Aelwyn

Would be interesting if the POW has to come from some difficult-to-obtain creature. "Bring me a live basilisk, and we will sacrifice it to power your sword."

Everything in the resistance table can be captured by this easy mathematical formula: 50% + % active force chance - % opposing chance = % chance of success All of the characteristics in BRP (except SIZ) have a % chance associated with them (STR... Effort roll, CON... Endurance roll, POW... Luck roll, etc.). So if you want to recreate the exact mechanic of the resistance table, without resorting to consulting a table, all you have to do is add (or subtract) the derived characteristics rolls to a base roll of 50%. Most people who play BRP have already figured out some derived version of this formula in their heads (subtract one characteristic from another, multiply by five and subtract from 50%, or something similar). Got a characteristic (like SIZ) that doesn't have a percentage chance associated with it? Multiply it by 5. That's your percentage chance. The resistance table is a really nice mechanical way to resolve conflicts, but consulting a table interrupts the flow of a game. Of course, some people don't like math, either.

The Thread of Dreams. Now that's a good name for an RPG. The cover art would show an impossibly old woman, in ancient clothes, sewing a tapestry. On the tapestry can be seen archaeologists confronting a mummy, a spaceship orbiting a ringed planet, a bronze-age warrior battling a giant lizard, and fragments of other scenes. I wish there were some universal game system where you could play all those different styles.

I can't crush everyone else's wishes on the wish thread? Wait... did I wander off the Internet? Okay, at the risk of being lynched, I wish they would base it on BRP but use the much easier to calculate Specials, Criticals, and Fumbles from Runequest 6, along with the really, really fun Special Effects. I voted BRP because it's what I'm most familiar with. I like the skills and character creation in BRP, and I find the system a little more intuitive than Runequest 6, but that might just be familiarity. Another thing I like from RQ6 is that you get an experience check for Fumbling, which in my experience is one of the best ways to learn. I don't have Magic World, but it seems so popular on this site, I may have to break down and buy it just so I can discuss it intelligently. Not so much a wish, just an idle thought: what would BRP look like without characteristics? With just skills? Give everyone 15 hit points and 15 power points. Power points could increase by experience; hit points could only be increased by magic or superpowers. Just wondering if that would work. I really wish there was a version of BRP that was stripped down enough that I could teach it to someone and get a character generated and start playing in 15 minutes, even someone who had never played role-playing games before. An indie version of BRP that I could play with my mom or my three-year-old nephew. I don't know how you would get the realistic feel that BRP has and be able to achieve that. It might not be possible.

I am almost certain that it's going to be the BRP Quick-Start rules, minus Chapter 7: Adventures. The Quick-Start is now available for free from Chaosium Free Downloads or in print for US$11.95. BRP Essentials will be a renaming of that existing content, with the adventures removed for economic reasons. The print version will be similarly priced, possibly a buck or two cheaper, but they will likely still offer it as a pdf for free. It's a good business move, but it shouldn't be cause for either celebration or alarm.

I had that problem as well, but I managed to get through by clicking different areas of the screen. I think after you put in your country and date of birth, you have to click "Update your information below" (which is above the update fields) and then you get a green bar down at the bottom that says "Update" with a right arrow (this is from memory, so I've probably got the names of the buttons wrong).

Did you steal that image from the rarely seen RPG Aztecs & Aliens?

The Big Goddamnawesome Book.

Hi, everybody. I realized I've never introduced myself on the site, despite posting on and off for several years. I'm Ron. My first RPG was Metamorphosis Alpha, back in 1979. I played a lot of D&D back then, because that's what everyone else played, but the system never made sense to me. Also played some Gamma World, Top Secret, Aftermath!, the Morrow Project, Monsters! Monsters! and many other games. I don't remember why or when I picked up the boxed set of Runequest, but I absolutely fell in love with the system. It made sense... you got better at what you did, instead of getting better at the things that fit in your job title because you killed things. No one was trapped by their occupation: everyone could cast magic; everyone could fight; everyone could try to pick a lock. Armor absorbed the shock of blows instead of making you harder to hit. But I could never get anyone else to play, and I wasn't talented enough as a GM to run games. In college, I drifted away from roleplaying games, then got trapped in an iceberg for 20 years. When I woke up, everything had changed. There were these things called indie RPGs that I didn't understand. The games were a lot of fun, but the people playing them sounded like deconstructionist philosophers when they talked about the games, and I couldn't figure out how to play them exactly. Oh, and everyone was still playing D&D, and it still didn't make any sense to me. On a whim, I tried to find Chaosium on the Internet. They still existed, but they no longer had the rights to Runequest. But there was this book... a complete roleplaying system. Yes... this is the thing I fell in love with when I was 15! I've been working on two settings for BRP. Will I ever get them published? Stay tuned... Also might be joining a group that plays Runequest soon.

Three's a crowd, and four's a conspiracy. Count me in like Monte Cristo. Liberte, egalite, fraternite!

I think we're more fond of the Sword of Damocles than Occam's Razor. Seriously, Runequest 6 is 456 pages, and Runequest Essentials (already available for free) is 201 pages! Nobody is condensing that down to 32 pages just to rename it BRP Essentials! It's going to be a cut-down version of the Quick-Start. I'll put money on it. If I'm wrong, I'll bump my contribution to Revolution D100 up one level.

Great work, Raven, and congratulations on finishing your thesis. We're all looking forward to seeing the completed tool.

Also note that saddle-stitched documents (ones with staples in the middle) and perfect-bound documents (paperbacks with glue inside the spine) are usually printed in 16-page signatures. The most economic way to print them are in multiples of 16 pages, and if you can eliminate 16 pages from a document, you can save a whole signature and a decent amount of money. This smells like a quick, sensible way to cut costs without writing anything new.

Let's do some math. They've announced that the new BRP Essentials will be 32 pages. The BRP Quick-Start Edition is 48 pages. Chapter 7: Adventures in the back of the BRP Quick-Start, plus the two Fearsome Foes, take up exactly 14 pages. The blank character sheets in the back, which are available elsewhere for free, and which duplicate the character sheet on page 11, take up exactly 2 pages. 48 - 14 - 2 = 32 Alternatively, Chaosium could delete Chapter 7: Adventures, page 11, and the ad in the back, and keep the two-page blank character sheet. That math also works out very nicely. If you don't have the Quick-Start, I'd recommend you get it immediately. Those Adventures are kind of cool, and as far as I know, they aren't available anywhere else. Everything else is pulled straight from the BGB.

Yeah, I just threw up a little bit in my mouth. I'd be very surprised if it looks like RQ6, because there already is a Runequest Essentials. Why would they muddy the waters by putting out another edition of those rules with a completely confusing title? CoC7e is a possibility, but that doesn't seem like a good business move to me for a lot of different reasons. Right now we're all just speculating a lot, which is fun, kind of in the same way punching yourself in the face is fun. Does anyone have the Quickstart version of BRP? What's in that? Is it possible BRP Essentials is just a renaming/edit of that, minus the "what is a role-playing game"?

Dear Chaosium: Leave out the "What is a role-playing game" and "How to run a role-playing campaign" stuff. That is useful, but it really should be posted prominently on the company's website, available through a single click from the home page, and available as a free download in a one-page, free-to-photocopy format, for Chroniclers to consult or to hand out to newbies. That stuff is promotional material that will attract D&Ders to your website. For BRP Essentials, from the BGB, use the chapters on character creation, skills, system, and combat. Leave out all the optional rules and stuff that many folks won't use because they're too crunchy--EDU, encumbrance, hit locations, personality bonuses, fatigue. Leave out magic, powers, spot rules, and creatures... those could show up in the setting-specific supplements you're going to package with BRP Essentials. Also, I know this ship sailed a long time ago, but Chaosium really should call the new product just Basic Roleplaying and rename the BGB Advanced Roleplaying, or perhaps The Book of Gold. Basic Roleplaying makes sense as the name of a 16-page or 32-page handout... it's not a good name for the BGB, and it was only chosen because Chaosium owned the rights. In fact, I wouldn't mind getting a completely new name for the system, perhaps a play on the name of the company. I know it's probably too late to fix that, and trifletraxor will want to kill me if he has to go find another domain name. If you're going to tinker with the system, then... I know I'm going to get hate mail for this, but... get rid of the resistance table. Replace it with opposed characteristic rolls. That's already part of the system. No need to have two mechanics for the same action. Keep the system as simple as possible. Imagine that every table that has to be consulted loses you half your audience... because it probably does. Resist the urge to make it longer than 32 pages.

Breathe, everybody. I know Ben getting laid off was a shock for all of us, and I wish him well. I hope he continues to find work in the gaming field. But the most important line from the original post is this: Chaosium will be producing new products based on the new core BRP rules that are neither RuneQuest nor Call of Cthulhu. That should be cause for rejoicing. There's no indication from the post that BRP Essentials will be based on anything other than what we know as real BRP from the BGB. My guess is it will cover character generation, skills, system, and combat, but it will leave out magic, powers, optional rules, "what is a role-playing game," spot rules, and creatures. That product could be packaged with a wide variety of settings, each of which would be a self-contained game, and each of which would fill in the blanks with additional rules, powers, and creatures. The BGB will still be available for all of us tinkerers through print on demand. Is Magic World dead? I can see why people are drawing that conclusion, but nothing in the Chaosium blog says that. It's even possible that Chaosium will reboot Magic World in a few years with a better name, as a fantasy setting and magic rules, packaged with BRP Essentials. That is a move that I would applaud. And given Chaosium's historical penchant for recycling, it would not surprise me a bit.

This seems like mixed but overall good news to me. The BGB is still going to be available as a PDF and Print on Demand. Chaosium's going to publish a quick-start version of the rules, which will help bring more people to the system. The quick-start version can be packaged with other products, allowing them to be standalone products, which are more marketable and will allow Chaosium to take more risks and perhaps strike gold with a particularly compelling setting. Chaosium has committed to coming out with at least two new BRP products--a revised Mythic Iceland and the noir detective setting. Given that the BRP line is not selling particularly well--which we already knew--I think this is the best news we could hope for.

Hmm.... I'm seeing some hope in the sentence "Chaosium will be producing new products based on the new core BRP rules that are neither RuneQuest nor Call of Cthulhu." Call of Cthulhu is successful, and my guess is that it would land somewhere in the top 10 of most popular role-playing games, probably around 8 or 9. Runequest, somewhere in the top 50. All other BRP combined... wouldn't make the top 100. I may be wrong. That's just my impression based on trying in vain to find local players for a non-Cthulhu, non-Runequest BRP game. Here's what Call of Cthulhu has that the rest of BRP doesn't: It's got basic and advanced rulebooks tailored to a specific, compelling setting, and it's got a crapload of supplemental material. If Chaosium wants BRP to be successful, and I'm holding out some hope that they do, it wouldn't be a bad plan to do a hard-boiled detective setting, with complete rules all in the same book, publish 3 to 5 supplements based on that setting, and then see if they get a little bump in sales for that line. And then do the same with Mythic Iceland. And then do the same with... pick one of Magic World, Rubble and Ruin, After the Vampire Wars, [fill in the name of your favorite BRP setting]. Each setting would have its own complete set of rules, not necessarily the same set, along with some rules-free supplements. And the BGB will still be available for people who want to do crossovers or world-building. I'm not a marketing guru, but I think the BGB doesn't sell because it's not attached to a compelling setting, and the settings supplements don't sell because they don't have complete rules included.

So, Paolo, I know it's early days yet, but what more can you tell us about your plans for the system itself? Is Revolution D100 going to be similar to the Parpuzio system, downloadable below, just updated, fleshed out, and adapted to various settings? It looks like Parpuzio is a universal system, but the default setting is historical fantasy, and there don't seem to be rules for psychic powers, superpowers, etc. Are you going to include rules for superpowers, psychic powers, and mutations? How many different systems of magic will there be? Will a different set of the rules be included in each Alephtar publication? Or are you going to do one big book with all the possible rules? I realize you may not have decided all of this yet, and your plans may change, and you might just not be ready to reveal all yet. If you really want this to be a universal system, I would suggest making it as simplified and integrated as possible (i.e., mutated post-apocalyptic survivors gain starting abilities and learn or develop new ones using the same mechanics that wizards learn spells, superheros develop powers, cyberpunks gain body modifications, etc.). This might just be a matter of adding different traits onto skills, i.e., a charioteer and a superhero both have the skill Ranged Combat, but the charioteer has the trait Javelin while the superhero has the trait Energy Blast. You may have already figured this out--or decided to do something else--so please forgive my presumption.

I'm a big fan of links, chains, and furlongs.

You came to the right place. Check out the downloads section. Canis latrans popus uploaded a ton of mecha stats. http://basicroleplaying.org/profile/1442-canis-latrans-popus/content/?type=downloads_file

I'd recommend using abstract concepts like SIZ and MOV, as BRP does, and then provide tables for conversion to both imperial and metric, as well as a couple of fictional and historical systems from different settings. Morgens and garns, anyone? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Morgen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_units_of_measurement#Garn

Sounds plausible. Maybe they'll fix some of the typos before the next print run.

And... After the Vampire Wars seems to have disappeared from Chaosium's catalog.