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Well I started collecting data a long time back, and worked out some formula's for converting data to game stats. It's not perfect, but it's a great way to get a lot of stats fast. I just enter the data into a spreadsheet and it does the heavy lifting. Another perk of starting from real data is that I can port over stuff from one game to another, as the real vehicle hasn't changed. So I can take a bit list of vehicles with data from one spreadhseet and port it over into another, with formulas for a different RPG and voila. Or at least it was voila, apparently one particular spreadsheet wants to crash when I cut & paste a certain cell from it. Suddenly five sheets crash at once (radar, the aircraft data I posted previously, a database of vehicles that I spent a hour adding in a bunch of watercraft, and a couple of sheets for vehicles relating to the project that got to start this thread). Then the recovery crashed mid recovery, and things got...tense. Yes, although to be honest I've never care much for the system, especially the small arms data (oh first edition where every gun they didn't like did 1D6). And yes, I known there been about five versions of that. IMO if a game needs a NPC quick kill table to make the firefights work, something is off. At least in BRP head shots can be fatal. I take it you mean for vehicles and heavy weapons, right? I've got some stuff for it, but I not sure what the method they used to get the penetration values, or I might reverse engineer it for some of stuff I can't get data for. 😊.

That's how Jimmy got crushed!

Yeah, even as he points out, he's not sure half the time if the bullet went through because it punched through the armor plate or if it missed the armor plate. But then most people watching this are there to see what it loks like, not crunching numbers for an RPG. Yeah, but then if a GM can make the right calls in such cases they don't need formulas and rules. That is the GM has to have some idea that something is wrong or right to make the right call. GMs can only simulate well things that they have some understanding of. Case in point we once had a GM who had a river flowing from the ocean to the mountains. Said GM figured it was a coin toss which was the river flowed, and most of the players didn't see a problem. A couple of us were wondering why water was flowing uphill. But someone would have to be aware that water flows downhill to get the call right. Likewise, someone has to have a rough idea how guns and armor work to get that call right sometimes. Don't be too hard on yourself. It's hard enough to get penetration right when it's not doing double duty as damage. Even the experts had multiple armor penetration formulas, and they aren't all to the same criteria either. I've got multiple official tables for the same guns that give very different values, as everyone isn't counting things the same way. Plus, you are trying to get something that is workable for an RPG, playable in a timely fashion, and are handicapped by having to work with estimated values rather than real world data. EEk! Speaking of not being pleased with your calcs, my spreadhseet program crashed taking with it, all my work on this project, stats for radars and a couple thousand vehicles for BRP, and another game! Fortunately the documents were recovered, not sure if I recovered through.

Yup, that's it. I though 1 damage = 2mm so I had 181x2=362 base penetration (in lead) reduced to 25% (90mm) into steel (harder material) Sorry, entirely my bad. My first impulse when I see an new system is to push the envelope and see where it breaks. The 4 bore was the most ridiculous thing I could think of, with twice the energy of a .50 cal. M2, and a one inch diameter. I do it to my own stuff too - I find it a good way to spot problems quickly. I like to notice them before my players bring them to my attention. Come to think of it, I grabbed the stats for the 4 bore to test out some firearm stuff I was doing. I doubt a 4 bore could penetrate 9mm into a tank, it is an old black powder weapon, but they crew would probably think they got clipped by a 20mm. Still, If someone could get above a tank (or APC) and shoot down at a hatch, they might just ruin somebody's day. There another where he shoots through a bank vault door. The H&H .375 Magnum out penetrated (most) of the rest, probably because higher energy per area tends to mean better penetration, although it might have just missed a piece of reinforcement. The bigger bore slugs tended not to get through, but they deformed the door, while the .375 punched a clean hole. But again, my bad, I was looking for a trouble child as a test case.

Works on the FV 101 Scopion, the FV 107 Scimitar, but then I ran out. All I had left were the silver rods, and I'm saving them for the weretanks. Sorry, I just had to do it: 4 bore magnum stopping rifle = . sqrt (30671 ft-lbs* 1.07") = sqrt (32818) = Damage 181 ! Hmm at 2mm per point it could penetrate 362mm of (lead) armor! Bring on the trolls! At 1/4 value for soft weapon (lead) vs. hard target (steel) and I still get around 90mm of Penetration. Which is enough to go shooting big game such as Panthers, Tigers Elefants, and Tigger II's, provided their not looking at me. I wonder if they make a steel core round for this. 😊 Now I know why the call that other tank rifle "Boys", the 4-bore must be the "Mens Anti-tank Rifle" I seriously doubt it would work, but I cannot deny the sheer coolness factor of someone taking out a tank with their hunting rifle.

It looks good for a "named" NPC- that is someone worthy of their own sheet.Would rank and files guys would be more standardized in abilities (I.e Green, Average, Veteran, Elite, or some such)?

Well, if they are flying overhead in a gunship the enemy probably already know where they are.

Yes, although most RPGs don't model that very well, since they tie damage mostly to the round. I'll play...let me see: 7.62x51mm = sqrt (2500ft/bs* .308") = sqrt (770) = Damage 27.7 9x19mm = . sqrt (483ft/bs* .355") = sqrt (171) = Damage 13.1 .45 ACP = sqrt (328ft/bs* .452") = sqrt (148) = Damage 12.2 12 gauge bean bag round = sqrt (162ft/bs* 1.00") = sqrt (162) = Damage 12.72 Okay, I'll admit the bean bad was a cheap shot, but I didn't to point out one of the drawbacks to this, namely that damage is also dependent upon penetration, and wider diameter means lower penetration. It why a pin can go through a piece of paper with less enrgy that a finger or fist.But assuming you factor in for penetration elsewhere, it might hold up. Personally I'm not a big fian od higheer diameter more damage, but that's tangential. Somwhat ironically your formula is similar to but not quite the same as the one used by BTRC for Timelords. Namely the square root of the energy (in foot pounds) divided by the diameter: DV= sqrt(ft-lbs/cm). Of what magnitude? It's pretty easy to get comparable damage values from common object with some energy. Baseball @99 mph = sqrt (107ft/bs* 2.86") = sqrt (306) = Damage 17.5 Average Punch = sqrt (62ft/bs* 3.25") = sqrt (202) = Damage 14.2 But I'm assuming that there is some modifier I might be missing. And there is is. BTW, does that half damage factor apply to tank rounds vs. tank armor ?

Let me see if I got this correctly. A 1200mm APFSDS round would do 30d10x2 and reduce any armor by half. So average damage would be 330 points, with a penetration of 1320mm (330x2x2)? That's a bit generous. Actually it's probably impossible for any real 120mm round.

But damage/kill potential is not a linear function. Otherwise all those 7.62 rifles would be five to six times as deadly as a 9mm/.45ACP handgun. Let's see at 2 armor per mm (RHAe) that would put a T-72 at something like 560 points. Hard to get through that in BRP. We'd need a gun that did 120D6! Plus penetration doesn't exactly equal damage. But, unless I dice to reinevent the wheel Glad you didn't think I was full of Krupp. 😃

Yup, it's like in all the SciFi shows where the visible energy beam can tell people exactly where the shot came from. If someone has the right imaging epuiptment they can see that they are being painted by a beam and trace it back to the source. As for the weapon mods, well I mostly worrying about the bigger weapons right now, not the personal ones. For the heavy weapons I've been relying on my armor formula to reverse engineer damage ratings, that way the weapons will be able to damage the things they should. My current best formula is a logamthic doubling one, where every doubling of thickness is worth +4 armor, specfically: Armour= (LOG(mm)/LOG(2)*4+4) It's not a perfect match, but it's hard to reconcile the tank and battleship armor rating with the 3 cm steel plate being Armour 30. It's supposed to be RHAe, but currently is probably a bit closer to Class B armor, since it works for the battleship (assuming about a 305mm/12" belt). I'm still trying to curvefit something that works better while still making sense for the vehicles presented in the BGB . As it is, the Vintage tank (Armour 18) is fine, but the "modern" tank (Armour: 24) would have to be a WW II era design. That makes some sense to me as the "modern" battleship has to be a WW II era design, since they don't make them anymore. But the formula does allow me to plug in real world data and get fairly decent game stats. A T-90 gets something like Armor: 42 (44 vs. HEAT) and it takes around a 12D6 (13D6 vs. HEAT) gun to reliably (that is more often than not), defeat it. That's without factoring in for facing, range, etc.

Yeah. Maybe some bonus would only apply if the user's skill was at a certain % or higher? It's like with competition shooting. Things like custom grips, precision optics, longer barrels, ported barrels, and match grade ammo can all help an expert shooter get that little bit more of control that makes all the difference. But to Joe Average picking up gun and starting off at 20% it doesn't mean squat. Yeah, but obviously the tech has to do something for the gunner, or else it wouldn't be there. Militaries don't try to spend millions of equipment that doesn't do anything. It just sorta happens, at times, anyway, but it wasn't supposed to work out that way.

I'd think laser guided would. So would tracer rounds, at least after the first burst. Cut & Pasted. Thanks. I'm going to look at the table of modifiers for attacks (night, smoke, movement, etc.). For countermeasures (chaff, flares) do you think the resistance table might be the best approach? THat is the weapon could have a rating for it's guidance system and the countermeasures get a rating and rolling on the resistance table to see what happens. Using lots of countermeasures would increase their value (say +1 per doubling).

Just an update on this: I've been leaning towards using Mecha scale (from BRP Mecha) where 1 point of armor, damage or hit points is equal to 10 points of character scale. IMO this will make it easier for weapons to get through armor and do enough damage to take out a vehicle. It should also make the combat and math a little easier since it takes less time to total up the damage from 1D6 than for 10D6. I'm thinking of using a hit location table where every point that gets through the armor (mecha scale) will damage the vehicle some way. The table is still a work in progress, but it currently looks something like this: In play I'm thinking it should work out something like this: Let's say we have an ACP with Armor: 2 , Hit Points: 8 (Mecha Scale) and it get hit by a autocannon that does 1D3 damage (impaling due to AP rounds), and gets 3 hits (rolled good on the burst), doing 2, 3, and 3 points of damage, respectively. The 2 point hit bounces off the armor, but the two three point hits would both damage something, and rolling on the hit location table (assuming D20 numbers that aren't there yet) we get Driver compartment and Cargo, forcing both to make an Easy Ce Luck Roll, per the.tables below: The driver has a Luck of 14, for a 70% success chance, rolla an 18 for a success and takes 2D6 damage from shrapnel , and has 6 points get soaked by his armored vest. Close call. The "cargo" consists of 100 kg (SIZ 16) of spare parts. THe GM decides that spare parts are fairly rugged and uses their SIZ in lieu of Luck for the roll. 16x8 is an 80% chance, and with a 55 the parts also take 2D6 damage and get 8 points of damage. The GM decides that since 8 is half of 16 about half of the spare parts are useless. It seems okay, except where the GM cheated on the hit location table. How does it look? What did I miss? Does it seem playable?

Do you think the top of the line fire control stuff out today is worth +10%? More? I was thinking of _10% plus the ability to reduce/cancel out the penalties for darkness, and movement.

It is. At least to some extent. Basically, as with all combat forces, there is a gap between what they want and what they got. In the source, there is often consider friction between the CO, and those who set the budget. There are even some stories the revolve around the CO convincing his superiors that some project is vital, and they need to spend a a few billion on it. Also there is a play issue. If the players think they have infinite resources they'll want to use infinite resources. To put things in terms of Pathers and Shermans, if a Panther is worth 3 Shermans, then why not throw a hundred Sherman's at the Panther and take bets to see if the crew surrender without firing a shot? I don't want the players to get complacent about looses. Unless it's a smart weapons system run by an AI, which fortunately for me, isn't the case here.. But there might be bonuses for targeting systems for some things. But most bonus should be minor and add to skill scores, not replace them.

For this mostly the setting, but since the setting is mostly the real world (modern day/near future Earth with a twist), there is a bit of overlap. Besides if I can come up with mechaics that can work for both, I will have something that can be used for other tings later on. With the game stats. I was planning on addressing that with the armor rating, weapon damages, weapon effective range, and so on. I've got a formula for armor that mostly hold up. For instance a Panther Tank might have Armor: 31 and be Size: 86 and say Hit Points: 130 and armed with a 7.5cm/L70 cannon that does 10D6 damage. A Sherman, in comparison could have Armor: 27, be Size: 83, with Hit Point: 125 with a 75mm gun that does 9D6 damage. An Abrams might have Armor 38/42 (vs.HEAT) or more depending on variant, Leopard is similar, although just which one is better is debatable, and mostly comes down to which one is newer. Things like facing could affect armor rating (shoot the Panzer from behind where it's armor is only around 23 points), and range could affect the damage of kinetic rounds (so the Sherman's gun drops down to 8D6 at long range or some such). I agree big skill mods can be a problem. But I don't think anything more than, say a 20% bonus makes much sense here, at that's more a theroetical max, real modfierrs should be in the 5-10% range. THere might be some modifiers that cancel out penalties though. Like gyrostabilized weapons that don't get a penalty for shotting while moving. I think the big problem is that the randomess of damage does scale up due to bell curves. 1D6x10 gives very different results from 10D6. And that matters when you got to beat 40 point armor. Thanks. I'd much rather have these things pop up now in the design phase than have them show up two hours into the first game session. Yup. Plus there are a lot of factors that haven't been addressed. How seasoned are the troops for each side, distance for the encounter, terrain, etc. etc. Yes, but which wasn't as big of a of difference technologically, and the infantry example. Leopard 2's vs. Shermans would be more of a problem, at least for the Shermans. I will have to for one side as it does have a significant technological edge of the other in the source material, but the source material does address this sort of thing too. It makes things a bit more challenging for one side, but not hopeless. Both sides have tech that can take out each other vehicles, it's just that one side has a clear advatage in tech, but the other has a numerical advatage (more like the Shermans after all). Somewhat. One side does have massive resoruces aviable to them, and could get a lot more if the higher ups choose to commit more. It's kinda like with Ukrain. THe West could send a lot more equipment there is it really had to. It could ramp up production too. Actually yes, come to think of it. The typical encounter is often three vehicles from the lower tech side facing off against a single vehicle of the higher tech side. I will mostly for role playing and resupply purposes. For instance the PCs might be under supplied and have to try and convince the higher ups to commit more resources. Like asking Congress for another $10 million to buy a replacement tank. Especially since that side isn't fully committed or mobilized.

It's as germane as the tangent about modern tank warfare being more about tech than skill. Honestly, that claim could be made for almost any field these days. I mean I wouldn't want to bet on a century of Roman Legionaries against a platoon of modern troops with modern weapons. It's also could be germane in terms of what each side will have available to them in the game, and how the players will have to go about things. If the PCs are down a tank it might be awhile before the replacement shows up.

Yes, but the Panther cost more than ten times that of the Sherman. Even the PZ IIs and IVs cost ten times that of the Sherman. So from a big picture perspective, it doesn't matter if the Pather takes out 3 Shermans before it gets destroyed. The US can easily replace those three Shermans (plus a lot more) while Germany can't easily replace that Panther. It's hand craftsmanship versus the assembly line. Mass production wins. And it's mechanized lines of support full of supplies vs. haphazard supplies for an army that can get enough fuel for their tanks. THe Shermans might as well been infantry with M20 Super Bazookas riding in four Jeeps. THe results would have been the same.

You haven't asked me to do anything. You declared that it is tangential, and don;t want to talk about it. No, it is a deduction drawn from the evidence of what happened. In case you faieled to notice Worlds of Wonder didn't stay in print for years, so at best it could only sell out it's print run. I'm not assuming anything. I'm pointing out that Worlds of Wonder wasn't 1982 Game of the Year. We don't have the sales numbers for Callof Cthulhu either, but we can easily tell that it outsold Worlds of Wonder. What we do have is the reaction that it got at the time, the revies it got in the various magazine of the day, how many copies show up on the shelves (and left said shelves) at the time. Then why go to the trouble and expense of making a printing the game in the first place? . No game company releases a game and then abandon if it is successful. Remember, that was before the days of desktop publishing and PDFs. Making it was a drain on their time and resources. If they wanted to focus on other games they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of making WoW in the first place. An unlikely supposition since they went on to produce other RPGs that they did support. ANd if they didn't want to support WoW, why split off Superwolrd into it;s own line? Which a hit game would have received. Every RPG that Chaosium produced in the 1980 got at least one Exactly, but it's not pure speculation to say how successful it was. Because the past actually happened. In the real world, Chaosium didn't support Worlds of Wonder, and instead focused on other games, specifically Call of Cthulhu, Pendragon and Pendragon, and made a deal with Avalon Hill to try and promote RuneQuest . They relased a Ringworld game, and All thier other games got multiple editions, including two versions of ElfQuest. Everything got more attention except Worlds of Wonder. That was reality. Any claim of how popular WoW might have been if it had gotten more support is the pure speculation. here. THat's all on you. It's like speculation on how things might have gone for RuneQuest if Chaosium didn't make the Avalon Hill deal. But the thing is the deal did happen. . You have shifted the goalposts. You title the thread: Then when I challenged that you said: And that is moving the goalpost. You went from a specific statement about the need for mini-settings -which is debatable, to a statement about the need for supplemental support -which is not. Yes. Generally speaking you have to have the rules to play the game. Which doesn't mean that the mini settings were what was driving those sales. That's speculation on your part. We don't know why the sales increased. In fact, your own argument agianst you, you can't say that the sales did increase unless you have the sales figures, can you? Personally I believe it sold, and that it did so because it was perceived as a good game. Does anybody buy an RPG because it is well supported, or do they buy it because they think/hope it's good.? I think support matter more for how long people keep playing a game, and what game the group in playing is what matters as far as sales to the other players in the group. It why practically everybody who played D&D regularly owned a copy. It was what they were playing. I'm not. Mini-setting can be very good. It's just a bit harder for them to be so, since if something is good there is a tendancy to make more of it. No contention there. Higher page count doesn't mean a better game. Which is exactly the direction that Chasoium was going in before the whole D&D OGL fiasco. But it is an assumption on your part that "demonstrating the game's versatility" is e best way possible. And you doing so at a time where most of the Universal RPGs have been in decline or at best, treading water. But there is no reason to believe that getting lots of mini-setting out there would help BRP. GURPS probably has the widest range of diverse setting to play, and these day it has a lot of short mini-supplements, but the days of impressing people with diverse settings is long past. All the major RPGs have multiple setting now. Not if they are successful. If you look at the various RPG companies, once they have a successful game they stick with it, and prioritize it over a new unproven game. It's basic business. Once you have a product that people like, you don't prioritize something that they don't like. You prioritize what works for you. Yes, but that doesn't necessarily mean your priorities are the correct ones in this case. Now what I getting from this is that you personally like mini-setting, which is fine. But I'm saying that isn't necessarily a universal truth. Or even that it is universal to BRP players. It's not like there haven't been mini games for BRP in the past (Fantasy Paths anyone?).I';m not saying I'm opposed to Mini Setting either. IMO any decent supplement helps. What I am contesting is the idea that BRP needs mini-settings. In fact, I doubt if mini setting will move the needle. I'm sorry if you don't like that idea, but you did ask what other people thought.

Just a thought, but what if damage to locations came off the vehicles stats? For instance, if using Mecha scale (10 to 1) then a point of damage to the engine or propulsion system (wheels, tracks) could come off the vehicles Rated Speed. So an APC with a Rated Speed of 7 that too 2 points of damage to it's tracks would lose 2 points of Rated Speed and move at Speed 5. When Speed hits 0 the vehicle can n longer move. Damage to steering could apply a -5% to handling per point; damage to a weapon could affect's it's targeting ability (-5% to hit per point) with the weapon becoming inoperable at zero hit points, and and so on down the line.

It not tangential when you have a page count. One nice thing about FATE is that a new player can download an SRD and play a limited version of the game. Or even use FUDGE. But there is evidence. The evidence that Worlds of Wonder did not become a major system, or get any support. While Greg admitted that he didn't always make the best business decisions, I'm sure he and the others at Chasoium would have support (or at least reprinted) Worlds of Wonder had it taken then gaming world by storm. It didn't. That's not the same as needing mini-settings. There are many types of "supplemental support". Changing from mini-settings to "supplemental support" is moving the goalpost. It would be like my saying that people need steak to live, then backing it up by saying people need food or their starve to death. Yes they need, food; no they do not need steak per say. Yes, but that doesn't mean they will sell as well as more fleshed out setting or scenarios. No, your arguing (well arguing is probably too strong a word here. How about your in favor of?) that mini-setting are needed, and that they are the fastest way to support the game. I don't agree. I think the fastest way to support the game it to come up with one good setting (size variable) with lots of adventures. There are a lot more adventure supplements than mini-settings. Agreed. That is exactly;y what happened with the BGB. But to be fair, who are the ones who should be doing that? I mean there is nothing stopping any of us from making supplements for BRP, of any size. That not many have done so, as of yet, could mean that the system doesn't appeal to potential authors as much as some other systems, or that the ORC license hasn't been around long enough for much to be written. If you think about it, Mythras got most of the BGB's mini-settings, because of the old license. ORC opens things up, but now a lot of the authors have migrated to Myhras, D100 Revolution and so on.

That's good, because I changed it! 😁 In retrospect I don't see why a character with more hit points would be less likely to catch some shrapnel. So I changed it to the damage that the compartment takes. I think it makes more sense that a character get's injured if the compartment he is in get's blown to bits around him. Like so:

FATE is a lot lighter than BRP. You don't have pages of weapons tables in FATE. FATE does everything with a FUDGE die roll and the ladder. FATE also has (or at lead had) a free SRD. BRP has a 260+ page rule book (previously over 400 [pages). So not as light. Now BRP once was very lite (16 oppages or so) and in that form it might work in 50 pages or less. No, and neither does anybody else. But if it sold as well as any of the other games, it would have gotten support. Yes, but what does have to do withit being successful. Yeah, you might like it. I liked it too, and Jason Durall has noted that he likes it. But that didn't mean that it was a major success. It got no support. The Superoworlrd boxed set was essentially a new edition. Yes, enitrely speculation - your. You are the one speculating that it could have been more successful, if they had done something differently. But you have no evidence to support that view. It faded because it got no support whatsoever.. Not only that but it's fourth setting, Viking World, was moved over to RQ3 instead. One of the big differences between GURPS/HERO and Worlds of Wonder is that the former two game systems were full fledged games, while WoW wasn't. BRP (at that time) was a trimmed down version of RuneQuest. So if someone wanted something more than what came in WoW, they went to RQ. The original WoW was interesting because it pushed the envelope for the RQ game system. It added superpowers, and science fiction, and a standard FRPG fantasy world (which was new to RQ). Today all that as been done with BRP. To move the needle any similar product would have to add in something that hasn't been done in BRP before. You're moving the goal posts. There is a huge difference between mini-settings, and supplemental support. Yes, it needs supplemental support, all RPGs do. But what it needs is adventures. That's what sells RPGs. As you pointed out BRP already had a supplement with some mini-setting, it didn't move the needle. With settings it isn't about quantity but quality. One good setting will do better then five mediocre ones. And if a setting is good, it would be a waste to throw it away in a one off product. It as worked in conjunction with lots of fully fledged out setting that get support. Several things for Fate of Cthulhu. Even Atomic Robo gets some supplements. FATE does a lot more than cheap mini-settings.

FATE is a rules lite system though. So authors can just focus on the setting and atmosphere. BRP would need a little more. Which didn't really sell at that well. Remeber that Chaosium had mostly stopped supporting BRP in favor of stand alone RPGs until WotC started driving off their fans and third party supporters. The original WoW idea was a great concept. Iit came out, but mostly faded. It didn't really help to promote the system, and it was never as popular as RQ, CoC, Pendragon or Stormbringer. So I don't think BRP needs mini-settings. Mini-setting probably won't help BRP much at all. I think it does need at least one new setting with several adventures for it. It's ususally the adventures that make a game.