clarence

Good points Paolo. If I understand you correctly, you view partial success/failure and extended conflicts as two sides of the same thing, but that extended conflicts are more satisfactory for all involved?

In my games I usually stick to the idea that single rolls can be broken out to extended conflicts. If a player is not happy with a result (failing to pick a lock) she can always declare that she wants to turn it into a multi-roll conflict (quite like conflicts in Revolution). Here, a partial failure/success adds an interesting in-between. The player must decide if the partial success is good enough or if it's worth going into a (often riskier) longer conflict. 

This means the dice must provide me with more information. Perhaps something like this: All rolls within the same tens as the skill (70-79 if the skill is 74% for example) is in the Schrödinger Zone; the outcome is uncertain until you take a closer look. The player can accept partial success/failure or enter an extended conflict. 

Ideally, the GM and player can jointly come up with a partial that is working - hopefully not bringing GM fiat into the game, but instead a creative consensus.

Failing forward is a good term! I will keep that in mind. I might include something along those lines in the upcoming BRP Space. 

I agree. Many situations are not binary and benefit from grey zones. (Except Lock Picking maybe - how do you fail but gain an advantage in a binary situation like that?). 

How widespread is it in RPGs? I don't think I have seen it in any BRP derivatives. 

Good to hear someone else is experimenting with partial success/failure. What do you think it adds to the game?

My own take is that all doubles (22, 33, etc) indicate partial success (if below the skill) or partial failure (if above the skill). For some skill rolls, especially in social conflicts and combat, it will often add interesting twists making the storytelling take unexpected turns on occasion. 

I use crits and specials as per BGB. The calculations suggested by KPhan2121 are easy to use and remenber. 

To add another layer of complexity, I wonder if anyone use systems for partial success/partial failure? Examples: "You succeed, but she will never do business with you again" or "You fail, but you're positioned very favorably for the next round". Or do you feel it's not necessary?

I interviewed MOB a couple of months ago and it seemed like BRP Essentials will be made public at GenCon too. But I wonder if we will see any early design notes before that? I hope so : )

On 22 februari 2016 at 6:38 PM, kafka said:

Essentially, slow boats (STL) sent out from Earth to colonize nearby systems.  A discovery of an artifact beyond Pluto's orbit allows for FTL but not without a cost.  And, what mankind finds out beyond 50 ly radius is lots of dead worlds.  Beyond that strange aliens.  And, beyond that the unknown.  A very nice hard compact SF universe.  With lots of ruins where the Old Ones once resided.  Most of the 1920s scenarios could be retooled for this purpose but with added peril like Vacc Suit leaks and meteor storms along with countless other SF tropes.

Hmm, this sounds quite close to the worldbook Odd Soot that I'm working on at the moment. It doesn't have a connection to the Mythos though - set in the 1930s, the characters are fighting against a terrible disease driving people insane instead. Known space is a 20 lightyear radius centered on Earth, using a real star map as a starting point. And there are some strange aliens too : )

There's a preview here: 

I think you should take a few more weeks to add the extras. Seeing the rules in full will be nice : )

Oh, and good job Paolo! I really appreciate the work you are putting into this. If you are a few weeks late is of no importance. Take your time. A Revolution is always right on time, waiting for the perfect moment. 

Very good name : ) I really like it. 

Good work! Looking forward to the new version. 

I enjoy your rules very much. Excellent to use as a reference. Do you make any updates to them?

55 minutes ago, soltakss said:

 

The RQ Scifi document that I put together separated Length/Mass (LEN/MAS), using SIZ as the average of LEN and MAS if required. It turned out that LEN is nowhere near as useful as MAS in most situations. In low-G environments, I gave a bonus to LEN and an equivalent reduction to MAS.

I also had a skill of Zero-G that acts as a limiter of activities in Zero-G environments, with a Heroic Ability that removed the restriction for experts.

 

Aha, LEN/MAS is good. I will check it out.

And a Zero-G skill is what I had in mind too. If a character doesn't have it s/he will operate with a penalty in all low-G situations. For those that have it most skill checks I reckon will be as normal, only in certain situations the Zero-G skill will be called for (or act as a cap). Do you have a Vacc suit skill too or do you bake them both into Zero-G?

9 hours ago, Baulderstone said:

The generation by generation change makes no real sense, space-born people still have the same DNA. They are just developing under unusual circumstances. Their children will have the same DNA, and grow up under the exact same conditions, meaning they won't be any more extreme.

I think you're right! Evolution doesn't change lifeforms that fast - the driving force I guess is growing up in a low-G environment. The DNA changes will take many more generations and only if the trait is beneficial. I just may have to read the books while waiting for the second season...

5 hours ago, SDLeary said:

I think you proposal works fine for STR and CON. Remember the scene in the first episode... lack of strength was an issue.

In this case though,  you really have to revert SIZ back to a base of Mass, rather than a combination.

Perhaps take a look at Ringworld (if you have access) or 2300AD (Boxed game) for more ideas. 

SDLeary

Yes, Ringworld uses MAS and separate weight/length values. Makes more sense in this case. I've never read 2300AD though. How do they approach it?

Regarding an IP, that was my thought exactly. It would be an interesting world to play in. But the RPG market may be too crowded already in this area. The whole concept could actually have developed straight from a Transhuman Space campaign. For BRP the best combination to simulate this at the moment is probably Cthulhu Rising (hard sci-fi bits) with River of Heaven (the cybernetics).

Yes, keeping SIZ might work. If height/weight is written down too.

Regarding workout I think you're right - most of the effects can be dealt with that way. But in The Expanse low-G characters seems stubbornly proud of their adaption to the new conditions in space, and for every generation born in space the effects are more and more amplified.

I've been watching The Expanse this past week (and found it to probably be the best sci fi show I've seen since Firefly) but when I started thinking about describing BRP characters growing up in low G it became a bit problematic.

STR -3 and CON -1 works fine, perhaps lowered HP. But what about SIZ? Those people are easily 2+ meters tall but really skinny. Should I raise SIZ because they are tall? Lower it because their weight is low? Or keep it as it is because body volume is the same as for earthlings, just slightly stretched out?

IIRC weight is the determining factor for SIZ in BGB, but it seems very unintuitive to lower SIZ for people 0.5 meters taller than most.

How would you do it?

Tell us more : )

This looks promising : )

Yes, Scrivener is truly great. I have switched to Ulysses recently though - I tired of waiting for the iPad/iPhone version. Ulysses is not as feature rich (I miss the corkboard especially) but on the other hand slightly easier to grapple. Do you use Scrivener at the gaming table too?

I interviewed MOB recently for the Swedish RPG magazine Fenix, and it seems they are aiming for a release this summer to bring it to Gen Con. Very much looking forward to this : )

Good to hear you like it! BTW, I saw the developer linked to "36 dramatic situations" for the short descriptions in the main node.

From Wikipedia: "The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations is a descriptive list which was created by Georges Polti to categorize every dramatic situation that might occur in a story or performance. To do this Polti analyzed classical Greek texts, plus classical and contemporaneous French works. He also analyzed a handful of non-French authors. In his introduction, Polti claims to be continuing the work of Carlo Gozzi, who also identified 36 situations."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirty-Six_Dramatic_Situations

Same here. My scenarios always start as mindmaps in a sketchbook. This little tool fits very well into my ideation phase when I need some assistance.

I have also meddled a bit with mindmap programs lately, trying to find an intermediate step between pen & paper and actual writing. Mindomo is my favorite so far: Quick and easy to use, integrates reasonably well with Evernote and creates good looking maps. I've also heard good things about Scapple, from the makers of Scrivener, but I haven't tried it yet. 

I have played around with this simple mind mapping scenario tool for a while now: http://omjonasson.se/rollspel/nodes/

You can change the setting between Fantasy and Serenity (ie. sci-fi, not buddhism), and either generate a complete mind map at the push of a button or add random nodes/relationships as you go. Relationships and nodes are sometimes described in a few words too; just enough for creativity to kick in.

I found this to be ridiculously addictive : ) Click, see if i can make up a story, click again, new story, click again, new story…..

How did you do the actual combination of Rory's dice, Mythic and HeroQuest? Did you go entirely without a GM or only partly? I have tried Mythic as an aid to run a few unprepared sessions (with BRP) and I'm surprised how efficient it was. 

Very interesting! Though I always get a bit wary when people demand "purity". I think many enjoy a roleplaying experience because it contain bits of boardgaming, or the other way around. The mashups are often good fun : )

This is good to hear!