Simlasa

Please. Lose the chip.

I thought I was just chucking your chip back at ya... heh

'Meeting halfway', to me, is having options... which I'm fine with.

There was an interesting discussion of 'Drama Points' on RPG.net:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?referrerid=&t=357641&highlight=drama+points

'Meeting halfway', to me, is having options... which I'm fine with.

There was an interesting discussion of 'Drama Points' on RPG.net:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?referrerid=&t=357641&highlight=drama+points

So much for just about any action movie ever...

James Bond does 15-20 stupid things per movie - and survives

Indiana Jones, The Man With No Name, even Luke Skywalker are all dead as Ceasar within the first half hour of your game...

I'm not saying it always has to be cinematic, but is the story about 'YOUR GAME', or is it about the heroes in the story?

For us it's neither, it's about all of us having a good time playing out the sorts of stories we like...

Nevermind...

But most people don't take a system and hack it into shape if it has what seems like a signficant failing to them; they just move on to another system.

That's funny, I've never played in a game that didn't have at least some house rules.. even if that just means ignoring some of the ones in the rulebook.

I think, however, that ignoring the ways RQ doesn't match the general tastes of the hobby is burying your head in the sand, and its all too common a habit in the hobby, especially among fans of older systems.

What are we 'ignoring'? I am completely aware that SOME people like fate points and ads disads and other stuff... but I don't, I want the OTHER game, the one without those things. Choice is good, right?

Though I guess, as a fan of an 'older system', I'm obviously unable to discern good rules from bad...

If we go by the 'general tastes' of the hobby we'd also have to throw in levels and classes and alignments... the stuff RQ was such a revolution against in the first place.

Whereas I think that's a false dichotomy. I think trying to assume its _only_ exposure or _only_ system is lying to one's self.

Who said anything about 'only'... I'm just saying that trying to market the game better and get the word out... maybe set up a 'house setting' or two that would feel familiar to people... wouldn't be a bad step towards getting more players for the rules AS THEY ARE.

Trying to change the rules to suit people, when there are already a lot of happy players just doesn't seem as likely to work out. It could easily alienate folks like me and not draw in any new blood at all.

I always took the fumble tables to be guidelines also... not hard and fast rules of what HAD to happen.

I'm sure Nightshade is right that the lack of certain mechanics has kept some people away from BRP... but I don't really think that the lack of fate points or ads/disads is at all the major reason for BRP not being more of major player... since there actually is a protean system of ads/disads in the Superworld system and fate points are simple to add to the game if you want them.

You could just as readily count out a those gamers who won't touch anything with a roll-under system or percentiles or dice or GMs.

Should the game morph to please them as well?

There is less than a handful of hugely popular RPGs out there... and none of them have a perfect set of rules either. There are plenty of flash-in-the-pan games that tried to be just like them and spent a summer on the shelves before disappearing.

Really I think it has a lot more to do with the stuff we were originally discussing in this thread, marketing and awareness amongst gamers of what BRP had to offer... and the sorts of way Chaosium has made use of it.

I don't think it's a matter of smooshing BRP into some perfected shape that would draw the people who've tried it and disliked it, I think it's more a need to get it into the hands and minds of people who haven't tried it but would like it if they did.

What you do is killed the group off and hope that "stupid" either learns from his mistake or leaves the group. If you fudge and then cover it up so the players don't know, "stupid" is going to get the idea that throwing rocks at a T-Rex is a valid tactic ("It worked the last time!!!") and do it again the next time the situation comes up.

Naw... you let 'stupid' get eaten, cause he did something stupid... it's the other players who maybe get to benefit from a fudge... as they try to escape stupid's stupidity.

For horror games I can sort of see it, but for most I think it tends to mean the GM feels he's a better manager of information than the players, which is why I think its a bit of a control issue.

While I agree that's an issue, even if you're story oriented, it makes the assumption you're better at seperating yourself from the numbers than the players are.

The guy in our group who borrowed the idea from UA was a player, not one of the GMs... he thought it would really help the immersive feel of the combats if you didn't have a clear idea of how badly you were hurt or hurting your opponent. We tried it out and it really did change how we played... people were more cautious and would often run out of battles without being all that badly wounded (just in pain or bleeding a lot)... that vs. the more video-game version of comparing your health bar to the enemies and judging who would outlast whom.

We don't do it for 'control' reasons but because of the mood elements and the interesting events it causes. Only slightly more work for the GM and more fun for the players.

Also, we don't always hide the numbers... for some more pulpy or macho games we use the rules more like a wargame... with all stats in the open.

I'm with Enpeze, that's a good description of the games we play too.

in my games there are no heroes.

Same here, at least no pre-ordained ones... protaganists yes, and any player might very well come out as the hero of the story but it's not just handed to them at the start. When I GM I figure I'm there to facilitate the mood and play the NPCs... not to kill off the PCs or ruin their fun... that's the villain's job.

The rpoblem with the inevitable fumble is that it comes up far too often one the dice than it should to be the realstic gaming you are talking about. If 1% or more of the airliners taking off fumbled every day, the FAA would shut the industy down.

Not at all... because, given normal conditions the competent (say 50% plus) pilots wouldn't be needing to make any rolls against their skill... only in unusually stressful situations, like extremely heavy storms or attacks from robot pterodactyls, would I expect to have the pilots in my games roll dice.

Combat, on the other hand, is always going to be stressful... and I don't really think that the fumble percentage is all that unreasonable there. Though, again, for a warrior of high skill there are some things I wouldn't make them roll for either... like shooting a still target at close range or knifing someone they've successfully snuck up on from behind.

So, again, it's a matter of taste/style... whatever you want to call it.

If you want cinematic heroics... sure I can see you might want them to be able to pull off movie-type stunts.. that or nerf all the skills and damage so James Bond is bulletproof and infallible.

But if you don't want cinematics? If you want something fairly believable? Then that 'inevitable fumble' seems fairly correct... you keep getting into swordfights and eventually you're gonna get hurt... probably badly.

I'm not all that big on GM fudging myself... but I still don't see it as any worse than letting the players fudge... which is what fate points are to me... and if it is used it's less distracting than the whole 'you're dead'... 'no I'm not' situation.

Seems to me the luck roll is easily modified by circumstance... or could even be used as an opposed roll of some sort... depending on the situation.

All this just convinces me more that they need to remain optional.

That's interesting Sorloc, I don't know that I've heard of people giving hero/fate points to the villains...

I can see that conversation coming up in a game... 'You're dead'... 'No I'm not, I use a hero point!'... 'Well, I use a hero point too then, so now you're dead again!'

I see it as "better". The reasons why?

GM fudging is very arbitrary, by it's very nature. The GM decides what to FUDGE. Perhaps he will save a PC's life, perhaps not.

The problem is that since the GM has such power and authority over the campaign, fudging tends to give players the feeling that their success and failure have less to do with how they are playing, and more with how they impress or annoy the GM. Fudging can completely kill the sense of danger in a campaign, or make a campaign totally frustrating.

With some sort of "Hero Point" system, the plays still fell like they still have some sort of control over things, but that it is limited.

And why, again, won't luck rolls do pretty much the same thing?

Hero/fate points just seem like a metagame distraction to me, similar to gimmicky dice mechanics like 'flip flops'... maybe I'd like them better if their use was limited to before the damage is rolled.

Besides, unless the GM is a nut you're not playing 'against' him... and since fudging is assumed to be done in secret so how can that kill the sense of danger any more than heading into the 'big battle' with a fist full of hero points? I'm assuming the GM doesn't say, 'Ok, I'm gonna fudge that roll you just made...'

It's just a matter of taste I suppose... no right or wrong... leave them as thoroughly optional and I'm fine.

I find that sort of thing generally a little control freaky, to be honest.

I don't see how it's 'control freaky'... it just sets a certain mood. Works especially well for horror games. We saw it in the rules for Unknown Armies and tried it out and liked it... it takes some of the artificial feel of 'hit points' and replaces it with 'OW!!! That really hurts'.

Maybe it's just a matter of how much 'game' you want in your game. When I play (vs. GM) I like it to feel like a story, less like a wargame).

But that's the point; hero points are usually a finite resource, so players can't be indefinitely blaise. When properly implimented, its much like using magic points; you want to use them when you need them, but save a few for dire necessity, but that doesn't ensure you'll never run out at a bad time. What it primarily does is make it likely that if something bad happens it will happen after ongoing play and at a more dramatic moment, rather than anticlimatically in a minor fight.

That's assuming proper implementation though... what mechanism is in place to ensure the player uses his fate points 'dramatically'... what's to ensure his idea of drama isn't just his character's survival at all costs?

If anything, I'd go with having fate points be unseen in the hands of the GM to bail the characters out at those fragile moments, kind of an 'official' fudge... since he probably has a better ideas of what's coming in their future and the import of various elements.

But then I also like the idea of players not knowing exactly how many hit points or how much damage they have taken. Fog of war and all that...

Why shouldn't they? If you ask someone why they don't play the game, you should expect they'll tell you their reasons; that you don't like their reasons is no reason for them not to be honest about it.

I'm fine with people not wanting to play BRP.

It's the people who want to make fundamental changes to it that I have issues with... because it always comes up that they want it to be like some other game... a game that, if they like it that much, they ought to be playing rather than bitching at BRP.

Optional rules are fine but don't shove stuff like disads/ads and fate points into the core rules... that's all I'm saying.

... and luck rolls do seem like they serve the purpose quite well and don't mess up the 'immersion'.

Have those monster's stats been reality checked?

That's a joke... kinda

Indeed! I have heard people complain loudly about GM fudging, but I never understood it. For some reason it is okay for a system to fudge a dice roll by having points, but it is not okay for a system to fudge dice by saying, "GMs can fudge dice for cinematic effect if they wish".

I think the difference is in GM vs. player control of the outcome...

From what I've been reading lately in various forums there is a camp that is pushing for a move away from more traditional concepts of GM control... a dislike of GM 'fiat'... lots of talk against 'railroading'... lot's of goodspeak about games that give the players control of the story/setting/rules...

I've seen a fair number of people pushing the idea of games without GMs.

I've played storytelling games, like Once Upon A Time, that can do some of that sort of thing, but I think it takes the right mix of people.

It all reads good on paper but when I think back to a lot of the people I've played RPGs with I can't say I trust them to really use their creativity/fate points/drama dice for dramatic purposes... rather just to get their way (meaning not die and always be the coolznez).

There's no need to play the dozens on people who don't happen to like sudden death.

I'm not dogging people who like 'cinematic' games... I'm just saying the games I want to play aren't that way, and I'd rather people who like those games not come trying to tell me that BRP needs to be more forgiving in order to attract their attention.

I'm certain BRP can easily be made to be 'cinematic' but I'd never want that part of the core design.

That's all...

Whatever direction the current 'hipness pendulum' is swinging right now it's sure to swing the other way eventually.

Of course it depends on group style, but its still something many people dislike to the point of it ruining the game for them; even I don't much like some of the sudden-death aspects of BRP anymore, and I was a very early adopter.

There are plenty of games out there with 'cinematic' rules where the precious PC doesn't have to worry about getting wacked... but for me BRP is my game of choice for rules where the default is a reasonable likelihood of character death as a penalty for doing something stupid.

But then our group like games where you're not guaranteed the starring role... just for showing up.

I'm glad they're 'only' an option too...

I can see their usefulness for certain, limited, situation... but most of the time I think they are way to 'gamey'.

It is a fair simulation of the results of real life gun combat, in other words. And it is playable, although it does not take everything into account your average gun hobbyist might like, like ballistics and recoil, etc. The hallmark of BRP, reasonable and playable without going into bean-counting mode.

So why all the grumbliness over COC's gun stats/rules from Mr. Baugh and others?

I've never had any big issues with them... accept, maybe, the automatic weapons rules... and that's just a maybe...

Are all the creatures/monsters from the BRP monograph included in the book?

He gave a listing of what critters were in the book farther up-thread... I'm not sure if they were the ones out of the monograph, which would have been most of the non-Gloranthan critters from RQ3... yes?

I'm inclined to think a lot of science fiction games (like Traveller) are inherently multi-genre when they provide rules for dealing with a wide range of technology levels and types of adventure.

I think you are right but it is the guy writing the rebuttal i.e. supporting CoC, that points out the combat system problems. Even as fans we should not be blind to things that don't work right in our games.l

But is the gun-combat system really all that broken?

Most of the complaints against it seem to come from guys who want it to figure in all sorts of detailed ballistics minutia... arguments which seem to break down into lots of competing opinions over itty-bitty factors are the most important... and in the end it comes out sounding like the COC gun ratings are not so out of wack after all (and I don't necessarily disagree that certain martial arts attacks SHOULD potentially do more damage than some gun attacks).

Even if BTRC thought the ratings in COC were wrong I'm not sure I understand why they wouldn't do new ratings using the G3 rules... wouldn't that supposedly yield a new set of 'accurate' ratings?