PhilHibbs

Simplicity is indeed a big priority and I think you made the right call. There used to be separate melee/missile hit locaton tables in AHRQ3 and there's nothing to stop anyone from using the charts from that.

There are three answers to that question that I can think of, and I'm sure there are more. First, if your group doesn't like increasing the chance of fumble on an aimed blow, then don't increase the chance of fumble on an aimed blow (or similar voluntary modifier). Keep the full skill's fumble chance (and crit/special if you like) and only change the chance to get a normal success. Oh, and this is the MRQ2 answer, unless the modifier takes you from over 100% to under, as that is the point where the fumble chance goes from 99-00 to just 00. Second, you are restricting your options, and concentrating on one thing above all else, and might make a mistake because of that. Finally, it's simpler, if that's the way you think. It's a side effect and it's not worth fussing over a 1% change here and there, and if you apply a rule consistently then you don't have arguements over what modifiers affect fumble chance and which ones do not. I prefer the first answer, now that you've raised it, athough I would naturally have gone with the last one. But I'm a number junkie.

It's not the person swinging the sword that is making the choice. You are making the choice, your character is swinging the sword. A roleplaying game is never going to be an accurate 1-for-1 reality simulator, it's a narrative engine. I like realism, I like simulationism, but I know that sometimes you have to stop trying to reach perfection because perfection would take an entire game session to simulate one combat round.

Well, that leaves me with the problem with my imagination, because I agree with their logic. Repeatedly hitting the same location every time is a solid tactical choice in nearly every fight, especially with locational hit points and no general hit points, because it takes someone down much more quickly than spreading out the damage. In the final boss fight in the GLS scenario, everyone just hit the thing in the chest and it was dead before the first melee round was half way through. Most of the MRQ2 combat system is great, but Choose Location is ruining the game. My suggested mod wouldn't even have fixed that fight, 'cos it can't parry 6 people.

I think the Old West has a lot of promise as a Call of Cthulhu setting.

I've played FPS games in "cheat mode", it's no fun when you get what you want all the time. Always feeling that you have to choose the most effective option can also be disappointing. And it applies to their opponents as well, they will be receiving fewer aimed blows to their less-armored or already-injured location so it cuts both ways. I think it will change the balance of combat in a good way, but I haven't tried it yet so I'm not certain.

You're trying to hit this guy on the head, but he's got his shield held high stopping you 'cos he's not wearing a helmet. So what do you do? You chop his leg off, or his sword arm, or you gut him. You wanted to hit the head, but the fact that he's actively trying to parry you means you can't choose Head. Nonetheless, he has clearly failed to parry, 'cos you hit him. Makes sense to me. As to rolling Head randomly, well, these things occasionally happen, but you can't guarantee a headshot due to that damn shield being in the way. Part of the reason for restricting Choose Location is that my players pick it every time, and I don't want to use the suggested penalty clause for repeating the same CM. As to "a new class of CMs", plenty of CMs have their own particular restrictions, one more doesn't make much difference.

Yes, on a failed parry you will get a hit through, but he might have prevented you from hitting where you wanted to hit. It seems to me that against an evenly armored opponent, you might want to go for max damage on the first few hits, and then when you've hit a vital location, Choose the same location again to take it down.

It seems to me from my very limited LARP fighting experience that most of the time you go for the openings that the enemy hasn't covered - so while he may not have stopped you hitting him, he may well have stopped you hitting him in a vital location. So being able to "Choose Location" on a failed parry isn't realistic. I am considering restricting Choose Location to unopposed attacks and criticals.

So has the D&D system of hit points and saving rolls going up as a character progresses not made it into CF? I have had a flick though and can't see anything like that. Total Hit Points are double what they used to be in RQ3, but that's for all characters (and monsters) from the start. How can a high-level CF character wade through a horde of hundreds of low-level orcs in the same way that a 10th level fighter can?

I'm going to adapt a zone from World of Warcraft into a RuneQuest 2 campaign. Zul'Drak is a ruined city where the trolls who worshipped animal spirits/gods turned to desperate measures in order to fight of the Lich King and sacrificed their own gods to gain their powers for themselves to use against the undead. In Glorantha, this will be against chaos rather than undead, and I'm going to place it in the Palarkri Mountains in Pamaltela. The party are a group of God Learners in the Golden Liberation Society and they will be sent there on a rescue mission to investigate a missing expedition. I'm not sure what race the natives should be, maybe some relatives of the Agimori, or some new human type of my own invention modelled on the Aztecs.

My set of Sandy's rules is back online: http://www.hibbs.me.uk/snarks/sandysorcery.html My variant rules is here: http://www.hibbs.me.uk/snarks/meldeksorcerors.html

I found some MRQ2 downloads here, so I thought I'd share this: Game Aids on MRQ Wiki The Adventurer Creation Spreadsheet is mine - there's an online Google Documents version (you will need to have a Google Documents account and use Save As to use it), and an OpenOffice.org version as well.

I'm thinking of replacing the cover art on my copy of MRQ with something like that.

This is not something that BRP should have hard rules for, any more than Cthulhu, Stormbringer, or Superworld should have all had the same system. Suggestions, definitely, for the benefit of newer players, but nothing strict, just a clear statement that the referee should choose their system at the start of a campaign.

It's not an encyclopedia of roleplaying, it's a general encyclopedia. There's no reason why any particular administrator should know the first thing about roleplaying. The article had no references to back up any assertion of notability, so an admin tagged it as such. Essentially he said "I see no reliable independent evidence that this is notable - provide such evidence or it will be considered for deletion". Note the word "considered" - it means that it will be flagged for debate. Not for deletion, but for debate. No reason to get wound up at all, this is just the system working the way it is supposed to. I spotted it, and helped to sort out the situation. Job done, move on, no need to get annoyed over anything.

I think enough has been done in linking to Shannon's article on RPGNet. Thanks all.

An admin on Wikipedia has flagged the Basic Roleplaying article as not having established notability of the subject matter, and thus may be considered for deletion at some point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Role-Playing Now I know what you're all thinking, but don't. A flood of fans all logging on and saying "It's notable, we know it, it's historically significant and great and stuff" isn't going to help. Appologies for the characterisation, I exaggerate for comic effect. What *will* help is references to published material that states that BRP is historically significant to the hobby, and preferably which is independent of Chaosium, Games Workshop, and anyone else directly linked to the material. By this I mean reviews and historical articles in publications such as Dragon, Escapist, etc. or, even better, in mainstream publications outside the hobby. Blogs of prominent industry people like Ken Rolston are also good, even though he worked for Avalon Hill on the RQ stuff. If you find something, then you can either navigate the maze of templates and citation rules, or just post a reply here and I'll do that bit.

Hi, I'm Phil Hibbs, and I've been roleplaying since 1981. Started on D&D, then moved on to RQ2 and Traveller, RQ and Glorantha are still my main fascination. Lately I've been playing a lot of L5R 2nd Edition though. My claim to publishing fame is a playtest credit in the Hero Wars rulebook. I'm a founder member of the GTA, and regularly attend the two main European conventions for Hero Wars, Cthulhu and Stormbringer (Tentacles in Germany, and Convulsion/Continuum in the UK).

Any old RQII/RQIII fans able to comment on how the system compares?