islan

It's certainly crazy. :confused:

Is it considered common-knowledge for stats to be rolled in-order for BRP?

This is actually one of the problems I've had with this system: I'd post up a question about it here, and get umpteen-bazillion different answers, all which only served to confuse me even more! For this very reason I'm starting to think that I should just start by running some earlier version of BRP (such as my copy of Elric!) and learn from there. Once I get more experienced, maybe I'll end up finding the BRP book much more helpful as a general reference tool.

I assume that Attack vs. Parry/Dodge, like other iterations of BRP, use different rules than Opposed Rolls. It does, however, clearly state that it modifies the "winner's degree of success". I'm not saying that opposed rolls can't ever work in BRP, I'm just saying that I have yet to see one decent method for it in any published material (and the BRP offers several and all of them seem to have problems with them).

PS-to-last-post cuz it wont let me edit it: I just figured that a Crit vs. a Special would be even worse, as the Special would have two degrees of success; by the way the rules are read, they can then shift the Crit down two degrees to a normal. Thus a Special will ALWAYS beat a Crit. As for doing just "whoever rolls highest wins" it would only work if you completely threw out the special and crit results. Take for instance a 20-guy vs a 100 guy: if a 100 guy rolls 1-5 he gets a crit and a special on 6-20, while a 20-guy gets a special b/t 1-4 and a normal between 5-20. This mathematically proves that it is impossible for the 20-guy. While this is a very extreme case (20-vs-100) it easily shows problems that can arise with less granularity.

No, I do not think it is "not to my taste," I do believe it is downright horrible. Take this inevitable example: Two characters are engaged in an opposed skill roll; one with a 60, the other with a 40. The first one rolls a 10, which gives him a Special success, while the other rolls a 30. Because the second one made a success but less of a degree, they can shift the other one down one degree, which results in them both having a normal success. However, the dice still say "10" for the 60-guy, and "30" for the 40-guy, which means the 40-guy wins. Using this method, if ever a Special success is met by a normal success, the normal success will most often win because the normal success is most often going to be a higher rolled result. Same can be said about Critical vs. a Special; the only way to clearly win over someone is to roll a Crit and them a normal success. This method is horrible.

You don't seem to be paying attention to the entire rule. Pg. 173, Opposed Skill Rolls: "The character that achieves the highest degree of success wins the contest. However, if the loser's skill roll was successful, he or she can modify the winner's degree of success, shifting if downward one degree for every degree of success he or she achieves above failure. In the event that both parties achieve the same degree if success, the higher die roll wins the contest..." This is just a horrible system, especially with the whole shifting thing; gave my brain whiplash. I didn't say that it was broken, just a mess. When I tried running a game in the past and a player tried to grapple a monster, we were both abhored to find out that you can't even apply any grapple effects until the next round: so you succeed in grappling them this round, but it doesn't do anything to them till next round. Since then I had tried several times to fix the grappling system before just wanting to throw the entire mess out entirely. I should note that I have run only one test game using the BRP book, and I was quite dissatisfied with that as well. But since then I have become more dissatisfied with the book the more I read it to help understand it better; the specific and spot rules all seem to get uglier and uglier the more I read them.

I first got into the BRP system by reading Stormbringer 4e and Elric; while their iterations of the system were pretty flawed (Stormbringer in particular), I liked the idea of the system behind it. So I was really keen on getting the BRP book a long time ago. Now that I've had it for a long time, and tried to have many a question answered on these forums, I am must say that I for the most part displeased with it. I find that it does not do a very good job at organizing multiple parts of different versions of the game. It cannot even be consistent with itself, quite often conflicting with itself in different places. Most of the skill-specific rules leave much to be desired; the grapple rules are a mess, and the Command and Strategy skills really confuse the use of one or the other, to name a few. I have yet to see a single decent contested-roll system in any officially printed material. The reason I am writing this now is because in a thread I read elsewhere, many people spoke of the BRP book as a natural evolution of the system, with new rules that make it work. I cannot see where they are coming from, when to me it instead seems like a mish-mash of incompatible rules. I have also heard people refer to the system as one where you can turn things on and off as you wish, but the poor presentation of the book does not leave it to be much of a toolkit; to use a phrase, I cannot see the trees through the forest. I have also heard people on this forum refer to their use of BRP alongside earlier BRP games. Is this book really just a reference book for longtime BRP fans, and thus the book is just not for me? Or am I just not on the same page as BRP at all, and shouldn't even bother trying to get it to work for me?

Yes I accept that, but I think it's better than the slow-down from also calculating the one's place, as well as the seeming randomness that can come from it (you beat me by only 5 and you win?). I bet it would really happen rarely enough that it wouldn't be worth the extra effort.

Okay, I think I have made a decision for myself! Please let me know if you see any problems (mathematical or other) with it. In a successful contest roll, a margin of success is calculated as the difference between the die's tens place and the skill's tens place. For example, a roll of 39 on a 40% skill would have a MoS of 1. A roll of 25 on a 67% skill would have an MoS of 4. Sure it's fudging the math a bit, but it keeps the speed up. MoS's are then compared, and the higher one wins. Of course, Special and Critical successes still beat any Normal success. If the MoS's are equal, another roll is made, possibly with one side receiving a bonus, depending on the circumstances (the "What was that?" factor). I also think this system could be easily turned into multiple rolls for added depth. The problem I see with always using this method is, if continuing with the Stealth vs. Listen example, once a Listen success clearly beats a Stealth check, the jig is up and something else must be down (Run? Kill the guard before he alerts others?). So. Your opinion?

Thank you! Good to see someone on the same page as me.

The bases are only meant as a starting point for all characters: everyone is not as good at Stealth as Listen by default, but training can make them better at it. Stealth is "attacking" and Listen is "defending," just like a Weapon Skill is attacking and Dodge defending.

I make the base 50 because, if someone is trying to sneak up on someone whose listen skill is equal to theirs, it would make sense that they have a 50/50 chance of success (ie, since they are both equal in skill, they would both have an equal chance of success).

I can't really get my head around contested, non-combat skills. The skills chapter says that it is just a comparison of degree of success (normal, special, or critical) with ties going to the defending side, while the system chapter details something very different that doesn't make any sense to me (the defender's roll is 'shifted' by a number equal to how much the attacker beat his own roll). Both of these methods appear to me as largely inadequate. The problem I have with the first one is that it makes using your skill against someone with a high defending skill nearly impossible (a 100% Stealth character would have a terrible time sneaking up on a 100% Listen character). So what option have you found to work for you? The only one that is making any sense to me at the moment is to add the difference between the two skills to 50 and make the attacker roll (ex: 80% Stealth sneaking up on a 60% Listen would have a 70% chance of success).

Well the abhorrent monster was only a little bigger (maybe Size 15) and an average Con (maybe 14), so yeah, that damage would certainly be lethal to it. And from the condition of the grapple as described between the player and GM, the monster was basically on top of the player, thus a bigger target, and couldn't break the hold and therefore could not move. I don't think I'm ever gonna use BRP to run horror ever again, ironically.

Strangely my experience was the exact opposite XD I decided to run a horror game where the players didn't have much in the way of fighting skills, being average people. The result was them being frustrated that they couldn't shoot something that was right in front of them--even with the Easy condition, it would only bring the roll up to maybe 50%. Right now I'm trying to get back into the system after that initial reaction. PS: it also didn't help that it quickly became apparent that grappling the unspeakable monsters proved to be the most effective at dispatching them. I also couldn't readily interpret the grappling rules when it comes to grappling with something that has a totally different anatomy to your own.

The significance of the statement was that the player wanted to put the barrel right up to it (ie, touching) so that there is theoretically 0% chance of missing.

Player (after missing several times): "I run up to the monster that is grappling with my friend, put the barrel of my gun to it and pull the trigger." How would the BRP rules respond to this? How would you, as a GM, respond to this (if different from the last question)?

New idea: if an attack is a failure and a defense roll is a fail, then the attack still succeeds (normal success). I haven't had a chance to really think about this yet, but do you think this would be bad for the game?

Hm, I never thought about how fumbles would work in this system, but I wouldn't want it to be generated the same way criticals are: I can't even figure out what the common chance of that would be, but it seems like it would be too high of a chance. I would probably just keep the normal rules for how fumbles work, or maybe not even use them at all. I also would not count 00 as a double, since it really stands for 100. PS: Even in RAW I think with 90+ you still will get a fumble on a 00. I think I decided on a houserule that once you hit 90 then you have 0% of a fumble, but I can't remember right now.

As I said at the the beginning of this thread, I was thinking about using this method for a variety of reasons, and was more interested in other people's methods than defending my own. But since people seem to keep on having a problem with it, here is another reason: I'm thinking that this method would bring the system more in line with one of the optional contested rolls mechanic, which I dub the "roll under but high" method, which the RAW method doesn't seem to work with so well because you end up with "the lower I roll the worse I am, UNTIL I hit this one minimum point, in which case I auto win". I haven't decided yet if I'm going to use this method, I'm just tinkering around and want to know what other tinkerings people have done in the same vein. PS: I would also like to point out that I have never claimed this method to be "simpler," just that it would be faster. I'm just the kind of guy who likes to see exactly what a result is right when I roll it.

A better statistic for this would probably be "for every 10% over 100%, increase the lowest crit range by 1" So, at 100%, the crit ranges are 01, 11, 22, 33, etc At 110%, the crit ranges are 01-02, 11, 22, 33, etc At 120%, the crit ranges are 01-03, 11, 22, 33, etc I think that stays in tune with the idea of crits being 10% of your total skill.

The reason I'm thinking about using this method for criticals is because of modifiers: with the RAW method, you have to calculate your special and critical successes based on your skill, which is fine. But what happens when you get modifiers to your skill? You'd end up having to recalculate your success levels every time. I still may use the RAW method for some games, but for my current tinkering I'm liking the look of the doubles method because it allows players to roll and INSTANTLY see if they got a crit or not.

Though I like the standard system, I was thinking about using something else for various reasons, including just speeding up play. Right now I'm thinking about having all successes that are doubles (11, 22, etc) are criticals, which I think gives a 9% chance of success for a skill at 100 (1-10 can't get any doubles; maybe I should let 01 be a critical). One loss from this would be the special success results, unfortunately. I've also heard other people mentioning their own methods; what system do you use, and why do you use it?

Can anyone say what that reason is?