TrippyHippy

In physical science, Weight is measured in Newtons and represents the gravitational force between two objects of mass. It relates to Mass, measured in Grams/Kilograms (or whatever), in that the greater the mass of an object the greater the gravitational force towards an other object (eg a planet). Hence, a greater Mass usually indicates a greater Weight, depending upon the gravity involved. A 75kg mass has a weight of 750N (aprox) in Earth's gravitational field. To answer the question, then, Size represents a measurement of Mass combined with Height. It couldn't be a Weight characteristic, insofar that a person's Weight is dependent upon the gravitational pull of another object (or not, in the case of being in outer space). Weight can change depending upon the circumstances (eg 'weightlessness') but Mass is kept constant. My rule of thumb is that Size loosely represents the mass of the individual in Stones, although this is entirely unofficial.

I'm in NZ currently, and quite busy in many ways, so forgive me if I don't hang around too long to follow up with comments, etc. Anyway, having checked some local games shops (in Wellington and Christchurch) I do think that GURPS probably still gets more 'shelf-exposure' overall, compared to other generic systems (although I did pick up a hardcopy BRP, pleasingly enough). GURPS still has the marketing advantage of being seen as 'the original' generic rules-set (regardless of the actual history), and it does have a strong amount of visible supplemental support. I'd say that the same was true of game shops in the UK, when I was there - but let's not forget that they have 20+ years head start on the matter! The major factor that influences the other titles, in terms of marketing, is tone (I think). That is, HERO is still pretty much seen by casual fans as being about super-powers primarily, and Savage Worlds is seen as a fast, action-orientated system. BRP has the advantage over these, like GURPS, as being more neutral in tone, although some still consider it 'old', 'dated' or 'gritty'. The onus, then, is on supplement writers to demonstrate that it can be universal and truly generic in it's tone, by being able to apply it to multiple genres in the same style as the specialist games would be done. The best example of this so far is the Troll-Slayers adventure - which really does feel like an old school D&D adventure (and is presented like one). (I also note that John Wicks recent Call of Cthulhu adventure, actually had a similar tonal structure to what was being attempted with 'Straight' Paranoia, incidently). If writers can produce adventures, or supplements that feel like other 'staple' rpgs (eg like a Star Wars style application, or a WoD one, or Heavy Gear, say), complete with pre-gens that have the same 'look' as characters from those other games - well, I think it would help really sell the game to new people. Oh, and a Traveller-style life-path generation system would make an interesting supplement too. The other thing of note is that new free fast-play version of the BRP rules is excellent, particularly with all those adventures in, and should be mass-distributed even more than the full rules quite possibly. Regardless of the reasoning, new players always look at 400pp books as being 'complex', especially with a lot of optional rules to choose from. Having a fast-play booklet may end up hooking more people into the rules, whilst major licences could include the fast play rules in the back, maybe.

The Post-Modern Magick from Unknown Armies is pretty much compatible with BRP. It's based on percentile skills at least, although 'Power' is generated a bit differently (based on actions generating 'charges', rather than a stored points score based on a characteristic).

Well, it's a pretty young director for a movie like that - so I hope it will work out. The success of the Lord of the Rings movies was down to the quality (and passion) of the director, as well as the quality fo the screenplay, which he was also heavily involved in. There is a lot that needs to go right, before a movie of that maginitude actually works as an adaptation.

It was later than that. It was mooted to get published by Last Unicorn in 1999, but didn't come out till 2000, when Wizards published around the same time as D&D 3.0 Edition was coming out. It was a full colour, gorgeous looking book - with very high quality paper, and good writing. It did, however have a slightly quirky inverted dice-pool system ("granular") which was a bit fiddly in applications to combat, particularly. It also made heavy reference to follow on supplements (especially details on Arrakis) that never happenned. At the time, there were plans to release a new D20 edition, which would have worked well truth be told, but the licence was snapped away from them, by a grumpy Herbert estate that simply wanted more money, I think. It was a shame, because Dune is the best sci-fi novel of the 20th century, and possibly the most prescient too if you consider the spice as a metaphor for oil in the Middle East. It's as highly gameable a world(s) setting as Middle Earth.

I'd also point out that Warhammer Fantasy Battle actually came out in the early 1980s (1983), and was sitting very comfortably alongside GWs stable of rpgs and boardgames for several years, without overhadowing them particularly. There was a good mix of all sorts of different game types supported by GW during this time. The wargame that actually made an impact, and changed their entire business approach, was Warhammer 40K, which came out in 1987 and pretty much dominated White Dwarf magazine (and the GW stores) from that point onwards.

The other thing of note at Glorantha, is that the setting is older than the rpg hobby itself, and was originally being developed in the 1960s by Greg Stafford. Mr. Stafford himself had an academic grounding in Anthropology, which shows in the intricacy of the social design of the setting, whilst it was also claimed to be a reflection of his own shamanic visions. Whatever that means. Then again, to be honest, I've never found other people's fantasy worlds particularly interesting - I've always prefered to develop my own, or play in more historically based, low fantasies.

Appearance is a constant, whereas 'Charisma' isn't. In the real world, appearance makes a huge difference to one's ability to progress: socially, professionally, romatically and otherwise. A pretty person has a lot more power of influence than a plainer person, and appearance is a measureable feature that people can instantly assess about themselves and others. Our society doesn't like to admit these things but they are real enough, with a large body of psychological studies to back this up. When people talk in terms of 'charisma' or 'likeability', however, things are much more hazy. I mean, I like the Sex Pistols, but I wouldn't say that they were 'charismatic' by definition, or that everybody else would like them. The 'eye of the beholder', and all that. Moreover, the things I like about people are not so much top do with an indefinable 'force of personality', it's much more to do with how I relate to what they have got to say. In this light, what I am actually liking about an individual relates to their Intelligence and their skill with self expression. Other people might be more impressed with other aspects - like their appearance, or education, their strength and athleticism, or maybe something more indefinable ("POW"). The ability to appeal to others is not an innate thing - it relates to who you are talking to, and your ability to express yourself. It should also be mentioned that there are also various courses you can attend to improve your skills of self-assertion, self expression or leadership, in the real world too. The point is, that we do have all these things in the BRP system already. The problem, I think is that some of the traits, like Intelligence and Power, are actually very broad in scope. Modern educational psychology actually supposes many different types of measureable 'Intelligence' (verbal, mathematical, musical, etc) - but BRP only has one. 'POW' is also deliberately vague in representing all the non-cognitive-based aspects of personality - things such as 'Will', 'Luck' and 'Magic'. One could see POW as the EGO, in Freudian terms too. Now, Pendragon is an interesting case, as it chooses to remove all these aspects and replace them, effectively, with a 16PF measure. In the context of that genre, it makes perfect sense. You won't find too many Arthurian tales with aspects such as IQ, Education or the EGO being referenced or revered. However, in a Cthulhu game, these aspects are quite relevant to the genre and provide a limited personality profile of a sort. In may ways, it really does depend upon the genre you are playing - but of course it's tricky to build a universal game system on the principle of having lots of variable stats that you switch around, determined by genre. It can reach a point where the 'system' is no longer that. I'm not quite sure what you are arguing here. 'Knowledge' is 'knowledge', and that is what is represented by the Education stat currently. Perhaps. I guess my point is why do we need more stats to represent different apsects of the same stat, when one seems to function OK as it is? I see this as an advantage to a degree, although 3 letter acronyms aren't really that hard to grasp either. You welcome to my views though! Glad to be able to express them.

To be honest, the one game I couldn't ever quite love, was Unknown Armies. I thought it was wittily written, had a nice set of rules, and lots of interesting ideas, but.... It was always so heavily US-centric in all it's references whilst, honestly, I'd been playing with a lot of these ideas and storylines in previous games already (CoC, OWoD, OtE, even WFRP) for years. Unknown Armies kinda felt like yesterday's news when it came out. For me, it wasn't really doing anything new.

'Looks' and 'Appearance' are the same thing, except that one is in more layman's terms. I always felt that there was no need for a Charisma score on the grounds that 1) we have APP already, 2) 'Personality' is represented by other traits like INT, EDU and POW (even the physical traits to a degree, as they describe how the character is to the rest of the world too). Intelligence, in particular, should describe ones ability to interact and communicate with others in a lucid manner. Power indicates force of personality, to a degree also. 3) We have skills for things like Persuade and Fast Talk. A few other observations: - Knowledge isn't the capacity for learning - it's what you know already. Currently it's represented by EDU. - Stamina and Endurance are pretty much the same thing in terms of their effect on gameplay. - A lot of your Characteristic range are merely the same as BRP, but with different names. Why are these names better? - Morality is an interesting stat - although, it's something that's not easily definable, universal or easily measured as such.

It's where you send them in some skin from your own back, and they use that to make the cover.

What makes you think that everybody played Room/Monster/Treasure back then (whenever 'then' was!)?

There could equally be the real possibility that it will unite them, depending upon how you view your glass. To me, the Basic System is useful because it irons some of the quirks out of the Call of Cthulhu rules, that I've always felt were there, whilst also opening up Basic experience to other worlds that aren't intrinsically nihilistic in tone. I mean, I think Lovecraft is great n'all, and the premise is timeless, but it's nice to encounter different times and places with a different underlying perspective, every now and then! To me the key to whether Basic will be successful or not will not be how tightly compatible the rules are to (mostly long out-of-print) games from the past, but rather the quality and quantity of the worlds that will be provided to support it now, and in the future.

RPG books definitely getting fatter these days.

When and where are they? Links?

Actually, if you were to throw the roleplaying community and games open for analysis for this last decade, I would say that the 'pulp' style has had a bigger influence on game aesthetics than anime has. There are dozens of 1920s pulp games around now, while even mainstream games like D&D (Ebberon) and WoD (Mage: the Awakening) have shown a large dollup of 'pulpy' flavour. Of course, BRP has always had a substantial pulp involvement the form of Call of Cthulhu, although the characters weren't quite as powerful as they are in some of the more modern games. It has been said that the late 1980s and 1990s were dominated by a continual 'punk' motif. This last decade, however, has definitely been a 'pulp' one in rpgs, rather than anime. The other counter point, which is well represented in some of these posts actually, is Forge-esque analysis. A decade ago, most gamers didn't continually make reference to GNS theory when criticising or commenting upon games. Personally, I think the whole Gamer-Narrativist-Simulationist debate is every bit as stereotyped as expecting every character to conform to Defender-Leader-Controller-Striker roles, but hey, I guess some people must feel it's very important to do so.

Actually, yes....that should be Once Upon a Time in the West. I shall now edit my post, and no, I don't agree that Once Upon a Time in America is anything like as good. It has a good soundtrack, but the story is way too long, with a confused narrative, and I have an problem with the rape scene in it. Once Upon a Time in the West, on the other hand is visual (and sonic) poetry.

Huzzah! :party:

Well, if we are talking individual preference here - could we do all measurements in METRIC! :thumb:

Exactly - it's actually pretty difficult to calculate movement in a rpg system. There are several factors - physical strength and balance, muscle type and gait, physical fitness and what type of movement you are actually trying to do (sprinting or long distance?).

Going against the popular grain of thought, I actually think that the rule-set used in SotC are actually not the best types of rules to be used for a pulp action game - they are based too much upon heavy characterisation, and the skill system is too detailed. It would actually be better for playing in dramatic, soap opera-style, intrigue games - like Nobilis, which uses the same type of 'aspect' system by another name. But hey, there always has to be one...

My roleplaying game experiences would probably start with D&D Basic (Red Box set), followed on by Stormbringer actually. Then I had my Warhammer years (mixing roleplaying sessions with wargaming stuff), followed by my White Wolf years (Mage mainly, including some live-action stuff for Vampire), to where I am at now, with what I can say are my Call of Cthulhu years (generally). These different 'years' were interpersed with all types of other games, but the long term campaigns and groups I played with all tended to centre around these titles. The games I would have most admiration for now, currently, are Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon, Paranoia and, to a certain extent Nobilis and Wraith - although I also retain a gaming interest in Traveller, RuneQuest, and the Warhammer titles also. And now Basic Roleplay, of course! My TV influences over the years would include anarchic comedies like Tiswas (Saturday morning kids TV show), Blackadder, Brasseye and Spaced, that Aussie show, in the lighthouse - Round the Twist, along with dramas like I, Claudius and The Singing Detective. Recently, I thought Firefly/Serenity was pretty good, although I don't really watch much TV these days. Likewise, I tend to like black comedies and surreal stuff in my movie tastes too - Lynch, Cronenburg, Kubrick, The Coen Brothers, Tarantino's 90s stuff, etc. I thought the Lords of the Rings movies were great, and the Bourne trilogy was pretty good too. I do like horror movies of all types (but not really the dumb, modern 'remake' slasher stuff), and a lot of sci-fi, particularly stuff like Bladerunner, Donnie Darko etc. I also quite like some 'classics' like Citizen Kane, Casablanca and The Third Man, and happen to think that Once Upon a Time in West is the greatest western ever. My favourite books would include: Dune, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Trainspotting, Fight Club, Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Illuminatus Trilogy, Le Mort D'Arthur and Plato's The Republic, as well as stuff by Terry Pratchett, Lovecraft and Phillip K. Dick. I also like science and philosophy generally, follow politics and some sports. And sex. Huzzah! :thumb:

Oh yes, a Wraith-like game dealing with a Jungian-inspired ghost-lands and shadowplay. White Wolf aren't doing this anymore, but I always liked the idea of being able to make the two games compatable in system.

Personally, I've only ever had a few minor issues with the BRP represented in Call of Cthulhu (not enough for me to stop considering it as my favourite game, though!). However: - I didn't see the need for Characteristic SAN (you already have POW). - I felt that the Characteristic values needed to be integrated with skills better, and to have more definable worth. - I felt that the skills listed needed formatting better. Looking through the photos, it very much looks like all these issues have been emphatically resolved. And there's even what looks like some sort of personality profiling too, which is a pleasant bonus! Definitely, a case of getting back to Basic!

Blackadder.