Abilites, Stunts, Etc...

[Atgxtg]

5 hours ago, g33k said:

"Lucky" is a thing, sure...  But "on-demand" luck (reliable when needed, when selected) kinda smacks of the supernatural. 

Yes, but it also fits certain types of characters. 

5 hours ago, g33k said:

Hexing or cursing for bad-luck, blessing for good luck... aaaand we're solidly back in "supernatural" territory!

Possibly. I think it depends on how it's done, and how it is presented. Captain Kirk got away with a lot of stuff, and it never seemed like anything supernatural, just script immunity.

5 hours ago, g33k said:

Besides:  by your own argument, POW-based "luck" is supernatural:

By definition:

Power represents your character’s willpower, magical aptitude, and spiritual development. POW is essential to leadership, intuition, and magic.

In RQ it's been noted as the integration and harmony with the universe as well as the favor of the gods. There really hasn't been a non-spiritual/supernatural version of POW in any BRP game that's used to, at least not to date. 

 

5 hours ago, g33k said:

By this criterion, "non-supernatural" luck should be something OTHER than POW based  (just as -- I maintain -- "non-supernatural" stunts should be).

Except is there any such thing as "non-supernatural" luck? I mean yes there are laws of probability, but they are impartial. That would be covered by normal die rolls. The Luck roll in BRP games has always been POW based, and it obvious favors those with a  high POW score. But most BRP games have supernatural elements. A game without such elements would be interesting, but probably wouldn't need a POW attribute or Luck.

I agree with the stunts. Personally I think most of them should probably be tied to skill scores and/or attributes, but I do think they work for the genre. 

 

[Mugen]

8 hours ago, Lloyd Dupont said:

what bother me with it is, ahem, the "realism" of it.... It seems reasonable and intrinsically well balanced at first... but what if the caster travel to the other side of the world or another plane of existence.. reasonably the enchantment should unravel but the "communication" between the caster and the enchantment bother me here...

anyway, other than that, sorry for the nitpicking, it's intrinsically balanced and seemingly meaningful! 🙂

Note that this is juste a short explanation of a rule idea (which us not really mine, just a variant from existing rules by S Petersen, Loz and Pete Nash), and not the whole thing. 🙂

I agree that there should be a range limitation, and enchants made out of the caster's MP pool are meant to be used by him or people not far from him.

If you want to create enchanted items or places, you'd have to use cristals and matrices. 

[g33k]

18 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

... Captain Kirk got away with a lot of stuff, and it never seemed like anything supernatural, just script immunity...

... Except is there any such thing as "non-supernatural" luck? I mean yes there are laws of probability, but they are impartial...

Random chance and "impartiality" suggest that (statistically) some people will just randomly happen to get a lucky break more often than others... a few will get it *MUCH more often.

From a pure-physics / statistics POV, there is zero reason to think someone who has "always" been lucky will continue to be lucky; but this is a RPG, a pranch of storytelling, and I think "lucky" is a great character concept to play with.  And yes, it *is* a form of "script immunity."

I'd argue there should simply be a "Lucky" feature, rather than tying it to the inherent "supernaturalism" of POW.

Ordinary characters make a 50/50 "luck" roll, but "Lucky" characters make a 75/25 (or 80/20, or 95/05, or whatever else is desired) "luck" roll.

(n.b. this also implies some might be UNlucky, and roll 25/75 BAD luck (or whatever ratio is desired)).

Of course, I've just defined a "Lucky" and "Unlucky" Feat/Trait, and many dislike that sort of thing for their BRP...

 

[Atgxtg]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Random chance and "impartiality" suggest that (statistically) some people will just randomly happen to get a lucky break more often than others... a few will get it *MUCH more often.

Sure. It just that for some types of stories and games certain people have more lucky breaks. So when someone wants to play a Captain Kirk, James Bond, etc. you need a game mechanic to account for that. But it all comes down to genre and style of play. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

From a pure-physics / statistics POV, there is zero reason to think someone who has "always" been lucky will continue to be lucky;

Actually from a purse pysics point of view there is good reason to think that someone who has always been lucky will continue to be. Statistically trend of abnormal results tends to continue. In part because there are usually other contributing factors not accounted for that skew the results. For instance if someone is flipping a coin and is getting  62% heads to 48% tails, odds are the trend will continue and not even out. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

 

but this is a RPG, a pranch of storytelling, and I think "lucky" is a great character concept to play with.  And yes, it *is* a form of "script immunity."

Exactly. A Captain Kirk or James Bond type (and many other heroes to boot), tend to get better than average results in many matters that are mostly down to chance. It's part of heroic fiction. I think it also tends to go hand in hand with the underdog hero going up against the more powerful villain. THere hero needs to lucky breaks to really stand any chance of success. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

I'd argue there should simply be a "Lucky" feature, rather than tying it to the inherent "supernaturalism" of POW.

It's an interesting argument, but I don't think it will hold much water in any iteration of BRP that has a POW attribute. It's like trying to be an atheist in Glorantha.

 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Ordinary characters make a 50/50 "luck" roll, but "Lucky" characters make a 75/25 (or 80/20, or 95/05, or whatever else is desired) "luck" roll.

Except that the Luck roll has never really been a core part of BRP. All those Statx5% rolls have been used as a sort of fallback for when there wasn't a skill or something else to roll. Now if luck were expanded a bit to allow for things like turning hits into grazes (minimum damage) and so forth, it could work, but currently the framework just isn't there. Thus a luck roll ends up being something that a GM might call for to lessen the results of a bad event, maybe.

The hero point mechanic in BRP could also be used more too. It essentially does exactly what we are talking about but is a bit more fleshed out.

1 hour ago, g33k said:

(n.b. this also implies some might be UNlucky, and roll 25/75 BAD luck (or whatever ratio is desired)).

But a logical extension of the idea. If some people are lucky then others would be unlucky. 

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Of course, I've just defined a "Lucky" and "Unlucky" Feat/Trait, and many dislike that sort of thing for their BRP...

Yup, and I think that the crux of the problem. There are multiple ways of doing things in BRP, and we won't all agree on what was is best. The OP is very fond of the stunt system in Bloode Tide, yet it didn't get all that much notice by other BRP fans. In some ways I think it is hard to add new stuff to the core system now with getting some pushback. And everyone has their own personal favorite variation of the existing rules, general hit points, hit locations, random armor, Mythas specials, and so forth all have their adherents. Anything that changes any of that will meet resistance. The stunt system was probably released too late to grab a significant number of adherents. 

The good news though is that we are all free to pick and choose the bits we want, and leave the rest.

 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

... 

The good news though is that we are all free to pick and choose the bits we want, and leave the rest.

👍

[lawrence.whitaker]

Putting on my Hat of Pedantry...

Quote

Except that the Luck roll has never really been a core part of BRP.

The Luck Roll is featured and described in the original Basic Roleplaying booklet accompanying my boxed set of RQ2. It's described on page 7 as: "Use it [POW] also as a "Luck Roll" for tight spots. For instance, if a character falls down a hole, he might land upright and take no damage."

So it has been a core part of BRP since the get-go, and is framed, while quite loosely, as a way of avoiding certain mishaps - and, in this case, mitigating damage. But Atgxtg is right, GMs do need more of a framework for when and how Luck can be used, otherwise it can and will be abused.

And taking off the Pedantry Hat.

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

Putting on my Hat of Pedantry...

The Luck Roll is featured and described in the original Basic Roleplaying booklet accompanying my boxed set of RQ2. It's described on page 7 as: "Use it [POW] also as a "Luck Roll" for tight spots. For instance, if a character falls down a hole, he might land upright and take no damage."
 

It's a throwaway line. The roll was never really featured anyway. Not only of any of the pits, traps or holes that appeared in any RQ, BRP, CoC, Stormbringer, etc. adventures ever brought up making a Luck roll to reduce the effects.  Almost all uses of it are by GM whim not by the rules. For example, the luck roll to reduce damage from being thrown by a horse was in a was in a Wyrms's Fottnotes somewhere, not in any rulebook. There are next to no examples of a Luck roll and it's effects in any adventures or rulebook. Just a vague "you can roll this to try and mitigate or avoid something bad." Obviously players would want to do that for every bad thing that happens. Just as obviously, GMs can't have that. 

3 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

So it has been a core part of BRP since the get-go,

Not it hasn't. First off the BRP booklet wasn't even there at the get-go, but was in fact a trimmed down introduction to RQ. The Characterstic x5% rolls were never a core part nor featured in any adventures or rules. Instead RQ used the resistance table and skills to handle things. The LUck roll ended up being what you rolled when you couldn't think of anything better. Same with the other characteristic x5% rolls. IF someone has running, jumping, climbing, balance, swimming, and juggling skills, they don't really want to fall back to DEXx5%.

3 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

and is framed, while quite loosely, as a way of avoiding certain mishaps - and, in this case, mitigating damage.

I think it was kind of there are a last chance way to avoid bad things, especially when those bad things come down to die rolls and die mechanics. Bell curces can make 30 foot falls a bit more lethal in play than they probably should be. 

3 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

But Atgxtg is right, GMs do need more of a framework for when and how Luck can be used, otherwise it can and will be abused.

I think most of the examples and advice for Luck rolls and how to use them were in letter columns in various Chaosium magazines. As it stands though, Luck is just sort of there, and get used if the GM wants to use it, or can be talked into using it by a player. 

 

I think what it probably needs is some blanket guidelines for its' effects and the restrictions or penalties that come from (over) using it. For instance I could see using Luck to avoid damage from a hit, or turn it into a 1 point graze or something, but then the next attempt to do so should go up in difficulty. A graze is certainly possibly, two grazes unlikely, six is probably more than just luck.

 

[soltakss]

14 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

19 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

So it has been a core part of BRP since the get-go,

Not it hasn't. First off the BRP booklet wasn't even there at the get-go, but was in fact a trimmed down introduction to RQ.

But, the Basic Roleplaying booklet was the first incarnation if BRP, so that was from the get-go.

If we are talking RuneQuest, then the Luck Roll was introduced for RQ2, not RQ1, so not from the get-go there.

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, soltakss said:

But, the Basic Roleplaying booklet was the first incarnation if BRP, so that was from the get-go.

If we are talking RuneQuest, then the Luck Roll was introduced for RQ2, not RQ1, so not from the get-go there.

I view the get go as RQ. BRP was fabricated later. 

And other than the Fantasy Path series of map tiles, there weren't really any BRP games. Stormbringer, CoC. etc all were stand alone RPGs. RQ may have included the BRP booklet, but didn't actually use it. Worlds of Wonder was probably the first games that were based on BRP, and needed the included booklet, although as Viking World showed, anything that was BRP could  easily have been RQ. 

But in all of those things the Luck roll was just sort of there will little to no guidelines as to when it could or couldn't be used. It essentially became a saving throw for when something bad happened, and mostly up to each individual GM to use or ignore.

Edited November 20, 2021 by Atgxtg

[olskool]

On 11/15/2021 at 5:15 PM, Zenith Comics Presents... said:

 

Guess I'll have to think up my own 🙂 

I took all of the SPECIAL EFFECTS in MYTHRAS (Disarm, Impale, Trip, Stun, Blind, etc...) that could occur in combat and added them to my mongrel Runequest campaign.  All I did was divide the Special Effects into 3 "Difficulty Levels."  The least powerful SEs (like Trip) could be won when you roll under 1/2 Skill.   The more powerful SEs (like Crush, Impale, or Slash) could be won if you rolled under 1/10th Skill (rounding up).   The most powerful SEs (Sunder Armor, Compel Retreat) occur only on DOUBLES under Skill (treating 00 as zero zero and NOT 100).   When you win an SE (and you can only win one in my system, unlike MYTHRAS),  YOU PICK IT from the list.  You may pick from a "lower list" (ie the 1/2 list IF you rolled 1/10th) IF that move suits your tactical needs.  Adding the SEs from MYTHRAS gives Classic RuneQuest a dimension of "action" that enhances combat greatly!  

[Atgxtg]

12 hours ago, olskool said:

I took all of the SPECIAL EFFECTS in MYTHRAS (Disarm, Impale, Trip, Stun, Blind, etc...) that could occur in combat and added them to my mongrel Runequest campaign.  All I did was divide the Special Effects into 3 "Difficulty Levels." 

Gee that sounds familiar. 😉