soltakss

I've had a reply from Eduardo and he is happy for the gile to be posted to the BRP Forum. I've uploaded it to the Other Settings area but can change that if necesary. http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/downloads.php?do=file&id=191

Zombie Yelmalion Runelord - Ha!

Which is the Defending Skill and which is the Attacking one? If I am Sneaking, them I am defending and my evil opponent in Attacking my attempt at Sneaking with his Listen skill. If I am a guard then I am defending and the evil thief is attacking with his evil Sneak skill. In my book, on a tie the PC wins, unless it is a contest between two PCs, in which case the higher skill should win. It doesn't need to be absolutely consistent as long as it is quick and playable.

Why not? If you can find a place to fit it in then do so. It's all made up anyway. I've heard of Morrowind, or was the the Morrow Project? I've never read it, but bugs, chitin, jungles and volcanoes fit together in any setting, as far as I am concerned.

I thought that had died a death, but ... It's as high as the Sky. What's that in miles? Haven't a clue. Higher than Mount Everest but without as big a footprint. Sounds good to me. The Sky Mountain is certainly hotter the further up you climb. I don;t think a normal person can climb too far up it, because they will burn to death. Or the Sky weeps around the mountains that thrust their way into the air. That's how I see it - the edges of the World are made of Ice and the climate gets cooler the closer you get to the edge. Sounds fine to me. There may be various local differences, warmer around the volcanoes, colder around some mountains.

That's great news. Any chance of getting some extra support material on the website?

Some people don't like the Resistance Table because it involves Maths. As a Maths graduate, I won't comment any further on that particular issue. :mad: The table is limited in that it doesn't have a very wide range. STR 10 vs STR 1 has the same failure/success chance as STR 100 vs STR 1. More improtantly, it doesn't scale well. STR 20 vs STR 10 has the same chabnce of success as STR 200 vs STR 190, so two very strong creatures with virtually the same Characteristoc scores (5% apart) have radically different chances of overcoming each other (95% vs 5%). But, having said that, I use it as it is easy and convenient. Quite often I don't even use the Table and just work with 5% per point difference either side of 50%.

As mentioned above, there are many rules tweaks that can be used to make combat, and action, more cinematic. However, the main tule is to let the players try things and don't automatically say they can't do things. So, steering clear of combat for a while, if a PC tries to jump across a 30 foot chasm, rather than saying "No, it's too far", give them a reduced chance, allow them to come up with a clever way of doing it. If the PC then fails, allow Fate Points/Hero Points/Whatever to be used to give them a lucky break. If they fall, then allow them the chance to catch a branch, if they think of it, or to land on a ledge. Make it dangerous so they don't think they can succeed automatically, but give them opportunities to succeed. In combat, allow the players to use complex tactics, but give NPCs simple tactics (it makes them easier to play). However, give powerful/important NPCs complex tactics to give the players a sense of danger. Allow PCs to be Heroic if they have lost a limb or lost the use of a limb - let them stand up and club the opponent to death with the bloody stump then pass out from their exertions. Allow healing and a lot of it. When facing many NPCs, "forget" to use all their attacks/parries - it makes the players happy that they have got away with something and lessens their load slightly. Don't use Encumbrance/Fatigue excessively - a PC should be able to fight non-stop for a couple of minutes without collapsing. But, above all, if they want to try something then let them and always give them a chance to succeed.

I don't like the POWx5% as a measure of Luck, personally. In my opinion, LUC should be a characteristic and LUCx5% should be a Luck Roll. That way, you could be magically weak but lucky or magically powerful but unlucky. There are rationales that say that powerful people are in tune with the cosmos and hence are lucky, but I don't particularly agree with that. Presumably by spending PPs as Fate Points. RQM has Hero Points which act in the same way. I'd prefer that mechanism, or have Fate Points as a separate entity rather than using PPs. To be simulationist you have to have something to simulate. Since Luck is largely subjective and cannot be measured in any meaningful way, except perhaps by rolling dice, BRP has to use its own subjective rules. The same applies to using Magic or Psionic Powers - we don't have them in measurable ways and so have to pretend to know how they work. It does because Hero Points are not just related to Luck. I use them in a similar way to Plot Points in Mythic Russia, allowing you to change the plot slightly by spending Hero Points. I also allow players to reroll dice rolls by using a Hero Point. This does not change reality but instead allows them to influence what happens around them. If you are Lucky then you should be able to ride your luck, trying to use your Luck in everyday situations. Eventually your luck will run out. Those two phrases in themselves give a mechanism for using Luck. You can use Luck until you run out of some commodity that drives Luck. I would use Luck Points, stopping when LPs reach zero, then allowing them to regenerate to the LUC Characteristic. With 0 LPs you don't pass out, you just can't use your immense Luck. I am aware that this uses house rules and doesn't really answer your comments on using PPs as Fate and also that this is diverging rapidly from the original point.

In (Gloranthan) RQ2/3, Rune Lords had the ability that they resisted magic with the POW not their Magic Points, which made them harder to overcome. If you don't have that distinction, then it's pretty much the same whichever method you use, as long as you are consistent. I'd use PP vs PP, personally, as it makes using PPs into a tactical balancing act - can you afford to weaken yourself by using magic?

Nope, it won't accept a ZIP File either. It accepts a PDF, which really defeats the object of using an XLS file. Are you listening, Beetle-Boy?

Even better, our character sheets are stored on-line as Excel Spreadsheets, so they can be printed out if required. They are never entirely up to date but are close enough that we can use the PC of someone who is absent or reprint a forgotten character sheet. I was going to upload a sample Excel Character Sheet, but the Attachments button does not allow Excel Extensions.

Well, I never! That's worth a pint if we ever meet at a convention. Thanks. It makes it so easy to line things up and draw boxes around cells. Merging and demerging cells is a pain, but it isn't that bad - I got used to it very quickly.

For simple character sheets I use Word. For complex ones I use Excel. Usually, I set all the columns to 1.1 character wide, or thereabouts, then I merge cells to obtain the effect that I want. It makes things very easy to set up. It also means that I can insert formulae into the cells to work out Hit Points, Skill Bonuses etc. When it is finished, I sometimes print to a PDF, but not often. Excel isn't perfect - it doesn't allow mixing of fonts in a single cell, so if you want Runes or other Symbols you have to put them in the cell next door, which is a pain. But, most of my character sheets are very simple, series of boxes laid out to be readable, skills in columns, magic items and equipment on columns etc, so Excel is perfect for that.

Can't you set it so you have to approve membership? I do that with the Alternate Earth RQ group and haven't had any spam yet, although we don't have as many members as BRP Central.

The trouble with the Martial Arts skill is that it is far too generic. Different schools of martial arts use different techniques and are good in different situations. A friend of mine is a Black Belt at Judo and says that given almost any foe on a concrete floor and he would beat them within seconds. Another friend has studied various types of Kung Fu and says that he would keep someone who uses Judo at a distance. Someone using unarmed combat will use different techniques and skills to someone using armed combat. Even Grapple/Fist/Kick/Head Butt comes nowhere near to proper martial arts, including wrestling and boxing. I'd treat the Martial Arts skill as a knowledge skill showing you the best ways to strike, the best places to strike, the best ways to block and dodge. It should be usable with any form of close combat, and potentially missile combat, and should apply to weapons as well as unarmed combat. To model other martial art techniques, you would need new skills, new Legendary Abilities (ported over from RQM) and so on, probably a whole load for each type of martial art. That way, each school would teach its own abilities and special skills, some would be common to different schools and some would be specific to one school.

You should never derive setting-specific information from game mechanics. RQM has runes and is set in the 2nd Age. RQ2/3 didn't have runes in the same way and is set in the 3rd Age. This doesn't mean that runes disappeared in the 2nd Age. In my opinion, anyway. HeroQuest 2 is going to have runes and is set in 3rd Age. Does that mean that 3rd Age suddenly has runes again? When HeroQuest came out, some of the rules mechanics were shoehorned into stories and myths and they just didn't work (for me, anyway). Game mechanics should be used to interpret the setting-specific qualities, not vice versa.

In my mind, Rune Magic is related to what the Deity is, Divine Magic relates to what the Deity does, or did. So, Humakt gets Hand of Death as a Death Rune God but Oath because of his God Time activity. The problem is, the Rune Spells don't really tie up with the Runes themselves.

A paragraph, or even two, per chapter isn't going to make us complain to much, unless they are really long paragraphs. I like some fluff, but I don't like it when the fluff takes over and fills entire pages.

I use a version that is fairly close to the original version and to tell the truth it doesn't work that well. What you tend to get is PCs concentrating on certain runes, building up a large number of a single rune and being able to cast high-pointage spells based on that rune. If I GMed a RQ campaign again then I would go back to RQ3-style Spirit Magic and use Runes as an extra layer of magical power that would assist spellcasting, not be as common but not be overpowering.

I've just skimmed through this and it looks good. It contains just about the right mix of historical accuracy and mythic content. The Timeline is complete enough to have a lot of information but not overly oppressive, although it seems to have some innacuracies according to other posters here. The style is very much in keeping with the setting and nothing looks out of place. The backgrounds and professions are sufficiently stereotypical but not overly so. They contain enough to play a PC straight off. The description of religions is OK, but is a bit sketchy in places - it doesn't mention where the religions are widely worshipped (Catholicism in Spanish and French speaking areas, Mormons in Utah and California, Protestants in the East and so on) - the descriptions of Mormons as sitting for an hour in stoney silence doesn't really fit, but I'm a Mormon so I'm probably overly sensitive. The sections on Otherworld Powers and Arcane Lore are excellent, full of useful spells and powers. The bestiary covers a wide variety of beasties and contains the main ones you would expect. The mythical bestiary is even better, containing a number of mythical beasts, spirits and demigods. The equipment list looks fine to my untrained eye. There is a scenario, but I didn't really read it, in case I actually play in a Wild West game. All in all, this looks pretty good to me. It has a style that suits the setting. If you want a Wild West setting then this would be a good choice.

I'm sure I've seen the cover illustration somewhere ... To my surprise, this has 2 Fantasy Europe scenarios and a Wild West one. Lots of Alternate Earth stuff, then. I've skipped through it and it looks good to me. It covers different genres, Fantasy, Horror (although it is medieval horror), post-apocalypse and Sci-Fi, so there's something for everybody.

I use D4/D6 etc. There were a lot of interesting ideas in RQ4 but the base rules were not that good, in my opinion. Having a straight add results in potentially less damage, which I don't like. Also, it takes away all the fun of rolling lots of D6s when using big, strong NPCs.

No, one part of me is still in the loop. This is an alternate reality.