Atgxtg

Good point. Plus even if they are different they will all seem the same to a PC whose been pounced on. Only GMs see the actual game stats, players judge creatures (and NPCs) by what the GM tells or shows them.

Kinda. The easiest way to is use an existing race or creature and maybe shift a couple of points around. For instance Goblins are similar to Orcs (possibly the same depending on which source you use) so you could start with Orc stats and reduce STR and SIZ a little and maybe boost DEX a little. There is the cube-square law. It's what scientists use to help estimate the weight of a creature. The law points out that if you increase/decrease the size of a object/creature proportionally, it's surface area (and muscle area, i.e. Strength) will be affected by the square of that change, and it's mass/weight by the cube of that change. That measn that if you double the height/width/depth of a object/creature you will multiply it's surface area (Strength) by four and it's weight and mass by eight. Now in BRP game therms that means that if you double the height you add 16 points of STR and 24 points of SIZ. So you can use that to scale up/down existing creature to get reasonable new ones. So for every 3 point difference if SIZ there would be a corresponding 2 point difference in STR. For instance if you wanted to make a goblin that was 3/4th the weight of an Orc: Per p. 229 of the UGE an ORC is SIZ 2D6+2 (9) for an average mass of 55kg, so we'd want about 40 kg for our Goblin or about SIZ 5-6 ish. If we say SIZ 6 and give it a SIZ of 2D4+1 (6). It lost 3 points of SIZ so it should lose about 2 points of STR. Orcs nave a STR of 4D6 (14) so we want about 12 STR for our Goblins. Let's say we go with 4D4+2 (12). Now there are other options (2D8+3, 3D6+1, 2D6+5), but I just picked 4D4+2. Now I might want to give them a little more DEX, but I decide against it. So there is a goblin writeup STR 4D4+2 (12), SIZ 2D6+2 (9). And that is one way to do it. But there are others. I could have just used the 'Lesser orc" stats (STR 3D6, SIZ 2D6) from p. 229 for goblins. They wouldn't have been all that different. A point weaker but a point bigger. If's it's intelligent, personality culture and habits. If's it's a creature, appearance, diet (carnivore, herbivore, omnivore), temperament (aggressive, timid, docile) and sociability (is it a loner, a pack animal, a herd animal, etc.). Existing creatures are a good starting point. For instance, let's say that I wanted to make a arctic predator similar to a saber tooth tiger, but polar bear sized, and acting more like a wolf. I'd start with Tiger, or better yet Lion stats (because the Smilodon or "saber-toothed tiger" was closer to a lion) so in UGE STR 2D6+2 and SIZ 3D6+6. To make it bear sized I'd increase SIZ to 3D6+10, and add another point of STR for 2D6+3. I'd up it's armour to 3 points, like the bear. To account for the larger fangs, I'd increase the bite damage die from 1D10 for 2D6 or maybe even 2D8. I'd have it be a pack animal like the wolf, with a strong pack hierarchy and communal raising of cubs. Since I've decided on it being a carnivore predator, I'd need to decide if it is an ambush predator (like a cat) or if it it a chaser (like a wolf), and adjust it's skills based on it's hunting strategy. I'd probably go chaser so skills closer to wolf that lion. Then I'd consider adding some details to make the creature unique. Maybe it has cammo colored fur? Or maybe it sees in the infra-red band, and finds prey by picking up their heat signatures? It kinda depends on if it is a fantasy creature or sci-fi one. OH, and I consider just how I wanted to use the creature in a adventure or campaign. There isn't much point in creating something the PCs will never interact with or have to worry about in some way.

If I were to do it from the ground up: 1) Treat Blood Points like/as Magic Points to power spells and keep the vampire mobile. Vampires can drain magic points/blood points from their victims. 2) Treat each disciplines as a Spirit Magic spell, powered by blood points. So Potency would be Strength, and so on. Some disciplines, such as Protean would need to be written up. It wouldn't be quite straightforward as most disciplines have a greater effect on ability that a few points of attributes. 3) Allow Vampires to train up their stats per the generation. A rough cap of that would be 3 points per dot+3. So 5 dots = max 18, 6 = max 21, 7= max 24, etc. 4) Add a humanity stat and track it. Port over the humanity rules. Change them to work on a percentile roll. The SANity mechanics might be a good place to start. 5) Port over any other Vampire abilities, such as spending blood points to heal, and weaknesses such as Frenzy and vulnerability to sunlight. 6) Use BRP values for weapon damages. Something like 3 points per dot seems about right for converting other, unspecified damages. So an attack that did 4 damage in Vampire would do about 2d6 in BRP. 7) Skills seem to work out at around at about +20% to the base per dot. From there it would depend on what sort of world I was going to run. If it was a typical Vampire type campaign with just vampires then I wouldn't need to do much more. If it were to incorporate Werewolves, Magi and such then I'd need to port over their mechanics to BRP as well (tricky). Worse still, if I were to mix this in with a standard BRP setting with BRP magic, I'd have to do more work on the disciplines to differentiate them from the other magic systems. All that is a very rough, "How I would do it." But once I got started I'd probably try to fine tune and refine the adaptation to try and be truer to the source and to try and simplify the mechanics as much as possible. Unforeseen difficulties would arise somewhere, and I'd have to adjust things to get around any problems. I'd also peek at GURPS Vampire as it would show how it had been adapted to another system before. But the above is work, and I'd need a good reason to try and adapt WoD Vampires to BRP in the first place. Not that there aren't good reasons to do so, just that whatever the reason that made me do so would influence the choices I would make while adapting it. For instance, if I adapted it because I like BRP's open ended skill scores I would drop the cap on skills that exists in WoD. If I liked the cap then I'd limit skill scores in BRP (typically 100%). Past BRP games have done both approaches, so it would come down to what I felt worked best for my game.

I like the top one, too. We just had a eclipse so the second one seems sort of "ho-hum". Now if you added a spaceship in front of the dark object (ala Forbidden Planet) it would look more Sci-FI ish. The third one just looks like Saturn (or some other ringed gas giant) which is okay, but it seems like a typical company logo that you see on a car, photocopier or refrigerator. Since the game is named Quasar, a quasar would seem to be the proper logo. I think if you brightened the center of the black hole, and the white light emission from the center, it would be perfect.

THe potential pitfalls, if any, to this are all out oc character stuff.Basically making sure each player feels like they can contribute, and being aware of the on hit kill potential. In game everything works out fine. Guess who the archers shoot at, Joe Average or Godzilla? Then you're golden. My concerns were making sure that your were aware of how it will work out according to game mechanics and that you were getting the results you wanted. I've seen plenty of GMs (self included) who created something and got blindsided by how it affected gameplay. It's very east to get a TPK in BRP, especially for those more accustomed to D20 style games. But as long as you know how things work, go for it! Hmm, ya know, a BRP game where everybody played Giants could be fun.

That's not entirely true, as some species (ducks, orcs and cave trolls for instace) had a lower species APP. Not against normal humans, no. It will be unbalanced, the question is whether or not it is okay for it to be unbalanced. It's starts aren't much different that a Dark Troll, and not as tough as a Great Troll so it within the realm of playabiliy. Which might not be a drawback if you're tough and can snap a human with just a punch (1d3+2d6 hits like a battleaxe).Your observations are all quite correct. The question is if the poster is okay with such a species, or if they'd rather something closer to human with say a couple of points higher in one stat but lower in another.

THat depends on what you want for your game. The key thing though is to be familar enough with how the game mechanics work to know how it will play out. For instance, STR - 3d6+6, SIZ - 3d4+14 , means an average STR+SIZ of 38 for an average damage modfier of +1d6, with +2d6 only three points away. So "Lizard Critter" is going to do a bit higher damage than a normal human, and a strong lizard creature can easily kill a man on a unparried hit, and is going to brush through parrying objects and do damage. Now there is nothing wrong with that (RQ Trolls are very similar), provided you are aware of it, and plan for it in your game. If not you could be very surprised when what you designed as a "tough opponent" wipes out a few PCs. It depends on what you want. Again, there is nothing wrong with creating a powerful species, just as long as you know how the game works. A troll in BRP is more dangerous than one in D&D. A 15-20 point hit in D&D hurts and might even drop a wounded or inexperienced character. A 15-20 point in in BRP in BRP that isn't parried will probably drop or kill a character, even an experienced one. As long as you are aware of that, and okay with it, "Lizard Critter" is fine. It that wasn't what you were going for, then not so much. But as long as you're getting the creature that you wanted to create, everything is good.

For this sort of stuff you might want to familiarize yourself with the cube-square law. If you double the size of an object you cube it's mass and square it's STR. Basically, if you cn somehow take an object (or creature) and make it twice as big (twice as tall/long, twice as wide, twice as deep) then it has 8 times the mass, and four times the strength (RQ giants get 8 times the strength but they are magical, and couldn't existing real life). Most animals in BRP tend to have STR roughly proportional to their SIZ. Since the SIZ table is logarithmic this means that for every doubling the creature would get +24 SIZ and +16 STR. For example you big creature on the left is about 1.75 times the height of the one on the right, so if they were clones of the same creature, the one of the left would weight 5.35 times as much for about +18 SIZ and +12 STR. Note that this isn't taking into account the variances between individuals (the 3D6 rolls) which explains why bigger isn't always stronger. I find the above very helpful when I want a creature that is similar to an existing creature (that I have stats for) , but larger (or smaller). There are a few other tweaks, such as armor is usually tied to damage bonus in some way, larger creatures tend to have a higher damage die with natural attacks, larger creatures tend to have a lower DEX, but the cube-square law is the big takeway.

That's a subjective conclusion. One of the reasons why BRP isn't the most widely played RPG is because most people prefer something else. Yeah, you're kinda preaching to the choir here, but " Everything that's "better" (than RQ/BRP) in this regard is dramatically worse as an at-the-table RPG experience" has not be objectively proven.

Well, then why not get rid of statement of intent?. Just count down DEX ranks and let people act on thier turn. Or, allow for more open ended statements such as "I'll shoot my handgun," with making player declare their targets. That way they could just react to the fight as it happens. Now personally I think aiming should be an exception to this (you have to aim at someone/thing) but otherwise it works out fine

Yeah, that pretty much how old RQ used to handle it. The new attack would get delayed by 5 Strike Ranks (or 3 with the 10 SR melee rounds of RQ3). LOL! I saw that happen in RQ2 to a player, thrice in the same round. The player had declared a Disrupt (SR 2), but the target got drooped on SR1 with a Sunspear; so the player switched targets (+5SR) and waits for SR7, but that target got dropped by an arrow on SR3, so they switch to a third target (+5SR more, but I think the GM started the count from SR3 for SR 8 rather than 12); impaling spear dropped the third target on SR 7; player out of targets, fight ends. So the faster PC in the group tried to throw off the fstest battle magic spell but the fight was over before he got the chance to act!

Ah, in that case it's somebody else's problem- namely the GM who runs is game. Yes, somewhat. It seems to come down to the players understanding that they old methods and assumptions don't necessarily apply anymore. It should be easy, but I've seem that it is hard for experienced D&Ders to give up on something "they know" to be true. It does exist in other players of others RPGs, but not to the same extent. I think becuase those who play other RPGs have played multiple RPGs and have noticed how they are different from each other. I had a game where nobody wanted to take first aid since they had a medical doctor, who was obviously going to be better at it than the rest of them, so why waste the points? Guess which character got injured and needed first aid? Guess what skill all the other PCs picked up ASAP? Guess which group of players made sure than they were cross trained and had a backup to cover essential skills? The Bond RPG was great for this sort of thing. There are only about 15 skills in the game but starting PCs won't have them all, or won't be able to rely on them. So early on players learn to focus on one or two areas to excel in. THen, over time, they pick up more skills and learn to back up the other characters, because four hours into the session is a bad time to find out that the one PC who knew how to fly was the one who got shot. They learned that the hard way, trashed a plane, and burnt off a lot of hero points in the process, but at least they lived. Next mission a couple of PCs had learned a little about how to fly. So the players will adapt, once they see the need.It just that they don't want to do it until they see why, and then it's too late to do their characters much good.

Yes, the designers decided it was better to just accept that all the players would try to mini-max everything (like in Magic the Gathering) and design the game around it. It's why D&D 3+ has all sorts of "stacking" rules. It's all to ensure that X level PCs have stats within the parameters for a given level. LOL! That is also partially due to caps combined with level limits that come with increasing escalation. I think it's more obvious with fighters than wizards, though, since "To Hit" bonuses are easier to compare with each other than spells. It also plays into why the players are bad in spending their points in another way. In "Class & Level" RPGs stuff like attack bonuses, hit points, saving throws, and spell-casting are mostly determined by level, rather than by what skills and feats the player picks. Even the worst 10th level fighter is going to have a Base Attack Bonus of +10 and ten hit dice. Players can only mess it up so much. But a free form skill system gives them much more of an impact on their capabilities.

That might teach them the lesson but too late for them to fix it. Once the NPC pilot get's shot, and the PCs are thirty thousand feet up in a 747, it's too late to discuss the merits of someone in the group putting a few points into Pilot (Aircraft). Idealy, you want the players to figure that bit out before they wind up as "BREAKING NEWS". I think it's better to try and show them why they want to diversify thier skill set rather than force them to do it. When you force them they tend to resent it, and do a bad job of it, partially out of spite. Keep in mind that it's not really the players' fault. Players maximize their combat skills because other RPGs and GMs encourage and reward that behavior. Chance are, in D&D an extra +1 to hit is going to be more useful than a +1 to Play Mandolin. So that's what they pick. It's the same with tactics. Players learn stuff that works in one game, and reuse it because it does work. Then they get frustrated and angry when the play a different RPG and thier tactics don't work anymore. Typically they blame the game and or GM rather than accept that thier "great" tactics don't travel AKA why charging the arches doesn't work in BRP and Morrow Project. To quote Yoda, your players "must unlearn what you have learned". You got to get them to see that. It's not easy, good luck.

LOL! I recall something along those lines in a Star Trek forum. One guy was wondering why he shouldn't just dump all his points towards maxing out his phaser and martial arts skills for his security character. My replay was "diplomatic missions." The player was used to D&D and the idea of ad adventure that wasn't solved through combat wasn't something that he had even considered. But It's better to be proactive and teach that to the players before chargen. On the plus side the replacement PCs are usually more rounded. But then I once watched a PC mercenary bleed to death from a minor injury because they put all thier points into greatsword, and didn't see a reason to save any points for anything else, like, say, First Aid. The guy got zero sympathy from the other players.

That's a nice idea but the trap for D&D players is to try to put all thier eggs into one basket. Since D&D relies on "balanced" (read rigged) encounters it has all sorts of limits on character improvement, and stacking, which encourages player to focus all their points to one area. Often, when those players play something other than D&D, they bring that tendency with them, and they tend to end up with characters who are over-focused and lacking in all other areas. You might need to do something to try and get that point across.

Reminds me of RQ3 cultural skills

Neither are corporations, yet they have the rights of people. And even if the A.I. don't have rights, the coprorations that own them or use them do. Nor do the A.I. get sued. Ultimately this is people vs. other peopl, the A.I. is just a tool. And it's not the average person in the street who owns and operates an A.I. It's not even individuals, it's large corporations. Large corporations whose view of A.I. differernt depending on who'se A.I. it is. Google owns Youtube and restricts A.I. art, but Google also owns thier own A.I. which is capable of generating art. And there are only 36 plots too. The same argument could be made for things that people create. All stories break down to a handful of infinitely reused concepts. The devil is in the details. Should we go after George Lucas for the stuff he "borrowed" for Star Wars? The Hidden Kingdom, The Heroe of A Thousand Faces, the story of Lugh Lamfada, the story of King Arthur. For art, how many people have drawn portraits? Or bowls of fruit. Nothing transformative there. Which is probably why the camera cut down on the nimder of portait painters. A.I. will ultimately win. Reason being that right or wrong, the money will win out in the end, and large corporations have spent tons on money on A.I. and will use it. Once the geneie is out of the bottle it's too late.

It will be the the corporations/nations/etc owning the machinery that will end up using A.I. In the long run it won't be someone with a PC who will be making A.I. Joker stuff for sale, but the movie studios and comic book companies. THey will do it to replace the various people they currently need to make these things. THat's where the real debate is. For instance, if Warner/DC fire all their actors, production crew, artist and writer and replace them with A.I for thier next Joker film. what is the legal complaint? Warner owns the character. Creating it isn't an infringement. Distributing it might be. That's important. If you, sitting at home draw a picture of the Joker or any other character you can do so. If you try to sell it, you could be in trouble. Please, don't offset an existing problem with a worse one.

I can't understand why companies would take a position against A.I. I can understand why people would. But I also think this is a case of shuttle the barn door after the horses have left. The technology is here, it will be used. The artists taking a stand now won't matter since A.I. can replace them. It's kinda like broadcast TV taking a stand now. Well, you might just get to see that. Considering that 30 years ago we went through something like thing with computer generated graphics, I suspect it won't be all that long before we have A.I. bots writing adventures.

On a related issue, what about A.I. generated stories and adventures? RPGs are headed that way, just look at WOTC's plans for D&D. I mean if the community is going to ban A.I. generated art on ethical grounds, then how can it allow other A.I. generated content? What if that content ends up better than human produced content? Do we use it or run something inferior out of spite? And worst still, just where do we draw the line? I for one, use random generators at times for ideas, treasure, etc. Should those be allowed or are they too much A.I.? Think of all those random tables for things in the past and how they can be combined together for use by a computer. There are many such generators available for use on-line already, and they are only going to get better and more expansive. And that's before mentioing computer GMing. I hate to say it but I think we are at a "Battleship" moment. Despite what people might wish, the airplane has made the old battleship navy obsolete, and I think we are going to have to adapt to the new reality no matter our personal wishes on the matter.

Uh, why? When people study art they look at and train on the artwork of various artists who came before them. This is true in all creative fields not just images. No one comes out and tells a kid that they can't learn how to draw from their Hulk comic books. Yes, they can't directly copy/trace another person's work, but they certainly can (and should) look at any art they have available to them. But every artist learns from the work of those who came before them, and copywrite and consent never stopped someone from studying a piece of art. The same holds true for RPGs and RPG adventures. No one says you can't look at an old D&D or Cthulhu rulebook or adventure and learn from it. Quite the opposite, we all told to look at what has come before and learn from it. I don't think a single person submitting to the new Chasoium contest hasn't looked at and been "trained" on some previous BRP product. So why is it different with A.I.? Yeah, I don't see anyone bemoaning desktop publishing and print-on-demand services, despite their impact of the printing industry. The whole reason why anyone can publish an RPG these days is because they don't have to go to a processional print shop and pay the various up front costs associated with getting a book printed. No one is complaining how Lulu is jeopardizing the jobs of the printers who print the game, the distributors and delivery drivers who distribute the game, or the people at "friendly local gaming stores" who sell the games. In fact most RPG companies are more than willing to cut out the middle men and sell directly to the consumer. But somehow artits are different. If "RPG supplements feed a fair amount of income to artists," that nice for them, especially since they seem to have been paid better than most RPG writers, but why should artists income be protected when no one else's income is protected? Personally I would like to see a free and open market when the people working on a project get to decide for themselves. Just like how we can choose to buy from local farmers or shop at a supermarket. Our choice. It better for us, and it's better for the artists. Nothing will put the artists out of business faster than some rule that forces people to hire them for their art. Now, that said, it's Chasoium's contest so they can (and should) get to make the rules. So I see "no A.I. art" as a fair restriction here, the same as any other rule for submission. Just like they could say "no superheroes" in a Call of Cthulhu adventure contest. Their contest, their rules.

Yeah, or maybe 2/3 human, 1/3 animal or better yet 3/4 human 1/4 animal if you want something that is basically humanoid but with animal ears, claws, a tail, etc. Especially if you want the species to be able to use the same gear and vehicles as other humanoids. For example, some sort of Ursine species might have a SIZ score between than of a human (13) and a brown bear (32). If you go halfway you'll get SIZ 22-23, with S TR 21 which is playable but at 2.5 meter tall and 175kg will probably be too big to fit inside a Mini Cooper. So you might want to tone it down to SIZ 18 or 19, along wit STR 16.Very big for a human, but not too big to handle a Miata or wear a human's breastplate. But it all depends on what you got in mind for your bear people, if they can use human armor or not, and so on. OH, BTW, natural armor for larger animals was usually based on the animal's damage bonus times some multiplier. For example a bear was db+1 point. There was a progression for natural weapons, too, but I'd have to look it up. But basically if your animal people are smaller than the animals they are based on thier armor and natural weapons should be scaled down, too. There are stats for were-people in some books, and Larry Niven's Kzinti (big cat people) in Ringworld. If you want info on something and don't see if, ask and someone here can dig up the info for you.

I'd say that depends on how skilled you want the characters to be. I also think that since it is cultural, rather than breaking up more points it might be better if they just get a flat add to cultural skills, as it will avoid player putting all their bonus points into one or two skills. Players have other points to focus on particular skills. It does if it applies to all characters and each get skills of roughly equal usefulness. If you want to keep things fair you probably don't want one culture to get Axe and Shiphandling while another gets Punch and and Play (instrument).

To add to the mix: First off make sure you got a good idea of your species and what it can and can't do in your head. Game stats will work themselves out if you understand your creation and have a idea of how big, strong, smart, etc. it is. Second, look at the existing species write ups to see what thier stats are and compare your creation to them. Of particular note, since they are the "default" species are humans. The human average for most attributes is 10.5 or 13 for SIZ and INT. STR and SIZ double in ability for every 8 points in the 8-88 range. You can use this to stat your species characteristics relative to humans. So if your creation is twice as strong as a human then it should have an average STR or around 18-19. You can also look at animal or monster stats if it fits your creation. For instance if your species is "a large as a bear" then you might want to look up the SIZ of a bear for your species. Note that stats outside of the normal 3-18 range might make your species very powerful compared to other species, which might lead to playability issues. For instance, a race of PC giants with STR & SIZ in the 60 range will one shot kill most humanoid foes. So be very careful of creating anything that is superior to the existing species, they might seem cool when you come up with them, but they can risk making everyone else obsolete in play.. Next look at some pre-existing BRP setting that has non-human species and new cultures to help get an idea of how it has been done in the past. Note that this includes BRP related games such as RuneQuest or Strombringer as they both deal with adapting existing fantasy settings into BRP terms.. QUASAR has a lot of Sci Fi Alien species to look over and has a preview. The idea is to see how it's been done to give you hints as to how you can (and should) do it. Once you get something written up, review it to see how well it fits in with the pre-existing stuff. Playtest it if you can. Often an idea that seemed fantastic in your head or when put down on paper falls short in actual play. When you got something in the works show it to other GMs get their feedback. Often a second set of eyes will pick up on some obvious flaw that the creator overlooks. Players will somehow detect this flaw almost instantly in play, so it's best to beat them to the punch. You might not agree with other GM's assessment of your creation, but at least it will give you a different perspective, and a heads=up on any future problems, and possibly point out something you hadn't considered. As with most everything else, you get better at it by doing it, so the whole process will get easier and the results better as you do more and more of them. Eventually you might even revisit your early creations to revise them.