New File Added: Custom Rules Version for Birthright

[ebatalis]

Downloads: A new file has been added by ebatalis:

Custom Rules Version for Birthright (http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=178)

Good morning all, I am very proud to present you with this refined and polished version of our rulebook with various rules for pen and paper BR roleplaying nights. The book is in it's final beta version and we are heavily playtesting it. We are very proud we are members of the BR community and your ideas have been inspiring and very helpful to us. We are presenting this rulebook and we hope you pay some time to read it and try it out so you come back with some feedback for us.

[Thelandrin]

That didn't work. Your download link directed me to a Facebook "missing link" page.

[ebatalis]

There seems to be a problem with file size on the upload function, thus I uploaded the book at 4shared and I am updating the link here.

Custom Rules Version for Birthright (http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=178) has been updated!

[AndrewTall]

I'll have to try it with another browser, when I opened it the colours were not aligned so it was too blurry to read :-(

Thanks for uploading though, it looks to be a bit too big to easily wiki.

[Vicente]

Downloading, I love reading BR inspired rules :)

[Fizz]

When i download it, it's an .exe file that Ad-Aware says is a trojan.

-Fizz

[Sorontar]

I cannot download the file because it wants to force me to become a member of various third-party systems, e.g. facebook, google+ or 4shared. This is not a good way to share information. I recommend you place it somewhere like Dropbox.

Sorontar

[ebatalis]

I have asked from an admin to help me with the upload on the page so this can be available to you from the birthright net download page, also dropbox is somesort same thing as 4shared, so an account is mandatory for it. I will upload it to our facebook page but still you will be needing a facebook account to access it.

The trojan you refer to is because you have clicked on some other link than the book probably, the pdf file I have uploaded is secure.

[ebatalis]

Custom Rules Version for Birthright (http://www.birthright.net/forums/downloads.php?do=file&id=178) has been updated!

I have moved as requested the file to a DROPBOX account, so see if it is easier accessed from there.

[Fizz]

Well, i've got in downloaded. Thanks for fixing the link!

It seems a bit incomplete though. The rogue section says there are two types of rogue: thieves and bards. But there is no class entry for bard. Also, no guilder?

Otherwise, looking forward to looking through it. Nice to know 2nd Ed goodness is still out there.


-Fizz

[Fizz]

The trojan you refer to is because you have clicked on some other link than the book probably, the pdf file I have uploaded is secure.

I don't know. It had the right name- "birthright-rulebook" etc, but was an .exe that AdAware did not care for at all.

-Fizz

[ebatalis]

This is probably a typo out of us to be replaced, the commoner class, replaces all type of named classes as, nobles, guildiers, bards and classes that do not fall under the general class rules for other classes. i.e Warriors, Wizards, Clerics. Thanks for the fill in, I will check out and correct the typos.

PS. We have already proceeded and corrected several errors and typos on the book, mostly with the help of players. Thus a great thanks to all of you.

[Thelandrin]

You're going to roll all the rogue classes, including nobles, into a commoner class? I really don't agree.

[ebatalis]

You're going to roll all the rogue classes, including nobles, into a commoner class? I really don't agree.

No, we are not rolling out the rogue class. The rogue is staying but he gets the attention needed to be a full grown and playable class, although we deem the BARD class incoherent and non usefull for player character and our departement of Rulebook creation is on fire working on the Guitar hero campaign book for the wanna be Curt Cobains of RPG.
Bard-Trader-Noble etc are merely proffesion intergrated in the commoner class which is used mainly to promote players who dont really want to be all the rest and just cant interpret the above into any class, this is our point.

[AndrewTall]

No, we are not rolling out the rogue class. The rogue is staying but he gets the attention needed to be a full grown and playable class, although we deem the BARD class incoherent and non usefull for player character and our departement of Rulebook creation is on fire working on the Guitar hero campaign book for the wanna be Curt Cobains of RPG.
Bard-Trader-Noble etc are merely proffesion intergrated in the commoner class which is used mainly to promote players who dont really want to be all the rest and just cant interpret the above into any class, this is our point.

Why does bard have to be a guitar-hero? A Bard (class) character doesn't have to be even remotely a bard by career - although traditionally viewed as the musician the skills and powers work for any career where leadership and reasonable skills with magic rather than martial orientation - swap "plays a musical instrument" for "gives stirring speeches and has keen wit" and you've got "perfect khinasi noble" in one step for example.

I note that the rogue's massive skill set means that the moment you move away from hack 'n' slash the rogue starts mopping the floor with other classes, in a world of diplomacy and intrigue type game skills become far more important than BAB.

[Sorontar]

Why does bard have to be a guitar-hero? A Bard (class) character doesn't have to be even remotely a bard by career - although traditionally viewed as the musician the skills and powers work for any career where leadership and reasonable skills with magic rather than martial orientation - swap "plays a musical instrument" for "gives stirring speeches and has keen wit" and you've got "perfect khinasi noble" in one step for example.

I agree. Poets, speechmakers, historians, journalists, heralds can all be categorised as a type of bard. They are people with a message to send or record, whether it be through speech, song, pen or music.

Though we were being silly when we created him, have a look at the Hammer. He is bard but all he plays is other people's property!

Sorontar

[ebatalis]

This can be a long thread to discuss about and do trust me No-one I have experiences as a player can play the Bard as you mention. Most people are leftovers of some guitar rock star who believe the bard to be some sort of musician and some sort of con man.
I will agree that the class as created is sily, but I will double that when someone wants to play something like that in our system rule he does not have to have the curtain of the bard upon him. Since our rule system is based on skills and not feats, I can safely assure you that the rogue is not moping floors, at any time and personality plays a major role in the groups. I cant make you see what I see in my gaming tables and let you understand the mood of the people but I can safely tell you that we are already over the gap of classes and how useful they can be when we ebraced the fact that Role playing is out of the box of the rules.

Our team of creators in the majority finds the social approach to the skills of the D&D game silly and we think that it needs a major breakthrough and some sort of player mentality to understand how to play a social skill. Since "intimidate" and "bluff" cant be trained and diplomacy is a lot more than talking with glibness. Do feel free to throw out ideas at us for the use and the role of social skills that dont involve "rolls" that go over situtations, cause that does not work. If you pay some time to read our companion rule set you will see what we are trying to build and make, and thus far it works, for us at least. Thank you for posting your opinions, and I am very sorry we cant speak in real for this so we can skip the misunderstanding ((maybe)) of the written words.

[AndrewTall]

Since our rule system is based on skills and not feats, I can safely assure you that the rogue is not moping floors, at any time and personality plays a major role in the groups.

:D mopping not moping!

moping: feeling blue and generally slouching around and under-performing.

mopping the floor with: beating your opponent easily - a similar metaphor to "cleaning the room of mooks" but alluding to the way in which a mop is used to clean a floor.

While some people are innately better or worse at social skills, there is considerable ability to train them - although sometimes with negative results of course. Military training, some elements of business training, much psychology, etc all teach techniques, understanding, etc to give people skills at intimidation, question, charming, empathising, etc - like any skill some people respond better to training than others, but talent multiplied by skill is far more effective than talent in the raw.

[Fizz]

I agree with Thelandrin, AndrewTall, and Sorontar. I think removing the bard class is a bad idea. The bard in 2nd Ed i always felt was a decent class- a jack of all trades with potential at a lot of things. I've had players play bards and they were not "guitar hero" types at all. They fit quite well into Birthright, and not having them would be a detriment.

Also, if your system is skills-centric, then the addition of the guilder class makes sense. Guilders were designed to leverage skills (non-weapon proficiencies in 2nd Ed).

Remember that skills-rolls are meant to determine whether a character is successful, not to replace roleplaying. There should be some actual interaction involved. That is, the player should not just say "i try to convince the guard". Rather, the actual conversation should be played out. And then a roll to determine success. In this way, i've found no deficiencies with such skills.

And social skills are certainly things that people can learn. So i don't understand the desire to remove them.

Really, it's not any different than combat. I don't have to be a good fighter myself in order to play one. I describe my actions, and the dice determine success. No reason that can't work for any task, including social skills.

-Fizz

[ebatalis]

I agree with Thelandrin, AndrewTall, and Sorontar. I think removing the bard class is a bad idea. The bard in 2nd Ed i always felt was a decent class- a jack of all trades with potential at a lot of things. I've had players play bards and they were not "guitar hero" types at all. They fit quite well into Birthright, and not having them would be a detriment.

Also, if your system is skills-centric, then the addition of the guilder class makes sense. Guilders were designed to leverage skills (non-weapon proficiencies in 2nd Ed).

Remember that skills-rolls are meant to determine whether a character is successful, not to replace roleplaying. There should be some actual interaction involved. That is, the player should not just say "i try to convince the guard". Rather, the actual conversation should be played out. And then a roll to determine success. In this way, i've found no deficiencies with such skills.

And social skills are certainly things that people can learn. So i don't understand the desire to remove them.

Really, it's not any different than combat. I don't have to be a good fighter myself in order to play one. I describe my actions, and the dice determine success. No reason that can't work for any task, including social skills.

-Fizz

We saw fit that the general class of the Commoner as we labeled it can be named as bard-guildier-noble etc and by that I mean anything not fittin in the more specific classes of the system ie. wizard-cleric-rogue-warrior, I can not say that a noble cant be a warrior for instance but what if a noble does not want to be a warrior, then the commoner class fits in for him and by adding skills and abilities that will complement such a class its viable in the game. The bard class tried to play an all around type of character often choosen by players in order to meta game or abuse the rules, not to mention the vomiting outcome it could take in the 3rd edition games. The guildier on the other hand made us feel itself was not complete nor it had anything to offer to a player, advancing in skills and abilities in a class like the commoner withing the skeptic of beeing a guildier is true for us, cause skills make the guildier and the noble not stats and powerfull class abilities.

The social skill system is tottaly different than the combat system, the main reason is one and only one, the first can and must be roleplayed where the second it stands atop solid rules. Thus we cannot compare them and I feel that they are tottaly different things. Then the so called social skills are producing a laughable result in the case of training, imagine a warrior trying to improve in time an intimidate "social" skill, or what makes a basis for a "bluff" skill in order to train upon. We find out that skills must have a thesis upon which they must be worked around and the social skills have none. Thus we have come upon the fact that social skills can be roleplayed by anyone because what determines who can intimidate and who cannot and be rolled against a PC or NPCs Wis/Intuition score that determines also the perception of a character. That is most of the circumstances on the DMs point of view but that is what his role is, to be a solid arbiter of the game in which he participates.

[Fizz]

I can not say that a noble cant be a warrior for instance but what if a noble does not want to be a warrior

But you can argue that for any class or any description. What if a ranger doesn't want to be a warrior? I mean, if you take this argument to its full extent, then you end up with a classless system (which is fine if you want to do that).


, then the commoner class fits in for him and by adding skills and abilities that will complement such a class its viable in the game.

The problem with this is nomenclature. Noble and commoner mean the exact opposite thing. And guilder was meant to represent the middle-class, so that's a different meaning as well.

In your paradigm you're combining all three into the lowest common demoninator. But remember the meaning of the word "commoner". It means normal, ordinary, unspecial.


The bard class tried to play an all around type of character often choosen by players in order to meta game or abuse the rules, not to mention the vomiting outcome it could take in the 3rd edition games.

You can run into abuses in 3E, yes, but your rules aren't based on 3E. Though i don't know what you mean by "vomiting outcome". 2nd edition didn't have enough mechanics to allow for serious abuses.


The guildier on the other hand made us feel itself was not complete nor it had anything to offer to a player, advancing in skills and abilities in a class like the commoner withing the skeptic of beeing a guildier is true for us, cause skills make the guildier and the noble not stats and powerfull class abilities.

I highly disagree. In a skills-based system, the guilder really shines. Warriors are best for combat, wizards are best for magic, etc... But Guilders were your skills experts. Think of MacGyver or Leonardo DaVinci- those sorts of archetypes fit perfectly into the Guilder class. These could absolutely be good adventurers. I myself had great fun with a dwarf guilder- master builder of small mechanical devices.

Now, if the campaign doesn't allow the opportunities for a class to shine, then any class can look bad. If a campaign has little combat, then warriors get to do little. If there is no opportunity to sneak, then thieves look horrible. Thus, if you allow plenty of usage of skills, then guilders ought to be awesome.


We find out that skills must have a thesis upon which they must be worked around and the social skills have none. Thus we have come upon the fact that social skills can be roleplayed by anyone because what determines who can intimidate and who cannot and be rolled against a PC or NPCs Wis/Intuition score that determines also the perception of a character.

Of course social skills have a thesis.

* In the case of persuasion, it's a matter of reading your target- picking up on subtle facial expressions, changes in demeanor, etc.

* In the case of diplomacy, it's about understanding their political sensitivities and / or sensing when they lie.

* People can certainly lie with different degrees of success. And some people are better at picking up on lies than others.

* Also consider the skill of cold-reading that "psychics" use to convince people of their "powers".

All of the above are examples of social skills that your players may not know, but they may want their character to be skilled in them. And all of the above can can be learned.

For example, say the DM is playing a lying villain. Your player PC wants to determine if the villain is lying.
With no social skills:
then it's the player trying to figure out if the DM is lying.
With social skills:
the PC hero trying to determine if the villain is lying.

So since social skills do have a thesis, as you put it, i don't see how it's any different from combat, magic or any other skill. The player doesn't have to know all the nitty-gritty details of how to do something (be it combat or sensing a lie), he just needs to know that his character knows it.

Note I'm not saying in any way that you should take away roleplaying, but the skills help fill in the details that your players simply won't have. This makes these skills useful.

Hope that better explains what i'm trying to say. :)


-Fizz

[ebatalis]

But you can argue that for any class or any description. What if a ranger doesn't want to be a warrior? I mean, if you take this argument to its full extent, then you end up with a classless system (which is fine if you want to do that).

The ranger class is something that is already defined and if you do read about it in the rulebook you will see that if you take that path its an one way road, more or less like the Paladin. No most of the times Rangers are devoted to what they are about to engage at. Since it seems we have a small misunderstanding here, by warrior I mean the "fighter" class.


The problem with this is nomenclature. Noble and commoner mean the exact opposite thing. And guilder was meant to represent the middle-class, so that's a different meaning as well. In your paradigm you're combining all three into the lowest common demoninator. But remember the meaning of the word "commoner". It means normal, ordinary, unspecial.

"This is tottly wrong, the word commoner is just the simplest and most appealing word to give to the class, the class is nothing sort of a Commoner. A blooded noble who does not fit the role of all the above classes, a princess in made, a traders son, and more or less roles in a society that do not have to fit in the "canon" class system do fit perfectly in the "commoner" class. Also do not misunderstand again the word commoner with the actuall social role, in our system if you pay the time to read it all characters begining a campaign start out as 0 level commoners being the heirs of a domain or the misfits of the slums. Since I have to explain more no player starts a 45 year old know it all google knowledgeable dude in our campaigns, most start out at the very start of their life in a new world, Cerilia. Our aim is to build legacies for 0 to hero. This system allows the player to walk up to some point at which he will choose his class orientation or even and that happens most of the times, players just fall into the commoner class which corresponds to what most people come around to play, the musician, the noble, the scounder, the misfit, the wannabe and so many other roles I can come upon that are not tied and should not really be tied to the strict lines of a class.


You can run into abuses in 3E, yes, but your rules aren't based on 3E. Though i don't know what you mean by "vomiting outcome". 2nd edition didn't have enough mechanics to allow for serious abuses.

I will go pass the fact that 3E led to the death of role playing and the birth of roll playing and no commonent further.


I highly disagree. In a skills-based system, the guilder really shines. ...

We both agree that the guildier is a perfect role on any campaign , yes. Although if you pay close attention to the class as it was made in the 2nd edition it was like they were trying to put something out of the frying pan hastely. The Guildier class in the 2nd edition has no actual game role, and it is badly presented. Although I will agree that players and campaign wise any role can shine.



Of course social skills have a thesis...

Yes I tottaly agree, and this is what our game system is all about, skills...skills....skills...skills, do pay the time to read a tad about it, but it is about skills that can exist, not skills that players dont have or they will never be able to have, because some things are not skills.

Many things are skills and knowledge, lying and knowing about it is not, bullying and knowing how to avoid it is not and players in and out of game are not able to know if someone is lying, its the only "real" role playing you can have, why spoil it with a roll.



I love your point, and I love the way you put it out there, thanks.

[Thelandrin]

I will go pass the fact that 3E led to the death of role playing and the birth of roll playing and no commonent further.

Let's leave that particular line of enquiry right there. Edition warring is unpleasant and unwanted, no matter which editions are involved.

[Fizz]

Also do not misunderstand again the word commoner with the actuall social role, in our system if you pay the time to read it all characters begining a campaign start out as 0 level commoners being the heirs of a domain or the misfits of the slums.

It's that word "commoner" that i think is the problem. Maybe if you had a different name. Maybe it's just me, but "commoner" in a medieval setting is immediately going to have the connotation of social class. Maybe saying just 0-level is enough.


We both agree that the guildier is a perfect role on any campaign , yes. Although if you pay close attention to the class as it was made in the 2nd edition it was like they were trying to put something out of the frying pan hastely. The Guildier class in the 2nd edition has no actual game role, and it is badly presented. Although I will agree that players and campaign wise any role can shine.

No, i think the guilder in 2nd Ed was simple but potent. It relied heavily on nonweapon proficiencies, and received massive benefits to those. If your campaign was dependent on those, then guilders could have a fantastic role in a game.

The guilder is not the warrior, he's not the magician, he's not the priest, and he's not the sneak. He's the skills-guy. Which is why i think he'd be great in your system.

Also note that it's "guilder", not "guildier" (no second 'i'). :)


So since social skills do have a thesis, as you put it, i don't see how it's any different from combat, magic or any other skill. ---Hence Social skills dont exist and have no thesis.

This doesn't make sense- i don't know what you're saying here. If something is learnable, should it not be a skill? Combat and magic can be learned- they have their own mechanics. Social skills can be learned and thus can be skills. See below.


Yes I tottaly agree, and this is what our game system is all about, skills...skills....skills...skills, do pay the time to read a tad about it, but it is about skills that can exist, not skills that players dont have or they will never be able to have, because some things are not skills.

Many things are skills and knowledge, lying and knowing about it is not, bullying and knowing how to avoid it is not and players in and out of game are not able to know if someone is lying, its the only "real" role playing you can have, why spoil it with a roll.

There are absolutely practiced liars in the world, and there are absolutely people trained to detect them. Just do a google search for "how to lie" and "how to detect a lie" and you can read about it. Absolutely this is something that can be learned.

The same goes for diplomacy, persuasion, etiquette, etc. There are ways of saying things in certain ways so as not to antagonize the other person, and ways of saying things to convince other people of your point of view. No doubt at some point in your life you have encountered someone who said the exact wrong thing at the wrong time- that's a failed diplomacy check! :)

As for intimidate, i think a case could be made for it too. But there are many ways to intimidate- physical and mental. I agree that this may be a bit too specific to be a skill, and could be subsumed under a different skill.

I don't think having these skills ruins roleplaying. Rather it adds to it- it allows the character to be able to do something that the player might not. I'm not a good fencer, but that doesn't mean my character has to be. Similarly, i myself may not be able to tell a lie without making it obvious, but that doesn't mean my character should be consigned to the same fate.

But don't get me wrong- the situation should be roleplayed out. I would not let a player say "i try to convince" without a description, just as i expect more than "i attack" during combat. Then at the end or the interaction, the character makes the roll to see if he successfully persuaded / outlied / etc the target.

Social interactions are quite often a task- getting information from someone, or outwitting the powerful ogre guarding a bridge. It's something in the campaign that needs to be overcome. Think of it as "verbal combat". :)


-Fizz

[AndrewTall]

I use social skills in a few ways:

1. Hints. Players can use the skills to get information, etc about targets that make is easier for them to know what sort of approach will work - so a diplomacy check might give "the king seems distracted and on edge, he settles matters hastily and seems irritated by petitioners with drawn out stories" or etiquette "the knight on the second to the kings right seems slightly uneasy in his position, his sur-coat is clean but the embroidery appears rushed - you would say he is but newly promoted, a swift look about shows the many of the knights in attendance are also recently promoted - and most seem very young.

2. Skill plus Role-play checks - in combat I'd give a bonus for innovative tactics, great description, the same goes with social interactions but more so. That way you allow good role-players to optimise their characters chances, but you avoid a player by-passing their character in play - a character who is played as having great social skills should have the relevant ability points and skills but I've seen players min-max them towards combat and still play them as silver-tongued.

3. Success. If you don't want to roll during role-play you can use the skill level/ability scores etc to instead dictate the degree of success of failure.

4. Options. Another approach is simply not to permit characters to take various paths unless they have the relevant capability - so unless the character has an adjust bluff ability of, say, 12 they can't try to bluff the guard, while they need 15 to try to bluff the sheriff.

I see mechanics for the social side of the game as less developed than the combat side, but no reason not to use mechanics - I've seen the combat side de-mechanised with good results, but the character building side of the game is a lot of fun and provides a solid base for the players to build the character around so prefer the mechanical approach myself.