Al.

So I have a tendency to over-tinker with rules ('my name's Al and I'm an over-tinkerer') With the BRP SRD OGL TLA I thought that I'd have a crack at NOT trying to reinvent the wheel. I didn't get very far. In Elric! (my goto 'cleanest' d100 version) skills are not affected by characteristic values. And this is the path taken by most (all?) versions of CoC (by far the most popular version of d100) and by PenDragron (probably my favourite RPG). So my character has DEX 21 and I haven't put any points into Craft (Tap-Dancing) but yours has Dex 8 and chucked all 200 Backround points into that. Grrrr. I'm struggling. What do you lot do? Treat this as a ridiculous, borderline strawman, edge-case and not worry. Not sagely and say 'ah well your character didn't spend any time learning tap-dancing, stop being a munchkin' Allow my character to make a characteristic roll ('Dexterity' or 'Agility' roll depending on exact version played) in place of Craft (Tap Dancing) Allow my character a flat +20% to skill for having a Characteristic roll higher than skill (a la the Speed rule in Sailing on the Seas of Fate book) Add skill categories? If so, how? (like RQIII? Like nuMW? Some other way?) Wipe out a huge swathe of skills and replace them with Characteristic Rolls (like PenDragon does with Brawl, Climb, Jump, Stealth)? Something else that I haven't thought of?

This might not be a direct answer or solution to your question; but I liked it the first time I met it in a con game. Limit the weapon skills in play to those listed on the character sheet: 'Sword' covers all weapons used in melee 'Lance' covers all weapons used from horseback 'Dagger' covers all weapons used hand-to-hand, knee-to-groin, up-close and personal 'Spear' covers all weapons used in formation and shieldwall Of course any player who wants their character to be all unchivalrous will also need 'Bow' but that's only one additional skill to add

1. To OP well done for having the courtesy to not question the decision in game. Something which shouldn't need to be said is that squabbling at the table does more to ruin a game than any number of poor/questionable/different/wrong GM decisions (I'm sure that the rest of us here on this forum are all paragons of virtue too and would never be the pain at the table). 2. In my game yes you'd have got an experience check (and on a fumble you'd have got the maximum raise during rest time). 3. Just out of interest: were you asked to make the roll or did GM make the roll on your behalf?

That's how I read it. As a corollary to this. If the opposition has skill less than 50% below my PC's do I gain +20% to effective skill? And if opposition is more than 50% less competent do I gain +50%? Going out on a limb here, but I'd guess the player rolls if opposed by an NPC. If the conflict is between two PCs? Presumably the one who is active rolls (or the GM's favourite). It potentially looks quite neat doesn't it?

I just assume no Hit Locations for Minor Wounds/normal hits (cuts, grazes, bruises, abrasion, even minor fractures -who cares where they are?) But roll location for Major Wounds (over half total HP) and that location is incapacitated. If they're an important enough NPC or a PC and they survive the battle then roll on the old SBIII Major Wound Table and bluff on the fly if the lasting effect from said table doesn't match with the location rolled.

Ah that takes me back to a spot of cognitive dissonance from several years ago. I feel guilty (in all likelihood the superstitious guilt one feels when wearing the wrong colour underpants or using the lavatory at the wrong point in a game and one's team loses) over MRQ using the sum of two characteristics for each skill algorithm. During early (open) MRQ playtest I asked the question about how skill base chances would be calculated. Laying out a continuum from what I thought was elegant and ideal (having a common base chance for all skills in a category and that being calculated as the sum of two characteristics) through the various EC and RQ models and onto what I thought was the needlessly fiddly and time-consuming EQ method (of working out EACH individual skill's base chance with its BESPOKE sum of two values). Mong opted for the latter and I was furious, mainly with myself for presenting the idea in a forum where it had not previously been discussed. Of course they probably had already decided on that approach and just hadn't released that tidbit yet. But then: Steve Perrin (STEVE PERRIN!) made a statement along the lines of he agreed with me and that's what he was already doing in his games. The only analogy I can think of in my professional life would me making a suggestion about Physics education and Richard Feynman weighing in to say 'yup, I agree, good idea, that's what I do.'

I ran and played more games under (original) Hawkmoon rules than any other d100/BRP in my original adolescent hey day of roleplaying. Especially after I read The Dragon In The Sword and added the Mittelmarches. I think that the gaps (due to very unfortunate circumstances surrounding writing and publication) invited adding rules more than any other setting. And then as now I loved to meddle and add bits. Plus the fun of having magic and sci-fi in one setting was great (no coincidence that WH40k and Shadowrun have both done so well commercially for so long). And finally the setting having a no nonsense good guy and absolutely pitch-black, baby-eating, bastard bad guys may have made the books less sociology or literature interesting, but it did invite adventures and heroics.

In the (original) MagicWorld rules that inspired the BRP Magic rules, the cost was 1 point per d6 of damage. If you want flash! pow! high fantasy magic that economy might make more sense to you.

Absolute agreement from me. I didn't realise when Gold Book BRP was being mooted, written and playtested; but what I actually wanted was a slightly update version of Worlds of Wonder. Gold Book BRP is a great work, and only in retrospect did I realise that the bits I didn't like were not because they were in any way bad or wrong themselves, it just wasn't the book that I wanted to buy!

I go through phases of using one system for everything (too intellectually limited to hold several sets of rules in mind and too lazy to make notes and play aids or to re-read). I've used PenDragon for Dr Who, Star Wars, Samurai, Dark Ages, Golden Age of Piracy, Ringworld, Discworld, Fables (the comic books) and others I've forgotten. And played in Ancient Greek, Glorantha, Forgotten Realms and DC Comic book superheroes run by others. I think that the central rules are so strong that they cope with any setting (but see above). Of course my view of which bits are the central rules and yours may differ wildly.

Maybe everyone else has decided that OQ is perfect as it stands?

There used to be a discussion on this very same topic on Greg Stafford's KAP forum. I've not visited it recently and my google-fu is apparently very weak as I cannot find it again now (possibly it's been taken down as mark of respect but I don't feel confident in making that assertion, you may have better luck than I at hunting it down) Suggestions: Knights begin with as any Armour Points as they have APP points (handsome, fashionable Knights have fashionable armour, scruffy wolfsheads have mismatched, sruffy wolfshead armour) if this is not possible due to the current era then they have have multiple suits totalling that many AP. APP is not rolled, it is the average (arithmetic mean) of all other characteristics other than SIZ. Inspired by the descriptions of Homer's heroes (not THAT Homer). At creation (or now if retroactively applying a house rule) choose one Social Skill which starts equal to APP

Yes please Monday or Wednesday possibles for me Al

Warning: confirmation bias ahead. All of those well-made points* all reaffirm to me that giving the greatsword and bastard sword 1d8+1 impaling damage is 'about right.' * genuinely not deliberate

In RAW I don't think that Greatswords (or Bastard Swords) could impale at all. So maybe this rule nicely encompasses the blunt chopping tip of a Greatsword being sub optimal for skewering said dinosaur through the vitals?

I think that the premise for riddles has changed over the game's history. When I first read them in RQ2 books they were very much of the anti-joke format ('What's the difference between a rabbit? One of its ears are both the same' style of thing) and were usually 'What's the difference between a <insert RQ skill name here>?' Somewhen along the line that has changed to be a format of there being a genuine answer and lateral thinking is encouraged. Personally, I'd happily play in a game which used either format. Showing how groovy, liberal-minded and open to illumination I am. But I'd be grumpy if I wasn't told which format was to be used and was expected to know instinctively what the GM thought was the obvious and correct approach. Showing that I'm really not that open to illumination at all.

The old ICE MERP game had a solution to this, if no characteristic was 90% after rolling them then swap any one score for 90% (in MW that would be an 18 of course)

And not working at t'mill

Instinctively: Ride In game: whichever skill most players* had actually raised during character creation. * as in players had raised the skill of their make-believe characters, I wouldn't be looking at RL driver's licences or cycling proficiency badges

Presumably 42 is the rate at which Fast Talk riddles are expanding?

The bucket full of dice - when attacking roll d100 (to hit) d20 (for location) and damage dice (for erm well damage) together. The 'get on with it man' principle - any die roll which falls of the table or lands cocked or anything which slows down play is a fumble

The (borrowed from) Baker principle - say yes or roll the dice. If players are asking questions and there is nothing at stake, keep saying yes. Don't block good ideas or insist on dice rolls for everything. The (anti) Boyle principle - it is better to be kind than correct. Small mistakes and errors can be ignored and glossed over. The Richards principle - start in media res, get the session started with excitement and backfill the details once the players are engaged. The Richards irreducible clue and content corrollary - if the players have to find a specific piece of information to progress the story, then they are not rolling to see if they can find it (they have to) they are rolling to see what additional information they find. Of course the players don't have to know that at the time.

How about an amnesiac Dragonewt? Since your boss doesn't know huge amounts about Glorantha and lengthy exposition is dull for all concerned that neatly sidesteps all that. She doesn't know because her character doesn't know. It also gives a reason for adventuring: how did I lose my memory? what's a memory? what is a me? The Dragonewt's meddling with Necromancy might be related to that amnesia. Cause? Effect? Completely irrelevant? Since nobody in either Glorantha or Real Land understands Dragonewts or how they behave, or why; that should apply doubly to an amnesiac, lost, forgotten Dragonewt. Hence nobody can tell you that you're doing it wrong. (And if everybody in your game is new to Glorantha then there is nobody to feel upset that you are doing it wrong anyway)

WRT Swashbuckling and the deadliness of PenDragon combat without PenDragon armour I had a similar problem when roughing out my Daimyo game (since Saborai would only be wearing their armour in a pitched battle and I wasn't planning on having any of them) All I did was offer the winning player in an opposed combat a choice: Either inflict half rolled damage and take none Or inflict full rolled damage but take half rolled from the loser In a setting where Death is a feather and duty a mountain but a Saborai owes it to their liege lord not to throw their life away it makes for a proper moral choice in combat.

In answer to OP I used lots of limited one-trick bound items (inspired by the Spot rules on when to use the Demon's ability and when to use the owner's) Smoked Glasses with Search% Crystal Ball with Million Spheres% Compass with Navigate% Card Deck with Insight% As an aside My 'solution' to the 'problem' of demon weapon escalation (even way back with SBIII) was that no Demonic power could take an item above TWICE its mundane value i.e. Stormbringer being a Greatsword inflicts 2d8 and cannot be boosted by more than 8 points on the roll table (i.e. RAW 2d8+1d10+1d6 my tweak - see below - 2d8+2d8) The other changes I made included smoothing the Elric! roll table so 1d10+1d2 becomes 2d6 then 1d8+1d6 then 2d8 then 3d6 then 1d8+2d6 then 2d8+1d6 then 4d6 etc etc; I freely admit that this was more to do with my low grade (amusing rather than life-altering) OCD than because it objectively made the game any better