Byron Alexander

TBH you could probably even do away with the need to tick skills if you wanted and just let people improve what they want to improve, or just give them a tick if they attempt something, even if they fail.

I probably wouldn't do the former unless they have the time/money/situation to train outside of game-time (and so increasing in X skill makes sense because they were researching/training it in downtime). The latter seems reasonable if you are only allowing a certain number of points distributed across all skills with a tick because it becomes more of the player's decision whether or not their character actually learnt anything from the experience.

I quite like the basic idea, although 1d20 might be a bit too random! I agree with keeping it a bit random, maybe only 1 roll is made and that applies to the entire party, size of roll determined by GM, e.g. if roll is 4d6 and roll = 15 then every member of party gets 15 points to distribute. You could even say that the maximum amount you can spend on any skill is something like (100-skill)/10 i.e. if your skill is 10%, then you can spend (100-10)/10 = 9 points on it, whereas if it's 90%, the max you can spend is (100-90)/10 = 1 point, or something similar. Minimum of 1 point perhaps? Might be too slow a progression for skills over 100 though. You could always use something like (150-skill)/10 I suppose.

cheers,

Mark

All of that could work. In fact, after 24 hours rumination, I think 1D20 is too random and 3D6 would give the same average with less dramatic variation.

I don't think it is a problem if skills over 100% are progressing very slowly, once you're the best in the world at something you do tend to plateau.

I think it makes sense with regard to picking a lock (in fact I've been in a situation where a bunch of friends were outside a locked door and each of us tried to pick the lock - don't worry it was my own house and I'd forgotten my keys) but to listening at it? That is absurd.

Off the top of my head (so totally unplaytested) what if when xp is worked out every player rolls a D20 and then distributes that much between the skills ticked? That way the realism of only improving skills you use is maintained but people aren't getting to rush ahead on xp because they use loads of skills - meaning that a rough equivalency is kept up and there is no need to go tick-hunting even if you're a min-max player.

If you wanted to remove the random element from it entirely you could even just give 11 points to everyone and have them distribute that among the ticked skills - although I think a fun part of BRP is the randomness!

If you want to play in the Warhammer world, I'd probably use the Warhammer system if you have access to both. It is written specifically for that world, after all, and as such captures its essence very well.

If you were deciding between which to buy, I'd urge you to buy BRP instead simply because there is so much more that you can do with it whereas with WFRP you can play in the Warhammer world and that's pretty much it.

If you are planning to run a gritty fantasy world of your own design, I would use BRP and not Warhammer since it is, imo, better to try and build a world from the ground up - picking and choosing what aspects it should have - than to take the Warhammer world and panel-beat it into a different shape. Then again, if you are looking at making a world that is the Warhammer world with the serial numbers filed off Warhammer might be better.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeexcellent.

Well done, it's a damn good sign for BRP in general as well!

To give you two examples of how other settings have done similar things:

The 'default' setting of GURPS is, essentially, a Sliders rip off in which they go to different dimensions. These dimensions have varying mana levels (so magic works differently - and sometimes not at all - depending on where the PCs are) and other massive variants. Your standard PC group is, therefore, given a points level and told, "Make anything, because anything could be in one of these groups." You can have a Medusa fighting alongside Captain Bampf the Space Adventurer if you want.

With regard to a setting with different historical places all mashed together Ravenloft did that. Whereas the GURPS setting went for, "Super-science did it!" Ravenloft goes for, "Magic/gods did it." It is essentially a hell dimension in which each person sent there for their crimes is bound by their evil soul to a territory that is drawn from their own minds to some extent. This meant that, effectively, a stone-age world could exist near a Renaissance world. These little islands were seperated by a dangerous mist which few dared travel through because of the monsters that lurked within it and the risk of getting totally lost.

Hope that helps.

It's translated into most characters having a few low stats, but being above average overall. We've gotten some nice roleplaying out of it.

Very much agree. I have a friend who, as a GM, will even lower a stat if you roll too high on all of them because a low stat "builds character" (his words). While I don't necessarily agree with this - I wouldn't do it in my games - I've never complained about it and certainly see his point.

even a dumb human should be more intelligent than an animal or a zombie

I don't know... I've known a few people for whom, "I want to eat your brains," would be goal-setting of a type they had hitherto never even dreamed of.

Again, I submit the question, how many people did you know that regularly played with many (if any) stats below 8? PCs are supposed to be "above average".

Making all stats 2d6+6 is also a solution, but again, you're house-ruling away the different scaling of SIZ and INT exactly as I talked about in the original post... just in a different way.

Honestly, in some BRP games PCs aren't supposed to be above average (Call of Cthulhu comes to mind) and I have seen people play with very low stats (a friend of mine played a geriatric, wheel-chair bound professor in a CoC game... his STR was not above 8, not by a long-shot).

If I'm playing a genre in which PCs are supposed to be above average then, yeah, I'll probably houserule 6+2D6 for all stats. If I'm going for gritty realism, though, I think only SIZ and INT being 6+2D6 does make sense because having those very low for a lot of characters quickly degenerates into absurdity imo.

Yeah, basically a SIZ of less than 8 is just ridiculous for a normal human character and an INT of less than 8 is unplayable as a PC. That isn't true of the other stats, although I suppose if you made every stat 6+2D6 that might make sense. It would mean that nobody has a serious flaw unless you choose it, though (and let's not forget if you want to make your character absurdly diminutive or absurdly dumb you can take 3 points away from any stat and add them elsewhere).

I received the same message. I wonder what this 'Jessie' was trying to achieve... :confused:

I suspect it is an attempt to spread the website address in their sig. I, for one, also recieved that message and decided to avoid clicking on it just in case.

I also suspect that once the PDF furor dies down, there will be little damage to WotC's core customer base.

I agree with you there, I don't think this decision will hurt WotC much. I do see it as inidicitive that Hasbro are not making sensible decisions with regard to WotC and eventually that will lead to a major problem.

I do not think the comparison between Hasbro and Blizzard can stand up.

I agree with you but Hasbro seems to think it does. As Bob Dylan said "Time will tell who has fell and who's been left behind..."

Personally, 4th ed D&D left me cold so I've said goodbye to WotC as far as my limited purchasing power is concerned anyway.

Holy thread necromancy! (Or, rather, unholy thread necromancy.)

And there should be a lore (alchemy) skill per theory about alchemy.

Jean

I think I used Knowledge : Occult as covering this. I didn't want to make alchemists too over-specialised as, well, I didn't make them that powerful anyway I wouldn't them limited any more.

Sorry to see Dave go. From all account's I've read, he was a nice guy and major factor behind D&D who got shafted by Gygax.

A bit harsh on Gygax considering that when he was president of TSR he brought Arneson back into it.

It is a shame that both are gone now, it seems a lot of the old guard are leaving us.

but I might need to point out that Eden studios has a copyrighted booked named WITCHCRAFT that is also an RPG. I DO NOT KNOW about trademark.

>>>>>>>>

1./ It will actually be called BRP Witchcraft.

2./ While the contents of EDEN Studios' Witchcraft are certainly copyrighted, you cannot trademark/copyright a single word in common parlance, so anyone can write a book titled 'Witchcraft' if they like (and I expect there are at least a hundred works with that exact title).

Simlasa, that's exactly what I was thinking - adventures which involve entering the crumbling mansions of creepy families who turn out to be witches, that sort of thing. As well as PCs which escaped the tyranny of their family after taking the family's secrets with them, of course.

Also, University Academic Presses usually have a finer grasp of the nuances of copyright etc, so a University Printing facility MAY be better able to help...

What he said. I know that back when I lived in a small university town in Wales I'd have gone straight to my university printing facilities for something like this. They will charge and, as it is not academic, it will go straight to the bottom of their priorities in busy times but I'm sure they could do it.

This applies to the UK only, though, I don't know what university printing facilities are like elsewhere.

I don't mention gypsies much but...

Familial Organisations

Some witchcraft traditions are taught within a family and kept to the family. Witches that travel in gypsy troupes are commonly familial witches, as are the descendants of pagan priests who pretended to forsake their old religion while still teaching it to their children and their grandchildren.

This is a section from the broad overview of organisation types. I think the type of witchcraft covered by the monograph could easily fit with the mythology that surrounds gypsies tbh, I just don't say that very much. There are rules for creating one-shot talisman's, though, so that strange gypsy woman selling you a lucky-rabbit's-foot or a love potion can certainly be made using the monograph.

3. I would also like a little author's bio - really, I'd like to know more about you.

Really? Because I think a lot of authors (myself included) would avoid that as seeming too self-obsessed. Is this a common feeling? Are their people clamouring to know more about the person(s) who wrote that monograph/book/tome of eldritch horror?

Some write up of a background for such characters... some secret organization barely condoned by the church... or parallel to the church... its member's constantly teetering on the edge of heresy... could be interesting even if it's not historically accurate.

That's true, and in the section of the possible sources of witchcraft I do explain that even given an infernal source those who sell their soul might do so in order to have magic which would help others. So it is a possibility.

I was only going to describe one organisation in full, but I think I'll do about three or more in the end in order to show how varied they can be.

That is a good idea for a game-world, but as my monograph is on Witchcraft I don't think it'd really work in that (there are few reports/tales of witches hiding within the Church).

Personally, in a monograph covering different optional systems for magic I wouldn't want much fluff, perhaps just a little describing what settings an option would best fit with and how best it would be included in those settings.

It's March 17th, May was a typo which they now have corrected on their website. :cool:

SGL.

Gah! I have a loose enough grasp on time as it is...

Not to mention the new BRP Adventures monograph and the 30% off sale on until Feb17 at Chaosium.

May 17th isn't it? Feb 17th has been and gone.

Games are my drug of choice.

Rod

I hear you there, I bought BRP with money I really should have used for stupid things like food.

Well, I got my copy of BRP from my FLGS - Black Lion Games - and if anyone's ever in Edinburgh I suggest you check them out (google-map them first, though, they're kind of hard to find - not far from the beaten track but hidden away a bit). Having lived in the middle of nowhere for years it's great to have a game store I can visit whenever I like!