mrk

Yeah, it's a very interesting concept and I don't think I've seen the idea of primary and secondary targets used in too many games, Actually, the origins of this method comes from the old microgame combat system were you would ratio the attackers vs the defenders stats and roll on the apporate index. Here's an example:

Opponent A has a weapon rating of 8 and Opponent B has an Armor rating of 2. you round it of by 2, so 2 divided by 8 is 4. On the combat matrix chart, you look at index 4 and roll a D6:

1) Critical Hit Target

2) Wound Target

3) Wound Target

4) No Effect

5) No Effect

6) No Effect

I know this is a very simplistic and works better for a wargame then a RPG, but you get the idea. It's also a bit similar to the non-location combat system BRP uses. Can't wait for my BOOK to arrive! :mad:

I think a neat system would involve somehow using the attack roll to determine if the attacker can pick the location hit or has to roll randomly, representing both the fact that the attacker will try to hit a specific loaction, but may take whatever opening is left by the defender as well.

A simple mechanic would be "On an odd attack roll, the attacker chooses location, on an even attack roll, the attacker rolls location". Though this does not take the comparative skill of the combatants into account as you mention, and ideally such a rule should.

Hmm. I see an easy way of doing this in MRQ, but I'm not so sure about in BRP. Need to think about this.

One thing I've been mulling about is creating a new set of tables that instead of just rolling a random die to see were you "hit", would focus more if it was a "primarty" location or a "secondary" location. A skilled fighter like Muhammad Ali or Bruce Lee is going to be able to hit those primary locations much more frequently then a less experienced one. Of course, it t should also work the same way for the defender as well. Jacky Chan is going to be able to fend of an attack a lot more sucessfully and in MANY different ways then a guy who's only training has been in pillow fights with his older brother.

That would be "Authentic Thaumaturgy" by Isaac Bonewits. IMHO, one of the most useless books I ever wasted money on

I thought it really broke down and expalned how "magic" works in the real world quite well. I know a lot of Game Designers embraced the book and both Chaosium and Steve Jackson Games have published it over the years. What didn't you like about it?

There was a pretty good book written years ago on how "real" magic applies to FRPG's. Can't rememeber the name of it but I think the authors name was Bonewitz and Chaosium printed it at one time.

Spells and divine magic have worked in untold games hand-and-hand for many years. It just depends on how you( aka, the GM) views magic working in your world. It can be the kind were anyone can use it like Glorantha, or only a select and powerful few as in Middle Earth. If you think about it, magic is very much like languages/ or dialects; Just as there's many ways of saying either "hello" or "goodbye", a wizard or priest will have their own unique ways of casting a fireball or raising the dead.

Unless maybe one of the players turned their son or daughter onto RPG's and brought them along, I tend to prefer gaming with older people.

I

When combat involves two active participants, there will be some randomness in where your blow lands. The roll represents where you saw an opening in your opponent's defense. It might seem like one side of an opponent would get the brunt of attacks, depending on the handedness of the attacker, but the GM is free to alter the results if the don't make sense.

I agree. I never said you shouldn't roll to see if you hit your selected target or not. What I'm saying is each weapon should be treated differently and not just lobbed into a generic hit location table. And yes, a GM can alter the results as he chooses fit, but I would still like to have the location charts a litlle more rational in their design.

You could interpret a critical hit as striking a specific location. It isn't the RAW in BRP, but PerrinQuest let's you choose from a number of extra results for each degree of success. I think this makes a lot of sense, and is a fun option at the table.

Sure, a criticle hit is open to interpretation. If you were in a fight with Achilles who's more or less " blesesed by the Gods" ,a criticle hit on his ankle is going to do far more damage then anywhere else on his body. A strike to his chest a is not going to kill him instanly even if you puncture his heart...if at all.

The second scenario you describe reads as if you are describing an attack against an unaware foe' date=' or at least one that is not aware of the attacker. If you accept my view of what the Hit Location chart is for, then you'd agree that you shouldn't roll on it for this scenario.[/quote']

Unless you have a Siamese twin growing from your rear, I'm going to hit you in the back or somewhere on you neck and head region as thease are more easly accessable targets and the least likely to be protected between you and my weapon. Of course this rule should be change depending on the combatant's and the situation: If Mini-Me is facing Hulk Holgan with a knife. Chances are, any strike Mini-Me obtains will be in the lower region then on the top of Hulk's head.

To complicate things more once I get my BRP book this week, I want to break down and figure out how a weapon might how and where to strike an opponent. In a fight, your going to go for "desirable" targets and there's no better ones then the "head" and "chest" region as we all know. Now you may have a better chance of hitting an opponit with a bastard sword then a dagger, but you'll have a better chance of having the opportunity of striking those locations should you get around their defensive tactics and penetraite whatever armor they have do to the advantages you'll have over the longer weapon. Another thing also that I want to play around with is the actual hit location tabels themselves. If you striking someone in the rear, chances are your going to hit them in the back 60% or higher most of the time and much less in the legs or arms regions. I know, combat happens in a fraction of a second and anything is possible, but I just don't see why you would roll on the same chart over and over if you striking someone with an axe on the left or a dagger from the rear--it just dosen't make scense nor is it that much closer to "realism" as the hit location tables supposedly represent. Anyway, I could be entirely wrong and the new rules have address these problems already as I'm STILL waiting for my copy.:ohwell:

My local game store said it should be in next week. I could of gotten it by now but I decited to help keep their business afloat.

I looked on Ebay and couldn't find any of this stuff. Got a link?

Good work Publius! It's nice to see you added jungles ,swamps and farmland ( it's not all desert). The kingdom of Yoros especially, as it's famous for their wines which just about every happy go' lucky Adventure seems to be swigging in the stories as they trot off to whatever fate awaits them.

Ever read Frank Miller/ GeofF Darrow's "Hard Boiled?", that would make a tour-de-force game setting. incredibly ultra violent. Another cool idea I always wanted to do is run a modern day crime setting like the film "Heat " were I have two gaming groups playing either "Cops" or ""Crooks" on different days and every so often have them roleplay together when they have "encounters" with one another ( like a big shootout!). It would be complicated to GM, even fierce as you have a high posibility of PC's fighting PC's, but it could be very cool and very interesting to see how it would all play out.

That looks very interesting. I'm not going to be at my own computer for awhile so I don't want to download them, just yet. However, are they D100 or easily compatible to D100?

More like D6. Most microgames tend to use six sided dice as they wanted them to be playable with the most commonly and easly accessible die in the world. It's been a long time since I've played them but I'm sure they could be converted with some tinkering.

Exactly the point I was going to make.

I don't know about this - people are very resilient in my opinion.

I agree as well. The Barbarian might be freaked out, but not to the point of falling down to the ground in a crying heap. Infact, if you think about it, If he was standing there as a Bus was heading straight towards him--he'd probably charge at it with his axe!

And while the world may still be full of orcs and trolls, it's still horrific to mutilated bodies and such.

Not as much as you think. You show a mutilated body to someone who's seen death first hand like a NYC Cop or a Child Soldier from the Sudan, and they wouldn't even blink an eye. If you grew up in a Fantasy world full of magic, monsters, and bloodshead, your not going to be as effected emotionaly like us Earthlings as it's been the way of life ever since you were born. Even if you never seen a Dragon first hand, chances are you've seen some evidence of it; either flying off in the distance or seen it's head mounted above the Kings Throne like an Elk . Even your Grandfather pointing to a dark old mountain saying, " That's where the Dragon lives" will have a degree of merit on you to believe and be ajusted by something that terrifying is living close by.

I'm a huge, old school, fan of the classic micogames from the 70's and 80's was thinking about doing a miniatures BRP conversion based on them. Infact, I just found complete scaned rule books, counters and map for the old Dwarfstar microgames that are now legitimately free to download . Heres the link should anyone be interested:

Index Page - Download The Classic Heritage Dwarfstar Boardgames For Free

I'm thinking of using san the way a ghost or demon would cast a "fear" spell on you as it seems to me if you lived in a world ful of orcs, trolls and ringwraiths, those type of things wouldn't drive you as "crazy" compared to Joe Schmo looking up to see a NightGaunt climbing through his kitchen window as he's having a cup of coffee

As far as creatures go I was debating about whether to include "monsters" that already have stats in other BRP or Runequest type books.... dinosaurs and giant insects for instance. I wonder if those should be rehashed as they take up valuable space. (Especially all the hit location charts). It would be nice for any people new to BRP or do not have out of print books. The thing is I have feel like I am plagiarizing by taking the stats out of old monster books.Thanks!

I don't think it's necessary to include stats for "generic" monsters as their generally accesible for people to find. And if not, any seasoned GM can think up playable stats for a T-Rex or a Python. It's not that hard.

Anyway,here's a basic breakdown on what should be coverd to makes a great supplement book--or at least one that I would buy.

1) Introduction of The Green

2) The History of the Green

3) Exploring the Place

3) Flora and Flauna

4) New Plant life

5 New Monsters

6) People and Notable Characters

7) Places of Interest ( Dungeons, caverns, ruins, ect)

8) Exotic material ( diseases, food, ect)

9) Magic and Technology ( if any)

10) Any special rules

11) Scenarios

12) Maps

I wonder who was the first person to taste test that? Was it a dare?

Probably some third world person who when he found out later his coffee beans were pooped out of a Monkey's butt he said to himself, "hmm..not bad. I bet I could sell this to rich people!".

Exactly, at least I think so. I am not sure what Ethnobotany is.

The scientific study of the traditional knowledge and customs of a people concerning plants and their medical, religious, and other uses.

Yep' date=' the only problem is that every time I start bugging around with Wikipedia to much, days go by with no writing getting done. It sure is useful though. Crazy thing is many herbs help with stuff like congestion, digestion, sore feet, rheumatism.etc. I really need to find more in game effects.[/quote']

You just have to think how this stuff applies in game terms. Minor ailments like rheumatism,sore feet, ect, could be remedied by the equivalent of a (light) cure disease, healing spell, potion and the like.

Also, if you had any tribal people/ or medicine man living in the green, chances are they would have a higher degree of knowledge of some of the stuff growing out in the bogs then anyone from the outside.

The Ichorites are not necessarilly alchemists in the classic sense though. I am pretty much avoiding the metal stuff and the philosopher's stone and all. Ichorites are always looking for fabled or magical tree products though and are invaiders of sorts from the world outside the Green.

The Ichorites to me sounds like an Alchemist only his knowledge is in Ethnobotany.Wikipedia is a good place to start learning about this kind of stuff.

You need to know Arithmetic at a certain level in order to begin learning algebra. Well, with alchemy you would have to know herbalism at 70% in order to begin learning Refining. You must know Refining at 70% in order to know Alchemy. Each level would allow the Ichorites(alchemist of the Green) to learn to make increasingly powerful potions. I am not sure how well this will work though.

Hmm..I 'm not sure. If your an Alchemist-even an entry level one, You would already have the skills for refining as that's part of the process of making chemicals and such. Is there any write-up's on alchemy in any of the BRP supplements? There's a good website on it that I found. Have you seen it?

The Alchemy Web Site

I am almost afraid to find it as it probably has already gone places I am trying to go right now. I hate it when I feel I have come up with a cool original idea and then find someone else has already done almost the exact same thing.>:->

Don't beat up on yourself. Thease are classic Science Fiction settings that have been around for years and milked by countless others. Hargrave, was a master of taking ideas ( some unflinchingly plagiarized) and putting his own spin on it. Basically, he drew inspiration from Forters' Midworld and transplanted the concept into his own realm and titled the place Green Hell after the nickname US Solgers called the jungles of the pacific back in WW II. Another souce of cool ideas might be Dagobah from the Star Wars universe. It too is a big swampy landscape not unlike The Green.

Glad to help. One other little bit of good source material you may want to look at is Arduin Grimoire 8: Winds of Change and it's chapter on a massive area of nasty swampland called, surprisingly enough," Green Hell".