The things that I am griping about

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Oh, I think BRP certainly could use some tweaks ans upgrades. Chasoium used to tweak the game here and there. A non-lethal combat system is something of a must in this day and age, probably along with some sort of player points to adjust die rolls.

Please atgxtg dont say the word "non-lethal". This is no-no. A bad word.

[badcat]

Lord Twig.

D&D 3.0 was not an improvement on 1 and 2 in enough of the correct ways. From my perspective only, the basic resolution, saves, and skill system were improvements; the feats, prestige classes, multiclassing system, interwoven and interdependent nature of the rules ruined it. I would play and maybe run AD&D 2nd edition or Basic D&D, but I won't run or play 3.0+. I find it to be a bloated unplayable mess. That's just me, and by itself would not account for my extreme dislike of the game. What causes that is the fact that 90%+ of the gamers around here will not consider anything else. THAT yanks my chain, especially since I don't think the game comes even close to what I consider a fun experience. That's just the way it is. HERO is great if you like super detailed, do-it-yourself erector set sorts of rpgs. GURPS is OK if you like super detailed character generation and everything handed to you in a pre-digested sort of way. All in my own humble opinion...and remember, you asked. Now back to our regularly scheduled BRP goodness...which I can now indulge again, here in this wonderful new BRP site.

[Lord Twig]

Thanks for the reply badcat, your position makes a little more sense to me now.

It seems we agree on basic resolution, saves, and skills. I would also say that the feats, prestige classes, and multiclassing system added flexibility to the game that was severely lacking in previous editions. As for them all being interwoven, well, that is the nature of the beast. What really went wrong with D&D3.x for me is the massive number of supplements.

They had something that was working fairly well, but they wanted more money. So they keep putting out new supplements and that just ruined it. Power creep set in and soon it was impossible to judge how all these new things would work with everything else. Now you can have a cleric with the Extraordinary Spell Aim feat and the Magic domain cast Anti-Magic Shell on himself, but exclude himself from the area of effect. This means that all of his magic works but that anyone within 10' of him is without magic. Congratulations! You won D&D!

Anyway, this forum is about BRP, which I am very glad of. To get back to the original thread, I like many others, would like to see a very well thought out and play-tested upgrade of the BRP system. I know some just want exactly what they had before, but I don't think that is a strategy for success in today's market.

[badcat]

Just so you know, I did run 3.0 when it first came out. We got to 5th level and I found I could not handle it, and at that point no one else in the group wanted to try. Before all the splat books started showing up even. That was one thing, because tastes and abilities vary. But when I starting finding nothing but 3.5 available around here, well grrrrr....but I do live 10 miles from WOTC central.

As for an upgrade of BRP, my views are already on record, here and elsewhere. I firmly believe every game has a sweet spot, and even Elric! went a little past it for BRP, already. My own sweet spot is Stormbringer 1-3 enhanced a little with Elric! and Magic World. I have run many campaigns with that combo, and with the same core group for a long time before we finally broke up (in between trying about every other rpg that came out for a long time, I can't even remember them all). I am perfectly happy with the description of the book as presented by Jason Durall and Chaosium so far, and really see no need for significant upgrading. Way too much could get lost or go wrong. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I say.

And I find the idea of outdated games to be just pointless. I mean, look at chess...even though it's a different animal, I know, but on some level a game is a game. But if you change it it becomes a different, and usually inferior, game. You said 3.0 was an improvement over 2e, but to my mind 2e (before ITS splat books) was more fun...and that is more important to me than superior design. To me and many others 3.0/3.5 has simply never felt like D&D, or any fun rpg I have experience with. And that makes it definitely inferior to my mind.
BRP is fun, as it is, and I don't want to lose that even though I very, very rarely get to play it these days. Official support for it, anewly printed version, means I might get to play my favorite rpg again, and officially sanctioned at that.

Glad to have you on this forum, by the way, and thanks for listening and not inferring my bad taste and stupidity as so often has happened at other sites, like rpg.net.

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Lord Twig

Anyway, this forum is about BRP, which I am very glad of. To get back to the original thread, I like many others, would like to see a very well thought out and play-tested upgrade of the BRP system. I know some just want exactly what they had before, but I don't think that is a strategy for success in today's market.

Well the problem is WE had BRP before, but is this the same for others? 90% of the BRP material is OOP and out of reach for most of potential players. So for them its new and not old. IMO one of the fundamental problems to convince some people of the qualitity of the system is that most of it is simply not in print. How can you show a gamer which is interested in a superhero game that Superworld could perfectly suit his tastes? Its not available anymore, so he chooses another rpg.

For BRP the most concepts and ideas are out there. All it needs is to be collected a little bit streamlined and published. I think there is no need to fix something which was never broken. Mongoose tried it recently and released a mediocre variant of BRP. This shows that its not so easy to make a good upgrade to BRP.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Please atgxtg dont say the word "non-lethal". This is no-no. A bad word.

I diagree. Not that we need a clunky version, but the current way BRP handles unarmed combat is ludicrous. A guy with an 17 STR and SIZ should not throw punches with the same effect as a strike from a light mace.

For supers, something like this is vital. That was probably Palldium's biggest weakness with their Supers game. Most "heroes" ended up being serial killers.

But, keep in mind, just how BRP Handles non-lethal combat is open to lots of possiblities. Rather than tracking subdual damage or some such, the game could just incorporate the old stun/knock out rules, and maybe have the damage apply somhow to fatigue (either by a point method if you use RQ3 fatigue points, or as a modifer to a CON roll an RQ2 ish method. Something like each mutiple of HP dropping your mutipliers by 1 for the CON roll would work.)

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Well the problem is WE had BRP before, but is this the same for others? 90% of the BRP material is OOP and out of reach for most of potential players. So for them its new and not old. IMO one of the fundamental problems to convince some people of the qualitity of the system is that most of it is simply not in print. How can you show a gamer which is interested in a superhero game that Superworld could perfectly suit his tastes? Its not available anymore, so he chooses another rpg.

For BRP the most concepts and ideas are out there. All it needs is to be collected a little bit streamlined and published. I think there is no need to fix something which was never broken. Mongoose tried it recently and released a mediocre variant of BRP. This shows that its not so easy to make a good upgrade to BRP.

True. But one problem with Mongoose's variant was the reason why they made changes. Way back, when the game wasn't out and most of us were art the site asking questions, I used to ask, over and over, "why did they change that?"

The answer I kept getting was "You didn't expect a new edition wouldn't have changes did you? Of course there were going to be changes."

And that was the problem. In the past, changes to BRP were for a game specfic reason. Either to fix or improve a rule, or to have BRP fit a certain setting, or even to simplify the rules so they didn't have to reprint the entire RQ2 book.

Mongoose changed things just to change things, and make sure that their game was differnt that previous editions of RQ.

So I think it is possible to imrpove BRP, but it isn't easy. Changes have to aim at improving the game in some way, elimintating flaws and so forth. Since BRP is a pretty good system (in our eyes, anyway) there are not as many flaws to address.

[Sverre]

I agree BRP does not handle fist-fights very well. You are more likely to get killed than get knocked out, which is not right. Having separate skills for kick, fist and headbutt also seemed a bit much, and with the 1d6 damage for a kick you could get a big martial artist doing 3d6 kick damage! I'm not sure how this could be solved rulewise though.

Did you ever use some special houserules for unarmed combat? If so, which?

SGL. (Trifletraxor, just on a public computer - can't use the admin login).

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Sverre

I agree BRP does not handle fist-fights very well. You are more likely to get killed than get knocked out, which is not right. Having separate skills for kick, fist and headbutt also seemed a bit much, and with the 1d6 damage for a kick you could get a big martial artist doing 3d6 kick damage! I'm not sure how this could be solved rulewise though.

Did you ever use some special houserules for unarmed combat? If so, which?

SGL. (Trifletraxor, just on a public computer - can't use the admin login).

We use the Brawl rules from SB5 in addition to a house rule that you have to sutract the damage bonus of your target from your damage roll. (critical excluded) So tough guys with damage bonus are more difficult to hurt by weaklings.

I cannot remember that we ever used the kick damage rule or headbutt, which I consider as pure nonsense and system flaw (one of the few).

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

True. But one problem with Mongoose's variant was the reason why they made changes. Way back, when the game wasn't out and most of us were art the site asking questions, I used to ask, over and over, "why did they change that?"

The answer I kept getting was "You didn't expect a new edition wouldn't have changes did you? Of course there were going to be changes."

And that was the problem. In the past, changes to BRP were for a game specfic reason. Either to fix or improve a rule, or to have BRP fit a certain setting, or even to simplify the rules so they didn't have to reprint the entire RQ2 book.

Mongoose changed things just to change things, and make sure that their game was differnt that previous editions of RQ.

I agree. This motivation was surely very strong for Mongoose. Additonally I guess there have been possible one or two bloated egos from the Mongoose "game designers" which liked to release the version of RQ which they personally liked best. (regrettable they seem to have played alot of D&D in their previous rpg carreer)

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

So I think it is possible to imrpove BRP, but it isn't easy. Changes have to aim at improving the game in some way, elimintating flaws and so forth. Since BRP is a pretty good system (in our eyes, anyway) there are not as many flaws to address.

Again agreed. There could be changes. But please leave them in the next edition of BRP. The edition of this year should IMO only be a clever and streamlined collection of core and OOP material (which could be also very exotic and unknown by the most players)
Eg. regarding unarmed combat J. Durall said that he wrote the system along the rules of SB5. (with a single brawl skill)