Mugen

Well, you could simply add a die, or a static bonus, to the tens of the roll, based what you consider an "average fighter" in the original game. Say, for instance, you consider that average guy to have a 60% skill, a d4 bonus to damage and a broadsword (d8+1 dmg), for an average 8 damage per strike. On average, the value of the 10s die of a d100 roll under 60 will be 2.5. Which means I'll'have to add 5 or 6 to the 10s die to get the same similar damage, or... a d8+1 for more randomness (I was quite lucky in choosing 60%, I admit...). Edit : yes, damage output can go up to 2 point over what my average guy can do in BRP, but that's counterbalanced by the fact Atgxtg's system doesn't have crits.

Maybe I was not clear : what I meant is if you have 4X% chance of success, you have a critical if you roll under 04. So, yes, 10% of your successes are criticals if your chances of success are under 100%. But they keep increasing if you go past 100%, and, for instance, they will represent 15% of those if your chances are between 150 and 159.

In my version of this system, Criticals happen when the roll is under the tens of the chances of success. In such a case, the "0" is read as a 10. Otherwise, it is a 0.

In the latest playtest version of Mongoose RuneQuest 1, if attacker and defender had the same level of success, the result was different depending on who had the highest roll. For instance, in case of a parry: -If the attacker had the highest roll, parrying weapon's AP were substracted from damage. -If the defender had the highest roll, twice parrying weapon's AP were substracted from damage. Usually, weapons had 4 AP in MRQ1. Too bad this was discarded in the published rules...

Note that, In terms of probabilities, this method gives almost the same results as "roll under skill, highest roll wins", but requires 2 additional subtractions.

In my view, "roll under, highest roll wins" is a very simple and efficient way to solve an opposition between 2 characters, and in my opinion the most elegant way to do it in a roll under game, even though it needs special rules for skills above 100.

About the "highest roll wins" versus "lowest roll wins". There's a problem with "lowest roll wins' : if the character rolls over his opponent's skill and below his own skill, he can't win if both rolled a success. Say for instance I have skill 65 and my opponent has 40. If I roll 55, my only chance to win is that my opponent misses his roll. With the highest roll win option, it's the opposite : if I roll between 41 and 65, my opponent must roll a critical to win. With some skill values, high roll wins even gives higher chances of success to the lowest skill.

I own a 4 panel RQII GM screen. Its leftmost panel is white with the name RuneQuest II written on it and a grey luck rune. Its rightmost panel shows a dragon head. Some tables will be useful for RQ6/Mythras, such as the weapon tables.

Other Suns, too. Is Space Opera % based ?

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One thing I'd change in OQ, though, is the way starting experience is assigned. I think it doesn't allow for much character diversity. I also don't like the fact it uses the Mongoose RuneQuest versions of the sorcery spells Fly and Tap. Oh, and base skill values. I prefer the more homogeneous Stat1 + Stat2 or Stat x2 from RuneQuest 6.

If I was to play BRP again, I think I'd tie each skill with only one of 4 characteristics (STR, DEX, INT or CHA) and use CON and POW essentially as HP and MP sources.

You could try OpenQuest or D100 Revolution. OQ is a very simple version of BRP, with the 3 magic systems of RuneQuest 3 added (and a much simpler version of Sorcery). D100 Revolution is a multi-genre, BRP-related game which offers modular complexity. At its lowest complexity level, every context works the same : each protagonist gets "hit points" equal to one of its characteristics, and will lose some after each successful attack by its opponent. It also uses few skills and "traits" which are used to increase skills.

You should be very careful of the impact of POW economy on skills. If you have to change 15 skills every time you spend or gain POW, it might be problematic.

I think RosenMcStern's d100 Revolution actually does a pretty good job at it in its most basic form.

In case where you use the 10s of the roll, only critical strikes are going to deal 10 damage with a dagger. Basically, it will be the same as dealing 1dX+Y damage on normal strikes and 10+Y on critical strikes (X being the 10s of your skill, and Y a weapon-dependant factor) .

I don't understand your point. What's problematic in doing one of the following solutions ? Dagger deal [X] dmg Broadsword deal [X]+3 dmg Zweihander deal [X]+6 dmg Dagger deal [X] dmg Broadsword deal 2*[X] dmg Zweihander deal 3*[X] dmg

Unless you count a crit as a "10" and not a "0". There's a problem with using the unit die : your average damage output is heavily dependant on the units of your skill. If your skill is a multiple of 10, your unit die will give you any result from 1 to 10 (or 0 to 9) with an equal chance for each result. If your skill has a unit value of Y, results between 1 and Y will be slightly more frequent than results between Y+1 and 10. Someone with skill 30, 40, 50, 70 or 100 will have an average unit die of 5.5. On the other hand, someone with skill 35 will have average unit die of 5.14, and someone withh skill 75 will have 5.33. Another possible variant is to base damage on: -The lowest die for "small 1 handed weapons" -The highest die for "medium 1 handed weapons" -Both dice for two-handed weapons.

My understanding is that damage primarily represents kinetic energy, as heavier weapons deal more damage, and damage modifier is a function of wielder's STR and SIZ. The reason why it's random is because a huge number of factors have an influence on the amount of kinetic energy a blow can have, and how it is applied on the target. Hitting weak spot is certainly one factor, but not the only one.

In my view, experience checks are part of the defining features of BRP. I prefer assigning them at the end of the game, though, to avoid tick hunting. Nevertheless, in my attempt at "simplifying" RuneQuest, I ditched them in favor for an xp system quite similar to yours

I initially had the same reaction. When I first read HW, it seemed to me like Robin Laws had done something I was chasing since I was 16 : a system that handled every situation with the same few mechanisms. Then, some years after that I re-read Werewolf:the Apocalypse introduction chapters, and I realised that was already accomplished years before HeroWars, in a book I owned...

As for myself, I like how HQ uses a very low number of rules to handle every possible situations in-game. I also like how elegantly it handles multiple scales (human, Heroic, Demi-God) with the same mechanism.

Nephilim's second (french) edition had some remarkable features which makes it sensibly different from the first one. First, character creation detailed a number of historical periods where your nephilim could have lived, rach with a list of possible professions and mystical experience. Second, skills were listed into categories with different base values equal to the sum of 2 stats. In comparison, first edition made no correlation between characteristics and skills. You first developped a category from 0 to 20, then built each skill inside it independently. Thirdly, it dropped to hit points mechanism for some kind of health level scale, similar to D6 system's. Third and 4th edition are not based on BRP.

Note, however, that the conjunction of a flat weapon damage and a flat armor distribution makes a trapezoidal distribution. Deviation is higher than with only one die, though...

A solution would be to add the armor roll to the damage done by the attacker. For instance, a plate armor would add 1d10-10 to the damage roll (instead of substracting 1d10-1), and a leather armor 1d4-4 (instead of substracting 1d4-1). By doing this, you only have to add dice together, unless you have a negative damage modifier. Of course, that means the GM has to tell the armor value to players, which also takes time...