Here are my house rules for Chaosium’s new BRP (Basic Roleplaying) RPG. I would love any commentary or other ways to improve these approaches. Basically, I don’t want my players to have to do multiplication or division during the middle of combat, so these rules aim to help with that.

  • Easy Special Success/Critical Success Calculation: Any roll of 1-20 is potentially a higher success level. On a roll of 1-5, roll again. If the second roll is a success, then it is a critical success. Likewise, on a roll of 6-20, roll again. If the second roll is a success, it is a special success.
  • Easy Fumble Calculation:If your skill is less than 100%, a roll of 99 or 00 is a fumble; if your skill is over 100%, only a 00 roll is a fumble.
  • Easy Difficult/Easy Roll Calculation (Version 1): Difficult rolls mean you’ll have to succeed twice (two rolls where both must succeed). Easy rolls mean you get two chances to do it (one of the two rolls must succeed).
  • Easy Difficult/Easy Roll Calculation (Version 2): At the GM’s discretion, dice rolls can be made with advantage (flip the dice and take the higher of the two results) or disadvantage (flip the dice and take the lower of the two options). Easy rolls are made with advantage (instead of % x 2), and Difficult rolls with Disadvantage (instead of % x 1/2).
  • Opposed Rolls: Both sides roll; the side with the highest success level wins (e.g., a Special Success beats a Success). If the success level is the same, the side with the higher dice roll wins. If there is still a tie, roll again.

I am also putting around some rules to make gaming with miniatures function more like other modern games (and wargames). Here’s one rule I’ve used for that:

  • Ambush: On your turn, you hold your attack and await an opportunity to act. Until the beginning of your next turn, you may react once and attack under one of two circumstances:
    • Waylay: You may stop an enemy during its movement that moves within visible range to shoot at it (if within range) or engage in melee (if the target moves within 5’, at which point you make a free move to close with the target and attack). After the waylay attack resolves, the target may resume its movement and actions.
    • Return Fire: Immediately return fire against an attacker who shoots at you.

Still wondering if reducing turn length from 12 seconds to 6 seconds and making move more like D&D (30′ for a walk, 60′ for a run) might work better with miniatures. Here are some rough ideas:

  • D&D Style Movement: Movement is 1″ + 0.5xMV, round up (so standard MV of 10m = 6″). Ignore 30m high-end movement, you can either move 6″ or run 12″ (in lieue of attack action). Kneeling behind a shield follows the D&D prone rules and can be done as part of the parry reaction.