Fate of BRP

[Questbird]

4 hours ago, Joerg said:

Your seem to have swapped the frequency of specials and criticals - your criticals crop up half of the time, and for only marginally developed skills usually as critical failures.

The probability to avoid a critical failure changes in a very erratic way, too, with plateaus of 11 percentiles between rapid rises of 10 steps in between (counting the last step double with the plateau). Chances for critical failure obviously move in the opposite direction, which means that there are narrow brackets where every circumstantial percentile will effect the outcome in a significant way half of all dice rolls, and then there will be brackets where modifiers of 10 percent might not matter much at all. A nightmare for estimating outcome probabilities, and a case where successful supporting actions that hinder opponents may be a great deal-changer or just pointless fluff. Having an additional D2 (odds on any even-numbered die) in the toss yields much better predictability than your method.

Incorrect. The frequency of criticals and specials is the same as regular BRP, so the probabilities are exactly the same when rolling on d100. Check out Nakana's visual graph of the systems, for an example skill of 60%.

 

[Joerg]

27 minutes ago, Questbird said:

Incorrect. The frequency of criticals and specials is the same as regular BRP, so the probabilities are exactly the same when rolling on d100. Check out Nakana's visual graph of the systems, for an example skill of 60%.

My statement is correct. Look what a 5% shift does to a skill of 55% and what it does to a skill of 65%. In one case it is fairly dramatic (10% more positive and 10% less negative "critical" outcomes), in the other case no effect.

Criticals ought to occur 1 time in 10, not half of the time.

[Questbird]

17 hours ago, Joerg said:

My statement is correct. Look what a 5% shift does to a skill of 55% and what it does to a skill of 65%. In one case it is fairly dramatic (10% more positive and 10% less negative "critical" outcomes), in the other case no effect.

Criticals ought to occur 1 time in 10, not half of the time.

Maybe we should restart that thinking about criticals thread rather than derailing this one.

There is some distortion of specials (1/5) in the visual system. They are more likely by 1-2% in the visual system for many skill levels than the equivalent in the BGB. That might be a problem for extremely low skill levels, but generally I can live with it. For example if you have just 02% in a skill, the visual system would give you a special success if you roll either 01 or 02, which is not great, while the BGB would correctly give you no chance of a special. Another example is 12% skill which in the visual system would give you a special on 01,02,11,12 as opposed to the BGB's 2%.

But the criticals on odd '10's  (1/20) are spot on, exactly the same probability as the BGB.

It's possible to tweak the visual system to be even closer to the BGB result. You could make a roll of 1 or 6 on the units die to be a special. That makes the visual system differ from the BGB by a max of 1% for specials for less than half of skill levels. But 1 and 6 are not very memorable for a 'visual system', so I prefer 1 or 2.

 Another method which reduces the variance of specials to a maximum of 1% while preserving the 'visual-ness' is to use 1 or 2 on the units die for a total less than (rather than less than or equal to) the skill level ==> a special success. That results in a fairly even distribution across the skill levels of either the same or +1% chance of a special compared to the BGB.

[Joerg]

 

Bad wording for your criticals - "Rolls of 10, 30, 50, 70 and 90 are criticals" would have been clear, and in about the same number of characters. Agreed, that gives a 1 in 20 chance, and at the same steps.

1 hour ago, Questbird said:

There is some distortion of specials (1/5) in the visual system.

The visual system does provide the same overall probabilities for a very large sample or rolls at every skill level up to 100%. It totally fails for skills above 100%, but given the slow progression once you reach this region, I am cool with having every roll under effective skill minus 100% a special, and every fifth such roll a critical, using the non-visual system, in addition to the benefits from the visual system.

I still say that divorcing the roll that determines specials or criticals from the success dice is the easier option for skills under 100%. In RQ and derived systems, crits are specials, so basically you don't have a 20% of you skill percentage chance for non-critical specials, but a 15% chance. How do you model that? Criticals that don't get the effect of specials?

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, Questbird said:

Maybe we should restart that thinking about criticals thread rather than derailing this one.

 

May I suggest that you start a new thread? This seems to have very little to do with the fate of BRP.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Getting back to the original question about BRPs destiny, the ones who decide this question will, of course, be the folks at Chaosiun. Abd that depends on the market. Outside of OGL/OSRs, I am seeing fewer and fewer generic games lately. People are building games around their subjects more than they were even five years ago (for example, you would never use The One Ring anywhere but in Middle-Earth). There are still a ton of generic games in many systems, but publishing new ones seems to have fallen out of favor.

What does this mean for support for the new, smaller BRP core rules?

And of course, even "dead" games like Magic World and Superworld still have a lease on life in PDF. It costs Chaosium very little to keep the e-books in circulation (but probably doesn;t make them much either, so it's a trade-off/) Which brings me to ask whether the Monograph lines are no more as far as new titles are concerned.

[g33k]

6 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

Getting back to the original question about BRPs destiny, the ones who decide this question will, of course, be the folks at Chaosiun. Abd that depends on the market. Outside of OGL/OSRs, I am seeing fewer and fewer generic games lately. People are building games around their subjects more than they were even five years ago (for example, you would never use The One Ring anywhere but in Middle-Earth). There are still a ton of generic games in many systems, but publishing new ones seems to have fallen out of favor.

What does this mean for support for the new, smaller BRP core rules?

And of course, even "dead" games like Magic World and Superworld still have a lease on life in PDF. It costs Chaosium very little to keep the e-books in circulation (but probably doesn;t make them much either, so it's a trade-off/) Which brings me to ask whether the Monograph lines are no more as far as new titles are concerned.

Well, but D&D5e & Pathfinder are the current reigning champions behemoths of "generic pseudo-medieval high fantasy" at the default, but both support other genre's too...

5e has, for example "Adventures in Middle Earth" which I haven't handled, but have seen reports saying it's very good indeed; and "Hyperlanes" is a sci-fi setting book.  So it appear to be a "generic" ruleset in reverse:  beginning from a genre-linked game and moving to genericism.  And PF of course is a d20 variant... and d20 at this point is probably second only to GURPS (if that) in the number and variety of published settings and genres.  I note that BRP itself began with RQ set in the world of Glorantha... and branched into genericism pretty quickly!

 

FWIW.

 

Edited May 31, 2017 by g33k

[pansophy]

Jeff, I disagree with your opinion, that there is a need to tailor the BRP rules to the setting. In fact, I don't care about that at all.

Have a look at a successful RPG system: Savage Worlds. They have a core rule-set, a few expansions for different genres and then they sell their settings. A very successful sales model. And everybody is happy: the rules-tinkerers, the setting players, the home-made setting creators, third parties, etc.

As soon as you tailor rules to a setting you are relying on the sales figures of that setting. A one-way street, IMHO. But who am I to tell you what you need to do ... 

But isn't it interesting that Monte Cook is going the same way, after their successful Numenera RPG? Now they release the Core rule book and Kickstart some settings ... very successfully.

I cannot imagine that reprinting stuff from three decades ago, still in black an white, and selling these books the 4th time to their loyal group of customers is a successful business strategy. There needs to be more. Colour books with coherent good artwork, a rule system to have a solid baseline, excellent settings in the queue.

Anyway. I am not interested in RQ or Glorantha and I played Cthulhu to the death. I want something new, and something that I can tinker with. As long as I do not get that from Chaosium, I will not buy anything off your shop. Simple as that.

[soltakss]

On 6/3/2017 at 11:27 AM, pansophy said:

I cannot imagine that reprinting stuff from three decades ago, still in black an white, and selling these books the 4th time to their loyal group of customers is a successful business strategy. There needs to be more. Colour books with coherent good artwork, a rule system to have a solid baseline, excellent settings in the queue.

From a personal point of view, I bought the RuneQuest Classics as PDFs and will buy the RQ3 supplements if they are brought out in a similar way. Why? Because I loved those supplements and would like to own them as PDFs, legally. So, if there are a thousand people like me then that would be a good business model.

 

However, I do agree that there is not a need to produce a new set of rules for each setting. Having a core set of RuneQuest rules and then modifications for settings works best for me. 

 

As supplements for BRP/RQ/OpenQuest/Legend/Mythras/Revolution can be fairly easily used in any of the settings, we will end up with a lot of interoperable supplements, which is good for fans.

[Sunwolfe]

1 hour ago, soltakss said:

As supplements for BRP/RQ/OpenQuest/Legend/Mythras/Revolution can be fairly easily used in any of the settings, we will end up with a lot of interoperable supplements, which is good for fans.

Hear! Hear! Hear!

[Atgxtg]

On 6/3/2017 at 6:27 AM, pansophy said:

As soon as you tailor rules to a setting you are relying on the sales figures of that setting. A one-way street, IMHO. But who am I to tell you what you need to do ... 

Yeah, that's why BRP has been on such iffy ground for decades. I think the "strategy" is actually not to sell a setting and supplements for that setting, but instead to get people to buy a new rulebook every so many years, since most players will tend to pick up a rulebook. 

[Questbird]

7 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah, that's why BRP has been on such iffy ground for decades. I think the "strategy" is actually not to sell a setting and supplements for that setting, but instead to get people to buy a new rulebook every so many years, since most players will tend to pick up a rulebook. 

I think that 'strategy' can be overused. For example, the many almost-exactly-the-same editions of Call of Cthulhu. I still have my Games Workshop hardcover from the 80s. Sure it is not well-indexed but the system hasn't changed too much since then either (until 7e at least).

[pansophy]

9 minutes ago, Questbird said:

I still have my Games Workshop hardcover from the 80s. Sure it is not well-indexed but the system hasn't changed too much since then either (until 7e at least).

Well, not even the wording has changed in most parts. Which would be OK, if Chaosium actually would have corrected misspellings and cleared up some badly explained rules. Even some examples are reprinted wrong over and over again - SIZE Chart anyone? But hey, maybe the gods are with them and they incorporate the errata in the new RuneQuest books. Maybe the gods shell out some color, too, so more than the front cover can be printed in it. I can see how black&white works for CoC, but RuneQuest went all fancy with 'The Guide' etc. If they want to keep in line with that, it would certainly attract a lot more people.

I just hope the new RuneQuest rule book will be more than a cut&paste job. Even if I will never buy it, but for the sake of the loyal fans. My hopes for new and fully supported settings made by Chaosium are nil, and from past experience I rather look for that somewhere else.

It is a shame Alephtar Games had to pull all these nice setting books supporting BRP and consider it a huge loss for the system. I hope they reappear soon for their new RD100.

[Mankcam]

If the new RQ has production values akin to the current CoC 7E line then it will look really great.

Gone are the cardboard covers with predominantly b&w interior; the new standard is very colourful and up to par with the premium contemporary game line productions.

From what we have glimpsed thru the blogs, RQG will look pretty good. And if HQG is anything to go by, it will certainly have the right flavour and look great on the shelves.

I can't speak for the BGB line, but I'm pretty comfortable in the knowledge that the RQ line will be in good form. 

Edited June 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[Mankcam]

15 hours ago, pansophy said:

It is a shame Alephtar Games had to pull all these nice setting books supporting BRP and consider it a huge loss for the system. I hope they reappear soon for their new RD100.

Yes that certainly was a shame, but things appear to be forging ahead with Alephtar Games. I would not be surprised if more of the previous titles show up under the RD100 moniker.

Edited June 5, 2017 by Mankcam

[Atgxtg]

8 hours ago, Questbird said:

I think that 'strategy' can be overused. For example, the many almost-exactly-the-same editions of Call of Cthulhu. I still have my Games Workshop hardcover from the 80s. Sure it is not well-indexed but the system hasn't changed too much since then either (until 7e at least).

Yes, and it can backfire. People start to wonder if it is worth buying the 3rd edition if it is 99% the same as the second edition, and so forth. 

[soltakss]

11 hours ago, Mankcam said:

If the new RQ has production values akin to the current CoC 7E line then it will look really great.

I saw a playtest version of RuneQuest at UKGE and it looks pretty good to me. With artwork and a nice cover it should look very good indeed.

[Aycorn]

I have never supported the "strategy" of putting out a new version every few years, whether with minimal changes or, in the case of COC7 and the various D&D's, a huge overhaul.  

Of course I've already vented my views here.  I've got the Big Gold Book, and I'm good whether Chaosium produces new stuff for it or not.

I agree that the setting has come to be the selling point.  I suppose that's been true for a long time.  A shame, really - part of the excitement of getting into D&D in the late 70's/ear;y 80's was developing my own fantasy world using the building blocks in the books, and pulling in all manner of elements from the famtasy/sci-fi books, movies, comics etc I was devouring at the time.  

But I guess what I like and what the masses like are two different things.

I can understand, from a marketing standpoint, that game books are now expected to have slick, color artwork and lots of graphic decoration.  I can see the aesthetic appeal, but I confess that, for example, I find the artwork in later D&D books far more generic, Bros. Hildebrandt riffs, less interesting than say, David A Trampier's gorgeous line drawings.  And I really hate the big-eyed anime/manga-style character designs in the Pathfinder books.  

But again, I guess I'm in the minority.

In any case, does it occur to anyone that having slick, color hardcovers as the standard also means that RPG books cost more?

 

 

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Aycorn said:

 

I agree that the setting has come to be the selling point.  I suppose that's been true for a long time.  A shame, really - part of the excitement of getting into D&D in the late 70's/ear;y 80's was developing my own fantasy world using the building blocks in the books, and pulling in all manner of elements from the famtasy/sci-fi books, movies, comics etc I was devouring at the time.  

But I guess what I like and what the masses like are two different things.

Yeah. It seems the vast majority of GMs want to run pre-generated adventures in some licensed or otherwise official setting. Writing up your own adventures and setting have become more the exception than the rule. 

[Questbird]

1 hour ago, Atgxtg said:

Yeah. It seems the vast majority of GMs want to run pre-generated adventures in some licensed or otherwise official setting. Writing up your own adventures and setting have become more the exception than the rule. 

There are advantages to both pre-generated adventures and published settings. The pre-gens help time-poor GMs. I often use bits of adventures cobbled together. They give a rough structure or framework which any PCs can work with (except for the very railroady ones).

As for official settings, I think the advantage there is that a little pre-knowledge of the world can help new players. I run a campaign in Fritz Leiber's world of Nehwon. Players can read the books or the comics (which are good) and get an idea of the world without necessarily 'spoiling' any adventures I have planned. It's also useful when they point to the map and ask "what's over there?" (the original Runequest Prax map was probably good for the same reason). However, the setting has to be actually interesting and worth investigating. 

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Questbird said:

There are advantages to both pre-generated adventures and published settings. The pre-gens help time-poor GMs.

And lazy ones. Don't get me wrong, I like pregen adventures. i just think that to run a good campaign a GM needs to do more than just run somebody elses pregen stuff and write up some advenutres of his own, customized to the characters and campaign in question.

 

2 minutes ago, Questbird said:

As for official settings, I think the advantage there is that a little pre-knowledge of the world can help new players. I run a campaign in Fritz Leiber's world of Nehwon. Players can read the books or the comics (which are good) and get an idea of the world without necessarily 'spoiling' any adventures I have planned. It's also useful when they point to the map and ask "what's over there?" (the original Runequest Prax map was probably good for the same reason). However, the setting has to be actually interesting and worth investigating. 

Sure. There is nothing wrong with using pre-established settings. Some of my favorite RPGs do so. I just don't think it's such a great idea for nearly all new RPGs to be based on some existing setting. if for no other reason than such RPGs tend to have a fairly short lifespan. Virtually every RPG for a licensed setting seems to be doomed from the start, and get pulled in a few years when the license runs out. 

[Sunwolfe]

Greetings All,

I agree with Aycorn and Atgxtg. I immediately began creating my own setting almost from the moment I played my first DnD game. It's one of the reasons I was so delighted in RQIII's culture-centric basis for character creation. Even though I've gravitated to a simplified BRP with a house-ruled OQ, I still use that culture-centric foundation for character creation.

On the other hand, I see a point Questbird might be trying to make.

I game with a tight group. We've been playing together for over four decades now. Recently we were playing a Star Wars D6-variant and having a rocking good time in an alternate SW universe. Part of the success of the game was due to the superb style, imagination and intuition of our GM--he is truly a master of the RPG craft. The other was due to the common Star Wars vocabulary we players had prior. When the GM described our ship fleeing a planet pursued by TIE fighters and taking refuge in the open belly of an opposing fleet's Star Destroyer, there was very little exposition needed. We all had the verbal and visual vocabulary from the enormous number of books we'd read and the movies we'd seen.  Frankly, I have to admit to being a bit envious of that. When players are in my world, one I have tried VERY hard to make unique, I have to do a lot of "...it's kinda like this, but different..." descriptions or visuals. How wonderful to simply be able to say, "he swore by Crom" or "...an Interdictor class star destroyer hypers in..." or "...he introduces himself as Arioch..." or "...a strange octopoidian shape was drawn in the man's blood..." and everyone gets it. Published/franchise settings can give that.

Would I give up my home-brew setting? After this long?! Oh, heeeell no. It's deep, rich, and satisfying like no published setting can be and after this long, my players are there; indeed the very fact that I have to work so hard to give them visual clues is a testament to my success in creating a unique setting. I have to admit, however, the only reason I'm considering returning to my BRP Barsoom project is that my players are so familiar with Burroughs' vocabulary and Disney's visuals, I won't have to do so much to make it work.

Interesting.

So...Viva la'home-brew settings--the original flame of RPG-ing shines brightest there. That being said, I hope the next version of RQ the company puts out is polished to a definitive luster for the sake of those looking forward to it. Good or not--I won't buy another version. I am of Aycorn's mind on that point! I do, however, miss looking forward to Alephtar's BRP setting publications (I'm so glad they went Revolution). When the whim was on me and I or my players needed a quick change of pace: one of their settings and its appeal to a pre-known vocabulary was a boon.

I also have an odd view for the 'need' for an RPG to have great art that is the opposite of many here. For me, it really isn't much of a factor. Eye candy is great, but if the game behind it sucks, I see it as nothing more than a marketing ploy. It's probably a good marketing ploy, but for me, it has never been a must as it might be for those here who cut their RPG teeth on the super art budgets of TSR or WotC. That doesn't mean I like bad art...LOL! Although I must admit a bit of nostalgia for some of the silly drawings in various early TSR publications, the Adruin Grimoires, and Judges Guild modules and game aids :-). Even with good art, I find myself telling my players, "...well, it kinda looks like that but..." :-)

Cheers

[Mankcam]

I really appreciate having high production rpg books with nice hardcovers and evocative artwork. Its really great to see Chaosium products matching the premium games in production standards.

I also love immersive settings, and I can see the point having entire setting lines. The Gloranthan and Lovecraftian settings work for me in the fact that they are both very rich in flavour, and they are quite different to each other.

However for me I also really like making my own settings, or reading a book or watching a movie and then porting it into an rpg for me to run. 

So both the BGB and HQ2 shine for me in that they are all I need to do that.

 (Now that RD100 is here it may also be a contender).

The point is that I see the value of having a generic set of mechanics that I can adapt for my own games, and I really hope that this idea doesnt get totally lost in this current era of setting games.

Edited June 6, 2017 by Mankcam

[pansophy]

I agree, I do not need high color full flavor RPG books. The content is much more important. But: they are more lovely to look at and sometimes the visuals they create transfer the setting better. Much better. Same reason why some people do not like the 'Manga' style of the new D&D (no, please I used this just as an example, not to pick on the system). Or the Cyberpunk v3 with 'Doll Art'.

@Mankcam: yes, HQ2 & BGB was my thing, too. RD100 just combined the two and I can mix and match now to suit the setting or gaming style much better. Or our mood of the day.

Anyways, I'm curious what will come next from Chaosium (but I don't hold my breath. ).

[Atgxtg]

4 hours ago, pansophy said:

Anyways, I'm curious what will come next from Chaosium (but I don't hold my breath. ).

Hopefully, RQ