PDA

View Full Version : My impression of the BRP ruleset



Aracon
April 11th, 2010, 20:40
Overall, I am glad it is available and recommend this to other players. I was a little disappointed by the generic feel of how things looked... but it is BRP after all. I'll be playing around with it some more but my first impression is two thumbs up but wanting to replace the images with a less generic feel.

Is there an easy way to convert BRP into Call of Cthulhu or fantasy look and feel? Perhaps as an add on or a quick how to? Thanks

Foen
April 11th, 2010, 21:23
The snag with BRP is that is has to look generic: no good building a horror-themed ruleset if you want to play fantasy or sci-fi. The aim was to create a look and feel that was agnostic, but classic: hence the use of marble and the greek key around the chat box. I didn't think they'd look out of place in any genre.

Re-skinning a ruleset to have a different look and feel can be quite easy or quite difficult. If you just want different wallpaper for the desktop and perhaps different logos/backgorund for the charsheet, then it shouldn't be too difficult. If you want to go the whole nine yards and replace every icon and radial menu button then it would be a mammoth task.

It depends how far you want to go and how much effort you want to expend. Sorry that isn't a great answer for you :o

Foen

Sigurd
April 11th, 2010, 21:29
How 'bout a few screenshots?

Or a link to a looksee...

Foen
April 11th, 2010, 21:34
hehe, you can take a look at the user guide (it has some screen captures) or take a peek at the pictures I posted on BRP Central (https://basicroleplaying.com/album.php?albumid=35).

Foen

Aracon
April 11th, 2010, 21:54
Foen,

I think a wallpaper and charsheet backgrounds would be great... although replacing every button really would be neat.... to make it available per genre...

Overall though, I am glad it is available!

Sigurd
April 12th, 2010, 00:47
Having a 'Fantasy', 'Modern', and perhaps 'Future' skin would be a nice touch.

Did you add many more rules\logistical features beyond the Cthulu ruleset?


Sigurd

Aracon
April 12th, 2010, 01:52
Unless I missed something, there isn't a Cthulu ruleset integrated with BRP. I have purchased both and might consider using the rest of BRP in my Cthulhu campaign if BRP had a Cthulhu look and feel....

So I guess the trick is, how wouold I be able to merge the two together? Use the BRP rules and combat but have a Cthulhu look and feel and bring in the various Cthulhu characters, modules and notes....

Some of it would be easy but the rest...... hmmm...

Part about the really cool thing of the Cthulhu ruleset is the feel from the dice to the buttons and wallpaper.... using BRP I would lose all of that even if I could easily port in the characters, adventures, and cthulhu rulebook.

Foen
April 12th, 2010, 06:01
The CoC and BRP rulesets are different and not immediately compatible. The Eldritch Horror extension on another thread demonstrates that you can have a CoC flavour for the BRP ruleset, but doesn't include much in the way of changed graphics (just a new character sheet frame and a new character sheet logo).

I think it might be possible to use the graphics in the CoC ruleset to make a reskin for the BRP one, but you'd need Charlie & Doug's permission because the CoC graphics are Chaosium IP.

@Sigurd: The BRP ruleset has quite a few new features not found in CoC, such as P2P whispers, hidden dice rolls, close box on windows, image tools, group chat, and in-game preferences. The BRP game mechanics are also broader and include fatigue, hit locations etc, so can be considered a super-set of CoC.

I have also checked the Traveller skin extension, and it nearly works for BRP so I might see if it can be tweaked to provide a Sci-Fi theme.

Foen

Vudo
April 14th, 2010, 11:24
I actually like the generic look and feel. :-) It is classic and fading in the background, but modern and nice looking at the same time. Compared to the SW generic ruleset I like it lots more.
And with time there will be some themes available I guess ...

Oberoten
April 14th, 2010, 11:57
Two things that feels slighly less than stellar :

No tracking of character experience? (Or maybe we didn't find it, it was late)

Sharing an item with players and then identifying it doesn't seem to work.

- Obe

Foen
April 14th, 2010, 12:17
Two things that feels slighly less than stellar :

No tracking of character experience? (Or maybe we didn't find it, it was late)

There are no traditional experience points in BRP, but you instead record whether any particular skill has been used and then make a skill gain roll. Against every skill and weapon in the BRP ruleset (on the left of the name) is a checkbox to record skill use, a bit like a P&P character sheet.


Sharing an item with players and then identifying it doesn't seem to work.

I can confirm this is a bug. I've amended the offending file and attached it to this post. I'll include the change in the next release - thanks for spotting it.

Stuart

GunnarGreybeard
April 14th, 2010, 14:20
There are no traditional experience points in BRP, but you instead record whether any particular skill has been used and then make a skill gain roll. Against every skill and weapon in the BRP ruleset (on the left of the name) is a checkbox to record skill use, a bit like a P&P character sheet
Thank you, now I know what that extra checkbox is for. :D

Oberoten
April 14th, 2010, 17:20
There are no traditional experience points in BRP, but you instead record whether any particular skill has been used and then make a skill gain roll. Against every skill and weapon in the BRP ruleset (on the left of the name) is a checkbox to record skill use, a bit like a P&P character sheet.



I can confirm this is a bug. I've amended the offending file and attached it to this post. I'll include the change in the next release - thanks for spotting it.

Stuart

Ah but on character creation I thought more, since you are supposed to share out quite a lump of skillpoints. It'd be nice if they were kept track of somehow.

- Obe

Oberoten
April 14th, 2010, 17:21
Ehh. And also a big thank you for swift response.

- Obe

Aracon
April 15th, 2010, 01:39
Did I get that right... a bug was reported at 05:57 and a fix was available at 6:17..... 20 minutes later?

Wow I sure picked the right Virtual Tabletop to invest in!

Sigurd
April 15th, 2010, 01:43
I think you did.

Please don't complain if a future bug takes more than 20 minutes :bandit:

Aracon
April 15th, 2010, 01:47
The bar is set... I will now fully expect everything fixed in 20 minutes.

:p

Aracon
April 15th, 2010, 01:50
BTW The more I play around with BRP, the more I like it... now just to get it to look at feel like a Cthuhu game and then persuade the gang to move our campaign over to this ruleset and I think the extra features are pretty slick.

GunnarGreybeard
April 15th, 2010, 05:25
The bar is set... I will now fully expect everything fixed in 20 minutes.
That would make a good signature. :D

Foen
April 15th, 2010, 07:40
@Aracon: the Eldritch Horror extension should make BRP campaign-compatible with Call of Cthulhu. Back up your campaign first then edit the db.XML file and you should be laughing.

Foen

Ainianu
May 3rd, 2010, 14:18
Having bought the BRP ruleset a week ago i thought i would add my own little bit of feedback :)

I have always loved the BRP system, It would always be my system of choice.
Since FG2 has been out ive used generic character sheets to use for BRP (i had considered getting call of cthulhu, but most of my games was set in historical/fantasy or sci fi settings and it did not seem an ideal situation)

The BRP ruleset is what ive been waiting for :) i like the character sheet a lot, Job well done on that :)

My only pieces of constructive criticism i would give is:
The background image... it would have been nice to have a small selection of options to choose from for that background. (Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Modern, Post-Apoc, etc)
Character Sheet: possibility of adding specific skills into the appropriate catagory (this may already be possible as extension, but was unable to do it in game)

Those two points asside i am very happy with the ruleset its as flexible as BRP should be :)

Well done :)

Also added some desktop backgrounds i made myself here for use with the BRP ruleset (The dimensions are correct, but to be of use they need to be in the frames directory of the ruleset and the number removed, backup the previous one first by renaming it)

tedopon
August 2nd, 2010, 05:45
Overall, I am glad it is available and recommend this to other players. I was a little disappointed by the generic feel of how things looked... but it is BRP after all. I'll be playing around with it some more but my first impression is two thumbs up but wanting to replace the images with a less generic feel.

Is there an easy way to convert BRP into Call of Cthulhu or fantasy look and feel? Perhaps as an add on or a quick how to? Thanks
Wow. This is the first ruleset I've used (and I have five or six of them) that I actually like the way it looks.