BRP vs Cthulhu: About latest rules tweaks...

[Lloyd Dupont]

HI All!

I am GMing my homebrew adventure with a couple of friend using alternatively Revolution D100 and BRP (tried Mythras, and CF before as well)

I am kind of chronically unsatisfied I must confess... but staunchly opposed to GMing D&D... though they joke about it since I change my mind about some fine point of rule or rule system every so often...

At any rate one critic they agree with me is something is not quite right and it could be because D&D has gone through a lot of evolution... and it stuck me.. the most evolved BRP variation is no doubt Cthulhu!

And I suddenly wonder, what kind of subtle rule and tweaks the latest edition of Cthulhu has....

Like, for example, I think in Cthulhu game there is a rule similar to the advantage rule of D&D where you roll twice..

 

So.. in a few words... what cool rule is in Cthulhu 7e that is missing in BRP?

 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Lloyd Dupont

[foolcat]

13 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

So.. in a few words... what cool rule is in Cthulhu 7e that is missing in BRP?

CoC 7th ed. has gone in the direction many other "modern" RPG systems have taken before it. I.e, with the introduction of meta-gaming mechanics (colloquially known as "brownie points"), players now have more rules-sanctioned influence over the (formerly more unforgiving) outcome of dice rolls, or may even to a degree influence/contradict narrative as determined by dice rolls (ultra-modern, even more "narrative" RPGs are taking this to extremes--pay a brownie point and narrate whatever outcome you want as a player).

CoC7 uses Luck as an expendable resource to rectify dice rolls which failed by a small margin. The "Pushing" mechanic allows for re-rolling failed dice rolls once, at the cost of more dire  consequences for failing again. And, as you said, Keepers may allow players to make rolls with Advantage, or impede them with Disadvantage. All methods are introduced to soften the traditional, somewhat binary "roll on or under value to succeed" success/failure qualification of BRP/D100 systems.

Gone are the days of: Failed your perception roll by one percentile? Sorry, you failed to notice the Shoggoth drooling on your back. You die.

(Which incidentally, would never had happened like this at the table of an experienced Keeper/GM. Information rolls should be rolled in secret by the Keeper, and may thus be handwaved into the desired direction at any time.)

I certainly would welcome CoC's new player leniency as optional rules within the scope of a modernized BRP. As I would RQ4's mechanic of boosting skill percentiles with other skills (or runes, in this case).

   

[RosenMcStern]

55 minutes ago, foolcat said:

I certainly would welcome CoC's new player leniency as optional rules within the scope of a modernized BRP. As I would RQ4's mechanic of boosting skill percentiles with other skills (or runes, in this case).   

Both these mechanics are present in the BGB.

[g33k]

1 hour ago, foolcat said:

...

I certainly would welcome CoC's new player leniency as optional rules within the scope of a modernized BRP...

Every table (well, every table I've played at) comes up with HR's.  Your table is free to do so, too; including turning down those "player agency" dials from the default CoC7 settings.

But the default has to be set somewhere.  I'm OK with where it IS set, I think...  RQ is my BRP of choice, and I'm pondering whether to bring any of these CoC7 rules over to RQG.

[Lloyd Dupont]

I was reading CoC7 yesterday night and I quite like how hey handle luck points...
And I am... thinking with interest about the pushing mechanic....

The advantage / disadvantage rule is a bit alien to me, after some thinking... I guess I should try it to get a better feel... 

Revolution D100's stunt and blueprint is awesome and I definitely adopting it for BRP too!
(once you go black, err... stunt you can't go back, yada yada )  

BTW there is a couple of homerule that I could share here:
- I am definitely going to ditch the resistance table in favor of Characteristic+D20 vs Characteristic+10 (and creating item that boost resistance roll, like a magic wand for attack bonus and defensive amulet for resistance bonus)
 

Edited January 13, 2020 by Lloyd Dupont

[fmitchell]

While I haven't played CoC 7 yet, one mechanic I'm really interested in the advantage/disadvantage equivalent in which a player rolls two or more "tens" d10s and picks the better/worse. It seems like a quicker way to handle difficulty levels than adding/subtracting modifiers or multiplying by some factor. I've used similar techniques in other games, e.g. rolling 3d6 and keeping the higher/lower two, or adding/subtracting dice from a dice pool, and those work reasonably well at the table. I'm just a little concerned that the CoC 7 version is a little too coarse-grained ... otherwise why would they also use multipliers (the infamous Normal / Hard / Extreme percentages).

I also like the idea of opposed rolls replacing the resistance table, and consequently moving Base Characteristics to percentiles, but it does mean that small differences in the Active and Resisting scores can have large effects, while large differences approach 0% / 100% asymptotically.

[Mugen]

On 1/13/2020 at 11:52 PM, Lloyd Dupont said:

BTW there is a couple of homerule that I could share here:

- I am definitely going to ditch the resistance table in favor of Characteristic+D20 vs Characteristic+10 (and creating item that boost resistance roll, like a magic wand for attack bonus and defensive amulet for resistance bonus)
 

Note that using Characteristic +10 will give you 55% chance to win if both protagonists have the same Characteristic value. You need to add 11 to have 50%  chance.

As for myself, I wouldn't mix so different systems in my games. I'd either convert all mechanisms to a d20+(skill/characteristic) or use Characteristic x5 as a "pseudo-skill"' in standard skill opposition rolls (which can be Mythras', RD100's, roll under 50+(difference in skills)x5, or whatever works for you).

But it's your game.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Mugen

[TrippyHippy]

I just find the Luck rules problematic for two reasons.

Firstly,  especially when playing with the Pulp rules, they tend to dominate play. Players are constantly monitoring their Luck pool, and it changes the context of the game. I am saying this after running Masks of Nyalathotep for the last year using the Pulp rules. The game is less skill driven and slightly more metagamey as was pointed out above. 

Secondly, I felt they were a messy implementation. Luck used to be based on a character’s Power (POW) characteristic, which was cool to me as you could infer that Luck was a latent psychic or supernatural aspect affecting the character. Now, Luck is it’s own stat and has a curious way of defining itself in a non-simulationist way (how can ‘external’ factors be a measurable characteristic?). It’s also somewhat undermined the Magic Points - which are hardly used in the game by comparison. For me, it would have been a lot more satisfying if they had combined Magic Points and the uses of Luck in some way - maybe allowing players to spend Magic points for re-rolls, etc.  

 

Edited January 29, 2020 by TrippyHippy

[Lloyd Dupont]

There are many variation of the luck point system, almost each D100 variation has its own implementation...

I guess the consensus seems to be ... while everybody like luck, nobody quite like the way it works (i.e. there is no common implementaion that is the general favorite)! So you are not alone...
I guess you will have to experiment hey?

As for me, I found the latest CoC appealing. Maybe not the starting luck value... (which I would arbitrate to, say .. 20+ pow?), but I like how it increase / recover (1 improvement roll after the adventure, which cost XP since I use XP) and is consumed...

Edited January 28, 2020 by Lloyd Dupont