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So does anybody remember Hawkmoon? ElfQuest?


Apache6Actual

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6 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

I will of course always defer to people who were there at the time, but I have a feeling that some of the various "printings" were more a "use whatever stuff is on hand" than specific planned releases. I believe that as they ran out of rulebooks they got more printed, and incorporated the errata. When they ran out of boxes they printed more boxes, and updated them along the way. It's also possible that people made mistakes and used older stock when they were supposed to not use it. Regardless, I mainly see 4 printings at work here, centered around when they deliberately changed an item. I'm absolutely not trying to argue. 

I think you're right. I suspect it probably worked out along the lines of Steve, Greg and/or Chaosium keeping a list of errors, errata, or potential changes to the rules as they went along, and then incorporating them into the next batch they printed. And, as you pointed out, the possibility that somebody might have grabbed the wrong stuff at times. There might have even been things that changes that were made and then discarded later on when they didn't work out as planned. 

 

Just going from some of what happened with Pendragon, with Greg only noticing that the threshold for the Chivalrous bonus was off (calculated on five traits, like the religious bonus, instead of six), or the 22 point plate that he was thinking about, I suspect there were a lot of things that happened with various rules. back in the days before RPG forums and webgroups. that most of us weren't aware of.  There is some rule stuff I've read in various issues of Wrym's Footnotes that was "official" but never showed up again anywhere else. Plus a lot of that stuff was done up in the days of typewritten manuscripts and files being store in a file cabinet, not on a  hardrive. So there was probably stuff that got lost or forgotten along the way. I just found a bunch of old Pendragon stuff I did up 20-25 years ago, that I'd forgotten about, that is formatted for an Atari ST. I can just imagine how much stuff someone like Greg or Steve might have had tucked away somewhere.

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I can't speak for Steve, but we pretty much know what stuff Greg has tucked away. He's had us sift and sort through it a number of times to look for various things we were interested in, plus Greg lived in a very small house where space was at a definite premium, and he was happy to pass stuff along to us.

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35 minutes ago, Rick Meints said:

I can't speak for Steve, but we pretty much know what stuff Greg has tucked away. He's had us sift and sort through it a number of times to look for various things we were interested in, plus Greg lived in a very small house where space was at a definite premium, and he was happy to pass stuff along to us.

I guess that's good. I got something for Pendragon (a draft of the Book of Castles) that he had started that I'm not sure it anyone over at Nocturnal has. It might have wound up in the Book of the Warlord or one of the latter supplements. I should probably contact somebody and check just to make sure I don't have the only copy of it. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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I have the Hawkmoon boxed set. It really isn't that much different than Stormbringer/Elric (not surprising) and comparing this game and Darksyde's Corum sourcebook you start to see once you get BRP all you need are the original fantasy stories to create any and all game worlds you want! Like most setting books of its day it is a catalogue of stuff found in the original stories. 

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59 minutes ago, jagerfury said:

I have the Hawkmoon boxed set. It really isn't that much different than Stormbringer/Elric (not surprising) and comparing this game and Darksyde's Corum sourcebook you start to see once you get BRP all you need are the original fantasy stories to create any and all game worlds you want! Like most setting books of its day it is a catalogue of stuff found in the original stories. 

That's partially because one of the things that Chaosium did back then was adapt their game system to whatever setting they were trying to emulate. That helped to capture the feel for the settings.. They could have easily just adapted Elric and the Young Kingdoms to RuneQuest, give the God of Law and Chaos RQ style cults, Rune (Divine) spells and such. But they didn't. Instead they tossed out all of that and came up with sorcery rules which better reflected the world of the Young Kingdoms than RQ's magic system did. it made their stuff more immersive and less about the game system.

By contrast look at the Licensed stuff TSR did for AD&D. Generally, they would shoehorn the setting to AD&D. So much so that it didn't even feel like the source material anymore- it was just AD&D. I think that some of Chasoium's greatest accomplishments were not what products they made, but the approaches they took to making them. 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/11/2018 at 2:31 PM, Rick Meints said:

I will of course always defer to people who were there at the time, but I have a feeling that some of the various "printings" were more a "use whatever stuff is on hand" than specific planned releases. I believe that as they ran out of rulebooks they got more printed, and incorporated the errata. When they ran out of boxes they printed more boxes, and updated them along the way. It's also possible that people made mistakes and used older stock when they were supposed to not use it. Regardless, I mainly see 4 printings at work here, centered around when they deliberately changed an item. I'm absolutely not trying to argue. 

I'm quite sure you're right. It's definitely not as clear cut as a printing from a mainstream book publisher, but the term has been adopted by the collectors of these things as a differentiator of versions. Absent 30+ year old corporate records, which may not have existed in the first place, people piecing these bits of info together are our best guess.

With box sets, there is the additional issue of frankensteining parts from one to another. I've owned and looked at enough Stormbringer boxes that I feel pretty confident that the list I referenced is accurate. But there is always more to discover!

44/420

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21 hours ago, TheHistorian said:

I'm quite sure you're right. It's definitely not as clear cut as a printing from a mainstream book publisher, but the term has been adopted by the collectors of these things as a differentiator of versions. Absent 30+ year old corporate records, which may not have existed in the first place, people piecing these bits of info together are our best guess.

As somebody who does have access to what is left of the print numbers for "Golden Age" chaosium publications, they list three Stormbringer printings in our corporate records. I don't mind what's on the list of versions, but I'm not going to go that deep when I list them on Chaosium's master historical SKU list. After all, the dice they put in the box varied too, and the catalog placed in the box changed about every 3 months, as did the reader response card. Heck, one archive copy we had in the Hayward office had both rulebooks in it... 🙂

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LOL! I can only image what might be cobbled together in boxes somewhere. Chaosium was, at one time, a garage company, dealing in relatively small print runs, trying to create, pack and ship games to distributors and customers. They were obviously far more concerned with making sure each box had the right books, maps, dice and counters than in documenting a record for posterity. Rightly so, too. 

I doubt back in the 70s if anybody at Chasoium paid attention to stuff like how many copies of the RQ2 softcover were printed in green, and how many in red. 

 

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6 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! I can only image what might be cobbled together in boxes somewhere. Chaosium was, at one time, a garage company, dealing in relatively small print runs, trying to create, pack and ship games to distributors and customers. They were obviously far more concerned with making sure each box had the right books, maps, dice and counters than in documenting a record for posterity. Rightly so, too. 

I doubt back in the 70s if anybody at Chasoium paid attention to stuff like how many copies of the RQ2 softcover were printed in green, and how many in red. 

 

Yeah, kinda. 

They were in a residential district, in a two story home. Upstairs was Greg's office, Tadashi's office, a small room for play testing (an old breakfast nook), and where Sandy and Steve did their stuff. Oh, and what was a converted closet with an IBM Selectric II Mag-card to do initial column layout. Downstairs was where Yurek and Charlie did layout, by hand from the columns produced by the Selectric, and IIRC, where Lynn did his work. This was early 80s, not sure about before.

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On 11/26/2018 at 5:08 PM, Rick Meints said:

As somebody who does have access to what is left of the print numbers for "Golden Age" chaosium publications, they list three Stormbringer printings in our corporate records. I don't mind what's on the list of versions, but I'm not going to go that deep when I list them on Chaosium's master historical SKU list. After all, the dice they put in the box varied too, and the catalog placed in the box changed about every 3 months, as did the reader response card. Heck, one archive copy we had in the Hayward office had both rulebooks in it... 🙂

Ha! That's awesome!

Whether or not it's official, these variations/versions/printings/editions/synonym/synonym/etc. exist. As long as it's treated as good fun for collectors, I think that ambiguity is okay.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I loved the mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy with Hawkmoon, and rebels against the evil empire was a nice hook.  I still have my boxed set, though it is a little the worse for wear. 

Also, maybe I missed it, but has anyone mentioned the Corum sourcebook from Darcsyde Productions?  It was intended as a Stormbringer supplement.  I picked up a mint condition copy probably five years ago. 

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On 12/13/2018 at 4:55 PM, ORtrail said:

I loved the mix of Sci-Fi and Fantasy with Hawkmoon, and rebels against the evil empire was a nice hook.  I still have my boxed set, though it is a little the worse for wear. 

Also, maybe I missed it, but has anyone mentioned the Corum sourcebook from Darcsyde Productions?  It was intended as a Stormbringer supplement.  I picked up a mint condition copy probably five years ago. 

I think you're the first. I have one friend who loves the Corum book, but then he never got into Stormbringer, so I'm not sure how much of his fondness is due to Stormbringer rules, and how much is due to the Corum books, or to the Corum RPG.

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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  • 2 months later...
On 3/12/2019 at 3:59 PM, ChalkLine said:

I'm just about to start in a Mongoose Hawkmoon game on Dischord next week.

I'm going to be at a huge disadvantage having not read the works

Hawkmoon is probably one of the best Eternal Champion series not to have read the books for, so you should be OK.

At its core, it is post-apocalypse Europe, but if you treat it as "Gran-Bretan Nutters vs everyone else" then that works.

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On 10/30/2018 at 12:00 AM, Apache6Actual said:

Hawkmoon had a supplement?

 

I believe it was the beginning of an entire Eternal Champions series at the time. That was the impression I had as a customer and a former owner of Hawkmoon (sold it to a good buddy at cost when I was broke and I could not be happier that it went to a good home, I am a bit Issaries like that). Maybe some of the folk who were around at  that time could elucidate.

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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Damn; read the whole thread Bill and then you do not have to post apologies for restating the obvious <gr>.

I see that all my points have already been made so...

To make it not a complete waste of time I will say...

On 11/11/2018 at 6:02 PM, jagerfury said:

I have the Hawkmoon boxed set. It really isn't that much different than Stormbringer/Elric (not surprising) and comparing this game and Darksyde's Corum sourcebook you start to see once you get BRP all you need are the original fantasy stories to create any and all game worlds you want! Like most setting books of its day it is a catalogue of stuff found in the original stories. 

Nicely said and very much the real strength of BRP especially when combined with...

On 11/11/2018 at 7:11 PM, Atgxtg said:

That's partially because one of the things that Chaosium did back then was adapt their game system to whatever setting they were trying to emulate. That helped to capture the feel for the settings.. They could have easily just adapted Elric and the Young Kingdoms to RuneQuest, give the God of Law and Chaos RQ style cults, Rune (Divine) spells and such. But they didn't. Instead they tossed out all of that and came up with sorcery rules which better reflected the world of the Young Kingdoms than RQ's magic system did. it made their stuff more immersive and less about the game system.

By contrast look at the Licensed stuff TSR did for AD&D. Generally, they would shoehorn the setting to AD&D. So much so that it didn't even feel like the source material anymore- it was just AD&D. I think that some of Chasoium's greatest accomplishments were not what products they made, but the approaches they took to making them.

Yeah, that's what makes the BRP system tick, that and the fans that put so much effort into it.

... remember, with a TARDIS, one is never late for breakfast!

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29 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Nicely said and very much the real strength of BRP especially when combined with...

Yeah, that's what makes the BRP system tick, that and the fans that put so much effort into it.

Plus the fact that in most cases you don't have to divert too much from the core BRP rules to emulate a particular setting, making it much easier to adapt it to lots of different settings. 

For instance if you wanted to run something like a TV or film Western using BRP, you'd could use most of the rules as written. Stat up a few weapons, add in some sort of Quick Draw rules, and and devote most of your time and effort on setting and adventures.

It's not like. say,  D&D where, by RAW, where two gunfighters in a shootout, could empty their revolvers into each other, and then have to reload so they could finish  it. That would probably require a few rule changes to adapt the system to reflect the setting. 

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/17/2019 at 1:50 PM, Atgxtg said:

For instance if you wanted to run something like a TV or film Western using BRP, you'd could use most of the rules as written. Stat up a few weapons, add in some sort of Quick Draw rules, and and devote most of your time and effort on setting and adventures.

<Looks at Chaosium's back catalog>

Or just buy it from them and run it.

😉

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2 minutes ago, g33k said:

<Looks at Chaosium's back catalog>

Or just buy it from them and run it.

😉

Sure, if it is ground that they already covered. If they didn't however, the core system is extremely adaptable .

Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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  • 5 months later...

I bought several of the Elfquest RPG books back in the 1980s when they were first published as I was a fan of the comic books. Oddly, these were the only Chaosium products I had ever purchased until this year. :) My knowledge of Chaosium until recently was mostly from my high school's gaming club and also advertisements in Dragon magazine back in the day.

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French edition of Hawkmoon was more successful than the US one, and had an interesting line of supplements. It even had a second edition, based on Elric! rules.

The book on France was simply one of the best background books I've read for a game, with a different mood for every region (swashbuckling in Aquitior, waterworld in Alsaz, island of Dr Moreau in Auvergne, Arthurian myth in Brittany, and so on) and lots of scenario or even campaign ideas.

ElfQuest, on the other hand, only had a core rulebook...

Edited by Mugen
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