Atgxtg

ANd BRP did have ads/disads with both version of Superworld, about 26 years ago. So BRP was right there in the beginning--just not to the same scale Technically, I suppose those tables in games like Arduin or C&S were probably the first ads/disas system. It wouldn't be too hard for someone to dust off the old Superworld rules and adapt them into a full fledged ads/disads system.

Uh, Yuk. (Sorry, nothing personal, I just don't like it). For starters, SAN for Paradox doesn't work too well. I'd just have spells generate paradox and backlash in mage fashion. Maybe change the "backlash" triggers to 1/2POW and full POW instead of 5 and 10. As for the spell point costs, well it would give Mage character much more "bang for the buck" than anything else in BRP. Storyteller always had problems scaling off the different powers against each other. MAGE in particular is a problem because it doesn't have that smooth a progression as the other games. There are defininate power jumps. A mage casting a 5 dot effect is getting a lot more out of it than any other BRP character can get for any effect costing 5 magic points. Maybe it would be better to not have Mage character use MP to cast spells, but just use them to pay for Paradox? A fumbled spell generates Paradox based on the effect, and losing half your MP in one go, or running out of MP means the mage get's to be reality's bitch. But it is really hard to mix Mage with anything else. It's on a different power scale than most other RPgs and so doesn't mix well. Its hard to run a mixed group with someone who can teleport the toughest Vampire Elder to the other side of the Earth (where the sun is shining) as a moderatly difficult magical action. That doesn'T mix to well with BRP'S way of doing things.

"There should have been only one!" --Vampire the Masquerade, First Edition, referring to Highlander in the "Sources and Inspiration" section. . Truer words were never put into print. Plus soooo much of Vampire was based on Highlander.

slade, I think one problem you are going to have to deal with is that BRP Supers will play a lot like what professional wrestling would be like if those guys really did start slamming each other heads into concrete. One hit from a guy with a good db and it's all over. That works on PCs too. Even a successful parry might not help much if "Mr. Powerful" makes that 25% attack roll. BRP has inheritend a problem from RQ that a hit from anything big and strong usually just kills a PC rather than hurt him. ANd those powerfuol guys do learn and raise thier skills a lot faster than the skilled folk can become superpowered. THe comics cheat to keep things running smoothly but in a fairly realistic RPG, like BRP, Superman takes down Batman before the caped crusader can even think "kryptonite."

Why BRP isn't that popular? 1) Because BRP just came out, has not drawn a lot of attention to itself yet, nor does it havea lot of supplmenets, nor it is backed by a "machine" like D&D, Storyteller, GURPS, or any of the "popular" systems. 2) RQ was/is popular, but dropped off the gaming radar due to some mistakes made at Chaoisum and the company's economic woes. 3) CoC is popular, and has been fairly well supported over the years. So I think it is fair to say that BRP would be popular if: 1) gamers were made more aware of it. 2) it get good support in terms of supplements, rules additions, setting, etc. Basically it is the BETAMAX dilemma. It doesn't matter if it is a superior machine/format if most of the machines and "tapes" people see are in VHS format.

Yeah, but I think there were stuck. They had pretty much detailed every dark little niche in the WoD, and once they had done the Highlander inspired ending books for each product line, they had written themselves into a corner. The can't make money if they can't sell new supplements. Requiem allowed WW to create a whole new setting, and thus sell more books. Most gamers seem to prefer the old WoD versions, though. Vampire and Werewolf would be fariyl easy to work up for BRP. Most of the powers are incremental, and have BRP/RQ analogs. MAGE would be a major headache.

That's just it, the style of play is everything. If you are looking to run a fairely realistic camapign with heroes who are only slightly more than human, BRP works grreat. Use one or more of the "hero point" and you can get a good system for running characters like Batman, Captain America, Daredevil, Iron Fist, THe Question, the Spirit, the Green Hornet, maybe even up to the level of Spider-Man. But that is not the style used in a typical comic, especially for a group of heroes. Nor is it the style that the typical Super RPG gamer going to expect. To compete with games like M&M, BRP will need a the style of play/paradigm similar to that of Justice League or the Avengers. Heroes Unlimited proved just how unfun, "gritty & realistic supers" can be, with the PCs wanted on manslaughter charges after each adventure. But if the players are clued in, you can do some pretty cool stuff with BRP Superpowers. Just expect the occasional punch to crtical and cripple or possibly even kill somebody.

Well, no one said you had to agree with me. But, as Niteshade has touched on, you wrong. Or, to be fair, I think you are wrong. With fantasy, "magic" is an acceptable explaintation for a lot of things. If people want to know why the Earth just shook, the GM can just say"it(s magic" and satisfy everyone. Now, with Sci-Fi, hard or soft, you are going to need more. Classic Space Opera shows like Star Trek or Doctor Who frequently play around in this kind of arena. PCs have to take out a tricoder or similar device, and work out a plausible explanation. And the more people know about the real science, the more technobabble is going to be needed to explain away the breaks from reality. If you know about things like Inertia, you are going to want to know why accerating at 200gs didn't hit the characters like flying into a wall at supersonc speed. Here,s an example that occured in a fantasy campagin a few years back, and shows how much trouble a little scientific knowledge can cause (or the lack of it). Our group was travelling downriver from City A to City B, when one of the players noticed that the river was flowing from the sea to the mountains-in other words, water was flowing uphill. Now since nearly everyone knows that water flows downhill the group got sidetracked while we were all trying to figure out why this particular river flowed in the wrong direction. Tfe real cause was the GM messed up. Our character explained it away as some sort of mangical spell, and didn't mess with it. We also avoided drining any water from the river for fear that it might flow backwards inside us, or makes us float away. Now in a Sci-Fi setting, some sort of explanation would be needed, requiring the creation of some sort of high tech device that caused the effect, and a reason why anyone would have gone to the trouble to do so. As for weapons and other equiptment, you very quickly start running into the hows and whys things work. A bow an arrow isn't going to penetrate a brick wall, but a blaster or phaser just might be able to disintergrate a section of the wall. ANd that opens up a bunch of questions about how to defend against such weapons. In general, whenerver you are using more powerful/less forgiving stuff, be it spells or items, you need things better defined. Miss with an arrow and you might take out the wrong person, miss with a phaser and you might take out the wrong city block. Since Sci Fi tends to have, on average, more powerful items, and larger areas of effect, it therefore needs items better defined.

I think Nightshade just hit the Bullseye. And, unfortunately also exposed BRP's "Achilles Heel"-specfically that an earlier RQ-based BRP product that has been customized for a specfic genre probably handles it better than the newest, but generic BRP. I suspect than as/if we see more setting source books produced for BRP, we will see a lot more optional rules to adapt BRP to better handle those settings. Basically what Chaosium used to do with each of their different RPGs. A supers book would probably need to diverge considerably from the core rules to have the proper "flavor" for supers.

One other thing to be aware of is that many publishers, movie studio, television companies, etc. often make claims that are not true-or at least not entirely true. Often, they do this in a "blanket" way, putting the same warning on everything regardless if it actually applies to the work in question. There are a lot of old movies, Nosferatu, for example, in the public domain that are sold on DVD these days, with anti piracy warnings that don't really apply.. With Nosferatu it is especially ironic since not only is the film old enough to be in the public domain, but also that the original court verdict against the film required that the film be destroyed. How can some one copyright something that is, itself a violation of another copyright? What I would do is look around and see if you can find some of the same images used somewhere else and if they are listed as in public domain. That way, you can always cite the alternate source. I had to do that with clip art, since there are a few websites that are more than willing to take money for PD clip art from the uninformed. To makes things worse, just what is in public domain varies from country to country, as do the copyright laws. So you can run into situations where a bit of art is perfectly okay for you to use on a site in, say, Norway, that is not okay for me to use in the U.S. So be careful, try to confirm something as being PD before you use it, and then hope that someone with deep pockets doesn't decide to go after you anyway.

There is a difference between complexity and detail. A Sci-FI RPG doesn't need to be complex, but usually does need a bit more detail than a Fantasy RPG. Adding all that detail is work, and that is probably why BRP hasn'T had many SF settings. With fantasy, you can start small and expand the setting as you go. Plan out a isolated village with a half dozen interesting NPCs, a problem or two for the PCs to solve, and you are ready to go-the GM can literally make things up as he goes along. With Sci FI, it isn't quite so easy to pull off. An isolated colony needs more info that the isolated village to be playable. Not to mention more technology. When the PCs start adventuring, the GM is also a bit more restricted in what he can add to the campaign setting and how. A fantasy GM can throw out a dragon or have a wizard cause an earthquake and have them instantly accepted. A Sci-FI GM needs to come up with some sort of plausible explanation for such things. While not necessarily more complex or difficult to explain, the explanation adds more detail. For instance, if a PSI Adept could crreated earthquakes, then the GM could explain it as applying mental energy along a fault line. Easily done, except now the GM must add some detail for mental powers, and tectonic plates. Kind of a case of where ignorance is bliss. Sci Fi PCs are usually much less ignornat of thier environment that Fantasy PCs and so require more information to play. Fantasy PCs know so little that they can accept more on less evidence.

Having run, played, and coverted characters over from one super hero RPG to another over the years, I can say that for BRP to compete in the SuperHero RPG niche will be tough. Many, superhero RPGs are based on rules systems that are designed to mimic the world(s) of the comics. BRP Supers, is adapting a fairly "gritty/realistic" ruleset to the genre. This means that the style of play will be a bit different that, say, the old DC Heroes or any of the three Marvel RPGs. One thing that those old system had going for them was the setting. IF people want to play in the Marvel or DC universe, then the official RPGs have a big edge. BRP would need some sort of setting or two, and a strong line of supplements to compete with M&M, and I doubt that will happen. Since BRP is a geeric system, it will probably need to establish itself in other genres first (fantasy, sci-fi) that have a wider fanbase.

Obe nice thing about other BRP games vs. CoC is that the PCs aren't quite as helpless, so life expectancy is longer. I7d suggest using the optional Hero Points rule to help reduce the mortality rate a little more. Dependning on what option you pick it can have quite an impact, and help eliminate some PC deaths from bad die breaks, like when the GM gets the "hot hand" and a supposedly minor threat manages to roll 5 criticals in a row. Oh, also, when I wrote the alternate wounding rules, BRP had not been released yet, so I used the old multiplier system for handling the rolls. My orginal notes used an Easy (x2) and Hard (x1/2) modifier instead, and since BRP has that, it would make the rule a bit simpler.

Over the years, Chasoium has used pretty much every combination of fixed/variable AP and general HP/hit locations (with or without major wounds), so it's all fair game. As soltakss pointed out, different confrontations have different degrees of lethality. The is worth noting as it will have an impact on the style of the game. Variable armor makes combat a bit more "flukey" since you can always "zero out". Hits locations increase the chance of someone being taken out of a fight with a single hit. I'm not sure if hit locations are really more lethal than general HP, though. With hit locations while the chance for an autokill is increased, so if the chance of disabling a foe instead of killing them outright. I suspect that hit locations probably are less lethal, since I had a lot more PCs and NPCs survive lsing battles in RQ than in Strombringer or MAgic World.

AN idea I am thinking about is applying a character7s Damage Modifer to Encumbrance. Rosen7s "free ENC" idea above would tie i nicely. Maybe something like letting a character carry 5+max DB in ENC for free. That way horses, elephants, and dragons, won't suffer quite as badlyfrom the increasing STR progression. And SIZ would factor in too. It would keep mounts from "passing out" after carrying a armoed rider around on the battlefield for a couple of minutes.

:eek: After all these years...

Considering that orcs, elves, wights and several other Tolkein-based versions of creatures are staples of fantasy RPGs, you've got a good point. One hurdle RW2 had with "mainstream" gamers was that it used a fantasy setting that was not in some way based off of the so called "generic" Tolkienequse (should we say "token") fantasy setting.

I would say that the position of market leader generates the profits required for more/better art, rather than just being the end result of the art. Case in point being D&D. D&D, the most successful RPG, was successful first, which meant that TSR could afford better/more art. Also, while a pretty picture might get more people to buy a product, if the product the art is complimenting is substandard, the art won't make a product line successful.

That's why you should consider what system you want to write for before you go for a project. At this point I'D suggest write it for D&D4, but do up stats for whatever other system you reallyly wanted to write it up for as well. If it is, say D&D 3.5, it is possible that Necromancaer might be willing to publish it as a "mulitsystem" adventure. And if not, you can at least fell good about having it in a form you will use. If it is something more radical, liike, say you'd prefer to do in for BRP, then you can still use the BRP writeups for yourself, but probably won't be able to get the BRP stats printed. f it really ends up bothering you to do a D&D4 product, then you know enough not to do so again.

Perhaps, It seems that authors and pusblishers do not understand the interactive nature of RPGs. People read a book, or watch a movie. But they play an game. And a RPG, unlike most other types of games, is a creative effort. ANd doesn't this argument hold for any RPG produce based on any licensed setting? PS. Does Anyone here think that Fergo13'S BRP-ME stuff is going to be used by more than a handful of gamers?

But those who buy a product have right too, or lat least they used to. Autgros rights and copywrite laws have been rewritten in recent years to ex@pand the creators' (and the publishing companies') rights at the expanse of the people who actually pay for the product.(In fact, after the last few changes in the law, loaning out a DVD to a friend is now a violation of the law). Tolkien died decades ago, so his wishes are not even a factor anymore. If he were alive I dobut that New Line would have ended up with the film rights. And it is not silly. Toliens works draw from other sources. His Altantean myth, elves, his languages, acome from elsewhere. Frankly I think it would be difficult, and unwise to go after people for doing up homebrew RPG stuff for MIddle Earth. All it does it alienate your own fan base. The is a big difference between someone making up something for use around a few gaming tables, and a company selling something professionally. I suspect Tolkien would have been pleased to hear that fans were adapting Middle Earth for play in games, and no so please to hear that someone wall rpducing and selling the same. Likewise, Greg has always supported other people exhanging ideas and stuff for Glorantha. There are quite a few RQ/HQ and Glorantha based sites on the net with all sorts of things from runes to maps, to cult write ups to historties. GReg doesn't go after them. Likewise, he doesn't care what system players use when playing Glorantha. If he heard that someone was running a BRP Glorantha campaign, he wouldn't be bothered by it. Frabkly, it would be stupid to do so. If no one is allowed to work with the sertting then no one will. For anything. In order for any RPG setting to work, it has be be kept alive and open to the players. If an author doesn't want other people to use his stuff for RPG peuposes then he should liscense it out as an RPG. The Tolkien estate has done so- twice..

One question I hav e is just what are people allowed to do who buy an RPG? For instance, I have bought both MERP and the Decipher LOTR RPG. Technically, the way the "rights" are determined, it is probably a violation of the authros rights to actually play one of the RPGs, as opposed to just reading it. Running a RPG based in Middle Earth would require a GM to work with a write stuff using Tolkien's works. It that is not allowed then they should not allow for any RPG. If it is allowed, then does it become a question of scale? I.E. It okay to do so for your own group, but not okay to make it available to others. And if it is okay to play one of the liscened games, do we loose that right when the company that produces the RPG7s right expire? Also, if it is okay to run a Middle Earth RPG, then are gamers allows to depart from the official mechanics? Personally I think the who A"authors right" "Movie studio" rights thing has gotten way ouit of hand. What next? Do we forbit children from playing "Fordo" or "Aragon" in the backyard?

Throwing another hat into the ring... I think Mick hit on something when he mentionted that Moorcock was interested in what would make a good story at the moment, rather than making something consistent for RPG purposes. Furthermore, I7ll also note that the RQ/BRP game engine is not the best fit for the Elrig saga too. Much the same problems that crop up with Glorantha and RQ. The settings and characters are larger than life while the game mechanics lean towards "gritty realism". I do think that the earlier versions of Strombringer had better stats than Elric/SB5, though. I also expect that it is easier to work Elric up in some other systems. Unfortunately, just getting Elric and Strombringer represented properly means bypass rewrting quite a few of the RQ/BRP rules. FOr instance, Elric often uses Streombringer one handed when "pumped up". I think that Elric might work better in some systems than others. As for not listing the stats in the core rules: Well people do want to see them, or at least some intetpretation. While D6 Star Wars didn't list the stats for the main characters in the rule book, said stats appeared in mulitple supplments (3 movie sourcebooks, a trilogy source book, Han Solo in the Coporate Sector, etc.). West End'S other d6 based systems DID put the stats for the main characters in the book. D20 SW did put stats for the main characters in firsrt two edtions-I'm not sure about the current edition. As for Elric7s skill-well he was consided to be one of the best swordmen on Melnibone, supposedly second only to Prince Yrkoon. That would put him in the "mastery" range (90%+) in most RQ based RPGs. Elric!/SB5 being the exception since people need over 100% to get multiple parries. SB1 put Elric at 100%, and had Strombger at +3d6 damage. Still brustal but it does allow for the occasional survivor (most people do die when hit by it, Yrokoon gets nicked, but everyone else usually gets killed). Personally, I consider limiting the POW drain to the damage inflicted. That would help hanbdle the Elric and Yrkoon battle in the first novel.

Fergio, Years ago, I did up some Middle Earth species write ups for RQ3. If you think any of it would help for your BRP Middle Earth project, let me know and I'll dig out the write ups and scan them.

Guess we don't have to worry about the game disappearing on us again-at least anytime soon. With luck this might turn into a BRP Renaissance.