Why is BRP not that popular?

[Simlasa]

Indeed! I have heard people complain loudly about GM fudging, but I never understood it. For some reason it is okay for a system to fudge a dice roll by having points, but it is not okay for a system to fudge dice by saying, "GMs can fudge dice for cinematic effect if they wish".

I think the difference is in GM vs. player control of the outcome...

From what I've been reading lately in various forums there is a camp that is pushing for a move away from more traditional concepts of GM control... a dislike of GM 'fiat'... lots of talk against 'railroading'... lot's of goodspeak about games that give the players control of the story/setting/rules...

I've seen a fair number of people pushing the idea of games without GMs.

I've played storytelling games, like Once Upon A Time, that can do some of that sort of thing, but I think it takes the right mix of people.

It all reads good on paper but when I think back to a lot of the people I've played RPGs with I can't say I trust them to really use their creativity/fate points/drama dice for dramatic purposes... rather just to get their way (meaning not die and always be the coolznez).

[badcat]

I for one would rather not play at all than play with that 'camp'. That's that.

And I suppose it is why my game of choice is BRP, I don't want it changed for the benefit of aforesaid 'camp', and believe me most of all when I say I have no patience with them any more.:mad:

You might say me and anyone in the 'camp' ain't gonna be friends...

All that said (once) whoever wants to play a 'cinematic' rpg where anybody can do whatever and there is no risk/reward paradigm, have fun but don't expect me to be there, or even sympathetic to your choice.:cool:

[Nightshade]

There is alot you can do against the "sudden death syndrome" like arrows in head or chest.

One (and maybe the best) of the things you can do is to evaluate if conflict can be solved in another way than getting in a fight. Another one is to put better armor on vital locations. Third you can do is to kill your enemy first.

Unless you avoid combat entirely--and that's an odd choice in most campaigns--that isn't always an option. Armor does nothing against RQ style crits. And as long as dice are involved, killing your enemy first is at least in part as dependent on luck as getting the damage in the first place.

In other more cinematic and forgiving systems a warrior has to pretend to live with one foot in his own grave. In RQ he really does. This I call authenticity and realism and it is one of the things I love in BRP. Its direct. A warrior kills

And that's fine, but most people _don't_ like that degree of hazard; its offputting. Now, you can always say "Play another game", but then no one should be wondering why BRP is a corner of the hobby.

[Nightshade]

One of the reasons why our characters did not die more than they did in our RQ game was because of hit locations. There was a good chance that you would be taken out by a limb being "functionally incapacitated" and be out of the fight. As long as your group won the combat in the end you would be healed up while the others would be captured or "put to the sword".

Sure. But over the course of a campaign, its not hard to catch a head, chest or abdomen shot, and if that happens to be the crit (just about as likely as not), that's pretty much that in many cases.

Another was admittedly a house rule where you made progressively tougher Con rolls when you were at 0 general HPs or less till you hit -10. At that point the Con roll was Conx0, which you of course failed automatically.

And that's certainly an alternate approach to the hero point style mechanics, but I'd argue I'd rather have a core mechanic that isn't as forgiving and a limited bail-out mechanic in many cases.

Failing either of those, or getting your head severed or something like that, there was always the Resurrection spell to fall back on. Although we had a couple Humakti who managed to make it to retirement without ever dying. Actually I think they might have been a little disappointed about that.

Note that's not much help until one starts running into runic characters, though.

[Nightshade]

I'm not dogging people who like 'cinematic' games... I'm just saying the games I want to play aren't that way, and I'd rather people who like those games not come trying to tell me that BRP needs to be more forgiving in order to attract their attention.

Why shouldn't they? If you ask someone why they don't play the game, you should expect they'll tell you their reasons; that you don't like their reasons is no reason for them not to be honest about it.

I'm certain BRP can easily be made to be 'cinematic' but I'd never want that part of the core design.

That's all...

Whatever direction the current 'hipness pendulum' is swinging right now it's sure to swing the other way eventually.

Given that less sudden-death games have been progressively more dominant over time since the 80's, I wouldn't go holding your breath.

[Nightshade]

Indeed! I have heard people complain loudly about GM fudging, but I never understood it. For some reason it is okay for a system to fudge a dice roll by having points, but it is not okay for a system to fudge dice by saying, "GMs can fudge dice for cinematic effect if they wish".

Simple, really. One's entirely arbitrary, one is systematic and regulated.

To reiterate:

Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist.

GM: "Looks like a critical to the arm! You'll be out of it for a while."

This is BAD!

Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist.

GM: "Looks like you took a critical hit to the head. Your dead."

Player: "I spend a hero point so it hits the arm instead."

GM: "Okay, I guess it hits the arm."

This is GOOD! This is revolutionary! This is the future of RPGs everywhere!

Again, the latter is a systematic fix to the problem; the former is a brute force solution, much like constantly ignoring a rule because it doesn't do what you want it to.

[Nightshade]

I for one would rather not play at all than play with that 'camp'. That's that.

And I suppose it is why my game of choice is BRP, I don't want it changed for the benefit of aforesaid 'camp', and believe me most of all when I say I have no patience with them any more.:mad:

You might say me and anyone in the 'camp' ain't gonna be friends...

All that said (once) whoever wants to play a 'cinematic' rpg where anybody can do whatever and there is no risk/reward paradigm, have fun but don't expect me to be there, or even sympathetic to your choice.:cool:

In other words, your way or the highway. Lovely.

[RMS]

Fireballs are not harmless to compareable characters when you get them; in fact, its not particularly hard for a given arcane spellcaster to be killed by a fireball equivelent to his own. That's true of most of the others, too.

Old, old anecdote here: I recall back in the mists of time when I still played D&D (very early 80s at the latest). I ran for a high powered (8th -9th level) group that came around a corner of a stereotypical dungeon and found something big and nasty there. It seized the meatshield fighter and the magic user decided he had no choice but let loose a lightning bolt, hoping the fighter had enough hp to absorb it if he made the save and hoping he did. Anyhow, said magic user let go with a big nasty lightning bolt, which bounced off the wall directly behind the big nasty creature and came back through the creature, fighter, and the rest of the party. It then bounced off the wall behind them and went through them from the other side. Rinse and repeat a couple of times. I don't know how it is now, but lightning bolts then bounced off walls and traveled their full distance, which was a function of magic user level. It did kill the the big nasty creature, the fighter did make his saving throws, but took it too many times to survive. TPK, except the thief who was lurking back around the corner. The magic user died on the first time through. (The thief was sorely disappointed that most of the party's valuables failed one of the many saving throws they also had to made.) Memories...!

I have to conclude our experiences are far too different to have this discussion then, because I don't recall _ever_ seeing an RQ character with more than about 40 points of reusable divine magic. I'm puzzled how it can even occur unless one is running campaigns of _particularly_ long duration, given the manditory minimum POW priests must maintain and the mechanics of power gain. Even with multiple checks, at 25-30% chances per check, the gain isn't particularly speedy.

In RQ3, there's no mandatory minimum POW for priests. The only requirement is 10 points of stored divine magic, plus skills. In RQ2, priests have to maintain POW 18, but treat their species maximum POW as 25 for determining POW gain. Toss a strategic Eurmal's crumb in and the species maximum for the character can easily gain 4-5 points: a very powerful result, but those things are pretty common to come by.

This campaign ran for about 7 years with two of the characters remaining the same from beginning to end. In the game world, about 20 years went by, so add up yearly automatic gains, seasonal rolls for leading services, and a handful of adventures a year, it's pretty easy to build up POW in a hurry. Add in a bunch of DI's over the years, and POW gains come even faster!

[RMS]

In other words, your way or the highway. Lovely.

Put me there too. If I'm not interested in a game, I don't play. Life's too short to waste my time doing things I don't enjoy. If someone is setting up a super cinematic game, I'll find something more interesting to do, like watching the grass grow...

[Nightshade]

In RQ3, there's no mandatory minimum POW for priests. The only requirement is 10 points of stored divine magic, plus skills. In RQ2, priests have to

Though I'm unable to find it in the book, I'm almost certain there was a requirement to keep a power of 15, unless I'm confusing it with the old Rune Lord requirement. However, even if I'm misremembering, its impractical to let it get too low, so you're still talking at most cases at most a 50% chance of gaining power per session.

maintain POW 18, but treat their species maximum POW as 25 for determining POW gain. Toss a strategic Eurmal's crumb in and the species maximum for the character can easily gain 4-5 points: a very powerful result, but those things are pretty common to come by.

Not in non-Gloranthan games, nor, to be honest, the Gloranthan ones I ever saw.

This campaign ran for about 7 years with two of the characters remaining the same from beginning to end. In the game world, about 20 years went by, so add up yearly automatic gains, seasonal rolls for leading services, and a handful of adventures a year, it's pretty easy to build up POW in a hurry. Add in a bunch of DI's over the years, and POW gains come even faster!

Well, that's a _very_ long campaign; far longer than any I ever saw, so I don't think it can be treated as typical. Most campaigns don't last beyond a year or two.

[RMS]

Not in non-Gloranthan games, nor, to be honest, the Gloranthan ones I ever saw.

I'd wager money that the most played RQ published adventure is Apple Lane and that's part of the charm of Rainbow Mounds: an Eurmal's Crumb and all the associate random fun that goes with it. It's also a payment in the Munchrooms adventure. Pretty much every old school RQ campaign will have a character or two who got lucky enough to get the POW gain from an Eurmal's crumb. (That's in addition to ones who gained other stats, took damage, or outright died from it: very old school!) Just like every one of those campaigns has a character or two with the 2AP skin from slaying the Lizard Mother in the Rainbow Mounds.

[RMS]

Back on hero/fate points: I have used a mechanism in BRP before where players can pay a point of permanent POW to get a reroll. In lower magic worlds than Glorantha, it's a steep price, but represents characters literally trading some of their luck away in exchange for another chance. The catch is that it only offers a reroll, which can come up just as bad or worse than the original roll.

I've actually used a similar reroll mechanic for stats fairly often. I allow a player to reroll a single die from their 3d6 or 2d6+6 stat rolls. The catch is that they must live with the reroll, even if it comes up worse than the original roll. (Statistically, it works out so that you should always reroll the lowest die if it's a 1-3 and should not reroll if the lowest die is 4+.) This leads to characters that are overall above average, but keeps lots of 17s and 18s relatively rare.

[badcat]

Ouch! That is expensive.

I have my own back ups in place. Primarily I use Luck rolls quite a bit. As in, PC fails the Climb roll half way up a hundred foot cliff. They get a Luck roll to see if there is a handy root, then another Climb roll to see if they succeed in saving themselves from a fall. It has always seemed satisfactory to me.

The players are usually happy with the way I run my game; as long as they have a fair chance to survive/get away/win. It makes for fun gaming and a big sigh of relief over a favorite character when they make it. I do fudge rolls when fate just seems too cruel, as well.

When a player does something insane or foolish I kill them quickly and with great glee, too. An early RQ2 game, I think it was Balastor's Barracks, there were some gargoyles who liked to attack by dropping rocks on the PCs' heads...is that the right one?...and one of the players insisted on staying out in the open and firing her bow at the gargoyles. You can guess what happened to her head location, and I didn't feel at all bad about it.

[badcat]

I like the re-roll on the stats. Is that once per character rolled up or once for each stat? I think I might use it.

[RMS]

Ouch! That is expensive.

I have my own back ups in place. Primarily I use Luck rolls quite a bit. As in, PC fails the Climb roll half way up a hundred foot cliff. They get a Luck roll to see if there is a handy root, then another Climb roll to see if they succeed in saving themselves from a fall. It has always seemed satisfactory to me.

I use Luck rolls too. The point of POW would come into play if POW failed. Btw, I usually go with a failed climb roll representing someone not making any progress, not a fall. (I thought that was the actual rules as written, but I admit to having a hard time keeping track which rules come from which incarnations of BRP and which are straight houserules.)

The players are usually happy with the way I run my game; as long as they have a fair chance to survive/get away/win. It makes for fun gaming and a big sigh of relief over a favorite character when they make it. I do fudge rolls when fate just seems too cruel, as well.

Same here. I mentioned earlier having a 7 year campaign that includes two PCs that have been around since the beginning. That's with no special hero points, etc. though does include standard Gloranthan DI, which has been used a fair number of times. My players play it smart, use discretion on when violence is the best option, and set the odds highly in their favor before using violence.

When a player does something insane or foolish I kill them quickly and with great glee, too. An early RQ2 game, I think it was Balastor's Barracks, there were some gargoyles who liked to attack by dropping rocks on the PCs' heads...is that the right one?...and one of the players insisted on staying out in the open and firing her bow at the gargoyles. You can guess what happened to her head location, and I didn't feel at all bad about it.

I don't have my players doing much foolish these days. When it does appear to happen, I know it's generally because of a failed communication so stop and make sure we're all on the same page. Their biggest threat comes from someone else getting the drop on them, and that's part of living in a dangerous world and being movers and shakers in the world (at this point). Actually one went down recently when they were ambushed by someone with a grudge. A DI by his allied spirit saved him.

[RMS]

I like the re-roll on the stats. Is that once per character rolled up or once for each stat? I think I might use it.

Once per stat. Also, if the stats flat out suck, I allow the player to start from scratch, or add a few strategic points. I want characters that are fun to play. I like realistic/gritty/deadly, but I like to play in the environment with the equivalent of special forces type characters: good starting experience and average stats notably above the average stats of the population at large.

[badcat]

I'm with you on that, my usual method is roll 3D6 in order and get x points to distribute. I like the players to be competent skill-wise from the start too. One of the few things I liked about MRQ was the character generation.

[badcat]

Yes, I use the 'fail to progress' first as well. Forgot that part. Multiple redundancy can be a life saver.

The gargoyle thing was very early; my players learned to be smart, ambush, and use missile weapons when possible and smart tactics always. As Enpeze has said many times, that is one of the main things that makes BRP games so much more fun than some, in our opinion, that is. You have to PLAY.

[Simlasa]

Why shouldn't they? If you ask someone why they don't play the game, you should expect they'll tell you their reasons; that you don't like their reasons is no reason for them not to be honest about it.

I'm fine with people not wanting to play BRP.

It's the people who want to make fundamental changes to it that I have issues with... because it always comes up that they want it to be like some other game... a game that, if they like it that much, they ought to be playing rather than bitching at BRP.

Optional rules are fine but don't shove stuff like disads/ads and fate points into the core rules... that's all I'm saying.

... and luck rolls do seem like they serve the purpose quite well and don't mess up the 'immersion'.

[badcat]

Ditto, that's how I feel too. Let BRP be BRP.

[soltakss]

I think the difference is in GM vs. player control of the outcome...

From what I've been reading lately in various forums there is a camp that is pushing for a move away from more traditional concepts of GM control... a dislike of GM 'fiat'... lots of talk against 'railroading'... lot's of goodspeak about games that give the players control of the story/setting/rules...

I've seen a fair number of people pushing the idea of games without GMs.

The trouble with games without GMs is that sooner or later they will meet someone who isn't part of the party or a player character and they need someone who is independant to take control of that character. That's what a GM is for, to play the parts of all the other people in the world.

Railroading has its part to play in a game, but can be counter-productive. Players often like their freedom to choose what they can do in a game. They want to go off and kill the chap who insulted them in a bar. They want to court the woman they met in a random encounter. They want to set up a caravan to trade with a nearby town. All well and good.

However, it can be taken to extremes. I've been in several games where the players have complained that they have been forced to do scenario after scenario with no input into the game. When given the choice and asked "OK, what do you want to do?" invariably, the result is a lot of slack-jaws and faffing about as they desperately struggle to decide anything.

Having said that, I've played in a number of scenarios where the players have boycotted certain parts of the scenarios. I've also had memorable scenarios where the players have dictated the scenario, what happened, where they went and what they did, with the GM following along like a lost puppy.

A GM has his place and can be very useful in directing a game, controlling what happens and speeding the game up. But, there are times where the GM can sit back and let the PCs fight amongst themselves, plot amongst themselves and have a good session with minimal GM input.

I've played storytelling games, like Once Upon A Time, that can do some of that sort of thing, but I think it takes the right mix of people.

It all reads good on paper but when I think back to a lot of the people I've played RPGs with I can't say I trust them to really use their creativity/fate points/drama dice for dramatic purposes... rather just to get their way (meaning not die and always be the coolznez).

I played The Pool once and it was terrible. I couldn't get into it at all. I've also played narrative games where there was very little dice-rolling and I didn't like them much. I liken them to the games we used to play when we were little - "make believe" games - where my brothers and I would tell a story with characters who did things in the story. All very nice, but no substance.

Sometimes you need risk, danger and threats to make a game exciting.

[soltakss]

I have my own back ups in place. Primarily I use Luck rolls quite a bit. As in, PC fails the Climb roll half way up a hundred foot cliff. They get a Luck roll to see if there is a handy root, then another Climb roll to see if they succeed in saving themselves from a fall. It has always seemed satisfactory to me.

Luck Rolls are useful in a last-ditch situation. But, we use Hero Points as well to enable the players to take control of their PCs' lives.

One example we had last week used both Luck Rolls and Hero Points. A Storm Bull went into a room containing a Basilisk. He failed his Sense Chaos and used a Hero Point to reroll it after a bit of hinting, but failed again. He then failed a Scan to see the basilisk, failed a Listen to hear it, failed a Luck Roll to spot it before it glared and then his POW was overcome by the low-POW basilisk, so he used another Hero Point to make the basilisk reroll the POW vs POW roll. None of it was his fault, he just failed 5 skills that were between 60% and 70%.

The players are usually happy with the way I run my game; as long as they have a fair chance to survive/get away/win. It makes for fun gaming and a big sigh of relief over a favorite character when they make it. I do fudge rolls when fate just seems too cruel, as well.

I never fudge dice rolls, but I try to give PCs the chance to get out of problems themselves.

The same PC (he is unlucky) fought the Avatar of Chaos in the Eternal Battle and failed his parry, used a hero point, failed again and had his abdomen ripped out, but a good DI to Storm Bull fixed that one .....

When a player does something insane or foolish I kill them quickly and with great glee, too. An early RQ2 game, I think it was Balastor's Barracks, there were some gargoyles who liked to attack by dropping rocks on the PCs' heads...is that the right one?...and one of the players insisted on staying out in the open and firing her bow at the gargoyles. You can guess what happened to her head location, and I didn't feel at all bad about it.

Well, that's just tough. A PC almost put the skull of a chaos hero on her head as a helmet, despite warnings that it had residual POW and sensed as chaotic. Had she done so, she would have been possessed and the player would have lost his PC until something cured her. Some things just happen.

[Trifletraxor]

As long as hero points (fate points?) are not part of the default system, it's fine by me. I do enjoy having my players fear for their characters lives though. And my own character when I play. It makes the game more exciting for me at least. The characters usually get more and more carefull the older they get. One of my players actually stopped playing with a certain character in fear of it dying.

SGL.

[Nightshade]

I'd wager money that the most played RQ published adventure is Apple Lane and that's part of the charm of Rainbow Mounds: an Eurmal's Crumb and all the associate random fun that goes with it. It's also a payment in the Munchrooms adventure. Pretty much every old school RQ campaign will have a character or two who got lucky enough to get the POW gain from an Eurmal's crumb. (That's in addition to ones who gained other stats, took damage, or outright died from it: very old school!) Just like every one of those campaigns has a character or two with the 2AP skin from slaying the Lizard Mother in the Rainbow Mounds.

Again, not in my experience, but then, I rarely have seen anyone who uses published adventures at all (and that's not counting the non-Gloranthan campaigns where its largely moot).

[Nightshade]

I'm fine with people not wanting to play BRP.

It's the people who want to make fundamental changes to it that I have issues with... because it always comes up that they want it to be like some other game... a game that, if they like it that much, they ought to be playing rather than bitching at BRP.

Optional rules are fine but don't shove stuff like disads/ads and fate points into the core rules... that's all I'm saying.

... and luck rolls do seem like they serve the purpose quite well and don't mess up the 'immersion'.

And I don't generally have a problem with that, but I do think people who wonder why the game isn't more popular and then grumble when someone tells them are being disenginious. Its quite possible to like some aspects of the game and not like others; as an example, I still greatly admire RQ's transparency (how much what is being done mechanically seems to connect with what's going on in-game), lack of lockstepping, and many aspects of its combat system. I don't admire how much can turn on one, rather linear die roll (specifically how easy it is to get killed outright through, really, no fault of one's own except one bad die roll). As such its not a case where I want another game; I want this one with slightly different mechanics. And in the end, that's pretty much what _anybody_ with an issue with a game system they like wants.