This post does not apply to any BRP game in particular, but to all of them.

[Zulfikar Zaban]

Greetings, I was just curious about you, the people here. You see I know that BRP games, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu mythos,  Pendragon, Nephilim ect. games are based on mythology &  history. I am curious what the people involved as either players or designers and creators backgrounds are in mythology? Did you have any books in particular that set you down the path to mythology and Chaosium Inc. as well, or any that you have found that really were beacons for you? I'm just curious because there is a lot of conversation about gaming with some side talk and references to mythology. It would just be an interesting insight for me and I am curious about you, fellow Tabletop Game's and mythology fans. Your thoughts are appreciated, regards, Victor.

                                                             

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                            

                                                     

[g33k]

BRP began with Runequest.

Runequest was two things -- it was Greg Stafford's world of Glorantha (deeply mythological) combined with the gritty/realistic mechanics developed by the dev-team led by Steve Perrin.

Greg was exploring the Myth / Anthro / Storytelling intersection.  He was being drawn toward the spiritual practice of Shamanism, and was (at the time, though he later came to doubt the perspective) impressed with Joseph Campbell -- Hero with a Thousand Faces, "the monomyth," etc.  I've seen Greg called "The Grand Shaman of Gaming."

On the mechanical side of things, Steve Perrin (who brought The Perrin Conventions to D&D) leaned-in to his experience with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) and their medieval-combat re-creations, in formulating the mechanics of the game.

Edited June 17, 2023 by g33k

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, Zulfikar Zaban said:

I am curious what the people involved as either players or designers and creators backgrounds are in mythology?

Personally, mythology has always influenced me deeply, even though I have not formally studied it.

2 hours ago, Zulfikar Zaban said:

Did you have any books in particular that set you down the path to mythology and Chaosium Inc. as well, or any that you have found that really were beacons for you?

All of Joseph Campbell's books are useful. I found Frazer's Golden Bough informative, although many think he is old-fashioned. I was brought up on Fairy tales, Myths and Legends, so any of those are good.

2 hours ago, Zulfikar Zaban said:

I'm just curious because there is a lot of conversation about gaming with some side talk and references to mythology.

RuneQuest's Glorantha is built on Mythology, so hard-core fans are into that quite a bit.

Pendragon uses Arthurian Mythology, so that is important to the setting.

Call of Cthulhu uses the Cthulhu Mythos (Not to my tase, but others love it).

I am not sure about Nephilim, as I have never seen it, but I am sure it has a basis of Mythology.

The old Stormbringer/Elric/Hawkmoon games were based on Michael Moorcock's excellent novels, which count as sort-of mythology.

So, most of Chaosium's games have always had some mythology associated with them.

[foolcat]

22 hours ago, soltakss said:

I am not sure about Nephilim, as I have never seen it, but I am sure it has a basis of Mythology.

Nephilim is deeply rooted in the Jewish Kabbalah, and more specifically, in the Hermetic Qabalah. Its use of the Tarot, Alchemy/Astrology, and Western Magic/esotericism for game systems and character descriptions is rather blatant. 😉

This is the exact reason why I was drawn to it like the proverbial moth to the flame when it was published back in the mid-90s. I just wish that Chaosium would revisit it at some point in time, preferably within the century, but alas!

And to answer @Zulfikar Zaban’s original question: while I definitely came into contact with Germanic & Nordic myths and sagas during my inadvertently humanistic education, I didn’t find them particularly thrilling at the time (still can’t look a Wagner opera in the eye, they bore me to tears). Later on, I developed a layman’s interest in psychology, viz CG Jung, and constructivists like Watzlawick.

I first came into contact with Chaosium RPGs in the early 90s, and I play them to this day; I guess one reason is that their topos revolves around, or even invokes, myths. 

Edited June 18, 2023 by foolcat

[Nakana]

What brought me to BRP was solely the mechanical system. It’s the most logical, sensible, and versatile collection of mechanics I’ve ever found. 
 

The fact that the system is more often than not applied to richer, more complex mythologies (real world or fantasy) fosters a level of sophistication of which I’m proud to be a part. 
 

Lately, I’ve been on a 2d6 kick that in my current opinion allows for even more gaming versatility (believe it or not), so I’m slowly moving away from d100 and gravitating toward a 2d6 system I’m creating. 

Edited June 21, 2023 by Nakana

[Lofgeornost]

31 minutes ago, Nakana said:

What brought me to BRP was solely the mechanical system. It’s the most logical, sensible, and versatile collection of mechanics I’ve ever found.

I would second this. Although I played a little of Runequest II, I only really became deeply interested in B.R.P. with Runequest III, which switched the default setting to 'Fantasy Earth.' I really liked the mechanics for pseudo-historical games. I guess I'm more interested in depicting interesting and complex societies in games rather than in depicting their mythologies.

I was also attracted to B.R.P. because in the 1980s Chaosium was producing games set in fictional universes I already was interested in--those of Moorcock's Elric and Runestaff series, Larry Niven's Ringworld, and Arthurian literature.

[Mugen]

10 hours ago, Lofgeornost said:

I would second this. Although I played a little of Runequest II, I only really became deeply interested in B.R.P. with Runequest III, which switched the default setting to 'Fantasy Earth.' I really liked the mechanics for pseudo-historical games. I guess I'm more interested in depicting interesting and complex societies in games rather than in depicting their mythologies.

I was also attracted to B.R.P. because in the 1980s Chaosium was producing games set in fictional universes I already was interested in--those of Moorcock's Elric and Runestaff series, Larry Niven's Ringworld, and Arthurian literature.

I am in a similar situation. I discovered BRP with StormBringer, but what really caught my attention was the way RQ3 character creation gave me possibilities to make "ethnologically plausible" worlds. Also, as I was born in 1975, I was too young to read or play RQ2 before RQ3. Which explains why I don't have the connexion RQ2 fans have with Glorantha.

Nowadays, I'm less interested in playing roll-under systems in general, and even in the roll-under d100 family, I prefer Mythras or RD100.

But RQ3 remains an important game in my gaming history.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Mugen

[DreadDomain]

On 6/22/2023 at 3:50 PM, Mugen said:

I am in a similar situation. I discovered BRP with StormBringer, but what really caught my attention was the way RQ3 character creation gave me possibilities to make "ethnologically plausible" worlds. Also, as I was born in 1975, I was too young to read or play RQ2 before RQ3. Which explains why I don't have the connexion RQ2 fans have with Glorantha.

Nowadays, I'm less interested in playing roll-under systems in general, and even in the roll-under d100 family, I prefer Mythras or RD100.

But RQ3 remains an important game in my gaming history.

It echoes my own experience. I unknowingly discovered BRP through Pendragon. When I bought the wrapped-up boxset in 1986 (a boxset that I still have today), I really did not know what the system was like but I was attracted by the idea of playing a knight in the world of Camelot, Excalibur and the Saint Graal. I was ultimately seduced by the game system and had years of good fun with it.

In the meantime, I bought the RQ3 deluxe boxset in a similar fashion, an off the shelves, impulse buy of a wrapped-up box. At the time, I not only knew about RQ2 but I also did not particularly like it as a ruleset. The cover art of the RQ3 boxset and the back of the box blurb just grabbed me by the throat. 

But what really won me over for the long run was the system and more specifically how characters were defined by their culture, their upbringing, their professions, their age, their religion. To this day, I think RQ3's character creation, supported by the options found in Gods of Glorantha and the Glorantha boxsets, is one of the best. These two boxsets cemented my love for Glorantha but the RQ3 system cemented my love for roleplaying in general. Because of it, it made me discover Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer and Hawkmoon.

Having said that, some the settings attached to BRP are amongst my favorite (namely, Glorantha, the Mythos, the Arthurian myths, the Young Kingdoms) and clearly contributed for my ongoing attachment to it. The settings are supporting the system - while I consider RQG to be amongst the weakest BRP ruleset at the moment, the quality of the books and it being joined to Glorantha, makes it a fantastic game. But also, the system is supporting the settings - while there are countless Mythos games out there, Call of Cthulhu is still the best.

Edited June 24, 2023 by DreadDomain

[Chaot]

Mythology is cool and stuff, but I'm a pulp fiction, swords and sorcery kind of guy. I played Stormbringer 3 and it was brutal and beautiful. I found the Elric! rulebook and fell in love. Ever since then, BRP has been the system that I 'think' in.

Glorantha's cool and I read about it but I'll probably never run it because the background is dense. Nephilim is cool but I'll probably never run it because I have no idea what to do with it. I love Call of Cthulhu but that's not surprising because it comes from the same pulpy background. I'd run Pendragon, but I have no idea how faithful I would be to Mallory.

There's other things that fall outside of your parameters too. I love BRP Superworld, though I rarely get to run it. There's several sci-fi books that have been published with the system. There's a whole slew of excellent victorian clockwork games from Walton & Cakebread. That's only skimming the top.