The First Step to a Custom Game.

[DiracSquid]

Hello all!

So, I'm planning a sort of hand-tailored BRP game. It's a personal project that essentially revitalizes a lot of the goofy things I came up with in my younger years. Nothing monograph worthy by far - Really just an excuse to tell some bizarre stories of mine.

But anyway - I've been looking at the BRP book and trying to figure out which rules suit me best, but I'm sort of at a loss on where to start. So I'm wondering, for those who come up with their own customized games and scenarios and whatnot, where do you typically begin?

There are a plethora of optional rule variations in there - So is it best to look through and decide which ones fit the best and then design the materials around it? Or is there a better way to go about it? It may be a silly question, but I can't help but feel just a touch overwhelmed - I have a habit of getting ahead of myself.

Any assistance at all would be most appreciated. Thanks for the time if nothing else!

[rust]

There are probably as many ways to write a setting as there are authors.

I usually prefer the "top down" approach, going from the "big frame" to the

"details".

When I started to work on my current Merasan setting, a fictional Emirate

on the Persian Gulf for a Call of Cthulhu campaign, I began with the sketch

of a map and with notes on the history of the country.

Geography and history have a huge part in determining what a region's cul-

ture (and often even its religion) looks like.

For example, desert people will usually favour cavalry and "mobile warfare"

over infantry and fortresses, and people living in a "strategic" area are usu-

ally more accustomed to warfare than those living in some remote neck of

the woods.

So, the Merasani of my setting are mounted warriors, wearing little armour

because of the climate, and since they live on a peninsula they are also ex-

perienced seafarers.

My next step was to describe a few typical Merasani (a noble warrior, a sea-

faring merchant ...) and to fit their "biographies" into the notes on Merasan's

history: Which wars they fought in, which countries they had visited, and si-

milar things.

This gave me an impression of the skills and other abilities they should have,

and then I began to try to "translate" them into the various rules and opti-

ons of my "BRP-enriched Call of Cthulhu system".

Finally I "fine tuned" these example characters until I felt comfortable with

them as "(arche-) typical Merasani", with exactly the kind of skill sets and

other characteristics that fitted my imagination of the people of the Emirate

of Merasan and their unique background and culture.

Well, and the rules and options that worked best for these "templates" are

the ones I will use for all the characters of the campaign, although experien-

ce tells me that some modifications may become necessary during the early

stages of the campaign (what would be the "playtesting" for a commercial

setting).

Hope that helps a little, although the best way to do it may well be comple-

tely different for you.

Edited October 31, 2009 by rust

[Thalaba]

There are many different kinds of options. Some options will boil down to preference and won't impact play a lot (e.g. point based character creation vs. random). For these, simply choose the one that tickles your fancy, or try them out first to see what you like, or ask your players what they like.

Some options have very specific uses mechanically in the game (e.g. those having to do with EDUcation, research, and so on) that will only be needed in some settings.

Some options model a very specific effect (Sanity, allegiance) in the game. If these effects are not needed for your game, then don't worry about them.

All of the above should be easy to select as long as you know what kind of game you want to run.

Some options will impact play and mood quite a bit, such as Hit Locations. But these may also add complexity, so your preference on play style will also be an important factor in choosing these.

Some of the options will impact the power level of the PCs in the game, such as high HP, high characteristics, and so on.

For these two categories of options, I could see where having more experience with the system would help. Some of these are mutually compatible, others arent. Hit locations, for instance, would be used with Armour by Hit Location, but probably not with Total Hit Points (adding CON+SIZ) or with Variable armour. I can easily see how these might be difficult choices if you are new to the system.

For selecting skills, I would definitely prune out any skills that won't see practical use in the game. Weapon skills can be tricky, as you will have to decide your level of granularity first - there are many ways to do this.

I think the best thing for you to do is decide what the game is about, first - what is the setting, the mood, the power level, and so on (as Rust has described doing). Once you know that it will be much easier to decide whether a number of options are needed or not. I would suggest you then go through the options and cross off anything that is right out.

If you would like to post more info on the game you have in mind and which options are troubling you, I'm sure you will get a lot of advice in helping you decide which are appropriate.

Thalaba

[DiracSquid]

Firstly, thank you both so much for the insight! You've already been a great help to me. Seems the thing I need the most is just a point in the right direction.

Honestly, I hadn't even thought about sorting out the actual world and it's contents first. Thinking about it now - that actually seems like a great place to start for the aforementioned reasons.

Unfortunately I've let the project stagnate for a couple of weeks, so I can't fully recall all of the trouble spots I had come across. It's sort of hard for me to explain the project. In truth - the whole thing is something of a mess. But the important thing is that the mess fits the source material perfectly. haha.

Because it is such a mess, it'll be difficult at times to weed out unneeded skills simply because the game world is an impossible mesh of everything. You see, it takes place in a world which is near-literally a cosmic sewer. Various creative energies leftover from all corners of the multiverse have converged and manifested as something of an accidental world. The result is a surrealistic land with little rhyme or reason. There are all sorts of ridiculous occurrences, strange people, stranger creatures, and curious habits. To a normal bloke, it'd be like some mixed up dream - but it all makes sense to the people of that world because they've no idea just how strange it all is.

This pretty much gives me an in-universe excuse to do just about anything and get away with it. Nobody in my group of players is really hardcore about roleplaying games, so I think that taking things a bit looser will do us all a world of good. The story itself will be taken very seriously, but I don't want to alienate the gang by bogging them down with a strict adherence to the nitty gritty. Also, I think if I try to take the system too seriously - I'll likely go crazy trying to compensate for so much peculiarity. In a normal game, I'd follow them as closely as I could - but given the nature of the project, it may be easier to just let some things slide here and there.

That being said, I remember I wanted the point based character creation to give them a better control over who they play. I was thinking about using the total HP rules, but I was also thinking about the locational damage system. Now that you've mentioned their potential incompatibility, I'm just not sure what to do with it. I don't think I ever concluded what campaign level, but I do recall that I was looking at the level just above normal.

I also remember being a touch discontented with the magic provided in the main BRP manual, but I can't seem to recall the specifics on why. I do happen to own the BRP Magic monograph, so I'll have to look through that one again before I make any decisions.

Unfortunately I don't have much time at the moment, otherwise I'd grab the manual and actually look through it again to jog my memory. Once I've a moment to look through them one more time, I'm sure I'll come back with questions of compatibility and balance. But thank you all so much for the time!

[Thalaba]

Because it is such a mess, it'll be difficult at times to weed out unneeded skills

Well, in this case, try to think about what kinds of activites the players will be engaging in. Will they be rooting about in libraries? If not, you don't need the reasearch skill. If you are trying to cover a lot of different things, though, you might end up needing a longer skill list than a shorter one.

You see, it takes place in a world which is near-literally a cosmic sewer. Various creative energies leftover from all corners of the multiverse have converged and manifested as something of an accidental world. The result is a surrealistic land with little rhyme or reason. There are all sorts of ridiculous occurrences, strange people, stranger creatures, and curious habits. To a normal bloke, it'd be like some mixed up dream - but it all makes sense to the people of that world because they've no idea just how strange it all is.

This pretty much gives me an in-universe excuse to do just about anything and get away with it.

Have you checked out Fractures Hopes? It's a monograph setting that was written specifically to allow (and make sense of) all the options in the book. You might find it helpful to see what Charles did with it. He, incidentally, built the world around the options, as I understand it, and not the other way around as we've recommended.

That being said, I remember I wanted the point based character creation to give them a better control over who they play. I was thinking about using the total HP rules, but I was also thinking about the locational damage system. Now that you've mentioned their potential incompatibility, I'm just not sure what to do with it.

I wouldn't say they are 'incompatible' - I guess my statement was misleading, so don't be afraid if you want to use them together. You will get tough PCs, but that's OK. Under certain circumstances you might want that - like a Land of the Lost kind of scenario where the PCs meet dinosaurs (who do a lot of damage) but the characters don't have much armour.

I was only trying to say that if you were going for a gritty fantasy campaign where combat was a big feature, you might want different options than if you are going for a heroic fantasy, which might be different again from a political intrigue game. But it sounds like you aren't going for any kind of focus like this. More info on the setting and who the players are would definitely help.

You said the setting would look weird to a normal bloke, but not to the people who are there. Well, who are the PCs? Are they 'normal blokes' transported to this setting, or are they locals who don't give it a second thought? If the former, you might find the Sanity rules will add something to the game. In the latter case they might not.

Thalaba

[rust]

Because it is such a mess, it'll be difficult at times to weed out unneeded skills simply because the game world is an impossible mesh of everything.

If your setting is of the "(almost) anything goes" kind, for example like the

Planescape setting for AD&D, then sauce for the goose does not have to be

sauce for the gander ...

One possible approach would be to let the player characters come from a

more "normal", comparatively well defined world with an equally well defined

and comparatively narrow set of skills and options, but to use the "locals"

(non-player characters) to experiment with all kinds of combinations of

skills and options, allowing them to do things that seem bizarre and would

be impossible for the player characters.

In this way you could find out what works well in the setting without using

the player characters as "guinea pigs", and once you have made up your

mind about the skills, options and thelike you really want in the game, you

can introduce a way for the characters to add or change the "set" they be-

gan with - perhaps the setting's world somehow begins to transform the

original characters into "locals" after a while.

This could be an approach that would not force you to make too many de-

cisions early on, especially not "binding" decisions. No matter what the cha-

racters would start with, the setting would allow you to change it later on

until it really fits the setting.

[DiracSquid]

Because of the variability of it all, it's difficult to predict just were things will go. I'm beginning to think that I'll have to put some manner of leash on it to make sure it doesn't just fall apart under it's own weight. The more I think about your example, the more I realize that there probably areas that could easily be shaved down a notch. For instance, it's very possible that they'd need to research something - but it's highly doubtful that it will ever go to the magnitude of, say, Call of Cthulhu? Perhaps certain skills could be compensated for by Characteristic roles?

Toward the back of the BRP Manual, there's that list of equivalent skills from the various games. I was toying with the idea of something along those lines, grouping like skills together for ease. Though now that I'm looking at their list - it doesn't seem too bad at all as it is. It may only need minor tweaking before it fits.

As for Fractured Hopes; I've actually just recently ordered it during Chaosium's Halloween sale. When I read the description for it, it sounded as though it could prove quite helpful indeed. I personally prefer the physical copies, so unfortunately I've still to wait for its arrival before I can start picking at it.

But I'm sorry - I sort of jumped the gun on the incompatibility assumptions there. Thinking about it, I'm inclined to believe that having strong PCs may not be a bad thing at all for my gang. If nothing else, it would give me an excuse to do some ridiculous things and have some scary-scale combat situations. Above all, I think I have to remember that the purpose is to have fun with my friends - So I have to remember what sorts of things will get their blood pumping more.

Whew. This is a long one. Sorry for that - Just bare with me a little more. Shouldn't be too much longer.

As for the player characters, which starts dipping into a bit of what rust spoke of - I'm not 100% certain just yet. At least one of my players expressed interest in being fully of that world, but the others don't have too much of an idea just yet. I think if they're given the option of being regular people pulled into it - it may make the overwhelming scale easier for them to handle. That is, it'd be easier for them simply to make a typical human character. Initially I had thought about using two separate character sheets for such an occasion, so there would have been a different batch of skills there. But, I haven't actually decided on that just yet.

But rust's idea of using the contrast between the NPCs and the typical PCs as something of skill experiment interests me quite a bit. It seems that a lot of times, I have an issue sort of committing to a singular formula. Getting to test them out behind the scenes may be a perfect way to help decide which route to take.

The typical folk becoming more local isn't too far from certain ideas I was toying with. Actually, I had been thinking of using the Sanity system in the form of an experimental concept called Awareness. In my first musings, characters who were from "normal" worlds would start out 'Aware,' which means they would start to take sanity loss after a while should they come in contact with too much oddity. But also, that residents of that strange dimension could also become aware if exposed to certain things.

From time to time, a non-typical person would begin to have flashes of ideas or fragments of thought that tell them something isn't quite right with their world. If they piece together the truth that their existence is nothing more than a cosmic accident, then they too become aware and subject to sanity damage. If this idea is to be used, then it's likely that many of the villains act out the way they do because they've gained awareness and can't quite handle it - This leads them to do terrible things, often in a quest for power. Some may even seek to break out of their world and take up residence elsewhere. Of course, it was all just theoretical - I haven't quite made up my mind about any of it.

Oh my. I'm sorry, this is quite the mess I've typed up. I want to thank you both again for being so helpful!

[Chaot]

Just some thoughts. Take them as you will.

I find that figuring out which rules to use and how they affect the game is an issue of trial and error. A very basic way to get a small idea of how the rules will change the flavor of the game is to roll up a bunch of characters and pit them against each other. This way, you get an inkling of how things play out.

Because it is such a mess, it'll be difficult at times to weed out unneeded skills simply because the game world is an impossible mesh of everything.

One approach you might want to think of taking is to strip the skill list down to the minimum and then allow for space on the character sheet for players to write in defining character skills. This way, you don't take the up a lot of space on the character sheet with skills that will not be used by a given character.

Also, I think if I try to take the system too seriously - I'll likely go crazy trying to compensate for so much peculiarity. In a normal game, I'd follow them as closely as I could - but given the nature of the project, it may be easier to just let some things slide here and there.

This is very similar to the way I play. One thing I like to do is allow players to select a sort of personality quirk skill. They're the kind of throw away skills you'll see in published scenarios. Things like 'Piercing Stare' or 'Hideous Laugh.' They don't have a huge effect in actual play, but damned if my players don't love them.

I also remember being a touch discontented with the magic provided in the main BRP manual, but I can't seem to recall the specifics on why. I do happen to own the BRP Magic monograph, so I'll have to look through that one again before I make any decisions.

This is pretty easily remedied. It's easy to plug magic systems from other games into BRP. There are also other magic systems published that are specifically for BRP. That BRP Magic monograph you mention is the RQ3 system stripped of references to RQ. The Unknown East has a free form magic system. Bronze Grimoire expands Sorcery. Elric!/Stormbringer5 expand Demon Summoning and Corum brings those rules to the pinnacle of awesomeness. Corum also has Chaotic Melds and Lawful Contrivances, which are two magic systems just begging to be used. Gods of Law has a system where you take on the aspects of Lawful 'saints.' MRQ has several magic systems that could easily be dropped into BRP. Unknown Armies is a great d00 system that can be used with little tweaking. Plenty of options outside the main book.

The typical folk becoming more local isn't too far from certain ideas I was toying with. Actually, I had been thinking of using the Sanity system in the form of an experimental concept called Awareness. In my first musings, characters who were from "normal" worlds would start out 'Aware,' which means they would start to take sanity loss after a while should they come in contact with too much oddity. But also, that residents of that strange dimension could also become aware if exposed to certain things.

Let us know how this pans out.

My first thought is to tie it directly to Sanity as used in CoC. Instead of a Cthulhu Mythos skill, you could substitute Awareness. Then, since this is the cosmic sewer of the multiverse, tie the Dreaming Skill into the Awareness skill.

This sets up a situation where the Character can directly effect the dreck of the multiverse through their Awareness, but at the cost of their ability to keep their head together.

[Atgxtg]

One thing that might help with a project such as this is the exact opposite approach to Rust's "top down" approach.

The "bottom up" approach has a GM design up a small area to start the campaign in some detail, then expand upon it, "building up" as he goes along.

This has the advantages of require less initial work to get started, and yields a playable campaign area more quickly. An example would be setting the campaign is an isolated village. The GM can work on the details of the village and it's surroundings, as well as the NPCs.

This approach does have some drawbacks. First off, there can be some nasty scrambling if the PC suddenly decide to "go off the map". Secondly, the world built up "around" the intial setting will in some ways need to conform to the initial setting. This might cause some problems later on, when the GM wishes that he had done some things differently.

[Dredj]

Just buy this: Mythic Game Master Emulator http://www.mythic.wordpr.com/wm002demo.pdf

And let you and your players have their way--any way that's chosen.