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Large print leads to more or larger pages though, which probably translates to more expensive and definitely to more bulky books. I like compact books, they’re easier to fit on shelves and to sit down and read. They’re also easier to pass around the table.
Which is why I said to split the book in two. Look, if you want your book to be bought and thrive it's gotta be a useable tool. If you make the layout and font type like 1st edition Chivalry and Sorcery* you're just asking for it not to catch on.




*I'm being hyperbolic here, since I'm not saying that Mythras core book truly resembles the rather terribly laid out 4 pages to a page old C&S, but my point stands about usability and accessibility being important to the growth of a rpg.
 
Which is why I said to split the book in two. Look, if you want your book to be bought and thrive it's gotta be a useable tool. If you make the layout and font type like 1st edition Chivalry and Sorcery* you're just asking for it not to catch on.




*I'm being hyperbolic here, since I'm not saying that Mythras core book truly resembles the rather terribly laid out 4 pages to a page old C&S, but my point stands about usability and accessibility being important to the growth of a rpg.
Yes, and I think the Mythras core book actually compares unfavorably to the RuneQuest 6 core book despite being smaller, but that is mainly because it simply shrunk everything down rather than make a new layout to better fit the new format. To me, large books generally make worse tools, as they are physically more difficult to use. They are also no more prone to having good layout than a smaller book. And simply having larger print is not inn itself a good layout decision either.
 
Yes, and I think the Mythras core book actually compares unfavorably to the RuneQuest 6 core book despite being smaller, but that is mainly because it simply shrunk everything down rather than make a new layout to better fit the new format.

No it didn't.

Mythras was laid out again, from scratch, and used a very different approach to fonts, white space, sidebars, illustration placement, chapter start placement, content arrangement and so on. We didn't simply change the font size.

Whether the RQ6 layout is better than the Mythras layout is a matter of personal opinion (by God, RQ6's layout had its critics): but to say that we didn't make a new layout is incorrect.
 
No it didn't.

Mythras was laid out again, from scratch, and used a very different approach to fonts, white space, sidebars, illustration placement, chapter start placement, content arrangement and so on. We didn't simply change the font size.

Whether the RQ6 layout is better than the Mythras layout is a matter of personal opinion (by God, RQ6's layout had its critics): but to say that we didn't make a new layout is incorrect.
Oh, well that’s good. It wasn’t really noticeable in my opinion though. The basic effect when looking at it is “they shrunk it, the text and images are smaller, and sometimes the images are in a different place”. edit: and of course obvious stuff like "there's nothing about the runes in the book now".
 
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Good one. But seriously, got a decent sized tv/ monitor and it helps reading smaller fonts.
 
Good one. But seriously, got a decent sized tv/ monitor and it helps reading smaller fonts.
I mean, that helps with PDFs and the like sure, but if I want to look something up in the BRP 6/Mythas rule set, I'll pick up my physical RuneQuest 6 copy every time despite it being a heftier book than my Mythras copy.
 
The RQ6 book is pretty much perfect in terms of layout and readability. It's no secret why Mythras got a new layout using a smaller font with a commensurate reduction in page count - to save on printing cost, which Loz was upfront about from the start.

I am not a fan of huge rpg tomes, but using a smaller book size and a larger font (the two go together) demands a minimalist writing style and multiple books. As book craft, I like the approach you can see in Old School Essentials, Winter's Daughter, Dolmenwood, etc. but I can't see Mythras moving in that direction. Frostbyte books (M-Space) get close.
 
I don’t like too large of print either otherwise I feel like I am being ripped off.

I also don’t like square books. One of the things about Star Wars Saga books that I did not like in the least.
 
Raleel Raleel I'll agree that i'm not a big fan of the odd size of the M-Space rpg physical books. Honestly and quite bluntly the what DM needs to do is change that damn font type. It's faint and hard to read and makes reading a few paragraphs eye fatiguing work. I've more than once caught myself reading the same sentence because it just didn't absorb or worse after reading a few paragraphs finding my eyes closed.

You know you've got problems when even an old 1986/87 GURPs 2nd edition box set is easier to read. I cracked it open to just read through since I'm getting a bit tired of debating with The Design Mechanism (for the unreadable aspect of the core book) and Chaosium (about the lack of an updated BRP or RQ 3e PoD). There is also of course Savage World for a more flexible genre and campaign neutral setting as well. Though I'm still more just of the frame of mind of reading their stuff at the time and would rather play in a Savage World game before running one myself.

Anyhow I ripped through the ole SJG GURPS 2nd box set yesterday and even the damn ads were easier to read. lol. Maye I should just give up and run 2nd or 3rd edition GURPs and give up trying to run Mythras or BRP based. I don't overall like the new edition of GURPS, I feel that there are a few improvements that I could snag otherwise I feel like Sean Punch and crew went over the top turbo math geek mode on that new edition without actually finishing it. <Shudder>





GURPS 2nd ed Box stuff.jpg
 
Raleel Raleel I'll agree that i'm not a big fan of the odd size of the M-Space rpg physical books. Honestly and quite bluntly the what DM needs to do is change that damn font type. It's faint and hard to read and makes reading a few paragraphs eye fatiguing work. I've more than once caught myself reading the same sentence because it just didn't absorb or worse after reading a few paragraphs finding my eyes closed.

You know you've got problems when even an old 1986/87 GURPs 2nd edition box set is easier to read. I cracked it open to just read through since I'm getting a bit tired of debating with The Design Mechanism (for the unreadable aspect of the core book) and Chaosium (about the lack of an updated BRP or RQ 3e PoD). There is also of course Savage World for a more flexible genre and campaign neutral setting as well. Though I'm still more just of the frame of mind of reading their stuff at the time and would rather play in a Savage World game before running one myself.

Anyhow I ripped through the ole SJG GURPS 2nd box set yesterday and even the damn ads were easier to read. lol. Maye I should just give up and run 2nd or 3rd edition GURPs and give up trying to run Mythras or BRP based. I don't overall like the new edition of GURPS, I feel that there are a few improvements that I could snag otherwise I feel like Sean Punch and crew went over the top turbo math geek mode on that new edition without actually finishing it. <Shudder>





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Nah, don’t give up on BRP. Ragging on layouts aside, the rule sets discussed are really good.
 
would rather play in a Savage World game before running one myself.
After playing in two Savage Worlds games I knew I do not want to run it myself and sold my Savage Worlds stuff except Solomon Kane. As long as the GM is able to make it run sufficiently smoothly I'm fine with playing.
 
With ligatures!
Meh. Most professional fonts have had ligatures for at least fi and fl since Type 1 fonts came out in 1982 or so (and in previous pre-Postscript and analogue formats). One early reason for using a mac was that these were actually available within the system character set (Type 1 fonts, and I presume TT and OT, can arbitrarily re-map character codes to glyphs). The corollary to that is that not all characters were necessarily available to the user of the application, only those supported by the underlying operating system. For a long time, Windows didn't support character sets with ligatures - it wasn't until maybe Windows NT 4.0 that you could get at them from software like MS word or Pagemaker.

These days software can be set to automatically re-map character sequences like fi or fl to the ligature character. More exotic ligatures (sometimes fonts have alternative or decorative versions available) usually have to be inserted manually.
 
These days software can be set to automatically re-map character sequences like fi or fl to the ligature character. More exotic ligatures (sometimes fonts have alternative or decorative versions available) usually have to be inserted manually.
I think that's the issue, they don't have to. You just tick the appropriate Open Type checkbox and you get those decorative/uncommon ligatures. Most manual ligature typesetting I'm aware of is turning them off for certain words, as software (beyond LaTeX) still isn't good for this (e.g. "halflife" should have no fl ligature).

I'm still quite okay with the Mythras/RQ:G core books though. They're still better than the horrible affront to human eyes that was Magic World.

Yeah, if I were to pick up GURPS again I think I'd go with 3rd. It seemed like less of a clubhouse then.
GURPS 4E still ticks my mechanical perfectionist boxes, but I increasingly agree with this sentiment. Especially as I like lower points games, and there the unified mechanics of 4E fail to work anyways (can't build a decent magic system based on powers for low power settings, for example). And yeah, I definitely prefer the layout and ready availability of cool settings.

Maybe it's something about third editions, as I also prefer RQ3 to other BRP versions and even D&D 3.0 to other official "world's oldest RPG" variants.
 
I mean. It says something about the Mythras system that the only thing I can think to bitch about is font size. When they release a version with bigger type I will HELLA buy that shit. Until then I have my reading glasses*.

In other news, I am -this- close to migrating my last 5E D&D game into Mythras. I have led all the players to water and two still have yet to drink. Pray for me my friends.

* - I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have old-man-eyes I wouldn't be whining about the font size. This leads me to ask the question: How many of us Mythras nerds are old enough to need reading glasses?
 
I mean. It says something about the Mythras system that the only thing I can think to bitch about is font size. When they release a version with bigger type I will HELLA buy that shit. Until then I have my reading glasses*.

In other news, I am -this- close to migrating my last 5E D&D game into Mythras. I have led all the players to water and two still have yet to drink. Pray for me my friends.

* - I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have old-man-eyes I wouldn't be whining about the font size. This leads me to ask the question: How many of us Mythras nerds are old enough to need reading glasses?
I mean I'm 35, my glasses are for nearsightedness, I don't usually have trouble with small font size and I still think the text is Mythras is difficult to read.
 
I mean. It says something about the Mythras system that the only thing I can think to bitch about is font size. When they release a version with bigger type I will HELLA buy that shit. Until then I have my reading glasses*.

In other news, I am -this- close to migrating my last 5E D&D game into Mythras. I have led all the players to water and two still have yet to drink. Pray for me my friends.

* - I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have old-man-eyes I wouldn't be whining about the font size. This leads me to ask the question: How many of us Mythras nerds are old enough to need reading glasses?
I certainly am old enough. When I first got into D100 gaming at 48 my eyes were fine. But now at 57 I wear progressives and struggle with the Mythras font. That's okay though - I have the PDF and two large monitors. I also bought the RQ6 book which I use when I want to read the rules for a prolonged period. No complaints about Mythras though. I am a huge fan of The Design Mechanism and will continue to support them. On the other hand if they want to do me a favor they could get Mythic Greece out the door as I have been waiting for a LONG time.
 
I mean. It says something about the Mythras system that the only thing I can think to bitch about is font size.
You have obviously not tried hard enough! I could probably write a Imperative sized document from all the various complaints I've heard on the discord.
 
I mean. It says something about the Mythras system that the only thing I can think to bitch about is font size. When they release a version with bigger type I will HELLA buy that shit. Until then I have my reading glasses*.

In other news, I am -this- close to migrating my last 5E D&D game into Mythras. I have led all the players to water and two still have yet to drink. Pray for me my friends.

* - I'm pretty sure that if I didn't have old-man-eyes I wouldn't be whining about the font size. This leads me to ask the question: How many of us Mythras nerds are old enough to need reading glasses?
Even with reading glasses it's too eye fatiguing to bother honestly. Use Mythras Imperative (which is free) and don't bother with the other books is my end opinion even though I've bought all of them just to support TDM. think I'll try making my saving throw moving forward and not supporting un-readable (unusable) books.

I'd say from watching this forum and others that many of us are post 30 if not older and reading issues are more common. Why people are defending this crap though is beyond me. It's a great system but unusable in it's current font type form. Reading is a pleasurable hobby, but they take the pleasure out of it.

Think I'm done with this thread honestly because of all defending of bad book layout design. Nothing productive for anyone including me to carry on about it.
 
I'd say from watching this forum and others that many of us are post 30 if not older and reading issues are more common.
The average age on this forum is closer to 50 actually. We did an informal poll a couple of years back. There are A LOT of folks who are within 3 years of their 50th (either before or after).
 
The average age on this forum is closer to 50 actually. We did an informal poll a couple of years back. There are A LOT of folks who are within 3 years of their 50th (either before or after).
Which is why I said post 30. I was trying to point out that this forum does skew older versus the under 30 crowd. Me, I'm blink away from 60 personally.
 
Well I'm almost but not quite somewhere midway between 40 and 60 :grin:
Hmmm that's relevant because nostalgia may be starting to drive many of my purchases...

Back in the 1990s I was yearning for a rich fantasy setting for BRP. The RuneQuest line was pretty much fading out by the mid 1990s, and Stormbringer just didn't grab me like Glorantha had done with the earlier RQ products

On the other hand, TSR was excelling themselves by then in regards to an abundance of rich settings to be immersed in. There was Greyhawk, Krynn, Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Al-Qaddim, Dark Sun, Birthright, Spelljammer, and Planescape. WotC simply have not matched the range of settings that TSR was doing back in the 1990s.

I loved the artwork and the premise of many of these box set settings, but I didn't dig AD&D 2E as a game engine to run them in.
I eventually decided that I should collect some of those settings, and run them using my old faithful RQ3 rules, but I left it too late. WotC D&D 3E came out, so the TSR AD&D 2E setting books quickly disappeared off the shelves.

I remember AD&D 2E products were quite cheap once D&D 3E was out, being the new shiny bauble on the shelves. However, I was more focused on World of Darkness at that time, and had limited space, so I didn't grab any of the AD&D 2E boxes as I intended.

A year later I was kicking myself for not acting quick enough, but by then the shelves were all full of D&D 3E Eberon and OGL, so I missed my chance.

Years later I had a hare-brained notion of collecting the second hand Al-Qaddim, Birthright, and Dark Sun box sets, and running them with the BRP BGB. For some reason that idea got shelved, possibly on account of the birth of my kids at that time.

A little later I bought all of Mongoose's Legend digest books (ex-MRQ2), and again my thoughts returned to those rich AD&D 2E settings that had captured my interest some years earlier.
By then AD&D 2E box sets were no longer deemed second-hand, they had started become collectibles, and the prices on eBay and Amazon scared me off.

Legend would have been perfect as a BRP engine to tinker and convert these settings into.

Recently I have been checking out DrivethruRPG and DMGuild, and pretty happy to see alot of the classic TSR stuff is now available in pdf and PoD
So I just ordered the pdf+PoD book of the original Dark Sun box, and envision I finally may end up running it with Mythras.

Who knows if I'll use it or not, but at least it will be in my reading collection at last, so that's a start.
I suppose it's better late than never, heh heh :thumbsup:

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Recently I have been checking out DrivethruRPG and DMGuild, and pretty happy to see alot of the classic TSR stuff is now available in pdf and PoD

So I just ordered the pdf+PoD book of the original Dark Sun box, and envision I finally may end up running it with Mythras.

Who knows if I'll use it or not, but at least it will be in my reading collection at last, so that's a start.
I suppose it's better late than never, heh heh :thumbsup:
That sounds great. I picked up the Wanderer's Journal from Dark Sun 1e some years back pretty cheaply, with thoughts of doing something similar--converting it to a D100 system.
 
That sounds great. I picked up the Wanderer's Journal from Dark Sun 1e some years back pretty cheaply, with thoughts of doing something similar--converting it to a D100 system.
There is some talk about Dark Sun on the BRP site.
 
I've looked at OpenQuest for it, using battle magic for psionics, making an elemental divine magic set up for Clerics and normal Divine magic for templars, & sorcery for arcane magic. The perserver would use all MP for spells while a defiler pulls maybe half of their mana from HP in the area. But never got further than that.
 
I've looked at OpenQuest for it, using battle magic for psionics, making an elemental divine magic set up for Clerics and normal Divine magic for templars, & sorcery for arcane magic. The perserver would use all MP for spells while a defiler pulls maybe half of their mana from HP in the area. But never got further than that.
I think I'll do something like this with Mythras. Folk Magic seems like it could easily be retrapped as Mind Magic/Psionics. Theisim becomes Elementalism, as well as for Templars. Preservers use Sorcery with 'good intentions', and recover MP at a slow rate, using their innate mana. Defilers use Sorcery with their own self-absorbed intentions, and recover MP quickly by draining mana from the world around them. I may need to bring in some kind of Reputation mechanic here (using Passion rules) to be of value with Preservers/Defilers, but I will need to get my head around them better.

I haven't thought too far ahead yet, but alot of other stuff should port quite well. The setting seems brutal, and well suited for BRP/Mythras.
I would love to see something official one day, but tinkering is always half of the fun... :thumbsup:

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Mankcam Mankcam perhaps https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hrteSvsVDGA4Bw3qD2iMyJKtp4sYQJmv5J2HbRQxfHI/edit would interest you. Put together by myself and some others, notably Umbraldragon Umbraldragon i believe.

there are at least three iterations of psionics in Mythras - Luther Arkwright, after the vampire wars, and worlds United, each with some nuances though all the same system basically. M-space also has a version which is a little different than the others.

ironically, for as derided the 2e psionics were, they are very Mythras like in a number of ways.

edit: also the very stripped down 1e psionics translated to classic fantasy in the classic fantasy expert set.
 
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I think many classic D&D settings lend themselves pretty well to BRP. I’ve been thinking of running some classic Grey Box Forgotten Realms with a BRP rule set. Since I’m running a historical fantasy game with a D&D rule set right now, why not flip that around to a more down to earth rule set in a more fantastical setting. Not sure whether to go with Mythras, Magic World, old (or new, considering the pace my current campaign is moving at) Drakar och Demoner, or just something put together from the Big Gold Book. Mythras obviously lends itself well to different kinds of magic systems, but on the other hand clerics weren’t particularly emphasized in early Forgotten Realms material.
 
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