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TheShadow

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Posts posted by TheShadow

  1. Don't sweat it. Just ask, how much would motivate the PCs and how much (perhaps) would be plausible for the NPC to offer? And remember - there is no "correct" or "intrinsic" price for anything in games as in real life. Just what the market will bear.

  2. Of course it would be great to see BRP becoming more popular. But I'm quite satisfied with the support base the system does have. It has name recognition even with your average D&D playing types, which will at least get a hearing for a game pitch. Add to that 30 years of material in a variety of genres, which I can pick and choose from as a GM, and today's mini-renaissance in new products, and I'm a happy camper.

  3. Definitely intrigued.

    Any there any substantial tweaks or additions to BRP powers in the setting? I'm particularly interested in how you incorporate the hi-tech stuff into what basically seems a fantasy milieu. I'm thinking of Tekumel more than Eberron so far.

    Also, can you tell us more about some of the non-human races? Is it meant to be basically humanocentric?

  4. Another idea which might be easier to implement is for Chaosium to have a "grab bag" or Xmas bag similar to Palladium's. You pay a fixed sum and get a random assortment of books, say 3-5, with limited control over what you will get. That way Chaosium can include some of the items that aren't selling so well, and also move larger numbers of books.

  5. I agree totally. I could live with the MRQ rules, and what they done to Glorantha (I was never really that much of a fan, anyway), but it felt somehow cheap and that they were milking their customers for money (this is my opion not facts :ohwell: ).

    Are you sure it's just your opinion? I thought it was pretty much empirical fact...;)

  6. Not sure about the opposed rolls route. Seems kind of strange for a door to make a roll to resist being opened...I think in my set of rules I might just go for a written explanation of the formula rather than the big table. It's pretty simple after all when you get it - to my mind the table is not necessary.

  7. Jason hits it spot on.

    Who am I? What do I do? Who is opposed to me?

    Excellent summation of the best settings.

    I disagree. This is kind of the conventional wisdom which I've heard repeated a number of times online, but it doesn't square with my favourite games and settings. I see it as one approach, but more fashion or trend than reflecting truth about good design.

    For one thing, despite Jason's incorporation of RuneQuest into the "answer 3 questions" model, I think that this game, particularly RQIII, would fail the earnest scrutiny of 3-question askers if released today. It doesn't shoehorn PCs into any particular roles, but offers instead a vast sandbox. Most fantasy games are like this.

    My favourite settings are sandboxes. Atlantis from the old Bard Games, Tekumel, Talislanta - I'm sure others could add their own personal favourites. Not so much games with a limited focus (Dark Heresy? Answers the 3 questions nicely, but I'm just not interested in the answers). And my favourite systems are generic ones.

    Yes, a broad sandbox does make the GM and players think harder about what they are going to do before starting the campaign. But this lasts for about 5 minutes, before they are engaged in something they want to do, having used their creative faculties rather than being shepherded along.

    I don't disagree about a focused approach being useful. It's one way to design a setting or game. It's just not the only one. If the designer wants to present a large sandbox, it needs to be excellent. The details needs to draw you in. This is difficult to write. Anyone can come up with a focus, but not everyone can write a 200-page fantasy setting that is so imaginative on every page that you want to play it. Think Artesia: the Known World. This is a traditional fantasy setting, heavily influenced by the writers RQ experience, which does not easily answer the 3 questions because it is so broad. But the writer is bloody brilliant. Works for me.

  8. I'd like to know about options for publishing BRP projects. My preference is to self-publish a stand-alone product, but I'm hoping I can support BRP with it rather than using the MRQ OGL.

    Would Chaosium consider licensing out the system, or do they prefer to allow only in-house products?

    Are any of the setting books which have been announced stand-alone products, or do they require the BRP book?

    TheShadow

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