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Just a thought, but what if damage to locations came off the vehicles stats?

For instance, if using Mecha scale (10 to 1) then a point of damage to the engine or propulsion system (wheels, tracks) could come off the vehicles Rated Speed. So an APC with a Rated Speed of 7 that too 2 points of damage to it's tracks would lose 2 points of Rated Speed  and move at Speed 5. When Speed hits 0 the vehicle can n longer move.

 Damage to steering could apply a -5% to handling per point; damage to a weapon could affect's it's targeting ability (-5% to hit per point) with the weapon becoming inoperable at zero hit points, and and so on down the line. 

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Fate has a different approach, but isn’t 'rules-lite’. Frankly, I don’t want this thread derailed about arguing about the Fate system anyway and it makes no real point to argue about the system when this is more a thread about marketing. This argument tangent is a distraction from the point of this thread.

It not tangential when you have a page count. One nice thing about FATE is that a new player can download an SRD and play a limited version of the game.  Or even use FUDGE. 

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

If you don’t have sales figures then it is hard to make arguments based on assertions about relative sales. You are making arguments without evidence to back it up.

But there is evidence. The evidence that Worlds of Wonder did not become a major system, or get any support. While Greg admitted that he didn't always make the best business decisions, I'm sure he and the others at Chasoium would have support (or at least reprinted) Worlds of Wonder had it taken then gaming world by storm. It didn't.    

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

I’m not moving any goalpost at all. I am saying, clearly, that in order for BR:UGE to be successful, as a universal, generic systemic it needs supplemental support.

That's not the same as needing mini-settings. There are many types of "supplemental support".  Changing from mini-settings to "supplemental support" is moving the goalpost. It would be like my saying that people need steak to live, then backing it up by saying people need food or their starve to death.  Yes they need, food; no they do not need steak per say.

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Short mini-settings can be produced a lot quicker that fully detailed big setting books and their relative speed of reading/mastery and potential low cost means they can fulfil a specific niche for the BRP fanbase to get into play quickly.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they will sell as well as more fleshed out setting or scenarios. 

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

I am not arguing for mini-settings to cancel out the bigger setting supplements but I am saying that the fastest way to support the game is to get lots of mini-settings out there - and Fate provides a marketing model that is successful at doing this. Fate managed to keep its fan base happy by immediately supporting their game with lots of rapidly produced mini-settings first, way before it started producing more developed, longer setting supplements.

No, your arguing (well arguing is probably too strong a word here. How about your in favor of?) that mini-setting are needed, and that they are the fastest way to support the game. I don't agree. I think the fastest way to support the game it to come up with one good setting (size variable) with lots of adventures. There are a lot more adventure supplements than mini-settings. 

13 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

BR: UGE currently has barely anything supporting it yet and it needs to have something or its going to fade away too.

Agreed. That is exactly;y what happened with the BGB. But to be fair, who are the ones who should be doing that? I mean there is nothing stopping any of us from making supplements for BRP, of any size. That not many have done so, as of yet, could mean that the system doesn't appeal to potential authors as much as some other systems, or that the ORC license hasn't been around long enough for much to be written. If you think about it, Mythras got most of the BGB's mini-settings, because of the old license.  ORC opens things up, but now a lot of the authors have migrated to Myhras, D100 Revolution and so on. 

5 hours ago, SDLeary said:

That sounds like it would work well!

SDLeary

That's good, because I changed it! 😁

In retrospect I don't see why a character with more hit points would be less likely to catch some shrapnel. So I changed it to the damage that the compartment takes. I think it makes more sense that a character get's injured if the compartment he is in get's blown to bits around him.  Like so: 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

Fate is a rule-set that can be customised and expanded accordingly. It is no lighter than BRP - which can also be run as a light system and customised accordingly. Your view here is prejudicial, honestly.

FATE is a lot lighter than BRP. You don't have pages of weapons tables in FATE. FATE does everything with a FUDGE die roll and the ladder. FATE also has (or at lead had) a free SRD. 

BRP has a 260+ page rule book (previously over 400 [pages). So not as light.

Now BRP once was very lite (16 oppages or so) and in that form it might work in 50 pages or less.

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

Do you have sales figures?

No, and neither does anybody else. But if it sold as well as any of the other games, it would have gotten support. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

The fact is that when Worlds of Wonder came out it was an entirely novel concept - it predates GURPS which was the system that really marketed itself as a universal engine to a continual fanbase.

Yes, but what does have to do withit being successful. Yeah, you might like it. I liked it too, and Jason Durall has noted that he likes it. But that didn't mean that it was a major success. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

Worlds of Wonder didn’t necessarily get the right model for supplemental support - aside from developing Superworld further

It got no support. The Superoworlrd boxed set was essentially a new edition. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

- but it is entirely speculation whether it could have been more successful had it, for example, aggressively followed up the box set with multiple setting mini-setting ‘modules’ that fans could collect. We’ll never know because they never did this.

Yes, enitrely speculation - your. You are the one speculating that it could have been more successful, if they had done something differently. But you have no evidence to support that view.

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

My view is that WoW faded simply because it didn’t provide enough interesting settings quickly enough.

It faded because it got no support whatsoever.. Not only that but it's fourth setting, Viking World, was moved over to RQ3 instead. One of the big differences between GURPS/HERO and Worlds of Wonder is that the former two game systems were full fledged games, while WoW wasn't. BRP (at that time) was a trimmed down version of RuneQuest. So if someone wanted something more than what came in WoW, they went to RQ.

The original WoW was interesting because it pushed the envelope for the RQ game system. It added superpowers, and science fiction, and a standard FRPG fantasy world (which was new to RQ). Today all that as been done with BRP. To move the needle any similar product would have to add in something that hasn't been done in BRP before. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

So, actually, I’ll up the ante and state that I think BRP really does need to have supplemental support for it to remain in the public eye and succeed as a product.

You're moving the goal posts. There is a huge difference between mini-settings, and  supplemental support. Yes, it needs supplemental support, all RPGs do. But what it needs is adventures. That's what sells RPGs.

As you pointed out BRP already had a supplement with some mini-setting, it didn't move the needle. With settings it isn't about quantity but quality. One good setting will do better then five mediocre ones. And if a setting is good, it would be a waste to throw it away in a one off product. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

A pacy release schedule of cheap mini settings has worked for FATE.  It could work very well for BRP too.

It as worked in conjunction with lots of fully fledged out setting that get support. Several things for Fate of Cthulhu. Even Atomic Robo gets some supplements. FATE does a lot more than cheap mini-settings. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

Yes. Fate has lots of mini settings - a lot of them are pay-what-you-want and a number of them have been collected into anthologies. A lot of these settings are really creative and original and about 50 pages or less in many cases. If you are wanting to switch between a variety of settings frequently, this is all you need - the longer the supplements, the harder they are to switch to. Have a look for yourselves.

FATE is a rules lite system though. So authors can just focus on the setting and atmosphere. BRP would need a little more.

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

BRP actually had this too - they had an anthology of different adventures with different settings in some supplements when the big gold book originally came out as well as with the quick-play.

Which didn't really sell at that well. Remeber that Chaosium had mostly stopped supporting BRP in favor of stand alone RPGs until  WotC started driving off their fans and third party supporters. 

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

The original Worlds of Wonder - with Magic World, Super World and Future World - was this concept too, of course. Imagine they had just kept going with Crime World, Wild West World, erm....Apocalypse World and so on?

The original WoW idea was a great concept. Iit came out, but mostly faded. It didn't really help to promote the system, and it was never as popular as RQ, CoC, Pendragon or Stormbringer. 

So I don't think BRP needs mini-settings. Mini-setting probably won't help BRP much at all. I think it does need at least one new setting with several adventures for it. It's ususally the adventures that make a game.

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Yes, but I would say that would be determined by "where" it hits. If it hits the Crew Compartment, then the crew itself is directly affected.

Yeah but it's not like the crew gets shredded, leaving the rest of the compartment in pristine shape. SO if the vhicle took 10 points to the crew compartment, crew make LUCK rolls and the vehicle take 10 hit points worth of general damage.

BTW, I was thinking that for the LUCK roll, the difficulty would be based on the damage compared to the character's hit points. 

Damage <1/2 HP:Easy

Damage>HP: Hard

Failure means the character takes frag damage (4D6); success means only 2D6, special 1D6, and a critical means the character walks away without a scratch.

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

If you hit the Engine Compartment, you could have it come off of vehicle HP, or have some mechanism to affect the engine directly. Same with Nav System, Fire Control, Motive Systems, and so on.

I was thiking of treating it like with characters. THe damage comes off the location/system and from general hit points. 

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

You could go further with hit locations and actually give them individual location points, but it seems cumbersome to create though not necessarily during play if you are using Locations for characters. This would allow you to have differing location HP values to ablate before things actually do bad things to said compartment and its contents.

Yeah. It's a trade off between characters being able to target specific parts (tracks, main gun, engine, fuel tank,etc.) and the simplicity of just using a major wound mechanic, along with a a "major damage table" that could allow for a lot more results (taking out some lights, the antenna, night vision optics, the radio). 

Perhaps it I did up the table in increasing severity? That way someone could still target a specific system. 

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Mythas Imperative (ORC)  uses Hull (armor) and Structure (HP). If you want to retain HP, and still have systems affected, they have an interesting method:

And it's free, too. I'll give it a look.

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

Note also though that in Mythras, vehicles do have slightly different values... for example Battle Tank is listed as 15/100 (Hull/Structure)

Not a problem since their weapons also do different damage.

Oh, and I do have a formula for working out armor value by thickness that I was planning on using. 

It kinda comes down to how close I want to keep this to the stats presented in the BRP core book, and CoC supplements. If I didn't use the BRP stats I could just base the armor and weapon values off of real world thicnkness and penetration data(RHAe). I'm trying to keep the values mostly compatible though. 

47 minutes ago, SDLeary said:

SDLeary

Thanks. 

7 hours ago, TrippyHippy said:

What do other people think?

Interesting idea, but does any RPG have something like this? Most universal RPGs (HERO, GURPS, d20 Modern) have setting books but they are a larger than 50 pages. I think that by the time an author tweaks chargen for the setting, sorts out what available for weapons, equipment, and powers, introduces and needed new rules, describes the setting, and does up an adventure, it's going to end up over 50 pages. Glancing at the universal supplements I have most seem to come in at about 120 pages. I suspect that's probably about the size needed to jump through all the required hoops.

Now maybe if someone just focused on an adventure, and maybe do just the setting, they could get it smaller. Say someone makes a generic setting or two with the required rules, and then a series of short adventures for those settings. 

On 12/28/2023 at 12:49 PM, coffeeman said:

I recently found out there was a Prince Valiant RPG designed by none other than Greg Stafford. I’ve loved the comics for years. 
 

Any news at all of a reprint? 

You might be able to find a copy of the first edition on eBay, Amazon, etc. if you look. Just be careful not to overpay. Apparently 2nd edition is rarer. Good news is that both editions are functionally the same with 2nd edition having a different  layout and color illustrations.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

I would say that it's armor, so treat it as Armor! Deduct armor value, rest is passed to the items inside, rather than vehicle HP.

I'd figure it would be like with people, that is damage comes off of location/system and total hit point. THe idea being that like with a person, you might have a vehicle so banged up that it stops working even though no system is disabled. 

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

You mentioned HEAT rounds before. Assuming that, I would apply it to all (fire damage). Remember though that crews normally wear something along the lines of NOMEX. A kinetic round I'd say a Luck roll to see if your hit by shrapnel, using rules similar to grenades. In both cases a CON roll to see if they are knocked out (fumble?) or concussed.

OKay, We're on similar ground here. 

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

 

In the case of vehicles like this, I'm seeing the "damage" as simply a way through the armor. Once through the armor, it's often secondary effects that cause the kill. The launching of turrets into orbit is the result of a critical hit (and I would argue this chance should be doubled on many Russian/Soviet designs).

Yes,it's just figuring out how. I'm going to have to bend a few BRP rules but it should work.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

I'm not familiar enough with the Mecha scale stuff to comment.

Okay, let me give you the quick version.

IN BRP Mocha, large machines (mecha) are given thier own scale. Each point on the mecha scale is 10 points of normal damage. Weapons, armor and hit points are all scaled. Thus a tank with Armor: 20, Hit Points: 140 would have Armor: 2 Hit Points: 14 in mecha scale. Since weapons are scaled a weapon that would do 10D6 normally would do one-tenth that, or 1D6 in Mecha Scale.

One of the game effects of this is that you get a lore more variance in the damage rolls. While it's hard to get 50 points or more  on 10D6 (0.29%), it's a lot easier to get 5 or more on 1D6 (33.33%).  That's good for vehicle combat, since it gets us out of the bell curve of lots of dice, and the 68-95-97.5 rule.. Mechanically it would be the same as rolling 1D6x10. Now Mecha has hit locations (for giant robots anyway) too, although it might work with a major damage (major wound) rule for hits of half total HP , and a major damage table. 

But hit locations let people target specific areas.

16 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Going by hit point chunks works, but since I am a wargamer, I have a calculator handy so I go down to the 1%.

-STS

LOL. I used to program my Tandy PC4 to calculate Skill Category Modifiers, Total Hit Points, and Hit Points per location. 😁

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

So, your goal is evidently emulating a specific media property (which property is likely (dunno which one) a better match for tank-v-tank combat than BRP is).
I'd prioritize faithfulness to the setting over faithfulness to the BRP ruleset (or any other consideration, really... other than fun / playable rules).

Yup.

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

But then ...

 

So it seems like real-world "accuracy" (realism vs. modern battlefields) is also a priority (maybe your media of choice features this?).
I think it's worth clarifying this issue, both for us (so we can give better discussion); and for you (so your own project is closer to your wants & needs)!

Ah. In the setting, vehicle can get damaged as well as destroyed. So it's a win win.

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Honestly, I'm inclined to largely abandon BRP's model of "combat" here, with HP's and AP's and such.
These "points" aren't the same thing; they aren't on the same scale.  In traditional BRP combat, the same HP's that damage your foe are used to penetrate armor.  But tank armor is so overpowered that hurting the people inside the tank is just automatic, if you've blown through the armor and reached the squishy. 

I know the feeling, but if I abandon the BRP model here, why use BRP for the rest? I mean other than being a BRP fan. These days thre are alternatives that can handle vehicles better and still have a good skill based game for the PCs.  

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Anything that gets through modern tank armor destroys the system it hits... engine, main gun, crew-cabin, etc.  If what it hits is the ammo-chamber, then an internal explosion destroys EVERYTHING inside the tank (some of the more-damaging anti-tank rounds are themselves damaging-enough to also have that "destroys everything" effect).  This looks to me like a modification of your "all or nothing" result, above.

Pretty much. THe idea of some sort of save is there both to keep hit points relavant, and to give PCs some chance of surival. SOmething that happens in both real life and in the setting. Heck in real life one on the resons why things are arranged the way the are in a tank is to give the crew added protection. A round that hits the engine probably wont be killing the crew too.

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

I'd focus your system on this feature.

It's in the lead right now. That or Mecha scale with hit locations. The latter being more BRP ish.

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Honestly, modern armored-warfare a lot more about having the better gear, and less about the "skill" of the "combatants..."  the skill-centric BRP game-engine isn't your best mechanical approach. 

Oh skill is important, but a big tech advantage helps.  It's just that the leaps in technology are more pronounced. 

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

Just look at WWII & the German Panther & Tiger results vs. America's best, the Sherman.

Probably a bad example. WWII really showed that manufacturing and logistics are key. It doesn't really matter if the enemy has a bigger badder gun and twice the armor if you can out produce him ten to one, plus supply all your allies. 

3 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Hmmm, how close do you want to keep it to regular BRP?

Good question. I don't want to depart too much, but I have toyed with a KILL% idea so I'm not far off from your model.

3 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

That is how I do it.

It's pretty much how BTRC's Timelords does it too. Damage is read as a percentage of the total hit points. 

How do you handle the damage/hit point calculation? Do you do it on the fly for each hit? I'd probably want to simply that somehow. Say break hit point total up into 10% chunks. So a 140 hp tank would have a 10% kill chance per 14 points taken. 

Thanks.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

So, as the issue is a kill, as opposed to complete obliteration of the vehicle,

Somewhat. A lot of the time a kill is a catastrophic kill- that is vehicle and crew are dead. But depending on what shoots what and where, sometimes only the tracks get killed or some such.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

“damage” is applied to what is IN the compartment that is penetrated.

Okay but just what does that damage mean? And how much od the damage do we apply. What's left or what was rolled.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

So a round entering the engine compartment is applied to the engine.

Okay, let's say our 140 hp tank has an engine that has 25% of total hp, like a hit location. That's 35 hit points, and far more killable with the weapons in game. 

Now lets say a tank gun hits the tank and the engine takes 26 points of damage. Now what does that mean? Is it like with characters, that is no effect until the location reaches 0 hp? Or does the tank loose some speed?

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

A round entering the crew compartment is applied to the crew, and so on. 

Exactly how? Using the example above if the crew compartment takes 26 points of damage does everyone in the compartment take 26 points? What if only 1 point gets through. Realsitically, even if 5% of a the energy of the round gets into the crew compartment it's bad for the crew. We're talking a couple of hundred thousand joules here.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

All those hulks littering the battlefield still have armor and hp.

That not really how damage works in BRP though, not even for characters. Even with hit locations a character is still alive until total hit points reaches zero. The only exception is when head, chest or abdomen takes twice it hit points in damage. With 35 point engines that's going to be hard to pull off. Especially with bell curves. Someone rolling 1D6 is going to see a 6 far more often than someone rolling 15D6 is going to see a 90.

That's  actually one of the reasons why Mecha scale appeals to me as an option. Give that tank Armor: 2 Hit Points: 14 in Mecha Scale, give that engine 4 hit points, and let that  15D6 tank gun do 1D10 damage, and suddenly an engine kill becomes a real possibility, as does a 2x engine kill explosion. Even the character works out better as 1 point through is 10 points in character scale, and bad news.  Yeah, that could solve a lot.  It even allows for a total hit point kill with a slightly above average special. 

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

This also provides some side opportunities; perhaps PC’s come across a battlefield and can get a “killed” vehicle going.

Yup. And it's fairly realistic too.  Lots of cases where the crew get fragged but the tank seems fine except for this fist sized hole. Just look at Ukraine.

1 hour ago, SDLeary said:

A bit more abstract than normal for BRP, but unless your going simulation, a playable option that shouldn’t bog thing down too much.

Exactly. That's why I'm trying to find something that is quick, simple, and playable, but can still give acceptable results for the setting. It's not so easy.

BTW, in the source setting most hits are kills, some cause damage/impairment of some kind.  But also, most of the attacks are with weapons designed to shoot at what they are shooting at. 

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

There is also the option of adding things that have been tried out in other BRP type games,

Which isn't much, since few BRP games even have vehicles. So far the most helpful option was the KILL% from one of the Chtlhu variants. Do you know of any others? 

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

and home brews.

I'm not familiar with any, although I hope someone else is.

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

 

Armor Piecing. Perhaps an AP round does fewer dice, and halves armor. 

. Keep in mind here that armor isn't the big issue. For example, let's say we took two BRP "modern tanks" and cut the armor off the front of one, then shot at it with the other. 15D6 isn't going to take out (or by RAW, even impair) a 140 hp tank, without either a critical hit (180 points) or a impale that is 4 standard deviations higher than the norm (less likely than the critical).So AP options that reduce the damage just make the problem worse. What I need is a way to either reduce the hit points or maybe divide them against certain weapons. 

The thing is with how BRP works, even if you get 10 or 20 points through the armor, the tank is not impaired. In real life such a hit would trash some of the insides of the tank (and likely some or all of it's crew), heck in real life even a 2 point hit through the armor would do that, but in BRP the tank just loses a few hit point. It's like someone with 14 hit points taking 1 or 2 points of damage with generic hit points. 

That's what I'm trying to find a work around for.

Basically what I need is a way to model the same sort of lethargy that the game has for characters, where one shot can kill. Instead vehicles get hit point attrition. Even with general hit points, a character can take a major wound. But not vehicles. Even someone with 18 hit points can be dropped by 1D6 with a lucky impale or critical, but a vehiclee with 180 hit points cannot be stopped by 10D6, even with a critical. 

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

Also, levels of success... Special gets a mobility kill, critical things go boom. You could even bring in Cthulhu style specials (1/2 chance or less).

SDLeary

Specials are already modeled with the impale rule (by RAW only AP weapons can impale vehicles, or at least armored ones). I can add in something for HEAT rounds and such, but the core issue, the high hit points, remains. By RAW a LAW rocket won't make a modern tank go boom even with a critical. It's not likely to make a vintage one go boom either. A lAW rocket, even the original M72 LAW should open up a "Vintage" tank like a tin can. And again, it's not so much the armor that is the issue in BRP, it's the hit points. 

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

How many do you need? Weapon System, Crew Compartment, Power Plant, Motive system, perhaps Nav System.

I don't know. 

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

And it would only be needed if armor was penetrated.

Barring lights and antennae. I'm not sure 't know if having detail that's not needed is a plus.

8 hours ago, SDLeary said:

It's not as if you are going to model vehicle facings, right?

Well, I'd kinda like to for armor penetration purposes, but probably in an abstract way. Something like a tank loses 4 armor from it's sides, 8 from it rear, 12 from the top. Just to give players a reason to move around behind a tank, or to let aircraft be effective against armor.

Well according to David Scott, when he replied to the OP about a Prince Valiant reprint:

On 12/29/2023 at 4:41 AM, David Scott said:

It will be available as part of this Kickstarter: Le Morte d'Arthur & The Arthurian Concordance:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861515217/le-morte-darthur-and-the-arthurian-concordance/. It has not gone to backer kit yet, when it does, you can usually join again, so you may get lucky.

 

Since David Scott is in the loop, Prince Valiant will be available in the kickstarter. 

1 minute ago, Gundamentalist said:

I don't think your issue is about the rules but about how people seek advantage in combat. Your example is a brute-force example assault on an unknown vehicle. The combatants will slug it out until something happens.

Iit is about the rules because: 

1.  I'm trying to emulate the results of the source setting, which do not match the results of the BPR rule.I'm going to need vehicles to be able to kill each other fairly often with one attack. TO do that I need to alter some rules. 
2. This isn't about how the player see advantages and weaknesses but how weapons actually work against vehicles. In real life (and most fictional setting at least try to factor in a bit of reality) heavy weapons can take out armored vehicles, but that isn't really the case with the BRP stats. In BRP even a critical hit from a LAW rocket (8D6 AP) doing max damage (96 points) through armor, won't kill a modern tank (140 hit points). The weapon just can't do 140 points of damage, and by RAW nothing less can stop or otherwise impair the tank. Any method of altering that means altering the rules. 
3.  BRP game mechanics do not factor in for weak spots, known or otherwise, other than by impales and criticals. To add in a way to exploit such weaknesses would require changing the rules. So yes, my issue is about rules. 
4.  

That said, I like your idea of adding weaknesses. Thanks,  I don't think it addresses my problem but it does make things more interesting, and would help with a specfic vehicle in the setting which pretty much has to be taken down by targeting a particular weakspot. So the idea helps

Now if all fairness to BRP, it's based around personal combat, and  was never really designed to handle vehicle combat, beyond the occasional chase. What we got was stuff that was added in piecemeal and the actual values didn't really matter much, since 20 points and 50 points usually mean about the same thing to a character. Dead by 5 points of 500 points doesn't matter.

I just looked at some test paper on battlefield statistics and the researcher broke down the "kills" in an interesting way, and one which might mesh with your idea of adding weaknesses. What the paper did was break down kills into catastrophic kills (vehicle go boom), mobility kills (vehicle immobilized), and firepower kills (vehicle weapons disabled).

I was thinking that:

A vehicle has to roll against it's current hit points when damaged.

• A roll under hit points means the vehicle is damaged but functioning normally.
  • Maybe the difficulty of this roll could be adjusted based on the hit point state of the vehicle? 
• A roll over hit points means a "kill" of some type.
  • Odd failure means a mobility kill (vehicle stops moving, but is otherwise intact)
  • Even failure means a firepower kill (weapons out but vehicle otherwise okay)
  • A roll that fails by more than 20% is a catastrophic kill (vehicle destroyed, character make a LUCK roll)
• Weaknesses could be factored in by targeting a spot/system and having it apply a modifier to the survival roll for the targeted weakness. For instance targeting mobility or firepower would ensure that they are what get's taken out on a kill, and targeting something for a catastrophic kill could could the kill margin to more than 10%.

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Vehicles exploding might do so due to a construction flaw (which might be present for cinematic effects) that could be rolled.

They might but it's usually due to an autocannon, rocket, energy beam, nuke, etc. striking the vehicle. 

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

Otherwise, the vehicle might have hit locations that catch fire or cause immediate (possibly partial) loss of energy/propulsion and a countdown to explosive malfunction if enough damage is inflicted. Or loss of steering, like popped tyres or a hit to the rear fluke or rotor.

Yeah that could work, but it would mean coming up with hit locations, and even then I'm not sure if the attack could do enough to take out a system and knock out the vehicle. For instance, using my tank example, a typical hit is going to get about 28-29 points through the armor, which is less that 25% of 140 hit points.  But it's still an idea. I don't relish having to do up hit location tables for every vehicle, but it might be worth the effort. 

3 minutes ago, Joerg said:

When you write "destroyed", how much recognizable wreckage do you accept? Could a destroyed vehicle still have (badly wounded) survivors?

It varies. In most cases in the primary source they just go boom is a nice fireball,  but sometimes they just are intact but inoperable and one or more survivors get out. Some vehicles have ejection systems. I was thinking of allowing a LUCK roll to escape a destroyed vehicle. Maybe adjust the difficulty based upon how "destroyed" said vehicle is. A vehicle that get's "killed" twice over might be a hard LUCK roll to escape.    

I'm working on setting up a campaign for a specific sci-fi setting. One where characters in vehicles sometimes shoot at other vehicles and vice versa. In the setting various vehicles can often damage or destroy each other with one shot. 

My problem is in adapting the BRP rules.

For example, lets say we have two modern BRP tanks (Armor: 24, Hit Points: 140) shooting at each other with tank guns (15D6). Doing the math, we can see that on average, it will take five hits for one tank to take out the other. Factor in for an impale and it might happen in three. Still too many for the setting.

I've been thinking of ways to achieve the desired results, and am posting them below for other people's opinions and (hopefully) a better alternative.

Option 1: All of Nothing

If an attack gets past the armor the vehicle is destroyed. This is closer to my goal and to how it tends to work out in real life. But it makes hit points worthless, and would break down with bigger vehicles (tank gun takes out battleship).

Option 2: Hit Point Save

This is the same as option #1 exact that the vehicle gets a "saving throw" against it's remaining hit points to survive the hit. A roll of 96-00 is always a failure, and a 00 is probably a catastrophic one. It will probably still take several hits to take out a vehicle but at least there is always a chance of a kill.

Option 3: BRP Mecha and Resistance Table

The idea here would be to covert every to BRP Mecha scale (1/10) and then compare the incoming damage to the remaining hit points on the resistance table to see if a "kill" is scored. 

Anyone got any other ways to handle this in BRP? 

1 hour ago, mandrill_one said:

 and of course the PVRPG will not be offered anymore, in any form, until (if) Chaosium renews its license.

that contradicts what David said

7 hours ago, David Scott said:

It will be available as part of this Kickstarter: Le Morte d'Arthur & The Arthurian Concordance:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861515217/le-morte-darthur-and-the-arthurian-concordance/. It has not gone to backer kit yet, when it does, you can usually join again, so you may get lucky.

 So if David has it right then this would be a way to get Prince Valiant? 

13 minutes ago, David Scott said:

As both a backer and someone who works for Chaosium, it's certainly not failing.

Sorry David, but most of us hear anything about it in  four years. That'snot a good sing for a kickstarter. Has Chaosium managed to renew the license for Prince Valiant? The last posts from MOB and Rick Meints, in 2019, didn't indicate so. Also, any idea when the Concordance will be available? 

8 hours ago, Richard S. said:

I don't think Chaosium has the rights anymore, and while they may be interested in reacquiring them it's not a high priority.

That's what I thought.

4 hours ago, David Scott said:

It will be available as part of this Kickstarter: Le Morte d'Arthur & The Arthurian Concordance:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1861515217/le-morte-darthur-and-the-arthurian-concordance/. It has not gone to backer kit yet, when it does, you can usually join again, so you may get lucky.

 

I think that has changed. Remeber that the project was announced some years ago, by Stewart Wieck, who is sadly no longer with us. At the time he held the rights for both Pendragon and Prince Valiant, all of which has changed. The comments section do not look promising, and I fear this is probably a failed kickstarter. 

7 minutes ago, g33k said:

Three general notes, as you approach the BRP:UGE rulebook:

#1 - as noted by @Dangermouse, above, the game is descended from a rather-large suite of games in the "BRP family" and often has holdovers from those games included accidentally.

And often those holdovers are either incopatible with each other or with new rules added in the BGB/UGE. 

Basically most, if not all, of this stuff worked, back in the game where it orginally ame from. But the mix 'n match nature of the BGB leads to things being used together that were not created to do so. 

7 minutes ago, g33k said:

#2 - The RP rulebook is really NOT a "role-playing game;" it is a suite of rules-options from which you can assemble a role-playing game.  As such, some of the options are mutually-incompatible (either/or choices) while others are "pick as many or as few as desired" choices.

Yeah, it's greatest strength is it's greatest weakness. It's a great tool kit for experienced GMs who want to fine tune it to fit a specific setting, but it's very hard to get it all to work together until you do. 

7 minutes ago, g33k said:

#3 - Despite the two points above -- or maybe because of the two points above -- it doesn't really matter!  The BRP rules are largely intercompatible, robust, and forgiving.  Pick any reasonable interpretation (as best suits your own preference)... and it'll work.

Yup. How well it works will be the issue, and that is subjective, both by player preferences and by the genre being emulated.  

I'd go with:

1. Weapons of the same type (1H Sword, 1H Axe, 2H Spear, etc) used the same skill (so Broadsword, Shortsword and Scimitar would all use 1H Sword).
2. Weapons that were considered by the GM to similar (i.e 1H Club and 1H Axe) can default to one half the higher of the two skills. 
3. OPTIONALLY: Rule  #2 can be applied to someone using an weapon that they are unfamiliar with at first, until they get time to become familiar with the balance of the weapon. For instance, if a PC loses their broadsword (1H Sword) and picks up a kopesh (also 1H Sword) for the first time.

That seems a lot simpler to me, and is more in keeping with the spirit of older BRP games.

2 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

Yes, against all damage, and you can do it with a bullet. It's sort of stupid,

Thanks for explaining. I wasn't judging, just wondering if you used S.D.C> and the various special training skills that came along with that expansion to Palladium.

2 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

 

but it kinda makes it a bit cinematic as people go cartwheeling around like in the movies... and it serves as a weird justification in my mind for a lot of battlefield positioning powers or things like Improved Evasion, etc. (like so many of them in 4E D&D or Mutants and Masterminds are).

I do use SDC.

That's what I thought. I mean you'd sort of have to if you used Palladium's damage values for firearms.

THanks for the clarification.