Quote from: Imperator;646632BRP is the system used in Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Elric, Nephilim and other games. It's the classic percentile system.

Oh right, I didn't know what that was called.

Quote from: Imperator;646632It's a perfectly valid preference. In BRP changing stats require lots and lots of training.

It's perfectly valid if you're trying to emulate a universe with heavy skills weighting. Jibbajabba is claiming this represents reality instead, which is where all the confuffle comes from.

Quote from: jibbajibba;646565Now aging is really important very few RPGs try to handle it at all.
I mean imagine a system where a female's appearance drops by 1 point per year after she hits 32, the boards would go mad

Uppost I refered to a game I made up where maximum skill was limited by stat. And you have Active, and inactive skills.

If we supposed Running was a skill based on Strength + agility. so your starting skill was S+A and you could increase the skill to 5x(S+A) then if you maxed the skill out stats would be 25% of skill, but as your stats dropped your skill would diminish.  
Now youy have to be pretty harsh with stats and maybe there is a better stat that Str or agility to determine sprinting , but I think its a workable compromise.

Oh you sexist so.

It's quite a good idea to ponder - and for BRP, it'd be not too hard to try and whip up some ideas of mechanical tables/notions, which would discuss the issue of skill atrophy as you age. Of course, some changes'd also need to be to applaud for genre - for example, CoC can do fine without intellectual skills atrophying too much, Post Apocalyptic setting would probably be in reverse.

I'd say that a random roll, based on your corresponding attribute, may be a decent idea of "age atrophy" mechanic, at least as far as BRP is concerned.

Awesome! We could get a thread going that includes age and gender bias!



It's a touch subject for some people.

All I know is my personal stats have declined with age, except perhaps Wisdom and CHA.

But STR, CON, DEX, and INT have taken some hits.

In Traveller: The New Era (using the GDW house system I mentioned in an earlier post), the usual task asset is attribute plus skill. Task difficulty factors are successive doublings or halvings of this.

Attributes are rolled up with 2d6-1 (giving a range of 1-11), and can potentially reach 13. "Elite" (in combat capability) NPCs have an average of 8 in the physical attributes, and if memory serves an average combat asset of 14.

I don't recall any stipulated cap on skill ratings, but I think there ought to be one.

Anyhow, most skills begin with a null value. This is distinguished from having level-0, which gives twice the chance of success.

This means that an average attribute of 6 initially outweighs a skill rating above level-0, but eventually the skill counts for more if one develops it enough.

I don't recall details, but I am sure it's much harder to improve an attribute than to improve a skill.

In addition, some tasks can be attribute only, or involve other weightings. The text calls attention to some such methods, from which a GM could easily extrapolate more.

Effects of aging were a notable innovation when Classic Traveller was released (1977), and I think have been included in all later rules sets as an expected element of "the Traveller flavor".

The use of attribute scores (and to a slightly lesser extent skill ratings) was very little formalized in the original set. In keeping with the prevailing ethos of the time, it was expected that GMs would adapt the tools at hand to the needs of the situation.

Quote from: Rincewind1;646651I'd say that a random roll, based on your corresponding attribute, may be a decent idea of "age atrophy" mechanic, at least as far as BRP is concerned.

The Pendragon aging system also appeared in the Avalon Hill edition of RuneQuest. Stormbringer offered another method (aimed more at character generation), and Call of Cthulhu I think something similar.

I would be surprised to find that Chaosium's "D100 System" omnibus offers no treatment.

Quote from: Phillip;646769The Pendragon aging system also appeared in the Avalon Hill edition of RuneQuest. Stormbringer offered another method (aimed more at character generation), and Call of Cthulhu I think something similar.

I would be surprised to find that Chaosium's "D100 System" omnibus offers no treatment.

The BRP's aging mechanic reduces attributes not skills.

Quote from: Bill;646755Awesome! We could get a thread going that includes age and gender bias!

Please don't. This is a board that can't handle radical ideas like engaging genre conventions, using maps and miniatures, or actually reading and following rules. I don't need to see what it does with age and gender bias.

Another thing about the original Traveller rules is that skill training and physical fitness programs are on a time scale of a similar order of magnitude to that involved in aging. The same holds in Pendragon.

Quote from: Rincewind1;646773The BRP's aging mechanic reduces attributes not skills.

Ah, I see! One variant I've seen has attribute scores limiting skill % (even more notably than in old RQ), which would naturally carry over any reduction in the former.

Quote from: Phillip;646801Ah, I see! One variant I've seen has attribute scores limiting skill % (even more notably than in old RQ), which would naturally carry over any reduction in the former.

That variant may very well be in BRP's Big Golden Book - I'll check later at some free moment, thanks for the notice.

I think my outlook on this issue would be some compromise and mix between the attribute limiting skill, and rolls for skills dropping as the age raises - with bonuses to that roll. That random roll and modifiers to it (as well as first a roll if that roll even applies, with proper modifers) would represent the unequal nature, and the modifiers could for example represent the fact that if someone is more active, both physically and mentally, the atrophy rates are much lower.

Quote from: gleichman;646782Please don't. This is a board that's transcended mundane ideas like engaging genre conventions, using maps and miniatures, or actually reading and following rules.

fixed your typos.

Quote from: Bill;646755Awesome! We could get a thread going that includes age and gender bias!



It's a touch subject for some people.

All I know is my personal stats have declined with age, except perhaps Wisdom and CHA.

But STR, CON, DEX, and INT have taken some hits.

It's interesting.
Strength is really tricky because in reality anyone can increase their Strength through training (or drugs) it really is simple but people don't becuase it's time consuming and boring and people are people.
Certainly I have been training a lot more since I moved to Singapore and am stronger now than since I was 20 or so. But no doubt there is a point where things drop.
Con is hard because you can easily increase fitness but you can't repair your internal reistance to disease etc and injuries take longer to heal when you are older just as a thing.
Dex I guess drops though Dex itself is such a broad thing covering agility accuracy hand eye coordination... there are plenty of old illusionists who can still palm a coin or splice a deck of cards and their are plenty of OAPS that can still shoot much better than I ever will.
Int is hard, again memory might diminish but there are plenty of memory masters who would disagree. Same is true of chess grandmasters, Yes academics do a lot of their best work when they are young but is that because of youth or tenure and Hawking still seems pretty sharp. I know my IQ is in the same zone from the last test I took a year ago to the first test I took when I was 10 so ...
I also don't think old people are necessarily wise. As Lilly Allen so eloquently said
What the fuck do you know?
Just cos you're old you think your wise,
But who the hell are you though,
I didn't even ask for your advice

I would be interested to see some genuine medical stats on the effect of aging on a slew of physical and mental faculties