badcat

I like the way they are.

It's not that bad, Sverre. Have you not played Elric!/Stormbringer 5? That said, I prefer the 10% critical only myself. It makes life so much simpler, even though you sacrifice a certain amount of the combat 'flavor'.

As I have stated in another thread, I do fudge a little sometimes when killing a character off over a simple mistake would be just too cruel (or sometimes when the dice are just being too contrary, there is a tiny increment of danger and things just GO WRONG, if you know what I mean). I prefer to do it that way because I think the game is more fun when they (the players) can never be sure of a positive outcome. I very rarely fudge, though. Most likely when a simple trap kills a PC or some such. Maybe once a session, sometimes twice. Nothing like the frequency a fate point system would get used. I also think fate points are a perfectly valid option, just not for me. If I were to play in a group that had a GM who used them, I would just disregard them and let fate take its course. I don't see any conflict...unless someone insisted on their use in a game I was running.

Simplequest looks like something along my tastes. Thanks for the link. I will keep up with it and probably buy it if it follows the conversion guidelines on the site and actually gets published.

I did, we played a campaign through. It works, with some things that take some getting used to as you can imagine. My wife's all-time favorite character was her Purrtier. Magic was very deadly. The mage in the group almost did a total party kill with a fireball. Overall, it felt a lot like BRP in actual play, even though it was missing some of the factors that make BRP what it is. I have often wondered if it started off as someones' homebrewed RQ game. Oh, and the gamescreen turned out to be the most useful one I have ever tried to use. I haven't been able to get another group to try it, though. I bet you are not in Seattle, are you?

Ever played Fifth Cycle?

How about a more 'organic' approach, letting the story tell itself? After all, no matter how much potential someone has there is always the chance that said potential will be cut short by a stray arrow or bullet or even by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No rhyme or reason in real life. And in my experience at least, the best rpg experiences are the ones where the players have no idea whether or not it is going to be the last for a particular character (mirroring real life or a good story, the best of which mirror real life IMO). Why not let the story tell itself, whatever the consequences? It would seem to be just a matter of taste, of what sort of story one wants to tell. In which case both the use of fate points or not are valid approaches. Also, I have noticed that some people tend to invest more in their characters than others; I myself have always looked at my own PCs as playing pieces or pawns, and their passing may be a little disappointing (best DEX I ever rolled!) but then I just shrug and get on with the game. Use of fate points of any sort change the whole experience and not in a good way, to me. I much prefer to let the story develop as it will (I figure that is what the randomness of the dice rolling does) and don't have a desire to dabble in what occurs as a result of that primary means of determining those occurrances in-game.

Have to disagree with you on this one, Atgxtg. I find the BRP combat rules to be the most realistic/playable I have found. Note the slash...the two factors together are what make it so, to me. Although no doubt there are more realistic, as you say James Bond is, BRP (as the system stands) remains the most realistic within the limits of playability that I want from my games. The results of play simulate my favorite books and movies just fine, and that is what I want from my rpg system. Playability has the edge; I guess I am not much of a system monkey...no offense intended, of course.

Every time.

Having read through this discussion, I guess I will have to say 'no' to fate points, myself. The Luck roll seems enough to me as well. After all, when I am reading a good book there is a point of no return, someone in a fight doesn't get a second chance to hit better or whatever. When fate plays a hand (as grabbing a root to keep from falling on fumbled climb roll) the Luck roll mechanic covers the need to simulate random chance that 'saves the day'. No need for any more redundancy, IMO. There are other ways to simulate fate through regular play, without fate points, too. Sometimes the factor is already built into the rules, as with the random armor roll in Stormbringer. If you roll a low armor value vs. a good hit, well, that is fate...having too many ways to thwart negative results takes away too much of the excitement. One of the most thrilling and visceral parts of Stormbringer was never knowing if the armor would hold or not. Fate points would cetainly blunt that aspect of many rpgs.

GDW, specifically Dark Conspiracy and Twilight 2000. Also Space 1889. The first two use a D10 or D20 resolution, roll under. And loads of vehicle designs and statistics, as well as weapons.

Ditto, that's how I feel too. Let BRP be BRP.

Yes, I use the 'fail to progress' first as well. Forgot that part. Multiple redundancy can be a life saver. The gargoyle thing was very early; my players learned to be smart, ambush, and use missile weapons when possible and smart tactics always. As Enpeze has said many times, that is one of the main things that makes BRP games so much more fun than some, in our opinion, that is. You have to PLAY.

I'm with you on that, my usual method is roll 3D6 in order and get x points to distribute. I like the players to be competent skill-wise from the start too. One of the few things I liked about MRQ was the character generation.

I like the re-roll on the stats. Is that once per character rolled up or once for each stat? I think I might use it.

Ouch! That is expensive. I have my own back ups in place. Primarily I use Luck rolls quite a bit. As in, PC fails the Climb roll half way up a hundred foot cliff. They get a Luck roll to see if there is a handy root, then another Climb roll to see if they succeed in saving themselves from a fall. It has always seemed satisfactory to me. The players are usually happy with the way I run my game; as long as they have a fair chance to survive/get away/win. It makes for fun gaming and a big sigh of relief over a favorite character when they make it. I do fudge rolls when fate just seems too cruel, as well. When a player does something insane or foolish I kill them quickly and with great glee, too. An early RQ2 game, I think it was Balastor's Barracks, there were some gargoyles who liked to attack by dropping rocks on the PCs' heads...is that the right one?...and one of the players insisted on staying out in the open and firing her bow at the gargoyles. You can guess what happened to her head location, and I didn't feel at all bad about it.

Thanks for the info, Jason. ...and Chaosium thanks you for the plug!

I for one would rather not play at all than play with that 'camp'. That's that. And I suppose it is why my game of choice is BRP, I don't want it changed for the benefit of aforesaid 'camp', and believe me most of all when I say I have no patience with them any more.:mad: You might say me and anyone in the 'camp' ain't gonna be friends... All that said (once) whoever wants to play a 'cinematic' rpg where anybody can do whatever and there is no risk/reward paradigm, have fun but don't expect me to be there, or even sympathetic to your choice.:cool:

Just out of curiousity, would anyone here who has seen or read it recommend the Malleus Monstrorum as a monster book for a vanilla-ish BRP fantasy campaign? Is there enough non-Mythos material to make it worth the price for someone who is not especially interested in the Mythos sections?

I'm with Enpeze and Lord Twig, definitely. The weapon rules and damage are the most balanced, playable ones I have ever found, in 30 years worth of rpgs. Maybe some of the posters here would be better served with a more rules-heavy system. BRP don't need fixin', and I think (from what I have seen so far) Jason was a lucky choice to write this compilation.

Interesting. I'll think about it, but my way to simulate 'fate points' has always been using the Luck roll. Did that come out of one of the previously published Chaosium games, or is it new for this book?

I fully agree, Enpeze. And Soltakss, hit locations was indeed one of the ways I solved the 'problem'.

The rationale is, simply, what effect does a firearm have? The original author of CoC did a very good job assigning those effects to various calibers, IMO. In most cases. Nothing is perfect, but the numbers stack up better than some games in which guns are one of the primary elements. Check out Dark Conspiracy. I love the game, and the firearms rules are good overall, but the damages seem waaay off. As in, you could certainly kill an elephant with a Barrett .50, but not a hefty human with one shot. Speaking of elephants, I agree that that does not make much sense. CoC elephants have 60-70 hit points as I remember, and an elephant gun with 3d6+4 or whatever just is unlikely to put one down, even with an impale. This is something I houseruled, but I don't consider it a deal breaker. I use an aiming rule of some sort. It still models OK, though, because elephant hunters usually went for brain shots and many successful elephant hunters used calibers such as the 7mm Mauser. Which no one in his right mind would use on an elephant, you'd think. Oh, and I find the same average damage from a .50 or an elephant cartridge like a modern .416 to .458 or an older elephant gun like a .600 or .700 to be about right...

I couldn't say. But another tidbit that may be part of the puzzle...one of my players, a real life 'gun nut' and hell of a pistol shot, used to say one of the reasons he disliked CoC was that the firearms rules were TOO deadly. Take that as you may. Myself, I thought it enhanced the feeling of desparation and made the players somewhat hesitant to resort to their guns, so I was happy with the firearms rules for that reason alone.

...and I have to say that I very much appreciate the motivation of wanting a clean rules-only BRP ruleset, uncluttered by setting details and minutiae, as I have been picking the rules apart from the settings in Chaosium games for a few decades as well. I look forward to getting the book.