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Hey, I get the idea that this will be a labor of love. It kinda goes with RPG writing. There usually isn't enough money involved to make it it worth the time- at least for the authors. But that doesn't matter in a court situation. There are lots of cases where someone did something for free and still got sued by an IP owner. In the long run it ususally hurts said IP owner, especially with RPGs, but that's not much consolation if you get hit with court fees and and jusgement against you. So if you are worried about something from a legal standpoint, and don't want to invest the money to consult a lawyer, it best not to do it. You might be disappointed but it better than doing it, getting sued and the having the product pulled anyway. Play it safe. If you can do 90% of what you want without trouble, do the 90%. Maybe you can find an alternative for the 10% you can't use.Better safe than sorry.

Think of how an evangelist feels trying to spread the word in Jerusalem! Probably have better odds in Vegas. BRP, in all its forms is basically a niche RPG in a niche hobby, and has been that way since the beginning. You might find a few enclaves out there. A few bastions of hope. But d20 tends to dominate, maybe more now in the OGL era than before. OGL encourages game companies to produce d20 content to go after the larger marketshare, rather that creature and support their own game. If you want to draw more eyes onto your project and get noticed by more BRP fans, I suggest you make some sort of sample or quickstart for DriveThruRPG. A lot of people will check out the freebies, and a few pages, even just a character sheet (which can tell people quite a bit about the game), can put something on a lot of people's radar. I know I've bought stuff because something impressed me in a preview, freebie, or character sheet.

Yeah, that is a common thing with the BGB. A lot of the stuff was cobbled from different sources and then the new authors tried to put their own spin on things, and they didn't always agree with each other, all while mixing and matching stuff that wasn't designed to work together in the first place., and allow for effects of so- called optional rules.

Well hit locations are fair game, Chasoium doesn't own them and other games have used them since the 70s. GURPS itself has a hit location table, as does various editions of D&D. So I don't see how they could have a valid case. Who owns 'Right Arm" and "Left Leg" ? A company can go after you for virtually anything. Whether or not their claim will hold up is court is another matter. Whether or not you can withstand the economic effect of being sued, if you are in the right or wrong, is also another matter. Sadly sometimes big companies can get away with things they shouldn't just because they have deep pockets and can make due process economically ruinous for the little guy. I'm not a lawyer, and as other have said, you would have to consult with one to find out for sure- probably one who specializes in contract law, and even then there is always a chance that a company could come after you anyway. Should, would and could are three different words. But my reading on the licences is that whatever content is open is in fact open, and that the company that made the pen product can't tell you what you can do with the stuff that is open, only what you can and cannot do with the stuff that isn't. As I pointed out earlier Loz says that you can mix the Mytharas Imperiative and Classic Fantasy Imperative ORC licences, which supports the idea that you can mix open content stuff. My advice would be to not use any licence then, and just create you own d100 based RPG similar to OpenQuest. The whole point of open license is to make some content open to make it easier for third parities to produce content and to let them tap into the market of the "parent" game, which in turn help to increase the market share of the parent game. But if there could be a problem then, go your own way. It's not like putting BRP compatible on something is going to have much of an impact on your sales anyway. Mythras isn't, technically BRP, but it's close enough to BRP that people can buy and use Mythras stuff in their BRP games with little trouble. So I don't think you'd lose many sales by not including BRP. With d20/D&D is a bit different because it has such a market share that having D&D/D20 on the cover could greater increase the sales, but that might be ending soon now that WotC is so obsessed with shooting themselves in location 01. My view is that open content licenses were supposed be symbiotic relationships between the game owners and third parties, and if I were making a product and if using OGL or ORC could result in any trouble to me, whatsoever, I wouldn't use it, but instead make my own game. It might use % dice, skills, have characteristics and so forth, but it would a distinct game system, and owned by the one person on Earth who I know can't sue me, even if he wanted to. Mythras and OpenQuest both exist in the same world as BRP and RQ, so we know it can be done.

What legally questionable material do you wish to incorporate? Most game mechanics for OGL games are by necessity OGL, and most of what isn''t OGL can usually be mimicked in some way. So what's the problem stuff?

The plot thickens... Shad over at Shadiversity just released a video about what weapon is most effective against chainmail on youtube. Maybe he reads these forums? Anyway more useful data.

But that was becuase the scene built up towards that action. It wasn't like Luke went "Screw this dogfighting, I'm going go blow up the Death Star." The whole attack run was a set up for that final shot. THe movie shoes how hard that really in, by show two or three failed attempts at doing so, before Luke barely. In game terms that would just be the normal back and forth shift in ability scores during the ebb and flow of combat. Since destroying the death star was the goal/end result of the contest, that would be what ended the contest. That's the thing with such an entirely abstract form here. In QW terms is's not that Luke stopped fighting and did a side contest that destroyed the Death Star, but that when the rebel side got enough of an advantage to defeat the imperials the contest ends and the death Star is destroyed. I agree, but HQ/QW doesn't work that way. It's also a reason why I'm not fond of all abilties working the same way. If I were to run something like this I'd probably make a few house rule changes Off the top of my head something like: .The rebels have a time limit, So I'd either limit the number of rounds of conflict (before the rebel base goes boom) or have the rebels lose a few points each turn automatically, forcing them to act more agressively. I think that would address a lot of the probllems here as the rebels would have to win winin a limited number of rounds or loose. I'd use the old HW ability to raise the stakes and wager more ability points here. In the film most of the rebel pilot get killed becuase they have to fly straight for the trench run, and can't take much in the way of evasive action to defense themselves while staying on course for the exhaust port. THis is pretty much raising the stakes to a all or nothing for that group. I'd consider breaking up the rebel into different groups (say Gold Group, Red Group, Luke's Group) and treat them as three sperate units. Only one group could do a run at a time, and the other would just do general support fighting. So on each run only the group doing the trench run can go for broke and wager their entire point score to try and take out the Death Star. I'd probably start the imperials without thier full augments, representing that it takes time for them to get the TIE fighters out into the fray. So they would get a boost a couple turn into the contest. I'd do something similar with Han Solo for the rebels although I probably would not tell the rebel PCs that he was coming back and instead just treat it as a surprise augment that shows up when the contest reaches a certain point. Part of the problem with this example is that it's freamed as the Rebels vs. the Empire, but it's not really that. It's really about Luke. He's the only one who can really destroy the Death Star because he can use the Force. In game terms this would be like a magical ability, with a much lower difficulty. Similar to how Fly works compared to jumping. But this could only be done after the trench run, so probably only when the rebels have a certain degree of advantage. So it probably more like if the rebels have a signficant advantage they are at the right spot to try for the exhaust port and win the contest (a high stakes move), but Luke can use the Force to make the maneuver much easier, assuming Vader doesn't take him out first. But if I had time I might structure it a bit more. But that would be because I would be trying to reproduce the ebb & flow of the scene. It might be better in game to just run the fight as normal and then narrate what is happening based on the results. Come to think of it, the battle system in Pendragon is tailored to doing this sort of thing. In HQ terms, it treats a battle as a ability score (called Intensity), uses a random roll to let the difficulty vary up or down each turn, and then lets the players take actions against that difficulty to see what thier options are, pick one of those options (basically a simple contest against an opponent each turn at various degrees of advantage/disadvantage) the outcome of which adjust the intensity difficulty further. If the Intensity gets too high the PCs side loses and if it gets too low the PCs side wins. That could be adapted to HQ.

I don't think it's a case of what works, because a single roll could work for any conflict. I think it really is more of a dramatic tension thing. If a GM wants to build up tension, stretch out an event, and make a contest more important, an extended conflict is the way to go. If it is just something that can be resolved quickly then a single roll. Think Death Star Trench Run (TM). Resolving it with a single roll would have been anti-climatic. An extended contest, with the GM cribbing a list of plot twists to help narrate the shifting tides of battle ("You two come with me", "You're all clear kid.") can make it epic.

Greg mentioned it in the designer's notes section of The Pendragon Campaign.

Sure but it comes down to some game balance issues. Forinstacne in WEG 1st edtion they couldn't be defended against other than by another lightsaber. So if someone make thier attack roll there was nothing you could do about it. The game had lightsabers are being difficulty to use (because if you overdo you back swing you might take some of your own body parts off) and you would hit yourself if you failed the roll by a large amount. 2nd edtion mostly got rid of the defensivie penalty and just assumed the defender sidestepped or ducked or some such. In BRP terms a Dodge roll. "You and your Phrik-en Armor!" I think the stats for Phik was that it worked light normal armor, but caused the ligthsaber to shut off. Mandorlian iron was treated as resistant, although all that sort of tuff came later on when WotC had the license.

Yeah, it all depends on how powerful you want the lightsaber to be. In WEG's orginal Star Wars RPG you couldn't parry lighsabers with normal weapons becuase they would just cut through those weapons. They did the same when parrying other weapons too. So if a Wampa Ice creature too a swing at you and you parried with your lightsaber it probably lose a claw.

I Have seen the entire video, and I think quite a few of your suppositions here hold merit. Liny and Matt themselves often mention that people are inexperienced at what they are doing, the spearmen pretty much never held a spear before, the swordmen were not experienced with shields or with fighting against spearmen, and often people are doing doing things "wrong". Basically it really seems to show the advantage of having a extra yard of reach over your opponent, although that can be offset by tactics, which in turn can be offset by other tactics and so on. I think the best I Know is probably the Sanguine edition of Usagi. It has reach rules and the swordman would actually have to close in on the spearman to get within the striking range of his weapon. The game has a lot of "Gifts" (similar to D&D feats) that let people do special things, and fighting shools based on collections of related gifts. Close combat can get very interesting deepening on the fighting styles (and gifts) of the two combatants. There are gifts that can let the swordsman dash in close before the spearman can react, gifts that let the spearman counter that, the ability to retreat to wins ties. etc. etc. I could see some of this being ported over to BRP.

Well lightsabers are very good at cutting through things so how about they ignore armor on a special, including any parry armor (So either they can't be parried or the parrying weapon takes damage to hit points equal to the lightsaber damage roll). They can be parried by energy weapons (lightsabers, electro -staves, Gungan energy reienced shields, etc.) Lightsaber also tend to cauterize wounds though so no bleeding. P.S> Altnetately you could just have the lightsaber's damage cut through armor and parrying objected taking points off equal to the damage rolled. So if a Lightsaber got a special success and did 10 points to a "Drone Trooper" in 8 point armor, it would cut through the armor and do 2 points to the trooper, but destroy the armor (on that location).

LOL! It was one of those spur of the moment, off the top of my head ideas that I came up with to handle an unexpected complication during a game (tavern brawl), and not only did it work out, but it looked even better that the other stuff I spent time working on to replace it.

Yeah. RQ/BRP wasn't really designed to emulate the typical High Fantasy genre. Worlds of WOnder was something of a "proof of concept". It showed that BRP could be adapted to handle different genres, and that a universal game system could work, but the theme books were limited by their size. Yeah, I think ClassiC Fantasy is probably your best soltuion. If you could find the first edtion, which was written for BRP you'd probably be set.

Yeah. RQ3 had a attack to knock out that worked too, as well as attacking for knockback. I even came up with a house rule for RQ3 where non-lethal damage came off of fatigue points. THat might be useful to the OP considering he wants to use Fatigue Points. But the thing is that the game was designed around lethal damage and the other stuff is an afterthought. I'd probably have a special be a KO and a critical do real lethal damage. People do die from punches and kicks, it just doesn't happen that often, unless someone keeps beating on someone after they are down.

Which is exactly what Lindy and Matt say in the long version of the video. They discussed actually training some people to fight with spear and then train some swordsmen to specifically go after spearmen. Nothing came of that though at least not yet. One interesting tidbit was Lindy's story about how in his past experience Spear & Shield always beat Sword & Shield, because the spearmen always had a sword as a secondary weapon. So if aswordman got too close the spearman would just drop the spear, draw sword and and stab the swordsman before he could get his shield back. That actually makes a lot of sense and would make sense in game if using the close in fighting rules.

What if it was a COSmopolitian stat that indicated how well someone can adapt to the customs of other cultures?

Different Worlds #24 (Sept 1982) pp. 30-31, "Universal Resolution Matrix" by Harry White I think the idea was what Greg had in mind when he wrote Pendragon, and which got changed due to advice from to Ken St. Andre into the roll high but not over you skill (or "blackjack method") game mechanic, which does basically the same thing, that got used in the game, and which seems to have evolved into the very similar game mechanic d used in HeroWars/HeroQuest/Questworlds.

Technically wouldn't that be be WotC, not Hasbro? Not that it would make much difference from LivingTrikele's perspective. It would probably hurt WotC/Hasbro more that it would help them too. I mean they are already bleeding customers and 3rd party support. At this point they would do well to just shut up, smile, and thank Asmodeus that someone still wants to make OGL content. This could become moot if D&D goes ORC, which is might have to. Oh, BTW on a related note there is a comment by Loz about mixing ORC stuff with Mythras Imperative and Classic Fantasy Imperative that might be relevant here. But yes - people will be free to mix and match Mythras and Classic Fantasy Imperatives as they see fit, and bring in material from other ORC systems (like BRUGE) if they so wish. Just abide by the ORC license terms, giving correct and accurate attribution, and not using restricted content, and you're home-free. Because the way I'm reading the OGL and ORC is that if the content is considered open and can be used without restriction under any licence, then it is open and can be used without restriction with anything else that is open and available under any other licences. That's how AEG was able to do L5R supplements that had stats for their L5R RPG and for D&D/3E Oriental Adventures. And vice versa for that matter. Both companies let sonme stuff go into the OGL so that they could share. It really looks like OGL actually restricts the licence holder more that 3rd parties, which makes perfect sense considering what it is supposed to do, namely allow and encourage third party support to increase a given RPGs dominance.

I suspect it is a non-issue. Mostly it doesn't matter what a company thinks about something, what matters is what they can do about it, and what the fallout of what they do about it. Pathinfinder exists and will probably overtake D&D as the most pouplar RPG preciesly because of what WotC did about things. THey tried to lock OGL the barn door after the horses got out with 4E and The One, and both times it backfired. Likewise if Chasoium got overzealous about something it would most likely hurt them and lead to Mthras and other BRP adjacent RPGs picking up marketshare. Classic Fantasy, BRP ROme and such were orginally BRP products. They switched because of the differences between the BRP and Mythras licenses at the time. Yeah a company can often choose to take action on something but other 3rd party publishers and fans will see it and react to that. For instace if Chasoium went after a company for using hit locations, something that exists in many other RPGs they'd have to pay legal fees, alienate at least one third party publisher, alarm other 3rd parties, and generate back blood with fans. Then probably lose in court as Chasoium doesn't own hit location mechanics and cannot protect it anyway. Remeber game mechanics aren't really protecable by copywrite, that's why MRQ could exist and use so many of the Chaosium RQ game mechanics (we asked on the Mongose forums), and why there are tons of knockoffs of Yahtzee that exist, just by another name. So much of this stuff isn't protacable, and what is might not be worth going after as it could cause a company more harm that good. WotC is the poster child for this. Besides in most caes there is a more diplomatic way to get the point across such as "Gee I'm sorry, but Walktapi are a Glorantha exclusive monster for RuneQuest and not covered under the OGL or ORC so you can't use them. "

BRP BGB PDF (I think was a 2019 edition ) has: This spell adds 5% to the attack chance and 1 point of damage to any weapon (including blunt weapons and missile weapons) it is successfully applied to, up to the maximum damage possible using that weapon. But an earlier edition (2016 I think) does not. t I suspect the change was something done in the errata after you bought your edition. The rule, harks back to RQ2 where some spells (like Truesword) had that limit. RQ spells had quite a few limits, for instance bladesharp (think sharpen) was limited to +20%/4 points in RQ2. The rule was mostly dropped in RQ3 which eliminated a lot of the magical restrictions, but since everybody could cast spells in RQ it was a level playing field. I think the situation you have is that since only magicians have access to magic their powerful spells cannot be counterbalanced by non- magicians. So a wizard who casts Sharpen 12 suddenly had a chainsaw. One who could cast Blast 12 could do 12D6 damage and flash fry dragons, giants and pretty much anything else that could pop up in the game. Yeah, I'd say that's the problem with the Worlds of Wonder: Magic World magic system. It's why I stopped running WoW:MW. It also why it isn't a common problem in BRP games as no other BRP game uses that particular magic system, except the BGB which lists it among other systems and tones it down a little. I strongly suggest that you either limit those spells or better yet beg, borrow or steal one of the other , better balanced, magic systems. For instance use the magic rules but replace the Magic system spells with the Sorcery systems spells. (maybe without the summoning spells because summoned creatures like demons and elementals is traditionally where sorcery got OP.) and you get spells that aren't as overpowered.

No, I not being passive aggresive here. Sorry, inflection is hard to put into text. I'm trying to be logical here and it doesn't always come across well in writing so let me try to clarify my point. First off I don't know exactly what you want or exactly how familiar you are with the BRP rules and in what incarnations. Secondly, I don't know exactly how you want or expect the rules to play out. I'm mostly guessing what you want based upon past experiences and my knowledge of how various rules interact with each other. Thirdly, I do (mostly) know how the various rule mechanics work as is and what (some) of the ramifications are for changing various rule mechanics. What happens if you change damage, or use hit locations or what not. Th latter is much trickier that it might seem because the exact effects depends on what combination of rules are in play to begin with. Combinations that Chasoium has used in the past in games such as RQ, Strombringer, Magic World, CoC, etc. I know. But when you put together a more exotic mix it gets much harder to determine what the effects will be. My apparenlly P/A answer is because: I can't say for certain what the exact effects of any unusual combinations will be, although I know some rules are much more powerful than other and will drastically alter the game. I don't know if you will be more or less happy about those effects whatever then end up being. So my suggestion was for you to test out what you do to see what the end effects are (and tho avoid any unwanred surprise effects before actual play), ten come back here if something doesn't work out the way you want so we can find out what you didn't like and explain why and what to do to adjust for it. It's kinda like cooking. You want to season thing to your taste, but my taste are not the same as yours and I can only advise as to what adding more of of a given spice might do. And it's those "various reasons" that are the rub. The rest of us don't know what games you didn't like and why you didn't like them. Don't feel bad about that though because we don't usually know why some of us prefer one version of BRP while other prefer another. That's why there are multiple forums here and why there are still RQ2 and RQ3 fans in the RQG era, why early editions of Strombringer still have fans post Elric! and Post Magic World (II), and why every so often someone mentions Ringworld or ElfQuest. Why did you cheat? I know you were unhappy with the status quo, but what sort of cheats did you do and why. And that helps us to narrow things down for you. Right now I think your preferences are somewhere between Magic World (I) and Classic Fantasy. Exactly. And that is why I'm a bit more hesitant about changes. It really easy to mess up BRP becuase of how interconnected it is, especially compared to D&D. In D&D you can double weapon damage and the only effects will be that characters will take more damage from attacks, drop faster in combat, there will be a few more kills due to going -10 more often, magical healing will become less effective but more important, and the party will have to stop and rest more often. But armor, magical defense,initiative, and the rest all work the same as before. Do the same thing in RuneQuest and now weapons blow past armor and parrying weapons, characters get maimed and killed far more often, one shot drops become much more common, speed and order of battle become more significant, impales are almost an autodrop/kill (4D6+4+db), parry weapons degrade faster, magic that makes someone harder to hit becomes more valauble than magic that reduces damage, and so on. BTW, Mongoose Publish did just that with MRQ, mostly due to fan response over their use of hit locations without general hit points (which I think is what you assumed) and how it made RQ much less lethal and bordered on Monty Python's Black Knight. So the doubled damage to correct the effects of a previous change. And they did this sort of thing repeatly. Basically every time they tired to correct for a problem they created with a previous rule change, they created more problems. Mostly because the ones calling the shots didn't understand ways that RQ rule interconnected where D&D rules did not. THat's why I'm worried about and trying to help you avoid. Sharpen is too good? Now that is a suprise. Sharpen is basically a renamed and toned down Bladesharp spell, and is one of the longest servings spells in BRP going all the way back to the beginning. I never would have expected you to say that. Normally Bladesharp/Shapen is offset by Protection and parrying. Both stem from RQ's "Battle Magic" and are common spells. I mean in old RQ everybody knew a little battlemagic. Most adventures would know spells a package of spells that included a damage boosting spell like Baldesharp, some Protection, a Little countermagic, some Healing, and then an attack spell that rewuired a POW vs POW roll, partically for character improvement. As for Blast being overpowered, yes , IMO it is. You see the "Magic" system in the BGB derives from original Magic World, which was an attempt to turn BRP into a high fantasy RPG, and which added powerful D&D type attack spells to the less powerful RQ Battle Magic spells. which used general hit points, fixed armor, and no major wounds, resulting in characters who can take a 4D6 blast and keep fighting. Even with tall that Magic World magic is generally considered to be overpowered. Blast doesn't exist in other BRP games such as RuneQuest or Strombringer, where it would far more deadly. +7 capped at weapno max. So a broadsword would cap out a 9 points plus db. Uh, it's supposed to be that way. Realistically most hit by a sword (or other 1H weapon) against someone in full plate will bounce. I think your expecting D&D style results where people take some damage from each hit. That not how BRP was designed. Now what usually makes swords dangerous against people in plate are the specials and criticals, hit locations, the ability to aim for where the armor isn't, and spells like bladesharp/sharpen. Oh, also full plate should be a bit rarer in BRP than in D&D. In most BRP setting full plate is expensive and it takes awhile for people to be able to afford it. Yeah, welcome to the club on that one. Back when RQ was designed, the emphasis was on lethal combat and little consideration was given to non-lethal combat. IMO if you want to address that then houserule a special case for nonlethal attacks. Something like getting your db as bonus armor might work. Well the typical solution for that is to not have those damage spells. As I mentioned above most of the big damage spells do not exist in BRP other than magic world and the BGB "MAgic" rules, and are generally considered to be overpowered/broken. A wizard tossing around 4D6 blast spells for 3 magic points in a game with some combinations of hit locations, major wounds or variable armor is a game changer. So my advice here would be to drop the "Magic" system for something else, or drop the big damage doers like Blast. Yeah, sorry but this is kinda like troubleshooting a "broken" piece of equipment. We know it's broken because you said so, but we can't tell how it is broken unless we can see it, test it and ask you questions. Your statements about blast and sharpen are enlightening.

Probably, It got brought up in the Pendragon forums awhile back too, because it would have a significant effect on Pendragon combat. It was mostly dismissed not because people didn't believe the spear had an advantage, but because they believed that it did, and that just didn't fit the knightly paradigm. Pendragon being a knight-centric RPG. Much the same reason why commoners aren't even counted in the troop strengths of some battles. In fact, I I just discovered the spreadsheet I did for Pendragon at that (2019) time with Reflexive Modifiers for Pendragon based on the results of the Lindybeige video. Speaking of which here is the full Lindybeige video with all 65 match results at the end. Results and Pendragon Reflexive Modifiers were: Match Results Modifier 1 H Weapons vs. Spears 3 vs. 9 -5/+5 Swd & Buckler vs. Spears 2 vs. 4 -3/+3 Longswords vs. Spears 2 vs. 4 -3/+3 Greatswords vs. Spears 0 vs 4 -10/+10 Half-Swords vs. Spears 3 vs. 3 0/0 Swd & Shield vs. Spears 6 vs 7 -1/+1 Swd & Shield vs. Spears & Shld 6 vs 0 +10/-10 I'm re-watching the video, but based on the comments by Lindy and Matt, this was with people who were all experienced with swords (HEMA) but who had little to no experience with spears. Apparently most weren't all that experienced with shields either.

I think the best thing you can do here is: 1) get an idea of how you want combats to go 2) get some PC and NPC/Monster stats and playtest several combats 3) Compare your results to your expectations and if you don't like the results adjust things to suit your tastes, perhaps posting on the forum for feedback first. You see, the thing is that most of us think the game system, in various forms, plays out fine the way it is, the game mechanics are tightly intern=connected, and and we know that fiddling with the mechanics can backfire, unless you know how it all interacts and what the domino effects of changes are. The various problems with Mongoose RuneQuest were mostly due to things that Mongoose changed that had a domino effect that lead to unintended consequences . Increase hit points and weapons become less dangerous, increase weapon damage and armor and parrying becomes less effective, increase armor and parrying and your right back where you started but with higher numbers. Now those of us who have played the game for awhile know some of what does what, but we learned a lot of that the hard way.