Aycorn

Excel works great for me.

On 6/20/2022 at 12:53 AM, Mugen said:

To Be Honest, if I was to play "BRP" again, the amount of houserules I'd put into it would be so big I would surely not need the BGB at all.

It would look more like a Frankenstein monster of BRP, Mythras and Revolution D100.

Yet I remember people turning cartwheels when it came out.  Ah well 😉

Once I got the BGB, I decided to use as few house rules as possible.

That's changing a bit with the fantasy campaign I'm working on, but its still something I try to stick to.  The Optional Rules cover much of it anyway.

I use a different Sanity system, a bit more realistic, which I found online (here in fact, or referred from here).

One major one is APP is out and CHA is in.  I thought it was a shame they went down the APP route in the first place, when RQ had so clearly and logically defined CHA and its effects.

Might be some good ideas there, but I haven't read it.  

True, I'm no novice.  Just rusty.

Next game is a week from Sunday (we had to postpone our September game).  So we'll see how Round 2 goes.  Everyone's still interested and enthusiastic though.  That's a good sign!

Don't get me started on the Bushes, Alex 😉

Well hey all ... it finally happened...

11 years since I joined this forum (as Aycorn) ... I finally ran a game last night.

The last time I played in, or ran, an RPG - Bush was president.  And I don't mean George W.

Call of Cthulhu, using BGB rules (with a few house tweaks) (yep, you heard me, not 7th ed)  Scenario: "The Haunting" aka "The Corbitt House", which I ran pretty much in its original form, with a few additions from later editions and personal touches here and there.

Two very good, old friends who have are both avid gamers, and a friend they brought along - a very nice guy who I liked very much.

And the game?  A complete success.  The hoary old CoC scenario still packs a punch, no problems with rules, everything went smoothly.  

A good game, some good food, a little good booze, a good time had by all.

And yep - we meet again next month!

On 10/15/2019 at 10:56 AM, Rick Meints said:

We are making no promises, but if we were to update the BGB, what could be improved?

NOTE: The printed BGB is available for sale still on our website, and certainly in PDF form on our website and DTRPG.

https://swordofsorcery.blogspot.com/2017/04/i-love-brp.html

My last word on the subject.  Again.

On 8/16/2019 at 1:14 PM, el_octogono said:

Other, older BRP games did that as well. Never knew why they kept Appearance instead of Charisma...

I never did.  In my games it's still CHA.  Any adult ought to be able to understand that one can be highly charismatic while physically plain, unusual, or even unattractive.

6 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

I'm sure an aficionado of the 2nd game mentioned  could think of things far, far, far worse than death (bwahahahahaha). 

Cheers

We can still be friends

Well, I'm only active here sporadically, but it's always seemed a friendly place and still does.  I think basic, adult rules of courtesy are more than reasonable.  I visit rpg.net even more sporadically, and yes I gather politics has become a divisive issue over there.  Unfortunately, we are living in polarized times, esp. in the USA.

But I haven't seen a lot of harsh words here, and don't expect to.  

PS - BGB is great and death to COC v.7!

(just kidding)

(not)

On 6/26/2017 at 6:07 AM, tobarstep said:

This was my favorite game when I was younger. Kickstarter campaign begins tomorrow: http://topsecretnwo.com/

I had a lot of fun with it at the time, but now find the rules pretty appalling.  I'd love to see a BRP spy thriller game, though.

On 6/25/2017 at 10:04 AM, Atgxtg said:

The look more closely. According to the BGB (pages 47-48) you have to select a specialty when picking a broad skill such as firearms, and that skill doesn't necessarily carry over to other, related skills (GM call). And even when it does, it's usually at half rating. So someone who mastered a PPK - that is have Firearms (Pistol) at 90%+, would't necessarily be above the base percentage with a shotgun. Now the "not being able to fire a shotgun" bit is an exaggeration. The character could certainly fire one, just might not have much chance to hit what he was shooting at. 

 

It's the same reason why Melee Weapon (Sword) and Melee Weapon (Spear) are separate skills and don't carry over to each other. 

(Here I go again, wading in again, suicidally).

This may be a matter of interpretation, but I don't run it that way.  Firearms (Pistol) is your skill, and it applies to any make/model that would be called a "Firearm/Pistol".  There's no separate skill for a Walther PPK or any other specific gun model.  

We are in agreement on this: "not being able to fire a shotgun" is an exaggeration.  

Similarly, the Mathematics/Physics analogy doesn't fly for me.  If someone gives their character a significant skill in Physics, logic would dictate they'd have to have at least a decent Mathematics background, so toss some points into Mathematics (if you must), or just assume its there, and/or if a game situation came up where a Mathematics skill would be applied, use their Know roll.

I'm well aware many would disagree.  Right after the BGB came out, there were many debates about gun rules, and several homebrewed firearms tables giving ranges/damage/etc  for different makes/models of firearms.  To some that's clearly very important, but not to me.  

Again, this is how I like to do things.  I prefer to keep things simple, and I'd rather improvise a bit based on my understanding/interpretation of the rules.  I think the beauty of BRP/Chaosium is that it lends itself to that approach.  

But others prefer to do things differently.  The important that everyone and those they play with agree and are having a good time.

17 hours ago, Baconjurer said:

Yes, but you also have to track all separate skills in the BGB. In the BGB you have to track both Firearm (Pistol) and Firearm (Shotgun); they are totally separate skills. Even if you have a skill of 91 in Firearm (Pistol) you still begin your study of Firearm (Shotgun) skill at rank 0. I'm suggesting that Firearm (Pistol) and Firearm (Shotgun) ought to be linked by a parent skill, Firearm. If you take up Shotgun and already have a skill of 45 in Firearms, Shotgun ought to start at skill rank 45. 

Because skills are interconnected, rather than being isolated, once you max out your Firearm skill, you don't need to worry about that again. Thus, you end up keeping track of less skills, not more. 

I think eliminating specializations wouldn't work well. You're saying don't break the skills down? Perhaps only have a Firearm skill and ignore the Firearm (Pistol) the book prescribes? The reason I think this wouldn't work, is because it's too arbitrary. Where do you stop the break down into specialization? Why even have a Firearm skill? Why not just have a Combat skill? Why even have a Combat skill, why not just have a Body skill...etc. Eventually you just wind up back at the core characteristics. I want a system that automatically sorts skills and gives them a proper weight based on how general they are, no matter what skills I end up with in my campaign. That's why I think the tree works well. Every new growth must be a subcategory of the previous branch. The general skills then naturally sink to the bottom near the root, while the specialized skills float out to the outer branches. Thus, they organically are given proper importance/weight.

I should never have weighed in on this.  Sorry.  It's the sort of debate I have zero interest in.

I'm absolutely a believer that everyone should play the way they want to play.  I do.

So, you have my blessing - if this works for you, you should go for it.  It wouldn't work for me. 

For me, Chaosium's system ain't broke - and don't need fixin'.

Best wishes anyway.

On 6/22/2017 at 3:23 PM, Baconjurer said:

Hey that's cool, I wouldn't bother sharing if I wasn't looking for feedback! But could you explain why it's 100x more complicated? Climb is actually still on the example tree I posted in fact. It's a bring your own skill list setup so you're not locked down to any particular interpretation of what a skill can do or what skills you can have. It also helps eliminate what I consider the serious problem of specialize not being tied to general skill, like being a master in Walther ppk, but being unable to fire a shotgun is very possible with by the book rules.

I'm afraid I don't see it the same way at all.  And I'm left thinking you must be looking at very different books than I.

The books describe a Climb skill.  It says you can climb things.  If there's something about the climb (how steep, nature of the surface, etc) that make it more difficult, or less difficult, then you can modify the roll when the character is performing that climb.

You're suggesting breaking it down, so that you have to track your ability to climb and/all different climbs - thus taking one skill and effectively breaking it into a host of sub-skills.  To me, that is obviously more complicated.

What is this about mastering a Walther ppk, but being unable to fire a shotgun?  I've never seen anything like that in BRP or any Chaosium/BRP publication. 

Hate to say it, hope not to sound rude or condescending, and I'll probably piss off everyone in this thread, but I think you're taking something simple and elegant and making it a hundred times more complicated.  A Climb is a Climb.  If you're using the BRP Big Gold Book, you can say its a more difficult, or easier, based on any number of factors.  But its still a Climb.

I suppose it may just come down to style of play, and if you and your players really want to drill down into it like that, and that's fun for you - well, more power to ya. 

I have never supported the "strategy" of putting out a new version every few years, whether with minimal changes or, in the case of COC7 and the various D&D's, a huge overhaul.  

Of course I've already vented my views here.  I've got the Big Gold Book, and I'm good whether Chaosium produces new stuff for it or not.

I agree that the setting has come to be the selling point.  I suppose that's been true for a long time.  A shame, really - part of the excitement of getting into D&D in the late 70's/ear;y 80's was developing my own fantasy world using the building blocks in the books, and pulling in all manner of elements from the famtasy/sci-fi books, movies, comics etc I was devouring at the time.  

But I guess what I like and what the masses like are two different things.

I can understand, from a marketing standpoint, that game books are now expected to have slick, color artwork and lots of graphic decoration.  I can see the aesthetic appeal, but I confess that, for example, I find the artwork in later D&D books far more generic, Bros. Hildebrandt riffs, less interesting than say, David A Trampier's gorgeous line drawings.  And I really hate the big-eyed anime/manga-style character designs in the Pathfinder books.  

But again, I guess I'm in the minority.

In any case, does it occur to anyone that having slick, color hardcovers as the standard also means that RPG books cost more?

Basically, it's one more calculation.  

Also, for my own games, it adds a certain uncertainty factor.  You can Dodge, or you can Parry.  And if it doesn't work - well, you'll wonder if you should have gone for the other one.

2 hours ago, Baragei said:

Guys, reading the last few post I really don't understand what you're arguing about here.  

Everything originated from the same metaphorical animal - which was RuneQuest. Think of it as the original wolf dogs evolved and bred from. Now we have lots of dogs - some are small, some are big, some herd sheep and some drink out of the toilet. But they're all dogs. 

I think I read this in CoC; "This game doesn't have a lot of rules. This means that you don't need to spend a lot of time learning rules, and you'll be an expert in no time." (or something like that). They didn't say that I'd be well on my way to being an expert in a whole lot of other games as well! 

I agree with you, but if I've learned anything from RPG forums, it's that many people see enormous differences where I see inconsequential ones.

And they seem to outnumber me 

I don't say they're wrong.  Maybe it's just like a conversation I once heard at a party in the late 80's/early 90's.  Several people commented on Sinead O'Connor's then-new recording of "Nothing Compares 2 U", and how beautiful her singing was.  And one fellow piped up with "No no no  - she goes flat on a couple notes."

Guess it just depends on where your attention is focused.

4 hours ago, g33k said:

The RQ2 (now RQClassic) rules were clear that a "sacrifice" of permanent POW was just that.  Not a "spend" of (quickly regenerating) POW points.

From p.59 (emphases added):

YGMV, of course; but the RAW was clear. 

Well shame on me for being so dumb....

Actually, I felt none of the RQs satisfactorily clarified whether "sacrificed" POW was gone for good (until your POW was raised) or would gradually come back over the course of hours/days as it normally would.

So I always cut priests and cultists slack assumed that it did.

15 hours ago, Simlasa said:

'Noir' is not pulp to me... at least not in the sense in which 'pulp' currently used among gamers. Not being fond of the CoC7e alterations I'd hope it would hew somewhat closer to the grittier end of the BGB or RQ2... and not embrace CoC7e's 'gamey-er' digressions.

I agree. 

"Pulp" Cthulhu always seemed a bit redundant somehow, conceptually.  The Cthulhu stories were, after all, pulp fiction.  I know S.T. Joshi et al foam the the face tentacles at lumping HPL in with the rest of the "Weird Tales" crowd, but I think he was more at home there than many adherents care to admit (and yes, I am speaking as a Lovecraft fan).

I'm not sure a "noir" edition is/was ever needed - the 30's/40's isn't that distant from the 20's.  A trip through the library 20th century history section, a couple Robert Mitchum movies on the DVD player, and a couple Raymond Chandler or Ross MacDonald books and you've got the facts and the feel.

3 hours ago, g33k said:

Sounds like you're a solid member of the "No they don't!" debate-team ...  

 

Nah, I don't debate.  I occasionally proclaim...

9 hours ago, g33k said:

I have become utterly mystified by the whole "Needs Feats!" / "No it doesn't!" debate.

 

I'm mystified by most such debates.

If people like them, well okay.  But I'm unconvinced they actually ADD anything other than to fulfill a personal preference.

13 hours ago, Mugen said:

Yet, some people seem to think that they need some mechanical bits to differenciate their character from their neighbor...

That's true.  And odd to me.  But what have you.

These days, when I'm creating NPCs or characters for players to play, or helping someone create a character, I say "start with the personality - who is this person?" and then stats and skills and whatnot flow from that.

15 hours ago, MOB said:

Fortunately, we are not shutting the taps off!

The 'Big Gold Book' is still in print, and Jason Durall (author of the BGB) is now on board at Chaosium as RuneQuest and BRP line editor.

BTW, if you put up a link to your blog we will happily share it as would be of wider interest.

That is good to know, and I hope it remains the case.  I'm glad to hear Jason is back on board, as well.

My blog is http://swordofsorcery.blogspot.com/

... if anyone is interested