sdavies2720

RE: D12 & D6 for Handedness

White Dwarf #25. That's definitely Old School!

So leave out the SIZ chart. I can see why. Why leave out the resistance table?

Steve

I'm doing this without my book to-hand, based on my bes trecollection:

DEFINITELY YES

• Skill List by Category (p. 48)

• Alphabetical Skill List (p. 51)

• Magic Spell Summary (p. 95)

• Skill Results Table (p. 172)

• Movement Rates (p. 181)

• Order of Actions (p. 187)

• Combat Actions (p. 190)

• Melee Hit Location Table (optional) (p. 190)

• Attack and Defense Matrix (p. 193)

• Melee Weapon Attack Fumble Table (p. 194)

• Melee Weapon Parry Fumble Table (p. 194)

• Missile Weapon Attack Fumble Table (p. 194)

• Natural Weapon Attack and Parry Fumble Table (p. 195)

IF THERE's EXTRA ROOM

• Power Point Recovery Rate (p. 28)

• Damage Bonus (p. 29)

• Significant Time Intervals (p. 178)

• Conditions of Medical Care (p. 208)

• Combat Summary (p.192)

NO

• Character SIZ Chart (p. 26)

• Language Fluency Chart (p. 67)

• The Resistance Table (p. 171)

• Wealth Levels (p. 238)

• Skills & Appropriate Equipment (p. 242)

DON"T USE

• Mutation Summary (p. 105)

• Psychic Ability Summary (p. 113)

• Power Modifier Benefits (p. 143)

• Super Power Summary (p. 147)

• Major Wound Table (p. 207)

• Vehicle Range Track (p. 216)

• Vehicle Skill Roll Modifiers (p. 217)

DON'T KNOW (CAN'T REMEMBER THE TABLE)

• Sorcery Spell Summary (p. 129)

• Benefits From Character Failings (p. 142)

• Chase Trouble Table (p.217)

I plan to get the PDF. Do you have a preference where I buy it (DriveThru to get a better ranking, somewhere else to give you more $)?

Steve

"If you want to see additional BRP releases buy a PDF now and a physical copy later. It's the best way to ensure BRP releases are profitable enough for us to print." - Dustin "O'Chaosium" Wright (here)

That's Dustin fumbling his Communications (Online marketing) roll!

The rest of that post is such a mess I'm inclined to ignore it all!

Yes, if that last sentence had instead read, "It's the best way to ensure BRP releases are popular enough for us to print," I think a lot of the concern would go away. PDFs in my version sound more like a market barometer (Chaosium is using them to listen to us) than a gouge-the-customer tactic.

But I'm equally sure that to Chaosium, "Popular" and "Profit" basically mean the same thing--popular books are profitable. But they certainly have different emotional charges to us customers.

Steve

At the 300+ mark, it is much easier to type real data into a spreadsheet and have formulas do all the work than trying to "eyeball" every car write-up.

Which is why you deserve a huge thank-you from all of us.

All they can do is to call a tow sub ...

Again, I submit the question, how many people did you know that regularly played with many (if any) stats below 8? PCs are supposed to be "above average".

It's translated into most characters having a few low stats, but being above average overall. We've gotten some nice roleplaying out of it.

Doubly-nice that stats in BRP aren't all-powerful.

Steve

What is this term? ur-skills?

From Dictionary.com:

ur- Look up ur- at Dictionary.com

prefix meaning "original, earliest, primitive," from Ger. "original, primitive;" at first only in words borrowed from Ger. (cf. ursprache "hypothetical primitive language," attested in Eng. from 1908), now a living prefix in Eng. Cf. also Urschleim under protoplasm and Urquell under Pilsner

No negative connotations implied. I learned of it from mythology (an Ur-Cow I think figures in creation stories) and use it as shorthand for basic/core/prototypic rules and concepts.

I am not at all interested in the introduction of D&D "classes" into BRP, but I would like to introduce a number of advanced skills that can emulate certain class abilities. These advanced skills can be learned from various guilds or orders. These organizations require certain commitments from the character, aside from the costs for training these advanced skills. So while characters are free to design any character they wish, and still evolve in the traditional BRP way (with experience checks), they have to make certain decisions with regards to how they wish to specialize. It will be possible to be a member of many guilds at once, but doing such a thing may limit a character's freedom significantly. Also, I'm toying with the idea that the Wizard's Guild will never accept as a member an applicant who is active in the thieves' guild.

Steve

I guess I still don't understand. Are you saying there's an unstated set of ur-skills, something like "Martial," "Priest," "Shaman," and "Sorcerer" that are prerequisites for other (explicit) skills? And you can only have one (or a few) of the ur-skills?

I totally don't play it that way. Everyone can take the martial skills. Anyone who binds a fetch can become a shaman. Anyone who rises high enough in a cult can learn divine spells. I even let characters learn sorcery during the course of play.

That flexibility is one of the things I like about BRP over class-based systems.

But it sounds like you do it differently.

Steve

I quite agree it'd be too much accounting to work out exactly. I'm just suggesting the principle could be invoked to justify (and enforce) "class"-style character differences in campaigns which don't want everyone to be a jack-of-all-trades.

What I've found:

> When all the characters are green, everyone is bad at everything, so everyone tries everything in an effort to just 'get it done'

> In the middle stages, everyone attains a passing competence with all of the basic skills, and characters begin to develop areas of focus based on their interests, abilities, and alliances.

> In the latter stages of the campaign (where we are now), the downsides of screwing up are so huge that the most competent-in-that-area characters take on each challenge, with others helping and supporting as they can or as they get forced to. Because skill advancement is so slow, characters are realling focusing on their strengths.

I don't think a skill deterioration rule would have changed any of the stages very much.

Steve

Unfortunately, I'm not much of an expert. I tend to pick something I like, then do a quick internet search on it. Thus, I liked the Papyrus font, but saw comments that it's everywhere, which it is. So I realized that it's just not as special a choice as I thought.

There are some rules of thumb about picking serif vs sans serif that are probably worth looking at for reading ease.

Steve

Incidentaly, the "Hours in the Day" principle, as explained to me years ago, is slightly different from what you might be thinking. It's not the time taken to learn a skill - but the time required to maintain a skill.

Steve

...For this very reason I'm starting to think that I should just start by running some earlier version of BRP (such as my copy of Elric!) and learn from there. Once I get more experienced, maybe I'll end up finding the BRP book much more helpful as a general reference tool.

Of, if they're not, maybe this is a wake-up call that they SHOULD! That would give you a set of rules from the toolkit that will work for that campaign.

Steve

Please don't use that icky one they used for headings. It's a cross between Art Nouveau and ancient runes--a Chaos abomination.

Steve

...Possession of a "key" skill for each class/profession, I'd say. And there should be something other than just "guilds" to stop/minimise proliferation and consequent multi-classing. Or is that a campaign decision? But I think there should be something else, like an "hours in the day" principle, preventing (or at least limiting) characters from developing too many disparate "key" skills. Thoughts?

I don't have a problem with key skills, or limited hours in the day. Those both work for me -- they are constraints and not absolutes. So you can say, "To learn this crazy feat, you need to have Arcane Knowledge at 100% and the only cult that you know who teaches it is the Magic cult" without having to say, "The only way to learn this feat is to belong to the Magic cult."

Ah. Rereading what I wrote and what you wrote, I'm guessing we're coming from the same place. I just like having the unusual skills only available from campaign-world organizations. I find it ties characters into the society and makes things more 'real.'

FWIW, the hours in a day limit only matter when there is a deadline. Otherwise, characters just take the time they need to learn the skills, whether it's 2 weeks or 4. In my worlds, the constraints are usually money and finding a teacher.

Steve

Thanks. I've been coveting Corum, and waiting for Rome...but this was too good to miss.

As an example the Savage Worlds Edge Alertness states that the character is more aware of their surroundings and gives a +2 to Notice rolls. Would giving a +20% to Search, Sense and Spot rolls in BRP be too much or not enough?

The Kindle doesn't natively support pdf files, and I have yet to find a good program to convert them into a format that it does support. Typically they lose much, if not most of their formating when they are converted over and become difficult to read without effort...

...purchased the pdf copy of it back in early March to try and put it on my new Kindle. That didn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but I am just glad to have it now.

What were the issues with viewing the Dark Sun PDF?

One of the side effects of these long durations is that these spells are very hard to knock down.

Any word on the status of this? Even with the re-issue of RQ3 Magic as BRP Magic, I'm still interested in this monograph.

You've probably already got it, but if not have a look at Sandy Peterson's revised RQ shaman rules, available here:

Philip Hibbs' Link Page

Has some interesting shamanic powers and ideas, being designed for RQ3 it's pretty portable for BRP. After that simply google Runequest + shaman or RQ + shaman there used to be a lot of sites that had various bits and bobs for shamanry ( how many of them still exist I have no idea )

On the D20 front both Green Ronin and Mongoose had Shaman supplements out, obviously the ideas etc would need a bit of conversion work but there's useful material in both

I found a couple of copies, I think both 2nd and 3rd. I'd have to brave the basement and find them to give you a definitive answer.