13 May 2010
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
Russ Nicholson’s Blog
MAY 12, 2010 06:15P.M.
As many of you know, I’m not a big fan of the Fiend Folio, for reasons I
needn’t mention again. However, I am a big fan of the artwork of Russ
Nicholson, whose work on the FF is uniformly excellent and that I
strongly associate in my mind with “British fantasy” — a cynical and
darkly humorous brand of swords-and-sorcery that’s a perfect antidote
to the squeaky clean, All-American look of Silver Age D&D artwork.
Anyway, Coopdevil over at the Fighting Fantasist has noted that Mr
Nicholson recently started a blog of his own. You may find it here.
Enjoy!
ROGUE FEED
Retrospective: Worlds of
Wonder
MAY 12, 2010 08:57A.M.
Chaosium’s Basic Role-Playing (which I’ve lauded previously) was
extracted from the rules of RuneQuest, simplifying and genericizing
them in order to serve as a foundation for other RPGs. The first game to
explicitly do so was 1981’s Call of Cthulhu, whose rulebook, unlike that of
its contemporary Stormbringer, referred back to Basic Role-Playing for
an understanding of certain foundational mechanical concepts. BRP was
thus intended as a “high level” document, establishing only the most
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basic principles of the game system, such as characteristics and skill
rolls, while individual games dealt with the specific details of expanding
upon those principles.
1982’s Worlds of Wonder was another step along the road to showing
how Chaosium wanted Basic Role-Playing to be used. This boxed set
came with four short booklets (three are 16 pages in length and one is 18
pages). The first is BRP itself, while the other three each presents a
different “world” (i.e. genre) in which to use the rules of Basic Role-
Playing, complete with all the rules needed to play. Of course, “complete”
is a relative term and there’s no question that by most standards (even
back in 1982), the world books were more like the skeletons of games
rather than fully-fleshed out, ready-to-go games. Consequently, Worlds
of Wonder has an “experimental” feel, as if Chaosium were testing the
waters to see if how much BRP could be stretched beyond its roots in
RuneQuest.
The first of the three world books is Magic World, a fantasy game that is
reminiscent of a between a de-Glorantha-ized RQ with some nods
toward Dungeons & Dragons. Not huge nods, to be sure, but Magic
World is very traditional in its presentation, largely lacking the
idiosyncrasies that make RuneQuest so appealing to its fans and
frustrating to its detractors (and might-have-been fans). As a BRP
derivative, it’s skill rather than class-based but starting characters must
choose one of three “professions” — warrior, rogue, or sage — which
determine the starting skills to which the character has access.
Interestingly, the default assumption is that a new character is a rogue,
as it has no entrance requirements, while becoming a warrior or a sage
requires a roll to be accepted for training.
As in RuneQuest, new skills are acquired through training (which costs
money), while old skills are improved through use. Magic is potentially
available to all, but it requires admittance to the Sorcerer’s Guild to learn
(again, with entrance requirements). The selection of spells is small and
somewhat bland (compared to RQ, CoC, or Stormbringer anyway). Spells
are divided between sorcery and ritual magic, with the former being
magic one can cast on-the-fly and ceremonial magic requires greater
time, expense, and concentration. Magic World includes a small
selection of monstrous opponents, pretty demanding that referees either
create their own or swipe them from other BRP games.
Future World is the longest — and densest — of the three world books,
presenting a science fiction world in a “galactic empire” vein, with the
PCs assumed to be agents of ICE — the Imperial Corps of Engineers,
which, despite its name, is in fact an eclectic collection of troubleshooters
for the Empire. Like Traveller, Future World characters begin play with
prior experience. However, there’s less randomness and more breadth to
this prior experience, with players choosing which skills they wish their
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 13 May 2010

characters to have and the ability to switch professions multiple times,

thereby allowing “cross training.” Like Magic World, there are still entry
requirements for certain professions, meaning that character generation
is still somewhat at the whim of dice rolls.

Several sample alien races and robots are presented, as is a great deal of
equipment. Combat and other mechanics receive some large expansions,
mostly due to the highly technological nature of weaponry. There are no
starship rules — travel is assumed to be via gates and ICE missions are
all planet-bound, it seems — or any planetary creation guidelines. There
is a sample adventure included, which is odd, given its length (nearly five
pages), which in my opinion could have been more profitably spent on
including a few other sub-systems of use to science fiction gaming. Far
moreso than Magic World, Future World very much feels like a sketch of
a game rather than a complete game in its own right.

Superworld (which would later be expanded into a full game of the same
name) is a BRP treatment of the superhero genre. Characteristics are still
rolled randomly, but any one that is below 11 is given a +3 bonus to bring
it more in line with the expected level of character power. Adding
together one’s characteristics gives a pool of “hero points” with which
skills, superpowers, and even characteristic boosts can be purchased.
Hero points can also be spent on “energy points” by which superpowers
function. More hero points can be acquired through taking on
“disabilities” or in some way limiting a character’s superpowers — all
standard fare for superhero RPGs.

Superworld describes about 30 powers, many of which are quite broad

and in fact encompass several sub-powers. Combat receives some
modifications in order to better simulate four-color action (with
knockback, etc.), but is still very much in line with BRP’s assumptions.
There’s a very short sample adventure (more a slugfest than a true
scenario) and some notes on various topics of interest (referee’s advice
more or less). Also included are some designer’s notes by Steve Perrin,
who explains that Superworld grew out of his dissatisfaction with
Superhero 2044, which he found contradictory and unsatisfactory to his
needs.

Worlds of Wonder was an ambitious project and one whose results were
mixed. All three of the worlds have elements to admire, but, as I’ve said,
they all require some amount of work on the part of the referee and
players to become “proper” RPGs. For many, this is undoubtedly a plus,
but, then as now, I suspect that many will lack the interest in becoming a
“co-designer” with the good folks at Chaosium just to play science fiction
or superheroes. Still, I can’t help but think that Chaosium’s approach of
having a very basic — in the “foundational” sense of the term — set of
core rules, with each game built on their foundation adding specific
complexities, is a better approach than a huge, sprawling “generic,
universal” philosophy. Games like HERO and GURPS simply hold no
appeal for me, especially nowadays, whereas Basic Role-Playing‘s appeal
is increasing, in part, no doubt, to its genuine elegance. It’s a simple,
straightforward system that’s surprisingly robust and flexible, as Worlds
of Wonder makes abundantly clear.