Charles Green

In many ways, every member of a group competes against each other. If not directly, then for screen time and effectiveness during the game. If a mixed party were some are strong and some are weak, what incentive is there for playing the "Weak" character? Is that something you'd like to play? I prefer my characters to all be equally competent in their respective fields, so that everyone feels like they can contribute equally to the game. Having a mixed party level is asking for trouble. Encounters that challenge the strong members can be lethal for the weak ones, and those that are a challenge for the weak leave the strong have nothing to do.

So that everyone in the party has a similar spread of characteristics, which makes for a more equal playing field.

That's what I need to know. Thanks.

I'm currently looking at the Vehicular Chase rules from the Zero ed. of the book for Fractured Hopes, and I'm seeing something that I'm not sure I fully understand. What's the distinction between Handling and Maneuvering as it applies to vehicles? Based on the descriptions, they seem to cover the same thing; a modifier to the pilot's skill. Is the distinction that Handling applies to all Piloting skill tests, while Maneuvering only applies to attempts at making one of the Maneuvers listed in the book (i.e. Bootlegger Turns and such)? Or am I looking at it wrong?

I'm hip deep in composition on Fractured Hopes, my Space Fantasy book. Right now, I'm working on the vehicle design and combat system. Since a very thorough look at this would take more room than I have in the entire book, I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. In this game, players are the crew of a Voidship, a vehicle fitting with a sorcery-powered engine that allows them to travel between tiny worlds that were all once part of the Earth. They can explore the ruins of Earth, evade space pirates, or try to figure out how to put Earth back together again.

I don't post to this forum often, but I do check it frequently, and am always happy to talk about my work for Elric.

Unknown Armies Over the Edge Angel/Buffy/Cinematic Unisystem Various Indie Games Wushu Exalted Vampire D&D (Mostly, I like having a large supply of players who know the system. I do hate running it, though, since it's such a huge pain in the rear. I'm looking forward to 4th ed because it looks like they're addressing the things I didn't like and adding cool stuff.) I get a big kick out of the various WoD games. I like the new games for mechanics and the old ones for atmosphere. I'd like to put Wraith on my play list, but I can't get anyone to come near it.

I'd have to go with stat-based too. It's one of the things I like about MRQ, as it makes stats mean something.

To my mind, something like finesse could be covered by having a higher skill, thus increasing the chance for a critical hit, or, as you've noted, an Impale result. However, this does note something interesting about the BRP rules. Combat is fairly simple, but it doesn't represent different types of combat. Swashbuckling musketeer types uses the same rules as a axe-wielding Barbarian. This might prove to be fruitful ground for further supplements.

Ships vary in design based upon the desired of the people who make them. The propulsion system is based on a special techno-magical device called a Void Engine, which allows the ship to both travel through the space between fragments and to keep them alive in the process. This is similar to the process by which sorcerers and magicians make food and water for people in fragments. In fact, ships will need to have a sorcerer as a crew member to keep it in working order. And no, PCs are not the only groups with access to ships. The robots do still have them, as well as some independent salvage operations (read: pirates and smugglers). In addition to the other stuff found floating around, there are life forms that have adapted to life in the Void, some of which find ships and human crew members quite tasty. There are no overt gothic or steampunk elements hardwired into the setting, although there's no reason why they couldn't be added as a purely visual style. Personally, I imagine them looking something like the robots from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but that's purely my take. They also betray a certain amount of adaptability, so things like creepy insectoid robots are not out of place, and neither are the weird squid-like hunters from The Matrix

Well, humanity does still exist. The short answer is that this is a space fantasy setting, not a science fiction setting. Particulars about how people survive really shouldn't be an issue unless it comes up in play. So, they survive through the magic of handwavium. For the long answer, what I'm working on right now is the fact that each fragment is not just a chunk of rock-its a piece of the previous world, and contains a fragment of the god of the original world. In most fragments, this deity functions in it original capacity, providing the human inhabitants what they need to survive (air, water, food and shelter). This is also the place for magic users and sorcerers in the setting; they intercede with this spirit on behalf of the people. In some fragments, the spirit left behind has become bitter and twisted, leaving large sections of the world uninhabitable, which come out as rumors of "haunted" fragments. Healing these fragments of their torment will allow adventurers to recapture land and set up bases and petty kingdoms, possibly even forging them into a mighty empire to push back the killer robot regime.

I'm aiming for 60,000 words, maybe a bit more if I need the room. The idea for the book was for it to be more or less self-contained, since it's mostly fluff and little rules (because the rules are on the basic book.) However, I have some ideas for additional books, and whether or not I do them is largely dependent upon how well the main book does. I'd like to do a campaign in the setting, or perhaps a series of non-linked adventures. As far as aliens go, the only really "alien" beings are extinct. However, there are remnants of their science in the form of mutants, bio-weapons (like the xenomorph) and something I'm calling RELFs (Rapidly Evolving Life-Forms), which are natural creatures genetically modified to adapt to environments other than their own (so, you might find sky-sharks, space whales, or water-chickens.)

The design goal for Fractured Hopes was to develop an exciting setting in which nearly every option available in the Basic book was not only available, but made logical sense. It should support a wide variety of player concepts. Basically, anything you can construct with the new rules has a place in the world. The setting itself is largely a pulp space opera, on a small scale. During a war between a machine race and bio-tech aliens, the world on which humanity lived was shattered, broken into thousands of large chunks of rock which float through empty space. Players will have access to a ship designed to travel between fragments, looking for loot, helping refugees or battling killer robots. I'm including a vehicle design and combat system to account for these ships. It will be on the light side of rule crunch, aiming more towards cool scenes and stunts over realism and calculations. I'm writing the text, and Jeff Preston and Paul Baker (both of whom contributed art for Gods of Law) will be handling interior art and possibly the cover. This is not a license; it will be published by Chaosium.

Fractured Hopes is a space fantasy book for BRP. It's in the early stages of composition, and should be ready some time in 2008.

There will be vehicle design and combat rules in Fractured Hopes.

I'm thinking an early 2008 release is much more likely than the Christmas time release we're all hoping for.

It's been one of my long-term projects to do a Stormbringer Skirmish game using BRP as a base. It really wouldn't be that difficult, and I've been tinkering with some ideas on how to streamline BRP for tabletop use. Since Stormbringer has moved to Monoose, this idea is out. However, a standard fantasy game wouldn't be any more difficult to knock together.

This is it, right here. If Chaosium had played their cards right, it was possible at one point to have had RuneQuest be the RPG instead of D&D.

Hey all, I'm a freelance writer and game designer. My very first roleplaying experiences were with 4th ed. Stormbringer, and I find myself being consistantly drawn back to the game and the setting after periodic deviations with other games. I've been playing and writing Stormbringer material since 1993. My first published works were the (now OOP) monographs Gods of Chaos and Gods of Law, and I've completed by books for Mongoose set in Elric's world. I'm currently planning a BRP setting book to be done as a companion to the basic rulebook. It's a crazy, over-the-top space fantasy that makes use of every power system and rules sub-set in the BRP rulebook. It was initially planned for a similtaneous release with the rulebook, but that isn't going to work out. I'm also currently trying to expand my area of expertise so that I can work with other companies, which means learning systems that I'd normally consider too crunchy for personal use. Personally, I'm quite pleases that there is finally a BRP forum, and I can't wait to see what neat ideas come out of this place. Charles Green