Rivers of London: Classic Chaosium Project, Modern Chaosium Attitude

Rivers of London is a novel series by Ben Aaronovitch – a former TV writer who Doctor Who fans might remember as writing some of the better-remembered Sylvester McCoy-fronted stories. The novels revolve around Peter Grant, a young Metropolitan Police officer who after an encounter with the supernatural is recruited into the Folly – a secret society which traces its roots back to the 1700s, but which normalised its relationship with the Met in the mid-20th Century and effectively became its X-Files department. Practicing “Newtonian magic” – so called because it’s derived from a lost work of Isaac Newton where he devised a classical model of magic to match his model of physics – the Folly solves mysteries and keeps the peace between regular London and the demi-monde, the subculture of those touched by magic; in keeping with the Peelian principles of community policing, the members of the Folly are arguably part of the demi-monde themselves, whether by origin or through their extensive interactions with the supernatural.

Released in 2022, the Rivers of London RPG is an officially licensed product, and represents Chaosium simultaneously breaking new ground and returning to their roots. Although Chaosium’s first RPG was RuneQuest, many more of their early RPGs represented Basic Roleplaying adaptations of pre-existing settings, with Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Elfquest, Ringworld, and Pendragon/Paladin all falling into that category. Even Nephilim was an adaptation of a French RPG; the exceptions in their backlog are Worlds of Wonder, Superworld, Magic World, and the standalone Basic Roleplaying system (and Superworld was a spin-off from Worlds of Wonder, Magic World was a reprint of the 5th Edition Stormbringer system with the Moorcock-specific stuff filed off, and the standalone version of Basic Roleplaying is a condensation of systems from their other releases).

Critically and commercially, it’s those adaptations of pre-existing settings which have done really well for Chaosium. Sure, Elfquest and Nephilim didn’t do great, and Ringworld got snuffed out very abruptly when the licence got pulled by Niven (who’d apparently been persuaded by his agent that he could get a better movie deal if he did so… nearly 40 years later and we still don’t have a big screen Ringworld movie). But Stormbringer was well-received, Pendragon was astonishingly ahead of its time, and Call of Cthulhu is their cash cow, with the Japanese licence having kept them on life support during some of the company’s darkest hours.

Indeed, arguably RuneQuest was itself an adaptation of a pre-existing setting – Glorantha having been created by Greg Stafford back in the 1960s, and at least some aspects of the lore had gotten out to the game-buying public via boardgames before Chaosium took the plunge into RPGs. Really, the only member of the Basic Roleplaying family which established much in the way of momentum and wasn’t strongly based on a compelling pre-existing setting was Superworld.

When Chaosium suffered its existential crisis during the fulfillment of the Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition Kickstarter, leading to Greg Stafford and Sandy Petersen mounting a boardroom coup to install new management, the incoming new regime appears to have decided early on that games tied to vivid, eye-catching settings were simply a better gamble than those which were not. For instance, they mothballed Magic World (which had a setting, but not one which seemed to generate much excitement or widespread recognition outside of its hardcore fans) and the standalone Basic Roleplaying line (though they’re taking a punt on bringing back the latter), and when they put out their new edition of RuneQuest they returned it to being focused on Glorantha, rather than taking the more setting-agnostic approach of its third edition (and the versions put out by Mongoose and The Design Mechanism). So in this, respect, putting out a game like Rivers of London is congruent with that approach.

On the other hand, Rivers of London is also a watershed moment for the new regime at Chaosium – because it is the first time they have put out a brand-new Basic Roleplaying-derived RPG which they have developed in-house and which is not a new edition of an existing game. That’s important if Chaosium has ambitions to keep pushing forwards rather than resting on their laurels.