Sam E.

Ah, I forgot to think in terms of video game settings. I actually made a Mass Effect conversion for Savage Worlds a few years back - but as usual, I had no one to GM it for me ...

The conventional wisdom is that games such as Fate that give players narrative control don't work for horror, but I don't see that myself. It seems to miss the point that player control isn't the same thing as player character control or success. As long as you have players who buy into the kind of story you're trying to create, I think it could work really well.

Ya, Vortex looks like a good system, but not a particularly unusual one - attributes, skills, advantages, disadvantages, etc. I would think you could run the setting with any number of systems, though I can see how so-called "narrativist" systems such as Fate would be an especially nice fit.

Amen, brother. That's the story of my life. I don't get to game much as it is; when I do, I'm usually GM; when I actually get to play, it's pretty much classic fantasy or modern horror. Don't get me wrong - I like those genres, but there are so many other cool things out there. I can barely get anyone interested in playing anything else, much less GMing for me. But that's enough whining ... I'd love to play in the ballpark of modern noir / con / heist. I love shows like LEVERAGE, BURN NOTICE, and HUSTLE. The obvious candidate would be the LEVERAGE RPG, but I also like the WELLSTONE CITY setting - currently written for Savage Worlds and Aether, but easy enough to run with almost anything - especially BRP! Something pulp scifi would be cool. Though I'm not a huge fan of Savage Worlds these days, I'd still jump at the chance to play SLIPSTREAM. The new ROCKET AGE RPG looks cool too (and the Vortex system looks decent enough). DOCTOR WHO: ADVENTURES IN TIME AND SPACE would also be fun. I'd love to play some seriously low-magic, human only fantasy, something Conanesque perhaps, or maybe something with a mythical Asia vibe. I'm so sick of magic - it just makes everything way too easy ...

I've actually barely played, and never run, a BRP game. For whatever reason, we didn't have access to Chaosium products in the one-horse town in which I grew up back in the day - it was pretty much just all TSR stuff (lots of AD&D, Marvel, and a little Top Secret), and a little ICE product (MERP). I didn't play anything BRP until years later in college, and have only recently been buying and reading BRP stuff in general. My plan is to run a post-apocalypse campaign at some point, once my current group is done with our current campaign, and I'd also like to run some modern horror one-shots here and there. As far as other things, these days: I used to run Savage Worlds, but I've lost my taste for it for various reasons. I am currently playing in a Savage Worlds high fantasy campaign, under the rubric of "I'll play anything rather than nothing ... " Luckily, as a player, I'm not too picky about the rules, as long as the GM is running some fun adventures, which he is so far, so I don't complain about the system too much ... I've run Hollow Earth Expedition a handful of times, and love it. I agree with an earlier poster that I'd love to see a generic Ubiquity book, though the HEX books do well enough for anything remotely modern, or anything with low-powered magic / psionics / etc. I'd definitely like to run more of this, and I'm looking forward to Revelations of Mars coming out for some pulpy swords-and-planet action. I'm running a campaign for an old childhood D&D buddy via email. I used to say we were playing C&C, but I now realize that we're playing AD&D with some C&C tacked on ... At the moment, I'm running him through a heavily modified version of module B4: The Lost City. I've also been reading the Leverage RPG quite a bit, and trying to figure out whether I want to run it. I love the show, and I'm excited about the idea of RPGing it, but I'm not sure it would go over well with my current players. I'm also still not entirely sure what to think of the system. I'm not sure I'm sold on the whole "narrative rules" thing - but that's a debate I won't start here ... Having said that, the Leverage rules actually look fairly traditional underneath the supposed narrative surface. That's about it for now.

Thanks, that took me a while to put together. Simple math is easy enough with Acrobat, but it you want to round numbers off, or assign text values (specifically, the damage bonus), you need to do custom Javascript. Not being a programmer of any kind, it took me quite a while to figure out ... Ya, I would have liked the portrait on the front too, but I just couldn't figure out how to make it fit, so I compromised. I also left off powers and power points, not being sure if I was going to use them at all anyway. I figure they could go in the notes on the back, or get a separate sheet if they got extensive. Hmm, I'm not sure about filling it on Google, never tried. If and when the time comes, I'll probably just email it to my players anyway - it'd be for a local / face-to-face game rather than online.

No, they were called background points, which could be spent on various things during character generation, like stat bonuses, extra skill points, extra starting funds, gear, some talent-like things, etc.

I made my own for a post-apocalypse campaign I'm hoping to run at some point. It's pretty much what I prefer, as far as your questions go. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4Nf1fUxRi-LdUZTVWE1N1VxNDQ/view?usp=sharing All the essential crunch is on front, the back is mostly for other gear, notes, etc. I also made it a fillable and auto-calculating PDF, so that my players can just plug in characteristic values and skill points, and have the rest total up for them (and it keeps track of total points spent in the footer). I do plan to write up a little rules primer, including character generation.

I recall that the old MERP game handled this by giving humans more background points on average than most races, especially elves (who tended to have the fewest, being tied to Fate and all ... ). These points could be spent on all sorts of things: stat bonuses, extra skill points, extra cash, etc. It'd probably be easy to come up with something like that for BRP.

No problem!

We're talking about the BRP BGB hardback? I think the currently available PDF matches the most recent print run, 2008. Here's the errata to the best of my knowledge:

There weren't no such thang as Google when I played me some MERP / RM! Back then, we made our characters by hand, and we liked it that way! Actually, MERP chargen wasn't bad - it certainly took longer than 1st ed AD&D, but no more than most systems these days require, including BRP. RM, though - ya, that took quite a while. You really had to be the sort that enjoys that sort of thing. I also say that MERP and even RM were pretty streamlined and intuitive systems - but the charts, oh so many charts ... That's really why I like BRP - similarly detailed chargen and a few streamlined mechanics, but without the eight thousand charts.

Let's see here, according to the quick-start, brawl does 1d3+db. I'll double check my BGB ... EDIT: Yup. BGB lists them separately for fist, kick, and head-butt, but all the same damage.

Well said.

I kinda talked about this elsewhere: FYI, etc.

Ha, yeah, I came to that conclusion too - I'm making a form-fillable PDF that auto-calculates that stuff.

Neither is fun. My remark is directed toward everyone in the thread engaging in political remarks, not just you. Now stop it, or I will go home and play with my dolls. EDIT: I mean "action figures" ...

Please don't ruin yet another RPG forum for me by injecting politics into non-political threads. I play RPGs to escape the utterly crappy real world in which I live ...

Thanks for the replies. I like the idea of using characteristics, but like K Peterson, I worry it makes character generation a little too fiddly, especially if I'm going to introduce new folks to BRP. But if I don't use characteristics, then they feel less meaningful ... Hmm, food for thought, anyway. Thanks again.

Rule books, both formats. Adventures, PDF only - I can print out maps, notes, etc., and I rarely run them more than once, so there's no real reason to have them taking up shelf space.

What's your preference: flat starting skill values (like how CoC does it), or starting values based on characteristics (like Legend does it)? Advantages and disadvantages of each?

Ya, I caught that. I'm usually going for a little more pulpy in my games, so I'm hopeful it will work well (that is, when I finally get my players to agree to try BRP ... ).

I believe Legend does that. I more or less do the math as you do, but I'm leaning toward 10% rounded down for critical, 20% rounded down for special. For criticals, that means just drop the ones digit - your tens digit is your critical chance - and then double that for special.

Only seeing threads that I personally started in the BRP forum. No other threads visible, despite attempting to change various settings.

I don't know about that. Savage Worlds is doing quite well. Fans of Ubiquity are clamoring for a generic core book. Cortex+ just put out its Hacker's Guide, which is more or less a core book. The new FATE core has been selling very well. If GURPS and Hero aren't doing well, I suspect it has something more to do with complexity and prep time than anything else.