Wolverine

Skill based Edges don't work. I've tried them out myself. Adding a plus ten here, or plus twenty there works for characters with low skills. But once you have a high enough skill the edges become redundant.

Ken Rolston, than man behind Oblivion and Morrowind, use to write a lot of material for RuneQuest back in the 1980s. I think its a fitting homage. I'm currently addicted to Oblivion and think its a cracking game.

It looks like you will be able to order Rome through Lulu. Which is handy. A soon as it's available, I will be ordering my copy.

I'm hoping to have the manuscript ready for submission in October. I plan to have it ready in time for Furnace. So that's my intended eta.

Just thought I'd give you an update on how the God Machine monograph is progressing. I've completed the background section of the book. This weighs in around 30,000 words by itself. I've just got to put the last few pieces in place, then I will move onto the rule side of things. I've already completed the rules for one type of magic, and have worked out how another will work, but need to write it up. I have salvaged two old scenarios I wrote a while back. With a bit of reworking, they will suit the setting quite nicely. The only thing that I cannot tell you about is the artwork. I'm still waiting for the first pieces to be submitted to me. This is the part that may slow publication down. I will keep you informed.

Thanks for showing an interest. This is not set in your typical medieval world with steam engines and mechanical monsters thrown in. If someone did want to play a Knight who rides a mechanical horse, however, the option is open to them. It will become clear once I can show you some of the concept artwork, which will give you a feel to what setting will be like. The artist is, unfortunatly, in the middle of moving home, so she's unable at present to scan in and send me the pictures she's completed so far. As for the Thief games, yes I played the first two. I drew inspiration from a number of sources to create The God Machine setting originally, ten years ago. The Thief series was one of them, Legacy of Kane was another; and a little bit of Moorcockian influence thrown in for good measure. Since then it has evolved, and has transformed itself, through several years of playing, into its own unique world. I'll be happy to answer any further questions if you have any.

THE GOD MACHINE The God Machine is a dark fantasy setting in which men and women live in a heavily industrialised medieval world, where steam-powered machines, gas-lit streets, and sorcery and science live side by side. Pollution, belched out by these wondrous machines, has destroyed the natural world, leaving it dead, barren: a dystopia, a world where men cling onto a bleak existence by the tips of their fingers. Deep in the city of Fanghast, once the jewel in the crown of the mighty Assaldaar empire, religious fanatics of a cult known as the The God Machine build new machines to repair the damaged world. The real terror is, that unwittingly, the very machines they build do more harm, and day by day, the world dies a little more. The God Machine is a new campaign setting for Basic RolePlay, a game of Science and Sorcery set in a world of perilous adventure. The monograph will feature: A new campaign setting for Basic Roleplaying New magic system that can co-exist with those featured in the main rulebook A detailed overview of the city of Fanghast and it's dangerous Undercity Details of the society in general and criminal underworld Information about The God Machine cult and their worship A quick overview of the outside world surrounding the city The infernal machines and wondrous technologies of this medieval Industralised world An introductory scenario

Correct. You require a high POW, 16 or better, to use the Force. That's a pretty good idea! I like it. It does tie in with those people like Han Solo, who believe in luck. What if this "luck" is the Force at work? Could explain why people say in the films that they have a "bad feeling" about something, just before it happens.

Leave a non Jedi nothing to do? Roger, I think you've missed the point. That is the rule for Force Powers, for Force sensitive characters only. Another player of mine played a straight up soldier, no force training, and simply maxed out on combat related skills. In fact, he faired better than the Jedi! If you want to simulate the feel of KOTOR, then you're best of using the Saga Edition rules. What's more, for every 25 percentiles a Force user has in their Use The Force ability, which is based on POW x5, a character may pick a Force Technique. The only way a Force user can increase their Use The Force ability is to gain more POW. I used the rule from Stormbringer 5th edition, allowing players to increase the POW without any limits. A Force Technique would include abilities such as Telekinesis or Force Lightning. These were worked out in a similar fashion to Sorcery spells, where the player makes a POW x 5 roll and spends power points. I agree. That's why you argument your Lightsabre skill with the force to deflect blaster bolts. On a success, a player simply blocks it. On a special, the player may deflects it back towards an opponent, which counts as a standard attack. On a critical that was upgraded to a special. Easy.

The system I use is Hit Points equals CON+SIZ for the heroes and big bad adversaries, such as Darth Vader. For all the rest, such as Stormtroopers and the like, halve as usual. You can either use the damage of weapons from D20, or use the current list in the BRP book. Don't bother. It's best to start from scratch using BRP. Not necessarily. You can either use the existing powers in the BRP book, or use the following: Allow Jedi characters to augment their skills with the Force. So by spending a Force point, your Persuade skill becomes Force Persuade or your Jump skill became Force Leap, and so on; then you made a roll against the skill in question. If you succeed the power took affect. To boost your chance of succeeding, a player could add more Force points, gaining an additional 10 percentiles per Force point. A character's Force points were equal to their POW score, along with the range and duration for Force Powers. Again, use the armour given in the BRP book. No, I disagree. Lightsabres can cut through anything, except Cortosis. It should not be a force power. For more help with your conversion, consult this thread: CLICK

I think "petty magic" or "cantrips" could be included in SQ, costing you zero magic points to cast; spells with very little power or significance, such as making candles ignite, boiling water, or maybe creating a pungent stench.

True. However, I find it's rather open to abuse. Even more so since Mongoose released their Spellbook supplement, in which the vast majority of the Sorcery spells are broken. A good example is the Drowning spell. Even if it is un-manipulated, the target has to make a saving throw every round, for a number of minutes equal to the casters POW, otherwise they drown. And that is for a zero magic cost!

I think your idea is rather good, actually. Go for it. My players find it so confusing trying to understand a lot of the rules in MRQ, including Sorcery. Having one skill is a nice, tidy idea. It's something that I've been thinking about for some time. If you have a skill at 30%, then you can place no 3 points of magnitude into a spell. Makes sense. Another thing I've introduced already is that all sorcery spells require a minimum of one magic point to cast, before you apply manipulations. Otherwise, Sorcery is open to abuse - there are some rather ridiculous spells for Sorcery in some of the Mongoose supplements which blow this wide open.

I agree and disagree about D6 Star Wars. It was nice and simple, but was rather clunky, and I felt you never got the epic cinematic effect. Lightsaber duels ended far too quickly, and combat was bogged down with so much bookkeeping and dice throwing. Saga Edition is an improvement. I must admit it took Wizards three attempts to get D20 Star Wars right. This time, rather than build Star Wars around D20, Wizards have built D20 around Star Wars. You actually feel like you're playing in the Star Wars universe.

Actually, I didn't do much converting. I just borrowed things such as the equipment and vehicles. I did convert a handful of alien races across, simply applying their attribute modifiers as they're found in the D20 book, with the exception of Wisdom which became POW, and Charisma which became APP. If the race got a bonus for a certain skill, I would multiply that bonus by 10 and apply that bonus to the skill before any skill points were added. I have an example: Ewok: STR -2; SIZ 2D3+3; DEX +2. +20 percentiles to both Survival and Track skills. In fact I will upload the file I created to the downloads section. It is fully compatible with Jason's previous entries.

Inquisitor, even though it's not about gang warfare, would be rather useful, as well as Dark Heresy if you own a copy. The rules to Confrontation were published over several issues of White Dwarf back in the early 90s. I'm sure that there are PDFs available on the internet somewhere. My copy is the original, cut out from the magazine.

I ran BRP Star Wars a couple of years back, and I used rules similar to Jason's. The only difference is, I allowed Jedi characters to augment their skills with the Force. So by spending a Force point, you're Persuade skill became Force Persuade or your Jump skill became Force Leap, and so on; then you made a roll against the skill in question. If you succeed the power took affect. To boost your chance of succeeding, a player could add more Force points, gaining an additional 10 percentiles per Force point. A character's Force points were equal to their POW score, along with the range and duration for Force Powers. To add a more heroic edge to the game, player characters, and powerful NPCs such as Darth Vader and the like, had increased hit points, equal to their CON+SIZ. Otherwise life expectancy was rather low. For Stormtroopers and other "splat" NPCs I simply used the standard BRP hit point system. For most other things, such as attribute modifications and equipment, I turned to D20 Star Wars, and borrowed what I could.

I quite agree with you, Harshax. As I feel PK has probably got his head screwed on correctly, and his ideas do probably work for him, I personally wouldn't bother converting rules from RIFTS to BRP, when all you need to do is just take the RIFTS world and apply the BRP mechanics to it. I don't see the point in trying to work in the various HTH combat styles into BRP, when there is already a brawling and a martial arts skill in place. What's more, I would prefer to go with the initiative and combat system in BRP, as the one in RIFTS is rather broken. You should try and build the system around the world, and not the world round the system.

Have you ever come across Games Workshop's Confrontation? If you haven't, it may prove useful to you, as it's basically Necromunda but done on a D100 percentage dice.

I hope I don't sound too aggressive here, as I'm trying to lend a helping hand, but it feels to me you're making a mountain out of a mole hill with your conversion. You should be keeping the basic structure of the BRP system, whilst adding only a few things here and there. But you're trying to hammer in RIFTS rules into BRP, and a lot of them just don't fit. This is how I would do it: * Keep the BRP skills as they are, since they cover pretty much the skills you find in RIFTS. There quite a few skills in RIFTS that are repeated. Don't worry about converting physical skills that boost your attributes. I always felt they never really fitted in to Palladium's system - which is, after all, basically several RPG mechanics hammered loosely together. * Use Occupations from the BRP book, since many found in RIFTS are already covered. You may need to add a few that are not covered, of course. * Keep Mega Damage, since the vast majority of weapons do Mega Damage (MD), I don't think it makes much difference to be honest. Most people will be wearing MD armour, and spells/psychic powers that provide protection from attack will always grant Mega Damage Capacity (MDC). * Hit points equal to CON+SIZ would make sense, since RIFTS characters have both Structure Defence Capacity (SDC) and hit points. SDC works on the equivalent level to hit points, so 1 point of SDC equals 1 HP. * For magic and psionics, you can use the rules from the BRP book, except adjust the effects; so a fireball spell, for example, that does D6 damage per point of magnitude would do D6 Mega Damage per point of magnitude instead. * Import guns, armour, and equipment from the RIFTS. Or you could simply say that the damage and armour values as listed in the BRP book are in Mega Damage. So a laser doing 2D8 will actually inflict 2D8 Mega Damage instead.

Actually, some of us, not so long ago, were talking about a BRP RIFTS conversion over on the Tavern. CLICK

Never got chance to play in the A/State BRP game, which is a shame. My BRP Sharpe games were well received again, which was great! Thanks to those of of you from this forum who took part. I may have some news concerning this in the coming weeks. When I do, I shall make an announcement here.

Any chance of getting that cover image as a wallpaper?

I was watching Rome last night, managing to burn through three episodes in one sitting. As I watched I was thinking, I'm really looking forward to Pete's Rome book. And I am. Any news on a possible release date?

The version I worked on, Force Powers don't exist as such. The Force augments existing skills. So, you simply turn your Persuade skill into Force Persuade, or "Mind Trick", by spending Power points. The reason behind this is because Jedi in most mechanics end up spending all their skill points/ranks/whatever on Force powers, and have very left for other skills.