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I'd rather just go with hit points, it is a stat that already exists, and mass plays a huge factor in resistance. Even if a 120 kg (265 lb) person is mostly fat, that fat will require more of a substance to work effectively. It also why you are going to need a lot more of a drug to take down a T-Rex than you would to drop a tiger. Way back some of us did up a poison table using the LD50 amount to get the quantity of a toxin required to get POT 10, and then adjusted the POT to the amount based on the SIZ table relationship. So twice as much would be +8 POT, four times as much +16 POT and so on.

I suppose that comes down to what people want to use the game for. Some people want a more heroic style of play and there are other games that do that better; others want a more cinematic style of play and yet again there are other games the do that better as well; still others want games that are more foving of PC mistakes than BRP is, and yes there are games that do that better; BRP is more grounded in reality than most. So we either have to take it as it is or adapt to to what we want it to be. But the latter is probably more for individual groups and GMs as I doubt there is any consensus among the fanbase about what changes we'd want, and so most of us probably want it to remain mostly as it is. I think that just goes with suggesting any change. Basically you have to justify why said change is better for BRP compared to the existing rule, and why it would be better for the majority of BRP players, as opposed to being a houserule (which only has to justify the change from one GM's own point of view).

I think they could. Yes, being overweight is bad for you and affects your health, but it doesn't prevent you from being healthy, it just makes you less healthy than you otherwise would be. Similar to smoking or excess drinking, or medical conditions such as diabetes or asthma. They do not prevent a high CON, just reduce what CON you have. So someone who is overweight might have a CON that is a point or two lower that it should otherwise be. Hmm, a case could be made for somewhat having a higher CON because of being overweight or a medical condition. Basically if they were not healthy they would have succumbed to illness due to the condition. Esepcially in cultures that lack advanced medicine.

Yeah but the limit is somewhat suspect.. A STR 18, SIZ 8 guy can't improve his STR but a STR 3 SIZ 18 guy can. Yeah, I used it to help highlight that STR and weight/mass are intertwined, and not really independent of each other. A SIZ 18 man would need a certain amount of muscle mass just to be able to live and move his own body weight. I think it becomes more of an issue with creatures that roll a lot of dice, since you can get some ridiculous results, such as a STR 30 SIZ 68 elephant. I think STR and SIZ should probably be restricted to being with 15 points or so of each other. Sounds like RQ3, where STR, CON and SIZ could be raised to the highest of the 3 while DEX and APP could be trained up to 1.5 time the original amount. The problem with the STR/CON/SIZ thing though is that it would prevent the species max of 21 from being obtained. IMO the x1.5 rule makes a lot more sense, although I think a raise by fixed number of points (say 5) might be better, since attributes are on a logarithmic scale. So some giant that raises STR from 80 to 85 is getting the same 54% increase in lifting ability as a human who raises their STR from 10 to 15. Looking at weightlifting most people start off being able to lift a weight a couple of points below their SIZ and end up increasing that original amount by 50-100%. So something like SIZ -2 or so to start and STR +4-8 at the end, depending on the type of lifting. So about a 6-10 point improvement. Probably the max is alittle more, maybe 12 points? So the max ratings could be a little bit higher than what we see in BRP.

The thing is fat weights less than muscle. In the real world the thing is that only so much of a person's body mass can be muscle; if someone weights 98 pounds, they can't have 150 pounds of muscle. Since muscles are what provide physical strength, Strength can only vary so much from a person's Size. STR 18 SIZ 18 is far more likely to happen in the real world than STR 18 SIZ 8, although both are just as likely to happen in chargen. Yes, SIZ that outstrips Strength would mean less muscle mass. Although there would be a minimum amount of muscle mass needed for a creature to be able to move and such. THe same would be true for a normal person of a high gravity world. Say you had someone who had STR 10, SIZ 13. Put them on a planet with 4G of gravity and their weight would be four times that of normal for an effect SIZ of 29, which would make it much harder for the person to move about, or even breathe. Yes, but the thinking is that someone who has a high SIZ and low STR is probably out of shape and thus their Health (and thus COnsitution) isn't what it could be. It's probably true, to a point, but most RPGs don't require PCs to work out to stay is shape, so it is probably moot.

Yes it is a very borad stroke, but SIZ is a rather coarse statistic. By that I mean any given creature is only going to have so much muscle mass for a given body mass, and creatures have a mass range they will fall into. You are not going to find a human with a density similar to iron. So for a human of a given volume there will be a given mass range. It does with Strength. So much so that Strength should probably be at last partially derived from SIZ. As for Constitution, I don't think being larger makes a creature any healthier but it does all it to absorb more punishment or tolerate a greater amount of toxins. I think the easiest way to handle that is to use hit points. For instance using hit points to resist poison instead of CON. That way it will take a larger dose to tranquilize a horse or bear than a human. Possibly. A lot of that is open to interpretation. Plus the training rules allow STR and CON to be raised up to SIZ makes sheer body mass important. But the point is that SIZ is tied more closely to mass than anything else, and most of the stats and rules reflect this. The OP's point was that we should change the stats for dwarves, halfings and such to closer match those of other RPGs. I don't think we should. That is something that should be left to authors and GMs who are world building based on what they want for their settings. Glorantha has its "elves", "dwarves" and "trolls" and they are not that same as the Tolkien based elves, dwarves and trolls we see in most FRPGs- and that's perfectly fine. If a GM wants bigger dwarves with different stats for a particular setting they can write up new stats, like I did above. We shouldn't have to change RQ/BRP stats to reflect how something is done in D&D, Harn, MERP or whatever. Otherwise well end up changing other stats and other rules to match those other game systems too. Oh, and n=on that note does anyone know what the racial stats look like in Classic Fantasy? Are they like BRP, do they have different stats, or do they just use modifiers like +2 STR, +2 CON, -2 SIZ like D&D does (Early edtions of Stormbringer did that as well)..

Yup, that's basically true, modern revolvers usually have a transfer bar or hammer block which takes care of the matter. although I think it is still an issue with some single action revolvers such as the Colt Single Action Army, or Ruger Blackhawk (although there is a transfer bar upgrade that fixes this for the Ruger). I think the text came from a CoC book set in the 1890s or 1920s when it was much more relevant, as many revolvers were still older (1850s-1880s) designs that had remained in production for decades.

BTW, since you brought up MERP, I looked at the Dwarf stats I used for my RQ MERP campaign, from way back. You might like the stats for houseruling: STR 2d6+7 CON 2d6+9 SIZ 2D6+4 INT 2D6+6 POW 2D6+3 DEX 3D6 APP 2D4+2

It might, if dwarves were based on Tolkien Dwarves instead of Glorathan Dwarves. Keep in mind that most of the feantasy races in BRP were ported over from RuneQuest, as opposed to being inspired by the works of Tolkien as in D&D and most other FRPGs. Yes, but most other RPGs make Dwarves and hobbit much stronger compared to humans that they should be according to their source, i.e. the works of Tolkien. In fact in MERP Dwarves have the same STR modifier as men, and Hobbits are much weaker compared to men than they are in D&D. And most RPGs don't even include the 'high men", who would be much larger than the common men. Yes, but that doesn't mean those other games got it right. D&D intepreted and reinterpreted the various races from Tolkien and most other FRPGs pattenered thier races off of D&D. In the context of BRPs higher AP ratings! In old RQ shield AP vailes were about 60% of what they are in BRP. So a Slugh 16 point shield would protect 8 points, good but not nearly as good as the 13 points of protection in BRP. In reality I suspect some sort of shield wall, with thrusting weapons (1H or 2H) was probably the most defensive option. That's why it held sway in the ancient world for so long I can't argue with you there. The way it was done was for the shield to be hung around the neck and the shield strap on the weapon arm so it would move with the weapon, but that was for long spears, not for axes and greatswords., not without impeding their use. MAybe the fix would be for the rules as written to apply only to thrusting/implaing weapons, and limiting shields to the back of anyone weilding a slashing or crushing weapon?

Not all. The font of wisdom that is the RQ2 Appendix (p.110-110 RQ Classic Edition), noted that SIZ could be broken down into Height and Weight, and that Strike Rank, Defense, Parry and Stealth modifiers were dependent on height, while Damage Bonus and Stealth (again) were tied to weight.

Actually it (mostly) does. Most living creatures have a mass about the same as water, or about 1 ton per cubic meter. SO you can get a good idea of the volume based on the mass. Yes, but for a living creature it's hard to vary all that much from the norm. That's why stuff like BMI (Body Mass Index) works. Now for creatures made out of material other than flesh and blood, such as gargoyles, animated statures and such, mass could end up much higher than volume, but we'd probably need to track the Mass as a SIZE figure too in case the characters have to move said creature or object. For instance, a full size stature of a an average man (77kg, SIZ 13) made out of gold (sg 19.3) would still be SIZ 13 by volume but would have a mass of 1486 kg and be about SIZ 47 for purposes of lifting or moving it. INMO the best approach for that is to just list it as SIZ 13 (47) But probably not much more than 25% or so more than the norm, or about 3 more points of STR than SIZ. Yes, in BRP we generate STR independent of SIZ, and have a modifier to weight for body frame allowing for some extreme variance between the two, but we really wouldn't see a lot of variance in the density of bone, and tissue between humans, or between most memebers of any given species for that matter. Yeah, fansty creatures might be an exception to that, but magic can do that. It's why giant insects and even giant humans are possible in a fantasy world. Yeah, RQ2 actually noted that it used both and that people might was to split it between height and weight, with height affecting SR and weight affecting damage bonus and hit points. But most BRP creatures and objects from SIZ 8 to SIZ 88 tend to use mass for SIZ going back to the old Superworld boxed set. Altering the relationship would require restating all of that to fit with whatever the new approach would be.

Those proportions are height, but SIZ is more analogous to weight/mass. By that reasoning the cube square law would apply, meaning that x2 height is x8 mass, and that is just what the original authors did when the worked out the SIZ stats back in the 80s. The problem with doing things proportional by height is that SIZ would rapidly expand for larger creatures, and we'd wind up with animals that would have hundreds of hit points, and do lots more damage than they do now. Yes fantasy beings can bend these rules a bit but even then a linear approach would cause more problems than it would fix. For instance STR and SIZ are tied to each other and put on the same scale, so altering one would neccitate alterting the other to match. In The Lord of the Rings it's noted that men have several times the strength of hobbits (real world cube square law again) and a linear scale would require making hobbits much smaller and weaker than they are currently, and likewise inflate the stats of larger creatures. That so called "exploit" is basically reality. In the past slug shield with two handed pole-arm was a real thing. Various pikemen, hoplites, phalaxes, etc. did just that. Furthermore the protection isn't for free- the wielder only gets half value and only on a limited number of hit locations rather that the full benefits that go with normal shield use and the parry.

LOL! (literally, someone else in the house asked me what I was laughing about). Sorry, my bad. It is a bit confusing but once you figure it out, it is okay, as it is the same process for all careers. Oh, and since I've got you spending money, might I suggest you take a peek at Spica Publishing's career books? They add more careers, and some alternate tables and rules for chargen. Well, since the OP was wondering the merits of M-Space over Traveller it probably is on topic to note what can be done with Traveller for comparison. IMO, M-SPACE's advantages are that a it has BRP type skills, and combat, and a GM can draw from various BRP-related products for their campaign. Traveller doesn't have a half dozen or so different magic systems that can be used, if desired; or both a fixed and variable armor system to choose from; or BRP mecha to draw from to add mecha stats. M_SPACE's biggest advantage, IMO, is that every BRP related product is at least mostly compatible with it. Now admitted, Traveller has grown somewhat over the past decade or so, and has a lot of options now too, but M-SPACE still as more options and flexibility. I mean just consider chargen for a character who doesn't fit one of the available careers. In M_SPACE you just got to convice the GM what skills would be available to a given Profession, but in Traveller you have to come up with a new chargen career sheet with multiple tables and mustering out benefits.

Well Traveller 2300 was, by name Traveller, it just wasn't Traveller in the traditional sense; which is precisely why they renamed it. Now Mongose 2300AD is Traveller (Mongoose Traveller) mechanically, but with a differnt setting and technology, and probably more what people expectred back when we saw Traveller 2300.

Wasn't that the same as T5? Or did Marc do multiple games? I thought they changed the nameto prevent people from confusing it with Traveller, or thinking that it was a supplement for Traveller, or comtible with Traveller the way Mongosse's Traveller 2300 AD is today.. The Humans in 2300AD were not Traveller's Solomani, there was no Imperium, and the basic game mechanics were not compatible although similar. Stutterwarp (yup, that was the term) was basically a Jump-2 drive (well, Jump 2.362 to be precise). 2300 was sort of the black sheep of the Traveller line. Mechanically it think it was one of the better games, and it was a real hard Sci-Fi setting, which is a rarity, but it was distict from GDW's other stuff. It also appeared to suffer a bit of condusion over what it was supposed to be. Orginally it was a sort of a exploration/proto-Traveller game, then it turned into a war against the Kafer, ala Starship Troppers, then it got a bit like Aliens with the Marine and their gear, and towards the end it was going Cyberpunk. Anyway back to the main topic, it really comes down to what people want to play and why. Assuming the players want and expect the same things from a game then that is the one to go with. So how the players feel about each game, and what they expect from it is the key thing.

Eeek! I missed one! 😁 Well, more than one, as I also forgot Traveller :The New Era, GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars, and and Hero Traveller. I glossed over the whole original 3 book Traveller vs. Traveller with expanded Chargen which was a thing back in the day. Not to mention with and without Snapshot., which was also a big thing way back. The game system has a lot of variations.

Well then that's the thing and the rest doesn't really matter. All RPGs have various features that can appeal to someone or discourage someone from playing, and those features vary from person to person. The important thing is to find one that you want to play, and this is especially true if you are the one who is going to have to GM. The GM needs to be enthusiastic about the game or it will fail. So if you got your heart set on running M-SPACE go with it. Now as to why I think someone would prefer to run M-SPACE over Traveller: M-SPACE is BRP realted and migh be preferable to someone who likes BRP M-SPACE gives characters more skills in chargen as well as more control over chargern (which might be critical for a small group-imagine a Traveller game where no one can pilot a ship). M-SPACE is more open ended as far as setting goes, which might appeal to a GM who wants to do thier own thing (although a GM isn't forced to use the Traveller setting and Cephus is more open ended, but then the setting is part of Traveller's appeal.

Not to mention which version of Traveller: Original Traveller, MegaTraveller, Traveller: 2300, Mongoose Traveller, T5, Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition, Mongoose Traveller 2300 AD, Cepheus, etc.

Something from the Futura font family, such as Futura Light might be a good choice. It's clean, quite legible, has a bunch of variants that could be used for headers, titles and such, and appears to be affordable.

Accidental double post

So I've heard from other playtesters. I've been told that pretty much all of the failing of MRQ1 were spooted and pointed out by the playtesters, but people at Mongoose didn't want to hear it, or I should say one specific person at Mongoose. I also heard that Matt Sprange told Steven PErrin that he didn't know how to write an RPG, which was incredible stupid on multiple counts. I disagree the published game was garbage. How many other RPGs get errated before BEFORE release and which the authors admit was ran inccorectly when revealed at conventions? I think I spent months dealing with angry fans over at the Mongoose forums who didn't understand why people didn't like the game, and that all the dumb rules they were defending had already been errated out of existence by Mongoose. Mongoose isn't known for quality rulesets (quite a few players have said whatever the release just wait for the second edtion), but MRQ was probably the worst, most confusing release of an RPG ever. Ken Hite writes good stuff. I wish Steve Perrin would have wrote the game, as he wrote every classic Chasoium RPG except Pendragon. But then again, if he had Mongoose would have edited it. And the first thing errated back out. I think the big problem was that the Mongoose staff were D&D players, not familiar with RQ, and they didn't understand the differences between the game systems, how the RQ rules interacted with each other, and the domino effect caused by changing one rule. For instance, the doubling damage option designed to address the complaints that MRQ combat was a lot "softer" that RQ, would have worked in D&D, where damage only intereacts with hit points, but in RQ, damage also intereacts with armor and parry weapons. Likewise, magical weapons vs. resistant creatures works differently, and we all know how giving Orthath the Chaos worked. In D&D it makes sense as aw and Chaos are distinct from Good and Evil and have been since AD&D. Storms being unpredicable would be considered Chaotic Neutral in D&D terms. But in Gloranthan terms Chaos has a entirely different meaning. So all thie changes that made sense from a D&D point of view created problems and Mongoose's lack of understanding of RQ mean't that whenever Mongoose tried to fix some problem that they had introduced, the broke other aspects of the game. A somewhat similar thing seemed to have happened with the editing of 5th edition Pendragon. There were several edits that looked like they were designed to prevent D&D power gaming but that contradicted all previous editions of the game and really nerfed the game. Fortunately when we pointed them out to Greg he overruled them and said that the book was wrong and the old rules were correct. White Wolf even made a 5.1 edition to fix it too. So it looks like it was just a honest mistake by someone who meant well but didn't understand the game. Yeah, Mongoose staff stayed away from it, and Loz and Pete do good work. While I prefer the BRP/RQ rules over the MRQ2/Legend rules and Mythas rules, I don't loath either of those rulesets. MRQ1 still angers me all these year later. I think it is the only RPG book I sold off for store credit.

It could well be. A lot of Mythos stuff is more that what we (can) perceive it to be or (can) understand. Since much of the Mythos is so alien to our understanding there all all sorts of possibilities. Hmm, what about a creature that can be seen by all creatures, even those that normally cannot see?

It is differernt but you could port it over, if you wanted to. Mongoose RQ is, at best, a mixed bag. IMO, most of the authors appeared to lack an understanding of RQ game mechanics and how the system interconnected (like when they gave the option of doubling weapon damage to restore the leathaity to the game that was removed by other changes made by Mongoose without realizing that doing so would seriously impact the effect of armor and parrying), but Elric of Melnibone was written by Lawrence Whitaker and Pete Nash, who wrote BRP Rome, and who understood the game mechanics. The magic system in Elric of Melnibone isn't BRP sorcery though. I wouldn't say it was bad, just different. It is mostly BRP compatible, too, as much of the underlying stats and mechanics are the same, and what isn't can usually be adapted easily enough.

"solution" implies that is is a problem. It might not actually be. It's just a potential pitfall and implications thereof. Oh that will tend to happen anyway. Usually the sorceror will outfit friends and allies with demon items, to keep them alive, make them more effective in battle, and to increase "target potential" to the enemy (otherwise the enemy have good incentive to gang up on the sorcerer). Yes, and that's nothing compared to old Stormbringer where a good sorcerer could summon up a weapon that did an extra 10d6 and whose armor was virtualy immune to non-magical weapons. Exactly, and they are worse the earlier the edition you use. It not a bad thing per say, just the way it is and both GMs and players should be aware of it going in. Otherwise there wiull be a nasty surprise when a warrior corners a wizard and his greataxe goes "tink" upon hitting the wizard's silken coat. Stormbringer had lesser elemental that had special abilities that were not the same as demon abilities. Plus elementals were not necessarily malevolent the way demons usually were. So alrelemental might be able to fill the sails of a boat to move it, allow one to breathe underwater, or shoot blasts of fire. They could also eliminate each other, which is useful when a sorcerer sends a salamander after a fellow PC I'd have to take another look at the BGB to see what sort of elementals BRP has, but I bet they have similar abilities. Just a reminder that demons and elementals don't always have to be bound. A sorcerror can summon up a demon and bargain with it to get it to perform a single task for him before it returns to it's own plane. Elementals were easier in that they didn't have to be bargained with and the one service for a summoning this was the expected relationship. Depending on the POW of the demons you use in your campaign, this could be the norm for your world. For instance, if the average demon has a POW of 5d8 few sorcerers and going to want to risk binding them, so bargain for service would be more common.

Possible but: Someone would have to collect those rules into a supplement and reformat them like the ones in the BGB, which would take time and money away from other projects. Who want's it, and is willing to pay for it? For example, let's look at the opposed game mechanics used in Pendragon. Anyone who wants to use it in BRP must already be familiar with the Pendragon system and could just port it over right now, and so would not need to buy another supplement containing those rules to do so. The same holds true for CoC7 rules. Anyone who wants them probably already has or CoC7 or could just buy it and port the rules over. So again there is no need for them to buy another supplement. The BGB itself came out at a time when most o Cahoisum's other RPGs were out of print and not available, especially RuneQuest. The printing of RQG, and also CoC7 which not only put a lot of those rules back into print but also change many of them to the point where they don't line up as well with the earlier products works against the cross compatibility of the BGB. Now where I think your argument has some merit, from a business sense as a gaming sense (that is more that just "it would be nice to have it and we want it", which I do understand) is with the unique rules from games like Ringworld. If the rules could be decoupled from the Known Universe setting (because the Niven estate owns it) and maybe reworked into a different, scifi setting (something that official BRP lines tend to be a bit light on), it probably would sell. If it was a setting that had stuff tat could be adapted to other scifi settings, with spaceship rules and such, I think it would probably sell very well, and become the go to book for those wanting to use BRP for sci fi. Kinda like how the Investigator Weapons supplements for COC are so comprehensive that they are the go to book for firearm stats for just about any BRP game, not just CoC. The stats are there and the stats make sense in most BRP games (and damage could be doubled for the games where they don't), so why not use them? Same with some of the Ringworld stuff- the non-Ringworld specific stuff. I understand that you'd like to see a comprehensive book that covers all the rules. Many of us would. Personally I'd like to see some more RQ3 rules as options, and so on, but I have to consider if that would be viable from Chaosium's point of view. Plus, I have RQ3 so I can port over anything I want from it into a BRP game (or vice versa), so I'm not really losing out. I have sympathy for your position, I just don't think it is all that practical to make the changes or produce the supplement you want.