rleduc

I spend a lot of time before I start a new campaign thinking about what skills will be included. For me, it is the most important thing I can do towards defining the feel of the game. In my mind, skill sets come in two forms that I call “open” and “closed”. When I run a game with open skills, I allow a long list of specific skills that represent what a character has learned and how they went about learning it – for example I would allow Science (Biochemistry) and Science (Molecular Biology) as separate skills in a modern game. On the other hand, in a closed skills game, before the start of play I create a list of every action that I care about, and that a character can have experience with (independent of related attributes). When I build a closed skill list, I am focusing the players on the actions that this game is about. A desert nomad game, I would not include swimming because it will not be called for. By excluding a skill, I am not saying that it does not exist, only that it will not be used in the telling of this story.

Advantages of a closed list:

1) Focuses the player’s thoughts towards my vision of the story.

2) Removes the “skill haggle” – that is my term for the negotiation of which skills can be used to solve a particular problem.

Disadvantages of a closed list:

1) Focuses the player’s thoughts towards my vision of the story.

2) Requires a predetermined list of all skills.

As an example of a closed skill list, here is what I gave players for a recent post-apocalyptic game:

Physical

Climb: Climbing.

Drive: Actually covers driving in an un-safe way. Anyone with a drive skill of 25% + can drive safely with no skill rolls. Each full 10% gives another class of vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles etc)

Escape: Getting out of bonds, and tight spots.

Jump: Add your jump percent to your base jump distance.

Ride

Rope-Work

Slight: Covers pick pockets, hold out and the like.

Sneak: Moving silently and hiding.

Swim: Stay afloat in rough water, and move.

Use: Each 10% gives one more of the following: Bikes, skateboards, hand glider, parachutes etc..

Mental

Computers: Handles all aspects of using computers.

Conceal: Covers hiding something so that a search roll is required to find it.

Crafts: Covers all sorts of skills used in making things from scratch.

Engineering: This skill covers spotting structural dangers before you fall into them, or they fall on you. It can also be used to repair/strengthen structures.

Evaluate: Knowing the worth of objects.

Explosives (Simple): Covers use of, knowledge of, and disposal of, things that go boom.

Explosives (Complex): Covers use of, knowledge of, and disposal of, modern things that go boom.

Farming: Make one roll a year for dirt farming.

Find Water: Find clean water.

First Aid

Food: Covers both salvaging and preparing food.

History: Covers knowledge of what happened before the fall.

Improvise: This skill covers taking junk that you find and turning it into something that, for the most part works. It is different from crafts which use the correct tools and a great deal of time to build something correctly, and from the repair skill which is used to restore something to working order. This skill takes, say, old car parts, and turns them into, say, body armor.

Lay of the Land: Knowing where things are in the city, as well as the safest way to get from here to there.

Listen: Hearing sounds.

Medic:

Medical Care

Pilot: Each full 10% gives one of the following: Single Engine Prop, Multi Engine Prop., Helicopter, Small Jet, Fighter Jet, Commercial Jet, Other.

Repair: Modifiers depend on how complex the job is.

Scan: Seeing things.

Science: This skill covers all aspects of science. Harder questions will have greater minuses.

Search

Security: Covers picking locks, bypassing electronic alarms -- and using the same.

Theology-Occult

Tracking: Following someone by the signs they leave.

Surgery: Cutting people.

Weather Watching

Social

Entertain

Folks: Knowing who is who in the city. Typically, -20% to know someone’s friends, and -30% to know something of their past.

Impersonate: Covers dressing and acting like members of another group.

Intimidate: Getting people to act “your way” through the threat of force.

Lying: Covers quickly convincing people to do things, bluffing, haggling etc.

Rubblewise: Covers recognizing people and group motives.

Speak Language: Each language is its own skill. Spanish, English and Korean are the three common in the area. Native tongue starts at Int x 5.

Sweet Talk: Covers condensing people to do things pleasantly.

Weapons

Bow: Covers bows and cross bows.

Brawling: Covers fighting without a weapon.

Heavy Weapons: Covers special heavy weapons like LAW rockets and machine guns.

Knife: Covers close fighting with knives.

Longarm: Covers rifles and shotguns.

Melee: Covers hand to hand fighting with swung and thrust weapons.

Sidearm: Covers pistols, revolvers and submachine guns.

Throw: Covers spears, grenades, knives, whatever.

Block: If successful provides 2x(damage bonus of weapon) in melee AV (or provides the shields AV).

Now maybe it is just me, but my first thought looking at the schematic was that opening the valve to release the gas should be triggered automatically by a pressure switch near the handle-end of the blade.

In that case the stats might be: Anytime the weapon does at least four points of damage it then delivers an additional 2d4. But it does this only once, thereafter it fights as a normal knife.

While looking over the super powers in the book, and adapting them to one of my core settings I concluded that I would restrict my world to two power types – all supers in my world derive their power from a special energy source, so that would be one of the two power types and then “physical” would be everything else.

Obviously, an alternative would have been to increase the pool size.

Hello All,

I was thinking about a form that could be used to describe the character generation process for a given BRP game. Imagine you had a group of players that knew the new BRP rules, and you wanted to communicate to them all the information they would need to roll up characters before the first gaming session.

The “options” sheet does not capture all the information needed for character generation, but it is certainly an important place to start. I have drafted a first-pass at such a list, and I was hoping others might look at it and comment.

Read a list with ( ) as “radio buttons” such that only one can be selected while [ ] are Checkboxes for yes/no options.

Thanks for any input,

Rich

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Game Description

[ ] Description: what is the game about

GM Supplied List of "Backgrounds" -- these feed into the list below.

( ) Option 1

( ) Option 2

etc

[ ] Characters with more then one power type (page 88): {Not listed on Option Sheet}

-----------------------------------

These pertain to all characters

-----------------------------------

Optional Rules:

Characters & Character Creation

[ ] Choosing Characteristic Values (page 16)

[ ] Higher Starting Characteristics (page 16)

[ ] Education/Knowledge Roll (pages 24, 27, 28)

[ ] Cultural Modifiers (page 38)

[ ] Non-Human Characters (page 335)

[ ] Point-based Character Creation (page 19)

[ ] Step Six (page 21)

[ ] Increased Personal Skill Points (page 24)

[ ] Hit Points per Location (pages 20, 29)

[ ] Total Hit Points (page 30)

[ ] Fatigue Points (pages 20, 32)

[ ] Sanity (pages 21, 32, 318)

[ ] Distinctive Features (pages 34-35)

[ ] Freeform Professions (page 41)

[ ] Aging and Inaction (page 183)

Skills

( ) Skill Category Bonuses (pages 20, 31, 48)

( ) Simpler Skill Bonuses (page 31)

( ) Neither

[ ] Complimentary Skills (page 50)

[ ] Literacy (page 67)

[ ] Research Specialties (page 74)

[ ] Skill Ratings Over 100% (page 175)

System

[ ] Encumbrance (page 180)

Combat

[ ] Initiative Rolls (page 188)

[ ] Attacks and Parries over 100% (page198)

[ ] Strike Ranks (page 199):

[ ] Damage and Hit Locations (pages 204-205)

Miscellaneous

[ ] Allegiance (page 315)

[ ] Personality Traits (page 294)

-----------------------------------

These may change with character "background"

-----------------------------------

Power Level

( ) Normal

( ) Heroic

( ) Epic

( ) Superhuman

Culture: Pick one from GM-supplied list

( ) Culture 1

( ) Culture 2

( ) Culture 3

etc

Race: Pick one from GM-supplied list

( ) Race 1

( ) Race 2

( ) Race 3

etc

Powers

( ) Magic

( ) Mutations

( ) Psychic Ability

( ) Sorcery

( ) Super Powers

[ ] Projection (page 145)

Skills

[ ] GM Supplied/Player supplied list of appropriate skills and specialties.

I have long used special skills that only become available when the base gets reaches 90%.

In one world RQ3-like, when a wizard reached 90% in Intensity they would start a new skill that applied to each spell at 90% called “Mastery” – this new skill did not increase with experience or study, but rather was based off the characters knowledge of the arcane secrets of their order. Each order had 10 mundane skills: a Geomancer might have Geology, Geography, Anthropology, and seven others; each of these skills then contributed +3% if it was 30%+, +6% for 60%+ and +9% if it was 90% plus. So if our geomancer had 30-59% in all ten skills, his master would be 30%. Master would give -1 Magic Point to casting mastered spells and some other benefits.

The idea was that this gave a motivation for wizards to have great sage-like lore. Our geomancer would benefit from knowing about the nature of hills and mountains (geology), from knowing about the distribution of rivers and cities (geography) and from knowing about the different peoples of the world (anthropology) etc. It fit the world.

Likewise, for combat skills over 90% I have allowed characters to study Weapons Mastery – the only advantage is that it adds to both attack and parry rolls for the weapon. This was basically a way to accelerate advancement in a given weapon – except I kept tight control over teachers – you had to find someone who would teach the secrets of the weapon.

Sorry about the lack of clarity. Yes I have the PDF and I am attempting to port old homebrew material to the BRP cannon. Since I never run BRP above the “normal” level the guidelines for mixing powers within the Normal/Heroic/Epic/Super levels won’t work for me.

The core of my question could be addressed by answering the following:

Assume you wanted to run a first level version of the “Wisconsin” game (and since the last time I played D&D was 1982, please excess my archaic terminology), but you were to run it in BRP. It is clearly a “normal” level game – how will you balance the different “classes”. Fighters and thieves take care of themselves. As a player I add skill points to either fighting skills or thieving skills, or whatever combination I like – but what to do with the Magic Users? Clearly, as GM I can not drop them to “less then normal” development but with magic – likewise for those using Allegiances.

Of course, my interest is in the Post Apocalyptic setting, but the problem is the same.

In CofC or Supers all characters start with access to the same list of things to buy. You buy skills for your investigator or powers for your super hero – then you are set to go. In many gaming settings, there are logical distinctions between characters that open or close sets of powers, skills or abilities (collectively, I’ll call them Benefits).

It is easy to develop a solution to this issue – for me I am planning on having a pool of points that are used to buy Benefits. And for each logical category there will be an “opening cost” which must be paid to start buying the benefits – in the D&D example, (and I’m making this up without too much thought) let say you get 10 “Benefit Points”. It might cost 3 points for your character to know how to use magic – this imparts some basic abilities like, perhaps, literacy and Knowledge (Secret Rune Writing). Additionally, each Magic spell costs one point. Likewise, being in Allegiance with a deity might cost 3 points and each magical power an additional one point. Lastly, there would need to be some benefits for non-spell users to purchase – maybe +20% to a skill costs one point or freedom from the 75% skill cap might cost a point. With such a system I could start with a magic user with seven spells, or a magic user-cleric with a few spells or an almost heroic fighter with over 100% in a weapon etc.

In my PA setting – the player picks an age category and this opens or closes classes of benefits that can be purchased as appropriate for the PCs age – biomodifications, cybernetics or advanced skills.

The heart of my question is “is there a more BRP-like solution to the issue of non-uniformity of benefit availability”?

Hoping that this is clearer,

Rich

I would like to hear you thoughts on balancing character generation in my campaign. I have this “world” that I have been running since about 1981. It is an old friend to me. I’ve probably run no less then 30 campaigns – each time I tweak the world and change the mechanics – but it is recognizable one incarnation to the next. It started as an Aftermath world and has been run as Aftermath, BRP, Morrow Project, GURPS, GURPS/Morrow Project and GURPS/BRP. With the current release of BRP out, I would like to develop a form that conforms to the rules as printed (this would allow me to say I’m running a BRP game and not “some hybrid game based on a bunch of homebrew…).

So the game is set in a post apocalyptic world twenty years after the end of a fifteen year series of global wars (long story that is not relevant here), anyway characters of different ages have access to different things. Characters from before the start of the wars have access to a lot of skills and knowledge, characters who fought in the wars have access to cybernetics as well as somewhat less pre-fall knowledge while younger characters have access to very little knowledge but all sorts of bioengineering that was being introduced just before the fall.

When players are making new characters they pick an “age category” for the PC and this choice determines what is available to the character. In a BRP Supers game everyone gets a pool of points of a fixed size to buy powers; similarly my current plan for this game is to have a POW-based pool with three price lists based on the age category. Does anyone have other ideas on how to approach this? Particularly, any idea that could be judged “more consistent” with the flavor of the new BRP rules?

Thanks,

Rich

If you don’t mind moving the average size up, you could go with 35D20+55. That has a range of 90 to 755 and an average of 422.5.

Yeah. That's sort of the effect I think most games should have to some degree, and few do; even when they do, there's often too small a margin between "dying" and "dead".

(Not that you can't go too far in the other direction where its too hard to die, but usually games that have done that do it deliberately for genre related reasons).

It took me a while to find a balance that works for my play style. With “tactical death” I (in most environments) allow a series of Medical skill checks and CON rolls. The “rescuer” rolls Medicine and the victim rolls CON. On a CONx1 or Medical critical the victim recovers. But, each roll takes one minute and after 10 minutes there are permanent stat losses and after 20 there is no hope. This leads to an exciting post battle session where hard decisions have to be made about who gets what medical care. In some cases, these can be as exciting as the battles…

Well, as I said, the reason I usually mention this is to forestall people who get a little too enthusiastic about hit location or death spiral systems on "realism" grounds. One thing that a lot of systems suffer from is that they're actually too lethal to be realistic; a lot of people in combat fold up from shock or blood loss but still can be saved if medical attention gets to them fairly quickly (even just as little as someone with some training and a basic first aid kit in many cases), so environments with high tech or magical medical capability at hand shouldn't necessarily be as lethal as many rules sets would make them, unless everyone is doing the equivalent of fighting with phasers on dematerialize.

I have addressed this issue. A long time ago I introduced in my games the idea of “tactical death”. Many people know the distinction between clinical and biological death (in a nut shell, clinical=heart stopped beating, biological=brain function stopped), while in my games tactical death means that your character is in such a condition that he or she can not take anymore relevant actions before death. Sure you might be bleeding or moaning but the character is unable to do anything that will intentionally change the outcome of the battle. After the battle, medical interventions of whatever sort can revive tactically dead characters – I have some homebrew mechanics that make it harder to revive someone the longer they have been “dead”.

RE the OP: I pull out my old RQ rules every now and again and reread bits just for old times sake, the last time was about a year ago – here are a few things that pop to mind as differences between RQ (copy right circa 1979) and the new BRP – ignoring the big ones like RQ didn’t have super powers etc. etc.

Original RQ had only spotty rules for starting with an advanced character – we always played with a new PC having Skill Basic+Stat Bonus in all skills and nothing more.

Stat bonuses were calculated in blocks, not smoothly. An attribute of 12-14 (or what ever) might give +5% bonus. Each skill category had its own little look up table, and bonuses were always in blocks of 5%.

Characters had a “defense” value based on DEX and SIZ (I think) that was subtracted from all attacks.

Just a few examples that I can recall (use old guys don’t have the best memories) but this has made me want to go and compare the two side-by-side.

Hello BRP World,

What to say about myself? I started gaming in the late 1970’s and switched to RQ around 1979. I’ve been a big fan of what is now called BRP for longer then it has been called that, and as recently as three years ago I was running a BRP-derived zombie-apocalypse game. BRP has been my “go to” system for fast and easy mechanics since – well, forever. I’m very excited to see it coming back!

My only gaming credits to date (outside of a variety of fanzine-type articles) is the sleep mechanics for GURPS (basically, when I was in grad school one summer I got the idea that I should write something for a game and get it published – so I did).

When I’m not gaming I am a senior scientist at a “major Midwestern” biomedical research center.

Rich