[Rq-rules] SF BRP - [was: nudging conversations about the rules]

[David Gordon]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Simon Phipp" <soltakss at yahoo.com>
To: "RuneQuest rules discussion." <rq-rules at crashbox.com>
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.