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New Magic World Review


rsanford

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Its well done and can be found on the big purple at https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/17/17905.phtml.

Let's discuss!

For one I would like to see a new Magic World book (Yeah I know I am out of luck) that provides a more fleshed out nautical setting, and gets rid of the various typos and layout errors. What about you?

 

 

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No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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A corrected core book that eliminates the typos, and maybe streamlines the layout a touch would be great, but I would be opposed to any significant change to the core text - it would add unnecessary overhead and part of the games charm is that it is so close to previously published sources.

I'd also like to see the Bestiary resurrected and completed somehow - the draft I saw had some great stuff in it, and in the hands of the right editor could still sing IMO.

I'd also like to see some support material in the style of Sea Kings of the Purple Towns (Stormbringer) or Arkham Unveiled (Call of Cthulhu) - compelling, well woven and rich but geographically modest in scale settings fleshed out with a few scenarios. IIRC the revised Shillingshead monograph was heading for that; and there are other possibilities within the Southern Reaches. Equally, it is  a model that would allow _other_settings to be explored.

I'd also be delighted to see a Community Content Program for Magic World.

I don't expect any of these things to happen of course, but one can dream.

Nick

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2 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

I don't expect any of these things to happen of course, but one can dream.

Yeah, Isn't Magic World discontinued? In fact pretty much the whole approach of a generic source book  sort of a thing of the past now?

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

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42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, Isn't Magic World discontinued? In fact pretty much the whole approach of a generic source book  sort of a thing of the past now?

I think your right however if they fleshed out the Southern Reaches setting it wouldn't be so generic!  But in any case, Magic World isn't going anywhere.

Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, Isn't Magic World discontinued? In fact pretty much the whole approach of a generic source book  sort of a thing of the past now?

If by ‘generic sourcebook’ you mean a generic rules set I hope not and don’t think so. 99% of the games I have run have been in worlds I create myself. I feel worldbuilding is a key feature of the hobby. Attempts to tie rules sets to particular worlds make me much less interested.

The core books for the industries best known game are generic and contain advise for creating your own world, so the approach is far from dead.

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26 minutes ago, NickMiddleton said:

Quite possibly - but it is the only  BRP / D100 rule set I have any remaining enthusiasm for and forms the basis of all the BRP gaming I still do (albeit mostly in recent years that's been SF based).

*shrug*

Nick

Out of curiosity what BRP game do you use for SF? Does it have good systems for generating worlds and technology?

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5 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

A corrected core book that eliminates the typos, and maybe streamlines the layout a touch would be great, but I would be opposed to any significant change to the core text - it would add unnecessary overhead and part of the games charm is that it is so close to previously published sources.

I'd also like to see the Bestiary resurrected and completed somehow - the draft I saw had some great stuff in it, and in the hands of the right editor could still sing IMO.

I'd also like to see some support material in the style of Sea Kings of the Purple Towns (Stormbringer) or Arkham Unveiled (Call of Cthulhu) - compelling, well woven and rich but geographically modest in scale settings fleshed out with a few scenarios. IIRC the revised Shillingshead monograph was heading for that; and there are other possibilities within the Southern Reaches. Equally, it is  a model that would allow _other_settings to be explored.

I'd also be delighted to see a Community Content Program for Magic World.

I don't expect any of these things to happen of course, but one can dream.

Nick

I’d like most of this except the settings. From my point of view a corrected core book is the most desireable but it ain’t gonna happen.

The second most desireable and (most do-able?) is a community content program. This would enable people to fund refined fan content.

In the absence of a community content program this forum provides a wealth of fan-content and will continue to slowly and steadily grow for some time. What we can do is try to organise all the fan-content and errata so new people can find it easily. Two pinned posts would be a good start.

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20 minutes ago, Coronoides said:

Out of curiosity what BRP game do you use for SF? Does it have good systems for generating worlds and technology?

I use the rough draft I'd started out on of a "Future*World II" derived from the 2012 Magic World and the original Future World from Worlds of Wonder; I borrow a lot from the 2300AD BRP conversion this in the file section here for one game (that uses the 2300AD setting, so I use Colonial Atlas and Equipment Guides); for my pulp Space: 1889 game I use the GDW 1889 source books and a simplified and pulp-skewed variant of the MW core rules, propped up with borrowings from the BRP BGB.

I haven't really run a traditional "planet hopping" BRP game in the style of classic Traveller / Trek / Star Wars - if I did I'd pinch the planetary generation system from FGU's Space Opera, unless I was doing something the required seriously plausible planetology (in which case I do some research). EDIT: Which IIRC is what I did for the Gate Warden setting that I play tested the BRP BGB with and which is another influence on my current "Future*World II"

Cheers,

Nick

Edited by NickMiddleton
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20 minutes ago, Coronoides said:

If by ‘generic sourcebook’ you mean a generic rules set I hope not and don’t think so. 99% of the games I have run have been in worlds I create myself. I feel worldbuilding is a key feature of the hobby. Attempts to tie rules sets to particular worlds make me much less interested.

The core books for the industries best known game are generic and contain advise for creating your own world, so the approach is far from dead.

I mean as far a Chaosium goes. I thought that they have decided to go back to the idea of integrating the rules with specific settings.

 

Personally, it is, of course a different matter. I think the idea is that many, if most most GMs use pre-written stuff and don't do as much world building or even adventure designing.

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

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30 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Personally, it is, of course a different matter. I think the idea is that many, if most most GMs use pre-written stuff and don't do as much world building or even adventure designing.

If they even use them, vs. just collecting/reading them (which I've seen purported to be a good chunk of what's keeping the RPG industry afloat).
I never use published stuff 'as is' but I've always been happy to yank elements for use in my own settings... spells, creatures, floorplans, spaceship deckplans, whatever. Don't most GMs tweak published adventures when they run them?
My own thing lately has been to turn MW towards something like Warhammer (minus the demi-humans)... grabbing bits of that setting and stuff from Renaissance and Lamentations of the Flame Princess (an idea I had even BEFORE reading Butters' excellent game logs).

The minimal setting in Magic World is intriguing, and open-ended enough that I could see loosely hanging some adventures on it that could still be tweaked for other purposes... and I'd be curious to see what was in the intended bestiary. I could go for something with a lot more fairy tale influence on it (which The Southern Reaches suggests to me).

Edited by Simlasa
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42 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

I mean as far a Chaosium goes. I thought that they have decided to go back to the idea of integrating the rules with specific settings.

 

Personally, it is, of course a different matter. I think the idea is that many, if most most GMs use pre-written stuff and don't do as much world building or even adventure designing.

Personal experiences vary. What I have seen across four Australian cities is more homebrew worlds. Folks starting out as GM’s use published stuff but as soon as they find thier feet they start getting ideas of thier own and catch the world-building bug. 

Without a proper randomised survey there is no-way to get to the truth. 

At the moment the hobby is growing and there is a lot of new GM’s. Perhaps as these new people find thier feet we will see a resurgence of generic rules sets.

Edited by Coronoides
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1 hour ago, Simlasa said:

If they even use them, vs. just collecting/reading them (which I've seen purported to be a good chunk of what's keeping the RPG industry afloat).

Yes, that's the the 20/80 rule that Matt Sprange mentioned over at Mongoose. Allegedly, people who buy RPG products only actually play 20% of what they buy, and the other 80% they read and put on the shelf. One nasty by product/reality check to this is that, from the standpoint of an RPG company, it doesn't matter if people actually play a particular RPG or not, only that they have purchased it. From a purely financial standpoint the money of someone who doesn't play a game is just as good as the money of someone who plays the game regularly. 

 

Personally, I think ther situation is a little more complex. To start with I think games that people buy, but don't play might be adapted for use with something that they do play. For instance, if someone was running a Rome: Life and Death of the Republic campaign, they could conceivable but and use stuff from Cthulhu Invictus, or even GURPS Imperial Rome, not to mention a half dozen other RPGs for that setting.  And once purchased such books would be used as a reference for any other Roman based RPgs they play in the future. So the 20/80 rule is probably more like a 20/50/30 rule, if yoiu factor in for stuff used as resources for other games. Most of my GURPS and Rolemaster historical books are things that I doubt I will run but do use for other RPGs.  

Then, there is the fact that people who don't like a game are less inclined to purchase supplements for it, and are also less likely to buy other games from that company or author. So there are consequences to targeting the 80% bracket. 

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

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1 hour ago, Coronoides said:

Personal experiences vary. What I have seen across four Australian cities is more homebrew worlds. Folks starting out as GM’s use published stuff but as soon as they find thier feet they start getting ideas of thier own and catch the world-building bug. 

That used to be the experience around here. In no small part because it would have been impossible to maintain a campaign solely on published adventures. Personally, I think A GM needs to write some of the adventures, or at least rewrite prewritten ones, if he plans on having an actual campaign with a storyline, and events that the PCs can have an effect on. 

1 hour ago, Coronoides said:

 

Without a proper randomised survey there is no-way to get to the truth. 

True. I wasn't really referring to trends just what the current line appears to be with Chaosium now. It probably makes sense for them, too as the company has had more success in the past with setting specific RPGs. Even though those RPGs were using the same game system, for the most part. 

1 hour ago, Coronoides said:

At the moment the hobby is growing and there is a lot of new GM’s. Perhaps as these new people find thier feet we will see a resurgence of generic rules sets.

Maybe. I think the problem is that generic rule sets don't sell as well and don't produce a line of supplements the same way that a specific setting can. Nor do they generate the same type of loyalty. Then there is the fact that back when most of the generic RPGs and generic source books were first produced, many of them were covering new ground. Today, not only are cultures like the Romans or Vikings covered, but they have been covered multiple times in multiple games, making the information more accessible. So there is a lot more information out there, including many of the older generic supplements. Most of information is a true now as it was when those books were first published.

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

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20 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

So the 20/80 rule is probably more like a 20/50/30 rule, if yoiu factor in for stuff used as resources for other games. Most of my GURPS and Rolemaster historical books are things that I doubt I will run but do use for other RPGs.

That seems like a reasonable guess. I've certainly bought material for systems I do not run with an eye towards using it in one I do. But it's been a long time since I felt the need to have EVERYTHING put out for a particular system or out of loyalty to a company (though, once upon a time I was like that with Chaosium). When OneBookShelf was first going I made a LOT of impulse buys, but that also passed.

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13 minutes ago, Simlasa said:

That seems like a reasonable guess. I've certainly bought material for systems I do not run with an eye towards using it in one I do. But it's been a long time since I felt the need to have EVERYTHING put out for a particular system or out of loyalty to a company (though, once upon a time I was like that with Chaosium). When OneBookShelf was first going I made a LOT of impulse buys, but that also passed.

Yeah, I'm the same way. There are only a handful of RPGs that I get every product for, and those tend to be games written by, or at least overseen by one person, or one group of people, such as Pendragon (except for the Green Knight era, which in all honesty, wasn't all that bad). It's a lot harder to be loyal to a product line or company when the people who write the products or run the company change, and much of what I liked about a line or company changed as well. 

Also, the reality of Paper & Pencil RPGs is that so much of it depends on the GM. A good GM might want a supplement but probably doesn't need it. A bad GM can buy all the books in the world and it won't necessarily translate into a better RPG experience. That makes RPGs very different and a much tougher market than most other hobbies. Someone who is into a basketball, skiing, hiking, chess, baking, archery, video games  or whatever has to go out and get certain equipment, and then has to replace it or but additional supplies as time goes on. With a paper & pencil RPG, once you have a rulebook and dice, you only really need players, some paper and the odd pencil or two here and there. People can get decades of enjoyment out of a RPG without ever buying anything else for that game. 

 

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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33 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

 With a paper & pencil RPG, once you have a rulebook and dice, you only really need players, some paper and the odd pencil or two here and there. People can get decades of enjoyment out of a RPG without ever buying anything else for that game.

I wonder if, somewhere out there, there is a guy who bought that one RPG, loved it, and continues to run it till this day... never having bought any other RPGs?
Most hobbyists I know buy well beyond what they 'need'...videogamers with huge unplayed libraries on Steam, model kit builders with basements full of unbuilt kits. When my mother died we filled a truck with all her beading supplies. I don't know any roleplayers that reach anywhere near the levels of hoarding I've seen from some scrap book fanatics.

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16 minutes ago, Simlasa said:

I wonder if, somewhere out there, there is a guy who bought that one RPG, loved it, and continues to run it till this day... never having bought any other RPGs?

Probably not. But I've seen some people who are close to it. 

16 minutes ago, Simlasa said:


Most hobbyists I know buy well beyond what they 'need'...videogamers with huge unplayed libraries on Steam, model kit builders with basements full of unbuilt kits. When my mother died we filled a truck with all her beading supplies. I don't know any roleplayers that reach anywhere near the levels of hoarding I've seen from some scrap book fanatics.

I think it's because some of the fun and immersion of an RPG comes from reading it. Especially for the GM, since the GM has to run it. 

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

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1 hour ago, Coronoides said:

So is there anything in the review I got wrong or that deserves further elaboration?

 

I'm not sure of your "Why did Chaosium make magic World with RuneQuest was such a hit?" line of reasoning. At the time Magic World was released RQ hadn't been among their product lines for a decade, perhaps closer to two. So RQ really ins't a factor. Magic World really grew out of Strombringer, which did date back to the old RQ days, but remained a Chasoium product after the infamous Avalon Hill deal. But, after the lost the rights to use Elric, they didn't have the Strombringer setting anymore. So Magic World allowed them to retain most of the rules with a more generic fantasy setting.  And on the plus side, Magic World is far more generic and customizable than RQ or Stormbringer were, because they were tied to Glorantha and the Young Kingdoms receptively. 

So it wasn't like Chasoium had RQ going as a hit and came up with Magic World. They didn't. The came up with Stormbinger, which was adapting the core RQ/BRP system to Young Kingdoms, then went with that a bit more after it became tier "in house FRPG". It looks like  NewChaosium getting RQ seems to have killed off Magic World. I don't believe it is still in print or are there any more supplements in the works..

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2 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

It looks like  NewChaosium getting RQ seems to have killed off Magic World. I don't believe it is still in print or are there any more supplements in the works..

You can still purchase copies of MW from Chaosium here, but I believe you are correct that no more supplements are planned. Instead, there will be RuneQuest Fantasy Earth products as Chaosium's "generic" fantasy BRP game.

"This is preposterous! Must we welcome each scoundrel of time into our midst, to satiate himself on our good things, meanwhile perverting our customs?"
Jack Vance, Rhialto the Marvellous
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1 hour ago, Jeff said:

Chaosium has no plans to bring out any new Magic World materials.

A community content option would be nice. 

Failing that, we fans could at least organise all the final versions of the fan supplements we have made into a pinned post to make them easy to find.

A pinned post for errata, typos, and clarifications would also be good. 

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7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Chaosium has no plans to bring out any new Magic World materials.

As there is a clear fan demand, why not make Magic World OGL, in the same way as Chaosium is making HeroQuest OGL?

That way, fans could make their own supplements without any work on Chaosium's part.

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