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That's kinda what the OP was hoping for. This all started because the OP wanted to mix 'n match different open content from different Open sources under different open licenses. Now in my opinion any "open content" would be fair game tobe used however someone wanted, regardless of the source or licence because that is what "open content" means. But apparently you are the only one who is treating it that way. Everyone else is all concerned and uncertain as to what someone can do with supposedly open content. BTW, I have to say that I admire the fact that you actually mean it when you say open content.

Think about it. Why would someone need to use the ORC for their own game system? The reason why a company would have an open licence is specifically so that third parties will create products for said company's RPG rather that make one of their own, thus preventing competition from other RPGs. So the larger RPGs will increase marketshare and become more dominant. I think ORCs biggest effect will be that Pathfinder might replace D&D as the #1 RPG (by marketshare), and all the third parties will be producing Pathfinder supplements instead of D&D ones. Not that Pathfinder is all that different mechanically. So it's still predominately benefiting one game system.

If he goes down the " game-rules-can’t-be-copyrighted " road why use any license? The big advantages of using any open licence is the ability to freely use the content and the sales boost (if any) of putting the license on the cover for additional sales. But if someone is going to go to the trouble not to actually reference a ruleset but instead create their own then they would be better off not referring to anything and keep the final result their own, and not be subject to the whims of the license holder, who can try and ultimately will try to shut down 3rd parties. Its' only happened with every other edition of D&D. But then I think OGL and ORC are bad things that only really help to keep D&D dominant at the expense of other game systems.

Yeah, that's pretty much what was said when MRQ came out. Basically you can pretty much made a game that is identical to another game mechanically, as long as you do not copy text verbatim or use intellectual property such as characters, settings, or stories. That's how we have games like MRQ/Legend, Mythras and OpenQuest. So you can get pretty close. A good examples of a game that is pretty much the same an another game is Classified by Expeditious Retreat Press. Mechanically it is over 98% identical to the old James Bond 007 RPG from Victory Games, and is noted as being a retro clone on the table of contents. But Classified does not mention James Bond, or any of the characters, stories, or settings from the Bond books or films. But...even if something is not legally protectable a company can still take someone to court over it. In the courts, money makes a difference, and if a company wants to they can make it very expensive to proceed with a project or get injunctions that can delay the project. Ususally doing so is counter productive to a RPG company, but it can happen. So no ground is totally safe.

Think of who (or what) put the creature in the box in the first place, and why. That should help to suggest the creature inside the box. Some possibilities: A shoggoth was trapped in the box by the Elder Things during their war is an obvious choice as is anything else that has a known enemy. The box might be one of the few ways to trap a Hound of Tindalos that had been hunting someone. Almost anything could have been put in the box by the Great Race of Yith to get back to later. BTW, this could mean some non-mythos being, such as a human from another era in time. Maybe even some historical figure who disappeared mysteriously. Heck, maybe it's the lost Legio IX Hispana, Amelia Earhart, or even some person from the future (which would be easier to do if you are running in a game set in a past era, since you have knowledge of future events). So you could really think outside the box here. Maybe the box is empty, or at least seems to be when it is opened. Then strange things happen because an invisible creature such as a Star Vampire was released.

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Cool. I think the problem with crstals is that most only store magic points, they do not generate them, and have to be recharged by someone. So having a spell work indefinitely off of one would be a freebie. Now if it was a crystal that actually generated it's own magic points, that would be another story. BTRC's magic system is somewhat similar. There magic items are basically containers that hold the magical energy that powers the spells. The reason why magical items are of high quality is to make sure they don't have any flaws where the magic could leak out. If the object gets damaged then energy leaks out and the spells no longer function.

That is pretty much RQ2. Weapon damage spells tended to be capped at 4 points and protective spells at 6. IMO though I think your difficulties stemmed not from the fact that protection, and damage enhance were too powerful but from the fact that you limited magic only to spellcasters. In RQ everyone knows a little magic so spells that increase damage tend to be countered by protection and vice versa. But my point about casters enchanting all thier gear, and that of their allies, is still there. It's worth the 1 POW every couple of adventures to keep a 5 point protection up full time. Whoa! That's a big change there. Are you going to let multiple items be enchanted for only 1 POW? I don't think anyone has concerns about someone not doing enough damage, except perhaps you. In my experience that really ins't a problem in BRP. First Off: Why not? Isn't that how magical items are created? Secondly: It wouldn't be permanent, not unless the caster were fine with not getting those magic point back, and the spell probably should lapse when the caster went to sleep or otherwise went unconscious. Possible but far more dangerous to your campaign. You see if the spell limits the spellcasters magic points it acts as a limit on the spellcaster. If it uses the target's MP then it's basically a freebie and spellcasters can go wild casting long term spells on everybody. Assuming no other magical storage for the moment, If a caster has 15 POW and is holding up two five point spells, he's only got 5 magic points available for other things. But, if he doesn't have to worry about the magic points then there is no reason not to power up the whole group. Nor any reason for NPC casters not to do the same. What you'd wind up with would be similar to RuneQuest's Battle Magic but with one caster per side and everyone being maxed out most of the time. For someone who was cornered about certain spells being overpowered, you seem to be course correcting in the opposite direction. I don't think it would be. It might look good in your head, but I think if you sit down and try to apply it to some real areas and situations the magic point costs will be prohibitive. For instance just going from a 10x10 tower to a 20x20 tower would mean covering four times the area. I don't think it would be possible. Say you have a small medieval city with 10000 people, but your most generous method that would require 500 magic points, and if the spell were dispelled the whole city would come crashing down, killing all the inhabitents, destroying the city, and possibly causing a cataclysmic event. A falling city is going to be like dropping a nuke. In fact, this would really work out best as a weapon. An evil sorcerer could enchant a city block or two, place it over a target and then cancel the spell. THat +1d6 per 3m can really add up. THat's why I worry about making sweeping changes to the magic system. It is very easy for a clever player to co opt something the GM considered to be a minor effect and use it in ways the GM hadn't considered. Just with the above I think I could replicate the effects of a a 16 " naval gun pretty easily, or even a small nuke. Why reinvent the whel? I think you are really going at this the hard way. If I were you I'd use one of the existing magic systems and see how it works rather than try to build your own and hope that it works. I think the way you are going will go bad becuase someone will exploit something you hadn't considered.

That sounds interesting but might be a bit overpowered. A sorcerer could cast something like Damage Boosting 10 and spend 1 POW to make it permanent. With POW vs. POW rolls it's pretty easy to gain 1 POW back in an adventure or two. Will help somewhat, but since most spells "defend" with thier point value/Itensity, this might not be much of a vulnerability. For instace if someone has Protection 10 (or Damage Resistance 10) up as as a permanent effect, it going to take a 10 magic point Dispel it (or something that can beat a 10 point spell on the resistance table, depending on what sort of dispel magic you are using). One idea you might want to consider is the one I threw out in another thread for a Star Wars RPG . Namely that spells could be kept up, but the magic points are locked up maintaining the spell, and the character doesn't start to recover them until the spell is dropped. So if someone has 12 POW and is keeping up a 6 point spell they would only have 6 magic points. If they drop the spell then they would recover 1 MP per 2 hours as usual. Without some form of exponential scaling I don't think that is going to be possible. With a strictly linear formula you will have a hard time just keeping up with the STR and SIZ scales. For instance SIZ 16 is 100 kg, or approx 1000N or approximately 1000 watts or 1 kilowatt (at 1 watt= per newton-metre). If you assume 1 POW = 1 STR for lifting and moving objects, then by the SIZ table you need another 8 POW to double it (SIZ 24 =200 kg)not another 16. If you go strictly linear then what will happen is that casters will reach a point of diminishing returns as it won't be worth the POW for an extra point of STR. With a linear progression casters would probably be more likely to make multiple smaller spells than combine their engines towards one big spell, as the smaller spells would be easier,f aster and give the same benefit. For instance, with a linear progression, it would be quicker, easier, less risky,etc. to make four 10 Magic point spells than it would be to make one 40 point spell. My advice would be to use the SIZ table, specially the one from Superworld (it is the same one used in BRP except that it doubles below SIZ 8 and keeps doubling above SIZ 88). Then you can use real world units like kilograms and watts (as I did above, at 10 watts per kilogram)to work out the game stats for you magical damns and what not, as it would handle any value and scale to infinity.

THat's similiar to the Free INT limit in RQ3. And At least Shaping skill can be improved. Maybe from an in play perspective. It might be good from a game mechanics perspective. Basically magic would be easier to destroy than to create, which tends to be true of most creations. But could be easily altered by swapping out a table to get custom durations and such. Although the same could be done with RQ3.

As it could in RQ3. Personally I think some sort of doubling progression would be best. Either x2 per MP or x2 per 2 MP or some such. Maybe. Or maybe he's got a idea of what he wants but isn't sure how to get it out of the BRP rules. Major rule system tweaking is tricky. As with most things it's far easier to make things worse or break them entirely than it is to improve them.

Sounds like Myhras sorcery might progress even faster than RQ3. Probably not. Based on previous posts I think just about any system is going to need to be tweaked to suit the OP's preferences. That's what makes this such a challenge. We are not the OP and don't game with the OP so we can only try to guess at what would be the best fit. Even the OP doesn't really know what he wants. He knows what results he wants but not necessarily the best game mechanics to accomplish those results. It's tricky for any GM. Sometimes what looks good in the planning stage doesn't work out so well in actual play.

In RQ3 the sorcerer would only need to worry about the range when casting the spell, not when maintaining it. The doubling nature of duration, range, etc also means that the sorcoer can make a very long lasting spell without having to make a permanent spell. For instance they could turn someone into a frog for ten or twenty years, which is longer that the typical lifespan of frog and so would be permanent to the target of the spell. The downside to this sort of thing, is that is is not very practical. For instance to do this the caster would need to cast a Shapechange (Human) to (Frog) spell plus a Diminish Size spell to reduce the target down to frog size, both at around Intensity 13 or so to work, preferably a bit higher for the Shapechage, so 26-30 magic points, then both would need to have the Duration extended by 19-20 magic points. So it would cost around 66-70 magic points to pull off, and take the caster several days to recover all the magic points. This is overlooking any Free INT limitations, skill rolls, or special devices required. For that sort of resources a sorcerer could put a 5 point damage boosting or damage absorption on three weapons or bits of armor. So Fairy Tale magic is possible, just not practical, unless a sorceoer is so expeirieced that they have power (well magic points) to burn. If you throw in ritual magic and enchantments, the sorcerer gets even more options. It's possible to create an item with linking conditions that can do the effect automatically, and is self powered, but that requires time and permanent POW sacrifice. Still, a war boomerang that turns anyone within 5m of the target into toads for half an hour, could be worth it.

Sure it does if you got enough FreeINT, magic points, etc. It's just that such a spell probably won't be worth the trouble. Agreed. It's a shame that they they never got a chance to revise the Sorcery system. It was the most flexible and the more magical of the various magic systems. Divine/Rune MAgic was a goift from the gods, and Spriit/Battle MAgic was ultitarian and tool like, but Sorcery was more magical and self powering.

Oh and to clarify this: the reason why I suggested RQ3 Sorcery is that it allowed high powered magic but is balanced against the other RQ3 magic systems and to some extent, even non-magic. Most of the other high powered magic systems, pretty much any magic system in a BRP game other than RQ, are not balanced and make spellcasters overpowered. And yeah, Sand'ys revised Srocery is an impromvent, as is any of the variants that get rid of FreeINT. I think there is a version where intenity is tied to skill score. Yeah, but it RQ3 Sorcery had a very high upside. There are few limits, and with enough magic points, time and Intensity a sorcerer can do practically anything. All the other magical systems (save perhaps Lunar Magic) have limits. Spirit Magic limits the number and power of spells you can know at one time, Divine Magic requires sacrificing POW, and the options available are severely limited by your cult. Sorcery though allows you to do just about anything, if you can make the rolls spends the magic points, and have enough FreeINT for the intensity. Sand'y mod made sorcery even better so the learning curve is fair. Plus it keeps PCs from leveling cities out of the gate.

You might want to take a peek at the RQ3 Sorcery System. It allowed for some very big, powerful magic, but limited it magic point cost. You could literally have spells that could cover a city, or last days but they would cost lots of magic points. I think it would give you the big spells but help to keep the damage under control. Damage spells in RQ3 Sorcery were ususally about 1 point per point of INTENSITY rather than 1D6, but a powerful sorceror could attack mutiple people or a large area at the same time. Another thing you might want to consider is Battle MAgic. In RQ everyone knows some minor spirirt magic, or battle magic. These help to offset the abilties of dedicated spellcaster. This might help with the game balance thing. A warrior won't be as vulnerable to a sorceror if they can cast Countermagic and Protection.

Yes, but it also tracks which side is winning by using the Intensity. Oh, I'm talking about the Book of Battle's Battlesystem not the one that is in the KAP rulebook. Yes, but those number also do diffident things. Skill is used to determine who wins the contest, damage determines the consequnces of that win, armor mitagate that loss, and hit points shows effects of the damage. THe thing with QW is that all four numbers would be the same thing. Need is a bit hard to quanify here. Each number serves a purpose. HW/QW roll all those numbers into one which serves two purposes, skill and hit points. What you generally an't do in QW is mimic the effects of armor, or variable damage (HW increases the stakes allowed for increased damage at the cost of increased risk). The Pendragon battle system accounted for that. Generally most battlefied options only shifted the intensity by a point or two either way. SO if the PCs kept defeating sale lancers they might reduce the intensity by 2 points every battle round, but the random events roll (3d6-10) roll would be far more significant. But if the PCs got a good battlefield opportunity they could get a shot at an enemy unit commander (Jar-Eel) whose defeat would have a greater impact on the battle. It also had scripted battles. There are once from the literature where we know what happened and what the outcome was. During such battles the random events roll is replaced with a fixed event. So you can do things like have Vader join in the fray on Round 6 and up the Intensity by 10, or have Solo show up on Round 9 and lowver the Intensity by 20. That kinda of stuff works great when a GM needs to push a story in a certain direction. If a GM ran the Death Star attack without it, the rebels will most likely lose. Yeah, Again I think Prince Valiant does it better. It uses one stat, which everything else adds to, and that stat serves as the attack value, determines the damage taken, and serves as hit points. It has rules for how to suffer losses in a battle, and storyteller certificates that allow you to bring in special game events, like TERRIFY, SAVE IN COMBAT, INSPIRE INDIVIDUAL TO GREATNESS, CONFUSE CHARACTER, which could be played to make things happen and change the way the story is going. So there is a way for the larger than life heroic outcomes to occur. I don't think it is all that simple either. It works, but it requires a lot of GMing to make it work. So it really isn't any simpler than, say using RuneQuest. I think that is why it's not getting the same support that RQ gets. Most people would rather use RQ, and it works better.

Who had all but one scene cut from the orginal release. No he is a supporting character. No, but he has a better case that Biggs. Remember, like the Hidden fortress Star Wars ius told through the eyes of two minor support characters. It's why R2 and CP0 can get blown up, fried, etc. I assume you mean take the damage, not tank the damage. But otherwise yeah. Luke is the hero in the scene, as is Han. R2 and Biggs add to Luke roll like followers do. R2 might be a PC, but if so he doesn't seem to do much. Then again, he is the only drop that we see do repairs to a fighter during the battle. But I'd lean to R2 being a follower/resource. Wedge is an interesting case as technically he doesn't do much more that Biggs, and not as much as R2, yet he does get to bug out of the fight and survive. I suppose in game terms he is taken out of the fight, but like R2 gets to combe back after the battle. Basically the gm rules the loss of the Biggs follower/asset is being permanent and the other two as temporary (R2 might have been a permanent loss too, but being a droid, could be retored by replacing major components- something you generally can't do to a dead organic). Which is exactly what happens in the film. The battle is really decided by the actions of the major characters (Luke, Vader and in a surprise move, Han) I agree with the goal. I don't think the number of values tracked here is what makes the difference. I think the things that are needed to make the scene work are: Some sort of time limit. Namely a number of rounds to take out the death Star before it destroyed the rebel base (otherwise the fight could go on forever) A way to mimmic the all or nothing nature of the trench run. Basically it's not about point attrition but one big gamble. A way to lose assets/followers to avoid losing ability. That way it makes sense for the rebel player to sacrfice ships (followers/assets) to continue the attack. Probably something like losing an asset can soak up all the ability loss for a round, even if it is more than the asset is worth. (So a PC can soak up a 10 point loss by sacrificing a +4 augment wingman). Maybe if they soak too much they are peamantly lost as opposed to just being out of the battle. So Wedge might have only soaked a minor loss. Yes, but two stats doesn't really alter that. The problem is inherent with the HQ game mechanics. Everything gets boiled down to a number and all numbers act the same. I think a single number works, it just that you need to adjust the inputs. I'll bring up Pendragon again. In Pendragon the Battle Inesnity number is a single number that tells you how your side is doing in the battle. But, there are modifiers to it to reflect the battlefield conditions that the players experience based on thier spot of the battlefield. THis in term determines what the PCs options are, who thier opponents are that round, and then what effect thier actions have on the overall battle. What HQ doesn't have is the other layers. Basically if every group of fighters actined like an augment that could adjust the overall rating for their side. Nor do I think they ever will. IMO once you go past a certain level, it becomes better to just use a different system, becuase the simplicy of HQ no longer applies. For instance we could have each fighter in the attack make a skill roll and treat the results like an agument that is used against the Imperial pilots, who in tern are doing the same thing, then compare the totals for both sides. But then we back to breaking the thing up into spearete fights. I think we'll probably never have a system that can perfectly handle something like this without adding more complexity. As I said before I think the system used in Prince Valiant might handle this better than QW, and I think if we ported over a few HW/HQ/QW rules to PV we'd probably get a better game. PV has a few things in it to help handle mass battles and losses that help here.

I can't argue with that. I'd add it worth looking at some older innovations as well. I find that a lot of the older RPGs had creative ideas that have mostly beeen forgotten, and that many newer innovations are someone reinventing the wheel. FOr instance the current trent to small rules-light RPGs that that up a few pages harkens back to older games like TWERPS. As far a FATE specifically, it has it's own issues. THere been crticisms of it's lack of attributes. In some cases they just turn them into skills (i.e. MIGHT). Aspects are a mixed bag, lots of people have complained that games often go askwe as players focus almost entirely on ways to invoke thier aspects for the points, thier oppoents apewcts for the advatages and so on. And if something provides a benefit or not ends up depending on if someone remembers to involke it or can find a convincing way to do so. It';s like your character only has an 18 STR if you remember to tell everyone about it before you roll. Yes, and there are several reasons why. First off there is the characteristics vs. skills issue. Namely most tasks in BRP are skills so characteristics aren't that important, unless they provide some other benefit (hit points, damage bonus , etc.). Which is one reason why I like category modifiers, and possible soft skill caps based on characteristics. Secondly there is the roleplay vs rollplay argument. Some people think players should roleplay social situations insteadof resorting to due rolls. The problem with that though is that is limits the characters social interaction based on the social skills of the player and thier realtionship with the GM, which makes the character;''s abilities meaninless, and begs the question why don't we just roleplay combat too?. For instance, if I'm playing James Bond, and I hit on the Major Villian's girlfriend, I should have the same chance of success as Bond would, not as I would. Yup, although FUDGE does break from the traditional mold in a few ways. For instance FUDGE has attributes but they don't generally affect skills, which I consider to be a serious flaw for FUDGE and would be a a fatal one if ported over to BRP. In FUDGE you can have a terrible DEX yet be a great locksmith and jeweler. I think the issue here is that CHA tends to get the short end as far as characteristics go, and probably needs a boost of some kind. Category modifiers help, although I think the CHA mod should probably be factored in twice for social skills. People can make careers in acting and politics off of Charisma. I kinda had this debate years ago with Pendragon. APP Is pretty much a dump stat there (maybe not so much in KAP6). Some people tried to defend it but game mechanics wise it's biggest advantage was to act as a buffer against the effects of aging. It had no game effect as far as social skills went. Some of us were taking about having social skills default/start at APP to make it more useful. The idea being that someone with a 18 APP is probably going to find people a bit more forgiving anyway. For instance most guys won't mind as much if Gal Gadot stepped on their foot than if I did it.

Yes, it a matter of trade off. That's one way to run it. I'm not sure if it is the best way. Remeber no PCs die at the battle, only NPCs so for a hero-based RPG like HW/QW it looks more like the lost pilots and fighters are augments. One aspect that you don't seem to adress is that the trench runs are all or nothing for the Empire more so that they are for the rebels. If someobdoy does the run correctly the Death Star goes boom and it's game over for the Imperial (at least as far as this battle goes). THe rebels ships aren't any more vulnerable that the TIEs. THe problem is that the rebels have to race against the clock to destroy the Death Star before it detroys the moon of Yavin (another aspect you missed). Yeah, that is one of of biggest objections to HW/HQ. I used to joke that I wanted to make a character named Alber and take Unified Field Theory as my only ability and use it for every contest. I understand why HW worked that way. It was a combination of the simpier is better view of Robin Laws combined with the way Mythic stories tend to work where a legendary character might defeat some terrible meance by using some non-combat ability. For instace using basket weaving to trap a giant monster in a huge basket. It makes sense for a myth. But that that point should you even use HW? I mean this problem exists in HW precisely because of the way it handles conflict. If you change that it only addresses some of the issues. For instance, the small size and speed of those fast ships gets overlooked, as do the shields of the (rebel) fighters, as does the differences with weaponry (you can't laser the exhaust port). Everything is abstracted into one number. Abstracting things to two numbers may or may not be an improvement, but probably won't solve the problem. We can always find more thing that it just doesn't handle well. Looking at the big picture here I think the way it would work out in play would be that the the GM would just run it as a normal battle and then narrate what happened after the rolls. One problem from a game perspective here is the all or nothing nature of the conflict. Loss for either side means virtual destruction. MAybe a handful of ships will escape but the bulk of thier forces get destroyed. HW isn't really set up for that. In fact, I think the system Greg used for Prince Valiant might handle this sort of thing better. Why 5:1? That seems arbitrary Why not 1:1?. Yeah, that is the weakness of this system. It doesn't really handle everything well. That's true of all game systems to some extent, but, IMO, the more simple and abstract the game mechanics the more it can cover, but the less detail it can handle, and the more heavy lifting the GM has to do to make it fit.

I can't say a disagree, but that is how it is supposed to be done by RAW, and has been ever since RQ3. Before that it was max plus rolled.

No, by RAW you roll the damage dice twice. For example, if a Gladius did 1D6+1 you would roll 2D6+2, total the result and apply that against the target's armor, which makes much more likely to penetrate the armor. Thats why arrows are so nasty in BRP.

Yeah, it all comes down to what style of game it will be, how important social interaction will be, and how significant that CHA/APP attribute will be. Personally, I'd be fond of having CHA be a pool of points that could be spent to shift the results of social skills. Something like a PC fails their Persuade roll by 5% and so spends 5 CHA points to bump the result to a success. CHA points could recover like POW points do. That would make the stat worth something once play begins, thus offsetting the low CHA PC with fantastic social skill scores. Either that or maybe a CHA x5% cap on social skills. I don't think you are drawing the right conclusion from that. Yeah, FATE dumps attributes but that doesn't mean that all RPGs should or that we should remake the wheel that is BRP by taking them out of it here. It just means that the approach works for FATE. Conversely,games like Year of the Phoenix, Star Frontiers, and WEG's D6 system used characteristics as the base skill percentages. So I don't think that there is one "right" approach to this.

In this video is was mostly the pointy things. It was an interesting vid, but it was only concerned with penetrating the mail, not blunt trauma, so it only covers various edged and pointed weapons. Still beware the tine.

Would that necessarily hold true in a SciFi setting though. I could see stuff like cyberware, implants and advanced training techniques potentially shorting the improvement curve for characteristics. Maybe it's not worth the trouble. As RosenMCStern points out APP/CHA is often a dump stat (looking at you Pendragon). If it doesn't have much of an impact in game then there is no reason to get all that complicated with it. I know some RPGs that make Charisma a skill. I suppose it will come down to how useful/important CHA/APP/COS/SOC/LUV whatever will be in the game. If the game is more Star Trek-ish with lots of displomacy and efforts to reach out and form a rapport with aliens then yeah this is worth it. If it is more like Aliens, with bug hunts then not so much.