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I agree. Part of the trouble I have with the SAN rules is that everyone in a battle or who works in a hopital trauma center would pretty much go insane automatically due to the sheer number of horrific things they see every day. I think there should be some point where you get desensitized to some things and they don't bother you as much. It's what used to happen when I worked in a hospital. After a certain point you learn how to turn your emotions off so that you can still function. Our big fear wasn't that things worth bother us too much, but that we might reach a point where it didn't bother us at all, anymore.

Napalm's like Garum, only unfiltered. More seriously, a GM that lets a player "always" do anything is the problem. I didn't even let a spy character obtain a silencer for their pistol last session! Not that the character couldn't get one, only that they couldn't do so in the time allotted while out in the field. Not unless they wanted to go find the local black market.

I prefer Strike Ranks. One of the things I like about SRs is that they incorporate movement and the speed of the action into the sequence, so someone with a readies missile weapon, or quick spell can act before an opponent can cross a 10 m to get to them. Most of the other methods don't do that.

Yup. If we keep the average values close to the fixed armor values used in other BRP games we should get somewhat similar results to the fixed armor. So if Plate armor is 8 points in the fixed system, it should arage around 8 points in a variable system. So 2d6 (7), 2d8 (9), 3d4 (7.5) would be the sort of die roll we want. Maybe 2d6+1 (8) or 2d4+3 (8)? The important thing is to have it average about 8 points, and to be better than "lesser" armors". The thing is in that fixed armor value version old BRP 8 point armor will usually (87.5%) stop a sword that does 1D8+1 damage, and even when it doesn't only a point gets through, barring a special success or critical. With variable armor as written, armor rated at 1d10 will only stop that same sword about half the time, but could let as much as 8 points through. That's a huge difference. With 2d8, or 2d6, or one of the other variants noted above, the results are much close to the fixed hit point system, while still keeping armor variable. As long as the variable ratings average out close to the old fixed ratings, we will get results more in line with the fixed ratings. Since I've been getting a lot of likes to this post, I threw together a tentative table of variable armor values. TO keep things simple and consistient, I just rated the armor by fixed AP score rather than by type. I put samples of the BRP variable ratings too, so we can see just how much things varied in the past, as well as how of an increase in protection we'd get compared to the old values. Fixed AP Random AP New Random AP 1 1D6-1 or 1D2-1 1D3-1 2 1D6 1D3 3 2D3 2D2 4 1D4 2D3 5 1D6 2D4 6 1D8-1 or 1D6+2 or 2D4-1 1D6+1D4 7 1D8 2D6 8 2D6 or 1D10 2D6+1 or 1D8+1D6 9 2D8 10 2D4+2 or 1D10+2 2D8+1 or 2D6+3 11 2D10 12 2D10+1 13 2D10+2 14 2D6+2 4D6 15 4D6+1 16 4D4 4D6+2 17 4D8-1 18 4D8 Note that these are just what I consider to be good possible values, we could alter things around if we want to play with the bell curve. For instance we could use 4d4 instead of 2D8+1 or some such. It all depends on just how much we want the armor to vary. We could even factor in for coverage this way, with better coverage resulting in less variable armor, with half plate (7) being 2D6, while full plate (8) might be 3D4 or 2D4+3

Ah, yeah. I think the real problem with the variable armor rule is two fold: 1)The armor die was completely random, instead of a bell curve, making it totally unreliable. 2) The armors average protection was usually lower than it's fixed counterpart, making it even less effective. Now both of the above were partially offset by using generally hit points, but not enough. I think variable armor could work out better if the armor used a bell curve with a higher average value. For instance, if Plate protected for 2D6 instead of 1D10.

BTRC's CORPS might be worth a look. It's a Conspiracy based RPG about large organizations pulling the strings behind the scenes, and is skill based, so it wouldn't be all that hard to adapt it to BRP. It's hard to get much more conspiracy based too. I think that it has a half dozen secret societies assassinating Kennedy at the same time.

Or do the opposite. Pick a game, and accept (and explain) the campaign, mood and style that comes with it.

Oh, you quote the post, go to the spot where you want to replay and then hit the space bar a couple of times. Usually, it breaks up the message. Usually. That's certainly a valid approach, and one that I favor as well, but it doesn't fit every genre or style of play, nor every gaming group. Except when it happens at just the wrong time, or too often. As I said before, I once has a weekend where I lost five characters to crtical hits from minor NPCs. It actually derailed things when one player character can't survive to the second round of combat. Yes, if the game your playing has them. In fact Hero Points are one of my favorite ways to handling that, as it gives the players some protection against "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" without nerfing things to the point where they don't have to take things seriously. That all well and good, but you aren't everybody. Different people play different sorts of games, with different styles of play and different expectations. It's why there is standard Call of Cthlhu, Pulp Cthulhu as well as several other Cthulhu based RPGs out there. If it were "one size fits all" everyone would be playing D&D. So to capture the feel of a Star Wars adventure you have to run things in a Star Wars style. Luke has to be able to make that "one in a million" shot that blows up the Death Star or the film doesn't work. Which is precisely why all the Star Wars RPGs out there have some sort of hero/character/force point game mechanic Me too. It also why, for the most part I don't like to fudge stuff, or play with a GM who does. But a GM also has to set things up so that the players have a good chance of succeeding. Or perhaps you just don't succeed. Again it depends a lot of what sort of adventure you are running. If the adventure is such that the consequences for failure aren't world changing, then failure is fine. If, of the other hand, failure results in WWIII or Cthulhu getting his 6AM wake up call.. then consequences can be campaign ending. You as well. I think our styles are fairly similar. I just wanted to point out that not everyone nor every game plays the same. For instance both Pendragon, and Prince Valiant are written by Greg Stafford and are set in Arthurian Britain, but they both play very differently. It not just my style of play as the GM, but each particular game's style of play.

I understand you point, but it's not so much a failing of Strombringer per say. It can happen in most RPGs. To some extent, it's a necessary evil. If you take away that element of risk then the players get complacent and things get boring.

It doesn't have to be any more complicated. If you look back at some of the earliest RQ adventures, they were essentially D&D style dungeon crawls. Ideally, you can start small, with simple adventures, and then add more details, NPCs and such as you go along. One thing that helps me a lot is to use the events and character interactions that take place during a game session as a springboard for future adventures. If the PCs fight some one, maybe they, their friends, or their family come looking for revenge? Maybe that healer who helped them out needs help now? The idea is to build upon existing relationships to add depth to the world. Once you get into the habit of it, it actually makes it easier to pull the players into new adventures. Players tend to be much more willing to go out and rescue an NPC they've met before who has helped them in the past, than to rescue someone they've never even heard of.

I can verify that. I'd also agree that Magic World is a good choice for a GM who want's a good generic FRPG based on BRP. Magic World is essentially Stormbringer with all the Michael Moorcock/Eternal Champion specific stuff removed. But...as I mentioned earlier a lot of thing comes down to personal preferences. I love Strombringer, RQ3 and Pendragon. All are BRP based RPGs, but each has features the other lack. When I'm thinking about starting up a campaign, I go over the features I think I will need or want for that campaign, and then pick the game that I think is the best fit. Or vice versa.

Because if reality we don't want the player characters to get killed off. It is counter productive to maintaining any sort of game. If you are familiar with the Paranoia RPG, imagine trying to rule a campaign in a setting where characters die off like they do in Paranoid but without clones to step in and take their place. BTW, all RPGs protect the players characters from the world in which they exist to some extent. That's why you never see adventures where begining player characters go up against expert villains. Logically, it sahould happen, and logically the PCs, especially starting ones, should run into NPCS who have them out skilled, but that rarely happens, as we all want the player characters to continue on. It's part of the whole heroic character idea. We all want to see the heroes overcome the bad guys, yet if we ran it entirely fairly, the heroes would ususally get killed by better skilled, more numerous opponents. I agree. You need a threat to keep the game exiciting. Not necessarily. Look, let's say your are running an adventure where the players are on their toes, doing everything right, and then get killed off because some inept NPC with Firearms at 20% happens to roll a couple of 01s at extreme range. Yes it can happen, but the end result isn't all that satisfying. Imagine how Star Wars would have worked out if Luke had been shot and killed by a Stormtrooper while trying to escape from Tatooine. It's pretty much movie over. The main hero is dead, and the secondary heroes are either captured (Leia) or reluctant to help (Han). Also, imagine what happens in a typicval RPG if a player character gets killed off five seconds into the first fight and has to stop and write up another character. Especially in a game where characters have special talents. If the group had someone who could fly an airplane and that character goes down in the firefight on the cargo jet, at 20,000 feet, it could easily be game over. Now this ins't to say that player characters should always be protected, just that for certain types of games it might be necessary to give them some partial script immunity, especially in more cinematic campaigns, in order to keep the right feel for that setting. It's much the same with Super hero RPGS. In real life big strong buys who fall out of skyscrapers tend to die when they hiut the ground. In comics, they shatter the concrete, make a hole, and get up a bit dazed.

Pretty much. It was a very simple system. The core rules only took about two pages in the actual rules. Most everything else was either advice about how to run the game, or about the Prince Valiant setting. Sort of. One of the interesting things about PV is that it boiled everything down to one number that worked not only as the number of coins to be tossed, but also as "hit points" to be lost afterwards. It also had some interesting mook rules (probably an early game to do so) where groups of opponents could be handled as a single entity. Yup. Pretty much everything he created was ground breaking in some way. Greg noted in the book that PV came about because people who stopped over would want to play one of Greg's games, but really couldn't, due to the time it takes to learn the rules, and create a character. PV allowed people who didn't know anything about RPGs to be able to create a character and start playing within a few minutes. It really does a good job of filling the same sort of niche that "basic", "lite" or similar introductory rules do today, and could work for introducing children to RPGs. It's probably about as complicated as, say Hero Kids, and predates it by 25 years or so. And another interesting thing about PV is that it is another Arthurian RPG, from the same man who created Pendragon, yet it is very different. Whereas Pendragon is based off on Malory, and has a sort of medieval literary feel to it, Prince Valiant captures the look and fell of Hal Foster's strip, a sort of "Golden Age of Hollywood" look and feel. Greg could have made PV a streamlined Pendragon, but instead remained true to the source material.

Well for starters I tend to use BRP related games, such as Stormbringer, RuneQuest, or Call of Cthulhu for rules, and even whole campaigns. My reasons why are that most of the "core rules" in BRP actually originated in some previous Chaosium produced game, and such games tend to give very good sets of rules that work well together. For example, random armor works better with general hit points than with hit locations. Having the parent systems for a given rule also helps to understand why the rule was created in the first place and what the author was trying to accomplish. In some cases, the "package deals" of the preexisting RPGs can be better tolls to help me do what I want to to that the BRP rulebook, which contains rules that I won't be using for that particular campaign. For instance, if I wanted to run a fantasy campaign I probably don't need the info on modern or futuristic weapons, and might want to use Stormbringer or RuneQuest as my core system rather than BRP. Of course, I'm fortunately in that I already have all three systems and so am free to cherry pick the features I desire for a given campaign. That probably cover the vast majority of BRP based/related FRPGs. The real differences between the various games and rule system isn't so much with the amount of fantasy and magic, as with the level of detail and abstraction. Things like general hits points, vs. hit locations, using category modifiers or not, DEX ranks vs. Strike Ranks, encumbrance rules, the number of success levels, and their application, and a host of other little fiddling details all impact how a game plays, often as much or even more that the specific setting. Now as to which rules and variations are best....well.....that depends on what you want to do....and can still vary between different gamers. A lot of it comes down to personal preference and style of play. For instance if I were to run a BRP Star Wars campaign, I'd run it differently that I would run a BRP WWII campaign.

Yeah, dice are funny that way. I went though one infamous weekend where I went through five characters because the GM constantly rolled a crit on my characters in the first encounter. Nothing personal (although some other players were starting to suspect something),, just sometimes the dice roll a certain way, and there isn't much you can usually do about it. I had one character survive only because I was able to counter a critical hit with a critical shield parry, much to the GM's relief!

Not exactly the same thing. That cheat sheet has been around for awhile and is really supposed to be a game aide for playing PV. What I was thinking was more along the lines of a version where all referenced to PV are removed and it is a more generic RPG. Not that ti wouldn't take much to turn that PDF into a generic ruleset. Now, I'm not sure how well the game system would go over without the setting,or at least a setting, but I do believe that the simple coin toss system used for PV holds up well when compared to modern low complexity, "lite" game systems. The PV system is sort of a proto-FUDGE. It could easily be adapted to handle other settings and genres too. I also think separating the game mechanics from the setting could help even if a deal is somehow made to bring PV back. What inevitably happens with licensed RPGs is that the RPG company looses the licensee and that version of the game dies. Look at the various incarnations of Star Trek, and Star Wars,, for examples. But, in the cases where the underlying RPG system survives, iy can continue on and thrive, which can produce content usual for those with the defunct game. For instance, CoC, Strombinger/Elric, BRP and PEndragon, all came out of the RQ core rules, and continued on even though RQ was basically dead for a decade.

Yes, that's actually one of the good reasons for games where only the players roll. I have seen player characters take a crtical hit from the first attack from a minor NPC at the start of a campaign, and it is quite frustrating, and can stop a campaign dead before it can even get started. Still, this is the system where Rurik Runespear got killed by a trollkin.

I consider them as the rules for player characters, not for NPCS.

Of course the game mechanics for PV are very simple and could easily be distilled down to a couple of pages. The system is pretty flexible and adaptable too. It's just the PV IP stuff that's off limits.

I think most if not all BRP games use asymmetrical design in one way or another. It is somewhat inherent in a RPG, if you expect the player characters to last. If things were more symmetrical then begging PCs would go up against typical NPCs and have something of an uphill battle, and probably wouldn't last long enough to have any sort of campaign. Even if things were even the PCs would likely lose a character or two in each adventure. Heroic characters in fiction have the ability to buck the odds, and this is usually represented in a significant advantage is stats and skills. I also thing the streamlining in stat blocks for NPCs has evolved because minor characters don't need detailed individual stats, nor does the game benefit when they have them. I think this is something of a shift in thinking over the years too. In RQ and early RQ2 we got individualized stat blocks for the bad guys, down to individual trollkin, based on some idea that it made the monsters more distinct from each other, or made them more fleshed out, when if fact, most of that detail won't show up in play. A point of CON or INT here and there doesn't make much of a difference in a set piece combat. I think that later on it was realized that the stats could be streamlined and made more generic without really sacrificing characterization. So we started to see various generic grades on opponents in RQ3 and Pendragon, as well as generic NPC types in Stormbringer and CoC. One of the perks of how this evolved though is that a GM is free to expand upon or streamline NPC stats pretty easily if desired, unlike RPGs that treat NPCs entirely differential than PCs (like AD&D or The One Ring). In a BRP game it's not hard to turn a generic Stats 10 Skill 40% guard who gets away into a fully detailed character, if you want to.

How long does Beer and Pizza last? I didn't know this was a horror campaign. Hope the players got dark goggoles to protect them from the polyester.

I know. It was such a trope in the 60s that apparently 3% of all films during that time had someone falling into quicksand. The writer was playing favorites. In my case I'm working on an adventure where the players have to track down an evil bad guy to his secret lair in the jungle and, after going over the usually tropes for such a setting, thought "Quicksand? Do I have rules for quicksand There must be quicksand rules somewhere. Cthulhu? Pulp Cthulu,??BRP BGB???" And thus the hunt began. But while looking for quicksand I got stuck in the mud. Thanks again to BIll the Barbarian and Brootse for locating some patches of quicksand for me. I'd give them both Library Use checks, but I'm not sure it that would violate the "Barbarian Code" or something.

Yea, another instace, and this one from RQ. You come in second and get the silver medal.

Beer and pizza.

SOmething that could serve as a tie in to a long term plot thread. It depends a bit on why the ship is being salavage, or why the planet is doomed, or whatever else is going on. Maybe someone was sneaking off world to avoid someone? Look at what else you got planned sotry wise and try to see how the character could serve the plot. It sounds like the whole attack thing was planned by someone. In that case here are some possibilities: The "passenger" could be the one who sabotage the dome, and the ship was in a protected area so they could escape. Kinda like Dr. Smith in Lost In Space. The "passenger" is a biologically engineered or enhanced soldier. The "passenger" is a maintenance worker who got thrown into the cryofreeze during the bombardment. The "passenger" is the real target ofthe attack, maybe some important business person or the ruling noble, who would be detected by the enemy normally, but not while in stasis. The passenger is a "mob boss'" significant other/offspring/accountant who was trying to get away. The "passenger" is a robot or clone of someone important, or knows something important. The "passenger" is a space hobo who was looking for a ride. The "passenger" is a dead body of a murder victim, and the players could get blamed for the murder if they can't figure out who did it. The "Passenger" was someone with a serious medical condiction who went into cryfreeze until they could get to a planet with acure. Either the dome planet was the desination, or just a stop alone the way. You need a second plot line. Something that that players can be working on before the attack takes place. That way you can get them all focused on something and then yank the rug out from underneath them with the attack. Once example would be if they were hired by the patron to retrieved their rebellious teenage child, who is running off to join the space circus or something. The players follow the clues that lead to the ship, fine the teenager in cryofreeze when the attack starts and they have to escape in the ship.