RosenMcStern

I have made an OpenOffice.org spreadsheet that allows you to fill the stats and skills in very easily. It can be exported as a PDF via OpenOffice, which is a free multi-platform program, or used on your PC/Mac for online games. Let me test it a bit and I'll post it here.

As a spreadsheet, you can easily tailor it to your needs. I have already made a RQ3-like version with locations and spells, but you can change it very easily.

Crits at skill/10 is fine if you do not use specials, but many incarnations of BRP use them. IIRC Call of Cthulhu has no criticals, only impales (just to avoid players having an unfair advantage against Nyarlatothep, who clearly relies heavily on armor).

Similarly, a skill cap at 100% may be fine for many games, but not all. If a game is run at epic levels, skills go up to and way over 100% by necessity. Thor, Harrek or Anakin Skywalker cannot be limited to 100%, and if your character must confront the same dangers they face, then the game must support skills over 100%.

This point was raised during the MRQ playtest (where it could actually work, because MRQ has critical rolls at 10% of skill). This system was discarded because it did not work at all with skills over 100%, which are in the core rules and not an optional in MRQ. And do not forget that even if you have a cap of 100% for skills, modifiers can raise them to 200% for an Easy test. How do you handle criticals with doubles in this case?

I, too, cannot see a real reason to adopt this suggestion. Specials and criticals work fine as they are, no need to change them with spot rules that cause side effects. If it is not broken, do not fix it.

I'm not convinced of these points. Would swords not have to be handed-in too? And any weapon can have the Martial Arts ability applied to it, under the rules as they are, so that doesn't help (unless we say that should be restricted).

Might not the advantage of swords be that they could be used in an impaling manner, when circumstances allow? (Though this isn't within the rules either - yet).

A light sword is often worn as a ceremonial weapon. It is certainly more justifiable than having characters walk aroung with polearms.

A martial arts school must exist in order to learn it for a weapon. I have never heard of a M.A. style for axes, but there are plenty of schools that teach advanced techniques with swords (fencing, kendo, etc.). Your RW Will Vary.

Finally, I have fought for ten years with players using broadswords mainly as impaling weapons and inventing all the weirdest explanation to have me introduce impaling bastard swords in RQ3. I do not want that madness back in BRP :shocked:

Hmm, I think you can be right. Swords became really popular when metalworking improved, whereas the spear was the favoured weapon in the Ancient Era. The real advantage of swords over axes, spears and mauls is not in battle, but in the fact that you can easily carry them with you in a non-combat situation. There is no way you can carry a spear hanging from your belt! However, to really simulate this gamewise you must enforce the "No war weapons carried in cites" rule very strongly, which is not easily accomplished with all groups. There will always be someone who whines "Why can he carry his deadly shortsword with him while I must leave my harmless War Maul at the gates?"

In addition to this, swords can be used with very fine fencing techniques, but this is already covered by Martial Arts.

Thanks. I thought so too, but it seems to make slashing weapons rather inferior to crushing ones - because of that other Crush special effect, stunning. And other types, in fact - because their specials either make armour irrelevant (entangle, knockback, crush/stun) or help to punch through it (impale, crush/damage).

Stun is a bit overpowered, yes. But the fact that a crushing weapon can break (or at least damage) the opponent's weapon on a special hit is dangerous, too. I like this effect, but why limit it to blunt weapons? All non-impalng weapons should be able to do this. The unbalance towards crushing weapons is the only thing I really do not like about the combat rules.

I would rather have blunt weapons do 1 pt. less damage as they did in RQ3. We have already debated this for long one month ago, and I am happy with the higher minimum and lower maximum of maces, but a Heavy Mace does the same average damage of the equivalent 2H sword and axe of the same size, and this makes not sense to me. Better drop maces to 1d6+2 and 1d4+2 for regular blows, and give weapon-breaking capabilities on special hits to all swinging weapons: if a light mace can break a spear, also a halberd can.

Maybe the slash special should be a bit more effective - perhaps, doing 1hp damage minimum regardless of any armour...?

The real problem is that, apart from the special effects (impale/bleed/stun) all weapons but slashing weapons have damage adjustments on a special hit. This is unbalancing. An option would be max damage (or less averaged damage: roll the dice twice and pick the best results) on a special hit with a slashing weapon, excluding martial arts.

BTW, the damage done by the hand-held dagger is possibly wrong: 1d4 when the knife is 1d3+1?

Working on episode two of Stupor Mundi, but that is MRQ since it started with MRQ OGL and will continue so. I will make it more compatible with BRP if possible, though.

I am also working on a rule-agnostic system of Gloranthan Third Age magic that can work with both BRP and MRQ (and other d100 games as well). This is basically MRQ magic amended and made compatible with BRP.

What is needed to grow the brp fanbase is one good setting (or at least one per major genre) that will be produced by Chaosium that receives continuing support and will sit next to the BRP rulebook on store shelves across the country.

Good setting, yes. One, not necessarily. BRP has always had, historically, three popular settings connected to it: Glorantha, the Lovecraft mythos and the Moorcock multiverse. These are now split between MRQ and BRP, with Lankhmar and Slaine added as bonuses to MRQ.

And produced by Chaosium, not necessarily. Chaosium's license agreement clearly states that they are interested in distributing products made by third parties. There is no reason to think an independent publisher will stop supporting a setting just because it is independent. And this you should know well, since you are playtesting episode 2 of my setting

But, very few of the people who wrote those supplements are still affiliated with Chaosium. So I don't they they have much choice that to go with outside submissions.

I see no reason why outside submissions should be of lower quality than the old supplements made by in-house writers. Should, say, Sandy Petersen or Ken Rolston send in a manuscript, would Dustin or Charlie turn them over?

(okay, please let us dream about these things really happening)

Bad naming maybe. But BRP has a tradition behind it. Experienced gamers already know what BRP is. Just say "Basic because it is the system that CoC or SB builds on" and you are highlighting its qualities.

I've had lunch with him a few times when my old company was going to license one of his products for a computer game, and he was surprisingly decent and quite aware of his unfortunate reputation in the industry. This even went so far as him hiring a guy specifically to run interference to keep him from messing things up with business partners.

Of course, naturally, he admittedly couldn't handle not being involved, so that guy was out, and in the months to come, a minor contract issue killed the deal. It's a pity, as the project would have been tremendously fun to work on, and filled an interesting gap in the marketplace.

Unfortunate reputation is a bit of an understatement. Especially because the episode you are quoting confirms that his personality did interfere with the agreement.

:focus:

But this forum is not about GURPS/TFT and the personal attractiveness of SJ. Whether you like his games or not, this is BRP central, not GURPS central.

Except that I started my Italian review of BRP with "Hey, this is how GURPS should have been in the first place"

Gee! I missed the Stafford Publishing stuff! Thanks Jason for linking to it. It looks even more amateurish than my site . Greg is a man with 1.000 surprises awaiting.

And no, I have never been in love with SJ, as I am an incurable heterosexual. It is just a reaction to excess love from some friends of mine. BTW, did anyone notice that the odious, nasty bully character in "Explorers" is named Steve Jackson? Not a coincidence, I think :cool:

Ah, there IS a game system that can spread more emotional responses than D&D if insulted here, then!

Sorry, it is just that I have been exposed to much more "oh how simple TFT was" than to "oh how wonderful D&D is" than your average gamer. Anyway, TFT is fine only if compared to D&D, for sure.

And as for "self-styled game designer whose only virtue is an ego as big as the Himalaya", there are quite a few of those around. Heck, from what I had heared about Gary Gygax, an "ego as big as the Hymalayas" is probably modest by comparison.

Hmm, I also know one Greg guy that...

But no, there is no Gygax Games or Stafford Games in the market. And one year ago both were still gaming and having fun (hope Gygax is still having fun where he is now), whereas, as you said, Jackson is just enjoying our money somewhere.

But, as the Avalon Hill deal proved, the end result isn't guaranteed. Sure, Chasoium had a "Univeral System" that they adapted to multi0plesettings, but would the D100/RQ/BRP system had been as successful as GURPS if BRP had been relased 10 or 20 years ago? Probably not.

Possibly. GURPS was successful because it had lots of supplements above its pile of c**p, not because it was good. Heck, I know legion of TFT-lovers (other than those on this list) that would not touch it with a 10-yard long pole.

Part of what I have been thinking is 'what if Chaosium had put this book out in the mid nineties?' I know the history pretty well too, so it is obviously wishful thinking. I can run a good game and that is what I have to rely on, when the time comes. I know that's what it boils down to. It has, ever since part of our group split off from the original D&D group way back to try a new game called RuneQuest...in that sense nothing much has changed in over three decades, now.

RuneQuest has been #2 in the RPG industry in the 80s, and has influenced other game systems almost as much as D&D did: think of how much WH Chaos owes to Gloranthan Chaos. So yes, BRP can do the job if backed by big support (Avalon Hill had to do this in the '80s, and... well, let us close a curtain on this sorrowful story).

The question is what could have happened if Chaosium had put put out this book in the mid eighties, just before GURPS was born. Look at what a flaw-ridden (Passive Defense :lol: ) system, derived from the most crappy game ever designed (and boys, you gotta play TFT or you will not believe it) by a self-styled game designer whose only virtue is an ego as big as the Himalaya, could do because it was the only game system which claimed to be "universal" and received a decent game support over the years.

Now think of BRP appearing at the same time, derived not from "The Fantasy Travesty" but from RQ and CoC. That was the timing that BRP really missed.

(Okay, calling D&D players names is not fun for me. Mocking Steve Jackson is much better:rolleyes: )

Sadly BRP will never be more popular than D&D, no other gamesystem will.

Never say never.

Ten or so years ago I thought I would never see anything D100 again, BRP would become an obscure part of gaming history after CoC had been eaten up by Vampires, and Glorantha would fade away as a game world.

Now there are so many cool d100-related products coming out each month that I cannot get all of them (and some not-so-cool ones, but we'll pardon the writers), the HeroQuest trademark has gone back where it belonged, I am an official Issaries licensee (yep, you wouldn't believe why, but I am), the BRP system is finally shining as it should always have had to, I have self-published a d100 module and am playtesting the sequel, plus more juicy stuff that I cannot tell here because of the NDA. Things can change, it's just a matter of having faith.

:thumb:

Well, you had to expect that cyber-nuns blacklisted a site that is mostly about blasphemous cults and unspeakable deities

Jokes apart, the PDF is great. I have also ordered a physical copy through amazon.co.uk, but I just could not wait. Big kudos to Jason, who really scored a critical success while writing this book. I am gonna write an Italian review soon.

Make a Resistance Roll of Crushing Damage vs. CON (or better starting HP) to determine whether you are stunned. Use Hit Locations and apply the stun result to the location only (as if temporarily reduced to 0 HP). Or just drop this result and leave crushing weapons to trolls with 2d6 damage bonus.

You should not gain any experience check for succeeding in a routine task.

Considering Resistance Rolls almost never use specials and criticals (I've never seen an example of such in CoC or SB or Elric!) its a moot point. So, a d20 would work perfectly well for a table/rule that was created for RQ2 where-in every %tile roll was in 5% increments.

You are referencing systems that do not use rules like grapple or intentional knockback, or spells like Fear or Madness. But the world of BRP has evolved a bit since RQ2 not for everyone, but it has evolved. Plus, the point is not that the rules specifically reference effects connected to criticals in the RT, but that the GM may want, and should want, to grant special benefit for special successes on a Resistance roll.

Roll d20 and then if it is not enough roll again on d100? :shocked:

Trif, why are you so desperately trying to fix what is not broken? Rolling stats and resistance rolls on d100 works fine in every incarnation of d100 (RQ3, CoC, SB), except The One That I Will Not Name On This Forum.

Just do not say that too loud. We have two Mongoose writers in the group

I don't know. Using the score that is written on your character sheet isn't really fumbling, is it?

No. But calculating 20% of 17 and rounding to the next integer is. Multiplying 17x5 is easier (special score is equal to your characteristic in this case).

Just roll low, but higher than your opponent. If you roll exactly your score, that's a critical. If it is within 1 or 2, it's a special. Or something like that.

Simple, but awfully unrealistic. STR 19 has the same chance of criticalling as STR 1. Like Rurik said, it is the same realism as That Other Game. I prefer a bit more math but critical chances going up as your characteristic score goes up.

1=Critical

Special is just 20% of your score, rounded up or down or mathematically for taste.

2-4 usually.

Lemme see, I use my STR 11 vs a resistance of 20, yielding a result of 1. This means that I can either fail, or critical. And in any case criticals are 5% of all rolls, not 5% of successful rolls, i.e. the characteristic you are using has no effect whatsoever on criticals.

You may like it but this will never happen in my games. Isn't it multiplying by 5 easier than fumbling with numbers to adapt to d20 what was developed for d100?

Not quite, Trif. Some spells work differently if the roll to overcome the target resistance is a special of critical success (Fear, Madness, etc.). Other resistance rolls have additional effects if the roll is a special success, for example the intentional knockback is (or used to be) STR+SIZ vs. SIZ+DEX, and it allows specials or critical successes like all other attack rolls. If you use a d20, you have no simple way to find out what is a critical and what is a special success.

As for skipping the table, you can do it with d100, too. I have never used the table in twenty years: 50+(Active-Passive)x5%.

You could also just roll on a 20-sided, and then you wouldn't have to multiple. Which may come in handy when dealing with scores above 20.

eg,

Strength 14 vs Size 28 rock = Str 6 vs. Size 20.

Wow. kind of felt dirty suggesting the use of a d20, but in my defense, I did play Hero Wars. :innocent:

Bad idea. Using a d20 for an opposed roll does not allow for criticals/specials based on your actual skill. No success roll in a true BRP game should be rolled on anything other than a d100.

If you wish to allow ties, then a tie is a tie. If you do not wish to allow ties, then high roll wins.