Renfield

Got it! That helps a bunch. i am not really looking to get rid of those stats, but i didn't feel like we were using them in a way that felt consistent. Since that seems to be the norm, i will consider it a feature, not a bug 🙂 Thanks all!

So I hear ya all...and I thought the same thing. But none of that really follows during play.... Like for the example above = we would never roll to "just be generally charismatic and hope". We treat rolls always as "Don't roll unless failure is fun or something is actively opposing you." So in the case of a gala event with a Crown Prince, they would absolutely need to use Bargain to get close to the Prince, Disguise to look like they are more rich and powerful than they are, and Etiquette to actually interact with the Crown Prince. Because a single Charisma roll informs us of little to nothing, if failed. But a failed Etiquette roll tells us exactly what went wrong and how to respond... And yeah, we do set some initial values from the characteristic, but that isn't really needed. Our game has all humans with same hitpoints, and POW is just for magic points, which everyone can start with set value, so we don't roll POW, we roll the SPELL% (which is bought and raised just like any other skill), magic points are just spent from the pool the character has. I'm not advocating for getting rid of them. I just feel like I want to tell my players something more concrete than "they are whatever catch all / generic sweeping judgement"... Is that wrong headed?

Using BRP, have a fairly generic implementation here. STR DEX CON INT CHA But we also have, you know... skills. Like... 50 of them. So why do we need CHA, when I have 7+ skills that do various charisma stuff? Does BRP really need those base attributes at all? Are they there for when players and GM are like "I have no idea what you are doing, roll a attribute that sorta fits as generic catch all" ?? We have been playing 5 sessions now and never needed to roll CHA as a action... the skills seem to have it all covered. Am I missing something here?

This discussion of Opposed rolls is SUPER helpful to me. My game relies on Opposed rolls a bunch, and so everyone's experiences with this mechanic is much needed! I was going to use the mechanic of "Each player rolls, highest roll under their Skill wins." - I don't see this creating hardly any Ties because a Tie would mean you both had the same Skill value and you both rolled the same value on the Die = uncommon result - To me the phrase of "Each player rolls, highest roll under their Skill wins." = very intuitive and easy and quick to me. And requires no additional rolls. p.s. My players and play tests with other non BRP groups = any time there are multiple sequential rolls = suuuper slow down game. They debate if the rolls are correct, if needed, and the different targets or results needed for each roll. SO, I am thinking of avoiding rules where the player has to roll, and then immediately roll again. One such case i recall in another game system was something to the effect of "roll your % in the activity, and then roll again in a specific skill under that activity" and I think that may not be needed. What do you think?

What implementation of BRP rules does everyone think created the "biggest sin"? That is to say, if there was a rule or mechanic that you think deviated to such a degree as to be un-fun or overly clunky = what was it? Or maybe to say, is there a mechanic or rule that a majority of folks just kinda wish would go away/ be replaced by some better implementation? (just making sure I don't wander down mechanics path that is already a tried and tested failure/frustration, lol ) As a side note, I am not really looking to do anything radical with my implementation of BRP rules. So really, this is largely a sanity check since this is my first time making a full game from the ground up. 🙂

Ok great! Got the big color book, so will dig into that here soon. 🙂 And thanks for the feedback on the rules ideas above. I just wanted to double check that I was not doing crazy odd stuff for BRP fans. My own group likes this stuff, and they find the breakout of "top 20 skills as per setting" on front of sheet , then "odd/specialty/uncommon skills on back of sheet" very helpful as purly a design aspect. So I wanted thoughts on that. I will have a graphic designed character sheet here soon (anyone else start their game design with the character sheet too?) Ok, so more odd mechanics questions... * How does everyone feel about Characteristics being just for base modifiers? (i.e. You only ever roll the x2 , x3, x4 mod on the Characteristic if you absolutely cannot find a skill that matches... but.... with that said, we are thinking of making a slightly more typical Skill that ties to each Characteristic which should catch 99% of all 'generic' uses of a Characteristic...) example: - Instead of rolling Dexterity x2, x3 for doing some odd jump tumble, balance move = we have a skill of "Acrobatics", and that is described as "Covers all non-athletic/martial-art style movements" in the way a generic Dex roll would cover. - or instead of Strength x2, x3 for lifting, pushing, dragging, etc = we have a skill of "Brawn" and that is described as "Covers all acts of non-combat actions where weight matters" in the way a generic Str roll would cover. Note that this functionally is the same as Characteristic xN, but for my players it has eliminated the knee-jerk panic of mid-session maths. And it lets me leverage the above mentioned Difficulty penalties instead of changing the multiplier (that way its a rather standard mechanic/math for all actions in the game) (and yes yes i know, some folks are ok with multiply/division mid-game. But I have found in my experience, that if there is a clever way to not do it and get same results, it won't hurt the mechanics of the game at all, and eliminates all complaints to such.)

I do want to publish, and I am using this SRD 1.0.2 document I have as a guideline. (is there a bookmarked version?) For the most part, I don't see any issues with that. Though...These parts of the SRD are quite vague, so they are a little worrying in case we choose to use a similar mechanic = What exactly does this mean? Other than using the term "Glory" or "Push", which are very generic, the mechanic is fairly easy to write in my own game's context. So what would be an example of "substantially similar" ? I will stick with the D100 rules I was thinking of using, so thank you everyone for letting me know about the typical use of D100. 🙂 Some other ideas I was not sure about how well folks have play-tested them, or seen them implemented in other BRP games with more or less success: - How do most folks feel about negative modifiers to a players' roll? (i.e. the house you are escaping is on fire, and falling apart. It will be a -20% to get through the room safely. - How do folks feel about rolls with consequences? (the house you are escaping is on fire, and falling apart. It will be a -20% to get through the room safely. If you fail, you still get out, but you take damage.) - How do folks feel about splitting out "soft specialty skills" into a sub-section of a character sheet. (i.e. Language: English, French, German. and Lore: Occult, Religion, Fables. Instead of having all of these listed in the main skill list, they are in a side section for "specialties" or "knowledges" or some such. p.s. sorry for long delay, I can only post once a day at this time.

I have a homebrew modern magical mystery setting and I want to use BRP for the rules. I have played the older versions of Call of Cthulhu, and as of recently, bought and run several one-shot games of Pendragon. I am more used to percentiles in game rules, but my players are more used to D&D d20 rules. Now I am writing this mostly for me to enjoy running, but Pendragon was very fun to run too. So... now I am not so sure which to pick. What do you prefer, D20 or Percentile? What do you think the future of BRP games is going to use, just D20s now? Cheers!