rust

I have the pleasure to announce that BRP Rome: Life and Death of the Republic has been nominated at the Ennie Awards in two categories: Best setting and Product of the year.

I really hope that BRP Rome will win an award, it would deserve it.

I am not aware of any such mechanics that would reward group cohesion, this is usually more

a part of the setting (same cult, home town, military unit, etc.) than of the game mechanics and

has no direct consequences for the characters' stats (e.g. additional skill points to spend, etc.).

However, I think it would be easy to introduce that kind of reward into any BRP based game, for

example by offering a pool of setting specific cultural skill modifiers the characters from the sa-

me background can choose from ("The troopers of the Highland Cavalry all get either + 10 %

in Ride or + 10 % in Track, their elite unit has the best training in the entire kingdom").

I am very much tempted to buy "Sailing on the Seas of Fate", provided it is not too setting specific

and could be modified for use with BRP without too much effort.

In almost all situations I would also very much prefer one 150 % attack to three 50 % attacks.

The chance to get a special or critical success would be higher, and the chance of a failure and

especially a fumble would be lower - and in my view it is even more important to avoid a fum-

ble than to get a special or critical.

That was unexpected.

And unnecessary, I have my own comfy chair.

I'd got plans to nag him without mercy until he did a Homeric era Greek supplement along the lines of Rome...

Try nagging Matthew Sprange of Mongoose to ask Pete Nash to write such a supplement for

RQ II, it would at least be the second best option.

I am not sure which "flavour" of shamanism/animism you mean, but some of the ideas from

BRP Witchcraft could perhaps fit into your setting ?

If Mongoose offered you a full time wage to write the stuff you thought was fun, what would you do?

As they say over here: "Would I do it ... is the Pope a Catholic ?"

Not to critizied MRQII Vikings in anyway, but there is/was an RQ3 Viking supplment that wasn't bad, IMO one of the best of the RQ3 line, certainly the best of the non-Glorantah RQ3 products.

Thank you for the offer, I have it, and I also think that it is one of the best RQ supplements

ever published. I also have GURPS Vikings, which I consider not as good as the old Vikings

box - and I normally like the GURPS material very much.

However, after reading BRP Rome I think that Pete Nash's approach might well give his RQII

Vikings an additional edge that I would very much welcome for my setting, a certain historical

depth that the slim booklets of the Vikings box perhaps could not contain.

As I understand it, in order to attack multiple opponents the fighter always has to split his at-

tacks, no matter whether he fights with one weapon or with two weapons - he cannot attack

two opponents simultaneously.

Perhaps it would help if you would see the attack as a period of time, not as a series of actions.

A high skill enables the fighter to deal with the first enemy in less time (until that enemy is ei-

ther dead, disabled or forced to retreat a few steps) and leaves him some additional time to

turn to other opponents and deal with them, too.

All the fighter's actions during the time he deals with a single opponent are handled by one die

roll which gives the result of this entire part of his side of the combat. One does not roll for in-

dividual actions, only for the overall outcome of the entire combination of actions.

Sorry Rust, the book only covers the traditional Viking period up to 1066. There simply wasn't enough space to pack as much as I wanted into it.

No serious problem, I think, it should not be too difficult to do a little research and extrapolate

a plausible development from 1066 to 1240. As I see it, the Norsemen already had a some-

what Christianized feudal society in 1066 (at least the Normans did), and the available techno-

logy did not change that much between 1066 and 1240.

Yep, count a copy as sold.

I have finished writing the book. The complete manuscript is now in Chaosium's hands.

This is good news, I am very much looking forward to this one.

... does anyone have any thoughts on the Cthulhu Rising classic SF monograph?

Yes. If one uses it together with Jovian Nightmares and the truckload of material from the Cthulhu Rising website and

ignores the mythos parts, it may well be the best and most complete science fiction setting available for any of the

BRP-based roleplaying games - highly recommended.

By the way, there is a brilliant short story about a Jesuit astronomer who accompanies an early

interstellar exploration mission and discovers that the Star of Bethlehem probably was a super-

nova that destroyed an entire highly developed civilization - unfortunately I do neither remember

the English title nor the author's name.

So science and religion could march off to the stars together quite plausibly

Of course. This reminds me of a German series of science fiction novelettes where the ship's

science officer usually is a member of a religious order that specializes in the search for new

knowledge, somewhat like the scientific "wing" of the real world Jesuits.

Over on the Mongoose website I did just read that an RQ II supplement "Vikings" written by a

certain Pete Nash will be published in September. After my experiences with BRP Rome I am

almost certain that this is something I have to buy, especially if it also covers the late / post-

Viking Age somewhat (ca. 1200 +).

Which leads me to my question: Does it ?

Thank you.

Unfortunately I never got to watch much Babylon 5, although its approach does seem more realistic.

The Wikipedia article on Babylon 5 has a passage about religion that describes quite well what

the author's intentions concerning religion were and how he treated the subject in the series:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5

I agree that Star Wars has a more interesting treatment of religion than Star Trek, but for my

taste it is still not plausible enough, mainly because all the races of the entire galaxy seem to

share the same basic ideas about the Force. In comparison, in the Babylon 5 universe each of

the races has its own distinct religion, and some - like the humans - even have lots of different

religions. Since I would expect that different cultures as well as different members of the same

culture have different spiritual needs and experiences, such a multitude of different religious

ideas seems more convincing to me than both the absence of religion in Star Trek and the mo-

nolithic religion in Star Wars.

When Picard is mistaken by ignorant alien natives for a god he is outraged and anguished, not only because he doesn't want to deceive the locals but because the very notion of deity is childish, superstitious nonsense.

While I agree that this must seem rather anti-religious from a Christian or similar point of view,

I would like to point out that there are a number of religions which would share Picard's view.

Just think of Buddhism, where the question whether gods do exist or not is considered by most

scholars as irrelevant and distracting from the truly important questions.

Riker's refusal to accept potentially corrupting semi-divine powers would also be in line with the

teachings of a number of religions, and marriage and sexual behaviour is also not an important

theme for many of the world's religions, which often only deal with such subjects when priests,

monks and nuns are concerned (if at all - just think of the ideas some of the Tantric religions

have about sex, they would make the Pope faint).

So, from my non-Christian point of view I do not see a general prejudice against all religion, on-

ly a tendency to ignore religion - and especially the teachings of the Christian variety and similar

ones - unless it can be used for a specific plotline of a specific episode.

Game mechanics aside, I am always amazed at how much stuff and how many people they packed into those tiny old sailing vessels, whether we're talking about Lief Erickson, the Mayflower, or Horatio Hornblower.

Indeed. We once visited a replica of Drake's "Golden Hind", and afterwards Mylady came to the

conclusion that a coffin would make for a far more comfortable accomodation than an average

officer's cabin, not to mention the non-existent living space of the sailors. The only way to get

a minimum of privacy on such a ship probably was either to be put in irons down in the bilge or

to be sent up the mast to look for whatever might appear on the horizon.

Good to know you guys are still there.

I will keep lurking until inspiration hits me or I find something I cannot resist to comment on ...

Have fun in the Highlands.

I can't remember any prejudice against religion in ST:TNG.

Prejudice is probably too hard a word, the authors usually simply ignored the subject, for ex-

ample by omitting any kind of chaplain on naval ships. Social science was obviously represen-

ted by the counsellor, but organized religion was just as obviously absent.

You may want to check section 2.1 and 2.2 of this: http://www.basicrps.com/atrilia/en/pbem/rules/naval.htm

Thank you very much indeed, problem solved.

I seem to have a problem to determine the number of passengers and / or livestock a sailing

ship can transport.

Arms & Equipment for RQ II mentions the cargo capacity in tons for various types of ships, but

I was unable to find any rule for the conversion of cargo tons into space required by passengers

or animals, and over on the Mongoose forum the question remains unanswered.

BRP gives a galleon of 35 meters length the ability to carry 8+ passengers and 80 SIZ of cargo,

which is simply ridiculous when a potted plant is classified as 2 - 5 SIZ . Just imagine the num-

bers of big galleons that would be required to carry the tiny Mayflower's ca. 100 passengers +

equipment, or a ship of the Spanish treasure fleet overloaded with 45 potted plants.

In the absence of any rule or better idea I think I will use the Harnmaster rule that a passenger

requires at least 1 ton and a horse or similar animal requires 3 tons, but any suggestions would

be most welcome.

Thank you.