filbanto

From the thread on Freeport I'm pretty sure this is not the game for you. You already dismissed it in one of your replies, something along the lines of "not liking fantasy mixed in with your historical stuff". I think you've got High Seas for Flashing Blades and it is dead simple to convert that over to BRP. Pirates of Legend is the other "historical" pirate game for the BRP family. Can I ask why? I like C&W products. I liked the pitch they made for Pirates and Dragons. Based on their prior work I was pretty confident they'd deliver a good book. I backed them. If I hadn't stumbled across the Kickstarter I would have picked up the book for the same reasons. If I write a review why is my opinion less valid for having backed them?

This one could be pretty icky. If I was running this I'd rule the PC broo can control their lust. No die rolls. They will be lusting in their mind, but are smart enough to realize they'll be killed by the chief if they defile the sacrifice. I'd have plenty of NPC broo who are not that bright and are constantly trying to get at the girl. The PCs need to keep them under control and get out of enemy territory alive. You could steal from "The Outlaw Josie Wales" when the commanchero's raid the settlers wagon...

Threadjack warning... Matt, you might want to take a look at Flashing Blades and picking up The High Seas supplement. This is a great game and is pretty close to BRP: skill based system, fun fencing rules, you use a d20 instead of percentages, but it plays very close to BRP.

Not much work to get rid of the fantasy races. My recollection is that they gave suggestions for how to do it in one of the setting books. Nuking the magic would be harder and I guess I'd suggest not bothering. If you're doing a historical pirate setting use Tortuga or Port Royale another similar pirate haunt instead. I'll also suggest C&W's new Pirates & Dragons game when it comes out. Sounds like a perfect fit for Freeport.

By Hastur, that's brilliant! Add alchemical mutants and clockwork cyborgs and you've got 17th Century Gamma World. I want to play this now!

My favorite phaser setting is "turn rocks red". I always wondered just what kind of energy output one of those pistols had to have in order to completely incinerate a Klingon or turn a 2-ton rock practically into lava. Makes a .44 magnum look like a pop-gun;)

This is the mechanic used in Pendragon - you're just using a d100 instead of a d20. It works great! Here are some things to think about: It is hard to include a mechanism for catastrophic failure (a fumble). You will still have ties when two players roll the same number on a success. Chances are this won't happen often. You can include a Critical success mechanism when you exactly equal your roll or perhaps come within a certain (5?) percentage of your skill.

Think of it this way - I've got a 6 foot long pointy stick and you have a 1 foot long pointy stick. If I have room to manuever, I control the distance we fight at. Even if I miss my attack, you need to slip by the pointy end of my weapon before you can hit me. The rules require you to use an "attack action" and roll Dodge to move into position where you can attack. Once you are inside my guard, I'm the one at a disadvantage since I cannot easily stab you and I need to use an action to back out to my ideal range. I don't like forcing a dodge skill for closing the distance. I allow players to roll the best of their dodge or current weapon skill to close. If they crit, they get a "normal" attack while doing it. If the defender ever fumbles they can close the gap if they wish as well. I usually have miniatures on the table when we game. One square between figures = long, adjacent squares = medium, sharing a square = short. It's a great visual queue. The rule allows a dgree of verisimilitude. A guy armed with a spear and room to manuever can easily fend off a person with a shorter weapon. It's not a lot of fun if you're the player armed with a dagger though:) If your players don't like the rule as written and if you think it slows down the combat dump it! An easy way around it is to give a DEX rank bonus for using a long weapon and a penalty for a short. You could also rule that long weapons go first, then medium, then short and have Dex rank within each "length".

Seemed like that was always the intent. Chaosium was not interested in publishing. It's explained in this thread. I'm sorry to see it go to Legend because the quality of the stuff Mongoose puts out is hit or miss and I don't like some of the design choices (oh dear departed resistance table). I will pick up this one as the BRP version was great and I'll happily mine it for ideas.

I'd be quite interested in any info/notes on BRP CthulhuTech. The setting had a great deal of potential. The rules are not that good (and kind of broken if I am not mistaken), but a BRP conversion would take care of that!

I've never cared for the weapon size and parry rules in OQ,RQ6 or Legend. Historical fencing manuals showed how to parry polearms using a rapier and modern reenactors have shown it can be done: link. Now I doubt you can parry a giant's club with a penknife either, so I'd just compare the character's SIZ to his opponent. If one guy has a 10 point advantage you cannot Parry his attack and must Dodge instead.

I don't think so (note: I don't own all the Legend books so I'm very likely wrong). Here's what I'd do: Come up with a table for your basic NPC reactions. Example: 01-05 - Excellent 06-20 - Very Good 21-40 - Good 41-60 - Neutral 61-80 - Poor 81-95 - Bad 96-00 - Very Bad Roll for the reaction when the encounter takes place. Now the party spokesperson makes an appropriate skill roll. Modify the reaction based on the level of success. Example: Critical Succsess: Move up 2 levels, minimum reaction is Neutral Success: Move up 1 level, minimum reaction is Bad Failure: No change, maximum reaction is Very Good Fumble: Move down 2 levels, maximum reaction is Neutral Maybe some nasty creatures like Broo or orcs have a maximum reaction level no matter flattering the characters are?

I'd bet Newt's not just sitting around twiddling his thumbs. I ponied up for the Demi-god level for OQ2 and Savage North, Life & Death and Here Be Dragons were all part of the bundle. As eager as I am for River of Heaven I've decided to not pitch in for kickstarters until the prior stuff is fufilled. No offence Newt - I fully trust you - only way I can keep money for food these days:)

I think it will impact healing. Level the playing field for the big guys if you follow me. Frito the halfling has 9 HP. He takes a 3 point wound and is at 1/3 HP. A lucky first aid roll and he is right as rain. Crozan the barbarian has 18 HP. He takes a 6 point wound and is at 1/3 HP. He's still wounded if he gets the same level of treatment. If both characters have a fixed HP, but the halfling "soaks" less with each blow bigger guys will heal up faster instead of the other way around. I like the idea on the surface. It's similar to the Toughness bonus in Warhammer FRP 2nd edition in that it basically stacks with armor.

Backed! They're closing in on that bestiary - £170 or so to go.

I don't have Magic World & it's been ages since I played Elric so please keep that in mind... In Elric you got "allegiance" benefits once you had X points higher than anything else. They were nice perks - extra magic points or hit points or stuff like that. If your level went high enough you could become a champion and things went to the next level. For example, I think champions of chaos were automattically resurrected if they were killed. I'd read this as if you don't accept Apotheosis you could still keep the lower Allegiance benefits you were entitled to.

The Aztecs take the place of your fantasy "Evil Empire". Players are members of smaller kingdoms and tribes fighting against Aztec hegemony. Related topic - the New Fire RPG just went on sale today. I don't much about this one apart from some pretty cool art and Aztec influence.

+1 to everything tzunder said - especially the bit about OQ powering other games. I bought into OQ2 after seeing the fantastic job Cakebread & Walton did on Clockwork & Chivalry - was very happy they were involved with the OQ2 product as well!

I take back my previous comment. This is a much better idea:)

I just wanted to pop in here and say this is really cool. I used to really dig the Iron Kingdoms/Warmachine stuff, but this is far more intriguing.

They're thrusting daggers with a square or triangular cross section. I thought the idea was to poke them through the eye slit of your opponent's helm once you had the poor guy knocked on his back. I wouldn't treat them any different from a knife or a dagger depending on size.

They need a better name though... Hungry Howlers? Howling Hunger?

Monkey Cannibals Groups of Howler Monkeys living in close proximity to dragons are, over the generations warped by draconic influence into terrible beasts that crave human flesh. STR 2D6 CON 1D6+2 SIZ 1D4+2 INT 1D4 POW 1D6 DEX 3D6+6 Grapple 30% Bite 25% (+20% if they have grappled) 1D6+DB Athletics 75% Perception (Smell) 60%

I'm really pleased you had Cakebread & Walton do the layout and proofing of this Newt. Their stuff is top notch and I'm sure it will make OQ2 a much better read:)

This is awesome news Christian. Happy to hear you finally got paid for your hard work. I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with next!