Playtest Questions

[Fear of the Duck]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

Well why do you think that Elric should be designed wih superpowers in the background? Elric is no Superman or Red Super Pant or whatever comic superheroe may exist out there. He is a mortal with a destiny, good skills and the favor of some gods.
DBRP is not a system where you should use all rules in every setting. If you use superpowers in your game, then the whole setting should be "superpowered". There is not much sense to apply it on other settings and is probably not the designers intent.

The answer is because I could – that is what Playtesting is all about. It proves nothing unless you really push the system.

Don’t get too tied up in the semantics - I’m calling the character Super-Elric here as a mental short-cut because he was a super-level sorcerer with a bound weapon; in game he was a modern day masked hero in the vein of The Black Knight who was cursed to loose his powers unless he battled against evil!

The game notes at the back of the book suggested that in a high-end Supers game all Powers should be available, so were were playing within expected Peramiters.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Fear of the Duck

I see that the BRP is at the point of being released, and having had a Playtest copy from Charlie I was wondering if you could confirm if any of the following issues we found have been resolved.

Right from the start the question was if Basic Roleplaying was intended as a set of generic rules to work with any setting such as HERO or GURPS, of was a compendium of BRP games - ultimately I'm afraid that we found it doesn't really work as either.

Time and time again we found that to make the rules here work we had to reference the original games, with Stormbringer and Superworld being required throughout. For what is 300+ pages and still incomplete this is kind of worrying.

What version of the playtest rules have you got? Many sections of the book went through multiple revisions?

Are you looking at the Word files? The .pdfs? The tape-bound proofers print?

[Fear of the Duck]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

What version of the playtest rules have you got? Many sections of the book went through multiple revisions?

Are you looking at the Word files? The .pdfs? The tape-bound proofers print?

The Tape-Bound version.

[SDLeary]

I think the biggest problem here is that FoD mixed systems. Jason has already addressed this (RPGnet?) in other threads.

The Superpowers are just that, super powers ala the comic book world. They really were not designed to balance out with the magical systems. IIRC, he suggested that if you wanted magical effects in a Supers type game, that you should build them out of the powers.

Is that accurate Jason?

SDLeary

[Fear of the Duck]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

The Superpowers are just that, super powers ala the comic book world. They really were not designed to balance out with the magical systems. IIRC, he suggested that if you wanted magical effects in a Supers type game, that you should build them out of the powers.

Which brings me back to one of my initial points:

Originally Posted by Fear of the Duck

Right from the start the question was if Basic Roleplaying was intended as a set of generic rules to work with any setting such as HERO or GURPS, of was a compendium of BRP games - ultimately I'm afraid that we found it doesn't really work as either.

If you can't mix up the systems then it isn't a universal system. This is puely my opinion but for my money it would have been better to have started with Superworld as he core of the game given that it is the most flexible part of BRP, and then looked at what other elements you wanted to bolt on to it.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Fear of the Duck

Which brings me back to one of my initial points:

If you can't mix up the systems then it isn't a universal system. This is puely my opinion but for my money it would have been better to have started with Superworld as he core of the game given that it is the most flexible part of BRP, and then looked at what other elements you wanted to bolt on to it.

I disagree. The idea of a universal system is that it can be used to handle virtually any setting. Not all of them at the same time. That would be a multiversal system.

If you take HERO or GURPS and mix n' match characters from different settings, they don;t balance either. Starting superheroes are built on more points than starting fantasy characters, and are simply more powerful. If a character in the HERO system has 20 points of armor, he is almost impossible for non supers to injure with swords, or even firearms.

Same with BRP,. You CAN mix up parts of the system, and you'll get the same mixed up results as if you put a Superhero into a Fantasy or Modern Day group in HERO or GURPS. But what do you expect if you toss, say, Iron Man, into a setting such as GURPS Yrth, or even Call of Cthulhu? Superman might be playable in a Cthulhu campaign, but he is definitely going to be able to do things the average CoC investigator can't.

[Fear of the Duck]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I disagree. The idea of a universal system is that it can be used to handle virtually any setting. Not all of them at the same time. That would be a multiversal system.

If you take HERO or GURPS and mix n' match characters from different settings, they don;t balance either. Starting superheroes are built on more points than starting fantasy characters, and are simply more powerful. If a character in the HERO system has 20 points of armor, he is almost impossible for non supers to injure with swords, or even firearms.

Taking on board your point, how then would you propose to do a Fantasy game with the Players as say Thor or Hercules level Characters? Both HERO and GURPS easilly scale up - can you say honestly the same about BRP?

[badcat]

So, who cares?

I see what the problem is...a disgruntled playtester.

For me, I would have been happy if 'superpowers' in any form were absent. There, that solves the problem. Just ignore them...and as for whether that part of the game 'scales up' like HERO or some of the other lousy systems out there, *shrug*. Whatever.

I know the system works. This thread is an exercise in futility, and I'm outa here.

[Fear of the Duck]

Originally Posted by badcat

So, who cares?
I see what the problem is...a disgruntled playtester.

There's always one on every Forum isn't there!

Originally Posted by badcat

For me, I would have been happy if 'superpowers' in any form were absent. There, that solves the problem.

Ironically I agree with you - as it stands they are a bad fit with the rest of the book and I too would be happy to see them dropped.

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Fear of the Duck

Taking on board your point, how then would you propose to do a Fantasy game with the Players as say Thor or Hercules level Characters? Both HERO and GURPS easilly scale up - can you say honestly the same about BRP?

Something along this line I would use Powers exclusively. With gods and demi-gods, despite the fantasy setting, you are way way outside the realm of the normal man. Magic in a fantasy setting is the realm of Man, not gods. In your Thor/Hercules example, men would be the equivalent of mooks; Thor or Hercules able to brush them aside with essentially the brush of a hand.

SDLeary

P.S. Back in the day, many of us, for grins and giggles, wrote these types of characters up in Superworld. They could walk all over normal men or what would be the average AD&D Wizard or RQ heavy magic user. So I don't find your experience surprising.