NickMiddleton

Um, in BGB BRP they don’t, if it’s a weapon in _category_ they are familiar with, or even just similar too: ”Each specialty in Melee Weapon applies to weapons from that category of weapon only: to learn how to use a different weapon category, your character must learn a second Melee Weapon skill and specialty. At the gamemaster’s discretion, your character can wield a weapon from a related or similar weapon category, with the skill roll being Difficult.” ”The descriptions for the Heavy Weapon, Melee Weapon, and Missile Weapon skills in Chapter Three: Skills all refer to weapon specialties and weapon class- es. A weapon class is a rough group the weapon belongs to, while the specialty is your character’s familiarity with that class. Weapons are broken up into classes, while skills are broken into specialties.” As regards spell casting, I’ve never liked the “skill per spell” / “skill per manipulation” model, as I said elsewhere recently, just have a single “Sorcery” (or whatever skill) and let exceptional successes improve casting and failures fumbles impair / botch castings etc. Exactly. By all means one could rank spells into broad classes of difficulty such that easy spells have a bonus to cast, or hard spells can only be attempted if ones skill exceeds a threshold like 50%, or the time effort to learn varies etc... But for most models of spell casting a skill per spell, and no equivalent of weapon categories so ones skill with a spell in the same category is the same, seems oddly limited.

All true - but this thread is in the Magic World forum, and started from observations about the Magic World rule for creatures without CON and poisons, so Glorantha's not hugely relevant here... 😉 I quite like the idea of "blessed" / "holy" water as poisons / venoms against undead (or Otherworld) creatures... But my main point is that in a broad, non-setting specific game like Magic World I do NOT think this is a mistake - one may prefer in ones OWN setting to define a rule that what ones rules recognise and model as Poison can only affect creatures with a CON score, and that no creature formally defined as Undead can have a CON score... but that would be ones own specific ruling for ones own game / setting. Cheers, Nick

*meh* the game includes diseases that attack the soul; the idea of poisons / venoms that might affect at least some undead seems perfectly fine in a fantasy game to me.

Make it a skill, based on POW, probably in the Mental group. Occupations that expose an Adventurer to live combat situations would allow increases. Roll it for morale, possibly roll at the start of combat for possible bonuses (and penalties for poor rolls) to DEX for combat timing as well.

Given how important the personal dimension is to my Roleplaying I cannot imagine the circumstances in which I would do such a thing. Role playing is something I do with friends, not strangers. I can think of few things more unappealing than trying to roleplay with a group where I do not know anyone else.

p190: "If your character can perform more than one action in a round (some weapons allow for multiple attacks, and combat skill levels in excess of 100% also allow multiple attacks), each attack should be separated by 5 DEX ranks. The first action is at the full DEX rank; the second is at DEX rank –5; the third at DEX rank –10; etc. Your character cannot act on DEX rank 0 for any actions, so any actions that would occur below DEX rank 1 are lost." My italics. The Attack action clarifies: p190: "Attack Your character can make an attack against a target on his or her DEX rank, in addition to moving up to 5 meters. Unless modified otherwise, this attack is performed at the full skill rating. As noted above, if a particular weapon allows for multiple attacks, each successive attack should be at 5 DEX ranks lower than the previous attack." Again, my italics. So, no attack skill is NOT penalised, but each attack takes place 5 DEX rank after the previous one, if the character has the DEX ranks available (if not, the additional attacks are lost).

From the errata ( https://basicroleplaying.org/files/file/556-magic-world-errata/ ): p. 48 second column: “A critical result occurs on a roll of 01-05” should be “A critical result occurs on a roll of 1/20th of the Adventurer’s skill rating.” p. 63 Critical definition: “A D100 result of 01-05” should be “A D100 result equal to or less than 1/20th of the Adventurer’s skill rating.” p. 67 in the Matrix notes: “If the attack roll is 01-05, a critical success occurs. A critical result represents the best possible achievement with the weapon.” Same change as above. These are corrected in the revised PDF. So a critical (1/20th) is ALSO a special (1/5th) result. There's no explicit general automatic success or failure rules per se for skills: as it says under Routine Actions on p 48: "Routine game actions in routine circumstances always succeed. There is no need to roll dice to walk or to run, or for the routine use of any skill." Albeit under the Skill Rolls section it ALSO points out: "A result of 00 is always a fumble.". The resistance table DOES include ranges of automatic success & failure - so when raw characteristics are in opposition automatic success / failure are possible - logically a weakling (STR 9) cannot lift a Rhinoceros (SIZ 40) unaided, but in general tend not to apply to skills as a corollary of "The Chronicler tells when to roll dice and tells what sort of roll to make: a skill roll, a Resistance Table roll, a characteristic roll, etc." is that the Chronicler is, ultimately in charge of whether a roll is possible or not.

I’d guess the text was copied from the “Big Gold Book” manuscript, and we all missed that reference to hit locations. Looks like it didn’t get caught in the most recent errata doc in the downloads section here either.

I’ve never understood why anyone plays or runs any RPG with such ab approach... but then, I don’t understand why people play RPGs at conventions either. *shrug*

Welcome! Re weapon skills, check the boxed out table at the top of page 15: “Skill Category Modifiers”. That shows which categories which skills belong to, and explicitly lists all melee weapon skills under Physical, and all missiles under Manipulation. A purely corrected table probably wouldn’t run foul of copyright - but best practice would be to email Chaosium (https://www.chaosium.com/contact-us/ - I’d guess customer service or MOB) and ask. Cheers, Nick

DEX rank plus Reflex die (bonus die from INT+CON on same table as Damage bonus). I also occasionally do more fiddly things with a Crisis / Combat Awareness / Sense type skill: everyone has it, you get experience in it from professions / occupations that exposed you to live combat / crisis situations - so veterans generally react quicker than civilians with no combat / crisis exposure. Also used for morale and trauma type effects. Used to love RQ SR but overt the decades my tastes have turned away from the intricate to the more straightforward.

I am biased, as I wrote a piece for the line and did a bit to help Ben Monroe prepare the manuscript for release, but like others, I'd recommend Magic World. It's a single complete work that covers low to mid fantasy really well, it's a rich enough implementation of BRP to cope with a few one shots or multi year campaigns but streamlined and straightforward enough to be easy to explain and grasp. Its HIGHLY compatible with the BRP core book (aka the "Big Gold Book" or BGB) which is chock full of options. And as Soltakss says, BRP is pretty easy to mix and match with anyway. Start with Magic World and get a feel for what you'd like to add / change / enhance. There are multiple sources for additional approaches to magic - the piece I wrote is one of several in the only official supplement for Magic World (Advanced Sorcery) , there's the aforementioned BGB plus others. In Magic World itself I'd say it is worth taking the time to read it carefully and to absorb in particular the Spot Rules section and the Chronicler's Resources chapter - there's a lot of quite subtle, apparently simple stuff in those that are the foundation of making the game really work well.

Pretty much. No cod 17th Century Coaching Inns (thank you, the Prancing Pony!) - things more like Mansio's / Cauponae; no paper; few horses; the Reaches as described in the core book and the alas never published "Campaigning in the Southern Reaches" borrow a few terms from feudal societies, but don't really come across as feudal: in my Empire of Irwan there's a senate and great houses in the heart of the Empire that act as checks and balances on the Emperor's power but their attention is not on the Reaches. I've always assumed it is a predominantly "bronze age" setting - copper alloys are king, there is limit iron in the human nations (probably just bog-iron from the peat bogs of the Iron Fields of Bergalan); the Dwarves possibly have "white metal" (steel) but no one else knows how they make it (nor has access to the high quality iron ores that would make it easier).

Hmm, well. Will see if I can come up with something for this idea I’m noodling at.

Magic World, page 221. Offers a simple scheme where NPCs are classified as Minor / Average / Experienced / Heroic / Epic with simplified assumed skills all at one value except preferred skill(s) at another, and typical armour / weapon ratings. e.g.: Minor: All abilities are at 8, preferred skills at 30%, other skills at 15%. HP = Con/2 (4), 1-2 points armour. Weapons always do 1D6 damage.

Anyone ever done a map / sketch layout of Lashingport?

*grinds teeth* Gumshoes PR has been spectacular, given how widely this fabrication has been disseminated. Gumshoe explicitly spells out, and pretends (or at least, some of its fans pretend) it is an utterly new, unique revelation exclusive to Gumshoe, something that has been part of basic competent scenario design and GM prep for most gamers I know since about 1980... Read the scenario, consider the information flows. If the only way to chapter 2 is the characters identifying where the kidnappers went, part of ones GM prep of Chapter 1 should include a note to ensure that, whatever happens, by the end of playing through that material, the characters be in possession of the relevant address... Yes, in an ideal world, the scenario writer / editors should spot this and flag it themselves, and early on not all did; equally, it has always been the case the GM / Keeper is expected to familiarise themselves with the scenario in advance of running and adapt what is written to create a workable game at their table. And lets be clear, just because a lot of early CoC scenarios were poorly written, does not mean the system is at fault, nor that every sceanrio made these mistakes, despite Gumshoes claims to the contrary. Perhaps if more early Keepers and writers had paid more attention to the sample scenario in the core book... Because getting Corbitt's diaries, or a number of other clues, in the Haunted House do not require any skill rolls... And there is NO "Search" skill in Call of Cthulhu. Gumshoe is perfectly fine system - it has some genuinely interesting innovations (and some serious issues, at least in its early incarnations) - the whole "CoC was SHIT at investigations but we have discovered the secret divine revelation of how to fix it that no one else had" is just annoying hyperbole - combined with Trail of Cthulhu's inability to explain its core mechanics for fifty pages however rather soured me on the game, despite liking some of the settings (esp Ashen Stars and Mutant City Blues).

It’s a retro clone of the Victory Games James Bond RPG I believe: https://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=9813

Wolf-rider elves have a starting POW of 2D6+6, and the Sending (basic telepathy skill) at POW x 4, and whilst a failed sending costs 1 MP if they were paying MP (See later) , a character with poor skill can BOOST their chance by spending extra MP (+10% per MP). A message costs a base of 1 MP per 1000yds range, but for every 10 percent skill, you get 1000yds "free"... so an Elf with 10% Sending trying to send a message within 1000yds (i.e. for free) can fail, but it costs them nothing and they can add to their chance of success by spending MP... A typical Wolf-rider (Sending 52%) who isn't that fussed about how quickly they get through can try free sendings to folk within ~2.8 miles for no cost (barring fumbles, which always cost 1 MP) and one in every two attempts will get through - a fair game representation of the "telepath pauses and screws up their face in concentration" - but if they want minimal chance of error, they spend 5MP to boost their success chance to 102%. I rather like that it puts limits on what can be achieved related to skill, whilst implying sufficient reliability that casual usage need not bog play down, but for certainty the player will need to commit some resource. Cheers, Nick

Bluntly, the "BGB" book for BRP is complicated - it is a compilation of the options and variants from multiple games and whilst there is a core "baseline" that's pretty straightforward (and quite close to Elric! / Magic World) it's not clearly and distinctly spelled out in isolation from all the options. For a new player - give them the BRP Quickstart (or at least the rules part), and then say there's a BIG library of options from which you will use an appropriate subset. IN D&D 5e terms, the BGB is the core three books plus Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Volo's Guide to Monsters, and several of the Unearthed Arcana articles. Oh, and as to what to do, you are doing it: I've used the Magic World as the basis of all my BRP CG since I first read Ben's draft of it - it's streamlined, effective and avoids the awful decision paralysis that BGB CG and similar approaches can get mired in. Re Skill Categories - I like them for CG and acquiring new skills, but I've always played that we apply them once, at CG / when a skill is first opened, and then don't worry of the stat changes and thus the category modifier changes for existing skills. Creating a character and playing a character are two different engagements with the rules set. Nick

g33k's point I would guess is that the licenses under which Chaosium published these RPG adaptations are both long since lapsed, and thus they are no longer supported (hence no PDF versions legally available etc). Apart from the official supplements for both games (one for RingWorld, a couple for ElfQuest, and the revised book edition of the latter) I am not really aware that either generated much in the way of support material even when they were available - there were a few articles in Different Worlds I think? But not much else. RW famously ran afoul of contradictory licensing priorities by Niven's agent, and Chaosium famously had to dump all stock of RW at short notice and were giving copies away at one point IIRC. Both ElfQuest and RW are interesting as alternate "forks" of the development of the Chaosium House System that we now call BRP that had evolved out of RuneQuest - in particular I've always been intrigued by the similarities and differences between RQ3, RingWorld, ElfQuest and Other Suns (which IIRC Chaosium had seen before it was finally released via FGU) - all of which emerged in the 1981-1984 period. Cheers, Nick

I've been toying with a system where effects derive from a combination of a characters innate qualities (like existing DB, but divided between force and precision); skill rating and "tool" (e.g. weapon) effectiveness. So for example DB might be +1D4, Skill might grant +1D8, tool / weapon +1D6 for a total roll of 1D4+1D8+1D6 (Specials and crits would allow one to increase the die size in DB). A successful defensive roll would allow the defender to include active defence (parrying object's tool die Parry Skill die OR or Dodge skill die) as well as passive (armour die); a failed defence roll would only allow passive defence. Not tested it anger yet mind. Cheers, Nick

For much of the time when running BRP and using a statement of intent phase, I've used "Declare in order from lowest INT to Highest INT, then resolve in DEX rank from Highest to Lowest" - so the SMARTEST person gets to plan their action knowing what everyone else is planning, but the resolution is based on who reacts fastest... In more recent years (well, decade or so...) I've tended to have a more general accounting of Reflexes and situational awareness. Chaot's Smiorgan's post was quite an eye opener - I ran a LOT of SB1-3 in the 1980's / early 90's but I'd forgotten the details of the original action economy completely! RQ (and other) systems of the same era were big on the "adhesiveness" of combatants, that moving around in melee was NOT easy... the pendulum has swung in the intervening years so that 's generally seen as a bad design goal - frankly, my (now somewhat rusty) HEMA experience has always lead to me to feel otherwise in general, but in a game like Stormbringer, what would bother me most about implementing the RAW now is accommodating things like "bull rushing" an opponent e.g. off a walkway... Cheers, Nick

Given the use of the trademark name for an entirely different line of products as announced for Questworlds, is the Worlds of Wonder re-issue going to get renamed or something?

Its been a while since I ran or played SB... whilst I have fond memories of the 1-3 system, I really liked and my players found far more nuance and game value in the 4e / Elric! / SB5 variants.