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Nonhumanoid Multiverse recommended resources for BRP?


RPG Research

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Greetings. We are wanting to try a campaign where all of the PCs are non-humanoids. Such as centaurs, driders, gas cratures, land octopi, etc. The rules seem to make this generally possible. Are there any specific additional resources anyone would recommend to help us with this process? Specific books or other sources? This is a multiverse setting that starts out initially magical fantasy dystopic setting, but over time has mixture of science fiction etc.

Appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

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Your query is a bit vague, so I'll try to give a helpful response:

For your nonhumanoid PCs just take a D100-bestiary or any D100-resource with your required creatures. Because D100 isn't about balancing you don't have to worry regarding possible issues. A centaur is almost always better than a land octopus as PC - at least on land.

Just use the creature stats for the PC and let the nonhuman character improve like the other characters.

Regarding the multiverse: Hm, there are some specific multiverse supplements like the LUTHER ARKWRIGHT Supplement and its campaignbook PARALLEL LINES. It's for the MYTHRAS ruleset but easy to adapt. An older supplement is the campaign ROGUE MISTRESS for STORMBRINGER.

If I understand you correctly, I guess, you don't need specific multiverse supplements. Let your imagination run wild and mix all the stuff from all the books on your shelf. All you have to decide is the way how all these dimensions are interconnected and in which way characters are able to travel between them.


 

 

 

 

 

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16 minutes ago, prinz.slasar said:

Your query is a bit vague, so I'll try to give a helpful response:

For your nonhumanoid PCs just take a D100-bestiary or any D100-resource with your required creatures. Because D100 isn't about balancing you don't have to worry regarding possible issues. A centaur is almost always better than a land octopus as PC - at least on land.

Just use the creature stats for the PC and let the nonhuman character improve like the other characters.

Regarding the multiverse: Hm, there are some specific multiverse supplements like the LUTHER ARKWRIGHT Supplement and its campaignbook PARALLEL LINES. It's for the MYTHRAS ruleset but easy to adapt. An older supplement is the campaign ROGUE MISTRESS for STORMBRINGER.

If I understand you correctly, I guess, you don't need specific multiverse supplements. Let your imagination run wild and mix all the stuff from all the books on your shelf. All you have to decide is the way how all these dimensions are interconnected and in which way characters are able to travel between them.


 

 

16 minutes ago, prinz.slasar said:

Sorry for the vagueness, was trying not to bog down with campaign specifics. It is our own homebrew multiverse we've been running for scores of gamers since the 80s using many different game systems over the years. We wanted to try to break away from the bipedal-centric heroes. They start in a dystopic fantasy setting 100 years after cataclysm that most humanoids haven't survived, and the fabric of the multiverse is extremely fragile.

We would like to use a system that is flexible enough for us to use in this campaign setting, the publisher has given us permission to use, and isn't IP-linked/locked

The reason why I bring up IP is because we also need to get use-permission from the publisher since this involves fundraising or commercial services (no produce derivatives). We have gotten permission from WotC, C7, and others. All except Green Ronin (so far) have been very open about the licensing. (Alas we can't use or recommend any Green Ronin products because their use-licensing requirements create an accounting nightmare). Sorry for the tangent, but hopefully that helps explain a little better. We have an explicit use permission license from Chaosium but also we try to be careful about licensing from the other potential IP holders beyond the BRP system. So anything that is BRP Generic is much less complicated for us to use.

I was looking into the possibility of just taking whatever creatures are in the core book and trying to tweak, but was just checking to see if there was anything published that might have templates that help ease the process and provide examples of non-bipedal PCs to help improve the process and reduce the dependence on heavy not-in-print house-ruling (if possible). We're fine with saying, use this rule and not this rule, but if we're making up rules whole cloth that makes it harder for knowledge transfer when training our game masters.

I like the BRP system in general in Stormbringer, CoC, etc. But only have the core RPG book as far as "Generic BRP". Most of what I can find that isn't heavily linked to a specific Intellectual Property (IP), that is generic BRP seems out of print of few options, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places or wrong keywords. When I try searching for BRP or Basic Role-playing it is drowned in the IP-locked versions and very little generic. Is there a comprehensive list somewhere of non-IP-locked BRP books that are still in-print or print-on-demand?

Does that help clarify?

Thanks again for your suggestions. I have some of those books and will check out the others.

Cheers!

 

 

 

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The following D100 books are in print and easy to get:

The Bestiary for RuneQuest:Roleplaying in Glorantha has informations for Centaurs [and Baboons, Driders aka Scorpion Men  etc.]. Mythras Core Rules has Centaurs and some other quadrupeds, too.
The MYTHRAS supplement Worlds United has land octopi  (Marsians) as player characters.
Classic Fantasy for MYTHRAS has many D&Dish monsters translated to D100.
Monster Island for MYTHRAS has many unique creatures (sword&sorcery genre). Many non-bipedal creatures.
Magic World has a big bestiary chapter. There are some creatures that could be interesting for you, for example the Chonchons (bodyless heads with big ears).
I would also recommended the supplements for M-SPACE. They are for MYTHRAS and full of material for sc-ifi campaigns and aliens.
The MYTHRAS supplement Odd Soot gives you five crazy alien races in the vein you are searching for.


All these supplements are pretty new with lots of creatures you could use for your game.

 

Edited by prinz.slasar
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+1 on the very unusual vibe & creatures in Odd Soot!

And of course all the other books, supplements, &c as recommended above.

There's also newly re-available "All the World's Monsters" trio, likely to have useful content!  I think those have over 200 monsters per book, so ... 700ish in total?

And there's at least one Bestiary-type fan project available for d/l here on BRPCentral.

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21 hours ago, RPG Research said:

Greetings. We are wanting to try a campaign where all of the PCs are non-humanoids. Such as centaurs, driders, gas cratures, land octopi, etc. The rules seem to make this generally possible. Are there any specific additional resources anyone would recommend to help us with this process? Specific books or other sources? This is a multiverse setting that starts out initially magical fantasy dystopic setting, but over time has mixture of science fiction etc.

The D100 Family has traditionally used the mantra of "The Monsters are People too". What this means, in practice, is that monsters get experience points, have plans and lives and so on. It also means that Players can play a non-human as easily as playing a human.

Generally, D100 games have a series of Cultures that a PC can belong to. These can be very general or can be specific. General cultures go along the lines of Primitive, Nomad, Barbarian and Civilised. Specific Cultures can be Orc, Troll, Centaur and so on. General cultures are usually the easiest to use for non-humans, as you just apply the increases to the listed skills, regardless of what the non-human is, so a Primitive Centaur gets the same cultural boosts as a Primitive Land Octopus. You might need to make some adjustments, so if a Culture has a Climb skill, then it makes sense for a Centaur PC to get a Run skill instead. Having done that, you then go onto Professions, which are also not tied to a specific type of creature, so a Troll Alchemist has the same skills as a Centaur Alchemist.

It really is that easy to have non-humans in a D100 game.

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I have been running a non-humanoid campaign for a couple of years. Mine was settled undersea, with mermen as player characters. If you are building that world, my suggestion is try create as many features as you can, it will let the players understand better their characters. I ended thinking about their social structure, the gender roles, what they eat, how they write, their architecture, underwater senses and orientation, and many other small details.

Don't fear to create your own stats if you don't find exactly what you have in mind!

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On 8/22/2019 at 5:41 PM, prinz.slasar said:

The following D100 books are in print and easy to get:

The Bestiary for RuneQuest:Roleplaying in Glorantha has informations for Centaurs [and Baboons, Driders aka Scorpion Men  etc.]. Mythras Core Rules has Centaurs and some other quadrupeds, too.
The MYTHRAS supplement Worlds United has land octopi  (Marsians) as player characters.
Classic Fantasy for MYTHRAS has many D&Dish monsters translated to D100.
Monster Island for MYTHRAS has many unique creatures (sword&sorcery genre). Many non-bipedal creatures.
Magic World has a big bestiary chapter. There are some creatures that could be interesting for you, for example the Chonchons (bodyless heads with big ears).
I would also recommended the supplements for M-SPACE. They are for MYTHRAS and full of material for sc-ifi campaigns and aliens.
The MYTHRAS supplement Odd Soot gives you five crazy alien races in the vein you are searching for.


All these supplements are pretty new with lots of creatures you could use for your game.

 

Everyone should own Monster Island!

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Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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