What should I run?

[Ronnie Sanford]

Sailing on the Seas of Fate comes to mind.

Just an fyi, the rules for sailing in Sailing on the Seas of Fate are also found in Magic World.

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

Roll20 seems a logical place to post.

Excuse the dumb question as I have not used Roll20 (We use Mumble for Internet based games). Would this be a play by post game or a live game over the Internet?

 

[Stevethulhu]

Excuse the dumb question as I have not used Roll20 (We use Mumble for Internet based games). Would this be a play by post game or a live game over the Internet?

I prefer a live game. PLay by post has it's own set of plusses, but it also has some fairly annoying restrictions, too.

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

I prefer a live game. PLay by post has it's own set of plusses, but it also has some fairly annoying restrictions, too.

Me too. Actually I hav never played by post though many seem to enjoy it. Seems like typing all the descriptive text would be painful.

 

[Mankcam]

I know I'm late to this thread, but just putting it out there that running an old school meaty classic fantasy game with 'medeival' Heavy Metal music is very, very cool.

In addition to Iron Maiden, you could add in a bit of other like-minded metal bands like Manowar, Majesty, Dragonhammer, Saxon, etc. You could perhaps counterpoint this by mixing in some pagan folk bands llike Wardunna, Fawn, The Moon & The Night Spirit, etc. Two very different musical styles, yet thematically closely linked. Full of grunt, power, mysticism, blood, and danger. Amazing what moods you can evoke by blending things in a playlist these days.

Using the Iron Maiden songs as scenario themes/plots is also very novel, what a great idea, that’s so Sword and Sorcery.

I also think the decision to run this with Stormbringer is spot on. I would probably choose Magic World as it is practically the same build of BRP, except with very quick char gen and no Young Kingdoms setting. An old copy of Stormbringer will work just as well at the gaming table, plus the cover art rocks.

Should feel like Goodman Games 'Dungeon Crawl Classics', but with better mechanics. I am envisioning this to be the stuff of Frazetta artwork, with an excellent soundtrack.

Not looking at being involved, but just saying the concept is very cool
I bow to thee presence...

 

[Stevethulhu]

I know I'm late to this thread, but just putting it out there that running an old school meaty classic fantasy game with 'medeival' Heavy Metal music is very, very cool.

In addition to Iron Maiden, you could add in a bit of other like-minded metal bands like Manowar, Majesty, Dragonhammer, Saxon, etc. You could perhaps counterpoint this by mixing in some pagan folk bands llike Wardunna, Fawn, The Moon & The Night Spirit, etc. Two very different musical styles, yet thematically closely linked. Full of grunt, power, mysticism, blood, and danger. Amazing what moods you can evoke by blending things in a playlist these days.

Using the Iron Maiden songs as scenario themes/plots is also very novel, what a great idea, that’s so Sword and Sorcery.

I also think the decision to run this with Stormbringer is spot on. I would probably choose Magic World as it is practically the same build of BRP, except with very quick char gen and no Young Kingdoms setting. An old copy of Stormbringer will work just as well at the gaming table, plus the cover art rocks.

Should feel like Goodman Games 'Dungeon Crawl Classics', but with better mechanics. I am envisioning this to be the stuff of Frazetta artwork, with an excellent soundtrack.

Not looking at being involved, but just saying the concept is very cool
I bow to thee presence...

I've got a background in such bands as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Dio, Helloween, Diamond Head, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin and of course, Hawkwind. Not to mention those late 80s low level Euro-thrash bands. Sabbath, Bolt Thrower, Kreator and the ilk. But that idea about the pagan folk bands is great. I'm gonna have to check out some of them.

As for rules, I'd like to borrow a few things from the Big Gold book. Specifically, points buy on initial attributes. So you have at least some capacity to customise your character, instead of letting the dice fall where they may. Which includes points for extra skills not given by your class. Attribute rolls, too. Just because Call of Cthulhu taught me how useful they are. And finally, merging attack and defence into a single skill. Because having Attack 79% and Parry 41% is just annoying in my book.

But the reason I chose Stormbringer, other than the huge influence Elric was on me as a teen, is that it's One that Got Away. We dabbled a few times with it, but never really got to grips with the game. I think possibly because we were too locked into the mindset of the dungeon bash at the time. And by the time we discovered the likes of CoC, fantasy games had become a bit passe.

 

[Mankcam]

Well my preferences run more to the BGB over Stormbringer as the preferred BRP ruleset. Its not perfect, but it comes reasonably close.

The BRP BGB is amongst one of two rpg books that I could never live without. The other is Fate Core. Between those two books I can run any setting, genre, or tone. They are polar opposites, which is why I dont feel I would be doubling up if I only have two rpg books to my name. Both books are completely self-contained rulesets, no splat add-ons required, just GM imagination to hang off the very different main frames provided by these systems.

Everything else in my bookcase is purely for inspiration and colour, the meat to add to the bone. I certainly play a wide range of games, but it's these two books that I'ld never part with, as they would allow me to create the rest of my collection if need be.

So yeah I can dig that you are going with the BGB.

The char gen from Magic World is definately quicker however, I quite like it. But the BGB certainly allows for more fine tuning in customising character skills.

When I used the BGB for ancient/medevial settings I replaced the Personality Pts part of char gen with Culture Pts, using the RQ3 cultural categories. It just made more sense to me to do it that way after playing RQ3. RQ6/Mythras does it this way, it is a pity the BGB didnt have it as an option to plug in when running ancient or medeival settings.

I really hope Chaosium revisits the BGB again one day, as having a set of universal BRP rules is great.

Combat in BRP is always pretty visceral, more so when using hit locations, but the Major Wound table is also good for this.

Even if you may be running more BGB than Stormbringer its still BRP, and most players wont care which BRP build is used, its all about rolling percentiles to them. Have those Stormbringer books available, the cover artwork speaks for itself regarding the flavour you are after.

Well it sounds like musically you have enough Metal to drive home a sword and sorcery mindset. I find Manowar's albums perfect for this, but mixing Iron Maiden with Black Sabbath will capture the mood, as well as some of the more folk flavoured rock that Led Zepplin and Jethrol Tull did. Australian band Wolfmother is also great for this, they sound like Sabbath meets Zepplin. Of course Hawkwind has to be played

If you punctuate that with the pagan folk bands I listed you will definately capture the flavour. If you are on a budget (and not using free online music like Spotify), then stick with the band Wardunna, they are excellent for powerful and mysterious music, very shamanic in an asatru 'viking' sense.

However if I had to narrow it down to one album, then Iron Maiden's 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son' is the one for blazing heavy metal gonzo dice rolling. The album has to be played in it's entirety, it's basically Frazetta artwork to the canvas of rock music.

Sounds like youre gonna have alot of fun

 

[CRKrueger]

Since you're going with d100, check out Pirates of Legend, it's a Mongoose OGL reprint of RuneQuest Pirates, modified for Legend, aka Mongoose RuneQuest II. There's also Ships and Shield Walls for Mythras, and Blood Tide for BRP.