Thread: [Magic World] Let's talk about it!

Originally Posted by binder

And on top of that my real concern at the moment, with Chaosium flushed with the Kickstarter success from the Call of Cthulhu Horror on the Orient Express supplement, is that MW will be low priority for the next year or so...

That's one of the reasons I wanted to front-load the game. As of this writing, I've submitted the core rules, and two supplements to Chaosium (Advanced Sorcery, and the Chronicler's Companion). There are two others about halfway done, and there's been mumblings about a couple of other ones. My hope is that there'll be enough to keep it going for a year or so until it gets some traction, and people start submitting new things for it.

Originally Posted by Toadmaster

What if anything will set this apart from other BRP based fantasy games? Does it aim to fit a particular niche?

If it is taken from the game in the 80s as I recall it was RQ simplified, sort of a fantasy version of the CoC rules, is that the way MW has gone?

As mentioned elsewhere, the core of Magic World is the Elric! rules. If you're comparing it to OpenQuest and RQ6, I'd say it fills a niche somewhere in the middle.

But, while OQ and RQ aim for more of a gritty, ancient world feel, Magic World is a bit more high fantasy, a bit more epic and heroic. They're all great games, of course. I love RQ6, and I've been running lots of OpenQuest over the last year or so. My hope is that there'll be a lot of cross-polination between the three.

I thought I would post here regarding what I intent to contribute to MW. I was approached and asked to modify an adventure I had written for one of the adventure contests, The Haunted Bridge, for inclusion in an up-coming “world book” monograph. I have done this, but the adventure was always intended as an “opening adventure” for beginning characters, so I am expanding it. I have re-drawing my ugly map and added several more and I have added a village with several adventure hooks and am adding another short adventure based from the village. Of course, no one has seen my work yet, so there is no guarantee that it will make the cut and be included in the monograph…

Back in 2008, I remember seeing a poll on Chaosium.com asking fans what genre they wanted to see first as a BRP supplement. Surprisingly (as there is a lot of D100 competition out there for this genre) the most popular choice was Fantasy.

I think the Magic World line is the result of that poll. Charlie took the most beloved Fantasy BRP line after Glorantha, that is Elric!/Stormbringer, and had it repackaged without any Moorcock contents. Contrary to what many say and write around the Internet, people at Chaosium listen to what their customers say. It is just that it takes some time for them to get the books done

Originally Posted by rleduc

I thought I would post here regarding what I intent to contribute to MW. I was approached and asked to modify an adventure I had written for one of the adventure contests, The Haunted Bridge, for inclusion in an up-coming “world book” monograph.

Not a monograph. THis is for an actual print distribution book. However, it's not officially been announced yet.

What I'd definately like to see would support for the various options in the BGB, or at least the most popular options namely Strike Ranks ( hereafter SR's ) and hit locations. If you look at the supplements for BRP out so far ( both official and Monographs ) the vast majority of them have both these options, sugesting they appeal tp both writers and players. That being the case I'd want to see those options in Magic World.

Strike Ranks and Hit Locations are not in the MW core rules, but could easily be pulled from the BGB and used in the game.

I did read your interviews and such from the first post, but I'm not really familiar with Elric! and google hasn't turned up anything particularly useful as far as the mechanics (Moorcock and BRP based which I know already). Based on the comment above it does sound very much like a fantasy version of CoC (as far as complexity) which is what I remember of the Stormbringer game from the 80s.

I hope this does well for Chaosium. A common theme I read online about generic games is there are too many options to choose from. This is exactly the kind of thing people have been saying they want from an introductory BRP product, so I hope it does well. It was pretty much a given that I'd be getting this, but now it is added to my must have list.

I assume with high fantasy as the intended setting this will be using some of the optional rules for tougher PCs?

I haven't seen an expected release date, do you think it will be available before Dundracon? It would be nice to see a few games running this year.

Originally Posted by Toadmaster

I did read your interviews and such from the first post, but I'm not really familiar with Elric! and google hasn't turned up anything particularly useful as far as the mechanics (Moorcock and BRP based which I know already). Based on the comment above it does sound very much like a fantasy version of CoC (as far as complexity) which is what I remember of the Stormbringer game from the 80s.

Yeah, I'd say it's about as complex as the current version of CoC. It does use Skill Categories and Major Wounds.

Originally Posted by Toadmaster

I hope this does well for Chaosium. A common theme I read online about generic games is there are too many options to choose from. This is exactly the kind of thing people have been saying they want from an introductory BRP product, so I hope it does well. It was pretty much a given that I'd be getting this, but now it is added to my must have list.

My hope is that the price can be kept low enough that it's an attractive gateway game to the whole BRP line.

Originally Posted by Toadmaster

I assume with high fantasy as the intended setting this will be using some of the optional rules for tougher PCs?

Yes! I think I put in four tiers of 'toughness' for starting PCs, in addition to the base level.

Originally Posted by Toadmaster

I haven't seen an expected release date, do you think it will be available before Dundracon? It would be nice to see a few games running this year.

I'm hoping it's out before DDC. If you look at the DDC events list, you'll see I've already signed up to run a game there. I'm currently trying to talk friends of mine into running it, too.

See you there!

Good to hear, hoping to find a lot of BRP stuff this year for a change.


What if any relationship does the sorcery in Magic World share with RQ3? I see lots of comments about RQ3 sorcery, few complementry.

There's pretty much no relationship between the two. I mean, aside from them both being magic systems.