RosenMcStern

We have been doing this in Revolution (and all shades of hiybrids with other BRP variants) without any great need to change average damages for weapons and armour. The point is fully embracing the logic of the "threshold" : anything below the threshold is "just a flesh wound", not just 1-point wounds. It hurts, but it cannot kill or incapacitate you, so you do not mark it off total hit points. Works like a breeze...

Wind on the steppes is being reassembled, too. Overall, enough fantasy earth for everyone to enjoy.

The core problem is that character generation should produce a character that you have fun playing. Rolled, sub-optimal stats are appropriate if they produce a challenge that your character has to overcome during play. However, if a low stat gets in the way of developing the character concept you have in mind(low STR and DEX halving your skill with weapons if you want to play a fighter, low INT preventing you from learning sorcery, etc.), then rolling stats becomes anti-fun. It is not a problem of munchkinism but of actually being able to play the role you prefer.

I think your problem is more the fact that the "Generate characters you have fun playing" principle is not written in boldface in the rules, rather than the fact that you do not have an official method for point buy. 

It is also true, however, that having the standard rules say "You must roll" may bring the GM to misinterpreting the requirement and not letting you choose the character you prefer. It must be very clear that you are not supposed to play the character that the dice decide for you - unless you are actually willing to roll everything randomly. 

After his defeat at the hand of Oda Nobunaga, the great Daimyo Azai Nagamasa commits seppuku. The only hope for what is left of his retinue is a secret alliance with the Takeda clan, the only one strong enough to oppose Nobunaga. However, Takeda Shingen demands a hostage to guarantee the loyalty of Nagamasa’s former retainers. The hostage must reach the Shinano province without Nobunaga being aware of his presence, but the road passes through Oda territory. A group of brave adventurers must accompany the hostage in his dangerous journey.

So begins the Rise of the Yōkai Koku campaign, a Revolution d100 roleplaying adventure set in the Sengoku period of the Japanese middle ages. Many adventures await our noble heroes on their path to restoring their clan fortunes, and not all threats will be human in nature.

Rise of the Yōkai Koku was originally intended as a low-cost PDF using vintage artwork from 17^th to 19^th Century Japan and a stock picture as cover. However, if this crowdfunding campaign succeeds we will publish the 10-episode campaign booklet in print, too, with a shiny new cover drawn specifically for it. We will add other artwork and goodies as stretch goals if the funding exceeds our minimum target.

Rise of the Yōkai Koku will start crowdfunding in the first half of June 2018, so keep your tachi well oiled and your prayer beads at hand.

It is too early to start thinking of a second edition. It will happen of course (both other indie d100s, Mythras and OpenQuest, have undergone two revisions within their lifecycle, so it is appropriate for Revolution to do the same), but not in 2018. Maybe 2019, but do not hold your breath. Mainly because the most important work to do is clarification, which implies rewriting entire sections more concisely, rather than minor tweaks like I did with the hardcover.

However, if you really want to do a kickstarter, we are about to announce one tomorrow

I am in (advanced) negotiations with Studio 2, which supplies US shops and has a link with the big distributors, so it will become available to order for shops. I cannot guarantee that shops have it available soon, though. It takes time to go through the entire supply chain.

Tribal editing is a great invention of the 21st Century, and indeed a great help for the modern publisher

19 minutes ago, styopa said:

MOB is this going to be actual hardbound or perfect bound in the printed version?

I did not see the "this" at first and started wondering why you felt the need to bind MOB in the first place. He isn't exactly slim, so it could turn out to be problematic...

This Gospodin Fetisov is definitely a talented artist. His broos are... filthy, really filthy.

On 5/23/2018 at 9:29 PM, ThornPlutonius said:

I am looking forward to this being available via retail outlets.

Not yet in the shops, but the hardcover is now available to the general public via RPG Meeting. We ship worldwide.

Revolution D100 Hardcover version

In order to make things clearer for players, and considering the fact that Chaosium is making the old "ascending order" Strike Rank model central to the new RuneQuest, we will adopt an official name change for this Advanced Combat variable. SR is now the acronym of Strike Readiness, or simply Readiness for the sake of brevity. So:

• a character Readiness in Melee is the average of STR and DEX (plus weapon reach if you have a weapon)
• a character Readiness to fire a ranged weapon is DEX + 20
• whoever has the highest Readiness is the next one to act (you don't say!)
• if you have zero Readiness, you cannot act, and react at a Penalty
• you lose Readiness whenever you actually perform an action, or whenever the enemy 

Sounds more intuitive, doesn't it?

I should have thought of this before finalizing the hardcover edition of the rules, but... better late than ever.

Like all options aimed at tuning the level of crunch you wish to introduce in your game, it can be implemented in Revolution D100.

There are several ways you can freeform your powers. The first is ritual casting of a power which has a deterministic effects in Combat. There are some examples of this in the superhero package and there will be more examples in Wind on the Steppes 2.

Another way is that of allowing freeform Power Traits, roughly corresponding to Ars Magica keywords. These Traits can be used as support, or even to roll for effect, in Conflicts, and in Basic Combat. If you really need a numeric limit to be in place, the rules for the different power systems already provide several examples about how to calculate it: channelling, holiness, focusing etc.

The thing becomes a bit tricky if you wish to have freeform powers, and use them in Advanced Combat like the standard powers. MIght, Range, number of Targets, a possible characteristics to Overcome, all of this should be determined on the fly. You can use the guidelines provided for Divine Magic to make up your powers during play, but I do not recommend this solution.

In a few words: it is easily done, but only if your game is prevalently based on generic Conflicts and Basic Combat.

12 hours ago, Robsbot said:

I wanted to start a discussion for those of us in the hobby using a BRP system as to how you feel the current state of BRP systems are as a whole, and how we as a community can solve some of the percieved issues surrounding BRP to bring more people into the system. Personally I'm unhappy with the state of BRP as a system and although it's the only system I run I'm frankly worried about the future of the products surrounding the system. Although open license systems will always exist having a big, officially branded system is always great to attract new players. 

I think that the current trend at Chaosium is promoting RuneQuest, Glorantha and Call of Cthulhu as brands for people to recognize, and not BRP. BRP is the minimum common factor among games, and still a Chaosium trademark, but nothing for which they wish to generate a strong brand loyalty.

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I still feel the BGB is the best incarnation of BRP to date, containing everything you need to run a variety of campaigns and then using supplements and monographs to delve into more specific topics. However, big BRP developers would rather spin off into their own completely self contained books (IE Mythras) than create supplements under the big unifying Gold Bible. Plus, the BGB is now officially dead as well.

As MOB has clarified, it is not dead. However, I do not think that Chaosium wishes anyone to create supplements for the BGB anymore. The latest news we had from them was that they wanted submitted products to contain a core version of the rules, so that they can become stand-alone games. It was the company basic policy in the 80s, and it has been put back into effect. Please note that the previous policy, until 2015, was the exact opposite: you could not include the rules in your game, you had to reference the BGB.

While I agree with you that it is probably the best incarnation of BRP currently in print, you must accept the fact that the BGB is in no way considered a “unifying Bible”. This GURPS-like approach that you seem to prefer is something the current management has always rejected as a bad policy. So it is not just a matter of developers’ preference: the options may simply not be on the table.

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How can we grow the BRP system as a community with the current state of products available and combat the confusing, splintered, and half out of print landscape of BRP offerings? 

You are asking for two things here:

1.    Grow the BRP system as a community. You already got some ideas from the community here. However, Chaosium is likely to support your idea only if you leverage the brands which they want to leverage (RuneQuest, Mythic Iceland, Call of Cthulhu…) and not “BRP as a brand”. MOB can perhaps state this more correctly than me.

2.    “combat the confusing landscape of BRP offerings”. Now that would be actively try to drive users away from other games that they seem to like. Do you think that the BRP community, which includes plenty of people who prefer other variants, would agree with this ?

I can understand why you write this, and the source of your frustration. But there is a sad fact that you should acknowledge: what you are looking for is legitimate, but against the stated policies of both the owner of the BRP trademark and the other independent producers of BRP “look-alikes”. Asking for people to find a way to counteract this is asking people to counter the plans of the game companies they wish to support. I doubt you can find much support for this idea, regardless of whether you are correct or not.

Thank you Cameron. Did you actually get the hardcovers yet? Tracking reports an attempted delivery yesterday, but no success. They should be at your post office waiting for you.

3 minutes ago, Archivist said:

Other Package Ideas

• Modern Supernatural Investigative (Dresden Files, Buffy, Hellboy, Atomic Robo)

This one I will certainly do, but not immediately. Some of the others will receive a full supplement treatment.

By the way: Sverre has opened a Revolution D100 section in the Download area. User-made packages are welcome!

The package you did not expect... superheroes!

And now... superheroes!

1 hour ago, Zit said:

1- explicitly allow multiple traits for rolling (at least you get one support), once in the Conflict per additional Trait ? It is like allowing one support but obliging to use it immediately. The available supports are also limited, you'll need your friends. If you want a standard support which you can use whenever you like and without limitation, then you can't roll

...could work...

We have heard Olivier's opinion. What does the Silent Majority tithink?

Bullseye! You hit the spot. It is for balance reasons, and it is the point most in need of an improvement in the rules."(?) Find a [better] way for the leader’s Traits to provide a support bonus in Conflicts".

Essentially, if you allow a Support Bonus from the character who is rolling you are decreasing the incidence of other characters. There are fewer reasons for relying on friends. It is of course less necessary in a one-to-one conflict, but if we allow it when you go solo, then players will try to use this rule when they are not alone, and monopolize the conflict..

If anyone has good ideas on the subject, I am listening.

51 minutes ago, styopa said:

  Does anyone believe that Kendo experts would confirm that "oh sure, using a shield is *always* a part of training"?

This is exactly why in ANY existing version of BRP the Kenjutsu skill is different from the Sword skill...

18 hours ago, simonh said:

I'm sorry if input from real world experience doesn't get any traction with you, but this was a carefully considered change with many aspects of it taken into account and seeking out expert opinions were a big part of that. It's definitely a tradeoff, but it was felt that on balance combining the skills actually lead to fewer unrealistic divergences from reality than keeping them separate, while sometimes having them separate and sometimes combining them was too confusing. Feel free to house rule away though.

1 hour ago, The God Learner said:

Probably a good idea to smuggle in some design notes at the end. It might be a puzzling choice to some readers. I, for one, would appreciate such notes. 

Even though he was not involved with any design team (AFAIK), Simon has pretty nailed it here. Both the one-skill and the two-skill approach are abstractions, and both create some paradoxical situation. However, all modern designers and all "real combat experts" questioned about the subject, Peter Nash being the most authoritative voice for me since he belongs to both groups, agree that keeping the skills separate produce more paradoxes than having one skill. The only person who I can think of who has real combat experience (SCA, not HEMA) and designed rules with the split skills is Steve Perrin in the 70s and 80s. And I did not see him complaining about the  decision to unify the skill, neither in Mythras (for which he wrote the preface) nor in RQG (which he reviewed).

So in the end it is rather a matter of "general consensus among those who are in the know". Disagreement is still legitimate.

4 hours ago, Mugen said:

-As far as I know, the term "yakuza" was not in use before the edo period, and should therefore not be used in sengoku jidai.

-"kannushi" is on some occasions mispelled "kannuchi".

I stand corrected. In fact, the manuscript will be reviewed by experts of the Nipponese language living in Tokyo and Osaka before publishing the campaign, so we will take care of these and others which you might have missed.

Here comes the first package: Sengoku Jidai. Grab your tachi, don your do-maru and pray to the Buddhas, because the age of the warring states has come to Japan.

Here is the package template in docx format, without the need to sign in.

Cool! On a déjà des paquets (We already have some packages).

The bestiary is not supposed to be in an open file that everyone will read. However, for character creation it could be necessary to specify the creature stats of all species available as player characters. And peculiar creatures which adventurers can use as mounts and companions should be there, too. So for instance a Shade Land package should include the stats for Thuls (they are not in the core but you can use them as PCs, as you could see when we played "The Son of Darkness" online), and the stats for Hyppodactyls and Wingsaurs. 

Maybe one day we will redo Crusaders of Stupor Mundi, but for the time being Merrie England: Robyn Hode already provides a platform for historical medieval games.