RuneQuest - Call of Cthulhu - BRP

[Wothbora]

I never got onto the RuneQuest movement back in the day. I stuck (for the most part) with D&D/AD&D. In fact, the d100 percentage/skill approach really didn't much for me. Now that I'm older and have started collecting various "Old School" Games I'm seeing some good in a lot that I'd written off in my youth.

Things I like about RuneQuest, CoC, Basic Role Playing:

Armour Class that negates damage (and becomes unusable after time)
Strike Ranks
The Parry/Dodge Rules
Weapons have Hit Points
In BRP and CoC the Resistance Table is an excellent concept
GUNS!!!

Things I no not like about RuneQuest, CoC, Basic Role Playing:

Way too many skills that get in the way
Fast Talk
Hit Locations
Tendency for Roll Playing instead of Role Playing

Things I'm neutral with in RuneQuest, CoC, Basic Role Playing:

Professions and Interests instead of Classes
No Levels (you is what you is, but you can steadily improve over time)
Realistic Hit Points (One learns to run at times or one learns to die if fighting something out of one's league).

Anyway, I was just wondering what others might have cannibalized from RQ, CoC or BRP over the years.

Two links that might help those who have no idea of what I'm talking about:

A Basic Role Playing Site that contains the 1st edition basic rules from Chaosium:
www.basicrps.com/indexen.html

An OGL recreation of Basic Role Playing:
www.goblinoidgames.com/gore.htm

[driver]

It looks like I'm going to design my next campaign using Deluxe BRP. I played a *lot* of RQ3 when I was younger.

Hit location is an optional rule not present in all iterations of BRP.

I don't know that there's any greater tendency for "rollplay" with BRP than with D&D, or that the skills get in the way. As with any game, if there's no reason to make a roll or the game will progress more smoothly without a roll, you don't have to make it.

With that said, if you're not into a skill-based system, BRP probably isn't for you.

Some of the settings associated with BRP have hugely influenced my gaming. I haven't really cannibalized anything mechanical from BRP, because I don't like mixing classes and skills.

I do like the "one adventure a season" assumption from Pendragon for certain types of campaigns. Another mechanic that OD&Ders may find useful is the Allegiance system from Stormbringer, which gives in-game benefits and penalties based on one's Lawful, Chaotic, or Balance-oriented behavior.

There are many magic systems across BRP versions, some of which might be fun to adapt for OD&D purposes.

[redpriest]

I really, really like BRP, because it's easier to run than falling off a log, and hey, I like hit locations.

D&D and BRP are easily my top two games. When I want a class-based game, it's D&D and RQ is my top choice when it comes to a skills-based system.

As for skills like Fast Talk and Persuade, the way I run such skills are the player has to try and roleplay the talk-talk, and if they convince me, then they don't even have to roll. If the player at least tries, but I am not personally convinced, then I allow the chance of the dice to decide. If the player doesn't even try, then they don't even get to make a roll and the character just fails.

[jjarvis]

I've always found CoC to be a very 'role' heavy game. When the dice start flying in CoC it's a good bet investigators are gonna start dying.

[redpriest]

May 2, 2008 15:03:59 GMT -6 jjarvis said:

I've always found CoC to be a very 'role' heavy game. When the dice start flying in CoC it's a good bet investigators are gonna start dying.

I think that you've hit it just right for success in CoC. Good players will want to control situations as much as possible through careful planning. Dice are not the investigators' friends, and you can be sure that when, as you say, "the dice start flying" that the investigators have lost control of the situation and are hoping and praying for lucky breaks.

[moonlapse vertigo]

I played a lot of Runequest (2nd Edition, the Chaosium years...I can't really comment on what came after). It was way ahead of its time, especially the campaign packs. Anyone who hasn't read Pavis, Big Rubble, Borderlands, or Griffin Mountain should try to track down some copies, regardless of what system they play. They were just way beyond the sorts of boxed-in, tournament-style adventures TSR was releasing at the time. Really, really inspirational stuff.

It was never really a game for dungeon crawling...it was always more about role playing, the collisions of strange cultures, and "I could die at any time" combat. Some could argue that certain skills (Fast Talking/Bargaining skills, mostly) led the way for what came later, but I think that glosses over the real strengths of the game. Combat was brutal and realistic, but resolved very quickly, and FUN. It proved you could have tense, non-abstracted fights without taking the whole gaming session to kill a couple of giant rats.

There were a couple of downsides, of course. For me, Glorantha was always both its greatest strength and greatest weakness. On the positive side, the material was rich and dense and overflowing with originality, but it also left you feeling like you never knew enough. In many systems, you'd just wing it and make the setting your own, but somehow that never felt right in Glorantha. You WANTED to know what Stafford's version of things was, because you knew it was going to be something awesome. The other complaint my group always had was with the magic system. It works quite well as its integrated into the game, but it is quirky and not really based on the sorts of archetypes players expect, either from D&D or just fantasy literature/myth in general. As one of my players put it back in the day "it's like everybody has to be a cleric!"

Still, an amazing and groundbreaking system. It's sort of like one of those obscure bands that most of the public never heard of, but who inspired twenty other, more well-known musicians to pick up instruments. The public mindshare may not be there, but the designers sure as hell know about it.

[raithe]

Actually I'm using BRP for a campaign world I wrote up recently. I had originally intended it to be OD&D but would have had to kludge a lot of mechanics for varying types of magic and other mechanics, so I went with BRP because a lot of what I needed was right there already. That, I feel is it's real strength. It's the easiest system to expand I've ever seen, and the dearth of concepts covered by the existing system (and covered well I might add) is astounding. My only gripe with it is the same one I have with any system that uses detailed enemies, and that's rolling them all up. It really increases the work load on the GM to have to basically generate a party of characters for every encounter. Though in practice that's not as bad as it sounds due to the nature of combat and methods of advancement etc.

[castiglione]

I may be completely off-base here since this impression was based on a quick read-through of the rules but when I read the combat rules for RuneQuest, I was disappointed by the fact that there seemed to be a LOT of die rolling and detail but not much more in the way of decision making than combat in D&D. So fights ended up lasting longer (and having more "institutionalized" detail - as opposed to GM describing stuff off the cuff detail - than D&D) but no increase in decision making. It seemed strange to me from a game design point of view.

[redpriest]

Apr 22, 2010 9:29:00 GMT -6 castiglione said:

I may be completely off-base here since this impression was based on a quick read-through of the rules but when I read the combat rules for RuneQuest, I was disappointed by the fact that there seemed to be a LOT of die rolling and detail but not much more in the way of decision making than combat in D&D. So fights ended up lasting longer (and having more "institutionalized" detail - as opposed to GM describing stuff off the cuff detail - than D&D) but no increase in decision making. It seemed strange to me from a game design point of view.

Which edition did you read? Chaosium 1e/2e? Chaosium/AH 3e? MRQ?