Rivers of London, RuneQuest Gods, Regency Cthulhu Coming Soon From Chaosium

Chaosium has been posting preview graphics of some of its upcoming games, all marked 'Coming Soon'.

Magic has returned to our world. The London Metropolitan Police Service’s special magic branch take to the streets to come to grips with the “demi-monde”—those who have been irreversibly changed by magic. Welcome to Rivers of London.

The Prosopaedia: An Encyclopedia of the Gods of RuneQuest! An essential reference for all Glorantha fans. Discover the deities of RuneQuest and inspire your adventures and characters for years to come.

A time of social niceties, grand balls, romantic intrigues and disappointments. Twisted horrors Have lain dormant for centuries now seek to burst forth into England. Welcome to Regency Cthulhu.

 

[humble minion]

Is that an actual kickstarter? I'm trying to look it up and I'm getting zilch.

Yeah, I spelled the imaginary word wrong, sorry. As @Morrus pointed out, it's Dandyzettes, with a 'y'...

It's a variation of BRP (Call of Chtuluh) so it is skill intensive.

I have to admit, these days whenever i see an RPG book that uses a d100 system and 20-30+ individual skills, it looks like an archaic relic of the early 80s that deliberately and mulishly dodged every development and innovation in game design since, and i can't imagine actually playing it as written. BRP, but also FFGs Warhammer games. I'll strongly consider buying Regency Cthullhu for the setting etc, but that sort of system leaves me utterly cold. Ah well, to each their own i guess.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I have to admit, these days whenever i see an RPG book that uses a d100 system and 20-30+ individual skills, it looks like an archaic relic of the early 80s that deliberately and mulishly dodged every development and innovation in game design since, and i can't imagine actually playing it as written.

Harsher language than I would use. But....yeah.

 

[R_Chance]

I must be the odd person out... I just want to read the Gods of Runequest. Love Glorantha as a setting. Oh, and Pendragon sounds good as well. I can miss the rest, but to each their own.

 

[stadi]

Regarding skills and BRP, that's one of the reasons that I like it And that's why I like Savage Worlds (although, it has not enough skills for my taste ) and the reason that I dislike D&D (5e) ist that it does not have enough skills and you have no direct control over those skills. So there must be still some of us out here who prefer (a lot of skills) instead of narrative solutions.

 

[Morrus]

I have to admit, these days whenever i see an RPG book that uses a d100 system and 20-30+ individual skills, it looks like an archaic relic of the early 80s that deliberately and mulishly dodged every development and innovation in game design since,

Huh. Weird. I don't see any particular die type as inherently superior or innovative than any other. I mean, I quite like a d12, but I wouldn't call a d20 a relic.

 

[TrippyHippy]

A percentile score remains the simplest way of transparently expressing a probability of success, and that is why it remains popular I feel.

On another point about marketing, it is noticeable that Call of Cthulhu seems to be Chaosium’s best conduit towards supporting different eras, geographical regions, genres and alternative settings. We’ve already got a Western supplement, a Dark Ages supplement, a French Revolution supplement, an Imperial Rome supplement (third party) and now a Jane Austin inspired supplement too. The Lovecraftian lens is timeless and can be applied as an overlay to just about anything.

The upcoming Gaslight version of the game is a big pull because of the Sherlock Holmes connection, but I have seen mentioned in dispatches things like a futuristic science fiction CoC supplement (Aliens!), they could decide to adapt some older BRP material like a Mythic Iceland supplement (Vikings!), a Pirate supplement and even a superhero supplement (for Pulp Cthulhu).

I suspect one of the reasons that Chaosium has largely squashed the generic BRP support is they don’t really need it when Cthulhu-branded supplements can do the same thing and probably sell exponentially more.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A percentile score remains the simplest way of transparently expressing a probability of success, and that is why it remains popular I feel.

That's essentially what I don't like about. I'm going to struggle to explain this clearly, but here goes:

I don't fine it fun (anymore) to be faced with a challenge and to have a one-roll, binary outcome of whether or not I succeed at it. "I'll study the markings and see if they look familiar." (roll)
"I'll try to climb the wall." (roll)
"Is the Duke somebody I know anything about?" (roll)

Then again, I do like dice rolling in combat. I think that's for two reasons:
- Combat usually consists of lots of dice rolls, so you have the opportunity to change your approach as the battle ebbs and flows
- Actual combat is so much more complex and dynamic than, say, trying to recognize runes, that it makes more sense (to me) to abstract it to dice rolls

And I'm not saying I have a perfect solution. Although I've struggled to GM Dungeon World, I do like how the dice mechanic isn't strictly binary pass/fail, but helps informs the narrative. (And it doesn't have skill lists.) Some games with dice pools, in which you count successes, also are a step in the (my) right direction.

Percentile dice don't, I suppose, have to mean binary pass/fail (Rolemaster/MERP tables, anyone?). A game with percentile dice could, for example, assume you succeed at your task, and the percentile dice help determine complications. But I see percentile dice and skill lists, and it carries a connotation of what I don't like, which is why I recoil.

P.S. Oh, and instead of skill lists, I'm finding I like games with traits that you creatively apply to challenges.

 

[Mezuka]

That's essentially what I don't like about. I'm going to struggle to explain this clearly, but here goes:

I don't fine it fun (anymore) to be faced with a challenge and to have a one-roll, binary outcome of whether or not I succeed at it. "I'll study the markings and see if they look familiar." (roll)
"I'll try to climb the wall." (roll)
"Is the Duke somebody I know anything about?" (roll)

Then again, I do like dice rolling in combat. I think that's for two reasons:
- Combat usually consists of lots of dice rolls, so you have the opportunity to change your approach as the battle ebbs and flows
- Actual combat is so much more complex and dynamic than, say, trying to recognize runes, that it makes more sense (to me) to abstract it to dice rolls

And I'm not saying I have a perfect solution. Although I've struggled to GM Dungeon World, I do like how the dice mechanic isn't strictly binary pass/fail, but helps informs the narrative. (And it doesn't have skill lists.) Some games with dice pools, in which you count successes, also are a step in the (my) right direction.

Percentile dice don't, I suppose, have to mean binary pass/fail (Rolemaster/MERP tables, anyone?). A game with percentile dice could, for example, assume you succeed at your task, and the percentile dice help determine complications. But I see percentile dice and skill lists, and it carries a connotation of what I don't like, which is why I recoil.

P.S. Oh, and instead of skill lists, I'm finding I like games with traits that you creatively apply to challenges.

Who says d100 is binary? It's not. There are rules for degress of succes and failure depending what you actualy rolled. A near miss can still be a success but with a complication. A great success can cut the time to do an action by half. It's up to the GM (or the player in some cases) to narrate what happens.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Who says d100 is binary? It's not. There are rules for degress of succes and failure depending what you actualy rolled. A near miss can still be a success but with a complication. A great success can cut the time to do an action by half. It's up to the GM (or the player in some cases) to narrate what happens.

Pretty sure I allowed for that possibility in what I wrote.

 

[Mezuka]

Rivers of London: I've read one-third of the first Rivers of London novel. I don't want to say too much and categorization is always a reduction but if you liked Dresden you should like this series. I totally get why they wanted to turn it into an RPG.