Quote from: Stainless;834744I don't know the details of the business history, but didn't they "abandon" the company?

No, I don't think so. They left to do other things and Chaosium carried on. Now they are back.

Quote from: Stainless;834744Are they now trying to fix the crop they sowed? Seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Not really. If they had abandoned Chaosium, then they wouldn't care about the company and wouldn't have rejoined. From what I understand, there has never been any bad blood between any of them.

Quote from: Stainless;834744I'm not expecting much other than spin doctoring.

We'll have to wait and see. Hopefully, they'll re-energise things.

Quote from: Simlasa;834777It's different enough... for no benefit I can perceive... that I'd find myself having to ignore/change more than I'd like to when it's easier to just stick with an earlier edition.

Quote from: Simlasa;834777I feel like there is a shift in the spirit of the game... including narrative suggestions such as having Players describe NPCs and settings.

Quote from: K Peterson;834780I don't see any point in 'upgrading' to 7e. More cruft, goofy rules changes, a bloated text.

It worked so well for all the other decades old systems and settings...

Quote from: CRKrueger;834823

It worked so well for all the other decades old systems and settings...

:huhsign:

Strange.  I haven't noticed any "narrative turds in my punchbowl".  And I've run six sessions of 7e CoC...

I've played in two CoC 7e games run by the two new writers (Paul and Mike). In both cases I had quintessential CoC experiences. Thus, I have no fears about the new rules; they work just fine and deliver the goods in spades.

Chaosium has always been the Call of Cthulu company to me.  Ergo, not all that interesting, in fact, despite their 'claim' of being a boutique/artistic RPG company, they've effectively made the same pair of gaming 'jeans' for the past 40 years.  Is that what gamers want?  The same old stuff with no growth, no innovation, no actual thought into the product?

I don't get it.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;834850Is that what gamers want?  The same old stuff with no growth, no innovation, no actual thought into the product?

I want invention in the face of necessity, not for the sake of novelty. I'm not a 'systems' guy who is always looking for some cute new way to roll the dice or calculate a stat... I'd rather see effort put into setting/story/character where it really pays off. If a game works for me, if the rules do their job and get out of the way, why would I want to fuck around with that?

To me, 7e seemed like a response to Trail of Cthulhu...

Quote from: JeremyR;834874To me, 7e seemed like a response to Trail of Cthulhu...

and the general proliferation of mythos related games... CoC hasn't been the only Lovecraft-focused game for a while now.

Quote from: Simlasa;834870I want invention in the face of necessity, not for the sake of novelty. I'm not a 'systems' guy who is always looking for some cute new way to roll the dice or calculate a stat... I'd rather see effort put into setting/story/character where it really pays off. If a game works for me, if the rules do their job and get out of the way, why would I want to fuck around with that?

There are a few things with 6e CoC that needed to be cleaned up.  But I can understand why some think that 7e went 'too far'.

The real innovative strength of CoC always has been its adventures and campaigns.  Some of the greatest campaigns of all time (e.g., Masks of Nyarlathotep) are for CoC.  That should be the focus.  System-wise, CoC always has been pretty 'basic'.

No snark, no sarcasm intended, but what can you do with a system at it's base is percentile?  Especially given the nature of their most popular setting, of which there's been 7 editions over 30+ years.  Combat is not really all that necessary to be super tight, as you're not meant to survive the Mythos.  Special 'powers' or talents or whatever are also not necessary as frankly, most characters are supposed to be random joes on the street, some of which are more educated than others (and thus more susceptible to the 'horrors'.)

Why does Basic Roleplaying actually need to be updated?  Why not just keep pumping out adventures?

Quote from: Necrozius;834739Somewhat related: is there a general consensus among CoC fans about which edition is "best"? I'd like to finally get a hard copy for my shelf; I don't care if it's a version that came out 20 years ago.

They're all just about the same as far as the rules go but the hardcover 3rd edition from Games Workshop is a thing of beauty and includes some neat adventures and articles.  It's my preferred version.

Quote from: Akrasia;834882There are a few things with 6e CoC that needed to cleaned up.  But I can understand why some think that 7e went 'too far'.

The real innovative strength of CoC always has been its adventures and campaigns.  Some of the greatest campaigns of all time (e.g., Masks of N) are for CoC.  That should be the focus.  System-wise, CoC always has been pretty 'basic'.

Agreed... and I think that 'basic' nature makes any changes stand out a bit louder.
I'd rather have seen new adventures, settings for CoC... alternative takes on the Mythos like ToC presented.

(CRKrueger's funny meme image)
It's not like I won't play 'new' games... I'm even happy to play 'narrative' styled games (I'd still like to try My Life With Master). But just because I think that Noumenon's idea to use dominoes instead of dice is interesting doesn't make me want to replace the dice in all my games... unlike folks I still see trying to drag 'aspects' into... fucking everything.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;834886Why does Basic Roleplaying actually need to be updated?  Why not just keep pumping out adventures?

The same could be said of D&D, T&T, Traveller, etc. I'm of the opinion that a lot of the older rules-sets cannot be improved upon in a meaningful way without creating a whole new game. New games are great, I love new games. But, they're not a replacement for the old games whatsoever. Fact: Blackjack is older than the hills and wildly popular. Hold 'Em is new and wildly popular. Both are fun to play. Why do a lot of gamers seem to hold the opinion that tacking on new rules to CoC somehow makes it a better game?

So, yeah, I agree...leave BRP alone and make up some new shit. There's certainly a market for newer games, but of course, it's easier to sell it as CoC so that's probably the reason.

Quote from: Brad;834918The same could be said of D&D, T&T, Traveller, etc. I'm of the opinion that a lot of the older rules-sets cannot be improved upon in a meaningful way without creating a whole new game. New games are great, I love new games. But, they're not a replacement for the old games whatsoever. Fact: Blackjack is older than the hills and wildly popular. Hold 'Em is new and wildly popular. Both are fun to play. Why do a lot of gamers seem to hold the opinion that tacking on new rules to CoC somehow makes it a better game?

So, yeah, I agree...leave BRP alone and make up some new shit. There's certainly a market for newer games, but of course, it's easier to sell it as CoC so that's probably the reason.

Exactly.  I don't get the edition treadmill or the reinventing the wheel. Go make a new game, don't fuck with the ones that work just fine. Don't change it all around and call it by the same name, either.

I think BRP needs to emphasize its conceptual portability. The thing is that the supplements right now for various settings strike me as either stuffy (hey, I like stuffy, but you aren't going to get a mass audience for a game about the Teutonic Knights) or extremely niche.*

Some of the other supplements seem like half-hearted attempts at checking off a box in the genre-menu. Right now, BRP mecha has one review on the publisher's site that says, "a bit thin - otherwise decent".

I like Magic World but the title itself appeals only to Chaosium grognards who remember Worlds of Wonder. The included setting has potential but it's quite sketchy and needs a more vivid treatment.

The system really needs another title that you want to play because the subject matter is attractive and presented in a meaty fashion, not just because it represents "the BRP entry" in, say, secret agent roleplaying. In fact it would be fantastic if people would mine BRP supplements for setting ideas to use in their favorite system, the way they do with GURPS.

Otherwise BRP is basically just a system for Cthulhu-heads who don't feel like learning something else to play a different genre.

*EDIT: I put that asterisk in there and i might as well use it to say that I am thinking a BRP Jorune wouldn't be a bad thing. Not sure how that relates to my thesis, though.