Playtest Questions

[frogspawner]

Anyway, the Duck has raised a number of points here that should probably be dealt with. And there are (hopefully!) too many to sort out before publication. But maybe we could tackle the most important one.

Would anyone care to suggest which that might be? Which one issue do you see as the most important, FotDuck?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Fear of the Duck

The way the rules work is that you have several sets of different powers: Magic, Sorcery, Psionics, Mutations, & Superpowers – the system can be played at a number of different levels, and the level you choose defines just how much you can mix ‘n match. Where we really broke the system was in an anything goes Superhero setting as using the Superworld rules you can buy both your Stats and Skills up to hideous levels – as I’ve said elsewhere here I designed a Super-Elric with a POW of 21 (later 18 to bind a demon sword) and Power Points of 50, meaning that when it come to resist many to the Sorcery Spells on the resistance table (which tops out at 30 anyway) unless you had an equally high number there was little or no chance of preventing it. Likewise Psionics also takes Power Points for the resistance roll, so a Superworld Psi can be virtually unstoppable.

Jason has clearly said that some of the powers subsystems are simply not designed to work together. That's no different than the case with GURPS for most of its lifespan (the Magic and Psionics systems didn't work with each other very well, and neither worked properly with powers). I think you're expecting something that wasn't reasonable to expect here. BRP is not intended to be Hero.

[Nightshade]

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 don't see anything that requires all subsystems to be compatible for it to be universal. As I said, the only universal system I know of with this ethic was Hero, and that had a price in degree of simulation associated with it. Sometimes you're simply going to have setting assumptions that demand one paranormal system do things that's going to be bad mixed with another.

Or, putting it really bluntly, I think your expectations are neither everyone's, nor particularly reasonable given the general design ethic in BRP games.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

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.

Even if you want magic, there's ways to emulate it with a powers system without having a seperate "Magic" subsystem. It just may not do it in a way that perfectly suits you.

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.

Nor I.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by badcat

Soltakss has a pointy point. So does Kloster, and to what he said I want to add that one of the prime systems designed for supers (HERO) has never worked for any OTHER genre, IMO. BRP is amazing that it works so well for EVERY other genre, again IMO. When I had WoW, the one booklet that never got touched was Superworld. And frankly, if the BRP book was 'balanced' so that the powers were completely interchangeable I doubt I would be interested at all.

Agreed, I have used HERO for almost all the styles published (except giant robots), but the only one where it works really well and I continue to use it is superhero.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[badcat]

Futile is precisely correct, frogspawner.

Welcome to these (usually friendly, save one or two exceptions) forums, by the way.

Atgxtg called me.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by soltakss

RosenMcStern made the point that everyone in Italy could do a better job of being Italy's Football Coach than the current coach, no matter who he is. The same applies to RPGs.

I gotta find that post.

[soltakss]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

I gotta find that post.

Here it is Mongoose Publishing :: View topic - Should there be a RuneQuest Kromm?

[Atgxtg]

BTW, this is just off the top of my head, and based on knowledge of the old BRP mechanics and WoW, but, if you took a Mage, let him up his POW and INT with superpowers, and let him use Energy to power spells instead of/in addition to Magic Points, the spellcasters could probably achieve parity with supers, too. A guy with a 20 INT and 50 POW and around 100 Energy, could throw AT LEAST ten 10d6 Blast Spells. Fifteen if he can use his MPs too, and 20 if he has the equvalent of Magic World's Sorcerer's Staff. Not too shabby.

Of course it will leave the average two guard or cop in the dust, but Supers are like that.



Also, I wouldn't say that GURPS and HERO easily scale up. With GURPS, since the skill system is tied to stat scores, they had to cap off the stat formula to prevent characters with high stats from having "perfect" skill scores. In HERO any large spread between combatants leads to a large gap in OCV and DCV that will have the same effect. Since both HERO and GRUPS use a 3D6 distribution, any high values warp the probability curve.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

BTW, this is just off the top of my head, and based on knowledge of the old BRP mechanics and WoW, but, if you took a Mage, let him up his POW and INT with superpowers, and let him use Energy to power spells instead of/in addition to Magic Points, the spellcasters could probably achieve parity with supers, too. A guy with a 20 INT and 50 POW and around 100 Energy, could throw AT LEAST ten 10d6 Blast Spells. Fifteen if he can use his MPs too, and 20 if he has the equvalent of Magic World's Sorcerer's Staff. Not too shabby.

The big issues is the initiative delay would just be killing him.

Also, I wouldn't say that GURPS and HERO easily scale up. With GURPS, since the skill system is tied to stat scores, they had to cap off the stat formula to prevent characters with high stats from having "perfect" skill scores. In HERO any large spread between combatants leads to a large gap in OCV and DCV that will have the same effect. Since both HERO and GRUPS use a 3D6 distribution, any high values warp the probability curve.

In the case of Hero, that's only true of a gap, not high scale in general. There _are_ issues with Hero and very high values (mostly because of powers and effects that give higher yield linearly for amounts over dice compared to values) but the resolution per se isn't one of them.