What's On the Horizon for Generic Systems?

[TrippyHippy]

Thing is, I'm not sure how long before Chaosium will get round to revamping the BRP book and when it does i'm not sure what it will be used for. The main focus currently is on RuneQuest, and Glorantha based games, along with Call of Cthulhu. There is also an issue that both of these games have gone their own way a little in terms of developing their systems, so there isn't really a set common ground for the BRP book to operate in, while other game systems like Mythras will have stolen a big march on it as a generic, universal system by the time it comes round.

Edited July 15, 2016 by TrippyHippy

[Mankcam]

I am hearing what you are saying Trippy. I think the notion of a revised BGB will be problematic if RQ and CoC are moving in different directions in regards to their base mechanics.

There doesn't seem much common ground at this stage other than core Characteristics and a D100% skill resolution.  Whilst RQ2 is a foundation, CRQ4 should also look to CoC 7E for an influence. If people just want RQ2.5 they might as well just play RQ Classic with a PDF update - not necessarily a bad thing, but I would prefer a little more common ground between CRQ4 and CoC 7E for the sake of consistency.

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Mankcam

[Archivist]

You're freaking me out!!!

[Mankcam]

Cthulhu GMs often have that effect 

[TrippyHippy]

Personally, I don't think there needs to be another BRP corerule book. Here's why:

1) Chaosium seem to have other priorities - that make more money. The afore-mentioned Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, of course, but probably things like board games, card games and fiction will also make more money.

2) There is too much competition for a commercial niche to be successful. As I said, Mythras has stolen a march, and beyond that there is still Legend, OpenQuest, Renaissance, etc. There are plenty of accessible core rules out there already, and third party publishers are more than likely to choose another line over BRP.

3) BRP already exists. It was published less than a decade ago, so is it necessary to make a new game if there is the suggestion that the old game was redundant? Individual books, like Mythic Iceland for example, are supposedly now going to be released as standalone books with the core system included. If you have a plan to make a Generic Universal game, then it needs a load of supplements to make it worthwhile.  If you don't need the core rules to play most Chaosium games, why go through the difficult development process of designing a new edition?

4) BRP was never really a fully integrated gaming system, in the same sense that GURPS is. It's actually a grouping of ideas from games than have a shared system genealogy. Why not put the efforts into reinvigorating specific old gamelines, like Superworld for example, instead? Indeed, if they jumpstarted Magic World, you are two/thirds of the way to bringing back the original Worlds Of Wonder game. In itself, this would effectively replace the need for 'core rules'.

 

 

 

Edited July 16, 2016 by TrippyHippy

[K Peterson]

20 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Personally, I don't think there needs to be another BRP corerule book. Here's why:

I agree with all of your points. A new/revised BGB would be a waste of time and money for Chaosium.

Edited July 16, 2016 by K Peterson

[Guest Vile Traveller]

On the other hand, I believe a new and updated Worlds of Wonder book in line with the mooted BRP Essentials would be a great idea. A compact gold book (CGB).

Maybe not in the near future, but in the medium term.

Edited July 16, 2016 by Vile

[Mankcam]

Just because BRP currently isn't a fully integrated system doesn't mean a slimmed down generic core rules would be a bad thing. The idea of creating your own games with a generic rule set is appealing to many GMs.

I am hoping that BRP Essientials is not going to be a pamphlet, but rather a slim hardcover book a little thicker than the size of RQ Classic or Renaissance, perhaps even up to the size of the CoC 7E Investigators Book. Not the tome that the BGB was, but sizeable enough to have its own identity as a core rule set.

However I agree however that historically it is the settings that sell a game to the masses rather than a rule set.  

Despite that, I really liked what Chaosium tried to do with Worlds Of Wonder and the BGB.  Worlds of Wonder is a better title for a generic set as opposed to BRP, purely from an evocative title point of view.

I would love to see three lines supported by Chaosium: CoC, RQ, and WoW. WoW could be used to represent a wide range of settings like Mythic Iceland, After The Vampire Wars, Devil's Gulch, Blood Tide etc and even some of the previous monographs could be reformated here, such as Aces High or Swords Of Cydoria for instance. However the other feature of these rules would be that they also encourage GMs to create their own settings as well. 

I would definitely expect WoW/BRP Generic as a poor cousin to CoC and RQ in terms of publication schedule, but it would still be good to see such a line supported with a contemporary rule set that has core mechanics in common with CoC and RQ.

Edited July 16, 2016 by Mankcam

[NickMiddleton]

10 hours ago, Mankcam said:

I am hearing what you are saying Trippy. I think the notion of a revised BGB will be problematic if RQ and CoC are moving in different directions in regards to their base mechanics.

Unless Chaosium have had a radically change of heart since late last year / early this year, there will be NO revamp of the BGB - they have explicitly, repeatedly, said their model going forward is a modern equivalent of the 16 page pamphlet as a sketch of the core baseline mechanics (BRP Essentials - quite possibly a bit more substantial that the old 16 page booklet, but still concise) and then a bespoke. complete implementation for each new setting. Mythic Iceland 2e will be standalone "BRP" game, as will the new Chaosium RuneQuest as will any other further worlds.

Now, if PDF / POD sales of the BGB etc / other indicators suggest the market appetite is there for a revised BGB, I would expect NuChaosium will consider it: but they have been pretty unambiguous in the last 9 months or so that they do NOT see it as the right direction for their business at present.

Cheers,

Nick

 

 

[Mankcam]

Yes I don't think the concept of a generic rule set is even on the table beyond a primer 'BRP Essentials', a pamphlet of less than 20 pages. That doesn't stop me from wishing otherwise. Even though RQ and CoC originally drew me to the BRP system, the notion of a BRP version of GURPS drew me back many years later when I stumbled across the BGB. I'm aware that it certainly needs a revision, but the idea of a generic ruleset is still not a bad idea. 

I agree that Call Of Cthulhu and RuneQuest / Glorantha should be flagship lines. However I still think there is some room for a less prominent third line of a variety of settings bound together under a published reasonable sized generic rule set. A book of about 100 pages or so could do it, but something less than 20 pages might as well be a pdf-only product in my opinion.

I'm aware that this isn't in the current plans for Chaosium, but that doesn't stop me throwing some ideas into the ring 

Edited July 16, 2016 by Mankcam

[Mysterioso]

11 hours ago, Mankcam said:

...represent a wide range of settings like Mythic Iceland, After The Vampire Wars, Devil's Gulch, Blood Tide etc and even some of the previous monographs could be reformatted here, such as Aces High

...or Swords of Cydoria...

With the way things are now (two RPG tines of a Chaosium fork, RQ & CoC), I'm not sure why all of the top ones in your quote are not reformatted to support Call of Cthulhu, which already does historical simulation. 

• Mythic Iceland, for instance, should be released with the revamped Cthulhu Dark Ages (as well as with a reformatted Ravenar Saga to support both of them).
• Devil's Gulch would support Cthulhu by Gaslight for those who'd like a bit more of a steampunk version of CoC and Aces High would provide a very much needed Western book to support Cthulhu by Gaslight. 
• After the Vampire Wars plugs into Modern, even if it is not part of the Mythos at all.
• Blood Tide would hopefully start a line of Black Powder Cthulhu that would loosely pull in the in-the-works Colonial Lovecraft and Convicts and Cthulhu  (and maybe see the tapping of the biggest untapped time-period, Revolutionary & Napoleonic Europe). (Allowing C&W to release a CoC version of their Dark Streets seems like it would be wise too.)

Once the above was done, there would be a lot of options available for authors to create various entries.  For instance, with the first bullet done, why couldn't an author build out a non-Mythos Norse scenario "powered by the CoC engine" (as other publishers would phrase it)?

The bottom monograph seems like it should have been reformatted for Runequest but that ship has passed as the author took it somewhere else.

The above is a bit of Devil's Advocate but, OTOH, it does seem to fit with the streamlining that has occurred.

[RosenMcStern]

20 hours ago, Archivist said:

I own Delta Green, but isn't really a generic system - it's great, but it's built for playing Delta Green. If I want to run a very different setting, or World of Darkness or something, I'd have to build it myself.

You have not specified what the sweet spot for the BGB is, though. But I suspect that you agree with the subsequent comment by Mankcam, don't you?

Quote

Is Revolution D100 out yet?

You should already have the answer, as I have noticed you visited the RD100 forum. However, I will make it more explicit- and maybe post a news on Ulule tomorrow: it will be out in 2016. I -do- have a release date, but I will not announce it officially until the book is at the printer.

18 hours ago, Mankcam said:

So the BGB seemed like an answer to my prayers. In many ways it was, but after a while I started to find the BGB a bit clumsy as a tool kit. Dated in some areas, and inconsistent in others. It was a great idea that was possibly in need of further revision to be really workable as a cohesive tool kit.

In fact, even Jason told repeatedly that he would have liked to make some more adjustments to make things more coherent, but that would have deviated too much from the stated goal of the BGB. So I think that this statement of yours will not make anyone angry, after all.

Quote

Hopefully BRP Essientials will be a good foundation rule set, but it will defnately be a skeleton framework that will require further resources to be added. If you are after an all-in-one generic toolset then it looks like either Mythras or Revolution holds the most promise at this stage, depending upon the level of crunch you are after.

The creative teams are at work, as you know very well. With the stated intent of providing you with "a solid, flexible tool to enable you to create your own flavour of D100 gaming".

Edit: oh, and do not underestimate Aeon. Vile might have some surprises ready for everyone, once he delivers.

Edited July 16, 2016 by RosenMcStern

[Archivist]

I e-edited my post to take out that I said owned Revolution literally seconds after I posted it (It was a mistype). I don't remember asking if   D100 was out yet and I know it's not out. No one has any obligation to provide anything I want. I recently asked if D100 would have stuff for low level supers/people with powers and was told by you that I should play HeroQuest 2 or Marvel Supers instead. That's fine, but the BRP book did include stuff for low level supers / people with powers /wod stuff.

Edited July 16, 2016 by Archivist

[RosenMcStern]

54 minutes ago, Archivist said:

I e-edited my post to take out that I said owned Revolution literally seconds after I posted it (It was a mistype). I don't remember asking if   D100 was out yet and I know it's not out. No one has any obligation to provide anything I want.

Actually, I was interested in knowing your opinion about what the sweet spot of the BRP BGB is , not in discussing whether you own Revolution. . You mentioned a "sweet spot" and I wished to know how you define it. I do have my own ideas, but wanted to know yours.

Quote

I recently asked if D100 would have stuff for low level supers/people with powers and was told by you that I should play HeroQuest 2 or Marvel Supers instead.

You will find a more articulated reply in the Revolution forum, posted 15 minutes ago in case you missed it. I still recommend HQ or Fate for supers, but your and Mankcam's arguments have persuaded me to post some examples of what you can already do with the existing rules. Robocop is already there, other stuff will appear in a couple of days.

[Belgath]

For me Mythras modular approach has worked very well. And tend always GM with their Core rules. As adjusting it for any genre has been vary easy. 

[Mankcam]

10 hours ago, Mysterioso said:

With the way things are now (two RPG tines of a Chaosium fork, RQ & CoC), I'm not sure why all of the top ones in your quote are not reformatted to support Call of Cthulhu, which already does historical simulation. 

• Mythic Iceland, for instance, should be released with the revamped Cthulhu Dark Ages (as well as with a reformatted Ravenar Saga to support both of them).
• Devil's Gulch would support Cthulhu by Gaslight for those who'd like a bit more of a steampunk version of CoC and Aces High would provide a very much needed Western book to support Cthulhu by Gaslight. 
• After the Vampire Wars plugs into Modern, even if it is not part of the Mythos at all.
• Blood Tide would hopefully start a line of Black Powder Cthulhu that would loosely pull in the in-the-works Colonial Lovecraft and Convicts and Cthulhu  (and maybe see the tapping of the biggest untapped time-period, Revolutionary & Napoleonic Europe). (Allowing C&W to release a CoC version of their Dark Streets seems like it would be wise too.)

Once the above was done, there would be a lot of options available for authors to create various entries.  For instance, with the first bullet done, why couldn't an author build out a non-Mythos Norse scenario "powered by the CoC engine" (as other publishers would phrase it)?

The bottom monograph seems like it should have been reformatted for Runequest but that ship has passed as the author took it somewhere else.

The above is a bit of Devil's Advocate but, OTOH, it does seem to fit with the streamlining that has occurred.

Some interesting ideas you raised here, streamlining these titles into the current CoC or RQ lines. 

From a game mechanics point of view I think if BRP Essientials is more like the core rules from CoC 7E then it may be more versatile as a simple generic framework. The main drawback is expressing Characteristics as a % is slightly out of step with the other BRP games and back catalogue. But no big deal to convert.

Most of those suggestions will work well with CoC 7E mechanics as a base foundation, although Mythic Iceland could go either way however. The tactile nature of hand to hand combat may make it more appropriate for the RQ mechanics, but yes it could easily be incorporated in a Dark Ages Cthulhu game.

In fact Chaosium has already done so, by presenting it in the Cthulhu Thru The Ages book which is a primer for several eras for use with CoC 7E.

Actually the Cthulhu Thru The Ages book now strikes me as a reasonable start on a generic rule set. All that needs to be added are a few chapters on core char gen, skills and resolution, spot rules, and to cut any Mythos related references. If they did this then Chaosium actually have a reasonable sized generic ruleset already on their hands under the CoC 7E BRP framework.

That's what could be easily published, rather than solely just a primer

Edited July 17, 2016 by Mankcam

[Simlasa]

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

From a game mechanics point of view I think if BRP Essientials is more like the core rules from CoC 7E then it may be more versatile as a simple generic framework.

Could you elaborate on your line of thought there?

I'm not seeing why 7e is any more versatile than what's gone before.

[Guest Vile Traveller]

10 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

Edit: oh, and do not underestimate Aeon. Vile might have some surprises ready for everyone, once he delivers.

Thank you for the kind words, I shall try not to disappoint! 

[Mankcam]

5 hours ago, Simlasa said:

Could you elaborate on your line of thought there?

I'm not seeing why 7e is any more versatile than what's gone before.

I think the rules feel like a slightly refreshed version of classic BRP, so I think it holds itself well against other contemporary games, yet still feels like BRP.

I do quite like the success resolution from CoC 7E, I think that is probably what I consider as a definate improvement over Classic BRP. Other than that I don't find it all that much different in practice from using the BGB.

I also think it would suit a generic rule set mainly because it doesn't have hit locations and combat runs quite smoothly. I also like the simplicity of the Manuver combat option, it covers a lot of cinematic actions and spot rules, so it can make things quite versatile.

The other reason I am leaning towards using CoC 7E as a foundation is mainly because it makes sense to have some consistent rules between game lines, and a lot of work has already been done in Cthulhu Thru The Ages.

Also if BRP Essientials uses the BGB rules then it's going to be quite confusing ( and clumsy) having three different versions of BRP published by one company, it just doesn't make much sense to me.

(For the record, I love using Hit Locations, but for flavour in specific genres, such as ancient or medieval settings, so I don't think they are necessary for a generic rule set)

Edited July 17, 2016 by Mankcam

[Simlasa]

1 hour ago, Mankcam said:

I do quite like the success resolution from CoC 7E, I think that is probably what I consider as a definate improvement over Classic BRP.

You mean the 'pushing' of skill rolls? A familiar houserule, but it's the only thing I recall (from my one read through) being different about success resolution... unless you mean the changes to opposed rolls?

[Mankcam]

Yes the changes to opposed rolls, measuring success levels works quite well I think.

There are some 'gamist' rules that are a novelty I suppose, such as 'Pushing', Bonus/Penalty Dice, and Luck, and they do tend to make the game feel a little more fun at times.

However the opposed rolls is more what I'm referring to as being perhaps the most important change that works well. Consolidation of some of the Skills from the earlier edition was also a good idea in CoC 7E (although some further consolidation could still occur).

Edited July 17, 2016 by Mankcam

[Mysterioso]

4 hours ago, Mankcam said:

Yes the changes to opposed rolls, measuring success levels works quite well I think.

There are some 'gamist' rules that are a novelty I suppose, such as 'Pushing', Bonus/Penalty Dice, and Luck, and they do tend to make the game feel a little more fun at times.

However the opposed rolls is more what I'm referring to as being perhaps the most important change that works well. Consolidation of some of the Skills from the earlier edition was also a good idea in CoC 7E (although some further consolidation could still occur).

I do wish that the various forms of "convince" has been consolidated into one skill with perhaps some side note about how to add some modifier for specific situations (INT bonus for Persuade, LK bonus for Fast Talk, APP bonus for Flirt) and then just encouraging role-playing the persuading out.

Having played a fair amount of Cthulhu Invictus (and wistfully looking at Dark Ages), I think that rule books when re-released could do with a good explanation of combat that is not hand to hand and not gunplay. Swordplay and Shield and, say, Hand Ax is unusual in Classic or Gaslight but is the norm in CI & CDA and thus could use a detailing.  (Note: This is based on reading non 7E books; I'm hoping to buy 7E on the third wave having missed both the Kickstarter and the post-KS orders.  Maybe fighting with various non-gun weapons is detailed out more in 7E? Even it is, pulling it out and highlighting it in CI and CDA would probably be a good thing.)

[Gollum]

On 16/07/2016 at 0:17 PM, Mankcam said:

Yes I don't think the concept of a generic rule set is even on the table beyond a primer 'BRP Essentials', a pamphlet of less than 20 pages.

From what I read in a previous thread, the BRP Essentials will become a 64-96 page book ... Even if it is not the big golden book, it is still better than just 20 or even 32. Now, it may be wrong, of course.

The discussion was here:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4861-brp-essentials-status/

Edited July 17, 2016 by Gollum

[Mankcam]

7 hours ago, Gollum said:

From what I read in a previous thread, the BRP Essentials will become a 64-96 page book ... Even if it is not the big golden book, it is still better than just 20 or even 32. Now, it may be wrong, of course.

The discussion was here:

http://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4861-brp-essentials-status/

Wow I must of missed that - I was still under the impression it was going to be like a Quickstart. Well a book close to 100 pages is still slim, yet should be big enough to cover things.

Its actually in the ball park of what I was suggesting - thanks for giving me the heads up!

[Mankcam]

16 hours ago, Mysterioso said:

I do wish that the various forms of "convince" has been consolidated into one skill with perhaps some side note about how to add some modifier for specific situations (INT bonus for Persuade, LK bonus for Fast Talk, APP bonus for Flirt) and then just encouraging role-playing the persuading out.

I really like your idea of streamlining some skills, then allowing a Characteristic bonus for various actions, it certainly makes a lot of sense espescially for Persuade.

I also think that Climb, Jump, and Dodge could be combined under a single Athletics skill. You could possibly use your suggestion, so climbing could be an Athletics (+ STR Bonus), or dodging could be Athletics ( + DEX Bonus), for instance.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Mankcam