Greville

I agree with Madrona in terms of a straight point total, especially as the rules (on page 53) say: The average would be 13.5. The only issue with point buys is that players can get carried away min-maxing, but given that Runequest is pretty unforgiving, the in-game consequences of having some very low stats would prove educational for all.

I have a fan-made character sheet, made by Dan Pettersson in 1995, that I downloaded from a public ftp site in the late '90s. Probably ftp.cs.pdx.edu (the rpg section was taken down a long time ago), UMich, or Berkeley. Could one of the site mods let me know if I can upload the character sheet here? Cheers, Greville

I voted for the fixed armour values. Mainly because I don't want to slow down every combat by adding another roll. As it stands combat can take quite a while once characters are moderately skilled and have semi decent armour. If you are using Elric/BGB default style combat you're extending any combat round, which connects, by 25% (20% if you have to roll a major wound). If you are using the hit location rules then the player can choose to target an unarmoured location by making a difficult attack roll. There are also rules for aiming on pages 212-213 of the BGB that I would let people use for melee attacks as well as ranged.

Thanks that's perfect

Hello, I'm prepping for a Mythic Iceland campaign and would like to know what font is used for the special characters. Google is not being my friend. Names are important to me and I don't want to use transliteration and type out the english equivalents. Thanks, Grev

I'm currently playing in a Nephilim campaign set in Victorian London, using the Chaosium version of the rules. I'm not running anything right now, but am preparing a Mythic Iceland campaign using Mythic Iceland and the BGB.

I'm playing in a Nephilim campaign set in Victorian London and we are having a lot of fun. I bought all the books before they went out of print and I have to say that the feel of the game once you have the Gamemasters Companion and The Chronicle of Awakenings is very different to just having the main book. The main book felt like an unfinished game, you could made characters and it gave a bit of background, but no real idea of what kind of game it was. If you decide to play it, make sure you get all the pdfs. We are using the Arcana in the game. They're not organised groups as such, more just a loose group of Nephilim who have the same ideas about the right way to reach Agartha. So we thought of it like twenty two different approaches (there is also a lot of overlap between some of the Arcana) rather than distinct gangs as such. Also there are not a lot of Nephilim around, you may only meet a few in the course of your game.

Count me in

A duel with highly skilled people could take a long time, and like a long boxing match wearing the other person down and waiting for an opening was a crucial strategy. This fight scene from The Four musketeers is a case in point (it's reportedly a recreation and mashup of several famous duels) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3TbBwSVe8 . If the player characters were outnumbered, or ambushed then it's a completely different matter. The 30% reduction in skill for successive parries or dodges tends to make the fight pretty scary for even the most skilled pcs. I don't see this as a problem in the rules, the rules are the physics of the game world and in this case mirror the real world pretty well. All situations design should be rules independent, and lies with the GM.

Hi, I'm looking at putting together a character sheet for a game of Mythic Iceland because I would like to have all the combat information including fatigue all on the second sheet. It's got me thinking of character sheets in general and I thought I'd ask a few questions: Do you prefer multi-page character sheets? What information is crucial for the front sheet? Should all the combat information be together? Any pitfalls to avoid in the placement of commonly changing info? If I'm erasing and rewriting this part of the sheet, does it smudge other parts of it? Or do I print new sheets because this one corner is unusable do to constant erasing? Do you use a separate form to guide players through character generation? I may end up using the default sheets in the end, but am enjoying thinking about something I normally take for granted. Cheers, Greville

I would use the grapple rules on p60-p61 of the BGB for immobilising a limb, or strangulation if it is crushing the torso or neck. Defenders can try and parry with a grapple of their own, dodge or use at STR vs STR roll to break free. Attacking the creature can be made at normal chance if using small weapons or by brawling and grappling. Using any medium or large weapons would be problematic due to the closeness of the combat, and should incur a hefty penalty. I would also add a significant risk of self injury, if a snake is wrapped around your leg and you chop it in half what happens to your leg. I guess you could have any excess damage blow through to the PC's limb just like with shields. Any armour worn in the hit location would still offer protection.

The baggage was more to do with the setting and their impressions of the game. Most had never played it themselves. Here is a link to the Paranoia stuff: http://grevsspace.wordpress.com/category/roleplaying/paranoia/ The oldest posts are at the bottom.

I started converting Paranoia 2nd Edition to BRP. I had got most of the character creation done, but stopped at equipment due to lack of player interest. Paranoia just had way too much baggage for the people I game with. I might put the posts together in a singe document and upload it here. In terms of D20/DnD conversions Sladsthesnipers comment is the prevailing attitude "This singular reduction from a pool of hundreds of hit points to usually less than 20 hit points remakes D20 characters from powerhouses into merely competent." However in play with highly skilled characters I didn't find this to be the case. In original DnD hit points were supposed to be a mixture of combat prowess, luck, experience and parry; all mixed up to signify that heroes survive more punishment and can have longer combats than lowbies. In BRP I found that a high parry skill had the same effect as high hit points, and good quality armour was the equivalent of good ac. Of course if you add DnD levels of magic items then it all breaks.

Like others here I find BRP runs games with normal human level characters very well. However it can run higher level stuff well, it just doesn't look like it does. This is because in BRP the character is shinier than the gear they carry. I think that's because we are conditioned to think high fantasy = DnD and in DnD past 9th level you are only as powerful as your gear. One of the things I like about Mythic Iceland is that the power level scales from normal person to Odin's-favourite-mortal. The comment about BRP being easy to understand and quick to run is also true. A lot of the time people compare gaming systems by what they can do without mentioning how easy it is to use. I ran a Call of Cthulhu game a few years back after a long break and running it was a joy. Everyone understands percentages and the skills do what their names suggest without fiddly exceptions and caveats. None of the players had played it before, but picked it up very easily. Questions to the DM were about the adventure and situation, not the rules. This is BRPs biggest strength: They system doesn't get in the way of the game, you don't get those jarring breaks while looking up obscure rules.

Another good reason not to fudge the dice rolls. I agree 100%. The way I run Fate Points would not have saved your character, but would have guaranteed that he bought the time for the rest of the party to close that portal. And bought that time in a way that you chose. Agree here as well, I always felt resurrection was too easy as played in most DnD games.

I like fate points, and use them. But not as they're written in the BGB. I started using them after seeing them in action in a friend's game. Then again I go for a more cinematic style of play these days. Here's how I use them: Each player starts with a pool of 3 fate points that is renewed at the start of each game session. 1 point can be spent to re-roll any dice roll made by the player. Points cannot be used to force any of the other players to re-roll. 1 point can be spent to change a fumble to a normal failure or a critical success against the player’s character to a normal success. They cannot be used to make a normal success into a special or critical success. 1 Point can be spent to stabilise an unconscious or dying character as if first aid had been performed on them. Any fate points that are unspent at the end of a session do not roll over to the next session and extra fate points cannot be purchased with experience. Originally it was thought they should be tied to the skill or experience system, or that you could earn more points through your actions. What happened is people started hoarding fate points. So we went to a fixed number. Fate points are a controversial topic; many feel game reality should only be altered by the Gamemaster, their solution is that the GM ‘fudges’ the situation. In my experience this is a path to ruin, the worst situation is when a GM with a penchant for fudging decided to let the dice fall where they may, then players feel like the GM let your PC die for a reason. I use Fate Points in all my games now, rather than being just an extra life, they put a little control of the story in the players hands. Fate Points also can act as a cue; people only use them for stuff that’s important to them or their PC, as a GM that’s always handy information.

Yes you are Although I'd change "anywhere I choose?" to "anywhere I'd choose out of the skills that the GM will let me have". In a universal system not all the skills fit every setting.

I went back to the Chaosium website after posting my comment about errata and found some. There's a one page document called BRP Corrections that was added to the downloads section last Saturday. http://catalog.chaosium.com/fdm_folder_files.php?fPath=3_9 It doesn't mention Skill Point by Age, but it's a start and nice that some at Chaosium is looking at it. Only niggle is that you have to log in to download it even though it's a free download.

I've never given the skill increases for age to encourage people to pick what fitted their character, rather than run decrepit old farts to get the highest possible skill levels. However there are several ways you can interpret this (none are good): Assume there is a missing first number and it's zero. You'd get 0, 20, 30, 40 with normal missing out on the increases. Seems a bit unfair however. Assume there is a missing first number and it's ten. Still pretty miserly. Assume that there is a missing last number and it's fifty. This is the only one that seems fair to me. In any case I think this needs to be cleared up and some official errata would be nice. There didn't seem to be any on the Chaosium website, but I might just be too used to Google and my search skills have withered. In any case I'd go with the third option or just revisit the number of skill points characters get, it's your game.

Only in a unfamiliar area like a desert to add drama or a post-apocalyptic world where scarcity of EVERYTHING is a common theme. And you are right about the paperwork chore. We did this one in a game I was playing in, it was fun tracking the food the first day, and bloody annoying every day afterwards.

One thing that also makes shields great is you can still block at full skill level when fighting at close range. Parrying (with a non-small weapon) is at half chance. (If your opponent is close enough to stab you with a dagger or knife then the fight is at close range.)

Chivalry & Sorcery 3rd Ed has a list of herbs and materials along with how they boosted magic. I used to have a filemaker database of them, I'll see if I can find it. Here's an example of how they were laid out: Betony Element: Fire, MRF*2, Herb, Healing & Purification It breakdowns like this; Betony could be used in construct items that aid in Fire magic, MRF*2 means that it's easy to prepare for enchanting (you would make an incense or oil and anoint the item), it's a herb, and also boosts healing and purification (in potions or as an incense). I may still have in on an old CD. The only system specific stuff is the element and MRF. MRF is Magic Resistance Factor and you can easily convert it to POW.

I think there are several different approaches you can take. As others have said you can use Dex and weapon length OR strike ranks. One system has you starting to act on your dex and the weapon length modifying when the blow lands. The strike rank system, basically counts down with fastest people acting first, you can portray this as everyone starting at the same time and slower people take longer to perform an action, or actions taking a set time and the slower people start later. One system that might work would be similar to the action point system in Chivalry and Sorcery 3: Everyone rolls initiative and adds it to the number of action points they have, then spend them until you've run out. I agree 100% about strike ranks and dex order not working for missile weapons. If I run a sci-fi game I'll either use action points or a modified version of the 'actions' system in Nephilim.