icebrand

It wobbles around like a jelly, it's not rigid at all. I don't think you can learn much about killing from watching people sparring with lightweight fencing weapons.

Swords are flexible, not rigid! Rigid breaks!

[Deleted because I didn't realize how old Dragonewt's post was, as I hadn't realized only Icebrand had necro'd here.]

I replied cause soltakks told me to on the christians thread!!!

PS: At last those years of roleplaying games paid off, im a NECROMANCER!!! Mwhaaahahahahaha

Hello, I'm new to BRP and the forum but I'm in the process of converting a savage worlds Dark Sun campaign to BRP because I like the system so much. I haven't yet bought Classic Fantasy, so I was wondering if a similar magic system to D&D's could be implemented. I've noticed that magic items in BRP strictly have powers, and not modifiers (unless I've misread). I realize this could probably be worked around fairly easily by giving +% bonuses to the corresponding weapon skill (like a +4% longsword, etc.). Has anyone done this or something like it? Would it make characters too powerful? Would it not be significant at all?

And why would you want to do that? DnD magic items are... Uninspired!

Screw the +Damage and +Hit Chance.

If you want to convert, and elemental weapon does 3D6 instead of normal damage (4D6 on crit / spec and 5D6 on crit, depending on the success levels you use)

The vorpal Sword as seen in the alice movie may very well fight on it's own skill rating (and on crits, hit always on the head, BAM!) and even have some +damage (though i would give it truesword damage, or roll twice and get the best result).

A "magic" sword (the powerful kind, like excalibur or the green sword from crouching tiger) is always affected as per the truesword (double weapon damage) spell. Special/Crits whatever double only the base weapon damage of course.

Then you have life stealers (that "heal" 1 HP per every X damage done, 3 sounds like a nice number)

Erm... Am i missing something?

Brilliant energy and bane weapons do double damage (as per truesword) agains the specific creatures, and may very well add a bonus (+30%?) to hit.

Ghost-Touched weapons may be used against spirits

The Sun Blade may be used with any sword skill, does double damage against undead (as per truesword)

Then again, if you seen RetroQuest, im in a "rules-light" phase

We’re casting about for some better acid rules – has anyone house-ruled on this potentially caustic subject?

Too sleepy to write out the whole thing from BRP. Anyway, which rules do you perefer? I like the simplicity of the RQ2 rules, but they are rather lethal (I remember felling a 10m giant with a glazed ceramic bulb of potency 20 acid back in ’84 or so …).

Ok, damage as per BRP seems fine (actually, D4-1, D6 and D8+1 since the D3 sucks). What is not right is that eats armor on a pt per pt basis; its unrealistic and borderline gamebreaking.

Maybe weak acid does not eat though armor, medium acid eats 1 AP per round, up to HALF its damage, and strong eats 2 AP per round, up to its damage? (strong acid is aliens-like acid!... Or maybe a Gorp).

Of course, magic armors are "immune" to acid damage. In addition, the character receives a minimum of 1/2/3 damage (if the acid rolled that much) ignoring armor.

Really like the name... MOAR INFO PLZ?

A rapier was a civilian's dueling weapon, not a weapon of war. If the same per-

son would have gone to war he would have used a soldier's weapon, perhaps a

claymore in the case of a Scottish clansman. However, to wear a soldier's hea-

vy weapon in everyday use with civilian clothes would have been very uncom-

fortable and would have been seen as very barbaric.

For example, perhaps the most famous rapier duelists of world literature are

the French musketeers. However, their rapiers were dueling weapons, their

weapons of war were - as their name says - their muskets, they did not use

rapiers on the battlefield.

To give a fictional modern equivalent, you could appear in polite society with a

pistol in a shoulder holster, but if you enter the room with an assault rifle the

society will rapidly cease to be polite.

I stand corrected then

(still like the rapier more )

Nice copy & paste, but the sword in the video is still definitely a typical long-

sword with not much more weight than the rapier, and the attempt to parry

a heavier weapon than that with a rapier would still be bound to fail.

So basically people used rapiers cause they were really dumb, since someone with a claymore would just cut them in half?

@ Icebrand

The video you linked shows a rapier and a longsword, not a greatsword.

A typical rapier weighs about 1 kg and a typical longsword weighs about 1.5 kg, so

the difference between the two weapons is comparatively low. However, a typical

greatsword weighs about 3 kg, three times the weight of a rapier and twice the

weight of a longsword.

An attempt to parry a greatsword with a rapier would be extremely difficult and

almost certainly fail.

The term great sword or greatsword refers to an example of any of a number of large swords used in medieval Europe:

Longsword, in both the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

especially, "outsized specimens" of the longsword, such as Oakeshott type XIIIa, see Oakeshott_typology#Type_XIII

the Zweihänder of 16th century Germany

Broadsword, in early modern examples of the Schiavona type.

Claymore (Gaelic claidheamh mor, lit. "great sword"), a Scottish sword.

The claymore weights 2.2 to 2.8 kg

The two-handed claymore was a large sword used in the late Medieval and early modern periods. It was used in the constant clan warfare and border fights with the English from circa 1400 to 1700. The last known battle in which it is considered to have been used in a significant number was the Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689.[citation needed] It was somewhat smaller than other two-handed swords of the era. The two-handed claymore seems to be an offshoot of Early Scottish medieval swords which had developed a distinctive style of a cross-hilt with downsloping arms that ended in spatulate swellings. The spatulate swellings were frequently made in a quatrefoil design.

The average claymore ran about 140 cm (55 in) in overall length, with a 33 cm (13 in) grip, 107 cm (42 in) blade, and a weight of approximately 5.5 lb (2.5 kg).

The zweihander weights 2 to 3.2 kg.

"It is unclear to what effect these swords were used during their period of service on the battlefield. What is clear is that this period is comparatively short, limited to the first half of the 16th century. The Black Band of German mercenaries (active during the 1510s and 1520s) included 2,000 two-handed swordsmen in a total strength of 17,000 men. During this time, the Zweihänder swords were allegedly[clarification needed] used by the forlorn hope Doppelsöldner taking the front lines of the Landsknechts, where they would be used to hew through the opposing pikemen and spearmen whose spears presented a difficult barrier for normal weapons and cavalry.[citation needed]

By the second half of the 16th century, these swords had largely ceased to have a practical application, but they continued to see ceremonial or representative use well into the 17th century."

Parrying a greatsword SWING? I'd have to see that to believe it. But even if it is the case, I think the rule is more for weapons that have their majority of mass near the end of the weapon, like an axe, mace, or maul.

SDLeary

However, he also said that the only way out of some legal Judo moves was an illegal judo move (finger in the eye, thumb up the backside, grabbing or pressing on the gonads, pressing on the throat, biting).

Disagree. The illegal move will only work if the person holding you does not want to do illegal moves himself. Judo comes from a martial art, and holding techinques are actually designed with a no holds barred fight in mind.

You got several pinning techniques (osaekomi) in judo / bjj:

Yoko Shiho / side control:

The opponent may try to go for your crotch with their hand closest to you (and then you break his arm with a triangle to his arm)

The opponent may try to use their free hand to go for your face, and then you break his elbow/shoulder with ude garami.

He may try to bite, but then again, you can headbutt his face, and he cant.

Kami shiho / 69: i don't use this much. Its VERY good for pinning someone, and unless you mess up, the opponent cant do much. He has both hands free to hit you in the back (which does not much damage, trust me) and you can hit him im the balls with both your hands.

Tate shiho / mount: he has both hands to defend, and you have both hands to pummel his face into a pulp. If he extends an arm, you can try jujigatame or ude garami (armlock and armbar); you may also go for chokes (like ezequiel or a hand triangle). This is one on the easiest controls to get out of, but its also a very bad spot to be.

Kesa gatame: the classic judo immobilization, you got hon kesa and kuzure kesa (the 2nd is way more effective). Really hard to get out of, and you can get choked and/or your arm can get snapped. You CAN try to eye gouge here, but it ends in the grappler just moving to another control position.

He related an instance where he had grabbed and immobilised someone, in his opinion, when that person stood up, picking this 20 stone (280 pound) person with one locked arm and slowly marched him out of the arena.

Actually, if that happens in competition the referee gives mate (stop) once the opponent lifts you off the mat. In real life, you get one people slamming another into the ground (most people cannot do that more than 1 or 2 times), and the other trying to break his arm (about 40/60 chances if both do it right; on a tatami i'd say 10/90). It usually ends bad to the one slamming the other (that's called daki age); it is more effective against triangle chokes.

So, although some moves seem very good, superior SIZ/STR will always have an impact. It doesn't matter how well you've grabbed someone, if they stick a thumb into your backside and move it around, you will probably let go. Unfortunately, neither BRP nor RQ has a rule or Combat Manouver for this.

Thing is, if you grabbed someone GOOD, he is physically unable to do the thumb maneuver.

As I noted, the effect of the rules is that anyone with a high Grapple uses it against any human opponent all the time, because its so hard to resist in the first place.

That's pretty much the idea of grappling. I took down and chocked the kyokushin karate representative for my country in about 30 seconds... He does not know how to grapple, he didn't KO me before i closed distance, game over. Mind you, he was 120-130 kg and i was 73 kg.

Keep in mind that all this is WHITHOUT weapons. My former girl (that does kyokushin too) "stabbed me to death" with a rolled newspaper 8 times out of 10, i got a clean ippon seioi once, and probably died with tai otoshi (but managed to actually perform the throw and got a side control).

As for someone saying BJJ doesn't work in the streets, thats actually untrue. First, you must be fighting 2 on 1; that doesnt actually work that well with any combat style in real life.

Second, a seasoned BJJ practitioner can end a fight with someone that doesnt grapple in seconds. What you see in UFC is two very advanced (or even master) practicioners, with superb conditioning; also the street is HARD and the takedown alone (any judo throw, for example) usually ends the fight.

Thinking that a BJJ guy on the streets takes as much time as in UFC is akin to thinking ali could takes up to 12 rounds to knock jhon doe out in the streets. Ali would just 1 or 2 punch someone to KO.

A friend of mine ended in jail after a streetfight: some retard backed his suv and hit his bike, and THEN tried to hit him, my friend grounded and mounted the guy, then stood up cause he didnt want to hurt him (less than 5 secs). Then the guy got up and tried to continue fighting, he did a morote gari (double leg takedown) and broke the guy's orbital bone; instant ko + 3 days in hospital. Total fight time? about 3 seconds.

OK, you have said that, which is fair enough. However, I'd be interested to find out why you'd "never, ever think I was a mormon". PM me if you'd prefer.

Just the same i would never though you would be any other sect, christians = evangelicals in my country (also, i don't know any mormons personally, so they don't rank very high in my brand recognition abilities!)

Thanks - it should be ready "soon". It does cover Christianity, Islam and Judaism in a medieval context. It also covers Demonology in some detail.

But... Can you summon poledancers from hell? I would TOTALLY buy it if so!

Dodging

If a character chooses to Dodge a blow in melee combat his next attack is considered Difficult, since he has unbalanced himself while dodging.

Why would i raise dodge then? I get the same benefits parrying and i don't get 1/2 attack skill. The rules are fine, but it doesn't justify getting a new skill!

Parrying heavy weapons

Since massive weapons have a great deal of momentum when swung or thrust they are correspondingly more difficult to parry with a standard weapon than when using a shield. If a character tries to use his weapon to parry a blow from a weapon of SIZ 2 or larger he must make a Difficult roll to succeed. Using a shield or dodging instead simply requires a Normal roll to succeed.

Meh, theres a vid of a guy parrying a greatsword with a rapier, and he does just fine. This is more video-game logic than real world IMHO.

Two weapon fighting

Fighting with two one-handed weapons effectively requires a character to have a minimum STR equal to or higher than the total STR requirements of both weapons added together. For example, a Dagger requires a minimum STR of 4, and a Long Sword a minimum STR of 7, so a character would need a minimum STR of 4+7=11 to dual wield these in combat.

Same house rule i used on runequest

If a character is armed with two weapons he can attack and parry once with each of them per combat round. Off-hand weapon attacks and parries are considered Difficult, unless the wielder is ambidextrous (i.e. has DEX of 16 or higher). If the wielder is ambidextrous he gets an individual attack and a parry with each weapon per combat round at no penalty to either. The first off-hand attack is at 5 DEX ranks later than the main hand attack. Any further possible attack will come at 5 DEX ranks later than the previous attack - see BGB pp. 233-234.

[This allows a more rapid and cinematic style of fighting for dual-wielding characters, while still making it difficult for characters to dual-wield heavier weapons unless they spend a considerable number of attribute points in both STR and DEX during character creation.]

Economy of action > everything else. Your 2-weapon fighter DESTROYS everything else. Also, ambidexterity for 2 weapon fighting is a dungeons and dragons construct, it doesnt work like that IRL.

Also, off hand parries at 1/2 chance? Off hand is the MAIN parry!!!

RiposteIf a character achieves a Special parry result with a shield or off-hand weapon, he has succeeded in turning his opponent's weapon away and created an opening to Riposte. The character is allowed an immediate free Riposte attack with the weapon or shield that didn't parry. If a character achieves a Critical parry result this Riposte attack is Difficult for his opponent to parry or dodge.

Like it!

Weapon and shield breakage

If a weapon is used for parrying and takes more damage in one blow than it has Hit Points, the weapon is immediately considered broken, and any further damage passes on to the target of the blow. If a shield takes more damage than it has Hit Points its Hit Points are reduced by the amount of the excess damage, and is considered broken if its Hit Points reach zero. Any damage a shield takes past zero passes on to the arm of the bearer.

Actually i dont like using HP/AP for weapons, adds yet another layer of complexity.

By the way, i like your rules overall, i just think you need to tweak them a bit further. One potential problem i see is using hard skills; you are actually applying a greater penalty the better a guy is. A complete nub suffers a -20%, a master suffers a -45%, and a hero suffers a -75%; yeah, everyone has "half chance", but you are equalizing things down, so mooks and nubs have more actual chance to win due to sheer luck (maybe thats what you want, and works for several genres!)

An unpleasant thread, to be sure.

I have no interest in discussing anything with the likes of Icebrand or Conrad.

I will state that most of the best people I have known in my long life have been Christian. When you slander them you slander me.

And slander them you have...no amount of sophistry will change that.

I do not see you.

Excuse me? Have you actually read what i posted?

Where did i slandered your friends? Bah, never mind, i don't know you and i have no interest in this anymore

Really, in what way?

Mormons, Protestants, etc =! christians in the context the translated phrase works =)

So, all your biblical quotes were not aimed at Catholics, or Mormons, or Protestants but at Evangelical Christians, even though we all share the same scriptures? That doesn't make it much better.

So why bring it up in the first place?

Good enough reply?

Like Reincarnation makes any more sense than Heaven and Hell.

That was a joke... Maybe i suck at jokes

Does it? Come to my house and share it with a menopausal, emotional wife. You've got it easy.

To be more specific, i don't got it at all... Oh well

Just into trolling on forums? As you admitted earlier. Hmmm.

Can't find a "Punch in the face" smiley, so how about this one? Look at the thread discussing martial arts for the reference.

Link? Btw, i DO know martial arts!!!

Please don't. A buddhist trolling on a religious subject because he thinks he had

a bad day would ruin my day.

Oh, and no resurrection in buddhism, but lots of extremely painful hells at least

in the Tibetan version, compared to them the Christian hell looks like a luxurious

summer camp for children of the high society.

****, i always go for the wrong religion, first humakt, now this... Screw it, im gonna be a sorcerer. At least the invisible god doesn't actually exist!

Personally, Roleplaying helped me convert to Mormonism - I played in Glorantha for years and had no problems with gifts, geases, cult tithes, revelations and extra scriptures.

Ok, 1st misunderstanding. I would never, ever, thought you were a mormon. Again, for us a christian is an evangelical christian, a mormon is a mormon, a catholic is a catholic, and so on (as a mater of fact, you can see me saying im not a christian and then saying im catholic!)

Also, im not positive about all you say is metaphorical actually being metaphorical, but im not up for that much research, so ill take your word (because, at the end of the day, i just don't care enough about it)

Are you? That's a shame. I suppose it all depends on which theology turns out to be true in the end. Original Sin? Not all Christians believe in that. Will you burn in Hell? For eternity? Not according to my faith.

Yeah, i should probably become buddhist or something. Resurection sure beats the crap out of burning and being tortured forever. Then again, i don't really believe on any of that, so again, i'll give my pow to the first deity that grants me some superpowers.

What do you mean by Christians (as an institution)? Are you generalising again? Obviously, you don't mean "all Christians" as you said above, just Christian institutions.

Most christian (of all sects) dogma is like that; though there are some exceptions since each sect is unique.

Yes it does. However, if your argument is "You are wrong and everything you believe in is wrong" then I could equally use the same argument against you and nobody wins. Pointless argument really

"like christians don't agree with gay people" - a broad sweeping statements, like many of your statements on this issue.

Then again, posting at 3 am after a fight with my girl entitles me to some fun troll times.

Sure, there are religious extremists. I am not in favour of them. The Religious right in the USA scare me. Leaders/rulers of countries who have extreme religious views scare me. They are dangerous. By all means discuss how they are screwing up the world and hate RPGs, but don't drag all Christians into it.

+200

In any case, are you trying to persuade Christians as to the error of their ways? If so, why? Live and let live.

Never tried to... All those arguments quickly devolve into trolling, and im not into trolling IRL where i can get punched in the face

Ignorance of basic facts doesn't help your arguments. Many Christian sects have bishops. Catholics are Christians as well.

Again, see 1st paragraph

Not true that a plain reading yields plain results?

I don't see how that is at all incompatible with the rest of your statement? Not that I think you are at all on-point with all of it. Yet I'm beginning to tire of picking through individual points in this thread, as... there are so many of them. So, to keep things to one point, how does any of the rest of what you said in any way contradict the principle of plain reading yielding plain results?

Your plain meaning response was a reply to someone nitpicking the bible to make it seem "evil" or contradictory; thus, context, and you are doing exactly what you accuse other people of!

Just to clarify, we will be using both. It's just, for consistency with all of the other Characteristic rolls (effort, agility, stamina, idea, etc) WIS would need one as well. That's what the Will roll is. This is how I explain it in my house rules I've written up so far:

"Will(power) is figured like any other characteristic roll (WIS x 5). Will represents your character's discipline, ability to resist/cope with certain things (it will not replace certain resistance rolls, though), and to remain stoic in dire/horrific situations. A will roll might enable a character to carry on when his or her physical body is weary and broken (at DM discretion). Any rules entry that would have you make a derived characteristic roll to concentrate/focus or resist distraction is now replaced by Will. Such as Aimed attacks (page 212)."

I don't use sanity because it's not a major theme in fantasy games, but I still have PCs encountering things that might make them frightened or want to high-tail the hell out of places.

I'm guessing I should probably start the PCs at a higher 'level' than these mooks, then. I was thinking of starting them with 325 skills as the BGB says is appropriate for heroic campaigns, but perhaps I should give them another 50-100 to represent their experience?

What level where they on BRP? I would give them about 10% per point of BaB (modified). So a fighter with weapon specialization, level 7 and +3 from STR would have 120%. May even throw base chance / skill modifier on top, depending on how low the skills end up.

Also, your WIS roll sounds awfully similar to a POW roll. WIS itself pretty much translates verbatim to EDU.

ALSO, check RetroQuest, you may end up stealing a house rule or two!!! Comes with poledancers from hell!

Most of the time a plain reading of the text, in context, leaves one with a quite plain meaning in my experience.

Not true in the old testament. Jews are god's "chosen" and pretty much are allowed to kill, rape and pillage (and they DO). Also, god is full of hatred and vengeance, and even demands human sacrifice.

Then don't read it Soltakss. Its as simple as that.

You might try reading the thread before commenting. Some of us are going to great lengths to show that our comments aren't meant to include ALL Christians.

Christian censorship rears its ugly head yet again. Those people whose frail faith makes them sensitive whine like babies when a frank and mature discussion of the actual failings of their religious dogma is had. Just like the minority of insecure Christians would like to ban D&D or other roleplaying games, you'd like to censor our free discussion because it hurts your iddle widdle weak faith. Ahhhh diddums. Grow up!

Conrad, i would appreciate if just dial it down a bit; soltakks is a personality i respect (due to multiple and long standing contributions to one of my favorite hobbies) and i don't see the point in arguing with that much... emphasis, when he clearly states it bothers him (i, myself wouldn't mind your message at all, like a good brawl, i enjoy no-holds barred threads!)

This was written more than 2,000 years ago as the law of a minor seminomadic tribal culture in the Middle East, many centuries before the person we know as Christ was born. For most Christians this is about as important as the fact that those who wrote this considered a bat to be a bird and claimed to have conque- red the town of Jericho at a time when the place was not inhabited.

Wait, you saying the bible was not written by god?

I get it... you disagree with Christianity about the scriputural/doctrinal stance concerning homosexuality. And you are correct. Homosexuality is, scriputurally, an abomination before God. Yet you consider that grounds for complete contempt? The fact that they have a moral/ethical disagreement with you about that one facet of human behavior? It seems you are instead displaying your own narrow-minded intolerance to other people's ideas.

There are a few more issues than that... Actually i think im suppossed to stone to death people wearing clothes made with more than one fabric, or somesuch... Also the catholic church is usually sided with the most reactionary right wing people, including dictators (again, church as organization, not priests as people). Christians are a lot better in that regard.

You just declared about all European members of Lutheran churches to be non-Christians, because almost all of these Churches have agreed that homosexuality is not in contradiction to the spirit of the Bible. Perhaps you should tell them that you know more about theology than they do ?

And here i hit a language barrier. At least in my country, the only people claiming their *religion* as christians are evangelicans; but there's a linguistic difference between beeing a christian person -all sects are- and beeing a cristian...

This is really hard to explain... Lets see, i'm a catholic. I would not ever say "im a christian" when someone asks for my religion, and a protestant would not either. The only ones who call themselves christians are evangelicans, who would rarely if ever call themselves evangelicans. Also, we are all "cristians" as in christian people, but not as in christian religion.

Still, my explanation is very poor, i'm unable to convey such technical matters in english, sory. Thing is, this "ESP ministries" is what? It doesn't sound very mainstream to me!!!

But this just underlines my point that one needs to distinguish, and that there is no such thing as "Christian", there are only many very diverse churches which cannot even agree what the basics of their supposedly common believes really are.

Actually, the main three lines are orthodox, catholics and protestants, and they preety much share the same basis, albeit they differ in their philosophical interpretations. I don't actually know that much about orthodox, but i sympathize more with the protestant worldview overall.

Personally, I am finding this thread to be more and more unpleasant.

Sure, some fanatical Christians have attacked RPGs. Such people have also attacked TV, films, computer games and other religions.

Most Christians don't care one way or another.

Dragging up things that happened centuries ago or claiming that all Christians behave in one way or another is unproductive and distasteful.

I would like it if Triff closed down this thread as it will achieve nothing but could well offend other people. I am a moderate Christian and a gamer and is has already offended me.

I find this thread quite stimulating, fun, and educative. I think we are adults and we should be able to identify puns and jokes, and separate them from "real" opinions (though we need to be careful about how we transmit them).

People should not get offended any more than when we criticize or comment about any other matter; we need to stop being "christians" or "black" or "jew" or "nerds" or "whatever" and start being people -with opinions.

I am a catholic -not very moderate as you can see, but in the "bad" way- i really could not care less about what the church, a church, some sect of the worshipers of thor think; but i DO care about what you and my fellow forum members think, so i sincerely apologize if i offended you (and if so, please tell me how and when, by PM if you wish, so i won't do it again). I assure you if this happened it was not my intention.

Having said so, ill start paying attention to god whenever he feels like granting me some rune magic.

I forgot to mention that we will be using Fate points. If they are equal to POW points, it seems as though a typical PC will get about three uses before he risks going unconscious. Unless I have my subtraction messed up. Fate points are the equal of Bennies in savage worlds. I'm just wondering, will non-magic-using PCs find fate points more beneficial? If mages and psions are burning their POW points on powers and spells, that would mean they would have less access to fate points? Or are they separate pools entirely?

True. My formula is still up in the air. I guess not every powerful person (in BRP terms) needs to be a charismatic force to be reckoned with as well.

Healers are scarce on Athas. They do have an ex-Templar in the party who can perform healing spells, but he's still locked up. I'll take the lethality into account. In save worlds, there are such safeguards (not being able to take more than one wound at a time). BRP's hit points have less room for error. One thing I do like about that is that it makes armor and shields really worth something. I don't remember running a game where players took shields seriously.

Actually, in savage you get shaken if damage > thoughness, and then you get one wound PER raise, so with some unlucky exploding dice you may get 2 or more wounds

Hmmm ... Stockholm has an openly lesbian female bishop, openly gay priests are

no rarity at least in most countries in western Europe ... the idea that Christians

don't agree with gay people sounds rather outdated to me.

But thats europe, everyone knows preety much every other dude is gay over there

Also, christians have bishops?!? I thought that was a catholic thing!

AAAANYWAY, Biblosium's BGB says its bad, under spot rules:

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.(Leviticus 18:22 KJV)

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.(Leviticus 20:13 KJV)

I agree with rust that this thread has been unproductive. The title wasn't "A few misinformed people from 30 years ago and RPGs." It was "Christianity and RPGs." If the statements made about Christians had been made about any other group, forum members would have been outraged and the moderator would have shut the thread down. Unfortunately, the thread has demonstrated that rational, polite discussion has little effect on bigotry -- in this case, not bigotry by Christians but bigotry by their detractors.

Well, OF COURSE we are talking about a some christians and not all christians. It applies to any group, really; following your reasoning you can't talk about anything ever (humanities-related) because there is no such thing as an homogeneous group. Also, i saw no bigotry on the thread, unless you consider not agreeing with something (like christians don't agree with gay people) as bigotry.

Also, in my personal experience rational and polite discussion usually sways the opinion of non-believers much easily than it does for believers (since they follow a dogma, and that leaves no room for reasoning, thus they gain +30% to their resistance roll).

1. We moderate combat in our Dark Sun campaign; and at times we can go a session without any combat at all, but it still comes up fairly often. Besides the Total Hit points option being flicked on, what mortality rates will we likely be dealing with using BRP?

This is HIGHLY dependant on individual skills. Also, MAGIC in BRP (at least on RuneQuest) trumps skills. If characters have access to healing, protection and buff spells, they can be 5x as powerful as when relying on skills only.

2. I found a site where someone had worked in the six standard D&D core ability scores into BRP (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA). Since it didn't seem to disturb the system much, I thought it was a good idea. I won't be using EDU and APP has been replaced by CHA, as per Classic Fantasy. I've made a Willpower derived roll from WIS, and have factored WIS into skills already. Do you think this could hurt the game in any way?

Not at all, but remember that magic resistance is usually based on POW. High WIS characters should have high POW once converted, and magic users (sorcerers and wizards) should have high POW too. (15 as a "specialist" and 18 as a "good one at that" is a good rule of thumb).

3. What should I expect when we resume with the new rules in place? I might get shouted at for this, but we will actually be resuming practically in mid-combat. Last session a PC broke out of a cell during a retrieval process before he and the others were about to be thrown into a large lair of an Earth Drake. If this PC is facing more than a couple prison keep guards at a time, will he get chopped up in no time?

Depends on the prison guards and the characters themselves. I don't know what level they had on DnD, but heroic characters should be 90-120% at least for a fighting class. A character like that, with a minimum of magic support has no trouble fending 2 average (30-60%?) prison guards. If they have magic (i don't know what magic you using) as per runequest, at that level (which is probably the level you want for about lv 7-9 on DnD) they are full fledged runelords and with some tactical planning they can take on hordes of mooks like that (though a failed parry followed by a lucky critical can end almost any character's career).

Also, DO NOT use RAW as most dungeons games; they are converted characters, you do not want a tpk on the first 10 minutes; go easy on them (for at least 2-3 sessions) while you all learn the rules. IMHO is better to have incompetent enemies using cool tactics, than competent enemies being downplayed.

Also, careful with the drakes! In high-level BRP games, survivability is (again) determined by magic; most "high end" creatures come from runequest and are designed for magic-wielding adventurers in mind. If you use a magic-light setting, this requires careful gauging (in DnD they may have more HP, but in RQ characters have magical healing, allied spirits that also cast spells, a lot of -damage sources, etc).