RosenMcStern

As you questioned a WoW player, try and think of a way to attract his attention to the beauty of BRP instead of just explaining the mechanics in a competent fashion.

a) esthetics. The layout of such a flyer must be attractive. You used a 10pt font with few border room, and it looks like the text for a lecture. Go for a 8pt. font, two columns, and you will be able to accommodate more text and have room for pictures, too. Put a background or other adornments in it. Use grayed lines for tables. Space the paragraphs correctly. Make casual lookers really wish to read it.

make the examples intriguing. The last character an adolescent would like to play is a young man killing rats for his mother, or helping old widows. This sort of examples are good to teach GMs how to start a campaign with increasingly challenging, but will bore a teenage after one and a half lines. In a fantasy setting, what a prospective player wants to see is magic, so I would go for a young magician who just graduated at the Magic Academy, a la Rincewind, and have it buy and use some weapons because his magic skill is not high enough to last for a whole combat, or because it is not ethically correct to waste magic against such lowly creatures. But above all, each line in the description should be exciting.

c) make five settings, as suggested, with five different example sets and equipment tables, and appropriate pictures. However, point out that the system is identical for all five sets.

Remember that not everyone has MS Word. Convert it into PDF before publishing (it also becomes easier to read).

but found the combat to be very wargamey (hex-based combat, movement in phases, extreme number of combat options)

Indeed. But do not tell my 3rd age gaming group. They love the Maneuver skill (which sucks IMO).

and thought it was a retrograde step, nowhere near as good as RQ3 overall.

Some points were, but most changes were in fact improvements.

Well it's a good job our Jason is whiter-than-white, perfectly pure in thought and deed! That's right, isn't it Mr D?

I was not questioning Jason's criminal record. The point is that explicitly quoting/using/reviving RQ:AiG is a no-no for any publisher, unfortunately. A pity, because the manuscript is very good.

Hi Merak! Got rid of the triple post! Yes, very impressive, without doubt the best Glorantha game. A shame Greg gregged it all.

The story is even more serious than that. Greg could be convinced to un-greg it (IIRC it was Stephen Martin that persuaded him RQ:AiG was bad). The point is that the author of RQ:AiGwas falsely accused of heinous crimes. Even though he was later cleared of all charges, no publisher of games the target of which includes minors would touch that manuscript with a 10 feet long pole!

On the contrary, the whole point is that, unlike the darn RQ Divine Intervention, plot bending involves finding a plausible reason why things should go that way. I strongly suggest you read Mark Galeotti's example in Mythic Russia.

Nope. Negate a major wound means: my Major wound threshold is 6 HPs, I take 8 damage, the damage is reduced to 5 HPs because "it is just a flesh wound". Or you could take all the damage to your general HPs and simply not consider it a major wound. This if you want a parallel with MRQ.

However, what I strongly suggest is rather adopting the mechanics for plot bending, that is explained in both MRQ and Mythic Russia (better in Mythic Russia). This is more useful, and encourages good roleplaying.

Actually, I love Hero Points. I simply didn't mention them because I thought that was a hot button issue for many fans of BRP, so I was trying to not start a fight.

Since my SR is way higher - no, wait, wrong forum, this is BRP - er, lower than the others', and my skill is higher, I am not afraid of fights. On forums, at least.

I also like Heroic Abilities. You say that they are covered in Powers by BRP, but I thought the BRP Powers section just contained things like magic and psionics and mutations. Does it have special abilities that represent Feats of tremendous skill or some such? Because that would be awesome if they did!

Why not? Some Heroic Abilities in MRQ seem rather silly to me (wall-leaping, decapitating strike), but having Powers that represents "excellence in skill" may be interestin. Certainly I would not like a feat-ridden system like That Other Game version 3.5+.

How would you use HP in BRP to reduce damage since there are no hit locations?

HPs in MRQ do not reduce damage, they downgrade the wound severity. Damage is reduced as a side effect. The effect would be to negate a Major Wound, for instance.

Do not forget Hero Points. They are a worthy addition that MRQ applied to D100, stealing the idea from HeroQuest or Mythic Russia. You may not like Legendary Abilities, which are covered by Powers in BRP, but Hero Point usage in combat makes a game better.

High and low shots are in fact easier to do with d20 than with 3d6. Just roll 1d10 (low) or 1d10+10 (high). The point is that an unlinear progression of numbers does not guarantee that contiguous hit locations will be contiguous on the table. And please do not repeat "it's all done there". I know it is there. The point is that d20 allows you to easily design more monsters, the ones not yet invented. 3d6 does not.

As for the likeliness of head shots, with the missile hit loc table, it is one head shot in 20 versus one body shot in three. Seems fair enough to me.

Alas, using the same dice for hitlocs has some advantages, but it does not suit BRP well. You must live with it.

However, when I do use HL, I much prefer HERO's 3d6 Location roll.

3d6 is nonlinear (it is a bell curve). It is perfect for determining chances of success, as it naturally models casuality and statistics. It is less perfect when you have to design your own critters from scratch.

After designing hit location tables for weird monsters for years for RQ3, I can definitely state that 3d6 is a no-no unless you know that nothink non-humanoid is coming into play, and d100 is definitely more realistic, but a tidbit complicate. D20 is simple enough to design new creatures in a few minutes, and flexible enough to provide for a minimum of realism.

That said, MRQ location table is d20 but sucks. Too linear. (This I say to become a little more popular, as I usually advocate MRQ here ).

The "swap the dice for hitloc" method has been tried out during the MRQ playtest, and it simply does not work with BRP. With your hit location table, you would simply have ALL criticals hit the rigth leg.

The system is fine as it is - either general hit points only, or a d20 roll for hit location.

Trif, I think that in this thread you are doing exactly the same thing that Mongoose did with the removal of general hit points.

You are fixing what is not broken.

It's the toss up between point buy mini maxing vs random stats. I've used a few diferent ideas in the past. This last time I gave characters extra points for low rolls that they could distribute where ever they wanted. This ended up with people with still crap rolls but with DEX of 16-18.

A known problem. DEX is an uberstat in all BRP incarnations, even worse in MRQ. Make it count less and you will see more balanced characters.

I like this idea. I like it I does. I reckon I shall impliment it in the current game.

In fact this houserule has survived for erm, something like 15 years, and with GMs other than me. A tad complex but effective

Pretty much every RPG says the same thing.

Sad but true. Get over it and get rid of the parts you don't like (99% in D&D).

Character creation - randomly rolled stats, narrow focused and unballanced previous experinece system, little to be done to tweek the character with quirks/abilities etc.

Let characters distribute stats from a pre-determined point pool. Let them roll one more die and drop the lowest die. Let them swap rolls. Do as you like. Character creation is just a guideline in BRP - adjust it to your taste.

Cults and Skills - I never noticed before how limited the number of non cult skills were available. This can limit people as much if not more than D&D classes.

This is a RQ2 limitation. All other BRP variations do not suffer from it. Ever wondered why there have been three new editions of RQ (ok, one was never published, let's say two) after RQ2? Maybe some problems were solved in them.

Learning through experience - While this is still one of the better skill reward systems out there, it is still a bit limited that using a skill succesfully once within a week is the same as using the skill 100 times within the week.

Add one additional tick per extra successful use if character does something really heroic (frex criticals). When improvement is rolled, add 5 to the die roll per each extra tick. Simple and not too disruptive.

All in all, one of the beauties of BRP is that you do not have to adhere strictly to the rules, especially WRT character creation and development, and there are dozens of already-tested variations you can use.

I don't own MRQ so can't comment how it compares,

Believe me, as a MRQ advocate: you will not regret not owning it when it comes to poison and disease. This is definitely a district where they botched it: BRP handles it way, way, WAY better.

Oh, yeah! This was one of the reasons RQ lost ground in the eighties. David ultimately had some chances against Goliath, let's be honest. But Dobyski versus Larry Elmore..... tsk!

If you wanted to go that way, the RQM SRD contains Rune/Divine/Sorcery which is pretty much RQ3 with a few changes. Using an OGL Licence, you could easily change it back and retrofit it to an improved RQ3 Magic Book.

MRQ magic is based on the Combat Action mechanics, and on Resist (skill). Sorcery, which used to rely heavily on the Resistance Table in RQ3, is very different. Retrofitting could turn out to be more work than paraphrasing the old rules.

Apart from the fact that Sorcery is the part of MRQ that was really improved, so I would keep it "as is", if it was not for the incompatibilities.

I'd like to see a BRP version of Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure. I like the Chasch, Dirdir and Pnume races and the planetary romance genre would be a good way of getting fantasy loving players into slightly more science fictional setting without too much stress.

Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa! Dr'ssa! You forgot the Wankh race. Go read the saga again from the beginning

Seriously, Dario Corallo and I have been thinking of an adaptation for this setting for decades (literallly). The only problem is that Vance's works are still copyrighted, and I prefer settings that can be published without having to pay royalties in advance. Even publishing it as a free product could cause trouble.

I think Burrough's Barsoom is public domain now, and I am sure Dario has some GURPS adaptation for it ready (easily BRPable). But Planet Tschai is much more fascinating. Just shout "Onmale!" and go berserk :thumb:

Nice to hear this. I am still very fond of RQ3, so having a freshened version of it back would be great. And I am amazed that the sysem is lacking a Fantasy setting.

Now the "forbidden" question: Is there still any hope of having something BRP set in Glorantha Third Age?

I mean, I am currently playing three games, two MRQ ones (one Glorantha and one Stupor Mundi, with a second Glorantha about to begin) and a year-old campaign set in Dragon Pass Third Age that uses RQ3 with some RQ4 contamination. The latter one could be moved to BRP rather than MRQ, which lacks Third Age support (no Lunars!), but BRP has no Gloranthan content per se. Must we convert everything by hand or compatibility between BRP and the old Glorantha stuff (still available on eBay or in Moon Design reprints) will be encouraged?

Really cool, I dare say. I have done one a similar one today for my next MRQ book and I must confess I "borrowed" a lot of ideas.

A couple of suggestions:

a) place a slim, blank column between the characteristic block and the attribute block, and between the attribute block and the location block. It improves readability a lot.

scores that can decrease during action could use some space to the right for a fast markup of points lost, including location HPs and weapon AP/HPs; many people track wounds in pencil on stat blocks

c) marking unarmored locations with a dash instead of a zero is more elegant

But above all, I like it a lot. :thumb:

Tamriel is copyrighted by Bethesda (or whomever owns Bethesda Softworks at present, I cannot recall the name), so an official conversion is unlikely to appear. I heard they are planning to publish the system and the setting as a P&P RPG, and in this case it will be rather similar to BRP, as the game is skill based and has hit points, fatigue points and magic points. Unfortunately it also has a HP increase when leveling.

Incidentally, the Morrowind setting was written by Ken Rolston, and you can find "suspiciously sounding" names among those found on the isle, like "The Grazelands" and "Puzzle Canal".

This was written for another forum about computer Strategy Games, but I think Tim Kask will not mind me posting the link here.

My world has been lessened; my friend and one-time mentor has passed away

(Note: I am NOT the author)

I am currently playing one (which means three, as I have three characters in it) campaigns with a mix of RQ3/4 rules, and have generated characters with RQ4 rules more than once. The system is better than RQ3, and also overall better than MRQ if you accept some complexity (but, heck, once you have learned to play without skill category modifiers, they seem rather clumsy when you return to a system that has them).

It is probably the best incarnation of BRP ever written. We alll know the real reasons why it never saw the light, and the false accusations against Oliver Jovanovic were just one part of it. Things happen. So if you are not worried about using a system that cannot be referenced on any "official" forum, go for it, you will not regret your choice.

Well, time for a lurker like me to add my two bolgs to this discussion.

It is sadly true that Chaosium does not have the marketing resources to make BRP the #1 in RPGs as it deserves. I could add that SJG had even less resources when it launched GURPS many years ago, and it was a mistake on Chaosium's part not to merchandise BRP as the best "generic" RPG, like Jackson did, but GURPS did by no means become the "standard" RPG in the years like SJG hoped, so this is not a point.

The point here is that this time, with the new edition, Chaousium could exploit the OGL mechanism to reach a larger audience without the need to commit big financial resources to marketing. But will they do so?

As for the "killer application", we already have one: Call of Cthulhu!