Rurik

Pay me just once and I will give you nothing.

I'm not much of a businessman, so I just put my new game, Fire and Sword up in PDF form at BRP Central and let anyone who wants to download it download it.

Hmm. My offer kind of pales against Mr. Turneys. Pay me for nothing or download a complete system by the established designer of one of the best systems in all history for free.

I may need to rethink my business model. :ohwell:

Rather pay a vendor twice for one product I can save anyone interested some money.

Pay me just once and I will give you nothing.

For the record, Dustin can say what he wants and I will continue buying what I want. If Chaosium stops printing new stuff I will stop buying new stuff from them (that'll teach them). What ran through my mind when I read that line was: "Wow, that is going to rub some people the wrong way." If only I were that prescient in all areas of life

Eh. Doesn't seem that different from a number of companies that offer both .pdf and deadtree versions, but don't bundle them.

Most of the company's that don't bundle them don't give you a break on price for buying both.

What most don't do is say "Buy both or we'll stop printing supplements", which is how Dustin's statement comes across. I can see how that offends some.

The problem is that the 3d6 scale appears to be a better fit to human INT/SIZ than the 2d6+6 scale - because of the well-known 1 INT = 10 IQ and 1 SIZ = 1 Stone rules-of-thumb (and the worlds shortest man being quoted as 2'7", slap in the BRP SIZ 3 height range). This leaves the main argument in favour of 2d6+6 for these stats as the "playability" of the characters produced - hence the focus on player characters.

Yes but are one on every 216 adult humans 2'7"? Far from it. The rolls are supposed to represent 'normal' human range. Tom Thumb and Goliath exist outside of normal human range.

Also, D&D, the 3d6 all Characteristics system innoventer against which BRP is being judged doesn't assign characteristics to Animals or Monsters. A rabbit in D&D does not have characteristics, just a hid die (or 1 hp) and a damage value and an Xp value and a treasure value. In BRP, where all creatures have the same characteristics as humans, there needed to be range bigger than 1 or 2 for creatures that fall below the range for 'normal' human SIZ and INT.

Do SIZ 3 and INT 3 Humans exist? Certainly, but they are 1 in thousands if not millions, not one in 216. In game terms such humans are not generated randomly, but by design as needed by the game.

Right now, my nukes are doing damage out too far.

:D:D:D:D

That line just made my day. Damn nukes, I only wanted to take out the dragon....

Are you including things like breaching and shaped charges?

Proper claymore treatment is always nice too.

I'd be looking at these things myself but at as I mentioned over in the auto thread I have no immediate plans for a moderm BRP game. That may change in the not to distant future though.

I wonder, if Triff played the Trollslayer adventure will he come back to us? >:->

Wow. Being who I am a find myself very confused emotionally over how I'd feel about that. :ohwell:

Sorry, I was being a wise ass. I didn't really need an answer, let alone a thoughtful one.

I forgot my smilies. Perhaps my INT was rolled with 3d6.

Edit: - doh, forgot again!

Many have given him the answer to his question of "Why?", and many

still stated, basically, roll it the way you wish. And, yet, he continues to

come back with "But, why?" and claims everyone is telling him that we

don't care to hear about houserules. Which is complete nonsense in both

instances.

-V

Why?

BRP Mad Max.

Mmmm.... Tasty.

How many rocket launchers can you fit on a Prius anyway?

I'll chime in that it looks like great work. I'm not currently using or planning on any modern BRP where vehicles would be used sadly, so won't likely be using it anytime soon.

These beg for some expanded chase rules.

Triffs at Tentacles!

Nobody's watching the house...

I'd party, but I'm Yelmalion. You guy's should go wild though.

That isn't really relevant, since as I've stated multiple times now, no character is going to be running around with an extreme low SIZ unless they really really want to play a midget. And again, this was never a problem when it was a 3d6 roll. Did you play RQ2 or older BRP? If so, did you ever have problems with PCs of extremely low SIZ or INT? I did not. I've asked this question in almost every post, and I never get an answer. I wonder why.

To directly answer that question the Stats are not for PC's, they are for Humans as a race. Every creature has randomly generated stats that represent the common ranges of their abilities. Did you ever let players play say elves or dwarves in RQ2? Was it a problem that their stats were not all based on 3d6?

In RQ3 it was decided that 3d6 did not represent the common human range for INT and SIZ so the roll was changed to be different than 3d6 - this is no different than any other race. I think you are applying D&D logic, where all races roll 3d6 for all Stats and then add or subtract fixed racial modifiers to a game that never worked that way.

Now back to your point about character generation. Almost every GM allows some kind 'enhancement' to the random generation method so that characters are better than just a normal example of their race, be it roll an extra die and drop the lowest or whatever method. If you feel that 4d6 drop lowest and assign to all stats works for human characters and will generate characters with sufficient SIZ and INT and that method makes you and your players happy then go with it, but that does not invalidate the designers (correct imho) decision to change the racial stats for 'common' humans to be 2d6+6 for SIZ and INT.

So, great and powerful BRP board folks, how are the sailing rules in the Elric!/SB5 supplement Sailing on the Seas of Fate? Are they (as I expect) generally compatible with the current iteration of BRP? Do they make you itch with a need to run a sailing-focused campaign? Or do they just make you itch?

I ask all this because I'm pondering picking up a copy, but I figured I'd check with the experts before I spent my precious dollars. I bow before your wisdom. And I promise that I shall not to ask any questions about opposed rolls in this thread. I can't speak for others, though

Since you mention opposed rolls... never mind.

The rules aren't too complex and I can't recall any reason they wouldn't be compatible with BRP. I'll have to dust off my copy at home and have another look see.

It currently only costs 5 precious dollars if you get it from Chaosium, and is probably well worth it. Once they are out of stock they won't be printing more and will like cost a good bit more.

Finding a decent, less-confusing system than the current Opposed Rolls, amongst other things...

Ahh yes, that was it.

Having not actually used the New BRP in anger yet, but having wrestled long and hard with MRQ opposed combat, I am leaning towards the following simplified results which, though they use opposed rolls, will look familiar to longtime users of BRP. This method does not use downgrades:

A critical hit requires a critical dodge/parry to avoid. Else it is a Critical Hit.

A special hit requires a special or better dodge/parry to avoid. Else it is a special hit.

A normal success is beat by a critical, special, or better opposed roll, else it is a normal hit.

Fumbles suck.

I know of someone who goes into a games store, takes the D6s, rolls them all, takes the ones that rolled a 6, rolls those, takes the ones that rolls a 6 and repeats until he only has 1 die left, then he buys it and puts it into his "6" bag. Then he does the same for 5,4,3,2,1 and so has a bag of dice that is probably likely to roll the required number.

But, perhaps that's going a bit far.

So let me get this straight - he uses up all the 6's on the die in the store, then buys it, then puts it in a special bag with other dice he's done the same with, in hopes of rolling a six with it down the road.

That's just daft - obviously that die is now less likely to roll a six because he used up so many of them before buying the die!

The logic of some people escapes me.

What was this thread about again?

Oh yeah? I can subnet in my head.

IPv6?

four words:

Shut up and play!

This thread is utter madness. MADNESS I SAY!

I hope islan appreciate the meta-mechanical tizzy this board is thrown into whenever this topic comes up.

:lol::lol:

I count 29 words. 31 if you count the words 'four words'. Clearly your bias against the current hijack of this thread is that you are math challenged.

Seriously though, it is only a semi-hijack, and somewhat relevant. This same discussion raged over at the MRQ Boards, people even wrote opposed roll odds calculators. I had no desire to pull out old formulas - especially as the math is so much simpler with MRQ (fixed fumble at 00 and one 10% crit, rather than variable fumbles and 5% crits plus 20% specials).

Either way, Vagabond is right here. The odds are different, and low roll wins is weighted more towards the lower skill, while high roll wins is weighted more towards the higher skill.

Vagabond is right. What is up for play is the range of possible rolls when the lower skilled character makes his roll, and the higher skilled character rolls a success but greater than the lower skilled characters skill.

So in Vagabonds example say player B (skill 40%) rolls a normal success.

If Player A rolls between 41 and 80 with high roll wins he wins.

If player A rolls between 41 and 80 with low roll wins he loses.

That is a pretty big swing of the odds in favor of the 40% skill (granted he has to make his skill roll, which the odds are against in the first place, but if he does it becomes much harder for the 80% skill to win).

Although I know better, I want to believe the "trained dice" philosophy. After years of playing games like RQ and James Bond, I got used to wanting to roll low, and my dice seemed to try and meet my expectations.

So use the dice that have always hated you for roll high games.

Come on, everyone who believes in lucky dice has a a set of dice that just plain hate them. Admit it.

Many "BRP-like" games also use a roll high method for resolution anyway. With roll high the method works nicely. WIth a roll low method it is counter to the way the crticals and specials work.

Personally I lean towards "Low roll wins".

Going with the lowest roll wins straight up has a very big effect on the odds though. The two methods being discussed (blackjack and the made roll by the most method) have exact same odds for a given set of skill ratings being compared. Low roll wins greatly increases the odds of the lower skill winning and really minimizes the advantage of having a higher skill.

I'll point out that mathematically the 'blackjack' method and the 'makes roll by most' method are identical - the odds are the same for any contest.

I used to use 'makes roll by most', as it is consistent with low roll is better, a learned expectation from 20 years of BRP. But in the end it is one calculation that has to be done, never mind how easy, to determine the winner, while the blackjack method is so intuitive no mental pool points are necessary - which is why the blackjack method keeps getting picked as the official resolution method for opposed rolls in BRP-like games.

Caldaria...?

Its latin for Cooking Pot, but is also where the word Caldera comes from.

I like it.

A variation for thought:

Caldeae or Caldaia (invokes Geae/Gaia)

How bizarre... I did a Google search to see if that name had been used elsewhere, and the first result was a page dated 2005 detailing someone's fantasy campaign... from a GM here in Austin, TX.

Small world.

Pyraea sounds to me like something very hot - so maybe it is a Texas thing.

Are you going to do a table for each and every skill, or just Acting?

Sorry, I'll go now....