NickMiddleton

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

I think it was called "D and <something>". Can't quite remember the other letter...

And yes - nice formula (good pedigree). Something about the "Dice + Adds" method appeals, too: clean and neat (my T&T background showing?). I just wondered if having big flat bonuses like "+50" (or even +20, or whatever...) would offend too many people around here. It seems not...

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

Hey, are there any BRP character sheets yet?

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

What occurs with the optional strike ranks?

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

Not sure what you mean buy adding something that wasn't there before. RQ3 Player's Book, pg 34, heading "Skill vs. Skill". That is the opposed roll rules for RQ3.

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.

The exact same mechanic is in BRP as an option, but honestly the default method is much better.

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

Thanks for that. I guess you're right.

It's just the "ii.) If both rolls achieve the same degree of success, the higher roll wins." bit that gets me. It doesn't feel right. It means you can lose when the other guy did a worse roll (to my way of thinking). Draw a line through that, define what happens on a tied roll, and everything would be hunky-dory, as far as I'm concerned.

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.

PS: I assume this mechanism isn't supposed to be used in combat, right?

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

i.) The character that achieves the highest degree of success in an opposed roll wins the contest. Success trumps Failure, Special trumps Success, Critical trumps Special, etc. HOWEVER, if the loser also succeeded their roll, the winner is "bumped down" one level of success for every level of success of the loser. As follows:

If the Loser Succeeds, Winner's Critical becomes Special, Special becomes Success.

If the Loser Specials, Winner's Critical becomes Success.

ii.) If both rolls achieve the same degree of success, the higher roll wins.

Note that there is no mention of Bumping in example (ii). This is clear from the wording, but could definitely be made more explicit - on a casual skim through you *could* misunderstand and assume its all basically one rule instead of two. The example does make it clear what's intended, though.

It looks like Jason has agreed to put a clearer wording in the full release, which clears it up nicely.

It's a neat, elegant rule. I'll be using the first part unchanged; for me, I'll be calculating Success Margins (how much you make your roll by) for the second part, as I anticipate lots of 100%+ characters in time!

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

The point is, not whether the Opposed Roll mechanism can work or not, but that introducing it breaks the stated design principle of using rules from previous BRP incarnations. And worse - it's not just an option, but officially the only way.

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

...In spite of everything I've just written, I think you have a valid point, and that it might make sense to say that a low enough DEX lowers your base chance, a midrange DEX has no effect, and a high DEX raises your base chance.

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

:thumb:

Nick Middleton

I disagre. Gameplay has changed quite a bit over the years. Room/Monster/Treasure isn't the way people play or games sold anymore. At leasat not all of them. Compare the AD&D DMG with something newer and see where the emphaisis lies.

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 graph paper to play an RPG for quite some time.

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

These rules/concepts about how stun works make sense to me, but I couldn't find any concrete reference to this in the ARC.

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

That's what I would think, but just wanted to make sure. The concept, seems to match that I saw on a BRP site where a successful parry turns a crtical hit into a special.

The fix seems to be to specify that if success levels are the same there is no downgrading. Otherwise about 80% of the opposed rolls will be tied failures.

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

Okay, so let me see if I got this right.

Two characters are having an opposed test. Say Gambling. Let's say both have a 70% skill.

The first guy rolls a 26, the second a 54.

Now by the rules of oppositiong the second guy win the resoiltuion by rolling higher, yet under his skills.

Then his success gets downgraded to a failure since the first guy did succeed.

Is that how it works? :confused:

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

Now we can all interpret this correctly so that if both characters get the same level of success then you do NOT downgrade the success of the winner down to a failure. However, it does not say this specifically.

Agreed, I just reread the play test draft (see post above) and it's NOT explicitly stated.

It also doesn't explain what happens if the winner of matched specials, or criticals are treated as such... or whether the winner should be treated as having only gained a normal success.

Same again I'd say: I.e. that downgrading can ameliorate the winners advantage but not remove it: they will always have succeeded (i.e. have at least a normal level of success), but can be downgraded from critical or special.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

How does that work when the success levels are equal. One guy wins by an opposed roll and then gets downgraded? Does success vs. success get downgraded to a failure? :confused:

My undertsanding is that you are conflating two steps:

1a) Best success level wins

1b) Iff success levels tied, highest roll wins

2) Having determined who won by method 1, if the loser has rolled a success they get to down grade the winners degree of success by one step for each step above failure that they achieved.

So downgrading ONLY comes in to play AFTER determining who "won".

The only rough spots for me are that highest roll doesn't feel right (for all I know it's simpler and mathematically the same as calculating the margin) and it's not explicitly stated that 2) cannot reduce a winners success beyond "normal" success, which is what I assume is the case.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

Let's see if I can clarify. "Fondle" is a term used meaning to hold and caress, with strong sexual implications. Typical used in terms of fondling one own, or another's sexual organs.

As you are not a native English speaker, I can understand how you could miss that.

But that is why Nick's and Tweakers comments were, IMO out of line.

You are reading your own interpretations into the word I think - I regularly fondle my cat - he's a short hair mongrel, but he has very soft fur and I'm very fond (that word again) of him, especially since he survived being hit by a car back in september (bar the loss of one eye...). Most people (even in the phrase "Gun fondler" / "Gun fondling") I'd suggest just mean "excessive emotional attachment" when they use the term.

fon·dle (fndl)

v. fon·dled, fon·dling, fon·dles

v.tr.

1. To handle, stroke, or caress lovingly. See Synonyms at caress.

2. Obsolete To treat with indulgence and solicitude; pamper.

v.intr.

To show fondness or affection by caressing.

Nothing sexual in that.

And Zane used the term first, albeit it scare quotes:

... Our resident "Gun Fondler" spent about 45 minutes picking apart not just the table in the new book, but also the Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green weapons tables (I had expected him to have studied both previously, especially since he has DG)...

All Zane did was post a question to get people's reaction to the firearm damages. He diudn't deserve to be called some sort of deviant for simply posting a thread.

He didn't get called anything, at least not by me. I sarcastically (and without the scare quotes) re-used a term he'd already used, in response to his original post (which he himself described as harsh).

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

To be blunt Atgxtg, Zane set the tone (and openly acknowledged that he did):

The following is pretty harsh, and I feel like some background info on our group is needed...

In reponse, I explained why I thought the lack of detail in the core book wasn't a problem, and could be addressed by supplements. I acknowledged that SOME BRP fans would like a detailed fire arms system (and name checked a couple of previous RPG supplelmwes along precisely those lines).

In response to what I may have misread (but see his opening comments) as a rather snarky list from Zane I also made one sarcastic reference to "gun fondling" - but his own description of his group indicates, to me anyway, an unusual level of interest in firearms and their accurate portrayal in RPG's. I say this as someone who has regularly gamed with (serving and ex) military and with (minor) personal experience of shotguns, black powder long arms and pistols: and (leaving aside special cases that I acknowledged in my original post), my exepience has been that most gamers just aren't that interested in the details of firearms (or accept that RPG rules have to make aproxiamations).

And Call of CThulhu's sales are relevant becuase it is the most successful set of BRP firearms rules published to date - which rather suggests that, contrary to Zane's groups opinion, a lot of BRP gamers aren't that bothered by the inaccuracies in its firearms.

And whilst you were busy taking offence at one comment in my post, you didn't offer a counter argument to my main point: that a detailed and more accurate treatment of firearms doesn't seem necessary in the core rulebook, but WOULD make sense in a supplement.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

...The following points were raised:

1a. Such a vague weapons table is unacceptable

And yet Coc has sold home many copies? I can quite believe it's unacceptable to your group: I am, forgive me, skeptical that one can quite so straightforwardly generalise this to a universal statement. Certainly, it doesn't bother any of the gamers I know - if we were playing a modern special forces game where modern firearms performance was directly relevant, it might but frankly for ANY specialist setting like that we'd expect to supplement what's in the core rulebook with our own research or a supplelment specifically about the topic.

There are a number of RPG supplements specifically for those who care about more detail in their modern weapons - whilst the Pagan Publishing supplement is currently OOP it may yet re-appear, and Charles Ryan's well regarded Ultramodern Firearms (originally for Millenium's End IIRC but reworked as a d20 supplement a few years back) is relatively easy to get hold of and is quite usable with BRP.

Plus of course there is a clear opening for a BRP supplement on modern firearms and all the added rules complexity one would need to model their effects sufficiently accurately for most gun fondlers - penetration, recoil, round type, loads, maintenance etc etc.

I'm sure a section of the market would dearly love a BRP Guns!Guns!Gun! / Fire, Fusion & Steel - I'm also reasonably sure such a thing wasn't part of Jason's brief, and wouldn't appeal to the majority of BRP players (especially as part of the new default core rules).

1b. If the book is printed with such basic weapons types, it's going to get negative reviews.

2. Look at Youtube videos of someone firing a Barrett Light .50 (Sniper Rifle).

3. In the CoC gun table there are several items that don't make sense, including different damages for what is basically the same weapon (granted this has nothing to do with the new book).

I'm afraid I have to agree with pretty much everything they said, and must confess I got a chuckle out of the who is moving the sniper rifle question. Though if I read correctly a STR 5 person should be able with some effort to move it. The one player is supposed to be taking a good look at the spreadsheet I've been trying to do up to convert the 5.6 CoC Weapons Table to include the stats in the new BRP book.

Realistically I don't expect most of this to be fixed this late in production, however, it would be nice if it could. In Jason's defense, it looks like he mostly just dumbed down the CoC gun tables, making them very generalized, and adding in the new stats.

Jason's brief, I believe, was for a core BRP rule book - not the BRP Gun-fondler's bible.

For much of the playtest the playtesters didn't have the weapons tables, we were using weapon tables from previous BRP games as they would be mostly compatible. I got sight of the weapons tables last year and whilst I was a bit disappointed at the lack of detail, saw nothing problematic in them as a base set of tables to get people playing.

Whilst modern era firearms might be a little shortchanged for some people, I'd rather that than have had other era's weapons poorly served: if the modern firearms get the detailed treatment, why not the mediaval melee weapons? Or the futuristic weapons? As a baseline the tables give simple stats for weapons of every era the game covers. Adding details for a specific era / technologies is, as I've already suggested, a role for supplements in my opinion.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

I was at Warwick from 1982-1985 (Maths) but played in the roleplaying group from 1985 onwards.

So we probably crossed over then - I was at Warwick 1986/-/1989 (Phil Lit), and lived in Coventry until 1995

I caught a bus to Wellingborough, came up on the coach from Wellingborough to Coventry then a bus from Coventry to Gibbet Hill and walked down from Gibbet Hill. Then after the coach got cancelled, I caught a bus to Northampton, walked to the train station, got a train to Coventry and the bus to Gibbet Hill where I walked down to the main campus.

Actually, now you described it, it doesn't sound as bad as I remembered it...

We played in the Airport Lounge in the main Rootes building and normally took up two or three of the big multi-seater couches around a coffee table.

Eerily well suited to running big games in weren't they?

I can't remember if we played on a Tuesday or Wednesday but I stayed the night on campus or at friends' in Coventry in an area called Paradise which is possibly the most unsuitable name for a region I've ever known.

I always assumed it was one of those blackly ironic consequences of the idiotic wide eyed optimism of the post war rebuilding when they came up with names like that...

Then I moved to Coventry and the long commute ended but the games didn't, until everyone left Uni and went their own way of course.

Funnily enough a largish chunk of my gaming crowd stayed on in Coventry after they finished at Warwick, so we were still all gaming together through the early '90's at various friends houses in Earlsdon and Tile Hill until my job was abolished during rail privatisation and I relocated to York.

:focus:

It's strange thinking back on gaming then actually - I had far fewer RPG books, and made minimal use of computers to aid with the role playing (I'd dabbled using my Amiga to keep notes, but the screen was crap and printing a bugger - I actually had more joy with the Amstrad PCW8512 I "inherited" from my in laws), albeit we'd experimented with using walky-talky radios for a dual GM campaign (it hadn't worked), and on another occasion had run a multi-threaded campaign that climaxed with four GM's running four interrelated games in the same house at the same time (and with characters occasionally slipping between them...) - THAT would have been hugely easier in a typical modern house with four computers and a network!

I do like having electronic versions of stuff that I can reference at work or easily print extracts from for players etc. but remain both firmly attached to books for actual reading and reference when I'm writing material; and I must confess I remain some what sceptical that PDF releases are automatically a good idea in all circumstances for the RPG publishers.

But, having said that, I can't help feeling it's time Chaosium did something a bit more substantial on the PDF front than simply re-issuing old OOP material via DTR.

Cheers,

Nick Middleton