Al.

Hi Lloyd

I can't argue with any word that you've typed there.

At some point (and I'm under no illusions that this isn't going to be soon, I'd be very surprised if any of the senior Chaosium bods haven't got a number of things both more urgent and more important than responding to this query) I'd like to get an official response. Which I imagine which will be one of:

A) Yup, the strength of the system means that these won't break anything

Bee) We're happy with some of those, but all of them together moves too far from the agreed core, pick <a number> but leave the rest as is

C) A,B,C are fine but X,Y and Z are out

D) Nope, those are all too fundamental.

We'll wait and see what and when the response is.

Once upon a time, long long ago Chaosium announced an OGL BRP licence.

Since this coincided with (what I thought) would be a long time in doors with a keyboard and time to kill I deluded myself that I would take advantage and write 'my' version of BRP.

Unlike the author of Toxandia I never actually did that. In my defence that long time with nowt to do didn't actually happen. But mainly it was due to prevarication on my part. However: also related was not knowing just how much I could tweak BRP and still be in compliance with the OGL. Decades of my house rules may very well be of no interest whatsoever to the owners of the IP.

Since I'm far too lazy to actually put the work into a manuscript to be told 'er no, you've misunderstood' and because I delude myself that this might be useful to others (but mainly coz I hope someone else will actually do the leg work) I thought it would be good to pose some specific questions here for Chaosium to state yay or nay on. I'll try and make them yes/no questions. And who knows, someone else might have similar specific questions that they'd like to raise here too.

CHARACTERISTICS

Can I just delete SIZ?

Can I re-order the Characteristics alphabetically on the character sheet?

Can I change the roll (for humans) to 3d6 for each, but any die roll of '1' is treated as a '2' (so range is 6 to 18 but 'average' is still about 10)

CHARACTERISTIC ROLLS

Can I just rename them (STR x5% is the Strength roll, INT x5% is the Intelligence roll, and so on)

ATTRIBUTES

Can I have a variable MOV score? (determined as (Dex+Str)/3)

Can I change the damage bonus algorithm ((Str-10) as a single die roll)

SKILLS

Can I replace all of those individual base chances with just a flat 50% for all (admittedly based on a very simplistic interpretation of probability theory and because although I've read all those rule pages and magazine pages and online words about what competence is and what modifiers should be added for almost-mundane tasks I like a 50:50 chance of success if all else is equal without such judgements)

Can I change the algorithms for Criticals (to 1/10th skill) and Specials (to 1/2 skill)?

On 10/21/2020 at 1:04 AM, GothmogIV said:

I have been working with the idea that each MP expended is a point of effect, like you cast a fireball--it costs 1MP to initiate, then each MP spent is a point of damage and increased radius. So a wizard with 18 MP could blast off a fireball that does 17 HP of damage in the area of effect. Same with sleep: 1 MP to cast, 17 MP of sleepy-sleepy to go around, beginning with the wizard's target, or an area of effect. Or something. Magic is hard. 

I rather like that.

It avoids the huge, escalating damage of XD&D spells. Which is a good thing by and of itself in my view, and doubly necessary in BRP game because we don't have huge, escalating Hit Point totals as well.

The dice-rolling rolePLAYER in me would like there to be some randomness in there. But I'm not absolutely convinced that such a change would be worth the increase in complexity.

On 10/23/2020 at 3:19 AM, Bill the barbarian said:

Oh my... slogging my way thorough the third televised debate. And I am not even American. Hand me the dice, let’s see whether my SAN can take it!

It was at least more civilised than the previous.

36 minutes ago, Ian Absentia said:

It may actually be worth noting that I'm firmly against early tabulation of voting results, as releasing preliminary data tends to skew later participation, either individually or by organised effort.  In my state, votes can not begin tabulation until after 8:00 PM when the ballots officially close.  Even unofficial exit polling tends to skew results (though they're dynamite for ratings).

!i!

I fully agree with that statement. Much like the 'there's no point voting for Party X here, they'll never get in' received wisdom. It becomes self-fulfilling, if everyone in your [voting area] who supports Party X acts that way, how many votes were not cast for them?

Vote early (as you can legally), vote for who you genuinely think is the best (or the least worst). Don't allow what 'everybody knows' disenfranchise you.

2 hours ago, g33k said:

May I just say, for the record, how  utterly delightful  (albeit ironic!) it is to have a purely-political thread like this where -- oddly -- nobody's politics are entering in... or even evident?  I mean... I do know some folks stances, from elsethread...  but it's just "Vote" here.

 

Nobody is trying to "own the libtards" or decry the "sexual predator in chief" or otherwise "score points" in the socio-political culture wars.

Thank you, one and all.

Absolutely; be excellent to each other dudes, and party on.

8 hours ago, g33k said:

I don't know the Maelstrom Domesday system, but a quick check suggests it's VERY BRP-like (to the extent that I expect the game-dev's basically re-implemented the core BRP engine in their own language, before beginning their own elaborations/variations).  Maybe there's someone here who knows the system well, and can speak up...?

Not quite.

The original Maelstrom was written by an English school boy. Whether he was influenced by RuneQuest or other d100 I could not say for sure.

The mechanics are however (in the main) a really elegant use of d100 and are really stripped down.

The original setting was Elizabethan (I not II) which made it stand out, the herbalism section is comprehensive and the Magick (using the Maelstrom of the title) has the genesis of a brilliant idea (Magickers affect/effect reality and how hard it is to cast a spell depends on how likely the event is; thief running away from you over slippery cobbles? It's easy to make them fall over. You want to conjure a raging ball of flame from thin air? That's going to be very hard to remember the exact words of the spell and take multiple Will rolls to pull off).

I agree with the love shown for RD100 too, again some really clever and elegant rules.

On 9/29/2020 at 5:45 PM, Atgxtg said:

I think they are trying to reinforce the world view. Modern people tend to expect people to "be fair" and look at other as equals, value all points of view and play by the same rules. But historically most cultures tended to be more tribal and believed that their own group and culture were superior o that of other peoples. Thus an Olanthi "knows" he is better than a Lunar and vice-versa. It not exactly hypocrisy as people don't actually view each other as equal or the situation as the same. The quote just extends that thinking to the spirit world. 

I absolutely agree with your analysis and applaud them for it.

What I was also suggesting, and perhaps not being plain enough about it, is that I think this definition neatly sidesteps the concerns that Stormbringer characters with bound demon servants are somehow non-Gloranthan. They're just wrong 'uns who have bound the wrong spirits to help them (coz they're dirty, godless, untrustworthy foreigners, not-of-this-cult).

On 9/1/2020 at 3:27 PM, Atgxtg said:

Exactly. While it can be done, I'm not sure if it would be worth the heavy lifting. In many cases the GM would have to write out the very elements that make an SB/EC adventure stand out, usually leaving behind a lesser adventure than what you started with. I think your adaptation of Rouge Mistress is inspired, as you found enough Gloranthan analogues to replace the multiverse feel with a Gloranthan one, and the result seems to fit with the setting.  I don't that that would be as easy with adventures such as Black Sword. The GM would need to find Gloranthan analogues to the major characters and places, species, and gods/cults in the adventure. Probably the biggest changes would be with the magic. SB magic, especially early edition SB magic is very powerful compared to RuneQuest magic. One bound demon from SB with a wardpact against swords could be a serious threat to a group of  Humakti, especially if it has a high POW.  

I found SB3 Demon Magic too powerful in the YK and capped all Demon Abilities to 'no more than twice the mundane value' as well as making Deom Weapon bonus damage calculated from said Demon's Siz and Str on the damage bonus chart. I think that those two tweaks would fairly painlessly deal with (many of) the game balance issues.

The RQ3 bestiary entry for Demons makes interesting reading, paraphrasing slightly: 'if I read it, it's erotica, if they read it, it's porn' correlates very strongly to 'if my Shaman or Priest uses it, it's a Spirit, if their (Godless abomination of a) Sorcerer, Shaman or Priest uses it, it's a Demon.'

22 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Wow! I really am starting to think modern teachers are deliberately trying to sabotage the education system. Couldn't they have picked another method?

I think you credit us (we?) teachers with having more power over the curriculum than we actually have.

23 hours ago, dieselpunk said:

I suppose I could really condense things down to just 6 skills by using the categories, but I do like having things finer grain than that. Anything else not covered I'd just boil down to characteristic rolls. Anyone else play with a greatly reduced skill list? If yes, how have you adjusted the starting point allocations?

Since the sweet spot for BRP games is generally* reckoned to be 50-75% why not:

70

65 65

60 60 60

55 55 55 55

50 50 50 50 50

* with the ever-present provisos that all generalisations are rubbish and there's no such thing as consensus on the interweb

On 9/2/2020 at 2:57 PM, Kloster said:

Eh, I like. I should have a try.

It works brilliantly.

BoL does this for all damage (Conan stops for a quick swig of wine after the fight has ended and he's good to go) but that doesn't really fit with the way I want by BRP/RQ/d100 games to go. In a more pulpy campaign I'm sure that it would be excellent.

How to make RQ scenarios less lethal?

1. Make it clear (show don't tell) how lethal RQ combat is.

2. By making the first couple of fights fist fights (or possibly allowing staves and cudgels) so that players get to experience how quickly characters can drop down when dice rolls go against them.

3. Shamelessly stolen (I think from Barbarians of Lemuria but I might be wrong) I rule that a character who is still conscious at the end of a fight immediately regains half of the damage inflicted by unarmed attacks (it turns out that the bruising, winding and pain weren't that bad) but anyone KO'd or worse has taken proper physical damage and gets no such break.

That way when the first sight of foes with sharp metal implements happens Players are already thinking 'how can I avoid this fight?' 'how can I stack the odds in our favour?' 'where's the best spot for an ambush?' 'why haven't we all got bows?' and thinking like the gritty ne'er-do-wells they need to become (for a short while at least)

If it's an 'ideal' setting. Then it's post-scarcity.

The concept of currency exchange is only necessary if things are in scarce supply and there needs to be a method of ranking desire for a thing. (By all means sidestep any concept of how valid that system of ranking desire is to leave politics out of it, because that won't matter in your setting)

Maybe money is only necessary when dealing with barbarians (like C21 Earthlings)?

My copy (via Aeon publishing) arrived today.

Unfortunately I'm half way through redecorating number one son's bedroom so I've not yet made the time for a thorough read-through. It looks beautiful though.

I've not read the whole document, so I might be off on my analysis.

But it strikes me as a huge labour of love work, very comprehensive and very kindly shared for one and all to look at.

I'm not convinced that I'd change much or any of the hodge podge of rules that I currently use. But the teenage me would have absolutely loved to have got his hands on this. It's very much the deluxe BRP book I wanted way back when. I suspect that (if word spreads far enough) this could be very useful to lots of GMs and players looking for something d100y which covers everything ready-to-use.

'Shadow' on Netflix. A Black South African version of The Equaliser.

On 6/30/2020 at 7:48 PM, Jakob said:

I don't see why you shouldn't be able to have your cake and eat it, too.

Keep repulsor fields and antigravity, but make it something that either can't be employed easily (maybe flying cars only work in citys with a big-and-expensive-as-hell antigrav reactor in the center) or is highly controlled (maybe it has a terrible potential when used as a weapon?); so if you can't afford or get your hands on the technology - or a legal license to use it - you might just have to hollow out an asteroid and spin it around. And maybe that's what most people are actually doing!

BTW, if you're interested in the whole asteroid habitat thing, you just have to read Kim Stanley Robinson's novel 2312. It's quite the opposite of space fantasy, but it is still fun, I'd say, and he is really good at making the scientific explanations entertaining!

Abolsutely agree.

Take a leaf out of Herbert's books. He wanted the denouement to be hand-to-hand combat between heroes which could not have happened logically if The Guild had space superiority and energy weapons. So he found a combination of technologies which made the use of energy weapons from space a non-starter.

If I read this right you want anti-grav cars in urban centres and you want rotating habitats which don't make sense if artificial gravity is a thing.

Maybe anti-grav/repulsorlift/gravitic-reaction only works against the kind of big, stable gravity well that forms around/due to a planet? So the habitats don't make a big enough dip in space-time for the fields to work against?

And maybe those fields ONLY work AGAINST gravity wells? Thus artificial gravity just can't be done.

Or maybe the anti-grav cars aren't anti-grav they're maglev and the habitats just don't have a strong enough magnetosphere to push against?

Unfortunately that might mean no anti-grav cars IN the habitats.

On 6/25/2020 at 2:27 PM, Newt said:

OK we now have a cover courtesy of Jon Hodgeson (of Handiwork games fame, previously Cublicle 7 One Ring, Lonewolf etc). 

This is just the front cover, the final book will feature it in its full wrap around glory

 

That fourth party member looks a little bit overpowered.

11 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

This doesn't seem to add much to the conversation but, just out of curiosity, I wouldn't mind a plain English version!

Fair one.

I slipped into using two acronyms which I've internalised to the extent of not considering my audience:

IMO - In My Opinion became IMMOO - In My Monkey Overlord's Opinion - during a fairly heated debate on another RPG forum (some people stating that all statements should be prefaced with IMO to avoid being presented as incontrovertible fact and others responding that of course everything they stated was in their opinion, it wasn't forced upon them by their Monkey Overlord).

MGF - Maximum Game Fun - the idea that whatever rules decisions we make should be to maximise how much fun we are having at the table rather than elegance of algorithms, being true to the source materials, believability, realism or other fine sentiments.

So I suppose in plain language:

In my opinion, which I do not expect everyone or anyone to share, I think that; the most fun version of the experience rules would be if half of the improvements are chosen by the player and half allocated according to which skills are successfully used most often.

6 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

Well... Mugen, while I don't disagree with you, in fact I even prefer XP too!
I think you might have missed one of the core message of Atgxtg: is that XP vs in game skill check mark is ultimately a matter if taste!
Stress on GM's taste here....

 

Other than that I am not all disagreement, thanks for illustrating how the 2 system differs
I do believe the XP system is not as bad as Atgxtg make is sound!  
In fact I think it's quite good.. pacing progress and letting player increase what they want, and also "as realistic" as progress system goes...

For example: a sport student and a science student both attend a LARP tournament and do their study. One month later: even though both have increased their wooden sword fighting skills, I am pretty sure the sport student would have increased sword skill and physical skill more, while the science student will have continue to increase science topic as well!

 

I think (and all obviously IMMOO) the hybrid halfway house model allows for MGF.

18 minutes ago, el_octogono said:

Another possible angle would be to make CHA (not APP) and POW a single characteristic: POW. A high Power could mean someone of charisma who can exert influence and manipulate others if wanted.

YUp.

'Dexterity' already includes both fine-motor (Dexterity) and gross-motor (Reflexes or Agility or Speed).

'Intelligence' already includes academic ability and depth of thinking (Intelligence) and acuity, processing-speed and awareness (Perception)*.

So folding Charisma into Power and/or Size into Strength make perfect sense and quite inline with the existing precedence.

*admittedly the d100-family is not completely consistent here: sometimes Perception depends upon intelligence (the Idea roll for example), sometimes on Power and sometimes on both.

On 6/1/2020 at 4:08 PM, Lloyd Dupont said:

What do you think? any other idea?

I guess this boils down to, do you want to add new rules or make use of existing ones?

Using existing rules:

Call for lots of Charisma (App x5) rolls when meeting new people

And adjust any subsequent rolls against Social Skills according to how well (or not) the Charisma roll went

(Inspired by the PenDragon Inspiration rules: a Critical raises the skill's level of success by 2 steps, a success raises by 1 step, a failure reduces by 1 step, a fumble reduces by 2 steps)

Possible new rules:

• Don't roll for CHA/APP; this (inspired by listening to the Iliad a few years ago) is calculated as the average (mean) of the rolled characteristics. Special, competent characters have greater Charisma than dullards
  • The RQ3 recommended penalty of -10 for observers from another species is then applied (Tusk Riders of course get -10 from their own species as they hate themselves too)
• Starting characters begin with as many points of AP (armour) as they have points of APP. So that the handsome, fashionable warrior has handsome, fashionable armour whilst the scruffy. moth-eaten thug has scruffy, moth-eaten armour.
• One which could apply for all characteristics and characteristic rolls.
  • When using a Social skill roll against said skill and Charisma (APP x5%) roll on a single d100.
  • Succeeding at one of these is a partial success. Succeeding at both is a Full Success.
  • So long as the roll is a success for the lower score then Specials and Criticals come from the higher score

i.e. Charming (APP 17) but crude (Art (Courtly Manners) 25%) Osman is called upon to blend in during a reception at the King's Court. If his player rolls:

• below '17' then he has Critically Succeeded - nobody even notices his presence, he snags some fancy food and overhears a clue
• between '17' and '25' then he has Fully Succeeded - he is in no way out of place
• between '25' and '85' only Partially succeeded - he makes a few booboos but charms his way out of it
• over '85' failed completely - forgetting to bow to nobles gets him noticed in all the wrong ways 
• '99' or '00' - calling the King 'mate' is going to cause some problems imminently

5 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

You could use any dice to get the bell curve for the other die ranges, and then compare that to a 3d6 bell curve. 

Like all great insights; that's obvious now that you've said it! Ta.

8 hours ago, 4Acrossisemu said:

I do photoshopped realistic images for my games. They might be of interest to you. You can see them here. 

https://www.instagram.com/bitesizehorror/

Some of those (following the link) are properly terrifying.

On 6/10/2020 at 1:28 PM, davewire said:

I’m putting together a binder full of various weird and strange items from redacted reports to photographs of paranormal phenomena for a possible Delta Green campaign. I got a few things from HPLHS and found a bunch of images online and printed a few photos to add to it. I’m calling it “The Black Dossier”. I’d like everything in it to look as real and official as possible. If anyone has any ideas of things to add or images they can share I’d appreciate it.

Those look brilliant mate. Well done.