Groom of the Stool, what's your deal with Aussies? There's gotta be a story there. Their need to hurl crustaceans at plastic dolls is a tad strange, but what culture doesn't have it's oddities?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1126300Hol' up, set aside CoC for a moment...did they really say...

all works related to Le Morte d'Arthur

Did they really just try to copyright a book written in fourteen fucking seventy five???  Bad news chums, I think Sir Thomas Mallory has in fact been dead more than 75 years.

They aren't copyrighting anything they are trying to make one set of idiots believe they are and another set of mostly sycophants believe having the BRP logo on your product is great so that NuChaosium can get some free marketing.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1126350I love Call of Cthulhu (4th ed by preference but up to 6th they're all good), but if this is how Chaosium is going to behave, man, fuck them.

Didn't they just plain stop paying Michael Moorcock for years on end?  You know, an actual dude who was still alive and owed licensing fees?  I seem to recall reading a lot by him about how peeved he was about that.

Anyway, time to sort out a la morte d'Arthur RPG in every possible system.  Probably start with OSRIC and go from there.

I find it ironic that Chaosium profited from a contract that Michael Moorcock wasn't happy with, yet are unable to see the hypocrisy of their position regarding their contract with Mongoose.

As many others have opined, what is the point of the BRP-OGL? Chaosium could easily have set up a Community Content Program for the BRP 4th Edition book (Big Gold Book) and Magic World. I believe most fans wanted a replacement for the BRP Monographs, and a CCP would have suited them and made money for Chaosium.

Instead, we get the BRP-OGL which is a royalty free license similar to the Savage Worlds license which gives Chaosium approval over manuscripts. However, this is disingenuously described an OGL.

From the responses of Chaosium employees at BRP Central, I find myself thinking that this BRP-OGL is motivated by the the following reasons:
1) That Chaosium thinks that only games produced by the current management are 'legitimate' BRP: RuneQuest, CoC, and Pendragon.
2) A contempt for BRP 4th Edition and Magic World, presumably because they were produced by the previous management.
3) A mistrust of third party publishers, despite the fact that many excellent third party publishers, such as Pagan Publishing and Stygian Fox, have enhanced the reputation of CoC with their products.
4) A contempt for the open gaming movement. Chaosium clearly don't believe in the Skaff Effect, that what is good for the hobby is good for the market leader.
5) An attempt to muddy the waters over the legitimacy of the open gaming movement.

This whole BRP-OGL debacle and Chaosium's refusal to respond to legitimate criticism of the license has really soured me on the company.

Quote from: yojimbouk;1126379I find it ironic that Chaosium profited from a contract that Michael Moorcock wasn't happy with, yet are unable to see the hypocrisy of their position regarding their contract with Mongoose.

Yeah.  Ripping off an author on licensed stuff is like hanging out a sign that says COME PIRATE OUR SHIT, WE'RE NOT PAYING HIM ANYWAY LOLOLOLOL.

QuoteFrom the responses of Chaosium employees at BRP Central, I find myself thinking that this BRP-OGL is motivated by the the following reasons:
1) That Chaosium thinks that only games produced by the current management are 'legitimate' BRP: RuneQuest, CoC, and Pendragon.
2) A contempt for BRP 4th Edition and Magic World, presumably because they were produced by the previous management.

Yeah, very much this. Looking over that BRP central site, some of the Chaosium guys come across as real asshats. Seems they know better than everyone in the industry and fuck you if you dare to disagree.

Quote3) A mistrust of third party publishers, despite the fact that many excellent third party publishers, such as Pagan Publishing and Stygian Fox, have enhanced the reputation of CoC with their products.

I think its a mistrust of third party publishers who haven't bent the fucking knee and gotten a license from them. Licensees, Good! Non Licensees, Bad!

Quote4) A contempt for the open gaming movement. Chaosium clearly don't believe in the Skaff Effect, that what is good for the hobby is good for the market leader.

Here's a quote from 'Jeff' from a thread on RQ vs D&D from 2018. "For what it is worth, for me the jury is still out on whether D&D5e is a good or even particularly interesting role-playing game. My experiences with it so far have not particularly impressed me. But I also am unimpressed by a lot of so-called "modern ideas/approaches" (mostly because I think the basic parameters of game mechanics have not developed nearly as much since the mid-80s as people think, although what is currently popular changes like a kaleidoscope)." So, yeah. Not just the open gaming movement but anything that ain't one of his company's games. I got no problem with anyone holding an opinion, but isn't this guy like the CEO or something?

QuoteThis whole BRP-OGL debacle and Chaosium's refusal to respond to legitimate criticism of the license has really soured me on the company.

Seems to me they're a bunch of arrogant assholes. Fuck 'em.

Quote from: yojimbouk;1126379I find it ironic that Chaosium profited from a contract that Michael Moorcock wasn't happy with, yet are unable to see the hypocrisy of their position regarding their contract with Mongoose.

Except in this case they did not give any rules or mechanics to Mongoose. Greg Stafford license the Glorantha IP i.e. the "fluff" and the Runequest trademark. He did not license any type of rules nor could he other than Heroquest.

Folks need to keep this in mind in regards to Chaosium's complaints about the deal with Mongoose. In short Mongoose wrote an original RPG that uses the d100 and share several common elements with earlier editions of Runequest that also shared with other unrelated RPGs like the many of the characteristics and the 3d6 scale.

However many element of Mongoose take are not the same as BRP or prior edition of Runequest.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1126312This makes me want to publish a Le Morte d'Arthur RPG in every system that's open just to spit in their eye.

Build one that is 5e compatible and I think you have the makings of an interesting Kickstarter.

Quote from: S'mon;1126363Well this thread has convinced me to avoid buying Chaosium stuff! They seem worse than T$R!

Exactly.  I certainly won't be purchasing anything from a company that believes that they can copyright or trademark something that is in the public domain simply by publishing their own version of it.  One Disney is enough...

Quote from: yojimbouk;1126380...
4) A contempt for the open gaming movement. Chaosium clearly don't believe in the Skaff Effect, that what is good for the hobby is good for the market leader...

In this I would say there is some legitimate concern for them.

They are not the market leader. D&D is.

And outside of CoC they are the leaders of nothing.

But what they don't seem to get is that their fears of a d100 OGL don't matter!

The cat is already out of the bag! The fat lady has sung! The Prom Queen is doing the walk of shame!

d100 Legends and OpenQuest are out there.

It's over. This is just an attempt to muddy the waters to scare people off from doing a CoC clone.

I believe they are afraid of getting into a D&D4e vs PF1 scenario, and coming out on the short end.

Quote from: BrokenCounsel;1126395...
Here's a quote from 'Jeff' ... "For what it is worth, for me the jury is still out on whether D&D5e is a good or even particularly interesting role-playing game. My experiences with it so far have not particularly impressed me.....

Why must this idiot agree with me?

I'm currently playing in a 5e game. IMHO It's kind of a sucky system for what it is trying to do.

But guess what? 5e is a HUGE success!

The rest of the hobby doesn't care what I think!

The problem with 'Jeff', is that unlike me he thinks his opinion on D&D is actually relevant.

Quote from: BrokenCounsel;1126395... But I also am unimpressed by a lot of so-called "modern ideas/approaches" (mostly because I think the basic parameters of game mechanics have not developed nearly as much since the mid-80s as people think, although what is currently popular changes like a kaleidoscope)." ....

Now that is very telling, and likely the reason why RQ7 is such a cluster fuck with its rules.

With this kind of attitude they will go the way of SJG and HERO system.

Quote from: Lynn;1126405Build one that is 5e compatible and I think you have the makings of an interesting Kickstarter.

I might, but I'd probably go with OSRIC and S&W first.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1126436I might, but I'd probably go with OSRIC and S&W first.

I'd back that.

The irony is, until their inclusion of Le Morte d'Arthur in the NOGL, it had never occurred to anyone to clone Pendragon - from what I hear it's near perfect as a Malory RPG adaption. You'd also have to squint really hard to think it's BRP.

Quote from: S'mon;1126363Well this thread has convinced me to avoid buying Chaosium stuff

While I wouldn't use the license/SRD they've offered I'm not angered by it, either. I'll still buy from Chaosium if they offer me something I like. That said, the stuff I like tends to be their older material rather than their new editions/releases. I like Runequest 2. I like the BRP Gold Book. I like Call of Cthulhu (up through 5th edition or so -- can't say I'm interested in new CoC rules). I like Stormbringer (I have the 1e rules/supplements). You can still get some of that stuff. I think they're still selling the BRP gold book. And there are "classic Runequest" PDFs available.

I think a lot of high-quality d100 games and supplements have come from non-Chaosium sources, lately. Delta Green is awesome. There are some really cool settings and sourcebooks for BRP/RQ6/Mythras, too, like the BRP Rome book, or the RQ6 Monster Island, or the Mythras "Mythic Earth" books (Mythic Britain, Mythic Rome, Mythic Constantinople, et cetera).

TL;DR: If Chaosium puts out some cool products that appeal to me, I'll buy from them. Right now they're not offering me much that I want, outside of older material (most of which I already own).

QuoteThe problem with 'Jeff', is that unlike me he thinks his opinion on D&D is actually relevant.

Plus he's a high up in Chaosium, and it's just damned unprofessional to go ragging on other company's games in a public forum - and especially the market leader. That shows contempt for the industry they're a part of. Yet they brag about all their fucking Ennies and Indiana Jones awards, yadda yadda yadda - so clearly they adore the industry when it suits them. It wouldn't be so bad if he gave examples of why he's 'unimpressed' in a constructive way; but he's too fucking cool for that. 'Cept it's just a dick move from an arrogant prick.

Quote... But I also am unimpressed by a lot of so-called "modern ideas/approaches" (mostly because I think the basic parameters of game mechanics have not developed nearly as much since the mid-80s as people think, although what is currently popular changes like a kaleidoscope)." ....
Now that is very telling, and likely the reason why RQ7 is such a cluster fuck with its rules.

I didn't get the new RQ rules because Glorantha just ain't my bag, but looking at the posts about rules issues on that BRP site, I get the impression that Jeff's also the lead designer, but doesn't have a fucking clue about how to design a game. He took an old game, the RQ classic, threw in a bunch of rules from another couple of versions he happened to like, slapped a shit load of pretty art on it, and decided it was done. Yet he's got the balls to rag on 5e and criticize 'modern ideas/approaches'? Fuck. Even Felix.J's got a better sense of how to design a roleplaying game. So if this Jeff's also the genius behind their OGL and SRD, yeah, it's gonna suck.

Contempt for the industry seeps out of them. For one of the big old companies, that's just bad.