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It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

Well I don't know if you consider Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest a type of BRP but I get the impression they are pretty well known. Of course nothing compared to D&D but then nothing really is...

Quote from: CanBeOnlyOne;1011702Well I don't know if you consider Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest a type of BRP but I get the impression they are pretty well known. Of course nothing compared to D&D but then nothing really is...

Actually Call of Cthulhu probably rivals D&D for recognition. Probably helped by the Arkham Horror board game which was still in print till just recently.

I loved Runequest back in the old days when it was simpler.
I get I could have just continued using that, but then Mongoose took over and I got Mongoose Runequest 1 and all the Elric/.Stormbringer supplements.
It started getting more complicated and clunky, but I persevered, because I liked the core of the system.

It became quite obvious very fast MRQ1 was a total mess/disaster and they dumped that for MRQ2, which was a lot better, and I enjoyed it for a bit, but there were aspects of it that were really clunky and the charging rules were a mess.

Then they dropped that and reprinted as Legend....
Meanwhile some other company bought the license and it branched again and has a couple of times again since.

Honestly, I'm just sick and tired of all the branching versions and it's just too clunky and slow for me anyway.

The upside is I've dug out my 2nd Ed Stormbringer RPG and I'm currently trying to get some ppl interested in play that... That's the RQ sweetspot for me.

The way RQ is (or whatever it's called now) atm, it simply doesn't interest me.. Too slow, too clunky, It just doesn't flow very well.
I have lots of old RQ stuff, mostly specific to Elric/Stormbringer stuff from 2nd ed, so I'll use that if I can get players for it.

A fair question. I think if you take it in the narrow way you asked it (i.e., about the BRP system, rather than the various BRP family of games) there is a good answer: They landed in a kind of uncanny valley between a truly generic system (like GURPS) and a distinctive, flavorful, but setting specific system (like Runequest, Pendragon or Ars Magica). The end result doesn't really satisfy people looking for either thing, and so it can't compete in the crowded marketplace of hundreds and hundreds of published game systems we have to chose from.

I think the greatest structural weakness of BRP is its magic system, which is basically lifted from spirit magic for Runequest, with almost no growth in the spell list over decades. Runequest spirit magic is great for Runequest, but provides a very narrow view of what magic can be in a fantasy system. It is pretty frustrating to try running a fantasy world with medieval alchemists or necromancers or some other juicy magical archetype and find your spell list doesn't really support anything beyond bumping up the damage for a mace, etc.

One reason BRP seems a lot less widespread than D&D is because Runequest, Basic Role -Playing,  Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder (including Superworld and Magic World), Elfquest, Hawkmoon, Ringworld are each labeled as a different game though they share very, very similar systems whereas the many iterations of D&D, some of which are not very similar to some other version, are all labeled Dungeons & Dragons.

For me, BRP hits the sweet spot.  It's adaptable, simple for players to grasp, characters are detailed yet play is smooth.  It is also geared towards grittier less gonzo play styles, which suits me.  I like most of the updates with Mythras, except that I find BRP combat simpler.

If I have a complaint it is that it is not really ready to play out of the box, unless you play CoC, or Stormbringer or one of the other published adaptations. When I run BRP, I usually spend quite a bit of time adapting the system to the world.  I will say that I find it more intuitive to adapt than GURPS, even if there are fewer tools in the box.

I think one reason that it is less popular is that it comes off as a bit dry.  

Quote from: Larsdangly;1011707I think the greatest structural weakness of BRP is its magic system, which is basically lifted from spirit magic for Runequest, with almost no growth in the spell list over decades. Runequest spirit magic is great for Runequest, but provides a very narrow view of what magic can be in a fantasy system. It is pretty frustrating to try running a fantasy world with medieval alchemists or necromancers or some other juicy magical archetype and find your spell list doesn't really support anything beyond bumping up the damage for a mace, etc.

I also agree with this.  There are a lot of magic systems for BRP between different games, but there are few spells in each, and not much unity between them. If I have a player who want's to play a wizard, as GM world/system builder, I've got my work cut out for me with BRP.

Some might also say that a lack of a boons and flaws, or ads/disads, system is a weakness.  BRP is great for playing humans at human power levels, but lacks structure for kewl powers and such.

I don't know. I like it okay; I'd be happy to play it in various incarnations, preferably Pendragon, Super World, or Call of Cthulhu, but it does come across as rather bland in the actual BRP book (The Big Gold Book) and I personally find RuneQuest/BRP combat a bit overcomplicated  when compared to the intuitive skills rules. Are we sure it's unpopular? Compared to what?

(I own far  more Chaosium games/books than TSR games/books, so I guess it's popular enough in my house.)

Well, there's the 20% and 5% calculations for special and critical successes.  I'm afraid for many that's impossible without a calculator.  There's the inconsistent implementation between systems.  The big gold book is wonderful but it's also dense, intimidating, and a bit ugly.  But if I had to make a serious guess it's the very low starting skills in RQ2 echoing down through the ages.  That game where you've got 15% to hit with a club.

RQ seemed to be a bigger hit in England than in the US. Outside of CoC, RQ didn't have the same distro in my neck of the woods, especially compared to D&D of course which was available in toy stores, etc.

Simply BRP isn't a game, it is a house system used for lots of games which individually are not always recognized as "BRP". It has also spun off numerous variants both licensed and compatible look alikes.


"BRP" games currently on the market:

Deluxe BRP - Chaosium (aka the Big Gold Book or the tool box). Honestly this is a terrible presentation of the system for the inexperienced. It is great resource for a GM but dry and not really newbie friendly. Tool kit is an apt description as it is about as exciting as looking for a 9/16 socket.

Runequest - Chaosium (the original Glorantha based game slightly tweaked from the original, still pending publication so changes not completely known).

Runequest Classic - Chaosium (2nd edition, aka "the real RQ" reprinted with errata corrections)

Mythras - The Design Mechanism (aka Runequest 6) Essentially the "directors cut" of Mongoose RQ

Legend - Mongoose (aka Mongoose RQ2)

Magic World - Chaosium, a simplified fantasy variant of the BRP rules (pdf only once the print run is depleted).

Call of Cthulhu - Chaosium, a simplified horror variant of the BRP rules.

Cthulhu Dark Ages - Chaosium, fantasy variant of CoC.

Openquest - D101 Games, a simplified variant of BRP rules with the serial numbers filed off (exists thanks to the Mongoose SRD).

The Company - D101 Games, modern combat game based on Openquest

River of Heaven - D101 Games, Sci fi based on Openquest

Renaissance - Cakebread & Walton, a historical / fantasy game system based on Openquest.

Clockwork & Chivalry - Cakebread & Walton, a steampunk game based on the Renaissance game system.

Pirates and Dragons - Cakebread & Walton, a fantasy pirate game based on the Renaissance game system.



I'm sure I've missed a few. Looks pretty popular to me, but this also gets to dansemacabre's point. Some are turned off by the seemingly endless branches of the family. In reality probably no worse than the dofferences between say GURPS (no optional rules) and GURPS (all optional rules) but lacks the uniformity of being under one roof.

I always felt like the ideal system for a Conan game is Runequest where you strip out the magic and replace it with the sanity and magic from CoC. Which is trivial to do...

Because most people don't like those things.  To most gamers the things you think make it perfect, they hate.

What are the major differences between Magic World vs. RQ 2e?

Also, what's the major differences between Magic World and OpenQuest?

Quote from: David Johansen;1011726But if I had to make a serious guess it's the very low starting skills in RQ2 echoing down through the ages.

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

But even RQ2 had the option for a pre-game experience to ramp up skills. AKA, the class that wasn't a class.  

However, I think the big problem with BRP is the slow combat and the squishy-ness of even experienced PCs.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

Most people like classes, levels, and inflating hit points?

Quote from: Voros;1011733RQ seemed to be a bigger hit in England than in the US.

RQ and CoC were both very popular in the UK in the early-mid 1980s at least, to the extent of RQ rivalling D&D in the pages of White Dwarf. As a 12 year old at boarding school, the games we played were (1) 1e AD&D (because 'Basic's for kids!') and (2) Call of Cthulu, early on I also ran the Fighting Fantasy RPG. CoC benefitted from a system simple enough anyone could use it, plus this left space for lots of great adventures in the hardback Games Workshop published. I think Runequest appealed to older players and I never got into it - later on (late 80s) at a different school, the games we played were (1) 1e AD&D (2) PARANOIA (3) d6 Star Wars.

Post-2e Runequest looked too complicated, and lost Glorantha and its flavour. Compared to D&D, generic systems like BRP or GURPS are never that popular - people tend to buy the genre I think, so threats to D&D dominance are "Call of Cthulu" or "Vampire: The Masquerade", not BRP or Storyteller System.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011770However, I think the big problem with BRP is the slow combat and the squishy-ness of even experienced PCs.

It might depend on which iteration/branch of the 'BRP family' you're playing but I don't find the combat to be particularly slow... certainly not compared to Pathfinder, which remains popular despite its crunch.

I think BRP IS popular, but it doesn't get talked up as much as some games. In part I think because its books (at least in the U.S.) haven't generally the same visual flair that something like Numenera or Symbaroum has. I'd much rather PLAY Mythras... but Symbaroum is more fun to look at.
Some people think its 'dry' because it isn't full of full color plates depicting wild action scenes.
Being pretty is very important to sales these days, if not to actual play.
The most recent version of CoC seems intent on addressing that, and it looks great... even though I'm not a fan of its mechanical changes and stick with boring old 5e.

I think RQ probably lost out to D&D for the simple reason that D&D was there first. Although the huge success of the Red Box may have sealed the deal.

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

Bingo.  Or perhaps more to the point, don't particularly mind them if they are in a game they otherwise enjoy.  I suspect most people have no preference on the question.  As an anecdote, my current gaming groups have around 15 different people in them.  There is one other person besides me that even has any demonstrated preference, even though most have played both.  I'm the only one that even lurks on gaming boards.  If I'm writing a game, it probably doesn't have classes, levels, or inflating hit points in it, because of my aesthetic preferences in design.  But I'm happy to run a game that has them, if it gets the job done.  The last time we considered running a BRP game (MRQ II), we didn't because it was too much of a particular type of work that I wasn't prepared to do at that time.

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

Yes?

I think Call of Cthulhu insanity system while true to Lovecraft books  also did not help in that regard. One or two bad sanity rolls and the character is nuttier than a peanut butter factory. Which for many was not fun. Going through the trouble of making a character only to have him be useless because of a bad save roll while true to the books did not translate to making players fans of the system.

The 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

Chaosium long years of mismanagement and missed opportunities they sat back on their collective behinds and imo did nothing to really try and get interest in their properties.

 
Yes most people like classes, levels, and inflating hit points. Given the popularity of D&D after all these years their is ample evidence of proof of that.

Quote from: danskmacabre;1011704The way RQ is (or whatever it's called now) atm, it simply doesn't interest me.. Too slow, too clunky, It just doesn't flow very well.
I have lots of old RQ stuff, mostly specific to Elric/Stormbringer stuff from 2nd ed, so I'll use that if I can get players for it.

FYI, Chaosium has regained the rights to RQ and has recently republished RuneQuest 2e (1979/1980 edition) and is soon releasing a new version of RQ that builds off RQ2, so the current edition is actually fairly simple and the next edition will also probably be fairly simple.

Analyzing the industry from a detached perspective, my response is mostly "D&D has been the big dog since the beginning. Only a few others have come close, and BRP isn't one of them (outside the UK)." More personally, I can only really say why it hasn't become my go-to game.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

With the exception of static hp, use-based skill progression and adaptability, this is a list of what BRP isn't, not what it is. And it's mostly a shorthand for saying that it isn't D&D. There are plenty of things which aren't D&D (or very similar takes, such as Pathfinder, Tunnels & Trolls, and Palladium).

The use-based skill progression is an interesting mechanic, and eliminates any navel-gazing on what behavior you the GM are supposed to be rewarding. But it also means you are eliminating rewarding behavior (because people hate that right up until it is gone), and is just as gamable as anything else (instead of issues of murderhobo/burglarhobo-ing or cowtowing to the GM's idea of what you are supposed to be doing in the game, you are gaming opportunity to roll your skills under minimally threatening circumstances).

Static hitpoints are an enigma to me. I understand why people prefer the idea. However, the entire system has to be done really really well, or else they create just as many problems as they eliminate. Whitewolf/World of Darkness is a good example of a failstate: everyone has 7 health levels (I think, it's been 20-ish years now since I played), and then the pacing mechanism between full health and death is mediated through the dodge and health+armor damage resistance (soaking) mechanism. But then there's "aggravated damage" which ignores the damage resistance, so the game becomes a rocket-tag/race to see who can get a 7pt. aggravated damage shot off. You can play the game, but how it's better than D&D-style hp is not clear to me. WEG Star Wars was the opposite direction where you could game the dodge and resistance mechanics (that you kind of need if you don't vary the hp) to make nearly invincible characters. So, while I like the theory of static hitpoints, saying, 'come play ____, it has static hit points' isn't really a selling point in and of itself.

And adaptability, well, GURPS and Champion/HERO kind of won the marketing game on selling themselves as the adaptable games.

So really, my point is that BRP needs a pitch on why it should be the game people choose. And the three things you mentioned as what it is (as opposed to what it is not) don't really finish the sale for me. The number one reason why I play BRP (well, CoC) is because it's a pre-made way to play in a Cthullu-mythos game setting, which is the opposite of adaptable.

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

Or, more people have already experienced D&D and it's easier to join or start a game of that? BRP is not something you find without looking for it. Most people likely have never heard of it, much less tried it and decided, "Whoa, I prefer classes and levels!"

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1011811Bingo.  Or perhaps more to the point, don't particularly mind them if they are in a game they otherwise enjoy.  I suspect most people have no preference on the question.  

Well, the great majority of CRPGs (Skyrim, Diablo etc) seem to have levels & inflating hit points, I think probably the majority have classes too. MMMORPGs certainly do. This seems to support the idea that these are popular, and it's clear why - they give structure, plus clear rewards for play.

Quote from: Naburimannu;1011812Yes?

And so BRP is not more popular.

Quote from: Voros;1011787I think RQ probably lost out to D&D for the simple reason that D&D was there first. Although the huge success of the Red Box may have sealed the deal.

RQ2 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.  Additionally, Chaosium themselves failed to put out any new material supporting the game for a decade, only republishing their RQ2 material.

Basically, it's business issues that doomed the game.  My experience is that most people really liked the simplicity and straight-forward approach of BRP games when they're exposed to them. It's simply that they had no market presence for a couple of decades, outside of CoC, so they got left behind.

Really, 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.*

* Yeah, OD&D, B/X D&D, etc. are all faster, but those are in the dustbin of history for people who aren't old grognards like myself! ;)

Quote from: Dumarest;1011821Or, more people have already experienced D&D and it's easier to join or start a game of that?

D&D definitely benefits from a network effect. But that does not make it invincible - 2e lost out to Vampire when 2e was seen as archaic and clunky. 4e lost out to Pathfinder. My Meetup is dominated by D&D again now, it helps that it's "The D&D Meetup" and people turn up with their 5e PHBs expecting to play that game. But it helps even more that 5e is a decent game, and that it does a wide variety of D&D styles well.

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.......

I'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.

Quote from: S'mon;1011822Well, the great majority of CRPGs (Skyrim, Diablo etc) seem to have levels & inflating hit points, I think probably the majority have classes too. MMMORPGs certainly do. This seems to support the idea that these are popular, and it's clear why - they give structure, plus clear rewards for play.

I suspect this is familiarity more than anything.  D&D had classes and levels and escalating hp, so early online games copied that structure, so everyone expects those.  It's simple reinforcing.  Basically people tend to like what they're familiar with, and tend not to think too much outside that box.  (This is kind of a marking 101 concept here, so nothing too grand conceptually. ;) )

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.

Sure, but that isn't complexity and time-handling, which was the complaint. I completely understand the complaint about high whiff factors.  That makes sense.  Really, I completely understand that RQ is poor match for those who want lots of combat in their RPG.  It really isn't geared for that.  

OTOH, early D&D really isn't much better for combat-focused play out-of-the-box.

EDIT:  RQ6/Mythras has a combat system that is geared to break away from the whiff-factor with a combination of higher default skills, lower AP values, and the various maneuvers that attackers choose after they see their results.  It works quite well for making combat more engaging for those who are willing to deal with extra overhead.....and still far, far faster than any kind of modern D&D.

Quote from: sureshot;1011815I think Call of Cthulhu insanity system while true to Lovecraft books  also did not help in that regard. One or two bad sanity rolls and the character is nuttier than a peanut butter factory. Which for many was not fun. Going through the trouble of making a character only to have him be useless because of a bad save roll while true to the books did not translate to making players fans of the system.

That's the kind of nonsense you only hear from people who have never played CoC or from people who are trying to make the game sound more hardcore than it is in a sad belief that it will make them seem badass for playing. Losing sanity in CoC is actually a pretty slow decline.

That aside, given the long-lasting popularity of Call of Cthulhu, more than any other BRP game over decades, saying that CoC is the thing keeping BRP down is quite a claim. It is the game that has consistently kept the system in print.

QuoteWe live in the real world. We play rpgs to escape it

Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize you spoke collectively for everyone. Thanks for letting us know what we think. I'd been under the impression that there were a lot of differing tastes out there.

QuoteChaosium long years of mismanagement and missed opportunities they sat back on their collective behinds and imo did nothing to really try and get interest in their properties.

I'll agree with this. Chaosium completely managed to damage RQ enormously with the third edition in a number of ways. They largely went dormant in the mid-90s with Call of Cthulhu leaving Pagan Publishing to keep the game alive. The most recent edition of CoC with its Kickstarter. Dividing the fanbase again with ending RQ6. Chaosium has often been BRP's worst enemy.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1011834Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize you spoke collectively for everyone. Thanks for letting us know what we think. I'd been under the impression that there were a lot of differing tastes out there.

This is a discussion about why X isn't more popular. The premise of the thread has inherent in it that we are pontificating on what we think the overall mindset of a collective of people who we are only one example of and why they are making the decisions they are. If you disagree that we play rpgs to escape the real world we live in, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to dispute, but Sureshot is doing nothing out of the ordinary or appropriate for the thread premise.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

D20s aren't used. Skills (WTF!)? No cool classes. BRP is better run as a computer game than run manually on paper.

And D&D was first.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1011811Bingo.  Or perhaps more to the point, don't particularly mind them if they are in a game they otherwise enjoy.  I suspect most people have no preference on the question.  As an anecdote, my current gaming groups have around 15 different people in them.  There is one other person besides me that even has any demonstrated preference, even though most have played both.  I'm the only one that even lurks on gaming boards.  If I'm writing a game, it probably doesn't have classes, levels, or inflating hit points in it, because of my aesthetic preferences in design.  But I'm happy to run a game that has them, if it gets the job done.  The last time we considered running a BRP game (MRQ II), we didn't because it was too much of a particular type of work that I wasn't prepared to do at that time.

Quoted for everlovin' motherfuckin' truth.  Most people just don't care.

I would say branding is a big part of the answer.  When I play any RPG, to the rest of the world I'm "playing D&D."  Also Dungeons & Dragons is a good name, "BRPs" "MERPs" and "GURPS" kinda suck.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1011707A fair question. I think if you take it in the narrow way you asked it (i.e., about the BRP system, rather than the various BRP family of games) there is a good answer: They landed in a kind of uncanny valley between a truly generic system (like GURPS) and a distinctive, flavorful, but setting specific system (like Runequest, Pendragon or Ars Magica). The end result doesn't really satisfy people looking for either thing, and so it can't compete in the crowded marketplace of hundreds and hundreds of published game systems we have to chose from.

I think the greatest structural weakness of BRP is its magic system, which is basically lifted from spirit magic for Runequest, with almost no growth in the spell list over decades. Runequest spirit magic is great for Runequest, but provides a very narrow view of what magic can be in a fantasy system. It is pretty frustrating to try running a fantasy world with medieval alchemists or necromancers or some other juicy magical archetype and find your spell list doesn't really support anything beyond bumping up the damage for a mace, etc.

I played in a RuneQuest  campaign in the Nineties that used the magic system from my Glory Road Roleplay game, along with Glorianthan rune magic. They seemed to fit pretty well together. I told the GM that the GRR spells would be too powerful for the system and setting but it didn't work out that way. From what I remember, he did edit the spell lists a bit. The spells are available as pay what you want, meaning free, on DrivethruRPG.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1011834That aside, given the long-lasting popularity of Call of Cthulhu, more than any other BRP game over decades, saying that CoC is the thing keeping BRP down is quite a claim. It is the game that has consistently kept the system in print.

Learn to read. I never said the entire set of rules of COC is what keeps people away from playing BRP. It's the sanity system. Many people don't want to run the risk of losing a character to insanity.  Even if it is a slow process. I think it's a bad assumption on their part and it seems to have colored some in the hobby opinion of the rpg and BRP to some extent. For many their introduction to BRP was through COC> I don't personally agree with it. I can respect it. Not everyone has the same tastes I do in rpgs and that's not a bad thing.

Quote from: Baulderstone;1011834Oh. Sorry. I didn't realize you spoke collectively for everyone. Thanks for letting us know what we think. I'd been under the impression that there were a lot of differing tastes out there.

Oh. Sorry. I did not realize I needed to spell everything out on a large sheet of paper in wax crayon. I never said I spoke for everyone.

It's a thread about people opinions on why they think BRP is not more popular. Read the title of the thread next time before acting like a rpg gamer stereotype and lashing out at those who dare to criticize your beloved rpg.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1011837This is a discussion about why X isn't more popular. The premise of the thread has inherent in it that we are pontificating on what we think the overall mindset of a collective of people who we are only one example of and why they are making the decisions they are. If you disagree that we play rpgs to escape the real world we live in, that's a perfectly reasonable thing to dispute, but Sureshot is doing nothing out of the ordinary or appropriate for the thread premise.

Tell me about. Then again I'm used to it. It comes with the hobby. It's OK to critique a person rpg or company when they don't like either or. Don't you dare critique the rpg or company if they like it. It's rpg gamer hypocrisy at it's finest. I admit to having behaved that way myself. I freely admit to being mistaken at first on how insanity works.

Two other things which have hurt BRP and this is only my opinion

Just in case some think I'm speaking for everyone in the hobby.

Rpg gamers are notoriously cheap and afraid of change. They usually want to play a rpg they are both familiar and comfortable with. Any rpgs outside of that comfort zone tend to get ignored. As well they expect to buy tomorrow gaming today at yesterday prices. "what do you mean core rpg book XYZ cost more than 40$+. I remember buying the same book back in 1988 for 25-30$". So while they maybe more than willing to learn BRP they won't pay to do so.

For better or worse D&D and to a certain extent World of Darkness games have a huge brand recognition. More often than not one can find someone in the hobby having played one or the other or both. CoC not as often and they usually associate BRP with COC. That is purely my anecdotal experience.

truth, i think that there are a lot of little factors. I think the big one has been the... um... uneven management of the brand. If any of the factors are not little, it's that one. It's done very little to adapt the game, to change the message, to alter the image. I mean, I love the damn thing, but even the new version of runequest is staying with the iconic cover image with very little actual change - at least the mythras one changed the facing, the weapon, the monster type (though not the intent) and the lighting. This leaves it with a very grognard sort of feel to it, and a lack of excitement for folks.

then there are all of the little factors like a lack of pre-done archetypes (i.e. classes), all of the skills, poor communication of what impact improvement does (i.e. leveling), and so on.

and, lets face it, generic systems just don't do as well.

Quote from: Raleel;1011888and, lets face it, generic systems just don't do as well.

I feel like both GURPS and Champions/HERO System had their moment in the sun, just one that ended last century.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011770What are the major differences between Magic World vs. RQ 2e?

Also, what's the major differences between Magic World and OpenQuest?




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

But even RQ2 had the option for a pre-game experience to ramp up skills. AKA, the class that wasn't a class.  

However, I think the big problem with BRP is the slow combat and the squishy-ness of even experienced PCs.

I 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

Quote from: Bren;1011708One reason BRP seems a lot less widespread than D&D is because Runequest, Basic Role -Playing,  Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder (including Superworld and Magic World), Elfquest, Hawkmoon, Ringworld are each labeled as a different game though they share very, very similar systems whereas the many iterations of D&D, some of which are not very similar to some other version, are all labeled Dungeons & Dragons.

You forgot King Arthur Pendragon from the list.

Also if you want to go 3PP, OpenQuest,Myhtras, Rennaisance, Clockwork & Civalry, Pirates & Dragons, just to add a few more.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1011858I would say branding is a big part of the answer.  When I play any RPG, to the rest of the world I'm "playing D&D."  Also Dungeons & Dragons is a good name, "BRPs" "MERPs" and "GURPS" kinda suck.

Nailed it. No matter what RPG I am running or playing my explanations to non-gamers go nowhere until I say the magic words, "it's like D&D" then the light goes on.

D&D is generic for RPG, in the same way that "Band-aid" is for "adhesive bandage", "Kleenex" is for "disposable paper tissue", and "Kool-aid" is for "highly sweetened flavoured drink mix".  Product quality does't even enter into it. It's brand name recognition.

Quote from: sureshot;1011867Learn to read. I never said the entire set of rules of COC is what keeps people away from playing BRP. It's the sanity system. Many people don't want to run the risk of losing a character to insanity.  Even if it is a slow process. I think it's a bad assumption on their part and it seems to have colored some in the hobby opinion of the rpg and BRP to some extent. For many their introduction to BRP was through COC> I don't personally agree with it. I can respect it. Not everyone has the same tastes I do in rpgs and that's not a bad thing.

For my player group the possibility of having a character go insane is one of the biggest draws of CoC!!

I am pretty sure Chaosium has been trying to make BRP more generic in recent years. They released a BRP rulebook a while ago and many of the generic BRP sourcebooks are recycling mechanics from the brand name games. Not to mention the half-dozen or so d100 clones. There are almost a thousand products on OneBookShelf labeled as compatible with BRP.

Quote from: K Peterson;957383Dig around BRPCentral and you'll find some lists and 'family trees' that show an 'evolutionary' path of which product spawned which product, as well as edition timelines. Here are a couple of links: RQ Geneaology (https://basicroleplaying.org/topic/4245-rq-genealogy/#comment-65820), BRP Family Tree (https://s3.amazonaws.com/brpcentral-uploads/monthly_2015_10/Diapositiva1.JPG.c955a8997ef7598ded20146414cbf0c4.JPG)

Why hasn't Chaosium instituted some kind of d100 license or something? Do we really gain something from dozens of rulebooks duplicating the same rules?

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. :p

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? (http://www.costik.com/randomness-blight-or-bane.htm) 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? (http://www.costik.com/randomness-blight-or-bane.htm) 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.

[/SIZE]

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.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011956D10 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.

Yeah when I ran Stormbringer in the 80s and 90s, the players were pretty happy with it being a given your character at some stage would probably die a horrible death and knowing there were no Resurrections or much of healing either. It helped we were all Michael Moorcock fans and read most of his books. :)
Fun times and yeah they tended to be CoC players as well.

Regarding CoC.  I never really cared either way about the system, I just loved the RPG and setting.  Basically if you got into a combat in CoC, it's likely you'd be in a bad way and if you got to a combat, it's likely you did something wrong.
TBH, I never did a lot of dice rolling or had a need to understand the CoC game mechanics that much.  It was 90% RP really with the system vaguely in the background, which for that type of RPG is great.

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

Yeah, anybody who bitches about the sanity mechanic in CoC has never read Lovecraft.

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.

HERO is another that has been impacted by questionable business decisions. First there was the near death of the game in the late 1990s (and the poorly received Fuzion system). Then a fairly successful revival in 2002 which was pretty remarkable considering that the game had been dormant around 5 years.
The timing and roll out of 6th edition was poorly handled across the board. They fractured the small but fanatical fan base and then failed to follow up with new product to support the new edition (most 6th ed products were just recycled 5th ed products). To top it off the new edition did little to draw in new blood as it looked even more intimidating than the prior edition. Last their timing was impeccable, they introduced an expensive RPG product just as the economy crashed.

Strangely GURPS did almost the same thing at about the same time although I think the 3rd / 4th split in the fan base was less damaging as GURPS hadn't gone through two prior splits and most agreed the game needed some revision (at least a good soild edit to round up all the optional rules).

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1011820Static hitpoints are an enigma to me. I understand why people prefer the idea. However, the entire system has to be done really really well, or else they create just as many problems as they eliminate. Whitewolf/World of Darkness is a good example of a failstate: everyone has 7 health levels (I think, it's been 20-ish years now since I played), and then the pacing mechanism between full health and death is mediated through the dodge and health+armor damage resistance (soaking) mechanism. But then there's "aggravated damage" which ignores the damage resistance, so the game becomes a rocket-tag/race to see who can get a 7pt. aggravated damage shot off. You can play the game, but how it's better than D&D-style hp is not clear to me. WEG Star Wars was the opposite direction where you could game the dodge and resistance mechanics (that you kind of need if you don't vary the hp) to make nearly invincible characters. So, while I like the theory of static hitpoints, saying, 'come play ____, it has static hit points' isn't really a selling point in and of itself.

This is a great analysis, and I wanted to expound on it with some thoughts of my own. Most RPG combat mechanics can be sorted into three types: (1) games where defense is static regardless of character experiences, (2) games where character experience improves defense improves by making you harder to hit, and (3) games where character experience improves defense improves by making you harder to kill once you're hit. Type 1 games include Cyberpunk 2020, Recon, and Traveller. Type 2 games include Mekton, Savage Worlds, and D6 Star Wars. Type 3 games include most variants of D&D. Some games are hybrids. For instance, in both Cyberpunk 2020 and Traveller, ranged combat is Type 1 (defense is static) while melee combat is Type 2 (defense increases with character skill). In 4E D&D, it's a Type 2 / 3 hybrid, as AC and hit points both increase with level. But the general theory holds.

I have found that "firefight simulationists" prefer Type 1 combat, and everyone else basically prefers Type 3. The answer to why is math. Consider the following:

Type 1 System) I have a 20% chance to hit you. When I hit you, I will kill you. It will take me 5 rounds to kill you, on average.
Type 3 System) I have a 50% chance to hit you. Each time I hit you, I will do 1d3 damage. You have 5 hit points. It will take me 5 rounds to kill you, on average.
Both systems yield a fight that lasts an average of 5 rounds.

But in actual play, the Type 1 system is very swingy, and four out of five combat rounds, I have accomplished nothing. Conversely, the Type 3 system is much more predictable. At last half the time, I'm actually doing something useful, attritting my opponent. The same applies when viewed from the defender's perspective. In a Type 1 system, I can do everything right, be winning, and then just get splattered. In a Type 3 system, I have a sense of control and time to think.

When you consider that RPGs are played in groups, each player both values his moment in the spotlight, and also wants to contribute to the team effort. It is much more satisfying on a consistent basis to feel that you have contributed by attritting the target, then to feel that you simply have wasted your turn with yet-another-miss.

A Type 2 system, in practice, plays like a Type 1 system on steroids - that is, if defender skill makes you harder to hit, then the odds of hitting are actually *lower* than they are with a realistic simulation of combat; they have to be, or the heroes can't survive heroically.

In the most popular Type 2 systems, the game designers have implicitly fallen back on a Type 3 combat by introducing an attritable, hp-like mechanism to help heroes land blows (against unrealistic odds of doing so) or survive (if they can get hit too easily). For instance, Mekton had Maneuver Points and Luck Points, Star Wars had Character Points and Force Points, and Savage Worlds had Bennies. In all those games, given relatively even combatants, combat is really about attriting the other side's "fudge points"; whoever runs out of Maneuver Points/Luck Points/Character Points/Force Points/Bennies first loses the battle.

BRP and its ilk have tended to be either pure Type 1 games or pure Type 2 games and hence players who enjoy Type 3 combat (which is most of them) simply don't find it to their taste.

The theoretical solution to the Type 2 problem is to create a system where damage scales in proportion to the extent to which offensive skill exceeds defensive skill, so that fights between equal combatants are attritional and drawn out while fights between unequal opponents end quickly. Feng Shui did this very well. BRP tries, and I admire the elegance of their solution, but its implementation (20%/5% attack crits versus 20%/5% defender parries) tends to be too mathematical for most players.

Quote from: Bren;1011912I guess once again it's that booger eating moron problem to which you are so fond of referring.

More like "tautological statement is tautological."  If more people liked BRP, it would be more popular.

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.

That's an awesome analogy and I'm going to steal it for later use.
Type 2 combat = soccer
Type 3 combat = gridiron football

Has anyone played BRP in a science fiction RPG?

What was the player response?

Quote from: danskmacabre;1011966Regarding CoC.  I never really cared either way about the system, I just loved the RPG and setting.

I suspect most CoC fans would agree with you.

My RQ and Stormbringer crew were all CoC fans, but many of my CoC players would not play BRP fantasy. For them, fantasy was D&D.

BRP had a huge impact in the swedish rpg hobby in the 80's, 90' and 00's.

DRAKAR OCH DEMONER (dragons and demons). First version released in 1982 as a translation of BRP Magic World from Worlds of Wonder. This was our "D&D" for a very long time.To keep it to titles released for the international market, It spawned:

MUTANT (after Mutant:Year Zero it does not use BRP anymore but the earlier versions did)

MUTANT CHRONICLES 1ed & 2ed (the rules were based of Drakar och Demoner and Mutant.)

SYMBAROUM  (started out as "trying to do BRP right" but became its own thing).

KULT (  kind of a derivative of another BRP derivative. Kind of shows how the rpg designers in  the hobby tried to move away from the DoD legacy, but still beholden to it's influence.) Kult tried very hard to actually live up to the D&D-panic in the 80's ( and did spawn its own panic in the 90's.) . Very much a  pure distillation of the 1990's grimdark thrope.

TRUDVANG CHRONICLES ( derived quite a bit from its origin. Officially known as Drakar och Demoner Trudvang in swedish)

GEMINI (largely forgotten, but a real dark fantasy gem. The rules were were heavily derived by Drakar och Demoner and I guess Ars Magica.)

Stormbringer 1e, Type 2 on 'roid rage turned to eleven!  Seriously, get a sorcerer who can create demon armour and weapons especially with combatants who have high skills, and the only thing that will hit will be criticals, which will ignore armour, do massive damage and essentially turn the poor fool hit to jelly. If both sides have demonic equipment the fight will deadlock until one rolls a critical attack against which the other fails to roll a critical defense. The likelyhood of this happening gets smaller as the skill numbers get bigger.  Unless someone pulls a sneaky trick.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011985Has anyone played BRP in a science fiction RPG?

What was the player response?

I did a one shot mining colony on Io near-future space-investigators vs mi-go thingy once. It was inspired by the movie, Outland, with Sean Connery.  It was cool. People died horrifically or went mad, and great fun was had by all.  I never tried it for a more long-term sci-fi campaign though.

Quote from: Bren;1011915....watching Soccer vs American football...

If I have this analogy straight, then Americans should really like D&D and everyone else should absolutely love RQ, correct? ;)

QuoteThere is an interesting presentation by Greg Costikyan called, Randomness: Blight or Bane? (http://www.costik.com/randomness-blight-or-bane.htm) 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.

That's all fine, but really I was only discussing the complaints about RQ somehow being slower in combat than any modern form of D&D, which is frankly nonsense (having a fair amount of experience with both).

Personal preference is perfectly fine.  Actually, I quite like OD&D combat, a lot in fact.  It and RQ are both pretty tactical by design, but with fairly different takes on it.  (Modern D&D is also pretty tactical but in a totally different way.)

QuoteBy 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.

This is only true if you see strategy as something that happens after you start rolling the dice.  The strategic parts of both RQ and OD&D are almost entirely based on actions that proceed any actual die rolls.  At the time you start rolling the dice, both are down to mostly luck.  They function differently and have a different feel, so naturally different people will appreciate each.  I'd also note that both are equally distant in how they function and feel from modern D&D, which is what I was comparing against initially.

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...

Pendragon is one of the few Chaosium games I've never read or played.  Does it do skill vs. skill, winner gets a hit?  We actually implemented that in RQ for a while in the 90s and it worked pretty well.  It's pretty easy to map combat to the Resistance Table.

Quote from: Madprofessor;1011946...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.

Same here.  That modernization of RQ combat is a good idea for people want more combat actions, but it's heavier than I like to deal with.  Personally, I'm perfectly happy with old RQ2/BRP.  It works fine and moves about as fast as anything that isn't OD&D.  This the same reason I'd veto any idea of playing any D&D outside of OD&D.....well, I can be talked into 5e, but it moves slower than Mythras in actual play experience as it has more options.  (As always with D&D this does largely depend on the levels of the characters, I realize.)

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011985Has anyone played BRP in a science fiction RPG?

What was the player response?

We played Ringworld a little bit back in the day.  It has some weird, unique rules to BRP, so those can skew some things.  For example, it expands the simple SR system into an AP system without rounds, which was simply tedious in actual execution - I'd opt for DEX order initiative if I revisited it.  

Anyhow, it worked pretty well for SF.  One of the fun things about it is that it used the hit location system from RQ.  Most weapons instantly vaporize anything they hit.  With hit locations, this is generally a limb.  Toss the PC in an autodoc and they regrow the limb by the next adventure.  Only head hits (maybe other torso - been a while!) actually resulted in death.  A lower tech approach would probably present issues since weapons are vary damaging and healing wouldn't be quite so magical.

Quote from: RMS;1012009Pendragon is one of the few Chaosium games I've never read or played.  Does it do skill vs. skill, winner gets a hit?  We actually implemented that in RQ for a while in the 90s and it worked pretty well.  It's pretty easy to map combat to the Resistance Table.

 magical.

Yes, that is more or less how it works but there are some nuanced details that are also important. The person who rolls highest on 1d20 while also rolling under their skill level wins. A roll equal to your skill level is a critical success. If your skill level is less than 20, a natural 20 is a fumble. If your skill level is greater than 20, you add the difference to your roll, and all roll totals greater than 20 count as 20 and are critical successes. If both combatants get a critical success, they cancel. It is a system that works super well for people having skill levels between ~5 and 25. When skill level approaches 40 (automatic critical on every roll) it starts to get janky. But that is really a white-room sort of problem - PC's don't develop skills that high.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1012015Yes, that is more or less how it works but there are some nuanced details that are also important. The person who rolls highest on 1d20 while also rolling under their skill level wins. A roll equal to your skill level is a critical success. If your skill level is less than 20, a natural 20 is a fumble. If your skill level is greater than 20, you add the difference to your roll, and all roll totals greater than 20 count as 20 and are critical successes. If both combatants get a critical success, they cancel. It is a system that works super well for people having skill levels between ~5 and 25. When skill level approaches 40 (automatic critical on every roll) it starts to get janky. But that is really a white-room sort of problem - PC's don't develop skills that high.

Does damage and armor work similarly to other BRP games?

It sounds like the HeroQuest mastery system would fix the high skill problem if you wanted higher powers.  In fact, it sounds like the HQ resolution system is a direct evolution of this.

Pendragon is my favourite of the BRP derived systems but it is close to my number one game period.

Quote from: sureshot;1011867Learn to read. I never said the entire set of rules of COC is what keeps people away from playing BRP. It's the sanity system. Many people don't want to run the risk of losing a character to insanity.  Even if it is a slow process. I think it's a bad assumption on their part and it seems to have colored some in the hobby opinion of the rpg and BRP to some extent...

As Baulderstone says actual insanity is pretty rare, in my CoC games most Investigators ended up dead long before they'd go insane.

CoC has to be among the most popular RPG systems of all time so I doubt your idea that insanity turned people off. I remember coming to CoC after years of D&D and I and my friends felt the high lethality and insanity were very much what made the game both fun and effective as a horror game.

Quote from: JeremyR;1011960Beyond 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.

Good analysis, yup. D&D hit points work well for heroic play. BRP hit points work great for gritty & horror play.

However, only D&D can do the transition thing where the movie starts with characters being mown down right and left (like the Klendathu Drop in Starship Troopers) but the survivors level up and gain greatly increased life expectancy.

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

Yes.  Because those are 'tangible' rewards.  They are the game in Role Playing Game.  It's basic psychology.

Quote from: Bren;1011708One reason BRP seems a lot less widespread than D&D is because Runequest, Basic Role -Playing,  Call of Cthulhu, Stormbringer, Worlds of Wonder (including Superworld and Magic World), Elfquest, Hawkmoon, Ringworld are each labeled as a different game though they share very, very similar systems whereas the many iterations of D&D, some of which are not very similar to some other version, are all labeled Dungeons & Dragons.

This.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1011978HERO is another that has been impacted by questionable business decisions. First there was the near death of the game in the late 1990s (and the poorly received Fuzion system). Then a fairly successful revival in 2002 which was pretty remarkable considering that the game had been dormant around 5 years.
The timing and roll out of 6th edition was poorly handled across the board. They fractured the small but fanatical fan base and then failed to follow up with new product to support the new edition (most 6th ed products were just recycled 5th ed products). To top it off the new edition did little to draw in new blood as it looked even more intimidating than the prior edition. Last their timing was impeccable, they introduced an expensive RPG product just as the economy crashed.

Strangely GURPS did almost the same thing at about the same time although I think the 3rd / 4th split in the fan base was less damaging as GURPS hadn't gone through two prior splits and most agreed the game needed some revision (at least a good soild edit to round up all the optional rules).

Pretty much agree with above. I will say this both Gurps and Hero failed to release a new edition that would attract new blood into both systems imo. For some odd reason bought thought it was simply a matter better production values. Full color, hardcover, glossy paper and that's all it takes. When some expected either more rules light or at least some kind of major change. Many who used to play both no longer wanted to deal with the complexity and crunchiness especially when we have more rules lights options available. When both companies focus only on their fanbase and do nothing to bring in new fans or older dissatisfied fans it's not a recipe for success imo. Or if it is a success it's with rpgs like D&D and White Wolf rpgs. Those rpgs have a large enough fanbase to support editions that see little to no change. As I said if Gurps did not have Munchkin they would probably be in the same situation like Hero Games. It took almost five years or was it longer to FINALLY get the out of print 6E books on Drivethrurpg. It's one thing to no longer produce new books it's another to have the older books out of print, expensive to buy on Amazon etc the first book of the 6E core was going for 150+$. If it was me running the show first thing I would is make sure my 6E books would be available for POD. It's kind of hard to sell the Hero System when both the 5E and 6E core are both out of print and expensive to buy second hand. Even with PDF both 6E books are between 750-800 pages. It's the type of book where I prefer print because of it's size.

As for the economy tanking it played a part yet somehow even with that happening some not only survive yet also thrived during that time. It's too easy to use the economy as a reason for some rpg companies in trouble. More often than not when rpg companies use that as a reason it feels less like a reason and more as a excuse. A big parts to me at least and imo is the days of a rpg group putting up with major flaws in a rpgs are over. What I mean when it comes to Hero and Gurps why put up with with the complexity and crunchiness when other more rules light and less complex exist. Same reason why Palladium books is also just surviving and not thriving is Kevin is not fixing any flaws of the system. So the fans have moved on. What's worse with Palladium is nothing wrong with the core rules yet the guy who developed those rules plays a houseruled version of his own rules at cons. Yet their is nothing wrong with the rules.

Quote from: sureshot;1012118A big parts to me at least and imo is the days of a rpg group putting up with major flaws in a rpgs are over. What I mean when it comes to Hero and Gurps why put up with with the complexity and crunchiness when other more rules light and less complex exist.

Complexity and crunchiness aren't 'flaws' though, just style/taste... and I'd rather try to teach GURPS than Pathfinder.
So much comes down to fashion and marketing.... and people sticking with what's familiar... much more than what might be objectively better/worse about the rules.

The most popular RPGs in the world are The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, World of Warcraft, and The  Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nothing tabletop comes close, so if you're wanting to know why the D&Disms dominate you had better look at videogame design and not the backwater of tabletop RPGs. They're making bank doing the same sort of design work that tabletop folks do, especially the WOW dev team, and then they turn it into something people actually want to shell out real money for on the regular and play for hours on end. If you're not paying attention to that scene, then your opinion on why X is more popular than Y in RPG design doesn't mean shit- and yes, for most tabletop RPG publishers, they are STILL better off junking their not-D&Ds and just reskinning/tweaking D&D to do what they want, and then charging real money for it. FFG gets away with it, and so can you.

Classes and levels are much more digestible for players than skill systems. Another thing benefiting class and level systems is that because D&D was the first blockbuster game that it created the language used around the games not only for the table top but computer gaming as well.

Quote Originally Posted by S'mon  View Post
Most people like classes, levels, and inflating hit points?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1012099Yes.  Because those are 'tangible' rewards.  They are the game in Role Playing Game.  It's basic psychology.

My players chase after experience points like they were candy. After every encounter they imediately want to know how many EXP they got. They can't wait to level up and unlock new k3wl pow3z.  The "game" is a big part of the fun for them. When I run a system like BRP which doesn't have those benchmark achievements, and doesn't provide the incremental rewards of watching the EXP meter climb it is just not as fun for them.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012136Quote Originally Posted by S'mon  View Post
Most people like classes, levels, and inflating hit points?



My players chase after experience points like they were candy. After every encounter they imediately want to know how many EXP they got. They can't wait to level up and unlock new k3wl pow3z.  The "game" is a big part of the fun for them. When I run a system like BRP which doesn't have those benchmark achievements, and doesn't provide the incremental rewards of watching the EXP meter climb it is just not as fun for them.

My players are similar to yours. I think online we see a lot of self wanking about how they are "telling deep and immersive stories" and all of that bullshit but when I have seen games played either at the store level or con level, usually they are about playing a game and having fun via the game: getting cool shit, more powerful, loot, whatever. The intelligentsia like to talk about storytelling because they usually don't actually play games but just talk about games they may or may not have read.

Quote from: Ulairi;1012137My players are similar to yours. I think online we see a lot of self wanking about how they are "telling deep and immersive stories" and all of that bullshit but when I have seen games played either at the store level or con level, usually they are about playing a game and having fun via the game: getting cool shit, more powerful, loot, whatever. The intelligentsia like to talk about storytelling because they usually don't actually play games but just talk about games they may or may not have read.

Stores and cons may be the bulk of your experience but I would suggest that there are gaming groups that do not meet in stores.

Quote from: Ulairi;1012132Classes and levels are much more digestible for players than skill systems.

Got something to back that up or just assuming your preferences must be true for everyone?

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;1012124...so if you're wanting to know why the D&Disms dominate you had better look at videogame design and not the backwater of tabletop RPGs.

That's the classic chicken-n-egg problem though isn't it?  D&D set the standard because it was first.  It became a massive fad and gained popularity, right before video games became very popular.  Video games took their cues on how to do things from D&D as it was already popular and well known.

So, is the fact that the approach is the most popular due strictly to D&D being first, or is really due strictly to people really preferring levels, classes, and all?  Of course, the reality is somewhere between, but the question of this  thread-drift is mostly about where reality lies between those.  I suspect it's pretty far toward the end of D&D was first - if Traveller or RuneQuest had been first, then I suspect video games and standard RPGs would have followed suit and stayed with skill-based.  (I do think something that handles increasing power would have followed, but we have plenty of examples of games that do exactly that.)

Hey, modern D&D (really started with 2e) is basically a merger between the two with classes, levels, and skills......lots and lots and lots of skills in some cases!  Someone mentioned WW games earlier in the thread and they're ostensibly skill-based, but really they have a class-like overlay, so something between is probably what most people want.

Quote from: David Johansen;1011726But if I had to make a serious guess it's the very low starting skills in RQ2 echoing down through the ages.  That game where you've got 15% to hit with a club.

I feel you're right.

In my experience I've had players recoil from CoC mechanics afterwards because of the massive whiff factor. And that's namely from % starting so low and GMs having difficulty adjudicating how to implement their rolls with mitigating +/-%. But it doesn't matter, first impressions are only everything so it becomes, "That game where you've got 15% to hit with a club."

Same whiff factor became an issue in DnD 5e design during its playtest phase as well. They decided to up the hit rate and bloat the HP. People wanna feel effective. Big money went into video games researching out the Skinner Box that'll make the medula oblongata spasm for that next treat. Simple manipulation of base desires works.

(Until it doesn't. And then you gotta chase the latest craze and discover what sort of stimulus nerve was satiated, and what forgotten one wasn't. Then you can guess why your customers became immune and are onto the next thing.)

CoC works because people like to watch things fall apart (like Jenga). So seeing PCs spiral out in an expected meat grinder is great for temporary kicks. Ask them to take that same system and "invest their stories!" into something that'll whiff a lot and then die suddenly? Nah, they'll play something else.

Just my observations.

Quote from: Ulairi;1012137My players are similar to yours. I think online we see a lot of self wanking about how they are "telling deep and immersive stories" and all of that bullshit but when I have seen games played either at the store level or con level, usually they are about playing a game and having fun via the game: getting cool shit, more powerful, loot, whatever. The intelligentsia like to talk about storytelling because they usually don't actually play games but just talk about games they may or may not have read.

How about completely cut out storytelling and forget all that side of it, and just look at roleplaying...you know the type of game it's supposed to be?  I can guarantee you there's people who actually play roleplaying games who just roleplay as their character without chasing level-ups or trying to craft some cool story.

Shocking I know...

Quote from: Dumarest;1012156Got something to back that up or just assuming your preferences must be true for everyone?

I think Ulairi's assumptions are the prevalent accepted truth when it comes to RPGs. It's not just about preferences. D&D 5e has, once again, taken precedence in the local cons here in Seattle. Pathfinder is still doing really well. When I run games at cons, I'm pulling teeth for players. I tend to run non-D&D games (GURPS being my preferred game currently).

These assumptions about the hobby/industry are not just about preferences, but observable sales figures and on-the-ground gaming.

D&D has been and remains the 800lb gorilla of our hobby. You can only assume that the format of levels, classes, and XP are more desirable than the alternative.

Quote from: S'mon;1012092However, only D&D can do the transition thing where the movie starts with characters being mown down right and left (like the Klendathu Drop in Starship Troopers) but the survivors level up and gain greatly increased life expectancy.

Well...yes and no.

If you look at some of Simon's tales about his RuneQuest campaign, they get pretty epic, but RQ assumes even "Fighters" are using magic of some type - that's the kind of setting it is.  In most forms of D&D, take away a Fighter's magic items, he's still able to whomp a lot of ass, but even with max HPs, his attrition rate will be terrible without a good AC, and/or healing of some type.

Granted, a D&D PC will always be more robust, no argument there, but give the BRP/RQ characters equivalent magical support and send them against BRP/RQ foes (who operate with the same lower percentage of HPs) and the level of foes you can fight are a lot more similar than you think.

Quote from: trechriron;1012182I think Ulairi's assumptions are the prevalent accepted truth when it comes to RPGs. It's not just about preferences. D&D 5e has, once again, taken precedence in the local cons here in Seattle. Pathfinder is still doing really well. When I run games at cons, I'm pulling teeth for players. I tend to run non-D&D games (GURPS being my preferred game currently).

These assumptions about the hobby/industry are not just about preferences, but observable sales figures and on-the-ground gaming.

D&D has been and remains the 800lb gorilla of our hobby. You can only assume that the format of levels, classes, and XP are more desirable than the alternative.

In other words, no. Should've saved yourself some typing.

Quote from: trechriron;1012182I think Ulairi's assumptions are the prevalent accepted truth when it comes to RPGs. It's not just about preferences. D&D 5e has, once again, taken precedence in the local cons here in Seattle. Pathfinder is still doing really well. When I run games at cons, I'm pulling teeth for players. I tend to run non-D&D games (GURPS being my preferred game currently).

These assumptions about the hobby/industry are not just about preferences, but observable sales figures and on-the-ground gaming.

D&D has been and remains the 800lb gorilla of our hobby. You can only assume that the format of levels, classes, and XP are more desirable than the alternative.

Sorry, brother, but that's just you being a frothing moron today.  Go have a Naked or V-8 or something. :D Another one of these, I'ma have Tenbones look at your Black Belt standing. :eek:

• D&D got there first.
• The entire fantasy rpg genres of cRPGs which are a billion dollar industry took their cues from D&D.
• D&D is the only RPG put out and controlled by a billion-dollar corporation.

If the "accepted truth" is more than steaming horseshit (which would be a near first in this hobby), then it's only because multiple generations have been shaped to consider it the "norm".

One of the guys I play with has a cousin from Chicago staying with him for the Holidays and visiting all the family in Norcal.  He's never played anything but D&D, started with Pathfinder for fuck's sake.  He's digging Mythras, loves the freedom of a skill-based system.  Is he some freak of nature, a random anomaly, or is it just the first time in his life he's ever even seen anything else but race and class?  Well, I know for a fact the second is true, you tell me about the first?

Quote from: trechriron;1012182I think Ulairi's assumptions are the prevalent accepted truth when it comes to RPGs. It's not just about preferences. D&D 5e has, once again, taken precedence in the local cons here in Seattle. Pathfinder is still doing really well. When I run games at cons, I'm pulling teeth for players. I tend to run non-D&D games (GURPS being my preferred game currently).

These assumptions about the hobby/industry are not just about preferences, but observable sales figures and on-the-ground gaming.

D&D has been and remains the 800lb gorilla of our hobby. You can only assume that the format of levels, classes, and XP are more desirable than the alternative.

I look at the games offered at cons near me and there are basically two choices. D&D, including Pathfinder, or Call of Cthulhu. Those games dominate the offerings. The guys from Pendelhaven will usually come and offer Fate of the Norns and there are a few other outliers. But D&D and CoC each out number all other games combined, and D&D out numbers CoC by quite a margin.

If I see RPGs in a store, other than an FLGS, it is Pathfinder or D&D 5e. Even our FLGS only carries those two, the rest is boardgames, miniatures, and Funco Pops and other nerd gear.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012203I look at the games offered at cons near me and there are basically two choices. D&D, including Pathfinder, or Call of Cthulhu. Those games dominate the offerings. The guys from Pendelhaven will usually come and offer Fate of the Norns and there are a few other outliers. But D&D and CoC each out number all other games combined, and D&D out numbers CoC by quite a margin.

If I see RPGs in a store, other than an FLGS, it is Pathfinder or D&D 5e. Even our FLGS only carries those two, the rest is boardgames, miniatures, and Funco Pops and other nerd gear.

Which tells us everything I said up above and nothing else.

Quote from: Dumarest;1012190In other words, no. Should've saved yourself some typing.

Forget your fiber supplement this morning?

Here's the basic problem:  Out of all the people that currently play D&D as their first choice, there's really no good, inexpensive way to measure how many:

1. Genuinely like classes and levels, whatever else that says about other things they like or dislike.
2. Don't care one way or the other--just play what is being offered.
3. Don't know about anything else.
4. Know about something else, but don't have opportunity to play it, even though it would be their preference.
5. Know about something else, and are actively avoiding it, i.e. prefer classes and levels from an informed opinion.
6. Pick based on marketing, branding, or similar, without really paying attention to what they actually enjoy the most.
7. It's mostly network effect.

You'll note quite a bit of overlap in those categories.  And then each one has nuances to it, such as--a network effect is powerful, but it requires a certain amount of traffic to stay viable.  That is, it will enhance the effect of existing preference, but it can't sustained itself in the face of active dislike.  A controlled study to find why people do what they do in gaming would be tough.  So mainly what people do is project their desires onto some slice of it.

Quote from: sureshot;1012118Pretty much agree with above. I will say this both Gurps and Hero failed to release a new edition that would attract new blood into both systems imo. For some odd reason bought thought it was simply a matter better production values. Full color, hardcover, glossy paper and that's all it takes. When some expected either more rules light or at least some kind of major change. Many who used to play both no longer wanted to deal with the complexity and crunchiness especially when we have more rules lights options available. When both companies focus only on their fanbase and do nothing to bring in new fans or older dissatisfied fans it's not a recipe for success imo. Or if it is a success it's with rpgs like D&D and White Wolf rpgs. Those rpgs have a large enough fanbase to support editions that see little to no change. As I said if Gurps did not have Munchkin they would probably be in the same situation like Hero Games. It took almost five years or was it longer to FINALLY get the out of print 6E books on Drivethrurpg. It's one thing to no longer produce new books it's another to have the older books out of print, expensive to buy on Amazon etc the first book of the 6E core was going for 150+$. If it was me running the show first thing I would is make sure my 6E books would be available for POD. It's kind of hard to sell the Hero System when both the 5E and 6E core are both out of print and expensive to buy second hand. Even with PDF both 6E books are between 750-800 pages. It's the type of book where I prefer print because of it's size.

As for the economy tanking it played a part yet somehow even with that happening some not only survive yet also thrived during that time. It's too easy to use the economy as a reason for some rpg companies in trouble. More often than not when rpg companies use that as a reason it feels less like a reason and more as a excuse. A big parts to me at least and imo is the days of a rpg group putting up with major flaws in a rpgs are over. What I mean when it comes to Hero and Gurps why put up with with the complexity and crunchiness when other more rules light and less complex exist. Same reason why Palladium books is also just surviving and not thriving is Kevin is not fixing any flaws of the system. So the fans have moved on. What's worse with Palladium is nothing wrong with the core rules yet the guy who developed those rules plays a houseruled version of his own rules at cons. Yet their is nothing wrong with the rules.

Agree, I only bring up the economy because it was just one more thing that hurt. I didn't follow GURPS as closely as HERO, but I suspect both would have weathered the changes better with a stronger economy and may have been unaffected by the economy had they continued to turn out less expensive supplemental books ($20-40) instead of making a major investment (for both players and company) in new core rules.

Another issue shared somewhat with BRP (BGB) is that a good generic game system doesn't really need splat books. When HERO and GURPS make major edition changes there really isn't much need for fans to follow, they have their game and they can continue to convert "splat books" from other sources as they have always done.

BRP as a system has always been able to fall back on the rest of the BRP family (RQ, CoC etc) for continued product support. I suspect many fans bought the BGB to get all the rules in one place but actually play one of the popular named variants.

Quote from: RMS;1012006If I have this analogy straight, then Americans should really like D&D and everyone else should absolutely love RQ, correct? ;)

Well D&D was invented in America and a number of people have said Runequest was much more popular in the UK than it was here. :D

Quote from: RMS;1012006This is only true if you see strategy as something that happens after you start rolling the dice.

No it really isn't. I don't know if you actually went through Costikyan entire presentation, but his point is that strategy has an increasing impact (is more responsible for victory) as the number of rolls required to get a win increases, so long as each roll contributes only a small amount to overall victory. Melee combat in OD&D follows that pattern. Melee combat in RQ doesn't follow it as well.

In OD&D,* each blow does a relatively small amount of damage compared to total hit points. For fighters the damage done is approximately the reciprocal of the target's level, i.e. damage done in one blow = 1/Level. So at 1st level damage = hit points, 2nd level = 1/2 hit points, 3rd level = 1/3 hit points, 4th level = 1/4 hit points, and so on.

In Runequest a robust human, even a highly skilled human, can be killed in a single blow. (Again we can assume normal weapon damage which is typically in the 1d6+1 or 1d8+1 range.) Due to special and critical hits that single blow can do significantly more damage.

QuoteAt the time you start rolling the dice, both are down to mostly luck.

Of course a lot of the strategic or tactical decisions occur before the first blow is struck, e.g. what to attack (and what not to attack), but it's only down mostly to luck after that if the advantage of good strategy doesn't persits (and it often does) and if the players cannot elect to withdraw or to change tactics to gain an advantage. And of course they can usually do either. The more incremental erosion of hit points in D&D melee combat, especially OD&D melee combat, makes it easier for a player to figure out if he is winning or losing in time to change tactics than does the more all or nothing nature of many RQ hits in combat.**


* It's still true in later versions of D&D, though the introduction of critical hits, shiny fighter powers, and such will lessen how= closely D&D matches the paradigm for how randomness impacts the weight of strategy in a victory.

** This discrepancy for RQ can be mitigated somewhat if the GM rolls dice in the open so that the players are able to gain more information about how skilled their opponent is and if magic has auditory or visual effects so that players are able to gain more information about how much magic their opponent has used. (Whether people at the table think that knowing what number their opponent rolled is better or worse for simulating combat is a separate question.)

Quote from: CRKrueger;1012185Granted, a D&D PC will always be more robust, no argument there, but give the BRP/RQ characters equivalent magical support and send them against BRP/RQ foes (who operate with the same lower percentage of HPs) and the level of foes you can fight are a lot more similar than you think.

There will still be a difference since larger numbers have a greater impact in RQ/BRP than they do in D&D.

Even a skilled combatant in RQ can (usually) only strike one blow per round and parry one blow per round. In D&D fighters may get more than 1 attack/round (even up to 1 attack per level per round in some versions) and they don't need to roll a parry since their active defense is subsumed in their hit points and their passive defense is their Armor Class which also tends to roughly scale with level. If you want to play a game where 1 guy can successfully defeat 10 (at least half-way competent) guys you don't want to use Runequest/BRP. You can get closer to the 1 vs. many if you have the multiple parries and ripostes that Stormbringer 1E allows. But even with that greater numbers will eventually tell unless your magic is so overpoweringly better than the other guys and even then a critical hit with an impaling arrow may still ruin the hero's day.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;1012124The most popular RPGs in the world are The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, World of Warcraft, and The  Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nothing tabletop comes close, so if you're wanting to know why the D&Disms dominate you had better look at videogame design and not the backwater of tabletop RPGs. They're making bank doing the same sort of design work that tabletop folks do, especially the WOW dev team, and then they turn it into something people actually want to shell out real money for on the regular and play for hours on end. If you're not paying attention to that scene, then your opinion on why X is more popular than Y in RPG design doesn't mean shit- and yes, for most tabletop RPG publishers, they are STILL better off junking their not-D&Ds and just reskinning/tweaking D&D to do what they want, and then charging real money for it. FFG gets away with it, and so can you.

Fantasy video games tend to follow D&D, move out of that genre though and you see other foundations. Fallout is closely related to GURPS (allegedly was going to outright use GURPS initially). Everybody talks about D&D as the 800lb gorilla, but that is for fantasy. Granted non-fantasy is a much smaller market share but class / level systems have never proved very successful outside of the fantasy genre.

If class / level is what most people want then why is it that class / level has seen so little success outside of fantasy? Shouldn't the most popular sci-fi and modern era games also be class / level based?


D&D has had so much better marketing than anything else few outside of the hobby even know anything else exists, so yes when somebody decides to check out this RPG thing there is a very good chance they will pick up D&D.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1012273(allegedly was going to outright use GURPS initially).

Not allegedly, as a fact. They made SPECIAL instead and to be honest I like that better.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1011985Has anyone played BRP in a science fiction RPG?

What was the player response?

Back in the day, I ran a Ringworld game that was well-received. It was kind of like a sci-fi Twilight 2000 or Morrow Project, in the sense that you start off with a huge tech advantage (usually), but have to deal with dwindling resources and such while trying to survive an unknown world. (And Ringworld is so huge that it's like a mega-setting, and that's putting it lightly.) I'm a little surprised I haven't run other BRP-based sci fi games, but sci-fi isn't a genre that I'm drawn to for RPGs.

BRP is my second-favorite system (after 70s to early 80s D&D). I tend to use it for pseudo-historical stuff or gritter fantasy stuff or modern stuff or very genre/world-specific stuff (like Young Kingdoms). And for horror/CoC, of course. I ran Superworld for a while, too, but found BRP a weird/quirky fit for superhero gaming.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1012273Fallout is closely related to GURPS (allegedly was going to outright use GURPS initially).

Fallout 1 used the GURPS system up until its release. Steve Jackson had a fit when he saw the game's intro video and terminated the GURPS license. The games mechanics had to be re-written that weekend. Panic time, basically.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1012309Fallout 1 used the GURPS system up until its release. Steve Jackson had a fit when he saw the game's intro video and terminated the GURPS license. The games mechanics had to be re-written that weekend. Panic time, basically.

and despite that rush I have to say I prefer the newer SPECIAL :)

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.

Sorry, Bren, but that's a faulty comparison:).
First, I have a much easier time telling who is winning and who is losing when I watch soccer. Mind you, I don't even like the damned game, and actually prefer watching rugby.
But cultural osmosis counts for a lot, and I have an easier time understanding soccer;).
Second, assuming that the GM doesn't tell us the HP of the opposition, I also have an easier time telling who is winning in d100-type games. Granted, it's Mythras and BRP proper I'm thinking about (and Maelstrom Domesday), where odds are good that you'd be generating a couple HP damage with a special vs a success in BRP, or a manoeuvre without damage in Mythras, or an extra attack in MD.

QuoteAnd 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? (http://www.costik.com/randomness-blight-or-bane.htm) 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.

And yet, if you follow that logic, strategy in BRP should have less impact.
However, from my personal observations, most people (myself very much included, unless I make a conscious effort) ignore strategy in D&D-style games with escalating HP, and really think about it in d100-style games with fixed hit points. It only becomes worse as D&D gets a higher level, while it should be the opposite according to the article you linked.
Tell me why it is so, and ask Kostikyan about it if you want. I'm just presenting you with the fact.

(The answer, at least for me and a couple others I've asked, is that strategy in BRP-style games has a bigger effect on the opponent, too. When all your ambush achieves is removing a few HP out of scores of them, most people go "we might as well not bother". When it can remove 1d8 hp out of the 6HP in his head location, stuff feels different).

Quote from: Ulairi;1012132Classes and levels are much more digestible for players than skill systems.

...says who?
Me: "Here are different things you're good at. The bigger the number, the better you are, and the better your chances when we roll to do that. Clear?"
New Player: "Cool. So what do we roll?"
Compare to:
Me: "You're a fighter, but to know how good you are, cross-reference with the level. A high enough level Wizard is better fighter than your starting Veteran!"
New Player: "Man what?"

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012136My players chase after experience points like they were candy. After every encounter they imediately want to know how many EXP they got. They can't wait to level up and unlock new k3wl pow3z.  The "game" is a big part of the fun for them. When I run a system like BRP which doesn't have those benchmark achievements, and doesn't provide the incremental rewards of watching the EXP meter climb it is just not as fun for them.

When running Exalted, ORE and other games that give you XP to spend directly on skills, I had players who had planned in advance their characters' progressions for the XP they'd get in the next ~150 sessions. And the end of the sessions was always noted for the players arguing I'm underestimating the work they've been putting on chasing the character's goals:D!
It's not a matter of level and class or skills. It's a matter of "are there enough mechanical widgets you can get to get you excited about improvement", and of course, it's about the player's personality;).

Quote from: Dumarest;1012156Got something to back that up or just assuming your preferences must be true for everyone?

Of course he hasn't;).

personal preference

I liked V:TM and Shadowrun systems but at same time my player group usually played D&D, in the end I made up my mind and consider classes while not required a good guide, as such I prefer a dual-class method which gives characters still a direction 8as classes advance) but a lot of flexibility (as per choice of the two, combined classes)

I wrote about this when the first Pillars of Eternity came out and ....well, maybe someone listened, as the new Pillars 2 is going to be similar to that (except the top tier powers are not accessable which is kinda like the multiclassing restriction for AD&D), and before that the only other game which used this system was Guild Wars 1 and we used it way before that mmo got released.

Something else though is what I don't know any western comparison for, a flexible magic system where you can for mana points make a spell more powerful or have different results or combine two. This is part of a Hungarian RPG system M.A.G.U.S. where mosaic magic or card magic means combining spell powers (or spell cards) for effect, as example an elementalist could combine summoning spells of fire and earth to make a lava elemental appear. This system was first released in 1993 as known today but was bolted together and used before that without any official name, system, or setting which all came later. I've seen similar attempts at making a flexible magic system but only in video games, I'm still waiting for a western pnp RPG where I can be an actual useful water elementalist to create a water bubble around the head of someone to make them suffocate, or form water bolts looking like serpents or a dragon. (pretty much water elementalists seem the most underdeveloped/weakest elementalists in pnp /don't mention acid or ice users/)

Class/Level seems intuitive and self-evident only because it is what most of us started with and have played for time out of mind.

I still remember the first D&D game I played and wondering why my wizard only knew one spell and only got to cast it once. I spent most of the adventure attacking things with my daggers, that was easy to understand.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012323Class/Level seems intuitive and self-evident only because it is what most of us started with and have played for time out of mind.

I still remember the first D&D game I played and wondering why my wizard only knew one spell and only got to cast it once. I spent most of the adventure attacking things with my daggers, that was easy to understand.

Yes, magic is what would need more flexibility in every system. A mage should be powerful, if it isn't on level 1 then it's basically only an apprentice.

Quote from: Bradford C. Walker;1012124The most popular RPGs in the world are The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, World of Warcraft, and The  Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

None of which have even a shred of roleplaying in them.  Glorified arcade games work on a totally different process from TTRPGs.  And they stole all the "D&Disms" from... that's right.... D&D.  Not the other way around.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012323I still remember the first D&D game I played and wondering why my wizard only knew one spell and only got to cast it once. I spent most of the adventure attacking things with my daggers, that was easy to understand.

Whereas I had already read Dying Earth, so it was perfectly clear to me.

D&D magic became instantly clear the first time I read Turjan's tale.  You are a little older than I am, Gronan, so you had a head start on reading.

Quote from: Bren;1012254I don't know if you actually went through Costikyan entire presentation, but his point is that strategy has an increasing impact (is more responsible for victory) as the number of rolls required to get a win increases, so long as each roll contributes only a small amount to overall victory. Melee combat in OD&D follows that pattern. Melee combat in RQ doesn't follow it as well.

I skimmed it.  His general concept is good enough for discussing RPGs and wargames and your understanding is fine.  However, there is a built-in assumption that doesn't really apply to early D&D combat and RQ combat.  It assumes that strategic decisions are interwoven with random events.  However, I'd argue that all the actual strategic decisions are made outside of determining random outcomes (eg. rolling the dice) in both early D&D and early RQ to the point that the differences are largely illusory.  The differences in actual combat rolls aren't really that big of deal due to the fact that most strategy has already been completed before the dice hit the table.

Now, the big differences are in the nonrandom parts of combat setup and how they occur.  All the strategy in OD&D (and other early D&D) is almost entirely based on movement and positioning precombat.  When we played it, we considered all of the interesting strategy to be completely done when the dice started being rolled.  If we'd been smart, the combat was almost always a forgone conclusion.  There is almost no strategic (or tactical) decisions to be made in OD&D once combat starts.  All of that was done in movement and positioning ahead of time.

RQ does allow a little more decision making during combat, but still most of it was handled by precombat maneuver.  When running RQ, we generally consider it a complete failure to ever get into a straight-up fight.  All fights that are fought smartly or done with surprise and overwhelming physical and magical power.  Again, if well executed the die rolling is just a formality.  

The reason I'm point those out is that many RPGs definitely take the approach of making the interesting part of combat the blow-by-blow exchange.  No doubt RQ is closer to this than early D&D.  However, modern D&D (and many other games) are far more centered on this than either of the older games.  D&D 4e was a game built entirely around allowing tactical blow-by-blow decisions to be of the utmost importance.  That would be a game in which the analysis in the blog you pointed out would have definitely draw a distinction in comparison to another game with the same combat approach.  Speaking of RQ, RQ6 goes about something similar in comparison to older RQ games by making the blow-by-blow choice of conditions for successful attacks.

Quote....but it's only down mostly to luck after that if the advantage of good strategy doesn't persits...

QuoteThe more incremental erosion of hit points in D&D melee combat, especially OD&D melee combat, makes it easier for a player to figure out if he is winning or losing in time to change tactics than does the more all or nothing nature of many RQ hits in combat.**

Sure, this is true.  It's an orthogonal issue to the above discussion.  I don't really think it's so much about strategy here though, as about simply making characters super-human resilient.  I don't think that's a bad thing at all.  Different things are indeed different! :)

The interesting thing is that low level D&D characters are far more squishy than low level RQ characters, but of course as they level and gain hit points they become very resilient, while RQ characters can only slightly change their resilience.

T&T had a system that fit in the middle of these with levels granting more attributes (Con = hp).

Quote from: joriandrake;1012319personal preference

I liked V:TM and Shadowrun systems but at same time my player group usually played D&D, in the end I made up my mind and consider classes while not required a good guide, as such I prefer a dual-class method which gives characters still a direction 8as classes advance) but a lot of flexibility (as per choice of the two, combined classes)

I wrote about this when the first Pillars of Eternity came out and ....well, maybe someone listened, as the new Pillars 2 is going to be similar to that (except the top tier powers are not accessable which is kinda like the multiclassing restriction for AD&D), and before that the only other game which used this system was Guild Wars 1 and we used it way before that mmo got released.

Something else though is what I don't know any western comparison for, a flexible magic system where you can for mana points make a spell more powerful or have different results or combine two. This is part of a Hungarian RPG system M.A.G.U.S. where mosaic magic or card magic means combining spell powers (or spell cards) for effect, as example an elementalist could combine summoning spells of fire and earth to make a lava elemental appear. This system was first released in 1993 as known today but was bolted together and used before that without any official name, system, or setting which all came later. I've seen similar attempts at making a flexible magic system but only in video games, I'm still waiting for a western pnp RPG where I can be an actual useful water elementalist to create a water bubble around the head of someone to make them suffocate, or form water bolts looking like serpents or a dragon. (pretty much water elementalists seem the most underdeveloped/weakest elementalists in pnp /don't mention acid or ice users/)

Ars Magica 5 should do what you want:). And I might be wrong, but Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk and Talislanta 4th edition should be able to do the same, as well;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012336None of which have even a shred of roleplaying in them.  Glorified arcade games work on a totally different process from TTRPGs.  And they stole all the "D&Disms" from... that's right.... D&D.  Not the other way around.

What you say here is not 100% accurate, Gronan. We all know that CRPG cannot offer the same experience like playing with someone else directing the reactions of NPCs, but TES games are not glorified arcades. They have a big "old school" feel in them in the fact that you can easily ignore the main plot and go on looting places and performing subquests for months, and you will still have fun.

Apart from this...

1. The Elder Scrolls franchise is admittedly derived from the RuneQuest engine. It has classes and levels, but character progression is skill-based: you level up when you improve your class skills. Two of the episodes were designed by Ken Rolston, co-author of RuneQuest and other BRP - based games. They are full of references to Glorantha.

2. Most CRPGs use an "armour as damage reduction" model, rather than "armour as damage avoidance". Very little D&D-ism here.

3. Virtually all CRPG from Diablo onwards (and most of those which came before Diablo) which do not use an explicit D&D license use the "spend mana to cast spells", the famous red jar for HP and blue for mana. Now, what RPG from the 70s introduced this concept of "spend points to fuel spells". Oooops, RuneQuest again.

So, while there are at least three elements (classes, levels and HP inflation) which are almost ubiquitous in CRPGs, and come from D&D, there are other D&Disms that most developers avoid, instead happily adopting solutions introduced by Steve Jackson in TFT or Steve Perrin in RuneQuest.

I would say that while there is a good 50% of CRPG mechanics that come from D&D, another 25% or so has its roots in BRP. For TES, the proportion is probably equal.

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

I don't. I like it grittier. People roleplay better with a grittier, deadlier system in my experience. I also like point buy systems better than rolling up a character. D&D is big, because people play generic fantasy the first time they play an rpg. People use BRP when they play Cthulhu and not for much else. I think it might be too gritty and the sanity system might be a problem. I do think I like this system better than the WoD system which seems to aim for a similar playstyle.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012323Class/Level seems intuitive and self-evident only because it is what most of us started with and have played for time out of mind.

The part I bolded in the quote above is where you assume something with no evidence.  I think mainly people keep using "only" and "merely" and similar phrases associated with D&D's popularity as relates to "branding", "nostalgia", "being first", etc. more out of a desire that it be so, than any reasoned argument or evidence.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;1012376What you say here is not 100% accurate, Gronan. We all know that CRPG cannot offer the same experience like playing with someone else directing the reactions of NPCs, but TES games are not glorified arcades. They have a big "old school" feel in them in the fact that you can easily ignore the main plot and go on looting places and performing subquests for months, and you will still have fun.

Apart from this...

1. The Elder Scrolls franchise is admittedly derived from the RuneQuest engine. It has classes and levels, but character progression is skill-based: you level up when you improve your class skills. Two of the episodes were designed by Ken Rolston, co-author of RuneQuest and other BRP - based games. They are full of references to Glorantha.

2. Most CRPGs use an "armour as damage reduction" model, rather than "armour as damage avoidance". Very little D&D-ism here.

3. Virtually all CRPG from Diablo onwards (and most of those which came before Diablo) which do not use an explicit D&D license use the "spend mana to cast spells", the famous red jar for HP and blue for mana. Now, what RPG from the 70s introduced this concept of "spend points to fuel spells". Oooops, RuneQuest again.

So, while there are at least three elements (classes, levels and HP inflation) which are almost ubiquitous in CRPGs, and come from D&D, there are other D&Disms that most developers avoid, instead happily adopting solutions introduced by Steve Jackson in TFT or Steve Perrin in RuneQuest.

I would say that while there is a good 50% of CRPG mechanics that come from D&D, another 25% or so has its roots in BRP. For TES, the proportion is probably equal.

But the thing about ANY computer game, and the reason I called them "glorified arcade games" (other than the fact I was feeling a bit bilious) is that you can only do what's been programmed in.  In WoW you click on the bozo with the yellow question mark, and either accept the quest to kill ten dickwolves or not.  And if not, and you don't accept anybody else's quest, there is no game.  And NPC interactions are just as bad or worse; you can only choose a preprogrammed path.

Quote from: RosenMcStern;10123762. Most CRPGs use an "armour as damage reduction" model, rather than "armour as damage avoidance". Very little D&D-ism here.

3. Virtually all CRPG from Diablo onwards (and most of those which came before Diablo) which do not use an explicit D&D license use the "spend mana to cast spells", the famous red jar for HP and blue for mana. Now, what RPG from the 70s introduced this concept of "spend points to fuel spells". Oooops, RuneQuest again.

So, while there are at least three elements (classes, levels and HP inflation) which are almost ubiquitous in CRPGs, and come from D&D, there are other D&Disms that most developers avoid, instead happily adopting solutions introduced by Steve Jackson in TFT or Steve Perrin in RuneQuest.

Sorry to burst your bubble old chap, but Jackson and Perrin were pipped at the post on both of these by St. Andre.  Armour as damage reduction and spending Strength points to fuel spells both featured in Tunnels & Trolls 1e, 1975. RuneQuest 1e, 1978. Wizard, 1978.  A full three years earlier.

And what Attribute do both T&T and Wizard use to power spell casting? Strength. One could almost argue that Mr Jackson copied the idea from Mr St. Andre.  I think they were both inspired by Tolkien's Gandalf who mentions on several occasions how the act of casting a spell has left him drained and weary.

Quote Originally Posted by DavetheLost  View Post
Class/Level seems intuitive and self-evident only because it is what most of us started with and have played for time out of mind.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1012383The part I bolded in the quote above is where you assume something with no evidence.  I think mainly people keep using "only" and "merely" and similar phrases associated with D&D's popularity as relates to "branding", "nostalgia", "being first", etc. more out of a desire that it be so, than any reasoned argument or evidence.

OK then, why else does Class/Level and by extension D&D mechanics in general seem intuitive and self-evident as compared to BRP mechanics or other game mechanics?

I had meant this post to also comment on teh jumbled mess that the D&D mechanics are. A different resolution system for every type of task or action a character might take, often with a different dice type, sometimes high is good, sometimes low is good.

Quote from: Bren;1012263There will still be a difference since larger numbers have a greater impact in RQ/BRP than they do in D&D.

Even a skilled combatant in RQ can (usually) only strike one blow per round and parry one blow per round. In D&D fighters may get more than 1 attack/round (even up to 1 attack per level per round in some versions) and they don't need to roll a parry since their active defense is subsumed in their hit points and their passive defense is their Armor Class which also tends to roughly scale with level. If you want to play a game where 1 guy can successfully defeat 10 (at least half-way competent) guys you don't want to use Runequest/BRP. You can get closer to the 1 vs. many if you have the multiple parries and ripostes that Stormbringer 1E allows. But even with that greater numbers will eventually tell unless your magic is so overpoweringly better than the other guys and even then a critical hit with an impaling arrow may still ruin the hero's day.

This illustrates why strategy (it's really tactics) matters more in BRP. Avoiding that situation is a tactical decision. Of course, sometimes you can't avoid it.

The game system does not affect the use of tactics or strategy.  If you don't believe it, play in a game I run sometime.

Quote from: Bren;1012254Of course a lot of the strategic or tactical decisions occur before the first blow is struck, e.g. what to attack (and what not to attack), but it's only down mostly to luck after that if the advantage of good strategy doesn't persits (and it often does) and if the players cannot elect to withdraw or to change tactics to gain an advantage. And of course they can usually do either. The more incremental erosion of hit points in D&D melee combat, especially OD&D melee combat, makes it easier for a player to figure out if he is winning or losing in time to change tactics than does the more all or nothing nature of many RQ hits in combat.**

Exactly.  OD&D combat is more a battle than a duel, and like any battle, victory often depends on your ability to adapt in the face of changing circumstances.

I can tell you why MY group doesn't use BRP any more, including those who once were very enthusiastic:

Too much fuckin' around.  We want to get ON with it.

Mileage, etc.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012396But the thing about ANY computer game, and the reason I called them "glorified arcade games" (other than the fact I was feeling a bit bilious) is that you can only do what's been programmed in.  In WoW you click on the bozo with the yellow question mark, and either accept the quest to kill ten dickwolves or not.  And if not, and you don't accept anybody else's quest, there is no game.  And NPC interactions are just as bad or worse; you can only choose a preprogrammed path.

I get the impression you've not played Elder Scrolls at all? Elder Scrolls games, and some other sandbox games, are actually pretty good at creating an environment with a physics engine & simulation robust enough that you can do a LOT of stuff not specifically foreseen by the designers, including creating your own play goals. Their major weakness is in PC-NPC social interaction, which is still primitive menu systems. Their simulations of the physical world are pretty impressive in scope, and playing Oblivion & Skyrim I HAVE experienced 'stories' the designers did not write, did not foresee. Like my PC who became a vampire during the Oblivion Crisis (only discovering this long after all pre-infection saves were overwritten), refused to feed, somehow persisted until the end, and saved the world against desperate odds (hard when every step is burning agony...), was promised a seat on the Imperial Council as Champion of Cyrodiil...
...And after a last failed attempt to find a cure for her vampirism, smiled and walked out into the sunlight. She was awesome, and I miss her.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012416I can tell you why MY group doesn't use BRP any more, including those who once were very enthusiastic:

Too much fuckin' around.  We want to get ON with it.

What do mean? What 'it' are our BRP-ish games not getting on with?
I play in D&D games as well and I really hadn't noticed any 'it' getting on more with them... unless you mean combats, because there's often fewer mechanical consequences in D&D to keep PCs from picking fights.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012396But the thing about ANY computer game, and the reason I called them "glorified arcade games" (other than the fact I was feeling a bit bilious) is that you can only do what's been programmed in.

Barring modding or glitches, of course.

Quote from: S'mon;1012420I get the impression you've not played Elder Scrolls at all? Elder Scrolls games, and some other sandbox games, are actually pretty good at creating an environment with a physics engine & simulation robust enough that you can do a LOT of stuff not specifically foreseen by the designers, including creating your own play goals. Their major weakness is in PC-NPC social interaction, which is still primitive menu systems. Their simulations of the physical world are pretty impressive in scope, and playing Oblivion & Skyrim I HAVE experienced 'stories' the designers did not write, did not foresee. Like my PC who became a vampire during the Oblivion Crisis (only discovering this long after all pre-infection saves were overwritten), refused to feed, somehow persisted until the end, and saved the world against desperate odds (hard when every step is burning agony...), was promised a seat on the Imperial Council as Champion of Cyrodiil...
...And after a last failed attempt to find a cure for her vampirism, smiled and walked out into the sunlight. She was awesome, and I miss her.

I played one of the elder scrolls games, I don't remember which one... the one where you start as a convict getting off a boat and going to see Caius Crustypants or whatever.  And yeah, you could noodle around aimlessly.  There were some nice visuals, but as you say the NPC interactions are awful.  And the fact that you can activate bits of code in an order the programmers did not forsee does not alter the fact that you are still wandering around triggering pieces of code.

The experience was about as satisfactory as a somewhat less than mediocre table top game.

Quote from: Simlasa;1012429What do mean? What 'it' are our BRP-ish games not getting on with?
I play in D&D games as well and I really hadn't noticed any 'it' getting on more with them... unless you mean combats, because there's often fewer mechanical consequences in D&D to keep PCs from picking fights.

I mean the whole game.  The game isn't just about combat.  In OD&D we can resolve a combat in a matter of minutes, almost real time.  And then after combat is done get on to the more interesting stuff.

None of us are really interested in a "combat simulator" any more.  Just like in CHAINMAIL, Heavy Foot vs Heavy Foot is 1 die per figure, 6 kills.  Is that an accurate assessment?  Who cares; it gives a result that is close enough to historical to be satisfactory, and is eminently playable.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012402Quote Originally Posted by DavetheLost  View Post
Class/Level seems intuitive and self-evident only because it is what most of us started with and have played for time out of mind.



OK then, why else does Class/Level and by extension D&D mechanics in general seem intuitive and self-evident as compared to BRP mechanics or other game mechanics?

I had meant this post to also comment on teh jumbled mess that the D&D mechanics are. A different resolution system for every type of task or action a character might take, often with a different dice type, sometimes high is good, sometimes low is good.

I've got no dog in that side of the fight, either.  If someone wants to insert intuitiveness with no evidence, same answer applies.  My bone is that, to whatever degree classes and levels seem intuitive and self-evident, or not--it's a lot more complicated than who was first or most popular.   That's all.

Quote from: AsenRG;1012315Sorry, Bren, but that's a faulty comparison:).
First, I have a much easier time telling who is winning and who is losing when I watch soccer.

:rolleyes: I find that difficult to believe. You don't have to understand American football to tell who is winning and who is losing. There's this thing called "the score" which makes the answer clear and unlike soccer the score is rarely tied or tied for long in football. The score tends to change fairly frequently during the game because more scoring opportunities result in a successful score.

QuoteSecond, assuming that the GM doesn't tell us the HP of the opposition, I also have an easier time telling who is winning in d100-type games.

It's certainly possible if the GM keeps all information (opponent's HPs, your HPs, your to-hit roll, and your opponent's to-hit roll secret in D&D) while the GM gives you all or most of that information in BRP you will know more in BRP. But given similar levels of information you are wrong that this is true in general, though it may be true for you.

QuoteAnd yet, if you follow that logic, strategy in BRP should have less impact.

However, from my personal observations, most people (myself very much included, unless I make a conscious effort) ignore strategy in D&D-style games with escalating HP, and really think about it in d100-style games with fixed hit points.

You have confused two different things. One is how much of the outcome of combat in the two games is determined by strategy vs. how much of the outcome is determined by luck. The second thing is how much the players focus on strategy in the two games. Your other misunderstandings mostly come from this original error.

Of course it's entirely reasonable that in a game like BRP where one lucky hit can kill your character that players may focus more on strategy and thus will want to wring out every bit of additional advantage for their character prior to entering combat (or to avoid combat altogether unless the odds are stacked in their favor). Whereas in OD&D there is a more predictable, steady loss of hit points for the losing side that allows a player to judge when to retreat or change tactics before their PC is dead. This will cause some players to slack off a bit on their tactical focus in many encounters since they feel that they have the luxury of correcting an initial mistake before it kills their PC. In any event, wanting to wring out every advantage for BRP does not prove that outcomes in BRP are more strategy dependent than outcomes in D&D (specifically OD&D). All it proves is that those particular players, at that particular table want to focus more on strategy.

Games run on a continuum with chess on one end (the outcome is essentially nonrandom and 100% dependent on strategy) to games like the card game War where the outcome is entirely random and dependent on luck. Nearly all games fall somewhere between these extremes.

Note too that in a game where the results seem particularly swingy (i.e. random with high variability in outcome or effect from a single random result) different players will give up on using strategy and decide that "it's all based what you roll" or words to that effect. I've heard players make those kind of statements many times, for many games. Usually after the dice have not gone their way for a time. But a player saying that doesn't make it true.

Similarly where one side in a conflict has a nearly overwhelming advantage players may decide that strategy doesn't matter. Often, in board games, that is the point at which an opponent will concede. And note that they concede not because their loss is certain, but because they feel that the odds are poor enough that they don't think they will enjoy continuing to play only to (probably) lose in the end. In my experience, few players seem to enjoy fighting a losing battle and then losing so they concede. Often they concede relatively early. This tendency seems even more  pronounced in chess and in hex and chit board games than it does in a miniatures battle or in an RPG. (I suspect that there is some pageantry involved in miniatures that may make fighting a losing battle slightly more palatable and in an RPG the cost of conceding is higher than it usually is in chess since the player loses a PC to which they often have a strong attachment.)

Quote from: joriandrake;1012319Something else though is what I don't know any western comparison for, a flexible magic system where you can for mana points make a spell more powerful or have different results or combine two.

This sounds a lot like how Sorcery worked in Runequest 3 and how a lot of the magic in build your own spell systems like GURPs and HERO work. It also sounds a bit like how magic worked in the spell caster vs. spell caster combat system that MAR Barker used based on how he envisioned combat magic on Tekumel. (Can't remember the game though Gronan or Chirine can probably fill in the missing details.)

Quote from: RMS;1012349I skimmed it.  His general concept is good enough for discussing RPGs and wargames and your understanding is fine.  However, there is a built-in assumption that doesn't really apply to early D&D combat and RQ combat.  It assumes that strategic decisions are interwoven with random events.  However, I'd argue that all the actual strategic decisions are made outside of determining random outcomes (eg. rolling the dice) in both early D&D and early RQ to the point that the differences are largely illusory.  The differences in actual combat rolls aren't really that big of deal due to the fact that most strategy has already been completed before the dice hit the table.

I agree about the assumption. As far as strategy in RPGs one needs to not only look at a single combat, but the effect of strategy on the entire career or life of a character. And I disagree that all strategic decisions in RQ or OD&D are made before the dice are rolled. Many of the key strategic decisions (choice or armor, weapons, initial or first spells used, initial formation) are made prior to the first combat roll, but decisions on which opponent to attack next, how to combine or spread out attacks on opponents, movement and changing formations, new spells, counter spells and so on occur during combat and in between die rolls.

QuoteRQ does allow a little more decision making during combat, but still most of it was handled by precombat maneuver.  When running RQ, we generally consider it a complete failure to ever get into a straight-up fight.  All fights that are fought smartly or done with surprise and overwhelming physical and magical power.

That is the best tactic. The same was true in OD&D and that is how the more tactically minded players played both games. Less tactically minded players often did not spend much if any time choosing good tactics before or during combat. For those folks play tended to be "I hit it with my axe!"

QuoteAgain, if well executed the die rolling is just a formality.

Setting magic aside, this statement is more true of OD&D than it is of Runequest because the damage per attack is roll vs AC and do 1d6 per successful attack in OD&D whereas in RQ the special and critical attacks and parries make the result and hence the victory or defeat in combat more dependent on the die roll and somewhat less dependent on the tactics chosen.

Put another way, if one were to run the same combat with the same tactics in both OD&D and RQ one is more likely to get the same outcome in OD&D than in RQ.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1012408This illustrates why strategy (it's really tactics) matters more in BRP. Avoiding that situation is a tactical decision. Of course, sometimes you can't avoid it.

Yes strategy and tactics are wrongly being used interchangeably. I'm just keeping the author's terminology.

The importance to the player of making tactical decisions doesn't have to exactly correlate to how much of victory is explained by tactics. It may be the case that in a system where random outcome can have disproportionate effects players may be pretty strongly incentivized or motivated to pay more attention to strategy in an attempt to avoid disproportionatly bad outcomes. There's a lot of psychology that shows that humans are more incentivized to avoid loss and minimize risk than they are to accept a fair trade off in  risk and reward.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012415Exactly.  OD&D combat is more a battle than a duel, and like any battle, victory often depends on your ability to adapt in the face of changing circumstances.

My experience was that while one or two combats might go smoothly, during an entire day's play or over repeated days of play adaptation to circumstances in battle and in exploration was key to longevity and character success.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012437I mean the whole game.  The game isn't just about combat.  In OD&D we can resolve a combat in a matter of minutes, almost real time.  And then after combat is done get on to the more interesting stuff.

Our combats in Magic World and Openquest really don't feel much longer than our combats in B/X D&D... but there are generally less of them (I think we try harder to avoid them because damage matters more). I've never seen BRP combat get in the way of our doing 'more interesting stuff'.
There are crunchier flavors of both BRP and D&D that do take longer... 4e seemed to be just about combat IME.

Earthdawn, at higher circles, was really the worst I've experienced for combat being a time-sink.

QuoteNone of us are really interested in a "combat simulator" any more.

You think BRP is a 'combat simulator'? I suppose it's a bit more 'simulationist' than D&D's HP and AC... I like active defenses like dodging and parrying... but that's about it. It's certainly no where near the the deep end of the simulation pool... stuff like Phoenix Command.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012436The experience was about as satisfactory as a somewhat less than mediocre table top game.

Sure...

Better graphics though!

Quote from: S'mon;1012460Sure...

Better graphics though!

That is one of the two advantages the computer games have over tabletop.

The other is convenience; you can log on and play literally any time.  And convenience sells.  McDonald's didn't get to be the biggest selling restaurant in the world by offering five star cuisine.

Quote from: Bren;1012451This sounds a lot like how Sorcery worked in Runequest 3 and how a lot of the magic in build your own spell systems like GURPs and HERO work. It also sounds a bit like how magic worked in the spell caster vs. spell caster combat system that MAR Barker used based on how he envisioned combat magic on Tekumel. (Can't remember the game though Gronan or Chirine can probably fill in the missing details.)

Will have to look up those, the only one I have a minimal knowledge of is GURPS and even that only because of SPECIAL. Perhaps Wasteland too (if that counts)

Quote from: AsenRG;1012365Ars Magica 5 should do what you want:). And I might be wrong, but Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk and Talislanta 4th edition should be able to do the same, as well;).

more on my list

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012401Sorry to burst your bubble old chap, but Jackson and Perrin were pipped at the post on both of these by St. Andre.  Armour as damage reduction and spending Strength points to fuel spells both featured in Tunnels & Trolls 1e, 1975. RuneQuest 1e, 1978. Wizard, 1978.  A full three years earlier.

And what Attribute do both T&T and Wizard use to power spell casting? Strength. One could almost argue that Mr Jackson copied the idea from Mr St. Andre.  I think they were both inspired by Tolkien's Gandalf who mentions on several occasions how the act of casting a spell has left him drained and weary.

I'm of the thought that an armor is both damage reduction and avoiding factor. The heavier the armor the more this avoidance means deflected hits. in terms of D&D if I recall right my team used to halve AC for armor (not magical modifier, rounded up) and have the normal amount of AC+2 as damage reduction. Certain weapons might overcome a type of armor DR better than others (like axe or hammer)

In the D&D model armour making you harder to hit is not something I have a problem with. Combat suvivability is measured by remaining hit points. Armour makes loss of hit points less likely. In BRP, TFT and T&T armour makes loss of hit points less likely, it just does it in a different way. Same net effect, different aesthetic.

I think BRP combat is more represntational and D&D combat is more abstract. But they both produce a similar result. Do you want the chicken or the fish?

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012519In the D&D model armour making you harder to hit is not something I have a problem with. Combat suvivability is measured by remaining hit points. Armour makes loss of hit points less likely. In BRP, TFT and T&T armour makes loss of hit points less likely, it just does it in a different way. Same net effect, different aesthetic.

I think BRP combat is more represntational and D&D combat is more abstract. But they both produce a similar result. Do you want the chicken or the fish?

umm... considering my post above, I prefer the sea chicken. Probably.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1012383The part I bolded in the quote above is where you assume something with no evidence.  I think mainly people keep using "only" and "merely" and similar phrases associated with D&D's popularity as relates to "branding", "nostalgia", "being first", etc. more out of a desire that it be so, than any reasoned argument or evidence.

Until the side that likes D&D more than other systems stops using it as a "proof" that classes and levels are intuitive/what people want/whatever nonsense you can come up with, "only" and "merely" shall persist.
Because the truth is that none of us can point to any kind of research. And if there was one, it'd probably be seriously biased;).

Quote from: Bren;1012444:rolleyes: I find that difficult to believe. You don't have to understand American football to tell who is winning and who is losing. There's this thing called "the score" which makes the answer clear and unlike soccer the score is rarely tied or tied for long in football. The score tends to change fairly frequently during the game because more scoring opportunities result in a successful score.

And yet it's true.
As I said, familiarity counts for a lot;).

QuoteIt's certainly possible if the GM keeps all information (opponent's HPs, your HPs, your to-hit roll, and your opponent's to-hit roll secret in D&D) while the GM gives you all or most of that information in BRP you will know more in BRP. But given similar levels of information you are wrong that this is true in general, though it may be true for you.

I'm talking about similar levels of information, of course.
Nobody can say what would be true in general, because again, no research exists. So I go by the only case I have constant access to, and that's myself.

QuoteYou have confused two different things. One is how much of the outcome of combat in the two games is determined by strategy vs. how much of the outcome is determined by luck. The second thing is how much the players focus on strategy in the two games. Your other misunderstandings mostly come from this original error.

No, I'm not confusing them. I know these are different things.
I'm just telling you that in the game where strategy supposedly* plays a bigger role, usually nobody bothers using it. Thus it doesn't really matter how important strategy is, mechanically.

*Because I'm not sure about his research, but can't be bothered to argue it, either;).

QuoteOf course it's entirely reasonable that in a game like BRP where one lucky hit can kill your character that players may focus more on strategy and thus will want to wring out every bit of additional advantage for their character prior to entering combat (or to avoid combat altogether unless the odds are stacked in their favor). Whereas in OD&D there is a more predictable, steady loss of hit points for the losing side that allows a player to judge when to retreat or change tactics before their PC is dead. This will cause some players to slack off a bit on their tactical focus in many encounters since they feel that they have the luxury of correcting an initial mistake before it kills their PC. In any event, wanting to wring out every advantage for BRP does not prove that outcomes in BRP are more strategy dependent than outcomes in D&D (specifically OD&D). All it proves is that those particular players, at that particular table want to focus more on strategy.

These are the same players I'm talking about. I've played various games with different groups of friends.

Quote from: AsenRG;1012525Until the side that likes D&D more than other systems stops using it as a "proof" that classes and levels are intuitive/what people want/whatever nonsense you can come up with, "only" and "merely" shall persist.
Because the truth is that none of us can point to any kind of research. And if there was one, it'd probably be seriously biased;).

There's also the point to be made (which probably already has been) that being 'most popular' is no sign of quality, good taste, or the lesser quality of alternatives.
McDonalds still seems to be the 1st choice of most pre-teen kids I know. Should all the other fast food places throw in the towel or just start serving Mc-Clones?
The reason being an also-ran in RPGs matters in this hobby is because there's so little dough in it to begin with.
Thankfully, there are still enough people who DO like BRP that it continues to have material produced, commercially and by fans.

Quote from: AsenRG;1012525And yet it's true.
As I said, familiarity counts for a lot

I wouldn't think it would take much familiarity for you to read a score board. I mean maybe reading a scoreboard would be difficult if you were an ancient Roman and you weren't used to reading Arabic-style numerals, but that doesn't seem likely to be the case here.

QuoteNobody can say what would be true in general, because again, no research exists. So I go by the only case I have constant access to, and that's myself.

So this is just a series of "I feel like I am an exception" posts? OK then.

QuoteNo, I'm not confusing them. I know these are different things.
I'm just telling you that in the game where strategy supposedly* plays a bigger role, usually nobody bothers using it. Thus it doesn't really matter how important strategy is, mechanically.

*Because I'm not sure about his research, but can't be bothered to argue it, either;).

And you've once again conflated "player cares about it" with "greater determiner of outcome." Which makes it seem like you are still unclear that these are two separate, but possibly related things. Maybe reading the article(s) might help. Then again it might be like reading that scoreboard.

"Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics." - Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC

This side bar of BRP combat vs D&D combat seems to overlook the fact that they are on different time scales. A combat round in RQ is 12 seconds, D&D is (as I recall) 1 minute, so 5 rolls in BRP = 1 roll in D&D. Trying to compare them roll for roll seems kind of weird.

D&D makes many abstractions and that is fine, it works. BRP allows for a much closer focus, that is also fine as it works too. Using the sports analogy (since that seems to be the thing to do), BRP makes you sit and watch all the games (including all of those 0-2 yard plays, and time outs). D&D is like a highlight show that shows you the big plays and final scores so you can (as Gronan says) get on with it.

Some people like to sit and watch game after game on Sunday, others just want to know how their team did this week, and a 5 minute summary is all they need.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012519In the D&D model armour making you harder to hit is not something I have a problem with. Combat suvivability is measured by remaining hit points. Armour makes loss of hit points less likely. In BRP, TFT and T&T armour makes loss of hit points less likely, it just does it in a different way. Same net effect, different aesthetic.

I think BRP combat is more represntational and D&D combat is more abstract. But they both produce a similar result. Do you want the chicken or the fish?

Exactly.  Give me a weekend and I can create two combat systems, one where armor makes you harder to hit and one where armor absorbs damage, and both will have the same expected value per turn of damage taken.

A difference that makes no difference is no difference.

Quote from: AsenRG;1012525I'm just telling you that in the game where strategy supposedly* plays a bigger role, usually nobody bothers using it.

Have the enemies use strategy and tactics.  Either the players will also start to use them, or you need smarter players.

In other words, no, your assertion is not universal.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1012576This side bar of BRP combat vs D&D combat seems to overlook the fact that they are on different time scales. A combat round in RQ is 12 seconds, D&D is (as I recall) 1 minute, so 5 rolls in BRP = 1 roll in D&D. Trying to compare them roll for roll seems kind of weird.

Different games use different time scales. That is mostly (maybe completely) orthogonal to how much the outcome is determined by strategy(tactics) vs random fortune.

QuoteD&D makes many abstractions and that is fine, it works. BRP allows for a much closer focus, that is also fine as it works too. Using the sports analogy (since that seems to be the thing to do), BRP makes you sit and watch all the games (including all of those 0-2 yard plays, and time outs). D&D is like a highlight show that shows you the big plays and final scores so you can (as Gronan says) get on with it.

Some people like to sit and watch game after game on Sunday, others just want to know how their team did this week, and a 5 minute summary is all they need.

Good analogy. Also a good point.

I know people who really like to play hex and counter style board games where they carefully and painstakingly plan out the moves and attacks of each and every counter. (It's one reason some of those mega counter games can literally take days to play.) Other folks quickly become impatient, even bored with that sort of pace and want to make their moves and attacks much faster even if the moves and attacks are less optimal than they would be if more time were spent in thinking and planning. Those preferences are orthogonal to how much the outcome can be controlled by strategy(tactics) vs how much is controlled by random chance. You see the same thing in chess (where nothing is random). For chess some impatient person invented speed chess. In part, I imagine, as a way to get the slow and careful planners to make a fricking move already.

Quote from: Bren;1012554I wouldn't think it would take much familiarity for you to read a score board. I mean maybe reading a scoreboard would be difficult if you were an ancient Roman and you weren't used to reading Arabic-style numerals, but that doesn't seem likely to be the case here.

You seem to be missing the "by looking at the field" in my post. Or did I forget to write it?
I have an easier time determining who is winning in football than in American-style football, when looking at the field. It's just a matter of tracking different things:).

QuoteSo this is just a series of "I feel like I am an exception" posts? OK then.

No, quite the opposite.
It's "people are wired differently, possibly due to previous experience, but I don't think I'm the only one".

QuoteAnd you've once again conflated "player cares about it" with "greater determiner of outcome." Which makes it seem like you are still unclear that these are two separate, but possibly related things. Maybe reading the article(s) might help. Then again it might be like reading that scoreboard.

Le sigh.
Bren, what I'm telling you is:
If something in the system makes the players not care about X, it doesn't matter how much said system facilitates X. Because the player isn't going to use it anyway.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012578Have the enemies use strategy and tactics.  Either the players will also start to use them, or you need smarter players.

In other words, no, your assertion is not universal.

I never said it was, Gronan. I'm only talking about most players, circa 95% of them, that I've met online and offline:D!
And yes, I do use strategy and tactics when running. Some fail to care even then. And when I'm not the one running it, I can't do that on the NPCs, right;)?
Then we switch systems, and they start applying them without prompting. Again, I only know why strategy seems less important to me when playing D&D, but if there's a similar reason in play, I'd rather use a system that pushes the players towards playing smart.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1012413The game system does not affect the use of tactics or strategy.  If you don't believe it, play in a game I run sometime.

I find tactical decisions in low-level D&D and similar games very believable. I lose my suspension of disbelief when the tactical decision to withdraw from combat is still easily available after thirty HP have been shaved from my pile of eighty, so my suspension of disbelief is harder in high level D&D.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1012576This side bar of BRP combat vs D&D combat seems to overlook the fact that they are on different time scales. A combat round in RQ is 12 seconds, D&D is (as I recall) 1 minute, so 5 rolls in BRP = 1 roll in D&D. Trying to compare them roll for roll seems kind of weird.

D&D makes many abstractions and that is fine, it works. BRP allows for a much closer focus, that is also fine as it works too. Using the sports analogy (since that seems to be the thing to do), BRP makes you sit and watch all the games (including all of those 0-2 yard plays, and time outs). D&D is like a highlight show that shows you the big plays and final scores so you can (as Gronan says) get on with it.

Some people like to sit and watch game after game on Sunday, others just want to know how their team did this week, and a 5 minute summary is all they need.

Isn't 1 round in D&D 6 seconds?

Depends on the edition. 1 "round" in D&D can be 6 seconds, 10 seconds, or one minute. In AD&D 1e 6 seconds is 1 segment, and there are 10 segments in a 1 minute round. In B/X D&D a round is 10 seconds.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012730Depends on the edition. 1 "round" in D&D can be 6 seconds, 10 seconds, or one minute. In AD&D 1e 6 seconds is 1 segment, and there are 10 segments in a 1 minute round. In B/X D&D a round is 10 seconds.

Did not know that it varied so widely, the majority of my D&D time was with AD&D / 2nd ed and the last time I played that was 20+ years ago.

Quote from: AsenRG;1012629You seem to be missing the "by looking at the field" in my post.

You seem to be missing, well pretty much everything. In this particular instance, the score is on the scoreboard. It's not written on the field. If you don't look at the scoreboard, or otherwise keep track of the score, then I'm not surprised you are confused about who is winning in games like football, basketball, baseball, or cricket where the combined scores go higher than the fingers on one hand.

Asen it's fine if my analogy doesn't work for you. It's fine if you didn't read Costikyan's article. It's fine if you did read it and didn't like or agree with it or see how it applies to D&D or Runequest. And it's fine if you like Game A or dislike Game B for any value of A or B.

OD&D had 1 minute combat rounds with one attack roll for the entire round.

Costikyan wrote a whole book on Uncertainity in Games (https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-games) for MIT Press which is an excellent read.

He seems to be a pretty sharp guy with some good insights.

He also designed many classic RPGs, Toon, Paranoia and Star Wars WEG most prominently.

Quote from: Bren;1012840You seem to be missing, well pretty much everything. In this particular instance, the score is on the scoreboard. It's not written on the field. If you don't look at the scoreboard, or otherwise keep track of the score, then I'm not surprised you are confused about who is winning in games like football, basketball, baseball, or cricket where the combined scores go higher than the fingers on one hand.

Yes, but I'm watching a game. I'm not watching some made-up tracker;).

QuoteAsen it's fine if my analogy doesn't work for you.

It doesn't. And we've now been dwelling for too long on the matter.

QuoteIt's fine if you didn't read Costikyan's article. It's fine if you did read it and didn't like or agree with it or see how it applies to D&D or Runequest.

I read it, and disagree with it on two accounts (which is basically "with the whole of it, except for the central assumption that lessening the influence of chance makes strategy more important" - in the same way that chess is way more strategic than real combat:)).
-People don't react to the mechanics of a game, but to how they perceive such mechanics. Hence, mechanics that seem (to the players) to discourage strategy, will discourage strategy, even if they - presumably - actually make it more important than rolling.
-I contest that actually emulating strategy should include the skill to deal with sudden swings, due to luck, mistake or disadvantage, or capitalizing on an opportunity that your own luck, preparation or advantage presented you with. But that's much, much harder to do if you set out to minimize the role of chance in the first place. Compare a typical example of your side being at an advantage, and the weaker side getting a lucky strike (not an unknown event).
D&D: One lucky strike for an extra 1d8 might do nothing if the opponent had 15 HP more than you to begin with. Or, if it was you with the advantage, that wouldn't be a problem to solve during the battle, but a problem that you solve be recovering the "HP resource" after the battle. Result: player continues to roll to hit and to damage while thinking of how many healing potions he'd have to expend afterwards.
RQ: One lucky strike means you can't afford another and have to find a way to really screw him up NOW, even if your defence skill is 20% higher than the other side's - there can always be another lucky strike, or just a Special vs Normal success result, which might be enough to take you down. Result: You start looking for something to entangle/blind/trap him with. You're going to think of healing and recovery, too, but later.

I know which one pushes me to think of better strategy, and it's not the one Kostikyan claims:p! And I've noticed the same trend with others.

QuoteAnd it's fine if you like Game A or dislike Game B for any value of A or B.

Of course it is, Bren:D! I know it is, I don't even defend my preferences.
But at this point, we're not even talking about preferences for specific games, like D&D and BRP, but about the kinds of game mechanics - namely, characters getting more survivability due to inflating HP or due to better active defence rolls. And I'm saying that due to factors that weren't accounted for in the article, the result in actual play is the exact opposite of the one the article predicted;).

I guess OD&D encourages tactics like "hold them at a choke point so we get more attacks on them than they get on us - then we should win". I think the actual feeling is closest to 'Culture of Order' battles from the 18th-19th century. You want 3:1 odds or better for a nice easy victory. 1e-2e and 5e also work like that to a slightly lesser extent.

Runequest encourages tactics like "ambush them when they're bathing, so their armour is off" or "burn the steading down with them inside - put men at the exit to kill those fleeing" - Njall's Saga type stuff. The actual feeling is closest to participating in Dark Age skirmish/raid warfare, or modern gangland hits. Even 3:1 odds are risky, you could still die to a lucky crit, so best to take no chances.

4e D&D encourages tactics like "use Power X to get 6 foes to surround me at once, then Power B to attack them all in a Close Burst 1" - when in the flow, the feeling is closest to Anime, Mahabarata, or some stylised Hollywood cinematic combat. You want 1:3 odds or 'worse' so your cool move can have maximum impact.

Quote from: Bren;1012842OD&D had 1 minute combat rounds with one attack roll for the entire round.

That had to be terrible, that's like live acting a chess game, the pieces act once then wait a damn long time to get another move.

6 seconds are enough in actual battle to fire multiple shots, move and strike someone, or in case of warriors have a full flurry of attacks against something. I can see why it got shortened from 1 minute turns to become 10 turns per minute.

Quote from: S'mon;10128914e D&D encourages tactics like "use Power X to get 6 foes to surround me at once, then Power B to attack them all in a Close Burst 1" - when in the flow, the feeling is closest to Anime, Mahabarata, or some stylised Hollywood cinematic combat. You want 1:3 odds or 'worse' so you cool move can have maximum impact.

Most of my group liked 3.5, so after 2nd Ed D&D we went there. I also tried 4th edition once but never liked it, felt way too much MMO-ish, if that is even a word.

Nope, not terrible at all.  First off an "attack" in 0D&D does not represent a single swing of a sword. that it does is one of the biggest misonceptions about the game. An "attack" represents a period of the back and forth cut and thrust of combat with the dice roll determining the effect. There will come during that combat round an opening for a serious attack this is the attack roll.

As for teh length of a combat round, it is really abstract. No-one is sitting there with an egg timer making sure that is how long combat rounds last in real time at the game table.

The "flurry of attacks against something" to which you refer is resolved as one attack roll in 0D&D. It is not a combat system which tracks each individual swing of a blade. It is abstracted. As are hit points, class and level, and many other things.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012894Nope, not terrible at all.  First off an "attack" in 0D&D does not represent a single swing of a sword. that it does is one of the biggest misonceptions about the game. An "attack" represents a period of the back and forth cut and thrust of combat with the dice roll determining the effect. There will come during that combat round an opening for a serious attack this is the attack roll.

As for teh length of a combat round, it is really abstract. No-one is sitting there with an egg timer making sure that is how long combat rounds last in real time at the game table.

The "flurry of attacks against something" to which you refer is resolved as one attack roll in 0D&D. It is not a combat system which tracks each individual swing of a blade. It is abstracted. As are hit points, class and level, and many other things.

Because of the way the squad-level OODA loop/action-reaction cycle works IRL, I tend to find that both an OD&D 1 minute round and a 5e 6 second round actually feel more like 12-15 seconds of squad level action, or 3-5 seconds if it's an individual dual. Occasionally up to 30-60 seconds if it's a platoon-sized engagement.

Quote from: Bren;1012842OD&D had 1 minute combat rounds with one attack roll for the entire round.

Quote from: joriandrake;1012893That had to be terrible, that's like live acting a chess game, the pieces act once then wait a damn long time to get another move.

I'm fairly certain that OD&D actually didn't specify how long a round was, but rather you could infer it.  Time-keeping in combat is very abstract in early D&D, as it should be IMO.  A round is however long it takes for two sides to maneuver and have a series of exchanges worth rolling the dice for resolution.  That might be 10-15 seconds, or 30-60 seconds depending on the specific combat taking place.

Yes, both early D&D and RQ/BRP are both systems that resolve combat as an entire exchange of blows for a single die roll.  Neither pretends to handle things swing-by-swing, and both assume a fair amount of maneuver within the the melee so only use relative positioning.

Quote from: RMS;1012898I'm fairly certain that OD&D actually didn't specify how long a round was, but rather you could infer it.  Time-keeping in combat is very abstract in early D&D, as it should be IMO.  A round is however long it takes for two sides to maneuver and have a series of exchanges worth rolling the dice for resolution.  That might be 10-15 seconds, or 30-60 seconds depending on the specific combat taking place.

Well, once you declare the action to be abstract and not specific exchange of swings of swords, etc., it almost* doesn't matter. Leaving it vague lets the same rules apply in vastly different situations, where the number of 'exchanges where someone might live or die' remains roughly the same across situations, but the overall clock time of the battle is different because situationally there will be more or less time circling and maneuvering and looking for openings, etc.
*excluding things like how far someone fleeing the battlefield at a dead run might get, ticking time bomb situations, or whether you get a second chance to cast feather fall before going splat if you fall from veeeeerrrry high up.

I have seen games that define one round as "enough time to take one significant action". That action might be an attack, trying to pick a lock, disarming a trap, casting a spell, lighting a torch, moving. Save getting out the stopwatch arguments about should and should not be possibe in an X-second round.

Quote from: S'mon;1012891Runequest encourages tactics like "ambush them when they're bathing, so their armour is off" or "burn the steading down with them inside - put men at the exit to kill those fleeing" - Njall's Saga type stuff. The actual feeling is closest to participating in Dark Age skirmish/raid warfare, or modern gangland hits. Even 3:1 odds are risky, you could still die to a lucky crit, so best to take no chances.

That was pretty much my experience with Stormbringer, the only BRP game I ever played.  Mind you, after a few sessions we started applying those tactics to our AD&D games as well.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012974I have seen games that define one round as "enough time to take one significant action". That action might be an attack, trying to pick a lock, disarming a trap, casting a spell, lighting a torch, moving. Save getting out the stopwatch arguments about should and should not be possibe in an X-second round.

That is my general take. Round length is somewhat abstract. If I am doing something where timekeeping is important, like a D&D dungeoncrawl, I use the official round length to determine how long the fight lasted. In B/X, a five round fight lasted five minutes, but it doesn't mean each round needed to be precisely a minute.

i remember at least some versions of D&D had every combat taking at least one ten-minute Turn regardless of how many rounds the fighting lasted. The extra time was consumed in bandaging wounds, cleaning weapons, tightening armour straps, catching your breath, etc.

This also added an incentive to think before getting into fights, as each one would burn down your torches another turn, bring you that much closer to the next wandering monster check, etc.

Quote from: joriandrake;1012893That had to be terrible, that's like live acting a chess game, the pieces act once then wait a damn long time to get another move.

Different, not terrible. DavetheLost explains it well.

One advantage to OD&D over a lot of RPGs since then is that the time it took at the table to play out a 1 minute (game time) combat round was very fast. So during combat the time spent in real time vs time spent in game were about equal. Many (I'd say most) other RPGs spend more time in real time than passes in game time when in combat. Often vastly more time in real time. This had two advantages for OD&D.

• People seldom got bored in combat waiting for their turn in real time to occur.
• One could resolve several combats in an evening and still have plenty of time for lots of exploring, planning, and roleplaying.

Quote from: RMS;1012898I'm fairly certain that OD&D actually didn't specify how long a round was, but rather you could infer it.

Time was spelled out. Turns in the underworld were 10 minutes. (Which was important for tracking torches and lantern oil and for rolling for wandering monsters.) There were 10 combat rounds per turn. Ergo, a combat round was 1 minute. Gronan will probably be along in a while to give you the page number in the rules. I'd do it but I'm too lazy to walk downstairs, find the box with my OD&D rules, and skim through 50-60 pages to find a quote.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1013017This also added an incentive to think before getting into fights, as each one would burn down your torches another turn, bring you that much closer to the next wandering monster check, etc.

The sights, sounds, and smells from a fight are usually sufficient for me to trigger a wandering monster check regardless of the actual time spent.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1013017i remember at least some versions of D&D had every combat taking at least one ten-minute Turn regardless of how many rounds the fighting lasted. The extra time was consumed in bandaging wounds, cleaning weapons, tightening armour straps, catching your breath, etc.

That's why I said it was inferred rather than specified.  OD&D (and AD&D) talk a lot about tracking time closely, but that really isn't about tracking combat down to the second, but rather about tracking time in the dungeon for torches, random encounter checks, etc.  AND for tracking time in the overall campaign as the assumption was that multiple groups were all using the same campaign.

Quote from: Bren;1013018Time was spelled out. Turns in the underworld were 10 minutes. (Which was important for tracking torches and lantern oil and for rolling for wandering monsters.) There were 10 combat rounds per turn. Ergo, a combat round was 1 minute.

See above.  I recall combat rounds not being specified.  This issue is made worse by the fact that OD&D mixes the terms round and turn interchangeably, and without knowledge of Chainmail I'm not certain the two make a whole lot of sense as written in OD&D.

B/X made combat rounds in the seconds specifically, while AD&D specified them to "about a minute" as I recall.  In the end, it didn't make a lot of difference.  Either way, everything was abstracted to the point that it didn't make a lot of difference.  The only real issue is that one allowed additional movement compared to the other based on how time was considered.

Additional tidbit:  OD&D had a Movement (or something like that) which was 1/2 a Turn (~5 minutes).  That went away after OD&D.  Was it what a combat took, or was it the entire Turn.

Quote from: Bren;1013018Different, not terrible. DavetheLost explains it well.

One advantage to OD&D over a lot of RPGs since then is that the time it took at the table to play out a 1 minute (game time) combat round was very fast. So during combat the time spent in real time vs time spent in game were about equal. Many (I'd say most) other RPGs spend more time in real time than passes in game time when in combat.

When I wrote 'terrible' I imagined the ingame time as how the characters see the very slowly passing time during combat, not the RL time which can easily be less than a full moment per turn. I imagined it like the whole combat ingame happens in slowed down time.

Quote from: S'mon;1012891I guess OD&D encourages tactics like "hold them at a choke point so we get more attacks on them than they get on us - then we should win". I think the actual feeling is closest to 'Culture of Order' battles from the 18th-19th century. You want 3:1 odds or better for a nice easy victory. 1e-2e and 5e also work like that to a slightly lesser extent.

Runequest encourages tactics like "ambush them when they're bathing, so their armour is off" or "burn the steading down with them inside - put men at the exit to kill those fleeing" - Njall's Saga type stuff. The actual feeling is closest to participating in Dark Age skirmish/raid warfare, or modern gangland hits. Even 3:1 odds are risky, you could still die to a lucky crit, so best to take no chances.

Agreed on both accounts:).

Quote4e D&D encourages tactics like "use Power X to get 6 foes to surround me at once, then Power B to attack them all in a Close Burst 1" - when in the flow, the feeling is closest to Anime, Mahabarata, or some stylised Hollywood cinematic combat. You want 1:3 odds or 'worse' so your cool move can have maximum impact.

Based on my limited experience, I totally disagree with that part (not about the tactics, but about the inspiration). But let's just note my disagreement, and continue along, if that's fine with you:D?

Quote from: RMS;1012898I'm fairly certain that OD&D actually didn't specify how long a round was, but rather you could infer it.  Time-keeping in combat is very abstract in early D&D, as it should be IMO.  A round is however long it takes for two sides to maneuver and have a series of exchanges worth rolling the dice for resolution.  That might be 10-15 seconds, or 30-60 seconds depending on the specific combat taking place.

Yes, both early D&D and RQ/BRP are both systems that resolve combat as an entire exchange of blows for a single die roll.  Neither pretends to handle things swing-by-swing, and both assume a fair amount of maneuver within the the melee so only use relative positioning.

Well, it's easier to track RQ/BRP combat swing-per-swing, if you want to;).

Quote from: Tulpa Girl;1013007That was pretty much my experience with Stormbringer, the only BRP game I ever played.  Mind you, after a few sessions we started applying those tactics to our AD&D games as well.

That has been my experience with BRP, MRQ2/Legend/RQ6/Mythras (which are almost the same game under different brands), WFRP2, Bloodlust, GURPS, Maelstrom Domesday and Usagi Yojimbo (though the latter five have different stats, they've got the same structure where you gain defensive power).
And yes, that includes "starting to later apply the same tactics in d20-based games as well";).

Quote from: AsenRG;1013070Based on my limited experience, I totally disagree with that part (not about the tactics, but about the inspiration). But let's just note my disagreement, and continue along, if that's fine with you:D?

Er... Well I was not talking specifically about inspiration (for any of these games) - I suppose OD&D combat was influenced indirectly by HG Wells' Little Wars, Runequest by SCA combat, and 4e by the Peter Jackson LOTR movies. I was talking about what they felt like to me; 4e combat when it's working reminds me of fantasy Anime combat, or Hollywood action cinematics with Far Eastern influences. 'Bullet Time' moves in The Matrix feel very 4e to me. I see the 4e camera slow down and (occasionally) :D speed up a lot, as it focuses on the Big Damn Hero doing the Cool Thing. OD&D combat is more about the group, and RQ/BRP combat tends towards a slightly bathetic, real-life feel, though there can also be heroism, of a different sort. Like the Time my Sun Dome Templar had his leg pinned to the floor by a thrown Broo spear (impale, leg disabled), threw his own spear, and by a fluke killed the bugger. It was cool in the way it arose naturally from the BRP physics engine, whereas 4e hard-codes in The Cool - which can make it less cool, but more often a different kind of cool, the kind where you KNOW the hero is about to do something awesome. In RQ, if the hero pulls off something awesome it's always a bit of a surprise, and probably a relief.

Quote from: joriandrake;1012893That had to be terrible, that's like live acting a chess game, the pieces act once then wait a damn long time to get another move.

No, it's glorious.  Huge amounts of action are abstracted in, and you can actually do more than take a five foot step and attack.  And it runs faster than any other RPG I've ever played, to the point where I run a round of combat in barely more than a minute, so the action happens in only 3 times real time rather than a thirty second battle taking two hours.  A typical OD&D combat is over in less than five real minutes.

I've played a lot of games over the years.  It's not an accident I am continuing to run OD&D.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012894Nope, not terrible at all.  First off an "attack" in 0D&D does not represent a single swing of a sword. that it does is one of the biggest misonceptions about the game. An "attack" represents a period of the back and forth cut and thrust of combat with the dice roll determining the effect. There will come during that combat round an opening for a serious attack this is the attack roll.

As for teh length of a combat round, it is really abstract. No-one is sitting there with an egg timer making sure that is how long combat rounds last in real time at the game table.

The "flurry of attacks against something" to which you refer is resolved as one attack roll in 0D&D. It is not a combat system which tracks each individual swing of a blade. It is abstracted. As are hit points, class and level, and many other things.

Exactly.  "At the end of a minute of furious swording away, is the other son of a bitch still standing?"

Quote from: Tulpa Girl;1013007Mind you, after a few sessions we started applying those tactics to our AD&D games as well.

You have put a warm glow into my withered, blackened old heart.

I thought it was common sense to do something like the bathing plan in case your party happens to find an other one. Although most of the time at best you can get 1-2 enemies unprepared as garrison/camp guards are replaced and the enemy doesn't just go all at once to bath. Unless the setting is Asian and they go to an onsen.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013028When I wrote 'terrible' I imagined the ingame time as how the characters see the very slowly passing time during combat, not the RL time which can easily be less than a full moment per turn. I imagined it like the whole combat ingame happens in slowed down time.

That's just silly.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013291I thought it was common sense to do something like the bathing plan in case your party happens to find an other one. Although most of the time at best you can get 1-2 enemies unprepared as garrison/camp guards are replaced and the enemy doesn't just go all at once to bath. Unless the setting is Asian and they go to an onsen.

Red Leader, Red Leader, this is Red Eight.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, I say again, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013289You have put a warm glow into my withered, blackened old heart.

Have you tried Zantac?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013293Red Leader, Red Leader, this is Red Eight.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, I say again, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?

...
This is Blue Leader, syntax error. TIC and stryker under IDF, tactical retrograde. Once 2ndCav at green zone repeat question. Hooah. Toujours Pret. (Kandak OMLT, HDF)


Now seriously, what was the 'WTF' about? The meaning of onsen?

WTF stands for What The Fuck.

The post I quoted is an utter non sequitur in this thread.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013333WTF stands for What The Fuck.

The post I quoted is an utter non sequitur in this thread.

I KNOW it meant 'wtf', I asked what your problem was?

You claimed my previous comment was silly, then you quoted a different, on topic comment of mine and said wtf.


There was the discussion of the tactic of waiting for the best moment to strike the enemy, in this case the example was bathing, to which I said it is unlikely to have too much of a difference due to rotating guards. The only thing I thought you might react to with 'WTF' would be the lack of knowledge about what onsen means, which I mentioned because the use of one would explain why suddenly the whole enemy camp goes to bath at same time.

PS: my reaction comment to your 'WTF' one actually makes sense, more or less, except the syntax error part.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013333The post I quoted is an utter non sequitur in this thread.

A reference to:

Quote from: S'mon;1012891Runequest encourages tactics like "ambush them when they're bathing, so their armour is off" or "burn the steading down with them inside - put men at the exit to kill those fleeing" - Njall's Saga type stuff. The actual feeling is closest to participating in Dark Age skirmish/raid warfare, or modern gangland hits. Even 3:1 odds are risky, you could still die to a lucky crit, so best to take no chances.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1013337A reference to:

Oh, I missed that in reading the thread.  Makes more sense now.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1013337A reference to:

Indeed, my comment reacted to S'mon, but also to AsenRG's post on tactics, which got then applied to d20 system. I didn't think that tactics like this would be system-specific.

EDIT:

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1013340Oh, I missed that in reading the thread.  Makes more sense now.

Knowing that you missed a part of the discussion gives your reaction more sense as well.

Quote from: S'mon;1013123Er... Well I was not talking specifically about inspiration (for any of these games) - I suppose OD&D combat was influenced indirectly by HG Wells' Little Wars, Runequest by SCA combat, and 4e by the Peter Jackson LOTR movies. I was talking about what they felt like to me; 4e combat when it's working reminds me of fantasy Anime combat, or Hollywood action cinematics with Far Eastern influences. 'Bullet Time' moves in The Matrix feel very 4e to me.

OK, but I remember my experience with 4e, too:).
And when I remember the "anime combat" I've seen (mostly in Berserk), some Hollywood action sequences, and "Bullet time" in the Matrix...none of these seems to be even close to a match with the edition's "feel".

"Slog through the minions', then a long, long slog through the Brute's and Soldier's hitpoints, with more whiffing than I get in WFRP2 and the Warlock doing most of the damage, while my Warlord can't do much because the place we're fighting on is too narrow to push them around, but it seems like my ability to push them doesn't extend to pushing them over the edge of the precipice, so I can as well repeat a simple weapon attack" isn't anything like what I remember from the above sources;).

Yeah, I'm sure it did what it was meant to do, but bullet time it wasn't, unless you're measuring how long it took to resolve a simple 6-seconds round:D!

But then, I've stated it before, and 4e did what it set out to do, which was providing tactical battles and solving the LFQW issue of the previous edition. As I said, too bad the actual process of playing it was dull as a bad fuck.

Quote from: joriandrake;1013341Indeed, my comment reacted to S'mon, but also to AsenRG's post on tactics, which got then applied to d20 system. I didn't think that tactics like this would be system-specific.

I didn't think it, either, but they sure seem to be, given how often the players didn't think to use them in d20, and how often the same players did that in d100 games:p.
Yes, I have an explanation, but I don't have a good enough explanation for this, and in the end, it's easier for me to just run the game or games that seem to push a more tactical approach;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1013416"Slog through the minions', then a long, long slog through the Brute's and Soldier's hitpoints, with more whiffing than I get in WFRP2 and the Warlock doing most of the damage, while my Warlord can't do much because the place we're fighting on is too narrow to push them around, but it seems like my ability to push them doesn't extend to pushing them over the edge of the precipice, so I can as well repeat a simple weapon attack" isn't anything like what I remember from the above sources;).

4e RAW says you can push them off the precipice, but they get a Save; if successful they fall prone instead.
If you were missing a lot in 4e the enemies were way too high level. Sounds like poor GMing to me.
But it is very slow.

4e combat was blow-by-blow in slow motion so you could you observe your character doing cool things.  Unfortunately, the end results was a game where combat was all there was time for and it dragged, seriously dragged.  We had our powers all printed on cards.  I started shuffling them and playing them randomly just to liven things up, and hoping maybe I'd get lucky and get my character get killed so I could go do something else with a bit more excitement.  Seriously, I found it incredibly slow and incredibly boring at the same time.

Quote from: RMS;10134594e combat was blow-by-blow in slow motion so you could you observe your character doing cool things.  Unfortunately, the end results was a game where combat was all there was time for and it dragged, seriously dragged.  

Yeah, you have to either enjoy frequent 90 minute battles, or else keep fights rare - 4e ought to work well for cinematic LoTR type questing I'd think, not so much for dungeon crawling. Time management in 4e is a huge issue, I often end up finishing the game 40 minutes early (from a 7pm-10pm slot) because there's no time for another battle.

Quote from: S'mon;10134204e RAW says you can push them off the precipice, but they get a Save; if successful they fall prone instead.
If you were missing a lot in 4e the enemies were way too high level. Sounds like poor GMing to me.
But it is very slow.

I don't remember them even falling prone. In fact, I think I was told I can't use the power in that way:). I might be misremembering, it might be that they'd just made their saves, or it might be that the GM had gotten it wrong, too;). It happens, and I don't blame him either way.
In fact, I prefer not to talk about 4e at all, but was asked to explain what I remember 4e to be like.

Quote from: RMS;10134594e combat was blow-by-blow in slow motion so you could you observe your character doing cool things.  Unfortunately, the end results was a game where combat was all there was time for and it dragged, seriously dragged.  We had our powers all printed on cards.  I started shuffling them and playing them randomly just to liven things up, and hoping maybe I'd get lucky and get my character get killed so I could go do something else with a bit more excitement.  Seriously, I found it incredibly slow and incredibly boring at the same time.

More like b...l...o...w-b...y-b...l...o...w and then putting this in slow motion:p!
But then, I play Legends of the Wulin, it's the fact that I found it both long and dull that caused me to vote against more sessions of it:D!

Quote from: AsenRG;1013742More like b...l...o...w-b...y-b...l...o...w and then putting this in slow motion:p!

One of the other players at our table described it as 300 the RPG.  However, I never saw the movie.  I just know they said the entire thing was shot in super slow motion.

Quote from: S'mon;10131234e by the Peter Jackson LOTR movies.

4e combat was pulled directly from MMO's whole cloth.  The strict class roles, the types of maneuvers like you describe, concepts straight from games like EverQuest, and Dark Age of Camelot, but most of all from newer (at the time) MMOs like Guild Wars, WoW and the various NCSoft games.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1013751Dark Age of Camelot, but most of all from newer (at the time) MMOs like Guild Wars, WoW and the various NCSoft games.

Oooh, Dark age of Camelot. I played that a LOT in the day.

The mechanics of the game were supposed to be based on Rolemaster.  Interesting factoid.

At the time ICE was being pushed into bankruptcy by Tolkien Enterprises, the makers of Dark Age of Camelot were trying to keep them afloat so they could use the MERP licence to do an MMPORG.

Quote from: David Johansen;1013807At the time ICE was being pushed into bankruptcy by Tolkien Enterprises, the makers of Dark Age of Camelot were trying to keep them afloat so they could use the MERP licence to do an MMPORG.

Ah ok, that's interesting..

BTW anyone noticed the ironcrown.com domain hasn't been renewed?
The site has been down for some days now.

I had no problem running 4e combat in the Heroic tier (levels 1-10), but I cut monster HP in half, gave all PCs +2 attack bonus and increased the number of foes.

But I didn't need 4e to replace 0e. I run 0e for my Sword & Sorcery fix and I ran 4e for my RPG boardgame hybrid tactical combat fix.

The 4e version of Gamma World was the best iteration of the 4e rules, but unfortunately they screwed up the marketing and didn't show GMs how to modify the gonzo level to make the game work for various post-apoc settings.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1012974I have seen games that define one round as "enough time to take one significant action". That action might be an attack, trying to pick a lock, disarming a trap, casting a spell, lighting a torch, moving. Save getting out the stopwatch arguments about should and should not be possibe in an X-second round.

THIS is what I do. OD&D is all about abstractions.

I tell my players that 10 rounds equals 1 turn and 1 turn is 10 minutes, but 1 round does not equal a 1 minute.
1 round is the time it takes to do your kewl action.
Nobody stresses it.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1013017i remember at least some versions of D&D had every combat taking at least one ten-minute Turn regardless of how many rounds the fighting lasted. The extra time was consumed in bandaging wounds, cleaning weapons, tightening armour straps, catching your breath, etc.

This also added an incentive to think before getting into fights, as each one would burn down your torches another turn, bring you that much closer to the next wandering monster check, etc.

YES! This is also what I do.  It makes time abstraction / tracking much easier.

Quote from: Bren;1013019The sights, sounds, and smells from a fight are usually sufficient for me to trigger a wandering monster check regardless of the actual time spent.

Hell yeah!

The Silence spell is your combat friend.

Also, leaving a trail of dead bodies and blood pools attracts attention too.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1013829Also, leaving a trail of dead bodies and blood pools attracts attention too.

It's called a trail for a reason. :D

Quote from: danskmacabre;1013814BTW anyone noticed the ironcrown.com domain hasn't been renewed?
The site has been down for some days now.

Yeah, odds are that whoever is supposed to fix it is too busy to have noticed.  ICE's very part time and dispersed these days.  Nicholas Caldwell certainly has a day job.  The owner, John Seal's got a day job, but I'm not sure about his brother.

Quote from: Bren;1013874It's called a trail for a reason. :D

I once had a player at a convention get angry when the guards sounded the alarm and began ringing bells in the tower. I reminded him they slaughtered the gate guards and left their corpses there. WTF did they think was going to happen?

The nimrod asked me if I rolled Perception checks for the guards. I reminded them there were hacked up guard pieces all over the place, blood everywhere and no attempt to hide anything.

His response? "Our GM at home doesn't play that way."

Quote from: Spinachcat;1013891His response? "Our GM at home doesn't play that way."

One wonders, did he learn anything from his novel convention experience?

"Don't play at conventions," sadly.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

I also soon tired of class based systems and still gravitate to skill based, not that I didn't play AD&D for decades and I did really enjoy it.  I found Traveler and TFT to have a better take than BRP, and by BRP I mean RuneQuest in the day.  I find BRP % system too fiddly as a GM, not a lot of extra value for the lower ease of use.

As to RuneQUest I hated, just loathed, how tied to the setting the rules were.  Some neat setting ideas overall but much of it I disliked.

Never underestimate the power of the first mover.  D&D was first on the market and with BX put out a great system that all could follow.  So D&D with BX, and even AD&D, had a good product on the market and was able to "define" what an RPG looked like.   I am still to this day amazed at how well OD&D did as even as an avid war gamer, the rules were spotty, poorly organized and, compared to an AH or SPI war game of the same period, of kindergarten production values.  (Maybe the latter helped as it fit in with the whole Zine vibe of the late 70s)  Just goes to show how a new concept and evocative text (Gary was good at that part) can overcome such shortcomings.

0D&D production values were one up on some miniatures rules of the period. It actually had art!

Quote from: DavetheLost;10139860D&D production values were one up on some miniatures rules of the period. It actually had art!

Well there were drawings. I wouldn't call those drawings "art" though.

Maybe I missed this, but is there a free/light/ simulacrum of BRP out there?

OpenQuest. The OpenQuest SRD is available free from D101 Games, and OpenQuest Basics is available free from DriveThru.  Cakebread & Walton offer a Renaissance d100 blackpowder era SRD as well. Both are on the lighter end of BRP rules. Similar to the original Stormbringer rules in weight.

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

Yes.
(http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/29700000/-Obviously-severus-snape-29765844-500-440.gif)

Quote from: DavetheLost;1014039OpenQuest. The OpenQuest SRD is available free from D101 Games, and OpenQuest Basics is available free from DriveThru.  Cakebread & Walton offer a Renaissance d100 blackpowder era SRD as well. Both are on the lighter end of BRP rules. Similar to the original Stormbringer rules in weight.

Thank you, sir.

I checked their face book page and ICE is aware that the site is down and working on it, whatever that means.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697It just seems perfect. I will be upfront, I hated levels and alignments since 1977.  So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

It's one of the top-10 most popular systems, I'd say.

Quote from: Thanos;1011697So anything that is classless and absent levels is great. Static hit points. Skills that only go up based on use. It seems pretty adaptable. Why isn't it more wide spread?

All kinds of RPGs are using a generic D100 system of some kind or another. Even The Design Mechanism can't seem to make enough of them. The main problem though is the D100 die. It's just a bloated D20, which has issues of its own.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1014318All kinds of RPGs are using a generic D100 system of some kind or another. Even The Design Mechanism can't seem to make enough of them. The main problem though is the D100 die. It's just a bloated D20, which has issues of its own.

How so?  2d10's get a better bell curve result than a d20.  You'll tend to be on average rolls, rather than a single die.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1014302It's one of the top-10 most popular systems, I'd say.

I think classless RPG is getting more popular recently, even in video games. Classes still rule but the 'reign' of them is weaker.

The idea that a character can be more than one thing at the same time with equal skill in both is why things like multiclassing/dual-classing even exists in many systems. The first Guild Wars combined two classes as far I recall, and Pillars of Enternity 2 which is now being developed also has the option to combine two classes (although 'pure' 1 class characters have better final skills and multiclass chars develop slower). While I can understand arguments like that for Wizard requiring time for learning and research I don't see why a character with natural magical abilities (like a sorcerer in most cases) couldn't at the same time (as example) also hone his/her skills in swordplay or try to find their place in nature (going down the monk, or druid route)

Classes especially in older systems is more like the indian caste system, very rigid. Even in the settings/systems still using classes they are becoming more fluid and transparent with things like D&Ds multiclass/prestige classes. In some way the oldest systems opposing classes like that of World of Darkness were, and still are an age ahead of their rivals.

EDIT: if you're interested in multiclassing of Pillars of Eternity 2 here is a video

Spoiler

[video=youtube;FFUZf1eakBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFUZf1eakBE[/youtube]

Quote from: Christopher Brady;10143352d10's get a better bell curve result than a d20.

A d100 is not the same as 2d10. It's a straight d10 followed by another d10, it creates a straight-line probability where each result happens exactly 1% of the time. In that sense it's just a higher-resolution version of the d20, where each result is equivalent to 5%. That makes it more useful if you want to have increments of less than 5%, e.g. if you want to reduce criticals and fumbles to 1% each instead of 5% (although having a major accident every 100 blows is still rather unlikely, but that's another topic).

Quote from: Vile;1014348A d100 is not the same as 2d10. It's a straight d10 followed by another d10, it creates a straight-line probability where each result happens exactly 1% of the time. In that sense it's just a higher-resolution version of the d20, where each result is equivalent to 5%. That makes it more useful if you want to have increments of less than 5%, e.g. if you want to reduce criticals and fumbles to 1% each instead of 5% (although having a major accident every 100 blows is still rather unlikely, but that's another topic).

Well, if you want it to be less often, you add a table of incidents, which doesn't need to have equal probability for major and less important accidents (something like 1-15, 16-35, 36-50, 51-70, 70-95, 96, 97,98, 99, 100). If the really major accidents only happen on, say, 5 out of 100 entries of it, as in my example, you only get a major accident on one in 2000 attacks, which is palatable enough to me;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1014358Well, if you want it to be less often, you add a table of incidents, which doesn't need to have equal probability for major and less important accidents (something like 1-15, 16-35, 36-50, 51-70, 70-95, 96, 97,98, 99, 100). If the really major accidents only happen on, say, 5 out of 100 entries of it, as in my example, you only get a major accident on one in 2000 attacks, which is palatable enough to me;).

The challenge of critical rolls (whether to have them at all, only for attack rolls, all the time, only when under stress, etc.) is a great topic, but probably would swamp this one (whereas the fact that %ile dice do not give bell curve results takes all of 1-2 responses). Another thread perhaps?

It always amazes me how many gamers seem to think that results most always be evenly divided increments of the die pips. You can adjust the probability of a result occuring by where you place it on the bell curve if using 2+ dice, or by how many pips you assign it if using one die.

And as Pendragon elegantly demonstrates you can play BRP games just fine with a d20 instead of d100. Just divide the d100 numbers by 5.

BTW, I like AsenG's suggestion of a second step table which allows us to reduce the chances of a catastrophic fuble to something realistic. Freak accidents do happen, but they are just that, freak events. Most of the "fumbles" I have seen have resulted in effectively "losing your next attack", not the "kill self, three nearest allies, and an old grandma in the next county" sort of thing that some games seem to love.

It always amazes me how many gamers seem to think that results most always be evenly divided increments of the die pips. You can adjust the probability of a result occuring by where you place it on the bell curve if using 2+ dice, or by how many pips you assign it if using one die.

And as Pendragon elegantly demonstrates you can play BRP games just fine with a d20 instead of d100. Just divide the d100 numbers by 5.

BTW, I like AsenG's suggestion of a second step table which allows us to reduce the chances of a catastrophic fuble to something realistic. Freak accidents do happen, but they are just that, freak events. Most of the "fumbles" I have seen have resulted in effectively "losing your next attack", not the "kill self, three nearest allies, and an old grandma in the next county" sort of thing that some games seem to love.

Quote from: Vile;1014348...although having a major accident every 100 blows is still rather unlikely, but that's another topic).

But it's much less unlikely than a major accident every 20 blows. :D

Quote from: Bren;1014378But it's much less unlikely than a major accident every 20 blows. :D

Actually, in BRP, it´s not 1 in 100 or 20 "blows", it´s 12 seconds of fighting (multiplied by 100 or 20).

Quote from: DavetheLost;1014370It always amazes me how many gamers seem to think that results most always be evenly divided increments of the die pips. You can adjust the probability of a result occuring by where you place it on the bell curve if using 2+ dice, or by how many pips you assign it if using one die.

I know I can adjust probabilities by which spot I pick on a curve. But 1D100 allows 100 possible outcomes in 1% increments. 2D10 only allows 19 possible outcomes in increments of between 1% and 10%. But I can duplicate the  exact same outcomes I get on 2D10 with 1D100. And I still have those outer 81 outcomes available.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1014369The challenge of critical rolls (whether to have them at all, only for attack rolls, all the time, only when under stress, etc.) is a great topic, but probably would swamp this one (whereas the fact that %ile dice do not give bell curve results takes all of 1-2 responses). Another thread perhaps?

Maybe, but I wasn't talking about critical rolls. I wanted to say only that the odds of a catastrophic fumble result isn't necessarily 1% if fumbles are also rolled on a table:). Most of them would be just ordinary fumbles like "the opponent gets a free attack that you defend normally (or at -10%)", "lose your next active action and defend at -10%". "Check against Dexterity*5 to avoid falling (the GM might rule this is Dex*3 or 4 if it's slippery)'' is a bit worse, potentially. "You need to give ground or suffer an immediate wound in random location, armour protects normally" might be of no consequence or a nasty choice, depending on the tactical situation.
But most of them aren't catastrophic.
The unconditional "hurt self", "drop weapon", "hurt a friend", "break weapon or shield", "fall at your enemy's feet with his weapon poised" that most systems offer are the bad options.

I must note that the Combat Matrix in Maelstrom Domesday (IMO an improved and cleaned-up BRP variant) achieves the same result.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1014370BTW, I like AsenG's suggestion of a second step table which allows us to reduce the chances of a catastrophic fuble to something realistic. Freak accidents do happen, but they are just that, freak events. Most of the "fumbles" I have seen have resulted in effectively "losing your next attack", not the "kill self, three nearest allies, and an old grandma in the next county" sort of thing that some games seem to love.

Well, it is implemented already. I just mentioned a way to houserule the distribution.

Quote from: Bren;1014384I know I can adjust probabilities by which spot I pick on a curve. But 1D100 allows 100 possible outcomes in 1% increments. 2D10 only allows 19 possible outcomes in increments of between 1% and 10%. But I can duplicate the  exact same outcomes I get on 2D10 with 1D100. And I still have those outer 81 outcomes available.

Well, yeah, it's a matter of how much granularity you want. And more importantly, a range of 2-20 means nothing, inherently. A range of 1-100 is kinda intuitive to most people;).

Quote from: Bren;1014384I know I can adjust probabilities by which spot I pick on a curve. But 1D100 allows 100 possible outcomes in 1% increments. 2D10 only allows 19 possible outcomes in increments of between 1% and 10%. But I can duplicate the  exact same outcomes I get on 2D10 with 1D100. And I still have those outer 81 outcomes available.

Yes, you know this. But we all know you're special.

Quote from: zx81;1014381Actually, in BRP, it´s not 1 in 100 or 20 "blows", it´s 12 seconds of fighting (multiplied by 100 or 20).

I know. I thought about mentioning that but I decided to stick with the terminology others had already used. A correction just seemed like a distraction from my point. But talking about rounds instead of blows only shifts the problem from occurring every few blows to every few dozen seconds. With a D20 it's not 20 rounds because if you are using attacks and parries most rounds there will be an attack and a parry roll for every combatant. Assuming only 2 combatants that means 4 rolls a round so the expected value is one critical miss or fumble every 5 rounds i.e. 1 every minute.

And of course others have pointed out that some systems use a critical hit chart where many of the outcomes are either not catastrophic or do not unconditionally occur.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1014417Yes, you know this. But we all know you're special.

Yes. Yes I am.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1014370It always amazes me how many gamers seem to think that results most always be evenly divided increments of the die pips. You can adjust the probability of a result occuring by where you place it on the bell curve if using 2+ dice, or by how many pips you assign it if using one die.

Yes, I came to love and use for decades a 2D10 based mechanic.  Could translate d20 and d100 stuff pretty well.  It's a matter of taste, I liked that +1 gave diminishing returns the further from the center of the bell curve you got.

QuoteAnd as Pendragon elegantly demonstrates you can play BRP games just fine with a d20 instead of d100. Just divide the d100 numbers by 5.

Well yes, but when the game systems looks to use 1% increments for skill, etc. advancement, you lose a lot of the dynamic range, i.e. if you use a d20 you have only 20 steps.  Both d20 and d100 work fine, just a matter of taste.  Personally, I never found the ability to stat things to 1% increments worth the extra logistical effort and found I would often round to nearest 5% anyway.

 

QuoteBTW, I like AsenG's suggestion of a second step table which allows us to reduce the chances of a catastrophic fuble to something realistic. Freak accidents do happen, but they are just that, freak events. Most of the "fumbles" I have seen have resulted in effectively "losing your next attack", not the "kill self, three nearest allies, and an old grandma in the next county" sort of thing that some games seem to love.

Isn't a second step table just binning d100 rolls into parts of the bell curve?  I mean I like that idea, but why not just use a dice mechanic that is the bell curve like 2D10, 3D6 etc.  Saves you a table look up step.  

On such critical hits and fumbles, my solution on a 2D10 mechanics if you succeed and get doubles it's a critical hit (which means players had a 1% to 10% chance to get a critical hit, depending on how good they are).  Likewise you get a critical failure if you miss and get doubles.  Again a 1-10% chance to critically fail, the chance going down as you get better at something.  This avoided table look ups and used the properties of the dice mechanic to create the verisimilitude of critical hits/misses.  I'm always about the fastest speed of play for the verisimilitude looking for.

Quote from: AsenRG;1014414....

Well, yeah, it's a matter of how much granularity you want. And more importantly, a range of 2-20 means nothing, inherently. A range of 1-100 is kinda intuitive to most people;).

Well certainly people get the x% chance of d100, I think that is it's greatest selling feature.  

But on 2d10, had players who hate math pick up the odds distribution within a few game sessions, where there is a will there is a way.  Also, I always have an odds chart handy or will tell players odds if they wish.  I've had some players rather not know the exact % chance they have, just a rough guess, knowing it to 1% point lessened the immersion for them.

As to the meme "players like classes, levels and ascending hit points," I have some limited experimental data. When I switched from an amalgam of OD&D and AD&D1 to the first version of my current system, our group (two other GMs and sixteen regular players plus an equal number of occasionals) definitely did not want to give up classes or levels but gave up ascending HP for "you get harder to hit" like they were stale bread in a cupcake store. Over the years, no one has done more than express surprise about how many HP they start with and not getting any more. I have modified classes and made them less rigid over the years but I have to say none of the players seemed to mind rigid classes.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1014572As to the meme "players like classes, levels and ascending hit points," I have some limited experimental data. When I switched from an amalgam of OD&D and AD&D1 to the first version of my current system, our group (two other GMs and sixteen regular players plus an equal number of occasionals) definitely did not want to give up classes or levels but gave up ascending HP for "you get harder to hit" like they were stale bread in a cupcake store. Over the years, no one has done more than express surprise about how many HP they start with and not getting any more. I have modified classes and made them less rigid over the years but I have to say none of the players seemed to mind rigid classes.

I guess my anecdotal experience is the counter-example, at least with respect to classes.   Generally found a dislike, to hate, for classes and especially rigid ones; one reason is the inflexibility in describing pretty much every fantasy hero ever read about.  Exhibit 1: Giants in the Earth articles; Exhibit 2: Deities and Demigods.   I never considered multi-classing or class changing an alternative, rather inelegant and ad hoc.   Now "levels and increasing HP,"  or in other words a clear improvement path, in my experience is essential.  It doesn't need to be called "levels" but there needs to be a clear improvement in ability, toughness, etc.   It doesn't need to be pre-packaged either, such as a bundle of improvements that you get when you "level," a more buy your improvement with xp also works.  I think ascending HP and being harder to hit is the way to go. :)

The great thing about Rolemaster is that you have it both ways: classes, skills, levels, points random rolls, packages, disadvantage, advantages.  The worst thing about Rolemaster is that you have it both ways.

Anyhow, on critical hits and misses, GURPS makes 9 - 11 no effect beyond the initial inability to use an active defence.

It's boring.  I'm not saying that out of 1000 men 50 of them should accidentally mutilate themselves but, the alternative is boring in the context of an rpg.

Another game that lets you have your cake and eat it too is Dragonquest. Characters don't have synoptic levels per se, but abilities are gathered together into bundles, i.e., you could be level 3 at Thief, level 6 at Ranger, level 2 at Healer, etc. And, you get a kind of crude 3-tier ranking based on how many abilities you have at a certain level. People like levels for the understandable reason that they condense a bunch of fiddly crap into a simple metric that means something. This is good. Classes (or class like 'bundles' as in Dragonquest) are great for the same reason. But there are a lot of different things you can do with this combination that doesn't end up being that much like D+D

Dragon Quest has a pretty sweet magic system.  Similar to the GURPS Magic system but more constrained and less open to abuse.  I like GURPS combat better but I think Dragon Quest manages to be more flavorful.  Really, similarities to Dragon Quest are one of the things that drew me to / set me up to like GURPS.

I think the first thing I'd do to improve the sales of BRP would be to cram less into the main book.  Don't get me wrong, the big gold book is awesome but it's not a great point of entry.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1014621Another game that lets you have your cake and eat it too is Dragonquest. Characters don't have synoptic levels per se, but abilities are gathered together into bundles, i.e., you could be level 3 at Thief, level 6 at Ranger, level 2 at Healer, etc. And, you get a kind of crude 3-tier ranking based on how many abilities you have at a certain level. People like levels for the understandable reason that they condense a bunch of fiddly crap into a simple metric that means something. This is good. Classes (or class like 'bundles' as in Dragonquest) are great for the same reason. But there are a lot of different things you can do with this combination that doesn't end up being that much like D+D

I think one of the keys to making that work is that the class-like bundles don't overlap very much.  And when they do, there are usually obvious acknowledgements in the rules themselves, such as the DQ spy/thief thing where advancing in one makes advancing in the other easier.  It's arguably in the DQ magic colleges where they most break that rules, what with all the spell cross-references in order to preserve the idea that each character can belong to no more than 1 college.  

This is almost the opposite of most versions of RQ that I'm familiar with.  I assume BRP itself follows that?  That is, in RQ, you've got the magic "bundles" of common, spirit, sorcery, divine, and then not much cross-over in what they can do.  But everything else is effectively presented as discrete abilities, gated somewhat by culture and other things in the game (e.g. nomads get a head start on skill X, are behind in skill Y).  In DQ, it is the skills that are bundled, but the magic bundles have that overlap.

A new edition of Dragonquest that sorted out some of its wonky details but kept the heart of it really intact would be amazing. The magic system rocks the party, but should have been organized like the skills, where you just track your level in one thing and all the little gears that this implies (chances at various skills, etc.) track with that number. That would be better than having to keep track of separate ranks in a jillion separate spells. Same with weapons. And you shouldn't get like 1000's of EXP in free stuff just because you declare you are an adept when a non-adept starts with bare bones skills. But those are little things.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1014625A new edition of Dragonquest that sorted out some of its wonky details but kept the heart of it really intact would be amazing. The magic system rocks the party, but should have been organized like the skills, where you just track your level in one thing and all the little gears that this implies (chances at various skills, etc.) track with that number. That would be better than having to keep track of separate ranks in a jillion separate spells. Same with weapons. And you shouldn't get like 1000's of EXP in free stuff just because you declare you are an adept when a non-adept starts with bare bones skills. But those are little things.

I'd really like to have a conversation with you about this, that will probably go way outside the scope of this topic.  Are you interested enough in a new topic along those lines?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1014735I'd really like to have a conversation with you about this, that will probably go way outside the scope of this topic.  Are you interested enough in a new topic along those lines?

Sure!

Before we go any further, guys: 2d10 doesn't give a bell curve. It's still linear probability, as witnessed by the graph:).
Here's the graph;).
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2034[/ATTACH]

Now, the mandatory nitpicking aside, let's move on with the thread.

Quote from: Xanther;1014524Yes, I came to love and use for decades a 2D10 based mechanic.  Could translate d20 and d100 stuff pretty well.  It's a matter of taste, I liked that +1 gave diminishing returns the further from the center of the bell curve you got.

Nothing wrong with 2d10, though I tend to prefer 2d6, myself.

QuoteWell yes, but when the game systems looks to use 1% increments for skill, etc. advancement, you lose a lot of the dynamic range, i.e. if you use a d20 you have only 20 steps.  Both d20 and d100 work fine, just a matter of taste.  Personally, I never found the ability to stat things to 1% increments worth the extra logistical effort and found I would often round to nearest 5% anyway.

You mean that it's a matter of preference, like most mechanics:D?
 

QuoteIsn't a second step table just binning d100 rolls into parts of the bell curve?  I mean I like that idea, but why not just use a dice mechanic that is the bell curve like 2D10, 3D6 etc.  Saves you a table look up step.

Well, first of all, because 2dX isn't a bell curve:p!
More importantly, because making the fumble roll 2 on 2d10 is the exact same probability as making it 100 on 1d100, which is 1% - and that's still too high for some people, if all your fumbles are catastrophic ones. So an additional 1d100 on fumbles is making it a "hidden" 1d10 000 roll.
If 1% chance of catastrophic fumble feels right, you don't need to do that.

QuoteOn such critical hits and fumbles, my solution on a 2D10 mechanics if you succeed and get doubles it's a critical hit (which means players had a 1% to 10% chance to get a critical hit, depending on how good they are).  Likewise you get a critical failure if you miss and get doubles.  Again a 1-10% chance to critically fail, the chance going down as you get better at something.  This avoided table look ups and used the properties of the dice mechanic to create the verisimilitude of critical hits/misses.  I'm always about the fastest speed of play for the verisimilitude looking for.

And that's great, if it feels right. Another poster complained that cutting your own foot once every 100 swings is kinda too high. And since I agree, I suggested an alternative.

Quote from: Xanther;1014525Well certainly people get the x% chance of d100, I think that is it's greatest selling feature.  

But on 2d10, had players who hate math pick up the odds distribution within a few game sessions, where there is a will there is a way.  Also, I always have an odds chart handy or will tell players odds if they wish.  I've had some players rather not know the exact % chance they have, just a rough guess, knowing it to 1% point lessened the immersion for them.

Of course they would. The odds of rolling N or less on 2d10 is exactly [1+2+3+4+5+...(N-1)]%, which translates to N*[(N-1)/2]% and thus can be calculated in your mind with a bit of practice:D! Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Now, I challenge you to make the same calculations for 2d6...:p
(The problem is that you won't get whole numbers. Otherwise, 2d6 works just as simply, but the 1/36 chance should probably be better for your "don't want to know the exact chance" players).

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1014572As to the meme "players like classes, levels and ascending hit points," I have some limited experimental data. When I switched from an amalgam of OD&D and AD&D1 to the first version of my current system, our group (two other GMs and sixteen regular players plus an equal number of occasionals) definitely did not want to give up classes or levels but gave up ascending HP for "you get harder to hit" like they were stale bread in a cupcake store. Over the years, no one has done more than express surprise about how many HP they start with and not getting any more. I have modified classes and made them less rigid over the years but I have to say none of the players seemed to mind rigid classes.

Quote from: Xanther;1014598I guess my anecdotal experience is the counter-example, at least with respect to classes.   Generally found a dislike, to hate, for classes and especially rigid ones; one reason is the inflexibility in describing pretty much every fantasy hero ever read about.  Exhibit 1: Giants in the Earth articles; Exhibit 2: Deities and Demigods.   I never considered multi-classing or class changing an alternative, rather inelegant and ad hoc.   Now "levels and increasing HP,"  or in other words a clear improvement path, in my experience is essential.  It doesn't need to be called "levels" but there needs to be a clear improvement in ability, toughness, etc.   It doesn't need to be pre-packaged either, such as a bundle of improvements that you get when you "level," a more buy your improvement with xp also works.  I think ascending HP and being harder to hit is the way to go. :)

And I have the counter-counter example.
My players find all three ridiculous, though they are willing to play OSR games when I'm willing to run them. However, some of them find the classes most ridiculous, followed by the escalating HP, and then the levels. Others find the escalating HP stupider, followed by levels, and are mostly willing to put up with classes.
Virtually considered levels to be the worst thing, at least among those that I've bothered to ask;).

Quote from: David Johansen;1014611The great thing about Rolemaster is that you have it both ways: classes, skills, levels, points random rolls, packages, disadvantage, advantages.  The worst thing about Rolemaster is that you have it both ways.

Anyhow, on critical hits and misses, GURPS makes 9 - 11 no effect beyond the initial inability to use an active defence.

It's boring.  I'm not saying that out of 1000 men 50 of them should accidentally mutilate themselves but, the alternative is boring in the context of an rpg.

IME, "you hit and the other side can't defend" is a result that seldom counts as boring, when playinh GURPS:D!
(And it's just possible that GURPS was my inspiration for the table suggestion;)).

the graph didn't come through, but I don't understand how a 2d10 roll could not result in something with the properties of a bell curve. There is one way each to produce a result of 2 or 20. There are 10 ways to produce the number 11.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1014841the graph didn't come through, but I don't understand how a 2d10 roll could not result in something with the properties of a bell curve. There is one way each to produce a result of 2 or 20. There are 10 ways to produce the number 11.

(Not a mathematicians) My understanding is that is a curve, but not a bell curve.  Calling it "linear" is correct but potential misleading, in that even a straight line is a form of a curve.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1014841the graph didn't come through, but I don't understand how a 2d10 roll could not result in something with the properties of a bell curve. There is one way each to produce a result of 2 or 20. There are 10 ways to produce the number 11.

If you plot the probability for each outcome you get two straight lines. One going up from 2 to 11 and the other going down from 11 to 20.

EDIT: added graph
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Quote from: Bren;1014856If you plot the probability for each outcome you get two straight lines. One going up from 2 to 11 and the other going down from 11 to 20.

EDIT: added graph
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2035[/ATTACH]

Plotting the number of combinations versus sum certainly produces a triangle like shape, but that is not a linear probability distribution as used with respect to game dice mechanics, the linear distributions are flat-lines (zero slope), that is there are equal probability steps between the possible dice rolls.

It's certainly not a bell-curve, if by that you mean a normal distribution, it does approach one as you add more dice and it has many of the same features as a bell curve for game purposes....the probability is clearly non-linear.

Compare a d20 to 2D10.    

On a d20 going from a 3 to a 4 is a 5% step, as is going from a 10 to an 11, or a 19 to a 20.  A +1 in this system is a +5% probability no matter what you roll.
 
On 2D10 (for example where you roll under a number) going from a 3 to a 4 increase your odds 4%, from a 10 to 11 your odds increased by 10%, and going from a 19 to a 20 increase your odds by 1%.

Then the comment was obtuse, because the ascending and descending odds differ in detail from a bell curve but have the same operational property, that the center of the distribution is much more probable than its wings. It is clearly much closer to a bell curve than is any roll of a single die of the commonly available types.

For those who wish to see some output

http://anydice.com/program/1207

Click on graph. The graph shows the probabilities of each. The 1d20 is flat because there are the same probabilities for everything. 2d10 gives this chevron shaped curve that seems closer to s normal distribution because of the differing probabilities of results.

Quote from: AsenRG;1014830Before we go any further, guys: 2d10 doesn't give a bell curve. It's still linear probability, as witnessed by the graph:).

It's not a normal distribution, but it is a curve as for every value of y there is no only one value of x.   It doesn't have the bell shape you are used to but it has the same broad statistical features.

QuoteNothing wrong with 2d10, though I tend to prefer 2d6, myself.

I can see that, for me 2D6 didn't give enough dynamic range for character improvement, or modifiers to the dice roll.  My experience with it was mostly through Traveller.

QuoteYou mean that it's a matter of preference, like most mechanics:D?

Of course, as long as they are doing what you want.  I bring them up because people don't seem to know how to evaluate and think about them outside of actual play.
 
 

QuoteWell, first of all, because 2dX isn't a bell curve:p!

oh yee of little math background.. :p  It's the a more cow-bell curve than church bell.

QuoteMore importantly, because making the fumble roll 2 on 2d10 is the exact same probability as making it 100 on 1d100, which is 1% - and that's still too high for some people, if all your fumbles are catastrophic ones. So an additional 1d100 on fumbles is making it a "hidden" 1d10 000 roll.

Of course it's the same probability.  That's a vacuous analysis.   What a fumble entails is up to the GM and game, maybe its horrible maybe not, that's a purely if you want to use them decision.  I was trying to illustrate a feature a non-constant probability step mechanic (non-linear for short) has over the constant probability step mechanic.  

The problem often cited for critical on a d20 or even d100 is they occur to often, or both a 1st level orc and a 15th level fighter both have a 5% chance to roll a natural 20.   I've seen so many ways meant to fudge this or tie the chance to the level.  I've seen in d100 systems, where if you need to roll under x and you roll x/10 or under you get a critical.   All well and good, so if I need a 70%, rolling 7% or under gets me a critical.  This works but adds simple division at the table, that varies from chance to hit to hit an needs to be kind of tracked.   Compare to my 2D10 idea, which says if you roll doubles and hit you get a critical.  This is in effect doing the same thing as the d100 example I just gave except you don't need to do any division.  You know your number to hit and if you get doubles (no math just visual pattern recognition) it's a critical.  Simple, fast.

QuoteVirtually considered levels to be the worst thing, at least among those that I've bothered to ask;).

When you say levels do you mean where you don't improve at all until you hit a certain experience total, then ding, all sorts of improvement happens?  Or do you mean the concept of character improvement itself they find the worst thing; even if it isn't a all at once stepped kind-of-thing?  One thing I've always seen players want is to be able to improve their character.  If it can't be done with stats and skills, they focus on gear.

Quote(And it's just possible that GURPS was my inspiration for the table suggestion;)).

You'll find I have a great aversion to the table look-up especially ones that require indexing a row and column to get a target number, it adds a step that can be avoided through design.  

I am really focused on speed of game mechanic use, and think the time consumed is non linear with each arithmetic or reading step.  That is performing two such steps doesn't double the time from one step, it triples or quadruples the time.  Yes the time may be in seconds but it adds up.  Visual pattern recognition is generally quicker and may scale more linearly.

I focus on the situations a GM faces and this all been driven by my and the groups love of large, messy combats with a party of 6 and a dozen allies against 36 foes, and resolving that in a half an hour without sacrificing tactics.  

Essentially, reduce the number of rolls (ideally one roll (multiple dice OK preferably all the same) per creature, remove table look ups (a couple of ways to do this), remove multiplication and division, remove addition or subtraction of roll modifiers greater than 10,...etc.   With 2D10 was able to remove table look up, and emulate things that required multiplication/division with d100 or d20 and also reduce the value of modifiers to lower numbers and still get the same bang and feel; i.e. a +4 in a 2D10 mechanic has much more meaning generally than in a d20 mechanic and easier to work with than the +17% and such in a d100.   I find 2D10 to be a good mechanical sweet spot between 2D6 and 3D6 if you are looking for this kind of mechanic; of course I once fiddled with 2D12 for a while and still have a fondness for those dice.

Oh, good.  Dice wankery.

* fap fap fap fap fap fap *

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014915Oh, good.  Dice wankery.

* fap fap fap fap fap fap *

Go swing your tiny e-peen somewhere else, this is interesting for some of us.  You don't have to throw your hat in a ring you have no idea about out.

I've had graduate level statistics, thank you very much.

Arguing about dice curves is about the single least interesting thing possible.

I sucked at math and find this discussion of dice bloody uninteresting as well.

Quote from: Xanther;1014861Plotting the number of combinations versus sum certainly produces a triangle like shape, but that is not a linear probability distribution...

I assumed Asen's linear comment was intended as a joke. I was explaining the joke. I was not attempting to make a substantive comment on probability.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1014921Go swing your tiny e-peen somewhere else, this is interesting for some of us.  You don't have to throw your hat in a ring you have no idea about out.

You literally just had to do nothing except leave out the insults and assumptions that he didn't understand and you would have come out looking good in this exchange. 'Some of us find it interesting, and it is vaguely on-topic, so what's the harm? Just come back when we're done.' would have worked wonderfully.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014924I've had graduate level statistics, thank you very much.

Arguing about dice curves is about the single least interesting thing possible.

Quote from: Voros;1014965I sucked at math and find this discussion of dice bloody uninteresting as well.

Certainly arguing whether a 2dX roll is a bell curve seems to be a relatively pointless endeavor (although, as could be pointed out, 99% of what we discuss on this forum falls into that category). Given that we routinely discuss things using the colloquial meaning of things, rather than the technical, it seems rather like changing the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

Now if we were doing something truly pointless, like discussing the variance of results for a roll that was instead 1-1d2+1d3-1d4+1d6-1d8+1d10-1d12+1d20, I'd probably be all in simply because of the ridiculous factor. Or if we were having a all-out pros-and-cons discussion of using a 2d10 or 3d6 vs. 1d20 or %ile, I might be interested (as it does effect things like whether +1 modifiers are big deals or small deals, although it can still become overly convoluted detail in search of meaning or purpose). But this isn't even math, it's just dictionary work.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014924I've had graduate level statistics, thank you very much.

Arguing about dice curves is about the single least interesting thing possible.

Except for arguing about arguing about dice curves.

Quote from: WillInNewHaven;1015012Except for arguing about arguing about dice curves.

I want to argue about arguing about arguing about dice curves!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1014989Certainly arguing whether a 2dX roll is a bell curve seems to be a relatively pointless endeavor (although, as could be pointed out, 99% of what we discuss on this forum falls into that category). Given that we routinely discuss things using the colloquial meaning of things, rather than the technical, it seems rather like changing the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

This particular dice argument, "d100 vs d20 vs 2d10", has been beaten to death on this forum so often we could just post "See thread X" and read all the same arguments made last time.  This makes it severely test my none-too-ample patience.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015033This particular dice argument, "d100 vs d20 vs 2d10", has been beaten to death on this forum so often we could just post "See thread X" and read all the same arguments made last time.  This makes it severely test my none-too-ample patience.

Read a different thread? Start a new thread? Drink another beer? It's not like there aren't multiple solutions to this particular problem other than bitching.

To quote Lambert in "Alien," "I like to bitch.  It makes me feel better."  :D

(Ask a sour old fart a question, get a sour old fart's answer)

(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Part of my job is supporting testers, testing new software, so no, I do this every single day ...

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Yes and no.  Yes, it can get tiresome.  No, some things are only learned by extreme repetition.  Not infrequently, only learned by repetition in a slightly different manner, from a different person.  One of my best teachers said that nearly ever "Aha!" moment experienced by one of your students was not solely your doing.  You were just the 20th person that tried, and finally got through.  Every time you tried and failed, chalk it up to helping someone else out later.  And that's not even counting all the people really paying attention for the first time.

Also, every one of us gets tired of repetition in different subjects at different rates.  Mainly, I get tired of people that pretend the previous discussion never happened, because they don't like how their pet issues emerged from that discussion.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Sure, that's why I didn't throw my hat into that ring. I don't fault the world for going on without me in places I have no interest. And if other people want to reinvent the wheel, or re-debate the argument of what color binders to contain the documentation they file to initiate the patent for the reinvented wheel, or write a treatise on how deep onto their navel they can gaze while reinventing the wheel, more power to them.

Now there are some relatively new blood in on this conversation, and I don't fault them for not having been there the first time around on the subject. mAcular Chaotic in particular is a relatively new poster who asks a lot of questions which have answered a million times before. And as a general rule I like those threads, as I find that people respond with some really interesting insights. This topic, not so much.


Or, like today, I'm just bored. The production readiness meetings are all done and half my programmers and analysts are already on holiday. So I've no problem discussing the discussing of topics we've already exhausted discussion on past your none-too-ample patience. :p

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015050So I've no problem discussing the discussing of topics we've already exhausted discussion on past your none-too-ample patience. :p

So you're saying I should take it less personally when the universe has the temerity to not be all about me?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015052So you're saying I should take it less personally when the universe has the temerity to not be all about me?

Gronan takes it all?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015052So you're saying I should take it less personally when the universe has the temerity to not be all about me?

Honestly man, I'd hesitate to give you advise. You seem to have you figured out just fine. Take it personally all you like. Just don't be surprised when the world keeps on spinning without regards to you.

Quote from: Bren;1015035Read a different thread? Start a new thread? Drink another beer? It's not like there aren't multiple solutions to this particular problem other than bitching.

But that's what he does.  If it's about D&D he butts in, and when he finds that it has nothing to do with his little circle of knowledge on the game, he makes some out of touch comment and/or bitches.

Which brings up my next question, where does a percentile work out to?  In terms of bell curve or otherwise.

Well, it's a straight line distribution, integers 1 to 100, with an equal (1%) chance of any given number.  It is not a bell curve, if that is what you are asking.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Sure. Of course it's even better when someone feels the need to explain to me things I've known for decades. Sometimes it's more fun to pick on someone in my own age and intellectual weight class, if you know what I mean.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1015044No, some things are only learned by extreme repetition.  Not infrequently, only learned by repetition in a slightly different manner, from a different person.

Doesn't even have to be a different person. Back in my teaching days on more than one occasion I'd run through my standard gamut of explanations and analogies and when none of those worked I'd invent another one on the spot and when that didn't work I'd go back to the first explanation or analogy and the light would suddenly dawn. But back then that's part of what I was getting paid to do...that and to try not to seem too bored, impatient, or annoyed at having to explain stuff again and again.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1015117But that's what he does.  If it's about D&D he butts in, and when he finds that it has nothing to do with his little circle of knowledge on the game, he makes some out of touch comment and/or bitches.

Which brings up my next question, where does a percentile work out to?  In terms of bell curve or otherwise.

And my next question. Christopher, why don't you show us on the doll where the mean old Gronan man touched you?

So many shit players here that don't know how dice work.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1015134So many shit players here that don't know how dice work.

Players don't need to know how the dice work; they just need to say what they are attempting and roll them. The rest is the referee' s job.

Quote from: Dumarest;1015136Players don't need to know how the dice work; they just need to say what they are attempting and roll them. The rest is the referee' s job.

^ This.

Quote from: Bren;1015132And my next question. Christopher, why don't you show us on the doll where the mean old Gronan man touched you?

"Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little gamers with bad intent..."

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015138"Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little gamers with bad intent..."

This isn't the thread on how long you can hold your breath underwater, why do you sound like you are using scuba equipment?

Oh, VERY good!

Now I have that riff going through my head over and over.  It's a really good riff, but as I'm 1200 miles from home, I can't even pickup the damn guitar and play it.

On the tangent to the original topic:  we never actually use the word "bell curve" in statistics, at least not in my experience.  We do use normal distribution (well, my little subset uses Gaussian distribution) which has a very specific meaning.  Of course, we don't really use the word average all by itself either.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

Never tire of being paid for it, never tire of discussing math...puts all that schoolin' to work, or more precisely to play.

Quote from: Bren;1014984I assumed Asen's linear comment was intended as a joke. I was explaining the joke. I was not attempting to make a substantive comment on probability.

:) well said, I missed the joke...also not intending to turn this into some probability and dice mechanic thread.    To make some tenuous re-connection to the original post, the d100 of BRP/RuneQuest was a negative to me, so to some small extent mechanics can have an impact on popularity.

Quote from: RMS;1015147Now I have that riff going through my head over and over.  It's a really good riff, but as I'm 1200 miles from home, I can't even pickup the damn guitar and play it.

Probably for the best, unless you have a flutist to accompany you.

QuoteOn the tangent to the original topic:  we never actually use the word "bell curve" in statistics, at least not in my experience.  We do use normal distribution (well, my little subset uses Gaussian distribution) which has a very specific meaning.  Of course, we don't really use the word average all by itself either.

This is what I mean, though. In these conversations everyone is perfectly fine with using colloquial phrasing until a disagreement happens, and then everyone runs for their pedantic crib sheets to make sure they get to 'win' the conversation. Is 2d10 a bell curve? Is bell curve even the right term? Id didn't matter at the beginning of the thread, since everyone understood that what we were really talking about was a center-focused distribution with unequal likelihood of each result (ex. 2d10 has significantly greater chance of rolling an 11 than a 2 or 20). Does the probability distribution actually curve? No, for that you need at least 3Dx, not 2. Does it matter? It didn't until we decided to change the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

Quote from: Dumarest;1015136Players don't need to know how the dice work; they just need to say what they are attempting and roll them. The rest is the referee' s job.

Heck even a referee doesn't need to know how they work but if you are shopping for a certain mechanical feel or designing your own system you should; makes things a whole lot easier and less painful than trial and error.

And don't forget that if you throw the dice at least 31 times during the game the Central Limit Theorem states that the results approach the normal distribution...

Quote from: Xanther;1015159Heck even a referee doesn't need to know how they work but if you are shopping for a certain mechanical feel or designing your own system you should; makes things a whole lot easier and less painful than trial and error.

Yes, though people that house rule fall somewhere in the middle.  It depends on the house rule.  Those that make house rules should at least know their own limits.

All this bell curve nonsense has nothing to do with the populairty of BRP.

Quote from: Voros;1015222All this bell curve nonsense has nothing to do with the populairty of BRP.

It has more to do with it than anything you've posted in the topic.  Which admittedly is a very low bar for most discussions.

My posts in this thread have been about CoC and OT manchild, stop dragging beefs from Pundency into the main forum.

Quote from: Voros;1015222All this bell curve nonsense has nothing to do with the populairty of BRP.

I think the bell curve itself does, though maybe not the arguments of whether 2d10 is a bell curve. Bell curve weights towards the middle. People can gear their character towards the middle and feel like they are going to win. Psychologically this might be important. Mathematically it may be wrong, but that's not important in popularity ;)

I can handle debating whether it is relevant to play, but not page after page of amateur math wank.

d% like BRP should be flat just like d20.  And since we did all our BRP calculations of critical, impale, fumble, etc at character generation there was much less "amateur math wank" during actual play than with d20. Not that either of those got beyond simple arithmetic anyway, not like FGU...

Quote from: Voros;1015228My posts in this thread have been about CoC and OT manchild, stop dragging beefs from Pundency into the main forum.

I noticed your lack of meaningful contribution here well before I even knew the political forum existed, back when I didn't even have an account and couldn't see that forum.

Setting aside all this nonsense about dice rolling mechanics, the premise of the thread is just incorrect. There are literally hundreds of game systems published over the last 40+ years, and the BRP family of games has spent a significant amount of that time in the a ~top five, and CoC remains very successful. BRP is popular. It just isn't D+D, which has always held (and earned) a unique position in the market.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1015242Setting aside all this nonsense about dice rolling mechanics, the premise of the thread is just incorrect. There are literally hundreds of game systems published over the last 40+ years, and the BRP family of games has spent a significant amount of that time in the a ~top five, and CoC remains very successful. BRP is popular. It just isn't D+D, which has always held (and earned) a unique position in the market.

Yeah, this is dead on, just on the strength of CoC alone. CoC has always been one of the most useful games out there for recruiting non-gaming friends into the hobby. It is the reason that Lovecraft and Cthulhu are universally known throughout geek culture. BRP has enormous staying power.

With Mythras doing well, Delta Green providing a great alternate version of CoC, a new edition of RuneQuest, and the latest edition of CoC getting good support, and a number of other BRP game lines out there, it seems a really weird time to be doing a postmortem on the why BRP is a failure.

Quote from: Bren;1014856If you plot the probability for each outcome you get two straight lines. One going up from 2 to 11 and the other going down from 11 to 20.

EDIT: added graph
[ATTACH=CONFIG]2035[/ATTACH]

Thank you, Bren! No idea why my graph fails to display, but of course, it's the same as this one (appart from the colour, which is unimportant:)).

Quote from: Xanther;1014861Plotting the number of combinations versus sum certainly produces a triangle like shape, but that is not a linear probability distribution as used with respect to game dice mechanics, the linear distributions are flat-lines (zero slope), that is there are equal probability steps between the possible dice rolls.

And 2dX has equal increases/decreases in probability between all the possible die rolls. That is, the probability to roll exactly 2 on 2d10 (NOT on 1d100) is 1%, the probability to roll 3 is 2%, and so on, until you reach the break point at 11 with 10% odds, and then you start decreasing.
Still not Gaussian distribution;).

QuoteIt's certainly not a bell-curve, if by that you mean a normal distribution, it does approach one as you add more dice and it has many of the same features as a bell curve for game purposes....the probability is clearly non-linear.

Well, the graph is linear. That's linear enough for me...:p

QuoteCompare a d20 to 2D10.    

On a d20 going from a 3 to a 4 is a 5% step, as is going from a 10 to an 11, or a 19 to a 20.  A +1 in this system is a +5% probability no matter what you roll.
 
On 2D10 (for example where you roll under a number) going from a 3 to a 4 increase your odds 4%, from a 10 to 11 your odds increased by 10%, and going from a 19 to a 20 increase your odds by 1%.

Yes, that's why I've come to like 2dX systems: all the advantages of multiple dice, but easy to calculate odds. That is, I can calculate 2dX in my head (not always with whole numbers). I wouldn't try that even on a 3d6, though I've used GURPS long enough that I can probably recite the odds...:D

Quote from: Larsdangly;1014864Then the comment was obtuse, because the ascending and descending odds differ in detail from a bell curve but have the same operational property, that the center of the distribution is much more probable than its wings. It is clearly much closer to a bell curve than is any roll of a single die of the commonly available types.

Yes, and that's an advantage of 2dX to me.

Quote from: Xanther;1014872It's not a normal distribution, but it is a curve as for every value of y there is no only one value of x.   It doesn't have the bell shape you are used to but it has the same broad statistical features.

Well, it's not a curve:p!
But yes, it does have the same broad statistical features.

QuoteI can see that, for me 2D6 didn't give enough dynamic range for character improvement, or modifiers to the dice roll.  My experience with it was mostly through Traveller.

Traveller works just fine for me. As well as BoL and Feng Shui, which also use a 2d6 variant.
Admittedly, I've replaced the T5 mechanic with d6RnK, as suggested in Freelance Traveller, but that doesn't seem to reduce the odds.

QuoteOf course, as long as they are doing what you want.  I bring them up because people don't seem to know how to evaluate and think about them outside of actual play.

They don't know how to evaluate mechanics? Or odds?
(It just sounds weird, but then I'm used to be the guy who's studied maths the least. Often half the group is mathematicians and other hard science types).
 

Quoteoh yee of little math background.. :p  It's the a more cow-bell curve than church bell.

Cowbellcurve should become the new term for it, then:D!

QuoteOf course it's the same probability.  That's a vacuous analysis.   What a fumble entails is up to the GM and game, maybe its horrible maybe not, that's a purely if you want to use them decision.

And here comes the table that I suggested.
Which, while it leaves the chance of a fumble at 1%, reduces the chance of the subset of fumbles known as catastrophic fumbles, down to something in the 0.0X range.

QuoteI was trying to illustrate a feature a non-constant probability step mechanic (non-linear for short) has over the constant probability step mechanic.

Yes, but it's not an advantage of the 2d10 mechanic.

QuoteThe problem often cited for critical on a d20 or even d100 is they occur to often, or both a 1st level orc and a 15th level fighter both have a 5% chance to roll a natural 20.   I've seen so many ways meant to fudge this or tie the chance to the level.  I've seen in d100 systems, where if you need to roll under x and you roll x/10 or under you get a critical.   All well and good, so if I need a 70%, rolling 7% or under gets me a critical.  This works but adds simple division at the table, that varies from chance to hit to hit an needs to be kind of tracked.   Compare to my 2D10 idea, which says if you roll doubles and hit you get a critical.  This is in effect doing the same thing as the d100 example I just gave except you don't need to do any division.  You know your number to hit and if you get doubles (no math just visual pattern recognition) it's a critical.  Simple, fast.

I'm familiar with this mechanic from Qin. And yes, it's a more convenient option than fixed critical ranges.
However, it's not an advantage of 2d10 over d100, because Unknown Armies and Eclipse Phase use the exact same mechanic with d100, they just call it something like doubles.

QuoteWhen you say levels do you mean where you don't improve at all until you hit a certain experience total, then ding, all sorts of improvement happens?  Or do you mean the concept of character improvement itself they find the worst thing; even if it isn't a all at once stepped kind-of-thing?  One thing I've always seen players want is to be able to improve their character.  If it can't be done with stats and skills, they focus on gear.

The former.
My current campaign doesn't feature XP, just training, which allows a roll. Some of the players keep debating with me the exact values of the roll...:D

QuoteYou'll find I have a great aversion to the table look-up especially ones that require indexing a row and column to get a target number, it adds a step that can be avoided through design.

Preferences, again.
And the table I suggested didn't lead to a TN, because you roll on it after a roll.

QuoteI am really focused on speed of game mechanic use, and think the time consumed is non linear with each arithmetic or reading step.  That is performing two such steps doesn't double the time from one step, it triples or quadruples the time.  Yes the time may be in seconds but it adds up.  Visual pattern recognition is generally quicker and may scale more linearly.

Sure.

QuoteI focus on the situations a GM faces and this all been driven by my and the groups love of large, messy combats with a party of 6 and a dozen allies against 36 foes, and resolving that in a half an hour without sacrificing tactics.  

I prefer smaller scale fights, myself, unless it's Exalted.

QuoteEssentially, reduce the number of rolls (ideally one roll (multiple dice OK preferably all the same) per creature, remove table look ups (a couple of ways to do this), remove multiplication and division, remove addition or subtraction of roll modifiers greater than 10,...etc.   With 2D10 was able to remove table look up, and emulate things that required multiplication/division with d100 or d20 and also reduce the value of modifiers to lower numbers and still get the same bang and feel; i.e. a +4 in a 2D10 mechanic has much more meaning generally than in a d20 mechanic and easier to work with than the +17% and such in a d100.   I find 2D10 to be a good mechanical sweet spot between 2D6 and 3D6 if you are looking for this kind of mechanic; of course I once fiddled with 2D12 for a while and still have a fondness for those dice.

Seems to me you've found your perfect system, which is great.
But it's not BRP, so...are YOU the reason BRP isn't more popular:D?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1014924I've had graduate level statistics, thank you very much.

Arguing about dice curves is about the single least interesting thing possible.

What a horror, Glorious General, that this youngster here prefers to talk about dice curves! And he posted in full knowledge that you wouldn't be interested!
The gall some youngsters have, Glorious General...should I get off your lawn, too;)?

Quote from: Voros;1014965I sucked at math and find this discussion of dice bloody uninteresting as well.

That's because you sucked at maths:D!

Quote from: Bren;1014984I assumed Asen's linear comment was intended as a joke. I was explaining the joke. I was not attempting to make a substantive comment on probability.

Yes, and thank you.
(I just figured, we nitpick so much stuff on this site, why not nitpick the Gaussian distribution issue? Whoever )

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1014989Certainly arguing whether a 2dX roll is a bell curve seems to be a relatively pointless endeavor (although, as could be pointed out, 99% of what we discuss on this forum falls into that category). Given that we routinely discuss things using the colloquial meaning of things, rather than the technical, it seems rather like changing the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

Yes.

QuoteNow if we were doing something truly pointless, like discussing the variance of results for a roll that was instead 1-1d2+1d3-1d4+1d6-1d8+1d10-1d12+1d20, I'd probably be all in simply because of the ridiculous factor. Or if we were having a all-out pros-and-cons discussion of using a 2d10 or 3d6 vs. 1d20 or %ile, I might be interested (as it does effect things like whether +1 modifiers are big deals or small deals, although it can still become overly convoluted detail in search of meaning or purpose). But this isn't even math, it's just dictionary work.

OK, then.
What do you think of the new dice mechanic for advantages introduced in CoC7? Namely the one where you add a d10, and then pick which ones to use for your roll.
(I suspect the GM who taught me the rules has forgotten a step, because even a single advantage die makes all but the hardest rolls virtually guaranteed. The first step probably should be "roll d100 as normal, but you can flip-flop"...but it's not like I was going to argue with him in front of the other players).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015039(But seriously, don't you ever get tired of having to explain the same old crap over and over?)

No, Gronan, and I've got kids, so that's a good thing.

Quote from: Xanther;1015157:) well said, I missed the joke...also not intending to turn this into some probability and dice mechanic thread.    To make some tenuous re-connection to the original post, the d100 of BRP/RuneQuest was a negative to me, so to some small extent mechanics can have an impact on popularity.

I'll admit it that the d100 was one of the reasons I preferred GURPS for so long:).
And while we're at it, what do you think of the new advantage mechanic?

Quote from: Larsdangly;1015242Setting aside all this nonsense about dice rolling mechanics, the premise of the thread is just incorrect. There are literally hundreds of game systems published over the last 40+ years, and the BRP family of games has spent a significant amount of that time in the a ~top five, and CoC remains very successful. BRP is popular. It just isn't D+D, which has always held (and earned) a unique position in the market.

Which ones do we count as part of the BRP family, though? All those where you roll d100 under target number? Just those that use the above and have 7 attributes in the 3-18 range, and use a separate attack and parry roll? Something in-between?
In short, do the various editions of Warhammer (and Maelstrom, Eclipse Phase and Haunts&Horors) count? Does Pendragon? Does Unknown Armies? How about Faserip:D?

Quote from: AsenRG;1015262Cowbellcurve should become the new term for it, then:D!

Insert mandatory "MORE COWBELL" joke here.

Quote from: AsenRG;1015262No, Gronan, and I've got kids, so that's a good thing.

Dealing with a bunch of preschoolers will prepare you well for this forum.

Quote from: AsenRG;1015262What do you think of the new dice mechanic for advantages introduced in CoC7? Namely the one where you add a d10, and then pick which ones to use for your roll.
(I suspect the GM who taught me the rules has forgotten a step, because even a single advantage die makes all but the hardest rolls virtually guaranteed. The first step probably should be "roll d100 as normal, but you can flip-flop"...but it's not like I was going to argue with him in front of the other players).

I'm not familiar with it, so I can't tell you what the proper implementation is. My take is that the entire advantage to the Advantage concept is simplicity--in conceptualization and in actions taken--you get two shots to get this right. If it doesn't do that, it's just a gimmick, why are you doing this instead of just altering the chance of success?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015165And don't forget that if you throw the dice at least 31 times during the game the Central Limit Theorem states that the results approach the normal distribution...

I forgot that. The 31 times bit, not the CLT conceptually that's easy to recall. Once upon a time I learned a lot of math, but I've long since forgotten most of it. Other than teaching, I never worked as a professional mathematician so even something as basic as Calculus only saw use one time in an actual work setting.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015158Does the probability distribution actually curve? No, for that you need at least 3Dx, not 2. Does it matter? It didn't until we decided to change the rules of the conversation mid-stream.

To be fair, part of that discussion was triggered by and about a joke based on the linear shape of the graph of the probability distribution for 2D10. But your overall point about the usefulness of too much focus on technical definitions in a non-technical discussion is spot on.

Quote from: Voros;1015222All this bell curve nonsense has nothing to do with the populairty of BRP.

I think you are wrong.

I'm fairly agnostic on the subject of what type of dice mechanic* I will use. But I've heard people say  that they really want a non-linear, central tending dice mechanic. I've heard people say that whether low numbers or high numbers are good matters to them. I've heard people say that D100 has too many numbers/outcomes for them. I take all of them at their word that the dice mechanic matters to them and that is a reason for them to dislike BRP.



* OD&D, Melee/Wizard/ItL/GURPS, Hero, RQ/CoC/BRP, Pendragon, WEG D6, BoL/H+I, each use a different type of dice mechanic and I've used each of them.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015274I'm not familiar with it, so I can't tell you what the proper implementation is. My take is that the entire advantage to the Advantage concept is simplicity--in conceptualization and in actions taken--you get two shots to get this right. If it doesn't do that, it's just a gimmick, why are you doing this instead of just altering the chance of success?

Quote from: AsenRG;1015262OK, then.
What do you think of the new dice mechanic for advantages introduced in CoC7? Namely the one where you add a d10, and then pick which ones to use for your roll.
(I suspect the GM who taught me the rules has forgotten a step, because even a single advantage die makes all but the hardest rolls virtually guaranteed. The first step probably should be "roll d100 as normal, but you can flip-flop"...but it's not like I was going to argue with him in front of the other players).

It feels needlessly complicated, to be honest. Deciding which dice to use via a variety of mechanisms seems overly flexible and will cause analysis paralysis. I prefer roll twice pick the best (2 possible results) or flip the dice (2 possible results) to this mechanic (3 possible results from dice A,B,C - A with B, B with C, A with C).

Roll twice and pick the best is a really strong mechanic. It supports mid ranged people well, and doesn't poke at the edges too much. flipping the dice has a lot of player agency to it, and they see the value quickly.

http://anydice.com/program/e00b was done up by someone 3 years ago, but i renewed the URL. it gives the same curve, and the only real difference is one roll and sort, vs two rolls (which can be done at once) and pick the best.

Quote from: Bren;1015282I forgot that. The 31 times bit, not the CLT conceptually that's easy to recall.

It's virtually the only thing I remember from my sadistics class.  Err, statistics.

Quote from: Bren;1015282But I've heard people say  that they really want a non-linear, central tending dice mechanic. I've heard people say that whether low numbers or high numbers are good matters to them. I've heard people say that D100 has too many numbers/outcomes for them.

My old Earthdawn GM had some big bug about percentile systems, he was quite adamant though I never really got his reasoning. He was always fiddling with the Earthdawn formulas, looking for some imagined perfection that, IMO, just made the game slower and harder to enjoy... and that system is crunchy enough as written.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015289It's virtually the only thing I remember from my sadistics class.  Err, statistics.

That's about all I have left, either. I still remember funnel plots, heteroskedasticity, and imputation as well. But I took Biostats. In Healthcare incomplete data and small clinics/rare disease effects are a big deal. Kinda a shame, given how hard I worked. Still remember more of that than any of my undergrad foreign language classes. :-P

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015272Dealing with a bunch of preschoolers will prepare you well for this forum.

and the dynasty continues

Quote from: Simlasa;1015292My old Earthdawn GM had some big bug about percentile systems, he was quite adamant though I never really got his reasoning. He was always fiddling with the Earthdawn formulas, looking for some imagined perfection that, IMO, just made the game slower and harder to enjoy... and that system is crunchy enough as written.

(almost) everyone has a favorite system they will defend to the death, usually the very first they played with

Quote from: Larsdangly;1015242Setting aside all this nonsense about dice rolling mechanics, the premise of the thread is just incorrect. There are literally hundreds of game systems published over the last 40+ years, and the BRP family of games has spent a significant amount of that time in the a ~top five, and CoC remains very successful. BRP is popular. It just isn't D+D, which has always held (and earned) a unique position in the market.

I agree. Why isn't BRP more popular? It has been around longer than almost every other family of rules in the marketplace. D&D, T&T, and Traveller are older, but not by much. GURPS might count as older if you consider Melee and Wizard to be prototype-GURPS. Certainly D&D 5e has changed at least as much from 0D&D as GURPS has from TFT.

I don't think there has been a time since the first publication of RuneQuest that at least one BRP game has not been in print and available.  That seems a pretty good standard of popularity.  Let's compare apples to apples and look at 35 year old systems which are still popular...

Quote from: Voros;1015222All this bell curve nonsense has nothing to do with the populairty of BRP.

They're just throwing curveballs at each other.

(spelling ok?)

Quote from: Larsdangly;1015242Setting aside all this nonsense about dice rolling mechanics, the premise of the thread is just incorrect. There are literally hundreds of game systems published over the last 40+ years, and the BRP family of games has spent a significant amount of that time in the a ~top five, and CoC remains very successful. BRP is popular. It just isn't D+D, which has always held (and earned) a unique position in the market.

This is along my line of thinking, and I've nearly posted the same thing a couple of times but the title is pretty open ended. It doesn't say why isn't BRP popular, it says Why isn't BRP more popular. I mean BRP could be the #1 selling RPG on the planet and one could still ask why it isn't more popular.

I do agree with you though, it is definitely one of the more popular systems out there, and in the 1980s it was actually giving D&D some stiff competition. I think the main issue is the gaming hobby has grown considerably, so BRP has maintained its numbers, but those numbers are a smaller piece of the pie these days. In the 80s it really wasn't hard to have at least a passing familiarity with nearly every new RPG that came out, but by the 1990s there was no way unless you worked in a game shop or were completely immersed in gaming (no job, no non-gaming social life).
Chaosium's near death a couple of times and the confusion wrought by the Avalon Hill license certainly didn't help things, although AH's 3rd ed may have given RQ more visibility.

I think another major issue is just that it isn't always recognized as BRP. I bet there are players out there playing a BRP based game that don't even know it.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1015306I think another major issue is just that it isn't always recognized as BRP. I bet there are players out there playing a BRP based game that don't even know it.

Most of the kids I've gamed with have said they want to play 'D&D'... but have no clue of any specifics. For them 'D&D' is a synechdoche, like Kleenex.
I run some BRP fantasy for them, without getting bogged in rule explanations, tell them it's 'a kind of D&D' and all goes fine.

Quote from: joriandrake;1015298(almost) everyone has a favorite system they will defend to the death, usually the very first they played with

Oh yeah, we see a lot of that here.  Especially D&D.  Ironically, it was my first game, and yet, I have little attachment to it, or any other system.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015289It's virtually the only thing I remember from my sadistics class.  Err, statistics.

What you're actually referring to is the Law of Large Numbers  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers)which states that repeated trials will tend toward the expected value of the underlying distribution.  That is why multiple rolls in combat, for example, will trend toward the more skilled opponent much stronger than having a single die roll determine the winner in other skills.  Several people have made good arguments for having a linear distribution for combat, while having some sort of curve for other skills.

The CLT is about the sum of repeated trials.  It's what informs us that 2d6 has a curve, 3d6 has a curve that appears more like a normal distribution, etc.  Anyhow, you are not wrong about what you say in general here, just using the wrong term.  

Arguably, BRP isn't really a linear distribution anyhow, at least as typically played in my experience.  It generally isn't just a d100 roll, but rather what level of success you have. The entire thing is mapped into 4/5 levels of success and those success levels are what really matters.  It really isn't about whether you get a Success vs. Failure (linear), but rather it's more about whether you get a Critical, a Special (in RQ), a Success, a Failure, or a Fumble.   The d100 is really just about telling you which bin you fall into.  For example, you can map the old D&D Reaction table (5 success levels) almost exactly to a 5 success levels using a d100 and have the exact same results.  Any difference in the actual outcome would be strictly illusory.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015272Insert mandatory "MORE COWBELL" joke here.



Dealing with a bunch of preschoolers will prepare you well for this forum.

Afraid I know no such jokes, Glorious General! Care to enlighten us:)?

I was on this forum since before I had kids. Dealing with the forum prepared me well for not losing patience with them, though:D!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015274I'm not familiar with it, so I can't tell you what the proper implementation is. My take is that the entire advantage to the Advantage concept is simplicity--in conceptualization and in actions taken--you get two shots to get this right. If it doesn't do that, it's just a gimmick, why are you doing this instead of just altering the chance of success?

Simplicity is achieved. I'm just not sure whether it's not too powerful.

Quote from: Raleel;1015285It feels needlessly complicated, to be honest. Deciding which dice to use via a variety of mechanisms seems overly flexible and will cause analysis paralysis.

Putting it bluntly, only if your players are stupid;).
The mechanic resolution isn't "work out all possible combinations", because that would be too long when you have double advantage (and yes, I achieved it).
Instead, it's "roll three or more dice, and reading the numbers as 0-9*, drop all but the lowest two". Takes less time than picking the dice to roll anew, I guarantee you that - even when using 4 dice!
The problem I've got with that is that even just flip-flopping the dice is a significant improvement of your odds, easily on par with a +20 modifier (with a skill of 20, your odds of success are actually 35%, and on a better skill, you get more improvement of your odds). Logically, that should be the first step, as I said.
Flip-flopping and rolling 3 dice, but keeping the 2 lowest, is kinda too much for one advantageous condition - at least comparing it to other versions of BRP!
OTOH, it sure kept us focussed on the in-game situation, because we were looking for all the possible ways to get even a single advantage, maybe more. My final roll against the scenario's villain was made at double advantage - and despite having only a 20% skill, and steep penalties for failure (TNT boxes behind the villain I was shooting at), I said I'm aiming for his head. He died, and we lived:).
So is it a break with the "traditional" way of doing things? Yes. Is it a good idea?
The jury is still out, but I liked it.

*Because you can put the 0 in the first column, duh.

QuoteRoll twice and pick the best is a really strong mechanic. It supports mid ranged people well, and doesn't poke at the edges too much. flipping the dice has a lot of player agency to it, and they see the value quickly.

They are.
The new "advantage" rule goes beyond that. (Again - if the GM had read it right. His experience was with CoC6, and it was his first CoC7 game, so he might have misunderstood or misremembered the rule).

Quotehttp://anydice.com/program/e00b was done up by someone 3 years ago, but i renewed the URL. it gives the same curve, and the only real difference is one roll and sort, vs two rolls (which can be done at once) and pick the best.

Thank you, that's rather useful:)!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015297That's about all I have left, either. I still remember funnel plots, heteroskedasticity, and imputation as well. But I took Biostats. In Healthcare incomplete data and small clinics/rare disease effects are a big deal. Kinda a shame, given how hard I worked. Still remember more of that than any of my undergrad foreign language classes. :-P

I also forgot most of the statistics and higher-level maths I was taught. But I remember more of my foreign language classes, so it wasn't all a waste;)!

Quote from: joriandrake;1015298and the dynasty continues



(almost) everyone has a favorite system they will defend to the death, usually the very first they played with

Of course it does!

...in my experience, the part about "favourite system you defend to death, usually your first", is only true for D&D players that started with D&D. Among the other people, I know some that started on GURPS, ORE, Unisystem, and the like. None of them expressed any qualms about switching rulesets.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1015300I agree. Why isn't BRP more popular? It has been around longer than almost every other family of rules in the marketplace. D&D, T&T, and Traveller are older, but not by much. GURPS might count as older if you consider Melee and Wizard to be prototype-GURPS. Certainly D&D 5e has changed at least as much from 0D&D as GURPS has from TFT.

I don't think there has been a time since the first publication of RuneQuest that at least one BRP game has not been in print and available.  That seems a pretty good standard of popularity.  Let's compare apples to apples and look at 35 year old systems which are still popular...

I think there was a quite long stretch between RQ3 and MRQ1.
And CoC alone can't carry the BRP banner, it's too tied to its own setting and genre*. BRP is about fitting the game to whatever you want to play.

*Not mechanically, but in practice, most people don't consider reskinning a horror game.

Quote from: Simlasa;1015313Most of the kids I've gamed with have said they want to play 'D&D'... but have no clue of any specifics. For them 'D&D' is a synechdoche, like Kleenex.
I run some BRP fantasy for them, without getting bogged in rule explanations, tell them it's 'a kind of D&D' and all goes fine.

:D
I like your style.

Quote from: RMS;1015362Arguably, BRP isn't really a linear distribution anyhow, at least as typically played in my experience.  It generally isn't just a d100 roll, but rather what level of success you have. The entire thing is mapped into 4/5 levels of success and those success levels are what really matters.  It really isn't about whether you get a Success vs. Failure (linear), but rather it's more about whether you get a Critical, a Special (in RQ), a Success, a Failure, or a Fumble.   The d100 is really just about telling you which bin you fall into.  For example, you can map the old D&D Reaction table (5 success levels) almost exactly to a 5 success levels using a d100 and have the exact same results.  Any difference in the actual outcome would be strictly illusory.

Well, BRP allows you more granularity in determining which outcome is most likely. That's not an illusory difference;).

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015272Insert mandatory "MORE COWBELL" joke here.



Dealing with a bunch of preschoolers will prepare you well for this forum.

Afraid I know no such jokes, Glorious General! Care to enlighten us:)?

I was on this forum since before I had kids. Dealing with the forum prepared me well for not losing patience with them, though:D!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015274I'm not familiar with it, so I can't tell you what the proper implementation is. My take is that the entire advantage to the Advantage concept is simplicity--in conceptualization and in actions taken--you get two shots to get this right. If it doesn't do that, it's just a gimmick, why are you doing this instead of just altering the chance of success?

Simplicity is achieved. I'm just not sure whether it's not too powerful.

Quote from: Raleel;1015285It feels needlessly complicated, to be honest. Deciding which dice to use via a variety of mechanisms seems overly flexible and will cause analysis paralysis.

Putting it bluntly, only if your players are stupid;).
The mechanic resolution isn't "work out all possible combinations", because that would be too long when you have double advantage (and yes, I achieved it).
Instead, it's "roll three or more dice, and reading the numbers as 0-9*, drop all but the lowest two". Takes less time than picking the dice to roll anew, I guarantee you that - even when using 4 dice!
The problem I've got with that is that even just flip-flopping the dice is a significant improvement of your odds, easily on par with a +20 modifier (with a skill of 20, your odds of success are actually 35%, and on a better skill, you get more improvement of your odds). Logically, that should be the first step, as I said.
Flip-flopping and rolling 3 dice, but keeping the 2 lowest, is kinda too much for one advantageous condition - at least comparing it to other versions of BRP!
OTOH, it sure kept us focussed on the in-game situation, because we were looking for all the possible ways to get even a single advantage, maybe more. My final roll against the scenario's villain was made at double advantage - and despite having only a 20% skill, and steep penalties for failure (TNT boxes behind the villain I was shooting at), I said I'm aiming for his head. He died, and we lived:).
So is it a break with the "traditional" way of doing things? Yes. Is it a good idea?
The jury is still out, but I liked it.

*Because you can put the 0 in the first column, duh.

QuoteRoll twice and pick the best is a really strong mechanic. It supports mid ranged people well, and doesn't poke at the edges too much. flipping the dice has a lot of player agency to it, and they see the value quickly.

They are.
The new "advantage" rule goes beyond that. (Again - if the GM had read it right. His experience was with CoC6, and it was his first CoC7 game, so he might have misunderstood or misremembered the rule).

Quotehttp://anydice.com/program/e00b was done up by someone 3 years ago, but i renewed the URL. it gives the same curve, and the only real difference is one roll and sort, vs two rolls (which can be done at once) and pick the best.

Thank you, that's rather useful:)!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1015297That's about all I have left, either. I still remember funnel plots, heteroskedasticity, and imputation as well. But I took Biostats. In Healthcare incomplete data and small clinics/rare disease effects are a big deal. Kinda a shame, given how hard I worked. Still remember more of that than any of my undergrad foreign language classes. :-P

I also forgot most of the statistics and higher-level maths I was taught. But I remember more of my foreign language classes, so it wasn't all a waste;)!

Quote from: joriandrake;1015298and the dynasty continues



(almost) everyone has a favorite system they will defend to the death, usually the very first they played with

Of course it does!

...in my experience, the part about "favourite system you defend to death, usually your first", is only true for D&D players that started with D&D. Among the other people, I know some that started on GURPS, ORE, Unisystem, and the like. None of them expressed any qualms about switching rulesets.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1015300I agree. Why isn't BRP more popular? It has been around longer than almost every other family of rules in the marketplace. D&D, T&T, and Traveller are older, but not by much. GURPS might count as older if you consider Melee and Wizard to be prototype-GURPS. Certainly D&D 5e has changed at least as much from 0D&D as GURPS has from TFT.

I don't think there has been a time since the first publication of RuneQuest that at least one BRP game has not been in print and available.  That seems a pretty good standard of popularity.  Let's compare apples to apples and look at 35 year old systems which are still popular...

I think there was a quite long stretch between RQ3 and MRQ1.
And CoC alone can't carry the BRP banner, it's too tied to its own setting and genre*. BRP is about fitting the game to whatever you want to play.

*Not mechanically, but in practice, most people don't consider reskinning a horror game.

Quote from: Simlasa;1015313Most of the kids I've gamed with have said they want to play 'D&D'... but have no clue of any specifics. For them 'D&D' is a synechdoche, like Kleenex.
I run some BRP fantasy for them, without getting bogged in rule explanations, tell them it's 'a kind of D&D' and all goes fine.

:D
I like your style.

Quote from: RMS;1015362Arguably, BRP isn't really a linear distribution anyhow, at least as typically played in my experience.  It generally isn't just a d100 roll, but rather what level of success you have. The entire thing is mapped into 4/5 levels of success and those success levels are what really matters.  It really isn't about whether you get a Success vs. Failure (linear), but rather it's more about whether you get a Critical, a Special (in RQ), a Success, a Failure, or a Fumble.   The d100 is really just about telling you which bin you fall into.  For example, you can map the old D&D Reaction table (5 success levels) almost exactly to a 5 success levels using a d100 and have the exact same results.  Any difference in the actual outcome would be strictly illusory.

Well, BRP allows you more granularity in determining which outcome is most likely. That's not an illusory difference;).

Quote from: AsenRG;1015392Afraid I know no such jokes, Glorious General! Care to enlighten us:)?

This can not go unanswered, some enlightenment for the heathen straight from the 1970s.

[video=youtube;qFhM1XZsh6o]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFhM1XZsh6o[/youtube]

[video=youtube;kyXz6eMCj2k]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyXz6eMCj2k[/youtube]

[video=youtube;Zc_JcGuH5Z8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc_JcGuH5Z8[/youtube]

[video=youtube;ClQcUyhoxTg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClQcUyhoxTg[/youtube]

Quote from: Voros;1015231I can handle debating whether it is relevant to play, but not page after page of amateur math wank.

It feels like all you ever do is complain, including here in the main forum. And you seem to have a serious masturbation obsession.

Quote from: S'mon;1015400It feels like all you ever do is complain, including here in the main forum. And you seem to have a serious masturbation obsession.

I think your real issue is that I don't complain about the right things: newer game systems, storygames, 3e and PF, SJWs and feminists, millenials and pop culture politics. It is only because I dare to disagree with nonsense you happen to agree with that I seem so disagreeable.

The irony of being called out as a complainer when nearly every thread on here and especially Pundency comes from some perceived grievance is frankly hilarious.

I also dare to try and keep threads outside Pundency mildly on topic regarding games rather than historical or mathematical pretensions, your bizarre pet theories about race or some other bullshit.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1015396This can not go unanswered, some enlightenment for the heathen straight from the 1970s.

I can vidiliy recall an evening where I introduced a group of friends to D&D and to this (new) album:

[video=youtube;x0alqsapHOc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0alqsapHOc[/youtube]

Of course we played it loud enough that we had to practically shout over it to game, and I was completely hoarse by the end of the evening.

Quote from: AsenRG;1015391Afraid I know no such jokes, Glorious General! Care to enlighten us:)?

[video=youtube;HhuTs2IwjTU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhuTs2IwjTU[/youtube]

You know, people bring up a relevant point here.  BRP by itself is not well known as a system, but the games it powers ARE.  Runequest and Call of Cthulu, I would argue has about as much cache with gamers as D&D does.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1015117Which brings up my next question, where does a percentile work out to?  In terms of bell curve or otherwise.

It is linear, but if you have criticals/advantages, specials, failures, fumbles and so on, the effects of the roll vary.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1015165And don't forget that if you throw the dice at least 31 times during the game the Central Limit Theorem states that the results approach the normal distribution...

But, that doesn't cope with shaking my dice really hard and wishing for a critical, then IT HAPPENS!!! Rolling dice is far more than just probability and statistics.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1015486You know, people bring up a relevant point here.  BRP by itself is not well known as a system, but the games it powers ARE.  Runequest and Call of Cthulu, I would argue has about as much cache with gamers as D&D does.

Long-term RQ players like myself never tire of pointing out that RQ came before BRP, so BRP is a RQ knock-off.

What the fuck is all this 2d10 stuff about?! BRP runs on percentiles, not 2d10.

I think BRP has been popular over the years, depending on how you want to measure these things, but it's just one system in a sea of many. It hasn't updated itself much, while a lot of it's core ideas have been taken and developed in other games, including D&D.

People are still happily playing BRP games, companies are still using BRP for their games, so how much people need to wring their hands about it is up to them.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1015937What the fuck is all this 2d10 stuff about?! BRP runs on percentiles, not 2d10.

Ask Cupcake.

The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.

I am deleting my content.

I recommend you do the same.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1016167It's a very "flexible" system because it doesn't do anything. Which is all some people want (a system that just kind of hangs around doing very little

Which translates, to me, as it stays in the background... doesn't keep butting into play with it's 'cool' widgets and gimmicks.
When I want wacky rules to make 'interesting' things happen I go for DCC... but when I want interesting stuff to happen because of the people at the table I prefer a system that gets out of the way.

Anyways, I'd say BRP has proven itself to be consistently more popular than most systems that aren't D&D. It's not only older than the Vampire/storyteller system but has remained popular for longer.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;1016167Controversial opinion: It plays like cardboard.

It's a very "flexible" system because it doesn't do anything. Which is all some people want (a system that just kind of hangs around doing very little, but allowing people to kind of improv vaguely through it / let the GM reign with an iron fist depending on the group). But it's not what makes a system popular.

So you're basically saying it doesn't do enough for people that like mechanical widgets;)?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1016530Anyways, I'd say BRP has proven itself to be consistently more popular than most systems that aren't D&D. It's not only older than the Vampire/storyteller system but has remained popular for longer.

I would say that as a system BRP has proven itself more popular than D&D.  Long before the OSR (as in decades) BRP was published for many genres. Further BRP has remained recognizably the same system consistently since it's begining. D&D is now D&D in name only. It has become a brand not a system.  Compare RQ1 with any current BRP system game. Now compare 0D&D with 5e.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1016562Compare RQ1 with any current BRP system game. Now compare 0D&D with 5e.

I would say that if you strip off trivialities like low-vs-high AC and the granularity of the damage, that the games are a lot more similar than partisans on either side like to admit.

Regardless, even if we sliced D&D into slices--perhaps TSR-era, 3e(+PF since we're now talking system, not product identity), 4e, and 5e--how does the whole BRP-line and any one of those segments line up? Anyone know? Again, we'll have to decide if popularity is measured in products bought or # of campaigns played or whatnot. But do we have anything resembling numbers for that?

Quote from: RPGPundit;1016530Anyways, I'd say BRP has proven itself to be consistently more popular than most systems that aren't D&D. It's not only older than the Vampire/storyteller system but has remained popular for longer.

Sure. D&D has lead the pack*, Pathfinder stole its' thunder for a few years, and White Wolf gave it a good run for the money for a brief period in the 90s. But where does BRP compare to 'more popular than most systems that aren't D&D?' I'm thinking Traveller, and Shadowrun, and WEG Star Wars, and GURPS and Champion in their heydays. The ones that random guy on the street hadn't heard of like they had D&D, but (let's say) my mom had picked up through osmosis from me, and the guys who hung out at the FLGS certainly had opinions on (where as each individual FLGS patron may or may not have even heard of Aftermath or Immortal or the James Bond RPG). Do we have any way of knowing?
*this being a separate thought From Davethelost's point on whether D&D is one or multiple systems, so I'm ignoring that for this.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1016569I would say that if you strip off trivialities like low-vs-high AC and the granularity of the damage, that the games are a lot more similar than partisans on either side like to admit.

Regardless, even if we sliced D&D into slices--perhaps TSR-era, 3e(+PF since we're now talking system, not product identity), 4e, and 5e--how does the whole BRP-line and any one of those segments line up? Anyone know? Again, we'll have to decide if popularity is measured in products bought or # of campaigns played or whatnot. But do we have anything resembling numbers for that?

If you were to time travel back to 1982 with 7th edition CoC, players then would still recognize the game. Mongoose RQ / Mythras has added some new concepts that are different, but again I think a player back then would still "get it". Reactions would probably be similar to todays reactions "Awesome" / "ew, what did they do that for" but the core game really hasn't changed much in almost 40 years, certainly less than most games over that same time.

D&D is still more or less recognizable from its beginnings, but I suspect beyond OD&D through 2e which are largely similar, a player familiar with one has a significant learning curve to pick up another edition.



I do know at one point in the 80s BRP (mostly RQ and CoC) was 2nd only to D&D in sales numbers and was close enough to be a potential contender for the top spot. There was a time in the 80s where it wasn't entirely clear D&D would survive as TSR was having serious issues. A lot has changed since then.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1016592If you were to time travel back to 1982 with 7th edition CoC, players then would still recognize the game. Mongoose RQ / Mythras has added some new concepts that are different, but again I think a player back then would still "get it". Reactions would probably be similar to todays reactions "Awesome" / "ew, what did they do that for" but the core game really hasn't changed much in almost 40 years, certainly less than most games over that same time.

D&D is still more or less recognizable from its beginnings, but I suspect beyond OD&D through 2e which are largely similar, a player familiar with one has a significant learning curve to pick up another edition.

CoC is highly-notable and exceptional in its' backwards compatibility. Few if any other games have had that. I certainly don't consider RQ / Mythras nearly as self-similar. D&D, while having significant changes in the specifics (and not just beyond OD&D-2e, AFAIC the largest change in the game is between OD&D and OD&D+supplements), but I would still rank it in the large messy middle in terms of internal change. Other well loved games like Shadowrun or even West End Star Wars have what I consider changes with larger functional implications.

QuoteI do know at one point in the 80s BRP (mostly RQ and CoC) was 2nd only to D&D in sales numbers and was close enough to be a potential contender for the top spot.

Useful. Thanks. That was the kind of thing I was looking for. If we had like the other top 5 or 10, and what the relative differences were, perhaps we could cobble together a comparison.

And there are definitely games that have changed more between editions than D&D. Blue Planet comes to mind, the setting remained the same between first and second edition but the mechanics are completely different. Not that BP was ever what I would call a "popular" game.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1016619Useful. Thanks. That was the kind of thing I was looking for. If we had like the other top 5 or 10, and what the relative differences were, perhaps we could cobble together a comparison.

Wish I could find something more substantial than remember that stat being trotted out way back in the day.

Of course we are talking early 1980s so the top 5-10 game companies would be.... well about the whole hobby at the time.

TSR, Chaosium, GDW, FGU, and Flying Buffalo would be the established RPG companies 1980-83. FASA, and Metagaming were big companies at the time but RPGs were a small part of their business. Judges Guild was fairly big, but hey produced supplemental material for others RPGs (modules and such).

Iron Crown Enterprises, Palladium, HERO, Timeline, and Tri-tac were new arrivals. Avalon Hill started to test the RPG waters around 1983-84. I've probably forgotten a couple of small companies that may have been getting started at this time.

So 5 major RPG companies, 3 associated companies, 4 start ups and a major tabletop game company dipping a toe into the industry.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1016571But where does BRP compare to 'more popular than most systems that aren't D&D?' I'm thinking Traveller, and Shadowrun, and WEG Star Wars, and GURPS and Champion in their heydays. The ones that random guy on the street hadn't heard of like they had D&D, but (let's say) my mom had picked up through osmosis from me, and the guys who hung out at the FLGS certainly had opinions on  Do we have any way of knowing?

Certainly back in the 80s, everyone who was more than a casual lunchtime D&D player knew about CoC, RuneQuest, and maybe Stormbringer. BRP was solidly in the pack of the next, say half-dozen systems after D&D. I think that position was maintained through to the demise of RQ in the mid-90s. Then there was a decade during which time only CoC carried the torch. And when RQ came back, the market had fragmented and diversified enormously.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1016592D&D is still more or less recognizable from its beginnings, but I suspect beyond OD&D through 2e which are largely similar, a player familiar with one has a significant learning curve to pick up another edition.

From experience I can say 5e is very siimple and intuitive for players raised on B/X, AD&D and 2e.

Quote from: Voros;1016874From experience I can say 5e is very siimple and intuitive for players raised on B/X, AD&D and 2e.

My experience differs from yours.

RPGPundit's experience makes him think "magick" is real. Just more examples of how anecdotes are not  evidence.

Quote from: Voros;1016874From experience I can say 5e is very siimple and intuitive for players raised on B/X, AD&D and 2e.

I have no experience with 4E or 5E, but 3-3.5 certainly added new wrinkles. I'm not saying a player coming from earlier editions would be the same as introducing a player who had never played any version of D&D, but there would be a need to sit down and explain a few things, it would probably take a few sessions to get them up to speed. I know that is what my experience was anyway.

4E sounds different from anything D&D before or since, 5E sounds like it is trying to get back to the earlier style so maybe it wouldn't be such a jump for an old school D&D player, but what about a player who only knew 3/3.5 or 4E?

You could take a CoC player from any edition to 7th edition and in 30 minutes get them up to speed. 1-6th ed you would only need 5 minutes.

RQ1 to Mythras would take more as RQ is more complex to start with and MRQ onward added some significant changes, but the changes were incremental, jumping one edition to the next not a big deal, going from RQ 1/2 straight to RQ6 / Mythras would probably take a couple sessions to really work out the kinks (the choose a hit result after the fact thing took me a bit to wrap my head around, but I liked it once I got it).

That was my point not just one edition to the next, but ease of moving from any edition to another. Things just haven't changed all that much in the BRP world.

I get ya, I'd say the only real difference between 2e and 5e that I noticed when I returned to 5e was Feats. Which took me all of 2 minutes to grasp.

Quote from: DavetheLost;1016562I would say that as a system BRP has proven itself more popular than D&D.  Long before the OSR (as in decades) BRP was published for many genres. Further BRP has remained recognizably the same system consistently since it's begining. D&D is now D&D in name only. It has become a brand not a system.  Compare RQ1 with any current BRP system game. Now compare 0D&D with 5e.

But there are far more derivatives of D&D than there are of BRP.  There were countless D&D-heartbreakers. Then all the D20 games. Now all the OSR games.

There have been some BRP-derivatives too, mind you.

I havent read this whole thread - what is BRP?

How about you read the fucking thread and don'rt expect to be spoon fed.

Quote from: Psikerlord;1017328I havent read this whole thread - what is BRP?

Basic RolePlaying the system the underlies Runequest, Call of Cthulu, Stormbringer, and many other Chaosium RPGs. Characterized by using a d100 and being skilled based.

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;1017346How about you read the fucking thread and don'rt expect to be spoon fed.

The phrase "basic roleplaying" hasn't actually been said in the thread until after your post. They might be able to infer it, maybe, that it has something to do with Runequest and whatnot, but it's not like they could just invent it.

(Now, googling BRP and several other phrases might work, but no need to be a jerk about it)

Quote from: Hermes Serpent;1017346How about you read the fucking thread and don'rt expect to be spoon fed.

I did read a few pages and gave up! Quicker to ask

Quote from: estar;1017358Basic RolePlaying the system the underlies Runequest, Call of Cthulu, Stormbringer, and many other Chaosium RPGs. Characterized by using a d100 and being skilled based.

More accurately or pedantically, Basic Role-Playing (BRP) was derived from Runequest which preceded it and BRP underlies subsequent systems like Call of Cthulhu,  Worlds of Wonder (Magic World, Superworld, and Future World), Stormbringer, Ringworld, Hawkmoon, etc.

Yeah, it's funny but "BRP" as an abbreviation is not as well known as D&D.  It's the "Call of Cthulhu" system for some people.

"Basic Role Playing" was the title of a short booklet in my RQ2 boxed set. The tite seemed descriptive as it outlined the basic rules mechanics and how to play an RPG. It never ocured to us then that "BRP" was the name of a system. The game was "RuneQuest", later "Call of Cthulhu", "Strombringer" etc. We probably would have called the system RuneQuest if we had thought about as a system rather than games. Later it was the Chaosium house system as compared to say the Palladium house system.  But we never said "Let's play BRP," the way we said "let's play GURPS".

In France BRP is known as BaSIC (http://www.legrog.org/jeux/basic/basic-fr), thanks to Casus Belli.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2094[/ATTACH]

In the 90s the magazine published a series of special editions ("hors série") that were either settings (the city of Laelith), or complete RPGs (the generic game SimulacreS, several genre-versions of SimulacreS, the sci fi game Mega III, and BaSiC), or collections of short adventures.

Complete RPGs to be found at the newsstand, for the price of a magazine.
Ils sont fous, ces Français!

Quote from: DavetheLost;1018270But we never said "Let's play BRP," the way we said "let's play GURPS".

It is a consequence of how Chaosium decided to market their RPG. Chaosium consistently focused on marketing each game by themselves.

The same with Hero System. At first their was Champions, then a bunch of games based on the same mechanics. Finally when 4th edition rolls around we get a Hero System rulebook of some kind. But it wasn't until 5th edition that the HERO system rulebook became the core book to use.

GURPS was the first RPGs be designed and marketed with generic rules being the core rule book. Even then 1st and 2nd edition core books were more oriented towards fantasy.

Quote from: estar;1018301It is a consequence of how Chaosium decided to market their RPG. Chaosium consistently focused on marketing each game by themselves.

The same with Hero System. At first their was Champions, then a bunch of games based on the same mechanics. Finally when 4th edition rolls around we get a Hero System rulebook of some kind. But it wasn't until 5th edition that the HERO system rulebook became the core book to use.

GURPS was the first RPGs be designed and marketed with generic rules being the core rule book. Even then 1st and 2nd edition core books were more oriented towards fantasy.

There was a 4th ed Champions book, but 4th ed also got a stand alone generic core book which is what everybody used that didn't do supers. The 4th ed non-champions supplements all referenced the 4th ed core book.

1st and 2nd ed GURPS only had a fantasy bias because when released that is all there was (2nd ed basically just being errata corrections). It still included rules for other genres, just most flavor text and examples were fantasy oriented. Autoduel was the second or third release, followed by Space so they definitely had other than fantasy on their mind.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;1018288In France BRP is known as BaSIC (http://www.legrog.org/jeux/basic/basic-fr), thanks to Casus Belli.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2094[/ATTACH]

In the 90s the magazine published a series of special editions ("hors série") that were either settings (the city of Laelith), or complete RPGs (the generic game SimulacreS, several genre-versions of SimulacreS, the sci fi game Mega III, and BaSiC), or collections of short adventures.

Complete RPGs to be found at the newsstand, for the price of a magazine.
Ils sont fous, ces Français!

Yeah, and it's no surprise some of my favourite games are French ones - Kuro, Qin, Bloodlust and Le Pavillon Noir, for example. Only problem is, I can't get anyone in my group to run them, because only I read the language;).

BTW, when I was learning BRP, I used BaSIC as a "short variant" of the basic rules, and then the people that introduced me helped me with the chargen for the specific game:D!

Quote from: RPGPundit;1018227Yeah, it's funny but "BRP" as an abbreviation is not as well known as D&D.  It's the "Call of Cthulhu" system for some people.

Back in the '80s, my gaming circle always called it the Chaosium system.

People in my circles generally just called it the 'percentile system'. To be honest, back when I started, there was little discussion of systems as brands, just individual games with similar systems. Percentile mechanics were generally considered the best thing since sliced bread at the time too.

We just called it RuneQuest, because that's what we were using - not to play RQ in Glorantha, except at the very start, but to play in virtually any setting we could think of. Each of the "BRP" systems is sufficiently different from one another that it's a stretch to call any of them BRP. That's why the Big Gold Book version ended up so big. I think Chaosium got people to call it the Big Gold Book, IIRC the acronym was originally BYB as in "Big Yellow Brick".

Quote from: Vile;1018689IIRC the acronym was originally BYB as in "Big Yellow Brick".

I don't remember that one. I adopted BGB as I saw others using it but I otherwise would have just said, "The BRP book."
In the early days we just called it 'Runequest' too... despite not using Glorantha either... because most people had heard of it. It's still more common knowledge than 'BRP'.

I've never heard anyone call it the BYB until today.

Quote from: Simlasa;1018703I don't remember that one. I adopted BGB as I saw others using it but I otherwise would have just said, "The BRP book."
In the early days we just called it 'Runequest' too... despite not using Glorantha either... because most people had heard of it. It's still more common knowledge than 'BRP'.

I tend to informally refer to it as RQ myself. I intentionally refer to it as BRP in general or the individual games when discussing them with people who can actually discriminate RQ2 from Mongoose RQ, Mythras, MW, CoC etc.

I never even thought of BRP as BRP until the 2000s. Before that, it was just the system for CoC, RQ and  Elric.

I'm trying to recall, but I don't think we ever used to call it BRP...we'd be more likely to just refer to the actual game like Call of Cthulhu or Superworld. I don't think I called it BRP until I saw the BRP forum web site. As for BGB, I know that's where I picked up the term as I didn't even know there was a standalone book divorced from a setting until within the past decade. Anecdotally I don't think BRP has much brand recognition.

Basic Role Playing was a 15-20 page stand alone game that was included in Chaosium's boxed sets, so it goes back to at least the very early 1980s (I got my Boxed Runequest no later than 1981).
I have a copy I bought as a stand alone product probably in the late 90s or early 2000s when the idea of Deluxe BRP first started getting brought up The book most refer to as BRB or the Big Gold Book, is technically Deluxe BRP.

In my experience the small BRP booklet for the most part stayed in the box, we played the game we bought (RQ, CoC etc).

Not only did Chaosium bring out one of the first generic games (pre-dates GURPS by at least 4 years), they also brought out one of the first starter or "lite" games (that BRP booklet basically being a cheap intro to RQ). It wasn't marketed that way though until much later, and of course the BRP we have now could never be considered an intro to the other games, being more of a repository of them all.

We called Basic Role-Playing BRP. But we almost never played BRP. When we played Runequest, Stormbringer, Call of Cthulhu, Hawkmoon, or Ringworld we called what we played by the name of the game we were playing which was more or less synonymous with the setting. We never felt a particular need to use an umbrella name for what we all knew were a family of similar game mechanics.

In have generally called it BRP since I understood what it was (this was before the yellow book). And not only for Chaosium's games but also in a broader sence. Like 1/2ed Mutant Chronicles, for example, since it is part of that family of games systemwise (minus the Size stat, lengthy chargen tables and useing a d20 instead of a d100, it operates mostly like any other BRP game)

The guy who ran Stormbringer for us back in the 90's just called it 'Chaosium's house system'.

Quote from: Toadmaster;1019062Basic Role Playing was a 15-20 page stand alone game that was included in Chaosium's boxed sets, so it goes back to at least the very early 1980s (I got my Boxed Runequest no later than 1981).

I'm sure it did, but I don't recall anyone thinking of it in that way.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1019875I'm sure it did, but I don't recall anyone thinking of it in that way.

I agree with that, we didn't either. For the most part we treated it like the chapter on "What is a role playing game" some games include, we basically ignored it. I kind of said that in fewer words below the part you quoted, but understand if that wasn't clear.

QuoteIn my experience the small BRP booklet for the most part stayed in the box, we played the game we bought (RQ, CoC etc).

OK, right.

Honestly, I don't recall anyone ever saying, offline or online, that they used the original 20 page Basic Role-Playing booklet as a basis for play. Even Worlds of Wonder, which took that booklet and added genre treatments, was not a commercial success. People wanted compelling, full-treatment games like RQ, CoC and Stormbringer.

And I'm pretty sure that use of "BRP" as a deliberate brand term for the whole family of games only dates to the 2006 Big Gold Book (and it's incredibly weird to realise that it's well over a decade old now).

Quote from: The_Shadow;1020686And I'm pretty sure that use of "BRP" as a deliberate brand term for the whole family of games only dates to the 2006 Big Gold Book (and it's incredibly weird to realise that it's well over a decade old now).

The term was in use well before the publication of the big gold book, for what it's worth.

Quote from: markmohrfield;1020728The term was in use well before the publication of the big gold book, for what it's worth.

Your statement is not necessarily in conflict with mine;  "Basic Role-Playing" dates back to 1981. But I don't recall anyone casually referring to BRP and expecting it to be understood as the Chaosium house system prior to the BGB.

Quote from: The_Shadow;1020686Honestly, I don't recall anyone ever saying, offline or online, that they used the original 20 page Basic Role-Playing booklet as a basis for play.

If you mean the French version, I've done exactly that:).

Using "BRP" as a brand term for the whole family of games goes back quite a ways, at least as far back as 1989. Out of curiosity I poked around in some old Usenet groups and found people using and understanding what it meant, etc. Here's an example post from back in the day: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/chaosium$20brp|sort:relevance/rec.games.frp/58Wak0oB5Ic/_8ytOFJv4hEJ

Quote from: NeonAce;1020807Using "BRP" as a brand term for the whole family of games goes back quite a ways, at least as far back as 1989. Out of curiosity I poked around in some old Usenet groups and found people using and understanding what it meant, etc. Here's an example post from back in the day: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/chaosium$20brp|sort:relevance/rec.games.frp/58Wak0oB5Ic/_8ytOFJv4hEJ

Looking at that Usenet link, one poster did indeed use the term BRP, while others wrote things like this:

>>Do you know of any RuneQuest-style games?  I am interested in collecting them
>>By RuneQuest-style, I mean games that are skill-based, and use the
>>resistance table and 7 characteristics (STR,CON,SIZ,INT,POW,DEX,APP/CHA).

This poster clearly didn't recognise "BRP" as a brand and I doubt Chaosium used the term in any promotional material. I guess you could check old issues of Different Worlds. Perhaps a few savvy gamers used the term as the moniker for the Chaosium house system, as opposed to the BRP booklet, but I don't think this was a recognised brand.

That just means it wasn't universally known, and really, what is?

Quote from: markmohrfield;1021044That just means it wasn't universally known, and really, what is?

No it doesn't just mean that. It also means the quote doesn't prove anything more than that one guy in 1989 used the term BRP in his Usenet posts. That comes nowhere near showing that the term was commonly used back then.

I know I was using the term before the BGB came out... but only on threads/forums full of Chaosium fans, not in the general populace who'd invariably ask, "What's BRP?"

Quote from: Bren;1021056No it doesn't just mean that. It also means the quote doesn't prove anything more than that one guy in 1989 used the term BRP in his Usenet posts. That comes nowhere near showing that the term was commonly used back then.

It's hard to definitively prove or measure "commonly used", but "BRP" was definitely used as an abbreviation and understood by other folks well before the 2006 book. A browse of dates and summaries here will show it being used and understood in the '90s anyways. It's hard to dig up online stuff prior to '94 when the internet hit big, but you'll see more frequent references from '92 on.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/chaosium$20brp%7Csort:relevance

Here's a kinda amusing 2000 post I dug up that accuses WotC of "BRP Thinking" in regards to using D20 as a house system.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.frp.misc/brp|sort:date/rec.games.frp.misc/kyKJxE2snBE/aNIwg3Jcm24J

Quote from: Bren;1021056No it doesn't just mean that. It also means the quote doesn't prove anything more than that one guy in 1989 used the term BRP in his Usenet posts. That comes nowhere near showing that the term was commonly used back then.

BRP was pretty common in the 80's as short-hand for the underlying system in Runequest, Stormbringer, CoC, etc.  It was probably the most common, though at the time calling it simply the d100 or percentile system was also fairly common.

Anytime someone would make some mashup out of the various Chaosium games it was pretty universally (commonly at least) referred to as BRP.....probably due to the name of the little pamphlet that came in all the boxed sets that nobody actually used, but we all knew the name of the underlying system.

Well, I stand corrected. I found the following in Different Worlds 17 (Dec 1981) in the article "Questworld" on p.24:
"QuestWorld is intended to be an open campaign world for RuneQuest and its variants, and for the constantly expanding Basic Role-Playing family." [italics in original]

The article is credited to Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford. So it seems that yes, Chaosium did see Basic Role-playing as more than just the 20-page booklet, but as the name for their house system.

Quote from: The_Shadow;1021133Well, I stand corrected. I found the following in Different Worlds 17 (Dec 1981) in the article "Questworld" on p.24:
"QuestWorld is intended to be an open campaign world for RuneQuest and its variants, and for the constantly expanding Basic Role-Playing family." [italics in original]

The article is credited to Lynn Willis and Greg Stafford. So it seems that yes, Chaosium did see Basic Role-playing as more than just the 20-page booklet, but as the name for their house system.

This also shows that Chaosium were making the distinction between RuneQuest variants and Basic roleplaying way back when. I normally try and keep the two separate.

Quote from: The_Shadow;1020686Honestly, I don't recall anyone ever saying, offline or online, that they used the original 20 page Basic Role-Playing booklet as a basis for play. Even Worlds of Wonder, which took that booklet and added genre treatments, was not a commercial success. People wanted compelling, full-treatment games like RQ, CoC and Stormbringer.

And I'm pretty sure that use of "BRP" as a deliberate brand term for the whole family of games only dates to the 2006 Big Gold Book (and it's incredibly weird to realise that it's well over a decade old now).

The first time I saw it was earlier than that, but not by much. I'm pretty sure the first time I ever saw the chaosium-rules referred to as BRP was on rpgnet.