rust

Yes, it took my colonists almost thirty years to rebuild the plankton-fish-food-

chain, and they have just started (after fifty years) to reintroduce some co-

ral reefs - and now they are looking for some more interesting creatures, be-

sides the few dolphins, dugongs, whale sharks and wrillabees they already ha-

ve.

No, definitely not crazy - although I would prefer an approach with less an

broader skills instead of additional characteristics.

In my opinion it is the purpose of the rules to make playing characters easy

for the players by providing them with guidelines. However, when you add

more and more details to the rules system, you come closer and closer to

the point where the entire apparatus goes belly-up and starts to hinder and

restrict the players instead of helping them.

Therefore I usually prefer to take away instead of to add, and in this case I

would probably take away "sub-skills" instead of adding characteristics.

But in the end this is a matter of personal taste, and your version will be just

as playable as mine, only in a somewhat different way.

Well, I decided to use the supernova because it has the added advantage

that it provides me with an "empty quarter" in space, a region where the

colonists have no immediate rivals, and where they can discover relics of

spacefaring cultures destroyed by the supernova.

Here in Germany Call of Cthulhu is quite successful with younger players, too.

A "CoC-like" universal system could have a good chance to win over players

of all ages from the currently available systems, especially if a German publi-

sher would provide a translation (as is currently done with Mongoose's new

Traveller RPG).

Yes of course - but "nearby" in this case means about 50 light years, and

the astronomer I asked was quite convinced that in this case the radiation

would kill of the plankton (and with it almost all life forms except those in

the deep sea trenches with their own food supply from chemosynthesis in-

stead of photosynthesis), but would not really damage the planet itself.

The setting I am currently working on is a colony on water world in the "Ho-

norverse" of David Weber's books.

The biosphere of this planet has been destroyed by a "nearby" supernova ex-

plosion, and the colonists are now re-building a viable biosphere by introdu-

cing various marine creatures, for example (non-intelligent) dolphins, wrilla-

bees (from the Ringworld RPG), whale sharks and so on.

I am still looking for other interesting and unusual sea life of the kind prudent

colonists might want to have on their world (= no "monsters"), and perhaps

one of you could give me a hint where to search ?

Of course I am also very interested in science fiction marine technology of al-

most any kind. Currently I am using GURPS material (GURPS Vehicles etc.) to

design the infrastructure, vehicles and equipment of the colonists as well as

the "space infrastructure" which connects them with the known universe, but

I would appreciate any information about other potential sources for the de-

velopment of the setting.

Well, and if there is anything else you would recommend for a setting of that

kind, please just let me know.

Thank You !

From my point of view, additional characteristics would only make sense if

they had any meaningful impact on the playing of the characters.

Therefore there should be some kind of connection between the new charac-

teristics and the characters' skills or other forms of "performance".

I find your idea interesting, although rather overcomplicated for my taste,

but without more informations about the consequences of the additional cha-

racteristics during the game I would find it difficult to have an opinion.

What worlds ...

- Ringworld / Known Space (again, but more complete this time)

- the "Honorverse" of David Weber's Honor Harrington series

... would be something I really would like.

Empire of the Petal Throne. I would have loved to play it, and still love to

read it, but all the potential players took a look at the names, shook their

heads and said that it was absolutely impossible to pronounce them - and

unfortunately I never was in a mood to "rename" an entire RPG.

Hello Drohem,

thank you for the friendly welcome !

Since September I have been working on a science fiction setting. It is a

young colony on a water world on the edge of the "Honorverse" of David

Weber's books.

I use Call of Cthulhu / Cthulhu Rising for character generation and roleplay-

ing and various GURPS supplements (especially from the GURPS Traveller li-

ne) for the technology.

Until now "my" players and I have played this setting for fifty-one "game ti-

me years", and we now have about fifty pages of "canonical" backgound ma-

terial (astronomy, geography, biosphere, society, etc.), several maps and

lots of notes - all of it in German.

We currently plan to "translate" the entire setting into BRP as soon as it be-

comes available, and I am just busy with preparations for this - and with

browsing this forum, searching for interesting ideas, of course.

Hello,

my name is Rudolf (no, nothing to do with reindeers ...), I live in southern

Germany, and I have been into roleplaying games for almost thirty years now.

I once started with Runequest and Traveller, and then I tried a few dozen

other systems, but I always returned to the "descendants" of my first loves,

the last ones being Call of Cthulhu / Cthulhu Rising and GURPS Traveller.

A few months ago I began world building in earnest, with a science fiction

water world named Pharos IV and located on the edge of the "Honorverse" of

David Weber's books.

With a new BRP on the horizon, I decided to use it as the roleplaying system

for my Pharos IV, which currently uses a mix of Call of Cthulhu (characters)

and GURPS (technology).

This means I will probably have to make quite a number of modifications and

will probably need a lot of good ideas and hints - and that's why I am here

now.

Greetings !

rust