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Sadly, most of my freinds are on the wrong side of the Atlantic for that. If this pans out to be as good as all indications suggest, Pete's Wife is going to start hunting us down.:thumb::eek: I can hear the cries for the Roma Imperium book already.

Sorry to see Dave go. From all account's I've read, he was a nice guy and major factor behind D&D who got shafted by Gygax.

Forgive me for sullying such good news with such a dirty subject as money, but any idea what the rpice tag is for this. I'm gonna start saving up some denarii.

Yippie!:thumb: Uh-oh. "Download requires login". So someone has to sign up with Chaosium to download the BRP Lite PDF. Not good. We all know how much people like to sign up and give contact and marketing information to companies online, especially to look at a sample/trail version. I wonder if Chaosium will make it okay for people to host this elsewhere (like, say, here). Considering that the who point of BRP Lite is to get people interested in BRP enough to buy the full game.

The "bug" with scaling the Resistance table is that the table is centered around 10 with 5% per point of difference. Basically, a human scale. There are ways to do this without a calculator. frgospanners table, for example, is reminencent of the one used in Timelords, an RPG that is scalable. Basically, just set a scale, and the "degree of difference" and it will work. For example, if we used a x10 scale, and gave +5/-5% per 10 points of difference it might work for high end supers (a x5 scale might be better). Note that scaling systems aren't perfect. With scaling you tend to loose the finer grades of distinction. For example, a 99 STR and a 105 STR end up about the same with a x10 scale. Yet another wat to do this would be to repace the resistance table with a die roll and compare the results. For example, if we used the old demon stat chart from Elrric!/Strombringer 5 a 10 Stat would roll 2D10, a 20 roll 4D10 and so on. That would be simple, do the job, and work no matter how high the values. People could put the dice to roll next to each stat on the character sheet, eliminating the need to look up a table or do any math more complicated that adding up the dice for a total. If people wanted to they could scale it simply to reduce the number of dice being rolled. For example. instead of 100 being 20D10 it could be 2D100.

Quite true. One of my player now can't manage to figure out how to roll 3d6+2. I don't know about that. By that logic the game should use the d20 rules system. BTW, A few years back I considered using the multiplier idea for a RPG core mechanic, but with lower stat values (1-10 range or so). Most of the effects would be tied to the difference in multiples.

It could. For those who like the opposed stat rules. I'd like divide the roll by the stat to get the "stat mutiple" and have the lower multiple win. For high stats, divide by by a denominator to get the right ratio. For instance with 200 cs. 190 treat it as 20 vs 19. It looks easy to me, but I know if I tried it several of my players would look at me and freeze up-- much like watching streaming video on a dial up connection.

Rurrrrrik!! Hey, I'd die too if my patron diety had his IO cut off and I didn't know Y. :innocent:

Yes, and that is/was one of RQ/BRPS good points. Unlike D&D a fairly weak foe always poses some threat to an experienced character in combat. That means GMs can still use weak foes without them becoming only a minor annoyance. That is also why ther "escalation treadmill" isn't as bad in RQ/BRP as it is in games like D&D. I like it too. But remember RQ did have Divine Intervention. But if a GM want's to run a cinematic game, all that grittiness works against him. Superworld being a prime example. Ideally, what the GM wants is for the players to believe that they have been in greater risk that they were, yet not make them so intimidated that they fail to try. Basically a good GM plays mind games with his players. Well, that particular method is from the James Bond RPG. The rationale behind it is simple, it keeps the big baddies from spending all their points to kill one PC. The group wins the battle, but each adventure or so someone would need to roll up a new character. I really love the Bond RPG. It actually isn't quite so easy to "just escape" in the RPG. It has my favorite take on Hero Points too. 1 HP adjust the die roll one quality level (think wsuccess level in BRP). This grades of success approach also tones down the Hero Points, making their effects more subtle. Turning a serious injury into a minor wound, as opposed to turning a critical into a miss. The latter is possible, but so costly that even Bond can't do it very often. Since the damage inflicted is based party on the success level, a 1 level shift isn't as severe as in some RPGs. Also once a point is spent, it is gone for good, so PCs don't waste them as with similar point systems. Instead they are more likely to save most of them until they need them. While characters can earn more points, they can't just get them "refreshed" next week. So PCs don't feel invulnerable when they have a lot of points. And players get worried when the points run low. This method is great for handling the "series of bad die rolls" thing too, making the RPG my favorite for solo play. Less chance of losing a PC to that eventual fumble.

One thing that I found very neat in another RPG, is to allow character to choose special effects after die rolls. For instance, in most RPGs if a PC wants to try something "cinematic" like disarming a foe, tripping them, or such, they usually have to make some roll at a significant penalty. The net effect is that the character is usually better off just doing the standard attack & parry. But, if the GM allows characters to do stuff like this after the die rolls with a special success (instead of the usually damage bonus), you can get players to do a lot more "cinematic" stuff, since they are not longer penalized for trying.

I considered this awhile back on one of the Mecha threads. I was thinking that we could make this scalable by either reducing the 5% per point difference, use a constant demonstrator like divide both sides by 5 or 10 for vales over a certain score), or simply use the actual ratios. But considering how much grief +/-5% per point gets, I'D suppose I'd have a been change of getting an infinite number of monkeys to finish Hamlet that gettting five gamers to use any of the above options. :eek:

But all RPGs have them to some extent. Just some methods are better and/or more transparent than others. For example most RPGs give PCs and VIP NPCs abilties than "Karl Kobold" or "Tom Trollkin" doesn't have. Most RPGs don't actually prohibit such characters from being high level or reaching Rune status, but in terms of play these guys don't have the same abilities as the PCs. Three points. One iis that the GM is not an adversary and so isn't openly fiddling against them. A bad guy NPC might getting lucky, using the Force or whatever. Not the same thing. Second Point is that some games restrict what can be done with Hero Points by the bad guys. For instance in Bond, Bad guys can only use HP defensively. This helps to enforce cinematic play, since it gives the good guys a reward for being good. Thirdly, the key to making a Hero Point system work is to limit the number of points so that the PCs have enough to do what they need to do, but not enough to do what they want to.

Well the easiest ways IMO, to make BRP cinematic are: 1) Don't make the minor foes too tough/skilled in relation to the PCs. A bunch of militia or mercs at 25-40% with their weapon skills is not only good cinematically, but probably realistic considering BRP's skill curve. 2) Much of what what for a cinematic style isn't game mechanics but the type of adventures the GM runs and how he runs them. How players play makes a big difference too. If you want players to act like heroes, then there should be some things that encourage such behavior. If the PC knight saves the damsel in distress only to fall victim to her witchcraft, he will be likely to save damsels in the future. So if you want the PCs go go around saving people, don't make them regret it later. At least not most of the time. Likewise, reard those things you want the PCs to do. 3)Slant your descriptions and play style to encourage the sort of play that you want. For instance, if you are doing a LOTR type adventure and you want your heroes to flee from a hoard of orcs, don't let the group get bogged down in a toe to toe fight. Instead let them fight one or two orcs, have some others fire a volley or arrows (only roll for one or two serious attacks), and then give the PCs a chance to run.

Maybe they only get paid quarterly and that's payday? Imperial Decree. They can finally get on AOL. That when the dead really do come to visit. The gate that goes back to Earth gets turned on once a year. Its the 1000 year anniversary of the release of BRP? Like people need an excuse for a party? On Earth about half the people seem to party it up Dec. 31st just because it's time to change the calendar.

Wow! They are giving us six months for this one. Maybe I can find the time to write up Mall of Cthulhu for Halloween.

I disagree. I find a Hero Point system to work the best. The trick is which system to use. Personally, I always liked the one presented in the old James Bond RPG. The reason being that the Hero points didn't refresh themselves at the end of the adventure like they do in most games that have them. That kept PCs from just spending them until they ran out. How does this make things more cinematic? Advantage 1- Feel, heck it is more dangerous. With an average character having 6-7 hit points, a single hit can easily make a character unconcious, and at the mercy of his foes, who will have litle difficulty ensuring thatsaid PC reaches -CON. Advantage 2- No it7s less safer, as disabled and unconscious characters are nowhere near as safe as those who can actually protect themselves. Advantage 3- When do character pass out? Or do they? You could get the same effects much more simply by just saying character don't die until they are -MW in HP. A "mook" rule by any other name. You create a special dodge skill that only PCs and significant NPCs will have high scores in. Looks a lot like the RQ2 Defense ability. A neat way to bring Pendragon Passions into RQ. Systematically though, it doesn't favor the PCs. The GM might, by not giving NPCs many traits, but that is, in essence a "mook" rule. No, the advantages are gained by rolling under your trait. I don't see where role playing "brave" is giving an advantage. Don't get me wrong, I like Pendragon. Where the reward for role play comes in isn't in the application of the trait, but in the improvement check awarded for role playing the trait. But, a character can role-play brave until all the other players hide under the table, and it isn't providing an advantage--the die roll does. I'd also say that writing down and keeping track of an actual score for things like Bravery or Stubbornness, certainly seems like accountancy to me, with some character being 20% more brave, honest or lustful than others.

I'll second the HEro Point suggestion. BRP actually has that as an optional rule. It can be very useful for counteracting unlucky dice rolls. Its no fun when Merlin fumbles his boating roll and he and King Arthur drown instead of getting Excaibur from the Lady of the Lake. I'll third the "mook" rule suggestion. If you want it to be cinematic, you can write up some characters as "extras", "minor supporting character" and so forth and give them stats to match. So an orc "extra" for a fantasy game might be 30% and have a low CON/SIZ for low hp, while the orc champion that is supposed to be a tough foe would have higher skills. One neat thing about RPGs is that since the players don't get to look over the opponent's sheets, they don't have to know how weak a foe really is. If you runhim like he is tough, have him act tough, and set up the encounters so that he looks tough, the players will believe he actually is tough. Perception is everything in cinematic storytelling.

:thumb::thumb: I'll second the idea of Scirbus. It gives you a lot more control than a word processing program and isn't much harder to learn. Also, if you decide to convert your sheet to PDF format, stuff will stay where you put it. I've had a few things move on me when I've converted DOC files to PDF. Plus, it free.

Yeah, but with d30 there are higher quality products on the shelves so buyers can make a comparison. The fear I had with BRP was that there would be little quality stuff to compare it to.Hopefully with the limits and guidelines that Chaosium has in place, we won't get a "BRP Crash".

Your stupidity!?! I'm the who who made the typo. Blasted SHIFT key. In my own defense all I can say is that the U3 keyboard is a bit smaller that normal keyboards. IT7s not much of a defense though. Kinda like leather vs. a dagger. :eek:

Ray, I think Triff means he'D like to see some attention given to what a character is famous for rather than just a scale of how famous he is. Consider Mother Teresa, Thomas Edison, Julius Caesar, Al Capone, Bill Gates, Robert Goddard, Socrates and Adolph Hitler. All are famous, but for radically different things. At least, that'S what I think he means.

cj, Thanks. It does appear that Chaosium is at least trying to avoid the pitfalls that came with OGL/D20. While anything that is of artistic merit is subjective by its very nature, the restrictions and guidelines indicate that there is going to be some attempt to get quality from 3rd party contributors. I hope Chaosium can produce and release 4 products a year for BRP. :thumb:

I disagree. I thing the game mechanics should reflect the setting, so extrapolating one from the other should work. If it doesn't work, then there is probably a problem with the game system representing the setting. The problem here is that while RQ/BRP is a good system, it wasn't a good fit for Glorantha. RQ2/3 did have runes. It's just that runes were incorporated into the Cult and Rune Magic system. Frankly, I think physical runes should be in the setting, but I don't think the MRQ method is right for Glorantha. Depends on how they use the,m. What I7d like to see is the runic sysmbols being used, rather than physical "left overs". For instance, making the runic symbols focuses for spells. What I could see for the "bones/blood of the gods" idea would be something like a maxtrix and/or POW storing device. For example, anyone could learn Bladesharp who knew the right rune(s), but a Bladesharp rune drawn in Humakt's blood might be usable by anyone, or maybe double the level of the spell. Rune Lords and Priests might even be able to get a few drops of blood from their deity, too. In other words kind of like relics. Now since this is HQ that we are talking about, rather than RQ, I'm not quiote sure just how they plan to implement runes.

I don't think it should be addtional damage, as per a db, but instead be in the weapon damage rating. Basically a certain STR/draw weight would be worth 1D6+1, another value 1D(+1, another 1D10+1, and another 2d6+1. Basically something along the same lines as they do for crossbows. What I mean about skill being a factor in damage is that a guy with an Bow skill at 80% can pull a stronger bow than a guy with bow at 30% even if they both have the same STR score. Not quite, since a arrow fired from a more powerful bow should still be traveling faster than one from an less powerful bow. I suppose what might make sense would be to drop the damage die down a step at each range bracket. If we have two ranges (like 90m/120m) then drop the damage down a die at the half skill point. Don't bother. I have it, along with a few other things. In fact, I wrote up something along these lines for a different RPG a few months back. But again, it all depends on just how much detail/realism we want. For example, if we really wanted to be realistic we would limit bow ranges to about 80m or so. Modern archers will tell you that you can't hit a man sized target with any degree of reliability past that point. All the hits at greater rangers were achieved by shooting at massed targets. I suppose I could try putting something together as an optional variant. It's not like anyone would be forced to use it.

True. Some of the best stuff for MRQ was from 3rd party companies. But Mongoose has a reputation for spotty quality. One of my local gaming shops doesn't even stock their products anymore because of their bad rep. Chaosium, on the other hand, has a rep for making good quality products. They may be slow, but at least they are consistent. I just hope that if they let others product stuff for BRP, they implement some sort of policy to ensure some standard of quality. One thing I am worried about is that many 3rd party companies can product stuff with greater speed and in greater quantity that Chaosium, and this could have a detrimental effect on the game. For instance, what if Mongoose started making BRP or MRQ/BRP products and produced a bunch of poor quality supplements?