Why is BRP not that popular?

[badcat]

It is easy. You could take the Arcanum and Magic World alone and whip out a quick start magic system in half an hour, fully scalable and with loads more punch and flavor than any D&D 3.5 low level mage. And from there you can scale it as low or high powered as you want.

Even the hit points are easy. An old trick from GURPS, limit fireball to 3D6 on the target hex, then add a second ring for 2D6, a third ring for 1D6, like an explosion under the CoC rules (I usually made that a 6 point spell, nonvariable). Dangerous but not always fatal, esp. with armor; but it can be scaled higher depending on how dangerous you want magic to be. Use major wound level or hit location, distribute damage evenly for the latter. An average roll does a couple of points to each location (target hex, with minor damage to other members of a group in the spells' area of effect). More power, more dice...spell damage could be very potent, but at the risk of running out of magic points, a convenient way for the GM to keep control of the game. You control it, not the rules. No out of control damage inflation..unless you want it that way. Lightning bolt, 2D6 to a targeted location, plus 1D6 from a secondary location where the bolt exits (usually a 3 point nonvariable). Again, dangerous but not overwelming. Elemental magic missile spells, doing 1D8 or 1D10 damage but with varied effects according to the type, fire, ice, stone, etc (usually 1 or 2 points, nonvariable). Sleep (1+ points, depending on how many targets the mage wants to attack at once, POW vs. Pow each). The targets may have Countermagic, in which case you have to overcome the Countermagic first to get through. Demon summoning, to have the demon teach a spell or abduct someone...but you have to strike a bargain, using the demon's true name or other form of coercion, from safe inside your circle of protection. Want real power? Mass rituals to your favorite god with high joint POW sacrifice to achieve whatever you want, as with the Elemental Lords in Stormbringer (for instance). You can let your imagination go and not be constrained by someone elses' imagination. That is the real power of BRP, IMO, just the sheer flexibility without the complexity, stiffness, or constraint in other systems. BRP allows any power level. I hope anyone who has run it outside the stock settings realizes this.

[Guest the Bromgrev]

One of the things about BRP and RQ in particular that has always annoyed me was the idea that what was in the rules are the only way of playing it.

I couldn't agree more. This may be a tendency among modern gamers, brought up in the ear of splat-books which provide rules and background for every conceivable RPG situation. The one thing which first got me into RPGs, and which has stuck in my mind ever since, is in the introduction to a lot of those older games. They invariably said something to the effect that "there are no rules, only guidelines" - it's your game, do with it what you like.

BRP is a particularly open-ended system, and I have never found this alleged glass ceiling which people talk about. I suspect, as so much forum-backseat-gaming, this is just down to people repeating what has been said (and often argued very convincingly) without actually trying things out in a real game situation.

For example, what about a bladesharp 50 spell, if giant-felling is your bag?

On the point of rules features, we did at one point experiment with things in RQIII, inspired by GURPS advantages and again by D20 feats. But we found that these things could easily be simulated in the system without changing the rules - an extra point of CON here, a bit of a Spot bonus there.

[badcat]

All true, and bitterly, and probably the best kept secret in rpg history.

[RMS]

Hey! First post here, but I recognize most of you from the Mongoose forum, and most seem to have disappeared from there too!

In RQ3 I admit that spirit and divine magic is somewhat low powered. But sorcery can be totally impressive if paired with high FREE INT and high POW. Imagine what you can do if you have 30 or more FREE INT and 100+ POW. Most spells in other systems are not near as powerful than sorcery can be in RQ3. Another very mighty magician is the experienced shaman with a fetch.

So the day-to-day magic of RQ is low. But the system is scaleable up to extremely high powered magic.

I agree with all of that except one thing. Divine Magic in RQ2 and RQ3 is extremely powerful. There's no cap on the amount of divine magic that someone can have and with frequent power gains it's very easy for priests and rune lords to pile up a lot of divine magic. I have longrunning PCs in my game with 50+ points of divine magic each. Divine magic goes 2-to-1 against spirit and sorcery. In addition, there are a fair number of divine spells that can't be full resisted and for which there are no physical or magical defesnses. Get an Orlanthi with a stacked up Thunderbolt and watch him easily dispatch any single opponent on the field.

We've had several sorcerers floating around that found out how ineffective damage resistance is against a loaded up divine magic using warrior, too!

[badcat]

I have always been puzzled when someone says something like that, the part about percentiles having no connection with what the character can do. There are all kinds of ways to sort it out, of course. The primary one being...you can do whatever it is no matter the percentage score with no roll, until a situation comes up which will have significant consequences: then you roll. And then you have several mechanisms in place to adjust and/or modify the roll...+/- modifiers, critical/special levels, halve or double the chance, roll two skills at once even (do you climb the wall quietly?), resistance rolls. I cannot understand why this isn't a no-brainer to some people, I really can't.

Even more irksome to me is the refrain I have seen so very often over at rpg.net, in particular, that BRP is old, obsolete, out-of-date. And doesn't have useful 'new' mechanics like the ads/disads as you mentioned. Snort. Truth is the system is so easy to modify you can add any of that stuff without breaking the system. If you want to. Other games are very intricately designed and many break down if you take away some of those 'essential' mechanics. Essential to them, not BRP. I am sure you can name some of those other games.

BRP has always been the best 'sweet spot' for me, the best combination of elegance, 'realism', playability, robustness. Not too complex, not too simple, but it can be made complex or simple if that is what you want. I don't want to trash somebody elses' fun, but I will never be able to understand why some people are so down on such a great game.

I really hope the new book is still the BRP that some of us understand and appreciate, and never gets 'modernized'. Personally I believe it can stand the test of time just as it is, like chess, even if it is never as popular as certain other games. No need to ruin something good to keep up with the Joness.

[Enpeze]

Hey! First post here, but I recognize most of you from the Mongoose forum, and most seem to have disappeared from there too!

I agree with all of that except one thing. Divine Magic in RQ2 and RQ3 is extremely powerful. There's no cap on the amount of divine magic that someone can have and with frequent power gains it's very easy for priests and rune lords to pile up a lot of divine magic. I have longrunning PCs in my game with 50+ points of divine magic each. Divine magic goes 2-to-1 against spirit and sorcery. In addition, there are a fair number of divine spells that can't be full resisted and for which there are no physical or magical defesnses. Get an Orlanthi with a stacked up Thunderbolt and watch him easily dispatch any single opponent on the field.

We've had several sorcerers floating around that found out how ineffective damage resistance is against a loaded up divine magic using warrior, too!

Maybe you are right. I had never such powerful priests in my games but I think we can add divine magic to the "very powerful department".

[Nightshade]

Years ago Chaosium stated that the reason for the similar discrepancy between RQ and the Gloranthan board games was that RQ magic was individual spells, while the magic in the board games was a collective effort of several casters.

In theory, you could reflect this in RQ by allowing for some sort of community/rtiaual effect to amplify battle magic. For example, if a 100 man unit could boost thier leader's bladesharp to bladesharp 100, or give each man a 1 point bladesharp spell, you start to get HQ level effects.

Off the top of my head, if you took the RQ3 ceremony chart, replaced time with worshippers/followers, required a ceremony roll and charged each participant 1 MP, you could use it to calculate the "group bonus".

Two things:

1. That doesn't always work; sometimes high magic units in the board games were individuals.

2. That wouldn't mean anything for the matter at hand, since it _is_ individual power.

As to comments others have said; for the most part, it doesn't matter what you _can_ do with the system; of course there's nothing intrinsic in a BRP style approach that prevents a high-magic setting. What matters is what's there already. People tend to forget that most people aren't major league game mechanics; they don't want to have to do system work, and to the degree they will, they don't want to do much. And the _majority_ of BRP magic systems people will have been exposed to aren't high magic, and as such won't have attracted them to it.

[Nightshade]

Hey! First post here, but I recognize most of you from the Mongoose forum, and most seem to have disappeared from there too!

I agree with all of that except one thing. Divine Magic in RQ2 and RQ3 is extremely powerful. There's no cap on the amount of divine magic that someone can have and with frequent power gains it's very easy for priests and rune lords to pile up a lot of divine magic. I have longrunning PCs in my game with 50+ points of divine magic each. Divine magic goes 2-to-1 against spirit and sorcery. In addition, there are a fair number of divine spells that can't be full resisted and for which there are no physical or magical defesnses. Get an Orlanthi with a stacked up Thunderbolt and watch him easily dispatch any single opponent on the field.

We've had several sorcerers floating around that found out how ineffective damage resistance is against a loaded up divine magic using warrior, too!

There are two problems with divine magic in the paradigm of people who come from broad, high powered magic systems.

1. It's narrow. Even a rune priest with a large amount of rune magic doesn't typically have a wide range of it, because that usually requires access to multiple cults, and that's anything but typical; its often in practice impossible to combine some spell access options in some settings (as an example, a Gloranthan priest is, for self-evident reasons, going to not be able to access both Lunar and Storm magics in any way that I can think of barring possibly Illumination).

2. Its impressive in its own context, but not in an absolute sense by the standards many people are aware of. Using the most well known example, almost no rune spell compares to anything beyond a 5th level D&D spell, and even those that compare to lower level ones are usually weaker in at least some respect (there's essentially no significant area damage spells for example, and the few that there are have pretty small areas).

There are perfectly good reasons why this is the case, but people asked why some people don't like BRP. That's one of the reasons why.

[Nightshade]

Even more irksome to me is the refrain I have seen so very often over at rpg.net, in particular, that BRP is old, obsolete, out-of-date. And doesn't have useful 'new' mechanics like the ads/disads as you mentioned. Snort. Truth is the system is so easy to modify you can add any of that stuff without breaking the system. If you want to. Other games are very intricately designed and many break down if you take away some of those 'essential' mechanics. Essential to them, not BRP. I am sure you can name some of those other games.

The problem is to those people those _are_ essentials; that BRP doesn't have them _does_ make it more limited. Whether that's desireble to other people doesn't change the fact that's one of their needs.

[badcat]

So, try to imagine how little I care.

They have games they like, no point in ruining BRP so they can like it too. It's simply not something that matters.

[Simlasa]

RPG.net is consistently one of the most irritating game forums for me to read... there is this constant juvenile one-upsmanship regarding what is 'best'.

All the statements I've read there about older systems (BRP) being 'dated' are no different than saying recent popular games (SOTC) are merely 'trendy'.

Liking a certain mechanic (ad/disads) or not is fine... but saying it's somehow manditory for an RPG to be 'modern' is just a load of crap.

[badcat]

The only times I have gone to rpg.net for months was to check on the progress of BRP...now I don't have any reason.

My blood pressure is much improved.

[Joseph Paul]

Hmm. I wonder how many of those 'trendy mechanics' BRP actually does have and people just don't know it? Ads and disads were an integral part of Superworld for instance.

Point buy system? Superworld.

What else is trendy? Apparently I am behind the times because names like Exalted, L5R, Wushu, etc don't mean anything to me.

Examining what is being sought by the market may lead to a better understanding of how to present BRP to those 'hip' gamers without having to actually change the game.

Joseph Paul

[badcat]

I fear there is no point in trying to sell BRP to 3.5 or Exalted players. It will sell itself enough to fly as is...or not.

The simple, brutal fact is that (as others here have pointed out) WOTC and White Wolf have the lions' share of the market, most kids prefer cards or computer games, and it most likely isn't going to change. I am going to do my part to expose others to BRP by trying to run it at a local game store, but believe me I ain't expecting any miracle nor do I think catering to those with 'modern, edgy' tastes by trying to make BRP more attractive to them (and likely compromising everthing that makes it the system I love) is going to help. Popularity isn't important to me, anyway. Especially when it comes to that crowd. If BRP became something they found attractive and interesting it would be time to move on, because BRP would be something as different from what it is now as 'D&D 4E' is going to be different from Dungeons and Dragons. That's just the way I feel, because I have been insulted to the point of ridicule too many times on sites like rpg.net for any sort of reconciliation of tastes or for there to be any possibility of common ground. 'Popular' be damned.

Oh, as to what you said about 'trendy' mechanics...one of the great ironies of all this nastiness about grognards and obsolete games is that as far as I can tell you can duplicate most any system mechanic I have seen with BRP and have an easier time running your game at that. But BRP is something that came out in 1978 and something that old has to be obsolete and dorky...so a game that has edgy 'artwork' and has reinvented the wheel with clunky dice mechanics that are different has to be better...how can you fight that level of ignorance, even if you want to, Joseph?

[RMS]

1. It's narrow. Even a rune priest with a large amount of rune magic doesn't typically have a wide range of it, because that usually requires access to multiple cults, and that's anything but typical; its often in practice impossible to combine some spell access options in some settings (as an example, a Gloranthan priest is, for self-evident reasons, going to not be able to access both Lunar and Storm magics in any way that I can think of barring possibly Illumination).

I'll concede that. The magic is powerful, but for obvious reasons doesn't move outside the realm of the diety.

2. Its impressive in its own context, but not in an absolute sense by the standards many people are aware of. Using the most well known example, almost no rune spell compares to anything beyond a 5th level D&D spell, and even those that compare to lower level ones are usually weaker in at least some respect (there's essentially no significant area damage spells for example, and the few that there are have pretty small areas).

I'd argue that they're more powerful than the D&D spells because they have a much larger affect on the people casting them and their oppoenents. However...

There are perfectly good reasons why this is the case, but people asked why some people don't like BRP. That's one of the reasons why.

I entered in the discussion comparing various BRP magic systems to each other. The discussion was already off the original topic. I understand that some people don't like BRP. They're wrong of course , but they have the right their own opinion.

[Joseph Paul]

I am going to do my part to expose others to BRP by trying to run it at a local game store, but believe me I ain't expecting any miracle nor do I think catering to those with 'modern, edgy' tastes by trying to make BRP more attractive to them (and likely compromising everthing that makes it the system I love) is going to help.

Well what I meant when I asked about what was trendy was for others to present their thoughts on current trends as I certainly appear to be behind on those. I would like to see just what the trendy game mechanics are because I agree with what you wrote right after that:

Oh, as to what you said about 'trendy' mechanics...one of the great ironies of all this nastiness about grognards and obsolete games is that as far as I can tell you can duplicate most any system mechanic I have seen with BRP and have an easier time running your game at that.

... if by 'duplicate most any system mechanic' you mean that BRP can arrive at the same result. I really don't see any point in throwing on trendy mechanics for the things that BRP already does well (for those things that it doesn't address or does not do well...that is what companion books are for.) Knowing what the point of an exploding dice mechanic is allows the grognard crowd to explain why it is clunky and why BRP accomplishes task resolution better. So far the only thing I have seen out of that mechanic is a great way to obfuscate just what your chances of succeding are. Mind you I am not saying that BRP needs to adopt a trendy mechanic but that BRP proponents need to know how to present the game in the best light possible.

But BRP is something that came out in 1978 and something that old has to be obsolete and dorky...so a game that has edgy 'artwork' and has reinvented the wheel with clunky dice mechanics that are different has to be better...how can you fight that level of ignorance, even if you want to, Joseph?

Well exposure helps so run those demo games! My thought is to get to know the arguments for trendy mechanics and have something better to counter with than 'hey it is a different style of play'. Also remember 'what is old is new again'. The clean, functional systems of BRP may be the next trendy thing. But you may want to consider giving that cover a plain brown wrapper so that you don't scare off the 'moderns'.

Joseph Paul

[Nightshade]

So, try to imagine how little I care.

Then you presumably don't care why the game isn't as popular as it could be, which was the topic of the thread. Lose the chip off your shoulder.

[Nightshade]

Hmm. I wonder how many of those 'trendy mechanics' BRP actually does have and people just don't know it? Ads and disads were an integral part of Superworld for instance.

It didn't actually have an advantage system, justa disadvantage one, and it was only relevant in terms of the pool of super power purchase points.

Point buy system? Superworld.

Even in Superworld, attributes defaulted as rolled; there was an optional point buy system, but that was true in RQ3 too, far as it goes. However, in general, any reference to Superworld is going to be moot for most people as its been out of print so long.

Examining what is being sought by the market may lead to a better understanding of how to present BRP to those 'hip' gamers without having to actually change the game.

Joseph Paul

While some issues of presentation can help, I think you're going to only get so far because, bluntly, BRP _isn't_ a game suited to many of those people. As I was trying to note, there are perfectly legitimate desires many of them have that BRP just doesn't supply. That doesn't mean it isn't a valid design, just that sensibilities have moved on in what's desirable.

[Nightshade]

I'll concede that. The magic is powerful, but for obvious reasons doesn't move outside the realm of the diety.

But that is an issue for those wanting a high-magic system.

I'd argue that they're more powerful than the D&D spells because they have a much larger affect on the people casting them and their oppoenents. However...

I'm not particularly convinced this is true when compared to many post 4th level spells, honestly. The limitation usually is the fact that there's a functional cap on most rune magic in that there's no fixed power spells about 3 points; that means unless you're writing your rune magic to no common standard, there's a cap beyond how powerful a rune spell can go, and given that the exemplars here tend to be things like Slay Living (its been a while so I may be confusing the name with a spell from another system--the spell that's usually only reusable by Humakti in Glorantha) or Sunspear, those are functionally the top end of the power level, and those aren't compareable to 6th or higher level spells in D&D, or some of the more potent magic that can be found in other systems.

I entered in the discussion comparing various BRP magic systems to each other. The discussion was already off the original topic. I understand that some people don't like BRP. They're wrong of course , but they have the right their own opinion.

Well, at least part of that discussion seemed to be discussing the absolute power of the magic systems available, so I still felt it appropriate to comment.

[Enpeze]

Hey! First post here, but I recognize most of you from the Mongoose forum, and most seem to have disappeared from there too!

I agree with all of that except one thing. Divine Magic in RQ2 and RQ3 is extremely powerful. There's no cap on the amount of divine magic that someone can have and with frequent power gains it's very easy for priests and rune lords to pile up a lot of divine magic. I have longrunning PCs in my game with 50+ points of divine magic each. Divine magic goes 2-to-1 against spirit and sorcery. In addition, there are a fair number of divine spells that can't be full resisted and for which there are no physical or magical defesnses. Get an Orlanthi with a stacked up Thunderbolt and watch him easily dispatch any single opponent on the field.

We've had several sorcerers floating around that found out how ineffective damage resistance is against a loaded up divine magic using warrior, too!

Well, before I forget, a point against the power of divine magic is its range of mostly just 100m (if I remember correctly) This cannot compete to the variable range of a sorcerer spell, especially if this spell is backupped by alot of free INT. So I guess sorcery is more mighty than divine. (whatever - I really dont care )

[Enpeze]

The only times I have gone to rpg.net for months was to check on the progress of BRP...now I don't have any reason.

My blood pressure is much improved.

You are right. I feel the same. I reduced my presence on this forum too (and the SJG forum too) because it doesnt pay off. So many annoying people. :eek:

[Enpeze]

What else is trendy? Apparently I am behind the times because names like Exalted, L5R, Wushu, etc don't mean anything to me.

Maybe trendy is the "minigame-in-game" approach of so many new rule systems. The most people dont like to die or even "loose" as character and game-in-game tweaks and little dice thingies (fate points and other crap) help them to be super duper. Now with the new dice switch they are able to master every situation. (at least two last chances after fumbling and thereafter then they pull out their optional last ditch lifer saver dice trick from page 442 of the clan splatbook #7)

Eg. I was forced (yes forced!!!) to play Warhammer FRPG 2nd and in this game you have 3 times per day a reroll (in case you cannot dogde or dont hit this elephant etc.) Additionally you have 3 times per character a life safer "fate point" which you can use if you are getting a deadly hit. What a crap system. Totally idiotic.

Examining what is being sought by the market may lead to a better understanding of how to present BRP to those 'hip' gamers without having to actually change the game.

Joseph Paul

Well this is basically a good idea. The question is just if BRP is BRP anymore after such a treatment. If it is possible just by presentation then I am for it. (at first down with this ugly cover ) But if they do any minigame madness, rule and dice tweaking then I am against it. Its more than enough that DBRP has over 350p. I dont want to read more pages, just to have some trendy rules.

BTW: Am I the only one who thinks that the page count of the new DBRP is high? I dont hope too high. I mean is it a minimalistic rule system or not? What the hell do they describe on 350+p?

[Enpeze]

I fear there is no point in trying to sell BRP to 3.5 or Exalted players. It will sell itself enough to fly as is...or not.

Yes. I think so too. Most of these guys are playing their games in a totally different way than BRP offers. Maybe some switchers could be in this crowd, but not many I fear.

If BRP became something they found attractive and interesting it would be time to move on, because BRP would be something as different from what it is now as 'D&D 4E' is going to be different from Dungeons and Dragons.

Interestingly I think that D&D4ed. will not be a bad game as such. But its just a certain kind of "game". Its not a roleplaying game as I understand it. But it does not matter. I would even try it out (without the acting and character portraying of normal roleplaying of course - just as a new kind of tactical, computer assisted board game) if it comes out. I am modern guy and I like the modern approach of 4e.

...how can you fight that level of ignorance, even if you want to, Joseph?

No chance I would say. But no reason to do it either.

[Nightshade]

BTW: Am I the only one who thinks that the page count of the new DBRP is high? I dont hope too high. I mean is it a minimalistic rule system or not? What the hell do they describe on 350+p?

It includes most of the most useful subsystems from the past 30 years of BRP games; its not just the core system. That's the whole _point_ in the new book.

[Trifletraxor]

Eg. I was forced (yes forced!!!) to play Warhammer FRPG 2nd and in this game you have 3 times per day a reroll (in case you cannot dogde or dont hit this elephant etc.) Additionally you have 3 times per character a life safer "fate point" which you can use if you are getting a deadly hit. What a crap system. Totally idiotic.

<cough!> hero points. <cough!>

Am I the only one who thinks that the page count of the new DBRP is high? I dont hope too high. I mean is it a minimalistic rule system or not? What the hell do they describe on 350+p?

The more the better. With 5 different powers & 4 different settings, 350 might be to little. They are trying to make a 4 in one book (at least). RuneQuest 3 was a 250 or so pages book for one setting. The more the better!

SGL.