Movement in BRP

[RosenMcStern]

Face it, RosenMcStern, some people disagree with you and feel they are not satisfied with initiative as handled in the BGB and that is perfectly ok. I respect your opinion and I love BRP overall. I just like my initiative handled a tad differently.

Er, I want to be very unpleasant here. And I will break my own rule of never posting sentences whose subject is "you".

I have no problems with people having different opinions. The point is that I am not the one posting about the same subject on three different forums stating "I have never tried this well-tested system but I think this well-tested rule is nonsense: what is everyone's opinion?"

I think it was you who expected a great deal of agreement.

If you are so adamant about the options you want to have in your game (which are entirely up to you, of course) why start the debate? Just use the bits and pieces you prefer, and that's it.

Have a nice game.

[Atgxtg]

See, for me the declaration phase doesn't add enough benefit for the time it takes. If I was going to use the declaration system I'd do it completely differently and lose initiative altogether. I'm playing in a game using the Karma system and in that everyone declares their action and then all rolls are made at once. The GM then takes all the rolls in, applies them to what they were attempting and figures the results.

This means parries become part of your attack (two characters declaring attacks against each other are making opposed rolls) and you don't have to worry about everyone's relative speeds (which are already figured into your attack scores).

Interesting. I've run Pendragon, and it does something similar. But how do you handle situations where timing is important? For example, seeing a a spell gets off before a melee attack?

Personally I favour the AP system though. That way you start off at the highest AP and count down. When your current AP number comes up you state your action, spend the appropriate AP (it's helpful to have tracker sheets for this) and make your roll. If you want to have the delay between declaring and acting then you rule that the role doesn't take effect until your new AP score (at which point you will also declare your next action).

This means that you don't get to stab your opponent 4 times before he can act (something I also hate) unless you're really fast and going for 'snap shots' against a much slower opponent. Which makes sense. If I'm Lightning Hopkins, pumped on combat drugs and fighting a sleep deprived Octogenarian then I can probably ram my knife into him 3 or 4 times before he can react. Which is fairly realistic, all the stabbings I've seen have been over obscenely quickly. Even accounting for getting in close and then moving away again 6 seconds is a long time to be stabbing someone.

It does mean the extra legwork of assigning attack speeds to all the weapons but I think it's worth it. It's a nice balance between SR and standard actions.

Also, you can play about with the action costs for whatever game you're running. A harsh military simulator is going to make you spend AP to change from prone to kneeling whereas a pulp action game is going to make it a free part of movement.

Anyway, once I've worked my system up I'll post it here so you can have a look.

But doesn"t that make things entirely speed driven? How would you accomodate for SIZ and reach? And the guy with the most APs would seem to have too big an edge. Case in point, high AP guy vs. a held arrow or readied rifle. FASATrek used APs and they were pretty dysfuncrtional.

[Atgxtg]

But the 5m movement rule (see "move" and "engage in combat" p.190) make clear that the description on p189 is ambiguous (or perhaps a bit misleading). The reality is that it, as someone above described it, you can attack anyone within 5 m." That is a much more precise statement than what p.189 says. Since I prefer combat where we know exactly where characters are, I think you absolutely have to have something like the 5m rule. (Pace, those who disagree with me on this point.) My criticism would be that 5m seems too large a distance for an I-go-you-go system, especially, as you say, where one blow can end the day.

Sorry to clip most your post in the quote, just wanted to keep this short:)

I have to confess, I think a good reason why I don't have as much trouble with the Strike Rank system is that I'm not using the BRP rules! I'm still defaulting to RQ3. So placement tends to be a bit better defined than in BRP, since move is represented in terms of meters/SR rather than as an abstract value of relative (but not linear) speed.

I suspect BRp's biggest flaws come from the fact that many of it's players and playtesters "knew" the system before it was written, and at times we are defaulting to older rules than what are in the BRP rulebook. Sorry.

[Atgxtg]

@Rosen: I'm not sure what your problem with people tinkering is? I don't doubt there are optional rules you don't use (unless you've decided to run BRP/Rifts and you've just turned everything on) but you won't hear me giving you shit over the bits you don't like but I do.

That may seem a bit more confrontational than I intend it to be but there's a fair amount of hostility floating around here which seems to be coming out the fact that people are using the system to do what was intended. I just don't get that.

Okay, I'm not Rosen, but I think I get his point. It's not about tinkering with the system. It is about trying it before tinkering. A lot of these rules actually work out well in play. And a lot of those rules are interconnected. Now many of us have been playing a version of this system for decades, and have an understannding of how it works. So when we tinker, we can make educated guesses as to what the repercussions will be to game play. But it is fairly easy for somebody to tinker with the game and start the butterfly effect.

For an example, look at Matt Sprang's alternate damage tables for MRQ that were supposed to make combat more deadly Now the tables were only minor tinkering, and yet they would completely alter the game. Parrying would become nearly useless, and armor wouldn't be worth the ENC penalty. Magical protection becomes a necessity. One sligh bit of tinkering and it is a whole differernt game! And when you consider that the tables themselves were a response to fan complaints about how MRQ combat had lost the lethality that RQ/Strombringer, etc. had, you can see just how interrealted the rules are.

So trying befotinkering is sound advice.

[KingSkin]

Interesting. I've run Pendragon, and it does something similar. But how do you handle situations where timing is important? For example, seeing a a spell gets off before a melee attack?

In those cases it would be directly opposed, the spell is cast or the attack hits, the two rolls are directly opposed and the various magic types are skills same as weapons.

The mage does have some other options like taking penalties to their roll to avoid damage. I actually have a bit of a problem with those rules because a decent caster trying a low-level spell can basically automatically succeed and thus avoid all damage for a round. I've pointed out to the GM that this is a very effective shield and actually means the mage can last longer in a fight than me even though my meat-shield have got about twice his HP (and the HP levels are similar to BRP as is the weapon damage).

But doesn"t that make things entirely speed driven? How would you accomodate for SIZ and reach? And the guy with the most APs would seem to have too big an edge. Case in point' date=' high AP guy vs. a held arrow or readied rifle. FASATrek used APs and they were pretty dysfuncrtional.[/quote']

Reach can be factored into weapon speed or perhaps impose an AP penalty to people attacking you, so it costs them actions to attack. I've only just thought of that but I quite like the idea of it.

SIZ is a bit of a bugger, it doesn't necesarily make you faster or slower but extra reach is always good. Perhaps give an AP bonus to people over a certain size. Small people aren't necessarily faster (I can outrun my son) and actual speed of action in combat is more determined by reflexes than anything else. That's why I think basing it off DEX works. The average DEX is 11 which would (using the rough figures I've worked up so far) give you enough AP to fire 3 standard shots from a pistol and move 2m. I think that's pretty reasonable for 6 seconds. Also, there's unlikely to be too huge a spread between DEX scores so thefaster characters will likely get 1 or 2 more attacks per round than the slower ones. It's all a case of balancing those aspects out with the AP costs of actions.

On the whole tinkering thing, I think tinkering is very much at the heart of BRP and I've started changing things without playing them. The Initiative system immediately struck me as being a bit off when I read it and so I'm going to port over the AP system from my own homebrew game.

OK, I've played some BRP variants over the years but more importantly I've played a hell of a lot of different systems for a long time and designed a couple of my own so I tend to be fairly confident in my ability to 'eyeball' a rule and work out how nicely it'll work in a game. I get surpised sometimes but not often.

Anyway, the main reason I made my comment earlier is that disagreeing is one thing but some of the comments up the thread seemed pretty hostile to my and it's not something I like to see when there's a decent thread going.

[daddystabz]

I'm going to try to break this down a bit further. I've been playing these games for literally decades. I have tons of experience. I have played variations of BRP in games like RuneQuest, which BRP was derived from. The math challenged player in my group I mentioned previously is an old school Call of Cthulu player and fan, knowing BRP very, very well. Like KingSkin, I'm experienced enough to read a rule or set of rules and understand how it/they will play, especially with my players. I am not speaking here without having any experience or idea. I have multiple bookshelves of these games and I've played/GM'ed more of these games than anyone I know personally. I have other players in my group that are familiar with BRP as well and the guy running our MRQII group right now played RuneQuest back in the day. I also have a lot of experience with having a phase of declarations/statement of intents in initiative. We used the by the book method in Legend of the 5 Rings 1e, for instance. The reason that was built into the initiative system in that game is exactly the same reason it exists in this game....to give tactical depth and allow for things to change somewhat after a player has already declared his/her actions, etc. My players did not like it in L5R 1e and found it slowed things down more than what they liked, not enough bang for the buck. This is how I know they will not want it in their BRP. Throwing out the statement of intents phase is one of the options on pg 188 I think of the BRP BGB. I am not looking for tactical depth for the particular campaign I'm gearing up to run. It will be an urban fantasy campaign and I'm trying to keep it rules lite. I know what to expect with throwing out statement of intents and I plan on using dex/int ranks at this point for the rest of initiative. My players would despise Strike Ranks as detailed in the BGB. The reason I posted about this on this board and on RPG.net is because I wanted to gather a diverse set of opinions from BRP players and non-BRP players alike that might have tinkered with different initiative systems in the past.

Edited June 8, 2011 by daddystabz

[Smoking Frog]

Sorry to clip most your post in the quote, just wanted to keep this short:)

I have to confess, I think a good reason why I don't have as much trouble with the Strike Rank system is that I'm not using the BRP rules! I'm still defaulting to RQ3. So placement tends to be a bit better defined than in BRP, since move is represented in terms of meters/SR rather than as an abstract value of relative (but not linear) speed.

Ah. Now that's an interesting point! Part of my disadvantage is that mostly my BRP experience during my misspent youth was Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon, so I don't have a good handle, as many people here do, on the variations that have been tried. I have RQ2, RQ3, and SB5, so I'm going to go back through them and see if I can become more "fluent" so to speak.

[Atgxtg]

In those cases it would be directly opposed, the spell is cast or the attack hits, the two rolls are directly opposed and the various magic types are skills same as weapons.

Ah, here is thing. If they are opposed than both action take the same amount of time. What I like about SR is that a spell caster must decide between a quick spell, or a more powerful one.

[quote=KingSkin;38433

The mage does have some other options like taking penalties to their roll to avoid damage. I actually have a bit of a problem with those rules because a decent caster trying a low-level spell can basically automatically succeed and thus avoid all damage for a round. I've pointed out to the GM that this is a very effective shield and actually means the mage can last longer in a fight than me even though my meat-shield have got about twice his HP (and the HP levels are similar to BRP as is the weapon damage).

[Atgxtg]

I'm going to try to break this down a bit further. I've been playing these games for literally decades. I have tons of experience. I have played variations of BRP in games like RuneQuest, which BRP was derived from. The math challenged player in my group I mentioned previously is an old school Call of Cthulu player and fan, knowing BRP very, very well. Like KingSkin, I'm experienced enough to read a rule or set of rules and understand how it/they will play, especially with my players. I am not speaking here without having any experience or idea. I have multiple bookshelves of these games and I've played/GM'ed more of these games than anyone I know personally. I have other players in my group that are familiar with BRP as well and the guy running our MRQII group right now played RuneQuest back in the day. I also have a lot of experience with having a phase of declarations/statement of intents in initiative. We used the by the book method in Legend of the 5 Rings 1e, for instance. The reason that was built into the initiative system in that game is exactly the same reason it exists in this game....to give tactical depth and allow for things to change somewhat after a player has already declared his/her actions, etc. My players did not like it in L5R 1e and found it slowed things down more than what they liked, not enough bang for the buck. This is how I know they will not want it in their BRP. Throwing out the statement of intents phase is one of the options on pg 188 I think of the BRP BGB. I am not looking for tactical depth for the particular campaign I'm gearing up to run. It will be an urban fantasy campaign and I'm trying to keep it rules lite. I know what to expect with throwing out statement of intents and I plan on using dex/int ranks at this point for the rest of initiative. My players would despise Strike Ranks as detailed in the BGB. The reason I posted about this on this board and on RPG.net is because I wanted to gather a diverse set of opinions from BRP players and non-BRP players alike that might have tinkered with different initiative systems in the past.

This might come as a surprise to you guys, but the folks who are disagreeing with you have just as much experience playing, running, and writing various RPGs as you do. Some even have more. So overall experence balances out. What is relevant here is that those folks have more experience with the RQ/BRP system, and the SR system in particular. The can (and probably have already) find the weakspots as fast or father than you. Heck, I"ve probably familar with as many differernt RPGs as anyone. I've run dozens, and owned over a hundred. I got experience.

So when experienced people with a greater familarity with this particular game system than you have (and based upon some of your MRQ vs. BRP posts you are not as famialr with RQ and Strike Ranks as the folks who are disagreeing with you) give you a warning about a proposed "fix", you should consider it. A lot of the "fixes" I've seen are buggier than the rules they supposedly improve upon. Quite a few will seriously alter the way the game plays in certain settings. A spell like Speedart looses a lot of it's value if you have to wait a turn to make the shot. You see, those of us familar with the core system, know what he trade offs are. If you really like the way MRQII handles initiative, by all means, use that method.

If it matters, I played L5R, too. More than one edition, too. Just becuase your players don't like something doesn't mean that it is a bad rule, or is broken. Just that they don't like it. I've got some D&D players in my Star Wars D6 campaign who keep wanted to take thier turn right after we roll intitative, skipping over the "how many actions" are "who goes first" bits. It doesn"t mean that the intitative system is bad, just that those players are used to the D&D method.

[KingSkin]

Ah, here is thing. If they are opposed than both action take the same amount of time. What I like about SR is that a spell caster must decide between a quick spell, or a more powerful one.

I prefer that way of doing it too but the Karma rules don't have anything really based around timing.

Which rules are those? And I don't care for them either. I don't really see how someone casting a healing spell is going to throw a swordman off.

The rules in Karma basically state that by taking various penalties you can either ignore all damage for a round by casting defensively. There are 2 or 3 versions of it but we worked out that one of them allows you to avoid all damage and if you couple it with a weak spell then the penalties aren't very high at all.

Basically you got the SR system, but you are just counting down instead of up.

Almost yeah. I think the SR system is better than the basic system in BRP but I prefer to count down and just found it a bit counter-intuitive in a few places so I'm going to port over a system I've already written and used. Also my system is a bit more detailed than the SR system. But yeah, if I was going to run it straight out of the book I'd go for SRs.

But to be serious, juding from some of the comments made about "how things work" and the sugessted "fixes", I get the impression that people don't really have a good grasp of the mechanics and thier "eyeballing" isn't very good. Case in point, your AP system sounds a lot like the SR system in reverse.

It's similar but not the same. Anyway, I'm just tinkering at the moment. I've also got to write up some equipment rules and some bits of background too but we're not going to be starter for a few weeks yet. And I've agreed to run a one-nighter of deadEarth fueled by as much alcohol as we can consume to help get us through the insanity of that game. So I've got to get that out of the way first.

[daddystabz]

It does not surprise me at all that some of you might have around as much experience as me in gaming in general. I am really amazed that supposed BRP enthusiasts would have this much trouble with tinkering with a toolbox game that is DESIGNED from the floor up to be tinkered with. I have explained repeatedly that I fully comprehend what my changes will do to MY game. I am only talking about dropping statement of intents right now and that is one of the options in the BGB. I never said the original rule is bad I SAID IT IS NOT FOR ME AND THAT MY PLAYERS DESPISE IT. That honestly should be enough for you. I do not like some parts of the initiative system in this game. MRQII frankly does it a whole heck of a lot better imo. I'm not the only one that thinks this. I've tried to be respectful and honestly hate that this thread has been this hostile but honestly how many times can I state how aware I am of how this will change the game. Any experienced gamer can read how a simple change such as this will affect the game and understand it inherently because it is such a simple tweak. I really respect you all as gamers and I appreciate you feel strongly enough to try to warn me. I am willing to play the game Dex/Int ranks intact and with statement of intents as well and it will not bog me down personally as a GM. I just have a very educated feeling that my players will not enjoy statement of intents based on past experience and will not like the altered initiative hit to Dex ranks when moving any more than what equates to 1 sqaure of movement, since we use a battlemat.

Again, watch the review here:

and listen how he TWEAKED the system to fit his style and to fit his players. Notice I asked him on his YouTube page how he handled initiative and you will see he made similar tweaks as to what I'm describing. Is he misguided because he didn't use/like initiative as written in the BGB? He used Dex ranks not strike ranks but I believe he didn't use penalties for movement to Dex rank. He also made custom skills for his campaign and encouraged me to tweak away on his thread, saying it is in the spirit of the toolbox nature of the game to do so.

I honestly appreciate the advice you all tried to give, along with the warning of how it may impact the game. I'm aware of how it may impact the game and I'm cool with it. I'm TOTALLY willing to allow the players to play with statement of intents and Dex/Int ranks if they want but I'm pretty sure they won't want to based on my experience with them. I want to consider you all as friends and I don't want you all to see me as some kind of troublemaker. I'm just honestly trying to accommodate what my players like as a GM.

Edited June 9, 2011 by daddystabz

[deleriad]

I've just had a read through this. I've played a lot of BRP and a lot of RQII. The two systems actually end up more similar than they look in how they handle moving and acting. To spell things out.

Average character in RQII can act 2 or 3 times per round. Call it 3 for convenience.

Average BRP character can act once and react once per round.

In both systems you can combine a small movement freely with an action. In BRP you can move 5m and act. In RQII you can move up to 8m and act (divided among all your actions.)

In BRP say you want to attack someone 5m or less away. The action happens on your DEX rank.

In RQII if you want to attack someone 8m or less away then it happens as part of an action.

In BRP if you want to attack someone more than 5m away it happens on DEX/2.

In RQII if you want to attack someone more than 8m away you have to charge so the attack happens on a future action.

In both cases you declare the attack on the character's 'turn' but it happens later in the round.

Generally BRP is actually less restrictive with movement than RQII. In BRP you can move half of your full allowance and still act. In RQII, if you want to move more than 8m in a round then you can't take any other actions.

As another example. You want to draw your sword, move 5m and then attack.

RQII. Action 1. Draw Sword. Action 2 move and attack.

BRP. DEX - draw sword. DEX-5 - move and attack.

In both cases, the attack happens later in the round than if you didn't need draw the sword.

[Thalaba]

This discussion would be more entertaining if Rosen adopted a Lee Van Cleef avatar....

[Smoking Frog]

This discussion would be more entertaining if Rosen adopted a Lee Van Cleef avatar....

I've been holding my breath hoping RosenMcStern doesn't make the mistake of laughing at his mule. If he does, I'm diving behind the nearest watering trough.

[daddystabz]

I agree completely! Make it so!!!

This discussion would be more entertaining if Rosen adopted a Lee Van Cleef avatar....

[daddystabz]

How about this one for him? http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/10/107587/1538487-lee_van_cleef_icon.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/why-is-that-your-profile-picture/453606/&h=75&w=75&sz=3&tbnid=z_CxodV_3tJ0_M:&tbnh=71&tbnw=71&prev=/search%3Fq%3DLee%2BVan%2BCleef%2Bavatar%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=Lee+Van+Cleef+avatar&hl=en&usg=__PzeaLnjPg9bgi6qCF2DzFgB58yU=&sa=X&ei=iKjxTe_rA4jTgQee4sDIBA&ved=0CFkQ9QEwFA&dur=291

[Merak Gren]

Not wanting to restart a flamewar, but I still don't understand what the issue with RAW is. The more you do, the longer it takes to do it. You don't stand around waiting you're doing something!

Its not a penalty on initiative, its just the passage of time of an action that can't happen immediately. However, if you're happy with npc's doing the same to characters so be it. Its not D&D!

[Mankcam]

Well I'm glad Thalaba diffused this whole powder-keg of a thread, it was getting way too hot in here before that quip about the Lee Van Cleef avatar!

Everyone's really singing from the same songbook here. If they didn't like BRP (or one of it's derivatives) then they wouldn't be here in the first place.

This, however, has been an interesting thread to follow over the past week or so, it kinda reminds me of the old school yard fights, or maybe even the old Gloranthan Digest threads!

Thanks for a great week's entertainment fellas!

[daddystabz]

I'm perfectly willing to try initiative exactly as written in the default rules with Dex/Int ranks, penalties for movement in excess of 5m, statement of intents, etc. if my players are up for it. I'll know soon. I have the default system down so well now it doesn't really bother me anymore.

[Smoking Frog]

How about this one for him? http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/10/107587/1538487-lee_van_cleef_icon.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/why-is-that-your-profile-picture/453606/&h=75&w=75&sz=3&tbnid=z_CxodV_3tJ0_M:&tbnh=71&tbnw=71&prev=/search%3Fq%3DLee%2BVan%2BCleef%2Bavatar%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=Lee+Van+Cleef+avatar&hl=en&usg=__PzeaLnjPg9bgi6qCF2DzFgB58yU=&sa=X&ei=iKjxTe_rA4jTgQee4sDIBA&ved=0CFkQ9QEwFA&dur=291

If we're taking a straw poll on Rosen's avatar, my vote is to keep the present one. One of the great joys of my life was seeing his profile picture after seeing the avatar. (He and I share a similar hair style.) It might be the most perfect avatar on this site.

[RosenMcStern]

Hey, no, guys! This is unfair. You are taking advantage of me being at Eternal Con (with the moderator) to bash my Avatar. This is personal attack! I invoke the Forum rules to have all of you banned, all of you, and offer a beer to the moderator to reinforce my argument! I will eat your BRAAAAIIINS!

(Sorry, this zombie game we are playing had me involved a bit too much).

[Thalaba]

You are taking advantage of me being at Eternal Con

Hey, cool! When you get back, would you mind posting a few pictures of that - including the location? I've always been intrigued.

BTW, I hear Loz really likes his dunkels with a shot of banana syrup, if you're buying him a drink...

[daddystabz]

By all means, please post pics! Have fun!

[KingSkin]

Wow! I go on a team away day and miss all the fun. Lee Van Cleef would have been cool though.

I didn't think it was getting particularly heated though, but I'm glad it's relaxed a bit. Anyway, I've been reading the deadEarth system and anything that isn't 'punch the GM in the face when you want to act' is better than that.

[seneschal]

Not wanting to restart a flamewar, but I still don't understand what the issue with RAW is.

It's not so much the raw as the cold, sticky rice they wrap it in. Ick!