Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

SmootRK wrote: Another fun thing to explore would be a full "Call of Cthulhu" treatment. Does anyone know if Lovecraft's work is now public domain?

You may get sued if you tried to sale Lovecraft's stories but from what I have read it doesn't sound like anyone has a clear enough hold on copyrights on his works to sue over the use of names or ideas. Except Chaosium owns the phrase "The Call of Cthulhu". There is a lot of fan fiction out there and a free game is pretty much the same thing.

Mhogrymm wrote:

SmootRK wrote: Another fun thing to explore would be a full "Call of Cthulhu" treatment. Does anyone know if Lovecraft's work is now public domain?

You may get sued if you tried to sale Lovecraft's stories but from what I have read it doesn't sound like anyone has a clear enough hold on copyrights on his works to sue over the use of names or ideas. Except Chaosium owns the phrase "The Call of Cthulhu". There is a lot of fan fiction out there and a free game is pretty much the same thing.

Shame... that would make it a lot easier to work with. Perhaps a setting based upon HG Wells stuff, perhaps extrapolating 20,000 leagues under the sea a bit. Any other very old books/stories that might be nice for a setting?

well the loveceaft feel could be gained just there are certain words you couldn't use. You can have people making Faustian deals, or speaking with dark beings from beyond the veil of reality or whatever. Throw in some tentacles, illusiins/halucinations and some madness and corruption rules similar to ravenloft. Maybe even the temptaion for dark gifts.

Enough of the Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs are in the public domain (the first ten) to do a really good run of that series. I think classes and levels would even work pretty well on Barsoom! I am a huge fan but it has been years since I read them. Green men of Mars as a PC race... Yikes! Anybody done a John Carter RPG?

Correction***** Actually only the first 5 books of 11 are in the public domain.

If I had the gusto, I would write a Science Fantasy version of BFRPG... in the vein of Phantasy Star IV. I already have bits of the setting written up for use with Empire of Dust.

SmootRK wrote:Another fun thing to explore would be a full "Call of Cthulhu" treatment. Does anyone know if Lovecraft's work is now public domain?

Yeah, Lovecraft is definitely in the international public domain.

I'm working on a BF lovecraftian campaign (just beginning to write stuff).
There will be maybe 10 pages of new rules, mostly a new class : the Cultist, a variant of the Cleric with different spells (depending on the worshipped deity). And new races : Deep One Hybrid, etc.
Some open contents will be adapted from Goblinoid Games' Realms of Crawling Chaos.

Book 1 (basics, island, lvl 1-3) cover : http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2230 ... ver600.jpg
Book 2 (Earth & Moon, nation, lvl 3-6) cover : http://img805.imageshack.us/img805/2285 ... ver600.jpg
Book 2 (Outer Space, world, lvl 6-9) cover : http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/3615 ... ver600.jpg

Sounds outstanding!! I cannot wait. Please ask if you want any input from me as you move your project forward.

I ran across "Stars Without Number" recently... Its got the Moldvay Basic feel for the characters, the OSR minimized skill list, and a very Traveller world/sector generation feel with some decent space ship and vehicle combat/design rules thrown in. My only issue, even though you can pick it up for free on DriveThruRPG, is that it doesn't come with the OGL... So, some of the stuff in there is bound to copyrights beyond the artwork.

Seeing how the OGL WotC put out includes D20 Modern, I'm positive most of the grunt work for developing another Basic genre will be to make a supplement with the appropriate tables for the desired ranged weapons, technological gadgets, and then work on the vehicle/space combat rules.

I'd love to see a Basic Space or Basic Modern set in the future... But I'd gladly settle on working on a supplement for now! After all, whats to say you can't have a laser pistol wielding Elf Magic User who also happens to own a 100 ton scout?

I'm toying with a western genre game but havent yet decided on the system. I was looking at the old original western system "Boothill" and possiblely basing something off that but using BFRPG as the base might be interesting to do.

Have to think about that some.

BFRPG, and the SRD its based off of, does indeed have a great character generation system. I do like BFRPG and other OSR systems because it simplifies the massive "Tome of Rules" that seems to encourage the Lawyers more than Players... Character attributes shine as well as the HP and Saving Throws, and its much easier to understand than the SRD games.

Beyond that, I must agree, outside of Fantasy, too many classes are too constraining. When I look at the diversity of skill sets of modern folks, none of us really fit the 'class' archetypes... So, this is where character concept I guess takes the lead instead of a class with limits. But then, one of the ideas of RPGs is for us to take up the mantle of some sort of heroic archetype, and that indeed does impose certain limits to play the type in whatever particular universe or timeframe it is.

I think the biggest challenge is creating that 'flavor' players and GMs are looking for. Taking the attributes, and defining the archetype of what makes a 'hero' and fleshing it out some basic facts ('limited to X weapons, has a Y Code of Honor or loses his class becoming a basic Z again, has special ability to heal' etc...).

Everything else kinda can fit in around the characters. I used to stress over the starship and vehicle combat systems way too much. But then, I've learned some important things (thanks to GURPS Mass Combat rules in the 3e Compendium II book...); namely what was the character doing? So, any combat system can be adapted (and being a wargamer, I'm guilty of wanting to cover the 'big picture' in way to much detail) from miniatures to board games. However, it might detract from the individual acts of bravery and/or cowardice characters might want to play out.

That being said, there are some incredible, and free but not OGL, space combat and tactical miniature systems I'd like to figure out how to integrate with BFRPG type characters... After all, battles only take up a short time in a persons life anyway, even heros.