seneschal

He has to learn to accept responsibility sometime, dear.

Cleave: The Beaver Great Cleave: Ward, his father Just sayin' ...

Ducks ... no laughing matter:

Fifteen minutes? [Adds Super Speed to Matt's data file.] You're a better BRP-er than I. It takes me that long to get a set of characteristics that I like. I'd have trouble getting a normal character done in 15 minutes, much less a super.

Yikes! I guess I'll have to either remain ignorant or take a Swedish language class. Is Drakar och Demoner out of print? Or just this supplement?

I never used software for creating my Champions characters. Could they take up to 2 hours to build? Sometimes, if a character had a complicated concept. It's the price of having options and flexibility. But, as I've said before elsewhere, Superworld is also a point-buy system. So, whether you're spending 350 points in Champions (for stats, powers, skills and everything) or 700-ish points in Superworld (500 skill points, INTx10 personal skill points, plus 80-90 power points), you're still figuring out how to assemble your abilities to fit the concept and trying to assign reasonable levels of competency. Both have Disadvantages/Failings that need to be balanced. Both have energy costs for power use. Hero has a Speed Chart; BRP has DEX or Strike ranks. Building Superman with either system is going to be a pain in the butt. Just poking around, I've found this: http://chaosium-brp-character-generator-4-00.downloadluck.com/ http://windows.softwareweb.com/chaosium-brp-character-generator.htm http://fictional-character-generator.winsite.com/ Don't know if these are "safe." But there are several of them online.

But wouldn't members of this profession tend to stand around nervously, then suddenly solve the crime when no one else has a clue?

I tried translating Waverly -- a short French RPG -- into English using Babelfish, one paragraph at a time. The results were humorous to say the least. Fortunately I was in contact with the author at the time and he helped me sort out the terms that didn't come across well.

Thanks! Drakar och Demoner was BRP-derived, at least the early versions, wasn't it? Because of the article's old-timey looking printing, I thought it was from the '80s.

Unrelated to Labyrinth Lord, here's a duck-related article but I'm not sure what language it is in or what year it came out: http://www.rollspel.com/pdf/dod/ankor1_2.pdf And Daffy Duck doing the Mickey Mouse wizard shtick. Is he an intense role-player or what?

But they still need to get nutrition and oxygen to those organic brains inside their helmets. Ever notice that when they get shot, their heads explode regardless of where the injury occurred? Now, gold is a pretty expensive deterrent, worse than silver for a fantasy were-critter. At least dark elves are allergic to common iron and steel. How about aluminum? Difficult for pre-industrial cultures to separate from bauxite ore in any quantity, yet the most common metal on Earth. Who'd suspect metal men would be harmed by one of the most common and useful substances on the planet?

"...most novels I read are also not about a sedentary community of farmers or shepherds, propitiating local spirits as the seasons cycle through." Not a fan of Westerns, eh? When studying history for a game, I was surprised to learn that Europeans were holding cattle drives long before they settled in North America. In Britain, cattlemen guided their herds from the Scottish border to London, dealing with rustlers, storms and stampedes just like their descendants would several hundred years later. They had bows instead of six-guns and faced wild Picts and Welshmen instead of Indians, but the task and the challenges were the same. So ... all ya gotta do is set your campaign in western Glorantha. Happy trails, pardner.

You're welcome.

I'm not Nick or Ben, but Dragon Lines may have some ideas for you in that regard. See what Rosen has to say.

What! No enterprising dwarven inventor has established a working rail system in your campaign? Get it built before your competitors can, sir!

LL attempts to emulate the 1981 version of "the world's most popular fantasy role-playing game." If you can fit characters from that version into AD&D fairly easily it could work. With a sticker price of $2.50, you won't be put too far in the hole if it isn't what you expect. And it's definitely more concise than the Mongoose Ducks supplement.

Ducks didn't make the initial cut for RuneQuest 6, so they've apparently migrated to Labyrinth Lord! http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/128153/Darkfast-Classic-Fantasy-Advanced-Classes-Ducks http://travelingspellbook.blogspot.ca/2014/04/review-darkfast-classic-fantasy.html

But I think your variant would suffer from HQ's pitfalls as well. Mainly that since everything in HQ is treated the same way, any one ability is as good as any other. That is, in theory, a character could defeat an expert swordsman with his "Basket Weaving"l, "TV trivia", or his "Knowledge of Playboy Bunnies". This is exactly how the RPG Risus works. Intentionally. http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

Not only is L'Amour an excellent story teller, but he's a stickler for historical and geographic accuracy. Many of the places in his stories actually exist. Some other good inspirations include: Elmer Kelton -- His Westerns are often set during key periods in Texas history and are grimmer and less romantic than L'Amour. His stories aren't necessarily depressing and cynical, but tragic events have real and lasting effects on his characters. Bret Harte -- The original Western author, Harte wrote tales of California frontier life while prospectors, gamblers, cowboys and Indians were still actually doing their thing in North America. (Note: All of the above are still doing their thing in North America, but now they use computers, cell phones, helicopters, and data mining to do it. ) Zane Grey -- He, too, wrote while many of the real participants in the Wild West were still living but often presents a vision more romantic and idealized than L'Amour.

Blue Falcon, a low-power Batman type detective with gadgets, would be pretty easy to model with BRP. Dynomutt, with his oddball assortment of powers, would be more challenging. Here's how I did it in Champions: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Dynomutt.txt Space Ghost presents a similar problem to that of Dynomutt in BRP, not least because BRP requires separate defenses against each and every kind of energy attack. It also doesn't give you the option to save build points by bundling powers together with a common explanation. Again, here's how I tackled it in Champions: http://www.sysabend.org/champions/gnborh/text/Space_Ghost-ks.txt Space Ghost is a favorite character of mine, too, but Birdman was a more straightforward build, so I did him first.

Went to a branch library for Tabletop Day. My son and I had fun playing dominoes and Heroclix until noon, but only one other family showed up while we were there. A mother and son played Magic the Gathering for about 15-20 minutes then left. I had hoped to start or join a pickup role-playing session, but it didn't happen. The library had set aside 3-4 tables for play and had put assorted board and card games on them. But the only other other person who sat at them merely wanted to rest his legs while he made a phone call.

Ouch! Geez, guys. I didn't intend to start a flame war or an edition war. I was just curious about how many folks use RQ with Glorantha and how many use either RQ or Glorantha with something else. Any version, any publishing year; boxed set, softback or hardback; black-and-white or color; PDF or printed; shiny new or creased and ragged original from your junior high days. And no knock intended to Magic World, past or present. (At least the Call of Cthulhu folks haven't been offended ... yet. Wait! Somebody fumbling at the doorknob! Quick -- the window!)

Broo vessels would essentially be plague ships, bringing disease to each location they touched down at whether the critters themselves did much raiding or not. Given broo untidiness, ships operated by them would also tend to be maintenance disasters, quickly becoming unreliable and risky to fly. The fiends would have to keep hijacking new ones to stay in space.

The price is certainly right on these bundles but I've found I can't actually digest and play PDF material longer than 10-15 pages. I have to print and bind it out first, which puts the cost up quite a bit.