RosenMcStern

Hi Lloyd,

I ask again why you do not post this in the RD100 section, since you are not playing generic BRP. This would at least avoid people posting suggestions of houserules that are actually coincident with the core rules

And it would spare people my tirades, too. I will try to address both this post and the issues you raised in the "armed to the teeth" thread.

9 hours ago, olskool said:

Allow each suit of armor a "Coverage Rating" that is represented by a PERCENTAGE that you roll under for the protection to apply.  An "off the rack" suit of armor would provide 90% coverage and a custom-fitted suit would protect on a roll of 95% or less.  Coverage Ratings can vary by armor type at the GM's discretion.  For example, you could have things like gauntlets and gloves provide from 25% to up to 50% coverage of a location. 

        Each time the armor is PENETRATED (ie damage exceeds AP) you subtract 1% from the armor's Coverage Rating.  Slashes/Impales/Crushes reduce the Coverage Rating by 5%.  The DEFENDER rolls the Coverage Dice during an attack.  The Coverage Dice can be rolled in conjunction with an Parry Dice (for a Parry skill check) to save time.  Once the Coverage Rating reaches 0%, the armor is destroyed.  I have the SUNDER ARMOR special effect reduce coverage by 10% on a hit with that SE.

Errrrrrm... in the BRP variant that he is playing, armour coverage is a standard attribute of all armours in the RAW. And you do not need to roll a separate die, you use the unit die of the attack roll to determine if you hit armour or not.

And you also win a quote in a sidebar in the next edition. Should I quote you as "olskool" ? I had not introduced the SUNDER special effect from Mythras because I do not find it particularly fun, but this sounds like a good solution. On a Sundering blow, add +1 to the coverage value of one location or layer of armour of the target. This may or may not be mendable after combat with a Repair Conflict.

10 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

I am playing Revolution D100 now and there isn't much (that I have seen) rule to break equipment.

Even in BRP weapon, with an easy weapon break rule (on special and crit attack) (which is one rule that is attracting me back to BRP), armour doesn't break..

Weapons break more frequently in RD100 than in BRP, it is just a matter of you having the opponents use the "Damage weapon" effect on a successful parry with a higher roll. I remember a fight during the playtest of the rules in which I managed to cast Bladesharp on everything I was carrying and the demon we were fighting kept breaking every single enchanted weapon I threw at it by simply parrying with its demonic blade.

9 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

You only need to defeat 1 knight, boom you get an armour... and then a second knight (much more easily), boom 2 armour...

First of all, gothic plate is crafted to fit the specific body shape of a single person. Unless you are very similar in size to the guy wearing the armour, you cannot simply take it and don it. It must be adapted to your specific figure even if it is somehow of  the same size. Which implies the intervention of an armour maker able to craft plate, who in turn is damn expensive.

This will not stop enterprising playes, but at least it will force them to learn Armour making to simply make the loot usable. Once they see the bill of the armour crafter for "tailoring the gothic suit", they will certainly learn it. Or perhaps even consider to pursue the crafter career. No risk, and most of the big bucks the adventurers get in dungeons end up in your purse.

9 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

At that stage the simplest option for me was to make (at least full chain mail) quite common...

Er.. chain mail was standard armour for everyone and his dog for most of he Middle Ages. You are doing nothing wrong if any professional fighter your players meet has mail. In fact it is city militia wearing leather that is implausible. 

Being a band of mercenaries and sellwords, your players are more than likely to have superior armour. Gothic plate is plausible, but it has its drawbacks. As you note, the guy they looted it from had a bigger purse, so most of the issues did not apply to him. Player characters are a different story.

There are several other points.

1. Getting better equipment by loot

So what? It is one of the goals of the game, so why should they not have good armour once they start making a name as fighters?

Honestly, this issue appeared soon after we started playing RuneQuest 30+ years ago. Dario used to solve it by forcing the players to pay maintenance for their equipment, which meant that you had to effectively "rebuy" it every x years or so, and pro rate the cost each time the adventure stopped for more than one month. I prefer a 10% cost per year. This implies a little bit of number crunching but it is a quick solution to penniless adventurers walking around in the medieval equivalent of a stolen Ferrari.

However, the players will eventually find a way to circumvent this and keep high quality items in their possession. At this point the GM, if he becomes uncomfortable with unplausibility, may be faced with the temptation of "taking away" the very powerful gear or rendering it less effective to even things out. I have seen this happen time and again over time. 

But, depending on the group, this might be a dangerous solution. The players may react with a sense of frustration and perceive this as depriving them of the fun. Once they have better armour, they expect to meet more dangerous opponents, not an outraging bill for repairing their gear. It is certainly plausible, but telling them that the fantastic blade they found has spoiled because they could not afford the weapon oil (or did not know that a blade needs oiling) can only detract from the fun of the game, and never add.

If you want to enforce a minimum level of coherence between character and gear, it is better to speak to your players and explain what level of plausibility you want to enforce in the game. At this point, the best option is to tell them that they must improve their characters' Status/Wealth or maintenance skills in order to use that fancy stuff on a prolonged basis (in Hero Wars you would spend a Hero Point to "cement the benefit"). Using the threat of equipment degradation to "keep players in line" is a solution that emphasizes conflict between GM and players. My experience tells me that agreement on a common sense of plausibility is a better idea. 

2. Always carrying the equipment with the best stats

This, again, is an issue I have been facing since 1987 (fu..., I am getting old). If the weapon entry says "throw more dice for damage", the players will want to always use that weapon. It is normal. Even worse for armour, where the statistics are even less varied and the players will simply look at the highest AP score they can have.

If this breaks the GM’s suspension of disbelief (and I confess that for me, it does), what are the possible solutions?

First of all, talk to the player and agree on plausibility. Explain to them that an implausible choice of weaponry, rules mechanics or not, is an act of bad roleplaying if your character is a fighter. Remind them that you are playing a game of impersonation, not a wargame. A real fighter does know that there is no “one size fits all” and would never, ever rely on using always the same weaponry, no matter the difference in sheer stopping power. I stress it again: never, ever the same gear for all situations. Stress it to your players, too.

The point is simple: some weapons are for the battlefield, others are for personal defense and everyday use in areas where civilians may carry. An intermediate category (spears, rifles) is battlefield-oriented but it is still plausible to find it in the hands of a guard on active duty. You do not carry M60s in town, and heavy crossbows or pikes are the equivalent of an M60. Only a soldier who is marching to battle or defending a fortification is supposed to have such a weapon ready. Same for armour. Some elaborate suits of armour are for the battlefield only. They were not worn 24/24, except when the fighter was marching into battle. It is not so difficult.

But what happens when the player says “I do not care about plausibility, I expect trouble and my character wishes to stay alive”? Well, in this case, too, nerfing or damaging the players’ hard earned “toys” to prevent unrealistic use may generate frustration in the players, and give rise to a conflictual attitude between players and GM.

Revolution D100 tries to address this issue (when it is an issue, because, as explained in the sidebar, not all groups find it problematic) by establishing a simple, fair, well-known and plausible penalty to social, agility and endurance feats when wearing battlefield equipment outside the battlefield. It is in the table on page 73, and the important point is that the players have access to this information and so should expect that the Narrator applies it when they choose to go around in heavy armour and weaponry. No excuses; Be fair and strict and simply apply the rules: you are in full plate all day round? -30% to one social roll and two agility or endurance rolls. You are also carrying a halberd (and no, there is no such a thing as a scabbarded halberd)? -30% to a further social roll and two further agility rolls. You are protected against harm, sure, but Billy the Robber (Agility 80%, Stealth 70%) will have an easy time cutting your purse undisturbed, and forget about catching him when he flees, or persuading the bystanders to tell you where he lives.

This crowdfunding will shine (spark). Get(ter) ready for it.

55 minutes ago, foolcat said:

I certainly would welcome CoC's new player leniency as optional rules within the scope of a modernized BRP. As I would RQ4's mechanic of boosting skill percentiles with other skills (or runes, in this case).   

Both these mechanics are present in the BGB.

TV movies do not count. And if we have to take "quotations" and European films into account, then this one 

wins the match for the Nagaiverse.

 

And yet Mazinger is popular enough to have received a new theatrical motion picture in 2017, widely distributed in Europe. That makes one more movie than Cthulhu  Cutie Honey is at two movies (both live action, not animation). Devilman one, but not distributed outside Japan.

The characteristics of the game will be highlighted in future announcements and explanations. It is quite easy: a session is an episode, and each session culminates in a robot battle. What comes first sets the theme of the episode, and can include a lot of action, or just character interaction. 

Remember the data I quoted before? Go Nagai has less than half the Google hits as Lovecraft has. But many peopla know his works but not his name.

The current Chaosium management has made no mistery that they do not believe in generic systems. Though the latest developments seem to imply that they may have partially revised this policy. In any case, their other focus beyond Cthulhu has always been RuneQuest rather than the generic version of the rules. RQ is genericizable as a fantasy game, but they have preferred to highlight its integration with Glorantha rather than its adaptability to many game world. Which IMO is not a bad idea, as decades of RQ play have shown me that the Chaosium version of the game shines when used for high fantasy settings like Glorantha.

And of course I must admit that even if I really like the concept of having a generic core book for people to use for adapting the game to their setting, in the end even I have had to prioritize the other approach, that is having a strong, attractive licensed franchise and packaging a customized version of the rules with it.

So yes, a strong setting is a big asset.

As  I wrote on the French forum, the conditions of our licence are quite restrictive. Only the basic book is covered, we cannot produce everything we like. Some scenarios are possible, probably even some free goodies. But whole supplements will require a new license that we have to negotiate. We are willing to do so, but this must certainly come after the core book is out.

The only good thing in this is that such a huge emission of smoke will act as a partial counter to the greenhouse effect of carbon dioxide and methane, though it is yet to be seen by how much and for how long. But please do not tell this to politicians, lest they find a new good excuse to continue polluting.

Well. not scheduled but it is a possibility. Emanuele has already translated part of Nepitello's Lex Arcana into Japanese after all. 

1 hour ago, Zit said:

I'm just wondering about the name, which works more like that of a generic system. Do you intend to keep it or do you want to find a more explicit (and salable) one ? Idealy, you should know what the game is about just by seeing the name.

Most super robot fans should know what "Dynamic" is, and the title "Dynamic Heroes" should be familiar to them, although we were not allowed to use it directly. I have discussed with Kaizoku Press about this option and the "Super Robot D100" one, and we agreed Dynamic was a good title. In any case the license mentions the title explicitly so we cannot change it now. The Japanese are very, very accurate when they do business.

12 hours ago, Archivist said:

How does Dynamic D100 differ from the core game?

The rules are heavily adapted to the setting. They are still recognizably Revolution D100, but there are whole sections removed, and others added. Advanced Combat is only among mecha, human characters use Basic Combat when they fight. Fate rules are more integrated into the mechanics. Powers are almost absent.

The most important point, however, is that Dynamic D100 is not a toolkit that lets you design your own mecha (or sci-fi) game, as BRP Mecha was. Dynamic D100 contains only the rules that are useful for the Super Robot genre, and only those tailored to the specific universe of Go Nagai. There are certainly some rules that you can use in other games, but the game has a very focused, coherent ruleset that tries to recreate a specific experience. 

Bruxelles-Tokyo, December 2019

More than forty years ago a visionary author from the Land of the Rising Sun created comic books and animated series where men, machines and mythical creatures engaged in epic battles and limbs were ripped off on a regular basis. When these series reached Europe in 1978 they shaped the imagination of entire generations like few tales had done before. In that same year other visionaries created the first roleplaying game where everything was resolved with a percentile roll and limbs flew off in every combat.

After four decades of waiting Alephtar Games, Kaizoku Press and Dynamic Planning Inc. are proud to present…

The roleplaying game of Go Nagai’s Super Robots

If you have ever dreamed of piloting Mazinger, Getter Robo or Grendizer, or transforming into the Steel Jeeg, then that moment has come. Dynamic D100 is the game that lets you take the role of the heroic super robot pilots and fight for peace and justice against the forces of evil. Pick the rash Hiroshi, the brave Jun or the wise Duke and play as the hero you always dreamed to be.

Dynamic D100 leverages Alephtar Games’ own game engine to yield an experience as close to the original anime as you can find. Revolution D100’s conflict system lets the game flow narratively during non-violent scenes and personal combat, with detailed action and precise locational damage kicking in only for mecha combat. Players will use their characters’ personal motivations and epic battlecries to generate Karma points which will bring them to victory against overwhelming forces.

The super robots that the basic game proposes to use are Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Venus Ace, Getter Robot G (Dragon, Ryger and Poseidon), Steel Jeeg and UFO Robot Grendizer, with all their classic pilots. But perhaps in your game the pilots are not the same you saw in the classic series, who knows?

The game does not require ownership of the Revolution D100 core rules and will be available in English, French, Italian and Spanish.

Mazinger Z, Great Mazinger, Getter Robot G, UFO Robot Grendizer and Kootetsu Jeeg are © Go Nagai / Dynamic Planning. Their likeness is used under license. Artwork by Kazuhiro Ochi.

And the final answer is now on Facebook

Winners of the guess game:

Loz scored the first near miss (right guess, wrong series), followed by Vincenzo B on Facebook who named Z Gundam. Atgxtg and several others did hit the spot (the positioning of the Z was a good hint and they did not miss it), but they all failed to guess the entire truth. It is not just Mazinger Z...

Official announcement online in less than one hour. 

The last hint is on Facebook. The revelation will come one word at a time.

Hi Lloyd,

I am afraid that posting this here may generate some confusion. There is a post about the limits of psionic powers (of standard BRP) just below and if you read both at the same time you might not get they are two totally different variants of the rules.

Anyway. 

Such a modification could backfire spectacularly in a sci-fi environment. The reason is that elemental magic is superior (in terms of raw damage, but not other parameters) to ancient and medieval gear, but once you reach the 20th century (and possibly the 19th) things start to become different.

Surviving a hit from a cold war era assault rifle is not easy. Even a good old Winchester is a one hit one kill device if the target is unarmoured. Since WW2, most troops carry hand grenades that do 15d2 damage (average 22,5 points, between a 6d6 and a 7d6 hit) ignoring armour. Yes, a pyrokinetic attack is deadly, but it is more or less the same level of damage as an RPG, and nowadays even third world militia has access to this kind of weaponry.

Enter scifi weaponry. The average laser rifle does 3d8+1d8 on an impale (and fires bursts), a heavy laser does 4d8+1d8 (22,5 again ). Both fire at a faster rate than any psyker can shoot beams. Any beam weapon heavier than a laser does between 2d10+1d8 and 4d10+1d8 . Energy grenades can easily do 10d6 to 20d8 damage depending on the energy. In other words, everyone uses weapons capable of insta-killing. 

If you apply the above limitations, the magic powers a good magician can wield are nerfed to become the equivalent of a blunderbuss. This may sound balanced if everyone around the power user has access to bows and crossbows... but when phasers and blasters are common, then power users become laughing stock.

I do not want to know what the other commuters might be thinking while watching at your face...

I like the Ascension process, it is a perfect example of how a Conflict can emulate almost anything without much tinkering.

The handling of Divinity sounds complicated to me, though. For instance, why a random 1d6 to all characteristic rather than "distribute your remaining Resolution Points among characteristics at will"? A lot of other things could be simple remodelings. Consider that a 200% in a skill is "divine" in the game. Think of Neo flying and dodging bullets...

1 for running : YES.

The distance : 30 metres is *probably* one zone away (one zone is about 25 metres), so one more Penalty. But if you Aim for 5 SR this Penalty goes away, so it is -60% if you draw and shoot, -30% if you draw, aim and shoot.

It is high time to provide some explanations to our most faithful followers. Alephtar Games announced some great new publications for 2019, a Medievalia D100 line and a new edition of the rules. We have a delayed kickstarter for Red Moon Rising, too, that backers are really eager to see completed (we have not forgotten it, and an expanded version of these explanatory notes will appear later on the RMR page on KS).

Yet 2019 saw only a couple of PDFs come out, plus a revision of the quickstart version of the rules, in two languages out of the announced four.

As you may have imagined, the mysterious Project Z is the reason behind the delay of these long-awaited publications. They are essential to the future of the game line, yet for us Project Z is the most important part of our strategy for encouraging people to play the game. To put it simply, it is the type of licensed IP that creates hype. I will just compare the "google hits" I get for the names of H.P. Lovecraft, Jack Vance and our unnamed licensor:

Lovecraft: 34 million+ hits

Jack Vance: 27 million+ hits

Our licensor: 14 million+ hits

I chose Jack Vance not just because I am a great fan of his work, but because he is the author of the latest licensed IP that The Design Mechanism has acquired. In other words, the license popularity is of the same order of magnitude as the most valuable licensed IPs that competing games can leverage.

These numbers speak loud. The new project will help Revolution D100 more than anything else we have in the pipeline – which is not empty in any case. When we realised that we would in fact get the license, in March/April, it was a no-brainer that it made more sense to go for it first, and for the rest later. Such a radical change of strategy was not an easy decision, and unfortunately it also meant that when a 4 month delay happened in the negotiations it impacted everything we had in the making. We apologize for this to all of our fans who will end up not being so interested in the new project but wanted to see "the rest". But for many others… once you know, there will be no need to apologize.

See you later in the realms of fantasy, and get ready to swing axes and fire beam weapons: there are hordes of bad guys waiting for you.

Or perhaps having HIgh Priests does not make much sense for a cult with less than three Knowledge skills? I kinda remember a sort of "Storm Khan of Khans" (Storm Kaghan?) figure from River of Cradles, but I think most Uroxi worshipers are organized in small warbands and no more. 

XP progression: yes, it is intentional. It is an incentive to not exceed with Close Combat or the like. However, you will see that the rules themselves still encourage specialisation. If your skill does not increase, you do not "open up" other slots.

Change self: Really good idea, this is how stunts should work.

A golem is a construct so it should be immune to many magical effects. I would not let any power that can be countered by Willpower affect the golem. As for Hinder, if it works at all you could use STR instead of CON - I do not think that slowing down such a brute should be easy:

Animated armour is ok as an idea. The rules for constructs will be in the new SRD for magic which is *almost* ready.

Size Class is not depending on weight. You can usually gauge it from weight, but for armour it is clearly based on the Size class of the chap who is supposed to wear it.

Combat cards are still available from DriveThru. Their printing quality is really excellent.

GM screen will come with the International Edition, as an aid you can purchase separately. ETA 2020.

It's on Facebook. Will someone guess right this time?

Disruption 20?