Mugen

@Scotty or anyone at Chaosium has a better chance to know the answer than me...

While HawkMoon games have not been a very successful in english, it was quite popular in French. We had a total of 4 different games set in this setting : First one by Oriflam was a translation of the Chaosium game. Second one, again by Oriflam under licence by Chaosium, was an adaptation of Elric! system to HawkMoon's setting. Third one was a translation of the Mongoose game. It's infamous for it's horrible translation. Fourth one is made by the same people who did the Mournblade game, le Département des Sombres Projets. It's also worth noting that Oriflam published a rather long series of supplements covering multiple european countries : France, Spain, Germany, Great Britain... I only own the two first game, so I can't talk of the other ones. I'm also not familiar with the original chaosium game, only it's french adaptation. However, if you look at the page count in both versions, there's a striking difference between the Science Books : according to Le GROG, the english one is 16 pages long while the french one has twice that count, with 32 pages. Scenarios included in the GM's book are also different. Why is the book in French much bigger ? Sure, we have longer words full of useless letters, but here it's because there's an extensive science system with quite a good number of possible effects listed. When a scientist wants to make a scientific creation, whether it's mechanical, electrical, biological, chemical or a combination of one or more, he first choses the components he wants to put inside it, and what effects he wants them to do. I'd have to re-read the rules to give more details, but basically each effect puts a negative modifier to the corresponding skill, and the total modifiers give the project's duration and cost. Then, after he's spent the required time, must roll under each skill involved to see if he succeeds. He can also give its creation several known technical issues to reduce its complexity. There's also a good chance his creation will have unkown issues, which he will discover at use. To be honest, I think such a system would have benefited from the use of some sort of "task points" system rather than a simple skill roll, where you roll skills every once in a while, and each success adds points to a pool, and you project is done when the pool > the project's complexity. But what makes it interesting is the variety of different possible different scientific effects, which explains he 16 page difference. Second french HawkMoon game used a completely different system. There were no more skills involved. Science was more akin to magic, where you learned to do different things without really knowing how they worked.

Question is why would you want to use the BRP SRD instead of the BRP Universal Game Engine for commercial use ? The BRP SRD is linked to the older BRP OGL licence, and not the recent ORC BRP licence. BRP OGL is more restrictive than ORC, and it's not clear for me how it interacts with works published under other OGL licences. It's possible that you could borrow rules from Revolution D100, but I'm not sure... The SRD for BRP ORC licence is the BRP Universal Game Engine book, and it contains rules for powers and magic. It's free for you use in ORC publications, but I don't know if it's the same for BRP OGL...

What do you mean "only skills, no stats like Pendragon" ? Pendragon has no INT or POW, but it has STR, SIZ, CON, etc. and they are very important. Also, even if a system has roots in another system doesn't mean they're the same. For instance, I could point many similarities between HeroWars/QuestWorlds and BRP or Pendragon, and I think HW was clearly an evolution of KAP. But they're not the same.

The idea behind WHFRP was basically to re-use the stats of the miniatures wargame in a RPG. As the GW team was also producing UK versions of Chaosium games, you can say they were fans if BRP. But rolling a d100 under a skill is not the only defining characteristic of BRP. You couldn't mix it with Magic World or Mythras to create a Fantasy version of it, for instance. Pendragon, despite using a d20, is much closer to BRP than Troubleshooters, as it uses a sub-set of the iconic BRP characteristics. So, does that mean every game that uses a d20 roll-under system is also close to BRP ?

Note however that these books were written for Legend. Despite being largely compatible with BRP, that system has significant differences which you should be aware of : Damage and armor values are lower in Legend ; Hit Points in Legend are localized, and there are no generic hit points ; Legend doesn't use the Resistance Table, but has "resisitance" skills instead, which are opposed to other skills. Second point can easily be dealt with, as creatures still have CON and SIZ, which can be used to compute hit points. Localized hits use different formulas than BRP localisation rules, though. Third point is also not really a big issue, as you can easily find equivalents. First point is more tricky, as it requires you to always remember to add a few damage points, or use only damage values from Legend products.

I was just bringing back old memories. 😉 I was 12 when I first read SB, and it was the first game outside D&D I learned. I agree a more generic/descriptive name would be a better choice.

It seems the answer is no. 😞 You could perhaps find answers on a forum with less focus on Basic Roleplaying and more experience on Cortex. I have very little experience with Cortex myself, so I can't really help you.

My understanding is that that game was based on Mongoose first RuneQuest game, which is significantly different from their RuneQuest II. As a result, I suspect it would only partially compatible with Legend and Mythras.

I read your document, and I like it. However, I think you should clarify what the Sorcery skill does in the description of the document. When I read your description, this is not what I had in mind when you say "Sorcery skill". My understanding was that you just wanted to have a skill that was necessary to learn and cast a spell, and maybe restrict what spells a character can cast (for instance, "in order to cast a spell with MP cost X, th caster needs to have a skill of X*10 or more). In fact, what you propose here is to have an equivalent of RQ3 Sorcery "Arts", or the Mythras skill Shaping. That's completely different.

Yes. Anyone who played StormBringer ot Elric! knows pretty well what those weapons name refer to. 😄

I don't know if Classic Fantasy authors are on this forum, but I think you can ask the publisher of the Mythras version, @lawrence.whitaker. He certainly doesn't have the anwer, but at least he's in touch with the authors. Edit : as a matter of fact, maybe you could get some of your answers in the (free) Mythras Imperative version of CF.

That method gives results that are very similar to roll under black jack or comparison of margins of success. So, I think it's better to not have a specific rule for hide and seek, and use a more generic skill opposition rule.

Boring but also frankly overpowered. At least, under my GM's understanding of 4th edition rules, where they were just one more character in the party with no drawback.

"Storytelling" being the name of the version of the Storyteller used for Chronicle of Darkness (AKA nWOD, WoD 2.0, etc.)...

Concerning cybernetics, I think you could be able to make a working rule set out of the Powers section in the BGB or BRP:UGE books. Concerning ShadowRun and magic, you have a variety of options. RuneQuest, OpenQuest and Mythras have rules for summoning and binding spirits. The closest equivalent to spell magic is IMHO the Magic rules in BGB or BRP:UGE. The closest equivalent to Adept powers is in Mythras, with the Mysticism rules set.

Note there is a sub-forum dedicated to Mythras on this board. 🙂 https://basicroleplaying.org/forum/54-mythras/

IIRC, Symbaroum works like this. Same for french game Brygandyne, which is an evolution of Warhammer. D&D base d20 system is also not very different, with a d20 roll-over logic. And me from RQ3. 🙂

There's also a rule for "Hide and Seek", which IIRC is : roll under (Stealth) skill, if successful subtract your skill from the (Perception) skill. Edit: Resistance Table was, IMHO, a very elegant and efficient mechanism when it was designed. I'm liking the option of using its core concept as a basis for skill opposition more and more. Its drawback is that it lacks the possibility to have different effects with different levels of success. Steve Perrin's Quest Rules used it as one of the 4 success thresholds, which were Skill, Skill/2, Skill/10, Skill/100 (obviously, the last one was only there for very high skills).

Using higher skill is not really a good idea, as it gives a huge advantage to the higher skill even if it's only 1 point superior. Say for instance you oppose a 100% skill versus a 99% one. The chance that the highest skill wins in this case depends on the number of success degrees you use, but it will be closer to 70 or 80% than 50%.

Note Mythras Sorcery already has "traditions" that works like Combat Styles. 🙂 Each Invoke Skill is associated with a list of spells that are suited with a given tradition. If a Sorcerer wants to cast a spell outside its tradition, he needs to learn a new Invoke Skill which has the spell associated with it. As I said above, I prefer a more rigid approach, like in White Wolf's Mage. Life, Mind, Forces, Matter, Spirit, Prime... I don't really like Ars Magica, as I'm not really fond of the Verb/Form divide.

As far as I know, Warhammer 4th edition uses a similar method. And the various versions of French Légendes, too. It works, and is not counter-intuitive, but requires two more subtraction than the "black jack" method, for exactly the same result (providing you don't consider failure versus failure as a tie in Black jack).

I think it also completely missed the mark, as wounds you suffered or what actions you performed in a round didn't have any impact on your Fatigue.

First, I prefer to use the sum of 2 characteristics as a base for skills, instead of a fixed value (or a fixed value plus skill category modifier). For instance, all Melee Weapon skills could start with (STR+DEX), and all Perception skills with INT+POW or INTx2. I also think the game could benefit from a rule similar to Revolution D100, where there are very few skills, and specialties add a bonus to this base skill. That is, a Sword fighter could have a Melee skill of 40 and a Sword specialty of +30, and when he fights with a Sword, his effective skill is 70. BRP is also lacking a good skills opposition rule. Simply comparing levels of success results in too many ties. And a tie, in a lot of situations, is in fact a success for one of the protagonists. For instance, if someone is hiding from another character, that person is alright if nothing happens. Even a solution like the one in Pendragon/Mythras system where you compare the d100/d20 results to break ties have flaws : it's counter-intuitive (as you have to roll low to get better success levels, but have to roll high to break ties) and still produce a lot of ties (as skill failure versus skill failure is not covered). A simple solution is to use the formula behind the Resistance Table : 50+active skill-passive skill.

My opinion is that 1 skill is not enough, but 1 skill per spell is too much. 😄 I prefer systems like Mage (all versions), where there is 1 skill per "domain", and you need different skills for casting a fire ball or reading thoughts, but all fire-based (or even all elemental-based) spells are under he same skill, and all mind-based spells are under the same skill. Edit : a single skill for all "minor/common" magic/cantrips anyone can learn and cast might be enough, though. The removal of Range, Duration and other "metamagic" skills in RQG was a step in the right direction, but I think there was a missed opportunity when Rune Masteries were not designed as skills.