Rurik

Well, for fear of Opening a can of worms... Mongoose Runequest is a current variation of BRP, hated by many old grognards, though I run it and have had fun (perhaps another flame war is coming). Mongoose Publishing has licensed both the RuneQuest name and Glorantha from Issaries, and produced some actually quite good Gloranthan books - many written by authors who have been Gloranthan Writers for HeroQuest as well, though honestly the books by their in house writers are pretty good as well. I've stuck with MRQ based on the strength of their Glorantha books. It is fairly easy to convert the material to BRP (excepting magic - more on this in a moment) and many of the books are mostly source anyway with little to no game mechanics in them. Moon Design Publishing has reprinted all the fantastic old RQII supplements you hear about to this day (Pavis and the Big Rubble, Borderlands, Cults of Prax and Cults of Terror, Griffin Mountain) and can still be purchased new. These are the supplements that made RuneQuest famous more than the rules themselves I believe. A copy of RQII (pretty easily had off of EBAY) and 1-2 of these and you are good to go. The stats from RQII will be closer to BRP than MRQ's stats will be. RQ 1-3 and HeroQuest have always been set at the end of the Third Age, while MRQ is set at the end of the Second Age, a time of two great magical empires that eventually basically self destruct and cause widespread destruction across the world (gross simplification). The biggest problem (excepting using RQII with the reprints) is the Magic Systems. None of the Magic Systems from RQ2 or 3 are recreated in BRP. MRQ has versions of the RQ magic systems, but those to would have to be converted to BRP. So you can get Glorantha, and use it with BRP, though there is going to be work onw way or another.

Somebody has WAY too much time on their hands... Good stuff tho' :thumb:

Hey, we're a bunch of fun guys. We even have jokes: Three Yelmalion talking after temple one day: First Yelmalion: "My worst nightmare would be to be locked in a dark room deprived of Yelm's light for eternity" Second Yelmalion: "But it would be worse to be stuck in a dark room for all eternity, with only strange women for company" Third Yelmalion: "That's nothing, my worst nightmare would be to be on a sunny battlefield surrounded by my comrades, slaying Yelm's foes and bringing enlightenment to the unbelievers" The other two look at him amazed, finally one asks "How could that be bad?" Third Yelmalion: "I'd be having too much fun!"

Actually, the Runelord party was supposed to be a band of enemies (in your case sun worshippers, in my case troll scum ). So the lower 'level' party members take on the weaker members of the enemy party. If everyone in the characters party is 'Rune Level' a balanced foe is going to be largely all Rune Level as well so everyone has a 'fair' opponent. It all seems very contrived to me, and detracts from the realism. Not every fight is fair, nor should it be. That is one reason I've liked the lethality of BRP. A big part of surving is knowing when to fight and when not to.

BRP is very easy to use for casual Gamers. My wife is not a gamer, and the only game she likes is Call of Cthulhu. It is a really easy game to grasp because everyone inherently understands percentages. What Sneak 45% means is obvious to a non gamer. The difference between Libaray use 75% and Library use 25% is obvious. You don't NEED to use opposed rolls, just use simple Spot and Sneak rolls for new gamers if you think they are too complicated to grasp at first. Honestly though, I think opposed rolls may be easier to accept for a new group of players who have not been conditioned by 20 or more years of BRP to think lower is always better. However the fact that people have been playing for almost 30 years without opposed rolls shows the system works without them.

I was - I threw Windows PC in there to try to make that pretty clear - damn things are everywhere (including right in front of me as I type this). Rurik was the name of the character used the RQII's examples of chargen and play. He rises to Runelord rank in the cult of Yelmalio, which is a rigid militaristic Sun worshipping cult not really known for its' fun loving ways. I'm not really a totally rigid arse like that* - I just play one on internet forums. * O.k., maybe I am.

As flattered as I am, that quote two posts upthread is not mine.

I know - that is what I am complaining about. The good ole flame war seems as dead and gone as the old fashioned dungeon crawl and the Windows PC.

See, I've always seen balancing and dealing with the unexpected as part of the job of GM'ing. Balancing is not hard - to me mixed parties mach up well to natural foes. How often do five runelords travel around without a retinue? Typically, there is a Runelord accompanied by a few bodygaurds who are pretty competant, and then some inituiates and even lay members who tend to the animals, carry the spears, whatever. A very good match up to a mixed power level party. I like it when my players do things in games I'm running that I don't expect. Be it plot or rules, it is the very unpredictability of playing with a bunch of humans that makes RPG's exciting. This thread is starting to remind me of the sorcery thread, and not just in that I expect it to go on for pages and pages with really nothing constructive to show for it. Just when people started so called abusing sorcery, some people called it broken, but I just said "Long term buffs, damage boosting and Str boosting 15 on the vanguard, fine. How do I deal with it?". If they did something with the rules I never saw coming, I'd tend to think "well I'll be damned, that was clever, cool. I'll have to work on that" and hopefully next time out, I'd throw them a curveball. Same goes for plot. There are plenty of ways to poke and prod characters into doing something you want them to do, but there always comes a time they surprise you and do something you never expected. And frankly, if those situations never happened, gaming would be less fun for me. I wish I had a gold coin for every story I so carefully crafted that never got told because of the unpredictability of humankind. But on the other hand some fantistic shared gaming has resulted from these unexpected turns. I've played with GM's who get upset at both the situations I've described, who get offended when players do something with the rules that trashes their plans or doesn't play out their story the way they expected, and to me they are missing out on part of the pleasure of social gaming. Some go so far as to pretty much kill players for straying. Now I'll let a player die who does something stupid, but won't use death just to keep them on my track. Regarding writing/running adventures, there are really two approaches - writing for a specific group or writing a generic adventure for any group. If creating an adventure with a specific group in mind, well then yes, you should try to make sure there is a role for everybody. When running a generic adventure, more often than not you have to tweak some things for the power level of the party anyway. I try to tailor the adventure to the party the players want to play, not tailor the party to the adventure I want to run. All of this is with the caveat that I am discussing this all in the subject of an open ended campaign. I will use pre-rolled characters for one shot scenarios or short multi-session games, or say 'everyone roll up an ex-special forces operative and someone has to be a radio communications specialist' if the game at hand requires it (and sometimes those limited games may turn into campaigns if the players want it to - and live, of course).

Ooooh. Forum fight. Cool. I'll start taking odds... Oddly enough, I think they may both be gun fondlers, but on the different sides of this one. That greatly complicates making the odds (always favor the fondler over the guy who doesn't care about guns). I for one don't think anyone is converting anyone here, but I do always enjoy a good old fashioned flaming. Come to think of it, we don't get as many good old flame wars these days - they seem to have gone the way of the good ole hack'n'slash appropriately enough for this thread. >:->

Wow. This thread is crazy, and I doubt, being mostly a bunch of old crusty gamers set in our ways for the last 20-30 years or so anyone is going to convince anyone of anything. But I'm a gonna say my piece anyhoo. In my eyes, you should get rewarded for doing good in games, and you should earn those rewards. In the short term, doing good at the scenario level should have some tangable reward, be it gold or magic or glory or perhaps the favor of a fair damsel or whatever. Doing good in a campaign should have rewards as well. Doing good at a campaign is surviving - if the players veer from my intended path that is not doing bad, but more on that later. Dying is doing bad. There have been some heroic and fantastic deaths over the years, and those are rewarded in their own way, as they live on forever in the folk lore of the role playing group "remember when so and so died doing such and such, wasn't that great...". Now I haven't played D&D in years, but I'll use the level thing here because it is easy. If I take my character from 1st to 10th level I've played well and been rewarded well, and have earned what I've got. If I die I expect to start over. Again, different strokes. I'll get outfited with much better equipment because I'm running with more powerful dudes, and be at least as powerful as a 3rd or 4th level character for it. I'll go up in levels super fast because of the way XP work, and after a few sessions I'll be a 5-6th level character with good gear, and able to run pretty well with 10th level (maybe 11th now) dude. And I don't mind, because I've only been playing this particular character for a few sessions and mr. 11th level has been playing his for years - his character should be better than mine. So most of the parties in my gaming style are say like a 10th level dude or two, an 8th level dude or two, some 5th to 6th level dude, and a noob or two. In BRP this works even better, because Starting Dude is going to have the same HP potential as mister 100+ in his skills dude. Since the party is high level, he will quickly have access to good armor, good spell teachers, and money - unlike the original characters when they were first created as new. So they will be more powerful than a true starting character, even though their skill levels are 'starting'. And of course with BRP experience working the way it does, they will advance faster than the high skilled characters. After a few sessions they will be competant. Their skills won't be at 90+% after a few sessions, but they haven't earned it - yet. To us, this has always seemed a natural, organic, way of doing things. Forcing everyone to be balanced has not seemed that way. It is kind of like giving participation trophies out to everyone at events - kinda cheapens the trophies for people who really excel (by the way I don't mind participation trophies for young kids, but then at some point though enough is enough - I also don't run games for kids the same way I do for grown ups).

How many times exactly did Gleek save the day? Quite a few if I recall. He was the pet of the sidekicks in training, not quite balanced with Superman.

Having missed the balance thing the first time around I'll throw in my two cents here. In every campaign I've played starting characters start at a predetermined level. At the beginning everyone is the same 'level'. If everybody lived forever everyone would stay pretty much the same 'level'. But people die, at least in all the games I've ever run/played, I mean, if not, why even roll the dice (O.k., I know, that is a seperate argument). So before long the party is made up of different power levels, potentially very different power levels, and that has never been a problem. It is not fair to players who have kept alive for a long time and seen their character grow in power to say "O.k., since Bob charged through the gates of hell and died a firey death, and everyone else is now 7th level, Bob can roll up a new 7th level character". Bob rolls up a 1st level, or 3rd level, or where everyone else started level character. At first he will be underpowered, but will catch up fast. Plus, he'll get cast off loot from the more powerful party, so by second level he's got full magical plate and a sword +5. My gaming groups have always done things this same way, and it has never been a problem. And as a GM I make sure to keep everyone included. The Dark Troll Champion and his bodygaurd may be a challenge for the powerful party members, but their trollkin skirmishers are a good match for the party noobs. The way I see it the only way 'balance' is maintained is by never letting characters die, which is just not my kind of gaming. So unbalanced parties is the norm, not the exception. I will also venture that if using the same character generation rules as everyone else it is possible to create characters so powerful they 'unbalance' the game from the start the rules are flawed and need to be fixed.

While I've always used tied rolls always go to the higher skill, I don't like using tied levels of success always go to the higher skill. In that case a 91% skill is going to beat a 90% skill almost every single time.

I'd rather see a personals section... :innocent:

Either going to try out some Second Age Glorantha with BRP (obviously using some magic outside core book) or Western (somewhere between Spaghetti Western and Unforgiven).

Well I for one would definately like a more detailed weapon table. Certainly using the one from Cthulhu Now would not have hurt anyone who doesn't care about weapon stats, but is a bonus to anyone who wants to use this universal rules set for a campaign where guns are important (espionage/military for example). It would increase the appeal of the game without alienating anyone. Wasn't the whole point of this book so we don't have to carry around 30 years worth of old Chaosium supplements to have all the rules we want? It is not like an expanded weapon table need take up more than a page or two. On the subject of fondling, it definately has sexual connotations. If you don't think so just call up your state's Human/Children Services Agency and tell them you like to fondle your children and see how long it takes before a social worker shows up at your door.

That is true, you need a way to deal with skills over a hundred when using high roll wins. Simply halve both skills until they are both under 100... >:-> (NOT!) The way MRQ deals with it (after two updates) is to add your skill over 100 to your roll to determine the winner of tied success levels. So if my skill is 140 and your skill is 120, and I roll a 72 and you roll an 85, my roll become 112 and your roll becomes 105 for purposes of deciding a winner. At that point the "makes roll by most" method is almost as simple, though most people find addition easier than subtraction. I used the makes roll by most method for a while as I am not afraid of simple subtraction (also known as "complex math" on various boards) - but must admit in the end I switched to just using highest roll wins as it seems simpler in practice at the table. It becomes second nature in short order.

That basically is just putting dramatic emphasis on the "Re-roll tied levels of success" approach - ultimately you just keep rolling until one side gets a clear victory (which can take a while if they both keep rolling normal successes or failures). Not that this a problem, but I would think it would bog down the game more than just using the standard opposed roll rule as presented.

Absolute lowest affects the odds compared to absolute highest and favors the lower skill. That is why when comparing opposed rolls published rules always go with higher roll wins, even in systems where low rolls have traditionally been good - the odds are exactly the same as "Makes roll by most" but there is no need to calculate how much everyone made their roll by. What about cracking eggs in the middle? And is it really necessary to specify morning eggs? Does anybody change their egg cracking habits at midday?

Actually Green Ronin has the license and Wild Cards will be a campaign supplement for Mutants & Masterminds. I know nothing about the M&M system other than it is d20 based, but Green Ronin's Thieves' World stuff is top notch, so this will probably be worth picking up if you really like the setting.

I actually prefer Once Upon a Time in America - though I think both are at the top of their respective genre's. They are very different movies - West is all atmosphere and mood, while America is story driven (not that the former doesn't have a good story and the latter have lots of mood and atmosphere). Certainly a BRP western game I run would be modelled after the Sergio Leone films as well as Unforgiven - probably somewhere in the middle.

Do you mean Once Upon a Time in the West is the greatest western ever, or that Once Upon a Time in America is the greatest gangster movie ever? Really, a case can be made for both.

A girl gamer on another board!?!? :eek: Which board - do tell you bastard, I know you want to keep her to yourself! :mad: I'm sorry, I really will stop this nonesense now. I promise.

Every good gamer knows freshly washed clothes have less AP than week old clothes. And don't even get me started on fabric softner... I'm sorry, I'll stop now...