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Yeah, I wonder about that, too. There have been many "simple" RPGs in the past, and most of them were too simple to support a campaign. There is always a trade off, and the trade off for options and flexibility is usually some complexity.

I don't think it is really WotC "experiment" but really just the end result of what TSR had for years. Where TSR messed up was that they protected thier property (D&D) to the point where it was starting to cost them thier market dominance. A lot of compnaies thet were producing D&D related stuff ended up designing thier on systems, most of which were superior, since they had the benefit of seeing D&D mistakes, Ny opening up the system to 3rd patiry companies, WotC kept the D&D game system in the #1 spot.

Thats for the explanation. I'll see if I can incorporate that into what I have now. The major worry will be weapons penetrating too much due to APV. A doubling is +4 on the table, so to double something penetrating power just add 4 APV. Since AP rounds often have 150% or200% the penetrating power of the standard round, then +2 and +4 might be possible as standards. I'll have to DL some weapon stats for C Rising and see what values the weapons get as well as some ratings for barriers.

Wear? Oh. And I though they went well with bacon bits and sour cream. They have. No one noticed. I just get a kick out of the idea of someone training frogs to haul cargo. ....Pulling a tiny wagon...

That's not a bad idea. I don't have Cthulhu Rising. I was thinking of adding an AP mod and a stopping power mod (penalty to penetration, but extra damage after armor). How does APV work in regard to damage an/or higher APs or armor? For instance if a wea[pon has a APV of 20 like in your example, if it rolls 25 damage, would it penetrate 20, 25, or 45?

frogskinner:lol::lol:.

Well if it helps, I:ve been working on a specfic Sci-Fi setting that I will probably eventually make avialbe here. As a unrelated project I:ve also been working on a couple different sets of construction and combat rules for Spaceships, which Triff has hinted at. It:s still n the *Alpha* state, but is designed to be adaptable for any Sci-Fi setting, and has scaling rules.

' About 6 foot/2m long, and they were related to Velocorators,and there is even some speculation, including a photo or what sort of intelligent species they hypothetically could have evolved into on wikipedia. In fact, if we wanted to be different, we could replace all the mamallian species with intelligent dinosaurs.

Trodon were a species of carnivorous dinosaurs. There were about feet long, and are noted for having very large brains for their size. Their brain size was such that they might have been more intelligent than most mammals. Had they not died out, they might have evolved into something sentient.

In a past campaign I had created a an intelligent species based on the Trodon. They might fit it really well here. I also had a race, called the Wylde, that were a sort of bark-skinned, forest dwellers. Maybe they could fill the "elf" role.

So would I, but that is a fundamental problem with the overall method that BRP handles weapons and armor. If we set the APs low enough so that a .50 cal would get through 1" of steel most of the time, then we would have to set 1" steel plate at about 12-15AP. THat would make 1" steel numberable to 7.62mm and 5.56mm.

If you really want to go into sick. read the part in italics, if sot skip over it. The overall reaction to Warhammer when it came out 20 something years ago was that it was just an attempt to push lead, and spelled the end of Games Workshop as a RPG company. White Dwarf went from being a great independent RPG magazine to GW's "house organ" in the worst senses of the word. This was before you time, but Warhammer came out just when GW started doubling the price of lead and coming out with punk elves and dwarves. Every three months they would raise their prices for miniatures in the US and blame the exchange rate. When the rate of exchange went up, GW raised their prices; When the rate of exchange went down, GW raised their prices; when GW switched to plastic bases to cut costs, GM raised prices. When tons of lead fanatics bought into Warhammer, and didn't mind character getting killed off left and right, since it let them use more minis, many wondered if it spelled "the end of old school gaming". So it really does come around. GW used to be a good RPG company prior to the punk minis and Warhammer. You could find all sorts of RPGs supported in White Dwarf. But that said, I can appreciate how it feels to loose a RPG that you are fond of. But among many of us "old-schoolers" (and we'd use a different term, Old skool is too "new") Warhammer is not considered an old school RPG. So a lot of this is cyclic.

I'm with rust, There are a lot more story-based RPGs not than there were before. Not would I have put Warhammer in the "story driven" section of RPGs. About 8-0-90% of gamers roll dice and beat stuff up. It's been that way since the beginning.

Yes, it does depend on the type of campaign. If you are doing a lot of Star hopping, with adventures taking place somewhere new each week, as in TOS and TNG Star Trek, then you don't need as much detail. You still need some, both for the adventure proper, and to give ti enough favlor to make it feel real. That's why on TV there are always signs, strange lettering an other bits fo strangeness about. To make it feel like the players are on an alien planet. Like the time early in TOS when Roddenbery went and ripped up the plants and put them upside down so the alien planet didn't look like someone s garden. If the GM is setting a campaign in a specific location, like on a Space station , as whas the case with DS9, then you need to flesh out the local cultures even more, since you will be using them more. Series, film, TV, or book, also tend to revisit certain places and people and add more details later. I say there is really no difference by genre, but by style of the campaign. The more locations available to play in the less detail each location will need. At least initially. Once play begins, if the PCs spend a lot of time on Planet X, and not so much on Planet Y, then Planet X will need more detail. The same thing is true in a fantasy or historical RPG. If the PCs are wandering mercenaries, merchants, or pirates at sea, then it would be the same sort of situation.

My impression was that there was some thought on combining the two into a single setting, and/or some confusion over which setting would have the gates. I'm a bit hesitant to start creating something without some parameters, as depending on what it ultimately decided upon any concept could easily be incompatible. I suspect that if we just create and "worry about formatting and organization once we have real content to format and organize", we are probably going to be going on in as many different directions as we are now. I'm not griping either. I just think that with so many different authors and the realtively slow rate that these thing hash out in posts, as opposed to live communications, it is just something that is going to take time. It's just the nature of this sort of thing combined with the slow speed of posts. Or, we can bite the bullet come to some form or agreement, either by voting or a decision from a "senior supervisor" and move on. I've got a half dozen or so different ideas that I could explore but am waiting to see where we end of heading so I can see which one to develop. I've seen several good ideas, not all of which are compatible and am willing to work with any of them.

As usual, lots of wisdom in Ray's post. I'm only going to comment on the end, but I agree with most of what Ray typed. About the only disagreement I have is that PDF's are cheap. They are cheap to buy, but end up costing more once you factor in the cost to print. But otherwise I agree with you. I recall something I saw on TV awhile back, where they showed letters written by people from the 1950s. Most of it was the older people complaining about how the youth had no respect, how morals were disappearing, how violence had escalated, how costs had gone up and so forth. Letters from younger people had comments about how they old folks were stuck in their ways, and wouldn't accept change or progress. Then they showed letters from 1900., 1850s and so forth,, and they were all remarkably similar. They even pulled out stuff from ancient Rome that read about the same. So a lot of this is "thing were better in my younger days". I remember back in the 80s how a good 75% of the stuff on the shelves was by TSR, and of no use to me since I played the other RPGs. I see more support for other games now, either on the shelves or on the net, then there was back in the "good old days". I remember being one of the lucky two who managed to pick up a copy of Timelords and Ars Magica-back in the days when if you didn't see it on the shelf, you would never know it existed. Now, we can search catalogs and check the internet, even go to company websites and get errata, freebies, and fan produced stuff. Just look at this site. We've got over 20 files available for download to support an RPG than hasn't even come out yet. We couldn't do that 20 years ago. It wasn't around when I was surfing the net on Compuserve paying by the hour for internet access. So we really haven't had it so good. Especially in the light of how many "dead" RPGs seem to be making a comeback in one form or another, and the ability to find old games online.

I'd think Triff would be the one to make the final decision, and be "Supervising Editor" or some such. Polls can be helpful, but can be flawed, both in terms of "skewed" results, and in skewed options. With so many contributors we a re bound to go off in 20 different directions. Just as long as we can disagree, accept the final decision and continue on, we should be able to get some sort of result.

That's actually not a bad idea. We could put a notice on our supplments: "Not one human, real or imagined, was harmed during the playing of this adventure". Hold up until someone drops his dice and knocks his head on the underside of the table. :shocked:

Sounds like a typical stupid knee-jerk reaction. Where I live, a frew years ago it was discovered that this guy murdered his pregnant wife. So this movement sprang up to ammend the law so that killing a pregnant woman is now two counts of murder. One for the woman and another for the unborn baby. Not that it actually makes a difference. Anyone who is willing to murder his wife isn't going to let the number of counts stop him. Nor does it make a difference when he gets sentenced. While you can be sentenced to serve multiple life sentences, no one has actually done so. But somehow people felt like they had done something about the matter and somehow made the world a safer place for expecting mothers. Violence existed long before we had games, but blaming the games gives people something that they can do to feel better about themselves, and is certainly much easier than looking at the situation, and possibly end up blaming themselves. Like those cases when school kids go on a shooting spree. A teenager has an AK-47 and two UZi in his room and enough ammo to take down a herd of charging elephants, but somehow Mom and Dad never noticed any of it. Of course they hadn't talked to him or spent any time with him in two years, but it's much easier to find someone else to blame that to actually admit that they are, no were, lousy parents.

What I'm saying is that penetration @ 200m isn't the same as penetration up close. SO just because it doesn't penetrate 6" @ 200m doesn't mean it won't at closer ranges. The rounds that don't are light rounds that break up on impact. The 5.56 NATO and, to a lesser extent, the 7.62 NATO. Damage? or penetration? As far as penetration goes, don't be so skeptical. The change in energy is proportional to the square of the change in velocity. Also we still don't know what kind of concrete the army used in those tests. For the other test, mentioned and the statement about shooting through building material specifically mentions reinforced concrete. That makes a big difference, since reinforced concrete is many times stronger than solid concrete as used by the Major. The M2 round used in the tests @ Gary's was an AP round. So we do have data for an AP roundagainst conrete. I suspect it's against reniforced concrete.The major may be using the same ammo.There are a couple of .50 cal. AP rounds so he could be using the M33. However since the M33 has less penetration that the M2, so if anything the numbers would be higher. Multiply what? The thickness of the wall or the Energy of the bullet. In you increase the thickness of the wall by four then you will increase the APs. Also the drop off of a bullet's energy is not a nice simply -x every y meters or twice the distance half the energy. Here is a link to a ballistics table for a .50 cal round. It's a different round, but is good for a rough idea. Ballistic tables 50 bmg I get 37/35/31 AP that way. If you are subtracting 10 for concrete that becomes 27/25/21. Wow that is still going to suck up all of the normal 4d6+3 roll so what kind of divisor or bonus is reasonable? Actually 4d6+3 can get though 25 and 21 APs. Just not much can get though. That is the problem with a wide damage roll, that I've raised before. In order to penetrate something reliably the damage has to be set high enough so the round will penetrate. Spauling.? No, since it is in a book about sniping I don't think he is expecting sauling to do it. Especially from a .50 cal. And I doubt the .50 has much energy left after penetrating that 9", otherwise it would have gone a little deeper. No I didn't. You didn't realize that the round listed in Gary's was the M2 AP round.

I put something like that in the spaceship rules, where the ships get to heal like a character (1d3 hp).

Glad it worked. Some suggestions: If it is an advanced setting, you might want to assume they have something better than aluminum and sneak up the AP a little. Perhaps they have crush on impact fenders that work like ablative armor (extra hit points). Self sealing: Sounds to me like the ship can do First Aid on itself.

None taken. Frankly I'd love to get more data to work with when designing something. The more data points the better I can make the formula. I think I understand most of Joseph's Pauls complaints. I just don't think that those isses can be addressed by something that is trying to be compatable with the numbers given in BRP. If we were to throw out the values and build from the ground up it could be adressed but then it wouldn't be compatible. One idea I've been toying with is a sort of damage class system with the damage ratings on a sclae like the SB5 demon chart: 1D2/1D4/1D6/1D8/1D10/1D10+1D2(2D6)/1D10+1D4/1D10+1D6 (2D8)/1D10+1D8/2D10, etc. Then treat armor as a DC shift. That way we could make armor penetration consistent. So, if a 7,72 was DC8 (2D6+2 is about the same a 1D10+1D6) and an M113 APC could stop it, it would have a 8-9 DC reduction. If a .50 cal did DC14 (2D10+1D8 about the same as 4D6+3) so if a .50 cal was fired at a M113, anyone inside who was hit would take DC6/2D6 (DC14-DC8=6) damage. It's simple, easy and eliminates several of the problems between weapons, armor, and characters. You never have to worry about a gun not penetrating what it should, or a gun punching though something it can't.

All data should be suspect. Your orginal point was that a .50 cal won't penetrate 6" of concrete because Gary's say's it wont. And Gary's has that @ 200m. None of the info pulled out by either of us is conclusive (concrete? ). THat is just the point. Or do you dbout that a .50 cal will penetrate more at 100m than at 200m. Compare both sets of data and combine to one table: [table] Range| Steel|Clay|Sand|Concrete 90m|46mm|1067-1626mm|610-914mm (dry/wet)|229mm 200m|25.4mm|711mm|356mm|51mm 600m |17.6mm|686mm|304mm|25mm[/table] Now putting that in AP terms on the table we get: Compare both sets of data and combine to one table: [table] Range| Steel|Clay|Sand|Concrete 90m|26AP|44-46AP|41-43AP (dry/wet)|35AP 200m|23AP|42AP|38AP|27AP 600m |20AP|42AP|37AP|23AP[/table] Note that except for concrete, the relative penetrating ability between materials is rather consistent. Clay is about -20 AP behind steel (that is a bullet that will penetrate 26 APs of steel will penetrate about 46 APs of clay), Sand is about -16. All the data falls within 2 points except concrete. With concrete we get an average of -5, with the 100m range being 4 more and the farther ranges being 1 and 2 less. If we assume that the solid concrete used at 90m is solid, and that the other concretes have been reinforced, we'd get about -7 AP for solid concrete and -4AP or so for reinforced. All in all I think the table holds up pretty well.

A penetration stat isn't a bad idea. Personally, I'd like to either rate it in incches/cm/mm steel. Or maybe flesh. Then we would have to try and work out values for other materials. Interestingly enough, I don't think that has any effect on the table per say. I just think I need to adjust the modifiers for different materials as I get more data. Case in point, due to this debate I've been doing some surfing on information about the ballistic properties of concrete, a topic that I previously had not dwelled upon for long. I've been finding out that there are different grades and that some newer concretes are specifically made to be resistant to bullets. At this point I'm thinking that concrete is about a -10, and that reinforced concrete is about a -5. That is more of something that had been discussed in email flowing over onto the forum. I showed Joseph Paul, and a few others, the table before I posted it here or used it in the BRP Quick Vehicle Rules 4.2. He didn't like it then, and he doesn't like it now. Nor will he. If he can find something that works better and still fits the data points in BRP I'd be glad to adopt it. If he wants to do something different, that's fine too. My goal was to write something compatible with BRP that people could use. Not replace the game system.