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That never gets tired - thanks Thanks - I have to be careful as some people don't like jokes slipped into rules systems, but you need some to lighten things a bit. The trouble is that not many people will just purchase a Sci-Fi Rules supplement. Also, if I published it then it would need to be for Mongoose RQ as I don't like the licence agreement for BRP and BRP is not OGL based so I would have trouble justifying the fact that it is based on the Traveller/D20 Modern OGL SRDs. I have seen loads of settings that are poor, or at best OK, and don't really want to come up with another one. The ideal thing would be a setting that could use parts of other settings or a really good standalone setting. I have some ideas but they are basic, at best. The other thing is that the rules need a lot of tidying up to make them consistent and to take out a lot of the non-RQ stuff that is still there. All the equipment needs costing, Tech Levels need sorting out and so on. I haven't the time at the moment or the inclination. I have been offered some artwork if I ever publish it, but that would increase the page count even further. It's at 210+ pages at the moment without artwork, proper layout, text boxes and scenario seeds, so it could well end up at 250 pages, which is a big book to publish myself. How many people would want to buy something like this? Probably not that many, especially as Mongoose has a new version of Traveller. I've got no experience of publishing books - I normally stick to my website and producing short articles for fanzines. So, it would be a big commitment in terms of time and money to publish. I can't think of any other reasons, but I'm sure that I will be able to given enough time ...

This has become a very interesting discussion. They did and they didn't. From what I have read, Medieval Alchemy is about Transformation. That could be Transformation on substances as well as Transformation of the Spirit. Medieval Alchemists were definitely Mystics but they were also Scholars. As to how much of their nature you want to introduce into a RPG, that between the GM and players. I would use both ideas, making Alchemists Mystics and Scholars, looking to transform themselves and society as well as investigating the properties of transforming other substances. Again, from what I have read, it looks as though there were very few people who were just Scholars. Many mathematicians, for example, were also clerics or noblemen. I can see Alchemists and Magicians having a lot in common with a lot of crossover. This is reawakening my interest in a Medieval Alternate Earth Setting.

Does this mean that all the BRP supplements will be coming out this year? Or is it still the traditional "Next Year"?

Sounds like a fun idea. At its core, BRP has a simple skill resolution that takes a few seconds to learn, a simple combat system that takes a few minutes to learn and a number of magic options that take a few minutes to learn. None needed, but it can be played with or without figures/battlemaps as required/preferred. No advantage/disadvantage system in core BRP. However, some BRP games have advantages/disadvantages and some people like them. EWven if introduced, they would be optional and therefore could be used or discarded at will.

You make a chair and it's good and strong and you can sit on it. Then you think about improving it, so you shave bits off here and there to make it just as strong but lighter. Then you carve decoration into it and stain it a nice colour. The subsequent steps don't make it a better chair, but they can make it a lighter/more attractive chair. The danger is that the Craft roll might fail and you might cut to much off or carve a hole into the seat or burn the finish with to much varnish, thus spoiling the function of the chair. I'd only give skill bonuses on a critical but would possibly have AP/ENC bonuses on a special. Ideally, I'd have Special Virtues and Critical Virtues as different things and have a Special Virtue on a special roll and a Critical Virtue on a critical roll. It's a bit complicated but stops every fifth sword doing extra damage/having a bonus to hit. To get the equivalent of Bladesharp 3, you would need +15% to hit and +3 damage, which is 6 Virtues, i.e. two critical rolls, 1 critical roll and 3 specials or 6 specials, each additional roll being at -25%, so this reflects a lot of extra work, a high skill and a lot of luck. So, they wouldn't be at all common. Craft bonuses don't matter that much, in principle. NPC craftsmen simple act as if they had a higher skill. They would sell special equipment at a higher price, which means that PCs can buy the special equipment more easily. PC craftsmen could boost their skill by a fair amount, but what would this actually mean in practice? They would succeed in making things more often - so what? They may be able to make special items with slightly better characteristics - they could keep them or sell them, but in itself this wouldn't particularly unbalance a game.

Reading this thread reminded me of a trip to Caernarfon Castle with some RPG friends, we looked over one of the walls and Ady said "That's a 12 metre drop - we could survive jumping down in RQ, hmmm ...". RPG rules don't always reflect real life that well. I'd set things according to how you would like things to happen. If you feel that an Accord could run over a mine and survive the explosion then set damage accordingly, however if you feel that a mine would trash a normal car then set higher damage or set extra shrapnel damage or have the fuel tank explode. In a Mad Max style game, cars should be better able to survive catastrophic damage as that is the whole point of the game.

Except in RQ2 which had 12 SR rounds, with 1SR=1Second (approximately). RQ3 had 10 SR rounds and tried to break the 1sec=1SR but then introduced movement by SR (a good idea in my opinion) that approximated SRs as time.

Sounds good to me. Thanks.

As some people have had more experience with Monographs than others, would it be worth making a Sticky Monographs thread that contains a Monographs FAQ?

The trouble with Alchemy is that it means a lot more than just making potions. Those ideas look fine to me. A Philosopher's Stone is something that the greatest of alchemists spent their lives working towards, so even in a Fantasy setting, I would make it incredibly difficult to make. But, medieval Alchemy was as much about physical and spiritual transformation as messing with potions and breaking down substances.

Our current game has 4 people - 3 players and a GM. I wouldn't want a campaign with less than that. I have played in games with 8 or 9 players and they were long and cumbersome. 3-6 players works best for me, with each player playing 1 PC at a time. If you have more than one PC per player simultaneously in a session you get bogged down in numbers and in players getting confused about who they are playing at that moment.

Hmmm, anyone who knows my opinions on things will appreciate that this doesn't sit at all well with me. I understand that CoC is a biggish game with an established fanbase and it will help to plug into this, but this sounds odd to me. With the Mythos information be in addition to the other material? So, a GM could interpret things in a Mythos style if necessary. Or is it integral to the background? I still look back with horror, and not in a good way, at the Hungary supplement that I was hoodwincked into buying at Tentacles that made Vlad the Impaler a Cthulhu Acolyte. I do hope that we don't have Deep Ones dragging Viking Longships beneath the waves or shoggoths shambling around Viking steads on Iceland. (My CoC knowledge gets a bit hazy after shoggoths and Deep Ones). The Sagas stand by themselves, in my opinion, and don't need any Mythos stuff tacked on the end. All in my opinion, of course, and in this case my opinion is very heavily biased against CoC.

No, it's quite simple. The answer is patently obvious to me. If the PC dies and the player is still hanging around then, in the spirit of bad modern horror films, you bump off the player in the same way the PC died. Job done. We are speaking hypothetically here, aren't we? No? Ah.

It sounds like an interesting idea. 1 in 10 seems quite high. You'd have more conflict if only 1 in 100 or even 1 in 1000 were affected immediately. 1 in 1000 gives you something like 6 million supers but keeps them in an overwhelming minority whereas 1 in 10 gives 600 million supers and makes them very common indeed. The problem with aliens manipulating inferior species is that the inferior species don't do what they were supposed to. What happens if the opposing aliens rocked up and the supers decided to join them? What if the supers decided that they didn't want alien intervention and warred on all aliens instead? Why would all supers behave the same way? Some might join the manipulating aliens, some might join their enemies, some might be independent and some might attack all the aliens. How much control would the PCs have in this? Could they decide the fate of others? Could they uncover the alien plot? What if they encountered the other aliens and found that they are nice? Or horrible? Would the players feel railroaded into fighting a war that isn't of their choosing? Could they be manipulated into doingn things that they think are of their own choosing? That makes for interesting roleplaying sessions. They would try to control the supers. They would recruit supers into their aremd forces, police forces and governmental organisations as spokesmen and poster boys/girls. Above all, they would use supers to further their own ends and try to minimise the control of supers by other governments. They would be aware that the supers will probably try and govern themselves, so that is something they would want to avoid at all costs. Badly, probably, as that is what religions tend to do. Fanatics would say the supers are witches/wizards/evil/sons of the devil and would try to persecute them. Perhaps they would be seen as messengers from God and new sects would spring up around them. Maybe the supers themselves would follow charismatic supers and start their own religions. They would be jealous and would try to bring down the supers. If there were only a few they would see them as classic Superheroes from the comics and treat them as superstars. However, if there were many of them the common people would see them as a threat, especially if they banded together and formed communities. There would be wars and revolutions. World economy probably wouldn't change too much. Fortune Telling/Future Seeing Supers would crash the stock markets if they were allowed to invest in stocks and shares. Technology might advance if gadgeteers or inventors made new things, but people would probably rely on the abilities of supers rather than on technology, in certain cases. Healing Supers would be very sought after and would be employed to cure sick people.

I can think of nothing worse than playing myself in a RPG. Except, of course, somebody else playing me. There's a reason why I play rugged, kill-crazy barbarian types and it isn't because that's what I am in real life!

Hiya All I'm looking at what I want to do RPG-wise and I know I haven't time to do anywhere near as much as I'd like. Close to home, I have a RQ Campaign set in Third Age Pavis/Prax that is in danger of stalling unless I can find something to inspire me. I am working on an article for the Birchbark Chronicles for Mythic Russia that I haven't looked at for a couple of months. A long-term project is the mapping of Prax/The Holy Country/Dagori Inkarth for an extended game of Dragon Pass/Nomad Gods that is going nowhere. The RQ-SciFi SRD has reaced a point where it is just about complete but wants tidying up and smoothing out, but I haven't the will to look at it. Based on the RQ SciFi SRD, I wanted to produce a small PDF that could act as a setting for a RQ SciFi/Space Fantasy game, but I keep stalling when I try to look at the big picture. I have ideas about races and cultures, about the background of humanity and where it is going, but I am finding everything else really difficult. I've done some background work on a Medieval England RQ Setting called Merrie England and set during the reigns of Kings Henry II, Richard I and John I. I have a fair bit of background, rules to fit in and religions almost complete but it is just parts at the moment and fitting it together into a whole PDF is proving difficult. Some old friends are talking about resurrecting an old campaign as a PBEM or occasional meet and play compaign, but I don't have a lot of time to devote to this and it is even more to do. Add to that my website which has completely stalled and you can see that I have so much that I want to do but have so little that is likely to be completed in the near future. Ah well, I supose I'll be able to get siomething done sooner or later, but it is slow going at the moment. I feel as though I am swimming through treacle. See Ya Simon

No, you are right. Battle Magic in Simple Quest seemes to be a combination/the same concept as RQ2 Battle Magic/RQ3 Spirit Magic and RQM Rune Magic. BRP Sorcery is a little bit different, to my eyes, but is closer to the above than to Sorcery in RQ.

Ah! That's what RAW stands for - I didn't want to ask and look stupid. I didn't much care for it in Stormbringer and don't care for the idea in BRP. It makes combat very deadly - you get through or you don't, no half-measures, no way of lessening the impact by taking the edge off a blow. It also means that, to a certain extent, the parying weapon is pretty irrelevant as parrying with a knife has the same effect as parrying with a wooden door strapped to your arm. Perhaps I should read the parrying rules again to see if that's actually the case. Still, if a leather shield has fewer HPs than a wooden one with fewer than a metal one then the progression is sound. I'd expect a greatsword to chop through a leather shield pretty much straight away, though. They are fine against long spears, not so hot against stabbing spears and not much use against big blades being swung by a maniacal berserker.

It still works for a SuperHeroes game, but not as well as other systems. For low-level characters it's fine. You could tweak it for high-powered characters or use a different resolution and it could be fine. Try it and see. Let us know how you get on, if it worked well and how you got around any problems that might have arisen.

I can't really see SIZ 2 Melniboneans. If you wanted to use the Elric stats then they work. RQ3 had stats for Green Elves who are taller than normal ones. Otherwise, I'd make them up. You have to be careful what you want out of them, though. The danger is saying that elves are taller than humans, quicker that humans, cleverer and more powerful than humans, more charismatic than humans and so on. That's all well and good, but you have to decide whether elves are on average better than humans or on average better than most humans. Also, elves in worlds such as Discworld will be different to elves in Middle Earth.

The trouble with BRP and high-powered super heroes is in scale. Superheroes with high Strength such as The Thing, The Hulk and Superman have a correspondingly high damage bonus that depends largely on their STR as their SIZ doesn't vary that much. If The Thing fought The Hulk then they would smash each other to smithereens, so they each need very strong armour and/or very high Hit Points. They are both tanks, so give them a huge CON and massive armour, so their average damage bounces. Now put either of them against a normal superhero and you will find that they are basicaly untouchable - they can absorb huge amounts of damage and can deal out similar damage. All well and good, you say, they should be virtually unbeatable. But what is they fight Laserman or The Sonic Blaster or other superheroes who do not rely on pure strength but have different modes of attack? In BRP they are often modelled as inflicting damage which the tanks can block/take. So, you have to ramp up their damage which means they can cream other superheroes at a distance. Hurricane Man uses a storm that acts against STR, so tanks are immune. Nausea Man uses a Vomiting Beam that acts against CON, so tanks are immune. Mister Mind can control minds, so tanks are completely vunerable to his attack, even though the player could argue that their bestail nature should make this difficult, but BRP does not really have the mechanisms in place to model this kind of defence. Because BRP is Characteristic-based, it doesn't cope well with superheroes who can lift oil tankers. In this case, it is about game balance and I don't think that BRP does it at all well.

Sorry, I was answering a point by Shiba Homer, probably a point too far, really. Your original post was a good question, actually.

Well, not really. Game balance is pretty much for pussies. If you can't live with the fact that your magician is better at drying opponents than you will ever be and that the thief can climb up a sheer wall and pick the pocket of a guard on the ramparts whereas your scout can only survive for days in the wilderness then tough. Different PCs will be better at different things and this might seem unfair, in fact it might be unfair. Also tough. The worst thing he said was that PCs should retire when they reach Rune Level. Then that heroes (in HeroQuest) are taken out of the game when they learn Great Secrets. Not my cup of tea at all. Was it? I thought it was about powerful magic users in a fantasy game. If the original point was about SuperHeroes then the point is pretty much moot anyway. In SuperHeroes games there are several ranks of characters: Super Heroes/Villains, Sidekicks/Henchmen and Everyone Else. Non-Powered characters come under the category of Everyone Else and cannot possibly even hope to compete with Super Heroes/Villians or even Sidekicks/Henchmen. So, once again it's tough. In any case, BRP does not deal with Super Heroes very well. Of all the BRP games I have played/GMed Superworld was the most disappointing as BRP does not cope with using powers imaginatively to cope with other powers. I ran a couple of Super Hero games at Continuum using a cut-down version of HeroQuest and I doubt whether I'll ever run a SuperHeroes game not using HeroQuest as the rules fit the genre very well indeed.

I've seen that myself. Some people only try to do things that are written down in the rules rather than trying to do something and then working out what to roll afterwards. Classic swashbuckling is the prime example - someone wants to swing across a street and land on an opponent but there isn't a rule for it in BRP so he doesn't bother whereas I would attempt it, make an argument to roll Jumping/Agility then SIZ vs SIZ or whatever. Mongoose's RQ has a lot more going for it with Legendary Abilities, which give more combat options/abilities than BRP has. But, again. I'd always try something and then complain if the GM disallows it rather than not bother trying something in the first place.

Yes, a skill-based generation system means that players have to focus on what is important to them, at least at the start. So, a magic user would have spent on magic skills and spells but would not be very good at much else, a fighter could be good at weapon skills, a scout could be good at wilderness survival skills and so on. Power Point limitations are the biggest levellers in regards to balance - if the GM wants to hold back magic users then he should limit the amount of stored PPs available. That way, magic users, as you said, quickly run out of juice and have to rely on their wits. This is a problem with any game. You can have characters sitting around not doing much. In the game I am playing in at the moment I play a were-deer who is really useful in the wilderness but completely out of his depth in towns and the other PCs are Trader Princes who are at home in towns but put of their depths in the wilderness. So, there are times where I sit back and offer a supporting role and times where I lead. Back to your example, there's a few things someone can do in that kind of situation. Not all combats can be talked around or avoided. If you let people talk their way out of every combat then you are depriving people of the joys of cracking heads. Sure, let them be clever and avoid some combat but there should be times when they are attacked or have to attack and get stuck in. The player complained that his character didn't get to do anything cool in combat? What do you mean by that? Did he want to try exotic and challenging tactics and was told he couldn't? Did he want special abilities that he could use in combat? Did he want to swashbuckle all the while? Sometimes it is a good idea to improvise in a given situation and let players try new things to see how they work and how they pan out. That way, everyone has fun, which is the whole point of playing RPGs.