Site Introductions

[Charlie D.]

I've been roleplaying since the 80s starting with AD&D 1E and Gamma World 1E. I've never played CoC (although I like Lovecraft stories) or BRP although I own a few RuneQuest and Mongoose RQ rules. The Chronicles of Future Earth, the free Quickstart, and some posts on this forum lured me into buying the rules for BRP. I'm going to give my Pathfinder group the choice to try BRP (PF is wonderful but the paperwork is heavy).

I'm more into BRP to start because of the setting of Future Earth. Once I learn the rules, though, the open nature of the rules may be something I want to try my hand at building onto.

[Agentorange]

Welcome aboard ! if you own some RQ and MRQ then most of BRP will make perfect sense to you, they're all part of the same family to a greater or lesser degree.

[Alex Sandoval]

I'm Alex and I was born in 74. Started playing the old D&D red box edition in 82 and had a great group of gammers. The simplicity of the rules influnced my group to focus more on roleplaying rather than anything else and after moving through every book put out for old D&D we moved on to AD&D. My players kept their roleplaying style and I liked the expansion of skills and powers but didn't realize until later that it was, what I believe, the spawning of the age of min-maxers and Monty Haul.

Thankfully my original group remained immune, but as I started to meet younger players who started in AD&D, the unsavory playing styles seemed more ingrained in them. All the way up through high school we gradually lost players from our original group one by one. My new groups seemed like cardboard cutouts who's most redeeming features were they were conduits for their list of equipment lists buldging at the seems with easily gotten magic items. Oh, how I wished I could show them or had the eloquence to explain to them what they were missing.

After DMing for the newer groups for a number of years I became disheartened that the rule books these players were so despirately clinging to were muddling their vision so they couldn't see what they were missing. Every tactic I tried only seemed to enhance their death grip on the rules like a drownding man clinging to a life preserver.

Realizing that I and my ,then, poor communication skills were part of the problem I bowed out as a DM thus ending my 12 year DMing streak. I took up a part as a player and had fun on and off but always with a nagging sensation that there was more fun to be had than these megar, intermitten, moments.

Since then I started looking to other systems and jumping from one gaming group to another. I was a GM for some and simply playing in others, but learnig from each of them.

Then about 8 years ago a friend asked me over for a home brewed BPR game about Vikings. I loved every minuite of it and have been hooked ever since. The no kid gloves approach to combat was refreshing. The conscise, yet full-featured, and intuitive rules made such a rich roleplaying experience where the story came first. The skill based system and progression would leave an avenue of growth, uncertainty, and challenge for characters of any level.

It was then I could finally articulate my frustrations with the gamming industry. My love for the fantasy setting and fondness for the familiar vehicle of D&D became constant growing embers of furstration as I watched the system "progress."

When I first started, my gaming was paper, pencil, and a rich world of imaginagion & possibiliteis. As the industries need for money grew I saw more and more books that were needed to play the game. Then it turned into rules that you needed miniutres to fully express and utalize the system. Finally it became a giant plug for online gamming that solely mimics every aspect of an online MMORPG but lacks the immediate gratification of online play that they probaplly charge you $10-$15 per month to play.

In today's immediate gratificaton, disposible, independent culture I feel BRP is the easiest route back to true role-playing. Back to the richness of the imagination and possibilities armed only with a paper & pencil. A way to shed the shackles of these "things we need to play the game." These very things, that although nice, are getting in the way of our imaginations.

BRP is my bastion of hope, my road to freedom, and my word to those who are choking on the status quo and don't even realize it. Now I know that the things I have written may sound a bit pretentious but I am not here to change everyone to my way of playing or seeing gaming the way I do. It is just so hard for me to imagine that such a group of imaganitive, creative, and open minded people can all be so satified with the status quo that they will blindly play someone elses game where the only people who are actually using their imagination are the writers that write the books and are not even in our gaming group.

Now my only fear is that the open and vast possibilities of the BRP may cause sticker shock as I intoduce it to new players.

[wbcreighton]

Welcome.

Have you checked over the free BRP quick start rules ?

And have you seen the Fantasy Grounds software ? There is a ruleset for BRP.

[Jegergryte]

All right, howdy all!

I started my career doing this sort of interaction in a shared imaginary space some, oh soon 20 years ago, I was an early starter by some standards, started up with the Red and Blue books of D&D when I was about 8-9…

Since then I’ve tried out a series of games, some of which include the various incarnations of the Star Wars RPGs, MERP, RMSS, HARP, HARP SF (beta testing), 7th Sea, Legend of the 5 Rings, Vampire, Millenniums End, Babylon 5 (Chameleon Eclectic’s version), returned to test out D&D 3rd edition, stopped that quickly, Icar (free sci-fi rpg, good stuff), Spacemaster: Privateers… that sort of sums up the old and good experiences…

I never got to test out Call of Cthulu (shame on me), but I was never into the scary horror stuff… some time back I got my hands on Mongoose’s RQ, which was interesting, we played it for a while, but it never really amounted to much of a campaign. Then, fairly recently, I found BRP in the shape and form of a big golden book all sealed inside plastic, so I had to buy it to see how this game was. I’m still leafing through it, but I’m liking what I see, especially the flexibility of it, which I guess is why most people would love the system.

For the first oh 12 years I was mainly GMing, but after moving to Britain for some studying I got someone there to GM, so I’ve started to enjoy being a player too, something I really didn’t get the chance to earlier… for some reason a lot of people are either afraid of GMing or they just don’t want to… The past two years have been scarce on the gaming side, partly because of new studies, less gamers in the social circle and those who are, well, they tend to be busy drinking, working or some other more important activity.

Have a great weekend, I know I will try to have one.

[pansophy]

Hm, OK, after a long time being present in this forum, I think I should say something about me as well, as so many people here do.

I'm a RPG gamer since 1987, starting with a german RPG called "Das Schwarze Auge". In the beginning it was similar to AD&D, not really rules heavy and fun to play. We played that game in a group of up to 9 players plus GM and had years of fun with it, until 1993. I love to remember these days, the atmosphere and the social fun.

Anyway, an other group of friends and I tried the game 2300AD - it was a blast. Since it was hard to get the rules in Germany somewhere We desperately photocopied everything we could find and even put cash together to order one or two books from oversees. It was one of our most favoured games ever.

Then there was Call of Cthulhu, a german version as well. It was pretty close to the english original -unlike the german versions you can but nowadays- and since our fantasy "Das Schwarze Auge" group wanted to switch to something 'mature' we started playing CoC. What can I say: it was mind blowing ! Horror and investigation haunted our dreams (well, not really, but ...) and we enjoyed playing it in a dark part of our attic, frightening everybody.

After about 5 years our group fell apart and only occasionally I got a chance to play any RPG - life changed and other interests came up.

Since then I was a collector, my bookshelf grew steadily and my harddrive needed to be extended once a year. A recent scan shows my RPG PDF folder is about 12 GB now. Nearly all of them I did read, but only a few left a memory. Most of them were bland or average stuff - nice to have, fun to read, but not particularly impressive. And as many, I was on my hunt to find "the one set of rules for everything".

Since 2001 I have found a new group to play RPGs with. It is mainly a setting that you could describe as Suzerain - a setting where horror, magic, technology, time trave, space travel, everything you can imagine, is possible. This gives our group the possibility to nearly enjoy any genre while keeping the same characters (or their relatives) active in the stories. It is the one setting where I actually had to 'retire' some characters because of their age. And the first group is now about to reach their end of lifespan.

During this Suzerain setting I changed the rule system many times. SOmetimes because we got bored of one system, sometimes because one system did not work for us. And sometimes, because it was a one-shot game for an evening (which translates into a dream within the setting ). It's really fun to do it if the players are with you, but so far we always enjoyed it. A good reason to do this was to keep the group together. Whenever I heard players talking about "ah, it would be nice to try that system / game", I took advantage of our freeform setting and threw the players into a new world - with changed rules. Doing this, I never lost a player because he got bored or because he wanted to play something else. Oh, and no, I am not the only GM in the group - we rotate that position every once and then.

Over the time, we found the BRP rules the most flexible, customisable and sturdy ruleset. You literally can throw anything at it and it will be able to handle it. That said, BRP is by far the one with the most realistic feeling. My take is, it's because of the percentage rolls.

Barbarians of Lemuria is our one-shot system of choice. Easy, fast, not too realistic and rules light. It is a perfect "Dream World" simulater where everything is a bit foggy and unfathomable.

There are many more systems we tried, but these two are the ones we use on a regular basis. Others were given a try, but they did not hook us. Mostly every system that has lists for "Perks, Advantages, Stunts, etc" which keep increasing as part of character advancement and these "ever increasing hitpoints" rules are systems we do not like and put aside without trying them after reading the rules.

Our house rules incorporate a lot of rules taken from other systems, using these ideas to introduce them into our BRP world. Every once in a while there is something good out there which ideally connects to BRP in a way, like Minion rules.

Recently I put together our 2300AD rules for BRP which we use for a few years now in our setting. It was a collection of loose notes scattered through the original box from GDW. It got me thinking to write them down in a more usable way and make them public, so I asked Marc Miller and two of the artists if they are ok with that.

To my surprise they were very friendly and helpful, especially Richard Spake who offered to give me even more artwork to make the book a bit nicer - and all for free. That was an amazing aspect and I hope some people find the rules and the SciFi character sheet useful and get their own ideas running.

OK, that's my story.

[Lord Loaf]

Hello everyone.

I'm Leon and I live in south east England. I've been roleplaying since the very late 80's, starting out with things like 2nd edition Paranoia, Classic Traveller and Advanced Fighting Fantasy. Never really got into AD&D during those early years, even if I do admit to some fairly long D20 campaigns post 2001. I haven't tried nearly as many systems as some of you (from what I gather from some of the rather impressive lists I've seen on here) but I have tried a few.

The last four or so years have been rather dry, gaming wise. After finishing one or two rather lengthy (6+ years) campaigns our group ended up on hiatus. Looking for something fresh and new just compounded our lethargy, as nothing on the market really caught our attention. This led to a few abortive games and then a burnout.

But, now most of us are gagging for some RP action and since BRP has long been my personal favourite, I have started delving in to the hobby again, and have begun GMing a campaign of Fading Suns using BRP, alongside my sporadic Iron Kingdoms game.

Anyway, enough waffle from me. I thought I might as well say hello rather than continue lurking about in the shadows of the forum like some sort of weird BRP pervert.

So . . . Hello!

[Mankcam]

Hi everyone,

I've lurked here for the past six months or so, and thought it was time to show my face, considering it's such a great site with an active forum.

I'm from Australia, and roleplaying isn't all that big over here, but we have our little 'clusters' here and there...

I was introduced to roleplaying as a 12 yr old way back in 1984 with Figthing Fantasy gamebooks, and then the Fighting Fantasy pocket rpg rule. Well that was lifechanging. My older cousin was an avid roleplayer, and he upgraded me to RuneQuest a year later, and I remember getting the RQ2 box for Christmas 1985. By 1987 I had upgraded to Avalon Hill's RQ3, and I guess RQ/BRP has been my favourite gaming engine ever since. During the late '80s my troupe played AD&D (briefly, grrrr) and ICE (MERP, Rolemaster), but I only ever GMed RuneQuest.

During the 1990s my GM tastes expanded to other settings and also other systems.

To date these are the games I've GM'd:

BRP Chaosium (RuneQuest, Call of Cthuhlu, Stormbringer, Nephilim, and now 'The Golden Book')

BRP OGL (purchased MRQ, more for supplements than system; also BRP ROME; interested in other BRP OGL products)

ICE (ie MERP, Rolemaster, Cyberspace, HARP)

White Wolf's WoD, both old and new incarnations (ie Vampire, Mage, Werewolf, Dark Ages Inquisitor)

White Wolf's Aeon setting (eg Adventure, Aberrant)

D20 OGL (ie D&D 3E, True20, Conan)

Issaries Inc (Hero Wars, HeroQuest)

GURPS

Shadowrun (only played, never GM'd)

Savage Worlds (multiple settings, and tried to run a SW Glorantha as well)

Out of all of them though I think my favourites have been White Wolf's Storyteller system, and of course BRP. I have always been a big fan of Chaosium, not only for their system, but for the content they put into their supplements. Some of the setting books for CoC are just great to read, they really have done Lovecraft quite well.

Recently I have really felt at home returning to BRP. I think if I want to play a 'Pulp' game I'll go to White Wolf or Savage Worlds, but for all other flavours I'll certainly stick with my true love of BRP. I absolutely love having this new BRP corebook (aka The Golden Book), and it seems to have reinvigorated my interest in the BRP system - I love the familarity I have with it, and the fact it is intuitive, smooth, yet 'crunchy' as well. I love combat, it really feels quite tactile at times, great for a Bronze/Iron Age setting rpg - Mongoose should look at porting CONAN into it alongside RuneQuest I reckon.

I came to the rpg hobby as it was growing phenomena, and I actually yearn for the early days of 'less is better'. Hell I remember not even having photocopies of original character sheets and just stating up PCs on scratch paper - I'ld never want to return to that, but there was something liberating about it all the same. BRP represents to me a system which you can buy numerous settings for, yet feel confident that you have all you need in the one core rulebook at the gaming table - and even then, as long as you've made up a little GM screen of tables then that's all you really neeed for occasonal reference. It's so intuitive that you can play most of it out without any formal references, which for me is worth it's weight in gold, freeing my imagination up to get on with the buisness of role-playing, not 'rule-playing'.

Anyway, that about sums it up - I've been gaming over half my life, always returning to some incarnation of BRP. That's pretty much why I'm here, I just love everything BRP, and I thought it was time to stop lurking about.

cheers

Edited April 3, 2011 by Mankcam

[GianniVacca]

I'm from Australia

Welcome, mate!

[Mankcam]

G'day 'GianniVacca'

I see you love your Glorantha as well!

[Cheimison]

Hey. I am new to the site, and have recently begun designing a setting for a home game borrowing heavily from RuneQuest/HeroQuest, H.P. Lovecraft and assorted real-life religions.

I play all sorts from fantasy to superheroes, but I tend to like lots of setting material and depth, not necessarily all pre-conceived but also allowed to expand during play.

Game Master:

Risus

Dungeons & Dragons (OD&D-3e)

Mutants & Masterminds

Player

Call of Cthulhu

Elric

D&D (0-3rd Ed)

[Dahak]

Hi, everyone!

I've been gaming since 1983. RuneQuest 3rd Edition was my first non-TSR gaming product. Throughout the years I've tried too many systems to count, but have leaned towards universal systems, having went through GURPS, Hero System, MasterBook, D6 System, Savage Worlds and True20. All the while, I played a smattering of whatever the current version of D&D was, along with Call of Cthulhu. I've had the BGB since shortly after its distribution release, but only recently made use of it.

I'm currently running a game that is loosely based on Tim LaHaye's Left Behind series, but with a Mythos twist. I used Hero System for the first session, but didn't find it as comfortable as I once remembered, so we decided to switch to Savage Worlds but couldn't get the characters converted to my satisfaction. BRP was our third choice; it turned out we should have used it from day one, as a good time was had by all. Anyway, I'm here now and happy to be part of the BRP revival.

[Atheorem]

Hi. I think I'm relatively new to RP compared to many of those before me. I got invited to play AD&D one summer in 2002 and again in 2003, and I eventually bought my own books to start a gaming group in spring 2004. I've been a very dedicated gamer ever since, although I think my friends and I are just now at the apex of our gaming days.

I began with D&D v3.5 on my own, and kept to that system for over 4 years. I bought into the Pathfinder hype after 4E came out, as I didn't like the direction 4E was going in. Once I realized Pathfinder was essentially a re-packaged v3.5 with added preservatives I began looking into new systems. I found Savage Worlds Explorer's Edition, which my group and I have been using for about two years. I knew about Call of Cthulhu and always wanted to play it, so I suggested it to my friend who was looking to run a campaign. I went ahead and bought BRP since to my understanding they are at a foundation the same exact system. Reading through my big gold book, I realized how much I like the system. Savage Worlds has always irked me in some ways, although it met my main concern which is "which system allows me more freedom from accounting?"

I'm currently in the process of converting a Savage Worlds Dark Sun campaign into the BRP system. I've already gone so far as to design my own character sheet (I always create character sheets in photoshop for every major campaign I run). I'm taking in the rules of the system while establishing what options and house rules I'll be using. Some of which change some core characteristics and things.

I'm here to pose questions for when I have them, in hopes of not posing a threat to any sacred balance within BRP I'm bound to disturb.

Edited July 1, 2011 by Atheorem

[Charnadis]

Bonjour. Comment allez vous? I'm Charnadis. I'm a 42 year old gamer that likes fantasy games and books. I started my roleplaying with Runequest and Call of Cthulhu, then went on to Stormbringer and its later versions. I'm into Jack Vance and Clark Ashton Smith and Chronicles of Future Earth was the natural choice for my latest game. This site looks like THE definative BRP site on the net. I have vowed not to be a lurker any more and to try to support this site by actively posting on it.

Edited August 20, 2011 by Charnadis
I hate introductions. They make me nervous.

[rust]

Welcome to all the newcomers.

[Zit]

Hi,

I've been haunting this forum for a couple of months and just discovered this thread.

I'm French and have been playing rpg since 1982 (if remember well), starting to play and to realy learn English with RQ2, which I'm still playing now with GianniVacca. I played a bit of D&D, CoC, Légendes and tasted a few others like T&T, Empire Galactique and a few more (even once a home-made "Squad Leader-Dungeon"=O). I wrote settings for Mesopotamia and for Asian Steppes. I'm currently working on the latest with Soltkass' help for possible publication.

I'm currently living in Germany, quite close to Bacharach , and am refereeing a blog-game in RQ2-Prax.

I'd also like to congratulate and thank all those who allow us to meet each others and share our passion.

[GianniVacca]

I'm currently refereeing a blog-game in RQ2-Prax.

http://rqzit.over-blog.com/ should anyone be interested

[Max_Writer]

Hey all. I'm new to the forums but go by the name Andy Miller in real life. I'm a writer and used to work for a local daily small-town newspaper. I currently write less - but have a monthly column in Knights of the Dinner Table Magazine (Lost Game Safari) wherein I review out-of-print games. I also ran quite a bit of Call of Cthulhu when I could, with a campaign that lasted from 07 to 09 where I was able to scare a few, give nightmares to one player, and even startle a real-life jail guard during one game. Good times. I also write role playing journals and keep them online for the most part. The entire Call of Cthulhu campaign and several other games I've run for the last few years can be found in the links in my signature below. If anyone wants to read them, I'd love feedback.

Basic Role Playing (ala Call of Cthulhu) is my favorite. I'm hoping to get the actual BRP for Christmas this year and see what I can do with it.

Edited December 10, 2011 by Max_Writer

[Guest Vile Traveller]

Welcome to Central, Max_Writer. Knights of the Dinner Table, cool!

[Midgardormr]

I'm Midgardormr. I am hoping to get Mythic Iceland in the dead tree version to run a campaign for my local RPG club. I already have both versions of RQ Vikings and have run those in the past, but I like the new look BRP and want to give it a go with a setting that I really like.

[Conrad]

Welcome to all the newbies, and a merry Xmas to you all.

[kafka]

The name's kafka, well actually Franz but I take the most famous of Franzes and make it my own. I live in the Czech Republic and have lived in Canada...but largely call Europe my home.

I started with BRP when a picked up a 3rd Edition (Games Workshop) Call of Cthulhu rulebook from a local comic shop. I had a vague inkling about what Cthulhu was about from reading White Dwarf articles and more importantly adventures. When I found the rulebook really did not support what I was thinking about - kinda investigative Indiana Jones horror. The rulebook sat on my shelf and was eventually sold. But, all the while Cthulhu gnawed at me, as I read all of Lovecraft's works and many of his contempories and later hacks. I found the horror aspect most intriguing.

Eventually, I bought a 5.5e rulebook, a number of supplements from Chaosium. Found there a very playable game. But, still was lacking. Found the Unspeakable Oath in my local gaming shop - immediately, I found something that was right. Bought other Pagan supplements and found what Cthulhu was missing was contained there within. Then I came across Delta Green...and there was something I liked but at the same time did not like. Thus began my move toward making Cthulhu my own exploration of horror. I think Pagan and Pelgrane do it very well. Although, I find something not quite right about DG. Worlds of Cthulhu brought me back to loving BRP after a brief flirt with d20 Cthulhu.

Now, I am completely floored by Cthulhu Rising and the possible application of BRP to a wider set of games beyond Cthulhu. This, in turn, has triggered my earlier passion for an Indiana Jones investigative horror and numerous other possibilities.

Now, onto my gaming history, like most began with D&D and was wowed by it back in 1981. Next game was Cthulhu in about 1983. Quickly followed by Traveller in 1985. Stayed with Traveller to the present day. Left (A)D&D with 2e over what I perceived to be fundamental changes to the rules and did not like those changes.

Played all sorts of games from 1981 to present day...but the ones that are closest to my heart are AD&D 1e, Traveller and Cthulhu but not necessarily in that order. Best system is BRP, second best is GUMSHOE then comes a 2d6. No longer really interested fantasy either as a reading pastime nor as a gaming experience. Mainly interested in Non Fiction hence my games are wanting always to be grounded in the Real World with Larger than Life characters which is why I think I keep coming back to BRP.

[Zit]

Wellcome aboard! When do you write us a kafkaian Prag BRP game? A kind of early 20th century Paranoia with a bit of Chtulhu...

[Galahad de Corbenic]

I’ve been lurking here for awhile and figured it was time to finally come out of the cold.

My first exposure to RPGs was through Basic D&D sometime around 1979 or 1980. By the mid 1980s I (along with my circle of friends) had switched to GURPS, and by the mid-1990s I was playing computer RPGs instead of tabletop games: Games like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights, and Fallout. I probably would have never looked back, had it not been for someone who replicated The Keep on the Borderlands for Neverwinter Nights. I went back and looked at that old module, and I got the itch to do some table-top gaming again.

I’m a newcomer to BRP. While some of my friends did own copies of Runequest and Stormbringer back in the early 1980s, for some reason, we never actually played those games. By the time my circle of friends was ready for a class-less, skill-based game, GURPS was coming out and filled that need. But when I looked at it again after a hiatus of more than a decade, GURPS didn’t seem like such a great game anymore. I went looking for a new game, stumbled across GORE, and found BRP and its derivatives, particularly Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, and OpenQuest – these are my favorites, now-a-days.

Thanks to all who post here – I’ve found this site to be quite informative!

[348 White]

Hi John White here, I've just started my account in BRP Central.

I started RPG in the 70's with D&D and Traveller and the good times just kept rolling.

348