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I think the problem is that the resilience scores are just too high. What is happening is that the Resilience is increasing faster than the character's ability to do damage, so eventually they end up "behind the 8-ball". Now enforcing POW into the equation will only help slightly, since the other two stats are still pretty big, and then there are always creatures like dragons, who have a good POW score. My suggestion would be to come up with a way for the characters to do a called shot to a vital location lowering the Resilience (say half?) against that attack. That way, the players have a chance of taking out an eye or something. Making it a called shot will still keep it a a tough thing to pull off.

I agree with Charot, Wealth, in game, is only a problem if the GM lets it be. The problem usually arise because some GMs and RPGs tend to use money and items as a reward. If players suddenly get an influx of money, they could use it to buy better gear, which could "unbalance" a campaign that is designed around a fixed rate of progression. Giving starting characters a million gp in D&D would be a good example. With all that gold the players would be able to buy very powerful magical items and pretty much walk all over the standard encounters for starting characters. That would typically result in an escalation problem as the GM ups the opposition to present a challenge, followed by the PCs looking to upgrade their gear, etc. etc. If, however, the GM finds other things to focus the campaign on, money isn't that much of a problem.

For me I think it depends on the setting. In general I prefer detail with multiple skills, specialties and degrees of success. But, in settings where the characters are supposed to be very capable, I prefer shorter and more broadly defined skill lists. Slade, How many Attributes do you want in each "dimension"? If you wanted to keep four for each you could add Memory to Mental and Piety to Spiritual. Education might be questionable since it ps probably much easier to increase than any of the others. It's more like a meta-skill than an attribute. Another approach might be to give ratings in the "Dimensions" and then allow characters to adjust the sub-stats a few points, provided the average of the stats remains the same. For example, somebody could have a 12 Physical, but big (Siz 14) but not as Healthy (Con 10). This could allow you to avoid defining all the attributes, as a player could add some new aspect without needing to revise the attribute system.

Sounds like what you want is the original. 16 page, Basic Role Playing and possibly the original Magic World, from the Worlds of Wonder boxed set. Or for kids one of the old Fantasy Grounds boxed sets would be nice, if you could find it. I wonder if we could get permission to post the old 16-18 page BRP here? if Chaosium is going back to RQ2 the old 16 page book is very relevant again.

Okay. My bad. I know I wrote something up for that. I'll go dig up my notes. Off the top of my head it was similar to rapid fire. That is there was a bonus to hit and a die roll to see if you got multiple hits. If I remember correctly there was something I wanted to do to the cost scale, too. If I can just remember what the problem was...

Hey, I just went through the weapon design rules and noticed that I never included a linked weapon rule!.

I think so. I guess we will find out.

Yes, but everything is determined in BRP by the characteristics. Exactly. And in T&T if you have a low DEX you are bad at picking lock and that's that. In BRP, skills allow a character to be good at at something despite a poor characteristic score.

I suppose it depends on what you want to teach the kids. The problem I have with basic T&T is that the players don't get to make many choices about their character. Race, Class, and what weapons or spells. Characteristics are determined by random roll, and to be honest, so probably is class. Okay, you can play a 3 STR Warrior in T&T, but the odds are against such a character.

Ah, I see. I think I'll take a look at the rules and see if I can find a more elegant way to do the same thing. Just to give them 4 weapons. BTW, are you free to work on a project I have in mind? Basically I'm working on a variant RPG, but need someone else to bounce ideas off of. It helps to get another set of eyes on things, and to see what works, what is easy to grasp and what isn't.

So basically, you make it more like MS&PE? That sounds better than straight T&T, I think this is kinda like what happens with Call of Cthulhu. Most of CoC's fans don't actually play it as written, but instead use it as the basis for a modern day, pulp or generic horror RPG. Likewise, basic T&T doesn't really off that much to handle things outside of combat. Just the basic saving throws. But, with Talents, you open the game up a bit. BTW, id the Deluxe rule set worth it. I got 1st and 5th Editions of T&T, and the system didn't change much over those years. Does the Deluxe rules add much?

Thanks. I saw a lot of stuff for T&T, but didn't see the free link. I liked Talents in MS&PE. I think they would greatly help to flesh out T&T. I might just reverse my opinion on running T&T for kids with Talents.

A few of the ship stats are off. X-Wings and TIE Interceptors actually have 4 laser cannons.

Do you have a link to the basic rules for free? I don't see them at DriveThruRPG. Aslo, I don't recall seeing Talents in T&T. I saw them in some of the spin off products (MS&PE) but not in T&T.

While it's true we haven't seen one, we could probably make a decent guess about how to fight with it, as it is similar to other polearms. The counterweight makes sense (it's common to swords). Having the top half encased in iron doesn't make it any harder to parry. The tricky bit would be avoiding the blades. Not that parrying it bare handed would be my first choice.

Noreally. The ide of a parry is to reflect or redirect the attack with the parrying weapon. Usually by coming on contact with the non-business end of the weapon. So someone who was trying to parry a Lorymirian ax with his arm would probably push the half aside with his hand. Risky, but not at all ridiculous. Basically you step in after a a swing and press your arm up against the half to misdirect the next swing. But, of course, you need to time it just right or else it will get very ugly. How to mirror that in th Strombringer RPG is another matter.

Yeah, even with current household tech, if one shops for ink and paper, one can print off a book fairly cheap. It's the binding that's tricky. I suspect in a decade or so the ability to print off something like a low grade Lulu copy with be possible with some home printers.

Not really. The thing with T&T is that by the time you find out that you are outclassed, it's probably over.And even if it isn't, most monsters are quick. I think T&T is the "Beer & Pretzel" RPG. The idea of going through character like water isn't that big a deal. That's okay with the right crowd and mindset, but probabl not the sort of game I'd want to use to introduce new players, especially kids.

Somewhat, and with the way T&T handles group combat there is a better chance to cover for a weak character. But even so, there isn't much you can do in T&T if the opponent outclasses the PCs.

T&T is very unforgiving. Most fights are very lopsided. The side with the higher dice tend to slaughter the other side and there isn't much that they can do about it. It's what makes the solos so vicious. If the PC runs into an opponent with a better die total, he's toast and that's that. Not much chance of getting a lucky hit.

Or better yet Prince Valiant? Very simple rules, very easy to learn, hecuva lotta fun!

Well, isn't that just Mint.

If you can find the original Worlds of Wonder version of Magic World, I think you'd be all set. It's pretty much the old 16 page Basic Roleplaying fleshed out with magic. I did up a non-BRP RPG for a friends kid awhile back, it was very simple. I could port it over to BRP. The stuff I did to simply game play: 1) I used skill categories as default skills. That way the kid only had a half dozen skills to track, rather than a full sheet. Anything special could be made into it's own skill. 2) I made all the tasks rolled by the players. So rather than the GM rolling to see if he hit, the players rolled to see if they blocked. It made things more exciting for the kids, since they felt they had a hand in the outcome. For example, I gave them an "Athletics" skill which could be used to run, jumb, climb, swim, or any other similar activity. If the player wanted to be better at, say, Climbing, they could raise it and make it it's own skill. 3) I raised base chances, partly due to (2) above. Kids really don't want to fail a lot and wait to grow in skill. They are doing that for real. They want to be able to do cool stuff from the start, so I made their characters a bit better than typical for an RPG. 4) I gave them a pool of points that could be used to bump/alter die rolls. As for the setting, I'd suggest keeping it simple. Put them in a village or near a small fort on the border to a forest or other wilderness. That way they don't have too much setting to learn while they are picking up the game system. It's also nice for you since you don't have to do as much work to set up. Plus, by being out in a secuded area, it allows you to flesh out the game world later. The big thing as far as setting goes is really the NPCs. Make sure to come up with a handful of interesting characters for the kids to interact with. You want them to pick up on the fact that they are all different people and that some are nicer than others. One thing that I would suggest is giving them a bunch of simple tasks early on to help them learn the game mechanics. Boring stuff like climibg a tree or jumping a ditch are fun when you are first learning to play.

And this is EXACTLY why having Chaosium take over this forum is a bad thing. Triff would NEVER had done this.

How exactly do the resolve points work. Dpoes someone surrender when they run out? Do they get the spend the points for something? Hmm, you could tie it closer to the SAN system. For example: 1) Resolve could use a multiple of POW for the base % (say POWx5%) 2) When confronted with a stressful situation the character must make a resolve skill test or suffer a loss of resolve. 3) When the character does well, his resolve ability could be increased. 4) This could work with Rosen's idea of it being a skill that could be trained, too. A character could work to improve it but could still have it reduced from stressful situations. 5) You could adjust the chance of making a Resolve roll based on the circumstances. A more stressful situation might not only know the ability down by a larger die roll, but be considered more difficult to absorb (half ability). While less stressful situations, might be easy to deal with double ability).