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BRP Fantasy to Fantasy Hero


fredrik_nilsson

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I have thoughts on running a game of "Drakar & Demoner" (see link below). Initially I had thoughts on running it as an old school game -- just something to keep nostalgia at bay -- but the I thought of taking another path.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakar_och_Demoner

 

As you might have already have guessed, I want to run Fantasy Hero as if it was Basic Roleplaying (BRP).

 

How would you modify the Hero System, so that it could cheat a BRP player that they actually are playing another game?

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Depends on what you think are the defining characterstics of BRP in this context. That often was expressed with some degree of "as opposed to D&D", and if it's mostly about that, (Fantasy) HERO would certainly suffice: No levels, lot of stuff being skill based, no escalating hit points.

 

Beyond that, it depends a bit on your personal tastes and on the specific incarnation of BRP (sorry, I don't know jack about DoD beyond its existance, so excuse me if some of the stuff doesn't apply anyways).

  • Percentile system important? That would be a major change.
  • Skills improved by usage? Could be done, although in a 3d6 system a point is worth a lot more than a few percent in a d00 system -- never mind the bell curve. One could theoretically track skill values as percentages for creating and raising and just map them to 3d6 values.
  • Peculiarities of the combat system? HERO has no Impale special effect and now parrying weapons that block damage with their own hit points. Depending on the version of BRP, there might be further missing elements (or fewer). On the other hand, the distinction between STUN/BODY would be a major new element. Although in FH one could do without Normal damage, without too much trouble. Still leaves you with the two statistics (plus END, of course).
  • Does DoD have common magic a la Glorantha RQ? That would be no problem in a point based system, of course.
  • Character creation? Some BRP variants have quite involved culture/background systems, whereas HERO normally just lets you distribute points as you want it. Maybe some templates would suffice, or even a straight-forward port of BRP mechanisms. With players coming from BRP, I doubt that it would matter too much to them that their final point values wouldn't add up.

The combat skill system from APG II might be useful, as it more closely resembles BRP combat skills. "SPD 3 for everyone" might a useful simplification, too.

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I shall try to write up what I need to get a game running, but to get you going:

 

  • This is initially a three session game, so XP can be ignored.
  • The version of the percentile game that are most common in Sweden are the 1d20 (1 step for each step of 5 %), so using 3d6 could be excused that is a way to "charm" the GURPS players.
  • Which template would you recommend?

 


I know the vast majority of you can't read swedish, but here's a brief look of what I'm after:


 


http://www.riotminds.se/downloads/OLD/04.pdf


 


Before anybody asks if this is an illegal link: no, it isn't. The current owners of the DoD system have released the majority of the old stuff free online (at the time of the system's anniversary). You can find the rest here:


 


http://www.riotminds.se/spelen/tiden-innan-trudvang/


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I don't speak or read Swedish, but I think I could gather some info from that PDF. If I understood correctly, it has a pretty simple character creation system, where each profession gets a list of skills which all start at common value and you can pick several (three?) skills which start at a higher level. For a BRP variant, that's a pretty simple system and not hard to port.

 

With "templates" I meant some professional or cultural attribute/skill/power packages, like they appear in some HERO products. It seems that DoD might be a good and simple fit for that, much easier than e.g. the character creation version used in RuneQuest III (where you got a few percentage points each year in a career, and careers were divided into cultural packages like Primitive, Barbarian and Civilized).

 

So you could make a "Warrior" package with roughly the same skills at their default values and let them pick three at a higher one (+2). Or just use the basic template and let them flesh out their favorites with extra points. If they pick a weapon, it's the relevant WF (+2 CSL if picked as an expert choice).

 

No matter how much you let them do their character creation in HERO terms, producing equivalent templates is a good starting point and gives the players some familiar territory to start with.

 

Beyond that, it's pretty much as I expected. Combat is on the simpler side, but does seem to have Armour Points (albeit no hit points, so I guess it's an automatic weapon break if damage > armour points, unless it's a shield?). That would be a bit harder to include in HERO, as there's no mandatory active defense roll in the default combat system. Not sure how keen the players are on that anyways, I remember a similar rule from the gaming system of my teenage years, which we chose to ignore completely because of bookkeeping and constantly sundered weapons being a bit too silly.

 

If you want to stick closer to that, it does look like the combat skills from APG2 are an option to be evaluated. You'll have your mandatory defense rolls there, which are also closer to BRP weapon skill than HERO's OCV/DCV + CSLs.

 

Magic does look a lot like RQ Sorcery. Not that hard to build them out of HERO Powers. Endurance Reserve for the POW points.

 

As for the dice, I'm usually a big fan of the bell curve, but using a D20 in HERO seems like a distinct possibility, too.

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Thanks for all the help this far.

 

You are absolute correct in that this is a simple system. This is a game from the mid-80s (and it shows).

 

You have understood the basics correctly. You choose a profession (that might be modelled as a template). Each character starts with eight skills (five at skilled level and three at master level). Based on the chosen profession, you get a recommended skill list to choose from.

 

The professional templates -- based on how they look in the game -- are easy to convert.

 

The spell system is the same as the one in Runequest (called sorcery in BRP). It's far from a preferred system, but it does it job and I'm after that old school revamp (some changes are allowed).

 

As for the spell system, how would you create this spell system:

 

Every spell is its own skill.

Each spell has a set effect.

At the cost of more energy, you can increase the effect (damage, duration, and so on).

Raising the effect increases the difficulty (sort of like the AP penalty to skill rolls in the Hero System).

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The spell system -- I would make it skill based, just as it was in the original game. Each Effect Level beyond the first would give a -1 or -2 penalty to the roll, and I'd keep the spells simple -- 1 E of Eldklot would be considered a 1d6 RKA. I've downloaded all the old stuff from Äventyrsspel, but they're in my home computer and I don't want to download things on my folks'. You're not planing to use anything from Expert or late editions?

 

Edit: The character would just buy the Skill for each spell, and no Powers beyond this. Further, since DoD had no truck with END or the like, I'd ignore it. The PSY could be based on EGO times [a fitting number, say 1.5 or 2], and each character would get that for free- But if you're feeling that would be too generous, make it a bought characteristic, costed as END.

 

Possibly more later.

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As for the Skills, Skilled level would be at [Char/5]+9, and Master level would add +2. For Weapon Skills, a Skilled level would be simply the Weapon Focus, with each WF bought singly by itself for one point. Master level could be a +2 with a fitting CSL, probably at 3 character point per whack.

 

As for DEX and SPD and Initiative, you could simply leave those alone and use the DoD system as-is.

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