dracopticon

Why isn't there a BRP-based Warhammer 40K-game out there? Ok, sure there is obviously the copyright and perhaps other legal stuff to consider, but I would love to see atleast a monograph on the 40K-setting.

The system that exists for it now, FFG's overwrought pastiche on the original WFRP-system is just too much.

I'd rather see a BRP base for it. Would it be feasible? Thoughts?

On 2016-02-02 at 3:32 PM, threedeesix said:

Ive gotta say I have never been a proponent of conversion formulas. Yes, I use them for some parts of the write-up, but typically I start with a similar creature in whatever system I'm converting to as a base and modify from there. That way, your conversions will remain consistent with already established creatures.
 [...]

Some really good thoughts there. Thank you Rod!

10 hours ago, auyl said:

Have you checked out the Ravenloft conversions in the downloads? Might not be exactly what you're looking for but could give you a base to start your own comversions from.

Aha! That was a good tip. Have to check that out. Thanks. Erik.

23 hours ago, nclarke said:

I'm not sure about Bone Hill but I think someone has done the Reptile God for BRP as I'm positive I have a copy. Sorry just checked and a have  Basic Fantasy version of B1 (in Search of the Unknown) and my own partial notes for I-1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City which consist of comments on what to replace in each encounter using RQ6 creatures.

That sounds marvelous nclarke! I'd be very glad to receive any copy of your work as it would speed up my own. Thanks for the reply.

16 hours ago, Baulderstone said:

I don't know if you could ever really systemize conversion between AD&D and RQ. There are just enormous differences in how they represent reality. Say wanted to convert a 15th-level Fighter. He is going to have an obscene amount of HPs. It's because HPs are an abstraction in D&D. They represent physical capacity to take a hit like RQ, but they also reflect a characters luck (The equivalent of spending Hero Point to soak a wound in RQ6) as well as ability to use a parry to minimize damage. And HPs are going to represent a differing degree of each from character to character, so you can't make any kind of conversion chart.

I'm not really aiming at converting between AD&D and RQ, the goal is generic BRP as in the old basic pamphlet rules. And I have anticipated for quite a while that it's more or less impossible to just convert the stats/values etc from AD&D to BRP, but I had to ask if someone had done it. I'll have to convert the adventures myself, which is fine. Thanks for the reply anyway!

Thank you threedeesix for that reply. And thanks for the tips, also I meant first ed CF (Classic fantasy) not "CC". Have anyone heard of a more thorough and somewhat systemized conversion-mechanic for transferring AD&D scenarios to BRP? For myself I aim at converting L1 The Sexret of Bone Hill, and N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God, maybe even a 1st level Planescape adventure. I know about and have d/l the AD&D monster books for BRP, but I'm searching for a more complete transfer mechanic.

I understand this probably is out of topic here OR there's an reply to this somewhere I haven't seen. But the whole AD&D-based Classic Fantasy is by this unsupported then?
Why I'm asking is because I intend to transfer a couple of basic 1-3-level AD&D scenarios to BRP and the precursor to this, the first ed CC. 

Me too!

I actually welcome this. The so called "Gold Book" was - in my taste - way too big and something I get lost in quite easily. To have a basic booklet with the most fundamental rules and yet a new and modern looking one is interesting, as one (both as player and GM) can build on them much more easily with house rules and/or own settings rules.

Hello all!

I am pondering about the possibility of letting a few player friends of mine transform their "real life stats" into BRP values. Has this been done before? Any tips are welcome.

I have a great group of playtesters that do nothing but take everything I write and stretch it, pull it, and twist it an an attempt to see if it gives. Unfortunately, many times it does and has to be rewritten. This can and does include complete chapters, which is time consuming.

 

So while I understand your impatience, the book will be better in the long run for the time it has taken to produce it.

 

Rod

I am just immensely glad that this project is still underway. Sheesh, I don't get a lot of people's opinion these days. Why demand a rushed production at all if it in the end can really gladden your gaming group? Ok, I understand it's been uttered some early dates concerning pubilishing dates on this. But I see this project as a huge undertaking considering it is trying to convert RPG table top history's biggest and earliest game system to BRP. Not a small thing.  

And, as a side note, when this is done, I'd like to see one of the greater dungeons of AD&D converted to BRP. Can't wait to try it out.

I can't speak for Loz and Pete, but I'm sure if RQ:CF does well enough to warrant it, there will be no shortage of dungeon crawls for it, and therefor for RQ6 by extension.

I know I'll be playing it.

Rod

The old but excellent adventure supplement "Shadows on the Borderland" contains quite a lot of opportunity for dungeon crawling. But it is set in Glorantha, and I think RQ 6th ed. is settingless, or am I wrong?

Awesome. Sounds like a good time. I'm always happy to hear stories of how CF has worked out in other peoples campaigns.

Oh, and I just accepted your request to join the BRP: CF Yahoo Group before coming here. Welcome aboard.

Join my RuneQuest: Classic Fantasy group as well if you want more up to the minute discussions on Classic Fantasy's next iteration.

Rod

Wonderful! I want to get the latest reports on any updates or devs on your games and supplements, so that's perfect. Sounds great about that RQ Group. I own and have played RQ through the years. Very interesting to hear, I'm sure, how you guys play that game. Sure will have a look see. /Erik.

I'm in a small group that plays a real "visit to the nostalgia quarters" as we're doing some random dungeoning from AD&D first ed. I'd looove to see us turn over to Classic Fantasy and BRP. It's a wonderful work you have done Rod. Unfortunately, the others in the group doesn't understand the real strengths of easy play and versatility that BRP has. The want to go old school all the way. Fine with me in the short run, but I will try to change their minds in the future.

Then I have to report about my first try out with BRP CF. I rewrote a D&D short adventure into a longer scenario and set it in a distant north (in my own fantasy setting), a cold continent with old ruins left from an older empire. There, the original adventure was just about a chance encounter around an old cloister with an underground monster pit. But, I drew the basic "pcs meet monster, go bashing" into a much larger assignment of saving the characters home village from famine and bad harvests. So the pcs started hungry, which grew during the adventure, almost overwhelming them, before they turned the tables and managed to find an old corpse in the cloister dungeons with a scroll on it. The scroll was for the Cleric spell of "Create Food & Water". But as it was a scroll, they could only use it once. They realised it qould be of such importance if they could get it to be learnt by a priest instead, to be able to repeat it. So the rest of the adventure was a search for finding a good priest to learn it for the village, and simultaneously battling bandits, monsters and rising hunger with its adverse effects. We had much fun.

Thanks MatteoN, Alex and Questbird.

Yep, Matteo, the crit is its own reward. But do you mean it should be enough with the benefits it already endowes or what?

Alex: Legend, I haven't played that one. Is it the anime based RPG? Legend of the Five Rings? I played Bushido back in the days, and I think I like to keep my view of medieval Nippon from that game. But thanks for the game mech tips. It's always interesting to hear about. The whole process of learning should of course be augmented by high INT (LEA in my system) but I think I'd like to "un-jinx" the game from a lot of people having problems with that. More often than not, there's repeatedly some special guy or guys who gets the most skill rate increases and the pressure of seing this happen time after time should be alleviated IMO.

Questbird: that sounds like an interesting view on the fumble roll. And I've played Stormbringer/Elric since the mid eighties and thinks it has a Little bit too fast skill rate advancement. Then again it makes good playing for shorter adventures. And I love the setting.

You could leave it up to the players to decide. At experience time tell them to pick a skill they haven't used recently and reduce it by 1.

For myself, I've been using success and failure to trigger checks because I think we learn by both. I tied it to a very rudimentary experience system, which kind of simulates what the PCs are paying attention to. So in a given session a PC may have used seven or eight skills. These skills could have been successes, failures, criticals, whatever. They get marked on the sheet. At the end of the session, the players get 3 checks. They can assign these checks to any of the skills they attempted to use and have subsequently marked. Or they can bank the checks and use them to increase a Stat.

Granted, I like games where the PCs have very high skills and are really dicing for criticals. Therefore I don't make them roll to see if a skill increases. If they commit a check to it then it's going to increase. I do let them divide whether they want to roll to see how much it increases or take the average of the die type (sometimes I use a d6 for experience, sometimes a d8).

Banking the points creates a pool of experience that they can use to increase stats. If the PC has a Strength of 12 they need to bank 13 points to raise the Strength to 13. If they wanted to raise it again they would have to save up another 14 checks.

How it works in play:

I think it relieves a bit of stress from the player. They know that their character is going to develop mechanically speaking as a result of play. There's a sense of fairness about it since they know that the dice won't cheat them from gaining skills. It also cuts down on players who look for opportunities to use skills just to gather a bunch of skill checks. I've been doing it for years now and overall I'm exceedingly happy with it.

Wow, I am so impressed with your ideas. A great read here, I must say. Thanks Chaot.

We have had, for years, a little added extra function on the increase roll concerning crits. If you roll a crit you simply get two consecutive tries to roll for raising the skill rate. That is tries, not automatic increases. So if the first try succeeds the seconds isn't used, otherwise one gets two tries. I am thinking of changing that to fumbles instead.

And! I want to answer you more extensively tomorrow. Right now it's late here in Sweden. So I'll get back to you tomorrow. /Erik.

What roll is LEA augmenting? is it 100% -20% for the PC with LEA 16?

I think in general the system sounds like it will give you what you want, slow skill progression. I also like that you've made space for a skill category which the PC excels in.

I'm going to suggest that you actually don't need LEA. Without it, the nerd will still have higher scholarly skills, the jock will be physically skilled and the face will be charming. Instead, it could be a failure to be able to make a check at the end of the session, and then the player has to roll higher than the PC's skill. The 100% limit is now hard coded in and it's much less likely that a PC is going to be hanging out at the celling but rather remain at a healthy skill with some chance of failure.

I've actually been awarding skill checks on failures for years and I think it works great, but my aim is high skills and my systems a bit different. I'll expand on it when I have a moment.

LEA is meant to work like the INT stat, but without reflecting on the thinking power, instead be a degree of experience. How scholarly and generally educated a person is, by both books or transferred knowledge and life itself. The Idea and Knowledge rolls of BRP is very helpful sometimes, this is where LEA comes in.

And yes I'd want the progress of skill rates to be really slow, so much so that I'm thinking of expanding on the idea of how to lose knowledge over a length of time, when not using the skill(s). I know there's already some mechanics done on this, but I don't really know how it works.

Really nice to hear that you've been using the failure as a means of progress. I'd like to hear in more detail how it works in your games, if and when you have the time.

I must have completely missed the [ONE skill PER session] caveat that this rule would apply to. Here I was thinking (and it was late at night) this would apply to everything as normal. I actually really like this concept. Learn from your mistakes but with a penalty to learning so it makes it a hard lesson learned.

Like I said before, seems legit.

Sorry for the late reply Nakana! Many thanks for your views on this. And yes, I do thinks it's useable, we'll see if I get the chance to play it out during BRP gaming. Would be nice to see if it works. Thanks again!

Nakana wrote:

"I would think being able to do experience checks on failed rolls in game coupled with the rules for LEA would ultimately balance out.

(Even if you fail your roll in-game you can do an experience check, but at a penalty based on your LEA.) Seems legit.

Actually.. now that I've typed that and looked at it.. don't they kind of cancel each other out?

You can learn from your mistakes... but you have a hard time learning?

edit: I guess I'm trying to figure the benefit when the rate of increase may be the same. (Aside from just the mindset of it all.)"

Yep, you have valid points there Nakana!

This topic touches that old discussion "should we have links of shorter adventures where the players have a chance to see if the characters survive and also if the game itself is fun to play OR should we start up a whole lengthy campaign and try to plan our characters for the long road ahead (in spite of the most common result that most newbie characters dies early)?".

Nowadays I mostly choose the earlier stance as a GM. I like strings of shorter adventures instead of campaigns. But that feeling really differs from group to group. The restlessness with most roleplayers todays makes for more of these indie games with emphasis on real roleplaying instead of number crunching system mechanic rules lawyers campaining, which in my experience is a good development. Then again, me and my buddies often return to old school systems (even AD&D), but I'd really like to continue with BRP even in dungeon crawling.

And, for the record, we're now playing a classic random dungeon game in AD&D but with much more weight on real roleplaying and by that building the story of why the characters are there, continuously.

Mankcam wrote:

"[...] although I'm unsure if I would want characters to advance too quickly this way. Perhaps player characters could do this with skills 50% or less, as novices definitely learn by mistakes as well as success. Perhaps you could have a limit, maybe 1d4 failed skills per session could also have skill checks at half value, say 1d3% increase or something like that perhaps?"

Yeah perhaps you're right there Mankcam. One of the main ideas with being able to learn from mistakes is that it can shorten the process of increase. You know, the basic system is: first roll for success, then (if successful) jot the box and afterwards roll over for increase. That's the two parts of the increase mechanism. With this you roll and get a bigger chance of "rolling over" from the beginning. Your inexperienced character has such a much greater chance of increasing than with the old system. But just as you say, it has a risk of letting the pc's advancing too quickly. Though I said it would only be allowed once per session and skill. The spread of skills making progress is of course greater, but I think that is as it should be, but also with the lower actual increase. Instead of D6 or even higher it should most of the time be just one or two points I think. And also keeping the skill cap lower in areas your character isn't well versed in from things like background and culture, or the profession of your parents.

But I think the "talent area" should perhaps be dropped, as it's more in line with reality that people can be promising in totally different areas. The talents should be sprinkled more across all areas. Makes for more interesting characters.

"I really like the idea of replacing INT with LEA, that is an excellent improvement

Some interesting ideas here..."

Thank you!

Hello all!

My name is Erik Brickman, I'm from Sweden and haven't posted here for ages. Have been collecting BRP based games and paraphernalia for 30 years now, and am still hooked as I think BRP is the greatest RPG-system ever invented.

Anyhow, I've been pondering over this idea for quite a while, and perhaps it's not so original but I haven't seen it discussed anywhere else, so here goes. It's about the system for skill increase. The usual way, atleast in Call of Cthulhu and lots of other BRP games, is roll under or equal to succeed in a skill and then jot down a note in the box for advancement, and after the session roll over your skill points to get the right to increase it. So far nothing unusual, eh?

But I've been wanting to change that for like 15 years or something. I want the system to notice failure instead of success. As Oscar Wilde put it: "Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes." So the idea is to get a chance to increase the skill from the fact that you miss your skill rolls in the game. But only once per session/per skill as usual (debateable). Then I have never really liked the INT stat. As the real intelligence lies with the player not the character.

I have only thought of using this in a fantasy setting.

And I want to replace INT with LEA (Learning) and it's the rate with which the character learns new things within his or her profession (again debateable). The maximum points you can have is LEA 20. And max in skill points is 100%. Then, for each point below 20 that the character has in LEA, the chance to increase the skill is -5%. So, with a LEA 16, a -20% penalty would imply for rolling for increase. Why you perhaps ask? Well, I am of the conviction that not all skills should be able to get to 100% value (or 99% if you have that as max).

Then another thing: the skill rate should only be able to rise by either 1 or two points. If the character has a LEA of 1-14 it rises with only one point, and if the character has LEA 15-20 it increases with 2 points. But the character should have some sort of "talent-area" that is especially affected by the LEA attribute. Let's say that a travelling merchant has a talent in haggling (Bargain). Here skill areas should be used, and Bargain would be within the Communication skill area. The player of the Merchant have chosen the Communication skill area to be the "talent area" for this Merchant. So for the skills within the Communication skill area are all raised with 1D3+1. LEA should also be able to be raised in the long run, "trained" so to speak.

These are all just loose ideas floating around, still not the firm and tested system I want. But perhaps I am about to get the chance soon. But what do you guys think? Is these all bad ideas or could some of them work?

Saving throw vs Death: Could be POW vs POW, POW vs CON, or POT (Potency) vs CON depending on the situation

Saving throw vs Spell: Could be POW vs POW if it targets directly, POW vs (other characteristic), or a Dodge or Agility roll if an area of effect

Saving throw vs Poison: Usually POT (Potency) vs CON

Saving throw vs Rod, Staff, or Wand: See magic above

Saving throw vs Paralyzation: If from poison then POT vs CON, if magic POW vs. POW (or CON)

Saving throw vs Petrification: Dependent on source, probably POW vs POW (or CON)

Saving throw vs Breath Weapon: More than likely a Dodge or Agility roll as detailed in the BRP Spot rules chapter under area effect attacks.

[...]

Many thanks for this qualitative reply! These are great ideas. I think I'll copy this and print it right out to have something to work with. As a basis for streamlining the mechanic. Yes!

I'll get right to it!

Kindest regards,

Erik.

Saving Throws in Chaosium's Classic Fantasy?

Excuse me for the fact that I haven't read through all of this threads contents, but has anyone written about the subject of saving throws in Classic Fantasy BRP?

I plan to run an AD&D/D&D scenario with the Classic Fantasy rules, but I can't seem to find any references on the saving throw mechanic in BRP? Suggestions??!!

Hello all... that are real interested in OOP CoC material.

I know this tip probably would be better put on a mailing list for Call of Cthulhu,

but I want you CoC-buffs on this site to know also!

Do you remember an old out-of-print Call of Cthulhu-supplement called

"Antarctic Expedition Pack for Beyond the Mountains of Madness"...?

Well, I for one bought the Beyond the Mountains of Madness (hardback)

supplement from Chaosium for $75.00 a couple of weeks ago. After that

I remembered seeing the old extra kit way back in '99, and suddenly

wanted to that one as badly as any hardcore collector of CoC!

So I started to search Ebay, Amazon, others for it! But to no avail...

And then after many days of agonizing pain in not being able to locate

this OOP supplement I found a few dusty and forgotten exes of it in

Denmark, on a Fantasy and Comic selling store called: www.fantask.dk !!

Have a look all you that are interested in ordering it. Good luck!

...this sounds interesting. It sounds a little bit like the Swedish roleplaying game of "Mutant - Undergangens Arvtagare", where descendants of people of today have survived many devastaing wars in a farflung future and many mutations have set in on the population. In that setting though, a sort of twisted humor is a really important part. Is there any room for that in your setting?