BRP/Magic World: Sword Art Online

Well, my girlfriend and I just finished the second season of Sword Art Online, and it got me thinking about running a tabletop RPG reminiscent of this game, either in name or some sort of expy-version thereof, but with my most recent forays into the RPG scene being basically from the aspect of Iron Kingdoms, I wanted to dredge up the mechanics of Basic Roleplaying again, seeing as how I've invested a serious amount of my sourcebook income into Chaosium's line of rpgs.

I'm also writing this as a sort of mental exercise for myself, both to increase my postings on my blog, and to keep myself from spending money uselessly signing up for a MMO somewhere and not really enjoying my time playing it, and thus wasting creative energy.

Regardless, I really like the concept of bringing in the actual source as intact as possible because, to reiterate the plot in as spoiler-free a manner as possible, in SAO, when you kill another player character, their actual player suffers a significant electrical jolt to their brain, causing immediate death. This sidesteps one of the standard player mentalities of 'kill everything in sight' by imposing a moral quandary into the more bloodthirsty aspects of the tabletop RPG hobby. Essentially, Player Killers are literally player killers, as their in-game homicides are actual, real-world homicides.

Somewhat breaking from the original source material, however, is the aspect of multiple MMO universes portrayed somewhat later in the anime, and I do quite like the idea of players switching between 'games' occasionally, keeping their attributes but losing their skills, equipage, and money. This does, however, mean that there probably needs to be some sort of leveling system for statistics as well as skills, which is somewhat of a break from the standard Chaosium formula.

But I think I can mitigate that though a hybridization of the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition ruleset with the standard Magic World ruleset, basically running the game where statistics are listed as a derivative of 100, then half that, then 1/5 of that to give a core number that can be used to generate stats. Adding a skill checkbox next to statistic's d100 number means that they can be increased using the standard BRP character advancement rules, but also ensures that characters can't get ridiculously overpowered without more home-brewing. We'll talk more about advancement later.

I think what I like best about BRP is that I can create a list of skills to just put on a character sheet and have players assign starting numbers to them, while keeping the d100 ruleset together. This will probably necessitate looking a number of gamefaqs pages and SAO wikias trying to find a unified list of non-combat skills, but I also think I should probably keep some of the standard BRP/MW skills intact, as the translations for some of the SAO skills in the PSP games are what might be seen as pedestrian. I suppose if I were to keep them it might add to the authenticity and aesthetics of the final system itself, but for now I think utilizing more descriptive and enlightening language creates a more approachable hybrid for rpg veterans and converts from the games/anime. Of course, I'm talking about this as if it's going to be the next big thing, and in all likelihood it'll just become a google document sitting on my drive until I delete my account in x number of years.

What really might require some more intense thought in creating the system is the implementation of Sword Skills from the source material. There are some great write-ups regarding this on the wikias for the various games, and I'll probably trudge through those when I'm less caffeinated and more able to focus on a single stream of consciousness, but from what I'm gathering currently there are regular Sword Skills, which are kind of like special techniques, and Original Sword skills, which are more complex forms of chained Sword Skills, created by individual users (at least in the handheld versions of the game). These I'm thinking can be introduced through the use of Power Points from the BRP system, where x skills cost x power points, and PPs regenerate either through the use of items or over time. Of course the recovery through items basically means that currency and economics needs to play a part of the game world itself, thus necessitating another blog post and me looking through the BRP yellow book for rules on Power Points themselves. Where I start getting into trouble, in my own mind, is when I begin thinking about creating rules for players to create their own Sword Skills and original sword skills, mechanically assigning power points to various effects a Sword Skill may grant.

And, of course, one can't talk about Sword Skills without discussing the combat system of the game (and source material) itself. The big mechanic, aside from Sword Skills (I refuse to abbreviate those words) is the Switch mechanic, where one player parries an enemy attack, allowing a second player to 'switch' in and perform an unopposed attack. This sort of emphasizes team-play, which is cool in concept, I'm just curious about its execution in-game. Off-hand, I'm thinking of hybridizing Pendragon mechanics alongside BRP mechanics, essentially creating a situation where players need to split their skill (I need to look at the BRP rules regarding multiple actions in combat, those may be more forgiving) to engage multiple enemies, and therefore Switching would only really happen in the case of one-on-one combats, probably against bosses.

Again, this can be further mitigated by bosses who can perform multiple attacks in a single round, thereby possibly negating the switch mechanic.

Standard combat would, of course, become more Pendragonny, where players and their opponents would compete with their rolls to see who is the more effective combatant, and that would determine who would roll damage, akin to the Call of Cthulhu 7e ruleset.

The biggest break from the source I'm seeing, however, is that hit points become much more of an issue. With BRP rules, even using the Combine, not Average mechanics, means that players will have fewer hit points than usual. I think this might be where armor comes in and starts saving the day, allowing what I'm thinking will be a standard reduction in damage due to an ARM figure, a la Pendragon or IKRPG. Boss monsters, on the other hand, I'm debating on, perhaps they'll have insane amounts of hit points, or they'll have a set lower number, and each time it disappears the boss goes into Yellow or Red mode, resetting their hit points and changing their tactics, as per the anime.

In any case, there's quite a lot to think about here, and I'm really just stoked I was able to pound out a blog post regarding a fantastic anime and the game system I'll probably never create based on it. But hey, if I do, i'll probably run something with it, just for the funsies.

Thanks for reading.

BRP Releases Advanced Sorcery

And so BRP have released their Advanced Sorcery supplement for their Magic World sourcebook, my current bedside reading material.

I've auto-purchased this, and hope to receive it this coming Monday, which will coincide splendidly with the conclusion of my March Madness OSR blog posts. I'm sure you've all (all one of you) enjoyed reading my thoughts on the various dozen or so systems I have experience either playing or running, so perhaps this is an appropriate place to announce that my project for April will be creating a new original setting for running BRP Magic World with these new supplemental rules.

I'm very excited to see what new pieces of lore and sorcery I can discover by delving through this particular grimoire, and how that information will inform to my worldbuilding.

Time will tell.

(Oooh...time magic. That's an interesting concept.)

March Madness OGBC: Day 20

"Which setting have you enjoyed most? Why?"

I'm vaguely curious as to whether or not my own settings can count toward my favorites. Not really curious enough to care though, because I had a hell of a good time running Dino BRP (The campaign was actually called "The Wrong Side of Everything".)

Why was it a lot of fun? Well, I tend to describe the setting as a recipe of:

1 part Serenity
1 part Jurassic Park (The Lost World, specifically)
1 part Fallout

On post-apocalyptic Earth, increased solar radiation and a new strain of influenza has resulted in the nigh-extinction of all domesticated animals. However, thanks to InGen genetically engineering fucking dinosaurs for some reason, we don't have to subsist on soy products, because apparently these 'abominations' are doing just fine in this new heat.

Of course, at least 50% of them are carriers of the dreaded new antiviral-resistant influenza, but people have to eat, and that is where Dinosaur Poachers come in.

My campaign was set in the idyllic Mexican post-apoc slum of Tetanus Falls, and my fantastic friends played a good portion of the crew of the Stork: gritty entrepreneurs set on striking it rich (or dying trying). Adventures ranged from dino hunts, to rescue missions, to contagion containment, to infiltrating underwater research bases, to a high-falutin' gambling finale on a frickin crashing airship.

Having to WorldGen the entirety of the setting wasn't so bad, it allowed me to create new diseases, alter weapons, and create a host of characters and locations my players would hear about, but never see.

Well, at least they won't see until I convert the setting to Savage Worlds because fuck that system would be perfect with this setting.

My RPG Person Profile

Your RPG Person Profile

I'm currently running (at home):

World of Darkness

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (at home) include:

Iron Kingdoms, Pendragon, D&D 3.5 

I'm currently running (online):

None

Tabletop RPGs I'm currently playing (online) include:

Pathfinder

I would especially like to play/run:

Shadowrun

...but would also try:

Savage Fallout, BRP Dark Sun

I live in:

Santa Fe, NM

2 or 3 well-known RPG products other people made that I like:

Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, Pendragon

2 or 3 novels I like:

Ender's Game, Redwall, Elenium

2 or 3 movies I like:

The Fifth Element, The Thing, Samurai X

Best place to find me on-line:

Unabashed Gaming

I will read almost anything on tabletop RPGs if it's:

Post-Apocalyptic

I really do not want to hear about:

Dungeons & Dragons

I think dead orc babies are ( circle one: funny / problematic / ...well, ok, it's complicated because...)

...it's not like orcs are that evil in a lot of settings anymore. It seems like kobolds and goblins have taken first string in the main opposition standpoint of gaming, and only really in LotR do orcs really get a bad rep. The rest of the time they're pretty okay.

Games I'm in are like this.

If you know anything about Dark Sun it'd help me with a project I'm working on: a conversion from AD&D Dark Sun to BRP.

I talk about RPGs on the Unabashed Gaming podcast under the name David Schimpff

Hard-to-Kill: Figuring out Healing

This post is in response to Keith Davies' article On Hit Points and Healing, as well as his follow-up. I'll be approaching from a BRP standpoint, as I'm currently converting 2e AD&D Dark Sun to a BRP system, and am willing to take whatever help I can get to create a unique feel to the conversion while retaining the cinematic edge that I so enjoy infusing into my games. I'll be aping some of the format of the original articles, to hopefully add cohesion for those who want to read them all.

The original blogs create the concept of Hit Points as Hard-To-Kill points, a measure of when a character has taken so much minor physical abuse that the next attack would strike a vital spot on them. It's a unique way of solving the issue of the massive amounts of hit points higher-tier D&D characters obtain through level bonuses, and I was curious to see how it converted to BRP.

To summarize: in theory, there are two types of damage; described as 'normal' and 'real' damage. Because my most recently played videogame was Resonance of Fate, I'll be calling them 'scratch' and 'direct' damage.

Normal/Scratch damage is light, superficial injury that hinders you and wears down your ability to defend yourself effectively from attacks. This can take the form of unarmed strikes (being punched in the face), armed attacks (a leg gash from a sword, a ringing blow on your shield arm from a mace, etc), or even energy attacks (being singed by dragon's breath). Your hit points, in this case, aren't just a buffer of meat or fat for soaking hits, they also represent your ability to turn lethal strikes into grazes. You still bleed, but your organs remain intact. For the time being.

Real/Direct damage is what happens when your Hard-To-Kill runs out or is circumvented somehow, whether through a critical hit or an attack that you are particularly vulnerable to. In BRP, I'd argue that impaling attacks, critical hits, and attacks dealing enough damage to cause a major wound would fall under Direct Damage.

In most games, you'll be taking Scratch damage more frequently than Direct damage, and the argument posited by Keith Davies is that with each short breather you recover your Scratch through rest or light care, but Direct damage requires actual healing to be performed (or in-game healing mechanics to take over) to recover hit points.

Those are the basics, let's jump in!

Out-of Combat Healing in BRP

Now, there are three 'normal' ways for a character to be healed in BRP outside of combat: First Aid, Natural Healing, and Medicine.
-First Aid: For each separate wound, a character can attempt a First Aid roll to immediately heal 1d3 points of damage.
-Natural Healing: At the end of an in-game week, a character recovers (potentially another) 1d3 hit points.
-Medicine: Each week as the in-game healing is rolled, a character can use Medicine on a wounded character to give them an additional 1d3 hit points recovered that week.

Therefore, the first week after the injuries are sustained, a character can regain 3d3 hit points, followed by a further 2d3 per week until fully healed.

This method of healing is workable for protracted campaigns where there can be a goodly amount of downtime between combats, but in high-battle systems like D&D (or Dark Sun), you'll be taking consistent wounds and needing to track the days between healing rolls, creating a significant amount of crunch not only for the player to track, but the GM as well. Incorporating Scratch damage that heals during one's first breather outside of battle is an concept that's been touched on in systems like 4e, where a short rest and expenditure of healing surges gets you back to full health.

But at the same time I hate 4e, and the way it incorporates healing is stupid, because I hate it. Nyah.

Recovering Hard-to-Kill (or Scratch Damage)

In all seriousness, 4e's short rest is decent-enough mechanic blanketed under convoluted terminology, and I want to make it better. Luckily, with enough house-ruling, anything can be made better. So let's look at this scratch damage, and this resting time frame. Obviously, a person needs a goodly amount of rest to catch their wind when they're wiped. You don't fully recover from a 400 meter sprint or 3 minute round of intense boxing in just five minutes. So let's change that to a minute of rest per Scratch damage HP being healed. There isn't much worry to be had there in terms of time-constraints, as hit points don't increase in BRP like they do in D&D, and therefore the time it takes a person to get their second wind (groan) shouldn't change much over the course of their career.

Taking Hits (Scratch vs. Direct Damage)

So if we have a mechanic to separate types of damage and how each are healed, we should have a set of qualifiers for when a character would take each type of damage.

Scratch Damage: A character potentially takes scratch damage any time an attack connects with them. Whether that damage is registered as Direct Damage is determined by a series of qualifiers.

Direct Damage: Attacks that should deal direct damage are as follows:
-Critical Hits; the attack was either executed skillfully or your character botched their defensive roll. A blade slips between the plates of your armor or you accidentally weave into the strike, instead of away from it.
-Impales; similar to above, except only with piercing weapons. Your armor/technique is ineffective and did not prevent the weapon from driving into your innards. Heh, innards.
-Major Wounds; attacks that deal damage equal to half a character's total hit points. These attacks, if they had a little less force behind them, could have been Scratch Damage, but the inertia behind the blow transfers so much power that it slams into a shield arm or through a barrier of armor, severely damaging the body part beneath.
-Kryptonite; Not literally, of course, but attacks that deal damage that a particular character is vulnerable to obviously deal direct damage.

Moving on.

Hit Points as Mana

Now this is a gem in itself, perfectly lending itself to the Dark Sun setting (and even to BRP a bit, as well). The original descriptor was of a mage using his own life force to fuel his spells, and to be fair, the original D&D games don't have a "Mana" mechanic. But BRP does. Magic Points are equal to your POW, but what if you expend all your MP and still want to cast spells? Well, then you dredge them from your life, of course. And, of course, this always causes Direct Damage, because you're eating into your life essence to do so.

This works even more amazingly with the concept of Defiling in Dark Sun, because casters can drain the life from others around them to fuel their spells. A POW vs POW on the resistance table can represent who successfully resists being defiled, but the rest of the surrounding figures take damage. This has the potential to be overpowered because you could drain HP from enemies with the casting of the spell as well as the spell itself, but on Athas, everyone wants to kill mages. You might get one spell off before everyone in your immediate area swarms you under or pincushions you with arrows. Hell, your own group might murder you.

Final Thoughts

Obviously, this type of modification to the hit point rules requires a re-think of how much fluff you want in your games, because you'll need to describe in more detail what's happening with each attack. However, I'm optimistic about its use, and don't mind going the extra mile, especially when, say, you can use hit location dice to assist in your descriptions. It's likely there will be some things to iron out during gameplay, but chances are they won't be too strenuous, and the new hit point system won't make BRP too easy. Because if it does, well, I'm just going to have to post again and fix that, wont I?

March Madness OGBC: Day 3

"Which game had the least or most enjoyable character generation?"

As a CharGen fanatic, it would be difficult for me to find a character generation rule I disliked, so I suppose I'll focus on the game with the  most enjoyable character generation I've experienced. And, because I've enjoyed it so recently, I'm going to go with Pendragon's Knight creation.

Pendragon was a BRP mod before it took on a life of its own, and that may contribute to my utter enjoyment of the CharGen. There is seemingly less glut with the character sheet, as most of the dice rolls are based off a d20, so you'll be working with a range of 1-20 for each Skill, Trait, Passion, and Attribute. But first, let's go over each, because just about everything in Pendragon's character generation informs some of your player Knight's backstory and family history.

Traits:
Pendragon is the first game I've seen to utilize an alignment mechanic more in-depth than Lawful/Chaotic/etc. In Pendragon, your "alignment" is based off a series of dichotomous traits that range from Chaste/Lustful to Valorous/Cowardly. Each trait is given a set number x between 1 and 20, and the opposing trait receives a value equal to 20 - x so, for instance, Sir Pace has a Lustful of 13 and a Chaste of 7. Each trait informs you of how your character's actions would default in certain instances.

Passions:
Arthurian Legend is all about passion, being swept up in one's love for their lady or liege, or their hate of a certain dismembered black-armored knight voiced by John Cleese. Passions indicate who or what your character feels strongly about, whether the Love of your family drives you or the defense of your Honor, and it can empower your abilities on occasion to superhuman levels.

Skills:
Skills are pretty standard fare now in RPGs, and thus are grasped easily. A higher number is a skill is always better, and lets you know how effective you are (on a scale of 1-20, remember) at performing a certain activity, like Hunting or Flirting. What I really enjoy are the eclectic skills that seem to have little value at first. Falconry is a personal favorite: utilizing birds of prey in the hunt is a fantastic touch of the setting, as is the in-game recognition of the differences between Flirting and Romance, two completely different skill sets.

Attributes:
Lastly, attributes are brought in from BRP almost entirely, with the notable exception of the INT attribute, which has been excised in favor of a player using their own, out-of-character intelligence. Of note, however, is the APP attribute, which was originally in BRP as a throwaway attribute; it is now almost a necessary attribute because a negative APP costs you honor in Pendragon, which is basically the system's XP.

Now, along with the big 4 character creation sections, there is also the option to randomly determine your wealth level, family traits, vassal and family knights, and the ability to generate a home manor for your character, which evolves throughout gameplay.

So yeah, Pendragon is kind of awesome in the CharGen sense in that you're performing light CharGen almost every single session. So cool.

Understanding SIZ: Deconstructing BRP

"SIZ: The characteristic of Size represents the average of an Adventurer's height and weight. Can an Adventurer see over something, or squeeze through a small opening, or be seen in tall grass?"
- Magic World

"SIZ: Size determines your character's height, weight, and bulk. Normal factors like gluttony or rigid diet can increase or decrease you character's weight, and therefore affect their SIZ."
- Basic RolePlaying 2nd

"SIZ: The characteristic SIZ averages height and weight into one number. To see over something, to squeeze through a small opening, or even to judge whose head might be sticking up out of the grass, use Size."
- Call of Cthulhu 6th

I never thought about Size as an attribute before playing Call of Cthulhu. For other games, it is always determined by a range of heights and weights that you get to select from, occasionally rolling modifying dice to randomize your selection. However, in making a Dark Sun conversion for BRP, I've needed to go in-depth to consider how, exactly, SIZ should work as an attribute for variant races, while attempting to maintain balance.

Human:

Starting off with the most default of races, humans in BRP systems are described as having flat 3d6 rolls for most attributes, while having 2d6+6 rolls for their SIZ, generating values that run between 8 and 18, with a racial maximum of 21, according to Magic World. Judging from the SIZ charts included in BRP sourcebooks, that would give humans the range of 5', 80 lbs to 7' 6", 420 lbs (Magic World has a typo on pg. 13 for their SIZ chart). However, according to Call of Cthulhu and Magic World, we're supposed to take averages of each to determine size. Though seven and a half feet is pushing it pretty far for a human, it doesn't sound ridiculous, especially in a fantasy setting. We're expected to look at the human as a default value, but let's see how the other races stand up to this precedent.

Dwarf:

Dwarves generate a pretty short end of the stick, no pun intended, when rolling up in BRP. Their generation roll is a flat 2d6 (with the possibility to add 3 on top of that-gauging from the human's max height on top of dice rolls), giving them potential SIZ values of 2-15, meaning the smallest generated dwarf would be 13" tall and weigh 11 lbs, while the largest would be 6'4" tall and 300 lbs. (BRP Character SIZ Chart, pg. 26).

Working through the other character races also creates various discrepancies like this, especially with the Athasian Half-Giant, who is, according to the Monstrous Compendium II averages out to 10-12' tall and 1600 lbs. So, 144" and 1600 brings us way off the standard SIZ tables of BRP's Character SIZ chart, though extrapolating from where the chart leaves us off at roughly SIZ 73 height-wise and SIZ 365 for weight. This is obviously ridiculous in terms of balance, and doesn't take into consideration the declining ratio of heights and weights as one moves further and further up the SIZ charts.

Instead, let's look at the Giant entry for BRP. Giant SIZ is 24d6+48, averaging at 132; taking half that (Half-Giant, remember) brings us to 66, not far from the estimated 73 extrapolated from the SIZ chart. However, this still gives Half-Giant-sized characters a ridiculous advantage in combat encounters. But-according to the Creature index in BRP, giants are roughly 16 meters tall, twice the height of Athasian D&D giants, which max out at 25'. What does this mean? That we need to half the SIZ for Giants in our conversion to 66, quartering them for Half-Giants, bringing them to around SIZ 33, a much more forgiving number for player characters.

What does all this number crunching mean? Well, basically that random generation of SIZ might be good for a single-raced game, but for something multi-racial/species, you may want to invest in the concept of semi-static SIZ values, and modify them based on another dice roll, such as a damage bonus.

Funny that I've done just that with my working BRP conversion of Dark Sun, isn't it?

The Vilification of 4e: Setting Things Straight

So, I've mentioned before that I co-host a bi-weekly podcast called Unabashed Gaming. This essentially gives me a soapbox to yell from every 14 days, and I seem to yell an awful lot about how much I really dislike D&D 4th Edition, 4e for short. The amusing part of all this is that I started gaming with 4th Edition about six years ago, so nostalgia plays a part of what I remember about the game.

Unfortunately, that nostalgia is a double-edged sword, because when I compare my gaming today with my gaming of yesteryears, I wonder what exactly I liked about the game. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't.

Here are a few preconceptions/critiques of 4th Edition, and my thoughts on them.

1. It's Basically World of Warcraft

Short response: Eh, sort of.

(Fine, I'll give a ) Longer response: In essence, it's understandable that WotC would want to make their game similar to WoW or Wargaming. As a company interested in making money, they were following industry trends, which showed a massive market for MMO players. So, fiscally, it makes sense that 4th Edition would ape some of their mechanics to try and bribe some new players into the fold. However, as evidenced by the rapidly approaching release date of D&D Next, we should probably realize that WotC either didn't get the conversions they were hoping for, didn't please existing fans enough, or both. Probably both.

How is 4e like World of Warcraft? Part of it is likely the art style, now very comic/anime-esque- Interjection here, I'm a fan of this art style, so I don't believe this is a negative aspect of 4e- part of it is the introduction of the Powers system, which I'll get to in a minute. But other pieces of the game system bring out that aspect of WoW/MMOs as well.

The monster design, for one. D&D 4e breaks down monsters into categories, Artillery, Controller, Brute, and Soldier. I may be missing one or two, but basically that's what you've got to work with as a DM. Two 'plinky' creature types and two 'stabby' creature types. These are slightly varied by Minions and Solos, and that other creature type which is basically half a Solo. Elites.

However, Minions, Elites, and Solos still fall under the ACBS categories, so there's still a 50% chance that one will stab you versus shooting you. This tends to create combat encounters that feel less like actual roleplaying and more like moving pieces on a board or clicking something until it dies. The monster combat 'roles' basically generate a static AI for the DM to run, a set of triggers where trigger A leads to action B, or stimuli C leads to power D. There's an interesting rant on Caffeinated Symposium regarding 3.5 vs 4e, and despite not being too much into TL/DR, the author makes a point about running Kobold encounters, where in prior versions of D&D they were designed to be like guerilla forces, setting traps and using environmental hazards to combat players. However, using just the base Monster Manual rules for Kobolds in 4e, they basically turn into low-level cannon fodder, with certain 'buffed' variations offering a challenge to your beatstick characters. There's slight mention of them setting traps and ambushes, but no hints on how a Kobold trap might function or look; rather, the MM1 spends the rest of its time talking about the combat mechanics of this very non-combat-oriented monster race.

The elimination, or sidelining, of monstrous culture, can definitely have 4e feeling like a video game or even board game, especially with the new variations with distance and area-effect powers. No longer using measurements in inches or feet for powers/weapons, they've started using 5-foot squares as units of measurement, further necessitating the purchase of miniatures (or character tiles). Now, there's nothing wrong with using minis in RPGs; it brings back fond memories of Hero's Quest and Dragonstrike for me, but the appeal for a lot of RPG fans is the ability to sidestep rules in order to facilitate better storytelling.

With the new combat rules, it almost feels like 4e is sidestepping storytelling in order to facilitate a better board game.

2. Combat Powers

Occasionally I think about going back to 4th Edition and running a few games, and what tends to stop me is the absolute glut that is the combat powers system. If anything felt like D&D turning into a MMO, it had to be this new change, where you no longer just hit someone with your sword, you did something 'special' at the same time. At first glance, it seems to be an interesting attempt to add some of the prior versions of D&D's combat feats/abilities to more standardized combat, but in the end it seemed to take on a definite bloat, especially in the bookkeeping aspect of the game. This nightmare of numbers comes from the concept of buffing/nerfing, which a goodly number of powers (and combat mechanics) in 4e have the ability to do. When it takes each player an addition minute each turn to determine their attack bonus because they need to figure out the interactions between flanking, invisibility, power attack, that buff their wizard cast on them, that nerf the enemy controller cast on them, cover, concealment, and any racial/class power they have access to this turn, things get busy really and are hardly ever 100% accurate.

Compound this with the concept of At-Will, Encounter, and Daily powers, and suddenly if you want combat to actually matter or feel difficult in 4th Edition, you have to pace and plot every encounter so that:

a) your players don't have an opportunity to take an 8-hour rest between fights where they just blow dailies and destroy every enemy in the first round of every combat.

b) your players retain an opportunity to heal to full after every encounter, because monsters tend to have equal or more hit points than characters, and they start at full hp at each fight.

c) you don't set up encounters a) and b) in such a way that subsequent ones make it impossible for the weakened characters to win.

Combat powers also have a hand in my next point, which is...

 3. Combat is a Slog

Standard procedure when plotting out a game session in 4e is to set aside an hour for Each. Combat. Encounter.  And that's just in the early game. Once your players start getting utility powers that activate on minor or move actions, suddenly their turns take three times as long, because they have to look up the rules for three different powers. Then, of course, monsters also have powers, and those can also be minor and standard actions. This is in addition to all the calculations of nerfs/buffs, and suddenly that super-easy math for leveling up your characters doesn't mean shit because every other aspect is a math SAT word problem, and seriously? fuck word problems. Fuck them so much.

I mentioned in my last point that if you want to have combat matter, you need to plot out at least two, possibly three, probably more than that combat encounters (especially once you've reached paragon and epic tiers) if you want to keep your players on their toes, because with one combat encounter in a game's day cycle, there's nothing stopping the players from blowing through Dailies on round one (and two, once you reach level 5. And hey, round three at level 10!) That's right, unless you throw a freaking higher-level Solo at them as their only combat encounter for a 24 hour period, they're going to waltz through anything your random encounter table can generate.

This may work well in standard fantasy settings: after all, goblins don't tend to mess with higher-level parties traveling around doing good and all, but what about alternate settings that WotC actually published material forin 4e? What about Dark Sun? EVERYTHING is supposed to be able to kill you in Dark Sun. Plants can kill you in Dark Sun! The fucking SUN is supposed to be able to kill you. There aren't mooks in Dark Sun; when you're traveling around Athas, it's supposed to be a terrifying experience, not knowing if Dune Reapers or Kestrekel or an ID Fiend is waiting for you to walk right into their waiting traps. I ran an Athas campaign that eventually had characters reach level 20, and I had to stop trying to make shit attack them in the desert, because nothing in the Dark Sun Creature Catalog aside from Sorceror Kings or the fucking Dragon could scratch them!

And if you decide to fill an entire day of travel with combat encounters to up the difficulty? Well, that's 3+ hours of combat; for many gaming groups that's their entire session. And treacherous journeys like that can take weeks to traverse. Even with a combat encounter every 3-5 days, that's still about 3-4 sessions of only combat.

Tell me again how 4e is slated toward roleplaying.

4. 4 > 3.5, Because Math

There are indeed advocates for D&D 4th edition, and (very) occasionally I'm one of them. It hasn't even been six months since my last purchase of a 4e core book: the Eberron Campaign setting. I like D&D. They have good worlds, good world-building. Occasionally, I may even take some players through a dungeon crawl.

But that's all I can see doing with 4e. Playing it like an advanced version of Descent, or HeroQuest, or any other dungeon-robbing board game. It's not a viable platform for continued storytelling. Which is probably why I'm converting Dark Sun for playing in another game system. Because Athas deserves a game system where death is always imminent, and it's your wits, rather than massive amounts of hit points, that keep you alive.

I was going to say more in 4e's favor, but I really don't feel like it anymore. If you want to introduce someone to D&D and all you have are the 4th Edition books, go ahead.

But, just so you know: Pathfinder is free.

Call of Cthulhu 7th Ed. Quickstart: A Listed Preamble

Having just received Chaosium's 7E Call of Cthulhu Quickstart rules, I've been reading through them in order to see the modifications* to the system.  Thus far, things feel very familiar, but there are some distinct modifications to the formula, which may result in improvements or disappointment.  I'll go through a few of them here, giving my first impressions as a Keeper, without having run anything on the revised rule system yet.

*Note that these are Quickstart rules, and as such, any modifications are subject to the same revisions that Call of Cthulhu's 6E Quickstart experienced.

Putting the Focus on Percentages. (Mixed)

The first thing I looked at in the Quickstart was the new Investigator Sheet.  On it, what popped out to me immediately was the way that skill and characteristic entries were spit into three parts, a larger section for an entry, then two more to its immediate right, split into two, one stacked on top of the other.  Essentially, everything is now focused on a starting percentage, then half that, then 1/5.  Those familiar with BRP know that success with rolls traditionally falls into three categories:

a) Regular Successes (Less than or equal to skill percentage)
b) Impale (Less than or equal to one-fifth of skill percentage)
c) Critical Success (01 showing on the dice)

This revision means that we're focusing on difficulty of skill challenges, rather than level of success.  A hard skill check is usually one made at halved ability.  An difficult skill check is one made at 1/5 ability.

What this means for veteran BRP players, is that when you create an investigator, he will no longer have a STR of 3-18.  It will now be a STR between 15 and 90.  When someone asks me, as a keeper, how attractive a character is, I'll have to respond, "Oh, he/she is an APP 75, rather than an APP 15."  I'm of two minds about this.  Obviously, the higher number really only has to do with skill checks, which makes things a bit easier on the player end, as they no longer have to know what an Effort roll, or a Stamina roll, or an Agility roll is.  I can just ask for regular DEX rolls, and they already have that percentage without multiplying by 5.

On the other hand, I'm really going to miss rolling a 3d6 in front of players and saying, casually, "Oh, she's an APP 18.  You all now have the hots for this random, smelly, beggar woman in the street you've been accosting."  I now have to multiply that by five.  I just don't like it.  Though, I may just modify it to fit my own ends.  An APP 18 is basically a 9/10.  Which works out semi-well.  Still.  On the fence.  Mechanically it works well.  For flow...I'll have to see.

From the look of the investigator sheet, this focus on the three numbers is not likely to change, however, I'm hoping they reinstate rolling for characteristics, as it adds a more intimate thought process in creating investigators.  It's likely, though, that they will stick with choosing starting percentages and add rolling as an alternate form of CharGen.

Additional dice for rolls (Approve)

As something that was described to me months prior to this release, I was very excited to see how the mechanic developed.  I'm happy to see that things haven't changed.  Essentially it is an evolution of the d100 dice roll mechanic, this time including bonuses for player ingenuity or lack thereof.

Essentially, if an investigator needs to make a skill or characteristic roll and their player has set up a way to give them some kind of advantage, they are given an extra 'tens' die as an advantage die to roll along with their standard skill roll.  The player is then able to choose the lower dice roll from the two 'tens' dice.

Of course, along with advantage dice, there are also disadvantage dice.  If an investigator is experiencing a situation where they would be handicapped somehow in their actions, an additional 'tens' die is rolled, and the player must now choose the higher 'tens' die.

I'm a fan of this mechanic for a few reasons, but primarily it encourages players to strategize beyond "I shoot this guy," or "I interrogate this woman."  It adds incentive for gameplay beyond dice rolling for the storyteller players, while incentivizing hardcore dice-rollers with a bonus should they try to think around corners or outside the box.

It's also ambiguous whether or not a player can roll multiple advantage or disadvantage dice at once, but for Call of Cthulhu, I'm seeing a likelihood of multiple disadvantage dice.  I'm looking forward to them, personally.

Faster combat (Approve)

The most surprising aspect of the 7th Edition rules update is the way combat is being streamlined.  The DEX system is still in effect, even the way it's now utterly bloated by changing DEX ranks to reflect your percentagized Dexterity, rather than the standard lower numbers.  This, however is an easy homebrew fix.  No, what I'm loving about this update is the way that combat exchanges have evolved.

It used to work that each turn you were attacked, you had a chance to dodge the attack.  Now, you can either attempt a dodge, thus avoiding the attack entirely, or a counterattack which, if successful, negates any damage that would be dealt to you and deals damage to your attacker.  There are some issues with this, specifically that most players will now utterly ignore the dodge skill in favor of their chosen combat skill.  It seems like there needs to be some sort of incentive to avoid attacks entirely, rather than simply parry/counter all the time.

I can see this becoming an issue more in combat-heavy BRP games rather than Call of Cthulhu, but it is definitely something that needs to be addressed.  It's also ambiguous if the counter ability is a hand-to-hand option only or is applicable to long-range/firearm attacks as well.  The way it looks right now, it's something that is going to be one of the most house-ruled new options being presented in this update.  It's also something I'm going to test tonight in my BRP game, because it has the ability to speed combat up drastically, which is something I am always 100% in favor of.

Revisions to Luck (Mixed)

The Luck roll has become one of the most popular mechanics in Call of Cthulhu, appearing in a multitude of scenarios, and is one of the most important rolls to make in the game, along with Sanity, Spot Hidden, and Dodge.  The way things have changed, is that Luck is no longer based off a character's POW attribute.  It is rolled at the end of investigator generation, a [3d6]x5 roll, creating a percentage that is recorded much like SAN in previous iterations of Call of Cthulhu.  On the positive side, this serves to create a variation between characters, in the sense that a high POW investigator can now be unlucky or lucky, a decision before which made every veteran player interested in survivability choose POW as their highest attribute, as it was indeed, and with no pun intended, overPOWered.  Ouch.

My only issue with this, thus far, is that while Luck is now recorded like SAN, the Quick-Start rules do not list ways for Luck to be reduced, only used.  This seems like a significant oversight on Chaosium's part, as Keepers now have to homebrew rules for Luck reduction, as well as having the option to give off Luck rewards at the end of campaigns as well as SAN rewards.

Credit Rating and Income Elimination (Approve)

Compared to Luck, in most of my Call of Cthulhu games, a Credit Rating check almost never occurred, despite many of the games occurring in the 1890's/1920's settings.  Most players simply rolled exceptionally well on their income d10 and ignored Credit Rating.  It seems now that the two have merged in a beautiful, synergistic way listed on the left.

I'm unsure how the actual rulebook will associate dollar values with this table, but most of the time, players ignored their numerated cash in favor of their wealth levels, anyway.  I think that looking at it this way, giving players the option to choose their wealth level through skill points, rather than blind luck, is a more meaningful choice.  Adding it to class skills is another good move.  Do you want to be a better Author/Professor/Scientist, or do you want to sacrifice some of your initial skill for wealth and recognition?  It's just another way of forcing potentially unconscious players into making informed choices in investigator creation, which is always a plus in my book, as it adds to immersion, and puts stories in the player's head.

Why does my policeman have a 60% in Credit rating but only a 20% in Law?  Oh, it's because he's crooked as all hell.

Going Crazy (Approve)

Ah yes, the ultimate destination of any investigator: the loony-bin.  The overall mechanics have changed very little, and it's likely we'll see a return of the d10 Temporary Insanity chart with the official rulebook release, but I'm liking the concept of what the Quick-Start rules have written down.  When a investigator suffers 5 or more Sanity Point losses at once, he is given a temporary insanity in 6E.  A d10 was rolled, and the investigator had to act out how they went crazy.  The problem with this was that players never wanted their avatars to do something suicidal or too dangerous with this roleplaying.  Now, the Keeper takes control of the investigator for a certain period of time, acting out the insanity.

At the same time the system has been streamlined by possibly eliminating the 1/5 sanity loss - indefinite insanity ruling.  Now, whenever you suffer a temporary insanity, you gain a phobia.  These will obviously stack, and I'm looking forward to homebrewing a tic system where multiple phobias of the same type stack to give investigators extra disadvantages while exposed to their fears.  This will hopefully eliminate some of the scrambling through rulebooks my group experiences when dealing with insanity.

Unlisted

Obviously a Quick-Start guide can't be all-inclusive: that's what a Core book is for.  However, there are some aspects of Call of Cthulhu I'm hoping experienced some modifications.  The Magic system, for one.  It's pretty bloated as-is, and hopefully some of the streamlining taking place in 7E will carry over.  A better listing of Mythos Tomes is also something I could stand to see.  The bestiary can pretty much carry over, it's got a good system already, but I'm guessing it will see a similar revision to its numbering system as the investigator sheets are.  Lastly, I'm hoping to see a new Scenario at the back of 7E.  The Quick-Start has the Haunting, a solid Call of Cthulhu introductory game that has been a series staple, but I definitely want to have some fresh meat in the new book.

Overall, I'm definitely looking forward to the updated rules, and I'm going to see how some of them play tonight in a non-Call of Cthulhu setting.

Cheers.