Future of spirit magic/divine magic ?

[Agentorange]

Looking at the info provided on the game so far it looks as though the old spirit magic/divine magic model of RQ and BRP has been ditched. Does Chaosium plan to release this as part of a BRP companion or something similiar ?

I ask because it's a model that has served many people well and would provide a nice alternative to the magic rules as proposed, it would seem a shame to let it disapear after all these years, I'm kind of surprised it wasn't proposed as an optional sysytem within the rulebook.

I don't see that there would be any conflict with MRQ as they've already altered the names and text to make MRQ and so by definition the chaosium version has to be different , thus there are no copyright problems.

[badcat]

I would think it will be present in some form, as the book is supposed to include all previously printed BRP rules options.

And it is supposed to have 386 pages, or thereabouts, to do it in.

[Enpeze]

I think spirit/divine magic was more a RQ system than BRP. Maybe G. Stafford has the rights on this. Or they just thought that it is too Glorantha specific to be of use for generic fantasy.

[Trifletraxor]

I would think it will be present in some form, as the book is supposed to include all previously printed BRP rules options.

And it is supposed to have 386 pages, or thereabouts, to do it in.

According to the sneak-peek, spirit and divine magic will not be part of the core rulebook at least. A shame really, as they were well-working magic systems.

SGL.

[Jarulf]

Still, at least for those of us who already have RQIII (and perhaps MRQ), it should be a simple thing to convert. And there's always Sandy's different magic rules and whatnot on the net.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this is another book though.

And Chaosium have the RQIII-by-another-name monographs so presumably they can do what they want with the mechanics for future products

[badcat]

I actually never liked the spirit/divine split much anyway, but maybe it will be handled through the options side-bars? It was such an integral part of RQ I can't believe it won't be present in some form.

[Agentorange]

I actually never liked the spirit/divine split much anyway, but maybe it will be handled through the options side-bars? It was such an integral part of RQ I can't believe it won't be present in some form.

I hope they do work it in somehow, I don't think there will be a problem vis a vis MRQ, as already noted Chaosium still have the magic book monograph available, since RQ3 was generic as long as there are no Gloranthan references they should be ok. It'd be nice if they could cut a deal with Sandy Peterson and use his revised Shaman and Sorcery rules as I thought they were an improvement on the ones in the book.

For me thats one of the beauties of the BRP system, you've got a basic ruleset that can be tweaked ( sometimes severely tweaked ) yet still remain compatible with the main rules and often with the other variants of the rules.

[Sorloc]

I actually never liked the spirit/divine split much anyway, but maybe it will be handled through the options side-bars? It was such an integral part of RQ I can't believe it won't be present in some form.

I did.

I liked it a lot, and it's one of my favorite parts of the Rolemaster magic system - Channeling (magic from a supernatural source), Essence (magic from life force all around), and Mentalism (magic from the power of your mind / will / spirit)

I even liked the Sorcery system, but I know a lot of people had trouble with it. I saw it as kind of like the Champions! system - it was *different* - a different paradigm - you had to learn to see things differently (e.g. a car isn't a *car*, it's an Obvious, Accessable Focus allowing Running +24", Environmental control, Extended Hearing (Radio), Force Wall PD 8, ED 4, etc...)

Once you 'got it', it was easy, and made sense... RQIII Sorcery was like that. You had a base effect, and you chose the parameters of it as you cast it. Interestingly, Iron Crown (I.C.E.) stole the system (apparantly unknowingly) and used it in HARP.

Oh, I'm not saying I got it right away... it did take years (not of continuous effort, of course)... really, I guess it just took actually trying to play a Sorcerer for a while, along with the experience of Champions and Ars Magica (building effects from components).

<snip>. It'd be nice if they could cut a deal with Sandy Peterson and use his revised Shaman and Sorcery rules as I thought they were an improvement on the ones in the book.

That sounds familiar... like some long lost arcane knowledge...

Can you help me out with a few more details?

[badcat]

For me, I never had much use for any of the RQ3 magic, it seemed too fiddly. I kept wishing someone would publish the Magic World magic system in an expanded form, and meanwhile worked up my own based on that. So I'll be OK either way. And in any case, I am very much looking forward to seeing just what Jason did include and how it will work together. There will hopefully be at least some material about integrating the different powers systems together.

[Enpeze]

WoW magic system. Dont you think that with its spells defined as skills it is very similar to RQ3 magic? (sorcery) A kind of simple precursor.

[Agentorange]

That sounds familiar... like some long lost arcane knowledge...

Can you help me out with a few more details?

After RQ3 came out Sandy Peterson released a revised set of shamanry and sorcery rules for RQ. The shamanry rules basically added all sorts of shamanic powers and options to the ones in the magic book and made shamen much much scarier than they had been. The sorcery rules fixed some of the problems in the RQ3 edition, added lots of new spells and Gloranthan sorcery sects ( though the spells could obviously be used in a non gloranthan game with a bit of work ) and the idea of saints ( very Gloranthan in concept, as they were tied to the malkioni church )

Sorcery rules here:

http://www.geocities.com/rtrmrq/house.htm

mmm....it looks like most of the sites with the revised shaman rules are gone, but there is a set here:

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.glorantha.to/~tome/lib/library2.htm&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Drunequest%2BRevised%2BShaman%2BRules%26start%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

you'll need to do some formatting. if anybody else has a link to the revised rules please feel free to post it

[Jarulf]

A prettier version of the Shaman rules can be found here

http://users.tkk.fi/~vberghol/rq/shamans.html

[Agentorange]

Thank you jarulf ! Another set, along with rules for sorcery, alchemy and much other Runequest goodness may be found here:

http://karamo.nexenservices.com/glowar/rqgb.htm

[Jarulf]

Excellent!

Time to add some links, Sverre. ;-)

[Agentorange]

Check out the links list on Sverre's other site : The Greenback Clan's portal to Runequest. Has the biggest link list for RQ, BRP, Glorantha, Herowars etc anywhere on the net ( including foreign language links )

There's a link to that site from this site.

[Lord Twig]

Personally I never liked Sandy's new sorcery rules. They added to much complexity for very little return, IMHO.

I also liked the spirit magic rules form RQ3 and hope they are include in the Core book (doesn't look like it) or an expansion. Coupled with the spirit rules it made playing a shaman worthwhile.

[Chaot]

I would think it will be present in some form, as the book is supposed to include all previously printed BRP rules options.

I think the concept was to include all the rules variants and tie them together as a unified whole except for magic. In fact, first version of the playtest rules had used an expanded superpowers mechanic to cover all genres and didn't have other magic rules.

The upside of this is, if BRP is successful, I would imagine Chaosium would be interested in putting out a BRP Magic Companion. It could contain RQ magic, the stuff from Stormbringer (Summoning, that Unknown East magic varient, Virtues and stuff from the Gods of Law monograph) and expand on the stuff in the main book. I wonder if they'd be able to get the rights to put Contrivances, Meld Magic, Fetish and such from the Corum book?

What other official BRP magic systems are out there?

[Jarulf]

I've never played it, but isn't Nephilim based on BRP?

[Chaot]

I think it is, and that might be a great place to steal hermetic magic from. Thing about Nephilim, I only own the GM's Companion and Liber Ka. I've only made half hearted attempts at reading it. For the life of me I couldn't describe the game from what I've read. If pressed, I'd have to say it kind of reminded me of alchemical scientology.

However, other people have read more of and get the game. They may even be on this thread...

Two other magic system. Rune Magic from the Bronze Grimoire. It's a fun system that could be thrown into a BRP Magic book. Druidic magic from Pendragon (which, despite it's differences, I think it's closely related enough to count).

[Agentorange]

Who's got the publishing rights to Pendragon these days ? White Wolf Publishing maybe ?

[Chaot]

Seems like Peter Corless does. I had thought that it was a licensed product, but I guess he owns it.

Edit: So that would be Green Knight for those keeping score.

[Joseph Paul]

Chaot, a correction if you will. From the referenced article:"In 2004 Corless sold the rights to the Pendragon RPG, along with remaining stock, to White Wolf, who has since published a streamlined fifth edition (2005) and the long-awaited The Great Pendragon Campaign (2006) which details the full 80-year chronology for Pendragon for the first time ever." Bolding is mine.

Joseph Paul

[Chaot]

No worries. I live to be corrected.

[Agentorange]

I never played a lot of Pendragon, but there were two things I really liked about it

1] The family tree/background flow chart, dead handy for filling in character background, establishing wealth, status etc.

2] The geomancy ( is this the right term ? ) aspect of the magic. That is various locations eg standing stones, christian cathedrals etc could boost your casting skills, have a store of magic points you could tap and so on. it had a nice mythical feel to it.