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Yes and that's deliberate, thee idea is to replicate the 1/10th skill game mechanic without the need of a table. So a Stormbringer style critical (1/10th skill) could be replicated by using one number (say 0, 1 or 9 depending of if we want a lowvalue or high die to be better), a RQ critical by using one number and only the evens (5% chance) and a special success (20% skill) could be replicated by using two numbers (say 1 and 2 or 7 and 8). Thus the chances of getting an above average success level would increase as skill increases. Also the chances of getting a fumble would decrease at the same rate. This lets us ditch the table and math, and makes it easier to use opposed rolls, as it would be the same game mechanic (ones die) used to determine success level.

That assumes that nothing reducies the damage. I would expect that wood and stone either have some inherent armor value or that Structure Points would work like RQ3 Armor Points- that is they stop their value before being reduced. Taking an axe to a stone wall is probably going to ruin the axe long before the axe breaks through the wall.

Yes, although it is a bit of a grey area. Basically the tools themselves are legal to own, it's just that having them on you when you are in a suspicious situation adds evidence against you. For example, if a cop sees you "lurking around the back door of a house" and decides to arrest you for loitering or some such, the lockpicks could let him up the charge to burglary. Now if you happened to own and live at the house in question, the lockpicks pretty much become okay again, as there is no law against picking your own locks-although doing so would certainly be viewed at as suspicious behavior by any obvserver.

Yeah, I know, based on some of your other threads. That's why I throwing out everything so that you have lots of options to pick and choose from. In that case what is the benefit of the critical? How is it better than normal attack vs. normal defense?

Yes. No as an alterantive to. The main difference would be that a character would have to declare/try for the increased success level rather than it be automatic. That would prevent major characters from being taking out by a lucky "01" from "Rubble Runner Three" or some such. Yes that would be bad. The idea was as an alternative. If I were to combine the two then I'd make the raises cheaper that the automatic. Say -15% or -20% instead of 30%. That way the 40% character would have to decide between rolling unmodified, with a 10% chance of 2 success levels and a 30% chance of one success level, or take a raise for a 20% chance of two success levels. Something like that could get interesting with player having decide between playing it safe and getting their automatic success or taking a risk for potentially greater results. I'm not to sure about -20/30% though. I'd probably want to test out a few values and see what seems to work best. The goal would be to make the choice between automatic success and taking raises a bit difficult.

Not it isn't really simple, especially when "the right value" could vary from GM to GM. Yes there is a risk of higher skilled characters being able to "run the table" by taking low risk raises or even free raises if skill exceeds 100%. It's one reason why I think A Hero Point mechnaic to buy raises/success levels would be needed - as least for PCs and VIP NPCs. Yes and that is why I think Hero Points are required to offset this somewhat. Keep in mind though that in RQ2 or RQG that excess skill would come off of the opponent's skill, which can be just as severe. For instance 120% vs. 80% in this variant could be 90% with one raise vs. 80% which is isn't much worse than RQ2's 100% vs. 60% Yes, if you need to. It would depend a lot on what the difference in success levels is worth. For instance, let's say that you've got a character with 40% skill facing off against someone with 120%. The 120%er takes a raise, so the 40% character ir probably going to have to take a raise to have a chance of winning. Other he will still lose 2:1 even if he succeeds. That's similar to what Rolemaster does. Sort of. I'd say it actually benefits NPCs. My reasoning is that probabilities being what the are eventually even low skilled characters will roll crticals. Since criticals in BRP games tend to be rather deadly even to highly skilled characters, then the rule will lead to PCs taking more crtical hits, making the game more lethal to them. That's kinda true for all critical hit systems. Now yes the same holds true for the NPCs, but so what? Most NPCs the PCs fight are essentially disposable. No one really care if Trollkin #3 or Bandit #2 survive and show up for the next game session. We care if the PCs do. So in the long run a crtical hit rule probably hurts the PCs more than it helps them, just becuase they will get more attacks rolled against them than any NPC ever will. SO the rule should probably be looked at from a PC vs NPC view rather than high skill vs. low skill. From that viewpoint I think something like Hero Points would be required to balance this out for the PCs. But ultimately these are all difference ways of handling oppsed skills, critical hits and degrees of success. I don't think there is one single best way to do that, just several ways,. each with their pros and cons.

In that case, since I'm on a roll, one thing that BRP doesn't have but could work, would be the idea of raises. Basically, someone takes a penalty to a skill roll but gets a higher Success Level if they succeed. This would be similar to your "make by 30" idea but a bit more controlled as the bump up in SL would be more by design that by chance. It would be nice since not only would it reduce the chance of the inevitable "01" by a mook killing off a PC, but it would also work out pretty well for PCs who are over-matched, as the higher skilled NPC might play it safe and take the sure thing while a PC might have to risk the lower percentages to have a chance of winning.

Me too. I fear that it would make a 30% difference a commanding advantage. That could be bad for "heroic underdog" situations where the PCs confront a more highly skilled bad guy. It probably would take a lot of the risk (and thus excitement) out of PC vs mook conflicts. In some ways this is similar to how Masteries work in HeroQuest. Perhaps HQ could provide the solution, too., Hero Points. If Hero Points could be spent to bump up success levels, we'd have a counterbalance to big skill differences. It could also be used to ramp up the dramatic tension, with an overmatched PC holding off a more skilled adversary by burning through Hero Points. Oh, and just to toss out another variant, and one that I believe I've mentioned elsewhere, we could always just use the 1s digit for the success level. That would give us up to ten possible success levels and an equal number of failure levels (more if we do something like odd or even for the tens die). For instance we could do something like: 0= best result (i.e. critical success/fumble) 1-2= second best (i.e. special success) 3-7 = average result (average success) 8-9 = marginal result (marginal success) So if someone had a skill of 57% and he rolled a 34 it would be a a normal success. If they rolled a 59 it would be a marginal failure. Obviously we could add more that four success levels or change the bands to 0-1/2-4/5-8/9, flip it 9/7-8/3-6/1-2, or whatever.With a slight tweak we could even get the same breakdowns as in standard BRP, Stormbringer, etc. Note that if we tie things like damage done, damaged parried, distance moved etc more directly to the success level if desired. We could even treat extended tasks as require a certain number of success levels, and then keep a running tally. --Just throwing it out there as a possible game mechanic that doesn't require math.

One concern I'd have with that method is that it would require a certain skill score to achieve certain success levels. For instance, someone with Sword 20% can't make a skill roll by 30% let alone 60% or 90%. It will also make a 30% difference in skills much more decisive, as it will result in more success levels. For example someone with 120% skill will average 1 success level more than someone with 90%. I'm not saying it's a bad method, just that it will really change things.

It had criticals and impales since first edition. I remember the notes for automatic weapons with only the first bullet in a burst impaling on a special success in the 1920s Sorcebook. I believe i was the old RQ2 MAx plus rolled version of impales too. Not that crits and impales mattered much against Mythos nasties. I won't be home until the weekend, but if you want, when I get home, I can look it up.

Yeah, but there are multiple ways to represent that. D&D went with a 3-18 scale for attributes and separate modifier that was applied to damage, attack rolls, etc. For instance, an Ars Magic style attributes would have allowed for the same thing without the need for a 3-18 attribute, making things a little simpler. Of course that's what happens when someone is the first to do something. I sometimes wonder just what D&D would be like if Gygax and Arneson could have looked into the future and see the games that were to follow.

I believe that it is in the critical and specials table.

Yup. I think what happened was that D&D added some degrees of abstraction to things, and that became the norm for RPGs that followed. Thus attributes and stat bonuses became a thing common to RPGS, similar to how class and level became a thing common to RPGs.

Yeah, the idea was a natural evolution of game design at the time, and probably several people had the idea at at about the same time. I remember DMs doing opposted attribute rolls to handling things like arm wrestling back in the early-mid 80s. Pendragon used opposed attribute rolls in 85. So I think things were tending that way. I think Metagaming's The Fantasy Trip might be the first RPG to eschew stat bonuses and just use the stat. Melee was released in 1977. I suspect the nature and limitations of a microgame probably led to the direct use of attributes as the simplest way to handle things.

I doubt that, but it's probably the most well known game to do so early on. I suspect that there were some other RPGs in the late 70s and early 80s that did so but are mostly forgotten today. Even the game mechanics used for WEG's D6 system does something similar, with the attribute actually being the die roll, with the default stat block for NPCs being 2D/4D. I think the idea evolved from people playing AD&D where stats below 15 didn't affect game play all that much. When there isn't much difference between a 6 STR and a 14 STR you have to wonder if it is worth the bookkeeping. Yeas, and one of the big perks of that approach is that you do not have to track a bunch of "average" stats for NPCs. The stat block for a group of bandits can be reduced down to Str+1, Dex+1, Sword 2, Survival 1.

There are also some percentile based non-D100 games that use critical rules that could be adapted to a BRP game. For instance: HARN uses die rolls that end on 0 or 5 as critical successes or critical failures depending on if the roll is under or over the skill roll. This is very simple and easy to adpat to BRP. It could even be expanded upon to allow for multiple success levels based upon the ones die (i.e 0 = critical, 2-3 = special, 4-9 = success). The James Bond RPG uses a table with 4 Quality Ratings (Success Levels),based upon 10%, 20%, 50%, and 100% of the success chance. As the game ties most results (weapon damage, distance traveled, time to complete a task) directly to the Quality Rating the Quality Ratings were a bit more important than they tend to be in most BRP games..

HARN is somewhat similar with rolls than end on 5 or 0 being crticals or fumbles depending on if they are successful or not. It's really simple to game, scales along with skill, and doesn't require any table to use. I think the 00 =100 thing isn't that diffuclt to grasp, but a 00-99 roll isn't any harder to run than 01-100. BTW Halcyon uses a 00-99 mechanic, and I think the first game I saw using is was some sort of espionage RPG. Yeah, I even tried using it for a BRP variant I was working on. I think the 0, and 5 rule from HARN is as easy to use as doubles. Personally, I think the best method would probably be to somehow use the values on the dice as the effect (damage, distance moved, etc.) instead of degrees of success, but implementing it is the tricky part. That way you don't get the 2 point impales and such. I think I saw it in some new spy/espionage RPG, maybe Covert Ops. I recall it have very simple game mechanics with the "00" thing being a twist that stood out. I've seen more than one RPG that uses 00=Zero, it seems to be a popular thing now, so there could be dozens of RPGs out there that use it.

I recall seeing something like that too. 00 was the lowest/best roll, 99 the highest, and doubles were crticals or fumbles depending on if they were under or over the skill rating.

They added a beserker rabbit? Strangely enough there are multiple rabbit RPGs now. So many Python fans. One of the same authors. Don't forget that Steve Perrin co-wrote Strombringer and obviously did most of the game mechanics, as they are very similar to RuneQuest. Oh, I agree. It's just that I think that street so run both ways. If the BRP crowd can go exist with the D&Ders then the D&Ders should coexist with the BRPers. Although considering how D&D is going these days, I'm not sure it they can even coexist with each other. At least not at GenCon.

No problem. I need to deal with some noisy knights in the daytime, anyway. BTWwhat can I get to protect myself against area effect weapons, say,I dunno, holy hand grenades?

Good thing SAN rules are optional in Stormbringer. Now I can just picture a sorcerer making DEMON-Hankies to hand out. Groups with hankies all around should run into beings from a lawful plane with grenade launchers and napalm. Something bad should happen to their characters, too.

Sounds more like a general criticism of BRP games rather than Stormbringer specifically, as the same hold true for CoC, RQ, etc. Stormbringer does have ripostes, which speeds things along. Probably the fastest BRP based method is the Pendragon mechanic of replacing alternating turns with an opposed roll. Barring ties or special combat maneuvers, somebody is going to hit every round. Personalty, I prefer the attack/parry/serious injury method to the increasing hit point attrition method used in a lot of RPGs. A 5, 10 or even 20 point wound loses context when a character's hit points can double, triple or more as they gain experience, especial for non-fantasy settings. It's gets kinda silly when two gunfighters empty their pistols into each other and then have to stop and reload before finishing the fight.

But those were just flesh wounds.😉 Beat me too it.😎 BTW, Can I play a rabbit for my next character? 😁

Murphy's Rules. I still love how someone in RQ with a low CON can survive having both arms cut off but someone with a high CON cannot, due to higher hit points in each location. MUrphy's Rules were funny but not all the examples give were feasible, but then they didn't have to be. It might be a Murphy Rule, but in actual game play no player ever tried to parry with a hankie. It doesn't really matter if the hankie can block infinite damage if you can't make the parry roll. It might be a funny Murphy Rule, but it's not funny enough to kill your character over -especially when the character already has a weapon on hand that they can use with some proficiency. I've yet to see a player opt to parry with an old shoe at 5% when they could just parry their broadsword at a much higher percentage. I suppose a character who gets into a lot of bar fights could develop some skill with a beer stein to the point where it might be a legitimate option, but that also has some inherent drawbacks, such as the risk of spilling beer! A Pyrrhic victory at best.

RQ3 had probably the most utilitarian magic systems of BRP, especially Sorcery (and by extension, Lunar Magic). Sorcery was a bit flawed by relying too heavily on FreeINT, but Sandy Peterson's Sorcery rules addressed that. Classic Fantasy might also be worth a look. It allows you to run an old school D&D style of game with BRP, so I assume it has rules that emulate the classic D&D Magic-User. I'm not sure what they are, as I don't own CF, but I'm sure there must be someone on the forums who does, and can provide some info on it.