nclarke

In the BGB it says "Critical Success: This is the result of a skill check roll that is 1/20 (or 5%) of the regular chance of success. Generally, a critical success is rewarded with greater results, though in some cases a critical success is required for success at all. For example, if the regular chance for success is 75%, any roll of 4 or under is a critical success (1/20 of 75% is 3.75, rounded up to 4)." However the BGB rules are inconsistent in that sometimes rounding is to the nearest whole number and sometimes it is rounding up. I don't have a copy of the Renaissance rules to hand to help you out but if it says round to the nearest whole number then that's what you do. If it says the you round up to the nearest whole number then do that instead. Isn't English screwy if it isn't your first language :-)

Every BRP based game I've played has used the one skill point equals one skill percentage point and I don't think Renaissance is any different.

If you mean Secrets of Japan then it's not that highly rated by CoC aficionados but then 1990's CoC is generally less successful than the classic 1920's or Gaslight 1890's in terms of material. Delta Green is the goto setting for modern Cthulhu with a lot of well written material available and that is in the process of being updated to a more modern period than the 90's. Reviews http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11148.phtml and http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11256.phtml

If you want modern BRP then a trip to Cubicle Seven and a look at The Laundry might be in order. Another suggestion would be to take a look at John Ossoway's Cthulhu Rising for a take on Cthulhu in space with an Aliens slant. Both suggestions are for a look at adapting/selecting options for the BRP system to modern/future games rather than a change of system,

KS is best used by established authors who can prove by a body of work that they know how to run a project. The material offered should be close to ready for production so that the KS is for things like better art and layout and actual production costs. Authors need to have a plan for stretch goals and have properly budgeted for everything they offer especially including shipping both local and international. The authors also need to communicate frequently with the backers of the kickstarter i.e. at least weekly. There have been plenty of examples where these tenets have not been followed and the project has left a bad taste.

The 'of Legend' books are mostly the MRQII books reformatted to fit the digest size and sometimes with some errata and/or changes to remove all reference to Glorantha. As Samurai didn't have any Glorantha references I'd expect it to be the same apart from layout changes.

The Design Mechanism forums are now at New Design Mechanism Forum Older threads(of which this may be one) are at the old site The Design Mechanism HTH

Well Grey the cover blurb says "Pulp Adventures for Basic Roleplaying". The article text says "a sourcebook with all you need to run exciting scenarios.." So my guess is that you'll need the BGB for actual rules even though there are "new rules for action points, powers, gadgets, resources and mooks." It has background/source material and three scenarios to get you started. Nowhere does it actually say you don't need the BGB nor does it says you do. I suppose if you have a solid understanding of the BRP rules system then you could get away without the BGB, maybe even just using the CoC Quick-Start rules.

I've played it quite a bit and it's different from CoC. It's much closer to the BGB as one of the authors was involved with that work. However anyone familiar with CoC should have no trouble playing or running The Laundry. Just don't expect things to work the same as they do for CoC in all cases

5 first then 3 for me.

You might want to check the 'net regarding submissions to Chaosium. People are still waiting for a response to their submissions to the last Adventure contest. Authors have consistently noted that communication with Chaosium is uneven to say the least. So don't expect a quick response although your work may be so good that they jump on it. AFAIK they are currently working on publishing a revised and updated Horror on the Orient Express and the 7 edition CoC rulebook so their schedule may be a bit full. You might try contacting Mongoose and seeing if they are interested in publishing your work as their Legend system is proving to be quite popular. What market research have you done regarding your game? What competing RPG's are there in the same market segment?

If you're prepared to do some more work you could take Legend or the Mongoose Runequest II system document which describes the game mechanisms in OGL format and weld that to your system and provide the OGL licence document in the package. That would meet any licensing obligations regarding the material that relies on the BRP style mechanisms used by Mongoose. IANAL but any other approach is likely to be perceived as a challenge to Chaosium's copyright. I don't know about German copyright law so you may be safe putting it on-line in Germany but any attempt to host downloadable material in the US is going to be an issue. You are also up against the recently completed Achtung Cthulhu kickstarter which is a professionally produced work using the same background and the BRP system http://basicroleplaying.com/call-cthulhu/achtung-cthulhu-kickstarter-3241/ HTH

I'd use Foxit Reader (free download) and fill out the PDF using that. It's not quite a form-fillable sheet but it provides a nice printed version instead of a pencilled in semi-readable sheet.

There's nothing in MRQII that say you have to declare a sprint except when it's your turn. Also nothing about how to split the move over CA's. However Legend which is a cleaned up version of MRQII does have all these little holes filled in for you. It'll be down to teh GM to rule how far each CA will get you move-wise. You've got some help on that but the GM should provide you with handouts rather than do an infodump. That way you have the information and can digest it at your own speed and keep it for reference. In many (BRP/RQ) campaign settings/products there is a handout for each area which tells what characters from that area know as standard. Don't forget that ENCumberence affects your fatigue so while the ENC from weapons etc don't affect SR they do affect how long you can run before getting tired. Look at page 59, 61 and 62 for information about this. You issue is misunderstanding or not enough historical knowledge. An original Greek hoplite used a short spear (in MRQII terms) with a hoplon (big round shield). You are thinking of a much later Hoplite with a long spear and smaller round shield strapped to his arm so he can use his long spear two-handed. The Macedonians used a longer spear (21 foot pike) without a shield relying on the forest of pike shafts to deflect incoming arrows. Spears never sunder with the exception of a Lance and that relies on the force of a charging horse to provide the energy to sunder armour. Sundering is mostly the preserve of 2-handed bladed weapons or a massive lump of something (lead/steel) being swung with more force than a spear can deliver. Pointy weapons are good for impaling and do a lot of damage but armour shattering weapons they aren't. In real life the use of armour shattering weapons arose when armour got pretty sophisticated and kept out many swords and spears necessitating the use of smashing weapons to cave in the metal plates or something pointed to penetrate the joints (awl, rondel, pick).

OK, Let's look at your problem areas. Move 8m per combat round p11, Sprinting p63 Base movement (8), multiply by 5 (40). deduct Armour Penalty (hard leather in 5 locations is 10 divide by 5 for an Armour Penalty of 2) -2 for a total charge/sprint move of 38 m. in 3 CAs. Unlike Legend (MRQII rewritten excluding Glorantha) there is no detail concerning how far you can move per CA but 38m in 3CA is roughly 13M per CA. Next up, Evade has no connection with getting out of contact except as diving for cover or throwing yourself away from a charge so yes you usually end up on the floor. The Glorantha Core rulebook is likely to have some information that your GM may not want you to know.Ask your GM if he doesn't want you to read it. Lore skills are designed to fill in information on a variety of subjects and generally don't specify exact details. An example is used of tactics being useful in cattle raids. It's up to the GM to determine the benefit for a successful Lore skill use. As an example the rules would be more than 5 times larger if they had to explain Lore (Minerals) or Lore (Heraldry) for example ENCumberance has always been made up of things that you carry and I have always known that a system that uses encumberance adds up the weight/volume of stuff you carry/wear and puts it towards a reduction in capability. Thirty plus years of gaming have ingrained that into my psyche. A person might infer that as weapons and shields have an ENCumberance value as armour does it might be necessary to include those. Your GM should explain stuff you don't realise if he's using it. I think there is some MRQII errata about, check the downloads section here.

1) Impale details p88. If you deal damage then you can pull out the spear (Brawn check) or leaave it in. Leaving it in -20% to all impaled enemies checks. Pulling the weapon out cause damage as the weapon without the DM. 2) You've answered that. 3) Charge has nothing to do with the armour you're wearing. 4) There is no Escape defensive manoeuvre. Slip Free is just that, escaping from a being Gripped. Maybe a house rule. 5) The MRQII book 'Glorantha, the Second Age - Core rulebook' is the one with all the information about Glorantha. Cults of Glorantha has the information about the cults and there are other books covering other aspects of Second Age Glorantha. The table on page 70 et al has the information about which Combat Manoeuvres weapons have. The column with this information clarifies which counts as a 'Cutting weapon' for Bleed, as a 'Entangling weapon' for Entangle, as a 'Thrusting weapon' for Impale, as a 2-handed weapon for 'Sunder', and as a 'Bludgeoning weapon for 'Stun Location'. All other Combat Manoeuvres can be done by all weapons. A longspear can only Impale out of these effects. There are a lot of Skill () skills and they are used when the GM decides they are used. If you have a situation where an ambush is planned the GM may give a bonus to the surprise if the Skill (Tactics) roll is made. ENCumberance modifies the SR. All your equipment has a ENC rating that is totalled for the reduction in SR. It's just that armour does the most to reduce SR.

AFAIK MW uses Stormbringer as it's core. Don't think there was much adjustability in the same way BRP's BGB is adjustable to various gaming styles. For example the BGB allows you several methods of dealing with injury in combat (i.e. location based and wound levels) whereas I think MW only offers wound levels without location options. Sure you can plug them in using the information from other BRP games but they aren't there by default/as an option. There is one form of magic AFAIK with others coming in a supplement (Advanced Sorcery or something). Armour rules use variable AP I think compared to fixed AP in many BRP games. No doubt Ben will be along as soon as the west coast wakes up to give you the low-down.

Frogspawner is due a meeting with his therapist. The long cold, dark winter is getting to him and he's with no doubt drowning in a mix of 10 foot (no meters for Frogspawner) snowdrifts and his own self-loathing.

Personally I'm happy with G+ Hangouts and a die roller app. If the app allows shared results fine, but I trust people I play with so they can roll real dice or virtual dice as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want is being tied to a particular remote server with the potential for lag or price hikes or adverts. While I don't think that Google will pull G+ like they did with their Reader app recently there are alternative video and audio apps about that can replace same. At worst it's Skype and Twiddla or another whiteboard app. If your play style requires a grid and tokens then something like Roll20 or FG is almost mandatory.

I was thinking of the description in Shadow over Innsmouth and the little stones mentioned by Zadok Allen. However the Selected Letters containing the sketch is the volume covering 1929-1931 so it pre-dates the published story by some 5 years.

The star version is a Chaosium trademark AFAIK and was originally promoted by Derleth. The tree sign was Lovecraft's version and seems to be based off a written description rather than a sketch. The star version seems to be more like one would expect a 'seal' to look and as such makes sense in terms of the common usage in the game. The use of the star version throughout CoC game material would explain the prevalence of that version in search results.

I've played CoC on G+ hangouts, Hot War on G+ Hangouts, RQ/Legend on G+ Hangouts with TTF, and with Roll20. In the past I've used Maptool but even as a Network Admin I found the setup too much trouble and the scripting too much like a day job. The original pre hangouts version of Roll20 and Infrno I found problematic due to lag. US based server side applications usiually get a thumbs down for me as they never seem to have enough horsepower for the things they are trying to do resulting in slow response times and laggy behaviour. TBH FG is too tied to an obselete model of requiring expensive specialised software and a lack of data portability. A wiki or cloud storage for keeping campaign material and a video & voice chat facility and optional whiteboard works best for me and my gaming style.

We've had apps like Maptool for years but the pace of on-line grid-based combat is certainly not improved to anywhere close to FTF grid-based combat games. Does the advent of apps like Roll20 and the features of G+ Hangouts make it better to go for a Theatre of the Mind style game using maps as props to assist in giving the participants a better idea of their situation. Are VTTs anywhere near being able to make gaming on-line as accessible and easy as FTF gaming. Are we going to see a development of on-line games crossing time-zones like the computer 'RPG' FPS games where people go on organised expeditions/raids? We already have the possibility of using material taken by Google's Street View for modern games. It's easy to set a game in Rio while sitting in your mother's basement in Rochdale England and have imagery of the Rio streets and buildings available to your players. Will someone develop an engine that allows rooms to be built quickly and displayed in a semi-virtual environment for players to see/move through. It seems to me that some sort of architectural program with a library of objects with an option to output to screen and inject into a webcam feed would be a great way to utilise technology to the max.

Having been playing on-line games for the last few months as well as my regular FTF games I'm wondering if there is likely to be a new/revised game model covering the difference in style of on-line play. For example things move slower in on-line games as often players are waiting for others to speak rather than talking over them. Combat (in particular grid or miniatures based combat) seems to run more slowly. So in order to account for these on-line differences are there any particular game systems/subsystem you see as being better suited to on-line play?

damage bonus due to strength