Hero Points/Fate Points for BRP

[badcat]

Yep, very flexible and useful. Which is why I don't understand the need for a fate point system, in general.

[Enpeze]

Originally Posted by badcat

Yep, very flexible and useful. Which is why I don't understand the need for a fate point system, in general.

I guess the acceptance of the BRP rules as they are depends primarly on playing style, experience and playing environment. Many people want to play the things they read in books or films and in these mediums the protagonists often dont not die because of an insignificant situation.
Not me. I dont see roleplaying games as books or films, because this could lead to serious bad (for me and my players) gaming style called railroading.
The only thing I take from movies and litereature are ideas for moods, NPC and sometimes story hooks. But I dont play stories "after books" and in my games there are no heroes. They are always gritty and sometimes rather dark and like in real life you can die if you are stupid or have bad luck. The players have to work and to struggle to survive dangerous situations but thereafter their victory is double sweet. After more than 20 years I think they really like it.
BRP is the ideal vehicle for this style of playing, IMO.

[badcat]

I'm with you. You just pretty well summarized my own gaming philosophy.

[Aycorn]

Originally Posted by Enpeze

I guess the acceptance of the BRP rules as they are depends primarly on playing style, experience and playing environment. Many people want to play the things they read in books or films and in these mediums the protagonists often dont not die because of an insignificant situation.
Not me. I dont see roleplaying games as books or films, because this could lead to serious bad (for me and my players) gaming style called railroading.
The only thing I take from movies and litereature are ideas for moods, NPC and sometimes story hooks. But I dont play stories "after books" and in my games there are no heroes. They are always gritty and sometimes rather dark and like in real life you can die if you are stupid or have bad luck. The players have to work and to struggle to survive dangerous situations but thereafter their victory is double sweet. After more than 20 years I think they really it.
BRP is the ideal vehicle for this style of playing, IMO.

Y'know, I've often heard RP in general described as "let's pretend, with rules." And the thing is, as a kid, I distinctly remember my best friend and I, when playing games with toy soldiers or G.I Joes or whatever, used to establish this rule where, if a situation arose where one of them would believably be killed in real life (i.e. the pillow we were pretending was a giant boulder fell smack on them), then they were "killed" and that was it. No second chances.

It added an element of vicarious risk that we both liked a lot. And I think the same element is there in RPG's.

As a GM, I have always said - I do not KILL characters. I do not, as policy, set up traps that can't be escaped or pit them against foes they can't possibly defeat. BUT - I do not prevent them being killed in the course of things, either. I won't kill characters, but I will allow them to be killed.

[Simlasa]

I'm with Enpeze, that's a good description of the games we play too.

Originally Posted by Enpeze

in my games there are no heroes.

Same here, at least no pre-ordained ones... protaganists yes, and any player might very well come out as the hero of the story but it's not just handed to them at the start. When I GM I figure I'm there to facilitate the mood and play the NPCs... not to kill off the PCs or ruin their fun... that's the villain's job.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by TRose

I am in total agreement that the GM should fudge at times. Otherwise what do you do when say 5 out of your 6 players are having a good night using their skills and everything and then the 6 player does something really stupid that if you played it out would result in the party getting wiped. I think we all seen fools that throw rocks at a T-Rex, insult a Troll Priestess in her fortress, Try to attack a whole Lunar regiment , etc, and one should not punish the rest of the party for the action of one person.

What you do is killed the group off and hope that "stupid" either learns from his mistake or leaves the group. If you fudge and then cover it up so the players don't know, "stupid" is going to get the idea that throwing rocks at a T-Rex is a valid tactic ("It worked the last time!!!") and do it again the next time the situation comes up.


That is why I like Hero Points. the player learns pretty quickly that he did wrong, but the Hero Points gives him a chance to survive and learn the error of his ways. If he makes a habit of acting stupid, he will run out of points faster than he runs out of T-Rex.

[RMS]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

Yes, quite right. Luck rolls are mentioned in the RQ2 appendices under POWER in section A; but not indexed and certainly not up there as part of the core character generation.

Fair enough. Much of the wonderful goodness of RQII was tucked away in the appendices. While they aren't part of the core rules, there is a lot of goodness in there. It has those rolls, the wonderful damage options for different weapon types, advanced experience, languages, etc. In fact, to my know the first point based character creation system is in the RQII appendices, as is the first RPG with interlinked languages.

We always used characteristic rolls fairly frequently, in addition to a lot of opposed (Resistance mechanic) rolls. In fact we used them in Stormbringer all the time too, and I don't know that it ever occured to me that they weren't officially in the rules. Much of what was innovative about RQ/BRP was in those appendices.

[Simlasa]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

What you do is killed the group off and hope that "stupid" either learns from his mistake or leaves the group. If you fudge and then cover it up so the players don't know, "stupid" is going to get the idea that throwing rocks at a T-Rex is a valid tactic ("It worked the last time!!!") and do it again the next time the situation comes up.

Naw... you let 'stupid' get eaten, cause he did something stupid... it's the other players who maybe get to benefit from a fudge... as they try to escape stupid's stupidity.

[Atgxtg]

Originally Posted by Simlasa

Naw... you let 'stupid' get eaten, cause he did something stupid... it's the other players who maybe get to benefit from a fudge... as they try to escape stupid's stupidity.

Well, in that situation, stupid is probably the one who is going to attract T-Rex's attention, giving the other PCs time to do something while T-Rex has lunch. It's when stupid throws a rock at the T=rex while his friend is trying to sneak past where things can get bad.

To be completely honest, I know "stupid" or someone very much like him, and ran him in several of my campaign, and neither fudging or Hero Points did much good. Neither could match his ability to generate stupidity, and got overwhelmed.

[Sorloc]

So much for just about any action movie ever...
James Bond does 15-20 stupid things per movie - and survives
Indiana Jones, The Man With No Name, even Luke Skywalker are all dead as Ceasar within the first half hour of your game...

I'm not saying it always has to be cinematic, but is the story about 'YOUR GAME', or is it about the heroes in the story?