RosenMcStern

:shocked: OMG, Frogspawner actually supporting me? Repent, O sinners! The End of the World is near!

Dalmuti, I think that all of your points are simply disqualified by your calling me words (albeit under the cover of dashes). I have argumented against your views, but you are just attacking my person. This does not make me angry, it simply makes your words less appealing to most listeners, I suppose. Which is a pity because I appreciated many of the ideas you expressed in your first post in this thread.

I am not defending Chaosium for the sake of it. I have been their customer for 20+ years (and will be their licensee as soon as the contract I sent this morning comes back from California), and I know they do publish errata. We had the RQ3 errata after some time, didn't we? And six editions of CoC, and five of SB. So there is no reason to think they will not publish an errata once they have a good idea about what is to be fixed.

Of course, not all that Charlie, Greg (when he was still in charge) & co. did during the years was right. Steve Jackson understood the market value of a generalist system sooner than them, and now the gap between BRP and GURPS is almost impossible to fill, despite the system being easier and more flexible. But this happened 20 years ago, and now people at Chaosium have understood their mistake. Too little too late? Time, and not our rants on this forum, will tell.

I for one would like an official errata and clarification sheet. I'm not talking about fixing misspellings, but rooting out and correcting the errors an inconsistencies caused by the "Cut & Paste" method some of this book suffers from.

This happened for MRQ, and some of the corrections were worse than the mistakes they were trying to fix. We have some errata on the wiki, and an official errata will come, but that is not mission critical. More settings, yes. More hi-tech-specific rules, yes. But the rules are fine as they are. Believe me, if my group likes them, they are good as they are.

Yes, this is a good point. You have plenty of GURPS/Traveller materials but only scattered bits for BRP, Outpost19 being the notable exception. Well, what about a book for mechas, for instance? This subject has resurfaced many times on this forum.

Newt said it all. Someone may have been impressed by how many books Mongoose published for MRQ (and WotC for D&D 4e), but this does not mean that BRP requires that amount of stuff to survive. There is a fair amount of D100 stuff on the shelves, so the system is not "unsupported". Remember that besides Cqll of Cthulhui, you can use anything written by Mongoose with BRP (and in fact most of us old-schoolers do it!).

Another fantasy setting could help, but as we already have Glorantha, the Moorcock Multiverse and Lankhmar for MRQ, I think any Fantasy-thirsty D100 gamer has enough products to read and use.

What? Ah, you say that in this way Chaosium did the work on the system and Mongoose gets all the money? Well this is Charlie's problem, not ours

attack the troll - roll under 70% sword skill

Ah, I rolled 65, I hit! Now 1d8+1+1d4 for damage, 11 points. Whaddayamean with "a scratch"!? He is wearing chainmail, so? It is - uh - 7 points, and do you mean his skin is armor, too? Now what, parry his Big Scary Club with my sword? And what happens if miss? Will he scratch me too? No?

never mind the troll I'll attack the pixie - roll under 70% sword skill

Whaddayamean when I attack? I am DEX Rank 15, I am fast. Pixie is faster? Well never mind, I'll parry. Ah, parried, always this boring 70%. Whaddayamean with "The whip entangled your sword"? I parried. He wanted me to parry? Oh, well, I'll just kill the little bugger. I hit, I rolled 60. Whaddayamean with "Using what weapon?" With my sword of course! It's entangled? Rolling on what table to free it? Damn little - how did you say it's called? Runner? - damn little ****ing runner!

how about this human? - roll under 70% sword skill

I'll just hack him in half with my Great Axe. My Strike Rank? It's six. He hits at SR six, too? Well, what's the problem? I cannot parry on the same SR I attack? Well, so does he. Weapon and shield? What a coward! Well, I am a real man and I attack without parrying. I hit, rolled 45. He parried? Coward! Well, his turn now. Whaddayamean with "severed arm"?

from their perspective, it isn't as rewarding as "overcoming an opponents defenses". They roll same old same old, and hope the NPC fails his roll - subtle distinction, but I can see their point.

Use the techniques above and nothing will look unrewarding

The point is that it is not easier to hit a big and slow target in melee. Maybe you have some bonuses with a ranged weapon, but you don't just miss a punch "because target is small". The point is that the target reacted and was out of the way when your punch hit, and being small and fast helped him.

D&D abstracts all this into the target number (AC) which includes both armor and dodging capabilities, while BRP uses a two-roll mechanics like GURPS (whereas GURPS keeps the armor in the equation by adding it to the defense roll instead of subtracting it to the attack roll).

I think the solution is just to provide a challenge to your players by using good dodgers (trollkin, pixies, goblins) as opponents and showing them that small fast opponents actually are difficult to hit because they dodge. (PC: "I squash the goblin with my maul!" GM: [Rolls a successful Dodge at 70%] "He's too fast to hit easily, you need a special success to strike him.")The moment they learn the trick of ganging up on one of those pesky critters to lower his Dodge they shall start to "grok" BRP.

Ahem, the complementary skill rule is already present in Basic Roleplaying. A good idea borrowed from HeroQuest augmentations. I think it should be used often.

I have statted the most classical Go Nagai Mechas in the thread below. Obviously everything is my personal view.

http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/873-anime-superobots.html

Macross or Universal Century Mechas could be even more interesting, but remember there is a big copyright problem with this stuff.

Bump.

Of course not the Blues!

But you must have read your Asterix comic books very carefully to know why

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you our Artist extraordinnaire and layout master, the one and only Dario Corallo.

[applause]

Fairly potent, but next to nothing when compared with Shield 10/Crush 10. Even Bladesharp 8 cuts through the armouring enchantment like a hot knife through butter.

And entry level Humakti know Bladesharp 4 at least.

Against starting characters the Coders are powerful. Against reasonably proficient PCs they are a match. Against RuneLevel PCs they would go down without much of a struggle. The Damage Boosted arrows/javelins might cause a few worries, but not for long.

If a campaign lasts for 10 scenarios then PCs won't get powerful enough to match the Coders. After 100 scenarios, the Coders won't match the PCs. It's all a matter of perspective.

Absolutely true. The campaign I am playing in currently features Julan and Anderida as PCs (*). The Rune Level PCs we use are so powerful that to let players who have been away for years "catch up" the only solution is to have them play established NPCs, or they would simply not be able to cope with the average threat level.

BTW, the BRP stats for Anderida & Julan should be available soon, as we have finally moved everything to BRP.

(*) and me as Minaryth Purple

Ave Peter!

We who are about to buy salute you! :thumb:

Ave Petre, empturi te salutant!

(had to revise my Latin a bit lately...)

Will Alephtar Games be considering publishing other 3rd party BRP products, or is this a one-shot? You mentioned before that your own projects do not lend themselves to BRP, if I recall.

Yes, of course. I still wish to publish Stupor Mundi episode two later this year, and this will be MRQ, and we are publishing some sets of paper miniatures. But anything that is D100 compatible is eligible, provided that it takes time for us to make a book since we work mostly on spare time.

As much as I appreciate the fine work that everyone around here has done, I don't think it excuses Chaosium for not communicating well with their fan base. A brief announcement on this site or on their own outlining their intentions for BRP would do a world of good.

I believe Charlie will do this very soon. His prompt reaction to the criticism that was expressed on this site shows that he values his fanbase opinion.

But, and this is the big thing as far as I'm concerned will it be available off the shelf of my local gamestore ? I feel that what BRP needs is publicity.

Unfortunately, I cannot distribute to the FLGS. I have some copies of Stupor Mundi for sale in Turin and Milan shops (the former Stratelibri network) and be sure that you'll find also BRP Rome there, but contacting distributors elsewhwew is beyond my capabilities. Nothin prevents Chaosium from distributing the copies they get through game stores or Amazon, but I think this will not happen this time. Next time maybe.

I want locational HP. Better to include it and people not want to use it, than not include it and people want to use it... Never mind, they can always be posted here as downloads.

Do not hold your breath. Current release has no locations in the stats. If, and I stress IF, we have the time for minor changes, and a couple pages' room, we might add hit locations for armor sets or for creatures/foes. But there are more important matters to look after before we can add any content to what Pete has already written.

Chaosium gets a stock of printed copies, as per its standard license deal. At least this is the last agreement we made with Charlie. US customers are advised to buy directly from Chaosium, EU ones are morally obliged to come to Tentacles. But we'll also sell it directly via lulu.

Well, now that Pete the Author has "spilled the beans", I can add one more detail: barring direct intervention by Nyarlathotep himself, you will have BRP Rome available at Tentacles as a dead tree supplement (200 pp. or more). Non-tentacles attendees will have it available through Chaosium or as a PDF or POD by the same date. So you have yet one more reason to hurry up and book one of those last places available for Castle Stahleck.

That's what I call "third party support". Enough for you fans?

Who put the gun to thier heads and forced them to sell RQ to AH?

Chasoium gambled on AH and lost.

Nick already gave a very good reply on this subject.

Splitting up into mutiple companies, thier own fault.

I do not want to put the blame on Greg, but they did not split up into multiple companies. Greg left to pursue his own goals with Issaries: history will tell if he was right. But again, no blame on the current Chaosium crew.

Currently, they can be blamed for (yet again) losing the core book author.

Jason never stated he will not work for them any longer.

They are still trying to do things in a manner similar to the way the did things in the 80s, when they should start acting more like an indie publisher. Chaosium hasn't seem to learn how to take advantage of things like print on demand.

And who told you this is the right way to go? They aren't an indie publisher, they are the oldest company on the market since TSR disappeared as a brand. Their current policy is to have indies publish stuff and oversee the quality.

Any hope of BRP taking off and getting some of the popularity that us fans have hoped for since the early 80s is already shot.

Nay. It's in the hands of fans who can provide more mature support than newbies. Us.

I just think they lack the resources to do so.

Should we buy them a lottery ticket and start hoping?

True. But there is a Big Difference here.

People all around the world are more than willing to circumvent the laws against WotC or Epson or <name it>. Maybe they even deserve it.

Is anybody here willing to do the same against Chaosium?

The first ever introduction which includes stats!

Why didn't anyone think of this before? :shocked:

Because it is too rulesy

Yep, it should work as Dalmuti explained. The mechanics for the opposed roll is there, in the basic rules. It is just that the rules do not suggest which skill should be used to oppose the investigator's Insight Roll. Performance? Fast Talk?

Of course, I would have liked if Chaosium supported RuneQuest better in the past,

This was not their fault, it was Avalon Hill's. This is absolutely true and proved. This, and the really, really unfortunate Jovanovic incident (unfortunate for Jovanovic, mostly) almost killed RuneQuest, and left only CoC as a viable D100 product. But it was absolutely not Chaosium's fault.

I'm sure they will honour their financial deals too, even though they sound like "late payers".

All small companies suffer from payment delays sooner or later. Even big companies do, sometimes.

And I'm really looking forward to new stuff BRP in 2009!

Let's hope to have some.

Whether they paid Jason or Loz is their business, and only theirs (Jason's or Loz's I mean). If anybody suggested we should buy BRP to help Jason get his money, he was wrong. Jason will get what is due to him because Charlie & Co. are honest guys. Period. In what timeframe they get it is another story, and I'll not hold my breath. Sorry.

Whether we should buy more BRP is not linked to this problem. We buy games because we like to play (or simply own them). We like BRP because it is a good game, not because Charlie or Greg are good people (they are). I am sure Gary Gygax was a splendid person - I am on good terms with one of his former employees in another Internet community, and he never complained about the salary he got. This does not make me like D&D.

Sorry, but for a publisher an approach like "We do not publish new material

and do not pay our authors (in time) because we love our jobs" would be al-

most suicidally stupid.

Have you ever wondered whether they get paid on time for what they do?

People, don't be too harsh with Chaosium. They do all this because they love their jobs. They will sort things out, eventually. And we will see more BRP on the shelves, one way or another.

Barring a miraculous change in the current situation, Interplanetary will not be proceeding as a BRP project.

I've done everything I can to try to work with Chaosium, but the lack of communication and financial issues are insurmountable obstacles.

That's a real SHAME

Anything we can do about this? Kidnapping Charlie at Castle Stahleck and feeding him vegetarian food until he publishes the book?

Does this mean that it is going to see the light under another system? Perhaps another publisher? Or that it is cancelled?

Have you considered self-publishing? It is a viable option nowadays, as several people (including me) pointed out.