Feedback on '81 Style' BRP Variant

[Stan Shinn]

The original BRP in the early 1980s was 16 pages and was pretty simple, relying on genre rules (like in Worlds of Wonder) to customize each setting. The basic rules back then were really basic. I am contemplating creating a smaller, simpler BRP system that is 100% compatible with the current BRP stat blocks but has a slimmed-down set of rules closer in spirit to those games of the 1980s such as Stormbringer 1e. The final product would be an ORC-licensed slimdown set of rules from which you could build and expand for different settings. 

I'm code-naming this product '81 Style' to reflect the 1981 era when the 16-page BRP was in circulation and Stormbringer 1e came out. The model would be sort of like Fate Core (a full traditional RPG, like BRP) vs. Fate Accelerated (a slim 50 page game), which both co-exist and are largely interchangeable. 

Here are my early thoughts; I'd love your feedback on what to change or not change to slim down and simplify the BRP rules.

Design Goals:

• Small, minimalist ruleset
• Compatible with BRP character stat blocks
• Focus on 'essential' rules (essential being rules that come up on average at least once every four games)
• Simpler combat resolution
• Packaged as a base game, from which you can add onto to build your own genre-specific games
• Game would be targeted to historical and pulp settings (e.g. it would not include Superhero or Spellcasting rules), and would refer you to the main BRP book to add other features in

Planned Changes:

• Generally boiling down the rules to their simplest form, relying on the BRP book as a sort of 'Dungeon Master's Guide' with optional subsystems you can add to the slimmed down, basic game.
• Add a few minor modernizations such as advantage / disadvantage or bonus/penalty dice.
• Removing Special Successes, and instead having only Critical Success (which would be either like in Stormbringer (critical hits happen if the character rolls under 1/10 of their skill) or when you succeed and roll doubles).
• Simplifying and/or reducing damage types (Bleeding, Crushing, Entangling, Impaling, etc.), possibly removing Bleeding and Crushing damage types. Again, looking to have a version similar to Stormbringer 1st Edition.
• Simplifying a myriad of edge case, overly complex, or spot rules. For example, replacing the current autofire/burst gun rule:
  
  Burst: Unlike most missile weapon combat, autofire or bursts occur on the attacker’s DEX rank, rather than at the beginning of the combat round before DEX ranks. Against a single target, a burst increases the chance of success by +20% and autofire by +40%. The attacker should announce how many shots are being fired (bursts are usually three shots, while autofire can empty the whole clip), keeping track of spent ammunition. The attack is rolled normally. If the shot is a failure, all shots in the burst miss. If it is successful and hits the target, roll an appropriate die based on the number of shots fired. To get an odd number, roll an appropriate dice type and divide by two (rounding up). For example, if 8 shots are fired, roll a D8; if 5 shots are fired, roll a D10 and divide it in half, rounding up, etc. Only the first attack is able to achieve a special or critical success—all of the rest are normal successes.
  
  With this simpler rule:
  
  Splitfire: You may split off damage between targets in range and line of sight within 5m of the original target. For example, if you deal 9 damage, you could assign 6 points of damage to the original target and 3 damage to an enemy within 5m from the original target.

Those are the basic changes. If I get generally positive feedback, my idea would be to put this on Itch.io and have an active dev site where people can comment and we can iterate over several months until we get to a nice, slim-but-robust smaller BRP game.

Edited April 28, 2023 by Stan Shinn

[el_octogono]

I like your intentions. I have a BRPish version of my own in very slow cooking, but with a different approach. There are however some key issues to address IMHO: how to make shields more useful than parrying with anything else, decide if you may make more than one attack per round and based on what (Dex points, total skill, skill splitting), and if you want skills of 100% and more and how will they scale.

[Barak Shathur]

On 4/28/2023 at 9:26 PM, Stan Shinn said:

Simplifying and/or reducing damage types (Bleeding, Crushing, Entangling, Impaling, etc.), possibly removing Bleeding and Crushing damage types.

I’d say if you go with all weapons doing double damage on crits/specials, you should probably have equivalent weapons do the same damage, for example dropping the +1 and +2 modifiers so that broadsword, battle axe, mace and spear all do 1d8, so that you don’t get weapon choices that are obviously superior that shouldn’t be so. You could take a look at RQIV:AiG if you can get a hold of it, it has that kind of structure. 

[g33k]

19 minutes ago, Barak Shathur said:

I’d say if you go with all weapons doing double damage on crits/specials, you should probably have equivalent weapons do the same damage, for example dropping the +1 and +2 modifiers so that broadsword, battle axe, mace and spear all do 1d8, so that you don’t get weapon choices that are obviously superior that shouldn’t be so. You could take a look at RQIV:AiG if you can get a hold of it, it has that kind of structure. 

Except that such considerations of "balance" have never really been a core feature of BRP.
Personally, I'd consider such a change to make the game less attractive to my purposes.

I might sidebar this idea as an "optional rule."

===

More generally, the project seems to lean-in on a particular perspective.  These parts (e.g. the "minor modernizations" in the OP) are worthwhile, and worth added complexity even in a project aimed at "streamlining."  Those parts (e.g. the different damage-types) are not worthwhile, and to be eliminated.  On the surface of it, I honestly don't see any reason to prefer one over the other; it's just a matter of personal taste.
 

Edited May 1, 2023 by g33k
options are good

[Mugen]

One thing you should IMHO avoid repeating from the first editions of StormBringer are the ridiculously low base skill chances.

Having most skills defaulting to skill bonus or 10+skill bonus just doesn't work.

I'd go with either 20+ bonus, or formulas such as STR+DEX for Agility, INTx2 for Knowledge, INT+CHA for Communication, and so on.

Of course, this would not apply to skills that need previous training to be used. You won't have a ~20% chance to forge a functional sword out of an iron bar or make a potion out of randomly chosen herbs or suddenly speak High Melnibonéan if you've never trained in those fields.

[Barak Shathur]

9 hours ago, g33k said:

Except that such considerations of "balance" have never really been a core feature of BRP.

On the contrary, the earlier iterations of BRP games (thinking RQI-VI) were highly structured in this regard. The balancing of parts was integral to them and, I believe, the reason why they were so robust and long lived.

[Mugen]

3 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

On the contrary, the earlier iterations of BRP games (thinking RQI-VI) were highly structured in this regard. The balancing of parts was integral to them and, I believe, the reason why they were so robust and long lived.

That was definitely not the case for early editions of StormBringer, where the nationality table could let you roll a crippled beggar from Nadsokor, or a fighter-priest-sorcerer from Melniboné, with demon armor, demon weapon and skills above anyone else thanks to very high INT and POW. 🙂

[Barak Shathur]

1 hour ago, Mugen said:

That was definitely not the case for early editions of StormBringer, where the nationality table could let you roll a crippled beggar from Nadsokor, or a fighter-priest-sorcerer from Melniboné, with demon armor, demon weapon and skills above anyone else thanks to very high INT and POW. 🙂

I willingly confess I am blissfully ignorant of Stormbringer 🙂

[SDLeary]

8 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

On the contrary, the earlier iterations of BRP games (thinking RQI-VI) were highly structured in this regard. The balancing of parts was integral to them and, I believe, the reason why they were so robust and long lived.

This is somewhat counter to what Steve, Greg, and Sandy ever mentioned. To my recollection, about the only one where any kind of balance was actually considered was Superworld (and that was in the powers).

SDLeary

Edited May 2, 2023 by SDLeary

[g33k]

8 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

On the contrary, the earlier iterations of BRP games (thinking RQI-VI) were highly structured in this regard. The balancing of parts was integral to them and, I believe, the reason why they were so robust and long lived.

Ummm... no.
I was specifically citing:

18 hours ago, Barak Shathur said:

I’d say if you go with all weapons doing double damage on crits/specials, you should probably have equivalent weapons do the same damage, for example dropping the +1 and +2 modifiers so that broadsword, battle axe, mace and spear all do 1d8, so that you don’t get weapon choices that are obviously superior that shouldn’t be so. You could take a look at RQIV:AiG if you can get a hold of it, it has that kind of structure. 

where those little +1's on some weapons but not others has long been a feature of the line.

And in RQ, where you could play as a Human, a Baboon, a Dark-Troll, a Duck, etc... none of which are "balanced" against each other.

[Barak Shathur]

54 minutes ago, g33k said:

Ummm... no.
I was specifically citing:

where those little +1's on some weapons but not others has long been a feature of the line.

And in RQ, where you could play as a Human, a Baboon, a Dark-Troll, a Duck, etc... none of which are "balanced" against each other.

Ummm yes. In RQIII, the +1s and +2s were balanced in various ways, like for example battle axe (1d8+2) and bastard sword (1d10+1) did the most damage of all one handed weapons but could not impale, and also required STR 13+ (ball and chain also did 1d10+1 but had a really low base chance, and no one had it as a cultural weapon). Heavy mace (1d10) had a high STR requirement while war hammer (“only” 1d6+2) could impale. Remember that in pre-RQG, only the impale did double damage, but it also had a high likelihood of getting your weapon stuck. And while blunt weapons tended to do slightly less damage than edged or pointed weapons, with the errata they halved the AP of flexible armour. And so on. This weapon table was highly internally correlated and balanced, and if you take out these subtleties and simply have all these weapons do double damage on specials, the structure collapses and the weapons with the highest damage dice are simply best all round, which makes the other choices redundant and thus bloat. 

Oh and as I made clear, I was talking about the weapon systems specifically.

 
 

 

[radmonger]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

And in RQ, where you could play as a Human, a Baboon, a Dark-Troll, a Duck, etc... none of which are "balanced" against each other.

This is an example of balance not applying between pcs;  only someone outside the world can choose what race they are going to be, That argument doesn't apply to weapons; someone inside the world very much could choose to pick up one and not another. And if some weapons are strictly and straightforwardly better in rules terms, that makes those people not choosing to do so idiots.

Certainly no pc will ever choose the worse choice, so having stats for them is a waste of some significant fraction of your 16 pages...

[g33k]

8 hours ago, radmonger said:

This is an example of balance not applying between pcs;  only someone outside the world can choose what race they are going to be, That argument doesn't apply to weapons; someone inside the world very much could choose to pick up one and not another. And if some weapons are strictly and straightforwardly better in rules terms, that makes those people not choosing to do so idiots.

Certainly no pc will ever choose the worse choice, so having stats for them is a waste of some significant fraction of your 16 pages...

I absolutely reject this argument.
People -- the characters -- will choose "sub-optimal" weapons a *LOT* of the time.

People -- the players -- looking at weapon-stat charts are the ones who optimize as you suggest (of course, those are the people who are *actually* making the choices).

But from an in-character POV ... ?

• Maybe it's a "Cultural" weapon, common with your people:  you've been playing with it (and developing the skills) since a few months after you began walking (and your friends will mock you if you choose anything else).
• Maybe it's a "Cult" weapon, sacred to your god; you'd no more chose to take up another, than a Christian & Jew would trade host for matzah for their ceremonies.
• Maybe it's the weapon your father gave you, that his gave him, etc ... that the King gave your great-great for service above&beyond.
• Etc etc etc

Very often, the "better" weapon is simply not clear from an in-character POV; I will assert that a mere "+1" on a 1d8-ish weapon is almost undetectable in-character:  1d8+1 is really hard to tell apart from "just" 1d8; add in a variable "damage bonus" like +1d4 and it's even harder to spot.

Sometimes there IS a "best" option; that tended toward specific contexts, though.  A "proto-phalanx" (shieldwall bristling with spears) was millenia-old before the Greeks formalized their version... but phalanx tactics are seldom relevant for PC "Adventurers," so they seldom choose the "obviously best" combo of ginormous shield + sarissa.  It does no more damage than any other 2H-Spear... it's "better" for a phalanx -- and a phalanx wins battles vs. a sword&board shieldwall -- but it's "worse" for small-unit engagements.

(Also, it is IMHO too fiddly for the RPG table, but "fatigue" is a genuine issue (I have yet to see fatigue-rules that don't drag a game down, in-play / at-the-table); a heavier weapon "hits harder" (aka rolls more damage) but after 10 minutes of to-the-death scrum... that weapon is going to be slowing down in your hands... and that's likely to be fatal.

The game-mechanical "best weapon" analysis is thus of minimal import, in my eyes.

Edited May 3, 2023 by g33k

[Mugen]

@g33ka PC may not be aware of a "+1" to damage, but he can chose it over another one based on "in game" properties that he can experience but the player can't, such as a better balance. Ans I think these properties translate into a +1 to damage in terms of mechanisms.

In BRP games such as RQG, the effects that occur on a Special based on weapon type are also things that a PC can be aware of.

There's also a difference between a professional and a non-profesionnal fighter. The first one will be better at judging the strengths and weaknesses of each weapon, whereas the second will just pick the weapon he knows best, even if it's a poor choice.

 

[Barak Shathur]

10 hours ago, g33k said:

Very often, the "better" weapon is simply not clear from an in-character POV; I will assert that a mere "+1" on a 1d8-ish weapon is almost undetectable in-character:  1d8+1 is really hard to tell apart from "just" 1d8; add in a variable "damage bonus" like +1d4 and it's even harder to spot.

In a world where the game system represents the laws of physics, a PC will observe that fighters using x weapon will statistically be more successful than fighters using y. In game technical terms, +1 or +2 bonus will translate to incapacitated hit locations or major wounds that more often, especially if this is doubled for specials. Only a deeply irrational individual will choose anything but the best tool available in a life or death situation. 
 

A balanced system still doesn’t preclude players making sub-optimal choices for RP reasons. And I’ll posit it’s also a better selling point than an unbalanced one. 

[Eddy]

I personally would love a brief 16 page simple "modernised" BRP system. In fact only the other day I pulled out from Trolpak the BRP rules to see if it would work!

[Stan Shinn]

BTW, I've got a rough draft of the brief 16 page simple "modernised" BRP system (100% compatible with current BRP stat blocks) done. I want to let it sit for a few days, then I'll re-read it, add additional edits, make sure character creation is clear, and then sometime after that I'll share to the community for feedback.

Among other uses for this '81 Style' BRP Variant is to serve as a basis for your own custom games. I think it will be easier to take a simple base, and add in rules options and setting specific rules, rather than try to pull out the rules from the full BRP SRD.

Also, it will serve as a great QuickStart document!

[Bahntah]

Can't wait to see it!

[Stan Shinn]

I have a draft of such a character sheet that I still need to make form-fillable. I'll include it with my 1981 Style' rules when I release that (see that thread below). My 1981 Style rules with have both normal and with-hit-locations versions of the character sheet. Probably 3-4 weeks away, but coming soon!

 

[g33k]

On 5/7/2023 at 1:24 PM, Stan Shinn said:

BTW, I've got a rough draft of the brief 16 page simple "modernised" BRP system (100% compatible with current BRP stat blocks) done. I want to let it sit for a few days, then I'll re-read it, add additional edits, make sure character creation is clear, and then sometime after that I'll share to the community for feedback.

Among other uses for this '81 Style' BRP Variant is to serve as a basis for your own custom games. I think it will be easier to take a simple base, and add in rules options and setting specific rules, rather than try to pull out the rules from the full BRP SRD.

Also, it will serve as a great QuickStart document!

A 16-page quickstart could be a fantastic resource!
I'm *very* much looking forward to it!

Q:  if folks want to use it further -- either for personal projects, or commercial -- do you plan to formally release it under the ORC license?

[Stan Shinn]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Q:  if folks want to use it further -- either for personal projects, or commercial -- do you plan to formally release it under the ORC license?

Aside from art, trademarks, and logos, the text will be 100% ORC! I'll have some sort of plain text version of it once it's finished. I hope people will use it as a basis for their own games, starting with a small set of core rules, and adding in anything else from the full BRP SRD that you want! Easier (in my opinion), than trimming down from the larger rules.

[Greg]

Are you planning on making a product for BRP like "Dungeonesque" was for D&D 5e?

[g33k]

14 hours ago, Stan Shinn said:

... as a basis for their own games, starting with a small set of core rules, and adding in anything else from the full BRP SRD that you want! Easier (in my opinion), than trimming down from the larger rules.

I agree:  adding to the simple base is easier than editing-down (unless you're using a *LOT* of that bigger base:  if you were doing 4-color-supers, where a Not-Dr-Strange + Not-Flash + not-Spawn + not-IronMan + Not-JeanGrey/Phoenix teamed up, you'd probably be better off trimming-down from the full BRP:UGE rules).

[g33k]

<duplicate deleted>

Edited May 9, 2023 by g33k
dup

[Stan Shinn]

3 hours ago, Greg said:

Are you planning on making a product for BRP like "Dungeonesque" was for D&D 5e?

It's crossed my mind! Definitely in consideration, but I've got a few non-fantasy settings in queue before 'Dungeonesque BRP'.

My current thinking on products and formats:

• Phase I: Create a '1981 Style' BRP variant closer to the simplicity of Stormbringer 1e, but fully compatible with current BRP stat blocks. This product will probably be a 8.5x11" PDF initially, eventually formatted to look like an old-school Dungeon Module including black and white line art, then offered as print on demand once the rules are stable.
• Phase II: Create 'LBB' (Traveller Little-Black Book) style mini-games. These would be digest sized (6x9") and art-free, and have the look and feel of Classic Traveller. I've got a few settings to publish in this format, which would use the '1981 Style' rules as a basis. These setting books would be self-contained with all you need to play them in that one 50-60 page book. These would be perfect bound, but with enough margins that you could spiral bind them at a local print shot, which is my favorite format for home games. I've got a Star Trek (without their IP, sort of Starships and Spacemen style) book lined up and mostly done, a Gangbusters-style setting, a Firefly-style setting, and maybe a Weird World War II type setting among other ideas. Which of these comes first depends on what my various home campaigns choose to run.
• Phase III: Well, who knows. Hopefully there is a glut of BRP products that come out given the ORC licensing. A full scale 'Dungeonesque 2e' game is on my radar, but maybe someone else will do a nice BX/BRP mashup before I get to that point. I'd also need to review if my product would be different enough from The Design Mechanism's 'Classic Fantasy' to make it worth producing it. 

Anyway, that's my thoughts for now! Thanks for asking!

Edited May 9, 2023 by Stan Shinn