BRP - The Gamemaster's View
- Derek Batting
The layout of the GM's screen is very similar to that of the players, but it is worth noting the differences:
The GM has two new Sidebar Buttons (Light and Combat) and is missing the Pics button;
There are quite a number of new entries in the Icon Bar, covered in some detail below; and
There is no Secret Die-Roll Box for the GM.
Although this screen shot doesn't show the character portrait list at the top left, that is purely because no players have logged in to the game yet. The portrait list is still there, and in fact it plays an important role in the Group Chat feature.
Sidebar Buttons
Although most of the buttons look the same for the GM as for a player, a number of them have additional features. The two new buttons, Light and Combat, control the desktop ambient light and activate the combat tracker respectively. Each of these is dealt with below.
Light
The light dialog box provides four different settings for the desktop ambient light, with normal, red (fire), green (forest) and blue (night) hues. Clicking one of these icons produces an atmospheric effect that might be useful for setting a story scene.
Combat
This opens the Combat Tracker, which is given its own section, below.
Mods
In addition to controlling which modules are available for the GM in the Library, this window also controls which modules the players have permission to access, using one of three settings: Block; Allow; or Force. These permissions are set for a given module by dragging the red/amber/green icons from the bottom left of the module activation window and dropping them on the placeholder for each module.
When set to Block, players are prevented from loading a module. When set to Allow they are permitted to load the module provided it has player-accessible content. When set to Force, players will have that module loaded automatically, and cannot unload it.
Prefs
The GM has access to three additional tabs of preferences, not visible to players, and has two further options on the main 'General' tab:
"Show image toolbars" controls whether or not some simple image manipulation tools are included as a small toolstrip at the top left of each image window. These tools allow drawings to be added or removed, switch the grid between square and hex and enable or disable masking. The tools are available through the right-click menu anyway, so the toolbar does not need to be visible to use them.
"Snap to grid" controls how tokens are moved on images and maps with the hex or square grid visible. It can be helpful to switch this setting on or off depending on the circumstances. It should be noted that the setting is effective the next time an image is opened.
The Rules tab controls some optional aspects of the BRP system, and changes the behavior of the ruleset to reflect that:
The three preferences "Use Sanity", "Use Fatigue" and "Use Power Points" switch those game elements on or off, and impact the players' Character Sheets, the mini sheets and the Combat Tracker.
"Skill Difficulties" determines whether the ruleset displays three options next to the Modifier Box to change standard skill difficulties between Easy, Normal and Difficult.
"Ignore 0 Characteristics" directs the ruleset to calculate damage bonuses and skill category bonuses differently, if one of the dependent characteristics is zero. A creature with SIZ but no STR would otherwise have its damage bonus based on the average of SIZ and zero, which is half SIZ. With this option selected, a zero STR is completely ignored and the damage bonus is based on the SIZ of the creature only. This option impacts Character Sheets and NPC Sheets.
"Skill Category Bonuses" switches this optional rule on or off, and impacts the Character Sheets only.
"Use Crucial Rolls" determines whether skill rolls are automatically checked for fumbles, failures, successes, specials and criticals. If this is selected, any roll in the chat box will have the text changed to show one of these five results.
"Use Strike Ranks" changes the ordering of turns in the Combat Tracker to use the optional strike rank system. This complex option is not fully automated, but the alternate Combat Tracker layout helps run encounters using strike ranks. If this option is not selected, DEX is used to drive initiative order.
"Use Hit Locations" turns the optional hit location system on or off. This has a very wide impact, and changes the way the Character Sheet, Mini Sheets, NPC Sheets and Combat Tracker operate.
The GM tab impacts some of the non-BRP ruleset functions:
"Secret die rolls" enables or disables the Secret Die-roll Box for players. With this enabled, any roll dropped by a player into the box will actually be made on the GM's screen, so none of the players (including the originator) will know the result.
"Show die roll totals" is a simple option that includes a total of all the rolls and modifiers whenever a roll is made, adding it to the chat box text. This is useful when rolling large numbers of dice, generating characters, or when there are large numbers of modifiers.
When "Show portraits in chat" is selected, standard in-character chat messages from players and the GM are accompanied by a small icon depicting the character. You can override the GM icon by changing the file portrait_GM_chat.png in the icons folder of the ruleset. Chat portraits aren't included for emote or other chat entries, but they are included for some of the die rolls.
The final option controls player-to-player whispers. This has three settings: Off (players cannot whisper to each other), On (they can) and Echo (players can whisper to each other, but the GM sees all such whispers).
The last tab, Combat, changes the way the Combat Tracker operates:"Show PC stats on clients" determines whether one player can see the summary status of other players' characters in a combat. Some GMs prefer to keep players unaware of just how healthy or unwell their comrades are, using descriptive text instead of numbers. This option gives GMs the choice. This option effects the HP, Wounds and PP fields.
"Show NPCs on clients" changes when NPC entries are visible to players. If set to Yes, then NPC entries are always visible (although their stats are never seen by players, just their names and tokens). If set to No, then the NPC entries don't appear on the players' combat tracker. If set to Toggle, each NPC's visibility is controlled by the little 'eye' icon immediately above its name.
"Tracker changes GM id" enables a feature that automatically changes to in-character name of the GM to match the NPC name, when it is that NPC's turn. The in-character name of the GM is used when the GM uses emote, chat or mood commands.
"Auto-number NPCs" changes the way NPC names are determined when they are added to the tracker. If set to No, the NPC names are left unaltered. If set to Yes, the first NPC with a particular name is added as usual, but subsequent NPCs with the same name have a sequence number appended to them. If set to Random, subsequent NPCs are given a random number. For example, with a Leader NPC and three Thug NPCs the combat tracker names would be:
Leader, Thug, Thug, Thug (preference set to No)
Leader, Thug, Thug #2, Thug #3 (preference set to Yes)
Leader, Thug, Thug #72, Thug #183 (preference set to Random)
Finally, "Bell on PC turn" toggles whether or not the players' FG instance beeps at them when it is their turn. Sometimes this is useful if your players have a habit of reading their email or doing other non-FG tasks when it isn't their turn in a combat.
Icon Bar
Story
This button works exactly the same as the standard FG Story button.
Encounters
An Encounter is a pre-set list of NPCs which can be added to the Combat Tracker very easily by clicking the orange triangle next to the encounter name. Create encounters by right-clicking on the list, then open the encounter itself and drag NPCs and creatures to the encounter. You can set the number of each creature or NPC that appears and their initial reaction (neutral, friendly or hostile).
When a creature type is dropped on the encounter, it resolves the random values like characteristics and HP, and these can then be edited by clicking the gray box to the right of the creature entry. This means the encounter is fully pre-prepared for subsequent use on the Combat Tracker.
Maps & Images
These work in a very similar way to standard FG, but with the addition of the optional image tool bar, mentioned in Prefs, above.
Personalities
The Personalities list is used for standard NPCs, specific 'boss' creatures and generic creature/race templates. The most important distinction for these entries is whether they are for a specific person/creature or whether they describe a race or class of people/creatures (a racial template).
This is controlled by the Race? check box.
If the entry is a racial template, then it will include the die rolls required to generate characteristics (such as STR: 3D6) whereas if it is for a specific creature or person, it will include the actual values (such as STR: 10). When a specific entry is dropped onto the combat tracker or the encounters list, it copies across as-is. When a racial template is dropped, the ruleset determines characteristics randomly from the die rolls and reports the outcome in the chat box.
This shows the two types of personality entry, by way of comparison. For a racial template, the rolls are recorded and there is space to enter the average (the average isn't calculated automatically and isn't used for anything other than information).
Although the right-hand example includes more characteristics than the left-hand one, that is simply because APP and EDU don't apply to wolves: you can remove unwanted characteristics, or restore the default set, from either type of entry just by right-clicking on them.
On the Combat tab, both types of entry have space to describe their attacks and defenses, although the specific entry has its full hit location breakdown displayed (if that game option is enabled).
If the Hit Location template is changed to Custom, the GM is given considerably more scope to change the hit locations, their melee/missile hit chances, and the calculation method for hit points.
The HP Method determines how the calc field is used. For Standard BRP, the calc field is a multiple applied to the total HP and then rounded up.
The ruleset only includes Standard BRP as distributed, but other methods could be added. See the separate notes on Adapting the Ruleset for an example that uses the RQIII method. Any changes to the calc field are applied immediately for specific personalities, but not for racial templates, as their HP are only provisional until the actual characteristics are rolled.
The Appears tab is identical for both type and is just a free-format text field to add some narrative text about the creature or NPC. This is used extensively in the Call of Cthulhu bestiary, but is not used in the standard BRP core reference material.
The Notes tab holds sundry information and skills for the personality. You can throw the dice for one of the skills by double-clicking the skill name or dragging it to the Chat Box.
In all of these screens, the top row remains the same and shows the token used for the NPC or creature, the name and a GM speech bubble. The speech bubble can be clicked to set the current GM in-character name to be the same as the creature.
Items
This button works exactly the same as the standard FG Items button.
Notes
This works the same as for players, but the GM can see everyone's' notes and edit them, whereas players can only edit their own and only see notes that have been checked as public.
Chat Box
The ruleset supports these standard GM commands:
/story [message]
/identity [name]
/export [filename] [description]
/action [message]
/save
/reload
/console
/clear
In addition, the custom GM commands supported are:
/group [name] [message] - send a message to the group containing the named character
Group Chat is described in more detail below.
Character Sheet
Combat Tracker
The BRP combat tracker has an entry for each participant in a combat and a row of action buttons along the bottom. The action buttons are similar to the standard ones found in FG, except there are an additional two which delete all NPCs (the gray face with the red cross on it) and clear all effects (the blue silhouette with the red cross).
The layout of the top part of the tracker changes depending on whether the optional strike rank system is being used (as shown in the screen shot above) or not. If it is not in use, the DEX characteristic replaces the Rank field. Likewise, if the GM has disabled power points in the campaign, the PP field will be absent.
Finally, the wounds field is used to track total HP damage. With hit locations enabled, wounds are recorded for each of the individual locations but this field does not update automatically (to allow for non-location damage, like asphyxiation).
The four grayed-out icons to the right of the center of each entry control the different combat panels: Attacks; Defenses; Effects; and Notes.
Attacks
The attacks panel lists the attacks for NPC characters, and the MOV and damage bonus characteristics. To roll an attack for an NPC, double-click on the attack name, and to roll the damage, double-click on the damage (inside the brackets). Damage bonus for NPC attacks is added automatically, using half for appropriate missile weapons (or twice the penalty value if negative).
Defenses
The defense panel shows either the type of armor worn (such as '1-point leather jacket') if hit locations are disabled, or it shows the hit location list, with the hit chance, name, armor points and current hit points. It also shows a health indicator, which varies from gray (healthy) through yellow, orange and red to black (severed/destroyed).
Dragging damage results to a HP field will deduct that damage from the current HP for that location, after allowing for the armor protection. You can also edit the HP manually using the keyboard or mouse wheel.
If you want to roll to determine a hit location randomly, double-click any of the hit chance fields. If you double-click a missile hit chance it will roll for missile locations, otherwise it will roll for standard (melee) locations. The missile field is only visible if the particular PC/NPC has missile hit locations defined.
Effects
These operate exactly the same as the standard FG combat effects, and can be cleared with the Clear All Effects button on the bottom of the tracker.
Notes
This panel gives access to the GM notes field for a player character, or a stand-alone notes field for NPCs.
Group Chat
The Group Chat facility is useful when the player characters split up, and some of them are in a different location to the others. Characters in a chat group are able to chat to each other in character without players in another group being able to see the conversation. It is important to note that it is characters which are grouped, not players. If a player is controlling two characters and they are in different groups, the player will see both conversations in the chat box.
Group chat is controlled by the GM using the character portraits at the top left of the screen.
Creating a Group
To create a chat group, drag one of the character portraits on top of another. This will create a group with both characters in it, and they will be shown adjacent in the portrait list with a faint box joining them. Both players will be told that they are joining a chat group.
Adding Characters
To add another character to an existing group, drag their portrait on to one of the characters in the target group. The new and existing group members will be told that the new player has joined the group.
Removing Characters
Right-click on a portrait to remove that character from a chat group: the player and the others will be told that the character has left the group.
Disbanding a Group
Right-click on any portrait in the group to disband the group: all players will be notified that the group has been disbanded.
Sending Messages
Any player can send a message to the other characters in the same chat group by using the /group [message] chat command. The other players will receive the message and the GM also sees the message.
If the GM wants to send a message to a chat group, the target group must be identified, so the name of one of the characters must be included in the chat command: /group [name] [message].