Smoking Frog

I don't necessarily disagree with your general point, but that quote from the essay is pretty silly. Players generate the character they want by using the rules to understand the benefits and drawbacks, in game terms, of their choices. During the game they make choices based on their understanding of what, in game terms, is likely to happen. It's pretty silly to think this is a good option: GM: You come to a 10 foot wide chasm that you can't see the bottom of. Player: I if make a running start, what are my chances of getting across? GM: The rules are for me, not for you, just tell me what you're doing. Player: Uh, okay, I guess I'll run and try to jump across. GM: Hahahahaha. You fail miserably and fall to your death. You never realized you only had an 19% chance of making it. Player: Okay. That sure was a fun game.

There's obviously a big difference between the question "what's wrong with BRP?" and "what's wrong with the BGB?" For me, the slightly "annoying" problem with the BGB is that it seems in places to be something of a "rough cut." I've seen posts here that are a variation of "this rule (or table or whatever) doesn't make any sense (or is inconsistent)," and someone who has been playing BRP for 30 years will chime in with "that rule is a verbatim cut and past of RQ3 and needs to be updated" or something like it. Chaosium seems to be hoping to use the BGB to get new people into the BRP system (hence, sections like "what is roleplaying" and "introduction to the basic roleplaying system"), and I assume the "rough edges" would be a hurdle to someone not particularly fluent in the system. Is there an errata document for the BGB? If not, is someone at Chaosium collecting the identified "bugs"?

Actually, I was introduced to Firefly long after the show was cancelled. I've only ever seen it on DVD. But I've heard the pain of those who did watch in when it was on TV.

I have multiple problems with the BGB's ambidexterity rules. The first is that I think it is really an issue that is important with firearms and not with hand-to-hand weapons. Shooting with your "off" hand is a problem, partly because most people never train for it. But if you do train enough, it is not a big barrier. The issue with an "off hand" for melee weapons should be the same for using an unfamiliar weapon with your main hand: if you train with sword and shield, the fact that your shield is on your "off" arm, doesn't matter. If you've never trained with sword and shield, you will stink at both the sword and the shield: it's the lack of training and experience, not which hand is trying to do what. For me it doesn't matter what level you set for suddenly becoming ambidexerous: the problem is not the cut off, it's the assumption that suddenly a fighter now can use his standard fighting style at no penalty. If that were true, why would anyone below professional athlete levels of dexterity fight with sword and dagger? It can't be that all the bravos in the 17th century were super athletes.

Well, among other issues, you're mixing the ideas of blocking and parrying. I know that BRP does not distinguish them, and at least the RQ3 rules (and maybe the BGB; I can't remember) talk about "parrying" with a shield, but a block and a parry are two different animals. A parry moves the opponent's weapon off line; a block stops its movement. Normally I think of a shield as more of a "block," although to some extent your movement of the shield could deflect some of the blow. I don't know if you could ever come up with a satisfactory "generic" system for hand-to-hand combat. I've opined here before that the best we can probably do with a game system is approximate the spirit of combat in a particular era. So, for example, if you have a 17th century setting, using a rapier and dagger or a rapier and cloak should be effective, because they were. How you specifically model the system seems to matter less than whether you at least have characters doing historically "realistic" things in combat. If you are doing a "fantasy" setting, it seems to me that if you don't want to emulate a strict historical period -- a la Stupor Mundi or Vikings, etc -- then you should at least decide on some sort of historical equivalent: are the weapons and technology like Viking Age, High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages? One problem most fantasy systems have is that they want to combine all sorts options for weapons armor that were not historically used together. This may be something that fantasy settings can't escape, but I think it means that you are going to have to settle for some significant "fudge" in how combat works. And at that point, probably the overriding issue is balance and playability, because you can't have "realism" in the sense of emulating the actual. The system I like the most is one where you have a "style" like "sword and shield" or "sword and dagger" and your single skill covers everything you do in combat: attack, defense, and footwork. BRP separates that into attack, parry/shield, and dodge, which obviously is one way to do it.

I'm not sure there's a reasonable analogy for the difference between a space vehicle that complies with known laws of physics and a space opera type ship. Perhaps the closer analogy is that space opera vehicles are just mundane earth vehicles moving through space: the X-wing is a WWII fighter, the "space freighter" is just an oceangoing ship that moves between planets, and so forth. My main point is just that the two sorts of things are so different that overlap of relevant rules could be small. A turbo charged car is still a land vehicle on rubber tires driven by an internal combustion engine. All the rules that apply to cars with normally aspirated engines apply to turbo-charged ones. A sailing ship and a steam powered ship are both vehicles moving on the water, but there need to be a lot of rules for how the sailing ship functions that are irrelevant to the steam ship: you don't care what direction the wind is, you don't care whether you have the weather gauge, etc. While you could call "steam engine and screws" an add-on to a sailing ship, it's really a vehicle whose fundamental operation is different, and for which a different set of rules would be relevant. And I would think that a sailing ship and a steam ship have a lot more in common than a "real" space vehicle and a space opera ship.

I always forget about the Knowledge roll, but it really does solve a lot of issues in a society in which education is common.

I think much of the expressed frustration from various people is because someone feels he has found a rules set that does what he wants, but the publishing company "jerks" him around so he can't enjoy the game he likes. If I thought a game stunk, I'd not care in the least how dysfunctional the publisher was. This is probably like the fans who get mad when the network cancels the only show they actually enjoy. I don't know enough about this slice of the gaming market to be able to have reasonable expectations about what a company could be doing. For good or ill, when you move away from the Wizards of the Coast and Paizo end of the market, you are effectively in the "zero-percent market share" range. Obviously for someone like Random House, there is no difference between a book that would sell 1,000 copies and one that would sell 5,000: both would be way too small to bother with. But for an independent publisher/small press, the difference between 1,000 and 5,000 would be huge. I don't know enough about the economic viability of companies like Mongoose and Chaosium to have a reasonable expectation about how "professional" their books should be or how fast and frequently they should publish. Obviously it's easy enough to judge shabby behavior or irrational behavior, but I would have to know what the market could really bear before I could judge what one of these publishers "should" be doing as far as the quality and quantity of their books.

For space vehicles, you would need different rules for vehicles that conform to something like the physics that we know and for vehicles that are "space opera" or "super science" so that you can just have them do anything convenient or cool.

A big part of the issue seems to be what you consider 4 or 5% in a science skill to represent. The BGB's description of this level is that the character would have a difficult time even with Easy tasks. And 6-25% "knows enough to be dangerous." For some reason, I am interested physics, especially cosmology, but I'm strictly a dabbler and I can't do any difficult math. So I can talk to someone about how a black hole is formed, for example, or what dark matter is, but as far as solving any problems or advancing the state of knowledge, I would be hopelessly lost. My brother, on the other hand has taught university-level physics, and he did his graduate thesis on dark matter, so he could have a good chance of actually solving a problem that you gave him. If a knowledge skill were measuring just "knows about it," I might have a 20% in physics, in that I have a good chance of knowing what something is, and at least having some idea what it's about, so, for example, I could read a book for non-specialists and get something out of it. If a knowledge skill measures "knows how to work with the underlying principles," my physics skill would be about 1%. If the characters grew up in a highly technical society and were immersed in general technology studies during their schooling, getting a tiny smattering of the skill (0 to 4%) might only be an hour or two. Sort of what you could pick up in the first day of class. And since that tiny smattering of knowledge will do them almost no good in game terms, letting them have that much skill after a brief study period might not be too outrageous. But the super-specialization in modern science makes it difficult to use "general" categories like "physics." A professional physicist will have an enormous amount of knowledge about his or her own particular field, but be only generally competent in the minutia of some other field, although both are within the realm of "physics." So what would "physics" 85%, for example, represent? Presumably in the future this problem will get worse, not better.

The ewoks and Jar Jar Binks destroyed so big a part of my youth that I'm still not over it. [shakes fist at George Lucas]

What bothers me even more than that is the number of times I've had an Internet experience something like this: 1. Someone starts a thread about a major change regarding a certain game. 2. In discussing whether that's a big deal or small, someone says he likes one system over the other because it's easier to do the math in your head. 3. About 90 posts later, someone is railing against a publishing company being obligated to redo its game to accommodate people with math or reading disabilities. Rust brought up people with math disabilities in response to the statement "I don't know anyone who can't . . . "

It can happen to the best of us. I'm sure I have a skewed view of the ease of negotiating a contract for a small-sized transaction. For someone with no legal background, you must be right that a standard "no hassle" contract really would be a big benefit. And of course if you're a reasonable person dealing with reasonable people, things tend to go smoothly.

Let me reiterate that I was not making a major criticism of the license and in fact I was impressed with what you all put together. If I had a Tardis, I think I'd go back and write my original comment differently. I labor under the disability of actually being a lawyer, so I usually think about what if things don't work out or go terribly wrong, what will happen to me/my client. (One of the most bitter disputes between former business partners I ever saw was one that started over who got to use the company's hockey tickets. It sounds nutty, but people are funny.) And I think it is perfectly reasonable for a someone to change his mind about the sort of business model he wants to use. Even if someone can't see a reason he would change his mind now, it's not a crime for him to change his mind later, and I think it's best for agreements to explicitly recognize that. If I were negotiating a license agreement, I might ask for a provision where if I'm terminated for breach of the agreement, I have to cease selling my stock immediately, but if I am terminated for any other reason, I get 6 months to sell it off. (That's not original to me, by the way, I stole the idea from a standard agreement I read once.)

As I noted above, since game mechanics can't be copyrighted anyway, I don't think whether the game is "open content" will matter. What should matter to a potential outside publisher is whether the "Compatible with Legend" trademark or the "uses the Legend system" trademark is likely to sell books. The transaction costs involved in arranging a licensing agreement are fairly small in an industry where folks are happy to let you use their logo for free so long as they think your book will generate some interest. Ultimately I would expect whether the rule system is "open content" would not be a particularly important factor in an outside publisher's decision of whether "compatible with Legend" or "compatible with BRP" or "compatible with HeroQuest" or something else is the best way to go for their book.

I guess that's part of the debate: is the round-up rule, which matches that table, better than the round-to-nearest rule in the text. Obviously it's easier to do a table with the round-up version.

Well, if it is off topic, it's only slightly off topic, and it's more interesting and worthwhile reading than many on topic posts. (Oh, did I say that?) Just to add a little more off topic commentary: If you consider how many tens of thousands of years human beings survived living in harsh environments without the need to do math or read, and compare it to the relatively short time that there have been societies where reading and doing math was common for everyone, it should not be surprising that those mental functions are not universally efficient in people.

Under US trademark law, if you don't enforce your rights against people who violate your rights, your trademark will eventually lapse. The logic of this is that trademarks are the way you identify your products to the consumer. If you don't care about other products having your trademark, you obviously don't think this is how consumers identify your product. If I remember rightly, there needs to be a pattern of violations without any enforcement, so there's not much danger if you are inattentive while you only have a handful of licensees. And there's no problem at all if the licensees, being good boys and girls, are actually abiding by the license requirements. But obviously it's not the best course to take if you have valuable trademarks.

Are you referring to any studies that have looked at people who have been shot in the chest by an assault rifle? How do you know what percentage of people when shot in the chest will stay standing? Look at the quote from the soldier in my post #76. Given his description of what it was like to be shot while wearing armor, and from what I've seen and read, that does not seem like an unusual experience.

30 is not too bad, but 2400 is painful to think about. I'm curious, if you don't mind divulging "trade secrets," whether the Mongoose license had any provisions covering what the parties could do after the license was terminated.

Imagine how intimidating it would be to have trouble with simple math and live in a society where most people think only an idiot can't multiply by 5. If I had a player who had a math issue, I'd think it would be easy enough to just let him roll up the numbers and make choices, and I could do the calculations to fill in the character sheet. Same if he had trouble with 5% of some number: I can do the calculation and write it down for him. If I don't like the guy, I don't care whether he can do nine digit division in his head, I'd rather not play with him. If I do like him and want him to play, it's not much skin off my back to do some of the bookkeeping for him if it keeps him in the game.

That is the sort of quote that makes me really reluctant to entangle myself with someone. The rights and wrongs of who should have been talking to whom is maybe debatable. But I was turned off by the self-righteous lack of concern about their partners. ("it is not our job . . . ") Contrast that with Rick Meints comments a few posts up. There's a lot to be said for a charitable, friendly attitude about things.

I was not making a major criticism of the license. In fact, I am impressed that you all did that much work on it. I just thought that the 30 days was a bit short, compared to the 6 month period that a licensee gets if he terminates the license. If most folks do POD, then it probably isn't something to quibble over. (I know RosenMcStern had complained that he had printed books in his warehouse that he's stuck with.) I know it seems odd to some to enter into an agreement where the other side has the right to terminate you at their sole discretion, but I think you'd have to be crazy to let someone use your IP for free without having an unrestricted right to terminate the agreement at any time. A license for a particular period of time or that cannot be revoked except under certain conditions is going to be anything but free. But that's why I said that your willingness to enter into this sort of agreement really is going to depend on your trust that the other side won't do something to make you regret investing the resources.

One thing I don't particularly like about the HQ Gateway license is the effect of 10.1, which gives MD the right to terminate the license, and 10.3, which requires the terminated licensee to destroy any remaining stock after only 30 days. If MD decides to changes its business model and stop the free license, they can put the third-party suppliers in a bind. I would prefer a longer time to be able to sell off my remaining stock, although obviously it can't be indefinite. Your willingness to get into this sort of arrangement seems to turn on the amount of trust you have in MD not pulling the rug out from under you. But it would seem that that will be the case with any license where the other guy has the right to terminate you in his discretion.

Not too long ago, I looked at various permutations of "open" content and "compatible-with" trademark licenses. My first impression of what Mongoose intends to do is that is is unwise, but ultimately may not really matter. Because game mechanics cannot be copyrighted, "open" content for games is actually not very important. I can take anyone's game system and, so long as I don't use their exact words, put together a book that does nothing new and call it whatever I want. So I could cobble together "SmokingFrog's Totally Derivative, Nothing New RPG" and use the benefits of self-publishing to try to take money from some gullible gamers. So it seems to me that essentially all of the value you will get from doing a "compatible-with" product is in the trademark. The trademark "Alphetar Games" tells me the source of the product, and the value of the trademark is precisely that my prior experience with their books leads me to assume their next book will also be good. So even if "BRP Accountants: Adventures in Office Cubicles" doesn't look too interesting, I might buy it just because I have faith in the company, which faith, of course would soon disappear . . . But a trademark like "Compatible with Legend" doesn't tell the consumer anything about the source of the book. That logo is valuable to third-party publishers only to the extent that Mongoose has created a valuable market for its Legend game. That is, only to the extent that the "compatible with" logo promises sales for third-party books. But if the consumer starts to view a compatibility logo, like say "d20" for example, as just meaning "really likely to be a pile of crap," the logo is worthless and it may in fact hurt the value of the original game publisher's trademarks. Paizo and Pinnacle Entertainment care about the quality of third-party books that use their compatible-with logo because they don't want their own trademarks to be damaged by some scoundrel putting out a pile of crap. But Pathfinder and Savage Worlds are popular enough that it might be worth if for a scoundrel to put out a garbage product and hope that no one notices until it is too late. For that reason, I think that doing nothing to control the quality of third-party products using your compatible-with logo is unwise. But in the end, that should only matter if Mongoose is able to expand the market for Legend products greatly. Since from what I can see the number of third-party publishers who will be doing compatible products will likely be fewer for Legend than for MRQII, and since the RQ part of MRQII is gone because of apparently poor sales, the whole thing might be utterly without consequence. This may be an odd case where the quality of the third-party books -- like Clockwork & Chivalry -- may actually make the parent trademark more valuable. Some day Mongoose might even be studied in business schools.