Merrie England family tree?

[Toadmaster]

With the various hopping around from Mongoose RQ to BRP and now Revolution I'm a little confused by the Merrie England titles, Merrie England, Merrie England Age of Eleanor, Merrie England Age of Chivalry, Merrie England Robyn Hode (the last of which is the only one currently available at Drivethru). Are these just title changes for the specific systems attached to, or a setting book and add on supplements?

If I pick up ME Robyn Hode from DrivethruRPG does that give me the latest and greatest collection of all the material or is it stand alone additional material to that first offered for MRQ?

 

Thanks just one of those books I've meant to get and now trying to hunt down. It is a bit confusing as to what is what.

 

Also any plans to revisit Crusaders of the Amber Coast?

[AndreJarosch]

„Merrie England: The Age of Eleanor“ was published 2009 for MRQ (80 pages). 

„Merrie England: The Age of Chivalry“ was published 2011 for BRP (200 pages)

„Merrie England: Robyn Hode“ was published 2017 for Revolution D100 (196 pages)


The first book is not important et all. 

“Merrie England: Robyn Hode” lost the following parts, compared with „Merrie England: Age of Chivalry“:
- campaign
- some stuff about demonology

“Merrie England: Robyn Hode” has some additions, compared with „Merrie England: Age of Chivalry“:
-  Nottingham and Sherwood Forest and Sandbox-Setting with a lot of adventure hooks
- description and stats for Robyn Hode and the Merrie Men
 

[RosenMcStern]

André nailed it. If you do not have the previous editions, Robyn Hode contains all the relevant materials that was in them.

7 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

Also any plans to revisit Crusaders of the Amber Coast?

It would be great, but time has become the limiting factor. Even a PDF revisitation as an add-on for Merrie England would take some time. It will happen, but it could take years.

[soltakss]

Merrie England has suffered in the past from the vagaries of Licenses. For various reasons, the licences for RQ and BRP were pulled, meaning that Merrie England was left out on a limb a couple of times. Now, as Revolution d100 is OGL, that should not happen.

Merrie England: Age of Eleanor (MEAOE) was written as a response to Paolo not being interested in writing a supplement for Stupor Mundi based in England, which is fair enough as Paolo isn't English. Part of me wanted a medieval D100 supplement set in the times between The Anarchy and King John and part of me wanted to see if I could write a full supplement.

Merrie England: Age of Chivalry (MEAOC) took MEAOE and expanded it, adding in things around the world, some demonolgy stuff and some different scenarios. As it was for BRP, I converted spells etc to BRP versions. It is more complete, but touches on the Crusades, Outremer, Heaven and Hell, Demons and all kinds of things.

Merrie England:Robyn Hode (MERH) is more focussed than MEAOE and MEAOC, as it looks just at the period of Robyn Hode, in late Henry II, Richard I and early John. There is no campaign, but instead there is a sandbox around Sherwood Forest, with lots of scenario hooks. It loses the esoteric stuff, so no Heaven and Hell or Demonology, but keeps much of the generic Medieval roleplaying guidelines. It introduces Guardians as a type of mythical entity, just so I could include Herne the Hunter from Robin of Sherwood.

I would like to produce more for Merrie England. Age of Crusade, covering the Second and Third Crusades, Outremer, the Reconquista and Military Orders is something I have wanted to do for a while, who can't like the Order of Lazarus, an Order of leper knights? Heaven and Hell was covered in MEAOC, but I have ideas on how to do demons and djinn in Revolution d100 and they would work a lot better.Finally, the Merrie England Balladeer would be a campaign based on old British Folk Songs, with a mythical bent including Fae, witches, warlocks, dragons and so on. However, each one takes a year to write and then whatever time Paolo has, so it will be a slow old process.

Edited September 30, 2018 by soltakss

[soltakss]

Oh, and MERH has the Village Idiot profession. I wanted to include a couple of visiting Village Idiots, from the Ramnsbottoms, two hamlets close together, just for the dialogue "I'm Cedic and I'm from Lower Ramsbottom", "And I'm Aelric, I'm from Upper Ramsbottom" but I must have forgotten to put them in.

[RosenMcStern]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Merrie England has suffered in the past from the vagaries of Licenses.

Let us say that you must have offended the gods of licensing somehow, because the whole story reminds me of Poseidon vs. Ulysses.

Quote

I would like to produce more for Merrie England. Age of Crusade, covering the Second and Third Crusades, Outremer, the Reconquista and Military Orders is something I have wanted to do for a while, who can't like the Order of Lazarus, an Order of leper knights? Heaven and Hell was covered in MEAOC, but I have ideas on how to do demons and djinn in Revolution d100 and they would work a lot better.Finally, the Merrie England Balladeer would be a campaign based on old British Folk Songs, with a mythical bent including Fae, witches, warlocks, dragons and so on. However, each one takes a year to write and then whatever time Paolo has, so it will be a slow old process.

Hey, what has this to do with my time? You write it, we publish it.  Ok, a couple hours to review it, but that's all.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

Let us say that you must have offended the gods of licensing somehow, because the whole story reminds me of Poseidon vs. Ulysses.

Hey, what has this to do with my time? You write it, we publish it.  Ok, a couple hours to review it, but that's all.

That's great. I was thinking of layout, proofreading, editing and artwork, but the RPG Fairies must do that all by themselves.

I'll get cracking then ...

[Toadmaster]

So excluding system specific elements it sounds as if there is still some value in getting both ME AofC and Robyn Hode if I found the first at a reasonable price.

 

Assume the MRQ, BRP, GRQ, Mythras licensing saga is the main reason that pdf versions are not offered on the older supplements?

 

Thanks, these are among several historical supplements I kept meaning to get and then when I went to get them I find they are out of print. Then I see publication dates and yeah, I've been taking my sweet time I see. 😓  

[RosenMcStern]

13 hours ago, soltakss said:

That's great. I was thinking of layout, proofreading, editing and artwork, but the RPG Fairies must do that all by themselves.

For those I have gnomes chained in my cellar who do the dirty job for me. It is just creative writing (as testified by the delay of Red Moon Rising) that is in short supply. For now.

6 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

Assume the MRQ, BRP, GRQ, Mythras licensing saga is the main reason that pdf versions are not offered on the older supplements?

You guess right.

[Mankcam]

.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Mankcam

[Mankcam]

7 hours ago, Toadmaster said:

So excluding system specific elements it sounds as if there is still some value in getting both ME AofC and Robyn Hode if I found the first at a reasonable price.

 

Assume the MRQ, BRP, GRQ, Mythras licensing saga is the main reason that pdf versions are not offered on the older supplements?

 

Thanks, these are among several historical supplements I kept meaning to get and then when I went to get them I find they are out of print. Then I see publication dates and yeah, I've been taking my sweet time I see. 😓  

I reckon you go for Merrie England Robyn Hode first.

You can use it  as a 'go-to' book for a broad  Medieval England sandbox, or specifically for a Ye Olde Sherwood Forest sandbox. It's a great little setting.

Lots of utility, and a very easy port to BRP BGB mechanics, although I recommend getting the BRP RD100 rules to go with it. Many good concepts in there!

If you find Merrie England Age of Chivalry later then the campaign is good, and as previously mentioned, the demonology rules are good (and easy port from BRP BGB to BRP RD100). There may be a few other differences, but essientially most of the content in Merrie England Age of Chivalry is in Merrie England Robyn Hode.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Mankcam

[Toadmaster]

That was the plan, I'll grab MERH and then if I run across AOC I'll pick that up as well.

 

Shame the licensing gets in the way of keeping the others available.

 

Simon I'll be waiting for your crusades additions. You need to get cracking because I apparently don't buy these things until they've been out of print 5-10 years. I'd like to have it in hand before 2030 so the clock it ticking. 😂  

[soltakss]

On 10/1/2018 at 5:39 PM, Toadmaster said:

Simon I'll be waiting for your crusades additions. You need to get cracking because I apparently don't buy these things until they've been out of print 5-10 years. I'd like to have it in hand before 2030 so the clock it ticking. 😂  

Already starting to think about starting work on them!