Questbird

The Malleus Monstrorum monsters don't have hit locations as I remember, but they are otherwise broadly compatible. I had the same idea too once, when monster supplements for BRP were hard to come by. However, the Cthulhu monsters are pretty tough except for the most minor of servitor races. Keep in mind they can change the tone of a fantasy game (I didn't really end up using them myself). These sort of things appear in swords and sorcery games. They can be beaten in a Conan type game; not in the Clark Ashton Smith kind.

The best way to discourage check-hunting (if you even find it's a problem) is simply as GM to disallow checks for irrelevant skill-usage.

I agree that real hacking occurs over a longer period. The TV show Mr Robot is a good example for the modern world or near future, although we are talking about cyberspace hackers here. It's notable that the main character of that show, despite being socially awkward, paranoid and at times delusional, also has excellent observational skills and insight into character. Remember that the biggest security vulnerability in any organisation (now or in the future) is 'Layer 8' -- the people. People who forget passwords or use silly ones related to their childrens' birthdays; people who are venal and easily bribed, coerced or seduced. People whose online activities, bank accounts, daily habits, stock holdings, medical records, addresses and contact details are readily available to the determined (or these days, even the lazy) hacker, today and in the future. People who also may also hold various levels of access to your real target. So for hackers, I guess this could still be a fun game, of research, clues and subtle infiltration. In game terms it still leaves the meatspace players out in the cold. Hacking and real-world action are still out of sync. The experts in each field cannot really help each other at the same time. There can be teamwork, but not exactly fun teamwork in the context of an RPG. The two team approach might work, not sure. The risk might be dilution of roleplaying of both characters.

This was often the problem in our shadowrun and cyberpunk games. Hackers were useless in meatspace and powerful in cyberspace. Other characters were the reverse. Each group were bored when the game was operating in the space where they were powerless. An analogy for fantasy games is 'spirit combat', except that shamans tend to have a few useful 'real-world' skills as well.

Yes, I do the same. I might say "We're playing Swords of Cydoria or Rubble & Ruin tonight", not "Let's play BRP" In design, typography, sound design, and user interface design something which 'fades into the background' is highly desirable and usually the result of quite a lot of effort behind the scenes.

I bought MW because my go-to game is Elric! and that's long been out of print (though I have two copies and there are a couple more in my gaming gang's possession). MW seemed to be the successor, but I haven't played it. Mostly because Elric! still totally works for me and my impression was that MW was mostly Elric! without the Moorcock approval. Also, my gang laughed at the name Magic World when I bought it. Other games we've been playing are usually BRP (or ex-BRP) variants such as Classic Fantasy, Swords of Cydoria and Rubble & Ruin; and also some non-BRP oldies like Dragon Warriors and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (which is mostly d100 anyway).

D&D did that to themselves by forking D&D into a videogame. Pathfinder was the D&D that D&D players missed. Not that I've played it -- it's been Elric! or BRP for me since about 1994.

It has a certain ring to it.

There's always the Charisma roll (CHAx5) which is quite different for a CHA 7 vs CHA 16 person. In the case of the socially inept but high influence person; it could be inherited weath, blue-blood family reputation or royal connections landing on a person who is personally repellent and squanders it all. Never heard of that happening before...

I found a copy of Dragon Lines for a reasonable price on Noble Knight games for a reasonable price, and I've ordered it

Well, BRP was never a particularly good name for a game; not as bad as GURPS but not great. If you imagine explaining to a non-gamer what you are playing, if you say "We're playing GURPS (or Burps)" they would probably think it was some kind of coarse drinking game. (Which admittedly would not be so far from the truth for some sessions.) I always pronounced it by acronym: BEE-ARR-PEE rather than "Burp". Never "Basic Roleplaying". BTW, don't underestimate the importance of the game name. My gaming gang (used to Elric! and BRP) fell off their chairs laughing when they heard the name 'Magic World'. They didn't know anything about Chaosium's licensing history or the previous third-of-a-game by that name. They just thought it sounded like 'Happy elves in tinkly winkly town'.

I dug out my copy of The Celestial Empire and had a look at its martial arts special rules. Each martial arts school teaches certain special moves (and only those particular ones) -- which work the same as Powers in BRP. That is they cost POW (Qi) to activate and require a successful Martial Arts (school) roll. These powers can only be improved by training with the same martial arts school.

In BRP, Charisma (APP) gives you a bonus for Communication skills (bribery, bargain, persuade, status etc), although I think even there the bonus is less important than INT. However, the main advantage probably in play, where a good Charisma can make a favourable impression on NPCs, let you 'borrow' resources from your clan or cult, persuade neutral creatures to help you, get the 'foot in the door' to a strange guild, temple or organisation, or even negotiate with faeries and demons (a Charisma roll could mean the difference between a pot o' gold and a long nose when dealing with the fey folk). If you have a status or fame or reputation system (I do), those with high CHA could mysteriously acquire more of it than their compatriots, and therefore rise higher in the eyes of their society. Of course it depends on your style of play, and your referee's, but CHA is far from a useless stat. Even a warrior needs to impress others from time to time, to recruit or lead armies for example.

MOB, Richard Watts and Mark Morrison are three Runequest (or Stormbringer) related persons who are from Melbourne. (Me too but not so famous in BRP land ).

I believe Dragon Lines explores BRP martial arts in the way you're thinking about, but I don't think it's available any more

I did not know about this but I find it very amusing. Certainly Gibson is credited with the invention of cyberpunk, but he never claimed to own it. I'm surprised he is concerned about RPGs at all. Seems he hates elves the most. From http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/archive/2003_05_01_archive.asp by William Gibson May 2003 and this one (1998), from I site I couldn't access:

I picked up Monster Island and the Monster Island Compendium. I like collecting little pieces of geography that I can paste into obscure parts of Nehwon. I was chuffed to read that this was exactly the intention of Monster Island, and that Nehwon (and Monster Island's possible location there) even gets a mention! Along with Lemuria, the world of Conan and a couple of others.

Cyberpunk 2020 is probably the purest of the cyberpunk bunch. I played it a bit (Shadowrun too) You might also like to take a look at Cyberspace by I.C.E. which was a Rolemaster variant.

How far the wolf can move and still attack is based on its MOV. So some fast creatures would be able to move further while still attacking. The wolf is an animal and doesn't know about guns but it knows how to attack: its action is to charge John as fast as it can and eat him. Whether it can attack in the same round as it charges depends on its speed (MOV) and the distance between it and John. I think something can move its full MOV as a single action (the wolf in this case) or move up to half it's MOV and still attack -- but later in the round, represented by the DEX rank penalty. So if the wolf can move 15m and John is 15m away all it can do is charge into battle and attack next round. If John is only 7-8m away, the wolf can charge and bite. Meanwhile John and Bob have a chance to shoot it (twice each) before it gets there. In the more complicated case where the wolf is in striking range, whether Bob and John's second shots hit the wolf while running or while savaging John depend on the DEX ranks. (Bob: 15, Wolf: 16, John: 10) Counting down the DEX ranks, assuming a 5 DEX rank penalty between actions: 16: The wolf starts to charge toward John 15: Bob shoots his first shot at the moving wolf (range is < 8m) 10: John takes his first shot at the wolf (range is < 8m or maybe point blank, depending on ref's call) 10: Bob gets a second shot at the wolf (range is < 8m or maybe point blank, depending on ref's call) 8: The wolf (assuming it didn't get dropped by Bob or John) reaches John and attacks him 5: If still alive John may be able to take his second shot at the wolf (as Mr Jealousy mentioned) at normal chance

There's a 'heroic' variant where HP = SIZ+CON too -- but HP=(SIZ+CON)/2 is the standard.

I'm playing this campaign at the moment (2nd ed. I think). However we are just leaving it as WFRP, rather than trying to convert. In practice, the differences aren't huge. You still use d100 to test certain skills. Combat is still quite dangerous. Spell casting is rare, powerful and a bit unpredictable. The most fun thing about the system for me is the semi-random character generation. You pick a broad category (if you have the attributes for it) such as Rogue, Ranger, Academic or Warrior, then dice for your specific starting profession. As you get experience you can improve the skills of your current career or jump to a new one. You might change career based on roleplaying, or just min/max it to get the skills you want (looks like both styles of play are allowed for).

Thanks, the second link worked. The code looks very clear. Excellent.

Thank goodness! A linux developer. However, I didn't see anything in your google drive folder..

Definitely interested, Colin.

I got it