Looking for ideas: "Hands Free" BRP

[Charles Green]

So I'm GMing a BRP game for the first time in a while. Its a Magic World game, with a group that, while new to me, have a lot of familiarity with the system.

At our last session, I noticed something about my GMing. I run better standing than I do sitting, and standing lets me mime some aspects of the game (attack rolls, damage taken and such), in a way that the group seems to enjoy.

However, standing means it's harder for me to refer to notes, so I don't always have NPC stats at hand. Hence my topic.

What I'd like to do is to use this thread as a brainstorming place to make up a means of running BRP games without notes, a screen, or anything other than a pair d10s. I have some ideas, and hope that I can get some of you all to contribute.

My initial thinking is:

1. Minion rules for minor combatants. Not only does this fit my play style, it also saves me effort during a game.

2. Resistance Table rolls for a lot of thing. Since the Table is easy to memorize, I can use it without reference to anything else.

What I'm lacking is a means of running more complex NPCs without a character sheet. If there were a HeroQuest-style system of Percentages for various opponents, that would be ideal. Something like "Easy 25% 1d4+1d6 damage, Standard 50% 2d6, Hard 75% 2d8" would work, I guess though I'm sure there would be edge cases where this would collapse.

What do you use to ease your GM workload? This might also be related to what you do when players take the game in a wildly unexpected direction.

[Atgxtg]

Standardized Opponent's do work. Up to a point.

Rather than Easy, Standard, Hard opponents, I'd go with the skill rating scale provided in BRP (Novice, Journeyman, Master, etc.) . It would give you a few more grades, and wouldn't be so easiliy confused with difficulty, which uses the Easy, Average, Difficult scale.

I'd use the standard damage, and assume 12HP and a +1D4 db for most foes.

Then I'd could make one off adjustments for special case NPCs. Like a big strong guy might have a couple of extra HP (due to SIZ) and do +1D6 instead of +1D4.

I'd probably make a page of standard NPCs, and a table of one off adjustments and then mix n' match as needed.

RQ3 and Pendragon, both did up pages of typical bad guys to fight. Like a average, good Viking Warrior and such. The old RQ2 supplment FOES was great for this sort of thing, and is still mostly compatible with BRP.

[SDLeary]

Standardized Opponent's do work. Up to a point.

Rather than Easy, Standard, Hard opponents, I'd go with the skill rating scale provided in BRP (Novice, Journeyman, Master, etc.) . It would give you a few more grades, and wouldn't be so easiliy confused with difficulty, which uses the Easy, Average, Difficult scale.

I'd use the standard damage, and assume 12HP and a +1D4 db for most foes.

Then I'd could make one off adjustments for special case NPCs. Like a big strong guy might have a couple of extra HP (due to SIZ) and do +1D6 instead of +1D4.

I'd probably make a page of standard NPCs, and a table of one off adjustments and then mix n' match as needed.

RQ3 and Pendragon, both did up pages of typical bad guys to fight. Like a average, good Viking Warrior and such. The old RQ2 supplment FOES was great for this sort of thing, and is still mostly compatible with BRP.

And to reduce though not eliminate notes... the old box Superworld had a pretty good Operative Control Sheet (mooks/minions page).... could get 15-20 onto it IIRC.

SDLeary

[nclarke]

You could use average damage for weapons and include the db in the total - short sword (d6+1+d4db) usual damage 7, impale 16 used by an amateur 30%, professional 70%. Knowing the various levels of skill can make it easy to apply to anyone the group runs into. A low=grade thief's sleight-of-hand 30 or 40%, a watchman's insight 30% etc.

For major NPC's I'd do a more comprehensive work up of the character as they are going to get more screen time.

[BMonroe]

What I'm lacking is a means of running more complex NPCs without a character sheet. If there were a HeroQuest-style system of Percentages for various opponents, that would be ideal. Something like "Easy 25% 1d4+1d6 damage, Standard 50% 2d6, Hard 75% 2d8" would work, I guess though I'm sure there would be edge cases where this would collapse.

Check out the quick NPC rules on p. 236 of the last draft of MW. That might help?

If you want to vary the weapon damage, I'd use: Small (1d5), Medium (1d10), Large (1d10+1d5), Brutal (2d10).

[Charles Green]

Check out the quick NPC rules on p. 236 of the last draft of MW. That might help?

Huh. I can't believe I hadn't noticed these yet. I'm still looking to get away from notes at all, but the quick NPC rules are a great place to start.

Thanks Ben, and everyone else who has contributed.

[Al.]

Have you considered making the players make all of the dice rolls? I don't care whether the goon blocks the sword strike I do care if I hit him, sort of thing.

Since players are emotionally invested and excited they should get to rattle the bones

This is something I've done for years with target number based games (well Star Wars d6 mainly but have vague recollection of doing so with Shadowrun first ed. a long time ago) but only fairly recently realised that I could do so with d100 by using the resistance table (sort of).

Since resistance table is based on characteristic vs. characteristic the difference of 1 point is 5 percentiles

With skills I make 1 point = 1 percentile

i.e. algorithm is 50 + (PC skill - NPC skill)

When the player is active the results are obvious and familiar

They may need inverting in some situations

My character (Dodge 30%) wishes to avoid being skewered by the Badger Spirit Helvenian (Spear 65%)

Chance = 50 +30 -65 = 15

01 Critical - he misses and falls over and I get a free action (run away!)

02-03 Special - he misses and I get a free action (run away!)

04-15 Success - he misses

16-95 Failure - he hits for normal damage

96-00 Fumble - he skewers me for double damage

Skills

Lots of good advice already but when off-the-cuffing I use the RQII Dragonewts scale:

Crested (Novice) 25%

Beaked (Trained) 50%

Tailed Priest (Expert) 65%

Full Priest (Master) 90%

Weapon damage

Pistol 1d10, Carbine 1d12, Rifle 1d20, Artillery 1d100

Unarmed 1d3 Impromptu 1d6, Sidearm 1d8, Melee 1d10, 2h weapon 1d12, Great weapon 1d20

[Toadmaster]

Get a podium, then you can stand and have your notes.

I teach a lot of fire classes, and I find I do much better with a podium. When I am just provided a desk or table I tend to get sucked into my laptop (power point) and notes. With a podium, I can see the laptop easily, and can quickly reference notes and cheat sheets allowing a lot of freedom of movement and more of an adlib feel to my lecture.

[Skyman]

Get a podium, then you can stand and have your notes.

I second that motion.

Another way my group takes care of this issue is have players not participating in the scene either play the NPC(s) with some general guidelines (Such as "he doesn't really like people on his property or asking about x and will discourage in the most aggressive manner anybody that does not respect his perspective...if players ask for a reason defer to you) or have them be the ones looking up the stats/rules.