Harshax

Scenario:

Rising empire with limited reach across interstellar space unlocks a method to fling a limited number of travelers across vast distances. Early exploration finds a habitable world and a plan is hatched to launch deep sleep colonists to far flung worlds.

The rising empire reaches a critical mass, but still too far from the high frontier targeted by the deep sleep colonists. Civil wars of independence break out in a variety of areas.

The deep sleep colonists arrive on their world with limited communication back home, damaged equipment, or other cosmic effect. They eventually develop independently, and alone.

The new horizon colonists meet indigenous cultures in the same or nearby star, and join a fledging confederacy.

The rising empire, now the falling empire, having suffered through centuries of war is a shadow of its former glory. Filled with powerful warlords, and men with vision of unity or tyranny.

The falling empire and the new horizon empire make first contact when the new horizon begins colonizing worlds on the border of the falling empire.

Cliche?

Someone does agree with me, then

Specifically because it creates a glass ceiling for new fans, encourages an insurmountable ideal of completism [as in collection, and completism as in setting knowledge], and does little but increase the value of fanboy's ebay nest eggs.

A new fan of RQ (the rules), needs BRP, suggestions on which optional rules to use, and an explanation of Spirit, Divine, and Sorcery Magic. Result: Complete compatibility at minimum expense.

A new fan of Glorantha 3rd Age, needs a New Moon reprint, and maybe this Glorantha: The Lhankor Mhy Research Library. Result: A well fleshed out, introductory setting, with a manageable amount of world information to dig deeper if you're still interested in adhering to canon. (Don't get me started on Glorantha canon)

Then you might be disappointed with Shock, because the system revolves around a grid where people decide which issues are going to drive them and come up with a world based on those issues. There are examples of gameplay from reviews on the Shock homepage (links) that will help you better judge if you still want to buy the game.

Actually I don't think I would. Once you have the shocks, and the interaction with those shocks, you now have the basis for an interesting culture on a strange unexplored world, at least in the truest sense of scifi.

Most grognards can't separate RQ and Glorantha. While I played the latter for some years, I played the former for quite longer.

I also agree that this forum is pretty rude to other systems or variants of its own system. Pointlessly so. I say this only because there are very vocal anti-system types here, and their poor behavior is only less than encouraged.

I wish someone had told the OP to buy BRP and use these optional rules (SR, Fatigue, Hit Locations, etc), then offered an outline of how RQ magic differs from BRP.

Pointing new players to rare OP books is just silly, unless your assumption is that the OP wanted 3rd Age Glorantha, and not just Runequest 3. I'm admittedly silly as well, for assuming he was looking for the Avalon Hill Boxed Set.

ymmv

:focus:

I agree with the OP that a galaxy spanning SciFi game might be easier to share than a single fantasy world. I also think it was the OP's intention to suggest that we could share the process by focusing on individual worlds.

I definitely want to pick up a copy of Shock, for the world/adventure building tools, but not for the game system.

Ok, so I see two ideas. Empire in decline, High Frontier. That's like chocolate in my peanut butter.

Travel?

I really like jump travels. Especially how it was unveiled in Traveler.

Aliens?

Definitely. But not tons.

One of the things I'm thinking about for a sci-fi setting is to have 'replicators'. But they will be different from the Star Trek ones. If you've read or watched any "science behind Star Trek" stuff, then you know the replicators in Star Trek would take an ungodly amount of energy.

That was a running gag in my group: imagining Picard & Riker doing the budget and realizing they had to justify all the energy expenditures from the holodeck by "exploring a nebula or something".

This led us down an interesting path. We concluded that the Federation was consuming mass sums of energy from everywhere, and while the series usually portrays a money-less utopia, we envisioned a more bleak living condition for the poor or less useful members of society.

So while the Federation gallivanted about the galaxy, replicating long extinct caviars and period costumes for hours of entertainment on the holodeck, replicator technology for much of the rest of the population was similar to Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age.

That is pretty much the bottom line on all this.

I waver on these questions dramatically, and not just from game to game, but even session to session (although rarely).

If I wanted to play uber-gritty, I use HarnMaster. Until this thread, and the discussion regarding shock, I thought it beat all other injury systems hands down. I might have to bring this topic up on the harnforum and see what they have to say.

BRP is gritty enough. With Hit Locations or Major Wounds. I think Hit Points equals total trauma and blood loss.

I'm happy with any game system where instant kills are a possibility.

suspect the same basic principal would apply to everything; you just might want to modify some of the results based on weapon type (edged weapons should likely be more likely to produce bleeders than blunt or puncturing weapons' date=' for example).[/quote']

I think this thread has been hijacked by another question, which plagues many RPGs.

'What is a Hit Point?'

Second question:

'Do the rules of injury and impairment reflect that definition?'

Last question:

'Do the rules model the mood and methods of your game reality?'

I think 'A Distant Mirror' just made it to my reading list. Now I only have to read what's on my reading list. Thanks for the suggestion.

If I remember it right, Barbara Tuchman gave a number of examples of the

effects of medieval weapons in her book "The Distant Mirror". It seems that

the differences are not so big, with the exception of blood loss, which ob-

viously is higher in wounds caused by cutting weapons (more wound surfa-

ce to bleed from).

That's the problem though; it apparently doesn't really accumulate. If you wanted to model reality as those studies seemed to show, you'd keep rolling every time you get hit, but it wouldn't get any harder. You'd just be waiting for statistics to catch up with you.

Hmm. I think I see your point. Question is, do you think the study is valid for historical injuries (swords and arrows)? I'm thinking it isn't.

Take Dutch Schultz. It took him 22 hours to die of peritonitis. The bullet richocheted around inside his body, but he managed to walk around a litte, and be coherent enough to talk. Swords and Axes tend to break thinks when they hit, and not just put holes in you. I'm admittedly oversimplifying the types of trauma that can be suffered from gunshots, but I have not a few friends who have been shot, and the majority of them relate similar experiences to the one described in the study. One even went home to watch TV, and hadn't realized his injury until his mother, seeing him in the dark in front of the television, asked why his shirt looked wet.

So apparently if you want a relatively realistic damage system, you track blood loss, have some kind of a shock check system based on damage, and probably have some kind of threshold system for disablement, and then have a long term effects chart of some kind (possibly based on injury locations). Just remember that blood loss isn't usually the one that ends the fight, and its probably the one that a hit point model looks _most_ like.

That's how HarnMaster does it. Once your hit, damage is assessed as Minor, Serious, or Grievous. This is interpreted as a [1 to 5]d6 which you roll against your Endurance (Hit Points). If the total is higher, you go into shock. Multiple wounds accumulate dice until eventually you are out.

I've seen some lucky ducks at my table, who rolled 6 dice against an END of 11 who managed to stay in the fight.

For those who are interested, the table can be found here:

http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/4001/harnmaster-combattables.pdf

I partially disagree, but you're describing a couple of scenarios and I'll address each one separately.

When combat involves two active participants, there will be some randomness in where your blow lands. The roll represents where you saw an opening in your opponent's defense. It might seem like one side of an opponent would get the brunt of attacks, depending on the handedness of the attacker, but the GM is free to alter the results if the don't make sense.

You could interpret a critical hit as striking a specific location. It isn't the RAW in BRP, but PerrinQuest let's you choose from a number of extra results for each degree of success. I think this makes a lot of sense, and is a fun option at the table.

The second scenario you describe reads as if you are describing an attack against an unaware foe, or at least one that is not aware of the attacker. If you accept my view of what the Hit Location chart is for, then you'd agree that you shouldn't roll on it for this scenario.

ymmv

The spot rules for attacks against unaware or helpless targets don't help much. It is an Easy [skill x2] attack roll, but you don't get the benefit of picking your location.

To complicate things more once I get my BRP book this week, I want to break down and figure out how a weapon might how and where to strike an opponent. In a fight, your going to go for "desirable" targets and there's no better ones then the "head" and "chest" region as we all know. Now you may have a better chance of hitting an opponit with a bastard sword then a dagger, but you'll have a better chance of having the opportunity of striking those locations should you get around their defensive tactics and penetraite whatever armor they have do to the advantages you'll have over the longer weapon. Another thing also that I want to play around with is the actual hit location tabels themselves. If you striking someone in the rear, chances are your going to hit them in the back 60% or higher most of the time and much less in the legs or arms regions. I know, combat happens in a fraction of a second and anything is possible, but I just don't see why you would roll on the same chart over and over if you striking someone with an axe on the left or a dagger from the rear--it just dosen't make scense nor is it that much closer to "realism" as the hit location tables supposedly represent. Anyway, I could be entirely wrong and the new rules have address these problems already as I'm STILL waiting for my copy.:ohwell:

Are we talking about how Stormbringer does it or something else?

The question was in reference to a concept that came up in the MRQ playtest, but was later discarded.

I don't think I'm understanding the threshold idea.

You figure out HP per location, and that becomes the threshold? If damage doesn't exceed the threshold you just tick off points from Total HP, but if it does then the limb is disabled?

Not sure how that really changes anything, but I've already admitted that I don't understand it.

How about this:

All damage is tallied against Total HP. Calculate Hit Location HP. This is the damage threshold. Any blow that exceeds this number causes the character to make a shock roll: an opposed roll of Total Damage vs. Total HP.

Failure means the limb is disabled, you're knocked unconscious, etc.

Secondly, characters don't go down when their HP reaches 0. However, once total damage exceeds total Hit Points, the character needs to make another shock roll each round and every time they are injured.

This kind of rolls the 'Being Heroic' mechanic into normal game play, and offers the unusual chance of being knocked out with one blow, or

lingering for hours like Dutch Shultz.

Much too complicated. Is not basic anymore IMO.

Clearly I posted in response to someone who thought the default hit location table was too basic. I love the extra detail personally, but also agree that you couldn't keep the model of Hit Points per Location.

However, if you keep the more generic Hit Points per Location (arm, head, chest, abdomen, legs), you could use the above table for flavor.

That all said, I wouldn't use this table unless I also intended to use a much more detailed armor system. This would add a lot of flavor to post-apocalyptic settings where characters must arm themselves piece-meal, or any gritty fantasy game.

The only problem with the D20 hit location is that it is very basic - arms/legs/head/chest/abdomen and that's about it. I'd prefer a D100 table to show hands/feet/upper/lower limbs and so on, but that makes tying up general HPs difficult and means you can die with a few non-maiming blows to different limbs. But, there again I suppose you can do that anyway.

So, yes to hit locations every time.

Everything in my game design sense tells me that über-characteristics are best avoided.

Good call. Defense was broken, and Teach ran the newsletter.

The only problem with the D20 hit location is that it is very basic - arms/legs/head/chest/abdomen and that's about it. I'd prefer a D100 table to show hands/feet/upper/lower limbs and so on, but that makes tying up general HPs difficult and means you can die with a few non-maiming blows to different limbs. But, there again I suppose you can do that anyway.

So, yes to hit locations every time.

This would be brutal:

          General Hit Points   14


d100                 Location HP                

1 - 5       5%     SKULL       1  (Head)

6 - 10      5%     FACE†       1  (Head)

11 - 15     5%     NECK        1  (Head)

16 - 27     12%    •SHOULDER   2  (Arm)

28 - 33     6%     •UPPER      1  (Arm)

34 - 35     2%     •ELBOW      1  (Arm)

36 - 39     4%     •FOREARM    1  (Arm)

40 - 43     4%     •HAND       1  (Arm)

44 - 60     17%    THORAX      3  (Chest)

61 - 70     10%    ABDOMEN     2  (Abdomen)

71 - 74     4%     GROIN       1  (Abdomen)

75 - 80     6%     •HIP        1  (Leg)

81 - 88     8%     •THIGH      2  (Leg)

89 - 90     2%     •KNEE       1  (Leg)

91 - 96     6%     •CALF       1  (Leg)

97 - 100    4%     •FOOT       1  (Leg)

Stolen from HarnMaster

For spiking my Nostalg-o-Meter and giving me usable, highly accessible tools to recreate the settings that only existed in my imagination as a junior high student, I've given this book a 10.

For me, the high score represents the overwhelming effort needed to present nearly the entirety of BRP's incarnations in one system. And it worked!

It's definitely a 9 in my book.

And last time I checked, RPG ideas don't come with a "use by" date mandated by the Gaming Police, so "game concepts that are terribly outdated" seems to me, no offence, a pretty silly comment. "No longer / not currently in fashion" certainly, "ideas that have been improved on in the light of experience in more recent games" quite possibly. But "outdated" just makes no sense to me when applied to game rules.

I completely disagree with this statement. Outdated can easily mean all those things and more.

I'm thinking of using san the way a ghost or demon would cast a "fear" spell on you as it seems to me if you lived in a world ful of orcs, trolls and ringwraiths, those type of things wouldn't drive you as "crazy" compared to Joe Schmo looking up to see a NightGaunt climbing through his kitchen window as he's having a cup of coffee

WFRP has rules where you gain insanity points every time you take a grievous wound.

I think it would be great fun to add san loss from ghosts, demons, chaos and aberrations, and being dominated by various spirits.

And while the world may still be full of orcs and trolls, it's still horrific to mutilated bodies and such. For starting adventurers, I think it would be great fun to to add a little SAN loss for extended dungeon delving. Then let the SAN slowly regenerate back as they become more seasoned.

I also voted that I like Hit Locations, but do not plan to use them in BRP.

I only use Hit Locations in a humanoid-centric game. When I do run those games, I prefer using HarnMaster's Hit Location tables which covers everything from left or right cheek, to left or right hand.

For my upcoming high-fantasy game, I'll probably be using general hit points, major wounds, and suits of armor with random damage protection. I'll supplement this with a combat matrix that measures up to 4 degrees of success and ala carte results.

At least that's the tentative idea. I really do like Hit Locations.

Check out this thread:

http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/615-alt-resistance-table.html#post11997

Shall we petition the MadIrishman to do it?

That's the guy! Definitely!

I'm leaning heavily toward creating a Points of Light campaign, inspired by the revisionist D&D 4E milieu. I'll use Dragonnewts as the basis for Dragonborn, and come up with something new for Eladrin, and Tieflings. Elves have to be modified as well.