el_octogono

5 hours ago, hix said:

@Jeff Thank you for an honest and well considered reply.

" The end user of the program has cut up the works of others, reassembled them, and is passing it off an unauthorised derivative work"

This is exactly the misconception I am addressing. GAI do not do this. They do not combine previously existing work, they learn from it, and the amount learned from any potentially copyrighted work is clearly de minimis. But maybe that doesn't count since it's not a person. Let me get specific about my own workflow on the cover for Smoke and Aces, and I'll leave it to the audience to make up their own mind. While the amount of effort involved does not determine copyright status, this will illustrate the fact that my cover is a transformative work, and that ai tools can be used well.

And yet proof says otherwise. I tried modjourney for Elric of Melnibone images and I got images with Henry Cavil-like faces and some others were there was a clear source image.. (specifically the cover of a book where Elric is standing between two black/brown borders) probably because there are not many Elric images around so the AI doesn't have enough sources of "inspiration"

Maybe you can assign two actions per round, usually one attack and one parry. Any additional action suffers a cumulative -30% (or 20%). So you can attack twice at full value but if you have to defend you do it at -30%. Or you can attack twice, one at full percentage, one at -30%, and defend once at full, and maybe a,second time but at -60.

Hi!  I'm a couple of weeks away from starting my second try at running RoH.

I made three combat house rules:

- Keep the MOV: 15, only when a character runs the whole round. Otherwise, MOV limits to 5.

- Automatic mode shoots 3 bullets bursts (1d3), thus reducing the number of dice rolled and lethality.

- Remove Fully Automatic mode entirely.

EDIT (I forgot to add):

- Augment activation rolls are only required if a character wants to do it in the same combat round, otherwise just spend one round activating without needing to roll.

One thing I didn't find anything, in fact it's absent from the rulesbook, is what happens with a stunned character... anyone???

I really think Other Worlds (a HQ fork rpg) handles extended conflicts much better and in a way easier manner. You first frame the conflict goal and then start a kind of sub-conflicts but you accumulate acquired consequences (penalties or bonuses) in a similar way you can get flaws or temporary consequences in QW. Sub-conflicts are started in alternating turns, and each opposed side has the option to create a new sub-conflict or bring the final resolution roll and end the whole conflict. There are no resolution points or any other special mechanic

I imagine the Death Star scene as a series of this sub-conflicts. Some create penalties (like losing rebel fighters, or Ties and cannon turrets for the Empire side), and ending with a sub-conflict where Luke summons the aid of the Force and makes the lucky shot.

I would leave the full stats because you never know when you might use them. For example, a virus might be introduced to the ship's system and try to disable its defenses. In that case you'll probably roll the virus ability to infiltrate, directly against the ship, or its system stat.

It's not a math issue it's a reading one for me. If I read 14M2 I read fourteen Mastery two which is pretty odd...

5 hours ago, David Scott said:

I'd be interested to hear of anyone else who has had a problem with this at their table.

I have the same problem as @narsilion I tend to read it in reverse. One alternative I've considered is writing masteries as exponent.  Instead of 14M2 just 14², or 7M3 as 7³.

Hi all!

I don't know if this topic belongs to this section so please be free to move it. I'm looking to join an online OpenQuest 3 or derived (River of Heaven, etc.) game. I'm not a native english speaker but I understand very well, I'm just a little bit rusty talking. I'm planning on GMing in the future but I'm not confident enough right now. Please reply here or contact me via PM.

Thanks!

(I'm at GMT-3 hour)

On 11/10/2021 at 12:33 AM, Jakob said:

I'm just re-reading the rules and have been wondering ... would it maybe make sense, as an alternative, to have a master whose skill has been lowered by a negative modifier roll, but still treat every sucess as a critical? A failure would remain a failure.

It makes sense to me, otherwise a minor penalty becomes a huge disadvantage for Masters...

I have this map of the Young Kingdoms. It belongs to the fan-made Lobo Blanco RPG (https://patriciogonzalez.itch.io/lobo-blanco). I have an even higher res map but it's in spanish only.

I think the intention behind that rule is to encourage players to use flaws and suboptimal abilities: you may fail but in that case you get an XP, win-win!

I'm guessing the missing part is that those contest should be meaningful. I've read some QW actual plays where rolls were constant, and others where just two or three per session did the trick. I think the system is geared towards the later option, and rolls should be kept at minimum, just for really uncertain outcomes or meaningful/climatic scenes.

Hi! I just bought the 3ed of OpenQuest. I like the layout and it feels a polished system. I think it has just become my favorite d100 implementation. I'm just a little weary about how the 100% cap in skills may work in-game.

I'm planning to adapt River of Heaven to these new rules. Are there any conflicting rules to watch out?

Thanks in advance.

Personaly I don't like the Odd number approach for the Hard Difficulty roll. It makes me change my mindset and pay attention to a different thing. My take (and one I'm using for my ND100 version) is just half percentiles for "hard" success, I think it's pretty easy to eyeball half your skill, and roll under the tens digit (as percentiles) for critical.

I like your intentions. I have a BRPish version of my own in very slow cooking, but with a different approach. There are however some key issues to address IMHO: how to make shields more useful than parrying with anything else, decide if you may make more than one attack per round and based on what (Dex points, total skill, skill splitting), and if you want skills of 100% and more and how will they scale.

I used this rule un Elric! And I think the wording was a bit different. I used those Base Percentages as "passive defense" only against missile attacks, even if you had a lower skill level.

8 hours ago, Gwyndolin said:

With regard to encouraging my players to use the environment, do you prefer to use physical battle maps or just theatre of the mind and explain whats the environment around them is like? I was introduced to ttrpgs in a very war gamey way so Its something I have trouble with sometimes. 

I usually play theatre of the mind. I find I can get immersed more easily and think as if I am in place of my character and make more interesting choices. I find it harder to get into the scene using battlemaps, but maybe that's just me. What I do use is some fast schematics to give some idea of positioning and size of things when it's not so clear.

If it's your first experience with combat in BRP I'd make your players face no more than one enemy each. Superior numbers in BRP is THE best combat advantage you can get. Start with enemy combat skills around 30% for rookie or common enemies and 50% for more experienced, trained, main ones, etc.

Long range weapons are quite an advantage too so use them sparingly or give PCs chance to get cover. Which leads me to my last tip...

Encourage your players to get tactical and USE the environment. It's one of the best and more engaging aspects of BRP combat IMO. Try using creative and alternate solutions. If an enemy is getting tough try other things: use ranged weapon, try a stealth attack, try to grapple, push or drop down.

I think Constitution should be reserved for living corporeal beings. Undead, spirits, etc, might use another stat in it's place. Undeads, vampires, wraiths, ghosts might use POW instead.

Sorcery in the Conan stories feel very much like Call of Cthulhu spells. If I'd make a faithful adaptation I'd use that magic system.

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

As a matter of fact, "lowest roll wins" already gives better odds of success to the highest skill, and you don't really need to add anything to this rule.

(*) it's the reason why I don't count situations where both rolls fail as a "draw" and give victory to the highest roll.

Oh yes, I agree. It's a psychological thing. That's why the latest BRP games have chosen a blackjack roll approach, because the highest skilled character, if the opposition already rolled low, has still the "illusion" that their difference in skill matter. Otherwise the "feeling" is reduced to just roll lower than the opposition, no matter their skill.

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

I haven't done the maths (it's quite tedious...), but I think the advantage your method gives is just too big when opposed skills are close.

And it gets bigger as chances of success near 100, as the most likely result becomes a double success.

Yes, you're right, even if one character is only 1% better than the other it has the advantage. But it's not an auto success, if you use the higher skill option, you don't have to do any math.

Rereading my post, I may have not been clear. The dice flipping option becomes available if both sides succeed (or fail, if needed), and just to determine who wins the tie. You can't change a simple success into a critical by switching the dice.

Some thoughts and options.

I don't like RQ hit locations either, I find it's too much mechanical crunch only for combat. However I do like the narrative detail hitting a body part has. I would suggest a critical hit to give the option of doing double damage or doing normal damage but hitting a specific location for a "narrative" reason. I.e. dropping a gun, forcing someone prone, stun, and so on.

On opposed rolls, I was giving further thought after reading this thread and maybe an elegant solution would be a roll low wins but giving the character with the higher skill the option to reverse or flop the dice. That way you give the more skilled character the leverage while keeping low roll wins and avoiding an auto success: it may happen that even switching dice doesn't give the more skilled character the lower roll.

How about applying a -30% (or -20%) penalty to each weapon use after the first, wether it's parryng with the same weapon after making an attack or attacking after a parry. Keep this penalty off of shields and you make shields suddenly very useful.

5 hours ago, Mugen said:

I prefer to have base skill values set to 2 x a characteristic, with average base values around 21%

You're right. 2x creates better starting values. I'm also considering doing something in the lines of Revolution d100, with broad skills and specializations.

5 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

It looks like you might be interested in this D100 system!

I totally missed this. I'll take a look. Thanks!

11 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Have you thought about something more along the lines of a Damage stat that is then modified by the weapons?

That is an interesting idea... like how GURPS handles damage. I'll give it some thought although I don't want to go to much far from the usual BRP style, unless necessary.

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

So, if your skill is inferior to the difficulty of the task, it has no effect whatsoever?

I think that's counterintuitive.

Not quite. If you look at the possible outcomes, rolling BOTH under your skill and under the difficutly, which might be the case if it is higher than the PC skill, means you succeed but with a complication or something troublesome happens. Already many GMs resolve actions this way. It is similar to PbtA's Success with a Complication, or a Marginal Victory in HeroQuest.

Eg: Jerry the thief tries to lockpick an apartment door. He had sneak through the building's security. Jerry has 45% in Lockpicking and the GM states that the security lock has a difficulty of 55%. The lock is pretty complex, above Jerry's normal skills. Jerry rolls and gets a 39. That means a success with a complication. It means Jerry picked the lock but maybe left visible markings around, or made enough sound as to attract the security's or neighbor's attention.

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

So, if 2 characters with combat skill 99% fight against each other, they'll basically just hit each other every turn unless one of them rolls a crit, or the PC spends energy points ? That's not how I'd envision a fight between 2 skilled fighters. I think you need to have another solution for this case.

Yes, however I forgot to write that the Player may chose NONE makes damage in that case, as with normal opposed rolls. There are some other combat details I've not posted yet, such as number of attacks and Combat Maneuvers (ala Mythras). They all use Energy Points, but you can use them to create some leverage. The goal here is to avoid stale combat rolls and modifying skill with math.

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

As for myself, I dislike having different scales for characteristics, because it means I have to treat INT differently from the others, and I can't roll x times and assign results as I want. Couldn't you re-use your "scale" mechanism for INT, too ?

Rolling INT different is meant to avoid rolling a super low character and make it unplayable. I know, it may happen with other characteristics. It is a "problem" with the BRP stats and what those values mean. IIRC a 6 or lower on any stat means a huge drawback. On the other hand, rolling all characteristics with eg. 2d6+6 gives pretty high and unmeaningful numbers... Maybe 2d8+4 ?  But, again, it draws the system away from the usual BRP versions, which is not my intention unless its necessary.

7 hours ago, Mugen said:

Not that much, given there's only a 15% difference between someone with a 3 and another one with 18, and 7 or 8% difference between them and an average person.

You're right, but it is better than nothing. Plus, remember that skills grow faster until you reach your Statx5%, so a Character with a 10 can rise it's skill fast up to 50% vs. another Character with say 14 that can rise up to 70%.