badcat

Yes, when I used the experience system from Fifth Cycle I had the players note what they were 'working on' on the character sheet and describe when and how. No biggie. And I agree that the ability to change the experience system and other parts of the game system without breaking it is one of the defining aspects, probably more so than the check system itself...but I usually use the check system myself. I have run many BRP games and only used the Fifth Cycle system once.

That's a whole other argument. Experience systems can be quite 'organic' feeling as long as they are relatively open ended. The experience system in BRP can be changed with no harm to the game play, therefore it is not a defining facet of the system. IMO.

:)Don't be so serious. As I pointed out above, these are very minor things to me. BRP is my game. Sometimes I see things from other games I like to try out; dont you? There is no reason the experience system I described won't work alongside 'role-playing' and/or BRP specifically. I know, because I used it once or twice and there was no collateral damage and the players thought it was fine. No substantive difference, no substantive improvement either. You don't sound particularly nasty, in fact I smiled because you are kind of preaching to the choir. I was commenting that I never particularly considered the experience system or SIZ to be defining elements of BRP (and so was a little surprised many of the rest of you do), and that I have run successful houseruled games without one or both. Don't worry about it. Besides, there was more to it than I described. Eight 5% ranks make 40%(where is the rest of the skill % to make it viable?), so the system as a whole is basically BRP, but with some twists...some twists that make it fun in its own right. Even though I remain convinced the game started out as RQ2. It is certainly as much fun. And the SIZ thing. I usually just assign modifiers per race in the game. It's funny what ranges you can come up with if you use straight 3D6 rolls, is all. Some days my dice just don't cooperate. And my favorite BRP rpg, Stormbringer, was definitely wildly unbalanced in more ways than that. Where else could you roll up a midget beggar with 18 STR and no arms, anyway?

I am completely with you on your second and third points. SIZ is useful, in spite of those little aberrations from time to time, and indeed it is one of the things that sets BRP apart. I use it, I was just commenting on the less-than-great results I have gotten from time to time. It's easy to fix. MRQs combat system is several steps backwards, no way I would ever think of running it like it is. The only improvements the game introduced are the chargen and maybe the encumbrance system, for some of us. The rest of it? I can honestly say I have downloaded better BRP houserules free off the internet. About the experience thing. When I use it (as I did mostly when I ran the game where I got it, Fifth Cycle) there are certain amounts of experience given for this or that. Like any other game that uses such a system. Usually between 10 and 40 points per session. The skills all have increasing costs per 'rank' (+5%), with eight ranks. Like broadsword costs 9/14/23/36/72 etc., with the cost modified by the skills' controlling stats (two each). It works well for this particular game and would probably work for a regular BRP game just fine. Any one of the versions that use 5% increments, like RQ2. All the skills have their own progression tables. It is faster and easier than it looks, and when I did use it for one campaign, my BRP veteran players did not have a problem with it. It works OK in 'regular' BRP games, it's just different. Some of us liked it better, some didn't. The ones who liked it better said they had more control over how their character developed. Personally it just depends on what kind of game I am running. I guess I would rather have it as the exp. cost way if I were playing, myself. No accounting for taste.

It is interesting to me that several of you put emphasis on the experience check system. In my homebrew I did away with that and used an 'increase for experience point cost' system like Fifth Cycle. The SIZ stat has always been a sort of mixed blessing to me, as well. Unless there is some houserule to control it (like the use of a default value) it can result in very strange characters from time to time. Midget warriors, Herculean wizards, etc.

The experience system, yeah I can see that. However the early editions of Stormbringer and RQ used bonuses that could impact the characters' skills pretty heavily.

Actually it is quite a bit like the Arthurian cycle...Ogier the Dane was one of Charlemagnes' Paladins. You know, along with Roland and Oliver, fighting the Saracen, making the realm safe from all threats internal and external, all the things chivalrous knights do...really, there was another whole set of stories built around Charlemagne and his Paladins, similar to but not the same as the stories of the Round Table. It is called the Carolingian Cycle, and is the backdrop for 'Three Hearts and Three Lions'. Anderson just did a sort of 'Connecticut Yankee' story by having a modern American 'wear' Ogier's persona for a quest or two. 'Three Hearts' is one of my very favorite stories, one of the ones that got me hooked on this hobby way back.

A straight-forward, roll-under percentile role playing game published by Chaosium. I don't consider MRQ to be anything other than a badly thought out homebrew. There is at least one other game published that was probably started off as RQ and published as a separate game, and it's pretty good, IMO. It has a game screen that could actually be used with RQ, it is so similar. Ever heard of Fifth Cycle? It uses everything you mentioned except the resistance table.

For me, I never had much use for any of the RQ3 magic, it seemed too fiddly. I kept wishing someone would publish the Magic World magic system in an expanded form, and meanwhile worked up my own based on that. So I'll be OK either way. And in any case, I am very much looking forward to seeing just what Jason did include and how it will work together. There will hopefully be at least some material about integrating the different powers systems together.

Fine by me.

You think? I don't see any reason why I should try to correct anyone else's ignorance on a wide open pseudo-encyclopedia, though...I'm the wrong guy to throw that particular challenge at. Anyway, I plan to do demos of BRP at local stores to help get the word out, as my part. I hope everone here has similar plans, even if it is to input factual material on wikipedia about the history of rpgs. Just do something. Every little bit will help.:cool:

'Here there be monsters', indeed!

I actually never liked the spirit/divine split much anyway, but maybe it will be handled through the options side-bars? It was such an integral part of RQ I can't believe it won't be present in some form.

:DYou won't be sorry. Just don't expect full color fancy artwork books. The meat is there, the books are reproductions. My copies are completely legible and all the material is there though. Enjoy it, if you do get them.

Atlantean Trilogy was a game/supplement put out in the early eighties by Bard Games. It was the immediate predecessor to Talislanta. These days it can be found on ebay, online gamestores such as Noble Knight, and so on. A few years ago it was bought and published as a trilogy of books by a small game company in the midwest called Deaths Edge Games...and there are mint copies. This version is hardly changed from the original, as far contents go. It is a complete rpg that comes in three books, the game system book is called the Arcanum, and the others are the setting book (Lexicon) and the Beastiary. It is quite playable as it stands, but I have more often heard of people using it as support for some other game, usually D&D. I myself used it as a source of material for a BRP homebrew, natch. Also I ran it as is. The Arcanum presents a class/level/skill system with a uniquely complete magic system. Including summoning with bargaining rules and a very complete recipe section for alchemy. The appendices are very useful, sort of like the original AD&D DMG ones...lists with properties, all sorts of support material. There are around sixteen different classes each with unique abilities, and any skills outside the basic class can be taken in play. Aside from the standard D&D ones, things like Bounty Hunters, Harliquins, Astrologers, Alchemists, Beastmasters, Shamans, and on and on. It had a simple and playable combat system. A magic system with seven levels of spells, and many different types of magic...Sorcery, Astrology, High Magic, Low Magic, Elementalism, Black Magic, etc. The Beastiary is just what it says. There are descriptions of most any fantasy critter you can think of, lists of natural creatures and base stats, and complete heirarchies of demons and devils...and there is a section in the Arcanum that describes what each one can or will do if summoned...and how to bargain with them. The last one, the Lexicon, is a setting that encompassed the entire world in the late Antediluvian world. The Second Age of Atlantis, after the First Cataclysm. There is an analog of most modern cultures. An early Europe (one of the more primitive areas in this time), Egyptian type culture, Chinese, Meso-American, etc. Lemuria is a mysterious land of monsters far away. Atlantis itself is described in great detail, although it is a shadow of its former glory, in the First Age. A very rich and well researched setting based on real world legends. There was a second version printed by Morrigan Press a few years ago that has some material changed, and some added. Either one would do for a conversion project, although I would prefer the original (mostly for sentimental reasons, but Morrigan did make some changes in the setting that I did not agree with, and the Arcanum itself is superior for just game elements such as spells and alchemical recipes). Overall, the setting is broad enough to support any type of game...high fantasy, swords and sorcery, horror fantasy, science fantasy, anything. It is likely one of the best rpgs ever printed, as game or source material.

Conan, Hammers Slammers, Coramonde, Nifft the Lean, Tekumel, Talislanta, Atlantean Trilogy, Jhereg series, Black Company............

I would think it will be present in some form, as the book is supposed to include all previously printed BRP rules options. And it is supposed to have 386 pages, or thereabouts, to do it in.

Maybe they are D20 fans?

So they would. But more than once I have had people comment on inaccuracies in various Wikipedia articles. Enough to make me take information obtained therefrom with a grain of salt. I admit that sometimes I use it when I want a general idea on something; but if I want accurate trustworthy data I look elsewhere, and I think lots of other folks do too. For sure, I don't think it's worth getting worked up over. Monkeys will be monkeys, after all.

Wikipedia is rather notoriously unreliable as a source of information, so what difference does it make in the great scheme of things? It's not like tabletop rpgs are ever going to be a mainstream media or interest anyway. Let them wallow in ignorance, I say.

I was wondering when you would show up... There are some basic energy shield rules in WoW, very basic. Maybe something in Ringworld, but it has been a long time since I read it. So probably something but probably pretty undeveloped.

Big 'steampunk' 3.5 D&D setting. Two huge books, by Privateer Press. Converting it to BRP sounds like a daunting task...

I am liking what I am hearing too, very much.

From this and your other post, it sounds as though you missed Elric!/Stormbringer 5. You can still get SB5, and you might want to take a look, as it is considered by many to be the best iteration of the BRP system to date. It, along with CoC, is the game many of us BRP players survived on during 3.0/3.5. It is an excellent game, with the best combat system I have ever played. Of course, YMMV, but have a look anyway. I understand that the base system in the new BRP book is going to be close to SB5...before you add options to make it more like RQ, etc. Welcome to the group. Welcome back from the darkness...

You mean, like Mongoose stuff?