Chaot

How do you make a million dollars by opening a roleplaying business? Start with two million.

Fractured Hopes is a wild ride. When it first came out I had a whole campaign idea I wanted to run loosely based on the the idea that New York City had consciousness, magic-science factions had arisen through the 5 boroughs (looking a bit like the 70's film The Warriors), and that there was a mystical neutral ground formed around a Starbucks warrior cult. You could find a neutral meeting place where these factions could come together and talk, trade, arrange marriages and allegiances, etc. There was a secret temple though, located at 37th street, which was a real location called The Neutral Ground. It was a gaming store that had a large area where people could come together and play. Sadly, it's closed now. Anyway, my goal was to throw as much NYC stereotypes at my players turned up to 11. Never got a chance to run it though.

Put this man to work! Dude's a genius.

Oops. It looks like I just 'accidentally' bought the book and pdf! (discounted right now at $18) Guess I'll just have to sit by my front door and wait for the mailman.

I actually don't think there was ever a pdf made and distributed for Corum. It was produced right before that really took off.

I let POW be trained like other stats. I also handle experience a little different. I give 'experience points,' about 4-5 per session. These can be banked or used to increase either stats or skills. No increase chance for skills, they increase either by the average or by point die roll. For stats you need the stat points +1. If a character has a POW of 15 they would need 16 points to increase their POW to 16. If they had a POW of 17 they would need 18 points. Works well enough.

I'm more familiar with the spell lists from MERPS but I absolutely love them. There was an Elemental Paths system in Runequest Elric stuff that I wanted to use with elemental spell lists tagged on. Haven't had a chance to do it yet.

I like to track in such a way to make bookkeeping simple and combat flow quick. If I don't have some sort of metric though, I feel that I run the risk of making a whole scene become arbitrary. I feel this takes away from the successes of the players. I run a very fine line between prep and improv and will often be quizzed afterwards about whether certain section of the adventure was preplanned or winged. I try not to pull back the veil too much but I like to let players occasionally know that they had a great idea and we went with it. I also like to let them know when they accomplished something on their own terms. Sometimes this centers around combat. If I'm going to write a figure down, then I'm going to stick with it and see how the story plays out. That being said, one benefit with minion rules is that players notice when I'm asking them whether they hit versus how much damage they did. As soon as I ask for damage dice they know that they are in a potentially dangerous fight.

The only spell in there that's really dangerous is Summon Demon. I'd let the players choose whatever spell they think fits and have them come up with a back story on how they learned that spell. Maybe it's just my players but the spells are usually so specifically focused on one effect that my players generally forget that they have them.

I have always just run it as something like Sorcerer's Talons would take up 4 INT spots. You can cast it however many times and at whatever power level you want.

Charles Green has published material similar, first in Gods of Law and then expanded upon in Dragon Lines. I've been running games like this since Gods of Law and love it. My NPCs fall into three categories: Minion/Mooks like in this article, Regular NPCs and Important NPCs. Regular NPCs is just a step up from a minion. The only things I write down is Dex, Hit Points, armor and damage, 1-3 skills that are most important to the NPC, Magic Points and Spells if necessary. Saves me a ton of time that I can better spent elsewhere. If the NPC becomes really important, he or she then gets a full write up.

Welcome you two. I don't go as far back as you but my first and strongest D&D love is the Rules Cyclopedia. Have you two any experience with BRP types of games? They are typically percentile based and some of the big names in the field are Call of Cthulhu, Runequest and Stormbringer. There is a thriving community of games around the D100. It's mostly what we talk about here. Look around and see what you like. I've often thought there should be a play by post forum here although I will be the first to admit that I'm generally terrible at play by post.

As I said over in the reddit thread, Devil's Gulch, Aces High and the Cakebread and Walton stuff for steampunk.

Howdy!

Now get back to work!

I say without reservation that you are an inspiration and your work is a huge addition to the BRP community!

It means that CT will publish. It think it's a great idea.

You may use any and all of it. I fleshed some more stuff out and we've played around with it a little, but with Pokémon Go out I feel like I've made the system too complex!

Thank goodness for Sentinels of the Multiverse. I'm traveling and did not bring some of my conversion notes so I've relaxed on writing up abilities. SotM has kept us very busy though. So, I think I'm going to track battle points for the pokémon. These can then be spent to increase abilities. I've put together a chart that is similar to the Demon Table and set up so that it can be used to randomize pokémon a little bit and be used to tell how many battle points are needed to increase an ability.

So, one of the issues I'm running into. I want this to be up and running by tomorrow... ...oops. On a positive note, I think the basic mechanics are hammered out. I've a start on translating abilities. I have this. I've got half of the pokémon advancement down. I think once I get more of the abilities translated and I have a wider look at what I'm getting myself into I will be in better shape.

Hmmmmm.... maybe, maybe... four skills that are largely static but vary depending how difficult the task is... I've already decided to drop sailing, drive and ride from the skill list. I don't see a reason to make characters develop three skills (or why it would be necessary to differentiate between the skills) and I couldn't think on a good name that incorporates all three of them. I think I would just have three, Easy, Regular, Hard. I was thinking about using Unknown Armies doubles rule. If you roll a success and it's also a double it's a critical. If you roll a failure and it's a double it's a fumble. It's funny. I'm sure if you dig deep enough you can find me ranting someplace about how much I hate dice tricks. I also can't believe I left some sort of Hero point system out. That must be in there. So I think I may be dropping the regular skill list. The only skills will be the main four and the Pokémon Trainer skill and Pokémon Type skills. I like how that shifts the emphasis away from the PC a bit and more towards the PC's minions. Now I have to start doing some translating of abilities and figure out how Will figures into it. Side note on Will, I renamed it to Resolve on the sheet.

I love demons and use them a lot, but it's more tracking than I want to do with this game. I like it. I've dropped POW but I think I'll tie the chance to evolve into the Trainer's [Pokemon] Type skill. When I introduce the pokemon I'll jot down the minimum scores needed to evolve. I do have my daughter's pokemon guidebook but it's many years out of date by this point. I will have to pick up another. So, this morning I've been cobbling together a character sheet. No place near done, but I've hammered out some skills. Not set on them but it's a start. Pokemon Training (kind of looking for a new name for this) Art/Craft Athletics Bargain Build Gizmo Driving (I might take this out because it seems that Trainers tend to walk a lot but I do remember seeing Team Rocket in various vehicles.) Healing (thinking about renaming) Perception Performance Riding Sailing Trickery I want to keep the list short and I'm not sure if I'm missing something important. I'm purposely not giving Trainers a fighting skill. If they mix it up in combat they'll need to make a Muscle roll or a Dodge roll to get out of there.

Thinking about dice tricks and having just read CoC7... Maybe for pokemon strength and weakness I'll just use flip flopping from Unknown Armies. If a pokemon is strong against another type it gets to flip it's roll so that if the player rolls a 5 and a 2 the result is 25. If it is weak against the opposing pokemon it is a 52. Maybe a success with the Pokemon Trainer skill gives the pokemon a bonus die a la CoC7. Maybe the Pokemon Type skill is rolled against to improve your pokemon's abilities and determine whether they evolve.

Quick enough, brother. Quick enough. (That was a tough school year, which is also why I haven't been around here as much recently.) So, here's what I'm thinking as a stat block for a trainer. I've taken some liberties. These are not because I'm worried kids can't handle long stat blocks but because I would rather deemphasize the typical seven as individually important. These are tied into attribute rolls like normal BRP, but I've changed them around a little bit. Characters are created by distributing a 10, 12, 14, and 16 to each stat. Two stat points can be moved, leaving a trainer with a minimum possible score of 8 and a maximum of 18. Strong x5 = Muscle % Fast x5 = Dodge % Smart x5 = Idea % Smooth x5 = Fast Talk % Combining Strong and Fast will give you the character's Hit Points. Combining Smart and Smooth will give you the character's Will. (I haven't set on a name for this yet so am calling it Will. I will change the name as soon as I figure out how exactly it interacts with the trainer's pokemon. It is there to augment the pokemon's efforts in battle.) Skill I have to list these yet. It will be a short list. I will probably include some freeform skills that the players make up in here too. Pokemon Trainer Skills This is a special list of skills very important for the aspiring trainer. The first skill in the list is the Pokemon Trainer skill. It is used during a pokemon battle to give your pokemon an edge by coaching it on it's next move and encouraging the wee little beastie. Following that is the pokemon type skills. These increase when you succeed in a battle with that pokemon type and when you study that pokemon type out in the wild. There are a lot of pokemon type skills, which is why you, as a pokemon trainer, want to walk everyplace you go. Bump into a new pokemon, fill in your pokedex and bump up your type skill. I also might give the battling pokemon a small bonus if the trainer's skill in that type is high. Hence why Misty sticks with Water pokemon and Brock sticks with Rock. Normal Fire Water Electric Grass Ice Fighting Poison Ground Flying Psychic Bug Rock Ghost Dragon Dark Steel Fairy So let's look at Pokemon themselves. I want to keep them short. I sat down and noodled out what I thought I would need. This is the result/ Pokemon Name, Pokemon Type, Defense Value, Hit Points, Energy Ability 1, success %, damage, effect, cost Ability 2, success %, damage, effect, cost etc Strong Against: +20%, +damage Weak Against: -20%, -damage I think this covers everything except evolving. I have to nail down the mechanics on how the ability % and damage are increased. I may even allow the ability cost to decrease as the pokemon gains experience. Those are the bones. Much of my thoughts too. If a pokemon is really quick or has a quality that really stands out I might just throw it in as an ability. I actually do not have it. It was vapor ware for so long I don't think I actually realized that it was published! What are the archetype names in Pulp Cthulhu, out of curiosity? I really need to figure this bit out here. I think the kids would tear me apart if I didn't have some sort of way to evolve their pokemon. Any ideas how to institute it? Ideally I would like to hit on a method that keeps player's like Ash happy (with his never evolving but still viable pikachu) while allowing pokemon to evolve in a manner that's faithful to the shows. I am also at a disadvantage here because I have not actually played a pokemon game or really watched an episode. Everything that I know is through osmosis, from it being on in the background and from reading about it. This sounds great! I don't have CoC7 either...

I have not, but it seems like a great little world to run around in. Do a once over on the spell list to remove the really powerful ones from easy access to PCs. Make sure any PC using summoning has to do some really unpleasant stuff to get results. Hit the ground full tilt.