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I can think of one way that would be faster and give reasonable results. Make an automated program for writing up characters and set it up to do a batch of them, then take the one that looks the most appropriate for the type of NPC you want. Assuming a decent program, you can probably find something suitable in a couple of minutes.

I guess this is worth repeating. Just how complex a game is depends a lot on how familar the GM and players are with it, and how many copies of the rulebook are on hand. Most claims of "X is easier to write up characters for than Y" usually are made be people/groups who are more familiar with X than Y. Back in my RQ3 days, we usually had 3 rules books at the table, and two or three of us could do the category modifiers in their heads, and we had handheld computers programmed to do them as well. I could set up a group as fast as the local DMs could set up an AD&D group (and they used to ignore a lot of things). Even now, I find it faster to generate an RQ3 character with their x1-x4% per year to skills than breaking up the big chunks of skill points that I get with BRP. With RQ, there is no agonizing over how to split the skill points, it just going through the math. Years of experience with the system make it easy to work with. In the old days, AD&Ders used to have trouble keeping track of all the skills that came with RQ, or an RQ spin-off game. Then D&D 3.0 came along, and included skills. Suddenly RQ was a lot easier for D&D players to grasp.

There is a lot of truth to that statement. I recently started up a Pendragon (BRP realted RPG) campaign. About half of my players have played the game before and the rest are new to the game. Character creation took a lot longer than I expected. Surprisingly,it wasn't the newbies who were slowing things down. They went through things fairly quickly. The experienced players, however, took a lot longer, as they were very finicky in spending their skill points. They spent quite some time moving points back and forth, debating on if a 5% difference in Faerie Lore, Folk Lore, Awareness, Flirting or Hunting would be critical to their characters. It was ironic that in the end the inexperienced players ended up covering some things that the "old pros" failed to consider.

Perhaps, but one thing they don't want to do is loose the players they have. I've got a gaming group that just returned to RPGs after spending years playing Magic: The Gathering. Sure, setting up for a game of cards is easier, and people can miss sessions or even parts of sessions without disrupting the game. An RPG requires more time and commitment. Board and video games do not. It is possible to change things so playing an RPG requires less thinking, reduced set up, and situations that players can drop in or out, but I don't think it's worth the trade off. D&D 4E is structured more like a video game than an RPG. I'm sure it fun for people who want to just roll dice and kill things, but I wouldn't consider it an improvement. If you change RPGs too much they won't be RPGs anymore. As far as the difficulty to create characters goes-that is generally due to familiarity (or lack thereof) and the number of rulebooks floating around. Some of my players used to swear that rolling up a character for RQ was much more complicated than doing so in AD&D. For them it was, too. Not because RQ was more complex, but that the players had played AD&D for over a decade, everyone had their own copy of the book, and each know the procedure by heart. By contrast, we only had 1 RQ book on hand and the only one who was familiar with the character generation was the GM.

I Strombringer I-IV the only spells in the game were summoning spells. With Elric! they added the spells to it-very much like RQ battle magic. Personally I think I prefer SBI to Elric!, although SB did have some major flaws. Because demon items were so powerful, it led to a form of escalation, where everybody who was supposed to be a threat had to have demon gear. Very much like what happened with ICE's Middle Earth line.

maybe you should try .pdf or .Pdf It shouldn't make a difference, but it just might be that the parameters are case sensitive. Computers are notorious for doing what they are programed to do instead of what we want them to do.

Yeah, Pendragon uses a d20 opposed mechanic for most rolls. Roll under skill, high roll wins. Some special adjustments for criticals, fumbles and such. I'm thinking that Fantasy Grounds might be a useful tool for handling solo adventures. For the most part, combat works like this: Both combatants roll against their skill, highest successful roll wins and inflicts damage on the loser.. 1) If the loser managed to roll under his skill it is a partial success and he gets his shield protection. 2) A roll of one's skill exactly is a critical, and does double damage. 3) A roll of a 20 is a fumble, and results in a broken or dropped weapon, UNLESS the character has a modified skill of 20 or more, in which case a 20 is a critical. 4) On a tie roll, a sword breaks a non-sword 5) on a 1, some weapons are dropped (flails) 6) if a character has a modified skill greater than 20 they can add the amount over 20 to their die rolls, increasing their chances of a critical. All in all, Pendragon is probably simpler than BRP, but it uses this simplicity so it can track Personality Traits and Passions. But, for the most part, once a player grasps the different die mechanic and opposed combat rolls, the rest of the system is close enough to BRP to grasp immediately.

What extension does the file have?

I know I do. I rarely write up adventures to the level required for distribution. I usually work from a 2 page outline (1 page of notes, 1 page of stats, plus a map). When I can put more time into an adventure, it seems to follow a doubling progression, from outline to short form to long form and so on. Eventually the 2 page outline becomes a 32 page adventure. But I'm usually too bust scrambling to get next week's 2 page outline ready on time.

It's also sort of odd in that is might be the only one of the RolemasterHERO multi-system supplements that stresses HERO system rather than Rolemaster.

This is looking really pretty. I wonder if it will be possible to tweak this for Pendragon?

Okay. I LOVE their Robin Hood supplement.

I think Steve hasn't promotewd SPQR that much becuase, last I knew, it wasn't complete. I bought SPQR years ago, and got the two or three chapters he had written, but then the chapters stopped coming.

And always will be, unless it suddenly ceases to exist. Assuming you mean BRP in all it's incarnations, it has a 30+ year head start, which it will keep as time goes by.

Whoa! Don't take my statements as an endorsement. I do not have nor am I familar with MRQII. It could be good, It could be bad. I suggest checking up on it a bit more before buying it. At the very least check out some of the MRQII threads on the forum. If it's good more information won't hurt, and it it's bead more information will certainly help.

Mongoose RuneQuest II has just recently been released. A few people have it, and two of the posters here are the authors. So somebody around here must have tried it.

I traded mine in for credit at my local gaming shop. Then I used the credit towards buying something better. It beats tossing it in the trash.

I just wanted to include it for completeness. I've got mixed feelings about HQ myself. It does provide more depth on Gloranthan culture, and adds some neat things, but I don't care for the retcons, or the game mechanics. All stats feel the same. But if RobP is a fan of Glorantha, it is probably worth knowing about. That is one of the advantages of focused games vs. generic RPGs. Generic RPGs have more flexibility, but focused RPGs tend to do a better job of handling a specific setting, and with simpler rules. A classic example is Pendragon. The rules are designed to handle knights in an Arthurian setting. The Pendragon rules do not necessarily adapt well for other settings or genres the way GURPS, HERO or BRP can, but it probably handles Arthurian Knights better than any of the generic systems as it is more focused. That right there is a big improvement. One big problem with MRQI was that Mongoose failed to listen to the playtesters-even going so far as to stop listening to them entirely. Virtually every flaw that popped in in MRQI was pointed out by the playtesters, too. Apparently, they powers that be thought they knew more about what was important that any of the playtesters, even more that Steve Perrin. Apparently, the higher ups got upset when the playtesters didn't rave about all the "improvements". Definitely a major step in the right direction.

RobP, Just to toss in a little more to the mix, if you are a big Glorantha fan there is a RPG called HeroQeust. It is very different from RQ, and uses a very different task system, but gives a lot of new and updated info on Glorantha. A lot of RQ fans have switched over to HQ, and a lot of RQ fans don't like HQ. Nut it is worth mentioning, just in case you are not familiar with it.

On the plus side, it makes it very difficult to prove any speeds we select as wrong. If most animals don't run at thier full speed most of the time, then they probably won't be running at full speed during most gaming situations either.

Yeah, I believe Broo per say, were a Greg Stafford/RuneQuest creation. Ditto for thier culture/history. There were things like goat men or beast men, but Broo originated in Glorantha. The old RQ stuff, especially the Cult of Thed writeup in Cults of Terror is probably the best place to find the hisotry of the Broo. But, most of it would be off limits, as Glorantha is a licensed setting.

Yeah. Basically anything that isn't open content. Hobbits are a Tolkien excpsuive, although Halflings or another synonym (Wee Folk) could be used. As far as the Glorantha races go, you could only use the ones that have been in the OGL SRDs. Natually, any fantasy race that is generic or historical is fair game. Eves and Dragons predate all RPGs. Tolkien's Noldor, however are off limits, although basing something off of the Alfar or Sidhe is perfectly acceptable.

That's because it is hard to measure. Unlike people, animals rarely cooperate with such tests. That's why earlier I posted how I could find several different speeds for animals, but that they didn't all match up with each other. You can get reliable data for horses, dogs and other animals that have been domesticaled, but it hard to get a big enough sampling size for things like chipmunks.

At 2-5 mph it's more like an underwater go kart. Not that I woundn't mind having one if I were at the beach.