SDLeary

To cite the exemples you gave:

If the supplements, which are, like I said, my main points are using only core rules, I have to:

- calculate all the location HP (not easy on the fly).

- calculate the SR (not easy on the fly)

- put armor on each location (easy, if we assume no variation).

- calculate FP and SAN base and remaining (not so easy).

- generate a separate value for all melee weapons (easy).

for each npc.

- check which variable armor I should use (easy, not fast)

With the top-down approach, you have all of this printed, and those who don't use the options:

- ignore the locations HP, as the total HP is also given (doubling is easy for heroic).

- Ignore the SR, and just use the DEX rank.

- ignore the armor value for each location, using only one (probably torso or abdomen, if a specific value is not given).

- Ignore FP and SAN if not using them.

- Use only attack value for melee weapons (parry for shields) and ignore the second value.

- Same problem for variable armor, but value can also be printed.

This is what I have explained..

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

Silly question. If you were the GM, why would you have to do the required calculations on-the-fly? Wouldn't you do this in pre-game prep? And if you are the player, wouldn't these calculations be done during character gen?

I can understand it being an issue if you are just doing a pick-up game, but for a planned game/campaign it shouldn't be an issue.

SDLeary

Doh! You are absolutely right about what I asked.

As for the abstraction I think that those that wouldn't mind it also wouldn't mind if the rules more accurately represented any endeavor as long as that accuracy was tranparent to play and not a burden. RQ was pretty good about that.

I am also concerned that the idea of being inconvient to some genres doesn't ring alarm bells for a product that is supposed to be generic enough to support many if not all genres.

If you run through all the digests, RPGnet, and this forum, you will see that not all thought RQs system was that transparent. Complaints about combats taking ages when both sides are competent, book-keeping for fatigue, double book-keeping for hit locations, movement in strike ranks, etc.

Back in the day, there were debates on how accurate the weapon damages were. Shouldn't a longbow do more, a javelin more or less, should a shortsword or rapier be able to penetrate plate, etc. There were also debates on how the skill category modifiers should be figured. Was it really fair to give PCs a negative Stealth modifier?! I even raised some of these questions myself.

And RQ was tailored to a genre.

Its not surprising to me that the same arguments arise here. I have raised one or two myself about some items on the weapon/armor tables. Its the same system at its core. And the transparency can be greater or less than RQ depending on what you choose for optional/alternate rules, and what you choose for your level of detail in a genre/setting.

SDLeary

All fine ideas but they do not address the problems of a set of messed up firearms rules designed for a specific genre. Perhaps I am misunderstanding but your previous post sounded like you wanted to steer players away from certain choices of firearms just because the rules made them inconvenient to a particular genre.

You asked how I could plausibly restrict players/characters weapon choice. I was simply responding to that.

As to your assertion that the rules as they stand are inconvenient to a particular genre, this is a matter of personal taste. Some will not mind the abstraction, and some will.

SDLeary

:eek::eek::eek: Wait a minute! Unless you have a militaristic genre where PCs are issued specific weapons how are you going to plausibly restrict the choices? It seems like a less than ideal way to cope with a set of problematic rules.

In the US, there are waiting periods to acquire weapons (pistols), making them more difficult to get legally.

Larger weapons are more difficult to conceal. A large revolver or a desert eagle are much harder to conceal than a 9mm, which is harder to conceal than a derringer... and on. This makes them more likely to draw attention. Even if you have a permit for a concealed weapon, you will get at least outed and questioned by the police if the weapon is noticed.

A PC walking down the street in a metro area with something not concealed, say a shotgun, should be stopped by lots of fine men and women in cars with flashing lights, guns pointed in their direction, with orders to halt!

A PC walking down the street in a metro area with a light or medium pistol in a shoulder holster with a windbreaker covering things up will probably not even get a second glance.

I'm not saying the GM should restrict the ownership of weapons to a PC necessarily, but they should put a damper on how they are carried and used, based on the genre and story line.

SDLeary

That way everyone will pick the heavy pistol, and discard the lighter ones. ROF 2 may be more realistic, but I think 3, 2 & 1 for light, medium and heavy respectively is better for game reasons.

SGL.

I agree. I would hope that the GM would restrict based on genre and storyline, and not simply allow the characters to have whatever they wanted, but we all know how that can go sometimes.

But I can also see that for other types of weapons that have a ROF of two in Semi-Auto. Matching this would not be unreasonable and might quell things later once the game actually hits.

SDLeary

Jason,

I don't necessarily agree (recoil, target re-acquisition, etc.), but I can see the point of some about the speed with which a pistol can be fired. Perhaps bringing all three semi-auto pistols (Light, Medium, Heavy) to a ROF/Attacks of 2 makes sense. Mechanisms are similar enough.

SDLeary

Venomous Pao wanted to know-

Here is my problem- it looks like the numbers for several different parts of the gameworld/system don’t work out. And I have to admit that I am just guessing on some of them because I don’t have BRP0. But I do have what people have posted here and the fact that Jason wasn’t supposed to bring about any great changes so I feel safe in making some assumptions about some systems. If you have a copy of BRP0 let me if I am wrong OK? For instance I am betting that not much changed in the firearms from CoC. That would mean that the .22 still does 1d6 but can be fired 3 times a round. That lets you put 3d6 on an opponent in each round while the .45 only did a single shot of 1d10+2. Hmmm, which is the manstopper here? Had a GM that couldn't figure out that the game system was dictating unconventional choices.

The Pistol, Light (assume .22) allows you to shoot at the same target target three times per round, meaning three separate shots which all have to hit and do damage independently. If you change targets, you loose the extra shots and can't shoot till your next action because of the time to acquire and aim at the new target. Perhaps slightly fast, 2/round might seem more reasonable, but keep in mind that a .22 is generally not going to have the kick of a .45.

Many Special Operators keep .22s in their inventory because they are easily silenced, but also because they don't have a lot of kick and can be kept on target easily.

Another example from CoC that may have changed in BRP0-explosives. A stick of dynamite does 5D6 damage. A 75 mm shell does 10D6. The 75 has over 4 times the explosive in it (about 800 grams to 136 grams). Even accounting for different qualities of explosive (60% nitro in the dynamite and ammonium picrate in the 75) I don’t think the numbers jive. One is too large or one is too small. Again I see this as a situation where the original designers eyeballed things and never did get around to setting a standard to work from.

75mm shells have a fragmentation effect that is generally not present with dynamite, unless the dynamite is contained within something else that will fragment.

These are all examples of things that should have been integrated into the original games better but were not. Some of them, maybe all of them will be present in BRP. It speaks to the fact that the very foundation of the game is not set up to accept being played in a crunchy gearheaded manner.

Ok... I'll give you that. But please look carefully at the history of BRP.

BRP was never designed to be played in a crunchy gearhead manner.

RQIII was the crunchiest BRP game. That game can be approximated in these rules with the appropriate choice of optional and alternate rules sets. One of the biggest complaints about RQIII (at least that I've heard) from new players was how long combat took. And even that could not be considered crunchy gearhead

In a genre game it can be forgiven. However BRP is no longer a genre game, it is a generic platform for many different games and styles of play. I feel that standards should have been set and systems created so that as new material was being developed it would fit into the overall structure with out straining things. Do all the crunchy stuff up front –even if it isn’t going to show. That way when it does matter you have a system to go on rather than having to eyeball it and hope that it fits.

That was not the mandate of the author. His mandate was to take what already existed and integrate it into a single core system. Also, as has been stated before, none of the people at Chaosium are "gearheads"... the issue about money and history of the company has been stated in other threads.

I like RQ- I am not so thrilled with Glorantha. I like crunchy, gearheaded play, lots of tactical options, and involved chargen. RQ was a good basis for that and it could have been set up so that it was easy and did not break the game if people wanted simpler modes of play. Doing it the other way around seems to be a bit problematic to me.

RQ is there, if you choose the appropriate optionaly/alternate rules. It can still be expanded on as you state above, if you want to. In most BRP fan's opinions, Stormbringer 5e was the best version of BRP, and thus that was used as the basis for this effort.

I have really liked the design philosophy that I have seen out of the GURPS game. Armor has a standard-1”RHA will stop 70d6. Firearms and explosives have their own formulas. Are they in the books? Does SJG expect you to figure something on the fly? No. The design formulas are used to set up all of the material world stats so that I don’t have to eyeball it myself. It provides a consistent, rational approach to things that are modeled from the real world. Does GURPS have its problems? Certainly. But modelling that doesn’t work isn’t one of them. Except for hiking.

Hmmm... in the BRP book, the Steel Plate is NOT listed as RHA. Its listed as Steel Plate. Because of its specific design as armor, I would expect RHA to have a much higher AP value; in fact I would expect any material designed as modern AFV armor to have higher values.

I applaud SJG, their writers, or both for being so thorough in their approach to world modeling. BRP was never designed as a model of the world though, but as an abstract. An abstract with enough detail that people could have fun roleplaying in the story that the GM has placed them in.

As for accurate world modeling? YMMV, as no two people "see" the world in quite the same way.

SDLeary

Jason, is this better?

Specific Examples:

1) Submachinegun

Should do 1D8 damage (same as a medium pistol) since the vast majority of submachineguns fire the same ammo as medium pistols.

2) Sniper Rifle

Should do 2d6+4 damage, like a bolt action rifle, since most sniper rifles fire the same bullets as bolt action rifles. The 2d10+4 would be the top end “heavy” sniper rifle. STR min should be upped a bit, so that it about the same as a bolt action rifle.

3) Battle Rifle

Should be added. It is a heavier, scaled up version of the assault rifle, and fires the same ammo as the bolt action rifle for bolt action damage and slightly less range (say 100m vs. 110) and say 1 point more STR min.

4) Sporting Rifle

Should probably be called a light rifle. Since most sporting rifles are bolt-action rifles the terms overlap and cause confusion.

5) Machinegun Turret

Should pobably be called a heavy machinegun. Reason being than many machgun gun turrets actually mount medium machineguns (the BRP machinegun).

Damage should probably be scaled down a bit, say 2d10+5 or 4d6+1. 4d6+4 doesn't match up with the damages in CoC, and lets the weapon penetrate modern tanks.

6) Sporting Shotgun

Another confusing term, as most shotguns are sporting weapons. There are a handful of combat and assault shotguns, but 98%+ are sporting weapons. A term like pump action shotgun would be better. STR min should be slightly lower than a double barreled shotgun.

7) Automatic Shotgun

Should be clarified if this is actually a automatic (i.e. burst fire capable) shotgun or an autoloading (semi-automatic) shotgun. STR min should be a little lower than the double barreled for a semi auto weapon, and a little higher for a fully automatic shotgun.

Woo! Spot on!

SDLeary

Heh...

Being Zane's resident Gun Fondler, finding this by doing a Google search is kind of funny to me.

I forgot who mentioned it, but someone said something about the Barrett Light .50 having a bipod, so it's not unreasonable for someone with a STR 5 being able to fire it.

(raises hand) Oh oh... thats me!

I agree, but since I have a Harris bipod for my personally owned AR-15, doesn't that mean that my game character would only need a STR 5 for it as well, instead of the 10 that the BRP rules say?

I would say yes. And honestly for an AR-15, probably more like a STR 3.

[And since it says that you only need a STR 5 to be able to have a Barret Light .50 (12.9 kg empty according to Welcome to -= Modern Firearms & Ammunition =- site) why does it take twice the STR to have an Assault Rifle (AR15/M-16 2.89 kg empty, 3.6 kg with 30 round magazine, AK-47 4.3 kg empty)? The assault rifle is 1/4 the weight, but I need twice the STR to carry/use it...

(emphasis mine)

Produce settings like/for Glorantha? Really? Somehow I doubt it. I've included a sort of mini-Glorantha in my campaign world (of Sartar/Prax exiles), but I presume Mr Stafford would sue if it made any money.

Or do you think a world that captured enough of the essence of Glorantha could be sufficiently un-like it to avoid legal problems?

Griffin Island

SDLeary

I think Merak Gren might know something about that.

So it would appear

Thats what I get for coming in late to the discussion.

SDLeary

Has anyone been keeping proper track of which numbers have gone?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I believe I saw someone state they received 125 over on RPGnet.

SDLeary

Edit: Sorry, 115

Oops, I missed the "per point of damage" before. OK, so it's not super-powerful like I thought but instead it's insipid. And, without a roll involved, where's the excitement? It's just a bit too calculated, not Heroic. And all the other ways to spend PP makes it too complicated.

Where would this lead? One side spending points to re-roll better hits and increase damage, the other side spending points to downgrade those hits and then (maybe) negate some damage too. So, everyone's out of PP by the second round - and then the real fight can start!?

If the GM allows it. They can allow all, some, or none of this; or use this as a framework to roll their own options. Its all optional. What is listed are simply suggestions.

SDLeary

Can one buy down a greater success at a greater cost?

"...and can shift the result by as many categories as you have power points to spend."

No... fairly open.

Again, I think the intention of this is for heroic games where not everyone has access to magic. Better in many regards than the Ki powers from LoN for that kind of setting.

SDLeary

In the Interest of being Fair and Balanced I am going to agree with Nightshade on this one.

Though this is automagic (forcing something with a skill of 95% to re-roll is not) it becomes severely limited in use.

Take a Dragon for example, even with 18PP you can only reduce damage by 6, which is pretty much going to be useless. And when fighting dragons is when you want a mechanic like this to work.

It is going to be limited in the above situation. But then, someone foolishly went after a Dragon without proper prep (proper armor, magical protection, etc). If the character did go in prepared, and had a bad string of luck, then perhaps one of the first two options would be better. Re-roll of his last defensive maneuver, or not using his defense and using his Luck roll instead. Both listed as 5 point options.

As for the damage soak, you want this to work or be an option whenever your character will die, or when they will fall unconscious and bleed to death, or be captured with no way out. Don't limit the utility to the extreme.

I like this variability. Another suggestion to the GM is to allow the player to spend a total number of PP equal to the entire damage range of the weapon to inflict maximum damage. A very good option in a heroic game where the setting precludes everyone having magic.

None of these options are set in stone. The first three are "...ways power points can affect game play other than a power source", and other examples are also given. This is a fairly open system to the GM.

SDLeary

Argh. Someone emailed me a list of the uses and I can't find it!

I recall that there were a few other uses, such as altering the success level of an attack. I think there was a option to turn a success into a failure, and that it was usually cheaper than buying off damage point by point. I think it was 7 PP.

That is listed as an expansion to the basic listed before. 6 PP is the cost.

SDLeary

1 _point_? That's pretty useless, honestly; it might occasionally be the difference, but its way underpowered compared to the reroll at that point.

I don't know.. if you are playing with Hit Locations, this can be the difference between holding onto your weapon or not. Or, if over double has been reached in a location, the difference between going unconscious or not (trunk locations). Not to mention that it could prevent bleeding.

SDLeary

Unless the wheel has rough corners on it, like I think this one does. E.g. Expend 3 PP to avoid all damage from an attack, automatically? Can NPCs use that too? Does it have to be personal power, or can it come from storage devices, bound spirits, or what-have-you? And why is it cheaper than the other uses? (Which, incidentally, I don't like nearly so much!)

Actually, going back to it, its a Soak ability. 3 PP gives you the ability to soak up one point of damage. Thus, to soak up three points of damage, you would need to expend 9 PP, and so on. Its written to imply that only the characters person PP should be used, but does not state that explicitly (the term used is their).

I'll point out to Charlie that the index has some issues, but it's not something that can be fixed in a proofread.

Indexes are usually generated by the page layout software, or at least they should be.

Yeah, I play with InDesign, but whats produced can sometimes be odd. What got me on this though was thinking that there might be something that should be on p32 that talks about Fate Points, and for some reason its not there (perhaps a link to a text box that is in the "paste up" area of the DTP program that was supposed to be inserted but wasn't).

SDLeary

In response to a post in another thread, I went looking for the Fate Points option, and ran into an issue in indexing that might point to more items that were dropped out of the edit. Of course, it could simply be indexing issues, but not having a previous edit to compare too.

Indexing: Fate Points (p373)

Points to references on pgs 32 and 176. There is no mention of Fate Points on p32 that I could see. There is a large call-out box there talking about Fatigue and Sanity. Perhaps a paragraph in that call-out with an option that included Fate??

Ironically, right after the previous issue...

Indexing: Fatigue Points (p373)

References pgs 12 and 21, which both do have Fatigue references. But p32 with the call-out box listed above is NOT referenced.

SDLeary

Thought I'd give this a bump as I still need to know. Can one of those nice folks with the 0 Edition give a summary of the magic-points-as-luck/fate points options?

Looks like 5 PP to re-roll (but you cannot re-roll a re-roll);

5 PP to ignore a skill and use your Luck roll instead at a difficulty of Difficult (skills only, not resistance or characteristic rolls);

Ignoring damage from a single attack at the cost of 3 PP /point.

Thats from a quick skim... I'm still reading it, and there are some indexing issues, so the full explanation might take a bit.

SDLeary

Hmm, that seems sort of familiar from some other system... despite that, I like it too. But would there be a problem far up the STR/SIZ scale, with +50 bonuses (or whatever)?

It would be way up the scale. A combined Strength and Size of 71-75 yields a DB of +10.

The formula is ((STR + SIZ) / 5), round up, then subtract 5.

SDLeary

PS... what other system were you thinking of? <dense right now>

It isn't simple math, it is more like determining what type skill each one you have is, and then looking at the chart as to how many points to increase, or decrease it. From a quick read of the optional rule this morning it personally strikes me as cumbersome, and something most people won't want to bother with in character generation.

I might be wrong, but at face value, it looks to significantly increase the amount of time needed to create your character, while offering minimal incentive to go to the trouble. Of course if your character is tweaked to be high in all the right stats, then it will be worth the effort.

Of course if you are low in the wrong stats, then your character will take penalties, yet another reason I don't expect this to be a popular optional rule.

This is somewhat easy to resolve though. You just don't add the Skill Category bounus into the skill. Reference it after you roll your skill. If you make the skill roll, and the bonus is not a negative, go no further. If you miss the roll, see if the difference is covered by the bonus.

That also means that when stats change, you only have to deal with the bonus entry, not fiddle with each skill.

SDLeary

Edit: Woops! Posted too soon!

I have comepletely missed SotC, I will have to look up a review.

Joseph Paul

Save yourself the trouble. Just go the faterpg.com and download the SotC SRD. Then you can make your own decision about the game. Take at loot at FATE (the parent system) while you're at it.

It is different. A bit crunchier than HQ, but not by a great deal. It is FATE/FUDGE. SotC itself is Pulp, ala 20's 30's gangster stuff, radio serials, King Kong, etc.

Best place for a sample: Evil Hat Productions Wiki: Spirit Of The Century

Or if you prefer fantasy: Evil Hat Productions Wiki: Lord of the Rings

Now back to our regularly scheduled debate.

SDLeary

I believe that the setting-less 16 page BRP has been out longer than GURPS has. The problem that I see is that Chaosium didn’t do anything about making the original BRP into a full fledged generic for 20+ years. I inquired about the status of several of the out of print Chaosium games several years ago and the reply I got was that Cthulhu made them more money than the others so they were concentrating on that and did not have the resources to develop anything else. So they lose out on 20+ years of fan participation.

Yup... your right. My bad. It has been out longer.

Yes. Like a lot of game companies, Chaosium believed that finished games around specific genres was a better approach. As to their not doing anything for the last 15 years or so... a lot of that has to do with lack resources. After the AH deal killed RQ (and some would argue that deal itself was the start), Chaosium had an amazing string of bad luck which has hampered them and forced them to concentrate on one line.

Some things happened last year which seems to have given them something of a jump start, so lets hope the BRP core is the start of a renaissance for them.

“Reality testing” of the GURPS rules started with SJGames so I will collect on that bet. I was part of the playtest for GURPS Man to Man long ago. One of the things that was made clear to play testers was that SJG was interested in the material being right. Was the first edition rough around the edges? I thought so and I thought that some things were not right but overall they did get a number of things to work such that you were not surprised by system specific faults. I did not switch to GURPS because I thought that the BRP derived games still had an edge, I prefered D100 to 3D6, and I found the GURPS stats limiting. Fast forward 20 years and I see that SJG has continued the commitment to getting things right even to the point of making some very noticeable changes in the current edition. Those changes have taken care of most of the gripes that I had except for the 3D6 mechanic.

I'm glad to hear that they had the resources to do this sort of reality testing. Unfortunately for Chaosium, they were not as lucky over the years. It also didn't help that the one person they had that even had a basic grasp of the weapons things moved on to video games.

I haven't looked at GURPS in years; I probably should ...currently doing the SotC thing.

Some have stated their desire for simplicity first and in-depth treatments of subjects to come later. They don’t want a toolkit. I don’t mind that at all as long as the game was made with a toolkit that will be internally consistent over a broad range of genres and give realistic results in those genres. I want the toolkit to be released later so that I can make internally consistent adventures/NPCs/settings/ etc that mesh well with the core materials and support how I think fantasy/space opera/westerns/historical/add-your-own-genre is supposed to run. Could I handwave or houserule my preferences into a game? Certainly, however I too am ‘of a certain age’ and I would prefer for that sort of rules wrangling to already be taken care of. That is why I am willing to pay for rules in the first place.

<Not directed at Joseph, but at the populace of this thread>

Yes, but if they don't have knowledge about the subject, in this case ballistics and to a lesser degree armor physics, then what do you do? You (the fans) have to make the case to them that this is needed. No, Jason is not the man for this. He has done his job and come up with this excellent compilation. You (fans again) have to convince the guys at Chaosium.

This is done by writing up a proposal and submitting it. Perhaps with a sampling of what you are offering. Jason has stated many times that proposals for supplements are being accepted.

There are, of course, other options. Like playing GURPS... or HERO >:->

<ducking!>

What I question is the ability of the BRP rules to be internally consistent over a broad range of genres and give realistic results in those genres. As an example Atgxtg has pointed out, and I agree, that the hit point system in the BRP games could use a change so that you get results that match what actually happens when people are injured, particularly with firearms. That is something that needs to be done now, not later. If you mess with those core things later you get the same thing you have now with RQ/SB/CoC/RW/SW where there were differences in chargen and combat rules that made for a large differences in how injurys affected the characters. There are several other disconnects between the foundational materials and what we know can be done for real and I think that ironing those out ahead of time would bring us a game that satisfies a very diverse set of desires. It can be simple but the base mechanics shouldn’t break when more layers are added. It can support many different genres and modes of play ie gritty/cinematic/godly powers/slapstick etc with minimal changes to the core and remain elegant.

OK.. I understand what your talking about. But, what you are talking about is essentially starting from scratch. Jason has already written and complied things, we are in final proofing/editing. If you or anyone else really thinks this kind of detail needs to be in the Core, then you have to contact Charlie NOW and convince him. Because he will have to release and authorize another round of playtests with the proposed rules changes, integrate them into what Jason has produced, lay things out again, proof again...

Thats what would need to happen. And it would probably cost Chaosium monies they don't have in the plan for the year. Which, based on their past luck, is bad.

And there would still be people who don't like what's been produced because it doesn't fit their vision.

Finally SD (is that an OK shortening of your handle?)

Nah! Only me mum called me SD! But you can call me S :cool:

I understand the point that you make about going ahead and writing up an add-on system. My concern is that it is the core rules that need to be looked at and it is no use writing anything that will seriously contradict those.

WOOPS! I didn't quote enough before! See above!

SDLeary