BASIC MAGIC - Classic Magic Systems for Basic Roleplaying

Basic Magic presents the four core Chaosium magic systems developed for use with the Basic Roleplaying Players Book. Here is Spirit Magic, derived from your ancestors and the spirits of old; Divine Magic, come from the gods; Sorcery, developed from within; and Ceremony, made powerful through ritual and chant.

By Greg Stafford, Charlie Krank & Raymond Turney. 68 pages. Published by Chaosium May 2009.

(Note: Basic Magic is basically a reprint of the magic chapter from RuneQuest 3 with all references to Glorantha removed).

I have been dipping into this from time to time. By biggest gripe is that it was not re-edited to make it immediately (new) BRP compatible, in so far as terminology, and tying in character generation to the published BRP system.

Out of interest does this version cover the errata to the magic rules from RQ3 (e.g. Multispell)?

Some magic skills are included:

Intensity

range

Duration

Multispell

There are cermonial magic rules and so on.

I didn't play RQ, so cannot comment for sources or changes. :thumb:

Out of interest does this version cover the errata to the magic rules from RQ3 (e.g. Multispell)?

Nope. The Magic Book is a real pain actually because not much work has gone into un-RQIIIing it and re-BRPing it. All the references to RuneQuest skills and abilities from the 3rd edition are still in there (what exactly is a Magical Skills Modifier in BRP terms?) so as Leon Mallett says there is some work to do to make it playable. This does seem a little bit of a swizz on Chaosium's part.

I haven't got Basic Gamesmaster and Basic Creatures but strongly suspect the same is true of these too.

Inspector Zero is absolutely right. I bought Magic and Creatures, and they are both written not only with straight RQ3 stats (not a big deal), they are copied and pasted directly from those works (a big, annoying deal, c'mon guys, put just a little effort into editing or be more forthcoming in your product descriptions).

I got them before anyone had posted any comments on them, or I would have saved my money. I like having the Magic book, because I can write in it (I won't write in my RQ3 books, they are old and expensive to replace), but the Creatures book was a complete waste of money, since it's the RQ3 monster book, and I already have that book and the Malleus Monstrorum. Buyer beware for sure.

But, like I said, it's nice to be able to write in the book and not feel guilty.

Honestly with how messy Sorcery was in RQ3, I have to say I would prefer using the straight BRP Magic and Sorcery rules with an expanded spell list over porting RQ3 stuff. Especially if no effort was made to update the information.

I have to say the biggest disappointment for me is that no one know they were going to do this. And this goes for Basic Creatures and Basic Game Master as well. Had I known that this was going to be re-issued, I would have volunteered to go through it line by line and make it compatible with the new book. Change skill names, page references, etc. Sure it would have been time consuming, but it would have been a true supplement, truly compatible with the current rules and not a thinly vialed attempt to re-issue old product.

There, I said it. >:->

Rod

It's a fair comment. I feel Chaosium have really missed a trick by reissuing these as they are. I mentioned in discussion on another thread that what I would have liked to have seen for the Magic book was the following:

Spirit magic, Divine magic and Sorcery : all tidied up and BRPised, possibly expanded and enhanced with spells taken from old RQ products, given some editorial work the Gloranthan stuff could have been taken out and some good generic spells added on

The balance of the BRP rules style sorcery spells from Elric and The Bronze Grimoire, suitably edited ( about 40-50 of these if memory serves ) including the various necromantic spells

The Runic sorcery system from The Bronze Grimoire suitably edited and with expansions

Some new 'magic' spells

Now that would have been a great product

It would indeed. And it should have been the first thing released after the main book, IMO. As long as it contained a reasonable amount of new material, I suspect many of us would have bought it as soon as it appeared. And even if it didn't, updated old stuff would have been fine too.

Thanks for jumping on the grenade for me on this one guys. I recently went on a monograph shopping binge (bought lots of great stuff, highly recommend Aces High, BRP Adventures and Vale de Loup) and had to pause at "Basic Magic" and "Basic etc etc" because I'd been burned before, buying Chaosium monographs that were just the same old bits and pieces of a better bygone Runequest age repackaged to look like a new product.

I think all the available versions of magic out there are pretty cool and have their uses depending on the flavour of campaign you're running. I had a lot of fun running Tekumel with the free RQ conversion out there. A lot of cool ideas and so similar to RQ sorcery that it made its adaptation into my campaign trivially easy. Some really great spells too. "Sandy's Sorcery" is something that I keep running into out there, I think it's still available on "Runequest Lite". It's free, pretty well ready to go if you don't mind the Sorcery rules of RQ (I've always kinda liked them because they were so easy to abuse, as a GM I tend to look favourably on creative rules perversion). All this by way of saying that there are other options out there instead of spending hard earned cash on stuff you might already possess (like I did). I have to scratch my head at the reasoning behind trying to rip off your very small core group of loyal fans. I think it's probably due to oversight rather than malice, at least that's what I'd like to believe. A little more transparency in the product's description or a little more effort put into creating a product that someone like me would buy (and I would buy it) would go a long way. Sorry about the rant, folks. Too much nyborg.

If you go here:

Gloranthan Wars

and scroll down you'll find the most recent ( to my knowledge ) collection of sandy's sorcery,shamanism and mysticism rules. There's some good stuff in there and the site in general is good.

Hello. I have a important question. How many "spirit magic spells", "divine spells", or "sorcery spells" from "basic magic" has a BRP new player with BRP rules?

The core BRP does not use the magical trinity of old RuneQuest.

Most of the effects are replicated in one way or another in BRP. The only thing lacking in BRP is a defined "divine"-magic.

I agree. But,Why "Basic Magic" has been published? What does mean it?

I agree. But,Why "Basic Magic" has been published? What does mean it?

Not everyone has access to the old RuneQuest materials. It made no sense to keep this out of print if it could be sold via direct marketing.

Basic Magic is basicly an un-edited copy/paste(and badly done, on top of that) of RuneQuest2's magic chapter.

I really can't think of a good reason why they released it in that form.

The same can be said for Basic Creatures. The Basic Gamemaster-mono has some good points to it(specially for a beginning gamemaster). It is way better than the other two, but it is not excellent .

Edit: I don't have the old RQ-magic available, and I still think Basic Magic was poor.

Thank you. I hoped a "RQ3 Renaissance", with minor adjustments, in character creation rules. What a piety!

Sorry about my english. I wanted say "pity"

I picked up the mongraph during a sale, so I don't feel too upset about the reused content. This just means I've got Five....maybe Six versions of the same rules floating around... :cool:

I am sorry that I purchased it now, but am being suitably warned off the remaining products in the BRP line.

I am sorry that I purchased it now, but am being suitably warned off the remaining products in the BRP line.

It's only really the Basic Magic, Basic Creatures and Basic Gamesmastering (?) lines that are reprints of the old RQ3 material.

The rest of the BRP line is new and seems quite good.

At a very real risk of sounding like a stuck CD

A modest proposal:

Basic Magic

Edit thoroughly to update to BRP standard

Cull through old RQ products for spirit magic spells, de- gloranthise and add to spirit magic list

As above for Divine magic

Sorcery: rename to avoid confusuion, add in errata ( I mean it's only been around for 20 years )

Provide balance of golden book style sorcery spells from The Bronze Grimoire and other Elric material

Provide Runic sorcery spells from bronze Grimoire

expand and provide extra spells for all categories menrtioned above

Cook on a low gas mark for a suitable period of time....and you'd actually have a pretty good product.

maybe rather than just talking about it I should actually contact Dustin over at Chaosium and suggest it....

At a very real risk of sounding like a stuck CD

A modest proposal:

Basic Magic

Edit thoroughly to update to BRP standard

Cull through old RQ products for spirit magic spells, de- gloranthise and add to spirit magic list

As above for Divine magic

Sorcery: rename to avoid confusuion, add in errata ( I mean it's only been around for 20 years )

Provide balance of golden book style sorcery spells from The Bronze Grimoire and other Elric material

Provide Runic sorcery spells from bronze Grimoire

expand and provide extra spells for all categories menrtioned above

Cook on a low gas mark for a suitable period of time....and you'd actually have a pretty good product.

maybe rather than just talking about it I should actually contact Dustin over at Chaosium and suggest it....

It has been mooted before - and you forgot to include magic from Nephilim and the system from the Unknown East for Elric!. If you feel up to putting a solid proposal in front of Dustin, go for it. Personally, I'd pitch it as a full distribution book rather than a monograph, and it probably needs to take account of some of the other monographs (Witchcraft, the Grimoire, the Green) that have been released as well.

Personally however whilst I agree the errata should have been applied to the former RQIII material, I'm quite happy that they remain available as-is, provided it's made clearer in the catalogue that they are basically elements of an earlier version of the system made available for convenience.

Cheers,

Nick

I don't own Nephilim so it's hard for me to comment on it...is it worth picking up a copy ? The Unknown East was a good book I but always felt that the magic system wasn't particularly well developed, good ideas, but it was as though they got half way through and lost the plot or gave up. But yes If you're going for a BRP magic supplement it would make sense for them to be included if they were BRP compatible.

As for stuff from monographs....I'm not sure. Firstly if this were a Chaosium distribution book it would be 'the rules' as it were. The base line from which monograph writers would operate, rather than the other way round if that makes sense. Certainly a little section on alternative magic monographs would be appropriate. is this what you were thinking of ?