BRP Conversions

[lawrence.whitaker]

My intent is to have a BRP ruleset for playing in Middle-earth and allow for the use of the MERP modules.

There's a LotR ruleset for BRP already, which is a conversion of Decipher's LotR game to BRP. The designer is Colin Brett and I really like the way he's handled the conversion.

http://www.colinabrett.uklinux.net/p...p_lotr_2.0.pdf

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

Great minds think alike. I've just developed a system for Mongoose's Elric game which focuses precisely on Love and Hate and uses the skills in almost the same way you intimate here. I think there's extreme amounts of mileage in these social and relationship skills, and they add a layer of extra interest to the game that's been lacking before.

Hi Loz,

I think (perhaps quite unintentionally?) BRP has actually ended up being more than the some of its parts with the new edition, and - for me at least - has taken the rules very gently in quite a new direction (new for BRP type games, perhaps excepting Pendragon) with a decent Opposed Rolls system, the Complimentary Skills rule, the Status skill, Allegiance, and (potentially) a disciplined use of Traits (& perhaps Passions).

I'm pretty cool with how to deploy all of the above (well, still a bit undecided about the extent of Allegiance) with the exception of Traits. What I'm trying to avoid with any kind of trait-based rules is a system where everyone ends up with Brave 90% and augments their attack rolls with it all the time - in my experience HQ has a tendency to go that way. I'm not sure if there's a simple answer to that yet (apart from "no, you can't do that", of course), but I'm rolling it around a bit and seeing if anything settles out.

Good to hear about the Love/Hate rules thing for Mongoose Elric. Are you restricting it to "just" the 2 passions, or also things like Envy, Jealousy, Anger, etc? Somehow I get the feeling that Passions are more manageable and less pedantic in play than Traits - they feel less like "character micro-management", if you know what I mean, and more like broad-brush character "powers" (to overuse the word). The fact they have to be targeted (ie Hate (Lunars) rather than just "Hate") whereas Traits don't to me deepens the role-playing aspect rather than attempts to replace it (which I often get the feeling Traits can do - they can get in the way, anyhow).

Cheers,

Sarah

[lawrence.whitaker]

Good to hear about the Love/Hate rules thing for Mongoose Elric. Are you restricting it to "just" the 2 passions, or also things like Envy, Jealousy, Anger, etc? Somehow I get the feeling that Passions are more manageable and less pedantic in play than Traits - they feel less like "character micro-management", if you know what I mean, and more like broad-brush character "powers" (to overuse the word). The fact they have to be targeted (ie Hate (Lunars) rather than just "Hate") whereas Traits don't to me deepens the role-playing aspect rather than attempts to replace it (which I often get the feeling Traits can do - they can get in the way, anyhow).

I think that traits, in general, can get a little out of hand. HQ frequently suffers from augment-fests, so the rules on Love/Hate are focused squarely on these as passions, without muddying the waters with similar mechanics for jealousy, envy, and the such like. Things of that nature are actually handled under the game's Compulsions and are designed to be roleplayed rather than boiled-down to a percentile roll.

However, Love and Hate are such extreme emotions, and so fundamental to the Elric saga, that I think they have a solid place. You can argue that jealousy is a sort of sub-trait of hatred - I mean, if you have Hate (Elric) at 25%, do you really hate him? Or is it more likely you're just jealous of his sword?

So no, I deliberately avoided a whole Traits mechanic because it can get in the way, and can detract from roleplaying too. Love and Hate, though, are such strong drivers that, in the Elric saga, they trigger the destruction of entire cities.

[DirkD]

Originally Posted by Wolverine

The version I worked on, Force Powers don't exist as such. The Force augments existing skills. So, you simply turn your Persuade skill into Force Persuade, or "Mind Trick", by spending Power points. The reason behind this is because Jedi in most mechanics end up spending all their skill points/ranks/whatever on Force powers, and have very left for other skills.

I don't really have a star wars brp-version, that was just an example (Wheel of Time and Star Wars are the only d20-games I own), but classical jedi/sith-powers like force lightning, battle meditation, telekinesis or farseeing are basically spells. I would generally treat all powers like spells with their own percantage, in the case of persuade - a spell that gives you a bonus on Persuade.

SIZ=(Con+Str)/2 sounds good to me.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by Shaira

I'm pretty cool with how to deploy all of the above (well, still a bit undecided about the extent of Allegiance) with the exception of Traits.

OK, I can't resist - you've made me break off from my reading.

I'm very pleased to see the Pendragon-style Personality Traits (which I like, even though they're just given as an NPC option) and an Allegiance(<religion>) skill (which can give extra PP, D.I. and maybe other GM-defined benefits, like more powerful Rune-style magic perhaps) in BRP0. I'd deploy them like this:

Allegiance increases when a character has "behaved in a manner favoured by the divine force", which I'll say is by exhibitng traits the god likes (from a list of about 5 per god). Traits would be like skills, but each could only be used successfully once per game session. In a situation where the player can justify it, and is just about to use some other normal skill, a Successful Trait-skill roll would make the other skill-roll "Easy" (i.e. double chance); Special x4, Critical x10, Fumble x1/10 with an option to abort the action but at a cost of immediately decreasing the Allegiance by the usual increment (increasing some 'opposite' instead, as BRP says, seems a bit odd to me). When a character had ticks for enough (all?) of a god's favoured traits, they'd gain a tick for that Allegiance too. Non-allegianced characters could have them too, but obviously get less benefit. Their use is entirely voluntary - only those the player chooses for personality/allegiance need be listed - so hopefully this system would not 'get in the way' of roleplaying. Though cruel GMs might call for allegiance-test rolls (as per Maintaining Allegiance, p312), if they don't act as Brave as they should when the troll-berserkers charge...

I'm thinking these trait-skills would represent the amount above normal (i.e. 50%) for that trait, so they would be on the usual 1-100% scale as other skills (not starting over 50%), e.g. an NPC with "Aggressive/Passive 90/10" would be equivalent to trait-skill "Aggressive 40%". Characterful Loves and Hates can be bunged in too. Cool with that?

[PK Games]

So we are going to use a skill to enforce roleplaying? Or at least judge role playing?

Seems a bit heavy handed, like the old honor system from AD&D 1E Oriental Adventures.

[lawrence.whitaker]

So we are going to use a skill to enforce roleplaying? Or at least judge role playing?

I think that's an extreme way of viewing things. Ultimately it depends on the capabilities of the players and the GM.

The Love/Hate rules I've developed aren't designed to either enforce or judge roleplaying. They're there as a measure of a particular passion and how that passion influences other skills and abilities. The personality traits found in Pendragon and BRP (for NPCs) are again used as a measure of strength of feeling - an aid to the roleplaying rather than a strict enforcement of it. There are times when emotional and social measures can't be easily roleplayed and having a mechanic to introduce how they can have an effect is, IMHO, a good thing. We have skills for all manner of other things that aren't easy to roleplay, so why not traits, passions and, in your example of Oriental Adventures, honour and allegiance? For example, in one game I'm playing at the moment, my character is a nasty piece of Fagin-like work with a sadistic streak. I'm not sadistic or confrontational by nature, and whilst I can roleplay the traits to a certain extent, I find that using a skill roll like Intimidation helps greatly to bringing about the effects that I wouldn't be comfortable roleplaying to the full (nor the GM necessarly wanting me to!)

So I think these things definitely have a place. I don't think they either enforce or judge roleplaying, but they're a very useful device for simulating how personality or depth of feeling influences or impacts on a character's other skills, abilities and interactions.

This particular discussion, BTW, perhaps deserves its own strand? Its a very good, thought provoking debate, but not necessarily to do with BRP conversion? Just a thought.

[PK Games]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

This particular discussion, BTW, perhaps deserves its own strand? Its a very good, thought provoking debate, but not necessarily to do with BRP conversion? Just a thought.

I agree on this.

[Fergo113]

Originally Posted by PK Games

Consider the match under you backside lit!

I take the hint, PK . I'll see what I can post in the downloads section over the next week or two, but there is still a lot of work to be done. I'll post an update on this forum when I post.

[Fergo113]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

There's a LotR ruleset for BRP already, which is a conversion of Decipher's LotR game to BRP. The designer is Colin Brett and I really like the way he's handled the conversion.

http://www.colinabrett.uklinux.net/p...p_lotr_2.0.pdf

Thanks Lawrence for this. My stuff's more of a complete BRP rules set that you can use the MERP modules with but I have been using the Decipher LoTR's rulebook as well. Hope to post some of the chapters soon so that it makes more sense what I am up to. But thanks for the link, it will come in handy. Cheers.