rleduc

Some interesting ideas, the risk factor reminds me of BDG (Bullet Damage Group) from FGUs Aftermath but with a bit more variation (BDG simply used d10s, so there were big jumps when you crossed a threshold).

I am a bit unsure of your claim armor is all or nothing, I've never seen anything to suggest that, can you point me to a source?

For the record, R&R started life in the 1980's as a series of Aftermath games... BDG was certainly on my mind when I developed the Risk system (as was e-values from Morrow Project).

The all or none property of ballistic armor comes from gel studies. I'll see if I can find an original source -- the idea is to use a fixed round and energy and then fire it into increasing thickness of Kevlar, while measuring penitration depth. The response is sigmodial with a very step rise from near-zero to near-final penitration. I modelled this as square response...

Thanks rleduc, the risk system looks pretty good. I have some questions though.

1) You say that the armor is all or none, but the rules say that if the damage beats the protection, the risk is dropped one level (about a point). Which is it?

2) What method di you use to arrive at the risk vales for the weapons, and the protection value for the armors? Did you base risk on energy, energy over area, momentum? Or did you just "eyeball it" I'd like to know so I can get an idea of how to come up with ratings for other weapons and armors. For example if I wanted to add in a Russian 14mm MG, or a Cassul .454 how would I do so? Or what would the protection value be for an M113 APC? I'm just wondering if you used some method that can be applied universally.

THe risk system looks really good, and could help me to solve some of the difficluties I'm having with vehicles and weapons in BRP terms, if it can be expanded to accommodate other weapons and armor.

It looks like an energy/area method.

Sorry for my tardy reply. For number 1, if Risk of attack is greater than Risk "protected by armor" then attack risk is droped by one. I hit you with Risk 11 weapon, and you have Risk 10 or less of protection then you take damage from a Risk 11-1 attack. (Of course other modifiers may apply.)

For question number 2, I used a totally geek-aligned system (explained in the Firearms download, but not in the R&R monograph). What I did was to use a non-linear regression on "typical" muzzle energy versus the average damage listed in the Big BRP book. I then used that relationship to calculate Risk for other rounds (with a few asides listed in the download document -- particularly I am giving each calibur a "typical" energy and then individual firearms can raise or lower the Risk of the calibur -- it is just a gaming expedient).

For the record, in play the system goes very quickly and give a first-blush approximation of modern firearms damage. The reason I used the muzzle energy instead of other metrics is because I can get those values easily from gun magizines and the Shooter's Bible. This gives me a system that will accept a large number of modern firearms without a lot of work.

The risk system from Rubble and Ruin is, as said above, basically the same idea as penetration. AND... you can download the system for free in the download section: Modern_Firearms - Downloads - Basic Roleplaying Central.

With firearms, in our "real" world armor is generally all or none -- not additive as represented with the Armor Point concept. Risk is my answer to this issue.

I like the new banner!

Dustin says top people are working on this!

I have e-mailed Dustin about this.

Here is Megarat from R&R:

Megarats

Three foot long megarats live in small colonies within the rubble. Individually they are not too dangerous, but they are often encountered in large ravenous hoards. They are primarily nocturnal, and return to their communal nest during the day. These nests usually house 2-20 adult rats and are always located in dark underground places. A prospector can frequently identify a nest by its strong and unpleasant odor. Megarats will chew on anything and the prospecting near their nest sites is often diminished due to the chewing of these giant rodents.

Characteristic Roll Average

STR 1D6+1 4-5

CON 3D6 10-11

SIZ 2D3 4

INT 5 5

POW 2D6+1 8

DEX 2D6+6 13

APP 1D6 3-4

HP: 7-8 Move: 12 DB: -1D6

Attacks: Bite 40%, 1D6+1/2DB (Bleed).

Skills: Hide 40%, Dodge 40%, Listen 75%, Stealth 50.

Powers: Dark Vision, Super Smell.

Armor: 1 point fur.

Can I play?

Rubble and Ruin has (by my count) 13 sets of human attributes:

Str: 10.46153846

Con: 11.53846154

Siz: 10.53846154

Dex: 13.61538462

Int: 13.07692308

Pow: 10.46153846

App: 11

Not bad... Dex is high, but there is some "self-selection" there, NPCs that are not somewhat above average will be less likely to bother the PCs and will then not need to be stat'ed.

Question about Psionics. I noticed under skill descriptions there is Craft/Psionic Tattoos. The skill description says "The art and science of using psionic nanites to give psionic characters new tattoos, allowing a character to gain new powers or increased psionic strength."

Is there anywhere else in the rules that talk about increasing Psionic abilities?

Yes, Page 109 has "Buying Psionics" under Miscellaneous services, and Page 112 has a section on buying nanites.

Also, I have a player who is going to try an Uber-rat. Any thoughts about starting age? And do they follow the Age-20 bonus rule for the technology skill?

I just treat them the same as the other bioengineered races. (So, yes I do use the Age-20 rule for them.) I let one of the current player have a 35+ year old rat with cyberware, and have had no problems.

Do let me know if I can help in any way -- and let us know how it goes!

This is a great project!!!!! (IMHO)

Dummm, deee dumm dum...

T minus 3 hours.

Rubble and Ruin also has a section about hot days requiring extra stamina rolls. The ruins are unpleasant that way!

I had a look at Edge of The Sword yesterday. His 'Sword' system is one of the most convoluted things I've ever seen. To work out damage you have to do something like six stages of multiplication - taking into account things like muzzle velocity, round type (hollow points, lead slugs, glaser rounds, etc), diameter of round, thickness of limb hit. And loads more - Then you apply that number (about an hour after you started I reckon) to the targets body. There are something like 28 separate hit locations if you include both hands, etc. And it looks like anything more powerful than a rubber band hitting you in the head will kill you outright no matter how many hit points you have.

I love complex game mechanics -- but I know that love is not universally held -- so what I was trying to do with the Risk/Fire Arms system is to create an alternative to "ablative hit points" that creates dramatic tension, doesn't break the "suspension of disbelief" of people with some familiarity with fire arms, and is fast and fun to play.

To me the original RuneQuest (1) rules were designed to simulate SCA fighting -- there was a huge overlap in those two communities in the late 1970's (myself included). What I wanted with the fire arms system is something like the original RQ combat (that is, fast and easy to play, and gives a "first order" approximation of reality) but not centered on SCA-style melee combat, but rather small fire fights.

Someone on RPG.net once complained about my system reduces risk for darkness -- but I would argue this makes perfect sense in light of the above. If you think about the "accepted" two step process for modeling injury in RPGs you first determine if your attack caused any injury (the roll to hit and possibly defensive rolls) and then a roll for damage. This is just a model! It is not set in stone. Morrow Project realized that most modern fire arms deliver a very consistent amount of force, so in that system a fire arm did a fixed amount of damage, and the hit location roll was a surrogate for the damage roll. In my system, you use standard BRP rules for determining if there is a hit, and then the "risk" is a (hopefully easy to compute) intermediate before the damage roll -- the risk gets modified up or down depending on the conditions of the firefight (for example skilled shooters get a small increase, and novices a small decrease) -- and then a damage roll is made.

Also, I used this system for Rubble and Ruin.

Deleted

I’ll see what I can add, but first some caveats. The system in Rubble and Ruin is (with a few minor variations) the same as what I have available in the download section. Also, my goal was not to create the world’s most realistic fire arms system, but rather to create a framework in which a reasonably realistic RPG could be run – while keeping things simple and fast. Basically I wanted to address some deficiencies like 1) incremental armor (armor absorbs a portion of the damage), 2) the lack of variation in lethality (people survive being hit by high powered rifles all the time – they just don’t survive being hit well), and 3) I wanted to be able to take modern fire arms and “spec them out” to game stats, and I wanted the game stats to be meaningfully different. I will address each of these points in turn.

1) For armor, I used the ATF guidelines for which rounds that can be stopped by a given armor level, then I put a small “wiggle” factor on, and said that was how much risk was reduced. But anything over the stopped risk was basically unaffected (-1 Risk which yields approximately -1 HP damage, but see below).

2) The lack of variation in damage was addressed with the risk system. The problem is that 4D6 to the chest is invariably fetal unless you use an unrealistic “incremental” armor model. (4D6 averages 14 HP damage with only ~3% of the possible rolls being less than 8 – fetal for most people). Ideally, I would have liked the damage of a round to be uniformly distributed from 1 to Risk (Risk 6 => 1 to 6, or 1D6; Risk 12 => 1D12 etc). But I moved away from that for simplicity – the current system only uses easy to roll combinations (e.g. 1D10+1 for Risk 11, not 1D11). Remember that I use this with damage by hit location. So, without ballistic armor, 1D10+1 to the chest has a good chance of dropping someone in one shot – but there is still a 10% chance they will walk away with just a scratch!

3) Within the community of fire arms users there are differing opinions on the efficacy of variables such as round speed versus bullet diameter. My experience is limited primarily to my reading and spending a few years hanging with a fire arms examiner for the Illinois State Police (who every day saw different people who had been shot to death). I adopted his opinions (to the best of my limited ability) in the rules I presented, but I tried to create a system that others could easily modify to match their own opinions. For example, the risk values associated with different rounds can easily be changed – I even post the document in a word processor file (not a PDF) so you can edit it to match your own views.

I need to run now, but I will follow this thread and respond if anyone cares to ask questions. (Also, constructive comments are always welcome.)

FYI I have the modern firearms system that I used in Rubble and Ruin available in the download sections. There are Modern and WWII. Many people tell me they like these rules.

Cool! Looking forward to this!

I use Google image search from time to time -- sometimes I find great things, others not. Oh, and use the word "floorplans" in the search.

I got my copies yesterday. I haven't read it yet, but it looks like everyone did a great job!

I'll PM you as I get close. Thanks!

Thalaba,

Thanks for the review. It has become clear to me since the publication that you are absolutely correct with regards certain of the mechanics sections being unclear. I have tried to clarify things on this thread as best I can -- and if there were ever a reprint I would certainly want to work on those areas. (I wonder if Dustin would let us resubmit an improved manuscript as version 1.1?)

I again want to thank Puck for the cool art work. I think it added a lot to the final manuscript.

Lastly, I am currently play testing a full length R&R adventure (we had a great session last night –- or at least, I enjoyed it). I have not approached Dustin with the idea yet, but once it is complete I want to submit it as a second R&R monograph –- we’ll have to see if they take it.

Hi Rich,

I'm finally giving this book a thorough read (been on my shelf since it first came available, what over a year ago now). I really like the tone of the book - it does a good job of capturing The Road Warrior and even The Road. The gritty tone is exactly what I want from a post-apoc. game. I may have more questions later and I progress through the book, but one question is burning a hole in my brain right now:

How do you pronounce "Spikemo"?

For the benefit of others who might read this, Spikemo is a somewhat recurrent example character. He shows up whenever I want to explain something with a concrete example but don’t need to make a big deal of the specific characters. I pronounce the name “spike” “mo”, as in “want me to spike you mo?”

I sent him a copy when I was writing it -- I need some material from the second book (which we are all waiting for Rod).