[Fiddler]

I think it's the muscles on their character sheets myself, plus the inherent 'contrary factor' of rpg's in the first place.

[darkthorn]

I believe the Heroquest rpg would provide the perfect flexibility and story-driven mechanics for a great Malazan game. The magic system in Heroquest mirrors that of the SE books. Basic magic would provide the day-to-day uses of warrens by lesser talents, while combinations of Theism and Animism would provide the heavy duty stuff. The game scales ridiculously well from common foot soldier to deities clashing. The Glorantha mythos has a similar variety of conflicts. The only issue would be making the Heroquest rules more lethal/gritty for combat.

Homeland keywords could be created easily for the Malazan world and many profession keywords would port right over. For those with no clue about Heroquest, I have provided the url to the main publisher Issaries site and a star wars conversion thread on rpg.net that will give you an idea about using Heroquest for other worlds. There are many threads on rpg.net discussing using Heroquest for everything from Conan, Exalted, to historical worlds. There is even a Mythic Russia game based on it coming out.

I would love to see someones take on these chronicles done using Heroquest rules.

darkthorn

main issaries site
http://www.glorantha...rt/samples.html

star wars conversion
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=161405&page=1&pp=10

[Quark]

Myself and 2 friends are currently working on:

1) A MBotF system using Game of Thrones as a template
2) Our own created-from-scratch universe with a couple of threads borrowed from the Warhammer and Book of the Fallen universes
3) Combining (1) and (2)
4) Writing up
-a) the system we create
- the basis of pantheon, existence, and lore of our universe
-c) the adventures/stories we come up with in literary form, much like Steve and Cam

We've run a MBotF campaign for a short time with relative sucess using a modified D&D 3.5 system, but I'm more optimistic about using the Game of Thrones system to get us started. I'll keep you posted if I stay focused enough to remember.

[Dancer+]

I'd be interested in how it turns out

[Quark]

Just a quickie: one of my afforementioned 2 friends has been peeking at the new 4th edition D&D core, and says they've fixed most our quibbles with 3.0 and 3.5, so we might be back to using that as a foundation... here's hoping it's that good!

[Silander]

I used to check in on Knoll barrow a bit until about Christmas and no one really seemed to be posting much, there was a bit of discussion before that and a few ideas were thrown about. I had notes posted up for GURPS, White wolf and Tri-stat systems. I guess they've all been wiped, bummer. What happened?
Any ways I may be able to scratch them out from where ever I had them, some are on my hardrive and more in notebooks.
For those of you who like D20 (and I really don't myself), I can't recommend 'The black company' Rpg by green Ronin highly enough. Based on the novels by Glen cook, SE said himself that he was influenced by Cook and when you read tehm you can see kinda where alot of the bridgeburner stuff comes from, hardened soldiers with some mages who play cards alot. The system is D20 but not as you know it and the magic system is so impressive I'm actually really thinking of running a Black company game. There are only humans in his world and thus only humans covered in the books but there are new classes a nd I think backgrounds as well. The magic uses drain and there are no spell list. You pick what you wish to do and then work out how expensive that will be spend the power and reach the DC. It's really quite excellent.
Before the other threads got wiped I claimed I was going to put together a spell list for GURPS warrens starting with Thyr but I might start with tennes- the path of land.
Oh and it's good to see activity again.
Happy new year

[Silander]

If you read on there may be spoilers for several of the books and novellas, so please don't read this unless you've read most of the books.
This was something I posted on another forum, I just banged it all together.

I'm using the term mana as a unit of a warren's energy though feel free to call it essence or motes or anything else you wish. Obviously it can't be quantified but that's what we're trying to do.
Ok I'm only proposing away to siphon off warren energy in game terms, not how to use it after.
I think that there is an important distinction.
I had originally played around with the idea of a mana pool, which is still a good idea but then I thought it didn't quite suit, I mean in GURPS terms a warren, would be in fact an extremely high Mana zone where mana is essentially infinite as far as an adept is concerned.
So there fore a pool is somewhat a misnomer. I mean the energy is only shaped by the mage, they don't actually hold it in them like a reservoir, say.
So I mentioned the term Threshold point in another thread here and Dexter, Spinner of Death and I started kicking around a few ideas.

There are 3 main factor to be considered in this method.
1.Threshold Number/point – This is how much of the warren's energy you can let into you body (remember a mage is more a gate to a warren than a reservoir) and then shape in a safe manner.
Now I was gonna start at one as the lowest level but of course in GURPS 17and 18 are always critical failures (unless you have a skill at 17 then only 18 is). So we should start @18 instead.
The mage rolls under their Threshold number, just like a skill. If they roll over it then they fail. If they roll under it then they compare it to the chart. For every 1 that a mage succeeds by he can either, A) get an additional 5 points of mana for extra fire power, or 5 points less, so as not to waste it giving the mage far more control over their warren. This encourages rolling low with out punishing the mage for having a high threshold.

Threshold number (TN) Total mana accessed from warren.

18 * see the note n/a

17* see the note n/a

16 - 4 points

15 - 8 points

14 - 10 points

13 - 14points

12 - 16 points

11 - 20 points

10 - 22 points

9 - 26 points

8 - 28 points

7 - 30 points

6 - 40 points

5 - 50 points

4** - See note.

3** - See note.

A mage with a huge threshold like 17 or 18 would be a special case. There is no point rolling too often for minor effects he can usually just achieve them, there is only a 1/216 chance in failure at a skill of 18.
The same goes for 17. So for example if a mage with a TN of 18 rolls a 15 then he gets 8pts + an extra 15. If he rolled a 10 he would get 47 and so on.
**A three and four is always a critical success. The GM and player should decide what is most appropriate. The mage might prefer total subtlety or massive overwhelming power. For example in MoI Quick Ben was always careful not to do anything too big when Rake was about.
On the subject of Rake I quote Dexter, Spinner of Death :
“or people are rakes power, when they show up, their simple prescence bespeaks power, and the air groans, gives barrulk headaches, or whatever. so maybe when your skill in channel warren gets to a particular level, say 10(high mage level or something), your warren is always open just a little bit, always leaking out power in some way so that you can use small scale magic without ever having to make a channel warren check “
I like that idea.

Incidentally if you think that the above values are too mean or too much do say so, they can be easily changed to a more suitable scale.

[Silander]

2. Health – The mage may draw up to their HT every round mana, without tiring or damaging themselves (including an extra fatigue or maybe toughness?).
Once s/he exceeds the Threshold value they must make a fatigue roll. For each point they've over done it by, they take -1 to the roll. If they pass thats fine if they fail they can't open the warren.
As long as they keep making rolls they can control the power.

Each excess point is accumulative. So if in one round the mage goes over by two but makes the roll then goes over by 4 the next the roll is at -6. Stretching your boundaries is tiring. Of course the higher your HT the more you can draw upon as your body gets used to it, likewise with the Threshold number.


3. “Mana Pool”- So supposing a mage gets a 3. How much can s/he suck through in one go? I mean if the warren is essentially a massive pool of mana, infinite or near abouts right?
Well that's where I thought the idea of a mana pool might still be good without it actually being called that. (Any alternative names are welcome). This would represent the total amount of warren energy a mage can let slip through before their bodies literally start to burn up. We've seen it in a few places in the books at this stage most notable with Tattersail.
It would certainly be a factor of whatever people using to define mages. Their mageyness if
you will. Whether thats levels or not I don't know if none of these then perhaps their
Threshold times their HT or something like that. Kinda makes sense.
some questions.

As for using it there have been many suggestions, spells college by college to repersent warrens seems like a lot of hard work and a bit rigid besides.
Some of else suggested defining a warren in term sof what it can't do which is a really good idea and lazier besides which is the real genius at work here. No one wants a mountain or work.

All warrens (with the appropriate exceptions) should be able to do the following things that they seem to be in the book;

Common uses of the Warrens:These are tasks that most of the warrens seem capable of.
Magical Shield
Wards : All warrens allow the adept to protect themselves or object/areas in this matter
Gateways, Time and distance seem to mean very little inside the warrens. Often a journey of days can be accomplished in mere hours (one exception is Denul which doesn't seem to allow the mage entry)
Unleashing The raw power of the Warrens is well documented in the books.(again Denul doesn't display this ability).
Sorcerous Longevity : Accessing the warrens seems to prolong ones life. Tattersail is over 200 years old at the Start of GotM
Sense-Enhancement : Warrens can be used to probe with the senses and boost them.
Shifting warrens : It seems easier to enter the Imperial warren, despite the fact that no one 'wields' this warren, (clearly they access it.)Quick Ben does this a few times but there is a quote from DHG

“Had he (Kulp) been a practitioner of Serc, or Denul or D'riss or indeed virtually any of the other warrens accessible to humans, he would find what they needed. But not Meanas. No seas, no rivers, not even a Hood-damned puddle.
(Actually, Kulp does get them out using High Meanas, which furthers my point- that of each path being able to perform most tasks.) but as an interesting example of its versatility :
Strength Enhancement? Mages can strengthen an object temporarily by infusing it with power.
Sorcerous Communication : Mages seem able to communicate silently over distances, esp if they are known to each other.


All of this raises the question. If your not gonna charge a player for spells as the game goes by (cos you're not using a spell based method) what the hell do you charge the player at the start? You have to be fair to everyone, a powerful mage can over whelm a spear-man with ease. But no one ones to play a weedy D&D 1st level mage either. So if you're going to do it this way I suggest then that the threshold value cost about 2/3pts per level giving the mage plenty of scope to do cool stuff but get better over time.
Don't know what you think about shaping the warren but I'll have more thoughts on the methods and costs later

[Silander]

Warning there maybe spoilers ahead.
All warrens.
Spells should be grouped in to categories, by warren type. Similar to the way a Priest or Shaman has a spell list in Gurps, the mage wielding a particular warren has access to only a particualr list of spells.
How ever, most warrens seem capable of displaying common qualities, so to represent this then, each warren will have a group of spells in common.
These spells are; plane shift (represents the ability of the mage to enter his/her warren, note this is not so with Denul), Seek gate (mages can 'warren shift' into other warrens or find an exit as exhibited by Kulp, Quick Ben, Hairlock and Sorry/Apsalar/Not Apsalar), Create gate/control gate (for forcing rents in warrens and so on). Like those two women in Night of Knives, whose names escape me right now.
recover energy, Lend energy? (For mana points only- ?), Share energy (for participating in combined rituals such as that in MT which destroys the Edur villages), Divination- Knowledge type spells such as; Alarm, Sense mana (sorcery/warren), mage sense (could be used to cover all 'detect magic type spells' such as mage sight, seek magic, analyse magic etc makes it less cumbersome), ID spell (familiar warren only), Far hearing/vision (as again displayed by numerous mages such as Kulp and QB), meta spells; Counterspell, Ward, greater ward, Scryguard spells?, Spell wall.
A number of Meta spells have nice flavour but only a few mages in the books have exhibited similar powers and all of them have been mages with more than one warren, so they may not be common to all warrens, certainly suspending or affecting on-going spells might be considered high-warren sorcery?
Shielding spells; Block, Shield, blade-turning(?), Modified Force dome and utter domes would make for excellent shields- malazan style. One or two sense spells might be good too such as Sense Foe or Sense Life etc or just perhaps Sense warren? where in the case of hoods warren warren= death and in the case of Denul, warren =Life or health an Telas=fire etc.

Renaming spells and shortening spell requirement lists are all on page 199+ of 4th ed magic.
I would be in favour of the spell list idea already proposed as it makes most sense.
On page 204 there is the excellent Syntactic magic, using a Verb and noun where the Noun is the warren's target, eg. Mockra is mind and Telas is fire, then you purchase verbs such as heal, control, protect, create. So for example to erase a persons memory you would need Mockra and the remove verb or to change their memory you would Need Mockra and transform.
Gurps does provide several varieties of approaches to magic so there is no reason to suggest that a GURPS Malazan game should be restricted to just one type, just a thought, but such an approach doesn't need too much work just a quick mention to back to the other method.

The above spells would be available to all mages but doesn't mean of course that they have them all. I have yet to see a denul healer throw up a ward or hammer someone with a wave of energy but then maybe they also take an oath, like a hippocratic oath? Who knows. Few people are going to want to kill a healer (but then you never know).
I would like to bring up the mechanics of all spells. it is quite dear as I said to effect multiple targets and areas in GURPS but were one to use the slide-scale I posted up then that wouldn't be much of a problem and you could essentially leave all of the spells untouched. Other wise they'll certainly need attention.
The other thing about warren magic I wanted to hear your thoughts on is this; How conceptual do you think Warrens are? I mean if Tattersail is drawing upon Thyr (which is the first warren I intend on assembling a list for..) does she really just channel actual light or does any one know of any quotes etc. that show that Erikson sees Thyr as light, burning, truth, knowledge and revelation as well as illusions? Thats how I like it to be in my games but then this isn't my game. So should I throw in all the light spells in there, with illusions and then the more conceptual stuff?
I note as well she places a seal on the bag containing Nightchill's head in GotM. Thats an air spell in Gurps, albeit the most basic one. Does that she means she has Serc as well? Or does Thyr encompass minor can-trips from one or two other paths/colleges?

Ok sorry that took up so much room, max post size is 20kb

[Almar mae' Ka'zole]

More recently I've come across a Green Ronin product called "The Black Company Campaign Setting" based on the novels by Glen Cook. Other than the Warrens this portrays the gritty view of the Malazan world. I think with some variance to the spell system this could be a good roleplaying option for people wanting to play a Malaz theme world.

[Silander]

I whole heartedly agree. I've been reading the Black company books for some time. It would be foolish to over look them. SE himself admitted that the black company influenced the bridgeburners.
The books are dark, grim but the magic is so versatile. The rpg books are pretty great. I really don't like D20 but this changed my mind on it, it's ripped out the normal ,magic system and put in an ingenius system, it works like an on the fly, GURPS style system, mana fueled but runs kinda more like true D20.
I think more powerful characters are handled well in the both the novels and the rpg books too. Additional races would be easy, just construct a template and adjust the ECL, no problems.
By the way some one mentioned GRR Martin's game of thrones game being run in GURPS. I bought the deluxe rpg book when it came out. Tri-stat AND d20 systems all in the one book, clever eh?
The d20 system in that was the best since bluerose and the best I'd seen till the Black company game. Tr-stat is one of my favourites, what a gem. It's GURPS' smaller, faster brother.

[redtape]

Hi all first posting, but one which i have been following for a very long time.

has anyone considered using the Saga System - (Dragonlance 5th Age) as a basis for building the RPG

i have been giving it much thought and i must say that it would fir perfectly .....obviosly there are loads of work that would have to be done to customise it, however it is extremely flexible and from searches on the net i have found that there are even conversions to use dice instead of cards.

just some food for thought...

[Tsundoku]

@Redtape
Don't know that system sorry.

@Silander
AGOT has had big wraps (lots of praise) from all quarters, apparently it's d20 done right, so that might be worth a go.

With regard to magic, with mana and drain - check out the Shadowrun system, seems to me that the effects reproduce quite well what we read about on MBOTF about what happens when mages unveil their warrens and pull out the big ones etc.

I still think a nice RP-heavy, rolling-light system like White Wolf (maybe exalted, but I don't know it well) could do it, with the old Mage:Ascension rules, which has spheres to represent warrens and great versatility. The downside: you need a very good GM and the very flexibility of the system means there is very little definition or guidelines, besides Paradox, which admittedly could double for drain.

Anyhoo, some thoughts.

Cheers,

La Sombra, White Wolf fan (as if you hadn't already guessed )

[Silander]

Dakkareth, on Jul 23 2005, 04:55 AM, said:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Patch:
...the GURPS rules suit MBotF best. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Anything one would have to know about GURPS: Malaz? Like changes to the system (magic?), point levels of the iconic characters, additional notes?

Mmhhh, GURPS: Malaz, that would be something ... anything in planning?

A regular dude in GURPS is about 15 -25 pts in a real Medieval type setting, so not much. A regular soldier might be 50 or so and notable characters would be 100pts.
Truly notable and influential characters would be 150pts+ and Regional bests might be anything from 200 -500pts. Anything above that and you're talking near ascendant like power. In nomine Angels (in the gurps version) start out with a template that is just over 800pts!!
Magic is actually simple the way I work it. You have a skill - Open warren. This is a hard skill based on will.
Next part it, you can open it to pull out a certain amount of mana, depending how good u are at controlling it.
Next part you cast your spell based on the regular spells in GURPS magic books.
You group each of the spells into a themed warren, with a few common spells for all of the warrens. I'll go into it more if you want, I have a lot of notes on the magic

[Therin]

id be very keen on an rpg of this sort

anyone seriously interested should add me on msn

Orca_Foster@hotmail.com

[Generic]

Ok, so this might have been mentioned (I didn't read every response), but actually, I think D&D 4E works well for Malazan in a lot of ways.

A modified version of the Ritual system would allow you to limit Warrens functionally, while many classes force you to select a specific path for your character. For example, a Sorcerer generally chooses an element or two to specialize in and will generally avoid other elements since they don't get the same kind of bonuses with them. The other reason I like 4E for this setting is actually due to the Paragon Path/Epic Destiny mechanics which work well with the concept of ascendancy (after all there is an epic destiny called Demigod and another wherein you act as an agent of a Deity).

Admittedly no system is going to cover the full depth and breadth of the world, but with some DM work and a little player imagination I've found that nearly any system works well if the RP is there. I actually just signed up for these boards to see if there was any campaign world information lurking around here for a campaign I'm tentatively planning for sometime next year.

Anyhow, you may proceed to lambaste (sp?) me for choosing to use such a simplistic system to portray the epic nature of Mr. Erikson's work.

[Steerpike]

Generic, on 20 April 2010 - 12:37 AM, said:

Ok, so this might have been mentioned (I didn't read every response), but actually, I think D&D 4E works well for Malazan in a lot of ways.

A modified version of the Ritual system would allow you to limit Warrens functionally, while many classes force you to select a specific path for your character. For example, a Sorcerer generally chooses an element or two to specialize in and will generally avoid other elements since they don't get the same kind of bonuses with them. The other reason I like 4E for this setting is actually due to the Paragon Path/Epic Destiny mechanics which work well with the concept of ascendancy (after all there is an epic destiny called Demigod and another wherein you act as an agent of a Deity).

Admittedly no system is going to cover the full depth and breadth of the world, but with some DM work and a little player imagination I've found that nearly any system works well if the RP is there. I actually just signed up for these boards to see if there was any campaign world information lurking around here for a campaign I'm tentatively planning for sometime next year.

Anyhow, you may proceed to lambaste (sp?) me for choosing to use such a simplistic system to portray the epic nature of Mr. Erikson's work.

Ugh. Please, no

The quasi-magic powers by non-magic classes? Daily powers? All the pulling and sliding and other nonsense that goes on, particularly at higher levels, by non-magic classes. I don't see this being a good fit. The Malazan world is a high magic world, no doubt about it, but it is also gritty and even the magic has a price to it. D&D 4e doesn't work well with any kind of gritty game, imo, because it is too video-gamey, and the magic is far too accessible and innocuous.

Anyway, doesn't seem like a good fit to me. Has nothing to do with simplicity. In fact, a rule-light system like Castles & Crusades would work much better because it is so much easier to customize.

This post has been edited by Steerpike: 22 April 2010 - 03:19 AM

[Adjutant Stormy~]

4th Ed. doesn't exist, as far as I'm concerned. All of the actually serious gamers I know (myself included) find the mechanic simplification just too limiting, like you said, for any kind of grittiness.

[Tsundoku]

Well, the Malazan game we were running under the Dragonage system just had a change to the Shadowrun 4th ed system, to allow for greater customisation. I was enjoying the DA version since it's fairly rules-light, but I don't mind greater choice. My Rashan mage is still pretty kick-arse.