drohem

Those are some great ideas.

After years of play, we heavily modified the rules. Our damage bonus modification was used in conjuction with other modifications that fall in line with those suggestions. We used a modified healing rate system. We used a modified weapon breakage rules. We modified the multiplier of damage necessary to severe or main a hit location based up weapon type.

After years of play, we felt that our modified damage bonus system was very workable. I mean high STR creatures still owned and were extremely dangerous. If you got bitten by a dragon, then you were more than likely to have something severed, LOL.

That is the beauty of the RQ and BRP systems- they were extremely robust and flexible. It was a great framework upon which you could reasonably add layers of detail if you so desired.

I also liked the Rolemaster and MERP varying critical chance based upon weapon type. Ahh, the good old days of chart-based role-playing, LOL! Rolemaster and MERP systems were the pinnacle of that era and style of role-playing.

hehe...that's why we affectionately called the RQ rules as written as MainQuest, lol.

Someone strong enough could kill with just one punch. Although this is certainly possible in the RL, it is not a sure thing whereas in game mechanics it was almost certain against 'normals.'

Also, a strong person with a weapon was like a ginsu knife in combat. If they fumbled on themself, it was usually very bad.

Again, agruements could be made for the 'realism' or that the STR damage bonus is good and realistic.

However, myself and my group felt it silly and adjusted as needed.

Seriously, when role-playing a hero do you want him to be killed by a punch? Or that he is so strong that he maims or kills himself with a fumble?

Drohem what are you using for a d7 and a d9?

Well prior to the advent of dice rollers, we just rolled either a d8 or d10 and ingored a result of '8' or '10.'

However, these days there are some pretty slick dice rollers that allow you to roll odd dice like those. One of the best free dice rollers out there, and the one I downloaded and use, is the dice roller on the WotC (Wizards of the Coast) website.

It is one of the one dice roller that I have found that allow you to add/subract large numbers. Most dice rollers I have encounter usually have a cap on the number to be added or subtracted from a roll.

hehe, no problem. Let me try and clarify my statement then. What I meant was that before D&D 3.0 was created, the Talislanta RPG already had pioneered the concept of using a single d20 for all skill/task resolution. One of the authors of 3.0 D&D also worked on the Talislanta product line prior to working for WotC (Wizards of the Coast). At least to me, it can be clearly seen where the inspiration for D&D 3.0 concept of a single d20 derived.

We created a modified STR bonus chart for RQ3 because we felt the STR bonus damage as written was too crazy in steps up.

This the chart we came up with:

DAMAGE BONUS CHART

STR + SIZ Damage Bonus

01-04 -1d4

05-08 -1d3

09-12 -1d2

13-16 -1

17-20 +0

21-24 +1

25-28 +1d2

29-32 +1d3

33-36 +1d4

37-40 +1d5

41-44 +1d6

45-48 +1d7

49-52 +1d8

53-56 +1d9

57-60 +1d10

etc… etc…

It worked well for us and we used it for years while we played RQ3 and our modified systems based off RQ.

I always thought talislanta is OMNI? Well at least OMNI is also with d20 (a good system btw which can be played also very gritty)

In the new edition there they wrote "still no elves" on the backcover.

OMNI was derived from the Talislanta RPG. Talislanta has been around since 1987. OMNI took the Talislanta rules and made them generic and universal. Talislanta is now in its 5th edition.

If you're looking for some rich and indepth races and cultures that are non-standard fantasy (i.e. dwarves, elves, orcs, etc.), then check out the Talislanta RPG in any of its editions/incarnations. Their original marketing slogan was "No Elves!" Talislanta *is* the original d20 system, and could be easily converted into BRP.

Well, that was my point: odd numbered additions/subtractions to an odd numbered percentile score in the middle of game play was an issue for the group I played RQ3 with back in high school. We had an excessively large group (up to 10-12 or more at times), and most of them were Jr. high or high school students we didn't care much for math at all.

It can get very tedious when you are GMing a very large group, AND you have to do all the math calculations for almost everyone in the group on the fly in combat.

I know that most vetern gamers are good at math by necessity (either natural or born out of years of crunching numbers). However, the question was what issues might detract from BRPs popularity. In my gaming experience, this was an issue with our RQ3 group. I know that with BRP it is not so much an issue because all the modifiers were even (5 or 0).

hehe...no, I grew up in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, CA. I currently live in Thornton, CO.

You are probably right about it evolving out of someone's homebrew game. I like military-esk campaigns and games, so I really like the campaign world because it showcased a military aspect of the game. War is a great story-driver.

Unfortunately no, I have never played it. I own it and have read through it, but was not able to convince my gaming circle to play it.

I have always been a fan of bi-pedal and bi-manual anthrophomric animal humanoids. I loved a little game called Justifiers because of the Beta-Humanoid concept. This concept has been done in many other games system as well, whether it was a fantasy or sci-fi system.

I basically created animal humanoid races for my fantasy campaign, Thonkar, using magic as the explanation. There were only humans before the Ani-men races were created. The Pomperiian Empire had grown decadent and bloated (like Rome in the last days) and the mages created a slave-race of animal-human hybrids. One of the side effects of the magic was that some of the ani-men were fertile and could breed.

In the campaign, there was a slave revolt led by a gladiator (a la Spartacus) that freed them from slavery. The ani-men fled into the wilds and corners of the Pomperiian Empire to rule themselves and create their own society. They formed a religion based upon the concept of Gaia.

One of the issues that I experienced with RQ3 was the fact that some quick math skills were necessary. Unfortunately, not everyone is that skilled at math, and it bogged play down when odd percentile modifiers had to be calculated on the fly.

I know this isn't the same with BRP since those modifiers were even numbers. However, since most peoples introduction to BRP was through RQ the concept of math was still probably a factor.

Our group eventually just dropped percentile and used a d20 for rolls with RQ3. All skills and modifiers were rounded to 5 or 0 and then we used a d20.

Hello all.

I started role-playing in 1985 with a friend who used the 2nd edition Gamma World system. I then moved on to 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. I met a new group and started playing RuneQuest 3rd edition. We played a heavily modified version of RQ for years, since we called the rules as written MainQuest. We eventually moved onto GURPS 3rd edition. Finally the group gravitated back to D&D with 3.0 Dungeons & Dragons, and now we are playing 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons and d20 Modern a lot.

Along the way, we have created our own systems based off some of the other systems; for example, we created a game called GunQuest based off RQ. We have also dabbled in playing other systems along the way, but basically RQ, GURPS, and D&D have been the main systems in their various editions and incarnations.

I also am a horder of table-top RPG systems, and have read many game systems. A couple of my personal favorites are Justifers and Talislanta; mostly for the game setting rather than game mechanics. Anyway, this is my hobby and I enjoy talking about and discussing RPGs.