BRP The Edition Wars To End All Wars

[Raleel]

About percentages, every game I’ve seen that doesn’t use percentage rolls and explains the probability of success and failure at different skill levels has used percentages for this explanatory purpose. BRP just cuts out the middleman.

on the other hand, I've had a great deal of difficulty with expectations of what levels of expertise are in Mythras. My group has a running joke about "Professional" being 50%. When I trotted out 5e probabilities, they see that in fact DC 15 is 50% roll for a fairly focused character, and DC 10 is actually an Easy DC, corresponding very well to a Mythras Unopposed roll at 50% (well trained, start of professional) and 25% (untrained, very near average stats). There is a perception that unless you have a 75%+ you are not any good.

 

[Nobby-W]

on the other hand, I've had a great deal of difficulty with expectations of what levels of expertise are in Mythras. My group has a running joke about "Professional" being 50%. When I trotted out 5e probabilities, they see that in fact DC 15 is 50% roll for a fairly focused character, and DC 10 is actually an Easy DC, corresponding very well to a Mythras Unopposed roll at 50% (well trained, start of professional) and 25% (untrained, very near average stats). There is a perception that unless you have a 75%+ you are not any good.

Stock Runequest didn't have a system for adjusting the difficulty of the roll. If you had a 50% chance, then everything you did was 50% - there was no concept of an easy or hard roll. I don't know if Mythras does this but Twilight:2000, which had a similar percentile roll-under system, had easy or hard rolls that halved or doubled the skill to find a target to roll.

In practice, with a 50% chance of success on individual rolls then your chances of making it through anything that involves more than one skill roll is quite low, so it's reasonable to view it as being on the low side - especially if you're rolling for something critical. An example might be a scenario like 'You spot a patrol of orcs approaching. Everybody roll stealth to hide.' Unless everyone has stealth rolls in the 90%+ range, the attempt to evade the patrol is unlikely to succeed.

 

[Vile Traveller]

If Chaosium release a PoD of the original Worlds of Wonder it might sell quite well.

I and another BRP Central member scanned, OCR'd, and proof-read my boxed set back in 2016 or so, and gave the lot to Chaosium. I'm told the plan to re-publish it as a single book is still on, but it's not going to happen any time soon. Maybe I'll live to see it, but not if I hold my breath.

 

[Raleel]

Mythras has a skill adjusting system - 1/10th of skill, 1/2 of skill, 2/3 of skill, 150% of skill and 2x skill.

I get what they are saying, but they are also thinking about opposed rolls, in which if you have someone opposing you, they are getting to take a hit at your 50% success rate.

https://anydice.com/program/1ef16 I made a thing to help all of us figure out chances. it helps me gauge and manage expectations.

 

[raniE]

on the other hand, I've had a great deal of difficulty with expectations of what levels of expertise are in Mythras. My group has a running joke about "Professional" being 50%. When I trotted out 5e probabilities, they see that in fact DC 15 is 50% roll for a fairly focused character, and DC 10 is actually an Easy DC, corresponding very well to a Mythras Unopposed roll at 50% (well trained, start of professional) and 25% (untrained, very near average stats). There is a perception that unless you have a 75%+ you are not any good.

I think it has to do with people in general rolling for far too many things (if you only succeed at your job 50% of the task you aren't good at it, but most tasks shouldn't be rolled for in my opinion) combined with the well known tendency to undercount successes and overcount failures.

 

[Raleel]

I think it has to do with people in general rolling for far too many things (if you only succeed at your job 50% of the task you aren't good at it, but most tasks shouldn't be rolled for in my opinion) combined with the well known tendency to undercount successes and overcount failures.

and the risk/rewards part as well. it creeps up in combat rather regularly.

 

[zarion]

The first time I ever encountered the percent style system it was because of a YouTuber named Runeslinger. This was not that many years past and my first exposure to the system was RQ6. I am only passingly familiar with other percent systems so take this with a grain of salt.

At skill level 50% a person could be said to have competence with the skill in question. The reason I feel this way is because this would make very easy tasks roll at double skill level, or 100%. Most stuff someone would do at their job when they reach a level of competence should be completed with a 100% success rate. It's only when one encounters something outside their normal duties that the task should be considered more difficult.

 

[PencilBoy99]

If I remember correctly the way Dark Heresy 1e handled this was that easy tasks were always at +20 or something, so if you did choose to roll for it and you had even 20/30% you might succeed.

 

[Simlasa]

I think it has to do with people in general rolling for far too many things (if you only succeed at your job 50% of the task you aren't good at it, but most tasks shouldn't be rolled for in my opinion) combined with the well known tendency to undercount successes and overcount failures.

Yeah, it's not going to go well if you have to roll every time you drive a car... it's meant for extreme situations like chases and dodging about in a hurricane. A trained surgeon in a hospital shouldn't have to roll to remove an appendix... but if they're on a ship in a storm, or the nurse assisting him is suddenly possessed by Linda Blair, they might.

 

[raniE]

Yeah, it's not going to go well if you have to roll every time you drive a car... it's meant for extreme situations like chases and dodging about in a hurricane. A trained surgeon in a hospital shouldn't have to roll to remove an appendix... but if their on a ship in a storm, or the nurse assisting him is suddenly possessed by Linda Blair, they might.

Too many people forget this and then complain about having too low of a chance of success. GURPS, despite not being a BRP game, has some of the best details on what the different difficulty levels for skill use means in my opinion. Exemplified via the Driving skill a trivial task would be driving around an empty parking lot, an easy task would be to commute to work in a small town, a favorable task (so still getting a small bonus to your roll) would be competing in a road rally, and the average roll is for driving in a car chase.

 

[Simlasa]

Exemplified via the Driving skill a trivial task would be driving around an empty parking lot, an easy task would be to commute to work in a small town, a favorable task (so still getting a small bonus to your roll) would be competing in a road rally, and the average roll is for driving in a car chase.

Also, just because you fail a roll during the road rally does not mean that the tires fly off your car, or that you fireball off a cliff. It might mean you just fail to pass the lead car.

 

[raniE]

Also, just because you fail a roll during the road rally does not mean that the tires fly off your car, or that you fireball off a cliff. It might mean you just fail to pass the lead car.

Indeed. In Fantasy RPGs this becomes a severe problem with the Climbing skill where the natural way to do it is one roll (if a roll is even warranted, an easy climb should just be declared successful) and the natural outcome for a failed skill check is "you are unable to find a way up" or "you don't get up there any faster" or "the other guy reaches the top before you". But too many people insist on rolling every ten meters, or even every ten feet, and declaring a failed roll a fall. Seemingly completely oblivious to how probability works they then declare the skill system a failure and demand a system where you roll for things constantly with but have at least a 95% chance of success per roll.

 

[Mankcam]

I like Mythras's quick mods of +/- 20% and +/- 40%. These broad rulings pretty much cover most situational difficulties for me.

I also like CoC 7E's extra success level (Hard Success = half score). RQ always had it in some spot rules options, although it wasn't baked in as a term, and it's applications were limited to a few specific circumstances.
I think it's main strength is that it tends to resolve opposed rolls better, freeing up the old stalemates that often occured.

I think these two rules - the Mythras mods, and the CoC 7E extra success level - are good to port into any BRP game

 

[raniE]

I like Mythras's quick mods of +/- 20% and +/- 40%. These broad rulings pretty much cover most situational difficulties for me.

I also like CoC 7E's extra success level (Hard Success = half score). RQ always had it in some spot rules options, although it wasn't baked in as a term, and it's applications were limited to a few specific circumstances.
I think it's main strength is that it tends to resolve opposed rolls better, freeing up the old stalemates that often occured.

I think these two rules - the Mythras mods, and the CoC 7E extra success level - are good to port into any BRP game

One good thing about BRP systems is that, like with OSR systems although somewhat less so, it is easy to add rules like this and take what you think is good from various iterations of the systems and add it to a base. The system is robust and can handle small alterations well.

 

[Toadmaster]

I think it has to do with people in general rolling for far too many things (if you only succeed at your job 50% of the task you aren't good at it, but most tasks shouldn't be rolled for in my opinion) combined with the well known tendency to undercount successes and overcount failures.

The first time I ever encountered the percent style system it was because of a YouTuber named Runeslinger. This was not that many years past and my first exposure to the system was RQ6. I am only passingly familiar with other percent systems so take this with a grain of salt.

At skill level 50% a person could be said to have competence with the skill in question. The reason I feel this way is because this would make very easy tasks roll at double skill level, or 100%. Most stuff someone would do at their job when they reach a level of competence should be completed with a 100% success rate. It's only when one encounters something outside their normal duties that the task should be considered more difficult.

Also, just because you fail a roll during the road rally does not mean that the tires fly off your car, or that you fireball off a cliff. It might mean you just fail to pass the lead car.

Yes!

There are so many things that people fail to account for in skill ratings. Rolling for mundane things, I'm kind of amazed at times that people don't make players roll to walk and chew gum. Whoops you forgot to to put one foot in front of the other and you fall flat on your face, you take 2d6 damage to the... right arm, dude you just broke your arm walking down the street, see this game is stupid.

A cooking skill of 50% does not mean you burn every other pancake, more that when competing on Iron chef there is a 50% chance that you fail to make an inspiring dish from the random ingredients provided to you.

It is also so common to make the consequences pass / fail instead of a continuum and failure is often catastrophic but success just a step along the way. You didn't find the hidden document, game over. WHAT!!!! What kind of idiot designs a scenario like that.

A normal fail shouldn't mean the pot of borscht is now level 5 poison, it just doesn't taste that great, but if hungry it is food. A fumble, might mean you didn't cook the pork all the way and the consumers might get sick, or maybe the food is just inedible, a pinch of salt, not a pound, doh.



On the people are taught probabilities as % that is true, but I find most people don't actually understand what probability actually represents or really big numbers in general. People tend to think in small numbers, all my friends (all 4 of them) like Mythras better than D&D so I don't get why they say D&D is so popular, nobody likes it. 50% is 1 in 2 succeeds, well sort of, but 5000 out of 10,000 is more realistic as anybody who has rolled 4 fails in a row with a 75% skill should understand (stupid broken dice) but often don't.

Too many people forget this and then complain about having too low of a chance of success. GURPS, despite not being a BRP game, has some of the best details on what the different difficulty levels for skill use means in my opinion. Exemplified via the Driving skill a trivial task would be driving around an empty parking lot, an easy task would be to commute to work in a small town, a favorable task (so still getting a small bonus to your roll) would be competing in a road rally, and the average roll is for driving in a car chase.

Breaking away from % for a moment, something that I have really come to appreciate with rolling 3d6 (GURPS, HERO) is the effect of bonuses / penalties on skills. Because of the bell curve effect, you see significant changes at the low and middle ranges, but they flatten at higher skill levels. So a "competent" 11 skill (62.5%) getting a +2 jumps to 83.79%, just over +21% but a highly skilled 15 (95.37%) only gains a hair over 4% (99.53%) because they are already a master of the skill, so having good tools or a book only goes so far (I mean the guy probably wrote the book, so what is he really gaining by reading it, oh stupid, that tumbler has to go first, good thing I looked it up). On the other end a novice 8 (25.92%) doubles their chances with the same +2 (50%) because having read through the book they just added a ton of knowledge applicable to their situation.

I just like how it compares to acquiring skills in real life, with rapid advances in the beginning, and years of practice to truly master a skill. In two sessions you can get good at playing chop sticks on the piano, with a year of practice you might be able to memorize a real piano piece, or play something fairly simple by sight reading. Unless you are a savant, it will take years to be able to play something complex by sight, unprepared.

 

[K_Peterson]

I like Mythras's quick mods of +/- 20% and +/- 40%. These broad rulings pretty much cover most situational difficulties for me.
...
I think these two rules - the Mythras mods, and the CoC 7E extra success level - are good to port into any BRP game

That same "quick mod" implementation is in Delta Green 2e, and has become my preference as well. (And similarly in Legend, though it extends the values in 20% increments in both directions).

I also use DG's "Using a Skill without a Roll" rule - where, if circumstances are calm and controlled, tasks will be successful if the PC's skill is in an appropriate range. For example, if a task requires someone to have some basic training in, a skill of 30-39% accomplishes it without the need for a roll. Or for a task that requires someone with professional experience, a PC will be successful with a skill level of 40-59%. It's only in the cases that a PC rushes things, or takes serious risk will the dice come out.

 

[K_Peterson]

If Chaosium release a PoD of the original Worlds of Wonder it might sell quite well.

I'd be curious to see if that was actually true. I'm sure it'd pick up some nostalgia-sales but would it make much of an impression beyond that?

I owned the Worlds of Wonder boxed set at one point, and I can't say I really found it that appealing as a product. And after the Big Gold Book came out more than a decade ago, I saw even less use for WoW as a product. Maybe it has too thin of a framework to meet my needs.

 

[Vile Traveller]

I owned the Worlds of Wonder boxed set at one point, and I can't say I really found it that appealing as a product. [...] Maybe it has too thin of a framework to meet my needs.

Having seen the sequentially-compiled text, it doesn't really work very well as-is. If on the other hand the four books were fully integrated into a BGB-style book I believe it would work very well - much smaller than the BGB and immediately usable. A D100 version of GURPS Lite.

 

[Mankcam]

I'd be curious to see if that was actually true. I'm sure it'd pick up some nostalgia-sales but would it make much of an impression beyond that?

I owned the Worlds of Wonder boxed set at one point, and I can't say I really found it that appealing as a product. And after the Big Gold Book came out more than a decade ago, I saw even less use for WoW as a product. Maybe it has too thin of a framework to meet my needs.

I could see some old fans picking it up as a PoD, just like the recent nostalgic RQ2 reprints which are PoD.
I agree it may not garner new fans, and Choasium would ptorobably be more wise doing another BGB instead.
I always thought that the name 'Worlds of Wonder' waa better term for the system, instead of Basic Rolepaying - it's not rules-lite, so the word 'basic' in the title is a little misleading.

 

[cryptkeeper]

Elric! is a pitch-perfect sword and sorcery set of rules. I strip it of all the young kingdoms setting stuff cause it would be whatever unique S&S world I was running at the time. So I don't want the book for the implied setting. Here are its best points; Compact. The book is slim! Layout. If you are interested in creating your own game books you should study this thing for design and layout alone. Just like the excellent Renaissance adaption of the BRP system, it shows how the BRP system shines at human scale adventure. The last solid point I can make (and has become standard in most books now) is the character creation flow-chart. Soo helpful for quick character creation.

 

[Korgoth]

Yeah, it's not going to go well if you have to roll every time you drive a car... it's meant for extreme situations like chases and dodging about in a hurricane. A trained surgeon in a hospital shouldn't have to roll to remove an appendix... but if they're on a ship in a storm, or the nurse assisting him is suddenly possessed by Linda Blair, they might.

"You should only roll if there is a chance of failure"

I can't remember the first RPG I read that in but it wasn't way back when, that's for sure (as a kid we thought it was funny to roll a fumble on tying your shoe laces) It was sadly a more recent RPG.

When it's spelled out like that it seems so obvious, but as I said before I remember being a stickler for rules as RAW as a kid and we rolled for all sorts of stuff that wasn't necessary to roll for.

I also like the way the "Gumshoe" engine handles clues (The group always gets the clue, but if the fail the roll they get the clue but with complications) At first my gut said, NOPE to story-gamey mamby-pamby player agency bla bla. But i slept on it and now I'm a total convert to that idea and use it (for clues) in any and every rpg now.

 

[raniE]

"You should only roll if there is a chance of failure"

I can't remember the first RPG I read that in but it wasn't way back when, that's for sure (as a kid we thought it was funny to roll a fumble on tying your shoe laces) It was sadly a more recent RPG.

When it's spelled out like that it seems so obvious, but as I said before I remember being a stickler for rules as RAW as a kid and we rolled for all sorts of stuff that wasn't necessary to roll for.

I also like the way the "Gumshoe" engine handles clues (The group always gets the clue, but if the fail the roll they get the clue but with complications) At first my gut said, NOPE to story-gamey mamby-pamby player agency bla bla. But i slept on it and now I'm a total convert to that idea and use it (for clues) in any and every rpg now.

Even that isn’t really enough to get through to everyone. I mean, I’ve failed at walking and actually hurt myself.

 

[Korgoth]

Even that isn’t really enough to get through to everyone. I mean, I’ve failed at walking and actually hurt myself.

When I was in Jr. High School and people would fall 'up' the stairs (uncoordinated young teens) I'd think to myself they fumbled their dex checks.

Of course I never fumbled any dex checks on the stairs...

 

[zarion]

When I was in Jr. High School and people would fall 'up' the stairs (uncoordinated young teens) I'd think to myself they fumbled their dex checks.

Of course I never fumbled any dex checks on the stairs...

I don't believe you.

I literally have tripped on nothing. A few times in life I just set my foot down completely wrong and over I went, splat! One time I twisted my ankle so bad doing it that I had it in a tensor bandage for a week. And I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, so what does that say about me!

 

[Toadmaster]

I don't believe you.

I literally have tripped on nothing. A few times in life I just set my foot down completely wrong and over I went, splat! One time I twisted my ankle so bad doing it that I had it in a tensor bandage for a week. And I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, so what does that say about me!

Your player has a crappy GM who made him roll for you to walk down the street.

 

[Mankcam]

I don't believe you.

I literally have tripped on nothing. A few times in life I just set my foot down completely wrong and over I went, splat! One time I twisted my ankle so bad doing it that I had it in a tensor bandage for a week. And I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, so what does that say about me!

It's hard to know if these are failed DEX rolls or failed Luck Rolls!

 

[Tulpa Girl]

It's hard to know if these are failed DEX rolls or failed Luck Rolls!

Or dirty tricks by poltergeists.

 

[soltakss]

I'd be curious to see if that was actually true. I'm sure it'd pick up some nostalgia-sales but would it make much of an impression beyond that?

That would be my feeling, too.

I owned the Worlds of Wonder boxed set at one point, and I can't say I really found it that appealing as a product. And after the Big Gold Book came out more than a decade ago, I saw even less use for WoW as a product. Maybe it has too thin of a framework to meet my needs.

It was Ok at the time, as it did something that was fairly new, having one set of rules that work across different genres.

But, other systems have done it better and more often since.

 

[Paragon]

I should also note that when someone says "Stock RQ didn't have modifiers" you have to, at best, say "originally". By the time of RQ3 it absolutely did, and I'd want to go back and look at RQ2 before I was willing to say that was when it started.

 

[Mankcam]

I should also note that when someone says "Stock RQ didn't have modifiers" you have to, at best, say "originally". By the time of RQ3 it absolutely did, and I'd want to go back and look at RQ2 before I was willing to say that was when it started.

RQ2 had various modifiers scattered throughout the Spot Rules (I think they were in the Appendix), but they were particular to certain situations, and were not presented in a neat generic table like in RQ3

 

[Mankcam]

This is almost two months old now, it's Pookie's early unboxing review of Jackals
It uses a version of BRP (OpenQuest), so it's rules-lite as far as BRP games go.
Sounds like the game mechanics depart a little from the standard OQ rules, so I will be interested in seeing how it does this.

From this brief review, it looks like it has good production quality, and I like the handy digest size (I miss the BRP Legend digests)
The setting looks really cool, and I can't wait until mine arrives to check it out

 

[Raleel]

One thing I love about games like this is that you can compare it with other systems with very very similar mechanics and see how they are using the mechanics to aid the setting. It’s also a light weight enough setup that you aren’t going to get lost or have to spend a lot of time on it.

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

So, what would be the best version of BRP to run my favorite RPG genre, which I believe I recently described in another thread as something like "the sort of science fiction that has little to do with actual science and could perhaps be more accurately described as adventure fiction with some sci-fi trappings?"

I’d recommend straight up BRP from the Big Gold Book or possibly Revolution D100.

 

[Kobayashi]

In France we were fortunate enough to have a magazine version of the BRP called Basic. It came with a fantasy and a horror investigation setting.

It was sold for 6,50 euros (40 francs back in 1997) for a hundred pages of BRP goodness aimed at beginners (each setting came with an adventure and pregens.



I lean more toward "simplified" versions (I really like most of what Arc Publishing has done with the latest edition of Delta Green, and releasing it as OGL was a cool move, I steal a lot from Openquest as well). With so many sources I found awesome to be able to create my own version of the BRP on the fly as a campaign goes.



I still haven't found a SciFi setting I'm satisfied with (Though Ashen Stars should be pretty easy to convert).

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

In France we were fortunate enough to have a magazine version of the BRP called Basic. It came with a fantasy and a horror investigation setting.

It was sold for 6,50 euros (40 francs back in 1997) for a hundred pages of BRP goodness aimed at beginners (each setting came with an adventure and pregens.

View attachment 26358

I lean more toward "simplified" versions (I really like most of what Arc Publishing has done with the latest edition of Delta Green, and releasing it as OGL was a cool move, I steal a lot from Openquest as well). With so many sources I found awesome to be able to create my own version of the BRP on the fly as a campaign goes.

View attachment 26359

I still haven't found a SciFi setting I'm satisfied with (Though Ashen Stars should be pretty easy to convert).

I would refer you to M-Space but if you want something a little lighter Worlds Beyond will soon be published again.

 

[Kobayashi]

I would refer you to M-Space but if you want something a little lighter Worlds Beyond will soon be published again.

Thanks ! I did look at it, Rivers of Heaven as well (and many CoC scifi settings) , but it didn't click with me.

 

[Ronnie Sanford]

Thanks ! I did look at it, Rivers of Heaven as well (and many CoC scifi settings) , but it didn't click with me.

Yup. You might check out New Horizons but it’s basically souped up Cthulhu Rising.

 

[Séadna]

Kobayashi , did you ever read Jeux et Stratégie? Some great little mini-games in there, but I've only gone through a few issues. I must try to read that BRP magazine!

 

[Kobayashi]

Kobayashi , did you ever read Jeux et Stratégie? Some great little mini-games in there, but I've only gone through a few issues. I must try to read that BRP magazine!

Yes! At the time we basically had Jeux & Stratégies and Casus Belli (the BRP one is a special issue of Casus Belli). Jeux & Stratégies also released a scifi rpg named MEGA with a percentile die based system (but wasn't BRP based). I have the PDF of Basic, PM me if you need it!

 

[Toadmaster]

This is almost two months old now, it's Pookie's early unboxing review of Jackals
It uses a version of BRP (OpenQuest), so it's rules-lite as far as BRP games go.
Sounds like the game mechanics depart a little from the standard OQ rules, so I will be interested in seeing how it does this.

From this brief review, it looks like it has good production quality, and I like the handy digest size (I miss the BRP Legend digests)
The setting looks really cool, and I can't wait until mine arrives to check it out

Interesting, it still baffles me that many of us grew up on films like Jason and the Argonauts yet there has been little success by a game set in Mythic Greece. RQ1 & 2 was quasi-bronze age and that is the closest I can think of, but it only borrows some ideas from Greek Myth.