Ian Absentia

Unknown Armies, five: Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness, Isolation, Self Nemesis, four: Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness, Self Delta Green, 2nd Ed., three: Violence, Unnatural, Helplessness Another two iterations and they'll be down to only a single gauge: Sanity. Honestly, though I can see why Isolation and Self were jettisoned over time. They were very existential gauges of character (and player) stress, and probably more suited to Tynes' style of play than perhaps most campaigns can entertain. !i!

Shall I assume you both have me on Ignore? 😝 !i!

Quoted for emphasis! Sorcerer !i!

Or employ the Madness Meter introduced in Unknown Armies and adapted for Mythos applications in Nemesis. It's ostensibly for the One Roll Engine, which is not BRP-compatible, but it's changed very little from the original presentation in Unknown Armies, which was largely BRP-ish. Sanity is broken out over four different gauges (originally five in UA) with two different tracks -- Failed and Hardened. A failed check results in your stereotypical CoC freak-out. Hardened means you stay in control, but at a cost to your humanity. The gauge that I appreciated the most was Violence -- that player characters might totally freak out at witnessing (or committing) horrifying, but naturally-enacted violence. I recall there being much discussion back in the day for adapting the rules to Delta Green (which was essentially straight-up CoC at the time), but I don't recall the popular formulae. !i!

It's also less a player's character concept and more of an exercise in programmed adventure. C.f. "Classic" Traveller vs Mongoose Traveller. But, of course, as the rules clearly state, the Family History tables are optional, as are the random d20 rolls for events and outcomes. They're a good go-by, for Dragon Pass at least, but if one has the Guide and/or Sourcebook, one can riff off the timeline and look farther afield. !i!

And revise roughly every decade. Thus the conundrum cited in the OP. Rubber, meet road. !i!

Canon is that which people read about. Non-canon is the result of actual play. Beware of orthodoxy in creative pursuits. !i!

A provocation. 🙂 You rightly point out that "rules lawyering," much as it's commonly used as a pejorative, is part of the fun for some players because well-written rules applied properly are unflinchingly fair. Raised stakes, as you put it. Fun follows fairness. The inverse is fairness following fun. The pejorative in this case is "hand-waving," rules being interpreted circumstantially either in the interest of player agency or to compensate for an inadequately written rule. MGF foremost, followed by relative fairness. I genuinely appreciate you bringing HQG into the discussion, a game designed to promote player agency -- but not necessarily success -- in a fair manner. No HPs as such, though, so that's another discussion. !i! [Edit: HPs = hit points in RQ, but HPs = hero points in HQ. You know what I meant.]

I thought Rule Zero was "Never play with assholes." Honestly. But I take your point. This discussion is slipping into similar territory to a concurrent discussion in the General BRP forum regarding asymmetrical rules for conflict. Is your game fair, or is it fun? Is it fun to be inflexibly even-handed in application of symmetrical rules for players and opponents? Is it fair to rely on the rules as a framework for most interaction, from which players' circumstances deviate? Or are the rules there in print just to appease rules lawyers and grognards? !i!

"What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?" - Private Frost, USCMC, Aliens (1986) !i!

Limited stats aren't necessarily assymetrical. Only relevant stats are used, values are within normal ranges for species and profession, and identical rules are used for both sides. That last bit is the most important thing -- standard rules for all sides of a conflict. !i!

The problem that I aluded to above is cannon fodder opponent, poorly armed and armored with only a handful of HPs...and astonishingly good rolls while the players flubbed. I actually had a situation once where a goob NPC tried hiding in a closet from the advancing player characters, then in a series of improbable rolls on both sides, came on like John McClane from Diehard. The hilarity was appreciated by all, but it derailed the adventure. Now, was that a bug or a feature? Years later I remember the session fondly, and it never would've happened with mook rules. !i!

This topic addressed elsewhere on this forum: Trademark rights are a contentious business, and I recall when the shoe was on the other foot, and fans of RuneQuest and Glorantha lamented that they'd never see "HeroQuest" in print under that name as it'd been promised since the late-70s. !i!

...or you may find a disinterested (or kindly) owner willing to part with it for considerably less. The Internet is a wild and woolly, and occasionally life-affirming place. !i!

I've long hailed this as a feature, too. However, in actual play I first found myself using a generic stat block for multiple NPC opponents, and then found that my pencil notations consistently hovered around less than a half-dozen essential stats, so I started creating highly abbreviated stat blocks that I'd actually use. The specific stats would vary according to which BRP game we were playing (RQ2/3 was always a little more complex than CoC, for instance). I don't think I ever went as far as employing super-simplified "mook" rules, but I would adjust the abbreviated stats to provide greater or lesser challenge as needed. I'd still deal with the occasional frustration/amusement of the weakling NPC who rolled lucky and would hang on by an improbable hit point or two when the GM's objective of the encounter was to just move along to the next scene -- a "mook" would be taken down by a number of successful rolls-to-hit, not by hit points mitigated by armor and dodge/parry. And, of course, the stat blocks were always compatible with the larger rules sets, so if an NPC ever stood out for any reason, I could expand the stats into a fully-realised character. !i!

A bit of show-off for a moment. When I was brewing up that campaign, it was for a small group of my old Traveller mates, around '00-01 or so. I set it in post-Fifth Frontier War Sword Worlds, abandoned by the Zhodani, largely occupied by the Imperium, Darian encroachment from spinward, economic disarray...real fuzzy end of the lollipop stuff. Only much later did I find out that this was more or less the conceit of Firefly. Except my players had a conniving patron with a small fleet of "salvaged" merchant vessels and the ambition to build a new interface trading company. He just needed warm bodies to crew his ships and agree to regular routes... Damn, that campaign didn't last long enough. Neither did Firefly. Some things are sweeter in their brevity, though. !i!

I bow to the wisdom of Game Designers Workshop, who, for all their Midwestern, late-Cold War sensibilities, didn't shy away from entertaining a broad spectrum of sci-fi scenarios. !I!

Back in the day, I used to hate the notion of playing a "subsidised merchant" in Traveller. Freedom! Yeah, then I got a job and saw how liberating the scenario was. You have a patron, they provide you with missions and baseline operating expenses, and you get to fill in the details during the several weeks between reporting for updates and resupply. Luxury, if not resulting from frugal bookkeeping, came from side jobs that didn't interfere with the company mission. My players actually loved it. So, TANSTAAFL, yeah, but at least the bread and meat are complimentary -- you supply the condiments. In that instance, the company is the "administrative body," but it could be a government as well (or a private finacier). The political aspect is who's footing the bill and why. !I!

Yeah, see? While he may have made his Perception roll to spot the quicksand, I'm beginning to worry he's failed his save to keep off the slippery slope of hubris and he's going in anyway. !i!

Lookee -- it's a domesticated thread-shitter. Now, back to the discussion of a "Utopian" social baseline, which, in the classic tradition of social theory and science-fiction tradition, may have logical holes that render it imperfect, and how the active game world might diverge from it. !i!

Dang, Bill, I think that may be the quicksand rules I was half-remembering. And I'm impressed at how well it's described. Shall we discuss tar seeps now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits !i!

Emphasis mine. I was with you up to this point. If we assume that bearing arms is a requirement of participation in a society, then a basic allotment of ammunition is in order. Same goes for fuel. Ultimately this boils down to how a baseline "citizen" is defined. If our player characters are freebooters charting their own course, and not operating under some letter of conduct, then things like ammunition (and weapons for that matter), fuel (and vehicles for that matter), and such will be "luxuries" that they'll have to earn. !i!

Ever the Utopian moving target -- define "ideal". [Note: Did you know that the etymology of "Utopia" means "no-place" and not "perfect place"? Thank you for that little bit of cynicism to brighten our day, Sir Thomas More.] Even in a pre-post-scarcity world, current social and economic idealist thinking is looking more seriously at provision of basic necessities as part of a social compact. Guarantees of at least survival levels of the essentials of housing, sanitation, water and nutrition, health care, transportation, and education, and a discretionary UBI (universal basic income) as mentioned above. If you're an abiding member of the society, these guarantees will be provided by the governing administrative body as a baseline minimum standard of living. If one aspires to more, either in accumulated property, or luxury services, or educational and/or professional pursuits, one has to engage in more formal programs that assign reward according to effort. No one is penalsied for simply existing, though, and for "not contributing to society." This can be done even without "replicator" technology that eliminates scarcity. But still, using Star Trek as a model, bear in mind that the members of Star Fleet are the exceptions of general UFP society, people who've opted for more ambitious pursuits and proven their merit to earn positions aboard starships, at science academies, and at exploratory outposts. Their reward is the opportunity to do something more. Most citizens of the UFP presumably walk around in their pajamas, engage in AR social media, and eat nutritionally-supplemented processed snack foods, and maybe do a volunteer-funded hobby personal interest project for a while (sounds familiar, amiright?). !i!

Where I grew up, we told regular tales about the unwary who went out too far during a spring tide, slipped into an unseen mud channel, then watched in horror as the tide quickly returned. (NB: Water comes in surprisingly fast on tidal flats.) In my line of work, it's construction sites where "quicksand" (or -mud) can be a real health and safety concern. I've gone in to my knees before, and seen another in as deep as his hips. After the initial hilarity passes, it sinks in to everyone (pun possibly intended) how the viscosity of the muck makes it difficult and truly exhausting to maneuver out, even with a handhold. The blessed buoyancy I cited above is relative, too -- the more viscous a fluid is, the longer it takes an object to buoy upward through it, maybe longer than the lungful of air you gasped will last. And then there's the pressure of the heavy fluid on the sides of your rib cage that may constrict breathing. Long story short, super-saturated mud and sand pits are still serious hazards, even if they don't actively pull you downward. !i!

Actually...as long as we're discussing super-saturated sand, silt, or clay, human bodies (and other animals) are buoyant in the quagmire. It's the struggling that causes cavitation/suction and exhaustion. If one can relax, and you're not face-down, you'll eventually float like a cork and you can paddle your way across the surface. So the actual contest, after failing a DEX save, is an INT check to keep your cool, followed by fatigue/CON loss (whatever you're using in your game) for every failed roll until you're exhausted and drown. Actually, I seem to recall quicksand rules from somewhere, too, but can't recall. And they surely operated on the same misconception of how it works. !I!