rust

A fascinating map. I am very much looking forward to reading more about the

places mentioned on it.

So, what would be wrong with giving humans an advantage or extra Hero Points?

Nothing at all. I know several games where Humans get such an advantage,

including D&D 3.0 and LotR, and it always seemed to work well.

I have no problem with "unbalanced" races, provided the differences are a

plausible part of the setting.

If I wanted to "balance" races, I would most probably not try to do it with

the rules system. I would look for balancing factors within the setting, for

example "Elves are disliked by Humans, and are treated accordingly", and

would introduce that kind of "balancing" into the way I portray the setting.

Not wanting to tread on their toes, I should probably remove it.

Ah, you are most probably right - I did not think of that.

Well, in this case I will have to wait for Chaosium's own "BRP Lite" ...

But, would something like this be useful as an "advertising flyer" to give away free?

Over here, we have a forum dedicated to collecting RPG material for free

downloading. It currently has about 1,300 files in its database and almost

400 registered users:

Fundus Ludi | Startseite

Many of the people who visit this forum are Call of Cthulhu players, and

more than a few of them are quite interested in the new BRP.

It would be very nice if I could put something like your work in this forum's

database and tell the people to take a look at what the new BRP has to

offer...

So, once you think your BRP introduction is ready, could you please let me

know whether I can use it for this purpose ?

Thank you !

Have a nice time and enjoy it !

Whenever the new BRP will be published, and whatever problems it may then

still have, it will doubtless be at least as good as the Zero Edition - and for

me this is sufficient reason for a very excited Yay !

Thank you very much for the informations. It really looks like something I

should have ...

Hello and Welcome, Wothbora !

The Mythic Game Master's Emulator you mentioned seems interesting. I have

never heard of it, perhaps you could give me a few more informations ?

Thank You !

Are there any others that are particularly good or should be read?

I am very much tempted to write: All of them. But of course it depends on

your taste. If you are interested in political ideas, "The Dispossessed" is a

most fascinating book; if you prefer very colourful science fiction stories,

"Rocannon's World" is great; if you like true drama, "The Word for World is

Forest" is hard to beat.

You could take a look at the descriptions of the various novels in the Wiki-

pedia entry on Ursula LeGuin to see if one of them could interest you:

Ursula K. Le Guin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Generally, all the old science fiction stuff (Asimov, Bradbury, Clarke, Heinlein,

LeGuin, McCaffrey, etc.), with LeGuin being my all time favourite.

Currently, the Honor Harrington series by David Weber, more because of the

very detailed and interesting diplomatic and political background than becau-

se of the military action.

Jason, thank you very much for this quick answer !

There are some minor points in the BRP Zero Edition which I do not really

understand, probably due to some language comprehension problem.

It would be very nice if one of you could help me with this. Thank You !

1) According to the BRP Zero Edition, both Education and Intelligence can

rise through study and training.

Does this mean that a character will then receive additional skill points for

his higher Education or Intelligence after the successful training ?

2) I do not really understand what the BRP Zero Edition's Fine Manipulation

Skill is used for.

Does the description imply that a character with this skill can equally well

disarm traps, pick locks and tie knots and improves all of these rather dif-

ferent skills whenever he improves the Fine Manipulation skill ?

3) In the BRP Zero Edition the Heavy Machine Skill seems to have both ve-

hicles (e.g. Bulldozer) and vehicle engines (e.g. Turbines) as possible spe-

cialties.

Does this mean that I could use specialties of this skill for an entire Fishing

Boat as well as for the Hyperdrive Engine of a starship ?

4) In the BRP Zero Edition the Repair Skill has a base chance of 15 % and

proposals for various specialties, for example Electrical Repair.

Does this mean that any character has a base chance of 15 % in all of the

various Repair specialties, and that he will keep this base chance in all the

other specialties if he develops one of the specialties to more than 15 % ?

The new cover has both class and style, just as the content.

Well, I am back from Lanzarote, and my BRP Edition Zero copy (thank you for

all the good tips !) and I are still in a comparatively good condition.

I did some real world research for my science fiction water world setting (e.g.

Aquarium, Whale and Dolphin Museum, Submarine Trip, etc.), and while my

girlfriend made her various shopping expeditions (she should have used the

Encumbrance and Fatigue Points options ...), I spent some time figuring out

how to adapt the new BRP to my favourite setting.

With the Point-Based Character Creation option, the Education option and the

Cultural Skills option this will not be difficult at all, although there are some

minor problems with skills.

Right now it seems that I will have to introduce only two new skills, Animal

Handling (Communication) and Astrogation (Mental). All other typical skills

of my setting can be handled as skill specialties, for example Aquaculture as

a specialty of the Craft skill, or Diving Suit as a specialty of the Technical

Skill.

However, I have some problems with the high number of Cultural Skills my

setting requires.

Of course, all the human colonists on the water world are rather good swim-

mers (Swim 50 %), they all can Pilot a Skimmer/Grav Car (20 %) as well as a

Boat (20 %), and they know at least the basics to Pilot a Submarine (10 %)

or use a Diving Suit (10 %).

Moreover, all colonists learn the basics of their world's main Craft Aquaculture

(10 %) and some of the Animal Handling (10 %) required for it, as well as the

basic understanding of the sign Language Avalese (10 %) that is used by di-

vers and to command the trained sea mammals introduced to the water world

by the colonists.

All the other general knowledge (basic computer use, marine biology, oceano-

graphy, survival, etc.) necessary for humans on a water world is covered by

the Know Roll, which will be at least 55 % because the education system of

the colony will give each of the characters born there an Education of 11 or

more.

But all those Cultural Skills base chances add up to a rather high number of

skill points.

This could become a problem, because there are immigrants (and also other

characters) from other worlds, and they should have at least a similar number

of Cultural Skills base chances, tailored to their homeworlds. I am still looking

for a good idea how to handle this problem.

Otherwise, there are no problems with the new BRP. I have used the techno-

logy rules of GURPS and the economy and trade rules of GURPS Traveller to

create my setting's technology and economy, so the lack of generic systems

for technology and economics in the new BRP does not cause me any trouble

- I will just continue to use the systems I had started with, although it would

of course be very nice to see BRP-based systems for technology and trade.

All in all, the new BRP is almost exactly the system I was looking for. It can

be modified to fit my setting almost perfectly well, without forcing me to

change any part of my setting. It even has some ideas that enrich my set-

ting, for example the very interesting Status skill.

And, most important: It was both easy and much fun to work with the new

BRP, on and off the beach.

I would therefore give it at least nine and a half out of ten alien octopoids.

Any comments on the tree children?

Yes, they look fine, and I really like them !

I am not sure that I will buy the 1st Edition when it is released, because

a lot of interesting RPGs will be published this summer (Ephoran, Traveller,

etc.), and I have a limited RPG budget. So the 1st Edition may have to

wait until Christmas - but there is no doubt that I will buy it.

No problem, looks great !

Thank you all very much !

@ Shaira:

I will try to return with a study of the beach-suitability of Edition Zero.

@ Puck:

Yep, I should have tried to get some kind of research grant. Alas, it is al-

ways the unknown and underfunded volunteer who has to do the really

hard research jobs ... :cool:

From March 30 to April 15 I will be on the Canary Islands, reading my BRP

copy and taking a very close look at a real sea, so please forgive me for

neither answering PMs nor writing silly comments during this time.

Here is the RPG page from "Yahoo! India":

Yahoo! India Directory > Shopping > Role Playing Games

From there you can also reach the list of RPG retailers in India - a rather short

list, in my opinion.

Welcome, Centaur66 and The Last Conformist !

I have the current home page not broken, but the page behind the link in

the posting (no. 13) in this thread is broken... ?

No, sorry: The page behind the link is broken when I minimize the picture,

and not broken when I maximize it - whatever that may mean ...

Yes, it was very sad news indeed. I will miss him, he was one of the great

authors of the kind of Hard SF I prefer, and his books and his interest in

space and in the oceans have sparked the water world setting I am cur-

rently working on - one of the NPCs, the founder of the colony there, was

influenced by my view of Clarke ... ;-(

The "parchment" is perhaps still a bit too dark, otherwise it is fine.