brancalonia BRP and Brancalonia

[Nokaion]

There is a fantastic setting by Acheron Games called Brancalonia. It's a fantastic rendition of "Fantasy Renaissance Italy" inspired by italian folklore, fairy tales, medieval literature and Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies. The tagline is "Spaghetti Fantasy". In Brancalonia you play as impoverished scoundrels and knaves, who try at any opportunity to make some money. It's really great, but unfortunately it's a D&D 5e setting, even though I personally think it'd be perfect for Warhammer Fantasy or BRP.

Now, I'd like to do a conversion with BRP (because Warhammer Fantasy isn't as universal as BRP and I don't like Zweihänder), but there are some question I'd like to ask.

• I really like Aquelarre and probably would take some of its mechanics (like two actions in combat, XP and how it does hit locations), but how compatible do you think is Aquelarre with other BRP systems?
• How should base chances of skills be handled? Should it be a static number like BRP, a combination of 2 attributes like Mythras/OpenQuest or based on 1 attribute like Aquelarre? Which do you like best?
• I'll probably do my own attributes and will probably use 8, inspired by Andy Law's Blogpost and The Dark Eye. Do you think that's too many?
• How would you handle magic? Which magic system do you think could emulate level 1 to 6 D&D best? I will probably use Mythras Classic Fantasy, but I'm open to others.
• Should I use Fighting Styles and Special Effects? I think Fighting Styles are a good idea, but it would be too complicated to note every Fighting Style and who has access to it and Special Effects are probably better suited as maneuvers.
• How would you handle non-human races? In the Brancalonia setting book, it's written that 9 out of 10 people in Brancalonia are humans, so I'd probably do something like Warhammer Fantasy, where you can roll your race and have a 90% chance of rolling human in exchange for XP. Has someone made fantasy races where it's just bonuses and minuses, like the Melnibonéans in Stormbringer? My experience with strong differences in dices for attributes like in Mythras Classic Fantasy has been, that some races have pretty bad stats. My example would be that halflings and gnomes bad size and strength means that they almost always are terrible in close combat. I'd probably use 2d6 + variable bonuses and minuses for attributes.
• Does this all make sense, or would you use another system than BRP as a base for Brancalonia?

Thx in advance!

[RosenMcStern]

Definitely Classic Fantasy.

I have tried to summon the author, let's see if I made my Summon roll.

[Sir Erwin]

I stumbled across this setting a while back and I love the idea! I never picked it up, because I didn't own 5e, but I would frequently check back to see if it had been ported to other systems.

I wish you the best of luck! I'll be following this thread closely because I'm interested as well. 

[Nozbat]

lol @RosenMcStern.. hopefully the summoning is successful.. did you meditate before hand and augment it too?

I’d be interested too @Nokaion to see how it goes. I’d recently got Gran Meccanismo by Mark Galeotti .. it’s Florence Clockpunk setting where Leonardo da Vinci’s designs were implemented. I’d definitely recommend that too and easily converted to BRP

[tobarstep]

I'll be interested to see how this works out. I bought the setting book a while back even though I don't play 5e because it just looked amazing.

[g33k]

13 hours ago, Nokaion said:

... My example would be that halflings and gnomes bad size and strength means that they almost always are terrible in close combat...

I'd argue that halflings & gnomes should be terrible at close combat.

Also, I'd spend a bit of time considering which bits of "Brancalonia" as-published are really just D&D'isms that can be abandoned (such as specific D&D races).  Almost always, you could just replace a Dwarven Blacksmith or a Halfling Innkeep with a human one; or better yet, select a suite of Italian-faerie-tale races in place of the D&D suite!

[NickMiddleton]

16 hours ago, Nokaion said:

There is a fantastic setting by Acheron Games called Brancalonia. It's a fantastic rendition of "Fantasy Renaissance Italy" inspired by italian folklore, fairy tales, medieval literature and Bud Spencer and Terence Hill movies. The tagline is "Spaghetti Fantasy". In Brancalonia you play as impoverished scoundrels and knaves, who try at any opportunity to make some money. It's really great, but unfortunately it's a D&D 5e setting, even though I personally think it'd be perfect for Warhammer Fantasy or BRP.

Now, I'd like to do a conversion with BRP (because Warhammer Fantasy isn't as universal as BRP and I don't like Zweihänder), but there are some question I'd like to ask.

• I really like Aquelarre and probably would take some of its mechanics (like two actions in combat, XP and how it does hit locations), but how compatible do you think is Aquelarre with other BRP systems?
• How should base chances of skills be handled? Should it be a static number like BRP, a combination of 2 attributes like Mythras/OpenQuest or based on 1 attribute like Aquelarre? Which do you like best?
• I'll probably do my own attributes and will probably use 8, inspired by Andy Law's Blogpost and The Dark Eye. Do you think that's too many?
• How would you handle magic? Which magic system do you think could emulate level 1 to 6 D&D best? I will probably use Mythras Classic Fantasy, but I'm open to others.
• Should I use Fighting Styles and Special Effects? I think Fighting Styles are a good idea, but it would be too complicated to note every Fighting Style and who has access to it and Special Effects are probably better suited as maneuvers.
• How would you handle non-human races? In the Brancalonia setting book, it's written that 9 out of 10 people in Brancalonia are humans, so I'd probably do something like Warhammer Fantasy, where you can roll your race and have a 90% chance of rolling human in exchange for XP. Has someone made fantasy races where it's just bonuses and minuses, like the Melnibonéans in Stormbringer? My experience with strong differences in dices for attributes like in Mythras Classic Fantasy has been, that some races have pretty bad stats. My example would be that halflings and gnomes bad size and strength means that they almost always are terrible in close combat. I'd probably use 2d6 + variable bonuses and minuses for attributes.
• Does this all make sense, or would you use another system than BRP as a base for Brancalonia?

Thx in advance!

I am very much a fan of fast and fluid rules for this sort of thing, and have most of Brancalonia for 5, so I’d start by looking at what I could tweak from a stripped down BRP core such as Magic World: but I’d ALSO heavily consult https://thedesignmechanism.com/fioracitta/…

[Nokaion]

Quote

Also, I'd spend a bit of time considering which bits of "Brancalonia" as-published are really just D&D'isms that can be abandoned (such as specific D&D races).  Almost always, you could just replace a Dwarven Blacksmith or a Halfling Innkeep with a human one; or better yet, select a suite of Italian-faerie-tale races in place of the D&D suite!

Many of the classic D&D races aren't represented in Brancalonia. The book says, that people from the other D&D books could be foreigners or products from "Extravaganza" (basically weird fay magic). Brancalonia is explicitly a low-fantasy setting with a heavy dose of humor, so I'll probably have to port all the Brancalonia races.

The prime D&D'isms would be the subclasses, which I'd just turn into regular professions.

10 hours ago, g33k said:

I'd argue that halflings & gnomes should be terrible at close combat.

I know what you mean, but I have a party in my own Renaissance Deluxe hack and 4 out of 6 play halflings (we rolled characters), and they are pretty much useless in close combat.

[Nokaion]

7 hours ago, NickMiddleton said:

I am very much a fan of fast and fluid rules for this sort of thing, and have most of Brancalonia for 5, so I’d start by looking at what I could tweak from a stripped down BRP core such as Magic World: but I’d ALSO heavily consult https://thedesignmechanism.com/fioracitta/…

I'll probably heavily feature things from Magic World and mix it with some things from OpenQuest. For example, I'll probably use the parry and dodging rules from these games.

[Sir Erwin]

Hello everyone!

Just to let you know, Brancalonia is the current Deal of the Day on DTRPG.

[Alexandre]

I used the RQ3 rules almost RAW to play in the real Brancalonia setting several years ago. With real I mean the "real" Italy (plus all the faeries and legends etc.). In fact I don't know why they made a fake setting instead of just dropping it into Fantasy Earth. Many of the setting main inspirations (Soldier of Fortune, with Bud Spencer, but also L'Armata Brancaleone; Bertoldo, Bertoldino e Cacasenno and my favorite Hearts and Armor, an Excalibur meets Conan retelling of the Orlando Furioso with Ridge Forrester, ehm... Ron Moss as Ruggiero and an incredible looking Tanya Roberts) are just set in Fantasy Italy.

Anyway, all of this just to say that any implementation of BRP should be OK. I personally tend to stick to one system rather than mixing and matching but of course YMMV. The Dark Eye is another game with a fantastic "Fantasy Earth" feel but its (5th edition) system is very idiosyncratic and part of the appeal comes from the setting, so I don't know how much it works divorced from it (but you definitely have all the elements, like broom riding hedge witches etc.).

Have fun,

Alex