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Which d100 system for this setting ?


rust

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As mentioned elsewhere, I am currently moving my old Asornok setting to

a version of Middle Earth, and now I am wondering which of the d100 sy-

stems would fit this setting best.

The characters will be members of a tribal society of arctic hunters, their

available professions will be hunter (sea / seals and land / reindeer and

other game), craftsmen and (female) shaman [see my ideas for the set-

ting's spirit magic in the BRP forum thread], the focus of the game will be

on dealing with the arctic environment, hunting and social interaction (in-

cluding negotiations and trade with foreigners) - there will be only very

few combat. It should be possible to use some kind of "winter phase" to

give the characters an opportunity to found families, raise children, craft

things for use or trade, and all that.

My first idea was to use the Middle Ages version of Call of Cthulhu, main-

ly because it is more rules light than BRP and can easily be modified, for

example by adding some of the BRP options which fit the setting. How-

ever, there are now so many d100 systems that it may well be that an-

other one I do not know would fit the setting even better.

If you have an idea for this, please let me know - thank you. :)

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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In fact, if you're using variant CoC rules then you are in an even better position to make use of Beyond the Mountains of Madness which I understand has some special rules for a polar environment.

Thank you, this is a very good point. :)

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Guest Vile Traveller

That's where all this snow and mountain and 'arctic environment' stuff is coming from, you know. ;)

I agree that CoC is probably the wisest choice, especially as your group tends to be less combat-oriented. The magic system can always be bolted on from whatever you finally settle on.

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As mentioned elsewhere, I am currently moving my old Asornok setting to

a version of Middle Earth, and now I am wondering which of the d100 sy-

stems would fit this setting best.

The characters will be members of a tribal society of arctic hunters, their

available professions will be hunter (sea / seals and land / reindeer and

other game), craftsmen and (female) shaman [see my ideas for the set-

ting's spirit magic in the BRP forum thread], the focus of the game will be

on dealing with the arctic environment, hunting and social interaction (in-

cluding negotiations and trade with foreigners) - there will be only very

few combat. It should be possible to use some kind of "winter phase" to

give the characters an opportunity to found families, raise children, craft

things for use or trade, and all that.

My first idea was to use the Middle Ages version of Call of Cthulhu, main-

ly because it is more rules light than BRP and can easily be modified, for

example by adding some of the BRP options which fit the setting. How-

ever, there are now so many d100 systems that it may well be that an-

other one I do not know would fit the setting even better.

If you have an idea for this, please let me know - thank you. :)

Sounds like something that will take place in Forodwaith among the Lossoth?

I don't think you can go wrong with CoC:DA, but if you are gonna bolt much stuff from the BRP book I think you are better of using that completely. If you ignore most of the optional rules it is almost as rules light if not even less rules than CoC:DA. It's hard to make a judgement call since I don't know how much you are gonna tweak the rules. But generally only a little tweaking I think CoC will suffice, but if you plan to make customize the rules completely to your setting I think BRP is the better. You could of course use OpenQuest or MRQ2/Legend but I think they are not such a good fit since those rules are more focused on action oriented games. By the sound of it action is not the goal of your campaign.

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Its a common misconception that OpenQuest is focused on action. I don't understand why, just because OQ cuts out some of the crunch of its crunchier brothers doesn't mean its Jet Li jumping about ignoring hits and doing back flips. Its still the regular "Don't blunder into combat, plan your attack and pray you don't get hit" of standard BRP. Remember HeroPoints are optional rule, and even if used you would have to give them out like flowing water and make Hit points based off Con+Siz rather than (Con+Siz/2) to acheive cinematic levels.

Head Honcho of D101 Games
Publisher of Crypts and Things/Monkey/OpenQuest/River of Heaven
The Sorcerer Under the Mountain

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Sounds like something that will take place in Forodwaith among the Lossoth?

In a way, my Asor will replace the Lossoth who live on the large peninsula north-

west of the Ice Bay, and their society will be a little more structured, advanced

and open to outside contacts than the Lossoth society, but the basics are the

same - arctic hunter-gatherers on the edge of Middle Earth.

Right now I am still mostly working on the setting's "fluff" and have not yet begun

to tailor the rules to the setting, so I am not yet sure whether I will have to add

any or many options from BRP to the Cthulhu rules to give the setting the "feel" I

am aiming for.

The shamanistic magic system will be my own design, based upon the shaman's

social skills in negotiating with the spirits, and I am also thinking of rules for the

"winter phase" of the campaign (mainly rules for social advancement through ser-

vice to the clan and rules for crafting useful stuff), and some additional rules for

dealing with an arctic environment - but that's it, at least at the moment, other-

wise the Cthulhu rules should work well.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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I've never seen Cthulhu Dark Ages. It's regular CoC with some additional details?

As a big Middle Earth fan who's constantly on the verge of settling on a set of BRP variants to run a campaign with, I'd be interested in hearing of your progress on this project.

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I've never seen Cthulhu Dark Ages. It's regular CoC with some additional details?

Yes, the main differences are the skill list, which includes many skills typical for

a medieval setting instead of the skills of classic Cthulhu, the professions and

some additional informations about medieval life, medieval weapons and combat,

but the core of the rules remains unchanged.

As a big Middle Earth fan who's constantly on the verge of settling on a set of BRP variants to run a campaign with, I'd be interested in hearing of your progress on this project.

I think I have now finished most of the description of the Asor, the arctic hun-

ter-gatherers at the center of the setting, so additional details can easily be

added to that basic framework.

For the setting beyond the land of the Asor I will use the old MERP material,

mainly the Arnor realm book and the originally unpublished material of the Lin-

don supplement. It seems that there is little need for adaptations, especially

since I will completely ignore the Northern Waste supplement - I strongly dis-

like its descriptions of people and events of the far north.

Besides, my setting will take place during the end of the Third Age and the be-

ginning of the Fourth Age, and there is little "canonical" material about this ti-

me in the far north anyway, I am quite free to come up with what I consider

as plausible consequences of the previous events and developments.

This leaves the skills and professions plus some spot rules as the main tasks

for me. I think I will have to add a few "arctic" skills and delete a few others

which do not fit into the Asor's culture, and also to define the Asors' four pro-

fessions (fisher, hunter, crafter, shaman). Finally I will work on the spot rules

mentioned earlier, the shamanistic magic and the "winter phase" stuff.

I would upload the material I have already more or less completed, but since

it is in German this would hardly make sense - and it is not as good as the

material already in the forum's download section anyway.

What I can offer is some of the originally unpublished material of the planned

Lindon supplement for MERP, which I have found a while ago on a Middle Earth

fan website. If you are interested in it, just send me a PM with your e-mail

address, and I will send it to you.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Your setting, as always, sounds intriguing. But why tie it in with Middle Earth, especially since the region covered is so remote and isolated that Gollum could become the new Dark Lord and Numenor could rise again from the waves, and your local PCs would never know the difference? Why not run it as a straight historical campaign?

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Well, you know, the Asor are an ancient nomadic culture ... ;D

They came into existence in the 1980s, where they inhabited the far north

of the German Midgard RPG. From there they wandered into D&D's Forgotten

Realms, and then on to the real world's Baffin Island during a Classic Cthulhu,

a Cthulhu Now and a few pseudo-historical campaigns. And now they seem

to feel an urge to visit Middle Earth for a while ... =|

Of course, they are a little isolated in the far north of Middle Earth, with on-

ly very few contacts with the Southerners, mainly with the seafaring Elves

of Lindon. However, with the revival of Arnor in the Fourth Age this could

change, with many new opportunities to travel south and bring back strange

things which may prove useful to the clans. Moreover, after Sauron's final

disappearance there is now also an opportunity to cleanse the north and to

break Morgoth's ancient curse of the land - lots of typical Middle Earth ad-

venture possibilities, enough for a campaign.

But in the end the hunter Running Fox and the shaman Laughing Seal probab-

ly just heard rumours and stories about that place Middle Earth, and now in-

sist on visiting it ... ;)

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Only Dr Who had a slim chance to stop the Asor ... >:>

Looking at the number of additional skills I intend to introduce (for example

Etiquette, Housekeeping, Ritual, Perform, Shadow Lore, Spirit Lore and Sur-

vival) and the skill values the average Asor will need to survive in the arc-

tic environment, I think I will combine some of the other skills - a method

I used for other settings, too.

Athletics will cover skills like Climb, Jump and Throw, Perception will cover

skills like Listen and Spot Hidden, Stealth will cover skills like Conceal and

Sneak, and Unarmed Combat will cover Fist, Kick and all that. This should

reduce the number of skills enough to make it possible to get sufficient va-

lues in the remaining and new skills.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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Hi Rust -

I'm pretty late to the party here, but I would suggest giving the OpenQuest and RetroQuest games a look. When we started putting together our Viking game I initially picked RetroQuest as it had a skill list very close to what was needed. I added the stuff I wanted, cut the stuff I didn't and had a set of rules to e-mail the group so we were all on the same page. We eventually moved to a system closer to Pendragon for our game, but both OpenQuest and RetroQuest are excellent games to tinker with.

Cheers - Mike

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Anyone tried Age of Shadow? Opinions?

I have only had the time for a quick read of most of it, but it makes a

very good impression so far, very clearly written and with all the rules

required for a fantasy game. If the playtesting was of the same quali-

ty as the representation, I would not hesitate to give it 5 of 5 stars.

That said, I am afraid I have already put too much effort into adap-

ting Call of Cthulhu to my setting to change the setting's system now.

However, I think I will "borrow" a couple of ideas from Age of Shadow,

for example I like the way the skills are organized more than the way

CoC does it.

"Mind like parachute, function only when open."

(Charlie Chan)

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