Why is BRP not that popular?

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

I'm not dogging people who like 'cinematic' games... I'm just saying the games I want to play aren't that way, and I'd rather people who like those games not come trying to tell me that BRP needs to be more forgiving in order to attract their attention.

Why shouldn't they? If you ask someone why they don't play the game, you should expect they'll tell you their reasons; that you don't like their reasons is no reason for them not to be honest about it.

I'm certain BRP can easily be made to be 'cinematic' but I'd never want that part of the core design.
That's all...
Whatever direction the current 'hipness pendulum' is swinging right now it's sure to swing the other way eventually.

Given that less sudden-death games have been progressively more dominant over time since the 80's, I wouldn't go holding your breath.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Lord Twig

Indeed! I have heard people complain loudly about GM fudging, but I never understood it. For some reason it is okay for a system to fudge a dice roll by having points, but it is not okay for a system to fudge dice by saying, "GMs can fudge dice for cinematic effect if they wish".

Simple, really. One's entirely arbitrary, one is systematic and regulated.

To reiterate:

Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist.
GM: "Looks like a critical to the arm! You'll be out of it for a while."
This is BAD!

Random bandit rolls critical impale to the head of a hero with an arbalist.
GM: "Looks like you took a critical hit to the head. Your dead."
Player: "I spend a hero point so it hits the arm instead."
GM: "Okay, I guess it hits the arm."
This is GOOD! This is revolutionary! This is the future of RPGs everywhere!

Again, the latter is a systematic fix to the problem; the former is a brute force solution, much like constantly ignoring a rule because it doesn't do what you want it to.

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by badcat

I for one would rather not play at all than play with that 'camp'. That's that.

And I suppose it is why my game of choice is BRP, I don't want it changed for the benefit of aforesaid 'camp', and believe me most of all when I say I have no patience with them any more.

You might say me and anyone in the 'camp' ain't gonna be friends...

All that said (once) whoever wants to play a 'cinematic' rpg where anybody can do whatever and there is no risk/reward paradigm, have fun but don't expect me to be there, or even sympathetic to your choice.

In other words, your way or the highway. Lovely.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Fireballs are not harmless to compareable characters when you get them; in fact, its not particularly hard for a given arcane spellcaster to be killed by a fireball equivelent to his own. That's true of most of the others, too.

Old, old anecdote here: I recall back in the mists of time when I still played D&D (very early 80s at the latest). I ran for a high powered (8th -9th level) group that came around a corner of a stereotypical dungeon and found something big and nasty there. It seized the meatshield fighter and the magic user decided he had no choice but let loose a lightning bolt, hoping the fighter had enough hp to absorb it if he made the save and hoping he did. Anyhow, said magic user let go with a big nasty lightning bolt, which bounced off the wall directly behind the big nasty creature and came back through the creature, fighter, and the rest of the party. It then bounced off the wall behind them and went through them from the other side. Rinse and repeat a couple of times. I don't know how it is now, but lightning bolts then bounced off walls and traveled their full distance, which was a function of magic user level. It did kill the the big nasty creature, the fighter did make his saving throws, but took it too many times to survive. TPK, except the thief who was lurking back around the corner. The magic user died on the first time through. (The thief was sorely disappointed that most of the party's valuables failed one of the many saving throws they also had to made.) Memories...!

I have to conclude our experiences are far too different to have this discussion then, because I don't recall _ever_ seeing an RQ character with more than about 40 points of reusable divine magic. I'm puzzled how it can even occur unless one is running campaigns of _particularly_ long duration, given the manditory minimum POW priests must maintain and the mechanics of power gain. Even with multiple checks, at 25-30% chances per check, the gain isn't particularly speedy.

In RQ3, there's no mandatory minimum POW for priests. The only requirement is 10 points of stored divine magic, plus skills. In RQ2, priests have to maintain POW 18, but treat their species maximum POW as 25 for determining POW gain. Toss a strategic Eurmal's crumb in and the species maximum for the character can easily gain 4-5 points: a very powerful result, but those things are pretty common to come by.

This campaign ran for about 7 years with two of the characters remaining the same from beginning to end. In the game world, about 20 years went by, so add up yearly automatic gains, seasonal rolls for leading services, and a handful of adventures a year, it's pretty easy to build up POW in a hurry. Add in a bunch of DI's over the years, and POW gains come even faster!

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

In other words, your way or the highway. Lovely.

Put me there too. If I'm not interested in a game, I don't play. Life's too short to waste my time doing things I don't enjoy. If someone is setting up a super cinematic game, I'll find something more interesting to do, like watching the grass grow...

[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by RMS

In RQ3, there's no mandatory minimum POW for priests. The only requirement is 10 points of stored divine magic, plus skills. In RQ2, priests have to

Though I'm unable to find it in the book, I'm almost certain there was a requirement to keep a power of 15, unless I'm confusing it with the old Rune Lord requirement. However, even if I'm misremembering, its impractical to let it get too low, so you're still talking at most cases at most a 50% chance of gaining power per session.

maintain POW 18, but treat their species maximum POW as 25 for determining POW gain. Toss a strategic Eurmal's crumb in and the species maximum for the character can easily gain 4-5 points: a very powerful result, but those things are pretty common to come by.

Not in non-Gloranthan games, nor, to be honest, the Gloranthan ones I ever saw.

This campaign ran for about 7 years with two of the characters remaining the same from beginning to end. In the game world, about 20 years went by, so add up yearly automatic gains, seasonal rolls for leading services, and a handful of adventures a year, it's pretty easy to build up POW in a hurry. Add in a bunch of DI's over the years, and POW gains come even faster!

Well, that's a _very_ long campaign; far longer than any I ever saw, so I don't think it can be treated as typical. Most campaigns don't last beyond a year or two.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by Nightshade

Not in non-Gloranthan games, nor, to be honest, the Gloranthan ones I ever saw.

I'd wager money that the most played RQ published adventure is Apple Lane and that's part of the charm of Rainbow Mounds: an Eurmal's Crumb and all the associate random fun that goes with it. It's also a payment in the Munchrooms adventure. Pretty much every old school RQ campaign will have a character or two who got lucky enough to get the POW gain from an Eurmal's crumb. (That's in addition to ones who gained other stats, took damage, or outright died from it: very old school!) Just like every one of those campaigns has a character or two with the 2AP skin from slaying the Lizard Mother in the Rainbow Mounds.

[RMS]

Back on hero/fate points: I have used a mechanism in BRP before where players can pay a point of permanent POW to get a reroll. In lower magic worlds than Glorantha, it's a steep price, but represents characters literally trading some of their luck away in exchange for another chance. The catch is that it only offers a reroll, which can come up just as bad or worse than the original roll.

I've actually used a similar reroll mechanic for stats fairly often. I allow a player to reroll a single die from their 3d6 or 2d6+6 stat rolls. The catch is that they must live with the reroll, even if it comes up worse than the original roll. (Statistically, it works out so that you should always reroll the lowest die if it's a 1-3 and should not reroll if the lowest die is 4+.) This leads to characters that are overall above average, but keeps lots of 17s and 18s relatively rare.

[badcat]

Ouch! That is expensive.

I have my own back ups in place. Primarily I use Luck rolls quite a bit. As in, PC fails the Climb roll half way up a hundred foot cliff. They get a Luck roll to see if there is a handy root, then another Climb roll to see if they succeed in saving themselves from a fall. It has always seemed satisfactory to me.

The players are usually happy with the way I run my game; as long as they have a fair chance to survive/get away/win. It makes for fun gaming and a big sigh of relief over a favorite character when they make it. I do fudge rolls when fate just seems too cruel, as well.

When a player does something insane or foolish I kill them quickly and with great glee, too. An early RQ2 game, I think it was Balastor's Barracks, there were some gargoyles who liked to attack by dropping rocks on the PCs' heads...is that the right one?...and one of the players insisted on staying out in the open and firing her bow at the gargoyles. You can guess what happened to her head location, and I didn't feel at all bad about it.

[badcat]

I like the re-roll on the stats. Is that once per character rolled up or once for each stat? I think I might use it.