Chorpa

RoleMaster springs to mind.

 

In it's simplest form you just add the skill score to the die roll and try to get over 100. 

 

The drawbacks to such a system are:

 

1) It's a bit more crunchy. Some people don't like to add, say,47 and 58 to make a skill roll.

2) It's harder to incorporate success levels. 

What Atgxtg said. That includes HARP which is much simpler relative to RoleMaster.

Not sure that I agree on Atgxtg 2nd drawback without more explanation.

But the first drawback one is dead on. And it all depends on what kind of player group you have. If you have players that don't mind the crunch well just go for it. In our group most are ok except one player but he finds it an acceptable obstacle to the entertaining and brutal combat system.

With the BRP system you don't have to bother about adding the skill and dice roll together you just have so see if it is higher or lower. And if you still want more detail in combat you can just add the hit locations. But things considered we still keep playing RM and in fact I am just about to head of to one of our RM sessions. But BRP is still no. 1 in my eyes though. 

I´d like a system that is skill based in combination with magic points, so if theres any other system out there that might fit, especially if its simpler, then let me know.

Why don't you just port the Magic system from the Basic RolePlaying book? The spells are as skills and each costs a fixed amount of Magic Points per level of the spell you want to cast. Very simple system that I like.

This is a text from the first edition of Drakar och Demoner that was a translation of the first edition of Magic World written by Steve Perrin. Actually it was a translation of a draft version and this text did not make to the final product in US. The plan was to make a suplement product with holy and ritual magic but it was never published (or written).

Sincerely

Max Tillberg

Ahh thanks. Been looking through all the old Drakar and Demoner stuff and sure couldn't find any mentioning of it anywhere. But as I mentioned the font and layout used looks the same as the one used in the first edition of Drakar and Demoner (1982).

@Chorpa: You don't happen to know what version of DoD this is? I don't recognize it, but I've not read/played much DoD since… a very long time.

I am not sure but from the font used I would guess it is from something released between 1983-1987. I am gonna check to see if I can find the actual page in any of my pdfs.

 

 

Yes very much so. The three first editions of Drakar and Demoner was really just a translation of Worlds of Wonder with the Magic World section incorporated.

I was about to offer my help but looks like you have gotten the help you needed already. 

RE those GURPS titles:  Egypt might work, partly.  What I really want is further-east (Mesopotamia) and some of it is even older than the 5K years of "GURPS Egypt" -- Uruk, Sumeria, Akkad, Ur, Babylon...

I agree. Don't know of many books covering ages that far back. But it would be a very cool periods to play in. Still enough unknowns from that period to give a Game Master some creative freedom to shape it the way he likes. 

Most of the characters from The Princess Bride. That of course include the R.O.U.S's despite not really being a character.   

I have always been fond of the characters from the 1982 TV Movie Ivanhoe. Especially the bad guys makes for some interesting characters.

Legend also have some interesting characters.

As for the non fantasy characters I would love to see some of the classics like Predator, Alien (already a version in the BRP book) and the big action heroes of the 80s like John Rambo, John Matrix (Commando), Terminator and so on.

@Chorpa

Rome is really later than I wanted. But there are quite a few Roman resources, actually; not just the one you linked.

 

True. I have plenty of the GURPS books covering different parts of the worlds in ancient times and they are actually very usable in a BRP like game. 

GURPS Egypt, GURPS Greece and GURPS Arabian Nights are examples that should suit some of your needs.

Only thing I can think of at the moment is BRP Rome. I know The Design Mechanism have some books planned that probably could be used with a BRP game. For example Mythic Greece and Mythic Constantinople is in the pipeline.

Thanks for the responses and the welcome.  I will probably wind up with the 'Big Gold Book' at some point (It keeps calling for me) but am trying to prioritize my budget.  My best course is probably to start with 'Devil's Gulch' and do a small story arc or some one-shots and see how well I can piece the rules together.

 

Now, to poke around the forums!

I highly recommend both the Big Gold Book and Devil's Gulch that is a great springboard for an Old/Weird West campaign. The Big Gold Book is great because it is not set for a certain genre as Magic World is and you can pick any of the optional rules you like and ignore the rest depending on how much crunch you want. I have myself run a successful Weird West campaign and if that is your plan I do recommend  checking out the Aces High monographs too. Plenty of stuff you can pick from there to incorporate into your own game.

RQ6 Has notably different combat, and uses hit locations. I think those are the biggest differences from stock BRP in terms of compatibility. I don't think you would have much trouble using a RQ6 Supplement with your BRP Stuff, unless you're looking to use it for creatures/NPC Stats (they wouldn't have a general pool of HP, you'd have to calculate it, for instance)

Yeah but that is not a huge problem. Once you learn the formulas you can do it on the fly. At least I do. I do use the Hit Location optional rule in most of my BRP games so the step over is not a big one. If you just use the Major Wound rules the conversion is even simpler since you just have to calculate the total HP and that hardly takes a second. Luckily the Shield and Walls supplement don't focus too much on combat and when it does it does seem to be abstract enough so it would slot right into the BRP rules without any problems regardless if you use Hit Locations or not.

I haven't given Ships & Shield Walls a proper read through only just skimmed through it. But from what I have seen most stuff seem to be usable as is. Some minor tweaking is required but didn't see that any big changes needs to be done.

Even though I think you are missing out on the excellent RQ6 Core Rules I do understand sticking with the BGB. Have had the same thoughts myself. One book to rule them all. 

I recall that the old MERP game handled this by giving humans more background points on average than most races, especially elves (who tended to have the fewest, being tied to Fate and all ... ).  These points could be spent on all sorts of things: stat bonuses, extra skill points, extra cash, etc.  It'd probably be easy to come up with something like that for BRP.

The system still exists in Rolemaster today. I never thought about it but you probably could get RMFRP Character Law and adapt it for BRP type games. The whole book is dedicated to exactly what you mentioned but way more expanded than the bare bones you found in old MERP. 

We ran a short Pathfinder campaign this Summer.

Now we have returned to our now long running Star Wars Edge of the Empire campaign we started last year. It started just a single game to try out the new rule set but had such a big attendance and everyone wanted to continue to play the game so it quickly developed into a long running campaign where we normally play every Wednesday evening. We are just about to make the transition over to the new Age of Rebellion book.

I didn't know it was out of print. I do own it and think it is one of the best BRP books made. We ran a short campaign just to try it out and the players still talk about it and wanna go back to it. Hopefully I do have time to start it up again sometime in the future.

I'm planning on picking up the two Aces High books in print. Have the errata mentioned in this thread been put up for download somewhere?

 

Also, how well would you guys say Devil's Gulch combines with Aces High and does it actually add anything useful?

Devil's Gulch slides in pretty well with Aces High. The short chapter in the beginning have a description on how to adapt and create Wild West characters with only the BGB in mind. If you use Aces High you can skip this chapter or pick the parts you like. There are some new Spot Rules or change to existing ones in BGB. Aces High also have their versions of same spot rules so you can pick which version of the rules you want. The rest of the book is a pure setting and 2 adventures that can be used straight away for a Aces High game. All in all I would say it is a very nice addition to an Aces High game for just the setting and adventures that take up most of the book.

I can't really answer the errata question though. MrJealousy is better suited to answer that question. There is a revised Calibre4 document in the downloads section that has updated weapon stats. But I don't think it has been updated in some time.

Uh, how?

 

AFAIK the DEX rank system never sequenced in things like weapon speed or movement.  THe guy with the higher DEX acts first - even if he has to run across a room  to swing his blade - before the guy with the readied arrow.

 

 

With SRs missile weapons tended to go off first, and moving across a room delayed the attack by one or more SRs. Polearms had reach and so on. But none of that was ported over to the DEX rank systems.  A pity, too, as part of the fun of old RQ combat was knowing when to go for a quick action of spell in order to get the attack off before an opponent's action. Spells like Heal 2 might be attempted in battle, but Heal 5 was not something worth attempting while engaged. 

 

Yes it is. The rules is listed under Move action in BRP page 190. I will quote it for you just in case.

So you can see it is implemented in the regular DEX rank system and it should be possible for a guy with ranged weapon to shoot first since movement lowers DEX rank depending on how far he moves. I myself dislike that they use meters in the text and have replaced it with MOV myself. It is suggested elsewhere that 1 MOV is about 3 meters so these numbers are correct for regular humans with 10 MOV. The simplified list should look something like this:

• 0-1 MOV = No DEX penalty
• 2 MOV up to 1/2 MOV = 1/2 DEX rank
• Over 1/2 MOV up to Max MOV-1 = 1/4 DEX rank
• Max MOV = No DEX rank.

Haha, yes that seems likely. I was however hoping for more specific info, maybe there is a map?

 

Hans-Olof, from up north

No there is no map. It is self-contained and can be placed anywhere in any world. However it does ties in with Empire of Gatan in the OQ book but it still don't give a precise location. It is assumed to be way farther north from Empire of Gatan though.

I think this is probably one of the reasons they have made plenty of the monograph stuff available as POD on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow. This option is much cheaper for us non-us purchasers since the price on the on the Chaosium web page is really high for overseas shipping.

I have most of my purchases saved, but noticed that some of the old ones are missing (probably to my previous email that no longer exists). Haven't needed to download them again though so no worries yet.

I started reading Monster Island a few weeks ago, but didn't get far.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it has snake men in it.

Yes it does indeed have both serpent people and lizard men in it.  I myself have a planned S&S campaign with Savage North and The Realm from Book of Quests on one continent to the east and World of Xoth from Spider Gods Bride on another continent to the west. Once they decide to cross the ocean between the continents I plan on springing Monster Island on them. As shipwrecked survivors they have to explore the island and try to figure out a way to escape it.

Although not an adventure the sandbox setting Monster Island is pretty much usable as S&S as it is written. Like the Green it contains dinosaurs, tribes, magic, ancient creatures..

Book of Quests from The Design Mechanism is also pure S&S. For RQ6 that is part of the d100 family.

From what I can understand it is a meta-plot chapter that has been dropped and they added of 2 appendixes that give some advice to GMs and Players. But from what I understand the adventures and everything else is as before except some minor fixes. So you should be ok.

Finally had a chance to read through the module. Have only read to Adventure 3 but so far I like it a lot. Have found some minor spelling errors and minor layout mistakes (like a missing room title) but nothing that bothers me and messes with the content. The content are just glorious, the adventures are as promised old school in a delightful way.The adventures are pretty straightforward but still with a lot of potential for the creative player group and GM to expand on. For example in Adventure 3: The Pig and the Cauldron i instantly was inspired and came up with small events and problems that Arnulf could cause for the group of players during their encounters. Still have adventure 4 to read through but I can't wait to dive into this module with a group of players. I never got the chance to get this module before this Directors's Cut so I can't comment on the differences but most of the changes are mentioned in the beginning of the book.

On another side note this was my first OpenQuest adventure i have purchased and it also caused me to get my hands on OpenQuest just to see how some of the NPC stats works and was surprised how easy and well the rules are. I have experience with Legend and later on RuneQuest 6 and can see a lot of similarities from the MRQII/Legend SRD but with some simplifications and additions. I myself prefer a little more crunch so I will probably use this book with RQ6 but the changes are so minor so it is quite easy to run the adventures as is and convert on the fly. The only thing I will need to spend time converting is all the different cults that I want to incorporate into my own campaign world so I will later try to rebuild them in RQ. But in emergency you can just take the names of the cults and attach them to one of the appropriate generic cults in RQ as you see fit. But then you loose a lot of the flavor the cults in Savage World grants.

As many others I prefer Hardcopy at the gaming table and PDF as reference when working on my own adventures at home. Smaller files like adventures and such I don't mind getting as PDF only since I can easily print them out myself when necessary and easy to cut and paste important information into separate documents for example when to create maps or other handouts when I want.

Lately I have also started to use PDFs at the gaming table too but I still do find i quicker to just use the book when I need some info from it so it is mostly as a backup.