NickMiddleton

Brief digression: so where about in the South West are you Jack? And where in Yorkshire, Ken? I'm curious as I'm originally from the West Country (and thus the South West proper was a frequent holiday destination) and I know reside in Yorkshire... :focus: Has anyone been keeping proper track of which numbers have gone? Cheers, Nick Middleton

Not to seem rude, but I agree - there may well be additional circumstances involved, and at the very least if you can't give any details, we can't know when the email to Chaosium was sent etc... and it all becomes rampant speculation. For example, if what they (whoever they are) had a substantive proposal to put to Chaosium, why didn't they duplicate it via conventional mail - that would be the professional approach in my book (and indeed, in most niche publishing circles I'm aware of...). Not saying you're wrong Triff, but until we can have some details, this is a bit nebulous... Cheers, Nick Middleton

Care to elaborate? The only established publisher I'm aware of who has expressed a definite interest in a BRP license is Seraphim Guard - and they got one; but I'm certainly NOT privy to ANY of Chaosium's communications nor at all connected in the industry, so I've no idea if anyone else has approached them. Speaking personally, I approached Chaosium some time ago about Uncounted Worlds in what I hope was a concise but sufficiently informative email (outlining what I wanted to do, who I was and what I beleived I needed from Chaosium) and whilst I didn't get the fastest of replies, I did get one. Cheers, Nick

have you seen the "Tuesday Terribles" at Chaosium's site? Mostly on Call of Cthulhu themes, and they only did them for a while, but they were little snippets for games (an NPC, artefact or location) and some were rather good. It would be cool to see them revivied and their remit expanded to include BRP... Cheers, Nick Middleton

The way I assumed things worked when I ran my play test games for Dodge was that: Dodging an attack used the opposed skill rule. That if the Dodging character won, they avoided the blow. That if the Dodging character lost, the blow hit them. That a "tied success levels so higher roll wins" result meant a normal success for the winner (so a losing despite rolling a critical Dodge means you only took a Normal blow) I need to find the time to sit down with a clear head, think through exactly how I usually play this, write that out and then re-read the combat and systems chapters carefully, as the problem is as much the half a dozen subtle variations in my head as what's actually in the text. Alternatively Jason will clear this up soon. Cheers, Nick Middleton

And SB5 / Elric! DID have "impales" for some weapons, which we're even more effective than specials, so I suspect the confusion has arisen from translating that table (which had five levels of skill roll for Attacks ("impale", critical, normal success, normal failure and fumble) but only four for Parry or Dodge) to the BRP table (which has five levels of for Attack, Parry AND Dodge). And speaking as one of the play testers, I'm kicking myself for not spotting these ambiguities at the time. *sigh* sorry all. It might be worth going back to teh SB5 / Elric1 approach and having separate tables for spell out the Att vs. Parry and Att vs. Dodge principles. What's particularly galling is that (unlike MRQ), Jason / Chaosium haven't tweaked anything substantial at the 11th hour... But you are absolutely right, this needs to be absolutely crystal clear. Cheers, Nick Middleton

I have this little rtf file I found some where on the net you might be interested in Zane: "Ultra Modern Firearms Resource Data for Call of Cthulhu This data has been extrapolated from Delta Green and Ultra Modern Firearms and portions may be © Pagan Publishing, 1998, and © Chameleon Eclectic, 1998." It basically has big tables of modern small arms, with damage done by round in separate tables andis clearly cribbed from the Pagan and CE books it mentions. Since I'm unsure of its provenance (i.e. whether it infringes copyright by copying text from pagan or CE books) as they say I'm a little wary of just posting it up, but PM me and email address and I can mail it straight to you... Cheers, Nick Middleton

They don't "offend" me, but I'd never use a flat db, and that's why I like the Elric! die step table, as it keeps the db as a single dice (and thus a linear addition to base damage) for as long as possible and also mitigates the "centre loading effect" of simply adding additional dice of the same size. In my pedantic moments I favour taking the RQIV:AiG approach and adjusting ALL weapons to a single (or if absolutely necessary two) Dice, and db to something like the the Elric die step table (but including d12's ) so for the majority of vaguely human scale entities damage is a single die from a weapon and another single die from their db, thus preserving the variability of damage#. Then I come to my senses and remember that it's all a bit fiddly and that since I've been happily using the standard BRP damage table for a quarter of a century I'm obviously really not that bothered... Nick Middleton #which to me is an important element that represents the quirks and fickle moments of fate in combat where a beatifully timed blow you don't see just happens to coincide with a stumble that swings you back such that it only catches you a glancing blow on the thigh, rather than a solid blow to the gut...

Oops, I forgot to say: my copy was handed to me by my fried on Thursday - number 64 (and she got 63). Which sound low, but we ordered around the 20th of December but took the slow free shipping option. cheers Nick Middleton

I don't buy Mongoose Publishing books as a matter of principle (and the reasons go far wider than MRQ and are not really relevant to this thread) so I haven't read any of the MGP Eternal Champion stuff cover to cover. But, from their previous work for the Chaosium games, I'd trust anything with Lawrence Whitaker or Charles Green as primary authors. Frankly, I don't rate Gareth Hanrahan's writing, and never have so if I was buying MGP stuff I'd still be steering clear of his stuff. There was a possibility that another of the people who wrote for Chaosium's incarnation of the game and who's work I highly rated might be doing some stuff for the line, but I don't know whether anything has come of that. Loz (Lawrence Whitaker) does post here occasionally and since he's now an MGP staff writer may be able to give you a few snippets on what the upcoming books are likely to be about. Cheers, Nick Middleton

I feel left out as I didn't get one! Well, not much, I hate spammers... although I have nothing against Buddhists per se... Nick Middleton

I have two or three variants I cooked up during Play testing that I need to check against edition zero to make sure they still make sense, then I'll pass em to Chaosium and get em uploaded atd100.org | The unofficial site of Basic Roleplaying, the Chaosium d100 Systemand here. Cheers, Nick Middleton

I always thought Strike Ranks did not exactly equal seconds, they "approximated" to them. And just because the physical actions is divided up in to rounds does NOT mean that what's being described unfolds in the same discontinuous fashion. I always approached it that rounds, SR's etc. are all just tools to allow us to play as a game with some structure and plausibility dramatic close quarters action that otherwise would be too confusing. So, DEX SR is an indication of overall speed of reactions. Everyone one "moves" at basically the same moment in any round: but people with better DEX SR (i.e. lower DEX SR) are fractionally faster, or have just read the unfolding situation better and get "the drop" on the other combatants, or are more alert to the important things in the environment of the battlefield - the net effect is that someone one with DEX 20+ covers 27m in a round (DEX SR1, 9 SR of movement at 3m / SR), but someone with DEX 11 covers only 21m (DEX SR 3, 7 SR of movement at 3m / SR). This does NOT mean the DEX 11 character "freezes" for 3 seconds out of every ten in every combat - it means they spend little fractions more working out what's going on or how to achieve what they want here and there throughout the fight. The SR values are just a way to quantify all the mayhem and split second stuff in a way that makes it easy enough to follow that it can be a playable game. Oh, and in BRP Zero whilst Move is listed under a heading of "Combat Actions" it is also specifically stated as being for un-engaged combatants (engaged combatants get a much more limited Move allowance). Cheers, Nick Middleton

Pretty much as RQIII IIRC, at least in the play test draft - you can commence moving on your DEX SR at typically 3m / SR etc. Cheers, Nick Middleton

And to be honest, I never liked them, and besides when I drafted that post there were <facetious></facetious> tags round that comment as i wasn't being entirely serious. Good. It was the second of the three optional rules for opposed rolls in the play test draft I have, wasn't sure in among the debate if it had made it in to final draft, but I'm glad it did for those who don't like the new default. I do find the default method better (revised for clarity as discussed here), but there should be alternatives for those who don't. Cheers, Nick Middleton

I used to use a subtle variation in Stormbinger games actually, which was that when success levels were tied, the higher SKILL won (irrespective of rolls), which worked reasonably well. In the play test draft Combat remained a special case, as it always has been in Chaosium BRP rules, and Attack / Parry and Dodge resolution were described in the Combat Chapter, not the Skills chapter. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Quite agree - but there is a flaw in this version: If I special my Sneak against the Guards critical Spot, he only gets a normal success (he won, I got a success two steps better than failure, so I get to bump him down two steps from Criticla success to normal successs). But if I critical my Sneak, but still lose, against his critical Spot he still gets a critical Spot... :confused: Hence Pete Nash and I saying (in different fashions) that in case ii, the rule should be "higher roll wins, but only achieves a normal success" or, "bumping happens in case ii, but can't reduce a winner's degree of success to worse than a normal success" whichever is deemed clearer. This address the flaw. Cheers, Nick Middleton

But the only way to include the previously published BRP options would to have an entry saying something like "Opposed Skills: gloss over it." or a blank space... Or a few ad hoc specific (and different in each case) examples fro the most common pairs of skills... Seriously, a LOT of criticism is levelled at BRP for lacking a generalised Opposed skill mechanic, and a LOT of people have used a variant rule like Jason's included as the "default" as a house rule for decades. Plus optional variants are included. Also note that Combat (Attack, Parry and Dodge) are special cases (they were in the playtest draft anyway), as they've always been in most BRP games: RQII and III handled the specific cases of opposed skills it bothered to mention (Sneak vs Spot mostly) very differently to combat. Cheers, Nick Middleton

This effect is precisely what is achieved by using the skill categories optional rule of course... :thumb: Nick Middleton

Compare the AD&D DMG with the D&D 3.5 DMG and notice the similarities. Yes, there are other gaming paradigms now, and even D&D acknowledges them. But the most popular table top RPG by some considerable margin is STILL D&D, and its STILL mostly about killing things and taking their stuff... I haven't needed any since I switched to using a dry wipe battlemat, and although D&D (which I occasionally DO play) is the only time detailed mapping is remotely relevant, I use the battlemat a lot, even in Cthulhu (where it serves as a sketch board we can all see, albeit my sketching talents aren't very good...). But I doubt either of us is typical, and the commercial viability of things like Dundjinni rather reinforces the point that the majority of gamers are still dungeon crawling much as they ever were... Cheers, Nick Middleton

Its one of the footnotes to the weapon tables that has apparently gone AWOL in edition zero... Cheers, Nick Middleton

IIRC match the "damage" against target's CON on the resistance table - if the damage overcomes the targest CON, the target is stunned (see Stunning Spot rule) for a few (1d3+1?) rounds, if the target resists they take minimum damage and are still conscious. Cheers, Nick Middleton

Currently can't decide between: 1) Tales of the Long Night (baroque fantasy project) 2) After the Scouring (converting my RQIII Post-Apocalypse game from last summer) 3) Jorune (finishing the coversion I started three or four years back) 4) Children of Leviatahn (lost colony SF project)... So SF or Fantasy, but not sure which (so I can't Vote as you have to pick one...) Cheers, Nick Middleton

If I special and he crits, I reduce his crit to a normal success, but if I critical, but still lose to his "better" critical, he still criticals... Don't think that works. If the most "downgrading" can do is reduce the winners success level to a normal success I think it works well: If I special and he crits, I reduce his crit to a normal success, and likewise if I crit and he crits. I can't make him fail. Cheers, Nick Middleton

No, I don't believe so (see post above). I think there's a clause missing that regardless of the losers degree of success, the winner's result can't be made worse than a normal success. So, in effect, tied successful results always mean a normal success for the winner. Cheers, Nick Middleton