I've not picked up RQ6 yet (I know, I know, I'm slacking), but I've really been taken with the Chronicles of Future Earth. I like the nod to the Dying Earth books and the weird races add a great sword and sorcery vibe to it. I've probably logged the most time on Stormbringer though. My group loves to rampage through the Young Kingdoms.

Edit: You know...the elements 'fallen civilizations' that I like so much in Chronicles of Future Earth, are also the elements I like in Gib's Metal Earth setting. Maybe I should transfer some of the Metal Earth stuff into BRP and try running a couple of games of that. I don't think it would be too hard. He's done a lot of work on presenting that setting on his blog.

Was there previously a free version of Openquest?

My main issue with the riches is that so many of them seem a bit bloated. BRP for me is a clean system, that's it's USP. Add too many options and it loses that.

The big BRP book was for me overkill. I wanted less. It's what's stopped me buying a lot of the new books. Great subjects, but they depend on that vast tome and it's just a bit too much.

Quote from: mhensley;567842I guess I'm looking for something that has the depth and variety of D&D type magic.  Most of the brp stuff I've looked at, the magic seems pretty dull and limited.  I admit that's based on a very superficial reading of material, but if you look at a D&D phb, probably half of it is taken up by spells.  I've never seen anything close to that with any brp based game I've looked at.

OK, working through the Magic sections in RQ6,lets see what crazy over-the-top tricks one could pull.

Folk Magic - not much really, but its not meant for that. This is low-level stuff, on a par with d20 feats.

Animism - Make yourself a skill master (over 100%) rating, blight an area, kill from a distance, become an elemental, become scarily fast in combat (boost action points), shapechange, body snatching.

Mysticism - Ridiculous skill boosts, run on walls and ceilings, stand on saplings, levitate, immunity to damage types, heal within moments.

Sorcery - peel open a ship at sea, talk a group into a hero-worshipping mob army, fly, maker a magic portal, create undead, suffocate at range,shapechange,  swap bodies, throw magic bolts of varying flavours/types, drain the life force out of a victim in various ways

Theism - Shapechange, drive berserk, create earthquake, call elemental, stop heart, suppress magic, throw lightning, cause madness, blast sapience, completely remove target from existence, create undead, resurrect, kill at range, incinerate with sunfire, knock over whole army company with thunder.

How does that sort of thing sound, powerful enough for you?

RQ6 Magic can definitely powerful, the only problem is, it can also be a little generic and difficult to put together.  Sorcery in particular is based on effects, so instead of the Scabrous Hand of Dal'Karoth, or the Burning Fires of Akasha's Vengeance, you have Wrack.

It's definitely not "pick up and run" to get the most out of it for me, I'm not an old-hand at RQ.

But yeah there's crazy levels of power there.

Quote from: CRKrueger;569047RQ6 Magic can definitely powerful, the only problem is, it can also be a little generic and difficult to put together.  Sorcery in particular is based on effects, so instead of the Scabrous Hand of Dal'Karoth, or the Burning Fires of Akasha's Vengeance, you have Wrack.

It's definitely not "pick up and run" to get the most out of it for me, I'm not an old-hand at RQ.

But yeah there's crazy levels of power there.

I get what you mean, each power set is generally specific and focussed in theme and utility.  Unlike D&D a magician type cannot pick and choose from a wide array but gets a significant set of effects around a definite theme.  It is up to the GM and player to define what effects fit, and then creative usage of the effects to discover what power is available.

My "peel open a ship" is an example of this, using the apparently dull animate wood and sculpt wood.