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Is Chaosium going to support BRP anymore?


danbuter

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I agree with Adam above. I've considered going down the BRP self-publishing route myself, doing a short supplement (a small setting with an adventure or two) and when I weighed it up I came to the same conclusions as Adam did as far as what I'd get out of it, a nice shiny BRP book that other people could enjoy and a bit of beer money. I sketched the idea out in note form, but I'm presently too busy working on a certain other game to pursue it ;) Perhaps in the later half of this year.

If you are filled with the creative urge to do something and the time and resources (which if you are going down the lulu route need not be huge) I say get in touch with Chaosium and put your idea forward for licensing.

Head Honcho of D101 Games
Publisher of Crypts and Things/Monkey/OpenQuest/River of Heaven
The Sorcerer Under the Mountain

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Well you know, seneschal, while I run Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future, I never knew that GORE was like BRP, I thought, from the two supplements on the page, the title and the look of the cover that GORE was a horror game and having a book laying about that says GORE on the cover with the look of blood dripping would make it one of those books I need to make sure aren't out in the open when guests pop by to avoid explaination.

****************************************

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest......Lord Dunsany

Responsible for: https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/

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If you are filled with the creative urge to do something and the time and resources (which if you are going down the lulu route need not be huge) I say get in touch with Chaosium and put your idea forward for licensing.

I too agree - part of the purpose of Uncounted Worlds is to build up my skills and confidence, and the reason Outpost 19 went the monograph route is that I originally promised it to them, and it makes use of material from the original Future*World, if only peripherally, so it seemed a better fit under Chaosium's aegis.

I have some ideas for stuff I might want to try as stand alone supplements self-published, but I'm not rushing in to anything at this point.

Cheers,

Nick

Edited by NickMiddleton
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Well you know, seneschal, while I run Labyrinth Lord and Mutant Future, I never knew that GORE was like BRP, I thought, from the two supplements on the page, the title and the look of the cover that GORE was a horror game and having a book laying about that says GORE on the cover with the look of blood dripping would make it one of those books I need to make sure aren't out in the open when guests pop by to avoid explanation.

Yeah, the lurid cover caused my wife not to want to try it out. I think the design choice was because Call of Cthulhu remains the BRP flagship product. Despite the Cthuloid illustrations, however, GORE is fully as generic as the Basic Role-playing softcover Chaosium published a few years ago. If anything, it reminds me uncommonly of the Mongoose Runequest SRD, sans sample animals. My first thought upon reading it was to draw up a Traveller-esque sci fi character akin to what I might have done with the old Worlds of Wonder Future World supplement.

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I think, therefore, it's on us BRP fans to do our part. This forum's a good start. Perhaps start webpages for our campaigns, plans, rules, etc. The monograph idea sounds good, too.

And most of all, play it and talk it up.

Not much else we can do until Chaosium makes their next move.

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I think, therefore, it's on us BRP fans to do our part. This forum's a good start. Perhaps start webpages for our campaigns, plans, rules, etc. The monograph idea sounds good, too.

And most of all, play it and talk it up.

Not much else we can do until Chaosium makes their next move.

Maybe there should be a thread for brainstorming settings and such. Maybe we can make a really unique setting. I'm for Sci-fi, myself.

Wait a minute, there was a thread like that, wasn't there?

Maybe we have to come up with a specific setting and people add to it, like maybe build off the Cthulhu Rising universe or something.

Edited by Dredj
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Speaking from purely personal experience, I don't think large-scale collaborative settings work. They tend to lack focus, and are hard to pin down to a particular 'feel' by prospective users. They also get bogged down by disagreements between contributors and a certain 'someone else will do something soon' lethargy. IMO 3-4 people are the maximum size of a collaborative author group (not counting specialist advisors).

However, I would love to see more personal websites of the sort which were killed off (unintentionally, it seems) by the Issaries Fan Policy. There was a golden age there which got even me interested in Glorantha again for a short while, and I'd sworn off it years before. Fan sites have the benefit of being one person's vision, so you know what to expect. I remember lots of sites with interesting homebrew RQ worlds, which I foolishly never bothered to archive. That's what I'd like to see again.

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There's a big difference between knocking something up in half an hour for a forum and producing a fully-fledged supplement. It took me 3-4 months to write some things for Mythic Russia's Birchbark Chronicles (BBC1) and that didn't involve layout, artwork or editing. Most of us don't have the time to do that.

I completely agree, despite my efforts to encourage you. That said, there are other publishing options aside from grand campaign settings, or huge metaplot adventures. There are hoards of game books that explore some aspect of the system, and just pours love all over it. If flimsy, they shore up page count with NPCs, and story hooks that highlight the new information within.

Furthermore, you can sometimes go a lot farther with an implied setting, than with a complete setting. I tend to bounce around a lot of different topics, story concepts, and adventure ideas. I don't think I could write a setting, even at gunpoint. But if playing D&D for decades has taught me anything, is that you don't need to. When I started this hobby, there wasn't any title for the kind of gaming we were doing - shared universe. Every campaign had a Vecna, his eye, his hand, Orcus, Dispater, and Githyanki. Back then, I was barely aware of Greyhawk, and most of my friends had their own little gameworld in the making. Still, we stole anything they wanted from the Dungeon Master's Guide, sprinkled on realworld gods and mythologies, and got right to the gaming - saving villages, killing cultists, slaying dragons, and forging kingdoms.

To me, that's the endearing element of D&D. It certainly isn't the game mechanics. It's the implied setting. Sure, there are those that have immersed themselves in Forgotten Realms, or Eberron, but the gamers I seem to connect with most are the ones that plagarize relentlessly and unapologetically. BRP (for fantasy) needs that kind of writing. Books of NPCs, adventures, magic items, and spells. The worlds will make themselves, and maybe the truly inspired will be the ones who can write a 300 page super campaign, and immortalize the gems found in minor supplements.

end rant.

And don't forget Realism Rule # 1 "If you can do it in real life you should be able to do it in BRP". - Simon Phipp

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Every campaign had a Vecna, his eye, his hand, Orcus, Dispater, and Githyanki.

To me, that's the endearing element of D&D. It certainly isn't the game mechanics. It's the implied setting. Sure, there are those that have immersed themselves in Forgotten Realms, or Eberron, but the gamers I seem to connect with most are the ones that plagarize relentlessly and unapologetically. BRP (for fantasy) needs that kind of writing. Books of NPCs, adventures, magic items, and spells.

Ironically, that's why I got fed up with D&D many years ago - because every campaign had the same things in it. The PCs would come across monsters that the PCs could know nothing about, but the players did, so metagaming became rampant and all the wonder was taken out of the game. Eventually, our D&D fantasy campaigns all became kind of the same.

I'll take a richly detailed, well thought out, unique setting over a generic one any day. I'll hold up The Known World of Artesia and much of Glorantha as examples of wonderful, immersive settings.

I'm not disputing that the BRP needs generic books that GMs can mine for ideas - it certainly does. But I would also argue that it needs one or more good immersive settings. Runequest did not survive as long as it did on the strength of it's system alone. There are a great many people who loved it primarily for Glorantha. Many of them are now playing Heroquest.

Thalaba

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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Hi all,

Just to say I've just heard from Dustin that the BRP Adventure Monograph (from the various submissions last July / August) is almost with us, with the PDF arriving possibly in Feb and the dead-tree version "several weeks" later. It seems that a lot of the delay was down to editors falling through, etc: this looks like it's been sorted out somewhat.

I know we're still in monograph-land for the publications, but it's BRP and it's support, so things may be moving forwards again after the winter!

Incidentally - I was looking at my ancient Chaosium Apple Lane and Snakepipe Hollow books t'other day, and marvelling at how far printing has come these days. What we call monographs today are *somewhat* better than what we used to consider full print products back in the day! Now, we just need to get them into the shops...

Cheers,

Sarah

"The Worm Within" - the first novel for The Chronicles of Future Earth, coming 2013 from Chaosium, Inc.

Website: http://sarahnewtonwriter.com | Twitter: @SarahJNewton | Facebook: TheChroniclesOfFutureEarth

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I think, therefore, it's on us BRP fans to do our part. This forum's a good start. Perhaps start webpages for our campaigns, plans, rules, etc. The monograph idea sounds good, too.

And most of all, play it and talk it up.

Not much else we can do until Chaosium makes their next move.

This is an excellent point. If there were a handful of excellent websites like Val-du-Loup I believe that not only would a lot more people take notice (including Chaosium) but this would encourage more people to look into the game. I believe that Val-du-Loup really sets the bar for campaign websites and is snazzier than most rpg sites out there (including some official company websites). What is keeping people from doing this? We need to find out and correct this, which is a start.

****************************************

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest......Lord Dunsany

Responsible for: https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/

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This is an excellent point. If there were a handful of excellent websites like Val-du-Loup I believe that not only would a lot more people take notice (including Chaosium) but this would encourage more people to look into the game. I believe that Val-du-Loup really sets the bar for campaign websites and is snazzier than most rpg sites out there (including some official company websites). What is keeping people from doing this? We need to find out and correct this, which is a start.

Val-du-loup is a true mine of good ideas, and a valuable resource for medieval games. But not everyone is at ease with hypertexts, so having all the info compiled into a PDF (at affordable prices if sold) provides a more generally exploitable support.

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Val-du-loup is a true mine of good ideas, and a valuable resource for medieval games. But not everyone is at ease with hypertexts, so having all the info compiled into a PDF (at affordable prices if sold) provides a more generally exploitable support.

I heartily agree with you, but what I am saying is that Val-du-Loup has set a high bar that needs to be repeated to showcase quality website design with a plethora of game ideas and components (races, animals, gear, etc). If everything in Val-du-Loup was also available as a printer friendly download it would be absolutely perfect. The website is easy on the eyes, but I do concur that having a pdf would bring everything together.

****************************************

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest......Lord Dunsany

Responsible for: https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/

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A lot of interesting points have been brought up in this thread which have brought several things to my mind.

1. The OP brought up the point that several products have been submitted to Chaosium and seem to be in Limbo. For instance the Rome setting, which was apparently submitted in May of last year but has yet to re-surface as a product in any form. This might lead one to conclude there is a production problem at Chaosium.

2. Many game companies and other businesses in similar industries (computer game companies, film companies, etc.) put out promos, trailers, or teasers for upcoming products to keep people excitied about their products. I haven't seen anything official in this regard from Chaosium, which can add to the impression that there is a production problem.

3. A visit to the Chaosium website lists very little in the way of BRP publications to date. Four have been produced to date (not counting material that was produced prior to the BRP book like Superworld) and of those one is the core book itself. Of the remaining 3, only 1 is available in print. A quick look at the upcoming products section reveals that only 3 products are expected to be produced in the next four months and none of them are BRP (two are COC and one is a novel). So it does not look like we can expect any BRP products soon from Chaosium.

4. A look at the submissions section for BRP has this nugget:

"Our Basic Roleplaying rulebook will be releasing later this year. Once it does, we’ll post more detailed Submissions for the line. Meanwhile, we’re happy to take submissions for BRP material as Monographs. See our Monograph Submissions for more information. We are very interested in receiving BRP Monograph submissions." The emphasis is mine. Despite what they say about monographs, this does not look promising. It's six months out of date, for one.

5. Granted, Chaosium is a small company and can only do so much. Surely we cannot fault them for producing things at a measured pace, but...

6. Where's the communication? This, I think, is where the issue actually lies. Here were have a great forum maintained by dedicated fans. It has 607 members (and growing) who would be willing to purchase multiple products for a system they like, probably without waiting for reviews, and yet Chaosium has no presence here. They really should have someone putting in the occasional official reply here, at least to assure us they're still interested in our business. Hopefully also to update us on the progress of submissions and publication. Maybe to once in a while throw us a bone in the way of a preview. And they should certainly update their own website.

7. Given all of the above, is it any wonder someone comes along and asks if Chaosium is going to support the product? I think it was inevitable.

8. As an aside many people (of which I'm one) really like printed books. I spend a large chunk of our day in front of a computer screen. When I read for pleasure (which is how I classify my RPG reading) I want to lie on the couch or in bed with my book held aloft. While PDFs and fan web sites have their place they are not things I'm about to purchase or even use as a staple for my gaming. I certainly have no objection to those things, but I feel a tinge of alarm when people suggest that we should be happy with having these things by themselves. This consumer, for one, won't be.

I just had to get those things off my chest. Hope I didn't inadvertently offend anyone in the process.

Thalaba

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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I guess the other question is how many monographs have been completed and sent for publication? I'm still working on mine. Are any authors waiting for theirs to get going?

Still working on Sword & Spell here.

Rod

Join my Mythras/RuneQuest 6: Classic Fantasy Yahoo Group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RQCF/info

"D100 - Exactly 5 times better than D20"

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I agree with you on the desirability of printed product, Thalaba. I fully appreciate the opportunities provided by PDFs but I personally can't learn a new game system or run a campaign from one, particularly if we're dealing with a 100+ page tome. At some point, I gotta have physical pages in hand even if it involves spending $30 at Office Depot to print and bind my "free" download.

Plus, having a physical book on the shelf of the local game shop helps persuade potential customers that the publisher and the product are "real." They can see it, heft it, maybe thumb through it if the shop doesn't shrink wrap all its books. Any game company capable of producing and distributing a good-looking physical product immediately has more apparent credibility than the provider of a PDF, even if the quality of the writing, art, and layout are similar. Also, game shops tend to support players gaming with physical materials purchased at their stores. They're much less likely to grant table space to people wanting to run a game they downloaded online.

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It seems they are betting on having the majority of their books be monographs and charge full price for the books they only spend $250 to sell.

Kind of making me a bit ticked at the moment. I know B'61 isnt exactly the best thing in the world, but I did spend time and money on it, more then the $250 I got for it and I am not asking for anykind of praise or extra money or anything, but I dont want it to be there by it self as one of the new monographs.

In the 7 months since BRP came out there should have been at least 3 in house books.

Economy or no economy.

Even Dark Heresy, which changed companies, has put out 5 books in the past year, with a 6th one due next month and given out free PDFs.

Honestly, updates of Superworld and Futureworld could be done quite easily, or so I assume.

But Im willing to stick it out with them for a while longer. Mainly cause I really like the system and the people, they are nice and informative and polite.

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Again, you need to take into consideration a few factors:

Chaosium is a very small operation. The economy has hit them very hard

I am sure. And, the primary editor is for all intents and purposes no longer

part of the staff, and is not going to be replaced any time soon.

I recall Dustin posting on his blog or somewhere else that between the cons

they attended, Lynn's health, and some other issues that cropped up, things

have been a bit slow getting out. Also, I recall at least Jason has some

issues with Chaosium that needs straightening out before Interplanetary

goes further.

-V

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Again, you need to take into consideration a few factors:

-The economy has hit them very hard

-the primary editor is for all intents and purposes no longer part of the staff

-things have been a bit slow getting out.

-Jason has some issues with Chaosium that needs straightening out

We did take those things (and others) into account. This is why our confidence is shaken.

PK - the $.50 per copy doesn't seem like much of a royalty. It's the same price for a long one as a short one, too, so your payment per page goes down a lot. I suppose if you were going to produce the document anyway and it was reasonably short it might make sense. I admit though that I don't know enough about the economics of it to comment properly.

Seneschal - You make good points about having the books on the shelves.

Thalaba

"Tell me what you found, not what you lost" Mesopotamian proverb

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One thing I don't quite understand is why CoC takes precedence all the time. Ok, it is a great game and all, but give BRP some attention. It seems that with a bazillion CoC books and supplements that maybe a book or two for BRP would be in order.

****************************************

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest......Lord Dunsany

Responsible for: https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/

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One thing I don't quite understand is why CoC takes precedence all the time.

Because it makes money and is pretty much guaranteed to make money.

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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A Troll chiming in.

Back in the 80's, I owned five Chaosium product lines. RQ, CoC, Elf Quest, Elric/Stormbringer, and Ringworld. I looked forward to anything and everything they put out. It is true that I mostly bought CoC supplements but that was because thats what I mostly played. It is also true that CoC was likely the only one to make a real profit, but the other games were what companies call loss leaders, they bring in new buyers and keep the illusion of status because they are highly visible. These products need only break even to show their true value to a company. Chaosium seemed like a real player on the RPG scene precisely because of the volume of good product, even if some of them barely broke even on the back end.. The key was, in my opinion, that they were able to get known franchises and custom tweak the BRP system to fit each of them. Each game had it's own feel and each version of the system matched the world of the franchise*. More importantly they took up as much shelf space as the GURPs line currently does, and that gets people to look at and buy your material.

Chaosium has forgotten it's roots and has let other companies capture what used to be it's strength and worse, gave up those strengths. They gave up RQ as well so they don't have an original world either. What they need to do is start getting solid, known, literary/movie/television worlds and make custom BRP based games out of them. Even if they are one shots with few supplements (like Elf Quest and Ringworld). Fan developed material is great, but it's not as marketable as worlds based on available, and successful, literature/film/TV series. CoC is a prime example of how this works and why Chaosium needs to start competing again in this type of market. The BRP system is much better than GURPS, D20, and a host of others out there doing this now. It's not perfect for everything, but a few well picked and developed titles can reinvigorate the BRP line and make room for even more support for the really good fan based material currently being developed by the folks on this and other lists. It will also give much needed revenue to support an official original line.

The comments on how Chaosium is too small to do this are valid, but only to a point. In any creative business you need to be constantly taking risks and following up on successes. But mostly you need to sell yourself, sell, sell, sell. You cannot take a break or you will loose momentum which is what has happened at Chaosium. Whoever is in charge of A&R, line development and sales is dropping the ball. They should be looking at every popular/viable literary SF/Fantasy line right now and contact those writers to get them to sign off on a BRP RPG franchise. I could name a half dozen right now that would make excellent game worlds.

The BRP system is solid, flexible, and has a willing base that just needs to be excited about something other than CoC. It's time for Chaosium to sh*t or get off the pot and hire a person who doesn't "love" gaming but loves money to sell their system to writers and produces as the one for their RPG franchise rather than D20, GURPS, and those crappy systems they used for LOTR etc. Then risk hiring a full time non-CoC team who do love gaming to develop these new lines.

~Dalmuti

* contrary to popular belief, one system does not fit all and this trend over the last 10-15 years of shoehorning everything into a "universal" system has produced mostly a huge amount of great source material but few games that actually feel like the worlds they cover which leads to disappointing game play. It's better to use a system as a base and modify it as much as necessary to get the system to work with the setting, not the other way around. The BRP is a good base system, but only if you are willing to tweak it a lot. Chaosium knew this in the 80's and it worked then, it will work again now.

Edited by Dalmuti
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The BRP system is solid, flexible, and has a willing base that just needs to be excited about something other than CoC. It's time for Chaosium to sh*t or get off the pot and hire a person who doesn't "love" gaming but loves money to sell their system to writers and produces as the one for their RPG franchise rather than D20, GURPS, and those crappy systems they used for LOTR etc. Then risk hiring a full time non-CoC team who do love gaming to develop these new lines.

~Dalmuti

* contrary to popular belief, one system does not fit all and this trend over the last 10-15 years of shoehorning everything into a "universal" system has produced mostly a huge amount of great source material but few games that actually feel like the worlds they cover which leads to disappointing game play. It's better to use a system as a base and modify it as much as necessary to get the system to work with the setting, not the other way around. The BRP is a good base system, but only if you are willing to tweak it a lot. Chaosium knew this in the 80's and it worked then, it will work again now.

I believe Dalmuti elaborated better than I (and my severe cold) could have. I understand that CoC sells well, but if Chaosium isn't supporting BRP, why bother releasing it? If it won't sell that well or is a losing line, just stick with your moneymaker.

As time goes by and the CoC line expands and does yet another variation on the same theme, I sometimes wonder why that particular line holds so well. I have played a lot of CoC and it is fun, but I would rather see a system expand into other genres that I can adapt and run based on a universal engine.

****************************************

But, when at the last the arm of Skarl shall cease to beat his drum, silence shall startle Pegana like thunder in a cave, and MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI shall cease to rest......Lord Dunsany

Responsible for: https://ancientvaults.wordpress.com/

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A Troll chiming in.

Well said!!!

You get an experience check in Persuasion/Oratory/Whatever you use to phrase it right!

I only have a few points where I disagree, and here they are.

It is also true that CoC was likely the only one to make a real profit, but the other games were what companies call loss leaders,

RQ and Elric sold and sell well, it is just that they are now owned by another company. Interesting enough, that other company, which is one of the most successful non-WotC publishers of D20 stuff, is still publishing these two settings with its own D100 variant. There's a meaning in this.

They gave up RQ as well so they don't have an original world either.

Not exactly the truth. We all know what happened and it could have gone better, but that's how it went.

They should be looking at every popular/viable literary SF/Fantasy line right now and contact those writers to get them to sign off on a BRP RPG franchise. I could name a half dozen right now that would make excellent game worlds.

This is a perfect strategy, and I subscribe your opinion. But there is a non-trivial point: licenses for successful franchises cost money. Does Chaosium have enough bucks to buy a fresh franchise? Maybe yes, maybe no. Most, if not all, authors do not give away their intellectual property out of love. They usually like to get paid for it.

Proud member of the Evil CompetitionTM

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