rust

My main issue then is finding another prerequisite to replace Hero Points when it comes to Legendary Abilities?

It depends on your setting and gaming style. In our case I think I would ask for

a relevant skill of 95 % plus another experience roll of a natural 100 to grant a

character a legendary ability instead of the skill improvement.

Meanwhile we have played the next few hours of the events, and this is what happened, or at least

what the usurper king's men know about it ...

„My Lord,

as you will remember, the idiot who claimed to be a rebel was sentenced to death by your bailiff, and the

execution was to take place at your castle's courtyard.

All the citizens of Morragen had been ordered to come and watch the painful death of the rebel, so there

was a huge crowd. Some rebels hid among this crowd, and when the prisoner was led to the execution,

two of these rebels used crossbows to wound your bailiff and the priest of Arthun who stood next to him,

and then the rebels fled down to the river, pursued by the captain of the guard and most of his men. At

the river the rebels stole a boat and escaped downriver to the Estre Swamps, their usual hiding place.

While the captain and his men were hunting these rebels, a fire broke out at Arthun's recently completed

temple. From what I have been told, a cart with a wine barrel on it broke down at the temple gate. There

were only two temple guards at the gate, because the others had escorted the priest to the castle. Among

the bystanders who came running to the temple to help with the cart were rebels, who killed the guards

and rolled the barrel into the temple. The barrel was filled with lamp oil, so it was easy for them to start

a fire and burn down the temple.

When the fire at the temple became visible, the crowd at the castle moved to the burning temple. A few

brave people attempted to fight the fire, but some mad thief had stolen the ropes from the two nearest

wells, which made it impossible to lift the buckets with water up the wells. So the crowd just stood there

and watched the fire, but unfortunately this crowd filled the entire market square and made it almost im-

possible for the captain of the guard to lead his men back to the castle.

At about this time the biggest group of rebels attacked. With most of the castle's guards gone to pursue

the first group of rebels, and the remaining temple guards on their way to the burning temple, the woun-

ded bailiff and the wounded priest had only few men with them, the castle's gate was still wide open, and

it was impossible to know who of the many people at or near the castle were rebels. We still do not know

how many rebels took part in the attack, but it must have been more than two dozen of them. They cut

down the bailiff, the priest and almost all of the castle's defenders, freed the prisoners, set the castle on

fire, and escaped on the guards' horses.

The captain of the guards was later able to recover the horses, the rebels had not ridden them into the

swamps, but we lost much of the castle, most of the temple, the bailiff, the priest, more than a dozen of

our loyal fighters, and – worst of all – the trust of the citizens of Morragen.“

As you see, I decided to neither reward nor punish the scholar character, although the fact that his planned

execution gave the rebels the opportunity for their attack could be considered a minor reward.

Edit.:

On the other hand, standing right next to the bailiff's torturer through the events until the rebel's final attack

and knowing that the torturer just waited impatiently for the bailiff's signal to get the execution started could

perhaps be considered a mild form of punishment ...

Edit. 2:

By the way, the crucial moment of this part of the adventure was the bailiff's Idea Roll after he was hit by the

crossbow bolt. The character with the crossbow intentionally wounded the bailiff only slightly, hoping that he

would fail to recognize the diversion and in his rage order the guards to pursue the "assassins" who had "at-

tempted to kill him". The characters were lucky, and the bailiff indeed fumbled his Idea Roll and sent most of

his soldiers after the fleeing rebels - and neither he nor his men realized that the people fleeing to the river

were only harmless unarmed youngsters dressed like the crossbowmen, while the dangerous and well armed

ones still were at the castle and waited for their comrades to provide the second diversion at the temple.

Perhaps, if the bailiff can be persuaded, the character might be allowed a trial by combat to show his innocence. Of course that might not be a fair trial or it might give the character's companions the opportunity to rescue him.

Hmmm ... thank you, I like that.

A public trial by combat in the castle's courtyard, which would in fact be a public

execution since the character has hardly any combat skills, would enable the bai-

liff to make an example of this suspected rebel supporter and thereby to frighten

the commoners - and at the same time give the other characters both an oppor-

tunity and an incentive to attack the castle at this time, disguised as spectators

of the trial by combat.

It is rather close to a certain scene of a certain Robin Hood movie, but this does

not have to be a disadvantage, the setting offers enough ways to make it diffe-

rent.

Besides, to rescue their stupid comrade and to free the prisoners in such a very

public way could well boost the reputation of the rebels considerably (see the

other thread about recruiting / "Prince Illiam ...").

Ask who will pay this 'fine' (ransom). If it's someone of social standing (respectable, and non-rebel), then send word demanding payment and sling him back in a dungeon till it arrives.

I am afraid this character has the right connections to convince a respectable

secret supporter of the rebellion to pay the fine / ransom.

Otherwise, immediately maim him and apply torture ...

(...)

... until he dies; stick the head on a pike above the gates and feed the dismembered remains to dogs.

I am very much tempted to treat the character this way, if only to make sure

that his player does not develop a habit of similar antics of his characters.

Something based a bit on Pendragon Glory perhaps? Lets call it Renown or Repute. Overall value of this determines how well you are known among the masses.

Thank you very much, another good idea.

In the current Carelan campaign the characters have been assigned the task to

free some important prisoners from the castle at the town of Morragen.

The group's scholar is sent to scout the castle, to learn as much as he can about

the number of guards and their equipment, and if possible to contact one of the

prisoners. He walks up to the guard at the castle's gate and tells him:

"Good Man, I am one of the rebels who want to free your prisoners. We would like

to know how many guards you have here, and what equipment they have. Would

you be so kind to raise an alarm, so I can get an impression of this ?"

He is of course arrested and thrown into the dungeon, and the other players sta-

re at the scholar's player in utter disbelief.

The player smiles and explains that his character now knows the guards and their

equipment and the interior layout of the castle, and that he has the opportunity

to talk to the prisoners. And in the next morning he will tell the bailiff that he was

drunk, wanted to make an admittedly silly joke, and now regrets this and is willing

to pay a fine before he is set free.

Well, I have to play the bailiff, and I really do not know how to handle this. It is

incredibly stupid and in a strange way brilliant at the same time, and I have no

idea how my bailiff should react to this: Hang the man or let him go ?

What would you do with this insane scholar ?

All very rough and ready, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Yep, thank you very much.

Since there are different factions among the rebellion, and not all of them are of

the Robin Hood kind, I will also use modifiers / points for the less than helpful ac-

tions of those other factions, hoping that this will cause the characters to try to

rein in the bandits among the rebels - which will of course increase the peasants'

sympathies and support for the characters.

In our campaigns it is very rare that a player character gets killed by the other

player characters, but it has happened. If the death of the player character is

caused by a stupid decision of the character (player) and justified by the inner

logic of the setting, I expect the player to accept it without complaints and to

move on without holding a grudge - in the end, it was he who killed his charac-

ter.

If the player is unable to understand and accept this, I will explain it to him, but

only the first time it happens. If he does it again, I will tell him to search for ano-

ther game to join - my Rule 1 of gaming is never to do it with people who cannot

distinguish clearly between game reality and the real world.

Presumably the adventurers in this game are "righters of wrongs" or "steal from the rich and give to the poor" types, no? I suggest using their deeds as a measure. Set some value to the scenarios you create. Helping a little old lady across the street is worth one point. Slaying the evil Baron is worth 25. As their the value of their deeds increases it becomes easier to convince people to join the rebellion.

Thank you for a good idea.

Of course, there should also be negative modifiers, for example for wounding ci-

vilians or otherwise causing harm to them (those stolen chickens ...).

In our settings we used "natural" giants (normal physical creatures), which were

two to four times as tall as humans (4 m to 8 m) and "mythological" giants (like

those of the Norse mythology), which were "as tall as they wanted", up to hund-

reds of meters (think of the saga where some gods sleep in the glove of a giant).

Hmmm. Well, you could always take the David/Robin Hood approach and send your PCs to those already disaffected with the usurper. Is there an element or elements of society who have lost their farms, homes, families to the bad guy? If they're already refugees, vagrants or outlaws because of the villain, they have little to lose and perhaps much to gain by joining the PCs.

Thank you very much, this would be good modifiers for the approach I edited into my last post.

The recruits are typically the rulers of a particular racial or ethnic group and bring their armed followers along with them.

I see your point, but this would not work in this setting, the characters have to

go to the settlements and to convince villagers and townsmen to join the rebel-

lion, there simply are no particular racial or ethnic groups with armed followers in

this setting. And just to claim that all peasants of Village Remote hate the usur-

per and leave their families and farms to join the good fight seems rather implau-

sible, so I am looking for a way to determine how many of those farmers could

be willing to become rebels, based upon the previous successes or failures of the

rebellion (= its reputation) and the "sales pitch" (= Recruiting skill) of the charac-

ters.

Edit.:

I just got an interesting tip in another forum, to use the people's Loyalty to the

ruler as a base value and add and subtract modifiers according to the local si-

tuation and the activities and skills of the characters. For example, the further

the settlement is from the capital and the more the people are oppressed, the

less is their Loyalty, and when the characters manage to turn it into negative

Loyalty (ah, Disloyalty), a certain percentage of them will join the rebellion.

I think this approach should work, now I only have to think about the modifiers

which would fit well into the setting - I hope.

Most of the system part of our Carelan setting has now been designed, the eco-

nomy will be borrowed from Harnmaster, the mass combat mainly from Pendragon

and GURPS, and the magic from Midgard - they all fit in well enough with our ver-

sion of a "BRP-enriched CoC".

Unfortunately there is still one problem remaining, recruiting. The characters will

have to win new members for the rebellion, and I failed to come up with a con-

vincing rules mechanism for this, a complete "setting designer's block".

The mechanism should consider the reputation of the rebellion, the social skills

of the recruiters, the degree of oppression suffered by the community where the

attempt to win recruits is made, and the size of this community (and perhaps also

other factors I did not think of ...) and should give the number of recruits as the

result.

I suspect that something like this has already been developed for some game out

there, and also that it would not be terribly difficult to come up with such a me-

chanism, but right now I can only stare at the screen and wonder where my brain

has gone.

Any help with this would be most welcome.

What are the dates for Early Bulletproof Vest and Late Bullet Proof Vest?

According to the rules, Early Bulletproof Vests use metal plates, so they are the

kind of vests developed during the American Civil War. Modern Bulletproof Vests

use plastics, which were developed after 1950, with Kevlar becoming a standard

after 1975.

Also, would flak jackets be more common for soldiers of fortune?

No, mercenaries usually can spend more money on their equipment than govern-

ments are able or willing to spend to outfit their soldiers, and therefore mercena-

ries usually have the best available gear.

When is a modern helmet a Light Helmet and when is it a Heavy Helmet?

I would treat the kind of helmet used by the explosives experts and similar speci-

alists as Heavy Helmet and the kind of helmet used by normal soldiers as Light

Helmet, because otherwise the stats do not make that much sense, since the

lightweight helmets made of non-metallic materials offer a much better protection

than the heavy metal helmets still used by some armies.

I don't get it.

Looks rather "Disney" to me, too ...

Hello Evilschemer, welcome here and good luck with your monograph, I will keep

watching out for it.

Another interesting option could be GURPS Mass Combat, which I just re-discove-

red on a backup CD. It is slightly more abstract than the systems of Pendragon

and Flashing Blades, the referee has to provide more of the "fluff", but otherwise

it seems to be as fast and simple as I need it, and includes rules for terrain, re-

connaissance, surprise and ambush, heroic actions and all that, as well as diffe-

rent types of defensive and offensive tactics.

Apologies to all those living in the city of Gelthan'yal'then'asura. No offense intended.

No problem. We usually shorten it to "Gelthan", the archaic form with the silly

apostrophes has been out of use since my childhood, 2,400 years ago.

Thank you very much.

I have Flashing Blades, but I never used its mass combat system, I will take a look at it.

Um - can we just assume that I've posted my standard rant about needing new, fresh exciting and original scenarios and sourcebooks ...

While I see your point and agree, the title of the thread will inevitably lead to

the naming of old settings and IPs, too.

Since this thread is already quite long, perhaps start a new one asking for ideas

on new, fresh and original worlds for BRP ?

In the not so far future our current Carelan low fantasy campaign will probably

move from character combat to skirmishes and then to battles, and I am loo-

king for suitable rules to play them.

At the moment I am thinking of the battle rules of the Pendragon game, which

would fit our magic poor setting well and seem to model a pseudo-medieval type

of mass combat at the right (= low) complexity level, including the more or less

"heroic" involvement of the characters.

However, since there might well be better options out there, I would like to ask

for your recommendations for such a system, which should:

- be close enough to BRP to make an adaptation easily possible,

- be simple (no detailed tabletop rules, I would not be able to handle them),

- model combat between units of dozens to hundreds of medieval soldiers,

- include rules for surprise, ambush and hit and run tactics,

- include rules for terrain (marsh / swamp will certainly be a location),

- make it possible to determine the fate of characters during the combat,

- enable "heroic" characters to influence the outcome of the combat.

What they do not need to do is to deal with magic, siege combat and non-hu-

man soldiers / monsters.

Any help with this would be most welcome.

David Brins Uplift books...

They would make an excellent setting, but to translate the technology - in fact,

the many technologies - into BRP terms would be a true nightmare. Even GURPS

with its very elaborate technology system had problems with this.

Thieves World

Indeed, this would be one I would buy, I often regret the loss of my copy.

Qué?

Our current fantasy campaign. Nasty noble has royal family murdered and decla-

res himself king, loyal commoners flee to the swamps and plot rebellion, brave

smugglers supply them with weapons, guerilla war begins ... a bit like Robin Hood

with crossbows in a flooded Sherwood Forest ...

I just browsed this thread to see which settings I would have liked when I was a

few years younger. It turned out I only proposed Niven's Known Space of the

Ringworld novels and Weber's Honorverse of the Honor Harrington novels. Today

I would delete the Honorverse, because Weber's latest novels made me grow ti-

red of this setting. Known Space would still be nice, but I can well do without it.

In the end I am probably a "design it yourself" referee, who loves to create his

own stuff instead of buying material others wrote.

Well, back into the Swamps of Carelan, there is a rebellion to organize ...