frogspawner

Well, you've got a matrix for results: until the other guy does his roll, you don't know what your roll means. For me, that's 'Opposed Rolls'.

When I used Cities of Harn, I had to swap-out the religions for ones from my world, just saying "X = Y". So if you have some "medieval quasi-real" religions in mind, why not try that to reignite your ardour? Not bizarre at all, I never liked Traveller. (Something about (1) getting shanghaied to a tin-can where all escape plans failed because the plot required us to find a ship disguised as an asteroid (who could rely on that happening?) and (2) joining the game with a scoutship(!) but being unable to join in the adventure because, when the party came by chased by the baddies, the laws of physics prevented me accelerating enough to catch them before they were out of detection range. :ohwell:) Then again, if it helps you accept the Flat Space idea, I did once encounter some disturbing tentacled entities that the GM said were from "outside the normal plane of exploration". Maybe the parsec-wide accessible space is just a demilitarized zone between Northern and Southern factions of gross Cthulhoid type horrors. The various governments of known space, who can't bring themselves to admit the situation is hopeless, just put limiters on all the nav-systems ever made, and refuse to talk about it... :eek:

"Meh". I agree that Dodging should be more important in combat, and have my own houserule for it. But your rule is based on the old 'Opposed Roll' concept, which I don't like, so I'd better not comment further - it'd only be negative.

Thanks, that's pretty standard but seems a bit limiting and trickier to administer than necessary. Mr T mentioned Questworld and the idea of gates between worlds (though going on to say he didn't like 'em). It seems to me that 'Gated Worlds' would' put no limits on author creativity, need no edit/moderating, and allow existing worlds to be plugged in (even commercial ones). I've mentioned this before in another thread but raised little interest. What would be wrong with the 'gates' approach?

What is the Questworld idea? I still like the 'gates between worlds' concept. (Was that it?) We could just have general rules for how the gates would look/work, and then I think we could do without an overseer (or, rather, each author would oversee their own world/universe). Do you see any problem with that?

I see what you mean, that Fate points are 'meta-game' but Power points are 'in-game'. So using PP as part of the Fate mechanism (as I have just changed to) is a bit odd. Having swapped, I think you may well be right! But we'll see how it goes...

No! Your typos can be gems - let them flow! (And there's no need to be jealous of your infinite colleagues, you pull your weight... )

Sorry to be negative but, on reflection, I'd prefer something clean, fresh and non-litigious. We don't all live in Norway, y'know! But I do think that we, BRP fans collectively, should have a go at collaborating on a new BRP setting (or world, or multiverse...) But what flavour?

From Bunnies & Burrows... getting the girl? Very cinematic! (To clarify: one per girl, not per occasion! )

Yes, the cost should be significant. BTW, do you use (permanent) POW as Hero/Fate Points already? That seems quite a neat method... :eek: Hmmm, I never realized before, but the Gifts/Geases are just 'Lawful Features'... Oh, yes I meant when it was first 'given', naturally. Hopefully, the Pendragon-ish personality rules I'm about to inflict on my players will be sufficiently 'grey' (and they're for volunteers only). It was years ago, but maybe someday I could try playing it like that and 'resurrect' that Humakti character... (PS: Nice typo! "destruct all non-Humakti"?)

OK (following on from a point raised in the Balance thread), would it be a valid use of Fate Points to get out of an unfavourable Geas (assuming FP were being used in such a setting) ?

You're dead right, of course. In fact, I felt the GM had fiddled things a bit and rushed him to Initiate status anyway (perhaps seeking balance with other characters? I can't remember). So I just took it at face value, and said the character wouldn't return to a now-distrusted group - much more logical to just stay with his Priest (and me roll up a new one). But thanks for your interest. The "get out of a Geas" question is one for the Fate Points thread. See you all there!

I prefer a system where you have a few points, rather like Fate Points, to spend in character creation which can be used to tweak the character as you prefer (better stats, better heritage...). If you don't, you can spend 'em to get a few extra skills instead. As for Gifts/Geases, yes, they're a menace! I once had an interesting character (Humakti baboon) who managed to reach Initiate status, raised his Int like he'd always wanted - and got the geas "distrust all non-Humakti". The other players' characters weren't Humakti, so he was out of the campaign. For me, it killed him stone dead - worse than any critical, because you can't Dodge/DI out of it... or could you spend a Fate Point?

I think he's stressed, guys. I hope you're ashamed of yourselves! Hit Points Per Location in addition to general HP... I don't use 'em Fatigue Points and Sanity... I don't use 'em Armor per Hit Location is easy enough to add, but what if the GM wants random armor? ...I don't use 'em Heroic Hit Points doubles HP ...I don't use 'em Splitting Attack and Parry Skills... ...I don't use 'em Skill Category Modifiers - ...I don't use 'em Simpler Skill Bonuses - ok, I do use a version of these (called "characteristics") Increased Personal Skill Points, Cultural Modifiers, EDU/Knowledge rolls, etc. - ...I don't use 'em Skill Ratings Over 100% - ...I don't mind about 'em (just means it's a tough NPC or a TOUGH one!) From that it looks like the emphasis (or in most cases, de-emphasis) Mr D has been giving BRP is pretty much in line with the way I like to play my games. And this from an RQ2 Grognard. So, for what it's worth, I reckon 'the boy done good'.

Many thanks for the examples. I'm happy with the mechanism now.

Ta. Your mention of QuestWorld/gateways sparked it off. I think the 'gates-between-worlds' idea is the best approach, though, so let me try to convice you... But, just like the authors retain control over what is canon in (their original version of) their worlds, the GMs have control over where gates used in their campaign can reach. Some GMs could run a "No Sci-Fi Worlds" policy, others "No Magic Worlds" - no problem. If it's all one world, that's a bit difficult. Obviously I'm interested. Sadly my own world is made from bits of various other commercial works (Harn, Moorcock, Tolkien, Glorantha, Dragon Warriors, Cthulhu... - yes, 'colliding worlds' is a good excuse, isn't it? ). I'd have to spend months bowdlerizing it or be sued by half-a-dozen corporations, I expect. As for dividing the effort, I'd hope that a fairly small number of worlds would emerge as favourites, and effort would naturally be concentrated on them. Since my world is too derivative for publication, for example, I'd be happy to be inspired by someone else's fresh vision and try to add to it. Well, consistency might be a problem, but GMs can pick and choose worlds to avoid anything they think too inconsistent. However, some world-building GMs, or maybe even most, would prefer a totally blank canvas, I suspect. With 'gates' they can simply use their existing world as-is. That's faster than instant - it's already there!

Good example, thanks. It's fine then - they're not doing the same job, but the separate job of assisting. Odd because I don't usually like straight percentage plusses (or minuses) to rolls, but in this case it seems difficult to get around.

But IMO they shouldn't be able to make shooting the bad guys even easier just by spending Hero Points. Ditto fleecing, girlfriend-stealing and whatever they should do on their own, I'd say. (Maybe in Bond it's ok - I guess that's more like story-telling). The "do this or we die" thing is defensive, though, so that's fine. Just like Luke's Death Star shot...

Oh! I've only just realized how the mechanism works: they do both roll. But if the 'helper' succeeds, all they do is give +10% to the 'real' roller (or +15/20% if they spec/crit). Right? Hmmm - seems a bit odd to me, but OK.

Regarding Cooperative skill rolls (this may not really be worthy of it's own thread, but I didn't want to clog Jason's "Typo's" thread in this critical and no doubt highly stressful weekend): If they're both doing it, why can't they just both roll? Two chances to succeed (and fumble...), in proper proportion to their skill. Alternatively, the lower-skilled could just be at a disadvantage (i.e. skill x1/2).

Or if you restrict everyone's Hero/Survival/Fate points to only defensive uses it also avoids that sort of effect (and it's 'fair' on NPCs, if you care about that sort of thing).

Thanks. Matters of taste, but no technical problems, then? One-stat is probably enough - I'll keep it simple, like me...

Well it wasn't - until you posted those pictures of a skyful of enormous mammaries... :shocked:

I can't see anything like that in what few descriptions of QuestWorld I can google. Or was the concept just the same old 'blank lands' thing (or 'let everyone have an island')? Anyway, your inter-world gates idea is much better: authors would keep complete control of their own worlds (universes, even...) Is nobody interested in this project? Doesn't anyone want to put their own world forward as a prospective 'New Glorantha' for BRP?

Yes, I found this insight amazing - and I'm still reeling from the shock of illumination... Ah, well, not strictly true if you use the over-100% skill-reduction mechanism, as perhaps Gnarsh said. But your shocking principle of "character progression is bad!" still holds in general. Well, I think it's more related to Game Balance than to skill base percentages...