frogspawner

Um, that means it's not available, printed. And it's a worse situation, because I did buy the PDF - but now it's out-of-print anyway! (I'm not actually worried about this one [bRP Adventures]. I had it printed at my "FLPS" as an experiment - which failed, on quality. Ah well. I've got the PDF which, for adventures now I think about it, is fine. Sourcebooks would be a different matter, though...) I'm peeved because it shows they don't understand the frustration of a potential customer who wants to get hold of decently printed copies. The possibility of letting some other company print the books (that they decide they can't afford to) is just not on their agenda. Actually, I'm glad Dustin stated it - because resulting discussion might lead to the situation improving... Would it be more? Are POD publishers not professional? I've just bought BRP Rome off Lulu, so yes I am willing to pay their price and hopefully the quality won't prove too disappointing (and hopefully I'll find out soon!). For me, being over here in England (or Yorkshire, at least ), there's also the issue of shipping costs. From Chaosium, that'd likely double the price - which is prohibitive. From Lulu, it only adds a fiver or so, which is fine. No I haven't. Firstly, I'm canvassing opinions here to see if it's even a sensible/feasible option. Then, if so, hopefully someone with a more direct line to the Chaosium guys would put it to them...

Nah. To a business person, yours is much the better model. I know. That's what I did with BRP Adventures. The quality (of binding) was poor, but at least it avoided the shipping cost and I got it fast. (And is it available non-PDF even now?) Well then you can tell Chaosium that their attitude makes them not-at-all 'profitable' with me... On the contrary, I don't think we should ignore it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to just whine and complain. There's a real problem here - a danger that we might miss out on the printed BRP books we want (well, I do, at least!). So we should solve that problem. How about this: Anything Chaosium think is not "profitable enough to print", they could make available via print-on-demand. Since they'd have the PDF anyway, what'd they lose? And it might even make them a bit more profit/popular...

You don't? That is the thrust of what he said. For myself, I don't think he was joking - or at least not entirely joking...

How about if we tear off the front cover and post it to you...?

What annoys me about it (though I'm not really angry, just peeved) is it shows the way the Chaosium guys are thinking: "There's a problem - we don't make enough money on BRP books - the solution is people need to spend more on them or we don't print them!". Because while they're thinking like that, they won't think: "There's a problem - we don't make enough money on BRP books - we need to find a different way of working...". Maybe like Alephtar do it - presumably that way does make money?

Darn. I should've gone for the PDF instead, then...

Thanks for your comments, gents. It seems I'm not so out of line objecting to this. I'm not angry about it, just a bit sad. All those Projects Dustin goes on to mention, all the Monographs everyone is working on - it seems likely that, for me, their P&P will be prohibitive (if they ever get actually printed at all). ;-( I find myself hoping those products won't go to Chaosium, but to RosenMcstern's Alephtar Games instead and hopefully Lulu - just like Rome... which, btw, was actually just £4.75 postage.

"If you want to see additional BRP releases buy a PDF now and a physical copy later. It's the best way to ensure BRP releases are profitable enough for us to print." - Dustin "O'Chaosium" Wright (here) Is it just me, or does anyone else object to this? What's the use of a publisher who won't print stuff? With the acclaimed Rome available via Lulu, printed and delivered for only an extra £5.50, why won't Chaosium do the same?

Apparently less than 1% have IQ 30-50 (according to this IQ Site). Just 5% are under 75 (7 INT?) just as only 5% are above 125 (12 INT?). But that fits the way I view it: Characters (PC or significant NPC) are, or have the capacity to be, exceptional. Most 'ordinary' people's stats I'd roll on 3 average dice (i.e. ones where 6's and 1's are replaced with extra 4's and 3's respectively) - those I don't just assign as 10's, that is! Rolling 3d6 (or 4d6 best 3) lets PCs be Tom Thumb or Goliath - if they want to be. (Also,these days D&D creatures do get full sets of stats, I believe.)

The problem is that the 3d6 scale appears to be a better fit to human INT/SIZ than the 2d6+6 scale - because of the well-known 1 INT = 10 IQ and 1 SIZ = 1 Stone rules-of-thumb (and the worlds shortest man being quoted as 2'7", slap in the BRP SIZ 3 height range). This leaves the main argument in favour of 2d6+6 for these stats as the "playability" of the characters produced - hence the focus on player characters.

You could say the Magic skills are harder and, instead of the normal +d6% per increase, only give them +d4% (or maybe less, like a straight +1%).

Yes, I've been rather taken aback by that too. Please give the guy a break! He advertised it as a "Rant" in the title, but I don't think it's necessary to respond in kind. Let this thread stay dead. Mr D said quite early on that 3d6 for all would be Perfectly All Right, so there really shouldn't be a problem with it, for those that want to.

Oh I don't think that's true. I thought a couple of points in Harwel's last posting were really quite compelling - and actual hard evidence, not 'baiting'. Namely: In new BRP, SIZ 3 is 25-36" (61-90cm) and 21-60lbs (10-30kg). So that still holds, supporting the 3d6 range.

True. But I like a setting where characters are a bit more closely tied to their professions than usual for BRP, and spells are only available to specialists. That's ok, isn't it?

No, you're not. I prefer and use the 3d6 scale too. (For INT anyway, I'm not so bothered about SIZ, which I regard as a secondary/seventh stat). It's nice to roll the traditional "4d6 best 3", 'cos it's both easier to swap (towards your preferred character concept, if any) and to get inspiration (if you've no idea what character you want, including race)!

The change from 3d6 to 2d6+6 came in with the change from RQ2 to RQ3. The RQ3 "What's in this Box?" gave the following conversion table: [B][U] 3d6 [/U][/B] [B][U]2d6+6[/U][/B] 3-4 8 5-6 9 7 10 8 11 9 12 10-11 13 12 14 13 15 14 16 15-16 17 17-18 18 No explanation though. I suspect the INT may be to discourage stupid play. The SIZ was probably to preserve the quite neat "1 SIZ = 1 Stone" rule-of-thumb, without making too many midgets.

Well, if I couldn't knock the D&D game system, I wouldn't have any reason! But I do rate D&D as inferior - RQ/BRP is better. Why? For me, the most important reasons are... - Ticks-for-Skills (D&D's "XP-for-Killing" makes for bad RP: NPCs tend to be just faceless XP fodder.) - Limited Hit Points (D&D's increasing HPs creates bullies, not heroes. Combat is too safe & easy, with race-stereotype hordes as fuel.) Preserving the character of a D&D-style campaign with the classic magic/spells and class-like professions needn't compromise either of those principles (or any other good things about BRP, such as rules-simplicity, character-individuality, etc). Alternatively, if you look at it as rules to create a particular type of setting for BRP, does that help?

Can't speak for others, but for me it was to wean my 'Brand X'-playing friends onto a better system. I couldn't live with myself (well, I couldn't bring myself to keep on GMing) if I gave them an inferior RPG experience. Not wanting to change the feel of my (albeit vanilla fantasy) campaign too much, or force the players to bin their characters, I have 'evolved' it and them over the years, while keeping the class-type restrictions and old familiar spells. (But I have run Gloranthan RQ2 from time to time, too.) This way, I've managed to bring them with me. Even the d100-phobe, and the guy who still always says he'll "never play RuneQuest"...

OK, but would you be happy with Spot 40% v Hide 90% = 0% (i.e. no chance!), though? Exactly why I suggest not using them - or, at least, having an alternative for those of us that feel the same.

Or maybe this, which is similar to what I've mentioned before (I use something different for Dodging, but this is "by-the-book" and may be better for most folks): ATTACK (as per the BRP book, "Resolution", p192) Critical Hit does Maximum damage, bypass armour. Special Hit does Special Effect by weapon type (Bleed/Crush/Impale/etc). Normal Hit does Normal damage. Fumble: Roll on appropriate Attack Fumble table Then... PARRY (ok, this bit I made up, but it should also be familiar to longtime BRPers) Critical Parry blocks damage completely (attacking weapon may be damaged*) Special Parry blocks damage up to full parrying weapon HPs (excess damage affects parrying weapon and target**) Normal Parry blocks damage equal to half parrying weapon HPs ( " ) Fumble: Roll on appropriate Parry Fumble table (damage affects target) (* & ** rules for these TBD!) ...Or... DODGE (as per the BRP book, "Dodge", p55) Critical Dodge reduces normal/special/critical hit to a miss Special Dodge reduces normal/special hit to a miss, critical to normal hit Normal Dodge reduces normal hit to a miss, special to normal, critical to special Fumble: Roll on Natural Weapon Attack & Parry Fumble table ...And any remaining damage is applied to the defender, reduced for armour if not a critical hit.

Yes, I posted a pretty similar suggestion a while back... I'm no fan of "blackjack rolling" either, or any Opposed Rolling in fact. This has been discussed over in Islan's "a complaint" thread for the last few days. There it has been established that ORs favour high-skill or low-skill differently, depending whether you say "higher roller wins" or "lower roller wins", respectively. That's yet another reason for finding (or, in fact, returning to!) a better way of doing things, IMHO. So, to save you re-reading the whole thread, here's a selection of solutions worthy of consideration: And... PS: I'd prefer something like that, a return to the traditional mechanism used in RQ2 as you say (and also RQ3, CoC and SB (pre v5?) in the Glory Days of BRP) but with contests extended somehow to avoid the excessive "chanciness" of single-rolls.

Finding a decent, less-confusing system than the current Opposed Rolls, amongst other things...

There's no shame. It's just the OR complications go deeper than most people realize. So is it worthy of an addition into the "Opposed Skill Roll" codification document, perhaps? Many thanks to Vagabond & Rurik for drawing this to our attention. It's not all bad news though - it's cheered me up a lot!

Well, being BRP-based it's going to be streets better than 'authentic D&D' either way. So this probably just depends on your players. Mine were dyed-in-the-wool D&Ders, so leaving them with the familiar '4d6 best 3' gave 'em some consolation! It's not really so important that it needed changing. If your players are coming from a BRP background, the same principle leads to the opposite result. Hmm, are you sure you could live with Magic-Users in Ring Mail & Heavy Padding (7AP) (+Heavy Helmet, is that another 2?) for only a -30% penalty (or elves -15%)? I use a different idea, which you might like to consider: the armour penalty adds to the fumble chance for (non-divine) spell-casting. Coupled with an 'amusing' magic fumble table, I find that does the job...

I'd say, for that authentic D&D experience, you should do all stats as '4d6 best 3, strict order', then add modifiers for race etc. Go on then, tell us - what's your take on this? And can Elves cast in armour or not?