Savage Sword, the BRP version of Adventures in Xoth

I should have been on this years ago, but I was determined to write from the ground up my version of a
human-centric sword and sorcery game, which we all know resulted in Deluxe USR Sword & Sorcery. Now, twelve years later, and I am once again a serious fan of Chaosium's BRP game system! In the last decade I have thoroughly explored the game systems of Dungeons and Dragons and lots of the OSR retro-clones, Classic Traveller, Space Opera, Clockwork & Cthulhu, Champions, DC Heroes, Cyberpunk 2020, MS&PI's. Some of these systems I had played with before, some it was my first time running the system. And others... I just plain forget all the games I've done a deep dive into since 2012.

There are so many rich rewards I have gained from all this, and the one I am talking about tonight is how much the BRP system suits me. A truly great universal game system it is. You can pick up any of their different types of games and play them all with a brief refresher on the buffs, and options being used which make the games, while using the same system, all having their own unique aspects. Rule tweaks, optional rules, powers, abilities, skills- under it all is just a d100 roll for success mechanic. Combat rules in each different game (Call of Cthulhu and its immense list of specific genre-takes, Runequest, Pendragon, Magic World, Superworld, hundreds of fan-made systems for a specific purpose...

This is all to say, I feel BRP is the best system to run human-centric, pulp-fantasy sword and sorcery tales. If written "right". I am in the process of writing up the rules for Savage Sword, Fantastic Pulp-Fantasy Adventures in a Primordial World. And this world is the tremendous campaign setting Xoth, a creation of Morten Bretan. 

I will be importing all the things I have learned about game systems, tables, random charts and use the coherence of Chaosium's BRP to put it all together. Character Creation is as streamlined as I could make it, skill resolution and task resolution are a snap. Combat system, including simultaneous hand-to-hand combat, is the chariot of this ride. Yes, I love pulp sword & sorcery because of the limb-lopping and corpse-strewn trails of gore! And the combat system has to reflect this. One of the easiest tweaks is to reserve Critical Hits and Critical Successes for PCs only. NPCs... sure they can fumble, but the average gate guard is not going to be the cur slicing your head off. Important NPCs, the important villain will get all the combat bells and whistles, but there are going to be mook rules. 

You know how Stormbringer resolved this design "question"? They gave Elric an 880% skill level with his hell-sword. Basically it allows this top-tier warrior 9 attacks a combat turn! Now, I am not one for bloated skill levels, but it works because it is BRP, and because it is sword and sorcery in the worlds of Michael Moorcock where the heroes reach god-like proportions. I will be tackling this design question differently, just like every other iteration of the BRP system does.