How Could BRP Be More Popular...?

[Thalaba]

You could potentially add on optional rules to produce more of a cinematic result, but its to some extent working against a lot of the basic design.

I think the basic design of BRP probably deserves more credit. There are probably a lot of ways to make it cinematic without changing too much. Sure, that's not what it was originally conceived for, but it's pretty robust and you can change a lot of things.

For instance, change the way hits work. Hit points are calculated normally, but weapons and other damage effects do only 1 to three hits. A mook will do 1 hit, a fall 1 hit, and so on. A major villain might do 3 hits, a minor villain 2 hits. That's it. Trying to swing on a rope and fail? 1 hit. and so on. Mooks can only take 1 hit. Now, that's sounding cinematic already, don't you think?

Thalaba

[SDLeary]

Don't use my or SDLeary's name in vain please. :eek: I think you meant leery.

Sorry, I cringe whenever I see or hear it. Like, "I'm a little leary about that".

Rodney Leary, Speaking up for SDLeary while he's unavailable.

Excellent catch! I was getting ready to go off on a name bashing post!!

SDLeary

[Akrasia]

Needs go nothing to do with it. Its more what is popular and what people expect.

That doesn't matter much if there's simply little demand for it. You and I can want whatever we want, but if the market isn't big enough to matter, it isn't, no matter what we want.

:confused:

On what basis are people assuming that there is only a demand for 'cinematic' systems, and no demand for non-cinematic systems? That claim seems obviously incorrect.

There is a market for more 'grittier' systems (even if it is, perhaps, a smaller market than the one for 'cinematic' systems). Just look at the success of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (2e) for evidence of this. Or heck, CoC.

Perhaps the demand for 'cinematic' systems is greater than the demand for 'grittier' systems, but that does not mean that there isn't a solid demand for the latter sort of systems, a demand that is adequate for BRP (with greater distribution, more products, etc.). This seems to be especially the case with WFRP moving towards a 'quasi-boardgame' system in its 3e.

The 'cinematic' field is already overfilled, IMO. BRP is not going to be more popular by joining an overcrowded field. Instead, it should cater to that segment of the market that wants the kind of game experience it excels at delivering. Claims that there is no demand for 'grittier' RPGs strike me as obviously false.

[SDLeary]

I think the basic design of BRP probably deserves more credit. There are probably a lot of ways to make it cinematic without changing too much. Sure, that's not what it was originally conceived for, but it's pretty robust and you can change a lot of things.

For instance, change the way hits work. Hit points are calculated normally, but weapons and other damage effects do only 1 to three hits. A mook will do 1 hit, a fall 1 hit, and so on. A major villain might do 3 hits, a minor villain 2 hits. That's it. Trying to swing on a rope and fail? 1 hit. and so on. Mooks can only take 1 hit. Now, that's sounding cinematic already, don't you think?

Thalaba

Thats actually an excellent option. I would vary the range a bit more, but otherwise its one good option.

Another would be to simply introduce a mook rule or rules. For example, the first hit that gets past a mooks defenses, and they are out. Mooks (common ancient/medieval foot) tend to have little drive after being wounded and fade away.

SDLeary

[rust]

Claims that there is no demand for 'grittier' RPGs strike me as obviously false.

Yep, just think of the success of Mongoose Traveller, probably the most

gritty science fiction roleplaying game currently in print. True, many of

the new players try to design less lethal combat systems, but overall the

game is doing well as it is.

[SDLeary]

The 'cinematic' field is already overfilled, IMO. BRP is not going to be more popular by joining an overcrowded field. Instead, it should cater to that segment of the market that wants the kind of game experience it excels at delivering. Claims that there is no demand for 'grittier' RPGs strike me as obviously false.

Agreed. But a supplement that catered to those looking for a cinematic experience would not be a bad thing as it would open up the versatility of the game to them.

Also, I think we might be falling into a trap if we consider "Cinematic" vs "Non-Cinematic". Hell, I play BRP games, UA, Pendragon, HeroQuest, Warhammer, SotC/Fate/Fudge, and 4e. To be quite honest, I like the variety. I DONT want to play the same game all the time. If we had a Cinematic supplement for BRP, that would be one more thing to draw people into the camp.

I think many many gamers are the same, and a variety is good. Yes, I've heard of and talked to people that claimed they would never play other than X. I think they tend to be the great but vocal minority.

SDLeary

[Thalaba]

Another would be to simply introduce a mook rule or rules. For example, the first hit that gets past a mooks defenses, and they are out. Mooks (common ancient/medieval foot) tend to have little drive after being wounded and fade away.

SDLeary

Yep - but that's so simple it doesn't even need a rule. I did exactly that recently in our RQ3 campaign when the players fought Johdhara the Monkey God © and his fifty monkeys.

There is definitely a market for gritty. There's also a market for cinematic. BRP is a universal system. It can do both. One way to make BRP popular is to write material that caters to all large market segments. I don't have to like the cinematic supplements. You don't have to like the gritty supplements. But we can all like BRP.

The two multi-adventure monographs both have cinematic adventures in them BTW.

Thalaba

[Akrasia]

Agreed. But a supplement that catered to those looking for a cinematic experience would not be a bad thing as it would open up the versatility of the game to them.

.... If we had a Cinematic supplement for BRP, that would be one more thing to draw people into the camp...

Yes, I think that something like a 'Cinematic' supplement would be a very good idea. I just don't think that there is any need to focus exclusively, or even primarily, on 'cinematic' styles of play (in whatever genre).

[SDLeary]

Yep - but that's so simple it doesn't even need a rule. I did exactly that recently in our RQ3 campaign when the players fought Johdhara the Monkey God © and his fifty monkeys.

I would tend to agree. But there are those that would balk at it unless it was at least mentioned as an option.

SDLeary

[rpgstarwizard]

I have played this weekend from a player that usually plays DnD. He GM'd a PH style game, he stated that he felt the attacks and defenses were "unrealistic". And that it was too easy to hit as compared to DnD. There are perceptions that people have about the game. The players liked it even if it was a first time for a couple of them. I had fun even though I had to help coach the GM

[Atgxtg]

But for a lot of people, that's an acceptable trade-off. Its just the fine line where something gets so simple that the overhead on running it actually becomes harder, because it gives you too little guidance about how to handle a new situation.

What I've seen is that different people set the trade-off bar at different levels. Also, just what people consider complicated can vary tremendously based on other factors.

Back when I was running RQ3, most of the gamers in my area were playing AD&D. Now I consider AD&D to be at least as complicated as RQ3- probably more complicated. Yet most of the players thought the opposite. The real reason why they believed that was because they had years of familiarity with AD&D, and each player had his own copy of the rulebooks. As a result most thing went much faster in AD&D.

Later, when I had two or three players who had copies of RQ and were familar with the game, it went as fast if not faster than AD&D.

[Atgxtg]

I think the basic design of BRP probably deserves more credit. There are probably a lot of ways to make it cinematic without changing too much. Sure, that's not what it was originally conceived for, but it's pretty robust and you can change a lot of things.

For instance, change the way hits work. Hit points are calculated normally, but weapons and other damage effects do only 1 to three hits. A mook will do 1 hit, a fall 1 hit, and so on. A major villain might do 3 hits, a minor villain 2 hits. That's it. Trying to swing on a rope and fail? 1 hit. and so on. Mooks can only take 1 hit. Now, that's sounding cinematic already, don't you think?

Thalaba

One system that was cinematic yet gritty and realistic was the old James Bond RPG. What it did was allow players to spend Hero Points to shift the quality rating (think critical/special/ normal/failure) of die rolls. This gave players some influence of the course of events, and the ability to get lucky when the needed it (like when on the receiving end of an AK-47). Since the points didn't renew automatically (but new points could be earned) the players usually had enough to do what they needed, but rarely enough to do all that they wanted. Since damage (and everthing else) has results that were tied to the Quality Rating, even 1 Hero Point could turn a serious injury into a minor one or even a miss.

It worked out really cool in play. A thug behind a M-2 machine gun was very dangerous, and the weapon extremely lethal (something like a 50% Kill/50% unconscious chance on a hit-assuming the shooter is spraying a group and not going for just one target), but a PC with a couple of Hero Points would be able to avoid the first burst or two-just long enough to take the guy out. The PC wouldn't feel invulnerable through, since once the points ran out, he had no more protection and was just like everyone else.

IMO it is probably the best method I've seen for cinematic games, and it is easily ported over to BRP.

[rust]

IMO it is probably the best method I've seen for cinematic games, and it is easily ported over to BRP.

The system I like most, the Hooks and Action Points of the Thousand Suns

RPG, is somewhat similar.

"Hooks" are specific, usually negative "quirks" of the character, for example

"hates race X", that support the roleplaying of the character. Both the re-

feree and the player can activate such hooks during the game, and the cha-

racter can get an action point when a hook is roleplayed - for example when

the character gets into an otherwise unnecessary conflict with a member of

the race he hates.

The Action Points can then be used to "edit" the game somewhat, the mag-

nitude of the change depending on the number of action points spent - for

example, for one action point the enemy's bullets could hit a leg instead of

the chest, for three actions points his gun could jam.

I like this system because of its connection between the roleplaying of the

character and the action points, with the action points as a kind of reward

for roleplaying the weak points of a character.

[lawrence.whitaker]

One system that was cinematic yet gritty and realistic was the old James Bond RPG.

The Bond system was terrific. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't just the Hero Points that helped with the action elements though; the Ease Factor system was very well done: nothing was impossible; it just had a lower Ease Factor.

[Atgxtg]

The Bond system was terrific. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn't just the Hero Points that helped with the action elements though; the Ease Factor system was very well done: nothing was impossible; it just had a lower Ease Factor.

Yeah, the various other elements in the game desing all helped to contribute to the style of gameplay. The Ease Factor system, the Quality Ratings, and all the other aspects of the game. The designers notes in the Q Manual shows to just what extent everything in the game was warped slightly to give the PCs an edge. For example weapon damage was skewed to make pistols a bit better vs. rifles than they should have been. And the draw system helped PCs with pistols get off the first shot before guards armed with SMGs or assault rifles.

The way the damage was done (by quality rating and weapon damage class) had a big impact and also was quitew realistic. Someone like Bond could be quite lethal with a PPK or even Beretta .25 ACP, yet some thug totting around an AK-47 wasn't quite as lethal, since he wasn't likely to get in a decent hit.

I once thought of altering BRP damage so that the number of dice rolled were based on the success level. For example a normal success is 1 die, a special 2 dice, and a critical 3 or 4 dice. The die size could be varied by weapon. A small pistol might do 1D4, with a rifle doing 1D10 or so.

I've adapted the Bond RPG to other cinematic settings. It would appear to be a good base for a swashbuckling campaign or even Star Wars.

The game had the best Seduction rules I've seen in an RPG, too. It took a little work, but in a Bond Mission there are few things an agent can do that can help with the mission more than sleeping with the Major Villain's girlfriend.

[Atgxtg]

The system I like most, the Hooks and Action Points of the Thousand Suns

RPG, is somewhat similar.

"Hooks" are specific, usually negative "quirks" of the character, for example

"hates race X", that support the roleplaying of the character. Both the re-

feree and the player can activate such hooks during the game, and the cha-

racter can get an action point when a hook is roleplayed - for example when

the character gets into an otherwise unnecessary conflict with a member of

the race he hates.

The Action Points can then be used to "edit" the game somewhat, the mag-

nitude of the change depending on the number of action points spent - for

example, for one action point the enemy's bullets could hit a leg instead of

the chest, for three actions points his gun could jam.

I like this system because of its connection between the roleplaying of the

character and the action points, with the action points as a kind of reward

for roleplaying the weak points of a character.

Sounds a lot like the method used in Spirit of the Century. In SotC character have aspects (trades) that can be "tagged" by the GM or others to force the character to react to something, earning a fate point. Just how the character reacts is up to the player. Resisting the tag, if it is a valid one, costs a Fate Point.

Fate points can be used for a +1 to a roll, but if a character can invoke one of his aspects he can get a +2 instead. Fate points can also be used in other ways.

One neat thing was that a character could attempt to make a declaration, spending a fate point and making a skill roll. If the roll was successful (beat the difficulty set by the GM. Just what the difficulty was depending on how neat the declaration was). the said declaration was true.

For instance, rather than rolling for an info dump from the GM, and then having to work out some puzzle to get out of a trapped tomb, a character could make some sort of declaration about a "master switch" or some such, spend a fate point, and roll against his Academics/Archeology skill. Success means that yes indeed, there is a master switch. It probably on the other side of the room, past the pit filled with poisonous snakes (you get a lower difficulty that way), but that's what heroic characters are for.

[dragonewt]

BRP on the other hand has a rather ..undefinable sweet spot, that can be tough to find. But once you find it, you're golden. Like bicycling.

BRP puts the "G" in RPG. :innocent:

[Nightshade]

I think the basic design of BRP probably deserves more credit. There are probably a lot of ways to make it cinematic without changing too much. Sure, that's not what it was originally conceived for, but it's pretty robust and you can change a lot of things.

For instance, change the way hits work. Hit points are calculated normally, but weapons and other damage effects do only 1 to three hits. A mook will do 1 hit, a fall 1 hit, and so on. A major villain might do 3 hits, a minor villain 2 hits. That's it. Trying to swing on a rope and fail? 1 hit. and so on. Mooks can only take 1 hit. Now, that's sounding cinematic already, don't you think?

Thalaba

Sure, but I think that's an example of what I refered to as "working against the design". The expanded Superworld method helped considerably too, but it was pretty different from every other hit point method the game had ever used.

[Nightshade]

:confused:

On what basis are people assuming that there is only a demand for 'cinematic' systems, and no demand for non-cinematic systems? That claim seems obviously incorrect.

I don't think there's "only" demand for cinematic systems, but I do think that's what the majority of the market wants, and once you exclude that part of the market, you're picking among the parts that aren't cinematic but have other preferences that BRP is not serving. As such you're looking at progressively smaller slices of the pie as you look at the people who want build point systems, don't like linear resolution system, and so on, and so forth.

[Nightshade]

What I've seen is that different people set the trade-off bar at different levels. Also, just what people consider complicated can vary tremendously based on other factors.

Back when I was running RQ3, most of the gamers in my area were playing AD&D. Now I consider AD&D to be at least as complicated as RQ3- probably more complicated. Yet most of the players thought the opposite. The real reason why they believed that was because they had years of familiarity with AD&D, and each player had his own copy of the rulebooks. As a result most thing went much faster in AD&D.

Later, when I had two or three players who had copies of RQ and were familar with the game, it went as fast if not faster than AD&D.

Well, it would be easy to argue that RQ3 especially had more bookkeeping for routine characters than AD&D did for routine characters; you had magic points, experience checks, fatigue points, locational hits and so on. A typical D&D character had hit points and spells used; experience was kept, but only had to be paid attention to at the end of the game. Strike ranks were also more complicated than the vanilla D&D initiative, though not more than some of the optional versions.

So arguably there were more moving parts in play for most players. The difference was the moving parts were generally fairly intuitive, but if you're already familiar with D&D that's not a big difference.

[Nightshade]

BRP puts the "G" in RPG. :innocent:

Well, that's sometimes a problem with some people too; there's been a tendency for some people to scoff at the game elements of RPGs for some years now; they essentially consider mechanics just something not to get in the way, and as such tend to turn up their nose at something that has a stronger game element.

[Atgxtg]

I don't think there's "only" demand for cinematic systems, but I do think that's what the majority of the market wants, and once you exclude that part of the market, you're picking among the parts that aren't cinematic but have other preferences that BRP is not serving. As such you're looking at progressively smaller slices of the pie as you look at the people who want build point systems, don't like linear resolution system, and so on, and so forth.

To try an illustrate what I believe to be Nightshade's point:

Back in 2001, with 3rd edition D&D came out, Chaosium produced a book called Dragonlords of Melnibone, essential Stormbringer/Elric! for d20. When they are asked why they made such a book, the replied that the profits from one D&D supplement pays the costs for producing several supplemts for games like Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu.

The demand of D&D being that much greater than that for Stormbringer. Now since Chasoium is an RPG company, and the goal of a company is to sell product and make a profit, it is certainly understandable that they would try to make products that would be in high demand.

At the same time several companies switched over to D&D, either dropping their own "in-house" game systems or producing hybrid products. So since the demand for D&D is so much greater it gets much more support and consequently other RPGs get that much less.

So, like Nightshade pointed out, the more specialized (or the more it diverges from D&D) a RPG gets, the smaller it's potential fan and customer base, and, generally speaking, the less popular it will be.

[Nightshade]

A's explained it fairly well, but let me try by analogy:

Let's say that you have a market for something. The market is for Things. Things have certain qualities, particularly color, size and brightness.

Let's say the majority of the market likes Big Things. But you still have a pretty good market for Small Things. So you market a Small Thing that comes in versions ranging from Dim Red to Medium Yellow.

Now how well will this sell? You already know its not going to sell to people who want Big Things. But even among those who like Small Things, you've eliminated those who like Bright Things, or anyone who wants a Blue Thing. So by that time you're not just selling to those minority who want Small Things, but to a much smaller minority.

(Now, you do have the issue that the variables may not be entirely independent; perhaps more people who like Small Things like Dim Things too, so you're getting a bit more of your market than it might appear. But the bottom line is that its not just the Big Thing fans you're excluding, but some percentage of the Small Thing fans, too, and at some point that just makes for a small market).

[Thalaba]

It's not about how big or small your thingy is - it's how you use it. :innocent:

(ducks)

[Atgxtg]

It's not about how big or small your thingy is - it's how you use it. :innocent:

(ducks)

It doesn't matter how well you can use it, if no one will give you a chance to use your thingy because it not a big thingy. :ohwell:

There is a lot of pseudo peer pressure to use what everyone else does, based on the idea that if the majority uses it, it must be the best. Otherwise know as the "But all my friends are on AOL!" philosophy.