaller the higher skill, the larger the difference is. | A\R || 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 30 | 35 | 40 | 45 | 50 | 55 | 60 | 65 | 70 | 75 | 80 | 85 | 90 | 95 | 100 | 105 | |------:||------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:|------:| | 5 || 50.00 | 9.14 | 8.97 | 8.79 | 8.62 | 8.44 | 8.27 | 8.09 | 7.92 | 7.74 | 7.57 | 7.39 | 7.22 | 7.04 | 6.87 | 6.69 | 6.52 | 6.34 | 6.17 | 6.14 | 6.12 | | 10 || 90.86 | 50.00 | 13.25 | 12.90 | 12.58 | 12.23 | 11.91 | 11.56 | 11.24 | 10.89 | 10.57 | 10.22 | 9.90 | 9.55 | 9.23 | 8.88 | 8.56 | 8.21 | 7.89 | 7.79 | 7.72 | | 15 || 91.03 | 86.75 | 50.00 | 16.91 | 16.41 | 15.87 | 15.37 | 14.83 | 14.33 | 13.79 | 13.29 | 12.75 | 12.25 | 11.71 | 11.21 | 10.67 | 10.17 | 9.63 | 9.13 | 8.99 | 8.89 | | 20 || 91.21 | 87.10 | 83.09 | 50.00 | 20.37 | 19.66 | 19.01 | 18.30 | 17.65 | 16.94 | 16.29 | 15.58 | 14.93 | 14.22 | 13.57 | 12.86 | 12.21 | 11.50 | 10.85 | 10.64 | 10.49 | | 25 || 91.38 | 87.42 | 83.59 | 79.63 | 50.00 | 23.30 | 22.47 | 21.57 | 20.74 | 19.84 | 19.01 | 18.11 | 17.28 | 16.38 | 15.55 | 14.65 | 13.82 | 12.92 | 12.09 | 11.84 | 11.66 | | 30 || 91.56 | 87.77 | 84.13 | 80.34 | 76.70 | 50.00 | 26.11 | 25.04 | 24.06 | 22.99 | 22.01 | 20.94 | 19.96 | 18.89 | 17.91 | 16.84 | 15.86 | 14.79 | 13.81 | 13.49 | 13.26 | | 35 || 91.73 | 88.09 | 84.63 | 80.99 | 77.53 | 73.89 | 50.00 | 28.31 | 27.15 | 25.89 | 24.73 | 23.47 | 22.31 | 21.05 | 19.89 | 18.63 | 17.47 | 16.21 | 15.05 | 14.69 | 14.43 | | 40 || 91.91 | 88.44 | 85.17 | 81.70 | 78.43 | 74.96 | 71.69 | 50.00 | 30.47 | 29.04 | 27.73 | 26.30 | 24.99 | 23.56 | 22.25 | 20.82 | 19.51 | 18.08 | 16.77 | 16.34 | 16.03 | | 45 || 92.08 | 88.76 | 85.67 | 82.35 | 79.26 | 75.94 | 72.85 | 69.53 | 50.00 | 31.94 | 30.45 | 28.83 | 27.34 | 25.72 | 24.23 | 22.61 | 21.12 | 19.50 | 18.01 | 17.54 | 17.20 | | 50 || 92.26 | 89.11 | 86.21 | 83.06 | 80.16 | 77.01 | 74.11 | 70.96 | 68.06 | 50.00 | 33.45 | 31.66 | 30.02 | 28.23 | 26.59 | 24.80 | 23.16 | 21.37 | 19.73 | 19.19 | 18.80 | | 55 || 92.43 | 89.43 | 86.71 | 83.71 | 80.99 | 77.99 | 75.27 | 72.27 | 69.55 | 66.55 | 50.00 | 34.19 | 32.37 | 30.39 | 28.57 | 26.59 | 24.77 | 22.79 | 20.97 | 20.39 | 19.97 | | 60 || 92.61 | 89.78 | 87.25 | 84.42 | 81.89 | 79.06 | 76.53 | 73.70 | 71.17 | 68.34 | 65.81 | 50.00 | 35.05 | 32.90 | 30.93 | 28.78 | 26.81 | 24.66 | 22.69 | 22.04 | 21.57 | | 65 || 92.78 | 90.10 | 87.75 | 85.07 | 82.72 | 80.04 | 77.69 | 75.01 | 72.66 | 69.98 | 67.63 | 64.95 | 50.00 | 35.06 | 32.91 | 30.57 | 28.42 | 26.08 | 23.93 | 23.24 | 22.74 | | 70 || 92.96 | 90.45 | 88.29 | 85.78 | 83.62 | 81.11 | 78.95 | 76.44 | 74.28 | 71.77 | 69.61 | 67.10 | 64.94 | 50.00 | 35.27 | 32.76 | 30.46 | 27.95 | 25.65 | 24.89 | 24.34 | | 75 || 93.13 | 90.77 | 88.79 | 86.43 | 84.45 | 82.09 | 80.11 | 77.75 | 75.77 | 73.41 | 71.43 | 69.07 | 67.09 | 64.73 | 50.00 | 34.55 | 32.07 | 29.37 | 26.89 | 26.09 | 25.51 | | 80 || 93.31 | 91.12 | 89.33 | 87.14 | 85.35 | 83.16 | 81.37 | 79.18 | 77.39 | 75.20 | 73.41 | 71.22 | 69.43 | 67.24 | 65.45 | 50.00 | 34.11 | 31.24 | 28.61 | 27.74 | 27.11 | | 85 || 93.48 | 91.44 | 89.83 | 87.79 | 86.18 | 84.14 | 82.53 | 80.49 | 78.88 | 76.84 | 75.23 | 73.19 | 71.58 | 69.54 | 67.93 | 65.89 | 50.00 | 32.66 | 29.85 | 28.94 | 28.28 | | 90 || 93.66 | 91.79 | 90.37 | 88.50 | 87.08 | 85.21 | 83.79 | 81.92 | 80.50 | 78.63 | 77.21 | 75.34 | 73.92 | 72.05 | 70.63 | 68.76 | 67.34 | 50.00 | 31.57 | 30.59 | 29.88 | | 95 || 93.83 | 92.11 | 90.87 | 89.15 | 87.91 | 86.19 | 84.95 | 83.23 | 81.99 | 80.27 | 79.03 | 77.31 | 76.07 | 74.35 | 73.11 | 71.39 | 70.15 | 68.43 | 50.00 | 31.79 | 31.05 | | 100 || 93.86 | 92.21 | 91.01 | 89.36 | 88.16 | 86.51 | 85.31 | 83.66 | 82.46 | 80.81 | 79.61 | 77.96 | 76.76 | 75.11 | 73.91 | 72.26 | 71.06 | 69.41 | 68.21 | 50.00 | 32.65 | | 105 || 93.88 | 92.28 | 91.11 | 89.51 | 88.34 | 86.74 | 85.57 | 83.97 | 82.80 | 81.20 | 80.03 | 78.43 | 77.26 | 75.66 | 74.49 | 72.89 | 71.72 | 70.12 | 68.95 | 67.35 | 50.00 |

I chose Magic World, although in some places I'd prefer rules from other sources: - Fixed/constant Armor Points (BRP, RQ6, CoC) - Skill vs. Skill rolls replacing the Resistance Table; by extension, skills to replace Characteristic x 5% values like Stamina, Luck, Effort, Idea, etc. (RQ6) - Special success = skill / 10, critical success = 1% exactly (RQ6 with a smidge of CoC7) - No magic system; ideally a "roll your own magic system" section, but that will take lots of time and effort to write. - Difficulty factors based on +/-20% increments or doubling / halving chances of success (BRP w/ RQ6 or a more restrained CoC7) - Combat styles instead of discrete weapon skills (RQ6) The parts I liked from Magic World, by the way, are Appearance instead of CHA, the streamlined skill allocation system, the Culture + Profession approach, a simplified skill list, no Fatigue scale (much as I like RQ6's), bare bones combat system, and above all Allegiance. If they *have* to include magic, I'd rather they include the unpublished Divine Allegiance section from the MW Chronicler's Guide rather than the almost inevitable Elric Sorcery/Common Magic/Battle Magic/Folk Magic system. P.S. I just realized my ideal BRP Essentials would look a lot like OpenQuest Basic, save for my magic aversion. And we already have one of those.

RQ6 and CoC7 really don't look like each other, so it's not a stretch to think the new BRP Essentials might represent a "middle way". Also, if it's coming out quickly, then they're probably going to choose the easiest path, i.e. BRP more or less as we know it now, just with far fewer optional rules. My next best guess would be RQ6 simplified, which (except for experience check rules) is pretty close to BRP as it is now. (The obvious parts to drop are hit locations, strike ranks, and combat special effects, which would make it even closer to default BRP now.) CoC7 sans Mythos is an outside possibility, but again except for the x5 issue, bonus/penalty dice, and EDU (and SAN, which I'd drop in a "generic" product) that isn't too far from default BRP either. Whatever they do, it's ultimately going to have the RQ2/BRP engine underneath. The rest can be house-ruled into whatever strikes one's fancy.

Perhaps I've been spending too much time in Kickstarter-ville. Numenera is pretty successful, but this article claims these were the top selling RPGs in Spring 2015: Dungeons & Dragons (Wizards of the Coast)Pathfinder (Paizo Publishing)Star Wars (Fantasy Flight Games)Shadowrun (Catalyst Game Labs)Iron Kingdoms (Privateer Press)While this list doesn't disprove my assertion, there's obviously a lot of confounding factors. D&D and Pathfinder (the other D&D) are the proverbial 800 lb. gorillas of RPGs. Star Wars has massive brand name recognition (duh), Shadowrun is, well, Shadowrun, and Iron Kingdoms ties into a successful miniatures line. So, I guess if we want BRP to be bigger than D&D and Pathfinder, Chaosium needs a miniatures line, a series of blockbuster movies with TV and toy tie-ins, and a time machine.

FWIW, I just created a thread in the BRP folder with the full text of Chaosium's announcement.

This just came across my RSS feed from the Chaosium site: So it's less than a lot of people hoped. No explicit mention of Magic World, the Gold Book is officially obsolete, and I'm sure there will be rampant and doom-laden speculation on what BRP Essentials will look like. It's kind of disappointing, but perhaps a slim BRP has a better chance in the market than a massive tome with every option and variant rule piled in. The RPG market seems to be drifting toward rules and setting in a single package, as witnessed by the runaway success of Numenera. Time will tell. And those who really miss old-timey BRP always have OpenQuest or the out of print PDFs.

In all fairness Chaosium as a company is in dire financial straits. I don't think they're thinking long term. Their goals right now are 1) to fulfill the promised CoC7 Kickstarter and 2) get the company out of the red. The strategy for the latter seems to be bringing the successful(?) Glorantha line in-house and develop a combined RuneQuest/Glorantha book based off the Adventures in Glorantha material. If they can return to profitability (or at least break even) they can start developing other lines again. As for slashing staff and cutting spending ... well, that's what you DO when you don't have enough money. I'd rather Chaosium let a few lines drop in hopes they'll pick them up later than Chaosium continue to overextend itself, go under like so very many game companies before it, and have no hope of seeing any new material ever.

Office and warehouse space is costly, so it makes sense to shut them down. More money to pay writers, editors, artists, printers, and shippers. No idea what they'll actually do, but I hope they keep both BRP and Magic World. BRP is a nice generic system that goes beyond the (mostly) fantasy focus of RuneQuest, while Magic World is a specific build of BRP that's lighter-weight alternative to RQ. If they're keeping Call of Cthulhu 7 and RuneQuest 6+, they clearly have no qualms about multiple variants of the same system. That said, though, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some sort of convergence at some later date. The only real issue is profitability of each line: CoC has been their cash cow, RQ is (I guess) doing well, but new MW stuff has been back-burnered for a while now and BRP support has been sporadic. Writing new stuff costs, and even keeping a book in print costs. PDFs can keep already published books available indefinitely, but given Chaosium's financial situation and limited staff, it's likely that BRP, MW, and even CoC 7 (once printed) might languish for a while as they try to make money on RQ Glorantha.

A hardcover version of Magic World with all errata corrected, and two grams of solid gold ($70).

Batman vs. Aliens. Batman wins. Batman always wins.

Oh, then there's Aliens vs Aliens, which is nearly every Doctor Who episode. (But not the Silurian & Sea Devil episodes, which are Dinosaurs vs. Alien.) More broadly, though, imagine the embarrassment when two (or more) alien species decide to invade the same planet at the same time. The Greys call a truce with the nations of Earth to exterminate the Pod People. Meanwhile the Predators decide to release some Xenomorphs on Earth to make hunting more exciting, the Space Vampires have acquired a taste for The Thing, and the Daleks mistakenly exterminated advanced scouts for the Borg.

Zombies vs. aliens? Vampires vs. aliens? Robots vs. aliens? Cthulhu vs. aliens? (I know eldritch horrors are themselves aliens, but imagine flying saucers or Martian tripods attacking a towering octopoid titan.) BTW, there's already Monkey, Ninja, Pirate, Robot: the RPG where you play one of the four aforementioned beings fighting aliens. Also of note, Necessary Evil posits supervillains vs. aliens after the superheroes get blown away.

So Monster Island, basically.

A bit of me-too-ism: I'd also vote for the Chronicler's Companion, followed by a book of (linked?) adventures that show off the breadth and depth of the system ... something like The Spider God's Bride (Mongoose & Xoth.net) or Book of Quests (TDM). A multi-world book like OpenQuest Adventures would also be cool.

FWIW SJ Games still sells its Conan sourcebook for GURPS 1-3. It might make a decent reference / template for a fan sourcebook for BRP. Until this other thing comes along ...

That's what I've been doing, both in my e-mail client and mail.google.com ... it's just not freaking there. (Out of habit I'd delete receipts from my Inbox once I had the product.) There might be one or two other things I bought through Chaosium that I don't have mail receipts for. Maybe their e-mail sender was glitchy, or GMail drop(ped) stuff on the floor. Seriously, Warehouse 23 / e23 ported over old receipt data when they changed systems. Why not Chaosium? (EDIT: Not blaming current management, naturally.)

Yeah, I'll have to wait for someone at Chaosium to restore the order data. I can't find *any* proof I bought the darn PDF in my e-mail (and GMail supposedly saves everything). Unless I can find something in PayPal or my credit card history, I'll have to just buy it again. (Which I'm not keen on, but maybe Chaosium needs the extra $25.)

It's a truism that science fiction is more about the time in which it was written than the time in which it is set. (Which is why Blade Runner belongs back in the 1980s.) Also, Utopias make for dull stories. Either you have to postulate a threat from outside the Utopia (e.g. Klingons, Sith, Daleks) or reveal the Utopia's "dark secret" (soma, Morlocks, Carousel). Finally, every period has challenges that inevitably raise the question, "what if this gets worse?" H.G. Wells envisioned European imperialism turned against Europe, so he wrote War of the Worlds. In the 1950s the Red Scare inspired numerous alien invasion flicks. In the 1960s-1970s civil rights and environmentalism came to the fore, so we got Soylent Green among many others. In the 1980s corporate greed and the Internet inspired cyberpunk. Today, we've got the persistence of Christian extremism, the rise of Muslim extremism, global warming, global recession, global terrorism, a widening gap between rich and poor ... so many catastrophes to choose from.

Not to mention professional editing. That chapter on Robots is awful.

I'm a fan of multiple conflicting religions and gods who (if they exist) maintain plausible deniability. In the setting I've been tinkering with, there are multiple religions of Light, one mystical path of Balance, innumerable Shadow cults, and a few gods/pantheons/religions that lie wholly outside the Light/Balance/Shadow spectrum. So, for example, the Old Religion conceives of Light and Shadow as primal forces created by an unknowable Maker, a bit like Earth's Zoroastrianism or Manicheism; its adherents follow the Light. During the last days of the Grigorian Empire a new faith eclipsed the old, centered on the Eleven Lords of Light who walked the Known World and inspired humanity to throw off its chains. A few centuries after that, the stronghold of the Old Religion up in the north splintered into an orthodox minority and the Zuringians, a puritanical sect which regards anything not of Light to be an agent of Shadow, ultimately lead by a "Devil" who will consume the world when the last True Believer dies. A hundred years before the story starts an alleged Twelfth Lord of Light appeared in a far southeastern land; the "Twelvists" claim to follow the Light, but Elevenists have their doubts. The Izadi, traders from far Pasharand who once came from much further away, also have their own Discipline of Light, which among other things proscribes alcohol and skimpy clothes. Pasharand also hosts the suppressed cult Horyuana Kalam, ostensibly a religion of Light, which supports violent overthrow of corrupt regimes (like, say, the Izadi). Shadow cults spring up almost as fast as the authorities can shut them down, most commonly around a Lord of Shadow (demon lord, alien god, or powerful sorcerer). The most persistent cults are the Chthonic Gods of Atalan worshiped among less scrupulous Atalantans, the unnamed cult that venerates the Opener of Ways, and the Solace of the Dark Mother whose bleak message resonates among the poor and criminals. Besides the mystical Path of Balance (or Way of Balance) whose origins are lost in history, some Ancestor Cults in pagan lands emphasize harmony with nature and therefore promote the Balance. There's also Draconism, found both among the Dragon-kin of Pasharand and the pagan tribes of the northeast, which regards even human thought as unnatural. Draconists believe that one should satisfy natural urges without regard for artificial constructs like morality or invocation of unnatural external powers (which is the basis of sorcery). (Think Nietzsche's ideal of the Ubermensch.) There are also gods and pantheons with no obvious relation to Light, Shadow, or Balance; how "real" they are is a matter of conjecture, but their adherents put great faith in them. Most of these are pagan gods who satisfy very human needs, worshiped in barbaric lands and among rural folk who cling to the "old ways". The six gods of Pasharand -- an amalgam of older Vashari, Lemurian, and Atalan gods -- still receive at least lip-service from the non-Izadi minorities. Also notable is the Lemurian Way, a code of honor that governs a faithful Lemurian's relations with all other people. Lemurian virtues include temperance, honesty, even-handedness, generosity, attention to dress and manners, deference to one's natural superiors, and mentoring to one's natural inferiors. Detractors say it's merely an excuse for ethnic Lemurians to be as arrogant, vain, and cold-hearted as they want to be, only with a veneer of propriety. (Real-world inspirations include Confucianism, libertarianism, Stoicism, and the Three Musketeers.) So, game-wise: All characters have Light, Balance, and Shadow Allegiance much as described in the book. Adherents of a religion of Light, Shadow, or Balance can pray to their power or god for Intervention; the GM rolls the character's Allegiance in secret to see if it works. The GM may adjust the roll based on circumstances. Intervention generally takes the form of a lucky coincidence, to maintain the powers' ineffability. Initiates to the cult of a god outside Law/Balance/Shadow have an additional Allegiance to that god. No character may have an allegiance with more than one god. Gods may only intervene within their sphere of influence (warfare, commerce, oceans, forests, etc.) ... assuming they exist at all. Lemurians pray to nothing. Allegiance to the Lemurian Way is more like a Reputation score, and therefore only good for favors from other Lemurians or their allies. It starts equal to the character's APP score, and increases or decreases depending on how closely the character adheres to Lemurian virtues. Really, sorcery is much more reliable.

It's hard to say which system "best" fits the books because 1) Elric was an anomaly within his world and 2) which books? So far I've read only the original six books (or are they considered two or one now?), and what sorcery there was tended to be "summon a demon/elemental to serve you" or "drink this potion to get stronger". Dreamtheft only entered into Moorcock's later books (I presume), and I don't know of any shamans in the series. If you want to stick to "canon", I'd probably lean toward MRQII Elric, but really I'm not sure the average adventurer (if such exists) would ever use magic. You'd end up with mundane characters in the system of your choice who occasionally confronted magical beings, mysterious artifacts, and "sorcerers" who used said beings and artifacts against the heroes. In other words, not too terribly different from Conan. On the other hand, I would go with the version that sounds more fun to you, and accommodates the character concepts you prefer. Sorcerers casting hexes on their enemies and magical aid on their allies? Magic World. Cults, runes, and arcane summoning lore? MRQII Elric. NPC sorcerers only? Pick Magic World or Legend (or RQ6!) without magic and wing it.

Hm, I just checked and apparently I own everything TDM currently offers on DTRPG except the French and German versions of RQ. Funny, that.

As Nick mentioned, most of the gloom was in the setting. The only "dark" mechanical bits were Alignment and demons, but you can redefine the first and downplay or remove the second. I'm planning to use Magic World in more of a "low fantasy" manner ... sorcery is officially banned (wink wink) and most of the PCs' antagonists will be people (mostly but not exclusively human).