Mugen

Last time I tried to make a "simplified version of RuneQuest", it ended up looking more like FATE than BRP.

That's only true if you change the way hits are resolved and/or the chances to hit of characters. If you still need 5 hits on average to end a fight, fights will take almost the same time to resolve in "real life time", even though the "in game" fight will be much faster.

That's true for a simple skill use exemple. But if you consider skill opposition mechanisms, for instance, the odds are often very different. -In roll-over systems, you usually roll a die on both sides, add a skill to it and compare results. -In roll-under systems, rolling under your skill is usually mandatory to win. In many rules, if both protagonists roll over their skill, nothing happens. As a result, odds of success in roll over systems depends on the difference between protagonists skill : +35 vs +15 is the sama as +85 vs +65. In most roll-under, the chance of a draw is higher at low skill levels than high skill levels. If you match 35% vs 15%, there is 55.25% chance that both protagnosists fail their roll. With 85% vs 65%, the chance is only 5.25%

That would disqualify StormBringer first editions, and Revolution D100.

Originally, there was plans for much more settings. A Norse supplement was advertised for the original Légendes game, but it was never published, and never mentioned for Premières Légendes. I think Jeux Descartes had high expectations for La Vallée des Rois, but it was not a commercial success. Premières Légendes Celtiques was the first french game translated in English under the name Celtic Legends, but without much success. Amateur settings exist for Tahitian legends, and Greek legends (Légendes des Cités). I never read those.

I'm not really keen on including in the same list games that are more loosely related to BRP than Pendragon and Mythras (even Reves de Dragon), but why not ? I mentionned Légendes and Premières Légendes. Let's see how they fit. Légendes -Is Skill based. Classes exist, but they're only used as Social Class and restrict access to magic. Even though you can learn spells when not being a magic user, it literally takes months or years to learn 1 spell. -Like in Bushido, each skill has a score on a 0-99 scale for experience, and another on a 0-20 scale for skill checks. -Has Attributes like Strength, Intelligence, etc. on a 5-20 scale for humans. -Has hit points, named "Fatigue". Major and Severe Wounds can occur if you lose too much fatigue with one blow. Premières Légendes -Same as Légendes. -Only has 1 scale for skills, loosely 1-20 based, even though you could go beyond 20. -Has 3 attributes (Physique, Mental and Charisma) on a 2-12 scale and 3 sub-attributes for each attribute, which can range from 1 to 14. -Same as Légendes. So, I think both fit the definition. Légendes had 2 settings : -Légendes Celtiques: Essentially based on irish legendary sources such as the legends of Cuchulain, Tuatha de Danann and Finn McCool, it was aimed at re-creating an iron age semi-historical game set anywhere in the celtic world. -Légendes des Mille et Une Nuits : An Arabian Nights setting, aimed at gaming in medieval islamic world. Premières Légendes had 3 settings: -Légendes Celtiques: Same as for the original game, with some additions and the simpler Premières Légendes engine. Among other things, a class of Warrior-Mages was available that had access to extraordinary maneuvers and abilities, treated as spells. -La Table Ronde: Despite the arthurian name, the game was really about the times and place when the arthurian legend was written, the European Middle ages. -La Vallée des Rois: An antique Egyptian background.

I have no idea if the rules allow this, but I see no reason to not say yes to this.

Concerning dual wielding, Jason Durall already answered on this forum. Basically, it depends on the SR of both weapons. You can attack once with either weapon, at this weapon's SR, then a second time with your second weapon, at a SR equal to the sum of both SRs. If the sum is >12, you can only attack once. So, if you have a weapon in right hand with SR 5 and one in you left hand with SR 6, you'll be able to attack once with either weapon at its SR, then a second time at SR 11. This has no effect on your parry chance whatsoever. You can parry with either one weapon on the other whether you used it for attack, and vice versa.

From what I read or heard from french people that talked or even worked with Chaosium team, the possibility of a french translation has already been mentioned many times.

Sounds like it was not completely converted from RQ2. I think you should read "MP" instead of "POW" in this text, except for the sentence that says a Spirit with no POW left is destroyed.

Is this from RQG? This sounds like RQ2 or RQC, in which the distinction between POW and Magic Points was not as clearly defined as in later editions.

Well, there are lots of games with turn duration lower than 12 seconds. 6 is quite common, and you can often do more than 1 attack per turn in those games. Some even have 1 second turns (GURPS). Note that it would not be difficult to consider RQG turns to be 6 or 3 seconds long instead of 12, as it's an abstract measure of time. You'd certainly have to lower movement rates, though...

My problem with D&D AC is that it works in a binary way : it either blocks all damage, or none. It's like armor is made of invulnerable "patches" scattered all over your body, no matter if you're wearing plate, mail or leather armor. It also works the same way whether you're hit with a fist or a 2 handed hammer. I don't mind if armor is added to defense if the game uses some kind of success margin to determine damage (like in HARP) : it will just speed up the game.

The concept of classes in 13th Age and 4e is slightly different from what it is in AD&D, as it only defines your "combat style" and your way of doing magic. Skills in 4e and backgrounds in 13th Age help define all other aspects of your character, and are completely divorced from class. Want to play a bookworm fighter, or an athletic wizard ? Just pick the right skills/background. You can even play a fighter that can cast magic in 4e if you want, as long as it's non-combat, ritual magic. With other versions of the game, you'd need to multi-class to do this.

My solution would be to consider that a failed attack doesn't automatically fail, and that the opponent needs to beat the attacker's roll to avoid being hit. If the defender has a better success level, he suffers no damage. If he has a lower success level, he is hit by the attack. If they are equal, damage is reduced by a number that depends on whether his die roll is superior or not to the attacker's. Optionally, the defender can chose between a defensive or counter-offensive stance. In case of a defensive stance, he will reduce damage even further if he's hit. In case of a counter-offensive stance, he'll hit his opponent if he beats the attacker.

In D&D3, as flawed as it was, a wizard or a cleric didn't need to multi-class into rogue to maximize their Arcana skill. or religious knowledge.

Fact is, D&D5 doesn't have this kind of mechanism. If DC is superior by more than 20 points to your skill bonus, you can't succeed, and if it is inferior or equal to your bonus +1, you can't fail. Problem is you need to be a rogue or a bard if you want your skills to be high enough that you won't bother rolling for an "average" task. You're a wizard whose magic comes from reading old tomes full of arcane theories ? Too bad your Dex is not good enough to multi-class rogue, you will never be good enough in your field to be sure to answer questions your farmer neighbour has a chance to know. And it's even worse for clerics and religious knowledge, as it's not likely their Int will ever reach 20.

I agree. The flexibility and richness of RuneQuest 2 character customization options with just skills and battle magic when compared to any D&D version shows how better is the skill-based model in this regard.

Let me clarify : I was not against some limitation in numbers inflation. My problem here is that the maximum bonus (for non-rogues and non-bards) for characters that are very high level and with the maximum possible ability value is just 11 points above a commoner's bonus, and only 0.5 points above a d20 average result. As a consequence, characters that are not top level and don't have the maximum possible ability value have a bonus that is under that threshold. As a result, the random part of the skill check is, for most characters, more important than their skill. Another consequence of the system is that Mages have to multi-class into Rogue to get Expertise to reach the highest possible level in Arcana skill (Unless you're using some playtest material which includes feats that grant Expertise in one skill).

I'm speaking of skills checks here, not combat.

To me, it just means 5e pleases more people than 4e. But does it make it "right" ? I think 4e sales figures, as bad as they were for WotC, are far better than RQG ones. Does it mean that 4e were "right" when compared to RQG ?

What I'm saying here is that if you have a character with attribute 8 and not proficient and another with attribute 20, proficient and level 20, one has 20% chance to succeed at a DC 15 task and the second has 85% chance to succeed at the same task. That does not make a big difference considering one is Mr Nobody, and the other is at the pinnacle of human capabilities in a fantasy world.

I think 4e was a clever re-work of D&D principles, which managed to get rid of many problems that were detrimental to the game. More specifically, the fact classes shone at different levels (fighters at 1st level, casters at high levels), and others were just useless (Bard). It also got rid of "trap options" and allowed for easier out-of-the-box concepts : one feat was sufficient to be fully proficient in a skill, and the only requirement to be efficient in a fight was to have a good value in your main ability. Obviously, though, besides bad buzz and stupid comments such as "D&D is a MMO on table", the game was not suited for all kind of players, and an update was inevitable to make characters less complex, reduce the "boardgamey" elements and make it more easily understandable for all players. As for myself, I was extremely disappointed by 5e design decisions. Even if high-level casters are nowhere as powerful as their equivalents in older editions were, the game came back to a state where "magic is better", and casters are more versatile than non-casters. And their obsession with reducing numbers led to a situation where 20th level characters are just barely more competent than 1st level ones.

Two other games that were clearly influenced by RuneQuest are Légendes and Premières Légendes. Those are d20 roll-under and skill based games, and the latter is a simplified version of the former. However, they also take many bits from other US games, especially FGU ones, and might not be close enough to BRP to be in this list. Among other things, they use Margin of success a lot.

Rêve de Dragon is a french game that was heavily influenced by RuneQuest and James Bond 007. It was published in English under the name Reves, the dream Ouroboros. In this game, characters live inside Dragon Dreams (hence the name), and are defined by a series of attributes that are clearly expanded from BRP : STR, CON, INT, SIZ, DEX, etc. but also MASs and PERception (which is it self divided into Taste, Sight, Hearing and Touch). POW is called REVe ( = Dream). Skills have levels ranks from -10 to +10 (like AD&D Armor Class), with different base levels depending on skill difficulty (very hard skills start at -10, hard ones at -7, easy ones at -4 or -2). Chance of success are determined by multiplying an attribute by a factor depending on a skill rating : x0.5 for -9, x5 for 0, x10 for +10. Difficulty changes skill rating : an easy task can turn your +2 Climbing skill into a +7 one. Hopefully, a multiplication table is provided on the character sheet... RdD uses RuneQuest's rule for success qualities : Critical on roll under 1/20th of Chances of success, and Specials under 1/5th.