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Atgxtg

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Everything posted by Atgxtg

  1. Another thing is that modfiying dice rolls is a new addtion to BRP and an optional one at that, while the concet is central to Fate and SotC. Even when a character doesn't invoke an aspct, he can always spend a Fate Point to adjust a die roll. It is commonplace. In BRP is a a rarity. Heck, for years there was debate o just what a GM should allow with a Luck roll. No matter how ood a game systemis, no one system does everything well. Some games have featurs that make them better suited for certain tasks, and often those features don't port over easily to other RPGs. IMO Aspects are a bad fir for BRP. In factBRP is probably one of the worst choices for such a mechanicsnce the BRP rules are radically differernt from SotC.
  2. Yes, but thse characters are not actually SUPERheroes. You don7t need the superpowers subsystem for those characters or thier foes. I7m not aying that BRP is "bad" because it doesn't handle superheroes well. I'm just saying that we probably could use a supplment for Supers and that it should bend a few of the BRP core ruls to fit the genre.
  3. Exploing dice can be a pain. Especially when they get so hot as to obliterate a PC. THere isn't much a player can do when what was supposedly 1D6 gives a result of 52. I7m runnig a D6 Star Wars campaign, and that game uses a Wild Die D6, maning that 33% of the rolls are affected one way or another. I have to step in at times, especialy during the large battles, to keep a fluke roll from ending the campaign.
  4. I think it was/is. Back before BRP was relased, Jason posted some warnings that the various "power" systems were not "balanced" of against each other, but more or less cribbed from thier original soruces. Some things did get some playability tweaks (Magic World magic was downgraded a little so that mages couldn't just be walking artillery). It's a start. There are quite a few other major differences. A key one is that in Superworld characters can soak damage with Power Points. Two characters (super powered or not) can get into a fist fight and beat each other to a pulp. In standard BRP, the characters would break bones, and kill each other. With Supers it gets gruesome. There is just no way tbeat someone up without leaving them in critical condition. BRP does have a knockout rule, but to make a supers campaign really work, you need to have a non-lethal damage system of some type. Now the tricky question: How many/much of those changes could/would/should apply to the start BRP core rules? IMO not many, if any. The Supers genere is very differernt from the "gritty realism" that is inherent to BRP and most of its spin offs. It doesn't really mix 'n match well the same way some o the other power systems could, at least in thoery, interact. Once you got guys able to punch through brick walls, suvive 100m falls without a scratch, and and pick up tanks by the gun barrel, you've warped the lthe lgame reality enough that "gritty realism" seems out of place. IMO the same is true for any genre or setting that has a signficant difference in feel from the BRP core rules.
  5. I think that aspects could work in BRP, if it were used without and of the "power systems" to compete with it. Either don't use magic, powers, psionics with aspects, or make such powers limited to a few characters. BRP also "suffers" in this manner by having attributes. Adding aspects is like double dipping. A guy withan 18 STR is supposedly strong in BRP, but if a PC with a 10 STR takes a "strong as an ox" aspect, we have a problem. And BRps resolution system is very differernt from SotC. In SotC, most rolls are opposed, and tagging aspects is important for winning the conflict. In fact, Aspects can be more important than ability, since taking two or three aspects can throw a conflict in favor of a poorly skilled character. That is completly opposite to how BRP is designed to work. IN BRP if a character with 20% skill beats one with 100% skill, he got very, very lucky. Thus aspects are going to cause a radical change in the importance and operation of skills. In BRP skills are king. Aspects will "deposte" skills in BRP. Now I think that "it can be done", but to get things to work out well requires some radical adjustments to the BRP rules, and getting the players to accept those changes. A player who has spent months building his character7s sword skill to 117% isn't going to take kindly to a new rul that lets someone with 26% skill beat him by tagging "quick reactions, strong grip, steady hand, and light on hs feet". I think that to really get aspects to work, you wou have to rebuild a BRP varinat from the ground up. Ditch attributes, and make aspects a core mechanic.
  6. I think I got your drift. What I am saying is that I don't believe that was the intention. The powers were cribbed from Worlds of Wonder/Superworld and modified slightly. Superworld was able to handle the Hulk and Superman (well, not Supers unless you had a lot more points, but it could do a good knockoff. I know, I did it). I think "goldbook" BRPs difficulties in handling high powered characters isn't intention, but merely a byproduct of adding Superpowers to the BRP core rules, without the necessary adjustments for supers that Superworld had. That the designer used Worlds of Wonder Superworld booklet rather than the Superowlrd box set also played a factor. But that is just my impression. Jason put "goldbook" BRP together, so he's the guy who would "know" what his intentions were. The point is probably moot anyway. The fact remains that BRP doesn't handle the supers genre well, and that there are those who would like to see something like the Superworld supplment for the new BRP, so there is at least some market for it. Personally I think there are lots o RPGs out there now that can handle Supers better, and that the idea of a "BRP Champions" was novel in the early 80s but rather uninspired now. But, all the other "generic" systems have a Supers supplment, so why not BRP?
  7. I think youi might be misinterpreting earlier posts. Many of us have said that the BRP rules "work" for running the powered human concepts, but not for the more extreme types. The examples you give, were mentioned eariler, with BRP being a good fit for Batman, with Spiderman pushing the limits and Iron Man being a bit too much. BRPs "gritty realism" gets in the way of other types of supers. I don't think that was a intention, but rather the result of adding superpowers to the BRP core rules without the modifications that went with Superworld. Jason had to mix toghether several similar, but different sets of game mechanics to get BRP, and that meant deciding what to keep and what to throw out. I think that Supers did get shortchanged in BRP, but the nature of the book meant than something was going to get shortchanged, and Supers was the logical choice. I've seen it done, but there is always a trade off. That is one reason why Chaosium used to customize their core game system to accommodate whatever setting they were using it for. Overall, I agree with you on what it does and does not do well. But just because you don't want to use BRP for a Supers game doesn't means that Supers didn7t get shortchanged in BRP. If I wanted to run a Supers game I would use a different RPG, too, but just proves that BRP isn't as good at handling Supers as some other RPGs. Even the light Supers cause problems with BRP. A major concern is that on a Supers scale, BRP is not very forgiving. If something gets through the armor, it is usualy fatal. Spiderman punches Batman and does enough damage to turn him into the Bat-stain. With 6 different attack types, every PC hero is almost aurred to be a sitting duck against something.
  8. The big golden book presents some difficulties for supers. For one thing the new BRP uses the size table from CoC, but with RQ style damage bonuses. This means that damage goes up much more slower in comparsion to Superworld (either edition). For example, someone like the Hulk, who can lit 100 tons + (STR 91ish ) and weightsover 800 pounds (SIZ 31 ish ) "only" had a db of something like 7d6. That is too low for the Hulk to smash tanks and such the way he does in the comics. On the other end of the scale, DC characters who can lit battleships are going to find the scaled down SIZ scores of such vehicles much too low. I think for a revamp Superworld to work, it would need to throw out quite a biit o BRP and replace it with things from or similar to those iin Superworld.
  9. One option would be to oppose each culture reliion with that of the other cultures. To difiernt cultures could have widely or even slightly different beliefs that result in opposition.
  10. Ah! I understand. I've had similar experiences with products from Europe.
  11. There is more to it than intention. There is also awareness, and ability. Going after someone or something like this costs money. You have to pay for lawyers, and fees up ront, and often it isn't worth it, since the other party might not have the means to cover your expenses. In a case like this, companies tend to turn a blind eye: partially because it isn't costing them any profits (Worlds of Wonder has been out of print for decades), and partly becuase they would alienate their fan base. Case in point, Chaosium could go after the BRP site, and try to get Triff to remove the alternate rules, and homebrew stuff that is here, but it would be very stupid to do so. Triff hasn't histed any commercial supplements or such, and going after him to get him to remove something dumb like a BRP character sheet would simply aggravate a forum comprised mostly of Chaosium fans and customers.
  12. Ouch. It is probably moot now, but just in case someone else wants to get FATE/SotC, they used to sell it as a hardcopy+PDF bundle for only a little more than buying the hardcopy. It would certainly be cheaper than printing the PDF.
  13. One of the differences between BRP and SotC is that BRP has a bucnh of "skill enchancers" already built in. Magic and equipment, downplayed in SOTC, are major components o BRP, and will take something of a back seat if Aspects are introduced. Bladesharp, or Steath spells aren't quite as good as the used to be if anyone can tag an aspect for a quick skill boost. In SotC that isn't a problem becuase all enhancements are basically the same (a bonus to the result), but in BRP, many bonuses work differerntly, and aspects will end up being yet another "power" that competes with magic, sorcery, etc. Many aspects would also affect things other than skills. In SotC damage/attribute rolls, etc. are all handed the same way, but BRP does use a couple o diferernt game mechanics. I'm not saying that it couldn't be made to work, just that the inclusion of aspects will result in complications (hey, I got an SotC pun in!).
  14. I would be a bit hesitant about porting over FATE/SOTC aspects to BRP. FATE games can often turn into "aspect hunts" with the players trying to wrangle as many aspects as possible into rolls, and trying to tap as many of thier aspects as possible to refresh their fate point pool. At times it can get a bit silly. That might work out okay with the lighter, short term approach that SotC takes, but could prove disruptive to the mood and tone of a BRP campaign.
  15. I buy and read PDFs but I don't like to run from one. I much prefer to have a hardcopyfor a game I'm going to play. Now if it something that I only need part of to run, like a design worksheet, NPC stats or some such, then PDF is fine. I am partial to PDF+print bundles. I think that is really the best of both worlds. That way I got the core book or books I need to run in physical form , yet still bring the PDFs of all the supplments with me on a small laptop.
  16. Considering how broad thie topic of this thread is, I don't think the post was off topic anyway.
  17. Sadly that is not universal. Last time I walked into my local FLGS they only had 4th edtion D&D books on the shelf, and now new products for other game systems. What backstock they had was pacxked into boxes. So BRP and even MRQ are not making any headway in my area.
  18. I was going to write up the Headless Horseman, but I had problems working up the hit location table.
  19. What next supplment? Will most comapnies send you a copy of the book you just wrote?
  20. Good point. Sometimes the players are expecting a different type of game than what the GM has in mind.
  21. You would think that. BUt, alas it is not always the case. Right now I', running Pendragon, an RPG with a very detailed setting, and it really makes no difference as fas as said player is concerned. Yes, it has cost him in terms of his character7s success, weath and status. But even if it gets him killed (and it has come close to at times), he would just shrug, write up a new character and do the same things all over again. In order for setting, role playing and other things to be a factor, the players have to be willing to respnd and adapt. If the players aren't going to adapt then you might need to drop them.
  22. Well, it doesn make it difficult to sustain a campaign. The lquestion is: did the PCs learn form it and changed thier behavior? I7m running a camapign now with one player who just wants to roll dice and kill things. HE honestly doesn't care about role playing, get involved with the NPCs, or care much about anything other than fighting things. He has been gaming for about 30 years, and hasn7t changed despite the efforts of several GMS to try and get him more involved in the game. Some players jjust don't want to roleplay or get invloved in the game.
  23. Or apply some sort of penalty for "scratches". For instance -10% to your skills for the rest of the round as you go "ouch".
  24. You need to reward and cultivate the behavior you want and discoruage the behavior you are trying to eliminate. THere are variious ways to accomplish that. One way is to come up with challenges than can be solved through role-play. For example the group comes across a dragon or other big nastie, and it is preventing them from completing a goal in some way. Now the group could try to slug it out, or maybe they can work an arragment with the big nasty to let thenm accomplish thier goal (or at least get the big nasty to no longer pose an obstacle), Maybe there is something in thre area that knows a way around the big obstacle, and the PCs could discover it through roleplaying, and bypass the obstacle. THe trick is to show them how they can accomplish thier goals in a more desirable (to them) fashion via roleplaying. Unfortunately some players treat the game as a power trip and don't care about anything that doesn7t involve "plusses" to game stats. With such players you can try to get them to roleplay, but they might not respond. Some players just like to roll dice and kill things.
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