frogspawner

How about "Dee & Dee"

Rod

Even shorter - great! But who are these Dee Brothers, and why are they integral to the game? Your lawyers?

HOW ABOUT " Dragon Slayers & Dungeoneers

Meh - a bit long. Wouldn't shorter be better? "Dung & Drag"

One thing I have noticed with the new Gloranthan works, is that Mongoose has failed to capture the subtle depth and essence of the Glorantha I originally saw defined in early works such as Cults of Prax. The new Mongoose works now feel like general contemporary fantasy.

Absolutely true. The problem stems from the bad rules, which new authors cannot fix, no matter how 'soulful' their contributions.

I'm only judging by the SRD, because that was plenty to put me off. Every rules-design decision Mongoose made went the wrong way, for me. Particularly trying to simplify HPs and Init - worthy aims - but they replaced 'em with something even more bizarrely inexplicable - doh! And the infamous 'what actually happens in combat?' opposed roll confusion. But worst of all, the dire, insensitive and video-gamey 'physical Runes' abomination. Bleurch. :eek:

According to the FAQ-page of Drive Thru RPG you can have a copy printed at a copyshop.

I would assume, as long as the printed copy remains in the possession of the original purcheser there would be no problem.

Thanks, gents. That opens up possibililties... (Agreed about reading on computers).

This is showcasing a problem that no one has ever raised (well, except frogspawner once). ... Luckily we have PDFs too.

On this subject - does anyone know whether, having bought a PDF, it is then legal to get a copy (just one) printed off professionally?

(And on the other subject, shouldn't the "tick-collecting" stuff have a separate thread?)

Nice. I may use that in my games if you don't mind.

Thanks. I don't mind at all - if you think it might be a useful mechanic, by all means use it. I'd be glad to hear whether it works for you.

Hey, Frogspawner...this sounds very interesting. Could you elaborate on what you mean by "skills" and "traits" and how you also treat traits like skills? And, if you wouldn't mind, an example. I just added Allegiance to my game two weeks ago and am still looking for a rhythm on how to employ it; this sounds like the ticket :thumb:.

With pleasure.

"Skills" are normal BRP skills. "Traits" are the optional BRP personality Traits, but expressed like skills: e.g. "Brave 70/30 Cowardly" would be Brave 20% (i.e. 20% above average bravery).

In situations where the player can convince the GM that a character trait applies (e.g. bravely going toe-to-toe with Big Ugly Monster that probably outclasses them), they can roll the Trait like a skill. Success gives them x2 on their next skill-roll in that situation (e.g. weapon attack).

One difference from skills: while a Trait has a tick, you can't use it until after the increase-roll is attempted. So, they can keep on trying to be Brave, or whatever, until they succeed, but only get the benefit from it once. (Another difference: if a character acts seriously against a major trait, say 50%+, the GM can give 'em an "anti-tick" which, unless cancelled by a positive use of the trait, will give them a comulsory decrease roll).

Pretty crude example, but hopefully you can think of better. How about this? Arrelef the Discreet, having seen his large companion McStupid the Brawny swallowed by an annoyed Big Ugly Monster (not even getting a posthumous Bravery tick for it, btw), tries to outrun the thing and invokes his Cowardly 30% trait. If he makes it, a kindly GM might allow him double his CON for CONvCON rolls in the upcoming on-foot chase. If that fails, he could try it again when he tries to hide, and perhaps get x2 on his Hide roll for being too scared even to breathe...

But it's the players job to justify their use, rather like it often is for skills.

Unfortunately, most of my BRP combat experience over the past couple of decades has been CoC - where the simplicity and unbroken flow was more important.

That's understandable then. It seems to me (an almost entirely external observer, mind) that in CoC the effect wanted from combat is either all or nothing - k.o. the humans but n.a. to monsters!

Fantasy needs a bit more detail. The various Spot Rules (big/little targets, combat situational modifers, whatever) aren't really optional. The GM should know them, but the players don't have to (not in detail, anyway). But they're not so difficult as to spoil BRP's simplicity too much, IMO.

D&D has lots of rules too - many more (and much less intuitive) than BRP, I reckon. Having been required to play D&D recently, we've been having to interrupt play and look things up far too often. BRP, once you have the basics (plus perhaps a little more for the GM), flows much better.

Player (after missing several times): "I run up to the monster that is grappling with my friend, put the barrel of my gun to it and pull the trigger."

How would the BRP rules respond to this? How would you, as a GM, respond to this (if different from the last question)?

I think the BRP rules give: x2 for Point-Blank, x1/2 for shooting while engaged in combat (that close, he's not just 'shooting into combat'). So overall, no difference in attack chance.

But if he rolls above 1/3rd of his chance (there are three in the melee now) up to his unmodified skill rating, then the shot hits one of the three at random, due to the natural movement of combat (which players tend to forget).

At this range, the monster is also allowed to parry by knocking the gun aside. If it did (though BRP doesn't say what to do in this case, so this is just me), I'd also randomly-select one of the three targets as being hit - but a result of the monster indicating a miss (it wouldn't be fair if it got hit after successfully parrying, now would it? )

My personal response would be: Apply the rules, and just hope I can remember all the relevant ones! But I'd also give the monster a (pre-emptive) free attack on the guy for trying to use a missile weapon in melee (that's not BRP - that's an extra pressie from me. >:->)

Doesn't this mean that characters are potentially rewarded twice for fulfilling their allegiance? Is it an either/or situation, or does the 'Increasing Allegiance' rule only apply if they have continually been an examplar of that allegiance for that adventure? What do you say, oh oracles of BRP?

I suspect it's a glitch, and only one should apply. Also, it seems to me that giving lots of little rewards during the game would interrupt play too much, so I'd recommend just using the after-adventure method.

What I do for this is define 10 'favoured' skills/traits (5 of each) for each religion. If a character earns increase-rolls in any 5 of those (I treat traits like skills), then they get an increase-roll in their allegiance too.

I think y'all are being awful hard on a formerly enthusiastic BRP newbie. Mike844 and his group gave the system a playtest, had legitimate questions about the combat rules, and found that the "feel" of the system didn't meet their expectations. Instead of receiving encouragement and friendly advice from those experienced with the rules, he found himself being savaged when he dared to express his concerns. Not exactly a way to win friends and influence gamers on behalf of your beloved system, guys.

OK, my initial statement was a somewhat harsh judgement on Mike944's players (though not him). But I think the bulk of my response(s) were encouragement and friendly advice.

(And RosenMcStern's combat example, though perhaps not exactly 'friendly' in tone, was very good advice. PS: The End is Nigh! )

Going back to the OP, Dustin's January "R'lyeh Report" is not very encouraging:

Looking back, 2008 was a pretty average year for us when it comes to new releases. We managed to get four new titles published: The Strange Cases of Rudolph Pearson, Basic Roleplaying, The Klarkash-Ton Cycle, and Secrets of Morocco. ...

Here is my best guess as to what the first half of the year will bring us.

March - <some Cthulhu thing>

April - <some Cthulhu thing>

May - <some Cthulhu thing>

We have other titles in the works of course, including <some Cthulhu thing>, <some Cthulhu thing>, <some Cthulhu thing>, and <some Cthulhu thing>. These titles will likely release late in 2009.

They publish BRP and regard it as just a minor part of "a pretty average year", lost amongst a whelter of Cthulhoid stuff (of no interest to me) and with no projected supporting material deemed worthy of mention. Even the report has a Cthulhoid name.

I can't see any likelihood of Fantasy/Historical/Sci-Fi/etc BRP material from Chaosium. If they are planning some, why do it secretly? That betrays lack of commitment.

OMG, Frogspawner actually supporting me? Repent, O sinners! The End of the World is near!

Fear not the Apocalypse. I'd happily see you flamed to heck as an opposed-rolling, Mongoose-fondling heretic (after BRP Rome is safely up on Lulu!) - but I won't see it done unfairly.

Personal attacks in a thread not titled BRP vs. MRQ? That's pulling it a bit too far. Stay polite gents!

Yeah, calm down Gents. You should be ashamed. Don't we all feel some of Dalmuti's frustration?

Okay, so what about damage at extended ranges?

I know it's 'deprecated' in the wiki, but the Extended Range Spot Rule (p.223) says beyond double base range damage should be halved.

Or maybe a neater rule would be to apply the same multiplier to damage as to skill (with exceptions for those you want to be world-renowned in your campaign, such as English Longbows, Mongol Composites, Roman Shot-Slingers, whatever).

What? Are you some kind of shill for Chaosium?

Please give the guy a break! As I understand it, RosenMcStern is one of the very few people actually doing something to break the Chaosium bottleneck.

Frankly, I'd rather Chaosium didn't produce supplements for BRP.

The postage from the US makes it too expensive, and I don't see my FLGS (Travelling Man, Leeds) stocking them.

I'd much rather the gap was filled by independently-produced stuff made available on Lulu (like Pete Nash's upcoming BRP Rome, via RosenMcStern's good offices). Then I could get prints of the latest edition(s) of Nick Middleton's Uncounted Worlds fanzine at the same time and save postage (which, for me, is otherwise also prohibitive for less than 4 issues - sorry Nick!).

...from their perspective, it isn't as rewarding as "overcoming an opponents defenses". ... that might be something. Giving some monsters/NPCs built in attack modifiers. Do you do that regularly?

It's nice to know some players care about such subtleties! Personally, the Attack/Parry/Dodge mechanism feels much more rewarding and involving to me (and, I guess, to most others around here). Objectively, it is more realistic - and hopefully they'll come to appreciate that. It's just not what they're accustomed to.

In your example, to hit the Troll might have been 70+20 = 90%, and the Pixie almost certainly 70-20 = 50%. That's according to the straight BRP rules.

(Me? I'm not a good example of someone who sticks to the straight rules, perhaps due to the history of my campaign having 'evolved' piecemeal from D&D. So I tend to use only x2 or /2 multipliers rather than fiddly +/- modifiers. I think I usually give smaller monsters higher dodge skills, and that's it. My players don't complain about combat being too 'samey' (unless they're having trouble getting through something's armour!). But they do complain it's scary - even though it's rare for any PCs to actually die in combat...)

Anyway, an attack roll is not "it" (especially in the case of zombies). The quality of the rolls matters a heck of a lot. OK, they rolled a successful hit, but was it a Normal, Special or Critical hit? It matters hugely.

Even when the hit lands, that's not all there is to it either. Armour has to be overcome (unless it was a critical hit), so was their damage roll good enough?

(And for zombies, the damage is likely to be halved, too. Plus, the players still need to use their brains and figure out if it's the sort of zombie that won't be killed unless they aim for the head...)

PS:

Whaddayamean with "a scratch"!? ...<etc>

Brilliant!

Apparently the % skill roll to hit targets doesn't impress my players. They say it's no harder to hit a large slow target than a small fast target.

Well, what your players say is just plain wrong.

As Thalaba pointed out above, the "Big and Little Targets" Spot Rule (p.215) gives bonuses/penalties to hit large/small targets. (Two options, in fact. The simpler being +/-20% v opponents twice/half their Size.)

As also pointed out previously, the slow/fast aspect is handled by the target's Dodge skill (and perhaps Parry). Your players just haven't yet recognized that, realistically, ability to get-out-of-the-way is a property of the target (when such situations are analyzed properly).

The variety is coming in on the GM side, not the players side. From their perspective, it's always the same.

That's the dumbed-down mind-set D&D gets people into. Players should be creative, looking for anything that'll give them advantages - not mindlessly slugging it out, toe-to-toe.

Maybe a few tiny, reasonably-skilled and intelligent kobolds* (all at -20% to be hit, dodging/parrying effectively, using cunning combat tactics) would force these 'D&D Drone' players to evolve - or die.

we're shopping around for a new system.

Yes, that is sad. I suspect their 'samey combat' griping is just an excuse. The trouble is that players are quite happy in their D&D 'comfort zone'. Safe behind tons of Hit Points and high AC, they can always wade unthinkingly into combat as the first/only option, the unrealistic attritional system giving them plenty of warning to run away if they're outclassed (- and then probably blaming the GM for 'lack of balance'!).

Lots of people prefer to play that way. The trouble is, they are not being Heroes - they are being Bullies. As a GM I would not pander to that. (It took me 10-20 years to gradually convert my campaign/players from D&D to BRP. Including one guy who much preferred d20 to d100 now says it works very well, and another who says he hates RuneQuest but likes my system - I haven't the heart to tell him!)

I strongly suggest you should give your players opportunity to learn the error of their ways - stick with BRP, the best RPG system around.

* PS: Or trollkin/pixies/goblins, as RosenMcStern says.

Edit: Found it. It's not quite what you're looking for but it is an interesting system.

Thanks. That is the sort of thing: items being "imprinted" with special properties, perhaps over generations; and the magic fading away if not known. I'd say faster-gained powers should be associated with particlarly heroic acts during a character's career ("With this sword Mighty Evan severed all three heads of Trigak the Chimera", "In these boots, Bouquetta the Nimble outran the Wild Cats of Pwene", etc) - though a bit more subtly than just powering-up whenever any such deed was done. Guidelines for how many/strong such powers should be would be great.

I believe one of the RQ Simons had a rule for weapons that develop along with the given PC.

This sounds interesting. An antidote to the D&D-ish 'characters-are-only-as-good-as-their-items' problem, perhaps.

(Any luck finding your notes on it? Is the relevant 'RQ Simon' listening?)

I couldn't figure out the Encumbrance/Fatigue/Burden rules in the BRP book either.

My house rules are these:

Encumbrance Capacity = SIZ x (STR + 10) / 20 (x14 lbs, i.e. SIZ pts). Over half Encumbers: Movement, Initiative & Dex-based skills are x1/2.

Armour Burden (Light/Moderate/Heavy) can affect physical (generally DEX-based) skills, movement rate and magic spell-casting.

Light: no skill penalty, -1 Move, +10% Magic fumble. Moderate: Skills x1/2, -2 Move, +20% Magic fumble. Heavy: Skills x 1/10, -3 Move, +30% Magic fumble. Listen/Spot skills are greatly disadvantaged in Full/Great Helm; Lock-picking, Shooting Bows and Playing Instruments are impossible in Gauntlets. Anyone not trained to the burden of armour is automatically Encumbered.

Fatigue: Exertion (e.g. combat) for a turn requires a CONx5 roll to avoid Fatigue (Movement, Initiative & all skills x1/2) or if already fatigued Exhaustion (x1/10). Recovery from fatigue requires rest for 1 hour; exhaustion 8 hours.

Thanks for posting your document, Mechashef.

The 4 issues from there are:

1) SIZ only represents mass, and doesn't distinguish tall/thin creatures from short/fat ones.

2) The (RQ3) SIZ table doesn't extend far enough.

3) The (RQ3) weight ranges for each size point aren't logical.

4) Dice rolled to generate the SIZ of creatures don't give reasonable values.

My take on these is:

1) That's ok - height (and hence build) can be worked-out separately.

2 & 3) The BRP p296 table is better. But we should have a definitive formula.

4) People around here seem to have thought about this, so hopefully the proposed "3(-ish)d6+X" idea should be the solution.

So what's the formula behind the BRP p296 table?

In the normal human range it seems to be roughly "1 SIZ = 1 Stone", which I like. After that, it goes non-linear - which is reasonable, given that perhaps the most significant use of SIZ is to calculate Hit Points.

PS: Anyone got any more issues?

What issues do you have with SIZ then, gents ?

If It sells well, I wonder if Pete will do another book covering Imperial Rome?

Besides which... compared to the Republic, Imperial Rome is for wimps.

In a way, it was alll down hill after the Punic Wars. Amazing how much damage winning those wars did to Rome.

Carthage, then!

(I can risk a few body parts in a good cause...)

In order to save space, creatures and monsters are described without locational HP, and I use static AP for all foes...

Good decision. More room for the meat!