Paul_Va

I love the BRP system, and I've run several games using it, but one thing that always somewhat bothers me is the base skills for the skills of perception; I always feel the base skills are too low. An Insight skill of 5% seems like something only someone with some kind of handicap or penalty should have, not something someone should have on account of just not adding any additional skill points to it, granted I'm assuming one is not using the optional rule that allows characteristics to influence skills. Does this bother anyone else? Obviously, I could just house rule it, and in the future, I'll probably just borrow the RQ rule for deriving the skill from characteristics.

Thank you, Soltakss, that helps a lot. I also run CoC, so the Cthulhu data in Mythic Iceland might be useful elsewhere as well. I also like that it provides a starting scenario; that is sometimes helpful.

I'm thinking about running a viking game on Roll20.net, but I'm wondering which of these would be the better source book. By better, I'd like to find something that is reasonably accurate historically. A few pre-made campaign adventures would be a plus as well. I'm familiar with both BRP and RuneQuest. If I get Vikings of Legend, I'll probably run it with the RQ6 rules whereas if I get Mythic Iceland I'll most likely use BRP (Or maybe this game has its own setting; it's hard to tell from the description.). At any rate, does anyone have experience with these two books? Any advice would be appreciated. 

I've never had players request CoC pregens before... but if I did, I'd probably use something like the CoC Character Generator App or Byakhee to do some of the work for me.

My players are all married professional types with little extra time for making characters.

Here's the die roller I use:

http://wstryder.org/coccg/

Select "Boring Old Humans." The creature creator lets you roll up to 100 individuals at a time, ranging in competence from "Absolutely pathetic" to "Out of This World." I use "Average" for average Joes, "Fantastic" or ""Awesome" for pulp heroes and low-powered supers, and "Fantastic" or "Mighty" for full supers. "Out of This World" feels a bit too much like cheating, unless I really want a team-whipping villain or mega-monster.

Excellent. Thank you, Seneschal. This looks like a great resource.

Do you discuss with your players what type of character they each would like to play? Or are you just coming up with random characters for them?

What I've noticed about the BGB point-buy method is that, while it ensures a character isn't absolutely terrible in any particular stat, it also prevents a character from having any really fantastic stats. So you won't have any wimps or idiots, but you also won't have any geniuses or physical marvels either.

What I usually do is roll up 10 to 15 characters at once using an online die roller, then pick out the set or sets of stats that best meets the concept I'm working on.

I haven't discussed the characters with the players because my players specifically told me they like to be surprised. However, I also noticed that the BRP point-buy generates very mediocre characters. In fact, the CoC core rulebook pregens are made quite a bit more robust than that which can be created with the point-buy system. I like your idea about just rolling a number of sets, etc.

My players like to use pregens, so I always struggle whether I should, as a keeper, roll the stats as usual for pregen characters or use the point-buy method in order to sculpt them a little more. I'm curious how other keepers handle this.

I'm getting ready to run Masks of Nyarlathotep for my gaming group, and I noticed in the campaign it recommends you play with no fewer than 6 investigators. I'm assuming this is due to the lethality of the scenario. However, I only have 4 players, so I'm wondering if anyone else has ever run it with 4, and if so, did you need to make any adjustments. Of course, I could always have two players run two characters, but it would be a little awkward for only two players to get to, or have to, run two characters and not the others, etc.

I've taken a look through my Laundry rulebook since originally posting and it has this to say (note one of the authors did some of the BGB stuff). This is the text of the Grapple skill therein, hope it helps.

Your character must make a successful Grapple roll to establish a hold on their opponent. Grapple attacks can be parried using the Grapple skill or avoided with the Dodge skill. Once a hold is established, your character must make a successful Grapple roll each round to maintain a hold. Taking any action other than one of the grappling actions listed here breaks a hold.

Each turn that your character has someone in a grapple hold, they can perform one of the following actions:

Choke: Your character tries to choke their opponent. The opponent must make an Endurance roll each round or suffer 1d3 plus your character’s damage bonus in Hit Point damage. This continues until the opponent breaks free, falls unconscious, or dies. If the Grapple roll is a special success, the Endurance roll is Difficult.

Disarm: Your character matches their STR against the opponent’s STR on the Resistance table. If your character

succeeds, the opponent drops any weapon or item they are holding. If the opponent wins, they do not drop anything

but are still in the hold.

Immobilise: Match your character’s STR against the opponent’s STR on the Resistance table. If your character

wins, the opponent is immobilised and cannot act until free. If the opponent wins, they can take an action, though they are still held.

Injure: Match your character’s STR against the opponent’s STR on the Resistance table. If successful, your character

hurts the opponent using brute strength, inflicting 1d3 points of damage plus their damage bonus to the opponent.

This can be attempted until the opponent breaks free or wins the Resistance roll.

Takedown: Your character automatically makes a Resistance roll with their STR vs. the opponent’s SIZ, dragging both

characters to the ground. The opponent must make a successful Agility roll or suffer one point of damage. If an Agility roll fails, the opponent is on the ground in a disadvantageous position and all actions against them are Easy until they are up or change position.

Throw: Make a Resistance roll of your character’s STR against the opponent’s SIZ. If your character wins, the opponent is thrown 1d6 metres, is automatically knocked down and must make an Agility roll or suffer 1d6 points of damage. Throwing a target releases a hold. If the opponent wins the Resistance roll, they are released from the hold and remain standing.

Once in a hold, an opponent can attack your character if they have any free limbs, using Brawl (punches or head butts only) or any small weapon (knives or handguns). If two hands are free, the target can attempt to Grapple back. Multiple attackers can attempt to grapple a single target, though no more than two attackers can hold any one location. Combine the STR ratings of both attackers in all contested tests.

Thanks for that NClarke. I'm curious whether or not the grapple actions can be applied in the first round, on only after the second. What do you think?

Yes, the fumble table predates the current BRP rules. Back in the days of old RuneQuest, the rule was that a defender had to declare his parry (or dodge) when he was attacked, regardless of what the attacker's result was. The logic behind it was that in order to parry an attack you had to start acting when you spot the attack coming. If you waited to see if the attacked "hit" it was too late to parry it.

OK, that clears things up a bit. Am I correct though that in the current incarnation of BRP, the defender does not need to roll Parry/Dodge if the attacker fails?

Does this help you at all?

No, Queen, because my question is regarding the fumble table on which one would roll after the attack. Also, as I commented on that download, there are errors on that chart regarding when one rolls "full" damage vs rolled damage. That chart shows full damage for critical attacks that are opposed by Special and Successful parries and full damage by Special attacks that are opposed by failed and fumbled parries.

The Melee weapon Parry Fumble Table on p. 194 of the Basic Roleplaying core book says that with a D100 roll of 76-93 you are wide open, and you receive an automatic normal/special/critical hit. It seems that this is meaningless; however, since a defender only rolls Parry/Dodge if the attacker succeeded on his roll. Moreover, if you the defender fumbled, he's already received the attack/damage. I can see how it might be possible that the attacker's roll could be upgraded to a Special or Critical attack with a Fumble table roll of 86-93, but it seems that 76-85 will still be meaningless. Does anyone have any insight into the intention of these entries on the chart?

Yeah, I do actually have BRP Rome, and I agree; some of the professions, etc. in Rome seem a little more thought out.

I'm running my first session of Cthulhu Invictus tomorrow night. I'm running the scenario in the book, but since the setting incorporates many elements from the full BRP rules set, I'm just going to use the full BRP system to run it. Does anyone else have experience running CoC with the BGB rules?

Well, you lost me there. I'm as liberal as one can get; I consider myself a narrativist; and I hate players who whine about game balance, grittiness, etc. Moreover, most of the players I've known who do so are conservatives who egocentrically expect the universe to revolve around them a la Ender's Game.

You fast forward and the industry is catering to masses who have access to computers, who don't care about tabletop RPGs and would rather have dynamic lighting for the trol ls ballsack than options like climbing and door busting (and it is the 3d environments that are the biggest constraint on replicating and the huge scale and interactivty of old games).

Though not exactly parallel, I do feel like the same thing happened to the RPG market. I have talked to both tabletop and PC gamers who can not imagine anyone would want high lethality, interpretative rules and 'unbalanced' character races. On the tabletop front, the castration of GM authority by rules mongering and concessions to players who want to play unique superheroes have also altered the expectations of many gamers, in part because they are drawing on video game and softcore fantasy tropes.

Of course there's nothing to stop us from playing old games, tabletop or computer, (aside from an inability to find and run them) but I think that the days of me caring about new, mass marketed products are over.

And Chaosium does seem like an exception, tabletop wise, as does GURPS, but though I know there are players I've never met a single one at the local hobby stores. Its almost ALL Pathfinder and World od Darkness.

You're preaching to the choir here. From my experience, the only way to get good players these days is to cherry pick the best and then retrain them with a good system, like BRP or RuneQuest. A good example of the attitude to which you refer, I've noticed, is in regard to interactions with civil authorities in games. I have found that many young RPGers feel entitled to having the GM hand wave consequences with authorities; something I never do.

While we're on the subject of PDFs, if any of you talk to the people at Chaosium, you might also mention their improving the quality of the PDFs in general, particularly breaking large books into multiple PDFs. It's very difficult to use Chaosium PDFs on tablets, netbooks, etc. because Google Drive can't preview them as they are too large. It would also be nice to have hot links in the index, etc.

Oh, unless you mean the simple TSR game of the same name, a kind of boardgame they did later..

No, I meant the game you were talking about.

A friend of mine is a DragonQuest player, and I'm interested in inviting him to my BRP games. Therefore, I'm wondering how similar DragonQuest is to other D100 games? Is it a derivation of BRP? I know it is based on D100 rolls.

Sorry for coming so lately...

I fully do agree with everything said above and just would like to add this...

Most games insist more on one aspect described by the GNS theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory) rather than on the two other ones. GURPS, for instance, insist on simulationism while D&D insist on gamism...

In my humble opinion, BRP is the one that allows the best balance between the three.

The rules are not too much simulationist but still give a good feeling of realism and consistent characters. The rules are also light enough to allow GM and players to thing about the story and the descriptions rather than about rules... And BRP finally allows to play easily in a gamist mode for those who want to: even if there is no feats/advantages/edges, as it has been very well said above, the players can still choose wisely their skills in order to build the best possible team of player characters and, then, act strategically to use these skills at best (it is incidentally a good hint to do so if you want to avoid a pathethic failure during a Call of Cthulhu campaign: you need skilled linguists, skilled scientists, skilled investigators and also skilled combatants) .

Brief, everybody can be happy with the BRP system... Of course, the drawback of this very fine balance is that if you really love one of the three manner of playing, and only that one, you may find that BRP doesn't fit you. The pure simulationists will find that it is not precise enough. The pure gamists will find that there is not enough options to optimize their characters. And the pure narrativists will find that there is too much random (and not enough way to control the story).

I think this might be the best explanation I've seen of the benefits of BRP, although the one exception I'd take is that I think Call of Cthulhu shows that BRP is just about the best narrativist system there is.

No problem, nclarke. Maybe some other time.

I totally did, like two posts before you... j/k...

-STS

Ah, sorry Slade. So you did. Well, now the point has been emphasized.

Paul

I'm posting to let everyone know that I've created a new Meetup group in Los Angeles, California for anything and everything Lovecraftian. Initially, I wanted to start a group to organize Call of Cthulhu games, but I want to leave the participation open to any Lovecraftian events (e.g. movies, readings, social gatherings, etc.). You can view the Meetup here. Our first get-together is December 22nd at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood. I hope to get to meet some of you there.

Something no one else has mentioned is that BRP is also really good at preventing "munchkin"-style players from "gaming" the system. Since there are no feats/advantages/edges, players can't stack bonuses in order to engineer a character that breaks the game or requires the GM to implement power inflation. This also contributes to the flow and pace of the actual game since there are fewer times the game has to stop to look up rules. Most of book digging that happens in other systems is the result of feats/advantages/edges, etc.

I believe the rule is copy/paste from Runequest 3. The rule in RQ3 has an example that states:

"Cormac comes upon Signy and Nikolos beset by three brigands. Reacting to the threat of his friends, he throws his javelin at one of the bandits.

His current ability with the Javelin is 67%, and there are five people meleeing, so Cormac has a 13% chance to hit his target (67% divided by 5 equals 13%). Cormac's player rolls a 43, which is over the 13% but under his chance of hitting someone. Since there are five potential targets, the gamemaster rolls a D10, designating Signy as 1-2, Nikolos 3-4, Brigand A is 5-6, brigand B is 7-8, and Brigand C is 9-10. The roll is 7, and it is Brigand B who takes the javelin shot."

Hmm, well that explains the part that says to divide the percentage. I notice the example didn't subtract 20% first though. Perhaps the new rule is to subtract the 20% first, then divide the remaining percentage into the number of melee participants, and if you role equal to or under the lowest, you hit your target?