[Rq-rules] Re: SF BRP

[Simon Phipp]

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