Questbird

I have a lot of time for Dave Morris' creations. He is a keen fan of Tekumel, and he wrote some interesting rules for that setting called Tirekelu. I also like Dragon Warriors and the world of Legend created for it (I'm currently playing in a Classic Fantasy game set there). Abraxas was originally developed as an (over-)ambitious MMORPG in the late 1990s or early 2000s. It has a lot of interesting science-fantasy ideas in it.

Umm...isn't this pretty much like Cthulhu Rising, by John Ossoway, already published as a monograph by Chaosium? The concept sounds pretty similar.

I hear you, though it's been changing a bit for me lately. But even as GM, where you can have more control over which settings you play, you might have a setting you'd like to GM but for some reason can't get the game going?

This is related to What RPG settings would you like to play but haven't? They can be BRP or non-BRP. This is about setting, not rule-system. For me, it's Tekumel or Empire of the Petal Throne. I've read a lot about it, even collected some of the varyingly in-print supplements. And even though I might be tempted to GM it I've been held back by two things: the lack of interest in the wacky Tsolyani names from my players, and scarcity of BRP adaptions of the game (though there are some). Over to you people!

I have both Elric! and Corum. I use the first a LOT. Corum I always admired but have not yet really used it.

Though when I tried to sell the concept to my gaming gang, they just looked quizzically at me.

I bought the PDF and am reading it. It looks good so far, nice work.

In the past I've played Basic D&D (Holmes), AD&D, Gamma World, Traveller, Maelstrom, Dragon Warriors, Recon, Rifts, Palladium, Deadlands, Cyberpunk 2020, Mechwarrior, Call of Cthulhu. I've read, but never played, quite a few more systems. My AD&D campaign converted to Elric! 20 years ago and I've stuck happily with that system (occasionally borrowing elements from other BRP variants and even a bit of Rolemaster). Recently I've played some more Dragon Warriors, and BRP variants Classic Fantasy, Rubble and Ruin and Swords of Cydoria.

Mongoose's Hawkmoon has science-sorcery rules for creating artifacts. Each artifact type is basically a spell, which requires time, materials and a long term investment of Magnitude focus points (essentially Magic Points). CHA and CON can be sacrificed by the wizard to increase it. eg. Ornithopter Casting Time: 6 months + 1 month per point of Magnitude Artefact, requires Laboratory Consumes 30,000 SP plus 10,000 per point of Magnitude This spell is used to create a personal Ornithopter...For each point of Magnitude above one, the caster may increase the vehicle's speed, structure, piloting skill etc...

I wrote about the concept of a 'minor riposte' when successfully parrying a failed attack in this thread: However in practice I found it added a little too much overhead. I never had NPCs and monsters use it and players would forget too. Here's the simplified version: A critical parry allows a riposte from the defender If vs. a successful attack, riposte must be with the shield, off-hand weapon (or brawl if you are super-keen). If vs. a failed attack, riposte can be with either weapon.

A lot of ideas get floated in the BRP forum which aren't necessarily targeted at BRP. For example I play Elric! mostly and I mostly think along those lines, but also various incarnations BRP. Whenever I've posted something generally applicable I've put it in the BRP thread. Since the Big Gold Book is a book of game options and not exactly a game you would play 'out of the box (book?)' I'm happy to leave the BRP forum as the main 'd100' thread.

In Classic Fantasy, the closest thing to a D&D/BRP mashup we have, there are various races. I'm playing in a classic fantasy campaign where we have a party with two elves, a dwarf and a couple of humans. Classic Fantasy only gives humans the ability to increase skills faster than the other races. However, from a roleplaying point of view, our party is viewed with suspicion wherever we go because of the distrust and xenophobia between all the races in the game. There can be drawbacks to running these characters which are not necessarily reflected in stats and skills.

I use Spell Law quite a bit in my BRP games -- it does not require much conversion and it is quite useful for making sorcerer types. Also the Creatures and Treasures books have conversion charts for Runequest. Recently I've been picking up a few Rolemaster supplements, though mostly for interest's sake.

Ray Turney's Fire and Sword, available from this fine site (ie. BRP central) is a system which has done just that: d20 in stead of percentages and high-rolling. It's a good system with a lot of very interesting design notes (which are also available here and well worth a look).

Many years ago I ran the New York chapter with I think three or four players. I think we made it to London as well; I remember a fight by the Limehouse docks. In general I don't think Call of Cthulhu sessions are improved by having lots of players. Masks of Nyarlathotep can be pretty lethal (though you can reduce its lethality a little by making the cultists more stupid). However many players you have I think the trick is to have a steady supply of new investigators: cousins, or close friends of the original investigators who are now dead or insane. That's the part you can always gloss over in CoC games: your dear cousin/friend/acquaintance of many years has been sending you increasingly disturbing notes/parcels telegrams about his obscure and disturbing investigations. Suddenly they have ceased, you have grown worried and sought him out, only to find him dead or insane, surrounded by a disreputable and haggard bunch of souls. Something about the look in their eyes tells you that the ghastly hints you have received may in fact be truth...

I started my first Swords of Cydoria campaign last night. There were two characters: Kitra, a Demetrian noble and embittered veteran of a lost war; and Felix Tarse, an apparently clean and upstanding Norukarian merchant who secretly dabbles in smuggling and techno-heresy. On the low-tech outskirts of the refinery town of Tagrum on the Sea of Messages the two met up with the mysterious Collector, an alien smuggler, and his steadfast Awan guards. The Collector wanted them to investigate a mountain in the western wilderness of Haru, where he had located large amounts of valuable and powerful elements. Unfortunately this mountain was claimed by a rather xenophobic group of Samirian warriors. Furthermore a previous expedition by another techno-heretic, the Bone Man, had not returned... We didn't get a whole lot done, but I certainly found the setting was fun, full of ideas and promise and easy to get started, even without much knowledge of the setting from either GM or players (why I started my campaign on the frontier). My players spent a lot of time drooling over the equipment lists (the Collector offered to outfit them -- within reason -- for the expedition). A couple more players have made characters (a cyberdroid assassin and a Guernan warrior) so I'm looking forward to my next session of 'The Mountain of Power'.

ePUB version 3 does a lot of things better than epub 2. It requires a different set of skills to pdf design to get an epub looking good . However, I think they are better for fast rendering and indexing than pdfs, and they work in slim and cheap e-readers.

I like hard copy rulebooks for games I actually play, but pdfs are good for exploring new concepts or games. In some cases I've bought pdfs to read and liked them so much I've bought the hard copy too. I don't find pdfs ideal for the gaming table, but they have their place. For searchability and speed I'd prefer it if more gaming companies released epubs rather than pdfs.

I'm glad you like it. It is good if you dislike maths. However it can be hard to adopt if you are already used to a different method of calculation.

Nice graph Well that is true but, technically it's the traditional method which reduces the chance of a special by 3%, because the critical range and special range are lumped together, and critical takes precedence. So in my dice method (to use a non-visual explanation) there is a 12% chance of special (= 20% of 60). That is, 12 numbers in 100: 01, 02, 11, 12, 21, 22, 31, 32, 41, 42, 51 52. In the vanilla method, as Nakana points out, there are only 9 numbers in 100 which are special: 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12. That's not 20% of 60, it's 15% of 60. Each method has the same number of criticals: 3. Those 3 are subtracted from the special success range in the BGB method, and additional in the visual method.

I enjoyed the 1980s Maelstrom immensely (and I still have it!), especially its magic system. I've just downloaded Maelstrom Domesday pdf and I'm looking forward to reading it.

Thanks for pointing that out. Elric! uses the 99 or 00 fumble rule like Legend, but the BGB allows for much more fumbling. I came up with a dice rolling system which takes care of the maths for specials and fumbles Given the lethality of combat I prefer the 99/00 rule but that's a personal preference.

In fact the optional critical failure system described is exactly how BRP fumbles are supposed to work (BGB p. 173): 5% of the chance to fail. I didn't realise because my base system is Elric! which uses the 99 or 00 fumble rule.

I'd love a Linux version if you could do one.

Sorry you don't like visual dice methods Nakana, but this has got me thinking. Here's a visual dice method which produces statistically and conceptually similar results to straight BRP. Roll d100 1 or 2 on the units die is a special. If the result is equal to or under your skill, special success; over and it's a special failure (optional) If you roll an odd 'tens' result, eg 10, 30, 50 etc. which is equal to or under your skill, it's a critical success* In other words, a 0, 1 or 2 on the units die indicates a more powerful result. Roll low still applies! This system still allows for normal fumbles (99 and 00 are not specials), and rewards very low rolls (01 and 02 are specials unless you have no skill). In Soltakss' example above: Two opponents, A and B, with skills of 60% and 65%, the first rolls 10, the second 70, what would be the result under your table? This system: A has a critical success, B rolls a failure* Vanilla BRP: A has a special success, B rolls a failure *OPTIONALLY, if you roll an odd 'tens' result over your skill it's a critical failure (though there aren't rules for this in BRP). If you use this rule you shouldn't use the normal fumble rules. Note that such critical failures are more likely than fumbles.