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I do mind that bit of abstration, though. If anything it is worse that the light, medium, heavy pistol abstraction. Ah, but that is a houserule. In general BRP doesn't do delayed fatalities. I wish it did. A 4 point chest wound can kill you if it isn't treated properly. Likewise, the broken ribs and hemmoaging could be survived with proper medical care. Something that tends to be glossed over in most RPGs (as does digging out the bullets!).

Yuk. First off, I think any result that give an unparriable attack is bad. Very bad. Bad enough to get up and walk away from the gaming table bad. What this does is just make everybody carry a shield. Not only do shields get a special "undefenable" attack, but off hand weapons get screwed, too. Why bother learning to use an off hand weapon? Not only does it start off at a lower pencetage than anything else, but even when you do use it there is a -30% to parry. So if someone isn't using a shield he gets screwed. Yuk! And as for the broad deatails, the reason why people used left-handed daggers was becuase they helped. All this rule does is put someone who isn't using a shield at a disadvantage. I really don't like this idea.

I just can't figure out why there wasn't something like a flat +3 modfier for rifle rounds or some such. It would have helped a lot. I won't even get into the problem low velocity "dum-dum" bullets. But a simple fix for rifles would have been nice. Movie or RPG? The RPG was a very nice, flexible toolkit. As for the Bond movies, well. I do prefer From Russia With Love to Quantum of Solace. So I don't think newer is necessarily better. For the most part, I'd rather forget the 70s films. But as far as game mechanics go, sometime older RPGs handle some things better than some newer offerings. I think the Bond RPG handles firarms as well as anything out there. And I'd stack RQ2 or RQ3 up against any of thier more "modern" offspring. To be frank (and don't ask me who frank is being), I think the quality of RPGs has been in a bit of a decline. CCGs, and D20 OGL did a great job finishing off most of the innovative companies, and the current trend towards simplicity and "anti-simulationist" RPGs has left up with a bunch of RPGs with poor mechanics. And these days, if you discuss the math, some people get angry and say you are not role-playing. And now even role-playing is being discarded in enchange for an arcade game experience. Look at D&D 4E. Yup.So what? It sucked back then. Or do you think a new VW Beetle is better than a Porsche 911? Just because something is old doesn't mean that it is no good. It doesn't mean that it is good, either. Just old. There are cases where newer RPGs outstrip older ones, but we shouldn't take it as a given. I'd say that an old game like Bond is better than Spycraft. I'd also say that RQ3 is better than Wayfarer, D&D 3E is better than 4E, and that Traveller and MegaTraveller are better than New Era, or any of the other rewrites that have come out since. I'd put Cults of Prax and Borderlands up against any MRQ Glorantha offering. So being new is everything.

Considering that Howard also has Conan, "lifting a rock that no human could possibly lift", I'm not convinced. Plus there are quite a few cases where mass should factor into things. For example, most primates are, for thier SIZ, stronger than humans, yet if a money grabs your leg, you can probably drag him along.

This might come as a surprise to you guys, but the folks who are disagreeing with you have just as much experience playing, running, and writing various RPGs as you do. Some even have more. So overall experence balances out. What is relevant here is that those folks have more experience with the RQ/BRP system, and the SR system in particular. The can (and probably have already) find the weakspots as fast or father than you. Heck, I"ve probably familar with as many differernt RPGs as anyone. I've run dozens, and owned over a hundred. I got experience. So when experienced people with a greater familarity with this particular game system than you have (and based upon some of your MRQ vs. BRP posts you are not as famialr with RQ and Strike Ranks as the folks who are disagreeing with you) give you a warning about a proposed "fix", you should consider it. A lot of the "fixes" I've seen are buggier than the rules they supposedly improve upon. Quite a few will seriously alter the way the game plays in certain settings. A spell like Speedart looses a lot of it's value if you have to wait a turn to make the shot. You see, those of us familar with the core system, know what he trade offs are. If you really like the way MRQII handles initiative, by all means, use that method. If it matters, I played L5R, too. More than one edition, too. Just becuase your players don't like something doesn't mean that it is a bad rule, or is broken. Just that they don't like it. I've got some D&D players in my Star Wars D6 campaign who keep wanted to take thier turn right after we roll intitative, skipping over the "how many actions" are "who goes first" bits. It doesn"t mean that the intitative system is bad, just that those players are used to the D&D method.

Ah, here is thing. If they are opposed than both action take the same amount of time. What I like about SR is that a spell caster must decide between a quick spell, or a more powerful one. [quote=KingSkin;38433 The mage does have some other options like taking penalties to their roll to avoid damage. I actually have a bit of a problem with those rules because a decent caster trying a low-level spell can basically automatically succeed and thus avoid all damage for a round. I've pointed out to the GM that this is a very effective shield and actually means the mage can last longer in a fight than me even though my meat-shield have got about twice his HP (and the HP levels are similar to BRP as is the weapon damage).

Quite true. I was reading something where a woman empied her weapon into an attacker. The guy took the weapon away from her, beat her with it, and bleed to death an hour later.

Yes, the change, but the relationship is not a linear one. That is what the problem s with most RPGs. 2D8 damage is twice as good as 1D8. It can get very complicated in real life. For one thing, where the bullet hits is probably the single most important factor, and it is usually downplayed. For example, a .50 caliber MG round has about 32 times the energy of a 9mm pistol round, but if it hits out in the pinky, it probably ins't going to kill you. Not only that, but it only "dump" a small fraction of it's Kinetic Energy into you. If the bullet imbeds inselt into a brick wall, all he enegy going into the wall isn"t going into you (and that is a good thing for you). If you look at the casulatiy rates for combat, you will see that rifles are not that much more lethal than pistols. Most the guys who get shot, live. Assuming they get medical care. THat holds for more than just guns, too. People are actually a lot more resislent that most people think. The vast majority of fatalties tend to occur long after the battle. It is just that most games use a "bang, you dead" method and ignore delayed fatalties. Dragonewt has wisely pointed out BRTC's 3G supplment, and Greg Porter does do a good job of covering a lot of this ground. IMO as good as anyone else does in the RPG field.

But the specials and crticals come up more more frequently in BRP that they do with real bullets. At leat as far as body armor is concerned. 20% of the hits is too high. Okay. I see what you are saying. I disagree with your conclusion, though. Sure, a lot of the keneitic energy is going to get dumped into the target. But the impact is still going to be spread over a larger area, and won't be penetrating and damaging vital organs. So the target should be "saved", although he might not think so, lying on the group with several broken ribs, some nasty brusing, and internal hemmoraging.

Ah, yeah, that is a bit different! But,,,and this is raising an old topic, a parry really shouldn't damage the parrying weapon. At least not if it is done correctly. But RQ/BRP/etc. has never differentiated between a block and a parry. I like the general idea, but I think it could be expanded a bit. Perhaps each weapon could have a choice of a couple specials? IMO the "can't be parrried" bit is just too powerful. Everybody will want to go with Sword & Shield for the special. I think it doesn't make sense if the opponent is also using two weapons. Just becuase you knock someone's main weapond out of line doesn't mean they can"t use thier secondary one. I think some sort of penalty with the weapon for the next action would be better.

THat's fine. Each method has it's advatages and disadvantages. (Single skill causes some problems with shields and missile weapons, and a lot of warriors just didn't parry much with thier blades). I'm not keen on the use of "unecessary bunch of skills" though. Just what is "necessary"? A case could be made for simplfying the skill list even further, say down to melee and missle skills, so I think it is all what individual GMs and groups want. I seen a lot of good rules (Strike ranks, category modfiers, the resistance table, skill checks, hit locations, special successes) discarded by various people. True none of those things are necessary. The all have an impact on game play, though. There is a trend towards simplicity, but simplicity comes at a cost.

I don't think the benefits would be worth it. There are often modfiers to the skills that would alter the chances of crtical, special, and fumbles.

Remeber what they say about assumptions. . But considering you situation, it's a reasonable way of doing things. I don't think you need to go to that much work. When RQ was created, the designers used a 3D6 roll for SIZ and didn't worry about correlating it to actual data until later. And even then, they weren't sure about what to make the standard, and tweaked it froim game to game. I'd suggest just sticking with the 2D6+6 roll and subtracting 3 rather that working up a different die roll. Not that you can't do it that way. I was doing something along those line for animal stats a few years back. Trying to make the SIZ ranges and average better match up with real world data. But I did things by mass rather than height. Yeah, you would, to be totally realistic. You could do something like women a STR reduction when upper body STR applies, but it would be very complicated and probably wouldn't be worth it. Besides, if we did that, we would probably need to factor in for the differences between the arms as well. IMO a slight reduction in STR and SIZ for females is a reasonable approach. I've been thinking of tying STR more closely to SIZ. There probably shouldn't be characters with STR 18, SIZ 8.

Eye hand coordination does play a factor. Guys with big hands ususally aren't as good at "finesse" work. I once worked at a place where they did a lot of hand soldering. Virtually the entire soldiering staff were women. Some of this is just simple physics, too. The larger one is the longer the nerve impulses have to travel, and the worse off they are in the muscle-to-mass ratio.

Not such a great idea. Shields should be damaged by impaling weapons. Spears should poke some holes.

Yeah, you can do that. Especially if you tweak the stats and/or add some new ones. Daggers don't really suck, either. They just look like they suck in most RPGs!

Nah. They were there to help simulate ancient combat where you could occasionally slip a blde in through a gap in the armor. I also think crtic are not a great way of handling firearm leathity, either. At least not with the way body armor works in BRP. Too many underpowered rounds will "impale" though body armor that it couldn't penetrate. Do you got any data on this? I was under the impression that the rounds wouldn"t penetrate. Can a burst from an Uzi really "tear though" a NIJ III vest?

Okay, I'm not Rosen, but I think I get his point. It's not about tinkering with the system. It is about trying it before tinkering. A lot of these rules actually work out well in play. And a lot of those rules are interconnected. Now many of us have been playing a version of this system for decades, and have an understannding of how it works. So when we tinker, we can make educated guesses as to what the repercussions will be to game play. But it is fairly easy for somebody to tinker with the game and start the butterfly effect. For an example, look at Matt Sprang's alternate damage tables for MRQ that were supposed to make combat more deadly Now the tables were only minor tinkering, and yet they would completely alter the game. Parrying would become nearly useless, and armor wouldn't be worth the ENC penalty. Magical protection becomes a necessity. One sligh bit of tinkering and it is a whole differernt game! And when you consider that the tables themselves were a response to fan complaints about how MRQ combat had lost the lethality that RQ/Strombringer, etc. had, you can see just how interrealted the rules are. So trying befotinkering is sound advice.

Sorry to clip most your post in the quote, just wanted to keep this short:) I have to confess, I think a good reason why I don't have as much trouble with the Strike Rank system is that I'm not using the BRP rules! I'm still defaulting to RQ3. So placement tends to be a bit better defined than in BRP, since move is represented in terms of meters/SR rather than as an abstract value of relative (but not linear) speed. I suspect BRp's biggest flaws come from the fact that many of it's players and playtesters "knew" the system before it was written, and at times we are defaulting to older rules than what are in the BRP rulebook. Sorry.

Interesting. I've run Pendragon, and it does something similar. But how do you handle situations where timing is important? For example, seeing a a spell gets off before a melee attack? But doesn"t that make things entirely speed driven? How would you accomodate for SIZ and reach? And the guy with the most APs would seem to have too big an edge. Case in point, high AP guy vs. a held arrow or readied rifle. FASATrek used APs and they were pretty dysfuncrtional.

Yup. That is becuase years of fiction and gaming got us trained to think otherwise. A good way to look at it is the way animals react. People are often suprised at how dogs, bears, deer, and other animals keep going when they have been wounded, and attrubte to some special "toughness" that animals have. It isn't that the animals are any tougher than people, they just haven"t been taught that they are supposed to lie down and die when they get hit. In real combat the "adrenaine dump" will compensate for the pain. In fact, if they didn"t notice they got hit, they might not even be aware that they are wounded. I think most of us have been in a tense situation/fight where they got hurt and didn't notice it until after the crisis was over. It is why people who have accidents often say that they are alright and then find out that they aren"t later. It really isn't that counterintuitive, at least not compared to real world expereinces. It is only counterintutive to use becuase years of fiction and gaming have convinced us to think otherwise. About the only games that come close to working this way are Timelords, CORPS, and to a lesser extent, Bond.

The halfling can act first with SR, as long as he isn't isn't engaging in melee combat, he would act first, based on a better DEX SR. There are two options available. The first is "attacking on the run", which would allow the halfling to ignore his poor SIZ SR. THe seond would be the closing rules, which would allow the troll to keep the halfling at bay as long as he could backpedal. Now if you think there should be more of a difference than in the "collasped" stat bands in RQ3, I'd suggest using the old 12SR system from RQ2 (the real RQ2). Now, if I were the halfling, I wouldn't think of getting in close with a Troll, and risk taking 1D10+1+2D6 damage, and instead hang back and use missle weapons, pereably boosted with Speedart and/or Multimissle. If the halfling hasn"t gotten into melee range yet, he can. If he has, then he must "disengage" (just turning and running would leave him open to a spear in the back, a spear thust is must faster than turning and running) True, but probably not relevant. All rule systems are a compromise between ease of use and level of detail. "Optimal" varies from person to person, based upon what trade offs we are willing to make. Order of actions becomes more important in a RPG where one hit can decide the fight.

Ballistics are like retail. Location, location, location. With small arms, there are actually very few spots on the body that one can shoot that will instantly incapacitate or kill an opponent. It is easy to inflict a potentially lethal injury, but that might not stop the guy from fighting on.

You might want to just go with SIZ based on mass, or height, rather than both. Unless you want to track two stats. To get a 9-10 average (9.5), you need to roll an odd number of dice, and use an add. Say 3D4+2. Anytime you have a average that is between two whole numbers, you must use an odd number of dice. For example 3D6 (10.5). But, if you want all humans to roll 2D6 for SIZ, I'd suggest just going with 2D6+3 (10) or 2D6+2 (9) and not worring about the slight descrpancy. It is close enough to be historically accurate anywayt, since most historical values tend to be approximatation. As for the STR descrpancy, smaller SIZ would mean smaller muscles, and a lower STR. But that should hold true for s SIZ 8 man, as well. Since BRP doesn't link STR to SIZ for males, you got a leg to stand on here. I think you got a point with the DEX, too. Smaller people usually have better eye hand coordination. THat was why women (and children) were preferred for certain jobs, like in th eold textile mills. .

It is kinda the result of giving everything nice, easily comparible ratings. As well as what characterstics were deemed signficant enought to warrant a rating. In game terms some weapons just have better stats than others despite not necessarility being superior in every way in the real world. A broadsword would probably be lighter, quicker, less fatiging, and probably a bit more durable, not one which are reflected in game stats.