Pete Nash

That sounds remarkably like my history based Stargate campaign, which started in the early 1800's in India with the 13th Light Dragoons, and has (and will) skip forwards in time from historical event to event. However, in my campaign the eagle headed men are actually the eagle headed gods (aliens) which were first recorded in Hittite bas reliefs...

Wait a minute, I could have sworn you mentioned something in your Tentacles reports... Vindicated!

:shocked: Damn, we'd better shut up before they deduce anything out of our responses... Whoever thought roleplayers, drunk Norwegian roleplayers at that, actually had minds!?!

We'll you've got less than a month before the serious snow sets in, and you end up re-enacting the closing scene from The Shining.... Except I'll be a guy with all the big swords and cross country skiis, and you'll be wading through the snowy forests on foot! >:-> Then again, if you know how to drive a tank you could always hijack one from the nearby military base and hunt me down in that. I may just fail my opposed Persistence roll if faced with a Leopard 2 MBT. Other than that, I'd recommend patience myself. Unfortunately I have an ancient ancestral baboon spirit bound to my keyboard ready to inflict painful lessons if I open my mouth before December...

Its sad I know, but that caused my first honest laugh for a week...

I love the Judge Dee novels. They are fascinating insights into Chinese society, and fun mysteries in addition. Highly recommended! Oh, and they touch upon the supernatural too... :thumb:

Thank you! Its always nice to hear appreciation. As everyone else has asserted, the differences between the metals are very small with regards to APs. The Roman army continued to use bronze and brass helmets alongside iron equivalents into the 2nd century AD, so they were probably just as effective protection.

You know I'm in favour of it. I can't wait!

Hopefully the spirit of the scenarios matches the title. They are all based on events which happened during Julius Caesar's career. The last adventure definitely concludes with a little bit of conquering... :thumb:

"Veni, vidi, vici"

By the gods, I sound like a boring old git! My apologies to anyone subjected to those 30 seconds of soporific espousing. At least I only said 'ummm' once. Perhaps I should give up role-playing an become a university lecturer instead...

Opps, I didn't know that. Sorry! Well if BRP gains some converts because of it, its no bad thing.

DriveThru would be nicer for the ranking - we're currently number 8! Thank you! :happy:

No need for embarrassment! I thought exactly like you when looking at maps from previous Rome supplements. It wasn't until I tried to find a 'proper' map that I suddenly realised I was searching for information which simply doesn't exist! :eek:

Creating a bookmarked pdf is beyond my software and ability so that's one I'll leave for Paolo. However I will defend the Rome map by saying that it is a combination of all the best available maps of that period (which to be blunt are all piss poor!) Quite simply I had to get Colin to create it from scratch, and then ride him hard ensuring that all the known buildings, monuments, streets etc were in the right place. It may seem shocking, but there's a vast number of Republican buildings mentioned in extant documents, but nobody knows where they actually were! An even greater problem is that the city flooded and burned on such a regular basis that the large sections of the city layout changed on a yearly basis. Then the wealth of the Imperial period caused massive redevelopments from Caesar to Caesar, so that stuff was torn down and built over. Whole streets vanished completely! All the really pretty maps you can find on the internet are of mid or late Imperial Rome. There's nothing decent out there for Republican times, and if you ever find one let me know because I want a copy of it! The Classicist who vetted the map's historical accuracy, said it was the best he'd seen of the period, and even asked express permission to be able to use it in his classes. So don't disparage the poor city maps, they really are the best available!

Seriously guys, if somebody could write a glowing review (if you think it deserves it), it would really help. Despite the top ten placement on DriveThru we have yet to reach our break even mark... and after two years of research I put into writing it, it'd be nice if I could earn at least enough to celebrate with a round of drinks. Remember its not just Rome you will be helping out here, but also promoting BRP in the eyes of the roleplaying community. If the first professional looking supplement earns top marks and critical acclaim, then it will aid future BRP books... Your own books! So get your sardonic writing caps on, and if you can spare a few minutes of time, go give out some stars. Many thanks for all your support.

Thanks Sverre for the irrepressible buzz, although after your portrayal of a Roman psychopath at Tentacles, I'm beginning to wonder if you suffer from monomania! BTW, could you change the home page now to reflect Rome's available status? Oh and when someone on this forum actually sits down and reads it, I'd be very interested in a critical review. After all, I might be convinced to write further stuff...

I'm not quite sure why the this thread has focused on player characters, advantages or not. To me it seems quite obvious that characteristics were deliberately changed so that they could consistently represent anything in a game world - not just human PCs. Bumping up a human's SIZ simply allows me to have a valid and relevant characteristic range available for creatures/items smaller than an adult human. The same with INT. Where's the problem with that? :confused:

Unfortunately its not just those two classic examples. There are countless others; 'I attempt to pickpocket him' Pickpocket vs. Spot or Conceal, 'I try to use the fake documents' Appraise vs. Forgery, 'I want him to sell me the horse' Persuade vs. Persuade... In fact any time a character attempts to force, convince, cheat, trick, etc another character or object which is actively resisting. Hence my use of the terms long-windedness, ambiguity and subjectivity. Sorry for any offence caused! These kind of challenges occur frequently in my games, and trying to resolve them using independent rolls (with their associated draws) would drive me crazy; since each one would require a new interpretation/description depending on circumstance and over time I'd be prone to inconsistent resolution. For example, does Billy by default get conned into buying the snakeoil when both he and the salesman succeed in their Persuade rolls? After all hucksters are good at selling their wares. But later on does Billy by default resist conversion to the cult of 'Set' when again, both he and the priest make their rolls, or should he fall under the priest's sermon because of the seductive, semi naked dancing girls carrying the priest around? Then after being arrested Billy appears at court. The prosecutor successfully presents the heinous crimes committed and rightly requests the death sentence, whereas Billy also successfully argues the toss over being under the spell of some narcotic snakeoil he'd unwittingly consumed. Who wins the guilty/not guilty verdict there? Except by re-rolling multiple times until one or other gets a higher level of success (which to me is the waste of time and can cause a player to run out of new arguments to support his next skill attempt - I like such things to be role-played), it is difficult to ascertain a draw in these kind of situations. They are thorny to resolve, and can alienate players who may not agree with what appears to be an arbitrary decision, when the challenge "I try to..." by its very nature demands an eventual worked/failed result. Thus I prefer the simpler (and possibly quicker) opposed roll resolution. The players are more willing to abide by the result of the roll if the outcome is clear cut, and it can lead to some quite fascinating twists in plot line! :thumb: But ultimately yes, its all a question of GM style and what you're comfortable with.

Yes, it is simplistic. But that's the way I view things in life. When I'm sword fighting my internal combat mind thinks "Did I hurt him or not?", it doesn't consider striking his parrying weapon as a success. In your example, I'd take that as a success-and-a-win for me, I damaged Billy and he surrendered! If Billy considered his parry as "Did I stop the blow" then he failed in my eyes, but if he was thinking "Did I save my life", then perhaps his Parry roll was a success - but that's linguistic semantics. From a purely logical interpretation (and we are talking about game mechanics here), the success of the first independent roll, will always be over-ruled (or perhaps invalidated is a better description) by the success of the countering independent roll. The trouble with this is how do you define the draw? Is the draw that the attacker always fails to inflict damage? That's an unfair bias favouring the defender. Or is it that the defender blocks most of the damage, but a little bit gets through? If so, how much should get through and it still be a 'draw'? Even if I successfully parry a giant's blow, my arm may still get ripped off! How do comparative weapons, opponent size, terrain, magic, and all the other 101+ factors get handled by the draw condition? And that's just talking about combat! Look at the problems people have had over stealth contests. Should there also be a 'draw' result for poisons or magic? Personally I find it all gets rather complex and long winded if such challenges are handled as independent rolls. Opposed roll solutions may not get 'draw' results, but they give clear, unambiguous results - which save GMs many headaches over interpretation, description, and ultimately shorten the duration of dice rolling. All of which suit my style of GMing. But that's just my preference.

Because in your particular example the defender has obviously 'won'... Did the attacker hit the target Y/N? Did the defender block Y/N? In an opposed skill challenge it becomes a question of Irresistible Force vs. Immovable Object, both can't succeed. So to get a draw, you have to apply a bias to either the protagonist or the opponent. Its the universal problem with contests like hit/parry, sneak/spot, etc. BRP overcomes the problem with many 'opposed challenges' by shunting resolution off to the Resistance Table - where you only get a single winner. There's no draw possible for Poison vs. CON, or magic vs. POW for example. Of course, if both participants are using their skills in a parallel contest, rather than an opposed one - such as two characters outperforming each other in a singing contest to an audience - then logic permits draws to be possible.

Rome is at the printers. I hope it looks even better on paper...

You can always say that sustainable spells can only be maintained by the sorcerer's own MPs. Then you could be really evil and say sorcery spells powered by external storage only last a single round - which would make their tactical use rather interesting, but still capable of being useful.

Sound's like fun. I wish I'd thought of that. Better than my crass desire for a Toga Party to celebrate Rome's launch. Hmmm, maybe a LARP gladiatorial contest wearing togas... Seriously though, I will be running a couple of games. One of which will include a chariot race and maybe a beast hunt with a man eating lion... >:-> http://www.tentacles-convention.de/roleplaying_games.html (at the end of the page)

Spell/10 is a nice number, but you should think carefully about which divisor would match the power level in your campaign. It should also be noted that some sorcery spells have mismatched effects depending on their intensity. I.e. a fly spell would be buggered by skill/10, whereas a damage boosting is very nasty. So some spell modifications may be necessary.