Al.

Allocation for the win. For myself I go: 19, 17, 15, 13, 13, rest 6s But that's coz I mugged Heroquest and corrupted its character creation rules.

I like allocation systems myself now (but am too lazy to use the model of different characteristics costing different amounts) But back when I played and ran Elric! a lot I did it exactly as you suggest. (In fact I went further and for legendary characters humans/mabden rolled 1d6+12 whilst other races dropped 2d6 and added +12)

Just my whimisical suggestions Bat ji shu (blindfighting) Octopus ji shu (ribbons/loaded sleeves) Jumping Spider ji shu (arrowcutting) Scorpion ji shu (powerful strike thing) Goat Ji shu (balance)

Stoopid Enlo forgets how many bolgs for new magic powder box when he wastes it all on pretty pictures which don't taste of anyfing anway

Did someone say Diamond Sutra?

Fortunately the work has been done for you..... GREYCROWN's Gaming Stuff Riders: I didn't do any of this work and can take no credit. Mr Posey certainly used to haunt BRP forums but his site has been down for a while. (Hence the link above goes via wayback machine) If Stephen or the original authors object to me posting this then I will obviously remove the link. Al

The NPCs in the BRP book with a Divine slant are Demi-God and Priest The Priest has Psychic powers which (s)he believes are a gift from their god (or God or GOD) The Demi-God has superpowers <Someone or possibly someones (apologies for forgetting who) suggesting using BRP Sorcery for Divine Magic and replacing minimum Pow requirement with minimum allegiance and changing chance of success from auto to equal to allegiance. Mayhap if gods or Gods are real a Divine character would have a chance of using their Divine Psychic powers equal to their Allegiance score>

Wiser heads than mine have pointed out that most of the BRP characteristics are either rather woolly and ambiguous or cover at least two related but different (and possibly contrary)* things. par example Dex = gross motor co-ordination (Agility) AND fine motor co-ordination (Manipulation) Pow = strength of one's link to the gods (AND by semi-concious inference) willpower AND luck Str = explosive strength AND static strength Con = stamina AND general health Int = memory AND capacity for abstract thought AND acuity of senses App= physical beauty AND physical ugliness AND capacity to impose one's point of view on others AND charm and likeableness Edu = formal education AND life experience So Siz being defined originally as mass end of discussion and it then being used as a basis for height, armspan, indside leg measurement, shoe size and hat size seems to me if anything cleaner and less ambiguous than other 'inherent' scores. I have considered and never got round to making each of the stats in fact a pair. Generate the base score then swap upto 3 points within the pair. i.e. Dex becomes Agl/Man I roll a 13 and being a powergaming munchkin swap 3 points to make it Agl/Man 16/10 In the white heat of character generation and running games I've never quite made it to actually going to this much effort. The difference with your suggestion of having a calculation for deriving mass from STR, SIZ and (racial constant) is that you are providing some kind of real world number upon wwhich to hang some suspension of dissbelief. So good luck to you! Al * for one, marathon runners develop great stamina and thus one would expect high CON but (empirically at least) have weaker immune systems and less reserves and so are prone to colds and infections and thus low CON.

Having browsed through 3rd ed GURPS I chanced upon SJ's suggestions for cinematic games. And I think that these would port over to BRP pretty painlessly. 1. Allow characters TWICE as many parries as usual (in BRP give everyone TWO parries or Dodges at full skill and then make with the cumulative penalty) 2. Allow a resting character on half hits or better to spend a <hero point> to heal back up to full hits "zounds it was actually just a fleshwound!" Al

When you do, let the rest of us know will you I believe that this is correct for hand-to-hand fighting That sort of depends on how one does book keeping. I write down total skill (i.e. base and the skill points added) so I wouldn't add the base to it. As such I wouldn't have noticed the change in base when changing weapon. I'm pretty sure that using a different weapon with the same skill one doesn't bother modifying for base skill. In theory this would mean that all us munchkin powergamers should build up Laspistol skill (to get maximum skill) and then switch to using Blasters (to get maximum damage). If'n one thought it was important enough then weapons could have skill modifiers (i.e. Laser Pistol +5%) to indicate relative ease of use. I've always forced players to split skill as evenly as possible and with a MINIMUM of 50% for each attack when making multiple attacks. I believe that one is only allowed multiple attacks against DIFFERENT targets in the same round. This may not quite make sense to you. I rationalise it by remembering that an 'attack' in BRP has ALWAYS been a combination of moves not just a single thrust with one's blade (fnah fnah) so that one roll is simulating your cowardly, despicable backstabber's flurry of stabs. With such a high effective skill Mr C. Custard of course has a much better chance of a Special or Critical All of the above may well be nonsense Al

So, I want to 'stat' a lightsabre for a BRP game. WoW-Future World has a Force sword doing 2d10 damage RQI-III has Fireblade spell doing 3d6 damage I could choose either, both have no doubt been playtested. Both are a doddle to swipe from an already published BRP game. Both give a very similar range of damage. Either would be equally 'right'. 'Fair enough you blithering oaf but why bring this up here you thread-derailing-buffoon?' you may ask Well.........because we have a variety of previously written rules for ripostes in BRP: A Critical Parry gives you a Riposte IFF you have two weapons* (Elric!/SBV) * or by extension: if you are unarmed A Successful Parry gives you a Riposte IFF you have a skill of 90%+ (SBI-IV) A Successful Parry gives you a Riposte IFF you are using a Shield (BASIC Conan) Oi reckons that choosing any one of those would be equally 'right' and is pretty much a matter of taste. Only a complete, completist and pedant would try and use all three in one game (that'd be me then!) Al

I confess I tend to throw out ideas at discussions like this rather 'this is the way that what I'd do it innit' for just that reason. My assumption of what simplification is and your's and Chaot's will likely be at odds. Curiously POW might not become the uber stat. If magical and religious shennanigans are inlcuded then the loss of POW for talisman, magic, summonings, enchantment will be a real sacrifice. i.e. Pow's usefulness is very great but players must make a real decision on which aspect to concentrate on. Chaot wwill have the answer for this but I'm a guessin' that a player's choice of where to put there skill points will have a greater impact on their facility in social interactions than the presence or lack of APP/CHA. Moving tangentially if you were to have a social analogue of hitpoints then again social skill percentage is going to be important still. (In the same way that Con is important in determining physical hit points but weapon skills stop Con being the uberstat in fightfests) Balance is more important to some than others so I'll leave this one pretty much unanswered except to say that for a holistically balanced system with many fine little ideas GURPS is hilariously unbalanced. Al

If you wanted to drop APP/CHA then POW could stand in painlessly Dropping SIZ is quite workable and since STR must by definition be based on muscle MASS and hence SIZ a character's minimum mass could be based on STR quite easily (with room for extra mass for body fat). If simplification is the goal then I'd be inclined to make Armour a fixed value. WRT simplifying weapons. By making all weapons of the same size do the same damage you could make cardboard cut out weapons or open the way to differentiating weapons in some other way Al

I done that for a game based on the Fables comic books and it worked rather brilliantly. Mix of everyone understands what a percentage is from RQ/BRP, self-explanatory personality traits from PenDragon and some of the clever bits from HQ (including the character generation rules which I think are the best ever written). Al

Thalaba (and maybe others) I may well be missing things but otomh Damage Modifier is the coarser BRP/RQIII one rather than MRQ (one of the few bad changes in my view) Hero Points are in No Idea roll, Luck roll, etc Skill bases are similar to MRQ but more consistent Skill list is MUCH shorter Rules for skills over 100% are much simpler Improvement/skill improvement rules are simpler Has the three Magic systems inspired by RQIII Weapons are similar to MRQ rather than RQIII Armour is RQII like Rules for multiple attacks/parries are more generous than RQIII Advice on when and when not to call for a roll is far clearer than MRQ The writing style is more grown up than MRQ The rules for more experienced characters are much less faffy Al

You take that back! Not all of the British rural areas have extra (or missing) digits. Anyway metric has been the official curriculum system in the UK for decades now (and quite right too). It's only the stubborn, softheaded, old and US citizens who insist on sticking to crazy arsed imperial systems. Al

I like the sound of the monkey island fencing rules Al

Yup and Ringworld Al

I very much like the compressed skill list. I'd maybe change a few names but no need for you to. Does the extra sophistication in the cascade of Speciality skills justify the extra complication? If 'twere me I'd keep them as admiradbly simple as your General skills are. Are you keeping Specials and Criticals as written. No offence to the numeracy of you or your players but I do like simplifying Special to 1/2 skill and Critical to 1/10th skill. Course even simpler is to bin them altogether. I are a big fan of that approach. I have Combat and Missile as two separate skills but if you're going for clarity and simplicity then reducing that further sounds like a good un. [bit woolly and waffly and probably NOT inline with teh simplification motif ahead] When Herve posted his ideas for changing weapon damage I initially said it weren't for me. But his response made me rethink. And now I'm thinking (not playtested thus far) Weapon damage based on weapon size Unarmed 1d3 Small 1d4 Medium 1d6 Large 1d8 Large used 2h 1d10 Great Weapon 2d6 Then inspired by Jason's work on shooty things in BRP and the PenDragon rules each type of weapon deals with armour slightly differently. And has Axe - Edged, 1/2 AP of Shields, can be thrown Flail - Blunt, 1/2 AP or Shields and of Chain, hit self on fumble Hammer - Impale, 1/2 AP of Plate Mace - Blunt, 1/2 AP of Chain Spear - Impale, can be thrown, can be used to hold opponent off Sword - Edged (or Impale for 1d8 regardless of how big) For shooty things (playtested and suits ME but mayhap not you) Pistol 1d10 Carbine 2d6 Rifle 2d8 H Rifle 3d6 Gun 4d6 Again the TYPE of weapon then has other effects Blackpowder - Blunt, take at least 2 rounds to reload Cordite - Impale, some are auto, 1/2 APs of non-ballistic physical armour Gauss - Impale, almost always auto, 1/2 APs of all physical armour Laser - Impale, invisible and no recoil (so autos add +10% per extra shot not +5%) but no knockback, 1/2 APs of Forcefields Blasters/Particle Beams - Impale, 1/2 APs of Forcefields Plasma - Fire, ignore all physical armour Al

That's one reading. I'm not sure that I'd agree with it though. To me the BRP/Elric! Sorcery is a streamlined version of RQII Battle Magic/Spirit Magic Each spell takes up only one slot of FreeINT rather than 1 slot per point of spell Once memorised a spell can be used. It does not also require the ownership of a spell focus. Spells can also be cast from a grimoire (which presumably could be a focus rather than a book) rather than memorised The maximum power of a variable spell is fixed in the description, rather than requiring (or 'requiring') an artificial limit set by the GM. Duration is Pow in rounds rather than fixed but that rule could be swapped easily between the systems (I use Pow in rounds with RQ Spirit/Battle Magic) The chance to cast is now automatic rather than requring a Luck roll but that again can be swapped between the two systems All of the changes are global changes and so SPELLS can be taken from one system to the other completely painlessly The actual spells map VERY closely And the cost for an effect is VERY similar (the only ones I can think of which are particularly different are the weapon enhancement spells which in BRP/Elric! do not improve your chance to hit and cannot take rolled damage above maximum rollable damage) So I can slot Disruption, Firearrow, Fireblade and many others straight into BRP/Elric! or Cloak of Cran Liret straight into RQ Agreed and if you want flash bang type spells then the Demonic abilities in BG and Elric! are all based on a similar Power Point economy and can be ported over easy as. Al

Yeah, what he said

Hmmm Spirit Magic from RuneQuest(RQ) is broadly equivalent to SORCERY in BRP, so you can port any spells you like ALMOST right across Divine Magic from RQ is about twice as powerful as Spirit Magic. I used the RQ Divine Magic spells as 'templates' when I wanted to add more spells to the magic system in Elric! (which is where BRP SORCERY came from) by simply doubling the POW cost from RQ and calling this the Magic Point (or Power point) cost, so this should likewise be simple Fitting either Spirit or Divine spells to BRP MAGIC is a little more work. As the BRP MAGIC (as opposed to SORCERY system) is a lot more flexible than either of those. IIWY I'd look at the Spirit and/or Divine spells for 'ooh that's clever' ideas but stat up the new spell from scratch looking to the existing MAGIC spells for your inspiration. Al

I'm quite happy for the 'soaking damage' and 'second throw of the dice' style Hero Points to be the same as ones for character score progression. Players make a decision to either burn their luck/karma/link with the force or save up good karma to make real growth. What narks me is when the 'soaking damage' and 'second throw of the dice' style Hero Points and the 'chance to be pro-active and do cool things to the plot' style hero points come from the same pool. I've had bad experiences of HEX, in particular, where I and others have burnt the poker chips (can't remember the HEX game term for them) adding to the story* and then been in a sorry state come the epic violent confrontation whilst fellow players who have been much more reactive have had a veritable hoard of points to spend. Al *Good God man I designed this demmned submersible of course it has a separate ladies room for my daughter's use' and 'I'll think you find that the Great White Hunter's travel trunk in fact only contains his fiancee's frillies because I <player of aid fiancee> say so and I instructed my maid to repack it before embarkation' being but two sillier examples which spring immediately to mind

Excepting that the core of BRP is the CoC rules and most of the players I know who are NOT big BRP fans will say 'oh so its like Cthulhu? Cool let's have a game then'* Al * Warning: Al's personal experience of people wanting to use CoC as the basis of BRP is no more valid than Soltakss experience of no people wanting to use CoC as the basis of BRP

As long as no one mentions opposed rolls on the Resistance Table then we'll all be fine.