Jason D

Someone's been reading between the lines on my blog... [edit] oh, I actually realize I mentioned it outright. Bet you can't guess what the other thing I've cryptically mentioned was.

I'll take a look at it over the weekend (swamped here at work and without my book), but hope to have some answers for you other than "Hey, new errata!"

I've suggested to Chaosium that they take Chapters 1-4 and 8 to make a smaller Player's Guide, but it's a lower-priority task than the other stuff on their plate right now.

Just a couple of quick replies: - If you're concerned about the deadline, I heartily encourage you to fire Dustin an email. - The Gen Con publication is my own guess... I haven't heard a single word from Chaosium about their goals with this.

That's if you're using fixed armor values. The helmets don't have 1 and 2 AP, they add those values to the total of any armor worn. Use the information on Armor By Hit Locations on page 262 for per piece values.

I don't have a copy to check, but I'd send an email to Chaosium about it. It may be a glitchy copy, in which case they'll likely straighten you out and will need to be in touch with their printers.

I've been trying to lure Dustin back for years now. Sadly, he was in the final stages of moving from Austin when I first got here.

Don't feel so bad... I haven't gotten a copy yet, either.

Nothing is wrong with Ken. Yes, you are.

First off... there really wasn't much of a "they" in development of this book. Sam wrote the skills chapter and the characteristics section, both of which I edited and rewrote heavily. He also took my request of "Write a lighter, tighter version of Call of Cthulhu sanity" and wrote a longer, more robust version of it... And aside from some advice, that was about the extent of his involvement. As for Chaosium, editorial involvement before completion really boiled down to Dustin saying "Hey again... when is it going to be done?" and Charlie saying "Hey, lets go for simpler powers or cut them altogether" or catching a bunch of minor issues during editing. The core sources were Elric!/Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu, which didn't use Defense. I personally like the characteristic (RQ2 is my preferred RQ), but was trying to go for a simpler model for combat, and the always-present "characteristic that subtracts from every attack made against a character" always slowed combat down too much for my tastes. Defense is also one of those characteristics that became all-important in every RQ2 game I played... everyone wanted it to be as high as possible, no matter what type of character they were playing. Everything in my game design sense tells me that über-characteristics are best avoided. So it's on page 151 as a super power. There's no reason it can't be utilized independently of super powers, with minor effort for integration.

Were you perchance in the playtest? Dustin collected addresses from playtesters with the plan of sending comp copies.

Dooh! Forgot about one of the classics. I've always been a Jorune fan, though haven't been able to run it successfully, ever. Plus, artist Miles Teves gets bonus points for making it from the pen-and-paper industry to Hollywood, and having a goddess for a wife.

He could also have the Status (Trolls) skill at an appropriate rating, perhaps with "Trolls" modified to reflect the specific group (like "Drath-kurz Clan Trolls") if those were the Trolls he helped and if status with one troll clan doesn't translate to another. The initial amount would be awarded by the GM, based on the relative level of the assistance. Maybe equal to APP or POW to start with? The status skill can be used to call in favors, make a positive impression, get some help, settle a diplomatic matter, etc. Asking for simple favors ("Don't tell anyone you saw me") would be Easy (2x skill), while getting more complex assistance ("I'll need four of you to help me fight the dragon") would be Difficult (1/2 skill). Dealing with trolls of another clan would be Difficult. Successful use of the Status skill improves with experience. That's how I'd do it.

This one. Plus (or minus) any applicable damage bonus, rolled. My apologies for the vagueness and lack of attention to the thread... I've been pretty busy at work and haven't got my rulebook .pdf handy (and haven't got a final print copy yet).

I've worked in creating fantasy and science fiction settings, and I'll say unequivocally that creating sci-fi worlds is much, much harder. Fantasy worlds inhabit a strange space in between history and myth, and are well-supported. Genre tropes such as magic, enchanted weapons, traditional fantasy races, etc. are all so commonly understood that usually one has to work hard to explain why things aren't the default (i.e., Tolkienesque fantasy). You really only need to see a guy with some sort of leather/metal armor, a sword in his hand, and a wizard next to him and you've pretty much got a generic fantasy universe in a nutshell. Science-fiction, on the other hand, has so many tones, sub-genres, and tropes that it requires a huge amount more explanation and buy-in from the reader. Is it trans-humanist? Cyberpunk? Utopian? Dystopian? Far-future? Space opera? Hard sci-fi? etc. I think the difficulty of selling science fiction settings to the audience is why there have been relatively few successful sci-fi RPGs that aren't based on licensed properties. Art's effect is mostly a neutral or negative one. Bad art will sink a game, while good art can't save it if the prose and creative vision aren't there. After Traveller, Fading Suns, Battletech, Spacemaster, and Alternity, I draw a blank trying to think of successful science fiction RPGs. And even the latter of those didn't do that well. Aeon/Trinity? Hard Nova? Space Opera? Shatterzone?

That is indeed what it means. You roll your damage normally as if you'd scored a critical success.

Official Answers (or close enough to): - The extra damage from martial arts should be added to critical hits, or armor is ignored (just as it is with normal criticals). I need to go kick Sam's butt for not making that clear - he wrote the skills chapter. - There should be a note somewhere (it might have gotten left out inadvertently) stating that using a weapon you don't have the relevant STR/DEX requirements for is Difficult (1/2 skill chance). It's in the listing for Shields (on page 264) but is missing for some reason on page 257.

I have no official idea, but I would imagine it'll be done almost simultaneously. I've been at publishers when product needed to go to distributors and amazon.com, and it's often accomplished at the same time... checking boxes for condition of books, throwing a bunch of shipping labels onto them and calling a shipper like UPS to come and get them. So my unofficial guess is that distributors and Amazon.com will get their books almost the same time... how long it takes them to get them into their own distribution system and out the door is variable.

Indisputable evidence, or so they claim...

Amazon does that automatically. I expect that Chaosium's going to get the books shipped out this week, and they'll be distributed throughout Amazon's warehousing system next week, shipped to customers soon after. It's possible you'll see books from amazon.com shipping before the first week in July, but my bet is that they'll begin hitting people's mailboxes shortly after the 4th of July weekend.

Dustin keeps editing the post he first put up over a year ago, so the original date is showing.

A couple of quick answers: The SIZ chart was based off a few of the existing BRP charts, ones which sadly didn't coincide much with each other. When in doubt, I used the ones from Call of Cthulhu and Elric/Stormbringer as the defaults, filling in the blanks with the Superworld chart. I anticipate that any future superhero game published using BRP would address the issue with an expanded table, or address Superman-level attributes in a non-linear fashion (something like Aberrant's mega-attributes would work well). To the best of my knowledge, there is no plan to revisit Superworld, though I can categorically say that I would be first to preorder a copy if someone writes one.

In general, if the action being attempted seems as if it would be easy/harder for a character without any external force, use the Easy/Difficult multipliers. The other modifiers are almost always situational, and are based on external forces like particular quality of gear or specific temporary environmental issues. I'll admit that it's a bit fuzzy as to which to apply when, and that's because it's been a bit fuzzy throughout the history of BRP, and GM preference about which to use when varies tremendously. I personally like the ease of the multipliers than the fractional ones, saving the latter solely for gear or weather conditions.

I'm definitely buying him a beer to go with those enchiladas when he hits Austin.

You know, you might have some fun and run a fantasy version of Call of Cthulhu... sort of a high fantasy Cthulhu Dark Ages combined with dungeon-bashing. I would definitely use the "total hit points" option in that case, for more heroic action. "Lair of the Serpent Men" or something like that...