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Enpeze

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Everything posted by Enpeze

  1. BRP the same amount of time for chargen as HERO? Hardly. I can create a CoC character in 10-15min or less. For a Gurps 4 or HERO char I need an HOUR alone for chosing all the advantages and disadvantages, and another half hour for the rest. Alone writing all the rule stuff of HERO/Gurps on the char sheet takes more time than the whole process of BRP chargen.
  2. thats a great info. Many thanks for it.
  3. I used BRP since 1989 for nearly all my rpgs. But always without miniatures. Now after playing Savage Worlds the last several years too I came used to the rpg minatures gaming style and I like its gamism. So I would like to try it for BRP too. Does anyone here have more experience with combining minis and BRP? And if yes, how does he use them? More like a generic position reminder or as a more integrated, gamistic experience. (like eg D&D or Savage Worlds) Are there any rules out there for it? Thanks for input.
  4. Mankam thanks for the answer. Bu no miniature rules? Thats strange, because they advertise it on the chaosium site coming with such rules. Astounding Aventures Chaosium Inc.
  5. Interesting interview. But unfortunately too many redundant questions about magic and no question at all about the books miniature and battle grid support.
  6. of course. I am glad that you like our litte subsystem. Feel free to use it as much as you want.
  7. In the 90ties we played a cyberspace campaign with BRP. Worked great. Due to the rules it was deadly, flexible and thus great. I am convinced that simple rules work best and that is the same with cyberware rules. In those days we used the following subsystem -each cybersystem had in addition to its a cost in $, a neural cost from 1-4, and a legal class from A (illegal) to C (legal in most countries) -the neural cost is only important if it exceeds the POW value of a person. If the sum of all your implants exceeds the POW you have a 5% chance for each point of excess that you go amok (a roll is applied only in stress situations) and have to be hunted down by special police units. So for example a mini recorder has neural cost of 1, 5.000$, and a legal class of C. With this eye implant you can record and magnify everything and send it to the cloud A typical corporate cybersoldier with POW10 has for example the following implants: Bionic Hand (2), DNI Jack (3), Drug Booster (1), Pain Blocker (1), Lung filter (1). All implants give him a neural value of 8. With his POW 10 its no problem. He has never to roll. But would he risk to include a reflex booster (3) then he has 11 neural points. This is 1 over his POW 10 and he has now a 5% chance in each stress situation to run amok. This simple system is very convenient because it does not penalize the casual cyberware user with two or three implants, but if you risk to include too many implants you will get a massive problem with running amok. It is neatly balancing out skills and cyberware. Additionally it gives the POW attribute an important usage in a setting where magic is not available.
  8. maybe I just dumb, but I cannot find any email adress or customer service on the chaosium site. Can anybody help me in this? Many thanks. edit: I just found it (very well) hidden in a corner. Problem solved.
  9. Yes it is absolutely phantastic how Pinnacle could make a roleplaying game with just 80 pages and included full rules for vehicles, chases, Scifi, horror and tactical combat. there is no blathering around. SW is minimalistic and mature. Other rulesets are not able to deliver the completeness of Savage Worlds despite having 400 pages or more. And SWEX is available just for 10 bucks! But enough of my praises, sorry for the threadjacking.
  10. Well lets see, how many pages has the new BRP book? To my genesis: I began 83 with the german game Midgard. Then I found RQ, in 87, used it as system for every thinkable genre and stuck to it till 2005 (with some interruptions). Then I found Savage Worlds and this is now the system of my choice. But I have fond memories to BRP/RQ of course and still love it.
  11. But as some said here, its a mix of hard SF and space opera and not fantasy. And with this in mind the Navi dont have much sense or even well thought out design. They are eco-Sioux with blue skin on dragons, nothing more. I dont care much about Avatars story which is flat and predictable, more than most other Cameron films, but the great CGIs are revolutionary and definately the best ever shown in a movie. My recommendation is: run to the next theater and watch it.
  12. What I absolutely not understand is to claim that BRP Chargen is in any way complex or more complex than lets say DnD4. IMO this is not true. I can make a BRP Char in 5min or less. A DnD4 Character is NEVER ready in 5 min, rather 30min+. AND I need countless pages of the 4e PHB too for chargen. Not so in BRP. In BRP I need nothing except the charactersheet to make a character. So for 4e I need 6 times the chargen time for mechanically creating a character. For 4e I need the rulebook. (even if I am an experienced 4e gamer) So what is exactly MORE complex in BRP than in 4e? This is beyond me. I sometimes think that I played the last 2 decades a total different game than some of the posters here! :shocked:
  13. First, sorry for not reading every single one of the 63 pages above. so the question "how could BRP be more popular..." comes IMO down to several basic assumptions. a. balancing - its not balanced. you all know this. Most of you dont think that is important. I agree only to some extent. But after playing unbalanced games for decades, the last several years I discovered the advantages of balanced play. There ARE advantages in some genres and playing styles where balancing is fun and essential. Eg. for ARENA-type styles of play - you go into the dungeon/encounter/whatever and you know that there is the next 5min. a combat with opponents of approximately equal combat strength and you know your group which is not more than a kind of sports team in this style of play, has a decent chance to beat the shit out of this equal enemy force. If you play bad, dont make the right tactical moves OR if you dont play as a team or if you roll bad then you will not succeed, you will use too much of your resources or even pay with your life. Thats ARENA style. And many roleplayers like this style. I for my part like it too, sometimes in some settings. But at least for me other settings and styles (actor-style, investigation-style etc.) do exist and I enjoy them too. So I say balancing is important to many players who likes arena style roleplaying and if a system does not offer this, they dont buy, like or play it. b. deadlyness - this is self-explanatory. BRP is deadly if you play it vanilla. Many dont like this. They want to be like undestructable heroes of bad movies or fantasy novels. Kill the baddy and be better than in real life. Pure Escapism. I dont remember that conan or Captain Picard ever dies. People want to BE like those undestructable media heroes and not like a 13rd dwarf from left in the row. BRP dont offer this. A GM has to be either heavily modifiying the rules for enable the players to be like Conan or cheating his NPC-dice rolls constantly. c. no core book. "Hey- we have a BRP core book", you will shout! Is this really so? I dont think that the new book from Chaosium is a real core book. Its rather like a kind of museum. An thick tedious 400p archive where every rule (good or bad) which existed in BRP, has been written down. So, a game without core book - what is this? The third reason why BRP in its present incarnation will never be interesting to a lot of fellow roleplayers or even newbies. Look at SWEX (Savage Worlds explorer Edition). This is a good core book. It has 120 small pages of information and decent color graphics. Easy to read and to understand. IMO the whole hobby suffers from a lack of understanding and creative ideas how to bring in new players. The current companies are catering rather their existing old fanbase and this will lead to the end of roleplaying hobby as such in 10-20 years. And of course noone of the publishers is admitting that he is guilty of anything. Always blaming the "market" the "economy crisis" the "video games" and so on. But its the fault of egocentric designers which mostly are not smart enough to understand the basics how to draw in fresh blood into the hobby.
  14. I dont think that it is easy to introduce edges and hindrances of SW to BRP. In fact I think its in most cases contra-productive. SW is totally different in many things (ok some are similar - like classless-ness) and many edges develope its best and most logical effects if you use them in conjunction with the SW rule tactical movement system and miniatures/floorplans. So are you ready to use such a tactical rule system for BRP too? (and with tactical rule system I dont mean the use of miniatures for positioning purposes - I mean a real rule and combat system) So if you dont intend to use minis, then you could rule out many of the edges of SW on from the beginning. I played BRP for nearly 20y exclusively but since 1,5y I got fond of SW. Its so different. The whole emphasis on haptic game experience (mini use) and extreme fast action is refreshing. Of course BRP is still good IMO but has a different gaming philosophy. And I would never ever mix those 2 systems. Like salt and sugar - does not taste.
  15. I changed most of my game activities the last 6 months to Savage Worlds. IMO its a great system, simple and nearly as minimalistic as BRP. (btw: It can be nearly as deadly than BRP if you use the moscow connection mod) I do consider BRP still as an excellent game system and I love to play it as a player. But as a GM I am playing my fantasy campaign currently with SW. Its a blast and a fresh roleplaying experience. (we played mostly d100 games like warhammer or BRP conversions the last 15 years) BRP is different in its pace and dynamics than Savage Worlds. (the latter has a much faster game speed) Additonally we discovered the last years that we like to use minis and combatplans for our combats (which enable to let everybody "see" the precise positions of foes and props at the first glance), so SW, which is best played with minis, suits better to this new liking, than BRP. BTW: Savage World has a new Cthulhu licence too. "Realms of Cthulhu" from Reality Blurs. They want to present their cthulhu setting for 3 different playing styles. A gritty approach similar to CoC, a standard approach which is a little bit more heroic and a pulpy version (I assume like indiana jones with tentakles ). Regarding the "cool" mechanics your players are right IMO. BRP dont offer that many stunt options and cool mechanics like SW. And if you are in this stunt stuff then I think its quite normal to use a system which offers it on a regular base. For our group it was never a problem to describe in a BRP game most of the stunts we wanted to have, and then connect the description to some free form rule mechanic (like DEXx5 rolls or such), but my players are an experienced bunch. I guess this is more difficult for new players.
  16. Great review, Kurt Weigel. Every point is so true. BRP is a great game but would need some modernization. So introducing a (optional and random?) ad/disad system would not be a failure in a future BRP version. Additionally I would also recommend more options for those who like to incorportate miniatures into their BRP games. Interesting is that he likes the same 3 roleplaying rulesystems as I do. He is definately a man of taste. -BRP -Unisystem -Savage worlds
  17. In this case I am fully with atgxtg. In the last years the copyright madness has poisened the western information society way too much. This whole idea of "violation" of the rights of copyright owners is retarded. In reality nobody is hurt and no-one earns only even one Euro less if a guy uploads a non-commercial free BRP conversion of Middle-Earth on a fan site. This is just another way some greedy lawers try to grab money from fans and exert their influence at the rest of the society. Any honest and good person should stand against this.
  18. I think it depends on the style you play. click & bang magic is handy if you need ad hoc effects like in dungeon crawl or other very combat oriented adventures. The price the players must pay for such an technical approach is of course the demystification of magic.
  19. Ok. Then lets try it. I dont think that anybody ever considered a conversion of AT-43 for BRP because of its nearly non-existant background material. Making a conversion for this tabletop game would mean that one can write the whole background lore which is necessary to generate a good roleplaying game by oneself. But if you are the one which want to do this, maybe a look at Cthulhu rising could help you to find some rule mechanics. For ideas how to resolve modern combat in BRP, I would also recommend Cthulhu Now, Delta Green and of course our new BRP book. I hope this suits better as answer to your question and helps you to cool a little bit down.
  20. Just a few pages (how many? 2?) background for a tabletop game does not make a setting IMO. For military SF adventuring there are much better settings out there. Look at the great WH40k with its new Dark Heresy, Starship Troopers, Aliens/Cthulhu rising or SJG Traveller Mercenaries. These are reasonable and full fledged military settings I would prefer everyday to AT-43.
  21. AT-43 has fantastic plastic minis and a good basic rulesystem for tabletopping. The minis are top prepainted and are all first class. (but so is their price) But really what do you mean with "conversion"? Is there any mentionable lore or world setting connected with AT-43? I didnt detect anything of worth in the AT-43 rulebooks or at the rackham homesite.
  22. Well, I think this is a little bit too restricting. I would rather look at the other PCs and their skills before capping a new PC at 75%. If the other have top skills with 90%+ then he should allowed to have also 90%. The new PC should not have the feeling that he is inferior or dont have a speciality in comparision to the other players.
  23. I think the biggest problem for many potential roleplayers who know BRP but dont use it, is the sheer lethality of BRP. Many dont like that receiving 1 or 2 hits with a weapon can be the end for their "hero". So a game strongly focused on combat is not as easily possible as in other more forgiving rule systems.
  24. Basicially I think you are right. There is normally "power out" before sorcerers get too powerful with too much spells. Only if you play with the "sorcery" rules later in the book and different high POW races there can be alot of Magic Points which an ambitiour sorcerer is able to aquire. Eg. Melnibonean with Braziers of Power. Or if you allow the creation of power storing devices like those in RQ3. Then the magic point can maybe go up to 100 or even more. (just look at some very powerful shamans in RQ3) In this case if you have archmages limiting the INT is useful. Another advantage if you limit the spell by INT/2 is that an intelligent sorcerer is more versatile than his dumb collegues and the rule mechanic supports this. Which is not beyond some logic and can be a nice roleplay twist.
  25. Ok. thanks for your answer. It seems that its not my thing. For SF, Star Wars and traveller I use only BRP or Savage World (if it is a pulpier game) and I never like Traveller rules that much in any incarnation. Even 20 years before I used a homebrew variation of RQ2 for my first traveller game because I could not stand the rules as written in the LBBs. Glad you like it. Maybe I should browse through the book a second time.
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