News from the Chaosium Seminar at DunDraCon

[Gil_Trevizo]

For the past few years, Chaosium has been holding pretty regular seminars at gaming conventions in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they talk about what they are up to and what they are planning. I haven't attended one in quite awhile, as I've always been too busy gaming, but some bad luck with getting into any games caused me to attend the one held today by Charlie Krank at DunDraCon. The news:

1) CoC 7th edition is a go. The hope is to have it out by GenCon this year. There will not be significant changes from the 6th edition in terms of rules, just some additional stuff from the big yellow BRP book. The book should follow the general layout of the 6th edition, but there might be some kind of players' book at a later point. I wanted to ask about specific details like shotgun impales and if we could put the Keeper's optional rules in with the other rules, but I was already feeling like this guy.

2) Things have been worked out with the authors of Beyond the Mountains of Madness, so we might be getting an English language version of the revised edition. Charlie specifically talked about the French version in terms of what Chaosium might produce. I mentioned the forthcoming del Toro movie, and he said that they were already thinking in terms of how that might drum up interest for the campaign.

3) Lynn Willis has retired as Editor-in-Chief at Chaosium. This may not be news to others, but it was to me.

4) I also asked if Chaosium was doing anything in regards to WWII for either BRP or CoC, and, while they weren't, Charlie said that Cubicle 7 might be doing something. Although whether that would be for Call of Cthulhu, The Laundry, or something else didn't seem clear. This is the first I've heard of this.

[JonHook]

Wow. Great info. I wish the Chaosium site was better organized to display this kind of news. Thanks for the report.

[Tigger_MK4]

Thanks Gil !

Now the news is out, I can at last mention that last year one of the groups I've been involved with playtested *some* rules which are being proposed for 7th edition by a member of this board (not me).

I can't talk about them in detail (NDA and all that) ...
...but yes, some of the are particulary excellent ( the sort of genius whare you smack yourself on the head and say "why didnt I think of that !" ) - tweaks to the system involving how stats and skills are shown on the character sheet.

The proposal also included a (seperate, significant) change to the Dodge skill that I very strongly disliked - my main objection was that it a) seemed to be trying to fix a problem that rarely occurs in CoC and caused more problems than it solved and b) wasn't particularly compatible with any other BRP.
Whether or not that made the final proposal I don't know.

The proposal (that I've seen -I'm sure there are others) is a modification, not a complete rewrite, so back-compatibility shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Whether or not the proposal (and how much of it) will make the final cut I don't know. From the information Gil's received it sounds like little/none of it did - which would be a shame in terms of the stats/skills if thats the case.

[Cole]

Gil Trevizo, our man on the scene! Thanks much for the update on 7e and BtMoM.

[Max_Writer]

Is it still 100% backward compatable with the older editions?

[GHill]

Cheers for the heads up Gil.

1.) Frankly this sounds like a lot more of the same. I would have been more impressed if they had announced a Players Book, or at least reorganised the book into Keeper/Player sections.

2.) Cool!

3.)

4.) Have you spoken to Pagan recently Gil? One wonders wether with their current funding methods wether "Our Darkest Hour" might now be a goer?

Giles

[CAThompson]

I'd assume so, it sounds like they're tweaking some rules but so much of the strength of Cthulhu is that you can mix books with only five minutes work and that the system more or less hasn't changed.

I wish I'd been there, I haven't seen one of these in years.

Did they mention any other reprint ideas or projects?

[WiseWolf]

I am glad BtMoM is a go, just about time.

[Gil_Trevizo]

I'm almost certain that 7th will be backwards-compatible, although I wouldn't take my read to think that any of the modifications Tigger is talking about haven't made it into the book. My impression is that additions are being made to the existing system more than anything else, though I didn't get into the specifics of just what those additions might be.

The Players Book sounds like it is still in play, it's just that what 7th will look like will be similar in layout to 6th in the sense that it will be both a players and Keepers book, with a dedicated Players Book coming at a later point.

As for ODH, I'd leave that up to Shane, Scott, or Dennis to speak on.

On other reprints/projects, Charlie might've mentioned more at the very beginning (I came in about 5-10 minutes late, as I was trying to crash into a game before attending) but that was all I picked up other than that they planned to do something with Curse of the Cthonians. He did give a strong sense that he felt like there was older material that deserved better presentation than they had given when it was originally published. He also stated that they wanted to do more new stuff, and that a lot of old hands were coming back with material (he mentioned Paul Carrick doing more art for them).

[sda]

Just sounds like more of the same to me.

[WiseWolf]

Just sounds like more of the same to me.

I didn´t want to be the first one saying it, but I don´t see me getting a new version for a couple of extra rules. Now, for BtMoM, yes, I can pay for that.

[MikeM]

interesting....

[Gil_Trevizo]

Oh crap... I can't believe I left this out. Cthulhu by Gaslight 3rd Edition was also mentioned by Charlie as coming out soon. He mentioned significant extra material on that, but I don't know any other particulars.

[Tigger_MK4]

I didn´t want to be the first one saying it, but I don´t see me getting a new version for a couple of extra rules. ....

I suppose it depends how much of the BRP book they put in, and whether you've already got the BRP book.

I certainly understand the feeling, especially if you have a 5.6 or 6th edition.

Personally, I will be getting one, as I need a replacement for my battered 4th ed (which is the newest ed I personally own in dead-tree variety) .

p.s. If anyone is listening from Chaosium let me just wave the flag for "please put in Paul Frickers ideas for the stats " once again. Yes , I know I've already done it , but the ideas so good, I felt it necessary to mention it twice.

[KRoss]

Oh crap... I can't believe I left this out. Cthulhu by Gaslight 3rd Edition was also mentioned by Charlie as coming out soon. He mentioned significant extra material on that, but I don't know any other particulars.

"Significant" may be an understatement here. I chopped out half of the existing material from the original (mostly the enormous scenario and some of the Holmes/Wells stuff) and added literally twice that much. Word-count-wise, we took an 80,000 word book, chopped out over 40,000, and then added another 80,000 words of new material. The two new scenarios about equal the old big one, and there are lots and lots of new articles and things. It's been discussed elsewhere on these forums, most notably on a thread in the Gaslight forum called "OK, the new Gaslight books".

Good to hear there are mutterings of it actually appearing. That's more than can be said of SOME of the books I shepherded the past couple of years (looking wistfully and expectantly at YOU, SixtyStone...)

KAR
resident patient