Deleriad
Mongoose
After much thinking, running small sessions with a single friend and talking about playing, I finally managed to actually start running a campaign with a new group in Edinburgh. 1 had played RQ in the 80s, one had played some CoC and 2 had never played any type of BRP.
Adapting an old Iron Heroes scenario and setting it in Heortland (Glorantha) on the Marzeel river 3 years before the events of Blood of Orlanth. Various house rules added in. All 4 were eager to play again which I take to be a good sign and one, who had only ever played D&D before, said he loved that it felt like Conan, full of blood and guts. So it seemed to be a success.
These are the house rules I was using, and how I felt they turned out.
Fixed Combat Actions. Everyone has 2 CAs each. I played in a couple of Gencon games with variable CAs and didn't like them. Fixed number made everything simpler and makes dex a little less uber. It is surprisingly easy to lose track of which action on you're on in a Combat Round though. I gave players beads to track how many reactions they had used. A lot of times they managed to outnumber enemies and were desperate to be able to use their unused reactions for something.
Fixed SR. I didn't bother with rolling initiative. Meant that an awful lot of characters tended to go on SR 12 and then had to compare DEX. Not entirely happy (or unhappy) about that. Very tempted to change SR to INT+DEX. Don't want to go back to any form of rolled initiative though. Thought about using "reach" from the GM's guide but kept it simple for now.
Opposed roll combat. I've played RQ for long enough that this was really difficult to get my head around. I use my own variant where if you make your parry/dodge but lose the contest you get a partial success. I also ended up letting characters declare reactions after seeing the results of an attack. There's nothing more frustrating than wasting a reaction on a failed attack. I may go back on this though.
Free Attacks. I require characters to spend reactions on free attacks. Partly it keeps combat simpler and partly it makes for interesting tactical decisions. It worked well and seemed intuitive to the players.
Criticals: did double weapon damage rather than maximised. Once a PC rolled a 01 on an attack so I let him do double maximised. Then I remembered he was using a Great Sword with Bladesharp 2. 36 points of damage later, a giant spider lay in 3 parts...
Damage effects: I used a slightly modified version of the GM's guide. Worked really well. The lack of total HPs really shines because a character can potentially take a lot of damage before dropping yet can also be dropped by a single hit in the wrong place. Meant the players were always wary. I think one PC had ended up with over 20 points of damage to 5 locations and was still limping on with his spear.
Magic. Took out the requirement to integrate runes to cast rune magic. Called rune magic spells "common magic" and gave each character a Common Magic skill instead. Meant they weren't that competent at casting magic but it was always an option. Means I can save runes for extra special occasions. It was noticeable that as the players got used to using their magic they started to really enjoy it.
None of the house rules were massive changes and I was pleasantly surprised by how well the system ran when actually used in anger.
Adapting an old Iron Heroes scenario and setting it in Heortland (Glorantha) on the Marzeel river 3 years before the events of Blood of Orlanth. Various house rules added in. All 4 were eager to play again which I take to be a good sign and one, who had only ever played D&D before, said he loved that it felt like Conan, full of blood and guts. So it seemed to be a success.
These are the house rules I was using, and how I felt they turned out.
Fixed Combat Actions. Everyone has 2 CAs each. I played in a couple of Gencon games with variable CAs and didn't like them. Fixed number made everything simpler and makes dex a little less uber. It is surprisingly easy to lose track of which action on you're on in a Combat Round though. I gave players beads to track how many reactions they had used. A lot of times they managed to outnumber enemies and were desperate to be able to use their unused reactions for something.
Fixed SR. I didn't bother with rolling initiative. Meant that an awful lot of characters tended to go on SR 12 and then had to compare DEX. Not entirely happy (or unhappy) about that. Very tempted to change SR to INT+DEX. Don't want to go back to any form of rolled initiative though. Thought about using "reach" from the GM's guide but kept it simple for now.
Opposed roll combat. I've played RQ for long enough that this was really difficult to get my head around. I use my own variant where if you make your parry/dodge but lose the contest you get a partial success. I also ended up letting characters declare reactions after seeing the results of an attack. There's nothing more frustrating than wasting a reaction on a failed attack. I may go back on this though.
Free Attacks. I require characters to spend reactions on free attacks. Partly it keeps combat simpler and partly it makes for interesting tactical decisions. It worked well and seemed intuitive to the players.
Criticals: did double weapon damage rather than maximised. Once a PC rolled a 01 on an attack so I let him do double maximised. Then I remembered he was using a Great Sword with Bladesharp 2. 36 points of damage later, a giant spider lay in 3 parts...
Damage effects: I used a slightly modified version of the GM's guide. Worked really well. The lack of total HPs really shines because a character can potentially take a lot of damage before dropping yet can also be dropped by a single hit in the wrong place. Meant the players were always wary. I think one PC had ended up with over 20 points of damage to 5 locations and was still limping on with his spear.
Magic. Took out the requirement to integrate runes to cast rune magic. Called rune magic spells "common magic" and gave each character a Common Magic skill instead. Meant they weren't that competent at casting magic but it was always an option. Means I can save runes for extra special occasions. It was noticeable that as the players got used to using their magic they started to really enjoy it.
None of the house rules were massive changes and I was pleasantly surprised by how well the system ran when actually used in anger.
