[RPG]: Basic RolePlaying: The Chaosium Roleplaying System, reviewed by Lev Lafayette (4/4)

[RPGnet Reviews]

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13905.phtml

Lev Lafayette's Summary:

A "thin glue" method unites several BRP games in one publication. Above average in almost all regards; it is well written, well designed, with quite a good content to page count and good scope. What does happen when Elric hits Cthulhu with Stormbringer?

Go to the full review (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/13/13905.phtml) for more information.

[Lev Lafayette]

"Actions occur on DEX rank and for every 5 points less; thus a character with DEX 16 will act on 16, 11, and 6."

... and 1. :)

[smascrns]

Great review but some things deserve commenting:

"A better profession system (from Pendragon) is discovered as an optional rule on p294-295." Well, pages 294-295 has the optional Personality Traits and these are not from Pendragon, they are from the RQ2 campaign Griffin Mountain. Pendragon adapted these to the Arthurian context and turned them into PC descriptors, where in RQ and BRP they are directed towards NPCs.

"Effect explanations are given according to whether the skill check was a fumble, failure, success, special or critical which, along with the description". This is worth noting and highlighting. It is one of the really great features about BRP, one that justifies buying the game even for old-time BRP players. Often games with levels of failure/success just handwave the concrete results of these levels. IMO this is highly anoying and greatly diminishes the interest and playability of such games. BRP has concrete explanations and guidelines on what each level of success-failure for each skill means. 30 years of experience allowed the game designers to be able to go this deep. Even with the shortcoming you point to BRP goes much deeper and further away than any other game I know that uses similar alternative results for ability rolls.

I found it odd that BRP does not have a horror setting, what with CoC and Nephilim on its belt.

"There is also a sense that the game system is showing its age, and hasn't incorporated some of the features which are largely commonplace in design, such as advantage/disadvantage systems for social, personal and physical traits". Here I strongly disagree. I'm glad that BRP did not attempt to "rejuvenate" by going down that line. It would only mean another layer of complexity with no real advantage in game terms, and open to all kinds of ad hoc, poorly considered "coolness" as found in so many games these days. BRP has a very strong core but it is only strong if it sticks to it. I'm glad it does.

[Pig with Pen]

"Actions occur on DEX rank and for every 5 points less; thus a character with DEX 16 will act on 16, 11, and 6."

... and 1. :)

This system is not lifted from RQ2 or 3. Both had a SR cap, I think 12 and 10, respectivly. I think it is lifted from Stormbringer/Elric.

[Lev Lafayette]

"A better profession system (from Pendragon) is discovered as an optional rule on p294-295." Well, pages 294-295 has the optional Personality Traits and these are not from Pendragon, they are from the RQ2 campaign Griffin Mountain


Whoops. I meant personality system. And you're (doubly) right, they are in Griffin Mountain (p61, p62)

This system is not lifted from RQ2 or 3. Both had a SR cap, I think 12 and 10, respectivly. I think it is lifted from Stormbringer/Elric.

I didn't say they were; the RuneQuest 3 SR system is provided as an option. Multiple actions based in DEX seem to appear in MRQ for the first time, iirc.

[Leo Comerford]

Does it have a single, well-designed system for varying the difficulty of skill checks yet?

[goeticgeek]

I fully support the authors' decision not to include an advantages/disadvantages system in the new BRP. When every game starts to incorporate every possible system then every game will start to look the same. Though universal, the new BRP definitely has a different feel than most of the other universal systems out there because it purposely doesn't make an attempt to be all encompassing.

ED

[Pig with Pen]

I didn't say they were; the RuneQuest 3 SR system is provided as an option. Multiple actions based in DEX seem to appear in MRQ for the first time, iirc.

You're right, my bad. Swell review ;)

[smascrns]

I didn't say they were; the RuneQuest 3 SR system is provided as an option. Multiple actions based in DEX seem to appear in MRQ for the first time, iirc.
No, it was in Stormbringer but as ripostes, iirc.

[Lev Lafayette]

Does it have a single, well-designed system for varying the difficulty of skill checks yet?

It has a simple method (p175, 177) which differentiates between "automatic skills", "easy actions" (double skill chance, no experience checks), "average actions", "difficult actions" (half chance). "impossible actions", and a variety of fairly reasonable circumstantial modifers.


I fully support the authors' decision not to include an advantages/disadvantages system in the new BRP. When every game starts to incorporate every possible system then every game will start to look the same.


I don't think this is the case, as there will be different methods of implementing such things and plus there are always new areas to scope.

I should also take the opportunity to mention that Steve Perrin's Quest Rules (SPQR) does incorporate an advantages/disadvantages system.

[smascrns]

I should also take the opportunity to mention that Steve Perrin's Quest Rules (SPQR) does incorporate an advantages/disadvantages system.
So you are the other guy that payed USD $25 for a draft that was never updated to a full product? I have a lot of respect for Steve Parrin and I fully understand that he was something of a pioneer with his web-based game development and distribution but SPQR was a massive marketing failure.

In any case, you are right to point to its ads/disads. As far as I recall (and I don't want to refer to the files right now) it worked. It could be simplified, but it tied well to BRP. Mostly because the ads/disads were just bonus/penalties to standard BRP descriptors that added variability to their inerent predictability. For ex, one could have a bonus that gave a raise in damage. Yes, these work because they don't had new descriptors or new character definition terms, they modify those that are already there.

I also tend to look at RQ2/RQ3 cult gifts and geas as cultural context sensitive ads/disads system. Once more, I like this since it works within the premises of the setting.

Likewise most of the powers can be looked at as specialized ads/disads (mostly ads, actually).

What I don't like is a generic ads/disads system that introduces more mechanics and more character descriptors and has no specific meaning in terms of the setting.

[Rulandor]

Count me among the people who agree with Chaosium's decision to stick to their proven mechanics, especially not including an ad/disad system.

Why? Because I have years of experiences with different sorts of those systems (especially GURPS and Storytelling's Merits), and I learned to dislike them thoroughly (GURPS) or moderately (Merits). As a GM, I am prone to spontaneous characterizations of non player characters, and as a player, I like to be able to over the course of time decide whether my character has a secret or is the lost heir of some noble family (if the GM approves or even suggests it) or is very brave or rather timid. I do not like needing to pinpoint such character aspects from the beginning and then being stuck with it, unless being able to buy the character free or some such thing.

This is the main reason for BRP having become my universal system of choice (apart from its formidable ease of play).

[King of Old School]

There is something of a nascent ads/disads system in the form of "Character Failings" under superpowers.

That said, I agree with those who say BRP doesn't need a comprehensive, GURPS-style ads/disads system. I really like BRP precisely because it's not just GURPS with percentile dice. It's simple, elegant, flexible and easily customizable. Like Sergio, I'd prefer any kind of ads/disads system to be supplement- and setting-specific.

KoOS

[Jason D]

Hey! Thanks for the kind review!

I don't have anything to add, other than to once again state that during the playtest cycle, we brought up the question of adding an advantages/disadvantages system.

The playtesters were uniformly and vehemently against such an addition.

We even, at one point, included the special professional abilities from the Call of Cthulhu Investigators Handbook.

These were from published, canonical BRP sources, and the playtesters hated those equally.

[Lev Lafayette]

So you are the other guy that payed USD $25 for a draft that was never updated to a full product? I have a lot of respect for Steve Parrin and I fully understand that he was something of a pioneer with his web-based game development and distribution but SPQR was a massive marketing failure.


Steve is actually in the process of finishing off SPQR. No, really - as he says it's a sign of the apocalypse and all, but it is being worked on, srsly.


In any case, you are right to point to its ads/disads. As far as I recall (and I don't want to refer to the files right now) it worked. It could be simplified, but it tied well to BRP...

I also tend to look at RQ2/RQ3 cult gifts and geas as cultural context sensitive ads/disads system. Once more, I like this since it works within the premises of the setting.


That's exactly right on both counts. If such as system was to be included it would have to integrate seamlessly with the system and be appropriate to the setting.

There is something of a nascent ads/disads system in the form of "Character Failings" under superpowers.


True; they taken iirc from Superworld and are clearly inspired from Champions although I did raise the necessary link between character failings and additional powers (post on April14, 2006 to the DBRP playtest group).


I don't have anything to add, other than to once again state that during the playtest cycle, we brought up the question of adding an advantages/disadvantages system.

The playtesters were uniformly and vehemently against such an addition.


I don't recall this and nor can I find it in the archives or the polls.

[Jason D]

I don't recall this and nor can I find it in the archives or the polls.
It came up pretty early, around the time of the special abilities in the professions, and was suggested by someone. It died pretty quickly.

I received several dozen private emails from playtesters appealing to me directly about the issue. Most of the time, if there was a poll at all, it was provoked or accompanied by a couple of dozen private emails from people who feared the results, on either side. There were several "factions" within the playtest who really didn't get along much at all, but all of them emailed me off-list about their concerns/dislikes, etc.

[mxyzplk]

Interesting, thanks for the review. When I saw the size of the BRP book I have to admit I wondered "what the heck could be in there!" since the core system's pretty lean.

What's your take on the utility of this though? I wonder if there's really "enough" supers, magic, etc. to really use, and whether the core system book should have been leaner and just put the other in the "real" games. It seems like it's trying to be like GURPS but stuff even more into the core game. I like CoC and RQ but I'm not sure why I'd buy this - if I wanted to make a game that wasn't one of the BRP derivative games, but use the mechanics, but that game clove pretty tightly to one of the existing power setup bundle flavors? Or is it supposed to be a less-expensive way to "mix them together" - but frankly I haven't seen a lot of demand for "more games like Multiverser!"

[mRgUnN]

Dear All:

I cannot help myself; I have to vent about one of my pet peeves, poor research. :mad: Poor research and laziness in this article has ruined a potential educational experience for all. A failing made especially egregious since the internet puts an encyclopedia at our finger tips.

The author describes the book's cover in his review as: "The cover of Basic RolePlaying features a variation of Da Vinci's study of man..." This is incorrect, the cover art is an homage to Da Vinci's: Vitruvian Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man), from Da Vinci's study in human proportion called the: Canon of Proportions.

To the author I implore; please, in future properly research your citations, the inclusion of a wiki link to the Vitruvian Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man) would have been a great opportunity to enlighten the ignorant.

Your humble servant,

mRgUnN

[goeticgeek]

Dear All:

I cannot help myself; I have to vent about one of my pet peeves, poor research. :mad: Poor research and laziness in this article has ruined a potential educational experience for all. A failing made especially egregious since the internet puts an encyclopedia at our finger tips.

The author describes the book's cover in his review as: "The cover of Basic RolePlaying features a variation of Da Vinci's study of man..." This is incorrect, the cover art is an homage to Da Vinci's: Vitruvian Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man), from Da Vinci's study in human proportion called the: Canon of Proportions.

To the author I implore; please, in future properly research your citations, the inclusion of a wiki link to the Vitruvian Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man) would have been a great opportunity to enlighten the ignorant.

If you really want to be nit-picky the cover isn't an homage to anything by anyone named Da Vinci rather it's an homage to Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. Da Vinci was not the artist's name, it was just where he was from.

ED

[RooksGambit]

If you really want to be nit-picky the cover isn't an homage to anything by anyone named Da Vinci rather it's an homage to Leonardo's Vitruvian Man. Da Vinci was not the artist's name, it was just where he was from.

ED

Oh...snap.

Good review! I've been waiting for this to come out, as I tend toward generic systems, but know that each has its own strengths and weaknesses. As per your description, this actually looks like something I would use to finally put together a game based in China Mieville's Bas Laag. I was previously thinking of Savage Worlds, but thought it didn't play to the settings strengths. Thanks.

[Lev Lafayette]

What's your take on the utility of this though? I wonder if there's really "enough" supers, magic, etc. to really use, and whether the core system book should have been leaner and just put the other in the "real" games. It seems like it's trying to be like GURPS but stuff even more into the core game.


There is enough material to run a genre-specific game however Chaosium's setting detail has always been especially good for its specific games. I believe there are plans for extra supplements along this line. Your comment that this is bit like GURPS+ is not inaccurate.


The author describes the book's cover in his review as: "The cover of Basic RolePlaying features a variation of Da Vinci's study of man..." This is incorrect, the cover art is an homage to Da Vinci's: Vitruvian Man (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man), from Da Vinci's study in human proportion called the: Canon of Proportions.


Yes, you're right; I couldn't remember the actual name when I wrote the review and was hoping someone might pick me up on it if I got it wrong. Well done. :)

In my defense I went via this title:

http://www.twingroves.district96.k12.il.us/RenAissance/University/LeonardodaVinci/StudyMan.html