New Rules Ideas

[Richard S.]

Chaosium wants us to make our own subsystems and stuff, so how about we get those creative juices flowing! Feel free to post full houserules, entirely new rules, small variations, concepts for unconventional things you can do with the BRP engine, and other such things! Hell, I know we got it started on the Making a Magic System thread, but lets even expand on ideas for taking other game's mechanics and making them work in BRP. I know we have some creative minds around here and some people interested in making their own hacks, so come here and show off your best!

So I don't seem like a total hypocrite, here's a few of my own:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

2. Reduced or no characteristics. Especially in games without category bonuses, characteristics can sometimes fall by the wayside. If you don't think keeping the standard 7 characteristics will benefit your game, just remove them! Roll 3d6 to determine HP and MP and 6d6 to determine your damage bonus. To replace constitution or willpower rolls, you can take a page from post-MRQ-Runequest-and-descendents' book and treat them as skills.

[el_octogono]

32 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

Nephilim worked that way with many POT rolls and there was a suggestion to roll skills that way if I recall correctly...

[Ian Absentia]

40 minutes ago, Richard S. said:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

Welcome to HeroQuest!

!i!

[g33k]

Also -- if everything goes onto a Resistance Table -- you can replace the "active vs passive" use of the table and go to "player facing rolls" -- whether attacking an NPC or defending vs. the NPC's attack, it's always the PLAYER who rolls, not the GM.

[Austin]

6 hours ago, Richard S. said:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

I've been tinkering around with ideas along that line. Just notes, not a full write-up, nor tested in play.

I think it would be interesting to resolve opposed skill rolls as Special v. Special on the resistance table, instead of the wonky way RQ does it (I don't like that it can result in ties), or how Mythras results in shifting off of the "low rolls good" paradigm for its opposed rolls.

One of the places I've struggled with this in my design brewing is that I want to move toward Skill/10 for improved successes because I like how that scales as a way to do different graduated abilities, but that makes Skill Special v. Characteristic resistance table rolls work poorly.

For example, if "Common Magic" is implemented as a skill, rather than POW×5 for casting percentage, limiting the number of points castable to Skill/10 makes the game's scaling feel pretty similar to RQ. At Common Magic 100%, you can cast Bladesharp 10 (or the equivalent non-substantially-similar spell). But with Skill/5, that's Bladesharp 20. In contrast, If you have a "Heavy Lifting" skill of 100%, and the game is designed around Special v. SIZ to lift objects (instead of rolling STR v. SIZ or STR×5 or whatever), Skill/5 feels more appropriate (giving a 50% chance to Heavy Lift SIZ 20) than Skill/10.

Though neither of the Heavy Lifting examples do a great job modeling a world IMO, since if you've got 100% in that skill surely you can lift a SIZ 20 human easily?... But good enough to be an example of how I've considered blending the resistance table into my own D100 variants.

[Austin]

6 hours ago, g33k said:

Also -- if everything goes onto a Resistance Table -- you can replace the "active vs passive" use of the table and go to "player facing rolls" -- whether attacking an NPC or defending vs. the NPC's attack, it's always the PLAYER who rolls, not the GM.

TBH I do that anyway, and just do the math differently. I feel it gives my players more sense of agency if they get to roll that 03 to resist my boss's freaking domination spell and ruin YET ANOTHER ENCOUNTER.

Not salty.

[g33k]

Just now, Crel said:

...

Not salty.

That's good.

'Cos next time? 

...

They gonna have a Reflection spell up, and dominate your Boss.

 

Y'aint gonna be salty, my friend.  You gonna be brined.

 

[Austin]

2 minutes ago, g33k said:

They gonna have a Reflection spell up, and dominate your Boss.

The party's got two tricksters now. SOMEHOW. It's only a matter of time until they realize they can pick up Reflection at any trickster shrine. 😩

[hix]

PERSONAL HISTORY
Your character’s personal history is defined by three periods: Birth, School and Job. Birth and
School must be rolled for, Job can be chosen. The results give skill points.

Period	1	2	3	4	5	6
Birth	Farm	Farm	Farm	Military	Survivalist	Orphan
School	Home	Home	Home	6th grade	6th grade	University
Job	Businessman	Artist	Professional	Politics	Lawman	Criminal

Birth Results
Farm +20 to: Climb, Repair, Throw
Military +20 to: First Aid, Navigate, Spot
Survivalist +20 to: Fine Manip, Ride, Track
Orphan +20 to Fast Talk, Bargain, Sleight of Hand
School Results
Home +20 to Literacy
6th grade +40 to Literacy
University +60 to Literacy, Major Field skill
Job Goals
The goals below are examples and templates. Players should work with the GM to create specified
goals for each character.
Artist
1. Sell first work for $1 or more.
2. Secure a repeating performance at a venue.
3. Raise related skill to 51, hire apprentice
4. Build own performance venue.
Business/Professional
1. Establish business in a temporary location.
2. Build a permanent store.
3. Raise related skill to 51, hire employee
4. Expand location to more than double size.
Criminal
1. Evade arrest.
2. Form gang of 4 or more.
3. Commit Major crime.
4. Attain bounty of more than $200.
Politics

1. Local Office

2. County/territory

3.State office

4. Federal office

Lawman
1. Get deputized.
2. Make an arrest for Major crime.
3. Form a posse, and achieve its goal.
4. Capture a bounty of more than $200

 

Personal Goals
These can be almost anything in the game world not related to the character’s profession. Create a
4-tier progression. Start a family, alter the destiny of the territory, learn to play pool.
Completing Job or Personal goals increases the Status skill as well as the relevant skill for the task.
A percentile roll for increase is not required.

Tier 1 goal: +1d6 Tier 2 goal: +1d8

Tier 3 goal: +1d10 Tier 4 goal: +1d20

 

Edited April 10, 2020 by hix

[Mugen]

On 4/2/2020 at 2:07 AM, Richard S. said:

1. A completely resistance table based game. This one is probably a big departure from normal BRP, but still works in the system I think. You can either throw skills out entirely or scale them down to 1-20, like in Pendragon. Either way, everything is resolved with the resistance table rather than regular skill rolls, with 10 as a baseline resistance.

A french game system named "EWS" was based on this. In its second edition, you even used a modified resistance table to determine damage. Which, IMHO was taking more time than a simple substraction...

Symbaroum is also based on a similar concept, as you roll a d20 under your skill modified by your opponent's skill-10, which is the base principle of resistance table.

On 4/2/2020 at 2:07 AM, Richard S. said:

2. Reduced or no characteristics. Especially in games without category bonuses, characteristics can sometimes fall by the wayside. If you don't think keeping the standard 7 characteristics will benefit your game, just remove them! Roll 3d6 to determine HP and MP and 6d6 to determine your damage bonus. To replace constitution or willpower rolls, you can take a page from post-MRQ-Runequest-and-descendents' book and treat them as skills.

That's basically what I do : I only have equivalents to CON and POW, and use them as base values for HP and MP. I don't have damage bonus, though, as I consider

I use margin of success to determine damage and consider that Strength is part of the Melee skill, among a lot of factors, and don't make a difference between them.

For very large individuals, I might introduce SIZ as a bonus to damage and hit points (or armor) in the future, but I've not done it yet.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Mugen