clarence

Thanks Mankcam for clarifying that we are talking about two different mechanics here. And yes, calling a non-percentile system something else than Passions is a good idea. How about Inspirations? (My English is really not good enough to give me a feeling for all the nuances of the different synonyms - otherwise zeal and estrum are two lovely words not heard often enough…) Yes, a single use is probably too limiting. Some kind of Inspiration economy would be good though, to keep players thinking about their actions in a larger perspective. I came up with something like this: All Inspirations share 100% as a total bonus per gaming session, called the Inspiration stack. Every time an Inspiration is called into action the player decides how much of the stack s/he wants to use. +20% is standard, and the higher the player wants it, the more heated the situation must be. Compels do not lower the stack, but instead adds +20% to it. This way a single Inspiration can come into play several times during a session, at the expense of the other two. Good thinking. The Inspiration stack size could be varied to suit the setting. 50% for default BRP, 100% for heroic settings, 200% for super heroes. Now, I wonder what would happen if skill points were reduced by the same amount at character creation? Would Inspirations become even more important, but with a more gritty style intact? Gritty passion - that sounds like a fine contradiction to build a game upon... That's reasonable and one of the strong points of rating Passions. I like this. And I think you are right about RQ6 doing a really good job with Passions (and Pendragon too, but more closely tied to the setting).

Excellent work!

My original intention was to keep the system very simple and have an invoke/compel close to the one FATE has. The player can invoke a bonus (after explaining why), and everyone can compel a passion (or the character must face a penalty). I also wanted to stick some character development to it, therefor the added skill checkmarks. In play it's working something like this: White is swimming across a river (after getting away from some thugs) and after a bad Swim roll the current is dragging him along. The GM decides he's got one more skill roll before he drowns. White's player invokes the passion Revenge my brother's death explaining "I can't die now and never make those bastards pay". The GM accepts the explanation and White rolls with a +20% bonus, pushing himself beyond his limits thanks to the passion, just barely making it to the shore. This passion can't be invoked again during the session. But by pulling out his last reserves, White learned something about himself and his swimming skill - he gets an extra checkmark on Swim (and will get two chances of raising the skill after the adventure). Next gaming session White's team spots a few soldiers while hanging out in a bar - the soldiers are carrying the same tattoos as the ones who assumedly killed his brother. The team is heavily outnumbered and White's player wants to leave the bar, but the GM compels White to act according to his passion. White can accept the compel (acting with a bonus but starting from a bad position) or walk away and accept the penalty in his next roll (or next scene?). To me this works very well in play. No extra rolls for passions, no extra crits or fumbles, just a straight bonus (or bonus/penalty choice) and a chance of getting more experience points (or the closest we get to XP in BRP). One short-term bonus and some long-term development. And I realize now it takes the values out of passions altogether. They are one use per session, and always at +/-20%, thus easy to keep track of. Using it as a complimentary skill is a nice touch. I will have to try this...

Yes, I also prefer not to make them too similar to skills. The system I'm trying out could actually leave out percentages altogether and would probably be more pedagogic with a "number of uses" value (Revenge my brother's death 1 - can be used once per session). It's a bit more on or off. With a percetage that can be raised a few percetages it can be a bit hard to explain the difference between a passion at 54% and 59%. It is after all a strong feeling or inspiraton, not a skill.

Hmm, yes, I like that. You roll below a Passion to "activate" it and get a pretty high bonus (unless you fail). Passions are raised as a skill - the more you act according to a passion the greater chance of having a bonus. A couple of questions: How high are starting Passions? And how often can you use them? I'm not sure about rolling for activation though. Lessens player input a bit too much I think. Makes the passion a bit too mechanical (though constructing mechanics for passions is of course quite contradictory already...).

Yes, I've seen them : ) I think they are quite good and wanted to stay pretty close to them. And it's generic enough to work in most settings. But a passion system could be given a bit more weight - affect the game more and reward players that pursue them in an enriching way.

Here's a Passion mechanic I'm trying out at the moment. The idea is to make a character's Passions a bit more active in play. Does anyone else have house rules for this? Let me know what you think. Passions All characters and important NPCs has 1-3 Passions. They should describe a strong connection the character has with: - a person - a circle* or location - an idea Passions range between 1-100%. Whenever a character persues a Passion, s/he can receive a +20% skill bonus. A Passion can only be used this way once per gaming session. In a scene where a character is likely to act according to a Passion, especially if it’s going to complicate matters, anyone around the table can call for a Passion to be used. This is a “free” use of the Passion and will in addition allow the character one more Passion bonus later during the session. If the player avoids following the Passion s/he will act with -20% penalty for the next action or pay 5 Fate points. If you want players to focus even more on their long-term driving forces, link the active pursue of them with additional skill check rolls at the end of adventures (1 extra roll for pursuing a Passion, 3 extra for getting into trouble because of a Passion, 5 extra for roleplaying a Passion exceptionally well). * = Circles is what I call organizations and ideologies in BRP Space...

Voted : )

Thanks Simon! I will check out Mercenaries Handbook first I think...

Looks interesting. Do I need all three books or can I start with just one of them? Any suggestions?

Time for another classic Star Wars ship: The A-wing. Used as an interceptor and the only rebel ship to match the TIE-fighters for speed. A-wing Cockpit: 1 Weapons: 3 (2 laser, 1 missile) Hyperspace: 1 (no module) Cargo: None (personal/survival gear) Engine: (TR100) 2 Maneuver: (TR100) 2 Armor: - Shields: 10 Apps: Targeting +10% SPEED 25 HANDLING 25 SIZE 8

I restructured the list to reflect the uncertain status of the monographs. Makes quite a big difference. And even though I agree that unofficial material can be as good as official, the official material is important as a showcase, not the least if you are new to a system.

There is a quite substantial list now (21 entries!) over at RPG.net. I think we have covered most of the titles available, but a few might still be missing.

Thanks. I will add those to the list. And I agree, CoC does in some ways qualify as sci-fi. Though I guess most players won't notice much of the sci-fi backstory, depending on the GM of course. But I find it quite rewarding to cross-read Lovecraft, Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle. They have that dry empirical world view in common, each of them adding something fantastic to the recipe.

I started a new thread at RPG.net to collect all sci-fi resources for BRP in a list, with a short description for each book. I will need some help though to make it complete. The thread is located here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?759095-BRP-sci-fi-books

For a one-stop solution, I would say River of Heaven. It is probably the most complete sci-fi rules at the moment. The setting is transhumanist but that's easy to drop if you want to. I enjoyed Cthulhu Rising as well - hard sci-fi taking a leaf from the Aliens movies. And you can always check out my own BRP Starships : )

I'm having a conversation with Chaosium at the moment about the future of BRP Space, the re-named & expanded BRP Starships pdf, but not to be published by them though. They have a lot on their hands at the moment and asked for some more time to sort everything out before committing to new stuff, but hopefully it won't take too long. The book is finished and I'm just waiting for all the formalities to be finished. Stay tuned.

That was my thought exactly when I started work on BRP Space. It seems like a missed opportunity to have all those old and new BRP sci-fi games and supplements that's just almost there, but none of them really goes all the way. Future World is a bit too basic, Ringworld is deep but is too much tied to Ringworld, Worlds Beyond is good but hard to find and the sci-fi monographs are too limited in scope. At the moment River of Heaven would be my first choice, probably together with Luther Arkwright. Or perhaps Future World with bits and pieces from those two.

I was waiting for the pdf to show up - let's hope it will be available digitally at least.

I'm afraid the version of the rules that are available for download are a bit unclear about "longer journeys" and crews/passengers. In the version I'm working on now the 4 modules per person is referred to as staterooms/cubicles - the length of the journey was not really what I was after. Sorry about the confusion. Here's my take on the shuttle, with 1 module per person. And I also made it a generic shuttle framework with 24 modules that can be converted for whatever is needed (up to 24 passengers, 24 cargo modules and so on). Let me know what you think. Lambda Class Shuttle (Generic Framework) Cockpit: 6 Open space: 24 Weapons: 5 Hyperspace: 1 (no module) Engine (TR100): 5 Maneuver (TR100): 3 Shields: 10 Armor: 3 SPEED 11 HANDLING 7 SIZE 44 Optional interiors: Staterooms: 6 (x4 = 24) Passengers: 20, Cargo: 4 (= 24) Cargo: 24 I did the Y-wing too - I hope you like it. Y-wing Cockpit: 2 (pilot + gunner) Passenger: 1 (astromech droid) Weapons: 5 (laser x2, ion, proton x2) Cargo: None (only personal gear) Hyperspace: 1 (no module) Engine (TR70): 3 Maneuver (TR50): 3 Shields: 10 Armor: 3 Apps: Targeting +10% SPEED 15 HANDLING 11 SIZE 14

I have read the first review of the game in the popular RPG magazine here in Sweden called Fenix and this is what I gleaned from the review regarding the rules: - Stats are left out completely. Only skills. - Three health pools: Health, Soul and Energy. - The characters belong to a clan that is created cooperatively by the players. - Opposed rolls (highest success wins). - Combat includes something called Stance, affecting it quite a lot it seems. It's getting a very positive reception - it is after all one of Sweden's top RPG writers that put Järn together (Krister Sundelin). He writes on his website that he wondered if he could create a version of BRP "that he could live with" and set out designing Järn the following weeks. I guess he liked what he came up with. I will probably buy this one as soon as it is available and can tell you more about the BRP changes and how they work.

I play only with my family, face to face, perhaps once every two weeks. Pen, paper and dice. All necessary books on a trusty old iPad 2 running GoodReader. Mostly sci-fi the last year. Works fine. (I just wish GoodReader had something like "book piles" that could be saved. That way I could prepare all documents in advance, open books, maps, tables & NPCs - and then just save everything as a "pile" to open in the exact same state at the next gaming session. It would be a huge time saver).

It looks good! If I can make one suggestion it would be to make them more similar in size. The easiest way to do that is probably to not use one module per engine and instead increase the quality of the engine if necessary to reach such high speeds. It makes the design process more flexible I think. The cannons can also do double damage (by using the rules in the chapter on advanced starship combat) and reduce them to 2 modules instead. I think a higher value for the X-wing's shields would be good too, perhaps ditching the armor altogether (they seem very vulnerable once the shields are gone). Here's how I would do it: X-WING Cockpit: 1 Passenger: 1 (Astromech Droid) Weapons: 2 (Laser, damage upgrade to 2d6 each) Engine (TR80): 2 Maneuver (TR70): 2 Cargo: None (can carry personal/survival gear) Hyperspace: 1 (no module) Shields: 10 Armor: - Apps: Targeting +15% SPEED 20 HANDLING 17 SIZE 8 I cheated a bit by not including the torpedoes (though adding one module containing two torpedoes would work fine too) and not adding a module for hyperspace (in Star Wars hyperspace devices seems to be very small). What do you think? Would this work for you?

Ok, discrepancy might not be the best word. In Swedish we use it simply as "unsimilar" : ) Anyway, it's good to know that porting ships is not necessarily a straightforward procedure. Looking forward to the TIEs and shuttles. Thank you Sunwolfe. I very much appreciate your support. In fact, without the support from the forum members here I doubt there would be a book. And the talent ratio of BRP Central is impressive.

Here's a quote from Wookieepedia that may explain the discrepancy (just as Montjoy suggests):