Quote from: RMS;1011823RQ2 was extremely popular in the very early 80s.  It was a distant 2nd to D&D, but way ahead of anything else.  That's when Chaosium decided to partner with Avalon Hill for publication and distribution.  I really think this is a case of failed business:  AH didn't know how to handle an RPG, treated it like a boxed wargame, and completely fumbled on production values and price-point which killed the momentum the game had gained under Chaosium.

You are not wrong.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1011768Because most people don't like those things.  To most gamers the things you think make it perfect, they hate.

I guess once again it's that booger eating moron problem to which you are so fond of referring.

Quote from: S'mon;1011825When I played I persuaded the GM to go over to an ascending d% opposed check, attack % vs parry %, to avoid this and get some quick resolution, though it meant adding two 1-100 digit numbers

I'm not sure what you mean and I'd like to understand the variant you used. Would you please explain this?

Quote from: S'mon;1011825Edit: OTOH it is highly realistic for spear & shield combat, and really emphasises the advantage of superior numbers.

I think this also contributes to the popularity of level based systems like D&D over BRP. I think there are more players who prefer to play a character like Conan or John Carter of Mars fighting alone against hordes of foes than there are players who prefer something less over the top like Dumas. Not that in the quintessential duel in Dumas where the Musketeers meet our hero, D'Artagnan, the odds of three King's Musketeers against five Cardinal's Guards means that Musketeers, despite being some of the best swordsmen in France, are going to die rather than surrender and face further humiliation at the hands of Captain Treville. That's right. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis don't expect to win. They expect to die. D'Artagnan sides with the Musketeers which makes the odds 4-5. Since all four are great swordsmen they win after a difficult fight. At odds of 4-5, not at odds of 10-1 against them or something like you might see in D&D when high level fighters battle goblins, orcs, or men-at-arms.

I think there is another reason why D&D is more popular.

Quote from: RMS;1011823Really, I've read several complaints about the combat here and elsewhere, which is a pretty strange comment when the vast majority of versions of D&D are far, far slower with more moving parts.......and those that aren't tend to be far more deadly for low level characters.  I really don't buy that it's the combat system here.

If we look at fighters in combat and ignore the MUs, I think that the problem BRP/RQ have with respect to the inflating hit points and erosion of hit points that is D&D combat is similar to the problem I have with watching Soccer vs American football. Soccer is like RQ. It's a bit difficult to tell (at least it is for me) who is winning and who is losing until the end when someone often wins by a score of 1-0. In American football, you have the incremental gains in yards won and lost during a drive and there are often considerably more than just 0-3 successful scoring opportunities on each side before the end of the game. So it is easier to tell who is winning and who is losing. And I think people like that. And tactically, for an RPG, it has the advantage of making it easier to tell if you are likely to lose before the final score so that you can run away, change tactics, or some magic wielder can drop a magic bomb on the other side.

There is an interesting presentation by Greg Costikyan called, Randomness: Blight or Bane? that talks about this and other things related to randomness in gaming. He makes a couple of salient and relevant points. The second point helps explain why one might prefer the way D&D does hit points over the way games like BRP do hit points.

Here's the first point. Statistically there is something called regression to the mean. You see that in the bell shaped probability distribution of rolling 3D6 vs. rolling 1D20 (or 1D100). One consequence of regression to mean is that the greater the number of random tests, the less effect chance has on the outcome. Which means
 
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That is the first point. And it applies equally to both D&D and BRP/RQ.

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That's the second point. And it does not equally apply.

In OD&D every hit with a weapon did the exact same damage: 1D6. Good hit, bad hit, as long as it was a hit it did 1D6 hit points damage. While this changed to some extent in later versions it is still substantially true even today. Contrast that with RQ or BRP where a single hit might do normal damage which is then all or partly absorbed by armor or a hit might do double damage, or ignore armor, or both. As a result a hit might do nothing or do only minimal damage or it might end the fight with a single blow. In this sort of a system some individual rolls have disproportionate effect. By design. Because of this the effect of strategy may be entirely outweighed by a single, die roll that has disproportionate effect. Which makes strategy a bit less likely to solely determine the outcome.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011770Agreed. I love Stormbringer (3rd by Ken St. Andre, Games Workshop hardcover), but even there I've had players complain about the low skill numbers.

That version of Stormbringer had really fast skill progression though.  a D10 as opposed to a d6 or something for RQ at the time.
I used to run it a LOT and I found characters skills getting quite high....   well until they died a horrible gruesome death via a demon or demon weapon..   lol

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1011892I feel like both GURPS and Champions/HERO System had their moment in the sun, just one that ended last century.

Agreed and seconded. As much as some of the fans of both insist otherwise imo. Savage Worlds, Fate and other more rules light generic rpgs have eaten heavily into both market share. Hero is pretty much on light support. Gurps survives because of Munchkin if they did not have that they would have been in a similar situation imo. It's worse with Gurps because of some strange decisions on what to produce as source books. Fans have been begging for years for 4E Gurps vehicles. Instead apparently their is a huge market for Discworld and Mars Attacks. The first I can see since the novels to me at least seem popular but Mars Attacks? Is there some hidden cult rpg following of it I don't know about. Things won't get better for either rpg either imo. As the fanbase for both Hero System and Gurps is very very resistant to change. They want nothing to change. Yet their will be a turn around in both companies fortunes any day now..any day now.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1011900For my player group the possibility of having a character go insane is one of the biggest draws of CoC!!

I don't see the appeal of it yet I very much get the appeal of it for other players. I never said all players were turned off by the sanity system. Some like it some don't imo. I'm even willing to try another game of COC only 7E as from what I hear it fixes the flaws of the previous editions

Quote from: RMS;1011823Really, I've read several complaints about the combat here and elsewhere, which is a pretty strange comment when the vast majority of versions of D&D are far, far slower with more moving parts.......and those that aren't tend to be far more deadly for low level characters.  I really don't buy that it's the combat system here.  D&D 3/4/(5) and Pathfinder all demonstrate that people are perfectly happy to sit around a table playing out combats that drag on for hours with a lot of detailed minutia to navigate through and actually like them.  Comparatively, any RQ combat system is pretty damn fast.*

Nor sure if you were referring to my comments on RQ being slow and clunky.
Certainly RQ2,  Earlier version of Stormbringer had really fast and quite fun combat really.

But Legend/Mythras/MRQ2 combat was really slow, really clunky and a really unpleasant task of scanning badly put together rules for combat.
It actually DID feel quite realistic, but it took AGES compared to say 5e.

I've run MRQ2/Legend/RQ6 extensively and compared them to 5e and 5e flows far more smoothly.
Of course the combat has a very different feel too.
For the benefits of these RQ versions (realism and variety of options etc) vs DnD 5e. I didn't see the work put into it paying off.
It was so bad I think the rewards running Rolemaster FRP or SS are more rewarding vs the work to put into combat compared to MRQ2/Legend/RQ6/Mythras.

Obviously just my opinion...

Quote from: S'mon;1011825I'm going to comment on this.

RQ combat at low %s: Miss Miss Miss Miss Hit - Wound/Cripple
RQ combat at high %s: Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Hit Parry Crit - Cripple/Dead

The whiff factor is enormous. When I played I persuaded the GM to go over to an ascending d% opposed check, attack % vs parry %, to avoid this and get some quick resolution, though it meant adding two 1-100 digit numbers, worse than d20 system.

Edit: OTOH it is highly realistic for spear & shield combat, and really emphasises the advantage of superior numbers.

Chaosium got it perfect with Pendragon, which completely defeats the problem of pointless rolls at high and low skill levels. Unfortunately, they didn't generalize that system to their various other games...

Quote from: sureshot;1011930Agreed and seconded. As much as some of the fans of both insist otherwise imo. Savage Worlds, Fate and other more rules light generic rpgs have eaten heavily into both market share. Hero is pretty much on light support. Gurps survives because of Munchkin if they did not have that they would have been in a similar situation imo. It's worse with Gurps because of some strange decisions on what to produce as source books. Fans have been begging for years for 4E Gurps vehicles. Instead apparently their is a huge market for Discworld and Mars Attacks. The first I can see since the novels to me at least seem popular but Mars Attacks? Is there some hidden cult rpg following of it I don't know about. Things won't get better for either rpg either imo. As the fanbase for both Hero System and Gurps is very very resistant to change. They want nothing to change. Yet their will be a turn around in both companies fortunes any day now..any day now.

SJG are pretty open about Munchkin underwriting everything else they produce.

Quote from: Bren;1011915I think there is another reason why D&D is more popular.

If we look at fighters in combat and ignore the MUs, I think that the problem BRP/RQ have with respect to the inflating hit points and erosion of hit points that is D&D combat is similar to the problem I have with watching Soccer vs American football. Soccer is like RQ. It's a bit difficult to tell (at least it is for me) who is winning and who is losing until the end when someone often wins by a score of 1-0. In American football, you have the incremental gains in yards won and lost during a drive and there are often considerably more than just 0-3 successful scoring opportunities on each side before the end of the game. So it is easier to tell who is winning and who is losing. And I think people like that. And tactically, for an RPG, it has the advantage of making it easier to tell if you are likely to lose before the final score so that you can run away, change tactics, or some magic wielder can drop a magic bomb on the other side.

There is an interesting presentation by Greg Costikyan called, Randomness: Blight or Bane? that talks about this and other things related to randomness in gaming. He makes a couple of salient and relevant points. The second point helps explain why one might prefer the way D&D does hit points over the way games like BRP do hit points.

Here's the first point. Statistically there is something called regression to the mean. You see that in the bell shaped probability distribution of rolling 3D6 vs. rolling 1D20 (or 1D100). One consequence of regression to mean is that the greater the number of random tests, the less effect chance has on the outcome. Which means
 

More random tests = more influence for strategy.

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That is the first point. And it applies equally to both D&D and BRP/RQ.

Unless individual rolls have disproportionate effect.

[/SIZE]

That's the second point. And it does not equally apply.

In OD&D every hit with a weapon did the exact same damage: 1D6. Good hit, bad hit, as long as it was a hit it did 1D6 hit points damage. While this changed to some extent in later versions it is still substantially true even today. Contrast that with RQ or BRP where a single hit might do normal damage which is then all or partly absorbed by armor or a hit might do double damage, or ignore armor, or both. As a result a hit might do nothing or do only minimal damage or it might end the fight with a single blow. In this sort of a system some individual rolls have disproportionate effect. By design. Because of this the effect of strategy may be entirely outweighed by a single, die roll that has disproportionate effect. Which makes strategy a bit less likely to solely determine the outcome.

That's a pretty astute analysis, Bren, of the real differences in feel between D&D and BRP combat. For me, either can be a feature depending on the type of game I want to play.  I find BRP to feel more realistic, there is a tenseness, because any blow could be your last.  Characters avoid combat more often, and fight only when its meaningful, or desperate. There is a sense of drama to it. D&D has a much more "do you want to fight the random monster? I don't know, do you want to fight the random monster?" kind of feel to it that makes combat more relaxed and predictable.  It is often better for a combat focused game. My D&D games' time often run 50% or more in combat, where my BRP games are more like 10-20%.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1011935Nor sure if you were referring to my comments on RQ being slow and clunky.
Certainly RQ2,  Earlier version of Stormbringer had really fast and quite fun combat really.

But Legend/Mythras/MRQ2 combat was really slow, really clunky and a really unpleasant task of scanning badly put together rules for combat.
It actually DID feel quite realistic, but it too AGERS compared t o say 5e.

I've run MRQ2/Legend/RQ6 extensively and compared them to 5e and 5e flows far more smoothly.
Of course the combat has a very different feel too.
For the benefits of these RQ versions (realism and variety of options etc) vs DnD 5e. I didn't see the work put into it paying off.
It was so bad I think the rewards running Rolemaster FRP or SS are more rewarding vs the work to put into combat compared to MRQ2/Legend/RQ6/Mythras.

Obviously just my opinion...

Well, I really like Mythras and steal from it liberally for my BRP games.  I feel perhaps less strongly than you, but I agree that RQ6/Mythras' combat does not suit the way I like to pace combat.  I always thought it might if my players and I really mastered all of the options, but the pace and detail of BRP/Stormbringer/CoC is about right for me.

Quote from: Bren;1011912I'm not sure what you mean and I'd like to understand the variant you used. Would you please explain this?

Attacker rolled d%+Skill.

Defender rolled d%+Parry.

Attack hits if it beats both 100% and the defender's Parry roll.

Although it didn't need the 100% rule, that was just to make it equivalent to the standard rule if no parry.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1011943That's a pretty astute analysis, Bren, of the real differences in feel between D&D and BRP combat.

Thanks. I read this and some other stuff by Costikyan on randomness in game designs and what he said really crystallized for me what works in the original design of D&D combat and why it works.

Despite all that I still prefer fixed hit point systems like RQ, BRP, D6, BoL, H+I.

Quote from: S'mon;1011779Most people like classes, levels, and inflating hit points?

The cRPG world says yes.

It's amazing how universal the core D&Disms have become.

Quote from: sureshot;1011815The same issue with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It's too easy to fail when attempting to do a task. Maybe it's laziness or a sense of player entitlement yet players want their characters to succeed most of the time at task and are not really interested realism.
We live in the real world. We play rpgs to escape it

WFRP1e had that problem RAW. I solved it early by giving PCs +10% to Weapon Skill out of the gate, so even the average Herbalist had 35% to hit while the Militia dude has 45% and the players were happy.

Quote from: RMS;1011823RQ2 was extremely popular in the very early 80s.  It was a distant 2nd to D&D, but way ahead of anything else.

I can confirm this.

In the early 80s, there as no issue starting up a BRP game. I would argue RQ's popularity was important to Palladium Fantasy's launch because PF was RQ + D&D and gave players the opposed Attack vs. Defense + % Skills + Classes + Levels + Increasing HP.

Quote from: CanBeOnlyOne;1011895I have not played RuneQuest or OpenQuest but from my understanding RuneQuest uses hit locations, strike ranks and opposed rolls while Magic World uses general hit points (with a major wounds table for criticial hits), dex initiative and the resistance table.  Magic World is based on Stormbringer 5.0 with a few BRPisms thrown in. A review of Magic World can be found here -> https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/16/16300.phtml

THANK YOU!!

If I didn't have Stormbringer (and the original Magic World), I would give the new Magic World a whirl.

It sounds fast enough / detailed enough / flexible enough.

How do you like the spells / magic in Magic World?  

Also, what do you think of the default setting?

Quote from: DavetheLost;1011900For my player group the possibility of having a character go insane is one of the biggest draws of CoC!!

It's a huge draw for CoC one-shots at conventions.

Sanity is the clock in CoC. "How much good can you achieve before you go nuts or get splattered?" is the campaign question.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1011929That version of Stormbringer had really fast skill progression though.  a D10 as opposed to a d6 or something for RQ at the time.
I used to run it a LOT and I found characters skills getting quite high....   well until they died a horrible gruesome death via a demon or demon weapon..   lol

Hell yeah!

D10 progression is my norm. It does allow for PCs to ramp up quickly which in Stormbringer fits fine with the sorcery soaked setting. PC death is very common, and unless you're wearing demon armor, almost any hit by a demon weapon = death.

I guess Stormbringer's system and its high kill rate worked for my group because we were all CoC players. One bad roll = death was a boon, not  a bane, in our minds.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1011937Chaosium got it perfect with Pendragon, which completely defeats the problem of pointless rolls at high and low skill levels. Unfortunately, they didn't generalize that system to their various other games...

Do any other RPGs use the Pendragon system?

I think people actually like classes, levels, hit points going up.  Which is why virtually every MMORPG and CRPG uses them. It's a tangible sign of power growth (never mind enemies almost always level with you).

Beyond that, it makes combat much smoother, surer. If you have a lot of hit points, they will get whittled away slowly. If you have a small fixed total, you can lose them all in one blow. Thanks to how defense works, it might literally take the same amount of attack rolls to kill the character in either system, but the ablative hit point system feels more heroic, because you know you probably aren't going to die right off.  Of course, in some genres, like horror, that's a negative, so Call of Cthulhu and BRP go together well.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1011946Well, I really like Mythras and steal from it liberally for my BRP games.  I feel perhaps less strongly than you, but I agree that RQ6/Mythras' combat does not suit the way I like to pace combat.  I always thought it might if my players and I really mastered all of the options, but the pace and detail of BRP/Stormbringer/CoC is about right for me.

Yeah I get lots of ppl like Mythras etc. I'm not saying "I'm right" , I'm just describing my POV and feelings on those games.

I suppose I favor simpler RPGs these days.
In my 20s and 30s, I was all on board for RMFRP, RMSS, RM2nd ed, Space master and all sorts of complicated RPGs that were badly formatted and organised that used to take up LOTS of our time on gaming nights or more accurately, gaming weekends.
In those days if Mythras existed, I'd probably be into it.

Now I'm married, have kids, full on job and older with less stamina, I just want a system that works well and is easy to pick up and play.