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Foen
February 1st, 2010, 21:30
I've been working on a project to convert BRP to run on the Fantasy Grounds (FG) virtual table-top software, as part of an official product licensed by Chaosium. By far the toughest feature to implement has been the use of optional hit locations, and I thought I'd share a few screenshots on the progress to date.

The FG ruleset includes the facility to turn hit locations on or off, and the following screenshots are taken with the hit location option enabled (they would be fairly dull screenshots otherwise), but the ruleset does support non-hit location play (like standard CoC).

The first screenshot shows the default view for hit locations: the Vitruvian Man figure has indicators for each of the locations, and the spots (here all grey) change colour to show the health of each location at a glance. The colour goes from grey (healthy) through yellow, amber and red, to black (the location is severed/destroyed).

The second screenshot shows how you can click on any location to call up more detailed information about it.

In either of these two views, you can drag damage results and drop them onto a location to apply damage to that location, and similarly with healing results (using CTRL-drag). Finally you can double-click anywhere on this screen to roll d20 to resolve where a blow lands (if you hold the SHIFT key while doing this, the ruleset resolves against the missile hit locations, if applicable).

The third screenshot shows an alternative tabular view, for folks who want to see everything in one go. The choice of view is freely selectable by each player from their preferences. The screen is more 'busy', but everything is readily accessible.

The fourth screenshot shows non-humanoid hit locations for a player character. Firstly it should be noted that only the GM can switch a player character from humanoid to non-humanoid, and secondly that if there are no missile hit locations (such as in this case), then that column isn't displayed.

The final screenshot shows the GM view when the hit location template is switched to 'Custom'. Using the BRP ruleset, many built-in templates are available straight from the rules, but it is sometimes useful to have complete freedom over the hit locations for a given character. In custom mode the GM can freely edit the chance for each location to be hit (melee and missile), the location name, and can even add/remove arbitrary additional locations. The method of HP calculation can also be selected ('Standard BRP' is built in, but others such as RQ3 can be added).

The editing screens aren't available to players: only the GM can switch templates or use the Custom mode.

This is still work in progress, but hopefully it gives a small look into how the FG conversion is shaping up.

Stuart

Sorontar
February 1st, 2010, 22:26
Many thanks for this.

Excellent job on giving the community an insight on the BRP ruleset's development.

cpbs
February 1st, 2010, 22:55
Looks really awesome, I always liked rulesets with hit location. Thanks Again. :)

Oberoten
February 2nd, 2010, 08:12
I say this does give some nice hopes for good old swedish "Drakar och Demoner Expert" which in my somewhat less than humble opinion is the best thing released in the nordic countries during the eighties.

I figure that since that was/is a BRP based system it'd play nicely under this ruleset-system. Soooo... Eh? Any ETA?

*waves paycheck*

- Obe

Zulithe
February 2nd, 2010, 11:43
OoooOOOO BRP, pretty :) looking forward to it

RobP
February 2nd, 2010, 18:15
This is looking really good!

The minute this gets released I will be in the queue to buy it!

Foen
February 2nd, 2010, 19:03
Thanks for the support folks, no promises on the release date but I'd say two or three months feels about right to finish the conversion, review, play test and squash bugs.

Once BRP is published, there will be a good base upon which to build for RuneQuest and Superworld rulesets, but these will still take time because the ruleset graphics and rulebook PDF conversions are herculean tasks in their own right, even if the code is similar.

Foen

RobP
February 2nd, 2010, 19:52
I'd buy BRP and use it for RQ until an official RQ version comes along then I'll get that one too! :)