New Magic World review on the big purple

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'Mythbringer' seems every bit as bland and generic to me as people claim 'Magic World' sounds... plus, a shedload of games have 'Myth' in their names... Mythras, Mythos, Mythic D6, all the 'Mythic' kludge for Pathfinder.
 
The name never bothered me, but I can see why it might put some people off. Especially if you're not a long time BRP fan and don't know anything about Worlds of Wonder.

I won't even try and pretend that I could come up with a better name that captures its Stormbringer roots and hints at its content.
 
BRP Fantasy
Chaosium Fantasy

Something that seemed a bit odd about this and Elric!—don’t practically all spells have a range of “touch”? This seems to make attack spells pretty weak. Also, I don’t think the mechanic for “touching” is spelled out.
 
I have the core book and the Advanced Sorcery supplement. The presentation and production values definitely hurt the game. It did lead me to find a used copy of Elric! and buy it. Right now I'm planning on running Mythras for my family, but if they find the combat too complicated I might switch to this.
 
Calling it Magic World was partly an homage to the old Worlds of Wonder box set. Given a new version of Superworld was also in the works, and Ben has stated he wanted to do a new version of Future World, it seemed sensible to call it Magic World at the time.
 
One mistake I think that MW made was to translate (de-Moocockify) the Elric!/Stormbringer 5e into a generic 'high fantasy' style game (with 'Light' versus 'Shadow' replacing the Moocockian 'Law' versus "Chaos' dynamic of E/SB). MW should've kept the dark, somewhat twisted (slightly 'metal') flavour of Elric! intact (sans the Moorcockisms, obviously). Perhaps it could've drawn on some Mythos ideas instead -- at least as flavour. Perhaps the Dreamlands? Or -- better still -- Clark Ashton Smith! The game could have used Zothique and/or Hyperboria to replace the Young Kingdoms as default settings.

A name with a sword-and-sorcery-ish flavour -- e.g., "Soulbinder" or "Hexbringer" -- could have retained the earlier 'vibe'.

I still dig my copies of Elric! and would be happy to run it if I wanted something a bit lighter than Mythras and didn't want to use CoC. (My copy of MW stays in a box for aesthetic reasons alone.)
 
urbwar said:
Calling it Magic World was partly an homage to the old Worlds of Wonder box set. Given a new version of Superworld was also in the works, and Ben has stated he wanted to do a new version of Future World, it seemed sensible to call it Magic World at the time.
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Trouble was that Steve Perrin, the original creator of Magic World and all the Worlds of Adventure (and in fact the main game system designer behind RuneQuest too) wasn't particularly happy with the new version of Magic World. He took to the BRP forums to say as much. I believe he highlighted that the successful Swedish game, Drakar och Demoner, was based on the original Magic World rules.

Ben Monroe's newer Magic World rules were largely based on the much later revison of the Stormbringer rules by Lynn Willis - initially called Elric!.
 
Trippy said:
Trouble was that Steve Perrin, the original creator of Magic World and all the Worlds of Adventure (and in fact the main game system designer behind RuneQuest too) wasn't particularly happy with the new version of Magic World. He took to the BRP forums to say as much. I believe he highlighted that the successful Swedish game, Drakar och Demoner, was based on the original Magic World rules.

Ben Monroe's newer Magic World rules were largely based on the much later revison of the Stormbringer rules by Lynn Willis - initially called Elric!.
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Hence it being an homage, not a direct update of those rules.
 
urbwar said:
Maybe so, but it still was an homage. Not being taken as such doesn't change that
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Well, it kinda does - because if the creator who it's supposed to pay respects to actually feels insulted by it then it no longer works as a homage. It's like saying The Wicker Man remake was a homage to the original classic movie - it really wasn't.
 
For marketing reasons, fantasy Cthulhu probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea although there’s already C Dark Ages and I guess Aquelarre (though not too accessible to North American audiences). I’m glad they didn’t go that direction, though—I just think Cthulhu is overused/over-referenced in gaming/fandom circles.

Clark Ashton Smith on the other hand would be very nice IMO.

That said, I think the setting can be read or at least twisted toward an eerie fantasy drawn more directly from dark Northern European myth than the bells-and-tights Renfairism or kitchen-sink D&D that often goes by “High Fantasy” in RPG circles.

As for the name, I think it was a mistake to call out the original game if the original mechanics weren’t used. Not a huge deal although it’s too bad that Perrin felt slighted.
 
Yes it was great as a collection of Stormbringer rules (minus The Young Kingdoms setting), but it was definately wrong to title it as Magic World ( which was part of the Worlds Of Wonder box set). I can see why Steve Perrin didn't like that.

To non-BRP fans it probably looks like splitting hairs, but they are different versions of BRP, just like Holmes Edition D&D is different to D&D 5E.
 
Mankcam said:
Yes it was great as a collection of Stormbringer rules (minus The Young Kingdoms setting), but it was definately wrong to title it as Magic World ( which was part of the Worlds Of Wonder box set). I can see why Steve Perrin didn't like that.

To non-BRP fans it probably looks like splitting hairs, but they are different versions of BRP, just like Holmes Edition D&D is different to D&D 5E.
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I can respect that POV. The name doesn't bother me, but I'm a Johnny-come-lately to BRP. If I was the author of the original and the name got appropriated for something I thought wasn't really a direct descendant I might be a little bit annoyed.
 
Nick J said:
The name never bothered me, but I can see why it might put some people off. Especially if you're not a long time BRP fan and don't know anything about Worlds of Wonder.

I won't even try and pretend that I could come up with a better name that captures its Stormbringer roots and hints at its content.
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If it wasn’t taken Beyond the Wall would be perfect!
 
Well for anybody who is considering picking up the game, it's 50% off at Chaosium right now
https://www.chaosium.com/magic-world-2

Probably trying to offload whatever stock they have left (those PDF bits and bytes go stale after about 5 years).
 
Dumarest said:
We can call it At or To the Further Side of the Continuous Vertical Brick or Stone Structure that Encloses or Divides an Area of Land instead. Pretty catchy, I must say!
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Next up in the recruitment forum: Dumerest starts a AOTTFSOTCVBOSSTEODAAOL campaign...
 
spittingimage said:
Next up in the recruitment forum: Dumerest starts a AOTTFSOTCVBOSSTEODAAOL campaign...
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I think I would buy that game out of sheer perversity just for the title. Sounds like somebody translated a game from Japanese to Bulgarian and then to English via Babel Fish.
 
spittingimage said:
"Roll stones passionately! When see you enemies accept not less than highest to DO HIM THE MASSIVE! Now you fucking!"
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I should write a D&D "retroclone" in that style. It would be hilarious to read.
 
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