The Worlds of Wonder boxed set, published in 1982 by the Chaosium, was their first shot at providing the Basic Roleplaying generic system (at the time much smaller than its current incarnation) with three genre-based settings, viz, fantasy, super-heroes, and science-fiction. Magic World was the name of the fantasy setting.
The Chaosium has announced today that Magic World would be re-published this summer as a stand-alone product (if I do understand correctly the phrase "self-contained fantasy role-playing game"), which means that there could be yet another alternative engine for The Celestial Empire, on top of the already mentioned BRP Quick-Start Edition, Renaissance, and RuneQuest 6.
Interesting. I'd always hoped Chaosium would flesh out Magic World and Future World they way they did Super World.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure a number of folks will complain that this is 'just a reprint' but I'm hoping it's the start of something cool.
An interview with more details about the new game can be found here: http://basicroleplaying.com/content.php?r=162-Magic-World-Interview
ReplyDeleteBen, based on the interview linked in your comment above, I believe the new Magic World and The Celestial Empire could be used as a bundle for a more "dark fantasy" version of Imperial China, one in which the player characters are allied with either Light (the Orthodox Daoist sects in a Daoist-inspired campaign game; paladin-ish characters in a Buddhist-inspired campaign game) or Shadow (Heterodoxy in a Daoist-inspired campaign game; Māra worshippers/cultists in a Buddhist-inspired campaign game). This could be more palatable to Westerners who are puzzled by the "I serve the emperor/the local magistrate/the clans elders" strain of truly Chinese-inspired gaming.
ReplyDeleteThe demon rules from Advanced Sorcery should make for interesting demonic foes/allies, and I'll have to check the "Herbalism" rules to se how well they can be integrated with the concepts of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Also, based on the interview I understand that the new Magic World will indeed be a stand-alone game. However, if the Gamemaster's Pack is a mere reprint of the Avalon Hill Gamemaster's Book, I won't have any use for it.
The GM's pack is a revisioning of the AH GM's book, with a few GM-specific elements from other Elric! sources which didn't make it into the first two books. It'll also include a slick GM screen, and some GM-oriented record keeping forms.
ReplyDeleteI am definitely pre-ordering Magic World as soon as they open it up for that!
ReplyDeleteBy the way: it's not been announced yet, but there will be a bit of new content in the MW GM's pack. More on that when the book's announced.
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