RuneQuest vs BRP - How compatible?

[Khaalis]

Hey, is anyone on here a BRP / RuneQuest player? Can anyone tell me how compatible the RuneQuest line is with its spin off BRP?

I am thinking of using BRP and would like to know how much material I can use from RuneQuest.

One other question for anyone familiar with BRP. How well does the system scale for Non-Human PCs? I'd like to port over the concept of Drakes and Giants as PC races (from Fantasy Craft).

Thanks.

 

[Bluenose]

Hey, is anyone on here a BRP / RuneQuest player? Can anyone tell me how compatible the RuneQuest line is with its spin off BRP?

I am thinking of using BRP and would like to know how much material I can use from RuneQuest.

Pretty much anything. Some of the terminology is different in confusing ways, but it's usually fairly clear from context that what one system refers to as spirit magic is referred to in the other as battle magic.

One other question for anyone familiar with BRP. How well does the system scale for Non-Human PCs? I'd like to port over the concept of Drakes and Giants as PC races (from Fantasy Craft).

Thanks.

Characters including NPCs can be built in the same way with the same stats and skills. The difference between a Giant that's an NPC and a Giant that's a PC is that one is being run by a player and the other by a GM. And whatever differences their stats and skills provide them, of course.

 

[JeffB]

Which version of Runequest?

I use openquest these days for my chaosium era RQ fix.

 

[Khaalis]

Bluenose When you say "whatever differences their stats and skills provide them" - this is what I'm kind of looking for. What would the differences be? Effectively the PC version being some Lesser Giant?

@ JeffB OpenQuest? Is that the RQ SRD? As for what version, I guess I'd say any. I don't really know RQ very well but enough to know there are Chaosium RQ1 & RQ2, Avalaon Hill RQ3, Games Workshop RQ3, Mongoose 1E (RQ4) & 2E (RQ5), Legend (Mongoose RQ6) and Moon Design RQ6 (not to mention throwing in Issaries HeroQuest).

 

[Celebrim]

How well does the system scale for Non-Human PCs? I'd like to port over the concept of Drakes and Giants as PC races (from Fantasy Craft).

The biggest thing that FantasyCraft did to treat Giants and the like as PC races was due away with the concept of racial HD. The secondary thing to this was to treat 5000lb Giants as fundamentally not having any major physical differences with 160lb humans.

I think on the whole BRP can do that pretty easily if you want to go that way. Just trivialize the difference in Size scores between a giant and a human, and manipulate the math in a way you think is balanced. Race can play as small of a role in BRP as you desire it to.

 

[Bluenose]

Bluenose When you say "whatever differences their stats and skills provide them" - this is what I'm kind of looking for. What would the differences be? Effectively the PC version being some Lesser Giant?

Sorry, that obviously wasn't clear. The stats that would be rolled for the PC giant are the same as the stats that would be rolled for an NPC giant; the skills would differ as a result of different careers and backgrounds and a certain amount of personal customisation. They will differ because those things are likely to be different. That's all.

Edit: I will note that in RQ6 you can roll stats or use a number of alternative systems, and I haven't yet seen anything which extends those systems to the full range of creatures. So a PC giant might be created differently to an NPC one if you did something about that.

 

[Khaalis]

@ Celebrim

I think on the whole BRP can do that pretty easily if you want to go that way. Just trivialize the difference in Size scores between a giant and a human, and manipulate the math in a way you think is balanced. Race can play as small of a role in BRP as you desire it to.

How would you go about trivializing size? Just curious what you mean on how to do the manipulation. On a side note, I actually prefer race to play a fairly decent role in characterization. I am not a huge fan of dwarves just being short humans and elves humans with pointy ears. I prefer a little to add racial tension, racism and and defined cultural differences that can affect play into the game world. It makes for a more rich social canvas for the game. However, I don't want say playing an Ogre to be an "instant win" for any warrior archetype just because of the mechanical advantages they gain. Granted they should have Some but other races could excel at being warriors as well, just in a different way. Trying to find that balance is what I'm looking for, even if its something as simple as an Advantage akin to Superhuman Attributes that can be assigned a value so that other races can have the same "value" but in other advantages.

@ Bluenose

I will note that in RQ6 you can roll stats or use a number of alternative systems, and I haven't yet seen anything which extends those systems to the full range of creatures. So a PC giant might be created differently to an NPC one if you did something about that.

By RQ6 I am assuming you mean the Moon design version and not Mongoose's Legend (which also gets referred to as RQ6 minus setting)?
If it is the Moon design version, do you know if those alternate systems are listed in the Essentials version or only the full version?

 

[Bluenose]

@ Celebrim

How would you go about trivializing size? Just curious what you mean on how to do the manipulation. On a side note, I actually prefer race to play a fairly decent role in characterization. I am not a huge fan of dwarves just being short humans and elves humans with pointy ears. I prefer a little to add racial tension, racism and and defined cultural differences that can affect play into the game world. It makes for a more rich social canvas for the game. However, I don't want say playing an Ogre to be an "instant win" for any warrior archetype just because of the mechanical advantages they gain. Granted they should have Some but other races could excel at being warriors as well, just in a different way. Trying to find that balance is what I'm looking for, even if its something as simple as an Advantage akin to Superhuman Attributes that can be assigned a value so that other races can have the same "value" but in other advantages.

Size is nice. It increases your bonus damage with many weapons and adds to your hit points. At the same time, it doesn't do that much. Hit an average human in the head for 12 damage, perfectly possible with many weapons, and they're dead. An average giant might be alive, but they're down. Still, if you wanted to make it matter less then instead of working from Con+Siz for hit points or Str+Siz for bonus damage, you could use 2xCon or 2xStr and add a smaller bonus for Siz (perhaps the one that gives you extra Experience for high Cha, which would give a human one more hit point and a giant three more).

If you're looking to differentiate races more, there is published material that includes more backgrounds so that an elf from one culture would start with different skill bonuses to an elf from a different culture, and there'd be differences between either and any human or dwarf (or other, odder creatures). Some also include specific careers only open to certain races, and of course there's a wide variety of racial cults and sometimes magic which also serves to differentiate.

@ Bluenose

By RQ6 I am assuming you mean the Moon design version and not Mongoose's Legend (which also gets referred to as RQ6 minus setting)?
If it is the Moon design version, do you know if those alternate systems are listed in the Essentials version or only the full version?

Design Mechanism, not Moon Design. I'm afraid I can't help with the question, I have the full version but I haven't ever seen the Essentials one.

 

[Celebrim]

@ Celebrim

How would you go about trivializing size?

Size is a component of BRP that effects ability to absorb and dish out damage. You'd trivialize size by saying a giant really wasn't that much bigger than a person mechanically, making the advantage of being 'big' smaller. So instead of assigning a size of 50 to say an 8000lb giant which you might see in a published bestiary for some BRP derived system where the giant or similar large creature was strictly meant to be a foe, you'd assign a size of say 24 or 27 (or whatever). You then balance this big advantage in size by whatever penalties you felt were appropriate to Dexterity (especially), Intelligence, Power, and Appearance. That's what I meant by manipulating the numbers.

Your goal here is to achieve mechanical balance rather than realism. So long as you have enough color of realism for the level of believability you are going for, you should be fine.

As far as characterization of races go, virtually no amount of mere mechanical factors will ever force a player to play a race as something other than a human with bumps on their forehead or pointed ears. To do that, you need a good player and very strong myth around the race that you convey by your racial canon.

However, I don't want say playing an Ogre to be an "instant win" for any warrior archetype just because of the mechanical advantages they gain.

Give an ogre a large advantage to size (and perhaps, force a minimum size on such characters greater than the range of possibilities the size advantage allows), while keeping strength the same, and penalizing dexterity. Dexterity tends to be a god stat in most skill based systems, so there should be some point you can balance around.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Pretty much any version of RQ, BRP, Legend, OpenQuest and the like can be cross-utilised. Each rulesset has different elements, buts it's often a case of plug and play. They all speak the same language.