Hedgehobbit

That kinda reminds me of the religious bonuses used in the Pendragon game. I'll have to think about groups of skills (10 sounds like a lot though). I was also thinking about making the skill groupings like Perception and Comminication also increase with experience. So if you rolled particularly well on your Listen advancement roll, you might get a +1 to your Perception bonus. Either that or treat them as mega-skills for either a more simplified game or to gloss over skills that a particular character might not care about. For example, a barbarian-type character might must have one skill called Communication that goes up slowly but applies to all the sub-skills in that category.

I don't have the new book but have been thinking about making some skills more difficult to learn that others. RQ2 had some of this whereby it was more expensive to train some skills other others (rapier v club forex). What I would like to do is make magical or more exotic skills advance slower while ones with more limited usefullness adventure (crafting and other odd thing) go faster. I was thinking of two ways to accomplish this. First is to vary the number of skill points received for each advancement checks. Hard skills go up 1d4, regular 1d6 and easy ones 1d8. Another idea was to give a bonus or penalty to the advancement check itself. Not sure what a good number range would be. Is there anything in the new BRP rules like this? Also, the old game Bushido was similar to RQ in some respects. In that game they had something called Okuden which were "secret" skill. Basically, it was a skill that let you do something that you normally couldn't, like throw a sword. It was a normal skill as far as using it but it would only go as high as the skill it was based on; your "throw sword" skill can't exceed your "sword" skill. I was thinking something like this would be nice for BRP as it would give a method for adding "feats" to the game but without another system or the on-or-off effect of feats or other special powers. Anyone do anything like this? Finally, one of the issues I had with my long running BRP and Stormbringer campaigns was that after a while, all the characters started to look the same. Since the characters lower skills advanced more quickly, they eventually ended up with all their skills in a similar range. So, I was thinking of making each character pick a number of skills that his character specialized in and give him a bonus to his advancement checks for those skills. Aaron

I think it was part of the jousting video because I remember watching it in the jousting room. But those online are just clips. The ones in the museum were pretty long and had voice-overs and stuff. There was another cool on in the Japanese section that went step-by-step in making a Katana. Plus there was one that showed all the different types of crossbows. I learned alot from that vacation. At the time my main interest was acient greece and rome so I didn't pay quite as much attention in the medievil rooms as I should have.

I too would love to see a set of rules where it would make sense for Roman's to use short sword instead of the longer swords of their german opponents (of course they eventually did switch to longer swords but that's another issue). The only thing I could think of would be to make the stabbing damage of a gladius be equal to the stabbing damage of a longer sword (which, in a way, makes sense). That way they aren't punished as they are with most RPG rules.

At the Royal Armories in Leeds, they had a really good video showing a dual between two knights using halberds. It gave a feel for how these weapons were used. Unfortunately, I can't find that video online. Here's a historical text concerning pole axes which give a similar feel for the size and use of these weapons. The pictures aren't of good quality but will work. Notes on Le Jeu de la Hache Talk About Historical Art The difference between a poleaxe and a halberd was mainly the length of the spikey bit on the tip as the halberd was used as a replacement for the pike to defend against cavalry or in "pike & musket" formations where the pikes were used to protect the otherwise vulnerable musketeers. Since "halberd" has been used by gamers for years to represent any large polearm, I'm not sure which weapon you're using in your game. Notice the length of the halberd compared to the similar poleaxe pictures above. Image:Halberdier-corps.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I'm not sure how to model many of the figthing techniques that involved rapid closing followed by weapon binds or grappling. Close combat was a nasty and dangerous affair. I remember one story (that I can't quote). Two sides of knights were lined up for battle when the French knights sheathed their swords and drew their daggers. Whereupon the other side immediately surrendered! This is because their armor made them relatively immune to swords but daggers where used to jab through the eye and kill. Faced with the prospect of a fight to the death (instead of the usual ransom), they chose to surrender. Aaron

Are halberds really that big? I always thought they were about 5-6 feet long. Kinda like a staff. (isn't a 10' pole standard dungeon delving equipment?) Also, are there rules for half-swording? On dungeons, it always bothered me that they always had nice tall ceilings. Think how nasty goblins or kobolds would be if they're homes only had a 4 foot tall ceiling. Fighting while crawling ... ouch. Aaron

Me too. Although I've never really read it. It looks all typewriter written like other games from that era, such as Champions. I got it long after I stopped playing RQ when Ebay first came out. I think I paid $10 for it. Unlike my unpunched copies of White Bear/Red Moon and Nomad Gods which cost me plenty.

I agree 100%. Too much weirdness makes the weird mundane. If every village in the world has elves and hobbits in them, then elves and hobbits aren't special no matter what the fluff says. I've always felt that be best way to make a setting feel magical is to start it in a plain ol' nothing special human town or village to give the players a baseline to judge the magical by. And enough with the wierd names. I still don't know how to spell or pronouce Eberron*. Remember that the name "Glorantha" never appeared in a product name until third edition. Because of this, I don't see the need for a super detailed mega-setting to make BRP work. Give me some good solid adventures set in a small regional area (like Dragon Pass!). Save the world maps and encyclopediac fluff for years down the road and let the setting grow naturally. Aaron *If I spelled it correctly here, that was just a good guess.

Count me in that group as well. I'm a fan of 3e. My recent 3e campaign was the only game in the last 20 years to last longer my original 2e Runequest campaign from back in the early 80s. As soon as I heard what was being "fixed" in 4e, I started looking for alternative. That's why I'm here and why I'm waiting for the new BRP. So, in a way its not too late but just in time. Aaron [still doesn't like what they did to Glorantha]

Pendragon has both a reward and "punish" aspect. If a character gets several of his personality traits to match his religious or knightly virtues (I forget the proper terminology) then he gains a bonus. Thus most players have a goal as to which traits should be high and which should be low. The "punish" aspect is used to prevent the player from convieniently ignore certain this he alledgedly dedicated his life to because of player knowledge. I see Personality mechanics serving four purposes: 1) Reward a player for either playing his character consistantly. 2) Preventing a player from basing his character's action on player knowledge. 3) Give a character an in-game benefit for actions that may be detremental to that character. 4) Allow (or force) a player to play a character that he would normally not play*. The systems in Pendragon are good at #1-3. The religious and knightly bonuses do #1, the Trait checks do #2 and the Passion system does #3. Often mixed in with these types of rules is a way to integrate a particular character into the plot or gameworld. These are things like Destiny or Fate type mechanics. Aaron * This is especially helpful for groups that have played together for a long time. It can get old when Player C plays either an overly cautious knight or an overly cautious Jedi or an overly cautious Cthulhu investigator, etc. Burning Wheel is good at this (although its crap for pretty much everything else). Since this can be good for some situations, I'm not directly opposed to "straightjacket" types of rules.

There is a book called "Vampires: Burial and Death" which explores vampires legends and relates them to how a real human body decomposes. While its interesting (especially where it relates how "staking" started), its disappointing to learn how silly early vampire legends were and little the real vampire stories relate to modern vampire. The author talks a bit about Bram Stoker and speculates on why he changed various things. Because of that book, all my vampire knowledge is pretty jumbled up and its hard to remember where I first heard of various bits of vampire lore. Aaron

I've played Dragon Pass and I have White Bear/Red Moon and Nomad Gods but haven't played them (cause I bought them unpunched). I don't remember Runes having much effect in that game except for the Movement Rune giving a stack double movement. Can you elaborate please? Aaron

There are a couple of vampire related powers that seem to have been forgotten in recent movies. They might be usable to change the feel of a vampire-centric campaign. 1-Vampires are utterly powerless during the day. And they need to sleep on dirt from where they were buried. Those old vampire movies have vampires lying helpless in their coffins during the day; Van Helsing even uses holy water to ruin Dracula's resting place, forcing him to return to his castle before dawn (no idea on what would happen to him if he didn't make it). This would help reduce the super-man effect since any shmoe can just walk up and stake a vamp during the day. Plus it will require a Vamp to have plenty of human servants (familiars) to protect them during the day. Each one a potential turn-coat. 2-Vampires are slaves of the vampire that turned them. This essentially gives the GM a way to prevent the PC vampires from getting too far away from his campaign intentions. Maybe by using a VAM vs VAM resistance roll. 3-Killing a Vamp also destroys all vamp he turned. This was always the reason Van Helsing was so into killing Drac as he was the projenitor (sp) of all other vamps. This is another way to force PC vamps to help their NPC creator. It also prevents them from wandering off too much as they need to keep an eye out for their boss. Also, different "nests" of vampires will have its own boss vampire who will, in turn, be loyal to some other vampire whose identity will be a secret to most of the hive to keep enemies from moving up the food chain. Of course, you might want to change the rules a bit to keep all the PCs from just dieing at once. I like the idea that if a Vamp kills his master (pretty tough considering rule #2) then that vamp takes the place of his old master. This is a good way to explain why a Vamp doesn't turn hundreds of people since each one is a potential threat. One way I can see to run a vamp game would be as if it were a gangster game. Each gang is a group of vampires whose boss is loyal to some other more powerful but unknown vampire. The gangs are fighting other gang who are loyal to yet another vampires. But, all of the gangs are eventually loyal to Dracula who trying to keep all these cold-blooded killers under control and working on some evil master plan. Meanwhile the PCs are working for their gang while secretly plotting to kill their way up the Vampire food chain, eventually killing Dracula himself and taking over the whole show. Aaron PS-I'm going to have to step up my plans to watch Dark Shadows.

Bushido has some rules which might help in this situation. You character gets to pick a certain number of skills (1 per Int point for example). These skills advance as normal. Every other skill has a penalty when trying to learn them. So, in BRP, you might have a character pick a certain number of skills (these might be the skills that the character regularly practices at if you need an in-game rational for the rules). A successful advancement check might give 1d6 point to a "practiced" skill but only 1d3 to a "non-practiced skill". That way fighters can learn magic or magic-users can learn fighting but they will each be hindered in the other's specialty. It would work for rogue-type characters as well, keeping them from outdoing the regular fighter guys in combat. BTW-I'm not very familiar with the new BRP rules. Are there options for some skills being more difficult to learn that others? Aaron

From a business point of view, GW should have just considered the RPG as advertisement for the novels and mini-game. I'm actually surprised that they let Green Ronin change the RPG to make it less compatible with the mini-game. In any event, GW should have known when they went into this what the costs were going to be. Maybe the market's changed significantly since a year ago.