Mankcam

Looks good for a QuickStart product, very much a teaser for the full release of RQG later this year. Looking forward to this edition of RuneQuest

Karse is an excellent choice if one doesn't want Matriarchs running everything, and wants a coastal setting to sandbox. I have been considering using Karse myself, it feels very Mediterranean-flavoured, and it has lots of possibilities. It's certainly not as big or as powerful as Notchet, yet it is still a pivotal port. The city is a Theyalan/Orlanthi settlement, which looks to be the coastal port for the Hendreiki people. At this stage I am mixing Dorians with Thracians for a cultural flavour to help portray the Hendriki, although published sources may alter this in future. The coastal Hendriki of Karse will have a nautical flavour, as would any population living on the shores of the Mirrorsea. There may also be many Pelaskasites trading their deep sea catches here. I envision that they may be analogous with the historic Pelasgian culture (a rudimentary people who were adept with fishing & sea travel, sporadically populating the Adriatic, Aegean, Marmara, and Black Seas; whom eventually were subsumed into one of the more prominent Mycenaean cultures. Sometimes referred to as 'The Sea Peoples', especially those whom were involved in piracy). So again another potential reference for ancient Mediterranean flavour. The Lunar presence here is also quite important, adding to the tension and local politics of the city. The Lunars finally have a seaport now (alongside the more remote Corfu), so Karse will be quite important in their future plans. However it is a long way from the Empire, and Lunars have no experience with the sea, so they will be relying on working with pre-existing local interests in order to develop any potential trade or travel routes. Lots of great sandbox potential here. I would perhaps use Mycenaean-era Argos as a reasonable analogy for Karse; an excellent choice for the type of setting Spence is describing in the original post.

For Lunar Empire, I would portray the core Pelorian culture as a mix between Sumerians, Hittites, and Achaemenids (early Persians). Then for the Lunar Imperial Army I use a lot of Roman Republic military trappings, but overlay this over the base Sumerian/Persian mix. That way you get a very different flavour for the Lunars, far less Roman than they were portrayed in RQ3/HW era products.

In the current view of Glorantha, the Theylan/Orlanthi culture is very Mycenaean Age, so dong online searches for Mycenaean Age cultures around the Mediterranean is a good fit for visuals of Orlanthi. I tend to use Thracians as an Orlanthi foundation, and mix it up from there, depending upon whether they are Sartarites, Tarshites, Pavisites, Hendriki, Esrolians, etc. For Sartarites I am mixing up the Achaeans with Thracians, in liberal brushstrokes. For Esrolians I am mixing Minoans with Thracians, it seems to fit a lot of the imagery associated with them. Plus they are adept with ocean travel since The Opening, so the harbour of Nochet will be filled with Galleys and Tiremes. For Pavasites I tend to mix Ionians with Thracians, as I always felt that Old Pavis was a Trojan analogy in some ways. If someone is wanting to play 'Ancient Greece' then I don't see any close analogy to the Hellenic Era, but using the earlier era fits well.

Yeah I was initially turned off by CoC 7E by the percentile stats as well, although they have actually worked quite well in gameplay. My only gripe with them now is the core stat block is out of synch with other BRP games, but it's not a big issue. Many good features in CoC 7E, and I count the skill levels among them. You can roll a Regular Success, a Hard Success (1/2 skill), an Extreme Success (1/5 skill) and a Critical Success (01). Extreme Successes grant Special Effect Rules, and a Critical is always a Critical. But the best thing is that it works great for opposed rolls. In combat a Dodge has to match the attacker's success level otherwise it is not effective, so this stops Dodge blocking attacks every time, and combat is not as stale as it used to be. For example, if an attacker hits with a Hard Success (1/2 skill), and the defender roll a Dodge and scores a Regular Success, then the Dodge did not match the attacker's success level, and the Dodge was not effective. Simple, and works well to add tension and variety to combat roll outcomes. The Thru The Ages supplement introduces Parry, which works the same as Dodge, which means the defender successfully parries if the attacker's success level is matched. The variance is if the defender rolls under their skill, but does not match the attackers Success level then it is considered a partial Parry, and the defender rolls a variable dice roll for AP, based upon what they are parrying with (ie: Shield types, etc). Works well. There is also the Fight Back option when the defender forfeits Dodge/Parry and rolls Fighting instead. The highest success level scores the damage, so that works well only if the defender is much more proficient in combat than the attacker, but it does allow the successful defender to score damage outside of their DEX SR turn. Anyway sorry to digress, this is not a CoC 7E thread; but yes, having the extra success level makes a big difference in opposed rolls, and combat has much less stalemates than it previously did in classic BRP. I hope the concept has been ported to RQG, but if not then I'm likely to do so for my own RQG as it just works better than the old stalemates inherent in the classic combat system. A minor change which makes a substantial difference to combat scene flow. However for more simple rules, having Special Effects kick in on a 1/2 roll instead of a 1/5 roll also is quite fun and moves combat along nicely. Plus it's easier to calculate on the fly, as opposed to 1/5 rolls. I wouldn't do it with my more serious gamers, but if wanting to play a more simple game then it does work well. If D100Rules has quick char gen and a reduced skill list like OQ then I'll be very interested in checking it out to fill our beer n pretzels RPG niche

The 'roll low' mechanic works really good for opposed rolls in CoC 7E, although it has one more level of success than what is proposed in these D100rules. But I see no reason why these rules should not work. In fact I play a simple version of BRP with my kids like this. We mainly use the OpenQuest rules for char gen/char sheet, opponents, etc but replace the skill roll mechanic with the same 'roll low' mechanic you describe, having RQ2 special effects upon a 1/2 skill roll instead of 1/5 roll. Works great. However for simplicity we only have Crits on a 01 and Fumbles on a 00, and the effect is purely narrativ rather than a game mechanic roll. For most combats, it means that the character who scored the Crit just 'wins' the combat, leaving it up a mix of GM and player narration to describe the result. If they are fighting large opponents (great trolls, giants, large beasts, etc) than we usually don't rule an automatic win, and have some neat dice mechanic bonus better than the usual Special Effects. This all works really well in practice for a clean, simple game.

BRILLIANT !!!!

I've ignored negative damage mods for years, since about 1987. Works for me

I would find a +d8 DB to be a little high for humans, even if we are talking Arnie strength

In my experience I have found 'the highest number under sucess' to be counter-intutitive; I understand its rationale, but it just seems to feel wrong when we do it. So my troupe finds rolling the 'best level of success wins' works much better for us. I always thought that it was the standard rule for BRP, which is why CoC 7E's rule is the same concept, just adding in one more level of success. Without the extra success level this does gets bland due to the high chance of ties. In CoC 7E I havent seen that many ties, so it seemed to work for us. Although I must say that we have only played a handful of sessions. It hasnt seemed to add to any complexity for us. We dont record skills with 1/2 and 1/5 values, as it definately would clutter the character sheet up. Its pretty easy to do these calculations on the fly. I dont think there will ever be a consensus on this within BRP gamers, its one of those few game mechanics in BRP that people tend to polarise over.

I would consider it if it can print out Pulp Cthulhu characters. It also needs to let me fill in my own text, especially for Talents as my troupe tends to have a few extra Talents we have ported from other Pulp Adventure games in addition to using some of the official ones from Pulp Cthulhu. Otherwise I'm happy sticking with the official form-fillable sheets or my own excel spreadsheet character sheets.

Yep its all pure speculation

Yeah that's actually a pretty good idea as well. It may be a bit more tricky to work out on the fly, but it is a reasonable assumption that if a system has several degrees of success then it is logical that it could also have several degrees of failure. Interesting.

Well after perusing my new CONAN rpg pdf, the 2D20 system is more in the BRP ballpark than it is in the FATE ballpark; so it will be a reasonable fit for Chronicles of Future Earth. However I still would prefer it in a BRP engine, but that no longer seems to be happening.

Must be a newbie

I also have the CONAN board game, but like everything I havent even had time to play it yet. I have a backlog of reading material, with RD100 next on my list. But the CONAN board game definately needs some use at my place I backed this rpg for the content as well, intending to port it to BRP down the track. However I'm pleased to say the actual RAW covers most things I would want in a game like this, except it doesnt use a D100% skill mechanic. This would be the only thing to make it better, but in most other ways the game mechanics look to have the same flavour as a BRP game. Its closer to BRP in flavour than it would be to Storyteller or FATE, for instance. So I might as well run it out of the box. The team has done really well with it, I expect it will garner many ackolades down the track. Seeing both The Hyborian Age and Glorantha done well does makes me appreciate the times we live and game in!

Sure it is. Well CoC 7E is in any case, after introducing an extra success level between regular success and special success. This really frees things up to help provide narrative descriptions on how well an action is performed, and it really shines with opposed rolls as ourcomes are determined upon the differences between success levels. I would really like to see the extra degree of success across the board in BRP games, rather than just CoC 7E.

Yeah the archetype idea is a good one. It's really only an expansion on the personality types that were in the BRP BGB, but it covers a little more with having a favoured characteristic, notable traits, etc It really streamlines chargen quite a bit and has wider applications. For me Pulp Cthulhu works really well, I think the only way for me to run a Call of Cthulhu campaign is to use Pulp Cthulhu. I also like that you can play it with a low pulp tone right up to high end adventure flick material, so it gives you alot of scope as a GM for flavour. Personally I tend more towards the low pulp end, although I allow for pulpy cinematic goodness at times (such as when achieving an Extreme Success and beyond if using Talents, stuff like that). Lots of fun, and no TPK which is a big issue for a Cthulhu campaign. If running one-shots or small sessions I would play the standard game without any Pulp options, perhaps even with pre-gen characters specific for the setting. It keeps the tone very gritty horror, it just feels perfect for those kind of games. I guess I want a very different kind of game from one-shots/small scenarios than I do from campaigns, so I'm glad I have official rules to help with that now, rather than hobbling rules imported from other rpgs for this.

That was a pretty good review that was posted a few weeks ago, I have only had time to read it now. The BRP BGB is great, but Revolution D100 is perhaps a more modern approach to the same thing in many ways. I'm still working through it yet, but it looks like a great system to make my own games and settings with, at this stage I like how the skills and traits work. Need more time to really get through it, but it looks like a good solid set of rules I can use. I'm looking forward to trying it out when I can. As an aside, I would love to get a form-fillable character sheet to tinker with. Pencil on paper doesn't work for me these days, I need my characters saved in digital format.

If using OpenQuest, then any rule change has got to remain simple, in keeping with the charm of the system. I think if you can make the core Characteristics relevant with Skill Checks then the idea itself has merit; but it just needs to be very simple in its implementation. Needs more work I think, but no harm in massaging things a bit more; especially if it could be a change for the better

Ok I know this is BRP Central, and this isn't a BRP game, so I've posted this in the Alastor Skull/Other Games section; for those you don't follow RPGnet and such. Just letting people know that the new CONAN game is coming out pretty soon, the production looks great and the content is really very good as well. Being a skill-based game, it is very similar to BRP and many people will be familiar with the structure of the game mechanics. Its heavy on cultures, skills, hit locations, etc - basically everything that BRP does well, except it doesn't have the cool D100% skill mechanic at it's core (an easy conversion if really required). Obviously the influence of some of the previous BRP authors involved in its production is good to see. Considering that Gloranthan fans are also often fans of The Hyborian Age, then this release will be of interest to many. Looks like the perfect game to play in our breaks between fighting chaos entities and running around evoking Runepowers and such. Anyway I just saw this backer preview on YouTube, so it's a shape of things to come regarding general release:

I agree with most of the above post, except the bit about 7E's 'push' mechanic. It's not simply a re-roll, it requires a narrative reason for allowing the re-roll, and it cannot be used for 'in-the-moment' actions like most physical or combat rolls. So it really isn't a gimmick to make things more pulpy or easier on the players. It's a narrative option that can be played out over several scenes, one that can also easily backfire, so it tends to add to the drama and tension when it is attempted. Actually it's a very good mechanic to add to the game. If you need to alter a dice roll for an instant action in 7E then the only way to do it is to eat away at your Luck score, which is a slippery slope in a setting like this. Again this is not a bad idea, as it does allow some player control over actions, but at a big consequence. A player who relies on it too much will often regret it later in the session, so it doesn't tend to be an option that is overused in the standard game. Expressing core stats as a % is a double edged sword. It looks out of step with the stat blocks from earlier editions. But the reality is that in order to use those stats you needed to make x5% rolls anyway, so it's actually quicker to do so now in actual gameplay. It really looks quite similar in the stat block, but still I have mixed feelings regarding altering the stat block even slightly. But I must admit it doesn't really make much difference at the gaming table. Having an additional level of skill success between regular and special success was also a good move. It doesn't complicate anything, and tends to work much better for opposed rolls like combat. IMO this is a definate improvemet, and a grest idea that all Chaosium BRP games could benefit from. I tend to agree that the Bonus/Penalty Dice idea as an oddity in the core rules. It's a novelty that works really well in Pulp Cthulhu, but feels a little too broad in a purist game. I think I would have preferred default numerical modifiers in the core book, and introduce the Bonus/Penalty Dice concept in the Pulp Cthulhu book. But all in all, the standard game plays similarly across all editions, as the Push and Luck options have consequences to prevent over reliance on them. The Pulp Cthulhu optional rules plays as expected, much more cinematically, along the lines how many have house ruled over the years when wanting to play with a more action-oriented flavour. Being a separate book it's entirely up to those who want to play it this way, it's not a book that would apply to all games. I think 7E is really the only edition worth updating since the editions published in the mid 1980s. However people can easily play 7E scenarios with earlier ruleset editions, and obviously vice versa. So no back catalogue of supplements are obsolete, which was really a great move.

It's not a horrible idea, but I also don't see how it is an improvement either. It really only works for academic skills, as social skills and physical skills don't rely on INT as a core stat. IMO it would be better just having a bonus from INT rather than making it the basis for the roll. If you wanted to go down this path, then it may work much better if you determine a different core stat for specific skills. This works well in making stats very relevant in an ongoing way. For example, Influence would use CHA, Dodge would use DEX, etc. I initially thought you could apply it to the Skill Categories, but they are too broad to be locked into particular stats. However if you determine it for particular skills then it perhaps gets a bit too fiddly for GMs who are attracted to the simplicity of OQ. So I would probably caution against doing this.

A setting that captures that weird rebellious Metal Hurlant /Heavy Metal magazine vibe certainly gets my interest!