From andrew at crashbox.com Tue Oct 25 16:15:54 2005 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Tue Oct 25 16:16:40 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] ADMIN: Test2 Message-ID: testw From andrew at crashbox.com Tue Oct 25 16:25:05 2005 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Tue Oct 25 16:25:46 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] ADMIN: List functional, please proceed Message-ID: <707926BB-A465-413B-A1B8-8740D6959A72@crashbox.com> Everyone, The list has been moved to the new server. I had to migrate the addresses and some configurations have been lost. Please check your configurations at: http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules The archives have not yet been moved. That will happen soon. -Andrew From jhellbek at chromebob.com Tue Oct 25 21:16:23 2005 From: jhellbek at chromebob.com (Jhell'Bek) Date: Tue Oct 25 21:14:33 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> hello all - long time, no posts. i hope things are going nicely for you, Andrew. let me know if you need any help with the migration. i'm working on moving my mailman-based lists, too... question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to reading responses... -pax- -- Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler remember: all waves collapse. From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Wed Oct 26 00:21:42 2005 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Wed Oct 26 00:21:57 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: Jhell'Bek wrote: question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to reading responses... Tony:= My group has been playing on a world of our own devise for some time. It started as one continent whose shape resembled Germany (Coral draw map outline) and a whole lot of names for places from Edding's Belgeraid books. Over the years we have renamed and customised and added, check bits of G?a (highly original name there!) at www.runequest.za.org I have also played RQ in Conan's hyborian age world, map courtesy of Hyborian War PBM. Recall a bit of a session we tried on the Diskworld, didn't last long. I am personally quite keen to try running a session on the world from Hugh Cook's Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, but still have to re read the series (read it in the 1980/90's) to recall and document the 8 schools of magic. Tried a bit of a cross over to an Egyptian setting once, seemed to go down pretty well. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). 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For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Wed Oct 26 02:45:07 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Wed Oct 26 02:45:40 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- References: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> Message-ID: <004f01c5da11$f3253bd0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> All Geral - is Tal working on any SF material? I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an SF setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. David. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jhell'Bek" To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 5:16 AM Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- > hello all - > > long time, no posts. i hope things are going nicely for you, > Andrew. let me know if you need any help with the migration. > i'm working on moving my mailman-based lists, too... > > question for those assembled: what other worlds have you > hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in > hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. > > also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may > be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, > Tal Meta? > > thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to > reading responses... > > -pax- > > -- > Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler > remember: all waves collapse. > _______________________________________________ > Rq-rules mailing list > Rq-rules@crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From soltakss at yahoo.com Wed Oct 26 03:26:59 2005 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Wed Oct 26 03:27:13 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <004f01c5da11$f3253bd0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <20051026102659.52116.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> David Gordon: > I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an > SF > setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. > These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At > present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled > down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. Have you had a look at Other Suns? It's a far better BRP-style game than Ringworld, which seemed very bloated to me. Other Suns is far quicker to play, although Ringworld is more in line with RQ3 than OS, which is more similar to RQ2, if I remember correctly. Are you keeping the incredibly complicated skill trees from Ringworld? They were always good for a laugh - "What happens when I press the Green Button on this console?", "Well, have you got the Console Knowledge - Flight Systems - Fighter Craft - Pilot skill?" (OK, skill names made up, but you get the drift). It has always confused me as to why Sci-Fi games are treated so differently to Fantasy games using BRP. Basically, the BRP system is good for all kinds of games, with a few tweaks regarding magic, psionics, travel etc. Basically, everyone has characteristics, hit points, movement, hit locations, armour, weapons and skills. Skill resolution is the same whether you are an Aslan using a blaster, a minotaur using an axe or a Sith Lord using a lightsabre. Weapons do damage, armour protects, you can parry or dodge and so on. After all, the Eternal Champion games use a variant of BRP (admittedly not as good as RQ but what is?) for its varied settings and they work just fine. What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) Then, all you need is a detailed writeup og the game setting and voila! It's easy, really :-) See Ya Simon From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Wed Oct 26 10:36:13 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Wed Oct 26 10:37:27 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] SF BRP - [was: nudging conversations about the rules] References: <20051026102659.52116.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <019201c5da53$c2df1df0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Phipp" To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 11:26 AM Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- > > David Gordon: > > > I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an > > SF > > setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. > > These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At > > present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled > > down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. > > Have you had a look at Other Suns? It's a far better BRP-style game than > Ringworld, which seemed very bloated to me. Other Suns is far quicker to > play, although Ringworld is more in line with RQ3 than OS, which is more > similar to RQ2, if I remember correctly. > Yes - I've looked at OS. Still need to digest it and read it in depth. It's really up to Chaosium on how that project will proceed. I can suggest it directions but I know that Chaosium will want it to be in line with DBRP and to make it compatible with their other systems to BRP for sure. It is still early days yet as another project I'm involved in with Chaosium may take precedence. Just to give you some background - I've been into RPGs since the late 70's. Played Traveller a lot. Can't get into GURPS but love their source books. I love BRP and I've played most of the BRP games, in fact I've played a lot of different RPGs. > Are you keeping the incredibly complicated skill trees from Ringworld? They > were always good for a laugh - "What happens when I press the Green Button on > this console?", "Well, have you got the Console Knowledge - Flight Systems - > Fighter Craft - Pilot skill?" (OK, skill names made up, but you get the > drift). > I've been close to RWRPG for some time - see www.ringworldrpg.org - and I have to agree with you that the skill system needed an overhaul. I graduated in Biophysics and that gave me a basis in all the sciences including mathematics (though some would say maths is an art!) so I'd have had quite a basis in a lot of sciences even though I specialised in molecular biology and biochemistry (I always kept an eye on mathematical biology) so I can see the reasoning behind the rules in RWRPG, but for simplicity sake I dropped that for ease of play in my games. Who's to say that in the future those learning Biology will actually be learning Biophysics. Or that Biology will give you all the skills you would need to know about living systems - you don't need to have a subskill in genetic engineering to splice the gene for an unknown protein into the genome of another - I'd accept that the Biology skill can do that. Of course - if the Referee wants that kind of granularity then we can provide that in the optional rules. > It has always confused me as to why Sci-Fi games are treated so differently > to Fantasy games using BRP. Basically, the BRP system is good for all kinds > of games, with a few tweaks regarding magic, psionics, travel etc. Why magic in an SF setting? Isn't that some form of psionics? The Isho skills in Jorune are a form of psionics not magic. They utilise the strange fields set up by the planet Jorune and it's moons don't they? But essentially the skills are psionic in nature and not fantastical magic. You may disagree with me. > > Basically, everyone has characteristics, hit points, movement, hit locations, > armour, weapons and skills. Skill resolution is the same whether you are an > Aslan using a blaster, a minotaur using an axe or a Sith Lord using a > lightsabre. Weapons do damage, armour protects, you can parry or dodge and so > on. After all, the Eternal Champion games use a variant of BRP (admittedly > not as good as RQ but what is?) for its varied settings and they work just > fine. > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but chaotic. :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 and realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters that fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and how we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the right one to use. > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) > 2. New weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) > 3. New powers (psionics, new magic systems) > 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) > 5. Hyperspace rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) > 6. Ship Stats (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) > Yes - understand - this is exactly what I'm looking at so rest assured that they would be looked at for a generic set of rules for Science fiction games. I would be trying to do something similar to GURPS Space. The items that will require the most time to develop are the following: Alien race design - some pointers. Psionics - as you say. Government and setting types - some essays. Classification of Tech levels and such classifications Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from the ground up. Star System design along with some essays on current astrophysics and astronomy science. Some recent research has highlighted that M class stars are not as bad as people thought. That a tide locked world can still have half of a planet viable for life (not just the twilight zone) as a coriolis effect would occur on the sunwards side that would help cool the world enough for life to take a hold (it would be a hot steamy place - assuming there is enough water). Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) I would use Ringworld character generation as the basis for the skills and character generation with pointers from Call of Cthulhu and Elric! Would definitely not want to use RQ3 occupation background. Sure - there will be rules for hyperspace but there it's up to the GM how long it takes to get from one place to another - (a week ike in Traveller? or like the Niven Quantum drive?) and there is more than way of getting around space. Warp tech, jump gates, space folding (either psionically or with technology) and planet gates are examples. We only need to give pointers and alternatives for the starship design depending on what the Referee wants. I don't believe in shackling the GMs imagination too much with rules which are too anal. We can always bring out a supplement that details various technologies in further details if the game takes off. Magic - not going to worry about this for SF backgrounds - as far as I'm concerned that's fantasy and can stay there. Psionics - sure. > Then, all you need is a detailed writeup og the game setting and voila! It's > easy, really :-) > > See Ya > > Simon But thanks for your comments. This kind of mail is very useful. David. From dzappone at metamythos.net Wed Oct 26 11:08:14 2005 From: dzappone at metamythos.net (Dan Zappone) Date: Wed Oct 26 11:08:31 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] SF BRP - [was: nudging conversations about the rules] In-Reply-To: <019201c5da53$c2df1df0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> Heya- I did a total conversion of the RQ3 rules to a Traveller style SF setting a about 7-8 years ago. I'll see what I can dig up (might take me a few days to locate if I still have it on a CD) and forward it to you if you are interested. Of course Other Suns is pretty much the same thing - but in some ways a little too flighty for me as far as the alien races went. We actually used the rules to play a Call of Cthulhu campaign that took place in a galactic empire 5000 years in the future on far away worlds. > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New > weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic > systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace > rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats > (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) These are the types of information I am most like to still have floating around. Dan From ffilz-lists at mindspring.com Wed Oct 26 14:50:59 2005 From: ffilz-lists at mindspring.com (Frank Filz) Date: Wed Oct 26 14:51:40 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Speaking of revival References: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> Message-ID: <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> I'm about to start a new Rune Quest campaign. I prefer 1st/2nd edition to 3rd. I have a big issue though, I have decided to never again use random character generation, so I'd like to use a point build system, the problem is that the various attributes are very unbalanced. INT, which is one of two attributes that can't be increased (SIZ is the other), applies to almost every skill (and is often one of the most important attributes), plus of course it's the number of spirit spells a character can keep ready. DEX is also very important. CON is almost least important (especially if one goes with SIZ based hit points - though CON is used to resist poisons and such). STR doesn't factor into many skills, but is important for which weapons are useable and one's damage bonus. POW of course has it's own importance, and adds in a minor way to lots of skills. CHA hangs out as the least useful. I've looked at 5th ed Stormbringer, but with that system, attributes play almost not at all into skills (and there is no penalty of a large size). Further, excepting previous experience (which I did borrow some ideas from 3rd ed. for), all characters are going to look awfully the same at the start. Has anyone worked up a good point buy system? Preferably I'd like to have balanced attributes so they can all cost the same. Frank From nshapero at ix.netcom.com Wed Oct 26 16:50:31 2005 From: nshapero at ix.netcom.com (Niall C. Shapero) Date: Wed Oct 26 16:50:54 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: <000e01c5da88$0ddcaaa0$3276e904@nshapero> On Tuesday, 25 October 2005 at 9:16 PM, Jhell'Bek said: =============================================================== question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. ======================================================== Well, I've been running a science-fictional campaign using a variant of RQ rules (no, it's NOT the OTHER SUNS background, nor is it strictly speaking the OS or the RQ rules, but rather a further derivation of both). Set around a hundred years from now, after a "biological revolution" has taken place (think "industrial revolution" but with genetic engineering and brain-computer-interface technology). No, it's not cyberpunk, although there are some aspects of that genre (in the slightly dystopian world view). The basic skill-based/learn from experience, training, or self-education approach is one I've used for quite a few years in a variety of campaign backgrounds (including a high magic one, where I ruddy well threw out the battlemagic/runemagic approach and added my own build-your-own-spell system). Worked quite well for the ten or so years that I ran it. -- N. C. Shapero -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20051026/91012cdf/attachment.html From talmeta at talmeta.net Wed Oct 26 17:09:08 2005 From: talmeta at talmeta.net (Tal Meta) Date: Wed Oct 26 17:09:28 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> References: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> Message-ID: <43601AA4.5080901@talmeta.net> Jhell'Bek wrote: > also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be > rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? Primarily hearsay, I'd wager. My next campaign is more likely to be d20 than RQ (the horror!) unless the new system is available before that time. I did do alot of work on converting D&D's World of Greyhawk to RQ, though, several years back when I ran a campaign there. -- talmeta@talmeta.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine AIM - talmeta ICQ - 12594453 Homepage - you believed in all your lies. didn't you? -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.361 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/149 - Release Date: 10/25/2005 From jhellbek at chromebob.com Wed Oct 26 19:22:43 2005 From: jhellbek at chromebob.com (Jhell'Bek) Date: Wed Oct 26 19:20:53 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Speaking of revival In-Reply-To: <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> References: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> Message-ID: <436039F3.7060109@chromebob.com> Frank Filz wrote: [snip] > Has anyone worked up a good point buy system? Preferably I'd like to > have balanced attributes so they can all cost the same. for my BRP-derivative, the point-buy system is called 'Potential'. the break-out is really simple: 1 point of Potential = 1d6 points of any attribute 1 point of Potential = 3 for any attribute (cunningly, this is works out to the low average roll for 1d6) 1 point of Potential = +20% to a skill so, if you wanted a 12 STR, it costs 4 Potential (4*3=12). or, if you wanted to roll a little, you could spend those same 4 Potential to roll 2d6+6 for STR (average of 13 - if you rolled okay). (2d6 = 2 Potential + 6 = 2 Potential). also, players always demand more granularity with their attributes. so, a house rule of mine says you can spend up to 2 Potential on attribute points and place those attribute points anywhere. for example, Kevin decides he wants to drop 1 Potential for 3 attribute points. he puts 2 on his CON and 1 on his INT... Potential may also be 'spent' on skill percentages. for example, a character has a base Listen roll of 13% (base + modifiers). for 2 Potential, she can have a 13% + 40% = 53% Listen roll. the same house rule applies for breaking up skill percentages. up to 2 Potential can be spent for skill percentages and the percentiles may be placed in any combination; not just in 20% chunks. for example, Kevin spends 2 Potential to put +10% on his Listen, +15% on his Hide, and +15% on his Oratory. (2 Potential = 40%. 15+15+10 = 40). limits to 'splitting' Potential are exclusive; if you spend 2 to get attribute points, you can still spend 2 to get percentiles. interestingly, this system came out of some math to figure out a d20-equivallent Challenge Rating system (so i would know if my characters are out of their depth or not with a given encounter). Once the numbers fell into place, i started using them to work backwards to design opponents and challenges for the group which would be engaging... working through the RQ3 creatures book, it's pretty easy to take any race and determine it's Potential, subtract the value of an average human, and get the initial cost to play an average member of that race. my BRP system assumes humans are the normal - anything that a normal human can't do, like magic or racial abilities, costs Potential (ie, humans are 'free'). i have started a group with X number of attribute points and 30 Potential. they allocate their lot of attribute points, then use the Potential to tweak and tune their characters to their liking. Potential also plays a big role in my careers/callings/life path/build-your-character-a-year-at-a-time system... i'd love to see anyone else's work on this! does anyone else have a point-buy system they like? regards - -- Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler remember: all waves collapse. From soltakss at yahoo.com Thu Oct 27 02:53:35 2005 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Thu Oct 27 02:53:49 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <20051026180834.36623DE2D4@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20051027095335.57870.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> David Gordon: > Just to give you some background - I've been into RPGs since the late 70's. > Played Traveller a lot. Can't get into GURPS but love their source books. > I love BRP and I've played most of the BRP games, in fact I've played a lot > of different RPGs. I played Traveller for a bit, but didn't like the rules system. The worlds and background were OK, but not fantastic. I prefer my Sci Fi more flexible. > I've been close to RWRPG for some time - see > www.ringworldrpg.org - and I have to agree with you that the skill system > needed an overhaul. I graduated in Biophysics and that gave me a basis in > all the sciences including mathematics (though some would say maths is an > art!) so I'd have had quite a basis in a lot of sciences even though I > specialised in molecular biology and biochemistry (I always kept an eye on > mathematical biology) so I can see the reasoning behind the rules in RWRPG, > but for simplicity sake I dropped that for ease of play in my games. Who's > to say that in the future those learning Biology will actually be learning > Biophysics. Or that Biology will give you all the skills you would need to > know about living systems - you don't need to have a subskill in genetic > engineering to splice the gene for an unknown protein into the genome of > another - I'd accept that the Biology skill can do that. Of course - if > the > Referee wants that kind of granularity then we can provide that in the > optional rules. Basically, the problem with skills in a Sci Fi setting is that we don't know what skills would be needed. Look at the world today. If you'd have asked somebody 100 years ago what skills someone would need to have in the 21st Century, then they would not have included IT skills or Telecoms skills, which are fairly important. Scientists then would never even have heard of, or imagined, genetic engineering, cloning, semiconductor manufacturing or such like. So, we are guessing what skills there would be, based on our current knowledge. Also, there is a huge bias towards scientific skills for a Sci Fi game, which is not particularly vaid. Most people today do not have scientific or engineering skills. People can drive a car or use a computer or mobile phone without extensive knowledge of engineering, computing or telecoms. Similarly, people in a Sci Fi setting could operate spacecraft without vast knowledge of Astrophysics or Engineering, could use a blaster without knowledge of solid-state physics and could use a VR-Sexbot without knowing about Computing or VR-Graphics. In my opinion, most characters in a Sci Fi game do pretty much the same things as characters in a Fantasy Game. They run around their extended world, whether that world is a planet, galactic empier or country. They solve problems. They shoot people, albeit with blasters and phase cannon rather than arrows and javelins. They try to make money. They get involved in rebellions, against the Sith Lords or the Federation rather than Lunars. The basic skills are very similar. People still need to jump, swim, bargain, fast talk, speak languages and so on. OK, so some skills have changed in that you have Drive Motor Vehicle, Ride Motorcycle, Ride Pod Racer, Pilot Starfighter and so on, but they are simply variants on the Ride (Animal), Drive (Cart) type of skills. Replace Lores with techno skills and you have a Sci Fi skillset. > Why magic in an SF setting? Isn't that some form of psionics? The Isho > skills in Jorune are a form of psionics not magic. They utilise the > strange > fields set up by the planet Jorune and it's moons don't they? But > essentially the skills are psionic in nature and not fantastical magic. You > may disagree with me. Well, it depends. Taking a book such as Radix, for instance, there is a fairly strong element of magic in that, although it could be interpreted as psionic. Certainly the magic in Star Wars is based on religions, but could also be psionic. I like my Sci Fi with a bit of fantasy thrown in, so whereas there would be a lot of psionics in Sci Fi settings, I can't see why they can't meet a shaman or a wizard who can use magic of some kind. It would confuse them and act as a challenge to their own powers, if they have any. > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). > I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but > chaotic. > :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 > and > realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation > for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters > that > fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a > different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer > it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the > option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and > how > we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the > right > one to use. I like Hit Locations as they are grittier than not using them. I like the idea that I can shoot someone in the arm with a blaster. OK, SRs are a bit clunky, but I haven't seen anything that is far supoerior to them. To tell the truth, I only owned the original Stormbringer, and Hawkmoon which was better, so I haven't seen the updated Elric game. They were fast and furious games, but our gaming group back then had a bad experience playing Stormbringer and wouldn't play again. > Yes - understand - this is exactly what I'm looking at so rest assured that > they would be looked at for a generic set of rules for Science fiction > games. > I would be trying to do something similar to GURPS Space. The items > that will require the most time to develop are the following: > > Alien race design - some pointers. > Psionics - as you say. > Government and setting types - some essays. Very Travellerish, I always thought that the classifications of planetary governments, economies and so on was way over the top. Anyone can invent a system of government without a load of tables to do so. Maybe it wouldn;t work in practise, but this is a game not a socio-economic model. > Classification of Tech levels and such classifications Ditto, although it is useful to detail what technology a planet is likely to have. > Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from > the ground up. >From my own experience, starships have hit locations (!), physical armour on those locations (bulk plates), extra armour (forcefield protection), hit points (hull integrity etc), a SIZ, some basic skills (based on AI), weapons, hyperspace capability, speed, agility and so on. They are virtually PCs all on their own. When we played Traveller, the other players spent ages trying to improve their ship, fitting alien devices left, right and centre. > Star System design along with some essays on current astrophysics and > astronomy science. Some recent research has highlighted that M class stars > are not as bad as people thought. That a tide locked world can still have > half of a planet viable for life (not just the twilight zone) as a coriolis > effect would occur on the sunwards side that would help cool the world > enough for life to take a hold (it would be a hot steamy place - assuming > there is enough water). > > Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind > (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) I've never really bothered with such detailed world-building for Sci fi games. As far as I am concerned, most alien planets will have been terraformed at some stage and will be able to support life. Those that can't might have life in domes, underground cities or whatever. I am not at all bothered about the physics of whether life can be sustained on a particular planet. > I would use Ringworld character generation as the basis for the skills and > character generation with pointers from Call of Cthulhu and Elric! Would > definitely not want to use RQ3 occupation background. Of course not, those are strictly Fantasy-based. Even CoC has severe limitations. > Sure - there will be rules for hyperspace but there it's up to the GM how > long it takes to > get from one place to another - (a week ike in Traveller? or like the Niven > Quantum drive?) > and there is more than way of getting around space. Warp tech, jump gates, > space folding > (either psionically or with technology) and planet gates are examples. We > only need to give pointers and alternatives for the starship design > depending on what the Referee wants. I don't believe in shackling the GMs > imagination too much with rules which are too anal. We can always bring > out > a supplement that details various technologies in further details if the > game takes off. But then you run into problems when detailing worlds in fiction or on screen. There are loads of excellent Sci Fi settings out there, but many of them are protected by copyright. Having a sourcebook for each of the worlds would be great, but probably unrealistic. Having more generic sourcebooks might be the way forward, but they have the problem that generic works usually lack flavour and aren't as interesting as book/screen-based books. Dan Zappone: > I did a total conversion of the RQ3 rules to a Traveller style SF setting a > about 7-8 years ago. I'll see what I can dig up (might take me a few days > to locate if I still have it on a CD) and forward it to you if you are > interested. It always amazes me that people quite often say things like "I wrote up a system about ... and probably have it on CD if anyone is interested". Of course we are interested! If people aren't particularly interested in selling the ideas or writing a supplement for a game, then please post them on the web. There are so many free websites available that it takes very little time, virtually no money and hardly any effort to put them on the web so that we can all share in your brilliance. > Of course Other Suns is pretty much the same thing - but in some ways a > little too flighty for me as far as the alien races went. They were all variants on the "man in a suit" theme. Of course, most aliens and fantasy races are. > We actually used the rules to play a Call of Cthulhu campaign that took > place in a galactic empire 5000 years in the future on far away worlds. > > > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New > > weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic > > systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace > > rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats > > (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) > > These are the types of information I am most like to still have floating > around. And that is the type of information that anyone wanting to play in or run a Sci Fi game is interested in. See Ya Simon From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Thu Oct 27 03:27:47 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Thu Oct 27 03:28:10 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP References: <20051027095335.57870.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02dd01c5dae1$13398280$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Simon below. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Phipp" To: Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:53 AM Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP > David Gordon: > > I played Traveller for a bit, but didn't like the rules system. The worlds > and background were OK, but not fantastic. I prefer my Sci Fi more flexible. Yeah - but it was the first for RPGs so it has a certain feel to it. I still love it but long to have my own sci-fi background (which I am working on) and I enjoy playing in other worlds. I liked Blue planet but didn't like the rules. > > > Basically, the problem with skills in a Sci Fi setting is that we don't know > what skills would be needed. Look at the world today. If you'd have asked > somebody 100 years ago what skills someone would need to have in the 21st > Century, then they would not have included IT skills or Telecoms skills, > which are fairly important. Scientists then would never even have heard of, > or imagined, genetic engineering, cloning, semiconductor manufacturing or > such like. So, we are guessing what skills there would be, based on our > current knowledge. > I agree but we shouldn't let that stop us. It's looking more and more, if you believe in the singularity that's supposed to be coming, that the future written by most SF authors just would not be. If we thought that way - no SF would be written. Same is true for RPGs. But your concern is noted and thanks, I think we should take that on board. > Also, there is a huge bias towards scientific skills for a Sci Fi game, which > is not particularly vaid. Most people today do not have scientific or > engineering skills. People can drive a car or use a computer or mobile phone > without extensive knowledge of engineering, computing or telecoms. Similarly, > people in a Sci Fi setting could operate spacecraft without vast knowledge of > Astrophysics or Engineering, could use a blaster without knowledge of > solid-state physics and could use a VR-Sexbot without knowing about Computing > or VR-Graphics. I agree with you but in a recent game in Traveller, Streetwise and Liason did more for my group than the usual science skills. I want to move to a more holistic approach. It might be that we just have a Science Skill and it's up to the GM to decide if he wants more choice there or not. > > In my opinion, most characters in a Sci Fi game do pretty much the same > things as characters in a Fantasy Game. They run around their extended world, > whether that world is a planet, galactic empier or country. They solve > problems. They shoot people, albeit with blasters and phase cannon rather > than arrows and javelins. They try to make money. They get involved in > rebellions, against the Sith Lords or the Federation rather than Lunars. > True - I don't dispute that at all. Just the background is different. I like both fantasy and SF, but I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds. > The basic skills are very similar. People still need to jump, swim, bargain, > fast talk, speak languages and so on. OK, so some skills have changed in that > you have Drive Motor Vehicle, Ride Motorcycle, Ride Pod Racer, Pilot > Starfighter and so on, but they are simply variants on the Ride (Animal), > Drive (Cart) type of skills. Replace Lores with techno skills and you have a > Sci Fi skillset. Yep - agree entirely. Good point. > > > Well, it depends. Taking a book such as Radix, for instance, there is a > fairly strong element of magic in that, although it could be interpreted as > psionic. Certainly the magic in Star Wars is based on religions, but could > also be psionic. I like my Sci Fi with a bit of fantasy thrown in, so whereas > there would be a lot of psionics in Sci Fi settings, I can't see why they > can't meet a shaman or a wizard who can use magic of some kind. It would > confuse them and act as a challenge to their own powers, if they have any. Noted - I suppose we could just point to the DBRP rules and say "Fantasy magic systems have already been adequately mapped in DBRP, please refer to that system for guidance. Some ideas for how to integrate magic into an SF background are...." > > > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). > > I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but > > chaotic. > > :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 > > and > > realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation > > for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters > > that > > fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a > > different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer > > it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the > > option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and > > how > > we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the > > right > > one to use. > > I like Hit Locations as they are grittier than not using them. I like the > idea that I can shoot someone in the arm with a blaster. OK, SRs are a bit > clunky, but I haven't seen anything that is far supoerior to them. I like the idea of criticals needing hitlocations, but I understand what you mean. I find that they slow play, but that is my personal taste and not something I would enforce in the new generic rules. I know of a number of GMs who hate locations and so would prefer to drop them (in such cases it's up to the GM if they feel comfortable with the extra book keeping or if they can wing it without the players realising that they aren't actually following the rules for hit-locations - just giving the appearance that they do). Games like Exalted don't have them and the game doesn't feel any worse for their absence. > > Very Travellerish, I always thought that the classifications of planetary > governments, economies and so on was way over the top. Anyone can invent a > system of government without a load of tables to do so. Maybe it wouldn;t > work in practise, but this is a game not a socio-economic model. Do see what you mean but even GURPS Space gives suggestions - doesn't mean one has to have a code for each government or that we need a universal profile for each planet. Some GMs may be imaginatively challenged at times and some pointers on government types could help to spark the imagination. > > > Classification of Tech levels and such classifications > Ditto, although it is useful to detail what technology a planet is likely to > have. Again - these are just yard sticks. It depends on the background. In a huge galaxy wide campaign then such things may become important, or after a dark age where the players are trying to make contact with lower tech worlds on behalf of a higher tech starfaring nation. But in a background like Cthulhu Rising or Babylon 5 perhaps such tech level information is not needed as it's taken for granted that the majority of worlds will be of a certain tech level. > > > Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from > > the ground up. > > >From my own experience, starships have hit locations (!), physical armour on > those locations (bulk plates), extra armour (forcefield protection), hit > points (hull integrity etc), a SIZ, some basic skills (based on AI), weapons, > hyperspace capability, speed, agility and so on. They are virtually PCs all > on their own. When we played Traveller, the other players spent ages trying > to improve their ship, fitting alien devices left, right and centre. Hmm. Interesting. I suppose it depends on the group. Some like to get into that micromanagement, while others prefer to role play extensively without stats and dice ever making an appearance. We have to provide for all eventualities I would guess. > > > > > Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind > > (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) > > I've never really bothered with such detailed world-building for Sci fi > games. As far as I am concerned, most alien planets will have been > terraformed at some stage and will be able to support life. Those that can't > might have life in domes, underground cities or whatever. I am not at all > bothered about the physics of whether life can be sustained on a particular > planet. Again - it's all down to choice and whether you have a Space Fantasy or Hard SF background. It's really up to the GM and players to decide that. The Generic SF BRP rules should account for all eventualities or it wouldn't be generic. I love both Star Wars and Known Space, but they are two different levels of SF (though George Lucas did say, at first, that Star Wars was a Space Fantasy and not SF at all). > > > But then you run into problems when detailing worlds in fiction or on screen. > There are loads of excellent Sci Fi settings out there, but many of them are > protected by copyright. Having a sourcebook for each of the worlds would be > great, but probably unrealistic. Are thinking of a propriety based set of rules with a tailored background from the outset? I'm thinking of a generic set of rules that would help GMs design what they want. Not suggesting that we have source book for each SF background - don't think I stated that at all, just xpansion books that would detail certain things that could not be detailed more fully in the generic rules because of space constraints (such as more technology for those techno-heads that want it). :-) > > > Simon > From tom at zunder.org.uk Thu Oct 27 03:45:27 2005 From: tom at zunder.org.uk (Tom Zunder) Date: Thu Oct 27 03:45:58 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <000e01c5da88$0ddcaaa0$3276e904@nshapero> Message-ID: <4360BDD7.26343.214336@localhost> I am so looking forward to DBRP. Whether the Mongoose RQ is good or flawed, it's DBRP that I shall look to to build new and interesting games from, and a Traveller like (or maybe Traveller) using DBRP has to be on my list. I have recently read MegaTraveller again and whilst I love the setting I find the system a little number heavy. I don't really want to go d6 (which I am running in it's Star Wars incarnation right now) and I think BRP is what would suit me. I thought OS was a great game, but too mathematical for me (I am fundamentally scared of equations), but that kind of DBRP game or DBRP conversion of a Traveller like setting would be nice. I also tink that the Stargate idea that was in the original FutureWorld ruleset would be great, it's essentially Traveller without starships. (No it's not quite like the film or TV series, they're all fully functional and support a inter galactic civilisation). I think there is a Peter Hamilton book where they run trains through such gates, I love the idea of carching the 12.53 from Kings Cross to Alpha Centauri prime.. From aescleal at btinternet.com Thu Oct 27 04:47:19 2005 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Thu Oct 27 04:47:30 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <02dd01c5dae1$13398280$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <20051027114719.78312.qmail@web86106.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Now here's a weird statement: "...I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds." So what's WoD if it's not fantasy? Confused of Dorset, Ash From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Thu Oct 27 04:59:17 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Thu Oct 27 04:59:21 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <20051027114719.78312.qmail@web86106.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: :-) Good one. I would count WoD as fantasy, you are right. But then so is Call of Cthulhu by that token. Even Science Fiction is fantasy of a sort. WoD games kind of fall into the Modern Era games. I was being a bit too vague about Fantasy. Read, worlds set on a mythic Earth or in another fantasy world not set on Earth. -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Ashley Munday Sent: 27 October 2005 12:47 To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP Now here's a weird statement: "...I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds." So what's WoD if it's not fantasy? Confused of Dorset, Ash _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules@crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From clive.wickens at btopenworld.com Thu Oct 27 13:12:55 2005 From: clive.wickens at btopenworld.com (Clive Wickens) Date: Thu Oct 27 12:43:23 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] FAO Tom Zunder Message-ID: <000801c5db32$d19ad480$4fbb8956@sickboy> Tom, I think the Hamilton book was Pandora's star. Clive -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20051027/ab7ec987/attachment.html From sdavies2720 at yahoo.com Thu Oct 27 13:57:06 2005 From: sdavies2720 at yahoo.com (Steve Davies) Date: Thu Oct 27 13:57:21 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <000e01c5da88$0ddcaaa0$3276e904@nshapero> Message-ID: <20051027205706.93545.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> > On Tuesday, 25 October 2005 at 9:16 PM, Jhell'Bek > said: > =============================================================== > question for those assembled: what other worlds > have you > hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm > interested in > hearing about pre-published worlds as well as > homebrews. > ======================================================== Not too much original here: Fantasy world, teetering down into dark ages after the Wizards were overthrown & Ritual Magic banned. Churches & Military control production of spell stones (needed to cast battle magic) and burned all the books (and magicians) at the end of the war. New civilization (gods and spirit magic) is emerging in the barbarian plains, but the characters haven't gotten there yet. Using modified RQ3 rules, homebrewed Ritual Magic (mix of Chivalry & Sorcery, Authentic Thaumaturgy, with a provision to find & bind runes to gain skills). A few other house rules to give characters a chance to survive even in a limited-spell game. Steve __________________________________ Yahoo! FareChase: Search multiple travel sites in one click. http://farechase.yahoo.com From tcantine at incentre.net Thu Oct 27 18:49:33 2005 From: tcantine at incentre.net (Tom Cantine) Date: Thu Oct 27 18:53:13 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: where I've run... In-Reply-To: <20051027205706.93545.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> References: <20051027205706.93545.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <164173FE-4755-11DA-8959-000D9334A9EA@incentre.net> >> On Tuesday, 25 October 2005 at 9:16 PM, Jhell'Bek >> said: >> > =============================================================== >> question for those assembled: what other worlds >> have you >> hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm >> interested in >> hearing about pre-published worlds as well as >> homebrews. >> > ======================================================== I'm currently running a campaign in Harn, with RQ3 and some homebrew houserules (some of which are influenced a bit by Harnmaster). The weird thing about it is that two of the players are eight years old... From jurrubin at earthlink.net Fri Oct 28 05:11:58 2005 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Fri Oct 28 05:12:20 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: where I've run... Message-ID: <7183976.1130501518941.JavaMail.root@elwamui-hybrid.atl.sa.earthlink.net> And therein lies the beauty of RPGs. It's one of the very few arenas where adults and children have the opportunity to operate together as equals. -----Original Message----- From: Tom Cantine Sent: Oct 27, 2005 8:49 PM To: "Discussion of RuneQuest rules." Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: where I've run... The weird thing about it is that two of the players are eight years old... From slposey at concentric.net Fri Oct 28 08:57:57 2005 From: slposey at concentric.net (Stephen Posey) Date: Fri Oct 28 08:58:32 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: where I've run... In-Reply-To: <164173FE-4755-11DA-8959-000D9334A9EA@incentre.net> References: <20051027205706.93545.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> <164173FE-4755-11DA-8959-000D9334A9EA@incentre.net> Message-ID: <43624A85.4030406@concentric.net> Tom Cantine wrote: > > I'm currently running a campaign in Harn, with RQ3 and some homebrew > houserules (some of which are influenced a bit by Harnmaster). The Harn system bears no small resemblance to BRP so I can see that working. Do you have any write-ups of your houserules? I'd like to have a look. > The weird thing about it is that two of the players are eight years old... How's that going? Stephen Posey slposey@concentric.net From tcantine at incentre.net Fri Oct 28 20:41:53 2005 From: tcantine at incentre.net (Tom Cantine) Date: Fri Oct 28 20:48:02 2005 Subject: [Rq-rules] Various houserules and running for kids In-Reply-To: <43624A85.4030406@concentric.net> References: <20051027205706.93545.qmail@web53902.mail.yahoo.com> <164173FE-4755-11DA-8959-000D9334A9EA@incentre.net> <43624A85.4030406@concentric.net> Message-ID: On 28-Oct-05, at 9:57 AM, Stephen Posey wrote: > Tom Cantine wrote: >> I'm currently running a campaign in Harn, with RQ3 and some homebrew >> houserules (some of which are influenced a bit by Harnmaster). > > The Harn system bears no small resemblance to BRP so I can see that > working. > > Do you have any write-ups of your houserules? I'd like to have a look. Well, I believe I posted some of them to this list some time ago. They dealt primarily with knockback. What I was trying to do was integrate knockback, movement and falling damage into a single coherent mechanism. I'll dig them out and repost them later. Along similar lines, I have been trying also to come up with a way to integrate fatigue, nutrition, exposure and so forth, and some of the ideas in Harnmaster sort of helped me work that out. I LIKE fatigue points, mind you, but I've never really been able to make the basic RQ3 stuff feel quite right. So I've borrowed the HM system of fatigue levels, albeit modified to fit in closer with RQ3's stats and flavour. In HM, a character is assigned a fatigue level more or less at the GM's discretion. I'm working on a list of guidelines for when it's appropriate to impose one, affected by such things as ENC and the like, but for the time being GM discretion is what I use. The effect of a fatigue level, at least in my house rules, is similar to being at -5 fatigue points in RQ3, in that it reduces all skill rolls by five percentiles. But I also treat it as reducing each characteristic (except SIZ) by 1. (This has the same effect on the resistance table as reducing skill rolls by five percentiles, but I think it makes it easier to visualize, making explicit that one's STR and INT, for example, are actually reduced by fatigue.) You don't need to go recalculating skill modifiers and hit points, but attribute checks are affected. And a Fatigue Level also increases DEX SRM by one. Now, in HM, there's no buffer for fatigue; when the GM imposes a fatigue level, the penalties take effect. I've modified that in my RQ house rules to say that you have positive fatigue levels equal to CON/6, rounded down. So, someone with an 18 CON could actually carry three fatigue levels before suffering penalties. Okay. Here's where food, water, rest and exposure enter into it. Your character's maximum fatigue level (CON/6) is a theoretical maximum; the real practical limit is your Daily Fatigue Maximum (DFM). Your actual Fatigue Level will fluctuate throughout the day, with activity and rest, but it can't go over your DFM. (What follows is cut and paste from a post I made to a Harn forum, hence the font change...) The DFM is recalculated every 24 hours, preferably when the character wakes up. The calculation is actually pretty simple. It's yesterday's DFM, possibly increased or decreased by one, depending on what happened in the previous 24 hours. 1. If ALL of the following is true, add one. (Remember that DFM will never exceed CON/6, rounded down. Character is waking from a sleep of at least 8 uninterrupted hours. Character ate more than subsistence level of food in the previous 24 hours. Character had enough water (or equivalent) to drink the previous day. Character spent at least 12 hours of previous 24 in COOL or WARM conditions (based on Harn weather equivalents). Character had no conditions (injury, poison, disease, etc.) to heal in previous 24 hours. 2. If MORE THAN ONE of the following is true, subtract one. Character is waking from less than 4 hours sleep. Character ate less than the subsistence level of food in previous 24 hours. Character ate less than half the subsistence level of food in previous 24 hours Character drank less than needed water (or equivalent) in previous 24 hours. Character drank less than half needed water in previous 24 hours. Character spent at least two temporary fatigue levels by any means in previous 24 hours. Character was injured, poisoned, healing or ill in previous 24 hours. Character slept while cold or freezing. The DFM can go below zero by these rules. What that means, of course, is that the character is essentially fatigued all day. That's the gist of it, anyway. You'll notice how prolonged lack of food, sleep or shelter will have the effect of lowering one's DFM, and that in turn will eventually lower your attributes. The basic RQ3 rules on aging can apply here, in that if a characteristic hits zero, you're dead. The difference, of course, is that DFM-reduced characteristics recover when you get adequate food, shelter and rest. >> The weird thing about it is that two of the players are eight years >> old... > > How's that going? Quite well, so far. We've only had about three sessions, since it's an alternate game I run when the rest of our Sunday afternoon group can't make it, but they've gone over well. The other game we play is a tabletop version of my LARP system, with a very different feel, so it's interesting seeing how the two kids react to the grittier game system and world. -Tom -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 5184 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20051028/90e08183/attachment.bin From Nick.Middleton at invensys.com Fri Oct 14 06:30:07 2005 From: Nick.Middleton at invensys.com (Nick.Middleton@invensys.com) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... Message-ID: If you can bear the gushing ad-speak ("...comes of age..." my a**e!) the following may be of interest: http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/home/runequest.php I'll be intrigued to see what, _exactly_ they mean by "open"... Cheers, Nick Middleton "Soon we'll be out, amid the cold world's strife, Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life." Tom Lehrer, College Days From viktor.haag at gmail.com Fri Oct 14 06:50:05 2005 From: viktor.haag at gmail.com (Viktor Haag) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1786319f0510140650lbfc115cy@mail.gmail.com> On 14/10/05, Nick.Middleton@invensys.com wrote: > I'll be intrigued to see what, _exactly_ they mean by "open"... I suppose right there you've got an excellent reason for Mongoose's desire /not/ to be too close to Basic Roleplaying in their new rule set... Why Chaosium hasn't decided to open up BRP, I have a hard time understanding. -- V. From ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net Fri Oct 14 07:06:53 2005 From: ghoyle1 at sbcglobal.net (Guy Hoyle) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... In-Reply-To: <1786319f0510140650lbfc115cy@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20051014140654.80027.qmail@web80511.mail.yahoo.com> Spiffy logo... Guy (Hoyle) From parejf63 at comcast.net Fri Oct 14 09:27:51 2005 From: parejf63 at comcast.net (parejf63@comcast.net) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... Message-ID: <101420051627.12593.434FDC8700086B5E000031312200750784CCC000060A9D0E9F@comcast.net> My hope is that they do not tear it up too much. Most companies that do these things have a tendency to do that.. I will probably still get it though :0) -------------- Original message -------------- > Spiffy logo... > > Guy (Hoyle) > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules@crashbox.com > http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules > http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules From vikingjarl at gmail.com Fri Oct 14 09:50:44 2005 From: vikingjarl at gmail.com (Sven Lugar) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... In-Reply-To: <101420051627.12593.434FDC8700086B5E000031312200750784CCC000060A9D0E9F@comcast.net> Message-ID: I would like to comment in order to answer your concerns, but courtesy, professionalism, respect for Steve P, & integrity prevent me from doing so, beyond saying it has definite differences (some I agree with, some I don't) from previous versions, but that I hope you will be pleased with the end product because it does represent the inputs of some good minds & lover's of the game. Sven -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com]On Behalf Of parejf63@comcast.net Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 9:28 AM To: RuneQuest rules discussion. Subject: Re: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... My hope is that they do not tear it up too much. Most companies that do these things have a tendency to do that.. I will probably still get it though :0) -------------- Original message -------------- > Spiffy logo... > > Guy (Hoyle) > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules@crashbox.com > http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules > http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules@crashbox.com http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules From parejf63 at comcast.net Fri Oct 14 10:18:33 2005 From: parejf63 at comcast.net (parejf63@comcast.net) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... Message-ID: <101420051718.605.434FE8690007F7830000025D2209229927CCC000060A9D0E9F@comcast.net> Thanks Sven -------------- Original message -------------- > I would like to comment in order to answer your concerns, but courtesy, > professionalism, respect for Steve P, & integrity prevent me from doing so, > beyond saying it has definite differences (some I agree with, some I don't) > from previous versions, but that I hope you will be pleased with the end > product because it does represent the inputs of some good minds & lover's of > the game. > Sven > > -----Original Message----- > From: rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com]On > Behalf Of parejf63@comcast.net > Sent: Friday, October 14, 2005 9:28 AM > To: RuneQuest rules discussion. > Subject: Re: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... > > My hope is that they do not tear it up too much. Most companies that do > these things have a tendency to do that.. > > I will probably still get it though :0) > > > -------------- Original message -------------- > > > Spiffy logo... > > > > Guy (Hoyle) > > _______________________________________________ > > RQ-Rules mailing list > > RQ-Rules@crashbox.com > > http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules > > http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules@crashbox.com > http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules > http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules > > _______________________________________________ > RQ-Rules mailing list > RQ-Rules@crashbox.com > http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules > http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Sun Oct 16 23:30:23 2005 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. Message-ID: Hi All Someone contacted me via my website. She claims to have quite a bit of ru= nequest as well as other rpg material for sale, to buyers in the UK. Anyo= ne interested? I can pass your address on or pass hers on to yourself. I = did ask her to make a list of what she has, condition and what she would = like, still waiting on that one. T=A8=92ny=20 _________________________________________________________________________= _________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless = the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Gr= oup Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and in= tended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receiv= e this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately an= d do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinion= s expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as= =20those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any = loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or ari= sing, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not w= arrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or in= terference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised = financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 o= f 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website h= ttp://www.standardbank.co.za _________________________________________________________________________= __________________________________________________________ From jurrubin at earthlink.net Mon Oct 17 08:37:17 2005 From: jurrubin at earthlink.net (David Smart) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... Message-ID: <19799228.1129563437283.JavaMail.root@elwamui-huard.atl.sa.earthlink.net> And just because of your answer, I'll be picking up a copy as well. With people like these on the development team, I'm really looking forward to the end product, regardless of how closely it does or doesn't follow previous versions. David -----Original Message----- From: Sven Lugar Sent: Oct 14, 2005 11:50 AM To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Subject: RE: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... I would like to comment in order to answer your concerns, but courtesy, professionalism, respect for Steve P, & integrity prevent me from doing so, beyond saying it has definite differences (some I agree with, some I don't) from previous versions, but that I hope you will be pleased with the end product because it does represent the inputs of some good minds & lover's of the game. Sven From slposey at concentric.net Mon Oct 17 09:09:50 2005 From: slposey at concentric.net (Stephen Posey) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4353CCCE.5090103@concentric.net> Den, Tony T wrote: > Hi All > > Someone contacted me via my website. She claims to have quite > a bit of runequest as well as other rpg material for sale, to > buyers in the UK. Anyone interested? I can pass your address > on or pass hers on to yourself. I did ask her to make a list > of what she has, condition and what she would like, still > waiting on that one. Is she adamant about only selling to the UK? How about the US? Stephen Posey slposey@concentric.net From parejf63 at comcast.net Mon Oct 17 15:37:48 2005 From: parejf63 at comcast.net (John F. Pare') Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. References: Message-ID: <000b01c5bbd8$676b4320$f3d03044@my9d10b54177a0> Tony, I would be very leary buying anything site unseen, unless it was from an auction or store. They can say what they want, but it may not be what you get.. I was caught in that before.. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Den, Tony T" To: "RQ Rules List" Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 2:30 AM Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. Hi All Someone contacted me via my website. She claims to have quite a bit of runequest as well as other rpg material for sale, to buyers in the UK. Anyone interested? I can pass your address on or pass hers on to yourself. I did ask her to make a list of what she has, condition and what she would like, still waiting on that one. T¨’ny __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules@crashbox.com http://www.crashbox.com/rq-rules http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/rq-rules From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Tue Oct 18 00:46:08 2005 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. Message-ID: Dunno, I suppose whomever wants to transact with her can always ask for scans or something. -----Original Message----- John F. Pare' Tony, I would be very leary buying anything site unseen, unless it was from an auction or store. They can say what they want, but it may not be what you get.. I was caught in that before.. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From slposey at concentric.net Tue Oct 18 09:05:10 2005 From: slposey at concentric.net (Stephen Posey) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. In-Reply-To: <000b01c5bbd8$676b4320$f3d03044@my9d10b54177a0> References: <000b01c5bbd8$676b4320$f3d03044@my9d10b54177a0> Message-ID: <43551D36.80409@concentric.net> John F. Pare' wrote: > Tony, I would be very leary buying anything site unseen, unless it was > from an auction or store. > > They can say what they want, but it may not be what you get.. > > I was caught in that before.. True enough, one might even question why this person isn't putting them up on eBay or some such: better chance of getting top dollar/pound for them. Stephen Posey slposey@concentric.net From phil.hibbs at capgemini.com Fri Oct 21 03:45:46 2005 From: phil.hibbs at capgemini.com (Hibbs, Phil) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] RQ and other gear for sale. Message-ID: <28FEE77FA0D069428DBB715915864EE602E0A1FD@MISSBHXVS02.uki.capgemini.com> >Someone contacted me via my website. She claims to have >quite a bit of runequest as well as other rpg material >for sale, to buyers in the UK. Anyone interested? It's probably my brother's wife! I'd better warn him, quick! :-) __________________________________________________ Phil Hibbs | Capgemini | Rotherham Technical Consultant __________________________________________________ This message contains information that may be privileged or confidential and is the property of the Capgemini Group. It is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, you are not authorized to read, print, retain, copy, disseminate, distribute, or use this message or any part thereof. If you receive this message in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete all copies of this message. From fingolfin1 at mac.com Sat Oct 22 04:54:42 2005 From: fingolfin1 at mac.com (Sacha Ratcliffe) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] Borderlands & Plunder Message-ID: <2266730.1129982082518.JavaMail.fingolfin1@mac.com> Has anyone in the UK received a copy of this yet? I ordered it a little while ago and was wondering where it had got to? Many thanks, Sacha From comogatas at yahoo.com Mon Oct 24 13:32:19 2005 From: comogatas at yahoo.com (Eddy) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: Subject: RE: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... In-Reply-To: <20051018074641.0E17F222708@boomstick.screwheads.net> Message-ID: <20051024203219.39722.qmail@web40522.mail.yahoo.com> I'd like to know more about the 'open' aspect of it...is it going to be open like the D20 SRD (open in spirit unless WotC doesn't like your content) or open like a hooker on payday (everyone gets a dip as long as they pay a fee) or open under some other conditions? -----Original Message----- From: Sven Lugar Sent: Oct 14, 2005 11:50 AM To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Subject: RE: [RQ-Rules] Mongoose goes public... I would like to comment in order to answer your concerns, but courtesy, professionalism, respect for Steve P, & integrity prevent me from doing so, beyond saying it has definite differences (some I agree with, some I don't) from previous versions, but that I hope you will be pleased with the end product because it does represent the inputs of some good minds & lover's of the game. Sven __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs From andrew at crashbox.com Mon Oct 24 17:30:41 2005 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [RQ-Rules] ADMIN: Server maintenance Message-ID: <5B28C077-F1ED-49C1-8891-6F811815931B@crashbox.com> Y'all, I'm moving crashbox.com to new hardware tomorrow night. You might see a brief interruption in service. Don't worry it will be back soon. -Andrew From andrew at crashbox.com Tue Oct 25 16:15:54 2005 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] ADMIN: Test2 Message-ID: testw From andrew at crashbox.com Tue Oct 25 16:25:05 2005 From: andrew at crashbox.com (Andrew O. Mellinger) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] ADMIN: List functional, please proceed Message-ID: <707926BB-A465-413B-A1B8-8740D6959A72@crashbox.com> Everyone, The list has been moved to the new server. I had to migrate the addresses and some configurations have been lost. Please check your configurations at: http://www.crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules The archives have not yet been moved. That will happen soon. -Andrew From jhellbek at chromebob.com Tue Oct 25 21:16:23 2005 From: jhellbek at chromebob.com (Jhell'Bek) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> hello all - long time, no posts. i hope things are going nicely for you, Andrew. let me know if you need any help with the migration. i'm working on moving my mailman-based lists, too... question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to reading responses... -pax- -- Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler remember: all waves collapse. From Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za Wed Oct 26 00:21:42 2005 From: Tony.Den at standardbank.co.za (Den, Tony T) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: Jhell'Bek wrote: question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to reading responses... Tony:= My group has been playing on a world of our own devise for some time. It started as one continent whose shape resembled Germany (Coral draw map outline) and a whole lot of names for places from Edding's Belgeraid books. Over the years we have renamed and customised and added, check bits of G?a (highly original name there!) at www.runequest.za.org I have also played RQ in Conan's hyborian age world, map courtesy of Hyborian War PBM. Recall a bit of a session we tried on the Diskworld, didn't last long. I am personally quite keen to try running a session on the world from Hugh Cook's Chronicles of an Age of Darkness, but still have to re read the series (read it in the 1980/90's) to recall and document the 8 schools of magic. Tried a bit of a cross over to an Egyptian setting once, seemed to go down pretty well. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Standard Bank Disclaimer and Confidentiality Note This e-mail, its attachments and any rights attaching hereto are, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise, the property of Standard Bank Group Limited and/or its subsidiaries ("the Group"). It is confidential, private and intended for the addressee only. Should you not be the addressee and receive this e-mail by mistake, kindly notify the sender, and delete this e-mail, immediately and do not disclose or use same in any manner whatsoever. Views and opinions expressed in this e-mail are those of the sender unless clearly stated as those of the Group. The Group accepts no liability whatsoever for any loss or damages whatsoever and howsoever incurred, or suffered, resulting, or arising, from the use of this email or its attachments. The Group does not warrant the integrity of this e-mail nor that it is free of errors, viruses, interception or interference. Licensed divisions of the Standard Bank Group are authorised financial services providers in terms of the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, No 37 of 2002 (FAIS). For information about the Standard Bank Group Limited visit our website http://www.standardbank.co.za ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Wed Oct 26 02:45:07 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- References: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> Message-ID: <004f01c5da11$f3253bd0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> All Geral - is Tal working on any SF material? I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an SF setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. David. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jhell'Bek" To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 5:16 AM Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- > hello all - > > long time, no posts. i hope things are going nicely for you, > Andrew. let me know if you need any help with the migration. > i'm working on moving my mailman-based lists, too... > > question for those assembled: what other worlds have you > hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in > hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. > > also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may > be rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, > Tal Meta? > > thanks for your time and attention - i'm looking forward to > reading responses... > > -pax- > > -- > Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler > remember: all waves collapse. > _______________________________________________ > Rq-rules mailing list > Rq-rules@crashbox.com > http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From soltakss at yahoo.com Wed Oct 26 03:26:59 2005 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <004f01c5da11$f3253bd0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <20051026102659.52116.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> David Gordon: > I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an > SF > setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. > These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At > present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled > down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. Have you had a look at Other Suns? It's a far better BRP-style game than Ringworld, which seemed very bloated to me. Other Suns is far quicker to play, although Ringworld is more in line with RQ3 than OS, which is more similar to RQ2, if I remember correctly. Are you keeping the incredibly complicated skill trees from Ringworld? They were always good for a laugh - "What happens when I press the Green Button on this console?", "Well, have you got the Console Knowledge - Flight Systems - Fighter Craft - Pilot skill?" (OK, skill names made up, but you get the drift). It has always confused me as to why Sci-Fi games are treated so differently to Fantasy games using BRP. Basically, the BRP system is good for all kinds of games, with a few tweaks regarding magic, psionics, travel etc. Basically, everyone has characteristics, hit points, movement, hit locations, armour, weapons and skills. Skill resolution is the same whether you are an Aslan using a blaster, a minotaur using an axe or a Sith Lord using a lightsabre. Weapons do damage, armour protects, you can parry or dodge and so on. After all, the Eternal Champion games use a variant of BRP (admittedly not as good as RQ but what is?) for its varied settings and they work just fine. What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) Then, all you need is a detailed writeup og the game setting and voila! It's easy, really :-) See Ya Simon From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Wed Oct 26 10:36:13 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] SF BRP - [was: nudging conversations about the rules] References: <20051026102659.52116.qmail@web51007.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <019201c5da53$c2df1df0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Phipp" To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." Sent: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 11:26 AM Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- > > David Gordon: > > > I'm interested in hearing from anybody who has used RQ or BRP rules in an > > SF > > setting. I'm working with Chaosium to produce an SF set of BRP rules. > > These would be generic rules that could be applied to any background. At > > present I have the Ringworld RPG rules to go by and hope to have a boiled > > down version of the new DBRP rules to work with. > > Have you had a look at Other Suns? It's a far better BRP-style game than > Ringworld, which seemed very bloated to me. Other Suns is far quicker to > play, although Ringworld is more in line with RQ3 than OS, which is more > similar to RQ2, if I remember correctly. > Yes - I've looked at OS. Still need to digest it and read it in depth. It's really up to Chaosium on how that project will proceed. I can suggest it directions but I know that Chaosium will want it to be in line with DBRP and to make it compatible with their other systems to BRP for sure. It is still early days yet as another project I'm involved in with Chaosium may take precedence. Just to give you some background - I've been into RPGs since the late 70's. Played Traveller a lot. Can't get into GURPS but love their source books. I love BRP and I've played most of the BRP games, in fact I've played a lot of different RPGs. > Are you keeping the incredibly complicated skill trees from Ringworld? They > were always good for a laugh - "What happens when I press the Green Button on > this console?", "Well, have you got the Console Knowledge - Flight Systems - > Fighter Craft - Pilot skill?" (OK, skill names made up, but you get the > drift). > I've been close to RWRPG for some time - see www.ringworldrpg.org - and I have to agree with you that the skill system needed an overhaul. I graduated in Biophysics and that gave me a basis in all the sciences including mathematics (though some would say maths is an art!) so I'd have had quite a basis in a lot of sciences even though I specialised in molecular biology and biochemistry (I always kept an eye on mathematical biology) so I can see the reasoning behind the rules in RWRPG, but for simplicity sake I dropped that for ease of play in my games. Who's to say that in the future those learning Biology will actually be learning Biophysics. Or that Biology will give you all the skills you would need to know about living systems - you don't need to have a subskill in genetic engineering to splice the gene for an unknown protein into the genome of another - I'd accept that the Biology skill can do that. Of course - if the Referee wants that kind of granularity then we can provide that in the optional rules. > It has always confused me as to why Sci-Fi games are treated so differently > to Fantasy games using BRP. Basically, the BRP system is good for all kinds > of games, with a few tweaks regarding magic, psionics, travel etc. Why magic in an SF setting? Isn't that some form of psionics? The Isho skills in Jorune are a form of psionics not magic. They utilise the strange fields set up by the planet Jorune and it's moons don't they? But essentially the skills are psionic in nature and not fantastical magic. You may disagree with me. > > Basically, everyone has characteristics, hit points, movement, hit locations, > armour, weapons and skills. Skill resolution is the same whether you are an > Aslan using a blaster, a minotaur using an axe or a Sith Lord using a > lightsabre. Weapons do damage, armour protects, you can parry or dodge and so > on. After all, the Eternal Champion games use a variant of BRP (admittedly > not as good as RQ but what is?) for its varied settings and they work just > fine. > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but chaotic. :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 and realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters that fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and how we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the right one to use. > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) > 2. New weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) > 3. New powers (psionics, new magic systems) > 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) > 5. Hyperspace rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) > 6. Ship Stats (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) > Yes - understand - this is exactly what I'm looking at so rest assured that they would be looked at for a generic set of rules for Science fiction games. I would be trying to do something similar to GURPS Space. The items that will require the most time to develop are the following: Alien race design - some pointers. Psionics - as you say. Government and setting types - some essays. Classification of Tech levels and such classifications Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from the ground up. Star System design along with some essays on current astrophysics and astronomy science. Some recent research has highlighted that M class stars are not as bad as people thought. That a tide locked world can still have half of a planet viable for life (not just the twilight zone) as a coriolis effect would occur on the sunwards side that would help cool the world enough for life to take a hold (it would be a hot steamy place - assuming there is enough water). Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) I would use Ringworld character generation as the basis for the skills and character generation with pointers from Call of Cthulhu and Elric! Would definitely not want to use RQ3 occupation background. Sure - there will be rules for hyperspace but there it's up to the GM how long it takes to get from one place to another - (a week ike in Traveller? or like the Niven Quantum drive?) and there is more than way of getting around space. Warp tech, jump gates, space folding (either psionically or with technology) and planet gates are examples. We only need to give pointers and alternatives for the starship design depending on what the Referee wants. I don't believe in shackling the GMs imagination too much with rules which are too anal. We can always bring out a supplement that details various technologies in further details if the game takes off. Magic - not going to worry about this for SF backgrounds - as far as I'm concerned that's fantasy and can stay there. Psionics - sure. > Then, all you need is a detailed writeup og the game setting and voila! It's > easy, really :-) > > See Ya > > Simon But thanks for your comments. This kind of mail is very useful. David. From dzappone at metamythos.net Wed Oct 26 11:08:14 2005 From: dzappone at metamythos.net (Dan Zappone) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] SF BRP - [was: nudging conversations about the rules] In-Reply-To: <019201c5da53$c2df1df0$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> Heya- I did a total conversion of the RQ3 rules to a Traveller style SF setting a about 7-8 years ago. I'll see what I can dig up (might take me a few days to locate if I still have it on a CD) and forward it to you if you are interested. Of course Other Suns is pretty much the same thing - but in some ways a little too flighty for me as far as the alien races went. We actually used the rules to play a Call of Cthulhu campaign that took place in a galactic empire 5000 years in the future on far away worlds. > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New > weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic > systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace > rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats > (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) These are the types of information I am most like to still have floating around. Dan From ffilz-lists at mindspring.com Wed Oct 26 14:50:59 2005 From: ffilz-lists at mindspring.com (Frank Filz) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Speaking of revival References: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> Message-ID: <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> I'm about to start a new Rune Quest campaign. I prefer 1st/2nd edition to 3rd. I have a big issue though, I have decided to never again use random character generation, so I'd like to use a point build system, the problem is that the various attributes are very unbalanced. INT, which is one of two attributes that can't be increased (SIZ is the other), applies to almost every skill (and is often one of the most important attributes), plus of course it's the number of spirit spells a character can keep ready. DEX is also very important. CON is almost least important (especially if one goes with SIZ based hit points - though CON is used to resist poisons and such). STR doesn't factor into many skills, but is important for which weapons are useable and one's damage bonus. POW of course has it's own importance, and adds in a minor way to lots of skills. CHA hangs out as the least useful. I've looked at 5th ed Stormbringer, but with that system, attributes play almost not at all into skills (and there is no penalty of a large size). Further, excepting previous experience (which I did borrow some ideas from 3rd ed. for), all characters are going to look awfully the same at the start. Has anyone worked up a good point buy system? Preferably I'd like to have balanced attributes so they can all cost the same. Frank From nshapero at ix.netcom.com Wed Oct 26 16:50:31 2005 From: nshapero at ix.netcom.com (Niall C. Shapero) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- Message-ID: <000e01c5da88$0ddcaaa0$3276e904@nshapero> On Tuesday, 25 October 2005 at 9:16 PM, Jhell'Bek said: =============================================================== question for those assembled: what other worlds have you hi-jacked the RuneQuest rules to run in? i'm interested in hearing about pre-published worlds as well as homebrews. ======================================================== Well, I've been running a science-fictional campaign using a variant of RQ rules (no, it's NOT the OTHER SUNS background, nor is it strictly speaking the OS or the RQ rules, but rather a further derivation of both). Set around a hundred years from now, after a "biological revolution" has taken place (think "industrial revolution" but with genetic engineering and brain-computer-interface technology). No, it's not cyberpunk, although there are some aspects of that genre (in the slightly dystopian world view). The basic skill-based/learn from experience, training, or self-education approach is one I've used for quite a few years in a variety of campaign backgrounds (including a high magic one, where I ruddy well threw out the battlemagic/runemagic approach and added my own build-your-own-spell system). Worked quite well for the ten or so years that I ran it. -- N. C. Shapero -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://www.thinbits.net/pipermail/rq-rules/attachments/20051026/91012cdf/attachment-0002.html From talmeta at talmeta.net Wed Oct 26 17:09:08 2005 From: talmeta at talmeta.net (Tal Meta) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> References: <435F0317.6090901@chromebob.com> Message-ID: <43601AA4.5080901@talmeta.net> Jhell'Bek wrote: > also, i've heard that Tal Meta has started a new game. (this may be > rumor and heresay) what worlds do you and your group wander, Tal Meta? Primarily hearsay, I'd wager. My next campaign is more likely to be d20 than RQ (the horror!) unless the new system is available before that time. I did do alot of work on converting D&D's World of Greyhawk to RQ, though, several years back when I ran a campaign there. -- talmeta@talmeta.net - Heretic, Dilettante, & God-Machine AIM - talmeta ICQ - 12594453 Homepage - you believed in all your lies. didn't you? -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.361 / Virus Database: 267.12.5/149 - Release Date: 10/25/2005 From jhellbek at chromebob.com Wed Oct 26 19:22:43 2005 From: jhellbek at chromebob.com (Jhell'Bek) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Speaking of revival In-Reply-To: <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> References: <006101c5da58$3c64bfa0$1701a8c0@quicksilver> <002a01c5da77$5b6a3e60$a3162f09@IBMSKFUWSTXPIP> Message-ID: <436039F3.7060109@chromebob.com> Frank Filz wrote: [snip] > Has anyone worked up a good point buy system? Preferably I'd like to > have balanced attributes so they can all cost the same. for my BRP-derivative, the point-buy system is called 'Potential'. the break-out is really simple: 1 point of Potential = 1d6 points of any attribute 1 point of Potential = 3 for any attribute (cunningly, this is works out to the low average roll for 1d6) 1 point of Potential = +20% to a skill so, if you wanted a 12 STR, it costs 4 Potential (4*3=12). or, if you wanted to roll a little, you could spend those same 4 Potential to roll 2d6+6 for STR (average of 13 - if you rolled okay). (2d6 = 2 Potential + 6 = 2 Potential). also, players always demand more granularity with their attributes. so, a house rule of mine says you can spend up to 2 Potential on attribute points and place those attribute points anywhere. for example, Kevin decides he wants to drop 1 Potential for 3 attribute points. he puts 2 on his CON and 1 on his INT... Potential may also be 'spent' on skill percentages. for example, a character has a base Listen roll of 13% (base + modifiers). for 2 Potential, she can have a 13% + 40% = 53% Listen roll. the same house rule applies for breaking up skill percentages. up to 2 Potential can be spent for skill percentages and the percentiles may be placed in any combination; not just in 20% chunks. for example, Kevin spends 2 Potential to put +10% on his Listen, +15% on his Hide, and +15% on his Oratory. (2 Potential = 40%. 15+15+10 = 40). limits to 'splitting' Potential are exclusive; if you spend 2 to get attribute points, you can still spend 2 to get percentiles. interestingly, this system came out of some math to figure out a d20-equivallent Challenge Rating system (so i would know if my characters are out of their depth or not with a given encounter). Once the numbers fell into place, i started using them to work backwards to design opponents and challenges for the group which would be engaging... working through the RQ3 creatures book, it's pretty easy to take any race and determine it's Potential, subtract the value of an average human, and get the initial cost to play an average member of that race. my BRP system assumes humans are the normal - anything that a normal human can't do, like magic or racial abilities, costs Potential (ie, humans are 'free'). i have started a group with X number of attribute points and 30 Potential. they allocate their lot of attribute points, then use the Potential to tweak and tune their characters to their liking. Potential also plays a big role in my careers/callings/life path/build-your-character-a-year-at-a-time system... i'd love to see anyone else's work on this! does anyone else have a point-buy system they like? regards - -- Gerall Kahla / jhellbek / JaenChronicler remember: all waves collapse. From soltakss at yahoo.com Thu Oct 27 02:53:35 2005 From: soltakss at yahoo.com (Simon Phipp) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <20051026180834.36623DE2D4@mini.thinbits.net> Message-ID: <20051027095335.57870.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> David Gordon: > Just to give you some background - I've been into RPGs since the late 70's. > Played Traveller a lot. Can't get into GURPS but love their source books. > I love BRP and I've played most of the BRP games, in fact I've played a lot > of different RPGs. I played Traveller for a bit, but didn't like the rules system. The worlds and background were OK, but not fantastic. I prefer my Sci Fi more flexible. > I've been close to RWRPG for some time - see > www.ringworldrpg.org - and I have to agree with you that the skill system > needed an overhaul. I graduated in Biophysics and that gave me a basis in > all the sciences including mathematics (though some would say maths is an > art!) so I'd have had quite a basis in a lot of sciences even though I > specialised in molecular biology and biochemistry (I always kept an eye on > mathematical biology) so I can see the reasoning behind the rules in RWRPG, > but for simplicity sake I dropped that for ease of play in my games. Who's > to say that in the future those learning Biology will actually be learning > Biophysics. Or that Biology will give you all the skills you would need to > know about living systems - you don't need to have a subskill in genetic > engineering to splice the gene for an unknown protein into the genome of > another - I'd accept that the Biology skill can do that. Of course - if > the > Referee wants that kind of granularity then we can provide that in the > optional rules. Basically, the problem with skills in a Sci Fi setting is that we don't know what skills would be needed. Look at the world today. If you'd have asked somebody 100 years ago what skills someone would need to have in the 21st Century, then they would not have included IT skills or Telecoms skills, which are fairly important. Scientists then would never even have heard of, or imagined, genetic engineering, cloning, semiconductor manufacturing or such like. So, we are guessing what skills there would be, based on our current knowledge. Also, there is a huge bias towards scientific skills for a Sci Fi game, which is not particularly vaid. Most people today do not have scientific or engineering skills. People can drive a car or use a computer or mobile phone without extensive knowledge of engineering, computing or telecoms. Similarly, people in a Sci Fi setting could operate spacecraft without vast knowledge of Astrophysics or Engineering, could use a blaster without knowledge of solid-state physics and could use a VR-Sexbot without knowing about Computing or VR-Graphics. In my opinion, most characters in a Sci Fi game do pretty much the same things as characters in a Fantasy Game. They run around their extended world, whether that world is a planet, galactic empier or country. They solve problems. They shoot people, albeit with blasters and phase cannon rather than arrows and javelins. They try to make money. They get involved in rebellions, against the Sith Lords or the Federation rather than Lunars. The basic skills are very similar. People still need to jump, swim, bargain, fast talk, speak languages and so on. OK, so some skills have changed in that you have Drive Motor Vehicle, Ride Motorcycle, Ride Pod Racer, Pilot Starfighter and so on, but they are simply variants on the Ride (Animal), Drive (Cart) type of skills. Replace Lores with techno skills and you have a Sci Fi skillset. > Why magic in an SF setting? Isn't that some form of psionics? The Isho > skills in Jorune are a form of psionics not magic. They utilise the > strange > fields set up by the planet Jorune and it's moons don't they? But > essentially the skills are psionic in nature and not fantastical magic. You > may disagree with me. Well, it depends. Taking a book such as Radix, for instance, there is a fairly strong element of magic in that, although it could be interpreted as psionic. Certainly the magic in Star Wars is based on religions, but could also be psionic. I like my Sci Fi with a bit of fantasy thrown in, so whereas there would be a lot of psionics in Sci Fi settings, I can't see why they can't meet a shaman or a wizard who can use magic of some kind. It would confuse them and act as a challenge to their own powers, if they have any. > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). > I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but > chaotic. > :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 > and > realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation > for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters > that > fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a > different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer > it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the > option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and > how > we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the > right > one to use. I like Hit Locations as they are grittier than not using them. I like the idea that I can shoot someone in the arm with a blaster. OK, SRs are a bit clunky, but I haven't seen anything that is far supoerior to them. To tell the truth, I only owned the original Stormbringer, and Hawkmoon which was better, so I haven't seen the updated Elric game. They were fast and furious games, but our gaming group back then had a bad experience playing Stormbringer and wouldn't play again. > Yes - understand - this is exactly what I'm looking at so rest assured that > they would be looked at for a generic set of rules for Science fiction > games. > I would be trying to do something similar to GURPS Space. The items > that will require the most time to develop are the following: > > Alien race design - some pointers. > Psionics - as you say. > Government and setting types - some essays. Very Travellerish, I always thought that the classifications of planetary governments, economies and so on was way over the top. Anyone can invent a system of government without a load of tables to do so. Maybe it wouldn;t work in practise, but this is a game not a socio-economic model. > Classification of Tech levels and such classifications Ditto, although it is useful to detail what technology a planet is likely to have. > Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from > the ground up. >From my own experience, starships have hit locations (!), physical armour on those locations (bulk plates), extra armour (forcefield protection), hit points (hull integrity etc), a SIZ, some basic skills (based on AI), weapons, hyperspace capability, speed, agility and so on. They are virtually PCs all on their own. When we played Traveller, the other players spent ages trying to improve their ship, fitting alien devices left, right and centre. > Star System design along with some essays on current astrophysics and > astronomy science. Some recent research has highlighted that M class stars > are not as bad as people thought. That a tide locked world can still have > half of a planet viable for life (not just the twilight zone) as a coriolis > effect would occur on the sunwards side that would help cool the world > enough for life to take a hold (it would be a hot steamy place - assuming > there is enough water). > > Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind > (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) I've never really bothered with such detailed world-building for Sci fi games. As far as I am concerned, most alien planets will have been terraformed at some stage and will be able to support life. Those that can't might have life in domes, underground cities or whatever. I am not at all bothered about the physics of whether life can be sustained on a particular planet. > I would use Ringworld character generation as the basis for the skills and > character generation with pointers from Call of Cthulhu and Elric! Would > definitely not want to use RQ3 occupation background. Of course not, those are strictly Fantasy-based. Even CoC has severe limitations. > Sure - there will be rules for hyperspace but there it's up to the GM how > long it takes to > get from one place to another - (a week ike in Traveller? or like the Niven > Quantum drive?) > and there is more than way of getting around space. Warp tech, jump gates, > space folding > (either psionically or with technology) and planet gates are examples. We > only need to give pointers and alternatives for the starship design > depending on what the Referee wants. I don't believe in shackling the GMs > imagination too much with rules which are too anal. We can always bring > out > a supplement that details various technologies in further details if the > game takes off. But then you run into problems when detailing worlds in fiction or on screen. There are loads of excellent Sci Fi settings out there, but many of them are protected by copyright. Having a sourcebook for each of the worlds would be great, but probably unrealistic. Having more generic sourcebooks might be the way forward, but they have the problem that generic works usually lack flavour and aren't as interesting as book/screen-based books. Dan Zappone: > I did a total conversion of the RQ3 rules to a Traveller style SF setting a > about 7-8 years ago. I'll see what I can dig up (might take me a few days > to locate if I still have it on a CD) and forward it to you if you are > interested. It always amazes me that people quite often say things like "I wrote up a system about ... and probably have it on CD if anyone is interested". Of course we are interested! If people aren't particularly interested in selling the ideas or writing a supplement for a game, then please post them on the web. There are so many free websites available that it takes very little time, virtually no money and hardly any effort to put them on the web so that we can all share in your brilliance. > Of course Other Suns is pretty much the same thing - but in some ways a > little too flighty for me as far as the alien races went. They were all variants on the "man in a suit" theme. Of course, most aliens and fantasy races are. > We actually used the rules to play a Call of Cthulhu campaign that took > place in a galactic empire 5000 years in the future on far away worlds. > > > What is different is campaign/world-specific rather than generic. > > So, you would need stats, but not necessarily new rules, for: > > 1. New species (including new aliens, or men with funny masks) 2. New > > weapons (blasters, lightsabres etc) 3. New powers (psionics, new magic > > systems) 4. New skills (Astrophysics, Computer Use etc) 5. Hyperspace > > rules (These are different for every Sci-Fi setting) 6. Ship Stats > > (including rules for ship-to-ship combat, movement etc) > > These are the types of information I am most like to still have floating > around. And that is the type of information that anyone wanting to play in or run a Sci Fi game is interested in. See Ya Simon From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Thu Oct 27 03:27:47 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP References: <20051027095335.57870.qmail@web51003.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02dd01c5dae1$13398280$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Simon below. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Simon Phipp" To: Sent: Thursday, October 27, 2005 10:53 AM Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP > David Gordon: > > I played Traveller for a bit, but didn't like the rules system. The worlds > and background were OK, but not fantastic. I prefer my Sci Fi more flexible. Yeah - but it was the first for RPGs so it has a certain feel to it. I still love it but long to have my own sci-fi background (which I am working on) and I enjoy playing in other worlds. I liked Blue planet but didn't like the rules. > > > Basically, the problem with skills in a Sci Fi setting is that we don't know > what skills would be needed. Look at the world today. If you'd have asked > somebody 100 years ago what skills someone would need to have in the 21st > Century, then they would not have included IT skills or Telecoms skills, > which are fairly important. Scientists then would never even have heard of, > or imagined, genetic engineering, cloning, semiconductor manufacturing or > such like. So, we are guessing what skills there would be, based on our > current knowledge. > I agree but we shouldn't let that stop us. It's looking more and more, if you believe in the singularity that's supposed to be coming, that the future written by most SF authors just would not be. If we thought that way - no SF would be written. Same is true for RPGs. But your concern is noted and thanks, I think we should take that on board. > Also, there is a huge bias towards scientific skills for a Sci Fi game, which > is not particularly vaid. Most people today do not have scientific or > engineering skills. People can drive a car or use a computer or mobile phone > without extensive knowledge of engineering, computing or telecoms. Similarly, > people in a Sci Fi setting could operate spacecraft without vast knowledge of > Astrophysics or Engineering, could use a blaster without knowledge of > solid-state physics and could use a VR-Sexbot without knowing about Computing > or VR-Graphics. I agree with you but in a recent game in Traveller, Streetwise and Liason did more for my group than the usual science skills. I want to move to a more holistic approach. It might be that we just have a Science Skill and it's up to the GM to decide if he wants more choice there or not. > > In my opinion, most characters in a Sci Fi game do pretty much the same > things as characters in a Fantasy Game. They run around their extended world, > whether that world is a planet, galactic empier or country. They solve > problems. They shoot people, albeit with blasters and phase cannon rather > than arrows and javelins. They try to make money. They get involved in > rebellions, against the Sith Lords or the Federation rather than Lunars. > True - I don't dispute that at all. Just the background is different. I like both fantasy and SF, but I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds. > The basic skills are very similar. People still need to jump, swim, bargain, > fast talk, speak languages and so on. OK, so some skills have changed in that > you have Drive Motor Vehicle, Ride Motorcycle, Ride Pod Racer, Pilot > Starfighter and so on, but they are simply variants on the Ride (Animal), > Drive (Cart) type of skills. Replace Lores with techno skills and you have a > Sci Fi skillset. Yep - agree entirely. Good point. > > > Well, it depends. Taking a book such as Radix, for instance, there is a > fairly strong element of magic in that, although it could be interpreted as > psionic. Certainly the magic in Star Wars is based on religions, but could > also be psionic. I like my Sci Fi with a bit of fantasy thrown in, so whereas > there would be a lot of psionics in Sci Fi settings, I can't see why they > can't meet a shaman or a wizard who can use magic of some kind. It would > confuse them and act as a challenge to their own powers, if they have any. Noted - I suppose we could just point to the DBRP rules and say "Fantasy magic systems have already been adequately mapped in DBRP, please refer to that system for guidance. Some ideas for how to integrate magic into an SF background are...." > > > I happen to like Elric! more than I do RQ (though I love RQ2 more than 3). > > I liked original Stormbringer but you couldn't be anything else but > > chaotic. > > :-) I like the simplicity of Elric!. I recently played in a game of RQ3 > > and > > realised what pain hit locations were again - and the occupation generation > > for PCs for RQ3 was not very good. You end up with mediocre characters > > that > > fail far too often. I'm running a game with Elric! right now - with a > > different magic system on the Gwenthia world building project - much prefer > > it to RQ. I'm envisioning that hit locations would be available and the > > option would be not to use them. I need to revisit the combat round and > > how > > we measure actions. Make sure that the Impulse system in RWRPG is the > > right > > one to use. > > I like Hit Locations as they are grittier than not using them. I like the > idea that I can shoot someone in the arm with a blaster. OK, SRs are a bit > clunky, but I haven't seen anything that is far supoerior to them. I like the idea of criticals needing hitlocations, but I understand what you mean. I find that they slow play, but that is my personal taste and not something I would enforce in the new generic rules. I know of a number of GMs who hate locations and so would prefer to drop them (in such cases it's up to the GM if they feel comfortable with the extra book keeping or if they can wing it without the players realising that they aren't actually following the rules for hit-locations - just giving the appearance that they do). Games like Exalted don't have them and the game doesn't feel any worse for their absence. > > Very Travellerish, I always thought that the classifications of planetary > governments, economies and so on was way over the top. Anyone can invent a > system of government without a load of tables to do so. Maybe it wouldn;t > work in practise, but this is a game not a socio-economic model. Do see what you mean but even GURPS Space gives suggestions - doesn't mean one has to have a code for each government or that we need a universal profile for each planet. Some GMs may be imaginatively challenged at times and some pointers on government types could help to spark the imagination. > > > Classification of Tech levels and such classifications > Ditto, although it is useful to detail what technology a planet is likely to > have. Again - these are just yard sticks. It depends on the background. In a huge galaxy wide campaign then such things may become important, or after a dark age where the players are trying to make contact with lower tech worlds on behalf of a higher tech starfaring nation. But in a background like Cthulhu Rising or Babylon 5 perhaps such tech level information is not needed as it's taken for granted that the majority of worlds will be of a certain tech level. > > > Starship design and starship combat are going to have to be designed from > > the ground up. > > >From my own experience, starships have hit locations (!), physical armour on > those locations (bulk plates), extra armour (forcefield protection), hit > points (hull integrity etc), a SIZ, some basic skills (based on AI), weapons, > hyperspace capability, speed, agility and so on. They are virtually PCs all > on their own. When we played Traveller, the other players spent ages trying > to improve their ship, fitting alien devices left, right and centre. Hmm. Interesting. I suppose it depends on the group. Some like to get into that micromanagement, while others prefer to role play extensively without stats and dice ever making an appearance. We have to provide for all eventualities I would guess. > > > > > Recent research has shown that even brown dwarfs have planets of a kind > > (http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=18121) > > I've never really bothered with such detailed world-building for Sci fi > games. As far as I am concerned, most alien planets will have been > terraformed at some stage and will be able to support life. Those that can't > might have life in domes, underground cities or whatever. I am not at all > bothered about the physics of whether life can be sustained on a particular > planet. Again - it's all down to choice and whether you have a Space Fantasy or Hard SF background. It's really up to the GM and players to decide that. The Generic SF BRP rules should account for all eventualities or it wouldn't be generic. I love both Star Wars and Known Space, but they are two different levels of SF (though George Lucas did say, at first, that Star Wars was a Space Fantasy and not SF at all). > > > But then you run into problems when detailing worlds in fiction or on screen. > There are loads of excellent Sci Fi settings out there, but many of them are > protected by copyright. Having a sourcebook for each of the worlds would be > great, but probably unrealistic. Are thinking of a propriety based set of rules with a tailored background from the outset? I'm thinking of a generic set of rules that would help GMs design what they want. Not suggesting that we have source book for each SF background - don't think I stated that at all, just xpansion books that would detail certain things that could not be detailed more fully in the generic rules because of space constraints (such as more technology for those techno-heads that want it). :-) > > > Simon > From tom at zunder.org.uk Thu Oct 27 03:45:27 2005 From: tom at zunder.org.uk (Tom Zunder) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] nudging conversations about the rules -- In-Reply-To: <000e01c5da88$0ddcaaa0$3276e904@nshapero> Message-ID: <4360BDD7.26343.214336@localhost> I am so looking forward to DBRP. Whether the Mongoose RQ is good or flawed, it's DBRP that I shall look to to build new and interesting games from, and a Traveller like (or maybe Traveller) using DBRP has to be on my list. I have recently read MegaTraveller again and whilst I love the setting I find the system a little number heavy. I don't really want to go d6 (which I am running in it's Star Wars incarnation right now) and I think BRP is what would suit me. I thought OS was a great game, but too mathematical for me (I am fundamentally scared of equations), but that kind of DBRP game or DBRP conversion of a Traveller like setting would be nice. I also tink that the Stargate idea that was in the original FutureWorld ruleset would be great, it's essentially Traveller without starships. (No it's not quite like the film or TV series, they're all fully functional and support a inter galactic civilisation). I think there is a Peter Hamilton book where they run trains through such gates, I love the idea of carching the 12.53 from Kings Cross to Alpha Centauri prime.. From aescleal at btinternet.com Thu Oct 27 04:47:19 2005 From: aescleal at btinternet.com (Ashley Munday) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <02dd01c5dae1$13398280$be0d9109@2373993GCH7> Message-ID: <20051027114719.78312.qmail@web86106.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Now here's a weird statement: "...I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds." So what's WoD if it's not fantasy? Confused of Dorset, Ash From degordon3000 at btconnect.com Thu Oct 27 04:59:17 2005 From: degordon3000 at btconnect.com (David Gordon) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP In-Reply-To: <20051027114719.78312.qmail@web86106.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: :-) Good one. I would count WoD as fantasy, you are right. But then so is Call of Cthulhu by that token. Even Science Fiction is fantasy of a sort. WoD games kind of fall into the Modern Era games. I was being a bit too vague about Fantasy. Read, worlds set on a mythic Earth or in another fantasy world not set on Earth. -----Original Message----- From: rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com [mailto:rq-rules-bounces@crashbox.com] On Behalf Of Ashley Munday Sent: 27 October 2005 12:47 To: Discussion of RuneQuest rules. Subject: Re: [Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP Now here's a weird statement: "...I know some who can't abide Fantasy and will only play in Modern era, or World of Darkness or SF backgrounds." So what's WoD if it's not fantasy? Confused of Dorset, Ash _______________________________________________ RQ-Rules mailing list RQ-Rules@crashbox.com http://crashbox.com/mailman/listinfo/rq-rules From clive.wickens at btopenworld.com Thu Oct 27 13:12:55 2005 From: clive.wickens at btopenworld.com (Clive Wickens) Date: Sun May 21 09:36:11 2006 Subject: [Rq-rules] FAO Tom Zunder Message-ID: <000801c5db32$d19ad480$4fbb8956@sickboy> Tom, I think the Hamilton book was Pandora's