Gollum

What book will you use?

The "Big Golden Book"?

http://www.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying-pdf/

It's free quick-start introduction?

http://www.chaosium.com/basic-roleplaying-quickstart-pdf/

Do you have Blood Tide?

http://www.chaosium.com/blood-tide/

These questions apart, here are my two cents generic hints ...

The BRP is not a very precise and realistic system, like GURPS, for instance. It is neither a fast and furious heroic system like Savage Worlds, for instance. It is something between the two.

Or it can make both, depending on what the GM and the players want ... You can play in any world you like and in any kind of genre (from quite realistic to crazily heroic). But this is up to the GM to make it become so. For instance, if the GM wants the game to be realistic, he will rule that bullets are impossible to dodge. Now, if he wants the game to be more heroic (like James Bond or Indiana Jones stories), he can just decide that characters can dodge bullets by zigzagging, jumping behind cover, and so on.

The results given by the rules are not very precise. Successful attack, missed defense, X points of damage and almost nothing more. But the GM can make these result really interesting with his descriptions, because he has more leeways to interpret them as he desires. Does the X points come from the shock, from bleeding? Does it hurt a lot or not? Some other roleplaying games give more answers to these questions, but it means more rules and less freedom. With BRP, you've got more freedom ... And more decisions to take. And you can choose a lot of things depending on the story you want to tell and the drama you want to add to your games ...

Finally, the flat distribution of the D100 is only partially true. It is true, because a D100 gives flat results (as many 01 as 100 or 50 or any other result). But it is wrong because the GM will change things a lot, depending on the difficulty of the action he chooses. An easy action multiply the chance by 2. A hard action divide them by 2. And the GM can simply decide that an action is automatic or impossible. Thus someone with a skill of 50 can have 0%, 25%, 50% or 100% chance of succeeding his action! Here again, everything depends on the GM decision ...

Yes. And this thread is not really out of place. The book may come from Runequest rules, it is a book for the BRP system.

"This book presents three new ways for BRP players to conceive of magic: spirit, divine, and wizardly." is written in the introduction.

So, even if it first was rules for Runequest, it is now intended to be new optional magic rules for all users of the BRP system Big Golden Book. That is why I bought it - even if I didn't used it yet.

Génial ! Un site en français ! Il y en avait déjà quelques uns, mais il ne publient plus rien de neuf depuis de nombreuses années... Longue vie à d100 !

Great! A french website! There already was some here or there, but they didn't publish anything new for a very long time ... Long life to d100!

3 hours ago, auyl said:

I agree here. If they are optional it will allow for more flexibility like the original BGB. But with the talk about the size of Essentials I doubt Sanity rules, or many optional rule for that matter, will be gone.

Yes, you're right. The Sanity rules will certainly be put off to another book which will need them. Or maybe a supplement of "optional rules to go farther" (I'm surely dreaming here).

On 7/11/2015 23:54:02, auyl said:

I've personally always disliked Sanity systems, even though I've incorporated some into certain systems I've written. I understand how in a CoC or similar system game they would be critical, which includes most horror settings. I prefer to let the players feel like they are the heroes they want to play instead of the typical person from our world. Some prefer this and there is nothing wrong with that, I just like to play settings that are more heroic.

This is precisely why, in my humble opinion, Sanity rules are vital ... As optional rules. In some campaigns (Lovecraftian stories, for instance), Sanity checks are crucial. In some other (Hellboy stories, for instance), they would just ruin the game ... The Big Golden Book did a very good job here. I hope the new BRP Essential will did something like that (even if things are changed a bit).

Don't know whether it is to late to vote ... No matter ... I did it. For Big-Golden-Book-like.

Do someone has news about BRP Essentials? When is it supposed to be published out?

There is a difference between the table given in the skill Teach, page 82 :

"SUCCESS: Your character’s lessons take hold, offering a chance for improvement. At the end of the teaching interval, the student rolls 1D6–2 for skill gain (minimum 0)."

And the "same" table, page 184 :

"A SUCCESS indicates your character gains 1D6-2 points in the skill being studied. The maximum increase possible is 4 percentiles, and there is a chance that your character will learn nothing (2 – 2 = 0) or even lose ground (1 – 2 = –1)."

So... What is true? Minimum 0 or not minimum 0? And the other rule has to appear in the errata, of course...

In my humble opinion, the minimum 0 is better: it is not fair that, when the Teach roll is successful, there is still a risk of fumble (- 1%).

Chaosium advertises French and Japanese versions of Call of Cthulhu on its website.

There is already a new version of Call of Cthulhu in French. It has been completely reworked by french authors (in a different way from the American 7th edition). It is still easily compatible with the old versions and with the BRP system, though some details are handled differently.

And it is supported by a lot of supplements!

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu-Les-essentiels/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu-Les-Secrets-de/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu-Les-Terres-d-H.P.L/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu-Les-Aventures/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu-La-France-des-Annees-Folles/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/Le-Mythe-au-Coeur-de-lHistoire/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/L-Appel-de-Cthulhu/Cthulhu-Moderne/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

http://sans-detour.com/index.php/Jeux-de-Role/Cthulhu-1890/Voir-tous-les-produits.html

All these huge and beautiful books sell very well. Actually, Call of Cthulhu is one of the best selling roleplaying games in France - if not the best selling one. Some campaigns are even published as packages with an old fashioned leather book bag and a lot of accessories... And are rapidly out of stock despite of their huge cost.

So, I really doubt that a translation of the American 7th edition would have any chance to find buyers.

A translation of Runequest would be, in my humble opinion, a much better idea.

How about this:

Critical parry - get a riposte as an Easy action.

Your parry was just exactly like your swordmaster liked to use to demonstrate parry/riposte, you set up your riposte perfectly!

Special/"Impale" parry - get a riposte as a normal action.

Yeah, you parried well and you get your riposte, but it's nothing special.

Successful parry - get a riposte as a Difficult action.

You parried, but just barely -- any worse, and the attack would have connected -- and you aren't set up well for the riposte. You can try for it, but the setup is far from ideal...

Makes it POSSIBLE for anyone to riposte, but the experts will get better opportunities, more often (and of course their ripostes will be more dangerous to whoever attacked them).

The problem here, in my humble opinion, is that a successful parry gives more than what it is supposed to give: it allows the character to parry and (bonus with no justification) to have a chance to riposte (which means one more attack freely).

But since the idea still sounds very good, I would just modify it a bit, like this:

• Critical parry - get a riposte as a normal but free action.
  
• Special/"Impale" parry - get a riposte as a hard (but still free) action.
  
• Successful parry - get no riposte. You parried well and that is already something good.
  

Now since I am dealing with impact damage, I am going to concentrate on the Force of the impact. For that we have the formula:

[…]

F=ma

[…]

F=(SIZ)a

[…]

Vt= sqrt{(2mg/(pACd)

[…]

V= sqrt(m)

[…]

V=sqrt(SIZ)

[…]

F=ma or F=SIZ*sqrt(SIZ)

[…]

Also, you can do multiplication and division on a logarithmic table with addition and subtraction! So in BRP stat terms we get F=SIZ+SIZ/2, or 1.5 SIZ. Ta-dahh!

Very well.

This is a rough approximation because you threw out the factor 2g/(pACd) which has a lot of incidence on falling terminal velocity. There would for instance be a lot of difference between me falling while wriggling and screaming crazily and Felix Baumgartner, who broke the sound barrier…

But no matter. This is still a very good approximation. And it was very clearly demonstrated. I had no problem to follow your equations.

Now, if we could have the time – and then, the height – required to reach that top speed, it could give a good formula to calculate the damage inflicted to someone who falls and by someone who falls on you.

GURPS fourth edition got close from that with its new rule about falling, falling objects and collisions which all use the same rule: a table gives the velocity you (or the falling object) reach depending on the height of the fall and, then, a simple calculation gives the damage inflicted depending on your starting hit points (or the starting hit points of the object falling on you): (velocity x starting hit points)/100 six-sided dice.

Unfortunately, it doesn't solve the problem of friction and drag... And the ant falling from 10 yards inflicts to itself about the same proportional damage than the elephant. Yet we know that it is wrong. The elephant would probably brake most of its bones while the ant would just be a bit surprised and, then, go on working and running without the least injury.

Now I got a better equation that proves that girls are evil that would have been much more fun to read, but c'est la vie.

Oh my! I've got an equation which proves that girls are angels.

Hmm, if we ignore most of the other factors, and just stick to mass, terminal velocity is proportional to the square root of mass, and the impact is velocity times mass, so impact damage would be tied to 1.5 times SIZ.

Could you explain your calculation, please? What I have learned in my physics class is this:

1 = step before the fall.

2 = step after the fall.

KE = Kinetic energy

PE = Potential energy

m = mass

s = speed

z = difference of heights.

Law of conservation of energy: energy at step1 is the same than energy at step2.

KE1 + PE1 = KE2 + PE2

1/2ms1² + mgz1 = 1/2ms2² + mgz2

m (1/2s1² + gz1) = m(1/2s2² + gz2)

1/2s1² + gz1 = 1/2s2² + gz2

1/2s2² + gz2 = 1/2s1² + gz1

1/2s2² = 1/2s1² + gz1 – gz2

s2² = 2 (1/2s1² + gz1 – gz2)

s2 = square root of: 2 (1/2s1² + gz1 – gz2)

The mass is canceled in final the equation. So speed is really independent of it. This is, in my humble opinion, what Rogerd wanted to say and what has effectively be proven numerous time – either by the calculation of energy just above and by experimentation: two balls perfectly round and having exactly the same size fall at exactly the same speed and reach the ground at exactly the same time (if they are released from the same height at the same time); and that, independently of their mass. Their acceleration only depends on local g.

But the terminal velocity still depends of atmospheric friction. Which is relative to the shape and the size of the object. And this is where things become much more complicated. So, how did you come to 1.5 times SIZ?

I fully do agree with both of you. And the best way to control advantages and disadvantages is to ask the player to justify each one of them. Players then tend to choose much less traits (it's hard to find a good justification for each one of them) and to play them much better (they are more coherent with their character concept and background).

Is there the possibility of adapting Status into a Reputation skill with even more variables? Like Status in CoC (or possibly as a subclass of Status), it would also affect the way people react to you -- but because of what they think you can or will do as opposed to who you are. If you have a Reputation for Ferocity or Having a Temper and the power or skill to be dangerous, those who know about it might well go out of their way not to tick you off -- for fear of what will happen to them if they do. If you can level a small town with one spell and are known for a short fuse, interactions with you get "interesting" in a hurry.

There will be times, of course, when you will not want a high Reputation skill (or whatever Reputation mechanic your campaign adopts) because the wrong kind can make things harder. A reputation for being generally untrustworthy can be a career-killer for an adventurer who is dependent upon patronage and doing "jobs" for important people.

In GURPS, reputation are bonuses or minuses that add to reaction rolls, but also to influence skill rolls such as diplomacy, fast talk, sex appeal, and so on...

So, in my humble opinion, the best way to handle reputation would be to build such bonuses and penalties: Known for being untrustworthy, -20%. Known for being brave, +15%.

The advantage of such bonuses and penalties is that it can also be reversed if necessary: Famous criminal hunter, +20% for honest citizen, -20% for criminals.

In James Bond RolePlaying Game, the reputation was a disadvantage: "Hey, guys, this man is James Bond and not the lawyer he pretends to be..." Then, the reputation bonus, either positive or negative, could be the chance of being recognized. Famous criminal hunter +20%/-20%, 20% chance to be recognized by someone in the crowd... And that chance could be modified as any other skill, depending on who exactly makes the roll: 20% to be recognized in his state, but 40% chance to be recognized in the town where he did his exploits and only 10% to be recognized in another country.

Call of Cthulhu 6th French edition solved the Status issue by making several Status skills. Dr Henry Armitage, for instance, has Status (Miskatonic University) 99%. It gives him a lot of Status when he is in Miskatonic University. Everyone knows him and almost every teacher will listen carefully to what he tells, and probably do all what he can to help him. But if Dr Henry Armitage goes in London, he won't have such an amazing Status in George V's, Edward VIII's or George VI's court.

Well Gollum, you're keeping me honest!

I've always considered than searching truth is much more important than being right. And fortunately, because life tend to show that being right is very relative! As latins said, "errare humanum est, sed peseverare diabolicum". Avoiding perseverare is eventually the most important.

I stopped by the library this morning and picked up a couple of books on animals, including The Book of Animal Ignorance -Everything You Think You Know is Wrong, and I think it might help out with our animal stats. While the general trends against small animals seem to hold true, there are some notable exceptions, such as the Brown Rat (can store water better than a camel!).

Yes. They are a lot of exceptions in the world of animals... But, as you showed it well, it doesn't prevent to have generic rules. To the contrary, these generic rules help the GM to assess most animal stats. And to twist them if he really thinks that a specific creatures has to be considered as an exception.

BTW, as far as housecats go, they apparently spend about 85% of their time doing nothing; 5% of their time hunting, eating, playing, and all that; and 10% of their time going from place to place. It seems they are good at having multiple "homes" where they can get multiple feedings.

That was in the documentary too: a lot of cats know when other cats are roaming and take advantage of it to get stealthily in their home in order to steal their food.

So, I watched The Secret Life of the Cat, episode #12

It sounds to be a serious study made by serious scientists like professor Alan Wilson, specialist of feline tracking (Structure and Motion lab, Royal Veterinary College).

They used GPS trackers able to let know where the cats go, how far they go, what is their speed and what are their accelerations.

They did the experience in an English village, with 50 different cats, day and night across a whole week.

They also used cameras, both covered fixed one in the village and its neighborhood, and little ones, mounted on the cats, to try to see what they exactly did.

The conclusions are...

Some cats turn around home... Some other go to the neighbor wood... Some go to a neighbor house. The average cat's home range (maximum range from home) is about hundred meters for males and half that for females. The cat who has the widest walking territory covers an area of 300 meters times 200 meters and walks about 2 miles a day.

So, it sounds that I was completely wrong. Unless other episodes of this TV documentaries show the contrary (I only watched episode #12 and there are 17 different episodes), or unless I didn't understand numbers at all (English is not my native tongue and there was no subtitle).

Hungry shrews. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQSCkvNQfhA

This movie is amazing! Perfectly kitsch... I hope I'll find the time to watch it.

Except it isn't. Consider Shrews, they have to eat a large percentage of their body weight to avoid starvation. It

's not that they are unhealthy, but that thier smaller bodies and higher metabolisms require more energy to keep their bodies going. Smaller animals in general have a higher muscle to body weight ratio that larger animals and so need more fuel to keep going.

It's pretty much the same reason why athletes such as cyclists tend to eat much more than normal folk -they need the fuel to maintain the higher metabolic rate.

Yes. But that doesn't make cyclist less healthier... OK. I'm kidding here. I perfectly got your point.

What is different is the time taken to reach this velocity, which is offset by drag and buoyancy. But once it is reached, terminal velocity is the same no matter what your size, period, and has in fact been proven numerous times.

http://www.bitesizephysics.com/Lessons/gravity.html

I don't have the time to read this interesting article... But are you sure that frictions are taken into account. On the moon, a lead ball falls exactly at the same speed than a feather. No problem. But on earth, with atmospheric friction, the feather (or a leaf) won't ever reach the terminal speed of a lead ball. Otherwise, parachutes wouldn't work.

BRP gives most animals 3D6 CON, which seems fair enough. Animals with small SIZ have proportionally small HPs. So, a cat with SIZ 1 but CON 18 would have 10 HPs, so 3HPs per leg, if locations were used. However, I'd just give it 10 HPs all over, as a sword is unlikely to just hit a single hit location. A SIZ 1 cat with average HPs has 6HPs, easily killable with a single blow.

I don't really see a problem with the stats as they are.

My problem is still concrete. If my player has a stamina roll to do for her cat, this car is supposed to have only 35%. If poisons or things like that are in question, no problem. That's realistic. The same dose of venom has more impact on a little creatures than on a big one (which is why we give big creatures like horses a huge dose of sedative, for instance). But if working all the day without sleeping, resisting fatigue, starvation or dehydration is what triggered the roll, then there is something which appears unfair. At least to my mind.

Yes they do, but I suspect that is more down to correct breathing than anything else. Example here, when I was younger I used to love running, but never had much stamina no matter what I did. Even my early foray into martial arts did not help. It wasn't until I started one that delved into some of the mysticism behind it that we came to conclusion it is mostly written in code. I found that once I employed 'breathing from the stomach' my stamina increased many fold; likely due to more oxygen into the blood, but I could actively use running machines and thought nothing of running four miles, I used to struggle with a couple of miles prior to this.

Yes. "Breathing from the hara" (more than the stomach, that is, about one inch below the navel) is the key here. Quadrupeds always do that because their posture (shoulders blocked by the front legs on the ground) enforce them to breath like that. Just take a quadruped posture and you will see that you are naturally enforced to "breath with the stomach".

The fater recovery is not a given. As for the longer travel ranges, you might be sure of it, but few other are. The information you posted on cats aplies mostly to feral cats, not pets.

As soon as I will have some time to watch the documentary, I'll make a summary of the experimental data it gives about this topic.

That is mostly true. There are a few advantage to small SIZ in BRP, but you have a good point here. But even so is it worth reevaltuating CON, or would we be better off to factor SIZ out of CON and then use HP for those times when SIZ matters?

Yes, this other solution could work.

BTW, where did you get the T-Rex stats from? Did you use the Allosuarus from RQ3? or the older RQ2 stats from Gateway: Beastiary?

In the big golden book. Page 334 for the Brontosaur and pages 339-340 for the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Actually, I was looking for the constitution of elephants and whales, but they are not in the big golden book. I have their stats in a French supplement of Cthulhu. Now, since it is not a Chosium product, taking them as an official reference of what BRP says would be dubious.

I think it is a problem, I'm not sure if it is a huge one. In fact I'd say it was mostly a tiny problem. But I agree that it is a bit of a problem. I expanded the SIZ range below SIZ 1 for similar reasons. By the rules, a cat, an ant and a mose all have the same SIZ, ut we know that isn't true.

Still, splitting CON opens up a can of worms. If we do that for CON, we will probably need to look at the other stats. STR in particular.

Oh, and since we are talking about CON, I think it's odd that CON doesn't factor all all into the healing rate in BRP.

Yes, I do agree with that.

GURPS found a good manner of taking CON (i.e. Health in GURPS terms) in healing rate: each day, the player make a Health roll and if it is successful, he recovers 1 hit point (2 if his starting HP are 20 or more, 3 if they are 30 or more etc.). The drawback is that it requires a lot of rolls...

Not surprising. When you raise such a topic you're bound to get an opposing viewpoint- especially when the opposing view is pretty much the predominant one, and has the most evidence to back it up.

Of course.

While modern medicine has prolonged human lifespan (I'd say modern diet and hygiene have done more to prolong it, but medicine certainly helped) the fact remains that even in less advanced eras, human lifespan was still several times that of most small animals.

It would have to be proved. See below.

Definitely a better comparison, especially if you can compare with related species. But even then larger animals tend to have a longer lifespan than smaller ones. It the downside of having a higher metabolic rate.

Even if it can be regarded as a very quick and dirty generic rule, it is not true, actually. Lifespan of animals is much more complex than that. Some birds live as longer as we do. Cats live much longer than dogs. Turtles lived much more longer than we do, etc.

http://www.school-for-champions.com/animalhealth/animal_ages.htm

So, if lifespan was really a good criterium to determine the CON level of animals, cats would have a higher CON score than dogs... BRP rules say the exact contrary.

But where I think we really disagree is on stamina and endurance. Small animals end up using a lot more energy to travel at the same speeds as larger ones, and can't oxygenate their blood as quickly. If you look into the physics of it, smaller size gives creatures some advantages and some disadvantages.

But smaller creatures recover much quicker from fatigue... And I'm not sure that they don't travel as much. Actually, I'm even sure of the contrary. Birds are the animals that do the longest travels and the ones that surely require the most important stamina.

But as I mentioned above, small size has certain advantages and certain drawbacks.

Yes, but the problem with BRP rules as written is precisely that, concerning CON, the small creatures have all the disadvantages and no advantage at all. They have a lower score for all purposes while bigger ones have a much higher one for all purposes.

To take a reverse example: why would the brontosaur and the tyrannosaurus rex have a CON level so high than no human can never expect to reach that stamina level (respectively 41 and 35)?

This is, in my humble opinion, the huge problem when CON is linked with SIZ for every aspect of constitution.

I sort of agree, and disagree at the same time. For instance somewhere I did invent some rules for bullet-timing in in BRP; basically using three levels of Fast Reflexes and Enhanced Time Sense (originally Gurps and has found it's way into Unisystem thanks to John Snead). As I cannot find it, I'm working from memory. It basically awarded extra Combat Actions, and something else.

You are right here. There are times where building an advantage in advance rather than on the flow is absolutely necessary to balance things. Something like bullet-timing, for instance, has so many consequences on combats that everybody around the table must agree on what it exactly allows or doesn't allow. And to do that, nothing best than well thought tested rule... in advance.

But yeah, Gurps went too far with advantages and disadvantages and went from a generic game to one over burdened with mechanics that I lost interest.

To be fair, GURPS can be played in a really simply manner once characters are created... 3D6 under the skill and that is almost all. But, indeed, the character creation is what takes a lot of time.

It was indeed the BBC documentary I was referring to earlier in the thread.

Thank you. I'll watch it as soon as possible and tell its conclusions.