soltakss

In the MRQ version, priests had the "Bless" skill, which allowed them to carry out Blessings of various forms. The idea was to move away from the RQ3-style approach of each blessing being a spell in itself and have a single skill for christenings, marriages, blessing holy water, blessing holy ground and so on. When we converted to BRP, we found that Perform (Ritual) worked in much the same way, so we decided to use that instead. However, I missed the Bless instances in the professions. The Perform skill in BRP is a nice little catch-all, allowing you to do all sorts of things. But, Perform (Play(Instrument)) has one too many nested brackets for my taste.

GORE uses a modified version of the Resistance Table and is based on MRQI, so it would be easy to port it across to whichever OGL RQ/Legend systems.

I looked at the rules again last night and they do make sense. The point of them seem to be that a single character shouldn't have a skill "Physics" that covers all of known Physcis, as it is such a broad category. So, he has a base skill of Physics that cannot exceed a certain stat-dependant chance. If the skill exceeds that then it must be placed in a branch skill that has a specialisation. That makes sense, to a certain extent. So, someone could have Physics 40%, Physics (Planetary Motion) 60%, Physics (Particle Physics) 55% and Physics (Wormholes) 45%. Is that any easier than having Science (Physics) 40%, Science (Planetary Motion) 60%, Science (Particle Physics) 55% and Science (Wormholes) 45%? I'd just introduce a rule that to use a generic skill such as Physics in all situations requires a Difficult roll, not because the skill is difficult but because it might cover an area in which the character has no expertise.

I bought the Arms of Legend for $11 through Drive Thru RPG. That's different to $1 or a free download. The original MRQ SRDs were available free of charge, so extracting the text and reformatting it is fine. However, doing the same for a paid-for product doesn't seem right to me. I know that the OGL specifically permits it, but for me it contravenes the spirit of the OGL, if not the actual wording. For me, the whole idea of the OGL is to allow publishers to produce material that can be used in other publications. So, if I wrote up a spell, magic item or race and included it as OGC then other publishers could that spell, magic item or race in their OGL products simply by including the Copyright notice and copying and pasting the description. It isn't to allow someone to copy all the text and make it freely available, although that is a risk that publishers have to take. I would be annoyed if, for example, someone republished Merrie England: Age of Eleanor as a Legend OGL document. I couldn't stop them from doing it, as long as they included the right statements, but I wouldn't be very happy about it at all.

Does Statement of Intent depend on DEX? We always went around the table to get Statements of Intent, then used Strike Ranks (or DEX Ranks) to action them. So, once everyone has stated what they are going to do, the GM would call out Strike Ranks in ascending order or DEX Ranks in descending order and anyone who wanted to do something would call out when his number was reached. We use RQ3-style Strike Ranks/Movement, so movement is easy for us (if you were moving you carry on at 3m/SR, if you started moving then you start on your DEX SR, for as many SRs as you want to move) and movement simply delays any combat action. We don't use Movement as an action in itself. But, there again, we like a fluid game rather than one which stops and starts all the time.

Ringworld skills are over-complicated, in my opinion. While they have some good ideas, the skill trees and their implementation are over the top. BRP has rules for using one skill to aid another, so I'd use them but perhaps apply some judgement on which skills would aid others. So, my PC has Science (Hyperspace) and Science (Mathematics), so he should be able to use Science (Mathematics) to aid his Science (Hyperspace) when navigating through Hyperspace, but his Science (ExoBiology) skill wouldn't be applicable.

BRP is designed to cover multiple genres straight out of the book, although each genre is only sketchily covered. Take the best bits of each system and use them all together. OpenQuest is bringing out a Modern supplement, ideal if you want mercenaries doing an Arnie, RuneQuest covers standard fantasy really well, BRP has supplements for medieval adventures and Science Fiction, older BRP-style games cover other genres, especially horror. Take whichever rules you like and work them into a cohesive whole.

The post works as a mercenary organisation that happens to be a cult. I think that this kind of thing would work as a generic supplement, as the cults are limited to the organization. These are like Guardians in HeroQuest, minor deities that are worshipped by a small, self-contained group of people. This kind of cult doesn't seem to have a deity as its focus. If it did then it would have Divine Magic rather than just Common Magic. That's what makes it generic enough to be used in multiple settings.

Although fully within the terms of the OGL, unless this was released as a free supplement, I would be very uncomfortable with this. If I wrote something for Legend under the OGL and found that it had been copied into a text document and posted as a free download then I would think again about using the OGL. In fact, I would then make rules stuff OGC and everything else protected, which really defeats the point of Legend.

No, we don't have maps of Wales, Scotland or Ireland. This was a conscious decision, because at the time of Merrie England, these were vassal states and were generally problem-free. It was only in the hundred years afterwards when they became heavily fortified and started to cause problems. After all, this is Merrie England, not Merrie Britain!

There's a character sheet in the downloads section http://merrieengland.soltakss.com/MerrieEnglandDownloads.html

I will be putting more stuff in the Merrie England Downloads section http://merrieengland.soltakss.com/MerrieEnglandDownloads.html when I have time. I have added various links in the Links Section. If anyone finds any more that they think should go there, please let me know.

The way I handle such issues is by roleplaying as much as I can, then asking the players to roll dice depending on what has happened. So, they might roll Intimidate, with a heft bonus or Fast talk with a penalty or whatever. Sometimes, we break the task into several parts, so they might have to make several rolls and the result depends on the outcome of each roll. Since every situation is different, we have to narrate the outcome of the rolls. It works well with our group. Sometimes, however, a scene which I think should take 10 minutes goes on for a whole session (4 hours) down to the roleplaying and discussions and dice-roll chains.

Shame. Paolo - I think you should revert to the new icon and style permanently.

I agree 100%. Players/PCs tend to be very arrogant and think that they can get away with anything. Sometimes they need a dose of reality to tell them otherwise.

No, just fate ...

With Conan, I think you absolutely need Hit Locations, precisely for the chopping off of limbs. I like the idea of "I hit the left arm and chop it off" rather than "I've done well, what do I do, I chop something off, where have I hit". If you are so weedy that a sword can chop your limbs off then you are cannon fodder for Conan and the other proper barbarians. Having said that, the real heroes need a way of supercharging Hit Points, getting more armour or being very good at Dodging and Parrying. You could do it in RuneQuest as you could get spells such as Shield and Protection, but I can't see that working for Conan. Perhaps some magic items could be used to make the Heroes tougher. HP = STR + CON is a must, as that gives a meaty fellow 36 HPs, or 12 in an important location, so it would take 24 points to incapacitate him and that's not going to happen unles you get a good impale. Tough Skin is also a good idea, as all those years wandering around the steppes in just a loincloth must have toughened you up a bit. Allowing attack and parry with the same weapon might help as well. After all, that's what Conan does in the films. I can see warriors rubbing salves onto their bare skin before a battle to give them more armour - after all, why else would they fight all oiled up, muscles glistening? Healing potions are a must, as well, just to stop the attrition of total hit point death. I'd not have Death at 0 HPs, either. Have 0 HPs being "About to Die" and only die once you have reached your Total HPs negatively. So, someone with 36 HPs should only die once they have reached -36 HPs.

Ah, I hadn't realised that this is the Falling Damage Table rather than a Velocity Damage Table. That makes sense as velocuty does increase with height fallen, so damage should also increase. According to Wikipedia, as good a source as any, the Terminal Velocity of a skydiver is 54m/s, which we hit when we fall 150m, or thereabouts, doing 51D6 damage. It might be better using the ballistics equations and seeing how they turn out.

I'd have let him go out in a blaze of glory, as the other characters panicked as to what to do.

And that shows up a major problem. If you assume that Momentum is proportional to damage, then something moving at 10m/s does 2D6 damage, something moving twice as fast (20 m/s) should do twice as much damage but does 7D6 damage and something twice as fast again (40 m/s) does 27D6 damage. Those figures just don't make sense to me.

I'd go with Rust and use the poison rules, as a basic idea. If you want to go more complicated, give each drug a Rating and have the user roll that rating each time that he wants to be affected by the drug. Normal Success = desired effect, Special Success = enhanced effect, Critical Success = Fantastic effect, Failure = No real effect, Fumble = Overdose or Side-Effect. Each person could build up a tolerance to the drug which would manifest as a penalty to the drug's Rating. Taking more drugs would add a bonus to the drug's rating but should also give an automatic Side-Effect chance. Side Effects would depend on the drug in question. The most conmmon would be Dependence/Addiction. You could build a table of common side-effects and their game mechanics. Weight Loss (Loss of STR/CON), Paranoia, Sleep loss (Lack of concentration, skill penalty) or whatever. Some of these would be countered by other drugs, but they might have side-effects themselves. So, you could take a drug to counter the Sleep Loss but that might induce paranoia. I'd search the Internet for side-effects of recreational drugs.

The time taken to complete a jump depends on many factors: is it a vertically upwards, vertically downwards or horizontal jump, is it from a standing start or a running jump, is it in atmosphere and so on. How long a fall takes depends on the factors involved. Falling in a vacuum is different to falling in the atmosphere, how you fall also affects the time taken to fall, due to the varying calculation of Terminal Velocity. Someone spreading arms out will fall slower than someone curled up in a ball or with arms to the side. The Leap and Smash powers cause damage to an opponent, not to the participant, so the damage will be different to the Falling damage. The best suggestion I would make would be to put the damage for Falling, Leap and Smash in a table, side by side, and compare them.

There is also a copy at http://www.rpg-resource.org.uk/index.php?article=6391&visual=4 If anyone else sees any reviews, good or bad, then please post the links.

As she said in SpaceHunter: Return to the Forbidden Zone "Us loners gotta stick together". No. Sometimes you have to work as a team and enjoy the game. OK, but I'd kidnap someone from the Agency's family/loved ones and hold the to ransom in return. Assuming, of course, that they were on Death Row to begin with. As a plot point it might work. Or they could just abscond ... Watch them find a mad scientist to cure the plague, or give the plague to the Agency bossess or threaten an Agency scientist in order to get the vaccine. Then don't be surprised when they each find a way to screw the Agency or blackmail someone to get rid of the hold over them.

Both To my mind, you can't separate the two. Sure, you can have people wandering around the Mediterranean, interacting with the peoples of Greece, the Near East, Northern Africa and so on, but the myths and gods and goddesses add so much to the setting. The Trojan War has a completely different level if you add in the Gods and their scheming and manipulation, for example, in fact it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the Goddesses. I know a lot of people like their Historical settings with little/no magic or religion, but a lot of the Greek stories involve religion or the deeds of gods and goddesses.