Chaosium's Latest Statement on BRP

[auyl]

4 hours ago, Gollum said:

This is precisely why, in my humble opinion, Sanity rules are vital ... As optional rules. In some campaigns (Lovecraftian stories, for instance), Sanity checks are crucial. In some other (Hellboy stories, for instance), they would just ruin the game ... The Big Golden Book did a very good job here. I hope the new BRP Essential will did something like that (even if things are changed a bit).

I agree here. If they are optional it will allow for more flexibility like the original BGB. But with the talk about the size of Essentials I doubt Sanity rules, or many optional rule for that matter, will be gone.

[Gollum]

3 hours ago, auyl said:

I agree here. If they are optional it will allow for more flexibility like the original BGB. But with the talk about the size of Essentials I doubt Sanity rules, or many optional rule for that matter, will be gone.

Yes, you're right. The Sanity rules will certainly be put off to another book which will need them. Or maybe a supplement of "optional rules to go farther" (I'm surely dreaming here).

[Sean_RDP]

If the layout is tight enough, a paragraph or two of Sanity rules would certainly be easy to do and that is all you need really.

[Mysterioso]

On 10/23/2015 at 7:58 AM, Mankcam said:

Yeah I would totally dig a reworking of Astounding Adventures mixed in with Hard Boiled Noir. One thing that is essiential for the pulp genre would be to have an optional 'Knacks/Feats' system that is appropriate for the setting. Perhaps a reworking of the 'Stunts' from BRP Blood Tide could be looked at for this.

Oh, and while they are at it, rejig Blood Tide and publish that as well. Having these fully realised will show that the system can be easily used for cinematic settings as well as gritty ancient settings. 

Having scored a collection of Dick Tracy comic strips recently, I wish even more than before that the BRP Hard Boiled Noir book was on the near horizon. 

The reworking of Astounding Adventures if it was to be linked with the new Hard Boiled Noir book would be pretty great for some of Tracy's more funky foes or even better a Dick Tracy-The Shadow (or EVEN BETTER The Spider) crossover.

[simonh]

I don't think optional rules like Sanity belong in a BRP Essentials book. The reason is that if you're going to put in non-core optional rules for one setting or genre, why not another, and another, and another? Where do you stop? If it's not essential, it shouldn't be in Essentials.

Simon Hibbs

[Gollum]

Yes. That is precisely the problem with optional rules. Each one of us would like to find the one he uses the most*. But if you add one of them in a basic book, why not the other ones? ... And then, you end up with another very big book. Very big books are great, but this is not at all the purpose of Essentials.

_____

* I play a lot of Call of Cthulhu adventures with the Big Golden Book rules. I know, it is a bit strange while there is a very good Call of Cthulhu game. But I also play some other adventures (SF or Fantasy ones) and I like to use about the same rules for all the games I play. Changing worlds but not changing rules ... The Big Golden Book was really the philosopher's stone for me.

Edited December 18, 2015 by Gollum

[fmitchell]

I'd prefer to have a small book called BRP Essentials ... and a separate (big) book called BRP Elaborations(?) which contains all the optional rules from the BGB and elsewhere, as well as general advice on customizing BRP for a particular genre, world, and campaign.  That would be the place for Sanity, Allegiance (maybe with content from the Magic World Chronicler's Guide?), hit location rules, variable armor, Powers, and so forth.

Actually I'm picturing a book resembling the Talmud with BRP Essentials text in the center and optional rules written around the generous margins ...

[Guest Vile Traveller]

That's the problem with a quickstart rules and dedicated setting-integrated books approach. What if you just want all those options to choose from? Do you buy CoC, Mythic Whatever, RQ7, etc. and carry a hundredweight of books to the table every time? Unless you have an online wiki like the d20 one, which is great for gamers but not so great for people trying to sell books.

Of course, the BGB came after the fact and collected all those past games options in one place. The new BRP games in all their variety haven't been published yet, so a new 'BGB' isn't really possible now.

[fmitchell]

1 hour ago, Vile said:

That's the problem with a quickstart rules and dedicated setting-integrated books approach. What if you just want all those options to choose from?

The first three versions of GURPS had exactly that problem.  New advantages, disadvantages, and skills would crop up in each world book; some were borrowed from previous books, and some were modified from previous books.  GURPS eventually had a two volume "Compendium" of just the new crunch, or rather the "official", generalized, and playtested versions.  Eventually 4th Edition, among its other changes, created fully general and orthogonal advantages and disadvantages, which the new genre books simply leveraged as needed.  (Even then, new rules and new advantages/disadvantages pop up, most notably the alternate magic systems in Thaumatology and "Alternate GURPS" issues of their magazine Pyramid.)

d100 (is that the preferred nomenclature?) is nowhere as complicated*.  That's why I think you could compile new options for BRP from previous sources, adjusted for the latest edition's terminology.

---

* While you actually don't need higher mathematics to create GURPS characters, a spreadsheet and/or an accounting degree is very helpful.  Or the GURPS Character Assistant, available for the low price of $15 (used to be higher).

[Jeffrywith1e]

Is there an idea of when to expect BRP Essentials? I know they're saying RuneQuest for GenCon, but I hope Essentials drops before that.

[clarence]

I interviewed MOB a couple of months ago and it seemed like BRP Essentials will be made public at GenCon too. But I wonder if we will see any early design notes before that? I hope so : )

[g33k]

On 12/16/2015 at 2:02 PM, simonh said:

I don't think optional rules like Sanity belong in a BRP Essentials book. The reason is that if you're going to put in non-core optional rules for one setting or genre, why not another, and another, and another? Where do you stop? If it's not essential, it shouldn't be in Essentials.

Simon Hibbs

The thing is, "Sanity" rules are NOT specific to the Cthulhu setting... they're _essential_ to most games in the "horrror" genre, and (with minor tweaks) many games that delve into the psych/consequences sides of "thriller" and other genres.  They are as significant as magic -- and I'd hope for at least 1-2 magic systems!  Ditto "guns" being needed for modern-era games, and "swords" for ancient-through-colonial-era games.  Any of that left out, leaves out something "essential."  YMMobviouslyV!

[Guest Vile Traveller]

4 hours ago, g33k said:

The thing is, "Sanity" rules are NOT specific to the Cthulhu setting... they're _essential_ to most games in the "horrror" genre, and (with minor tweaks) many games that delve into the psych/consequences sides of "thriller" and other genres.  They are as significant as magic -- and I'd hope for at least 1-2 magic systems!  Ditto "guns" being needed for modern-era games, and "swords" for ancient-through-colonial-era games.  Any of that left out, leaves out something "essential."  YMMobviouslyV!

I agree that "essential" in my book should encompass quite a bit more than we've seen in most quick-start versions of core rules. I guess the question is whether the new BRP Essentials is really meant to be a usable system for anything beyond arm-wrestling Burly Bob. If you really pare it down to only the rules that will be common to all full-fledged BRP games it will be of very limited utility. RQ6 Essentials gets away with it because 1) it's a pretty massive tome, and 2) RQ6 is mostly fantasy as published to date.

Coincidentally, I'm preparing to run a campaign using the fan-written Blake's 7 RPG, which was obviously heavily influenced by RQ3. In that game characters have a Stress attribute, which functions in a very similar way to Sanity. A lot of modern-day or future games downplay the effects of extreme violence and danger on the human psyche - and, for all we know, so do historical or fantasy games because those humans had the same brains we do. Erm, so, I guess what I'm saying is that a case could be made that SAN rules could potentially exist in all genres of BRP game.

[simonh]

If I were writing the scope for a BRP core book, I'd make it emulation of fairly realistic historical gaming through to the present day. So everything from cave men, through swords and sandals, Swords and Muskets and the 20th century. All at a fairly basic level of detail. No magic, no SF, no psionics or super powers and no 'genre fiction' special or optional rules.

The vast majority of gaming genres start from some historical or contemporary point of reference, so the core book's job would be to cover those common points of reference as thoroughly as possible in 32 pages.

Maybe Chaosium has other plans based on their needs to support future products, so maybe that wouldn't work for them, but without knowing that, this is what I'd do.

Simon Hibbs

Edited March 14, 2016 by simonh

[Jeffrywith1e]

4 hours ago, Vile said:

Coincidentally, I'm preparing to run a campaign using the fan-written Blake's 7 RPG, 

Blake's 7! awesome!

Edited March 14, 2016 by Jeffrywith1e