ORCing the Monographs?

[g33k]

H'lo, all ...

As I understand it, all the "BRP Monographs" have been returned to the original authors' control (unless any of them used Chaosium IP such as Chaosium-origin post-Lovecraft-Circle Cthulhu contributions, which Chaosium obviously owns/controls).

A few items (such as Classic Fantasy) have gone off to other product-lines, outside Chaosium.

But for most of those monographs, it would seem as if -- in light of the new ORC-licensed BRP:UGE -- they could now see a new life.
I think that's Chaosium's intention.  I think they would welcome it!

Does anyone know if any of them are being developed that way?
Does anyone have contact-info to encourage those authors to do so (or to take over those projects and do it themselves, with the permissions of those authors)?

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by g33k

[AndreJarosch]

They could ge back to life right now as a Miskatonic Repository publication, if i am not mistaken. 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, AndreJarosch said:

They could ge back to life right now as a Miskatonic Repository publication, if i am not mistaken. 

Only the CoC monographs (which I think are about half of them).

Plenty of others that are clearly non-Mythos "plain ol' BRP" monographs.

[AndreJarosch]

11 minutes ago, g33k said:

Only the CoC monographs (which I think are about half of them).

Plenty of others that are clearly non-Mythos "plain ol' BRP" monographs.

There were 112 Monographs: 
4 Stormbringer 
28 BRP (which include 4 books directly copied from RQ3)
80 CoC

I know, because i have all of them except one on my shelf. 

 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, AndreJarosch said:

There were 112 Monographs: 
4 Stormbringer 
28 BRP (which include 4 books directly copied from RQ3)
80 CoC

I stand corrected! (*)

The 4 SB titles are out of license (unless Chaosium gets that back (which seems possible -- AIUI the main architect of the French company has passed (or am I recalling a different French RPG company?))).

But the 80 CoC could go up onto MR, if the authors wanted (does MR have edition requirements, e.g. only editions in-print?).

The same question as my OP applies:  I'm pretty sure Chaosium has returned the rights to (at least most of) those authors, and they're free to re-publish on the MR; I dunno, maybe some of them already have been re-published there???
But for most... is anyone in a position to nudge those folks?

And then there are 28 BRP monographs.  Some of those were QUITE well-received (and not yet re-homed at other publishers)...  A couple of meh, to be sure.  But... 15-20 ORC-eligible (and likely successful) products, perhaps?

For which, I reiterate my OP query...

 

 

 

Edited October 24, 2023 by g33k
(*) technically, I am seated at the moment.

[SDLeary]

3 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

28 BRP (which include 4 books directly copied from RQ3)

Wooo! What was the monograph number on the "Players Book" monograph! I have the others and have been searching for that one for a while.

SDLeary

[AndreJarosch]

4 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Wooo! What was the monograph number on the "Players Book" monograph! I have the others and have been searching for that one for a while.

SDLeary

0369 Basic Players

I miss 0370 Basic Magic in my collection. 

[NickMiddleton]

The last I heard is that yes, entirely author owned monograph IP is back with the authors and that there were plans to do some sort of community content program for BRP once the new  book was released. I am currently (in amongst day job and couple of bouts of illness etc etc) working on revising both Outpost 19 and preparing a long-gestating Magic World project for possible release if this route becomes viable.

This issue with “Miskatonic Repository” is that it’s remit is Call of Cthulhu, in the same way that “Jonstown Compendium” is RQ / Gloranthan: like all CCPs, they have well defined boundaries of what can be referenced etc. BRP UGE material would need similar robust definitions: which have yet to be released.

As for Basic Magic, it was of course kinda supplanted by the Basic Magic Book.

 Cheers,

NDM

[AndreJarosch]

19 hours ago, g33k said:

I stand corrected! (*)

The 4 SB titles are out of license (unless Chaosium gets that back (which seems possible -- AIUI the main architect of the French company has passed (or am I recalling a different French RPG company?))).

But the 80 CoC could go up onto MR, if the authors wanted (does MR have edition requirements, e.g. only editions in-print?).

The same question as my OP applies:  I'm pretty sure Chaosium has returned the rights to (at least most of) those authors, and they're free to re-publish on the MR; I dunno, maybe some of them already have been re-published there???
But for most... is anyone in a position to nudge those folks?

And then there are 28 BRP monographs.  Some of those were QUITE well-received (and not yet re-homed at other publishers)...  A couple of meh, to be sure.  But... 15-20 ORC-eligible (and likely successful) products, perhaps?

For which, I reiterate my OP query...

 

 

 

CHAOSIUM BRP MONOGRAPHS

Jun 08                   0352       Ashes to Ashes                    (Jeff Moeller)                                                      dark fantasy setting

Jun 08                   0357       Berlin 61                              (Christopher Barnhart)                                      espionage horror setting

Jul 09                    0360       Agents of the Crown          (Scott Pyle)                                                          Victorian pulp action

Dec 08                  0365       Outpost 19                           (Nick Middleton)                                               comando scifi     

Mar 09                  0366       Aces High                            (Stuart Godbolt)                                                  mystical western

Apr 09                   0368       BRP Adventures                 (Many)                                                                  winners of 2008 contest

May 09                  0369       Basic Players                     (Perrin, Stafford, Krank)

May 09                  0370       Basic Magic                       (Stafford, Krank, Turney)

May 09                  0371       Basic Creatures                   (Sandy Petersen and Steve Perrin)

May 09                  0372       Basic Gamemaster             (Stafford, Krank, Rolston, Petersen, Perrin)

Aug 09                  0374       Light without Shadow, ...  (David Fitzgerald )                                             Fantasy adventure

May 09                  0375       In Search of the Trollslayer(Troy Wilhelmson)                                           Fantasy adventure

Aug 09                  0376       Val-du-Loup                        (Guy Dondlinger )                                              Luxembourg knights

Oct 09                   0378       The River Terror                 (Many)                                                                 winners of 2009 contest

Oct 09                   0383       Classic Fantasy                  (Rodney Leary)                                                   dungeon crawl homage

Oct 09                   0384       Fractured Hopes                 (Charles Green)                                                   Space Fantasy

Dec 09                  0385       Modern Equipment Catalog(Domenic de Bechi & Rob Thomas)           Modern

Dec 09                  0386       BRP Witchcraft                  (Byron Alexander)                                             setting and rules

Dec 09                  0388       The Green                            (Scott Heiney)                                                     fantasy 

Apr 10                   0389       Rubble & Ruin                    (Richard LeDuc)                                                 apocalyptic/crime

Jun 10                   0392       Dust to Dust                         (Jeff Moeller)                                                      dark fantasy setting

Oct 10                   0398       Lords of Tarsa                    (James Brian King)

Mar 11                  0400       Blood & Badges                 (8 People)                                                             Adventure collection

Jun 11                   0401       Operation Ulysses               (Eric Lane Webb)                                              SciFi

Jul 12                    0407       Aces High New Mexico    (Stuart Godbolt)

Jul 12                    0409       A Nation Ransomed          (Scrivner, Devaney, Barnhart & Christensen) adventure collection

Aug 12                  0411       Swords of Cydoria             (Christian Conkle)

May 15                 0412       Mission to Epsilon             (Oscar Rios)        

Edited October 24, 2023 by AndreJarosch

[NickMiddleton]

Blood and Badges authors were: Jon Hook, Kevin Ross, Kevin Scrivner, R.J. Christensen, Tom Lynch, Rich LeDuc , Marko Ercegovi ́c ‘Streebor’ and Simon Yee.

The River Terror authors were: Oscar Rios, William Nobel, R.J. Christensen, Jon Hook, Kenneth Spencer, Michael Silverling, Kevin Scrivner, Bruce Thompson, Patrice Crespy, Tom Lynch and Greg White

Mission to Epsilon  was also an anthology of adventures: Authors were Oscar Rios, Jeromy M Schulz-Arnold, Richard LeDuc, Kevin Scrivner and R.J. Christensen.

BRP Adventures Authors were: Andrei Baltakmans, Chad Bowser, Jean-Philipe Chapleau, Sverre Larne, Guy dondlinger, R.J. Christensen, Stuart Godbolt, Rich Leduc, Sarah Newton, Matt Steele, Jason Williams, Simon Yee, and Bruce Thomson

NOTE: I believe (correct me if I'm wrong Andre) that Andre's table is solely the square bound "BRP" monographs from the BGB era - the Basic Players / Gamemaster / magic / Creatures books were ALSO released way back in the "tape bound" monograph era. (2006 - P, 2006- G, 2006 - M and 2006 - C).

Richard Le Duc’s Rubble & Ruin has been ported to Mythras, Christian Conkle’s Swords of Cydoria has been released for another non D100 system iirc.

IIRC Oscar Rios and at least some others are mostly writing at Golden Goblin Press and othe CoC small presses these days? But I largely lost track of where many of the monograph peeps who crossed freely between CoC and BRP went about a decade back when I drifted away from CoC.

Some of the individual adventures in various of the BRP monographs were adapted with the original authors permissions (and by them in some cases)  for a never released Magic World work, Richard LeDuc's Shillingshead. 

Edited October 24, 2023 by NickMiddleton
Added various author lists for anthologies.

[albesias]

I'm thinking about writing some stuff about power systems design but need improve my writing skilll at least +20%

[David Scott]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

does MR have edition requirements, e.g. only editions in-print?.

Yes, must be 7th edition. I think most CoC monographs were per 2014, so all would need updating.

https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005751243-Chaosium-Miskatonic-Repository- 

[Raleel]

I’d be pretty happy to see another round done of Aces High, perhaps with some edits towards a modern audience.

rubble and ruin was published under mythras gateway not long ago, and Rodney already did Classic Fantasy. It is getting released under or as Classic Fantasy Imperative and then whatever the rest of the classes come under. 

[Mugen]

13 hours ago, g33k said:

The 4 SB titles are out of license (unless Chaosium gets that back (which seems possible -- AIUI the main architect of the French company has passed (or am I recalling a different French RPG company?))).

Le Département des Sombres Projets lost two of its writers in the last few years (and both at a rather young age), but as far as I know it didn't impact their will to publish Moorcock material, even though their focus is more on the Elric Boardgame and Hawkmoon right now.

[SDLeary]

8 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

0369 Basic Players

I miss 0370 Basic Magic in my collection. 

That's what I thought it might be... almost impossible to find. Thanks for the confirmation on number!

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

7 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

NOTE: I believe (correct me if I'm wrong Andre) that Andre's table is solely the square bound "BRP" monographs from the BGB era - the Basic Players / Gamemaster / magic / Creatures books were ALSO released way back in the "tape bound" monograph era. (2006 - P, 2006- G, 2006 - M and 2006 - C).

Yes. Tape bound monographs are even more scarce though, probably due to their fragile nature. 

I would love to see all of these back, but I know that 0369-0372 have a very slim chance in hell of ever seeing the light of day! 😉

SDLeary

[AndreJarosch]

1 minute ago, SDLeary said:

Yes. Tape bound monographs are even more scarce though, probably due to their fragile nature. 

I would love to see all of these back, but I know that 0369-0372 have a very slim chance in hell of ever seeing the light of day! 😉

SDLeary

Buy Deluxe RuneQuest (Avalon Hill) and you have all four. 

[SDLeary]

7 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

IIRC Oscar Rios and at least some others are mostly writing at Golden Goblin Press and othe CoC small presses these days? But I largely lost track of where many of the monograph peeps who crossed freely between CoC and BRP went about a decade back when I drifted away from CoC.

Yes. And based on the Kickstarter messages, he is having a difficult time outside of Golden Goblin/gaming.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

1 minute ago, AndreJarosch said:

Buy Deluxe RuneQuest (Avalon Hill) and you have all four. 

Of course. Have that. Just trying to be a completist! 

Also, one of my copies of RQ3 has a broken spine, and am trying to prepare for its eventual sacrifice on the alter of a project I'm planning out. Say what some might about the monographs, I haven't had one yet that had a fragile spine.

SDLeary

[g33k]

@AndreJarosch

Pretty sure #0398 is "Lords of Tarsa," not "Lord" (singular) of "Tharsa" ...

Yes:

 

 

It's one of the monographs I was unaware-of, until very recently.  But looking at older threads, it was very well-reviewed and respected.  It looks like a prime candidate to be renewed via BRP:UGE & the ORC license, if @jamesbrianking is still around, still interested (or willing to hand-off his project to a 3rd party who was interested (who probably is not me, alas)).

[g33k]

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

Yes, must be 7th edition. I think most CoC monographs were per 2014, so all would need updating.

Obviously, you folks have the sales-numbers for your recent "Cthulhu Classic" box-sets.
I'd have thought -- if the numbers you saw supported it -- that also allowing that edition would make good sense.
But maybe those sales-numbers don't support a Community Content program...

Or maybe you're looking at the JC, where RQ Classic is allowed, but has few (zero?) offerings.

In the end, it's obviously your call.  I don't suppose Chaosium is in business to leave easy money on the table!

 

 

9 hours ago, David Scott said:

...

https://support.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005751243-Chaosium-Miskatonic-Repository- 

FYI -- I get a warning at that URL:

Quote

Attention - We've moved!

Click the link to the right to go to the new help center: New Help Center

This version of the help center is no longer being maintained and will be deactivated on June 30th, 2023

So... "deactivated" 4 months ago.  I presume that means "subject to being broken without notice, and never fixed."

Your new URL appears to be:
https://help.drivethrurpg.com/hc/en-us/articles/12723261671959-Chaosium-Miskatonic-Repository-

[Rick Meints]

8 minutes ago, g33k said:

Obviously, you folks have the sales-numbers for your recent "Cthulhu Classic" box-sets.
I'd have thought -- if the numbers you saw supported it -- that also allowing that edition would make good sense.
But maybe those sales-numbers don't support a Community Content program...
Or maybe you're looking at the JC, where RQ Classic is allowed, but has few (zero?) offerings.
In the end, it's obviously your call.  I don't suppose Chaosium is in business to leave easy money on the table!

Call of Cthulhu Classic makes it very clear that it is not for 7th edition (it's actually 2nd edition). We have yet to find anyone who was/is confused by it not being the latest edition of the game. The Miskatonic Repository is a very different situation. We don't want anyone to get confused about what edition a product is for. They are all for the current edition. We used to sell some of the previous editions of the CoC rules on DTRPG, but the sales were quite low, and the confusion caused by it made it not worth continuing. 

The Jonstown Compendium is also a very different situation. The RQ Classics don't really require any conversion to use, and we also have had little to no confusion raised by the buying public.

While we don't like leaving a significant amount of money on the table (that's why we reprinted Beyond the Mountains of Madness) we are not going to deal with the grief and confusion raised by selling a product that might sell 10 copies per year.

As we have said for some time, all of the monograph copyrights reverted back to their authors/creatives. If the Monograph is for CoC they are welcome to update it to 7th ed. and then publish it on the Miskatonic Repository. If they did so they would probably make more money as MR books than they ever did as Monographs. As for why the authors haven't done that, you'd have to ask them. Updating a CoC monograph to 7th edition could take very little time. Most monographs are not super stat heavy. Chances are the electronic file would need to get updated/adjusted for DTRPGs PDF standard and sizes in many cases, and the other 7th edition changes required could be done at the same time. 

[g33k]

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

... We used to sell some of the previous editions of the CoC rules on DTRPG, but the sales were quite low, and the confusion caused by it made it not worth continuing. 

...

While we don't like leaving a significant amount of money on the table (that's why we reprinted Beyond the Mountains of Madness) we are not going to deal with the grief and confusion raised by selling a product that might sell 10 copies per year... 

Thank you, Rick.  This explains Chaosium's decision clearly; it's a very welcome statement!
(and fans of the older titles are just going to have to face the fact that they are so small a minority that their tiny market is money-losing for Chaosium)

 

2 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

... As we have said for some time, all of the monograph copyrights reverted back to their authors/creatives. If the Monograph is for CoC they are welcome to update it to 7th ed. and then publish it on the Miskatonic Repository. If they did so they would probably make more money as MR books than they ever did as Monographs. As for why the authors haven't done that, you'd have to ask them ... 

Indeed; I hope I made the "reverted back to authors" clear in my OP.

But the main point of my OP was to get the broader community thinking if they knew any of those authors, and maybe reaching out to any creators who might not realize the modern opportunities of the ORC license, the Miskatonic Repository, &c.

I myself recently reached out to John Castelluci, of "RuneQuest Adventures," in hopes that some/all of his content might see re-issue on the JC.
He had been completely unaware of the "Return of the Great Old Ones," the post-GtG evolution of Chaosium, the release of RQG, the advent of the Jonstown Compendium.
I have explicitly pointed him towards @Ian A. Thomson's revamped Pavis work as an example of what can be done.
Last I knew, he was reading the Glorantha Sourcebook & declaring it one of the best pieces of Gloranthiana he had ever seen.

Whether Mr. Castelluci moves forward with a "RQG-RQA" project is obviously now his move; but he hadn't even seen the board, before.  And I suspect that a great many of the Monograph authors may be similarly unaware.

 

[robertp]

On 10/23/2023 at 5:07 PM, g33k said:

The 4 SB titles are out of license (unless Chaosium gets that back (which seems possible -- AIUI the main architect of the French company has passed (or am I recalling a different French RPG company?))).

Two of them, Monographs 308 (Gods of Chaos) and 335 (Gods of Law) can be found here: https://stormbringerrpg.com/publications/monographs-2/!

[robertp]

17 hours ago, AndreJarosch said:

May 09                  0369       Basic Players                     (Perrin, Stafford, Krank)

May 09                  0370       Basic Magic                       (Stafford, Krank, Turney)

May 09                  0371       Basic Creatures                   (Sandy Petersen and Steve Perrin)

May 09                  0372       Basic Gamemaster             (Stafford, Krank, Rolston, Petersen, Perrin)

I haven't been able to find these, but I think these are the covers.

Edited October 25, 2023 by robertp