BRP The Edition Wars To End All Wars

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Winterblight said:
I bought them a few months back - I hope they are the newer versions? They were stupid cheap.

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From practically the beginning BRP was divided into two camps, the heavier crunch Runequest, and the lighter crunch Call of Cthulhu. Most of the later Chaosium games followed the path of CoC. Magic World was derived from the Stormbringer / Elric games so falls closer to CoC than RQ. MRQ / Legend / Mythras started from RQ and added crunch, so Magic World and Mythras sit at opposite ends of the crunch spectrum. Of course the lovely thing with BRP is it all plays pretty well together, mix and match rules is pretty easy.

Personally I think shoving MW in a dark corner is a mistake by Chaosium. CoC is wildly popular despite the fairly unpopular Horror genre and MW provides a similar low crunch system for fantasy which is allegedly the most popular RPG genre.
 
I like pretty much all the games. The only feature I've genuinely not liked is the resistance table concept in some of them. However maybe there is some design logic I'm missing to it.
 
Toadmaster said:
Personally I think shoving MW in a dark corner is a mistake by Chaosium. CoC is wildly popular despite the fairly unpopular Horror genre and MW provides a similar low crunch system for fantasy which is allegedly the most popular RPG genre.
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I have to agree. WHile I'm not particularly attached to Magic World, a look at 5e will tell you how much a lower crunch fantasy system can succeed
 
Raleel said:
I have to agree. WHile I'm not particularly attached to Magic World, a look at 5e will tell you how much a lower crunch fantasy system can succeed
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That, the success of the OSR movement, the success Steve Jackson Games has had with The Fantasy Trip, the list goes on and on.
 
I really wish I had gotten the 1980 Worlds of Wonder and the early Elric/Stormbringer games...

But in the end, for me it's the original RQ1with very select bits taken from RQ2 and maybe peeking at other versions and games. Nothing else has ever grabbed me, and I seem to only be interested in the general system with Glorantha, I have little to no interest in other settings. And see my posting in the Fantasy thread, I'm really discovering I should stick with D&D Fantasy as a genre, which plays just fine with RQ1...

The only "edition war" bit that I would take is an objection to those who claim RQG is objectively better than all the preceding versions of RQ.
 
Séadna said:
The only feature I've genuinely not liked is the resistance table concept in some of them. However maybe there is some design logic I'm missing to it.
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It's meant to be an adjudication tool for the GM to handle opposed roll situations. Attribute vs Attribute, CONstitution vs the POTency of a poison, STR vs the STR of an inanimate object. Simple formula for spot rulings; the table not being necessary.

I've used it for fast resolutions in rules-light games like Call of Cthulhu. Works fine in play, and has never bothered me - just another tool at your disposal. When you use another BRP system that defines things like brawn, endurance, willpower as skills the resistance table is no longer needed.
 
I am an out and out RuneQuest fan, have been since I played Apple Lane in 1982.

So, for me, BRP is a RQ rip-off, albeit a pretty good one. The Big Gold Book was good, but used too much from Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer for my taste. Later games such as Legend, Mythras and revolution are good and have some great ideas. I love the skills/traits/stunts from Revolution, for example.

For me, games such as OpenQuest or GORE don't really suit my style of gaming, they are too simple.

I do hate it when people describe RQ as a "BRP game", when it is the other way around.
 
soltakss said:
I am an out and out RuneQuest fan, have been since I played Apple Lane in 1982.

So, for me, BRP is a RQ rip-off, albeit a pretty good one. The Big Gold Book was good, but used too much from Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer for my taste. Later games such as Legend, Mythras and revolution are good and have some great ideas. I love the skills/traits/stunts from Revolution, for example.

For me, games such as OpenQuest or GORE don't really suit my style of gaming, they are too simple.

I do hate it when people describe RQ as a "BRP game", when it is the other way around.
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BRP has become the generic name for the system that Chaosium used to power both Runequest and Glorantha. That the generic system wasn't named after the original game that used the system is just something that Chaosium themselves pretty much decided on when they put in a Basic roleplaying booklet with 2nd edition Runequest.
 
TristramEvans said:
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Is this actually a controversy? I suppose it could be pronounced with a short staccato berp like a kid pretending to have a submachinegun brp, brp, brp, brrrrrrp (because at some point everybody does a magdump) :smile: Pretty sure that still counts as burp, SMGs are after all called burp guns.

The only other option I can think of is pronouncing each individual letter B R P like B M W, D R O or B A R. Maybe I will start calling it that just to annoy the guy in the photo. :hehe:
 
soltakss said:
I am an out and out RuneQuest fan, have been since I played Apple Lane in 1982.

So, for me, BRP is a RQ rip-off, albeit a pretty good one. The Big Gold Book was good, but used too much from Call of Cthulhu and Stormbringer for my taste. Later games such as Legend, Mythras and revolution are good and have some great ideas. I love the skills/traits/stunts from Revolution, for example.

For me, games such as OpenQuest or GORE don't really suit my style of gaming, they are too simple.

I do hate it when people describe RQ as a "BRP game", when it is the other way around.
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RQ Jr? :smile:
 
I’m deeply in love with Mythras. It has everything I want and I’d love to run a campaign in the setting I created for my Undying Empire novels.

Unfortunately, both of my current campaigns (both online only) are using D&D 5E right now. I like 5E well enough, but I’d prefer to run at least one game using Mythras. But since I’ve bought all the D&D books through DnDBeyond, everyone wants to use that platform. And I admit, it does make running and playing online super convenient.

But, man, if there was something like that for Mythras, my players would be all over it.

In the meantime, I’m finishing up the last bits on my second Mythras-licensed book and I’m looking forward to that coming out.
 
I used to regularly start games by taking the whole BRP shebang and trimming it down to a minimum so I'd have a good starting point on which to build campaign-specific rules for whatever setting I was going to run. It would have been much easier to just start with the Worlds of Wonder boxed set, because that's what I'd always strip down to - and more often than not I'd pretty much stay there, it doesn't need much extra in many cases.
 
Vile said:
I used to regularly start games by taking the whole BRP shebang and trimming it down to a minimum so I'd have a good starting point on which to build campaign-specific rules for whatever setting I was going to run
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I think I will do my next Mythras game with the skill pyramid. Standard skills, combat skills, and then they pick the professional skills. Each person has to pick six, and that will decide the theme of the game.
 
Raleel said:
I think I will do my next Mythras game with the skill pyramid. Standard skills, combat skills, and then they pick the professional skills. Each person has to pick six, and that will decide the theme of the game.
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I've basically switched to this, combined with a reduction or slight modification of the skill list to fit a specific period.
 
K_Peterson said:
Good question.

One that comes to mind is the MRQ2 supplement, Empires. I've got a copy, but it's been ages since I've read it. So, I can't say it's "best" but it is one option out there.

Unfortunately, Mongoose didn't Legend-ize it. But, you can get a copy pretty cheaply off eBay - check out this auction from Mendelson's
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That would be a perfect supplement for Legend, and would be near-perfect fit for Mythras as well.
Having said that, it wouldn't take much to adapt those rules to the other BRP rulesets either.
 
Wow, lotta words. Everyone was like percentage this, skill tree that, Call of Stormquest, and I kinda got bored about half way through. :grin:

More seriously, I don't mind playing d100 games, in fact I'm playing in one now, but they've never been been my drug of choice. Mythras would be the clear winner for me if I had to pick one though, for sure. I have other systems I like more for CoC play anyway.
 
Winterblight said:
So what are the main differences between Magic World and Mythras? I'm halfway through Magic World and have only just flicked through Mythras.
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There are some fundamental differences beyond "MW is BRP Lite and Mythras is BRP Crunchy", this does not bear up in every case across the system. Magic World is wholly a cut n paste job out of Elric! and its related supplements, whereas Mythras is a re-write from the ground up, starting with MRQII as a base. This is made clear from reading either rule book, and is stated by authors for both publications. Funnily enough the Grande Dames of Magic World, RuneQuest in Glorantha, and Mythras/RuneQuest 6 are all credited in Elric! - Ben Monroe, Jason Durall, and Lawrence Whitaker respectively, and as a shared progenitor, that's a pretty good one to start with.

1. Mythras ditches Characteristics in favour of skills and derived Attributes - ie. action points, luck points, magic points and so on are still tied to your rolled/bought characteristics, and skills are initially determined by those same characteristics, but beyond that those characteristics do not play a role in the system, it's all skills. The attributes still have an impact, but for PCs those attributes tend towards an average and you do not often see large differences in attributes between players, and they don't tend to develop much or at all across the life of the PC, aside from the important exception of magical enhancement.

2. The Resistance Table is gone for Mythras. As a consequence of moving to skills almost exclusively, the resistance table is replaced by using opposed rolls. This makes perfect sense if the system has already made the move to skills described in point 1. This also means Characteristics rolls are not used in Mythras, things like an Intelligence test using INTx5% or a luck test using POWx5% are out, in favour of appropriate skills.

3. Mythras condenses Perception, Stealth, Athletics, Magic World does not. So in MW you have Listen, Search, Sense and Climb, Jump, Throw, in Mythras you use Perception and Athletics. In this case Mythras is the "lighter" system compared to MW and most other BRP games.

4. Mythras uses Combat styles. These can be quite free-form, determined by the campaign setting, cultures available and GM design. MW sticks to per-weapon-skills and that's it. Since Mythras uses combat style traits and groups weapons together into fighting styles, there's a bit more detail and flavour here compared to MW. The Mythras way of treating this is incredibly simple and can add a lot of nuance to characters as well as mechanical tricks. Again Mythras actually reduces complexity and busy-work which is part of earlier RQ and MW, while adding flavour, this is an easy win it seems to me. MW is a bit simpler than standard RQ by not having separate attack and parry skills.

4a. Mythras adds Special Effects to combat. Mythras is well known for this so it probably goes without saying, Mythras' combat system is different from other BRP games because it introduces a large number of Special Effects which can be thought of as different kinds of combat stunts - tripping, disarming, damaging weapons and armour, targeting body parts, cutting fatal bleeds, impaling weapons, hitting for stuns, and so on. This moves combat away from HP-attrition towards gaining an advantage. Combats are frequently resolved by opponents being incapacitated in one way or another, rather than being entirely cut down. Mythras also does not track damage to parrying weapons using HP attrition unless a deliberate attempt to damage the parrying weapon is made. Instead of tracking parrying damage Mythras uses weapon size to see how much damage is blocked (all, half, or none), again, this actually makes the system faster and less fiddly than MW or other similar systems in BRP.

5. Cults/Colleges/Brotherhoods/Organisations. Magic World has no real concept of these, Mythras takes the "Cult" structure from Glorantha RQ and expands that structure into a number of different directions, including religious, mystical, sorcerous and various secular orders. This gives PCs a connection with organisations which resemble real-world social structures of a similar type, and gives players and PCs a sense of an climbing up an organisational structure if that is something they want for their character, often with mechanical benefits - access to skills, spells, training, resources and social contacts.

6. Many magical disciplines. Mythras has 5 different magical systems in the core rules, MW has one. It's not quite true that you build your magic system from scratch in Mythras, the GM does have to make decisions about what to include but it can be extremely easy, for example if you want a PC with common 'hedge magic', you just say - "ok we're using Folk Magic" and you're done. Religious organisations are more complicated since you do need to decide your gods and what miracles and skills they have access to, but at this point there's a few supplements to help with that, the same is true for sorcery. You aren't really 'designing spells' in Mythras, you're creating cults, or colleges, and so on.

7. Animism & Spirits. Mythras has the most developed system for animism, spirits and the spirit world than any other version of RQ or BRP game. It gives you a detailed system for how animists and others interact with spirits, what spirits can do, types of spirits, ways of designing and acquiring spirits, how spirits escalate and expand in power and abilities, fetches for shaman and so on. MW has spirits, but they are treated like another type of creature with no possible special relation to PCs or the world.

8. Creature Abilities. Not one that is often mentioned, but Mythras systematises creature abilities, which I don't think any RQ/BRP game did before. Again, MW has no concept of this. Having abilities attached to a creature description makes it much easier to define and identify what any creature can do without having to repeat the mechanics in the creature description every time it comes up. This means that if a creature has Grappler, Leaper, Venomous, Undead, or Camouflaged in the description, the GM will get to know how those mechanics work, without having unique, per-creature, rules to apply each time.

9. Passions and Luck Points. Mythras has these, MW does not. Each of these do not take up a lot of rules but can have a big impact on the game. Passions are primarily a roleplaying aid with mechanical benefits (and sometimes detriments) for PCs, luck points are a meta-currency to allow players to manipulate the vagaries of the dice to save themselves and screw with the GM.

Naturally many of these Mythras-specific rules and differences can be exported into another BRP-like game, including Magic World. Luck Points, Passions, Combat Styles could all be used as-is with little or no work for the GM.

My preference if I want a lighter system than default Mythras is to start with Mythras and be selective about what I use, Mythras is already like this by design. If you're playing the Mythic Britain campaign you're already playing with a fraction of the ruleset - magic is limited (none! unless you're a druid and you still get none(!) spells), cultures are limited (choose one out of one!), weapons are limited, creatures are limited (bears, wolves, boars) - but there is still easily a year's worth of a campaign to play through.

Edit: added special effects.
 
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Even if you say “ok we’re just using folk magic” you’re still not done. You also have to decide who can use folk magic and, very importantly, how you regain magic power. What do you have to do, and how many points does that get you? This is why I say you’re designing your own magic system. It isn’t just picking spells, it’s deciding how magic works as a whole.
 
raniE said:
Even if you say “ok we’re just using folk magic” you’re still not done. You also have to decide who can use folk magic and, very importantly, how you regain magic power. What do you have to do, and how many points does that get you? This is why I say you’re designing your own magic system. It isn’t just picking spells, it’s deciding how magic works as a whole.
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Far from it! All the GM and players need to do is decide on the end user details when employing Folk Magic.
 
raniE said:
Even if you say “ok we’re just using folk magic” you’re still not done. You also have to decide who can use folk magic and, very importantly, how you regain magic power. What do you have to do, and how many points does that get you? This is why I say you’re designing your own magic system. It isn’t just picking spells, it’s deciding how magic works as a whole.
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Come on, that takes a minute. Who gets Folk Magic - whoever chooses it at character creation! I mean, it's already in a number of careers to begin with. How you regain magic power - you get back 1mp per day. Phew, that's my design work done for the day. There's a lot more detail in the intro to the magic chapters but those decisions don't have to be hard, there are a lot of options, that doesn't mean you're "designing a magic system".
 
Vile said:
I used to regularly start games by taking the whole BRP shebang and trimming it down to a minimum so I'd have a good starting point on which to build campaign-specific rules for whatever setting I was going to run. It would have been much easier to just start with the Worlds of Wonder boxed set, because that's what I'd always strip down to - and more often than not I'd pretty much stay there, it doesn't need much extra in many cases.
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If Chaosium release a PoD of the original Worlds of Wonder it might sell quite well.
I'm particularly attracted to the simple 'Magic World' from those rules.
 
Bilharzia said:
There are some fundamental differences beyond "MW is BRP Lite and Mythras is BRP Crunchy"...Snip
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Thanks for the detailed comparison. Ive read enough of Magic World so that all of that makes sense
 
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Bilharzia said:
Come on, that takes a minute. Who gets Folk Magic - whoever chooses it at character creation! I mean, it's already in a number of careers to begin with. How you regain magic power - you get back 1mp per day. Phew, that's my design work done for the day. There's a lot more detail in the intro to the magic chapters but those decisions don't have to be hard, there are a lot of options, that doesn't mean you're "designing a magic system".
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It pretty much does actually. Not in the sense of building it entirely from the ground up, but in the sense that you really have to decide how magic is going to function in your fantasy world, what magic even is, what powers it, create traditions etc (if you’re not going with only hedge magic and absolutely no thought given to any of it you’ve got a lot more work ahead of you than you’ve laid out). None of that is necessary with Magic World, it’s already complete.
 
raniE said:
It pretty much does actually. Not in the sense of building it entirely from the ground up, but in the sense that you really have to decide how magic is going to function in your fantasy world, what magic even is, what powers it, create traditions etc (if you’re not going with only hedge magic and absolutely no thought given to any of it you’ve got a lot more work ahead of you than you’ve laid out). None of that is necessary with Magic World, it’s already complete.
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Technically, none of that is necessary for Mythras either. If you want the setting simplicity in something like Magic World, you can simply take sample cults or just let people have access to the various spells without worrying about their Rank in whatever Cult.

The only necessary “design” is looking at three things.
1. How do you gain Magic Points.
2. How you recover Magic Points.
3. What happens when you run out of Magic Points.

Each of these comes with many options you can just pick off a list. Bam, you’re a game designer now, somebody call Origins!

Any truly Plug and Play Magic System has to be generic and vanilla, or designed to replicate a single, narrow genre or trope, because if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be Plug and Play.

Everything in Mythras is designed to be a toolkit. Many things can be used as is, if you want to keep that generic simplicity. If, however, you want things to integrate well with the worldbuilding you’ve done in your setting, then you tailor by choosing options.

Every recipe in the history of humanity has included “add salt and other spices to taste”. That doesn’t make them “build your own recipe”.

Magic World might be more complete in your eyes, but to me it’s absolutely worthless if I had to use it as is, because it violates the cosmologies of all the settings I would currently use. I’m going to have to break, chop, remold, tailor and polish to get it into a useable state.

The lack of options available in Mythras that makes this process ridiculously easy, makes Magic World the incomplete magic system. It doesn’t allow for different paradigms.

You want to say Mythras gives you options to tailor the system, that would be accurate. You want to say it’s “build your own magic system”, that’s just outright silly.
 
Yes, Magic World can't be used for many settings because of its magic system. It comes with its own implied setting, just like Dungeons & Dragons does. Hence easy to get into and just start playing, as it's all already laid out. Mythras requires more work (there are only four sample cults) but can therefore offer a more bespoke experience. Again, this isn't a dig at Mythras (if it was I wouldn't own both RuneQuest 6th edition and Mythras), but it's a matter of what you want. If you have a particular setting in mind, whether an existing one or a self-created one, and are willing to put in the necessary design work, Mythras will be better for your needs. If you want to play some fantasy and aren't too worried about the magic system fitting into a particular existing cosmology, and don't really have the time to create cults and customize everything, then Magic World is probably going to be more to your liking.

Mythras here is even more of a toolkit than GURPS in my opinion, as its magic system, even with GURPS Magic, doesn't offer near the level of flexibility in design choices that Mythras does with just the core book.
 
TristramEvans said:
What's it about?
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Here’s the blurb that was in the last Design Mechanism newsletter:

“Rooms with a View gives you twelve unique locations that you can drop into any existing campaign, to use as springboards to dozens of adventures. Each location comes complete with colour maps, detailed NPCs, rich history, and interesting adventure hooks to stimulate your imagination.”

These are not combat encounters, but are locations that can be used in different ways throughout a campaign, so the characters can get to know the NPCs and have reason to return and interact more than once.
 
CRKrueger said:
The only necessary “design” is looking at three things.
1. How do you gain Magic Points.
2. How you recover Magic Points.
3. What happens when you run out of Magic Points.
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#1 and #2
Self

Here, the character attracts and stores magical energy from the world around him. Recovering Magic Points is simply a matter of resting, and letting his body absorb the natural magical emanations of the world until his points are restored. He need do nothing else. This has been considered the default source of Magic Points in other games, but Games Masters should not feel limited by it.
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#3
The consequences of running out of Magic Points are, again, a campaign decision, and should be dependent on the setting. Mythras’s default position is that, when Magic Points reach zero, no more spells or magical abilities can be used, but there are no further consequences for the character.
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and it's in the book. however, I still agree with raniE raniE 's point on this

raniE said:
Mythras here is even more of a toolkit than GURPS in my opinion, as its magic system, even with GURPS Magic, doesn't offer near the level of flexibility in design choices that Mythras does with just the core book.
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very much so, IMO. I stated that it was much more comparable to the BGB above, and I'll stand by that and think Mythras needs a BGB-style menu of options. This morning the Mythras Discord lit up with questions about magic level of Mythras, which a default assumption of Mythras being setting and genre tied with the game as is 5e. That can be very intimidating for someone who doesn't have 20 years of roleplaying experience, let alone some of the amounts we have on this "nursing home for rpgs" ;) and especially with BRP having a decidedly more experienced set ;)
 
Raleel said:
#1 and #2
#3

and it's in the book. however, I still agree with raniE raniE 's point on this



very much so, IMO. I stated that it was much more comparable to the BGB above, and I'll stand by that and think Mythras needs a BGB-style menu of options. This morning the Mythras Discord lit up with questions about magic level of Mythras, which a default assumption of Mythras being setting and genre tied with the game as is 5e. That can be very intimidating for someone who doesn't have 20 years of roleplaying experience, let alone some of the amounts we have on this "nursing home for rpgs" ;) and especially with BRP having a decidedly more experienced set ;)
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Yeah, I can see playing Mythras with no magic at all, and I can see playing it in a super high magic way, and anything in between. But it is something you really need to think about and decide before you start up a game. Magic World has already done that work for you.

Personally one of the things I love about the BRP system is how intuitive it is. Percentages are how most people are taught probability, so having your skill success chance as a percentage means figuring out what your chance of success is very simple, it’s already there. Similarly with hit points, there is no disconnect between hit points and actual physical damage, like in D&D or similar systems And lots of other small things. To me, the system just gets out of the way most of the time, and is very easy to get a grip on the rest of the time. This I also tend to like the simpler forms of BRP as a gateway game, and I feel Magic World fits right in there. That’s not to say I don't also appreciate the more complex varieties like Mythras or some of the more advanced versions of Drakar och Demoner, but being able to have that really easy basic version of the system is nice.
 
raniE said:
Yeah, I can see playing Mythras with no magic at all, and I can see playing it in a super high magic way, and anything in between. But it is something you really need to think about and decide before you start up a game. Magic World has already done that work for you.
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Nod, I would put Classic Fantasy or Monster Island or Mythic Britain in the same place as Magic World for that scope. It's a setting/genre. It's been done up for you, and that's ok. Not all of us are up to building that stuff.

raniE said:
Personally one of the things I love about the BRP system is how intuitive it is. Percentages are how most people are taught probability, so having your skill success chance as a percentage means figuring out what your chance of success is very simple, it’s already there.
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I do wonder if this is a cultural thing. Percentages, and thinking like that.

raniE said:
Similarly with hit points, there is no disconnect between hit points and actual physical damage, like in D&D or similar systems And lots of other small things. To me, the system just gets out of the way most of the time, and is very easy to get a grip on the rest of the time.
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me as well. I really enjoy the naked percent chance.

raniE said:
This I also tend to like the simpler forms of BRP as a gateway game, and I feel Magic World fits right in there. That’s not to say I don't also appreciate the more complex varieties like Mythras or some of the more advanced versions of Drakar och Demoner, but being able to have that really easy basic version of the system is nice.
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I can't speak as much about Magic World, but I can say that I do appreciate Mythras Imperative for it being there and being simpler. I appreciate Shrine of the Traitor Gods for being an intro module for cons and being quite stripped. Then again, I like having all the knobs exposed too ;)
 
About percentages, every game I’ve seen that doesn’t use percentage rolls and explains the probability of success and failure at different skill levels has used percentages for this explanatory purpose. BRP just cuts out the middleman.
 
raniE said:
About percentages, every game I’ve seen that doesn’t use percentage rolls and explains the probability of success and failure at different skill levels has used percentages for this explanatory purpose. BRP just cuts out the middleman.
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It's one of the system's immediate appeals...and then you come across someone who says "I just don't like roll-under systems" and/or "I prefer the bell-curve probability of a 3d6 system", at that point I facepalm. "Explain to me the appeal of something that's immediately transparent and easy to grasp" ...umm...
 
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