BRP Starships pdf - comments welcome

[Ethereal]

If proofreading would be ok for you, that would be perfect. Take your time - but I also think you will find it a quite fast read. You can send me a chapter at a time if it feels more manageable that way. Is pdf a working solution for you to annotate?

 

All right, I will see how fast it goes. Just in case, you might want to see if someone else would be willing to proofread as well. Where it might take me 4 months, 2 people might only take 2 months, and 4 people 1 month. Also while I edit a newsletter, it does not mean that my skills could be considered at a professional level, but still are good enough that no one has complained about the publication of the newsletter.

 

While I could do it in PDF it would be a lot easier for me to do in .doc or .odt. In PDF, my resources would only allow me to copy and paste and while I could return it to you in PDF, I would not be able to return it to you in PDF with out a lot of extra work. I would also recommend that you establish a dropbox account or similar account to be able to transfer files to specific individuals helping you with this. Either a subfile for those helping you or individual subfiles for each individual helping. It will also give you control of who has access to the files.

 

Charts and pictures would not be needed for proofreading. The charts are pretty self explanatory.

 

Do you want to continue this conversation on forum or in individual emails?

[Ethereal]

I usually get books like this printed at Kinkos. That can do a color cover, B&W interior, with clear plastic cover (that prtects from spills), and a sprial binding that allows you to lie the book down flat. Not too expensive either. It's about 10-15 cents per page, plus $1 for a color cover, and another $4 or so for the binding. 

I took the pdf down to FedEx to see how much it would cost to have it printed in hard copy and the cost from them was $65.00. (quote)

 

Kinkos is owned by FedEx, at least here in Portland Or. When I talked to them about it, the primary reason they gave me for the high cost had to do with the 12" x 12" format (with comb binding and colour plates) that Clarence laid out for the manuscript. They don't have 12" x 12" paper so they would have to print on larger paper, cut it to size after print, on all four sides and that pretty much doubled the price. Is that true, I don't know, I am not in the printing end of things so I pretty much have to depend on what people tell me. The POD book format/layout that Clarence has decided he wants would be 8 1/2" x 8 1/2", would cost around $28 and with regular book binding. I believe that the FedEx cost ($28-35) on 8 1/2 by 11" (already formatted/layout) was similar with the comb binding. So would end up being a matter of preference. Would have been nice though to already have it in hand.

[clarence]

Converting to .doc should be easy and using Dropbox seems like a good idea. I will ask around to see if there is someone else willing to proofread a chapter or two.

 

My email is clarence.redd (a) gmail.com

 

Edit: I have set up a Dropbox account for the proofreading. Send me an email and I will share the folder.

[Atgxtg]

Yeah, standardize size does help quite a bit with the costs. IMO it would probably be a good idea if Clarence reformatted it to 8.5 x 11 or A4 sizes. 

[clarence]

Just to be clear: The pdf is 120x120 millimeters. That's very close to 8.5x8.5 inches. Printing on A4 and 8.5x11" should be quite similar, with only a few millimeters difference.

 

What I do when printing at home, is that I print to A4, and as the printer puts everything on the top of the page, I just leave it as it is. It might not be very pretty, but at least I have a lot of space at the bottom of the page to take notes on. Alternatively I will take the finished A4s to a print shop or paper shop and have them cut all pages at once. Where I live it costs about a dollar. I haven't tried binding though, but I think they can use A4 binding and just cut away the surplus length if you decide to go with the pages cut to square format.

[clarence]

Just a quick update: Proofreading is going very well (many thanks to Atgxtg and Tired Librarian!) and I have contacted Charlie Krank a few days before Christmas about using "BRP" in the book.

 

Edit: Just got a positive response from artist David Sladek to make a few more pieces of interior art!

[g33k]

I've been (loosely) following this project for a while.  Haven't seen it since the collaboration bits began coming online.  I must say, it's looking REALLY nice!  Great job everyone, with (of course) special kudos to Clarence!

 

Only skimmed it so far, really.  I've got a... quibble?  Or maybe a question? ... RE Exposure to Vacuum rules on p. 39.  1d6+2 "feels" like low-ish damage to me, but I haven't researched the question so my "feel" may be off-base.  Did anyone actually gather data for damage/actions/etc in this section?  Honestly, I don't even know if there's any "real" data available here...

 

Personally, I'd probably add some detail at this level:

• "explosive" decompression (near-normal to near-vacuum in a matter of a second or so) -- Take 3d4 damage instantly, roll to avoid passing out, and progress to the next category
• "abrupt" decompression (takes a combat-round, maybe even a few rounds) -- per the rules as-written (emergency-exhale or 1d6+2 damage; hemorrhagic damage 1/2/4/8/etc per round) after that)
• "fast" decompression (takes up to a minute) -- A slowed-down version of the rules as-written.

But there's one thing in the next bit of the rules that I think is just flat-out wrong:

 

 

Additionally, a character will begin to hemorrhage, loosing 1 hit point the first round, 2 the second round, 4 the third round, 8 the fourth and so on.

 

Eardrums may also burst (successful Stamina roll to avoid) and after CONx2 rounds sight is affected, making all skill rolls -50% involving sight.

 

If you are automatically-no-roll-to-avoid taking exponentially-doubling hitpoints of damage from hemorraging (per paragraph-1) how the !&*%$#? will you EVER get to the "CONx2" rounds (per paragraph-2) when your sight begins to dim???!?

 

Just getting to CON rounds will be over 1000 hp's of damage...  CONx2 rounds is enough damage to kill Cthulhu (except I think he's immune to vacuum).

 

Otherwise (that I've seen so far):  a wonderful resource!  I'm hoping to move my group entirely away from d20ism, and this seems likely to help my cause a lot!

 

 

- Steve, the g33k

[Atgxtg]

To put in my two cents I have looked at this in the past for a different RPG. 

 

Forst off, while explosive decompression can be dangerous 3d4 is way to much damage. That would make it pretty much an autokill. 1D6+2 seems about right to me. Check out what wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_decompression

 

 

Now as far as exposure goes, a person should probably loose consciousness in a round or so, but could survive for up to about 7-8 rounds.

 

For real world info on this check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_exposure

 

I can dig up an article from NASA which says about the same thing if somebody wants it. 

 

 

 

Rather than a fixed amount of damage, I'd say something like:

 

-CONx1% each round to remain conscious (Maybe CONx1% or POWx1% at the player's choice).

-I'd use the same rules and damage as for drowning/asphyxiation with the decreasing CON multiple to resist the damage.  I;d ignore the "holding one's breath" part a,d just start with CONx10%.  A normal character should last about 7-8 rounds with those rules. A lucky one a bit longer.  

[clarence]

Thank you g33k for your kind words! I'm happy you like it.

 

Re exposure to vacuum, you are absolutely right about sight being affected. A character will be quite dead before losing sight. The rule is taken from BGB, and now that I'm looking into it a bit more, I think there might be a better way to handle it.

 

"A rough estimate is that a human will have about 90 seconds to be recompressed, after which death may be unavoidable.^[2][3] Unconsciousness is likely to occur within 14 seconds, primarily due to the much lower pressure outside the body causing rapid de-oxygenation of the blood (hypoxia)". Quote from Wikipedia links above.

 

How about this then:

 

Damage due to decompression speed. Explosive: 1d6+2, Abrupt: Emergency exhale or 1d6+2

Being a bit generous, characters should be able to stay conscious for about two rounds, 24 seconds. The first round you need a successful CONx5 to stay conscious, and the second round a CONx4 roll. For true heroic games, continue with CONx3, CONx2 the following rounds. Otherwise unconsciousness is automatic the third round.

Surviving for 8 rounds (96 seconds) means loosing 1-2.5 hit points per round. Loose 1d2 HP every round, unless a CONx1 roll is made.

 

I think the motive should be to keep most characters conscious for at least one round, to give them a chance to save themselves. With high CON and a bit of luck, a heroic deed can be squeezed in too. (HP loss at the rate of 1,2,4,8,16 is actually a bit steep if even the most hardy characters are to survive for 90 seconds.)

 

Does this make sense?

[Atgxtg]

If you used 1d2 damage,you'd get exactly 8 rounds for an average human. 

 

Since the 90 seconds is a rough estimate, you could also go with a simple CONx1% roll each round to avoid the damage. Once a character fails the roll he take the damage automatically (like with drowning). That could vary the time a bit, giving heroic characters an extra couple of rounds to get rescued. 

[clarence]

If you used 1d2 damage,you'd get exactly 8 rounds for an average human. 

 

Since the 90 seconds is a rough estimate, you could also go with a simple CONx1% roll each round to avoid the damage. Once a character fails the roll he take the damage automatically (like with drowning). That could vary the time a bit, giving heroic characters an extra couple of rounds to get rescued.

 

 

Yes, that's good. I will edit my post above to reflect this.

[Atgxtg]

Yes, that's good. I will edit my post above to reflect this.

 

Uh, thanks. You don't have to it's just some brainstorming. 

[clarence]

Yeah, I know : ) But I liked it.

[clarence]

With proofreading almost done, we're just waiting for an answer from Chaosium about trademark issues. With my emails not being answered, I'm not sure how to make this happen with any speed. If anyone got a "hot-line" to Chaosium, it might be a good time to use it now : )

 

These are the three versions of the book being planned:

 

BRPcentral, PDF: 78 pages, black & white. (No World Building or Aliens). $0

 

DriveThruRPG, PDF: 116 pages, color. $3

 

Lulu, print-on-demand: 116 pages, black & white. $7 + shipping

 

Does this sound ok? Does it seem greedy to remove almost 40 pages from the free version? Or should the free version be even slimmer (removing Constructs and Advanced Starship Combat)?

 

My thinking behind this is not to maximize profit, but simply to differentiate between the versions. It would be very illogical to have the same pdf both free and as a paid download. DriveThruRPG, if I understand correctly, will not allow someone to provide only free downloads, and still I think it's a good place to make the pdf available. Let me know what you think.

 

I also want to repeat what I have written before, that while the project will not be strictly non-profit any longer, the profit will be fully reinvested into the project. The first step will be to pay the two artists involved, and the next step to make a full-color print version.

[Atgxtg]

If it were up to me, I'd just put the staship stuff in the starship pdf and make aliens, world building and constructs each their own separate pdf. Maybe flesh out the other sections a little more. Either that or add in a game setting and expand it into a to a full RPG.

[clarence]

I agree that more material equals more fun. At the moment there is no more material unfortunately. I hope to have some more in the coming months though, and it can either be included in BRP Starships 3.0 or in a separate Companion (the classic Chaosium way).

 

Splitting up the material doesn't feel right to me. Having as much as possible relating to space in the same document just seems more practical.

[Atgxtg]

Maybe you should give it a more expansive title then? Right now, I think only about half the book is about Starships, so it a bit misleading to call it that. If you were paying money to buy a RPG supplement about starships, and half the book was about something else, how would you feel? 

 

I'm not saying the other stuff isn't good, just that if you are going to sell this you need to make sure that you point out the contents.  

[clarence]

Aha, that might be a good idea. Ten years ago I thought someone ought to write BRP Space. I really had no plan when I started this, but it might be that BRP Space is a better name for it now.

 

Though I also think the title BRP Starships together with a blurb describing the book as a general sci-fi add-on is probably clear enough to avoid buyers feeling disappointed. Anyone else got an opinion on this?

[Jae]

Although BRP Space is quite catchy as a name, it is reminiscent of GURPS Space. This could be a good or not, depending upon the current popularity level of crunchy splat books as opposed to setting books with rules.

 

If it were me, I would either try and include all relevant information a GM would need to run a future BRP game (the equivalent of D20 modern) and keep it setting neutral or I would incorporate an interesting setting and move away from the Space title. It would all depend upon which is more popular in the industry right now.

[nezeray]

Personally, I'd like a name that is more than just Starships.  I was looking for a Space adaptation of BRP in general and thought, "Oh maybe they'll have some starship based info here, but I still need MODERN rules too."  Lo and behold, they're in here too.  BRP Space would be a fine name for me.  I have Star Hero, GURPs Space and a few others.  I don't judge one book by another's name. :-)

 

As for breaking the different sections out or making it one "book".  I'd go for one book.  If you have more ideas later, then put them out as suppliments. 

 

James / Nezeray

[clarence]

@nezeray: A good description of my thinking : )

 

Regarding settings, I have a bunch of notes for two quite different sci-fi settings (or rather two bunches of notes), but they are at the moment very far from the depth I would like them to have. And getting there will take considerable time.

 

Regarding rules additions I have a bit more coming: Vehicle design, psionics and modular augmentations are all at the drawing table. Nothing is finished but the basics are sorted out. These rules, I'm thinking, could go either into the next version after this, or in a separate supplement. Including them in BRP Space 2.0 (or what it will be called) would make the book a bit more complete and justify the name even more.

[clarence]

This is what the cover would look like if renamed to BRP Space:

 

[Atgxtg]

Maybe it's worth waiting until the other stuff is finished? If you did up a setting or two you could really make it a SPACE supplement. I know I got some stuff somehwere for working out things like a star's biosphere. 

[Jae]

SPI's Universe had some interesting and not often seen mechanics such as rules for planet creation airc. Perhaps some of those rules need an update/reskin =) Might even be able to hook in some of the small but loyal Universe players into the BRP family.

 

As for sci-fi settings.

 

Space opera can be fun but imo these days it needs an interesting hook to elevate it beyond the generic golden age and galactic empire settings we have seen so many times. I'd love to see transhumanism and near future done in BRP. The ability to play any creature, machine or AI as well as the harshness and horror of the setting makes it a perfect fit for the d100 rules. Of interest, rules to help convert the distant BRP cousin of Eclipse Phase would be gravy.

[Atgxtg]

Are there such things as loyal UNIVERSE players? I bought the game, played it, and while I thought it had a couple of interesting wrinkles (modular ship design springs to mind), I didn't think it had enough to gather a loyal fanbase. It pretty much was an attempt to recreate Traveller but written in SPI's "wargame" style.  

 

Quite a few RPGs and real world info exists that can help with things like world and star system building. It's mostly a case of doing the work. Hmm, I think I could work up a really easy method of placing planets and determining a star's habitable zone using the SIZ table.