Adding some MRQ elements to BRP

[RosenMcStern]

Nope. Negate a major wound means: my Major wound threshold is 6 HPs, I take 8 damage, the damage is reduced to 5 HPs because "it is just a flesh wound". Or you could take all the damage to your general HPs and simply not consider it a major wound. This if you want a parallel with MRQ.

However, what I strongly suggest is rather adopting the mechanics for plot bending, that is explained in both MRQ and Mythic Russia (better in Mythic Russia). This is more useful, and encourages good roleplaying.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

However, what I strongly suggest is rather adopting the mechanics for plot bending, that is explained in both MRQ and Mythic Russia (better in Mythic Russia). This is more useful, and encourages good roleplaying.

Or is it just institutionalized cheating? Tastes vary.

[RosenMcStern]

On the contrary, the whole point is that, unlike the darn RQ Divine Intervention, plot bending involves finding a plausible reason why things should go that way. I strongly suggest you read Mark Galeotti's example in Mythic Russia.

[frogspawner]

I find Divine Interventions perfectly plausible, given a magic-rich world with deities actively supporting their followers, and quite limited in scope ("Save me!", "Get us home!", "Enchant my armour!"). Plot bending gives the same power to the players, which is too much IMHO - because they can fast-talk to justify anything. But perhaps you could summarize Mr G's example for us (I've no intention of making the investment, y'see).

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

Nope. Negate a major wound means: my Major wound threshold is 6 HPs, I take 8 damage, the damage is reduced to 5 HPs because "it is just a flesh wound". Or you could take all the damage to your general HPs and simply not consider it a major wound. This if you want a parallel with MRQ.

I don't find that to be as effective as the use of them in MRQ. In MRQ, if you kept getting hit in the same damaged area, you could keep deflecting the damage with additional Hero Points (which is why they reduce damage). Each hit after the first gets negated, in effect, because all damage below location +1 gets removed. That's quite potent.

Reducing it to peeling back a few points off of a Major wound in a system without HL just isn't as impressive to me. I think a better way to handle it would be to simply have the attack to minimum damage, or negate the damage entirely.

However, what I strongly suggest is rather adopting the mechanics for plot bending, that is explained in both MRQ and Mythic Russia (better in Mythic Russia). This is more useful, and encourages good roleplaying.

I'm familiar with the plot altering stuff in MRQ, but I haven't seen Mythic Russia.

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

Or is it just institutionalized cheating? Tastes vary.

I fail to see how a 'minor change' in the storyline is cheating. Four heads are better than one and sometimes the players come up with ideas that are better (or more interesting) than the GM has had the time to. They can also populate the world with old friends that show up at the right moment, like in stories and movies and myths, without the burden being on the GM to create such beforehand.

What is wrong with that?

Or is Plotbending something beyond the normal use of HP in MRQ?

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

There is a fate point mechanic in BRP (page 176 of BRP 0).

Don't have the book yet as its not out in the UK, so that doesn't help much.

(my emphasis)

My experience of such systems (not just in BRP/RQ but in a number of other games) is that they are intrusive, breaking "the fourth wall" in a fashion that is detrimental to the atmosphere and flow of the game. Some groups love them - but equally, some groups don't...

I find that including the players in the creative process makes them more involved and more interested in the game and the world. We've never found them intrusive, but as you say, YMMV.

How else would you describe a skill of 250%? "tremendous skill" is just that: tremendous skill.

You tell me, what does having such a high skill do for you under the new BRP rules? How is functionally different from a skill at 96% other than the higher chance of a critical? What can you do with that 250% that you can't do with 100% or 150%? In combat, I imagine it gives extra attacks... but does it allow you to do more damage with a blow, shatter your opponent's weapons or armor? Does a 250% in art allow you to manipulate the emotions of your viewers, so that everyone who sees your work weep or go insane?

My BRP games don't allow skills to represent such abilities, they simply increase the chance for success. I'd like to see more to it than that. If the new BRP rules have such ideas in them, then awesome.

Elements of the Super Powers system can be used to model exceptional / superhuman talents (e.g. Superhearing will let a character hear frequencies other humans cannot), and setting the campaign "level" suitably high will allow very high skill levels.

What I'd be interested in seeing if there is a way to map such extra abilities to high skill levels.

Err, Hit Lcoations are an optional system in BRP. The Fate Point system I mentioned allows a Character to "soak" one point of damage at the cost of three "power points" (what we known in previous BRP games as magic points), as well as offering various options to affect the outcome of percentile rolls that could reduce damage suffered in combat.

Yes, they are optional, not standard. I don't intend to use them as I find they slow down the game personally. Hero Points reduce damage to locations in a specific way in MRQ. Thanks for letting me know how they work in BRP with 'total hp'. It seems a bit weak though, doesn't that mean that say your average person with a Pow of 10 will only deflect 3 points of damage? I guess the better option is to spend your points to avoid being hit in the first place?

Anyway, thanks for that bit of info on how the new system works.

[The Last Conformist]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

You tell me, what does having such a high skill do for you under the new BRP rules? How is functionally different from a skill at 96% other than the higher chance of a critical?

The most obvious difference is with Hard tasks (which are attempted at half skill) - the 260% type is still all but guaranteed to succeed, whereas the 96% guy is more likely than not to fail.

[Tywyll]

Originally Posted by The Last Conformist

The most obvious difference is with Hard tasks (which are attempted at half skill) - the 260% type is still all but guaranteed to succeed, whereas the 96% guy is more likely than not to fail.

Which, while good, is still simply a pass-fail, there is nothing beyond the success or failure of their action, that's all I'm saying.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by Tywyll

Which, while good, is still simply a pass-fail, there is nothing beyond the success or failure of their action, that's all I'm saying.

Well, you have a number of side-effects which are built into the rules. For example, with a 260% attack you can attack 5 times a round. You can also parry nine attacks (each one taking a successive -30% parry chance) in a round. You ignore armor nearly 15% of the time, and do heavy damage.

With non-combat skills, 260% gives you a huge edge on opposed rolls, where crits trump specials, specials trump successes; if you use the "effect number" opposed roll, where you basically calculate how much you made your roll by, you will always beat someone with 100% in an opposed roll if you both roll successes. Also with "Complimentary Skills", which work similar to HQ Augments, you can get a +52% bonus to affected skills.

I'm very interested in skill use above 100%, but am also very happy to see BRP being able to scale at these levels without having to implement a whole new set of rules for high-level skill use. Thus you don't have to specifically *say* that 260% Climb will enable you do achieve near-superhuman feats, but your character will nevertheless be able to routinely scale a castle wall using only his hands (130% chance)!

Cheers,

Sarah