rust

For me it would depend on the actual profession. For example, a typical brewer buys the

raw materials from the farmers and processes them, which in my view would make him a

type of crafter, while a typical vintner grows his own grapes, which in my view would ma-

ke him a kind of farmer. It would also depend a lot on the setting, for example whether

a member of the profession can be expected to be literate, which would make an alche-

mist a possible choice, or whether the huge majority of the setting's brewers or vintners

are illiterate, which would not fit in well with my idea of an alchemist.

The problem is that STR can be defined and measured quite well, while POW and CHA

are difficult to define and impossible to measure. Besides, I suspect that most refe-

rees could agree how to handle STR in their games, but comparatively few referees

would agree how exactly to handle POW and CHA in all kinds of situations. So all the

game designers probably can do is to tell their readers what an average POW or CHA

is, and then leave it to them to come up with their own ideas what an unusual high or

low POW or CHA could be like.

... I just hope some of you are aware of how things like this get so easily broadcast into other fora, seized-upon, and cause almighty flamewars that damage personal and professional reputations.

Indeed. While it was certainly intended as just a joke, it was the kind of joke which

can easily turn into a forum nuke, especially since there are lots of people out there

who are actively looking for opportunities to start arguments. No need to offer food

for such trolls.

Discussions about various breakpoints in the way that some d100 games handle figured stats makes me wonder - has there ever been a d100 variant that used 01-100 values for primary Characteristics?

Yes, for example the Expendables roleplaying game by Stellar Games did.

My point is that a 6'5 guy with DEX 18 should have a base rate faster than a 5'1 guy with DEX 10.

It is certainly possible to increase the granularity of the game's mechanics, and it

would certainly make the game a better simulation of the real world. Unfortunate-

ly the increased realism would require an increased complexity of the rules, and as

rules get more complex they tend to reduce a game's playability. It is a matter of

personal preference where one sees the best compromise between realism / rules

complexity and playability, I always liked the d100 family games because they are

comparatively rules light compared to games like GURPS or Rolemaster.

A slight siderail to the main topic, but I noticed that all the Elric of Melnibone products seem to have been pulled from the site's store as well.

According to Mongoose there are currently negotiations concerning the license.

How might one reflect the impact on rate of fire that superior drill and training have on black powder combats?

The usual aim of the musket drill for military units was to achieve a hgh rate of fire

and the ability to sustain "rolling fire" (= different parts of the unit fire at different

times so there is no pause), the precision of the fire was of secondary (sometimes

of no) importance - the aim was to hit the enemy with a permanent hail of as ma-

ny musket balls as possible. A well trained soldier could fire three times per minute,

some soldiers of elite units could even fire four times per minute, but few could con-

tinue at such a speed for more than a few minutes - which was no serious problem,

because muskets were usually fired at a comparatively short distance at advancing

enemy troop formations, and the enemy normally closed in for melee combat or bro-

ke and retreated after a very short time. Naval gunnery fire was different. Naval en-

gagements could last for hours without interruption, and precision could be as useful

as a high rate of fire - while any hit with a musket ball could incapacitate a soldier,

a ship had more and less important targets, and where it was hit was often more

important than the fact that it was hit at all, bringing down a mast and its rigging

or silencing a cannon was a lot more useful than pumping another cannon ball into

a cargo hold.

Monster Island is now available for pre-orders from the Design Mechanism store (The Design Mechanism) and DrivethruRPG.

Good news, I will buy the PDF as soon as I can fit Monster Island into my campaign.

Edit.:

Downloaded it today, it became "Kapala Island" in my current setting. After a first read

I am impressed by the quality - highly recommended, I gave it 5 stars on DTRPG.

Is magic in Call of Cthulhu based on the Sorcery mechanic from BRP?

No, Call of Cthulhu uses a very different concept of magic, it actually

does not have a real games mechanic for magic.

... though the first will be Rome, as I'm something of an amateur historian, and I REALLY like historical RPGs).

If you are more into the real history than into the Hollywood version of it,

there is a good chance that you will love BRP's Rome, in my view it is a true

masterwork. So are most of the other historical supplements, for example

Celestial Empire, Merrie England and Mythic Iceland.

P.S. - By the way your text comes formatted, can I guess you're the same Rust on Citizens?

I used to be, but I have not visited CotI for a very long time.

Is BRP the "concrete" game I'm looking for?

It may well be, or at least it and the other members of the d100 family almost certainly

have the necessary tools to create that game.

What I like most about BRP, in addition to what has already been mentioned by others,

is that the system can easily be modified to fit a specific gaming style or setting. It can

be made more complex through the use of the many available options, or it can be made

more rules light by using only the bare core of it. It is no problem at all to add elements

of other systems or to design house rules for elements one does not want because they

do not feel right for one's gaming style or campaign. So, if you decide that BRP may in-

deed be the game for you, you could take the time to look at the many other members

of the family, like Classic Fantasy, Magic World, Renaissance and so on, or the upcoming

science fiction game River of Heaven. They are all close relatives of BRP with their own

focus and interesting ideas, and good examples of the way the game can be tailored to

fit a specific concept.

Note that's only the number of PDFs sold.it has sold a -lot- more physical copies. It's doing quite well, actually.

In this case it is indeed doing very well - Congratulations !

In my experience Chaosium is a very real company with a

very serious communications problem.

Maybe their resigned to the inevitable...that no matter how good their book looks it's not going to sell so why not give it away?

A marketing strategy which has become increasingly common in the roleplaying games "industry"

(well, "cottage industry" at best) is to offer a first book as a PDF for free or almost for free, ho-

ping that enough people will download it, like it, and therefore become willing to pay for supple-

ments and perhaps even a future print run of the originally free first PDF. In order for that stra-

tegy to work, that first free book should be a truly convincing, great product.

Unfortunately the strategy does not work that often, and when the first book turns out to be a

heartbreaker or another kind of failure, the effort and money of usually many months of work has

been wasted. So, spending the money on a lottery ticket might well be a better investment ...

Or, as a friend of mine once remarked, it is very easy to become a roleplaying games author with

a Lamborghini and a nice villa in Malibu, you only have to start your career with two Lamborghi-

nis and two nice villas in Malibu.

This is a very small game company, yet their books are gorgeous - lots of detail , great interior art, tons of aids for players and GM's. So if they can do it...why can't a BRP person do it??

While it is comparatively easy to create an excellent book as a hobby in one's spare

time when one has a steady income, it becomes a lot more difficult when the hours

spent on working on the book have to be paid for by the book's sale, because then

the book's acceptable price and its print run limit the number of hours one can work

on the book.

Why hasn't anyone in the BRP world figured out how to market the system?

a) Marketing is expensive, and the profit margin of a company like Chaosium is small.

Settlers of Catan was produced and marketed by what is an international megacorpo-

ration compared to the tiny Chaosium.

The market is indeed small and already almost saturated when it comes to fantasy

roleplaying games. There are days when looking at the many systems offered on for

example DTRPG I get the suspicion that there are already more such games than ga-

mers.

Basically trying to figure out why so little info for these games...why are dedicated RPG sites the only place they get mentioned if at all?.

According to the Chaosium website Magic World has now been downloaded

374 times. Since only a very small percentage of the people who bought a

game writes reviews, one can expect only a very low number of reviews on

the Internet. The interests and opinions of a few hundred people remain al-

most invisible on the general Internet.

In summary, no matter how gross you make an NPC, the PCs will always find a way of killing him/her.

It depends a lot on a campaign's degree of player character script immunity.

For example, in my campaigns this degree is rather low, death tends to be

permanent, and as a result those player characters who decide to fight a

too dangerous opponent are usually killed, without any second chance to

fight the same enemy again with a better battle plan.

Something I can't grasp at the moment (among many other things), is how a GM knows how strong/powerful to make an NPC or group of NPC's in order to challenge the players.

My settings are "sandboxes", and like the real world they contain weak, average and

powerful characters and creatures. It is up to the player characters to gather the ne-

cessary informations to decide what they can do or not, when to fight, when to avoid

and when to run. I would dislike a predictable setting where the player characters can

expect to only encounter suitable "challenges" for their "level", this would seem too im-

plausible for my taste.

I am trying to tie down a house rule for using optics, such as telescopes and binoculars, in the game to aid with spot actions. I may have missed it but is there a guideline for a rough range for making spot rolls with the naked eye hence then maybe altering the range for optics by the magnification of the equipment?

The use of optics not only increases the range, it also increases the average time required to

spot something, because the magnification of the optics comes with an equivalent reduction

of the field of view.

Isn't English screwy if it isn't your first language :-)

Yep, a perfect instrument for the use of a multitude of obscure

words in an attempt to avoid any transfer of information.

Any news on River of Heaven ?

I think the voyage should take about two weeks and cost about 40 Pounds.

I don't know about German copyright law so you may be safe putting it on-line in Germany ...

I would not recommend that. The material's size is clearly beyond that of a normal fan project,

and since it is written in English it is likely to come to Chaosium's attention sooner or later.

The only good way I see to handle this is indeed to contact Chaosium and ask for their permis-

sion.

Hi rust. Hab ich doch im Ansatz richtig gelegen, dass du dich hier rumtreiben müsstest. ^^

"Das Böse ist immer und überall ..."