Tell me your experiences with Elric!/Stormbringer...

[King_Stannis]

While I am convolescing at home, I picked up the Elric! game from Chaosium. I was just wondering what your experiences were with this game. It uses the BRP system that Call of Cthulu uses, so it would seem pretty easy for players to pick up and DM's to manage.

Does it effectively capture the mood and feel of the Moorecock saga? Does it get unbalanced? What kind of campaigns have you run? Any other comments would be appreciated.

Thanks ahead of time for your input.

 

[Thorvald Kviksverd]

Here's a little thread over at Dragonsfoot that you might be able to get going again.

I'll reiterate some of my comments here...

I haven't read the novels yet, but others seem to think it's pretty faithful to the feel. I've heard a few state that they thought magic was handled better in the original Stormbringer, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it to decide for myself.

If you enjoy magic, then I really think the Bronze Grimoire supplement is a must, and Sailing the Seas of Fate is useful for a seagoing campaign.

Balance was never a problem--if by problematical you mean characters becoming too powerful to be easily challenged. Though the characters begin with considerable skill, it is sorely needed--for life is cheap in the Young Kingdoms.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I used to love the original Stormbringer rules. But it was something of a munchkin's dream. There were whole parties of Melnibonean fighter/noble/sorcerers and Pan Tangian priests, all heavily laden with demon-bound weapons and armor.

Stormbringer's rules were broken in a few places, but the magic system was lots of fun. In essence, spells were very rare (not even really detailed in the book), and most magic involved summoning and binding demons.

Elric! fixed some of the rule wackiness, but revamped the magic system to make it more D&D-like (IMHO) with traditional spellcasting, in addition to slightly watered down demon-summoning rules. The result was more balanced, but seemed to lose a bit of flavor.

 

[King_Stannis]

Thanks guys! Ill take a trip over to dragonsfoot, too.

 

[Ulrick]

I bought Elric!

Read it.

Kind of liked it.

Never played it.

That's my experience.

 

[reason]

it's all in the flavor

You have to get the flavor right -- but it works really really well if you do. It's an excellent system for swashbuckling types of games. Don't be afraid to let PCs take enormously high skills in a few things. It won't matter, since if done properly, combat isn't a challenge in this game. Either you completely outclass the opposition, the opposition completely outclasses you, or you figure out a way to defeat them without a head-on battle.

I wrote a wonderful scenario for Elric! called the Jade Citadel, which had the PCs as actor/troubadors/sellswords come to provide entertainment (for silver) in a city-wide birthday party for a southern king. From there it went to a mysterious beautiful stranger in some sort of peril, to an invitation to perform for powerful wizards in the service of Chaos (for gold), to a kidnapping-and-sailing-as-prisoners-to-a-lost-island-on-which-a-trapped-huge-metal-entity-of-law-is-rusting, to a rafting escape to the Isle of Purple Towns, to stealing a floating metal 10' cube from a temple of Law with the help of a master thief, to liberating the entity of law and sailing to a climactic tear-the-citadel-down-cast-of-thousands-and-cloud-of-carnivorous-demon-bat-bird-things-followed-by-rain-of-fire end battle. Then the PCs found the heart of Arioch in the ruins, and things got subtle and interesting after that. But I digress.

Anyway, it's all in the flavor. Read Moorcocks books. Games work very well when PCs have to think and talk their way through challenges, and they understand that most fights are only intended for flavor, not as a challenge. The ideal game in my mind is one in which the PCs meet strange and memorable characters in unusual circumstances, slowly get enmeshed in some evil machination that is way bigger than they can deal with alone, find strange and memorable allies to help them, and unleash a monsterous big confrontation at the end. And sailing -- there has to be a lot of sailing.

Reason

 

[HellHound]

I've only played Stormbringer, never the earlier or later editions of the game.

I loved it, although character creation was wonky - you'd either make an epic hero, or a minor hero, all based on your first d100 roll.

 

[Zappo]

I've played Stormbringer several times. It is fairly good if you actually roll your character's races and class. Otherwise, everyone chooses Melnibonean noble/sorcerer or Pan Tang priest, and the game becomes a munchkin fest as everyone goes around with full demon armor, weapons, and assorted items.

The problem is that many players dislike having their character determined by chance. You have to be ready to take what you are given and go with it, and accept that you just might end up with a leprosy-infested beggar while Bob gets the melnibonean noble/warrior/sorcerer.

It also suffers from the flaws of the Chaosium system, of course. Advancement is based, again, on sheer luck. It is very difficult to gauge a character's power. Combat is very lethal. More than once, we had TPKs because the DM overestimated our power (including a purchased module which we played with new characters and where we just kept dieing to an unavoidable fight with town guards in the first twenty minutes). I blame the DM's inexpertise for that, but yet, it can be a problem.

Oh, yeah. Losing stat points when you fail a summoning sucks big time, no two ways about it. All my sorcerer characters that weren't ubermunchkins only summoned elementals, and only one per adventure (to get the skill tick), because of that.

 

[Darklance]

Can anyone tell me a little about the novels? I understood that it took place in different time periods? ...

 

[King_Stannis]

Can anyone tell me a little about the novels? I understood that it took place in different time periods? ...

Well, the Elric saga takes place over a 7 year period, i believe. Moorecock has written other "eternal champions" books, loosely tied to Elric in that they involve a hero that exists in several time periods and worlds - I haven't read any of them yet. He/She is always doomed to lead a nihilistic life and bring "balance" to the world.

If you haven't read the elric saga, I highly recommend it. It is quite good - Moorecock is an excellent writer. You will find many inspirational things in them that can be transplanted into your FRPG.

Thanks for the responses again, everyone.