Comparative Systemology

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

And if anyone does, could you please not forget to shoe-horn the Pendragon 4e magic system in there? Thanks much!

SDLeary

Pendragon is now owned by Arthaus, a subsidiary of Sword & Sorcery, which is a subsidiary of White Wolf (now a subsidiary of CCP Games), through some sort of licensing arrangement with Greg Stafford.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Pendragon is now owned by Arthaus, a subsidiary of Sword & Sorcery, which is a subsidiary of White Wolf (now a subsidiary of CCP Games), through some sort of licensing arrangement with Greg Stafford.

Yeah. Greg is writing it again (yeah! yeah!) and the Great Pendragon Campaign is one of the best RPG supplments I've even bought!

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

Would need to shoe-horn a trait and passion system (either Pendragon,s THieves Worlds' or Prince Vlaiants) of some kind to make that work.

Ah! But we have Traits!

Option: Personality Traits (pp. 290-291)

Most of magic works off of "Talents", ie. skill. Passions can provide a bounus to cast through skill augmentation. Certain Traits are needed for certain effects in some of the spell possibilities.

Without passions, I would base bonuses on "Religious Bonus", a value of 16 (80%) or higher in each of the 5 traits that the religion values.

SDLeary

[SDLeary]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Pendragon is now owned by Arthaus, a subsidiary of Sword & Sorcery, which is a subsidiary of White Wolf (now a subsidiary of CCP Games), through some sort of licensing arrangement with Greg Stafford.

True. But the Personality Traits originally come from RQ, and are in Pendragon. There is no reason a similar system couldn't be put into a magic supplement, especially as Greg has expressed his dislike of the magic system itself for the current version of Pendragon.

SDLeary

[Joseph Paul]

Originally Posted by threedeesix

There are other factors that come into play that you may not be thinking of. Jason brought up the point of armor, which is a good one. But you also have to take into account that the attacker with the .22 can only do 1D6 damage per 5 DEX Ranks. Even assuming he has the higher DEX and shoots first, it will only be for 1D6 damage. More than likely, the target with the .45 will get the next shot for 1D10+2.

Throw in the optional Hit Location rules and even a low damage roll with the .45 to an arm or leg is more than enough to cripple it and a crippled location pretty much eliminates most targets as a threat.

Rod

Who said the target had a .45? Just place two PCs side by side and let them fire at the same kind of targets. In a round the .22 gets the opportunity to fire three times and the .45 only once. Absent any other optional rules and assuming equal skill the .22 will outperform the .45. The other arguments are all reasons to choose the .45 but they don't mitigate the disparity in actual dice-o-damage on target. That is where I am saying there are consistency problems.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by SDLeary

Ah! But we have Traits!

Option: Personality Traits (pp. 290-291)

Most of magic works off of "Talents", ie. skill. Passions can provide a bounus to cast through skill augmentation. Certain Traits are needed for certain effects in some of the spell possibilities.

Without passions, I would base bonuses on "Religious Bonus", a value of 16 (80%) or higher in each of the 5 traits that the religion values.

SDLeary

Ooohh.

Hand...reaching...for book.

You know, if we didn't just swipe the Pendragon method, but used if for inspiration, we could treat the "Life Porce" stuff as a sort of multiplier/controller for POW (life force in BRP). Could be an interesting base for a new magic system.

For instance using the sum of the "Religious Traits". So 5 traits @ 80% would be 400% or 4 times the effect for POW.

[threedeesix]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Who said the target had a .45? Just place two PCs side by side and let them fire at the same kind of targets. In a round the .22 gets the opportunity to fire three times and the .45 only once. Absent any other optional rules and assuming equal skill the .22 will outperform the .45. The other arguments are all reasons to choose the .45 but they don't mitigate the disparity in actual dice-o-damage on target. That is where I am saying there are consistency problems.

Sorry Joseph, for some reason I thought the point was that no one would want a .45 as the .22 did more damage over the course of a round. But damn it, I still made a good point.

Rod Leary

[Atgxtg]

Guuys,

I don';t think the .45 would be classifed as a "heavy" pistol in BRP, though. Based on how the classfications work, it would probably be a medium pistol, and so would give you 2d8 vs. 3d6. THe heavy pistol is probably along the lines of a .44 magnum.

That said, I do think the 3:1 ROF differences is a problem. 3:2 might be better. But then that would mean tweaking the medium pistol to a 3 RoF too. Overall medium pistols usually have the highest Rate of Fire among pistols. They tend to had the best size/gripping space/recoil characteristics, the largest ammo capacity, and the fastest reloading times.

[Trifletraxor]

Originally Posted by Jason Durall

Pendragon is now owned by Arthaus, a subsidiary of Sword & Sorcery, which is a subsidiary of White Wolf (now a subsidiary of CCP Games), through some sort of licensing arrangement with Greg Stafford.

Basic Roleplaying is owned by Chaosium. Didn't stop Mongoose usings its magic systems and spells though.

SGL.

[Jason Durall]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

Well what Chaosium solicited does not seem to be satisfying the cravings of some of the fan base. Of course once it hits the stores we all may find that it does handstands.

I can also certainly see that those who have paid for BRP0 are probably already pretty much in agreement with what has been wrought so this dichotomy shouldn’t be a surprise.

I do have most of the legacy source material and your assertion that you did not want to be innovative at this point puts a pretty good limit on what might change. I don’t think that my criticisms have been out of line or substantively off base about what the BRP0 rules actually allow.
...

Because I don’t think that it is a bad thing to express a dissenting view about the design phiolsophy of BRP. I am not alone in being less than satisfied with the choices that appear to have been made. Questioning them promotes dialouge about what different sections of the fan base want from a game which may prove valuable for future supplements or revisions.

This is the last post I'll make to this thread, as I'm going to significantly reduce my presence on these forums with the completion my BRP edits.

However, I just had to reply.

This is likely a bit more blunt than I am usually, but I've been on a high simmer for a while and need to release some steam.

It's interesting that you say "that those who have paid for BRP0 are probably already pretty much in agreement with what has been wrought" - aside from a handful of vehement (and in some cases, uninformed) critics like yourself, the response has been positive. There have been requests for clarification, and some helpful suggestions or even useful criticism, but overall, folks seem pretty happy with the game, even in the pre-edited version they've got.

I'm not thrilled about the release of Edition Zero, but on the bright side, it has given me more sets of eyes to catch last-minute corrections and make some useful clarifications outside of the playtest and Chaosium's own editing/proofing processes.

I don't know if it's one of your intended goals, but the primary result of all of this intensely negative feedback based on a game book you still haven't seen has made me reevaluate my own availability and willingness to discuss the development of the game in a public forum.

If someone were to approach me with advice writing materials for BRP, the first thing I'd tell them is "You will not be able to please everyone, and knowing that, you should probably stay off the forums altogether. Don't even read them."

Over the past month, I've seen several potential authors tell me they've seen the response here and lost interest. Rather than thinking "I'd like to write for that game line", they're thinking "What's the point if the fans will hate it before they see a word of it? Who needs the hassle?"

And I can't really say they're not right to think so.