Rurik

Most all of us here are longtime fans of BRP and used to taking bits and pieces from one BRP system and mixing them with another, so a toolkit appeals to us. One big book with a lot of options replaces stacks of rulebooks from our personal museums of BRP history - awesome! But the topic is "How could BRP be more popular?". I agree that it suffers from a lack of focus. It is big, and with so many rules and optional rules thrown at a new reader it can be overwhelming. The fact of the matter is the average new player only needs a fraction of the rules presented and could easily get by with an 80-100 page book (if even), but they have now way of knowing which rules they need or which pages to read, so they are stuck with a monster tome that usually presents them with an overwhelming array of rules and optional rules. BRP is a simple and elegant system that is very easy to grasp. My wife is not a gamer, but one game she does like is Call of Cthulhu. She could care less about rules or mechanics, and has no problem playing Call because the system is so intuitive. A library use of 75 means you have a 75% chance of successfully researching a subject in a library. She grasps that immediately, and knows that a 75 in a skill is good while a 25 is not so good. For all the talk of rules light systems she would not know what a 17W2 in HeroQuest means or a Library Use pool of 7 means in Trail of Cthulhu or how grasp bidding in say Dogs in the Vineyard. For all the accusations of being to rules heavy and outdated I think BRP is still one of the easiest systems to grasp. But I don't think that fact - that BRP is a simple, logical, quick and elegant system comes through in reading the big book of BRP. A smaller, more focused book, maybe even genre specific, without optional rules, would be much better for growing the popularity of the system. In all fairness the goal of BRP was not to produce a streamlined product intended as an introduction to BRP. The goal was to collect most all of the BRP rules from across time and editions in one place, and it does that well. It is a reward to us longtime fans who have been loyal to the system over the years and we have been well rewarded. Thank you Jason and Chaosium Dudes. But it is not, IMHO, the best vehicle for introducing new players to the system.

The only game I ever used music in heavily was Cyberpunk 2020 and it was a blast. The setting of course really lends itself to using music though. God how I would have loved an MP3 player back then - toting around tapes and cd's with the gaming supplies and changing them every time the scene dictated it seems so archaic now.

I am saddened to have missed this thread this time around - it is always a good 'discussion' - though this one has remained pretty civil compared to some others. My opinion is as ever that both systems have some flaws (and strengths for that matter) when it comes to realism and so to disregard any claim to merit of one system over the other based on 'realism'. It comes down to playability, and is therefore largely a matter of personal preference.

Are you looking more for descriptive flavor (stuff like talisman to spit you describe - only more playable) or actual mechanics? What is the goal of the rituals - to make enchantments or summonings (ala Basic Magic) or more for effects, such as a blessing(bonus) or spell effect? I have a bunch of notes for a modified system to use with RQ and am always happy to share ideas though I am not sure how well what I have been doing fits with what you are looking for. My system basically breaks ritual magic into three parts: Components, the ritual, and the effect. Components are the trappings required for the ritual. I wanted to be flexible so that GM's can tailor how important the components are to the game - if they want to abstract a cost in coin that is fine, whereas if they want to make acquiring components a major part of their game (or prevent overuse by limiting components) they can. For me simple rituals use easily acquired components, at least in the locality where the ritual is practiced. A Gloranthan example would be that a common planting ritual in Sartar would use ingredients easily found around the Dragon Pass area, but if you plan on using it in Pamaltela you may want to bring some components with you. The ritual itself can be described in as much detail as desired but boils down to one or more skill rolls. A simple ritual will be just one skill roll, but more powerful and complex ones may also require additional skills, such as Plant Lore and/or Theology. I am not decided on whether to keep the old RQ3 ritual skills or use different skills. I like the idea that rituals should be tied to the source of the ritual - Theists use skills related to their religion, etc. The effect of course is what happens when the ritual is completed successfully. I am considering rules for the possibly of bad side effects for rituals that go wrong as well - particularly in the case of powerful or experimental ones (for experimental ones I wanted to include rules for powerful magicians to be able to modify rituals). I've got more if you are interested but I'll stop rambling for right now as this may not be what you are looking for.

Better yet - Party at Triff's. He won't be back for weeks. Oh yeah, and Happy Birthday Charles!

Oh, crud. I was going to try to be good this time. Oh well. Good call handling the Liquor cabinet yourself. Last Time I discovered that sunspear has an adverse effect on the booze therein.

Good Point! You should vote on it my good man! Those who believe in immortal trollkin have recently taken the lead.

Oh yeah, and have a good time! :thumb:

Yelmalions always behave. :innocent:

Ahh - but with opposed rolls a high Resilience or Persistence is no gaurantee of success. It does use opposed rolls doesn't it?

My Google-fu tells me he is referring to Fantasy Flight Games and WFRP3. Vaults of Nagoh: FFG Revive HeroQuest! ... Sort of Though I disagree with him. MRQ had merits and flaws. The flaws needed fixing. I for one am hoping MRQ2 succeeds. Maybe Loz and Pete will succumb to torture and we can get some early details? Pete sounds like he's a bit remote for me to go after but Loz recently moved to my side of the pond >:-> (ever get your stuff by the way?).

Wow, he never pulled punches like that on their board. "Sucked Ass" is what he meant to say before censoring himself. Where is the irony emoticon?

Well, in the interest of maths and statistical accuracy, that is one revision every three years - you shouldn't count the initial release as that is 'year 0'. Also RQ2 was only a minor refresh to RQ1, more analogous to the MRQ players update/Deluxe MRQ than a full new edition like RQ3 was. So it was 6 years before a major new RQ came out. That all being said RQ2 didn't need an update the way MRQ does. I agree that Mongoose got some things right with MRQ, and they also screwed a few little things up (by little things I mean Combat and Magic ). That being said I think the patched and updated rules are very playable. After playing MRQ for a while, both house-ruled and by the book (using the latest SRD) I was surprised how clunky some parts of BRP seemed when I tried using it again after this release. I found myself saying "I like the way MRQ does this better" more than I thought I would - and I've been a loyal BRP fan since RQ2 and Stormbringer 1. I can happily play any version between then and now. Also many of 'new and improved' MRQ rules are spread across a bunch of books, there is the GM Handbook, Guilds Factions and Cults, etc. MRQ cries out for a second edition. I am hoping for one complete and coherent set of rules in a core rulebook with playable combat, three decent magic systems (plus backgrounds and professions that support more than one of those magic systems), and I'm actually pretty optimistic. I hope that everyone who wrote off MRQ1 gives MRQ2 a fair shake. It shouldn't cost anything to check out assuming a new SRD follows the release.

In BRP I have always used one inch (or one square on a mat) for one meter/MOVE rating, which I believe is pretty standard. However a chess board will prove limiting at that scale. Maybe use 3 or 5 meters per square (3 straight/5 diagonal would work well). I strongly reccomend a larger grid such as a Chessex Battlemat.

I agree that the D20 mechanic introduced in AD&D3 is simple, elegant, and well worth using. If only they also fixed (read: dropped) all that other crap like alignment, classes, levels, xp, and... well, you get the idea.

Heres my take on the Invisible Man: STR CON SIZ INT POW DEX APP HP: MOVE: SKILLS:

Well there is only one way to settle this - a POLL!

What do you think?

I have considered axing CON before, but would have rolled it into STR or POW rather than DEX. Why would you roll it into DEX (is it that being 'healthy' is tied to perception/reactions?). The problems I had were that it is quite possible to have a strong immune system and not be a big strong goon, which would have me lean towards POW. In the end rolling CON into STR or POW seemed to make that characteristic a bit too potent. I like keeping CHA/APP as a separate Characteristic, though I kind of like PREsence in it's place. I see it as a kind of strength of personality. Someone with a very high Charisma can dominate the personalities of those around them through their personality, wit and charm, but the way I see it not everyone with a strong personality is necessarily a likable or 'charismatic' personality. It needed to be separate back in RQ where POW was used as currency for Divine Spells (I have a hard time picturing the Humakti Runelord learning Sever Spirit and somehow becoming 3 points less 'imposing' after learning such a bad-ass spell), so maybe my reasoning is tainted by one particular magic system (though I suspect that Triff may have a magic system that strongly resembles said system in drules...).

Well then score another one for drools. With the doomed trollkin that is 2 for 2. Is APP(eal) used for more skills bonuses, etc. as well?

After rolling up a couple of characters two characteristics really bothered me - SIZ and APP (and to a lesser extent INT). SIZ and INT bother me because 2d6+6 is troublesome for how I roll up characters. I Use the 4d6 drop the lowest method. For SIZ and INT 3d6 drop lowest and add six seems to result in a lot of of big, smart people, while 2d6+6 straight up is a bit to much to the other extreme. Mind you I have no problem with the fact that the racial characteristics for humans are rated 2d6+6 and I will continue to use those values for random NPC's - it just creates a problem with how I like to roll up characters. I really can live with INT rolled on 3d6 - it was never a problem in RQ2 - but SIZ did need a different scale - SIZ 3 humans just don't make sense (yes I know there have been miniature people, but they are a far rarer that rolling SIZ on 3d6 represents). So for me dropping SIZ allows for INT to be rolled on 3d6 again. SIZ also is awkward because as a rating of Mass works well to represent a fat, weak person (SIZ 16 STR 7 is a weak blob - fair enough) but how do you explain the SIZ 8 STR 18 person? - harder to visualize (forget about the SIZ 5 STR 24 Dwarf). So I can see where it can make sense to drop SIZ. APP bothers me because it carries so much less importance that other Characteristics. I prefer CHA. MRQ got it right by using CHA and increasing it's importance over previous BRP versions. In BRP games that use APP it is almost always the Characteristic that gets short changed. Whether you let characters assign rolls, swap a set of rolls, reallocate some points or use a pure point based system parties tend to be ugly, with maybe one or two really good looking people (when a player wants their character to be attractive). There are almost never average looking people in the party. So for me, I think STR, CON, INT, POW, DEX, CHA all rolled on 3d6 would be an ideal set of Characteristics. Sorry for my ramblings and off topic wanderings here. It is just that I was pondering similar changes, and can definitely support dropping SIZ.

Any change to RQII that involves Trollkin dying is a big improvement IMHO.

Why it removes the head from a Dwarf - that is a positive story development if I've ever heard of one! (Triff can you 'accidently' take care of a few elves for me too?)

The biggest reason I can think of to use levels of success is that they add excitement to the game. Players LOVE when they roll a critical, and live in fear of their opponents doing the same. They make the game more fun.

I disagree. GWAR is about much more than just warfare and killing. Raping and pillaging should account for at least half of such a game. >:->