clarence

Good find! Thanks. 

There are no rules covering tugs, but I think it's a great idea. And the rules only need a minimum of tweaking to make it work.

For flanges I would probably use 2-4 Modules (depending on the size of the ship/cargo) to ensure a strong enough connection.

Calculating the size of the engines for a tug is quite easy. Just add enough Engine Modules to match the cargo you want it to handle, in essence calculating SPEED as if the ship is much bigger. HANDLING will not be as important to raise I think, as a fully loaded tug won't need to perform any piruettes. 

It looks perfect! I can't spot any problems. The flat nose of the ship (the lower cargo hold) looks a bit... flat, but unless the ship is streamlined it will not really matter. 

Good to see deck plans too. Did you make the deck plans from the stats or the other way around?

The problem with science fiction is you can't release scenarios without setting information. There is no widely accepted common ground to rely on. Star Wars could have been, but business interests are locking it in.

Regarding the plans for The Weaver setting, I'm not sure yet. I have potential scenarios, setting details and rules, but very little in the way of concrete plans. My next title will be the setting/game Odd Soot, but after that I will have to see.

That being said, I'm thinking about having both a colour and a B&W version of REFLUX. That way you can decide what quality level you want. It's a bit more work, but I think it can be worth it. 

Ok, here are a few more details : ) 

The book will be around 120 pages (10+ in color), roughly half of them covering the setting and some new rules, the rest being a scenario. 

A snippet from the introductory chapter:

"[The book] introduces the characters to The Weaver setting, telling an epic story about a dying empire called The Constellate. Small kingdoms and federations have risen in its wake, fighting for power, while the baroque empire struggles to keep its rotten core from collapsing. In this chaotic age, hope seems to emanate from the long forgotten teachings of The Weavers – a species almost wiped out by The Constellate’s forces, centuries ago."

The scenario includes some investigations, several Extended Conflicts (both social and other types), and a bit of ground & space combat. Suggestions on how to dial up or down the difficulty of the scenario are presented, plus a list of missions to continue with after the adventure is finished. 

Two intelligent alien species and worlds are detailed, a few new careers, specifics about FTL and comms are included as well as some new equipment. There is a subsector map, two world maps, and a handful of more detailed maps (among them a cantina, a small town, and starship plans). 

Just a quick progress report on REFLUX, the upcoming scenario for M-SPACE: I got the text back from the editor a couple of days ago, and all maps and illustrations are done. Unfortunately my computer crashed the other day (luckily, no work was lost), but as soon as it's fixed I will get the layout done rather quickly.

If all goes well, it will be a late March release, or early April. 

In pop culture, aliens are nothing but humans in light disguise. Rubber foreheads, pointy ears, and funny-colored skins are staples of countless movies and tv-series. 

Now you can quickly roll up species like that for M-SPACE. In a new 2-page PDF, Jargogle Bamboozle presents a few tables to get the right combination of quirkyness and humanity. 

Download here:

www.frostbytebooks.com

My experience is that BRP works very well with newbies. The simple concept of the percentage roll-under mechanic of most actions is quickly grasped by most. 

I rarely use hit locations though, but as g33k points out, it's easy enough once you get the hang of it. And you can always start out simple and add more complexity as you go. 

My only other recommendation is to plan for a separate mini-session to roll up player characters, perhaps with a quick "training scenario" at the end. This way, it will be easier for new players to get to know the rules.  

No problem. I'm surprised I found it myself.

Your concept for how gravity affects different characters sounds fine. This is what the proposed rule on page 24 says in M-SPACE:

"Low gravity characters: STR & CON -2 each, DEX & POW +2 each. Make a Hard Endurance roll every day spent in normal or higher gravity. If failed, apply a Hard penalty to all physical skills." They will also be very likely to have a high Zero G skill.

It also depends on how you want to use the Zero G skill: do you want to make a separate roll for difficult maneuvers or would you rather use it as a skill cap, similar to Riding? If used as a cap for other skills, the Zero G skill in itself will be a very limiting factor in many situations. That way, the Zero-G Born will be at an advantage just by having a high skill value.

Regarding a "military culture" - have you seen the system for backgrounds used in Luther Arkwright? It's a very flexible system and you can probably tweak the Militaristic Social Type to fit your needs in this case.

Excellent article! Thanks. The discussion below it is also very enlightening. 

Yes, @rust is right. I reduced the system as much as possible without breaking the core concepts. Pete & Lawrence helped refining it, and it works very well in low-violence settings (or if you want to start out simple and add more complexity as the players get to know the system). 

Good news indeed!

The unspoken idea of M-SPACE RAW is that ammo/energy is too complicated to keep track of. And blasters in space opera never seem to run out anyway, unless for storytelling reasons : )

But the easiest way I have tried so far is to have an abstract resource percentage called Ammo that is lowered after every fight. Starting at 100%, it is lowered by x % after a fight (x can be everything from 10 to 50, depending on the setting/campaign).

Roll below Ammo at the end of a fight (after lowering the value first) to have some left. A failed roll means no ammo and the character must get a new clip before getting into another battle. 

The GM can decide how much to raise Ammo depending on how much is found/bought: borrowing from a team member +10% (lowering the team member's Ammo value by -10%) or going back to the starship (raises Ammo to 100%) for example. 

Example: At the end of a fight, A rolls above her Ammo 40% and she's out of ammo. Her companion B has 80% and rolls a success. Borrowing from B, A now has Ammo 50%, while B's value is lowered to 70%. Both will automatically have enough ammo for the next battle, but lowers them and rolls as normal at the end of it.  

(Optionally, if a player clearly states that she's trying to not waste "bullets" (and acts like it, with a more tactical or sniping approach), the GM can rule the percentage loss after the fight to be lower than normal).

What I like about this system, is that it can easily be changed to a more general Energy value. All sorts of equipment can depend on this percentage, not just weapons: powertools, welding equipment, high-energy comms or special sensors. 

It looks awesome : ) Now I really must get Mythic Britain. 

Double post

3 hours ago, Ethereal said:

Sounds like the beginning of an interesting adventure. You could also throw in the mix, Humans, An Omnivore. Competitors or Allies? Come to find out what is here in one of their first journeys to explore. Here to find life, subjugate, colonize or to loot the treasures of Trappist 1? Will they interfere or just observe?

Perhaps a sleeper ship full of humans enters the Trappist system? The ship's AI only wake a few explorers at a time (ie. the characters), replacing dead ones as needed. Mission objective is to find a habitable planet, but instead they have ended up in a hornet nest.

Or it might be more fun to avoid humans altogether, and let the players pick any side they want - even playing depressed gods if they want to. 

Yes, scientifically it is problematic to have intelligence evolving at the same time on all seven planets. It's highly unlikely to happen naturally. So, how can the odds for it be improved? Perhaps if the planets were "seeded" at the same time, either by a comet breaking up or a high-tech alien species passing by? The aliens might pass through once in a while, curating the evolutionary process (similar to Clarke's 2001). This way, all planets can reach the age of telescopes and radios at roughly the same time. 

With a more natural seeding from a comet, evolution will be more haphazard. With a bit of luck, intelligent life will emerge on three, but tech levels will vary a lot. One species can be TL zero, another in the age of early space exploration, and the third a "trans-alien" (excellent word, g33k!). 

Regarding the aggressiveness of aliens, I think we often make the rather dystopic mistake of seeing humans as "role models." But not all intelligent beings will carry the same semi-destructive combination of hatred and love as we do. I think Larry Niven's Puppeteers are good examples of how to develop peaceful aliens that still controls their surroundings.

Here's a SETI scientists take on the system:

https://www.inverse.com/article/28268-seth-shostak-trappist1-intelligent-life

Yes, life has a way of doing that : )

@soltakss Would you be willing to share the file?

My thought exactly : ) But it seems sunlight is a bit different:

"The red dwarf -- which would loom 10 times larger than the Sun in our sky -- would be a "deep crimson" shading into a salmon-like colour.

"The view would be beautiful -- you would have about 200 times less light that from the Sun on Earth at midday"

"It would be like the end of a sunset."

Now, what if intelligent beings evolved on all of them? Being so close to each other, inter-planet communication would be possible as soon as they invented radio. How would that affect society?

It's almost too good to be true from a sci-fi point of view: seven planets orbiting a star, all of them cobbled together in the habitable zone. It's such a perfect fit for so many campaigns and settings, you almost think it was created just to make storytellers happy. 

So, creating a setting, what would you make out of this array of habitable planets?

Not that I know of. I'm not a spreadsheet person, but I've been tinkering with a PDF form to add some calculating intelligence to character sheets. My Java Script knowledge is non-existant though, so I dropped that.

Colin Brett did some programming on a (generic BRP?) PC generator, but I'm not sure how it went. 

That sounds very good to me! You would need a (free) Mythras Gateway license and a license for M-SPACE too. Both of them are easy to set up. I'm sending you a PM.