clarence

How much equipment would be needed? I made a first estimate of 4 tons per colonist, but if some large-scale 3d printers (essentially hyper-competent industrial robots) are brought along, using local materials plus dismantling of the Ark, it could probaby be halved? I also think they would need to bring food for at least 3 months, to keep them going while waiting for the first crop. Artificial gravity or not? Does any of this make sense?

Does anyone know of any game resources on the web; descriptions, general layout, partial deckplans etcetera? What ship sizes are we even talking about? 5000 colonists per ship, a sizeable biosphere, cargo, sub-light engines - what else?

No, I've missed that one. Though I would strongly recommend, not only because he's Swedish, Nobel Prize winner Harry Martinson's Aniara (1953), a long sci-fi poem describing the tragic journey of the generation starship of the same name. And in the process also capturing the fragility of life here on Earth; the similarities of a blue-green ball hurling through space and a giant starship are truly heartaching. I have seldom been so touched by a sci-fi book, only a couple more qualify for that list. I know it's been a bit hard to find in English earlier, but I hope that it's easier now. Those long-range ships must also be fully functional biospheres I suppose, at least if colonists or a sizable crew is kept awake. This will inevitably lead to interesting balancing problems over time. A biosphere gone awry can become a very vicious enemy...

In terms of probability I would say this might not be true if looking at it from a scientific point of view (which might not be interesting for a fictional setting, though the constraints set up by science can be inspiring none the less). The chance that FTL travel is physically impossible I would say is still very high. Though some NASA tests with an electromagnetic drive (EM Drive) earlier this year actually did offer a sliver of hope (hinted at here: http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/)But going to Alpha Centauri would only take about 130 years in sub-light speeds with the EM Drive! Which means a generational ship might be a quite feasible project after all. Uploading ourselves to computers I would also deem as much more complicated than futurists make it sound. Not as improbable as FTL, though still very far in the future. (OT: Arthur C Clarke suggested we send frozen fertilized eggs and have AIs/robots raise the children when the destination has been reached. A lot of the tech involved is already in place or being developed at a good pace). I believe a new book by Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora, deals with many of the problems that generational ships might encounter, including genetic degradation, AIs becoming conscious and the later generations loosing interest in the mission. Did anyone read it? Is it worth picking up?

Sounds interesting! Could you tell us a bit more about the mechanics? What did you find worth stealing?

Just want to point out that there's a thread about After the Vampire Wars on RPG.net, joined by the author (John Snyde): http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?764091-After-The-Vampire-Wars-Is-HERE!

Very much looking forward to this Paolo! It really makes sense that you are taking this step. Count me in as a backer : )

Ahh, Shadow World brings back a lot of fine memories for me. It might even have been my favorite setting back then. Almost as detailed as the MERP books but with a more open and magical feeling to it. I haven't read any of it in years, so I'm not sure how well it has aged though. It could be dungeon-bashing with a fancy metaphysic topping… There doesn't seem to be much new material published for it, but it's good to see a new version of the Master Atlas. Otherwise I recognize most titles from 20+ years ago. If I remember correctly my preferred location was the continent of Jaiman, northeast of Emer and a bit more harsh. And the place for The Gryphon College : ) Does anyone know if Terry K Amthor is still involved in ICE and Shadow World? And yes, Trudvang in English would be nice! But I wonder if that is going to happen? It seems the most recent news are from early 2014...

Would a scenario "competition" be a good idea, ran here on BRP Central? With so many writers here and a strong will to show support for Magic World I think it just might work?

I agree with many of the posters above: It's an acceptable solution but I would like to see more support for BRP than that. But. I keep returning to the future licensing policy. As long as there are publishers like Alephtar around BRP will stay quite healthy I think. For that to happen at least two things must be fulfilled: BGB must be kept available and licensing must be easy and not too expensive. What would happen if licensing was free, as FATE has done? BRP free, RQ + Glorantha not free, CoC not free?

The second print proof arrived a few days ago and it looks very good! Just a few small cosmetic changes and it's all finished. Page count is now 168 and the final list of contents looks like this: Starship Design. Modular starship design. Starship Combat. Quick to play starship combat. Characters. Professions, new skills & Inspirations. Advanced Combat. More options for starship combat. Constructs. Rules for robots and synthetic persons. Alien Creation. Guided process to spark imaginative lifeforms & cultures. World Building. World building focused on the conflicts of a world. Psionics. Quick rules for mental powers. Social Conflict. Conflict system for socially driven games. Circles. Organization design & conflict. Vehicles. Modular vehicle design. Unfortunately the formalities with Chaosium have taken a bit longer than anticipated. Hopefully everything will be sorted out soon, as the new management team is in place now.

Thanks Paolo! That's a relief. Now we just need to know their thoughts on licensing.

Lots of good advice here already. As I'm in the middle of a self-publishing process with BRP Space I thought I would chime in. Licensing from Chaosium is indeed being reworked and the response I have got from Ben is that they will come to a conclusion "in a few weeks", though I'm sure it can take longer. Not the perfect timing for me obviously, but the good thing is that my manuscript got time for another revision : ) My biggest concern is that BRP and BGB will be discontinued. What are the options at that point? Are the BRP Quickstart rules good enough to base a supplement on? (Probably not). Will RQ be the new generic toolkit? Cool, but requires a bit of reworking on my part. Going with Legend or some other d100 system? Fully workable, but also a bit of work. At the moment I'm not sure which way to go, but hopefully things will be a bit clearer soon. We just have to wait a few weeks and see what happens when the new team at Chaosium have settled in. Choices of system, publisher and licensing might be crystal clear by then. (Or not...)

That's probably a wise decision. Let's just hope for a continuing life of at least the core book.

I'm usually a positive person trying to see the good in things happening. Not this time. I agree completely with Nick. Not keeping BRP alive through the BGB is a huge mistake. Even if it is only as a pdf and not updated to reflect changes within the gaming family, it can only be a good thing to keep it. A generic rules set is a great attractor for tweakers and DIY - perhaps a small but important customer base. FATE and Cypher are two excellent examples of why it matters. Leave monographs to the small publishers and make it reasonably cheap to get a BRP license. That way "monographs" will be kept alive and from that torrent remarkable books can come, just as Paolo with Alephtar Games has proven. But for that to happen the BGB, I strongly believe, must be kept alive by Chaosium. I too, like many here, have a tiny stake in this by writing for BRP. But let's turn the question around: Would I have written BRP Space if a generic rules set had not been available? Probably not. Edit: We don't know yet about BGB, right? I'm hoping it will be kept in print...

Looking forward to trying it out. Good work!

Oh, Apple Xcode is 2 GB… Gotta wait till I'm on my wi-fi.

I had no idea you had made a NPC generator earlier! Tried it very quickly and found it really useful. Seems to solve most NPC related problems I have. Looking forward to the next version of the character generator.

Ok, this is what came to mind: - Choose profession. - Choose power level (lo, mid, hi). - Generate: Skill points distributed. Small part of the personal skill points allocated randomly. - Option to go completely random. Sorry if I'm asking for too much : ) One idea would be to make it list-based, just as the skills. That way anyone can add the professions from their favorite setting, reducing the amount of work for you. How to go about the actual skill levels I'm not sure. Perhaps something like the D101 games: Two most important skills at 75%, next three at 50% (the numbers are just from the top of my head) and so on. With some controlled randomness added to the number crunching I think it would work fine. For the different power levels, I suppose someone here will have a good guess how many skill points will be needed. And the levels of the "top five" skills... And let me know if I can help you in any way.

It's looking good! Two thoughts: Is printing without background texture possible and is the character portrait printed (and just not visible in your example)? Oh, and a third you probably don't want to hear: Would it be possible to assign skills automatically with a couple of clicks? It would be very convenient for quick NPC generation, though I realize it might be a lot of work.

Worked perfectly! And it's a very handy tool you have come up with. Thanks for all the work you have put into it. Excellent work. The only obvious problem I found was that the buttons at the bottom right of the GUI (load & save character?) are too small for the text to fit in. That's on OS X 10.8.

Thanks for the Mac link! Unfortunately I'm only seeing the code in a window when I run gui.py now… Any ideas?

Thanks Paolo, I had forgotten about it. I just browsed it now - in essence you "trade" Motivation use for Fate points (and then Fate points can do all the usual good stuff), right? So, we have Pendragon's system aimed at medieval knights. BRP Mecha's with a distinct anime/manga flavor. RQ6 has a quite generic system, easy to adapt to most genres. The "complimentary skill" version outlined in this thread also seems easy to use in a wide spectrum of gaming styles. And finally the FATEesque concept I have been toying with. Good work!

Can't seem to download either (Safari). I'm also caught in an infinite loop of creating new passwords. Anyone else?

Python 2.7 downloaded! But which binary package should I download for Mac? Can't see the "2.7" option for OSX...