clarence

Good question. I don't think I have seen one for BRP. It would be a good idea to port the system. Does it come with any rules or is it just a classification?

Good work Paolo! Looking forward to this. And I'm happy my experiments have been helpful - I see great promise in these ideas. 

Yes, that's elegant! I wouldn't go so far as to roll a second time to improve their hands though.

In the second round, why didn't Bret win with 84? Shouldn't highest success win? Or am I missing something...

That's an interesting alternative. Could you give an example of how it would work?

Good to hear it's coming along nicely. Looking forward to trying it out. What is the relation between the new RQ rules and BRP Essentials (if that's what you still call it now that TDM is not involved any more)? Will it be a simplified version of RQ2/RQ4 with some small changes only?

Thanks for the comments Paolo! Yes, it did work out well, though so far only tested on a small, tight group. I will keep you posted on how it develops. 

Re the power/difficulty levels I think you are spot on. I think I will keep my values for clarity, but stress your points in the accompanying text. 

I also ran a couple of combats using this system. I've done that before, but the difference this time was that I kept the conflict pool (CON+SIZ)/2 separate from hit points. This allowed me to have quick non-lethal combats, where characters lost consciousness at a pool of zero (instead of dying). Every time a pool reaches zero, the character looses an additional 1d4 hit points. It turned out to be an easy way to separate deadly violence from more benign fights. 

Sure, go ahead! I'm just happy if you can find a use for it. Looking forward to your work on 40K!

At the moment I'm putting all my ideas and examples of conflict resolution into a new chapter to be included in both BRP Space and Odd Soot. It will replace and expand on the social conflict rules I had earlier - and be both more flexible and detailed. 

Excellent! I will have to check this out. 

Ok, here are the steps I used to play the dinner party as an extended conflict. The setting is the 1930s alternate Earth of Odd Soot, the world book I'm doing for BRP Space at the moment. 

1. Use CHA (APP) as conflict pool and almost any communication skill for skill rolls. 

2. Pick 1-6 NPCs as the main participators. If there are more people attending the dinner, treat them as subordinates to the main NPCs (and ignore them to simplify the setup). 

3. Define the NPCs conflict values as follows (if you don't already have them):

Low-level: Any communication skill 30%, CHA (APP) 6

Mid-level: Any communication skill 50%, CHA (APP) 11

High-level: Any communication skill 75%, CHA (APP) 16

4. Decide how long the party will last. 

5. Play the dinner! Make a skill roll every half hour the dinner party lasts. Only those failing their rolls takes damage. The person with the highest success rolls the damage (1d6) and everyone takes the same amount of damage  

6. When the time is up, participants have made it through the banquette according to the points they have left in their pools:

- Zero. The character made a lousy impression. S/he won’t be invited again, will have a bad reputation in these circles and won’t easily get a job or information from these people. Will be at -10% in communication skills in these circles. 

- Below half their pool. The outcome is neutral. Nothing special happens. Social diposition +/-0.

- More than half the pool left. S/he made a good impression. S/he will be invited again and will be favorably met in the future (+10% Social Disposition). 

In addition, for every successful roll the character makes, there is a chance that something interesting and useful is revealed. It can be related to the scenario or not, and can be secrets overheard, rumors, new business relations presented, love affairs implicitly indicated, etcetera. The GM may want to prepare beforehand what tidbits are revealed and how many successful rolls it takes to get each of them. (Example: Kris Noim is invited to a fancy dinner held by a criminal network in Glimminge. Earlier that day he had ran into an old enemy, Egil Hermstad. The GM decides that if Kris makes three successful rolls (out of five), he will overhear a conversation about what his old enemy is up to these days. Kris' player is lucky with the dice, and makes the three rolls despite having Bargain at 60%. This information will eventually lead to a new scenario, with Kris getting help from a Wittenberg Priest to stop a magical portal from opening). 

This worked really well in play. Rolls were made after the players declared roughly what to say, who they spoke to, how they answered etcetera. Roleplaying and dice rolling were supporting each other.

Two things stood out as especially interesting. First, the use of various skills brought some social definition to all the characters, both PCs and NPCs. A person using Persuade made a different impression than someone using Etiquette or Perform (Theatre). Not unlike the choice of weapons in a regular combat!

Second, playing the party this way tied directly into the scenario, providing clues and improving the character's relation with these people. Kris made it through elegantly, and this might even be the start of a longer and deeper connection. 

I think I would make the Fremen suits add to the Survival (Desert) skill. Perhaps a bonus of +20%?

Yes, the Revolution is spreading : ) 

This concept is very powerful, Paolo. Thanks for introducing these thoughts to me. It really breathes new life into BRP for me. Looking forward to the next iteration of RD100. 

One thing I've been thinking about is when the opposition is not a person. If I want to pick a lock as an extended contest, I have to assign the lock/door a percentage and a pool. But what do these values represent? The pool feels pretty straightforward, but the percentage - the lock is after all not an active opponent. What are your thoughts on this Paolo?

@ColinBrett I'm happy you like it! I can write the procedure down step by step (for the dinner party) and post it here at least. 

Yes, arm wrestling is perfect for this system. 

I also had a character participate in a car race today (1930s race cars are fantastic btw!) and it went very smoothly. Skill: Drive (Automobile), conflict pool DEX. 

For sports, contests and games including multiple participants, it makes sense to run the conflict until only one person is left (ie. has a pool above zero). In social situations on the other hand, it seems more logical to allow several "winners" (unless it's a straightforward bargain or persuasion). That's how I used the system for the gangster banquette: If a pool remained above zero at the end of the dinner, the person made a good impression (very good if above half the pool). If a pool dropped to zero, the person made a bad impression. 

To mimimize dice rolling, I have everyone take the same amount of damage. Does that seem unfair and too simplistic?

I'm happy you like it. I've been experimenting with all kinds of conflicts using similar rules and it works really well. And as you say, it stays very close to the original BRP rules. Turning other situations than combat into extended conflicts has been an eye opener - it brings a lot of variation and creativity into the sessions. 

Next up is a gangster dinner party as an extended conflict : )

Yesterday my character Krys Noim ended up in a shabby 1930s dockside bar in downtown Glimminge, playing a game of poker with the gangsters running the place. This is how I did it. 

Using an extended conflict (with conflict pools calculated from characteristics), similar to the rules in Revolution d100, worked very well. 

1. Choose the type of game - card games, dice, chess, etcetera. (This does not affect the following rules). 

2. In a high-level gaming environment, a successful Gaming skill roll may be needed to be allowed to participate. 

3. Calculate the conflict pools of all PCs involved: (INT+POW) divided by 2. This will be the equivalent of hit points, with Gaming as the "attack" skill. (A typical conflict takes 3-4 rounds to resolve - use INT+POW straight for the game to last longer). 

4. Determine the "gaming stats" of NPCs as follows (if you don't already know them): 

Low-level/casual/beginner: Gaming 30%, Conflict pool 6.

Mid-level/regular/knowledgable: Gaming 50%, conflict pool 11. 

High-level/proffessional: Gaming 70%, conflict pool 16. 

5. Place your bets. The GM and players come to an agreement about the size of the bets. 

6. Start playing! Use opposed rolls, with the highest success in Gaming skill winning the round. The winner deals 1d6 damage to every other participant (only roll damage once per round - everyone takes the same amount of damage). 

When a PC/NPC is reduced to a conflict pool of zero, s/he is out of the game. 

The last PC/NPC to have a conflict pool left wins the game. Now, either the winner takes it all, or the money is divided according to how many rounds each player won. (Example: Four players bet €100 each; €400 in total. The game lasted four rounds, with player 1 winning three (and winning the entire game) and player 2 winning one round. Player one gets €300 and player 2 €100. Or player 1 wins all €400). 

Cheating: To be able to cheat the skill Sleight of Hand is required. For every successful Sleight of hand roll, the cheater gets a +10% bonus on his/her Gaming skill the same round. Failure gives no bonus and the other card players will detect the cheating with a successful Spot roll. For more elaborate setups prepared beforehand, a larger bonus can be used. 

All in all, it turned out to be a quick and exciting way to resolve a situation like this. The actual dice rolling moment raised the intensity of the session in a way not far from a real poker game. At the same time it was fast paced enough to not bog down the scenario. 

(Krys Noim won big : ) His high Gaming skill (80%) saved him, despite his rather ordinary pool (11). The others may hold a grudge with him though... Not the best place to make enemies). 

Tres cool!

I haven't seen that before... Pleasepleaseplease tell us the secrets : )

That would be a good addition! I'm still polishing the rules (to be released this summer), and linking would be nice to squeeze in. 

It sounds interesting. Do send it over! You've got my email, right?

Re the number of weapons: I would very much like to see your take on it. 

Thanks Colin! Your contribution was very valuable - I don't think the capital ships had been there without you. 

@Atgxtg: Aha, yes. Instead of adding another two modules (which seemed unreasonably bulky compared to the rest), damage has been doubled instead. That's assuming they always fire at the same target with at least two lasers though. 

I've got several requests for a download link that doesn't require a login, so here it is:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_WMqDUDtERkRVF0c2pyOHVRRW8

I hope you enjoy it.

Very interesting read. Eight years of development is a long time... I really enjoy RoH and hope I can buy the new scenario soon.

Will we see a new version of Cthulhu Rising this year?

There is now a small PDF booklet in Downloads detailing some of the iconic Star Wars spaceships. Stats for the BRP Starships/BRP Space rules are included for X-Wings, Millenium Falcon, Star Destroyers among others. 

All modules are listed for each ship, to make them easy to tweak. Hit locations have been calculated for most of them. Hopefully all this will be useful to show how the ship building rules work. You will need BRP Starships (available in Downloads) to make sense of the stats. 

If your game is set in another universe, they might still useful as is or to use as templates. 

Please let me know what you think. All comments welcome. 

Written by Colin Brett & Clarence Redd

That's unexpected : )

Very much looking forward to reading these : ) Thanks Newt.