Link6746

Will the Advanced Sorcery book have more than one flavor name for Deep Magic's spheres? I'm hoping for not just sphere names, but also Ultima-Ish Rune names based on the effect and symbolism of the rune. That said this book is a guaranteed purchase, along with enlightened magic. Combining the two I'll perhaps be able to run a good BRP Modern Arcana Game.

To each their own, but I like this sort of magic system better. When mage's are nothing more than a missle platform they don't have to think; just shoot. With out direct damage spells you have to be creative and figure out how to use the spells you have to your advantage; which is much more rewarding imo.

And I humbly disagree with this point. Three reasons- 1: Weaknesses/immunities to specific damage types, if modelled, create a necessity to think before you blast. 2: I just LOVE to chain weakness to element/elemental damage spells in any game that allows such. 3: Specific elements have specific effects. You wouldn't set a zombie on fire when all it does is cause a mobile fire hazard with teeth? Likewise, freezing some things can have unwanted effects, and lightning bolts to enemies near certain objects would damage them.

One does not use a fire spell near a steampunk era zepplin. It tends to go boom.

I've created my own horror setting for BRP, and I'll say that what scares one person may just turn off another. For me, what works best is a combination of isolation, body horror, insanity (And the epic mindf*** that goes with it), and a lack of hope for a better future.

But being unable to fight back, even if all it does is delay the inevitable at great risk to myself, is something that makes such a setting just boring for me. When fight or flight comes around, I prefer fight, and if flight is the only option, it has to be full of panic, and little actions that can be taken to slow down incoming death are more than welcome as a bonus.

In other words, in terms of actions, don't make the setting railroad the players in terms of options.

Above all, both the story and gameplay have to be engaging. You can't have either element left wanting. Thankfully, due to the BRP system, if you're hosting the rules in a reasonable but unforgiving fashion this works perfectly. How I'd handle it is a generic template for the monsters aside from those intended to be special conflicts, full maps of the area if time allows (Really important for a setting like a spaceship or space station with confined quarters), and if not that, maps of each area you intend combat to be in.

If a monster doesn't feel right, alter the template or create a series of optional alterations to it that can be added at random.

And remember to look at your players once in a while. Their reactions are what matters.

I would like to see hit locations use the standard twelve or so locations on a hit location specific die. Full Body/Each Hand/Each Foot/Each Arm/Each Leg/Head/Chest/Stomach

The table info is immaterial. And I will be buying this again. (Bought the 1E- Hope the GM info is packaged with it)

--Edit: I also hope that this is going to be mostly compatible with BRP, as I don't own any "Legend" material and don't want to use PDFs.

First ever BRP campaign I'd hosted. I had one player at the time, who was looking for more at the time (Now we have two and a potential third).

Post apocolyptic setting (With mutations table, modified to replace Anthro with Psi-Mutant, and two mutations at start- SAN damage for each Psi power learned that counts against max normal SAN like Mythos):

First few sessions went off rather well.

4th Session: I created a challenge that was meant to make the character run from it- A series of outlaw traders raiding an old military depo. The player managed to take out the entire 14 man raiding party by hiding behind cover, shooting, throwing weapons, etc, from a particular rock. He used up all his morphine and bandages, and survived with 4/12 hit points left. Finally, the kids assisting the raiding party were given a flare gun, threatened, and sent off while intimidated, and the remaining two adults followed them. The resulting loot was enough to buy him the Psi Mutagen, and the resulting increase in social status it brought.

Two sessions later, him and the other player (who rolled Psi-mutant on one of her initial mutations) both critically fail psi checks while trying to keep a horde of mutated wild dogs in a junkyard at bay, seemingly one after the other (though one player succeeded their first one). I roll their SAN damage, and one of them gets 6 from the mental stress. Temporary insanity (Paranoia). The rest of the fight was complicated by the fact that the wolves were still active, and one of the players had to constantly roll IDEA to prevent being paralyzed with fear. Again, they barely pull through. the both of them are left having to grab the items and run in their truck, dashing away like madmen to avoid death.

I just bought magic world. The lack of a good direct attack spell is killing me, but aside from that it's great.

I'm hoping this supplement will have a means to do direct attack spells with the deep magic system. Also, anxiously looking forwards to it, and will likely snap it up first thing as soon as it comes out.

1) Feeling of euphoria and invulnerability: The player will likely have multiple actions in mind by this point. The character should take whichever one would accomplish the most if successful, regardless of the chance of failure or risk if it did indeed fail. This would be negated by an IDEA roll on that round, before taking that action. However, SAN rolls would be considered Easy (As suggested by someone above)

2) Reduced pain, sensativity: I'd say that a certain amount of HP loss could be ignored until the drug wears off, which would then take effect immediately with possibly fatal results.

3) Increased Susceptability to mind control/dominance: all checks to avoid mental effects move one catagory towards difficult. That's <--(difficult/normal/easy).

An easy check has 2* the chance to succeed, a difficult one has 1/2 the chance to succeed.

And also: Consider addiction and withdrawal as they apply to this. They make for an interesting journey for characters.

I've never run a sci fi game in BRP, but I think the easiest thing to do would be to give ships their own stats as NPCs or PCs, use an alternative distance (1 KM - 3 KM) for combat power usage per unit (powers being used to simulate special components, but being altered wherever SIZ comes into play), and have the skill checks rely on the pilot, while stats are determined by components. (Sentient/AI'd ships would have their own skills, and use the highest of PC or Ship skill as well as be able to assist)

As for hyperspace, I'd say this would be a skill check with a modifier to the type of difficulty (easy/normal/hard) depending on the ship's computer and hyperdrive. A better setup would make it an easier check, and enable hyperspace to be entered with less limitations as to where, when, and so on.

Furthermore, there should be consequences that could potentially alter the campaign for hyperspace drive failure. In Sci-fi, for instance, hyperspace drives that malfunction have been known to send people to other dimensions, times, unintended places, or leave them in hyperspace indefinitely. Perhaps hyperspace drives that overheat could send someone scattered across the whole universe.

Most of ESP's parts are found in the core rulebook under the Psionics heading, using seperate skills for each power. If you want to make ESPers, just limit them to psionic powers that are thematically appropriate.

Honestly I can't wait for a suppliment that adds a full spellmaking system to BRP. I miss that from Mage, DnD's Chaos Mage class (Encyclopedia Arcane), etc.

Okay, long vacation from these boards, but I'll tell you how I resolve it.

1: Roll both actions normally.

2: If both actions succeed, compare them against each other. whoever has the most room between their skill rating and the die roll wins.

3: Special Successes occur if between 01 and 06 is rolled and the above conditions are met.

This means that under most circumstances exact numbers showing just how much someone succeeded are unnecessary- Instead one can simply say

that there is more room for success in Roll A than Roll B, meaning that Roll A succeeds and bypasses Roll B.

However, after a quick look at the rules, there's actually a method that the combat summary table on page 192 uses that's very simple and effective. Translated to sneaking the results would be:

Stealth

Active : Defending : Result

Success : Success : Defender knows something's up, and investigates

Fail : Fail : Defender knows something's up, and investigates

Success : Fail : Defender knows nothing.

Fail : Success : Defender knows someone is trying to sneak up on him

This seems much simpler than coming up with a solution for opposed rolls in a system that wasn't designed to handle them.

Somehow this reminds me of the "Mark 13" robot in the movie Hardware. The thing could repair itself if it was near any source of power that could be turned to electricity by it's components, which included solar and direct electricity within the examples the movie used. it had a near endless variety of killing tools, including a drug that would cause death within seconds and make the victim enjoy it even if he or she was being turned into giblets at the time. The only real weakness the robot had was water falling on it's circuitry, which was either ironed out or ignored by the gov't when it began mass manufacture at the end of the film.

The whole purpose of the robot was euthanasia for all life- basically it was supposed to kill anything it came across that was living because the world had turned into some post-apocalyptic scum bucket.

As for stats for such a creature, I'd think that I'd give a medium amount of health, good armor, and very good weapon skills in each weapon type it has, lots of sense skills (it has infrared heat vision and others after all), high damage dealing potential, a low dex rank total and move speed, and it's signature abilities to repair itself in sunlight and near electrical outlets and arcs as well as it's poison injectors.

It's alpha version would be weak to water sources (which would damage it and prevent regen), but both alpha and completed versions would be hackable. Of course, things like explosions and being run over by tanks would instantly destroy it, and it would require intervention (coincidental, accidental, or otherwise) to repair itself after such a thing.

If you live somewhere where BRP and other D100 titles aren't commonly seen games, this might be useful to you:

Roll20: Web-based online virtual tabletop for all roleplaying games (RPGs)

Basically its a free (though you have to pay for on-phone access and to avoid seeing ads on some pages like campaign descriptions and the LFG page) service to host and play PnP games on. It's system independent, supports a ton of features that would make BRP possible, has good mapping tools, video and voice support for webcams as an option, google plus integration if you desire it (not mandatory), a huge library of background images, sounds, music, and pogs, etc. Best yet, it doesn't require any downloading if you have any HTML5 compliant browser.

I'm hosting my first BRP campaign on it myself, a post apocalyptic one featuring mutants and psions.

Hope this is useful to some of you.

Can you add me? (Link6746@gmail.com)

I hate having to use two social networks and a twitter account, but this makes it worth it.

Punktown may be worth looking at:

Punktown: An RPG Setting for Call of Cthulhu® and BRP Gaming by Miskatonic River Press — Kickstarter

It's unfortunate, but the addition of mythos elements actually is likely to ruin the cyberpunk feel.

The horror in cyberpunk is supposed to come from cold metal, an uncaring world, and non-supernatural threats that can still wipe your brain clean or blow holes in your guts. It's supposed to come from things that are plausible in a near future environment that isn't much different from the world we know today.

Psionics and other sci-fi power sets are hard to implement properly in a cyberpunk game without ruining the experience. System Shock 2 managed to do it, true, but it's still difficult to do. Imagine fantasy or horror fantasy power sets such as magic or mythos magick taking place in a cyberpunk game- it'd be too much like Shadowrun, and that's too fantasy to be truly cyberpunk.

What about limiting the amount of tech you can surgically implant by CON. Each full point of CON used in this way reduces Max Sanity by 10(?5?).

I'm saying each full point of CON because I see tech space potentially being able to take up a fraction of a CON point. Something like extra memory (USB memory stick in the head kind of thing) could burn 0.1 of a CON point where a whole new arm would be 1/5 of the CON? Or something like that...

I like the idea by the way. Had lots of fun playing Shadowrun in the past.

That's a pretty good idea, but there should be options for other stats to determine sanity pool. POW for example.

Yeah, might want to change the title of the thread

I don't know how any newer cyberpunk games have handled cyber-pychosis or net running. I would certainly be interested in a BRP cyberpunk book, though I don't feel in any way qualified to write any of it.

The latest Cyberpunk books? They're more focused on different elements of trans-human evolution.

I've been here for a bit, posted here and there, and all the while I noticed a glaring lack in the releases and announcements pages of one of my favorite genres of fiction (Though I myself could only be considered a beginner in understanding it's nuances). CYBERPUNK!

Savage Worlds has INTERFACE ZERO, D20 Future already has a cyberpunk element to it, GURPS probably already has something to fit cyberpunk themes to. I prefer this system to Savage Worlds or D20, I prefer it to the CP2020 system, and though I've never played GURPS, I'd probably not want to given it's reputation for being overcomplicated.

So the idea crossed my head: Why not try to create a monograph through the community's (and, possibly to a greater extent, my own) efforts that, without creating a setting, has rules, variant rules, optional rules and so on for cyberpunk themed games, as well as equipment lists, implant lists, service lists, and so on that are unique to this kind of setting?

In trying to collaborate with a forum that I came across a while ago, which specializes in all manner of cyberpunk themed fiction- the idea being that they would have members who know better in this department than I. Collective Cyberpunk Community • View topic - Help with Chaosium BRP Cyberpunk Systems

The structure of the book as I imagine it would be this:

1: Opening Story, Introduction, and "Welcome"

2: Table of Contents

3: Rules for Implants/Prosthetics and Permenent (Min SAN Damage) Blackout of Sanity Points from their being added, as well as nonpermenent (Above min SAN damage) Sanity loss from implants/prosthetics that is rolled for on top of that.

4A: Implant Gear table

4B: Extras for Implants

5A: Prosthetic Gear Table

5B: Extras for Prosthetics

6: Rules for turning an implant into a wearable device (Hint, it's less effective and some things HAVE to be implants)

7: Netrunning Rules of various types

8: Methods for designing bolt-on racial templates for full cyborg builds that expand upon the creature's existing race

9A: Other Transhumanist rules (Discipline-subskill based psionics, genetic engineering, Surgeries etc.)

9B: Supporting details for transhumanist rules (Such as classifications of what goes under each Discipline Subskill, Genetic Treatments, and Surgeries)

10: Help for crafting Cyberpunk Settings.

11: Credits and Thank Yous.

In short, the idea is to craft something akin to Classic Fantasy for Cyberpunk games using BRP. Terms such as sanity may be changed to a more Cyberpunk Specific term in the future, such as calling damage to sanity "Burnout"

Well, reading this thread again in light of the Newtown tragedy, things have gotten really, really bad for our schools/society.

Last month, in acticipation of the next Supers adventure (this coming long weekend) I had prepped a couple "public service" encounters/role-playing opportunities for the heroes. I wanted to forshadow the Dr. Drugs adventure by having a couple of the heroes (Gunslinger and Sir Baldarious) attend a school function at Warren G. Harding High School. They would be addressing the students in the auditorium for a quick "stay off drugs, stay in school" speech and then a question-and-answer session. It was going to be a chance to have fun with the heroes ("If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" "Do you know Fury from the Golden Gate Guardians? She is hot!" "What's the easiest way for me to get super powers?") and in surprise twist -no villian attacks, no trouble outside of awkward questions.

The other heroes (Stinger and Firefly) would be attending a city park grand opening across town where a couple members of the group Natural Disaster show up to praise the Mayor for "going green". The group members are either heroes or near terrorists depending on how far you think people should go to "protect the planet". Again, no battles or aggressive action. Then all the heroes get called away to help with an incident on Bay Bridge (Dr. Null and the NASA robots adventure).

The idea of course is to build some "history" between the characters and people/places they will see again in future adventures. I have seen the players really enjoy a rematch with a villian, I like how they react when they realize "It's them, AGAIN!". Most of my past super adventures tend to happen more in a vaccuum and each adventure stands alone. I want to change that trend going forward.

Back to the high school. While I had a quick mental list of questions the students might ask, the Newtown events and incidents since loom very large in my mind. We have seen a student bring a pistol to school at the encouragement of this parents (so he could protect himself), parents getting bulletproof backpacks for their kids, talk of arming teachers, armed guards at every school, etc. Crazy reactions to a crazy world.

Should I abandon this idea for now? Ignore recent events? If not, what questions would the kids be asking? Should I include some angry/concerned parents in the crowd? I have tended to follow the Marvel/DC comic model, where big real world events happen, but the actions of the heroes and villians tend not to change the world around them very much. They "cancel each other out" in effect.

In an OOC manner, I highly encourage critical thinking. I agree that times are bad, but fact is, people don't go blasting through schools without cause (even if the causes are due to mental illness). As someone with Aspergers, I personally am insulted to hear that it was blamed in the sandy elementary school shooting, and am expecting calls by people for nazi-germany style eugenics and persecution because of it. I don't think that was the cause so much as actual mental ILLNESSES (not altered developmental processes), a lack of driving goals in life other than to make a name for oneself, and perhaps other factors such as weakened understanding of consequences and/or morality.

Moving onto the IC (In character) method of handling things in such a campaign, I think that issues such as this shouldn't be handled entirely out of game. They shouldn't be ignored, but they shouldn't take a direct role.

My suggestion is to have the school have a tighter police presence in-game during the next few sessions until this talk of school shootings IRL stops. This would emphasize the need to protect schools from copycat crimes without going overboard. This would make things occasionally harder on the protagonists, but also easier in some ways.

-Snip-

A 2000AD bit part character.

-snip-

What about the Mark-13 from SHOK (Movie version was called Hardware)?

That was an excellent monster, and it took place in the same universe, kind of.

Hardware (1990) - IMDb

Okay, my Classic Fantasy book came in the mail today. Going to avoid reading it until post-holidays.

I came up with something for my victorian steampunk/arcana setting that adds a template instead of the drain method.

In this method, individual spell skills (wizardry) is used for rest based spells. However, rituals can be used to turn characters into Imbued.

Imbued act as follows:

[imbued]

-Skills-

Sorcery: As presented in the BRP Gold Book.

Sap Will: On a successful check vs target Willpower, the Imbued can drain 1d4 points of Mana from the target. This cannot be resisted by armors, though some enchanted items help.

-Traits-

Stunted Rest: Does not regain Mana from resting.

Stunted Hunger: Instead of lack of food killing Imbued, it simply stops them from healing naturally and causes a penalty to Appearence after a suitable period of time.

Stunted Aging: Imbued do not gain penalties from aging. However, they have a maximum age of (Sorcery/2)*POW

Willpower, in this case... is (INT+POW)/2, and is checked as a stat the same way as non derived ones (STAT*5). Tried to avoid the slightly odd rules for opposed rolls in this instance, so it just uses Active Vs Passive trait rules, though some skills can be used as traits for this.

Might just make the Drain thing work similar to this, but check against raw POW.

That's already factored in there. The special and critical success rules up the damage for such hits. For instance a implae does dobule damage, and a crtical can ingore armor or do max (depending on which set of rules you are using).

The thing is, since crits and specials don't occu that often (less than 20% of the time, for success chances below 100%) they don't mean as much as the weapon damage die.

Sorry, was in a fog when I wrote that and was thinking about someone's optional rule that adds more success levels than just 2 types of success and failure.

What I plan on doing is making the skill roll's success level affect the amount of damage done. So basically higher and lower success levels than "normal" would give +/- to damage equal to success levels above or below the norm.

It was a creature of my own creation based on the legend of the jersey devil and, in the setting, from a non-place outside normal reality and the normal multiverse, where the timelines and universes within all were innately wrong or corrupted.

This creature showing up in a setting basically meant it was doomed.

Alright, so I finished a general idea of the Mana system. Yes, Mana. I decided to name spell points dependant on what kind of skill is using them and make them seperate pools. Note that this can make for very fast and fatal combat, especially with the node system.

"When making a character, choose one of three types of Mana regen. Each has their own penalties and benefits inherent to them.

[Resting]

Benefit: When Resting, you regain Mana equal to 25% of your current Mana by per 2 hours, rounding down.

Benefit 2: Any potion or Node that would restore Mana restores 2* as much.

Drawback: When within five miles of dead magick area or within it, this replenishing of spell points reduces by 5% per mile in the dead magic area, Down to 0%.

Drawback 2: Nodes require 6 DEX ranks to drain of Mana.

[Drain]

Benefit: whenever you kill an enemy, you gain 1d4 magic points, Plus 1/4 the amount they had left over by their death, rounding down.

Benefit 2: It takes only 3 DEX ranks to drain a node of Mana.

Drawback: You do not gain Mana from resting.

Drawback 2: if killing an enemy causes a character to absorb more points of Mana than they can store, this mana is "Bled" out into the surrounding area, which can either cause other characters (and enemies) to gain Mana, or the creation nodes.

[Absorb]

Benefit 1: Spells cast at the character have a chance of being absorbed of 1/2 the character's Casting skill. If actively countering the spell, this is increased to the full casting skill. When a spell is absorbed, 1/2 the power points spent to cast it are added to Mana.

Benefit 2: Nodes take only 4 DEX ranks to drain of Mana.

Drawback 1: No mana is replenished by resting.

Drawback 2: The character, if they absorb more Mana than they are capable of storing, takes the excess Mana as damage.

[Note: Nodes]

Nodes are points where Mana is strongest in a given area, and can be drained of Mana, only to have themselves replenish at a rate of 1 charge a day.

When a node is drained of Mana, 1 charge on the node is exchanged for 1d4 Mana within the character who drained it, up to the maximum for that character.

A node can have up to 10 charges for a maximum, based on it's potency. One charge is replenished per day unless the node is drained to zero, in which case the Node dies.

The average Node holds up to 2-3 charges.

These are all very do-able of course, but could be a nightmare to track. For example, you travel for 10 hours through a slowly deadening magic area, it starts allowing 90% magic point regeneration, but after traveling the full 10 hours, you now occupy an area that only allows 20% magic point regeneration, how many points did you recover assuming it slowly dimished as you travelled? I would stick with the current BRP method, or the CF regeneration while you sleep method myself. However, there is no problem with the other methods you mention; absorbing spells cast at you, steal magic points from dead enemies, etc. They could be interesting.

Rod