Cthulhu no D20?

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

dual stats are fine with me

But Chaosium isn't even dual-stating their new products or printings of older products. Just those in their "Pulp Cthulhu" line. Silly, and a dumb business decision in general.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Re: dual stats are fine with me

But Chaosium isn't even dual-stating their new products or printings of older products. Just those in their "Pulp Cthulhu" line. Silly, and a dumb business decision in general.

And this is why I'm not buying their products. If they dual statted all their books, I'd suppor them but every statement they make is to appease their small, but loyal audience and assure them that their BRP system, of which they still have Elric 4th ed stuff for in stock, is going to be taken care of and that the 'evil' D20 system stuff will be dual stated.

Like I said, I'll use one of the other D20 settings if I need Pulp like Forbidden Kingdoms. When they start dual stating all their books, I'll start looking 'em over. I'm not going to have D20 stuff with BRP material and then the good juicy BRP stuff has no D20 conversions.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think the only thing that has kept Chaosium from going under is Call of Cthulhu. . While it's not a mega-hit, it's probably got a devoted fan-base.

I think everything else from them has been something of a flop. Or at least they never followed up much on them, or managed to bungle it.

For instance, the Michael Moorcock license. The early stuff is very good, but the later stuff gets awfully pretentious and dull. And very little product support.

They never did much with Pendragon. Great idea, okay mechanics, no support.

They got the Ringworld license. But AFAIK, they never did much with it (2 books). Big collector's item these days, too.

Runequest was a potential hit, but due to how they handled it, it's more of a cult thing. I stil think the talking giant ducks are pretty stupid, but I know some people love them.

 

[trancejeremy]

Re: Re: dual stats are fine with me

And this is why I'm not buying their products. If they dual statted all their books, I'd suppor them but every statement they make is to appease their small, but loyal audience and assure them that their BRP system, of which they still have Elric 4th ed stuff for in stock, is going to be taken care of and that the 'evil' D20 system stuff will be dual stated.

They don't say that to appease their fans, they really do think d20 is evil. Maybe not evil, but they really really hate it. It's remarkable how other gaming companies don't like it. Even those that buy into the concept hate it from a rules point of view.

In Chaosium's case, it's really silly, because BRP and d20 are very very close cousins. BRP is largely a modified form of AD&D (added a couple of stats, added a bunch of skills, and removed class/levels). I mean, the original D&D had the same exact stats almost (save Size and Power) and a percentile based skill system for thief abilities. BRP's great innovation was just expanding the skills from thief skills to more mundane ones.

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Re: Re: dual stats are fine with me

In Chaosium's case, it's really silly, because BRP and d20 are very very close cousins. BRP is largely a modified form of AD&D (added a couple of stats, added a bunch of skills, and removed class/levels).

Removing classes (particularly first edition's straightjacket classes) and levels -- and especially the notion of one hit die per level -- isn't a small change.

The modern d20 mechanics are much more flexible than older D&D mechanics, but the Hit Dice haven't changed -- and what is everyone complaining about in d20 CoC? Yeah, ever-increasing Hit Points (even with the massive-damage rules).

 

[Skywalker]

They never did much with Pendragon. Great idea, okay mechanics, no support.

Actually, outside the big guns of the RPG industry, Green Knight has done well to support Pendragon. Supplements include:
Core Rules and Supplements

King Arthur Pendragon - Complete Roleplaying Game Rules.
Book Of Knights - Introductory Rules for Pendragon
The Boy King 2nd Ed. - Arthur's Epic Life in an 80 year Campaign.
Lordly Domains - Manors, Hunts & Sieges.
Tales of Chivalry & Romance - 14 Short Adventures
Tales of Magic & Miracles - 14 Short Adventures
Tales of Mystic Tournaments - Grey Knight, Tournament of Dreams, Circle of Gold
Tales of the Spectre Kings - Saxon Vengence Rides by Night!
Blood & Lust - Anglia, The Heart Blade, & Morgan le Fay
Beyond The Wall - Pictland and the Scots.
Saxons! - Wolves in the Fold of Britain.
The Holy Grail - The Greatest of all Quests!
Book of Faeries - The Enchantment of Britain Continues

As of people's other comments regarding Chaosium:

As to volume of support, I think what people struggle to realise is that Chaosium is not a big RPG producer despite being one (is it the oldest?) of the oldest RPG producers around. Most RPG companies are not that big and Chaosium normally only produces about 5 or 6 titles a year.

As for whether they should produce dual stats, well that is a valid comment. First off simply reprinting books is not an easy option. for small publishers. Pagan Publishing is doing their best to produce a dual stat DG book.

Chaosium has made its stance pretty clear from the very start. I think they are missing out on a commercial opportunity but considering their longevity I can't help to think that they do know what they are doing.

However i think the real point is that in reality the barrier for d20 players to use the BRP material is actually very little. I can't see the difficulty in converting BRP stuff to d20. I mean in comparison BRP as rules are much less prominent in general than d20. Most Cthulhu adventures don't have much rule or stat information anyway. They rely solely on their strong and exciting stories of which they have produced some of the finest.

Oh and CoC BRP elitists bug me too

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

converting BRP

Converting BRP to d20 isn't hard if you're willing to do a sloppy job. But if you want to do a good job (i.e., keep the levels and skills d20 rules compliant), it really starts to suck. Especially with the magic system being different, you have to really work it. I know. I'm working on Masks right now, and it's TOUGH! It's not that bad, but you have to remember, I'm also a veteran of the ToEE conversion (one of the biggest ones out there).

 

[JoeGKushner]

However i think the real point is that in reality the barrier for d20 players to use the BRP material is actually very little. I can't see the difficulty in converting BRP stuff to d20. I mean in comparison BRP as rules are much less prominent in general than d20. Most Cthulhu adventures don't have much rule or stat information anyway. They rely solely on their strong and exciting stories of which they have produced some of the finest.

Oh and CoC BRP elitists bug me too

I like your attitude. So when do you think Chaosium will be posting those conversions on their web site as free PDF files since it's so easy? It's not as easy as you make it out to be and it's still very time consuming. This is especially true for the Elric line where monsters and magic items are very different than D&D standards. Even with the DLoM book, it's not simply a matter of flipping here and there as many books used unique items and character conversion isn't even touched on in any of the Chaosium D20 material.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

Ok, maybe we should stop being so cynical

I just popped over to their web-site and read this page: http://www.chaosium.com/company/staff.shtml

It seems like Chaosium has a lot of debt from the collectible card games, and that damned near wiped them out. So I'll cut them some slack.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Re: Ok, maybe we should stop being so cynical

I just popped over to their web-site and read this page: http://www.chaosium.com/company/staff.shtml

It seems like Chaosium has a lot of debt from the collectible card games, and that damned near wiped them out. So I'll cut them some slack.

I don't mnd cutting them some slack but... ah, the dreaded but, if the D20 material sells better than the BRP, and that's the basic assumption, why segregate the market? And Stormbringer has NEVER sold well, which is why the still have 4th edition stuff (and since Stormbringer is on 6th ed now...well, that's saying something)