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That's the executive water closet. What you don't want to know is what they keep behind the door marked "Break Room".

Uh, yes really. People in previous era believed that mythological creatures existed. Most myths are attempts to explain those things about life that people don't understand. All the mythological monsters serve some sort of purpose to the societies that created them, usually several purposes. RPGs merely let modern people play as part of such a culture, and often makes such creatures real. Even setting speficic monsters are drawn in some part from real world ideas-as the authors live in in the real world.

I take it you haven't read the books. The gadgets are few, and there is quite a bit of physical action. They were written in the 50s and are very different from the films (the first two films were close to the novels, but the films diverged after FRWL).

Note, when I say RQ2 could be D20 based, I mean using 20 sided dice, not using the D&D/D20 Game System. If the Chaosium products have the quality that the RQ2 stuff did, then yes. I'll take a trickle of good stuff to a flood of crap. If I want crap, there's tons of D20 stuff out there to fill the need (there are also some decent and even good D20 products too). Crap is easy to find. THe hard thing is to avoid the crap and get the good stuff. I doubt it. MRQ is OGL, and the system really isn't spreading from 3rd party products. I'd say RQ's closed gaming system spread at least as far with all the BRP inspired/variant RPGs that came out in the 80s. Yeah, I've heard the same about Sceaptune's products. And even I had a favorable reaction to the preview for the Ducks book, and have said so. I can see a few negative things about BRP going OGL. For one thing, people tend to make snap judgments about things based upon what they are exposed to. If someone is interested in a particular setting or genre, they might even pick up a supplement for a different RPG and fli[p through it. If that supplement sucks, they will most likely assume that the game does as well. :shocked: Secondly, there is the issue of shelf space. RPG stores have a limited amount of shelf space, and a lot of products fighting for it. More publishers for one system means that other systems get pushed off the shelf. Since D20 is the most successful system, OGL undid the progress that was made in the 90s when other RPGs started to get shelf space. My local gaming shops can't carry every RPG or every company. So we could loose out on good Chaosium products to make room for bad 3rd party products.:eek: Again, I'll mention blind buying. Back in the old days, I used to be able to flip though books and see what I was buying (or at least read the back of the box). OGL makes that impossible. Only a handful of the new products will be on the shelves. So consumers are forced to buy blind, or limit their purchases to what is in stock. Thats not a good environment for us buyers. Online previews suck to the point of being worthless. Reading the table of contents and the the first three pages of the introduction with "SAMPLE" written across them reveals nothing about a game other than what font is being used. If I had any say in it (and I don't), I have any RPG with a useless preview removed from sites like DriveThru and RPGNow, or enforce a full refund policy.:mad: Decent previews are few and far between. It's like the companies only have a half dozen decent pages in the book and are afarid that if they let people see them they will have no reason to buy the rest of the book. That or they know they are selling crap and trying to hide it. Sceaptune's got their act together here, too. They know how to write a preview. So I'll take quality over quantity. Hopefully, the new BRP stuff will be of the high quality, like the old RQ2 stuff was.

Oops, I misread the OGL and SRD blup on the preview. Pity, one day someone is going to do a multi-system D20/BRP/MRQ supplement. It would help make the lesser know systems more accessable, and give BRP/MRQers more options.

I dunno, I feel sort of dirty now.

No, but one of the guys from Goblin posts on the MRQ forums. I'll try to see if he has any inside info he can give out. The book seems to be multi-system (D20 & MRQ) making it interesting in other ways. Hybrid D20/BRP/MRQ books might just be the future for BRP. As for the setting as a Bond fan, I might have to get it for running Cold War era campaigns.

PArt 2 Well, technically, you were trying to disprove my point (MRQ is RQ for the D&D crowd). But a statement to the contrary, such as MRQ definitely is RQ for the D&D crowd, needs something to back it up. No, it means that they are going to look at the rules from a different point of view than those who have experience with other types of RPGs. If you've run RQ with D&D players, you should probably get what I'm saying. D&D players take certain things for granted and assume that other RPGs have to work the same way. I.E. So now MRQ elves have infravision. He is the author of the MRQ core book, and it's updates. 1) Reduced lethality isn't a symptom of modern gaming. It's been around for years. It is also the bane of good tactical thinking and leads to players acting stupid, since they can just pick themselves up later and carry on. It's value depends on what sort of genre/campaign being run. But it's inclusion in MRQ was so that D&Ders wouldn't drop like files they way they did when they played RQ in the past. It is also a matter of degree. "Hey Fred too a 30 point hit from the Dragon and fell off the cliff. Good thing he didn't get hit in the head or torso. Oh wait, never mind, he'd got Resilience at 145%, he'll be fine for a few rounds). 2) Only dedicated spellcasters start the game with spells. A radial departure from RQ, especially for Glorantha. The new costs for magic and "rune chasing" makes magic spells much less common. Magic items are now much more common, however. Ferwer spells, more items... "Quick get the cleric to heal up Fred while I check for magical weapons!" 3) Improvement awarded by GM removes one of the best features of RQ/BRP. There is no skill-chase pitfalls in RQ. Checks are not awarded for frivolous situations, and if a master swordsman want's to drop his sword and fight with a spear at 25%, he fully deserves whatever (final?) reward he gets. Awards doled out by the GM doesn't help the PCs to focus. It retsricts them into improving a limited number of skills, since any other improvement comes at the expense of those primary skills. "You work on your Peception skills, you're the thief. I'm a fighter, so I'm putting my IPs into weapon skills. Fred's a Barbarian, so he's going to save his IPs so he can take the Battle Fury ability. That ought to level him up with the rest of us." Chaosium has tapped that market. Dragonlords of Melnibone for example. Probably not that many with be buying from both. MRQ seems to have divided the community. I think only a small percentage will be buying both. Most RQers don't seem to like MRQ's supplements. I know you'd like us all to be one happy semi-compatible family, and there are some good economic reasons to do so, but I think it isn't turning out that way. Most of the Gloranthan sites/groups I've look at that existed prior to MRQ are sticking to RQ or HQ, and passing on MRQ.

Cool. My concern is that some of your statements sometimes come off as factual rather than opinion. I think I agree with around 99% of what you posted here. That is how I would have preferred the game to go. That or just bump up and down the level of success based on the defender's roll (I.E. A critical vs. a special gets dropped to a special, and so on). The abandoning of the Special does not in itself make MRQ a bad game. It along with the other changes might, but that's a different topic. Again, I wasn't saying that MRQ was bad in this thread, just pointing out the differences. IMO, none of MRQ's changes improve anything. At best they just simply some thigs, but simple isn't necessarily better either. The special is a good example. As far as I can tell from Mongoose, the special was dropped because they thought player's weren't up to the challenge of dividing by 5. I agree with you about RQ3 and to some extent MRQ. To be honest, MRQ could have easily been designed to work with 20 sided dice, streamlining the rules (one of the goals), and avoiding a lot of the opposed rolls problems. With skill scores in the 1-20 ranges, the math becomes much easier to do in your head. BRP did equate to D20, with 5% skill increments. I'm assuming that is doesn't anymore. That's probably a good question to bring up for Jason, though. Maybe BRP is still in 5% increments? Glad your happy. You're not my stooge, through. I just tapped you as a resource. I am aware of my own bias in this matter and was thinking of you as someone with a different bias, yet someone would could still adress the issue, rather than going to flame wars. Sadly, there are a lot of people who get hostile if someone criticizes their favorite game. Worth you I figured we could get a different point of view and not degenerate into a lot of "You Suck!" posts. Oh, and you have some knowledge and experience with gaming, making your opinions more valuable even to those who might disagree with them. I used to hate how the MRQ fanboys would cry out how MRQ was better than RQ2 or RQ3, while never having played (or even read) them, and so have something to validate their comparison. You've actually played (and still play) RQ3, so your opinion carries more weight (with me anyway) that that on someone with no clue as to what he is talking about. Right now, you are about the only pro-MRQ member of the board that I could go to. There are/were some others over at the MRQ site, but I think we all agree that this site is a bit pro-BRP and anti-MRQ. So any counter arguments will have to be well thought out or else they won't have a chance of overcoming the bias, and allowing the board to be at least somewhat objective. I'd rather have someone like you bringing up points and counterpoints. You actually quite valuable for all us BRP fanatics to have around. THere is always bias. It can't be avoided, even if it is unintentional. I am aware of my pro-RQ/anti-MRQ bias. That's why I wanted someone who was more pro-MRQ to provide input, so that Tweaker could get a counter balancing influence. Oh, and thanks. There are quite a few biases among gamers, and the RQ community is no exception. Most RQers have an anti-D&D bias (partially frustration over it's success while RQ is on life support, partially anger at the crap we've taken from idiot D&Ders). RQers also have something of a love-hate relationship with the DragonQuest community (RQers prefer RQ, but we make good DQ converts, as we pick up the game mechanics easier than D&Ders do.) No, you, like us all, have biases. You don't have to apologize for any of them, but it is worthwhile for people to be aware of them when they read your opinions. I agree. In fact, that is tied into the reason why I wanted someone like you to respond. If you did it, we can keep focused on the topic (the differences) rather than get entrenched in our respective corners defending game systems. Well, that you buy them with Hero Points is another difference. Personally, I wished they were tied to cults, too, and/or tied specific skills (like allowing a master swordsman a ability to get a special attack or an extra action). I also agree that the generic approach hasn't worked. The MRQ rules are neither devoted to Glorantha (as with RQ), nor divorced from it (as with RQ3) and that half way state has led to some core rules that work for Glornatha but not elsewhere, and vice versa. IMO they should take Glroantha out of the MRQ core book and release a Glorantha book customized to better fit that setting. I think Glorantha has become one of MRQ's weakpoints. It is the most heavily supported setting for the game, yet the one with the most rule problems. Oh, I though you meant the "cut & paste" approach to rules that Mongoose has been promoting. As for the other stuff, that is continuing on the tradition of RQ products and, I agree is very much what BRP seems to be doing. My opinion is that I rather have products of high quality that quantity. I can always adapt good and great supplements from other RPGs, so why settle for mediocre? If I wanted mediocre gaming, I'd play D&D (the king of RPG mediocrity). But I'd rather have quality over quantity. Same with fiction. I'd rather a favorite author continues a series to high standards than try to wade through a host of books written by imitators. It's nice to be able to go and buy one official, and decent quality setting book (ancient Rome, Feudal Japan, etc), rather than sort through the various reviews for various competing books and figuring out just whose setting book is good and whose isn't (or whose is better for your purposes). It was differnt in the old days when the local shops stocked most RPG products for most companies. Now, there is a lot more buying blind. I hit the SIZE limit! :eek: Must continue in second post.

No/Yes/Maybe. It depends on what version of RQ3+ you are using. RQ3 did go linear somewhere around SIZ 100, but that appears to be because few creatures could get such SIZ scores (Giants and Dragons). But most BRP products that came out after it, such as the latter version of CoC, used a non lineral progression to handle monster like Cthulhu. If you keep with the non-linear scale, then you'd just use the 5% per point shift as normal, do not divide. Keep in mind that a 10 point difference doesn"t seem like much at high SIZ scores, but means a mass increase of around 138% regardless on where you are on the SIZ chart. So 200 vs. 210 is the same relationship as 20 vs. 30. Realism. In RQ2 all the skill values and improvement rules were in 5% increments, as were the values on the resistance table. With the exception of the critical and fumble chances, RQ2 actually used D100s as D20s. So did BRP (original), WoW, and early editions of CoC. It was Strombringer that broke the trend and was Chaosium's first true D100 game, and I see a lot of RQ3 in Stormbringer. Well, that's your opinion. I don"t place much faith in reviews. TO illustrate my point, many of us here are not fond of the MRQ product line, yet such products have gotten good reviews. So either reviews are of little value to us, or we're all wrong and should go buy those products!:eek:

No. You are forgetting that SIZ is not linear in BRP. Generally, +8 to SIZ doubles the mass. So the resistance table does make sense. Along the Same lines two SIZ 10 objects do not equal a SIZ 20 object, but more like a SIZ 18 object. Or how 2 SIZ 50 objects equate to a SIZ 58 object rather than a SIZ 100 object. Skill vs Skill isn't neater, per say. But value vs. value is. Several RPgs, inclduing Pendragon and FATE use this approach. In Pendragon, everything is rated on the same scale, so you can oppose stats, skills, passions, personality traits, etc. with each other as needed. The principle rocks. It is the application that MRQ uses that is the problem. IMO The resistance table works just as week as Opposed tests. In fact the Opposed system used in D&D 3rd edition basically IS the RQ resistance table, but using D20s (D20+mods vs target number, or opposed d20+mod rolls). The problem is that D100 opposed math is not as quick and easy as D20 math. What D100 is good at is dividing up the success (and failure) range to allow for different grades of effect. IMO the opposed system in MRQ would have worked better if they had gone to d20 resolution rather than D100. Pendragon does just that, and it works well. To be fair to MRQ, RQ2 would have benefited from d20 dice instead of d100, too. Skills were in increments of 5%, so the only thing that needed to D100 was the criticals (and D&Ds roll and confirm method would fix that). All quite fair. That was one reason why I asked for another point of view (and had you in mind when I posted). For the most part I tried to point out differences without going RQ=good, MRQ=bad, but I realized some bias was inevitable. Now your bias is showing. I don"t think the things you listed are necessarily "good": Legendary Abilities screw up the way the game works. It changes the game form "a learn by doing/studying approach" to a "get XP to spend on cool powers" approach. Modularity doesn't exist. In fact, it is one of the major things that I find objectionable about Matt Sprange view of RQ. The various rules in RQ are interlinked. You can't really switch stuff in and out without creating more problems. The various "rule updates" should illustrate that. One changes causes others. The same is true with the problems with MRQ Glorantha. You can't change the gods, magic systems, and economic systems without the world changing. Equipment & Vehicle Design- No comment, since I haven't bought those supplements. Although if the rules are like the stuff that in the equipment book, there are quite a few comments on the MRQ forums to the effect of "bad, bad, worse". SRD- Okay, this I do consider good. It lets people look at the book before they decide to plop down some cash. Wish I had waited for this before MRQ rather than prepaid for the game. But, hey, when I read that Greg Stafford and Steve Perrin were involved in the design for MRQ (that was in the ads), I figured it a safe bet. OGL- Bad, bad, bad. Letting anyone publish stuff for a system means that, well, ANYONE will. While there are SOME decent OGL products, there is a lot more crap. The sheer volume of OGL products for D20 is another problem (there is so much stuff, and so many similar guidebooks, that it is tough to sort through), although a problem that is thankfully exclusive to D20. What's "definite" about it? Your post does nothing to prove you point. Here's a few points to the contrary. 1) Mongoose's products are mostly d20 based. 2) Matt Sprange is an experienced D20 author with little to no experience writing for skill based systems. 3) Reduced lethality, spell casting limited to dedicated spellcasters, and improvement awarded by the GM, all all characteristics of D&D. 4) The admitted demographic that MRQ is aimed at are the D&Ders who are disenchanted with what D&D has grown into. That came out in the chats on the Mongoose boards back a year and a half ago. Basically, if the old RQers buy it, that's great, but they were not the target audience. D&Ders were.

Not in an of itself. As long as the campaign does not revolve around combat ala D&D, then aqny sort of "niche" will work. For instance, in one SB campaign I ran, the Melnibonean passenger and the captain of the ship he was on had a disagreement of the terminal kind. The PC with Shiphandling proved to be very valauable. Just give the character something else to do that is important besides combat, and then combat won't be so important to the group. Even with Magic World, mages are limited by thier POW. Make them spend a lot of POW in a short time, and they run out of energy. Even a Magic World wizard with a 17 POW and POW 17 staff can "only" throw a dozen 3d6 damage spells before being utterly wiped and defenseless. Thorw a couple of quick encounters back to back and the mage starts to run out of ability. Not just for offense, but in all areas of magic. A good warrior doesn't loose ability as quickly. Barring injuries and normal fatigue, he can fight at full effectiveness all day long.

I think the key issue isn't really about balancing the power of the characters, but insuring that each player can have fun and contribute to the session. In other words "niche protection". As long as each character has some ability that they can do better than the others (or better than the magical substitute) then it doesn't really matter if the wizards can dish out a lot more damage. Of course, if Wizards CAN dish out lots more damage, they become the number one target and usually end up being the first ones hit when attacked. That in itself can make he other characters more useful. If foes start doing massed arrow fire on mages to stop them from unleashing powerful magic, parity is achieved. Ars Magica doesn't have Protection/Damage Resistance, and so mages rely on Shield Grogs.

Quiter a few RQers did feel that way. That said, It not exactly an assessment. I tried to point out the differences rather than state preferences, but to be fair to those who haven't read my posts at the Mongoose boards, I'm not what you would call unbiased in this matter (I'm an RQ junkie, and no fan of MRQ). Hopefully, someone more favorable to MRQ will post their view of the differences just to ensure some sort of counterbalance and give Tweaker another slant.

You know, this statement, combined with my experiences working at a Hospital gives me an idea. How about people developing some sorm of Mental Armor that works like AP against shock and horror? I know that after working in the trauma room, we all got sort of jaded towards physical injuries and pain and suffering. After awhile., about the only thing that would "faze" me was when we got injured children. Its sort of like you permanently sell off some SAN points to by a few points of SAN Armor Points. Maybe we could allow character to sell off 5 or 10 SAN points for a Point of SAN AP? We could cap the AP at 1/4POW or so. But the AP is only applicable to that kind of shock. While the trama team is farily impervious SAN loss from seeing the the horrors of physical injury, a Shoggoth would still shock the hell out of them. Maybe sorcerers could get some free AP from thier summonging skill (say their Crit chance)?

Uh, Jason, Not to start trouble, but you have sort of gone off on a few tangents yourself, and that sort of give tacit approval to everyone else going off topic. For instance, is off topic and has nothing to do with BRP Q&A (it's a good topic for a new thread, though). I humbly suggest that rather than ducking out from the Q&AA to lots of different threads, we all just keep this thread "locked" onto Q&A and anyone with side questions start new threads for THOSE. How about you, and/or Triff, and/or an assigned moderated enforce a "stay on topic" rule for this particular thread., and post a "off topic/please start new thread" reminder when we begin to stray? Otherwise the problem will just move with us, as we jump from thread to thread and topic to topic. Sorry, but that's what will happen.

Tweaker, Your question wasn't about if one system is inferior to the other, just what the differences were. IF you want to know if we believe that one if inferior to the other, and why should say so. Or save yourself the trouble and go look through the early threads on the MRQ site. At least, the stuff that didn't get deleted during the "Flame Wars". As far as differences go.... One of the big things about the differences is that many things in BRP/RQ works are universal to all BRP products, but were dropped from MRQ. In some cases this alters the style of play greatly from how every other BRP game runs. So much so that many believe MRQ to be a differernt RPG rather than a rleative to BRP/RQ. Some examples: 1) All BRP products use something called the Resistance Table to handle opposed tests. This is usually stuff like STR vs. SIZ to move a rock, or poison Intensity vs. CON. THe chart is simple. If the intensities are the same then it is a 50-50 chance, and the odds shift 5% per point of difference between the stats. MRQ dropped that and replaced if with an entirely new opposed resolution system, that is entirely skill based. In BRP skill rolls are unopposed. One effect of this is that stats are less important in MRQ. Raw STR and CON don't mean as much as skill in Athletics or Reisilience. 2) BRP has certain inherient checks and balances that hep to keep the game in check for experience characters. MRQ doesn't have that. Most of the problems with MRQ seem to have come about because Mongoose changed something without taking into account how those changes would affect the rest of the game. It really appears that this was becuase the author7s lack of familirily with RQ meant that he didn't understand what the cause and effect of changing things. For instance, there is a alternative damage chart for weapons that will make the game "more lethal". Probably as an attempt to win back the RQ crowd. But the author failed to take into account that increasing the damage weapons do without increasing parry APs made parrying obsolete. 3) In BRP, parrying an AP values mean something. Depending on what version/update of MRQ you run with, weapon APs are either insignificant, or so low as to be nearly insignificant. The later (the original update) changed combat from a attack& parry dynamic (RQ) to a trade blows and see who runs out of Hit points dynamic (D&D). 4) The magic system (well, magic systems) in RQ was a semi-successful attempt at providing a playable magic system for Glorantha, a setting where practically everybody can work a little magic. Practically every PC started the game knowing some magic , with Heal being almost universal. With MRQ, magic has become something that is much rarer and more the province of dedicated spellcasters (D&D again). The problem isd that Mongoose seems to have changed Glorantha to make it fit in with the D&D approach to the rules. 5) In BRP/RQ practically anybody can be killed by a lucky hit, even from a dagger. Criticials are fairly devastating. There are also some pretty nasty spells than can take someone right out of a fight. Combat in RQ is and not something entered into lightly. MRQ really "nerfed" all of that. One hit kills are just about impossible, and the spells have been dropped or watered down. Firearrow and Fireblade are not the kick ass spells (3d6 damage!) they used to be. Disruption is fairly usuelss with the MRQ hit pont system. Several seppls have been taken out of the game for "play balance" reasons. In other words, combat was made "fun" so that people can do lots and lots of fighting (like in D&D). Basically, MRQ is RQ rewritten by a D&D author, and is targeted at D&D players. Virtually every change in the game makes MRQ more like D&D and less like RQ/BRP. Probably a good business move (something like 90% of the RPG market plays D&D, while probably less than 10% have ever even heard of RQ), but not something that endeared Mongoose to the RQ community.

I don't suppose you have a copy of that still? BRP's "no frills" approach seems like a natural fit for B7's "no frills" setting. Probably a better match than using one of the pre-existing Sci-Fi RPGs.

Eek! A Mouse! :eek: Probably not mind-shattering, unless you are the mouse.

True, but considering that only a select few have seen the new BRP rules, it would be impossible for us to do otherwise. That why we have this Q&A thread and are pestering Jason. It also why no one is jumping in to write a supplement for BRP yet. It's like a new movie, where we've seen the original, but don't know what will be changed in the remake. (Not the best analogy, since remakes are rarely up to par with the original, and we have higher hopes than that for BRP).

That's one of the big obstacles with all horror RPGs. Players have a sort of "shock absorber" by know what they are getting into, unlike the protagonists in 99% of horror stories. Instead of being surprised and scared, the players immediacy suspect supernatural involvement and go looking for it. My most successful horror adventures were in campaigns that were not (supposedly) horror based. That "this isn't supposed to happen" feeling that goes along with that is perfect for setting the mood. THe old Juedges Guild "HEllpits of Nightfang" advenutre for RQ2 led to one of the best horror RPG scenes I've ever had. The PCs were holded up inside a building, and the Vampire was outside (I was running this before Cults of Terror, so I ran the Vamp with the traditional pwers and weaknesses rather than with teh Vivamort stuff). The Vamp couldn't enter the dwelling (wasn't invited, tradtional vamp weakness), and so had tried lthings like setting the building on fire and mesmersizing someone to get an invite. Standoff. THen the Vamp taunted one of the PCs ending the insults with "why do you come out here and face me light a man!" THe PC replied "Oh yeah, well why don't YOU.....go away". We all got to see the player turn pale and his eyes open wide when he realized just how close he came to inviting the vamp inside. The reverse holds true, too. My favorite CoC adventure was one where the GM threw us up against gangsters. We were all expecting Deep Ones and Mi-Go, and were surprised that we had to deal with something so mundane. They proved a tough foe, too, since most of the Mythos creatures don't call you up on the phone to set you up for a drive by shooting, or bribe the cops. Plus, you can get the chair for killing a gangster. It the unexpected that makes horror work, and sadly, is why horror RPGs generally are not very scary.

I think there is a difference between CoC's "Sanity Loss" for seeing things that are beyond human mind's ability to accept, and being scared out of your wits. A "fright check" sort of thing, makes sense to me, just as long as it is applied reasonably. For instance, a modern person would probably be frightened by a charging wolf, while a veteran warrior from the middle ages either would be less frightened, or frightened, but still able to act effectively. The POW roll seems alright to me, but I'd vary the multiplier, based on just how scary the threat is, and how experienced/brave the character is. Pendragon's Valor roll system might be worth swiping for BRP to handle this. In Pendragon, whener a character faces some sort of frighting foe (or other scary event), he must make a Valor roll. The roll gets modifers based upon just how scary/danageous the foe is. A bear might mean a straight Valor roll (a trait generated with a 3d6 roll, but modfied by background, and can be raised or lowered during play), while a Wrym might be at -5 or -10 (on a d20 roll). We could either swipe the trait, or convert it to a BRP skill, based off the POW roll, but improvable.

In what way? is it a 2-3 POW per d6, or an increasing scale (like 1 POW=1d2, 2=1d4, 3=1d6, 4=1d8, 5=1d10, 6=1d10+1d2, etc.)? It is somewhat ironic that Chaosium threw out all the magic systems from RQ and went with the ones from SB and MW. Both had the problem of making those with magic completely superior to those without. SB did get toned down over the years, so demon weapon were no longer had a half dozen d6 damage bonus, but MW was a quick and dirty magic system. I hope it got nerfed a LOT.

The scary thing was that in MW wizards got a staff that acted as a personal POW stroing device. I think it cost you 1 POW and got POW storage equal to the mage's POW, and regenerated POW, too. WHen I ran MW mages were good for one or two high POW, nasty spells, before being brought down to reality. Not quite as unbalanced as SB1 Sorcery, but much better on the fly.

Nightshade, I agree with most of you points here. In fact, I even went so far as to work up a "delayed death" type option for my BRP variant that was inspired by Timelords. It wasn't as finely grades as Timelords, but went with a more "scratch/light wound/serious wound/mortal wound) sort of approach. I also agree that the current variable armor system from Stormbringer is a little too random, since it uses a linear distribution for the most part, rather than some sort of bell curve. As it stands, a warrior has as much chance of getting no protection from his plate armor(1d10-1) as of getting 9 points. But I think it isn't any more flawed than the plate vambraces protecting the entire arm equally. As for protecting critical location with variable armor. There is a way to do so fairly easily, and it was done in MERP/RM. It's the general armor that it the obstacle not the variable damage. The full body armor in Magic World had the same problem. But both approaches are valid, and present compriomises in complexity in favor of ease/speed of play. Pendragon uses General HP, General AP, no locations, and a Major Wound rule, and doesn't play too badly for it. It all depends on what people want.