While the maps do look nice, both the Cyradon map and the world map suffer from "the tyrrany of the ledger sheet". I.e., the artist has a 17 × 11 sheet and uses it to the full, letting the main land masses fill up this sheet with little empty space around. It is a quite common phenomenon for RPG maps -- you see it on the maps for Talislanta, Harn, Greyhawk, and many others, and I doubt the artists are aware of doing it. Also, it may in part be governed by reluctance to "waste" big parts of the map by having nothing there.
How tied up with HARP is the setting? Would it be very difficult to use with another ruleset such as C&C or BRP?
BRP might be the easier of the two, training packages (like a prestige class) are just skill sets, and if I remember cthulu correctly it handled skills well enough. Cyradon is a frightening place with a lot of aberations and even a city of the dead, so the BRP style of play might be fun with it... especially with the sanity rules. There is a lot of background material, and if you substitute the magic system for the system you use it may still work.
Adapting it to another system would be labour intensive as far as the bestiary and training packages go. But I have converted settings before... it can be done. HARP is percentile, but the divide by 5 rule can do much of the work for you to get it to a more d20 like system. There are a fair few differences between HARP and d20 like systems.
I guess that is the long way of saying I don't know how much work is involved in converting the cruncy bits. The background material is good though and could be helpful.
BRP might be the easier of the two, training packages (like a prestige class) are just skill sets, and if I remember cthulu correctly it handled skills well enough. Cyradon is a frightening place with a lot of aberations and even a city of the dead, so the BRP style of play might be fun with it... especially with the sanity rules. There is a lot of background material, and if you substitute the magic system for the system you use it may still work.
Adapting it to another system would be labour intensive as far as the bestiary and training packages go. But I have converted settings before... it can be done. HARP is percentile, but the divide by 5 rule can do much of the work for you to get it to a more d20 like system. There are a fair few differences between HARP and d20 like systems.
I guess that is the long way of saying I don't know how much work is involved in converting the cruncy bits. The background material is good though and could be helpful.
Just so you know, BRP does not automatically mean Call of Cthulhu. For instance, there are variants of the BRP system out there that don't have Sanity rules. You seem to be using BRP and CoC interchangeably.
Nice review, BTW. If I can paw through it in a game store, I'll consider buying.
- Ian
__________________ Running: Star Wars -- Knights of the Old Republic The Sith have spread terror and destruction throughout the Galaxy. How will 3 Jedi knights and a wanted smuggler stop such an enemy when their system comes under threat?
"D&D 4e isn't very good [outside its] own mechanical box. It easy to change the flavor to make it look like anything else but only if the gameplay you want is mainly a tactical, position intensive combat system." - Scarik
"with four main continents two of which will never be explored by ICE giving the GM room to expand or integrate existing campaigns should they choose."
I thought this bit was rather cool. For the life of me I don't remember another game setting having this built into it.
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"with four main continents two of which will never be explored by ICE giving the GM room to expand or integrate existing campaigns should they choose."
I thought this bit was rather cool. For the life of me I don't remember another game setting having this built into it.
Well, Glorantha did have "Empty lands", which were designated as areas not to be developed officially. Hârn has the same thing with the western continent of Kamerand, so the concept is not new. I do like it though.
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skiorht
...it's a semiautomatic - get in the car
How exactly are the spells customized? I mean, does each culture use the same spells with different names? (something I will use in my own harp game should I find time to run it)
How exactly are the spells customized? I mean, does each culture use the same spells with different names? (something I will use in my own harp game should I find time to run it)
Certain cultures have a particular elemental afinity, Trallen for example favour earth magic and very pragmatic and potent spells. Cella favour water magic and influence spells... they also have unique ways of casting magic. Trallen can scale spells better, and have a flashier casting style.
The spells have the same names, but the selections available make them feel quite different.
"with four main continents two of which will never be explored by ICE giving the GM room to expand or integrate existing campaigns should they choose."
I thought this bit was rather cool. For the life of me I don't remember another game setting having this built into it.
Originally, the Forgotten Realms designated an area that they weren't going to touch for individual GMs to fill in (although they changed that later).
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