K Peterson

Stormbringer 1e and 4e state that variable armor points is due to the possibility of being struck in a location where the armor isn't present. Elric! described it as being due to weaknesses and openings depending on the type of armor used. So yeah, potentially a combined-abstraction of hit locations, armor coverage, and durability of armor based upon type.

Definitely a sharp name.

17 hours ago, jux said:

I understand how the old CoC had too many skills and I am very surprised of the skill list in the old RQ2 (visible here).

That skill list is surprising because that character sheet seems to be an odd amalgamation of RQ2 corebook skills and skills taken from a variety of RQ2 supplements (or maybe other sources?). Compare it to this RQ2 character sheet, which is more representative. The sheet you reference drops off some standard RQ2 skills (like Map Making) and introduces what I'd consider to be 'fringe' skills (Masonry, Cattle Food(?), Peaceful Cut(?))

34 minutes ago, TrippyHippy said:

Actually, if there is one design feature I'd like to insist on, it's that we ensure that game play is not based upon tabular reference. So, for example, no Resistance tables or Crit/Fumble tables or the like. What I want is for the game to flow intuitively, without having to crack open the book all the time. 

Is there any edition of RQ that doesn't have some aspect of tabular reference? I can't think of any that fit your design preference, unless you're referring to modeling a new version of RQ after HeroQuest Glorantha or another Rpg entirely.

Ironically enough, if you know how values in the Resistance Table are derived, you can calculate them quickly, in your head, without ever needing to crack the book and disrupt play.

Eh, no big deal. I probably reacted too defensively and could use to dial it down. 

I can see what you're getting at.

On 2/11/2016 at 2:47 AM, Mike M said:

Hi

I believe the "Cthulhu Icarus" referred to by cjbowser is the one in Chaosium's Cthulhu Through The Ages. The scenario in Worlds of Cthulhu has a similar name "The Icarus Project" but is not the same material.

 

So, what is Cthulhu Icarus and what is it based on? Did it originate in some 6e product that CTTA converted to 7e, or was it created whole-cloth for CTTA?

I've found very little details on it, and have no desire to purchase CTTA. A Review of CTTA that I found references Worlds of Cthulhu, apparently incorrectly.

1 hour ago, Baulderstone said:

It sounds like there simply weren't a variety of circumstances in combat. One thing the book talks about in the GM section is the idea that killing is not always a good idea. There may be serious social ramifications, for one thing. If you are trying to win a fight without leaving any corpses, the Special Effects you mention are about the worst you could pick. 

Sure, players will still have old standbys they fall back on most of the time. That's fine, but the options are there when you need them.

How do you define a variety of circumstances? The nature and layout of the 'battlefield'? The tactics deployed by the NPC antagonists? Circumstances such as surprise, ambush, and betrayal? Are you presuming that these were vanilla battles on same kind of chessboard where Character A steps forward to battle NPC A, and so on? I can assure you that they were not. They were quite tactical and 'cinematic' situations where a lot was going on and a lot of options were open to the characters.

This campaign took place within Xoth Publishing's Sword & Sorcery world of The Spider God's Bride. There wasn't a lot of moral ambiguity, or shades of grey, and the best way to deal with many threats was to kill them dead. (Especially Serpentmen wizards. Especially!). There was one situation where the character slayed an NPC who could have turned out to be an ally, and they paid a dear price for their blood-lust. But it did not change their Special Effects selection for the future. They found the most optimal SEs to use across a variety of combat situations, and many of the others were considered inefficient. Multiple copies of combat and SE documents were on the gaming table, but the options did not lead to any decision paralysis.

I ran a campaign following this adventure using RQ6 - and an adventure within Book of Quests - and these players utilized similar strategies and the same group of SE's. And they did very well against the challenges they faced, again. Other gaming groups may have other tendencies - but those leveraging some aspect of player-skill will probably latch on to those SEs which prove to be most efficient tactically.

I'd agree that it is great to have options available, and sound rules for the resolution of these options. Personally, SEs did not work that well for me, and I don't find them to be the godsend of cinematic combat resolution that many profess them to be. If they work well for you, stellar.

4 hours ago, jux said:

You open up the special effect sheets (if you have printed them out, otherwise you start flipping the book) and then comes the agony of choice. You have to mix and match some 3-4 applicable moves and choose which you prefer the most. To me this is a bit too much.

When I ran MRQ2 a few years back (mixing in rules from an early version of RQ6), there seemed to be little agony of choice taking place. Players would use the same, favorite Special Effects over and over again, because they found them the most effective - damn cinematic variety. It was always a mix of Choose Location (head), Bypass Armour, and Maximize Damage. It became rather tiresome, but it was always an effective strategy that lead to their success in many combats.

You might blame unimaginative players, who didn't leverage the cinematic creativity and choices that Special Effect offers. But I guess they had the creativity to find the most effective tactical strategy open to them. Choice was focused, and it lead to rather boring and redundant combat, and soured me on Special Effects.

Quote

At the same time I would prefer some more flavor in combat than just scoring hits and damage. For example rolling hit location is already a great fun. I would not mind if there are some flavor charts where you can roll - critical success and fumble tables for example. Minor wound tables, etc. 

Sounds a bit like Elric!/Stormbringer major wound and fumble tables, minus a hit locations table. More abstract and less complex, but they add some 'flavor' into combat beyond hits and damage. They're my preferred approach these days.

4 hours ago, Simlasa said:

That sounds like the 'design philosophy' behind Pathfinder.

Sounds pretty damn unimaginative.

1 hour ago, Jeff said:

But I do hope people at least find these notes interesting. The goal is to let you all know what we are thinking and how we are coming at it.

Definitely. Please continue. It's great to see the thought process behind this new version.

And it's nice to see Chaosium draw upon the wealth of BRP rules that have been produced over the decades, cherry-picking the best parts for this new RuneQuest.

21 minutes ago, rsanford said:

How was Elric different?

I think it's how I described above, where I quoted the Elric! core book. But, with @Aramone's comment I've been re-reading Elric's demon summoning section in case I was in error.

Think I'm still right. INT-space appear to be per-demon, whether lesser or greater demon. You're just dishing out more magic points for a tougher demon. Less restrictive than MW's version, but still not easy (when you take into account the massive magic point requirements, and the POW sacrifice for binding the demon).

Advanced Sorcery's demon summoning is based off of Elric!/Stormbringer's, if I remember correctly. Per Elric!, page 73:

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In the game, a human can remember up to that sum of individual spells, summonings, and invocations equal to his or her INT. A human of INT 16 might have in memory 16 or fewer spells; or have three spells and five summonings; or seven spells, four summonings, and three invocations; and so on in any combination totaling 16 or fewer spells, summonings, and invocations. Each bound demon and bound elemental also counts against this limit.

If that's the right source, then I would say that each bound demon counts as 1 point of INT for the limit.

Greater demons just require a ton more magic points to summon - they don't appear to take up more INT-space. To do that, you need some kind of magic-point-reserve (like a Brazier of Power) or have a number of people helping you out (using a spell like Chain of Being).

2 hours ago, TrippyHippy said:

I do think that the option to shift your SR, in order to gain more control over hit location is a good one though.

Agreed. I prefer the Aimed Blows (optional) rule in RQ2 over the RQ3 version. (The first option on page 113 of the 'classic' RQ2 pdf; the second option looks identical to RQ3's).

On 1/30/2016 at 1:04 AM, Jeff said:

How do you find that the original RQ2 strike rank rules hold up compared to that of RuneQuest 3? I'm curious not just conceptually, but how easy are they to apply in game? Do players have difficulty understanding them? Are there elements of them that don't make sense to you?

Strike Ranks have always made perfect sense to me, and for the players that I've introduced them to. I prefer them to the (very boring) d10+[value], and a little bit more than DEX determining initiative order. I think that they're a very intuitive mechanic - pretty much the best initiative mechanic I know of.

Still not available? That's a bummer.

Where's that doomedpc guy? Paging @doomedpc, how about an update for those wanting to give you cash for a hardcopy of DS2e?

8 hours ago, ColinBrett said:

Slightly off-topic, to those who have hacked together bits of BRP versions: how many rulebooks do you take to a given game session? The BGB is great but if you're taking parts from that, RQ6, Renaissance, MW (or whichever system(s) you're using), do you take all the books "just in case" or hand-written/typed summaries of the relevant sections? Or, because BRP is almost like Lego in the way bits from different systems "click together", can you just trust to memory that a particular rules variant works a certain way?

At most, one rulebook and potentially one GM screen are brought to the gaming table.

I typically work from one rules framework, and import subsystems from other BRP systems. I bring the core book from the framework and I have printed notes for the framework and subsystems. These system cheat sheets include details on task resolution, chargen, combat, and any subsystem that would be appropriate.

For example, I'm working on Hyperborean fantasy campaign that is using Elric! for its framework, and includes subsystems taken from RQ3 (strike ranks and training), and from Corum and the Bronze Grimoire (magic). The Elric! core, its GM screen, and my cheat sheets would be what I'd have on-hand for game sessions.

Dang it. You got my hopes up. 

Yeah, that's the first edition. This is the DTRPG page for the second edition, and pdf is the only option that's currently available.

25 minutes ago, Duck of Death said:

I wonder if an UO index/ list of articles by issue exists online? That would be legit content, yes? RPG.Net , maybe?

RpgGeek might be a good resource for that. I just stumbled upon it, and it looks like it provides some breakdown of articles based on issue.

1 hour ago, TrippyHippy said:

Well, they did used to have adjustments such as these in AD&D (1st Edition). A number of people thought it was sexist and it was removed from subsequent editions. That's the rockiness I am referring to.

Even closer to 'home', RQ3 (Avalon Hill) had characteristic adjustments for human women in the Monsters book. The adjustments were intended for NPCs, and I recall a comment in the text that female PCs were considered to more heroic (or something like that) and had characteristics generated the same as a male. I don't recall if there was rockiness back then over those rules.

1 hour ago, Duck of Death said:

characteristics-- I use random roll, in order, for PCs. In my games players very often create the concepts (including occupations) for their investigators after looking at the rolls. ''This guy looks like he would make a pretty good journalist."

But if you do it the other way around, assigning the generated scores might make more sense.

I'm open to whatever my players prefer. Whether they want to generate characteristics before coming up with a concept, or assign characteristics to fit a pre-conceived concept, it's all good for me, as Keeper. I like random generation as well, but I tend to be a Keeper more than a player.

Not too hard to find d20s numbered 0-9 through online sources. I've got a few of them but don't really use them much for d100 play. Standard d10s work well enough for me.

Somewhere I've got one of those d10-inside-a-big-clear-plastic-d10, but that thing rolls like hell.

I've used a number of house rules over the years. Some I've played around for a while and discarded, and others I've kept.

• Alternate Aging rules that were based off of Mongoose's RuneQuest II. More detailed than standard CoC but nowhere near as punishing as CoC7e.
• Roll-and-assign characteristics (with characteristics of the same die type, 3d6, 2d6+6).
• Combining Occupation Skill points and Personal Interest Skill points together into one lump total. (Which was something suggested in the core or a supplement for Delta Green).
• Keeper rolls all social, perception, and stealth skills for the investigator and describes the result.
• Ditching the 'reaching 90% in a skill results in a sanity point gain' rule.
• Combining Fist, Headbutt, and Kick into a single Brawling skill that deals d3 damage.

There have been others that have included optional rules from the BRP Gold book. I've also done serious kit-bashing of systems like MRQII and CoC for some campaigns.

Worlds of Cthulhu, issue 2, had a Mythos-in-Space scenario called "The Icarus Project". It was for 6th edition, though, and the magazine is out-of-print. Here are details on the scenario; spoilers/Keeper-info included!

What exactly is "Spiral Magic"?

5 hours ago, Baulderstone said:

Niche protection also suggests to me a style of gaming that I find boring. It sounds like something you need in a game where you sit around waiting for the GM to ask you to roll a particular skill and hoping that you are the only one that can raise your hand, so you can get some attention.

Niche protection makes me think of archetypes which leads me right in the direction of rigid classes. Defined roles that excel at one gameplay feature better than any other role. Perhaps a comfortable playstyle for some, but a straight-jacket for those that enjoy BRP games.

BRP/RQ as a system has rejected archetypes since its beginnings as a system, allowing the player to develop their character in a more natural and realistic(*) fashion. Characters are differentiated by either their cultural and occupational background (which in some versions of BRP defines starting skill levels) to start, and then by how their skills develop through play (Experience Checks or Improvement Points) or through training. Few versions of BRP have used advantages/disadvantages or perks/flaws. BRP characters are often differentiated through more than just a handful of skill points, and have the freedom to evolve in whichever direction their player chooses. More wide-open choices than are offered by classes, or even multi-classing.

If your players are happier with their characters having their own archetypical "thing" then maybe D&D, Vampire, and Savage Worlds are just better options for them, and BRP won't work for them. BRP doesn't work for everyone, clearly.

* - I hate to use the term realistic when it comes to fantasy games. Perhaps verisimilitudinous or natural is a better way to phrase it. BRP characters are a simulation of a character, and that character's development, within a game world. That is the real advantage of BRP - a strong emphasis on a simulationist style of play - a style that I've only seen equaled by GURPS. D&D/Vampire/Savage Worlds, IMO, can't even come close to touching that playstyle, because they're geared towards the high-powered, the super-heroic, the anti-verisimilitudinous.