Discussing custom rules

[Solinor]

Greetings All,

I have always been a big fan of BRP/RUNEQUEST and D&D. Neither ultimately reflected how I saw my game world.

So I have taken some time(about 15 years) and put together a hybrid that I would like to share with people.

For my own purposes this system fits my game world pretty. Well enough that I basically have no complaints.

I am wondering if I could share it with you guys at this forum and perhaps get feed back on what I have tried to create.

Is this acceptable?

If this is not the forum for this kind of stuff could anyone give me an idea of where one would be.

Thanks in advance.

Edited August 6, 2008 by Solinor

[Harshax]

I would be willing to take a look.

[Chaot]

You can post them in the download section as docs or pdfs or whatever or you can post them in a thread.

Looking forward to seeing it and welcome to the forum.

[Solinor]

Thank you for the response.

I will work on uploading them to the downloads section when I get home.

In the mean time perhaps we can get a discussion going with a class and level concept for BRP.

Class

I try to use this more as a guide than anything else. There is still plenty of flexibility with skill choices.

When you create your character you will pick a class. Your class determines, for the mort part, the direction your skills will take during your adventuring career.

Your class also determines the "Additionals"* your character begins with. "Additionals" are special abilities, feats, talents, social station, racial ability, or anything else that can be imagined.

Class for PC's would be be anything found in any D+D book that the DM allows. For NPC's Class may simply be their profession.

* I know "Additionals" isn't even a word. But after much thought it is the only thing I could come up with that was all inclusive to my meaning.

You can pick multiple classes if you like but for each class you pick above the first class you incur a -10 on all skill improvment rolls you make.

So for example if you were a Fighter/ Arcane magic user you would apply a -10 to all skill improvement rolls.

A character is limited to a number of skills that they can increase equal to their intelligence.

If any non-magical skill (including category modifier) goes above 100 it no longer counts towards this total.

Any magical skill known consumes half of the intelligence skill slots that the character possesses..

Experience and Level

I make a distinction between Overall skill and experience skill.

Overall skill is your skill level with your category modifier.

Experience skill is your skill without your category modifier.

for each point of experience skill above 50 in all skills except magical skills determines the experience of the character.

here is the experience table

level experience

0 0-9

1 10-29

2 30-59

3 60-99

4 100-149

5 150-209

6 210-279

7 280-369

8 370-469

9 470-579

10 580-699

11 700-829

12 830-909

13 910-1059

14 1060-1219

15 1220-1389

16 1390-1569

17 1570-1759

18 1760-1959

19 1960-2169

20 2170-etc.

For example, if I only have one skill with an experience skill (not counting category modifier) of 65 this gives me an experience of 15.

Making me 1st level.

For each level the character receives +1 total hit points, +1 characteristic, and 1 Additional.

Now for why did I do this. Is it necessary to play the game? no. It just fits a style of play that some of you may share.

1. I played D+D for 11 years before I played RQ. It was something I could never let go of.

2. So far it has created very distinct characters.

3. I like the idea of defined character roles.

4. I need a guide for how to grant additional abilities to characters.

5. I like a sense of progression more than just increasing a skill.

6. I needed an arbitrary way to give players more hit points for survival

7. when I make up an npc I can use level and class as a guide to work out his abilities.

I could go on

We have play tested this for a few months and it seems to work pretty good.

I appreciate any feedback to these ideas you guys might have.

[sdavies2720]

Ack, run!

Seriously, experience points and character classes were the two main reasons that I turned to RQ (now BRP) in the first place.

Classes: I want these to arise from the game world, not from the rule book. So, for instance, the worshippers of the God of the Undead gain abilities to speak to undead, control undead, and ultimately cheat Death as they sacrifice POW and take higher oaths. Similarly, those who have studied with the monks at Mountains Meet have learned certain bare handed attack techniques, and the ability to pass without trace. All without formal character classes. This may be a little bit of semantics, but to me it's important that there is an in-game source or authority for character abilities.

Experience: As a GM I hate tracking and awarding experience. And I just hate the inevitable "what counts to get you experience" discussions. The "Use it and advance" approach of BRP is very simple and elegant.

This is all purely my preference. No reason not to graft a class or experience system on BRP, but surely there is an easier way to get where you want for your game? :confused:

Steve

[Solinor]

Ack, run!

Seriously, experience points and character classes were the two main reasons that I turned to RQ (now BRP) in the first place.

Classes: I want these to arise from the game world, not from the rule book. So, for instance, the worshippers of the God of the Undead gain abilities to speak to undead, control undead, and ultimately cheat Death as they sacrifice POW and take higher oaths. Similarly, those who have studied with the monks at Mountains Meet have learned certain bare handed attack techniques, and the ability to pass without trace. All without formal character classes. This may be a little bit of semantics, but to me it's important that there is an in-game source or authority for character abilities.

Experience: As a GM I hate tracking and awarding experience. And I just hate the inevitable "what counts to get you experience" discussions. The "Use it and advance" approach of BRP is very simple and elegant.

This is all purely my preference. No reason not to graft a class or experience system on BRP, but surely there is an easier way to get where you want for your game? :confused:

Steve

I use the word Class because that is what most people understand. I don't use class to define what a character cannot do but what they will probably do better than most. I try to think of it as more of a keyword like those used in Herowars.

Since I have complete control of my game world and of the rule book I make no distinction between where special talents come from. They are one in the same. I hope that makes sense. As you define in your example of the God of the Undead, there is a progression of abilities that come before ultimately being able to cheat death. I just have a mechanic that would define those abilities through a magic skill that would be derived from a keyword that defines a characters focus of attention or calling in life.

I personally like to have a mechanic in place that will define when that actually occurs. I agree, any ability a character has should come from a logical source.

You are right indeed that rules are somantics. I guess this is where my somantics(antics) have led me!

As for Experience I don't award it. Characters roll their normal skill check gains or the use of training/research and that determines the characters experience level. So I generally don't have to worry about assigning experience. Although I do use the Glory system from Pendragon and that does require adjudication. But that is another discussion.

So although you may disagree with the use of class/level concepts, I guess for the sake of discussion, what I am hoping for is what would be mechanically wrong with this setup. How could it be broken or misused? Or if you have any additions that might make it better.

I know this is asking alot but hey if you are bored or just interested in discussing such things.

[Trifletraxor]

There is some work being done for converting D&D to BRP, and trying to attract some of the D&D crowd, so you're work should be of interest. Tell me if you have any problems with uploading to the download section (it can be a bit cranky at times).

SGL.

[Tywyll]

Classes: I want these to arise from the game world, not from the rule book. So, for instance, the worshippers of the God of the Undead gain abilities to speak to undead, control undead, and ultimately cheat Death as they sacrifice POW and take higher oaths. Similarly, those who have studied with the monks at Mountains Meet have learned certain bare handed attack techniques, and the ability to pass without trace. All without formal character classes. This may be a little bit of semantics, but to me it's important that there is an in-game source or authority for character abilities.

Steve

Hey, that sounds like an interesting concept. Out of curiosity, how does it work mechanically? I mean, I understand the followers of Death gaining Divine Magic, but what about the Monks? What about 'Fighters' or 'Thieves'? Do they get anything other than higher skills? I'd really like to hear more about how you do that, because though there are plenty of options for spell casters, I often feel that vanilla BRP doesn't give much love to the dedicated skill users (since there is nothing stopping the spell casters from getting as good as the non-spell casters).

[sdavies2720]

The Death Cult I've been winging, 'cause no characters have become initiates (and they've acquired a major enemy there, so there's little future for them).

To be clear, there are no classes in my game. So the only difference between a spellcaster and a thief is the thief has focused on adding stealth skills and the spellcaster has worked at acquiring spells. No reason that the spellcaster couldn't build his stealth skills, and the thief could easily add a spell or two to his bag of tricks.

The control of Undead I've done as a skill. I've added a couple of levels of RunePriest that represent further penetration to the mystery of the religion. At the second level, Priests acquire a "Control Undead" ability. Priest's APP as opposed roll against Undead's POW, with the Control Undead skill adding to the Priest's attempt. Failure = Undead are unmoved, Success = Undead are Positively inclined (e.g. will listen to offers, take them if they make sense), Special Success = Undead are friends (will act favorably for Priest even if it is inconvenient for the undead), Critical = Undead are fanatically in favor of Priest. Fumble = munch, munch.

The Cheating Death ability I have as a single-use Divine spell that, once acquired, is automatically triggered at the body death of the priest. The Priest's soul remains on earth until a suitable vessel is found (which could be reanimation of the old body). The church has been experimenting with alternate forms, and keeps lots of mummies around with odd body parts incorporated.

I don't know if any of that makes sense. My GM style is rule-based but fudged to make the story & situation 'work'. I find BRP just right for me -- enough rules to give structured choices for stuff like this, but not so many that I have to worry about what else I'm breaking.

Steve

Edited August 7, 2008 by sdavies2720
Poor typing & typoes

[Tywyll]

THe Death Cult I've been wingind, 'cause no characters have become initiates (and they've acquired a major enemy there, so there's little future for them).

To be clear, there are no classes in my game. So the only difference between a spellcaster and a thief is the thief has focused on adding stealth skills and the spellcaster has worked at acquiring spells. No reason that the spellcaster couldn't build his stealth skills, and the thief could easily add a spell or two to his bag of tricks.

The control of Undead I've done as a skill. I've added a couple of levels of RUnePriest that represent further penetration to the mystery of the religion. At the second level, Priests acquire a "Control Undead" ability. Priest's APP as opposed roll against Undead's POW, with the Control Undead skill adding to the Priest's attempt. Failure = Undead are unmoved, Success = Undead are Positively inclined (e.g. will listen to offers, take them if they make sense), Special Success = Undead are friends (will act favorably for Priest even if it is inconvenient for the undead), Critical = Undead are fanatically in favor of Priest. Fumble = munch, munch.

The Cheating Death ability I have as a single-use Divine spell that, once acquired, is automatically triggered at the body death of the priest. The Priest's soul remains on earth until a suitable vessel is found (which could be reanimation of the old body). The church has been experimenting with alternate forms, and keeps lots of mummies around with odd body parts incorporated.

I don't know if any of that makes sense. My GM style is rule-based but fudged to make the story & situation 'work'. I find BRP just right for me -- enough rules to give structured choices for stuff like this, but not so many that I have to worry about what else I'm breaking.

Steve

ah, I see. I was hoping you had non magical abilities for non-magical characters who excel at skills. Fair enough.

[sdavies2720]

ah, I see. I was hoping you had non magical abilities for non-magical characters who excel at skills. Fair enough.

Sorry, I didn't read well, but again no real magic here. The monks teach some skills like "Pass Without Trace" and "Deathlike Trance". Modelled on old Kung Fu series.

Pass without Trace: Roll under skill and the character leaves no discernable trace even on snow or sand. Treat as skill v skill for someone to get a chance to track them.

Deathlike Trance: If successful, monk falls into a state indiscernable from death. Skill v skill for someone to try to detect that the Monk is alive (I've been lenient with this, including First Aid, Perception, and Listen (heartbeat) rolls to try to detect. Trance can last up to skill % / 10% hours, and player must state at the beginning how long it will last. I usually roll a random +/- time to that or go for dramatic effect.

Go Without Food & Water: Success = no need to eat or drink that day. Modify skill roll by 10% for every subsequent day after first. Once miss a roll, normal effects of lack of food & water start to apply and the skill cannot be used again until the character eats & drinks.

Steve