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Elric vs Magic World


bustapc

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IMO there are a few reasons to cinsder the Stormbringer/Elric! books:

 

First off they have lots of detail on the Young Kingdoms, and other places in the Multiverse.

Secondly they have setting specific rules, such as stats for Melniboneans, Creature of Matik,  information on the Elemental and Beast Lords.

Thirdly, there are some differences in the rules between the games, and editions. Sorcery, for example, is somewhat different between editions.

 

But since you bought Elric! you can see all this for yourself fairly quickly.

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

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1 hour ago, bustapc said:

I mainly asked because the Elric/Stormbringer books are generally pretty pricey. That said, I did manage to order Elric! last night for a very reasonable price, so... 🤣

Elric is high on flavour and the Young Kingdoms. The rules for Elric and Magic World are quite similar, but I am not an expert on either.

It is worth buying all the old Chaousium games/supplements, in my opinion.

Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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Yes it is definitely worth for the vast amount setting specific stuff, including playable races, specific allegiance rules, creatures, npcs and starting scenarios.  Rules wise, in Elric! you get the demon magic that was cut out of MW.  But if you have Advanced Sorcery for MW you have all the demon summoning rules in Elric! and more.

And typographically Elric! is a much nicier book than Magic World. 

Edited by smiorgan
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2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Elric is high on flavour and the Young Kingdoms. The rules for Elric and Magic World are quite similar, but I am not an expert on either.

It is worth buying all the old Chaousium games/supplements, in my opinion.

If I sell a kidney, maybe... unfortunately some of those books are out of my price range, but it looks like between MW and Elric! I can cobble enough together to get a good game going!

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The thing I like about Elric! is the slimness of its rulebook. I don't even use the Young Kingdoms material (I run it like Magic World in Lankhmar) but it is my preferred game. It has very similar rules to Magic World in about 2/3 the size of book. If you have one, probably not worth buying the other unless it's a reasonable price.

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45 minutes ago, Questbird said:

The thing I like about Elric! is the slimness of its rulebook. I don't even use the Young Kingdoms material (I run it like Magic World in Lankhmar) but it is my preferred game. It has very similar rules to Magic World in about 2/3 the size of book. If you have one, probably not worth buying the other unless it's a reasonable price.

I managed to get a decent copy (in pics, anyway) for cover price plus shipping!

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

You've got two ...

Hmmm...... 

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On 1/6/2019 at 4:03 AM, bustapc said:

Hi all!

New to the boards and BRP in general.  My first question is, if I have Magic World, is it worth picking up Elric! or can I pretty much do it all with MW?

thanks!

Not really - unless you are specifically interested in the setting, or the summoning magic systems. Bother the demon and elemental summoning systems from Elric! are in the Magic World Supplement Advanced Sorcery. Otherwise there are very few substantial rules differences; Elric! Is a paragon of the layout artists craft, but materially bare the setting there’s little difference.

Cheers,

Nick

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9 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

Not really - unless you are specifically interested in the setting, or the summoning magic systems. Bother the demon and elemental summoning systems from Elric! are in the Magic World Supplement Advanced Sorcery. Otherwise there are very few substantial rules differences; Elric! Is a paragon of the layout artists craft, but materially bare the setting there’s little difference.

Cheers,

Nick

That’s good to know, though, as I don’t have Advanced Sorcery.  

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9 hours ago, bustapc said:

That’s good to know, though, as I don’t have Advanced Sorcery.  

Advanced Sorcery is definitely worth picking up. expands the demon and elemental summoning rules, adds some interesting powerful spells, necromantic arts, rune magic, and fey magic that dovetails pretty nicely with the Southern Reaches setting detailed in the main book. IIRC, it was essentially a way to get a lot of the material that's in the Bronze Grimoire back into print.

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You can do well without any of the Elric! or SB stuff to run a Young Kingdoms campaign. The rules are all in MagW and AdvSorc. Some spells that are in the Bronze Grimoire might seem flavourful, but are highly optional. Setting information is abundant on the net.

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  • 2 weeks later...

One huge reason to have the Elric! book in addition to the Magic World book is the Elric! Digest. The write ups of major NPCs as well as some more typical examples of various professionals is invaluable to a GM in my humble opinion. Nothing really exists like that for Magic World.

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70/420

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2 hours ago, Chaot said:

One huge reason to have the Elric! book in addition to the Magic World book is the Elric! Digest. The write ups of major NPCs as well as some more typical examples of various professionals is invaluable to a GM in my humble opinion. Nothing really exists like that for Magic World.

*sigh* yet another thing that was going to be in the Chronicler's Companion. Hmm - I should contact Ben about them actually.

;)

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  • 2 months later...
3 hours ago, RogerDee said:

To be honest the Elric rules don't really get across the size of Moorcock's multiverse, it is huge. 

Yeah, but they weren't originally intended to. At first they really just covered the world we see in the Elric books, with just enough wiggle room so that a GM could touch on the concept of the multiverse from time to time.Thats why the Game was called Stormbringer (or for a time Elric!) and not the Eternal Champion or Mucltiverse RPG.  Later it got expanded to cover the Hawkmoon books. In the Shattered Isle the started  to make it a full Eternal Champion game, but it never really got developed past that. Plus Moorcock wrote several Elric stories after the RPG came out. Darkcyde did add in a Corum game to the mix too.

If the rules tried to get across the size of the multiverse, they probably wouldn't have done such a good job on the Young Kingdoms, as there is only so much room in the book, plus there is also the fact that Moorcock doesn't explain everything, so it would be tricky to cover some stuff. Either some things wouldn't get properly answered, or the authors would eventually get crossed up by something Moorcock wrote, especially after the RPG came out. That's always a risk with licensed RPGs of ongoing settings. 

 

 

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

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9 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, but they weren't originally intended to. At first they really just covered the world we see in the Elric books, with just enough wiggle room so that a GM could touch on the concept of the multiverse from time to time.Thats why the Game was called Stormbringer (or for a time Elric!) and not the Eternal Champion or Mucltiverse RPG.  Later it got expanded to cover the Hawkmoon books. In the Shattered Isle the started  to make it a full Eternal Champion game, but it never really got developed past that. Plus Moorcock wrote several Elric stories after the RPG came out. Darkcyde did add in a Corum game to the mix too.

If the rules tried to get across the size of the multiverse, they probably wouldn't have done such a good job on the Young Kingdoms, as there is only so much room in the book, plus there is also the fact that Moorcock doesn't explain everything, so it would be tricky to cover some stuff. Either some things wouldn't get properly answered, or the authors would eventually get crossed up by something Moorcock wrote, especially after the RPG came out. That's always a risk with licensed RPGs of ongoing settings. 

 

I don't wholly agree with this, unless we are talking at cross purposes?

They didn't really cover what was in the Elric books though, the cosmos / multiverse was immense, like really huge - each plane of existence being totally different in that some were tree-like, and others of different shapes. Thing is, at the minute, the D100 engine can only handle gritty games. For example, Elric has encountered Conan, who has also met a plethora of other beings, one of whom is Judge Dredd; who has in turn fought friggin' Batman. If memory serves....? Now Batman fights superhumans toe-to-toe and comes out on top.

Unless there are some other books out there to be better handle 'big damn heroes'  the D100 engine, such as it is cannot handle that type of game, at least not that I have seen., as at really high numbers and tends to break down.

 

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4 hours ago, RogerDee said:

I don't wholly agree with this, unless we are talking at cross purposes?

I suspect so

Quote

They didn't really cover what was in the Elric books though, the cosmos / multiverse was immense, like really huge - each plane of existence being totally different in that some were tree-like, and others of different shapes.

They did but not in great detail. The original Strombringer rules devoted a page or so to it i, plus a paragraph or so more in the included adventure.

But the thing is, they didn't need to, and honestly probably were better off not doing so. If someone buys a game called Elric! (or Stormbringer) then they want a game about Elric and the world he lives in. They might not care much about or even be aware of the whole multiverse thing. They could easily be turned off if the game wasn't focused around Elric and the Young Kingdoms. 

And, even if they did include stuff about the multiverse, what could they say. Moorcock only describes a handful of settings to a similar level as he does the Young Kingdoms, and doesn't really provide much that would help a GM determine the physical and magical laws of a particular sphere, especially back in the early 80s. 

 

 

Quote

Thing is, at the minute, the D100 engine can only handle gritty games. For example, Elric has encountered Conan, who has also met a plethora of other beings, one of whom is Judge Dredd; who has in turn fought friggin' Batman. If memory serves....? Now Batman fights superhumans toe-to-toe and comes out on top.

Unless there are some other books out there to be better handle 'big damn heroes'  the D100 engine, such as it is cannot handle that type of game, at least not that I have seen., as at really high numbers and tends to break down.

Well, first off most of Moorcock Elric stuff falls into the "gritty category", so that wouldn't be much of an issue, or a factor in the Elric RPG. The game wouldn't need to handle Jerry Cornelius, or the Dancers at the End of Time, let alone non-Moorcoock characters such as Judge Dredd or Batman.  

Secondly, while the default rules tend to gravitate for a more serious combat system, that isn't the only option.There are other versions of BRP that handle other types of play, including Superworld, an actual Superhero RPG that could indeed handle Batman. Admittedly Batman generally won't fare as well against Superman in the game as he would in the comics or film, but that's mostly due to the character having a high decree of script protection. Realistically, if such can be used for superheroes, a speeder suchas Superman could zip off at superspeed, grab Batman and do whatever he wants to the caped crusader in a fraction of a second, long before Batman is even aware that something happening. Yet that never happens. In an RPG however, players will generally take full advantage of their powers and abilities. 

 

Lastly, I think that what the game system can handle is a separate issue.The important question is really "Can the game handle Elric and the Young Kingdoms, and the places where Elric went to in the books, at least the ones up until the time the RPG was written?" The answer to that is yes. If that game system can handle anything unrelated to that isn't really important. It would be like grabbing a Sci-Fi RPG such as Star Wars or Star Trek and complaining that it didn't cover Ancient Egypt or Middle Earth very well. Of course it didn't, it wasn't supposed to. 

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

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@Atgxtg I think maybe perhaps what you say was true once....but not so much now. If you're doing a multiverse setting, it is pretty much like Faith said, "Go big or go home," kind of mentality. I want the cosmology explained, like they do in Pathfinder. But we need how the multiverse is put together, its gods, and its metaphysics. Sure that can change, or get more refined as time goes on. And that is totally fine.

As to the system thing, I suspect D100 would struggle with the tv series Arrow. i mean how would it cope with him shooting three arrows at once? At best I could see if a percentage divide three ways. But even so there would be a change he would miss. And the Green Arrow does not. Miss. Period. So short of him having like 300% in bow or something, not sure how this particular games engine would simulate that?

EDIT: Now I have just come across the Revolution stuff, so I my purchase that if I like the SRD stuff. I have a hankering of a full-on Elric / Eternal Champion type game using all the various magic systems from D100.

Edited by RogerDee
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4 minutes ago, RogerDee said:

As to the system thing, I suspect D100 would struggle with the tv series Arrow. i mean how would it cope with him shooting three arrows at once? At best I could see if a percentage divide three ways. But even so there would be a change he would miss. And the Green Arrow does not. Miss. Period. So short of him having like 300% in bow or something, not sure how this particular games engine would simulate that?

EDIT: Now I have just come across the Revolution stuff, so I my purchase that if I like the SRD stuff. I have a hankering of a full-on Elric / Eternal Champion type game using all the various magic systems from D100.

In Revolution D100, Shoot Three Arrows at Once could be a Stunt that just applies a Penalty to the attack chance and allows all three arrows to be shot.

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Simon Phipp - Caldmore Chameleon - Wallowing in my elitism since 1982. Many Systems, One Family. Just a fanboy. 

www.soltakss.com/index.html

Jonstown Compendium author. Find my contributions here

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Just now, soltakss said:

In Revolution D100, Shoot Three Arrows at Once could be a Stunt that just applies a Penalty to the attack chance and allows all three arrows to be shot.

Really....cool.

Thing is I love the metaphysics and the fluff, and other stuff, in D100 systems but until you have said that, they have lacked the ability to give me the type of games I want to play. It has resulted in me doing Lords of Gossamer type games, which are incredibly high level, but are not so good at the low or intermediate type games. So you may have just solved my problem, assuming I can understand the system.....time to go visit Drivethru :)

 

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