Stafford & Petersen To Return To Chaosium

This is apparently happening, at least according to this thread at the purple forum place, which appears to be written by Greg Stafford himself.

I have no dog in any hunt w/ Chaosium right now. I didn’t back any of their Kickstarters (Flying Buffalo took care of my KS disappointment). I’m not especially keen on the CoC 7th rules after having playtested them. But I’m still quite curious about the situation, as there are all kinds of potential repercussions and reverberations. And if any of that shakes out to better support for BRP, I’ll be happy.

Meanwhile, I’m packing for NTRPG Con, where I’ll get to play in a Basic D&D game run by Frank Mentzer and a Top Secret game run by Merle Rasmussen. And the DCC Lankhmar playtest that Doug Kovacs is running. And a couple of other things. So that’s going to be fun. So much so that I might even bother to post some pictures or even write up a report after the weekend. No promises, though. I’m a lazy sod, after all.

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4 thoughts on “Stafford & Petersen To Return To Chaosium

  1. G-Man

    I downloaded the 7th ed. rules and thought they looked interesting. What was your experience with them in play?

    Man, you’ve got to post about the con–especially that Lankhmar DCC run. I’m all over that, as soon as it comes out. And Top Secret . . .

    1. the venomous pao Post author

      In play I hated CoC 7. I’ll grant it was an early-ish rev and I haven’t looked at the rules since, though. Still, it just seemed clunky during character creation (multiplying attributes out and then having a list of main/critical/special values or whatever that was). It felt too heroic. Too action-oriented for CoC. But also not in a way that I’d want to use for other genres with BRP. There was some kind of Traits mechanic, too, as I recall (sorta like FATE or whatever) that just didn’t jibe with me.

      Perhaps if the Keeper had been well-versed instead of running a playtest iteration I’d have felt differently. Perhaps if the other players had been more into it I’d have liked it better. And perhaps if it didn’t fall in the midst of my very long slog through Masks of Nyarlathotep (which ultimately made me less than happy with CoC – but not BRP) I’d be more sanguine.

      But, as I noted at the outset, it was an early-ish draft and I suppose I’d give it a go again. I’d even try to go in with an open mind 🙂

      I’ll do my best to talk about the Con after I get back. I can say that I’ll probably post some pictures at the very least. Here, but also on the Tumblr site as the weekend proceeds since Tumblr is much less annoying to update from my phone. So consider checking that out at some point over the weekend, G-Man.

  2. Wandering Monk

    Hey VP, GMan! I’ve been checking Strange Stones but haven’t piped up in a while.

    I looked at the 7th ed rules briefly and didn’t see anything that appeared to really improve the way the game plays. BRP’s earlier iterations provide a solid, simple model for task resolution and character development and the system is extremely simple to learn and to run. It has its shortcomings, like any other system, but for gritty gaming realism it’s still a touchstone of simplicity.

    It seems to me that if someone wants features from other game systems for Call of Cthulhu it might be better to simply adapt the setting to those rules.

    I ran a Delta Green campaign using a modified version of the Nemesis rules (Greg Stolze’s One Roll Engine). It played really well but had a little bit steeper learning curve than BRP, and converting the magic system and creatures was a fair bit of work. I’m looking forward to seeing what falls out of the new Delta Green game playtests.

    1. the venomous pao Post author

      Monk! How are ya? Thanks for stopping by, amigo!

      I think you summed things up nicely for me regarding 7th. It just didn’t add anything I thought was needed. The old “if it ain’t broke…” routine.

      I agree on adapting, for sure. And one of the things I like about BRP is that it’s easy to translate to another system. It’s also robust enough that one can port in a mechanic here or there that does something neat and not have to worry about crashing things. So rebuilding the engine seemed like a waste of effort to me.

      I’ve never monkeyed with ORE, but if it was fun that’s all that matters. Rock on!

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