Aquelarra Support?

[rsanford]

Hey Chaosium,

I don't know to what degree you guys were involved in the development and rollout of Aquellarra but this thing is a GEM and it's pure BRP. Please buy it or negotiate to bring it in house or something... And please create some scenarios and campaigns for it in English. Your fans would appreciate it!

[TrippyHippy]

Aquelarre is a gem, although its not pure BRP - just very familiar for those who play BRP and is clearly influenced in its design. 

My understanding is that it is being distributed by Chaosium, after being translated by Nocturnal games into English for a Kickstarter (which has since been fulfilled). I don’t know its current ownership status, but would suggest that the original Spanish game has its own writers and production team, so they are likely to be it. 

 

[rsanford]

3 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Aquelarre is a gem, although its not pure BRP - just very familiar for those who play BRP and is clearly influenced in its design. 

My understanding is that it is being distributed by Chaosium, after being translated by Nocturnal games into English for a Kickstarter (which has since been fulfilled). I don’t know its current ownership status, but would suggest that the original Spanish game has its own writers and production team, so they are likely to be it. 

 

I would say it's as close to bog standard BRP as CoC is - at least. It really should be in Chaosium's wheelhouse if they can get it. There are several scenarios available but most of them are in Spanish. I bought all the English stuff. It's really a great, great product!

[Rick Meints]

While we did purchase Pendragon/Paladin and Prince valiant related IP/Copyrights from Nocturnal media, we did not purchase Aquelarre or any of their other properties.

Our involvement with their other games is focused on order fulfillment only.

[rsanford]

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

While we did purchase Pendragon/Paladin and Prince valiant related IP/Copyrights from Nocturnal media, we did not purchase Aquelarre or any of their other properties.

Our involvement with their other games is focused on order fulfillment only.

Too bad as I think Chaosium could probably do more with the title than Nocturnal - but I do understand! Thanks Chaosium for helping out with fulfillment!

[g33k]

If Chaosium didn't ALREADY have a bunch o' work on their plates with existing product lines, I imagine they'd seriously consider doing licensed Aquelarre supplements, or making some other offer.

But I doubt they currently have the resources (available time).

I'm not Chaosium, though.

[RogerDee]

What is Aquelarra? Never heard of this of product.

[MOB]

1 hour ago, RogerDee said:

What is Aquelarra? Never heard of this of product.

https://www.chaosium.com/blogannouncing-aquelarre-the-best-rpg-not-available-in-english-now-available-in-english

[rsanford]

1 hour ago, RogerDee said:

What is Aquelarra? Never heard of this of product.

Here is the description from Drivthrurpg...

Carts full of corpses slide through the muddy streets of a deserted city. Monks copy manuscripts silently in their cold monastery rooms. A hammer falls again and again on glowing red metal in a blacksmith shop. Fragrant flowers perfume private courtyard gardens. Grim and silent soldiers march the dusty roads in search of enemies, both infidel or faithful. This is the world of the Middle Ages, which our ancestors knew, and which shaped our present.

But beyond this human world, in the most shadowy depths of the woods, in the loneliest cave, in the most obscure cell, in the dimmest chambers of the human heart, legends live. Here, demons haunt castles, elves skulk in the forest, alchemists concoct spells, and witches laugh and laugh around their campfire in a forest clearing bathed in moonlight, as the demon sitting among them raises his goatish head and grins, directly at you, dear reader, saying, "Welcome to the aquelarre; welcome to the coven."

It's basically a D100 game (extremey similar to BRP) that takes place in medevial Spain. In the game the players embark on adventure fighting demons and haunts and maybe occasionaly angels. Its an extremely realistic (to the middle ages) game with the beliefs of the time effectively modeled for the players.

[rsanford]

I am still reading the book but one of the most striking things is how rational and irrational is defined in the book (and the amount of irrationality or rationality enables certain characters to do things like magic or divine favors). In the book to be rational is to believe in the church of the time and all they teach about Angels and such. So its not defined like we define it today. Irationality is the belief in the occult and such. Having a high irrationality score is vital for someone using magic, having a high rational score is vital for a priest character,

[el_octogono]

It is a great game. I played the first edition in the 90s. It had some very nice mechanics like the Rational/Irrational. It also had a d10 hit location based on the 'ones' die that makes the process easier than rolling an additional d20. It also had a skill cap that depends on the characteristic stat. The setting is great but may be too realistic and oppresive, not for casual gaming.

[g33k]

32 minutes ago, el_octogono said:

... It also had a d10 hit location based on the 'ones' die that makes the process easier than rolling an additional d20 ...

Interesting.

As someone who began gaming when a "d10" was actually a real die -- a Platonic Solid d20, marked twice with 0-9 (generally color-coded, red-is-1-10/black-is-11-20) -- instead of this poor warped thing the modern kids play with, I notice that one could d20-ize the Aquelarre hit-location method by noting an even/odd on the 10's die... or... hmmm! ...

 or (and I like this idea even better) by making one of the two d% "d10" dice that original sort of d10 that's actually a d20, and using the d10 & d20 features simultaneously.

Hmmm.

I may even implement this notion!

[Kloster]

What el_octogono meant is that, as in Top Secret S.I., you used the one's die of your D100 to hit roll to determine the hit location.

[rsanford]

So I sent an email to Nocturnal asking if they had other English Aquelarra goodies in the pipeline and I got a email back from Jennifer (Is that Stewart's wife?) saying that what is being sold at Chasoium and on DriveThruRPG is all that will be available for quite some time. So you know what that means... We have to start writing some scenarios and campaigns!

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by rsanford

[g33k]

9 hours ago, Kloster said:

What el_octogono meant is that, as in Top Secret S.I., you used the one's die of your D100 to hit roll to determine the hit location.

Yes, I understood.

 

Now, imagine a d20 marked as 0-9 twice, instead of 1-20.  Functionally, it's a d10, or one half of a d100-pair (either 1's digit or 10's).

You can use it in Aquelarre.  You can use it in BRP but -- if you use BRP/RQ hit-locations -- you need a "real" d20, too.

Now color one of each digit in one of two colors (I most-often used black & red, on preferably-pale dice).  Designate one of the colors as 1-10 and the other color as 11-20.

Roll this d10/d20 as part of your percentile-skill, but ALSO read it as a d20 for hit-location -- same die, read two different ways.

[Kloster]

The D10 dices AH brought in RQ3 deluxe box were of that kind.

[Ian Absentia]

19 hours ago, g33k said:

You can use it in Aquelarre.  You can use it in BRP but -- if you use BRP/RQ hit-locations -- you need a "real" d20, too.

Now color one of each digit in one of two colors (I most-often used black & red, on preferably-pale dice). 

I have yellow and orange dice -- they make me feel cheery when I play.  Can I use these?  What color of ink should I use, and which one should be designated as the higher and which the lower?

Do you just have pictures you can show us?

!i!

[Lordabdul]

21 hours ago, g33k said:

Roll this d10/d20 as part of your percentile-skill, but ALSO read it as a d20 for hit-location -- same die, read two different ways.

Might be easier to just make a different hit location table 😄 (I'm not good with arts & crafts!)

You can also multiply the D20-based hit location table by 5, and use the WFRP method of determining hit location by reversing the 2 dice (so rolling 53 to hit means you hit in the 35 location) (it does have a couple quirks though)

Edited July 21, 2020 by lordabdul

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Ian Absentia said:

I have yellow and orange dice -- they make me feel cheery when I play.  Can I use these?  What color of ink should I use, and which one should be designated as the higher and which the lower?

Do you just have pictures you can show us?

???

It's just a matter of choosing which is which... which is up to you.

No pix of my own dice -- that was 40ish years ago!  Most of them are lost, and their colors worn down & un-refreshed.

But take a die like this one:  http://www.gamescience.com/Microhedra™-d20-0-9-2x-Violet-Plain_p_34.html 

Then use a metallic sharpie in silver, to color in 0-9 of one set, and a black sharpie for the other 0-9.  Pick a mnemonic like "silver lunars are higher-value than darkness bolgs" and you can read the d10-ness (for a percentile roll) AND the d20-ness (for a hit-location) freely.

[Ian Absentia]

I was pulling your leg, and I feel bad about it now.

Sort of.

Okay, not really, but you were so earnest in your explanations.

But here's a photo of my actual favorite d20 / paired percentile dice, c.1984 from my Superworld boxed set!  Note the then-highly-fashionable muted interior design colors of Tidewater Blue and Sandy Taupe (the d8 was Rose Quartz!), and the near Zocchi-like edges and points on those faces.  When you rolled these dice, you knew what you were on about.  And black fine point Sharpie eventually replaced the Flair and uni-ball Micro (both of which faded with handling) for inking in the duplicate numbers for 11 through 20.  Granted, reading results for 1 through 10 was a little more challenging, but our eyes were better back then.

Actually, I kind of lied.  My current favorite d20 / paired percentile dice are actual Lou Zocchi dice that came with my Swords & Glory Tekumel Player's Handbook boxed set in translucent neon orange and day-glo green, with plusses next to the duplicate numbers representing 11 through 20.  I'll save photos of those for later, though @Wayne's Books has a picture of the complete set up on their website now.  You can whittle a marshmallow stick to a point with the edges on those babies.

So...no actual support for a recently-translated core game book?  That's a shame.

!i!

Edited July 23, 2020 by Ian Absentia

[g33k]

On 7/21/2020 at 10:16 PM, Ian Absentia said:

...

But here's a photo of ...

seems to have a permissions issue.  I just see the "minus in circle" logo.  

[Ian Absentia]

Aw, really?  Clear as day on my end.  File size too big?  They're pretty, I can assure you -- in a very early-80s interior decorating sensibility, which still strikes me as an odd (but pleasing) design choice.

But Aquellare!  For all my fondness for Ars Magica, this game scratches an itch of mine more closely.  I'm trying to recall any of the AM material that can be adapted to the setting, and how.

!i!

Edited July 24, 2020 by Ian Absentia
Damned autofill

[SilverSeraph]

The books available are stunning.  It really is a shame this series will go nowhere in the US.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Ian Absentia said:

But Aquellare!  For all my fondness for Ars Magica, this game scratches an itch of mine more closely.  I'm trying to recall any of the AM material that can be adapted to the setting, and how.

The Iberian Tribunal book for ArM3e?

 

[klecser]

Can anybody confirm for me that the "Temperance" secondary characteristic defined in the rulebook is the "Willpower" characteristic listed on the character sheet?