Al.

As with most things BRP related porting one rule to another sibling-system is dead easy

I just made each Sorcery Spell* a 1-point spell (so the effects were a little toned down to +-10% skill, 1d3 Hit Points, +-3 characteristic points) and used a Luck roll

* and several of the RQ Battle Magic and Spirit Magic spells

If you use the Unknown East/Advanced Sorcery rules as the more academic magic alongside then it really makes a clear difference between Sorcery and muttered charms

I've done this in several different ways; none for inherently better just different

The design decision (I would suggest) is: do you want to get rid of the second roll for weapon damage or provide the opportunity for a higher total

Depending on your answer that you can then create the model you want

Ref: the size bonus/penalty

OpenQuest has always been gloriously simple and used big bonuses or nothing

I'd suggest a flat smaller SIZ gets +20, larger SIZ gets -20 (inspired by the rule for faster ships in the old Elric! sailing rules)

Reducing the Skill List

Elric already doubles up some skills (Scent/Taste in place of Scent and Taste, Devise/Repair in place of Devise and Repair) and the Chaosium-authored but WEG-published Star Wars did too (Climb/Jump and Hide/Sneak)

I halved the skill list in a game by carrying on with this theme

It does require some thought as some skills just don't have a double and others choosing the double emphasises a style of play

(So I put Sail/Swim for example)

The next decision is: so what? Do we do so just to trim the skill list (no bad thing) or also allow some specialism if a player desires it?

I would choose +30 Sail/Swim by default but maybe my character is an old Sailor who really doesn't like splashing about in the water ('a bad sailor falls out of the Boat I prefer staying in it')  so instead gets +45 Sail +15 Swim

There's some sound thinking in this thread

I favour (but rarely actually follow my own rule) re-purposing an existing BRP rule

Maybe:

A FreeWill score starting at Pow x5 (just like SAN)

If a player doesn't like a die roll, no problem pay FreeWill to re-roll

But it's spent permanently as Mistress fate has intervened and the character becomes a pawn

(I'll admit I stole this bit from CoC SAN and Symbaroum Corruption)

Making allegiance relevant

I did

Allegiance scores rolled alongside characteristics

Balance x5 = Perception%

Chaos x5 = Magic%

Law x5 = Knowledge%

BUT: that only worked with several other rules changes (which as above might lead SB5.5 too far from its roots)

I think this is a brilliant idea

My previous attempts at house ruling various versions of SB always fell down when I went too far from RAW and realised that I had lost a lot of what made it special

For characteristics I like:

2d6+3 each

Then add +6 each to two chosen/favoured scores

For Elder races make the bonus much bigger but it is fixed by Species rather than being player's choice

Warhammer seems appropriate to Lodril (Smith - Earth and Hammer and Fire - Lava and impaling)

The broader question I think (unusually to me) is to leave almost as is: Bladesharp makes the edged weapon sharper, Speedart the impaling weapon pointier, reducing resistive forces and so I'd apply to Spears as well, Bludgeon adds mass or possibly velocity but certainly momentum to blunt weapons (so I'd include rocks)

Maybe the Lodril Cult version of Bludgeon applies to Warhammers, but everyone else has to choose Bludgeon for the Blunt end or Speedart for the spike?

On 07/03/2017 at 5:06 PM, GianniVacca said:

We should refrain from applying a 21st century mindset to a Bronze Age world...

 

Very true.

But part of Glorantha's appeal is that it is NOT Bronze Age; it's a wonderfully weird and Californian version of Bronze Age

The non-idealised, historical versions of prostitution (i.e. anything which isn't Gemmellesque Earth Maidens or Ulerian courtesans) is quite frankly rape. And in Glorantha there is a cult which deals with rapists.

On 04/03/2017 at 2:31 PM, Atgxtg said:

Okay, that makes more sense. How to you handle SAN loss in such a system? Do you take it off MPs?

No

Casting spells reduces SAN. Going mad reduces SAN. But going mad doesn't affect spellcasting

On 04/03/2017 at 2:31 PM, Atgxtg said:

 I assume that the version that uses a d20 adjusts the SAN losses accordingly.. 

I honestly cannot remember, but I expect so. Otherwise madness occurs VERY quickly

On 01/03/2017 at 0:18 AM, Atgxtg said:

Could you elaborate a bit on this? Since PC POW scores are generally in the 3-18 range, and magic points start off equal to POW, this would seem to indicate a very low SAN score.

Sure, sure

I've seen at least two different implementations (for all that enjoy tinkering with rules in downtime I'm a bit crap at paying attention to them in game unless I think 'ooh that's clever I might borrow that' or 'what a load of old carp'). Rolling for SAN on d20 against remaining MPs and rolling 1d100 against (remaining MPs) x5%. You'd have to be fairly sick to roll d100 against remaining MPs! (Although SBIII did have characteristic tests as a straight 1d100 against characteristic so its not without pedigree)

I've played in CoC games where remaining magic points are used as sanity

I'm not sure where the idea originated but one GM said that he go it from me and I certainly didn't invent it so it's been around for a while

The Money Tree

Well 'Kickstart' always reminds me of the seminal BBC TV programme about motorbike trial riding. But since it's now a (multi) industry wide label I suspect that it will be here to stay.

The problem with replacing 'Quickstart' is that as lumpen and unlovely as it is, it does describe the book in a way that 'Initiation' or other more RQ-like labels probably don't

18 hours ago, g33k said:

When I was introduced to RQ/Glorantha, the GM had us roll a collection of dice (4-6 dice) on our action:

• 2d20 (%-to-hit)
• NdX (1-3 dice for damage)
• 1d20 (hit-location)

I quickly learned to "rack them" in my hand and roll them such that they came out left-to-right in that order.  Then I'd read off, "23% -- that's a hit -- to the gut -- doing 5 points of damage!"  (or whatever the "read" was).  Despite the multiples of dice, it was ONE roll, and took that much time.  The read-out of course took fractionally longer than reading any one element from rolling 3 separate times, but the speed was really quite notable; despite having an extra roll (for hit-location) over the other games (AD&D, GammaWorld) I had played, each person's action went FASTER by virtue of this method (as compared to what I had done for the TSR games -- roll d20 to-hit, and ONLY IF A HIT, pick up and roll damage-dice).

YMMV, as my YG (or other world).  

The Dice Gods smile on players who roll everything at once (and in this new-fangled age of two different flavours of d10 they do not even need to rack the dice up in order to avoid confusing 'to hit' and 'hit location' d20s)

Back to the original question: I like players to make all of the rolls

So in my game they roll weapon damage against a fixed AP

And roll Armour protection against a fixed damage

(To hit in the first place they get a bonus or penalty to their weapon skill depending upon the opposition, and to Block, Parry or Dodge they have a bonus or penalty according to the opponent's skill)

Reading this thread made me realise that internally I just think of the new version as 'RuneQuest' without any edition or numbers attached, Maybe that' simply because everything from Chaosium has called it that and they've worn me down without me noticing?! 

And it started the kickstarter thing

Or at any rate was the first crowdsourced project I became aware of, when I first read ToTRM with its various backer levels I thought it was a real example of optimism over pragmatism and would never fly. Look at the world now.

Slightly tangential (but I hope still useful)

When I wrote 'my' GenDragon rules bodge (not a subtle name change I will confess) I made gun damage pretty low* but allowed the damage to 'explode' if you rolled a 6 then treat it as a 5 and roll the die again. That seemed to allow for grazes but also the occasional instant death bullet to the vitals that I wanted

*2d6 for a BP pistol, 3d6 Carbine, 4d6 Rifle which are not outstanding values vs a typical PenDragon Knight.

On 30/11/2016 at 3:11 PM, jongjom said:

Having said that I hope after the Kickstarter you give the crowdsourcing backers chance for error trapping (as opposed not having our particular pet house rule in the edition!).

Since we're all going to do the latter anyway, it seems sensible to allow us to do the former before printing.

On 10/2/2016 at 6:55 AM, Nick J. said:

Fortunately copies of Elric! can still be obtained from Ebay sellers, Amazon or Nobleknight for a very reasonable price (~$25-ish).

Money well spent

I love the little extra rules that made their way into MW and it's the setting I wanted to play in with Elric! when that book first game out (over two decades ago now)

But the layout of the Elric! rules (and the typography and the smaller art pieces if not some of the larger) is still the best I've ever seen in any printed RPG

On 10/4/2016 at 1:26 AM, Nick J. said:

I just made it so large shields allow you to parry incoming arrows in Magic World. I couldn't care less about "realism", I just need it to be "sensible."

sactly

I don't have any experience of life or death face to face fighting with real live steel weapons so struggle to evaluate what is realistic and what is not

I just want rules which seem to model what is going on in a way which is not obviously bullshit and nonsense

22 hours ago, RosenMcStern said:

More survivable than dual - wielding or more survivable than single-wielding?

In other words: did you fight with a weapon in both hands when you did not use a shield or not?

Good question

With I am afraid a poor answer

Both

Some weeks longer sword in one hand shorter in t'other

Some weeks two-handed (in both obviously!)

Some weeks one-handed in one

Shield and sword lead to me being hit far fewer times

(Except for that one time where I kept two big bad somethings* at bay and one of the refs decreed at the end of the fight that my shield had taken so much damage that it was now bust and I had to carry the darned thing around for the rest of the day but drop it for kinetic encounters)

* like I say decades ago, what exact rubber monster masks they were wearing escapes me

My LARP experience was a ) long ago and b ) with rubber 'boffa' weapons rather than steel so take all of the following with a pinch of salt:

When I started to use a homemade and frankly huge wooden shield (with pipe lagging to make the edges safe!) I found fights (which were far more skirmish than formal shield walls) much more survivable. Whether I was Parrying (well Blocking really since that RQ term is a bit wrong) in an RQ sense or not I am unsure. However in terms of game effect the 'reduced penalty for multiple parries' rule seems like it models my experience quite well

On 10/1/2016 at 6:50 AM, Mugen said:

Concerning Japan, Dual wielding was definitely not common, and especially on the battlefield. Prior to the Edo period, the main weapon of the samurai was the bow, then the lance. The katana was a close defense weapon, and a secondary one on the battlefield.

Didn't Miyamoto (sp) Mushashi (sp) develop his Ni-To-Kenjutsu style (duel-wielding Katana and Wakizashi) in response to seeing Western (Portuguese?) fighting with Rapier and Left-hand Dagger?

I'm sure that I've got an old copy of 'Tales of Japan' which refers to Saborai fencing with Sword and Dirk. i.e. using contemporary Western terms for Nipponese arms. And I'm certain that Nippon's greatest swordsman did similar: used his familiar weapons to emulate a culturally alien style.

Al

I like characters with defined strengths and weaknesses. Even if they've come about by munchkinism (and they may not, your player may just have had a really strong character concept). Typical Cthulhu games (almost more than any other games) include a wide range of challenges and skills. The checks and balances are built in, I would not sweat it personally.