rust

I have to admit that I have never heard of Charles Stross or The Laundry. :confused:

What are the stories like, more serious or more tongue in cheek ?

I only know the German CoC versions, there the differences were so few that many people re-

fused to buy the latest edition because a difference in perhaps two dozen words did not justify

the cost of the two books.

When I work on "plot lines" for my campaign, I don't leave it up to chance and some random chart.

A roleplaying referee, like any writer, has a certain personal style, and very few of us are good

enough authors to write more than a few setting histories and plot lines that are fresh and ori-

ginal - after a while the players will know a referee's "handwriting", and his stories will become

predictable, with fewer and fewer surprises for his long time players.

One way to prevent this is to include ideas and events from other sources, and preferably ones

that are determined randomly and not chosen by the referee according to his style and taste.

This forces the referee to try something new, hopefully something his players would not have

expected.

Are you advocating for lists of random events to be included with published settings? That never occured to me before, but it sounds like a great idea. I can't think of any published settings that I've seen that have this, but I really like it.

Some systems have such random event tables. Examples would be Harnmaster, the AD&D

Birthright setting or Mongoose Runequest Empires.

I use such tables as inspirations for the tables I write for my settings, tailored to the speci-

fic setting in order to create "historical" events that fit into the campaign. Such tables work

best if they are modified every now and then, deleting events that already took place in or-

der to avoid implausible repetitions and adding new events based upon the way the cam-

paign has developed in the meantime.

For example, if the Duke of Marbath has died of a fever, his heir was killed in a riding acci-

dent a year later, and now his brother drowned in a shipwreck, it is time to give the family

a break and remove the "Sudden death in Marbath's ruling family" event from the list for a

couple of years - or use these random events for an adventure, for example with the charac-

ters secretly hired by the new young duke to investigate the strange series of deaths.

Regarding this latter point about 'unforseen events', is this not rather a function of GM style (being willing to let the dice fall how they may) rather than a function of setting?

I think the history of a setting, the description how it came to be as it is now, is a very impor-

tant part of a setting, and this history should include a number of "unforseen events" to make

the setting feel real.

The mighty emperor who leads his army into enemy lands, but dies of a pneumonia after a

bath in a cold river, which causes his mighty army to disperse and return home as if defeated

in battle, adds the kind of colour and depth to a setting that I consider realistic.

But such events should in my view also be a part of the rules used for the background events

of a living, plausible setting - unpredictable good and bad events that happen without any in-

volvement of the characters and demonstrate that the world would keep turning even without

them.

Whether it is a famine or an excellent harvest, an epidemic or the discovery of a new medicine,

the death of a king or the birth of a prince, is less important than the event's total independen-

ce from the activities of the characters and their inability to influence most of those events, al-

though they might have to deal with the event's consequences.

"You need a horse for your trip to Nan Madol ? - Well, the sailors from An Ashok brought the

Purple Plague to our coast two months ago, and it killed many of our horses. You better buy

a mule, because the border guards of Nan Madol will surely turn you away if you come ri-

ding on a horse that might carry the Purple Plague to their lands."

The formula of the Resistance Table is:

50 + (active characteristic x 5) - (passive characteristic x 5)

Strength 30 against Strength 25 would be: 50 + 150 - 125 = 75 %

As the OP wrote: I like my settings to feel real. This is a hard one to describe... Indeed hard to describe

A setting feels real to me when it has no obvious contradictions and its people base their deci-

sions on plausible interests and motives and use all the means available to their cultures - not

just warfare, but also diplomacy, economic means and so on.

If people act in this way, there is no simple black and white, there are many shades of grey and

the simplistic extremes remain exceptions. The enemy leader will prefer an annual tribute to a

war and only go to war if the tribute is not paid, a famine is more likely to cause a raid into a

wealthy neighbour's lands than any religious differences, and so on.

Another point important to me could be described as "Murphy's Law in history", those unfore-

seen events and developments that disturb or destroy plans and make the difference between

a constructed plot and a realistic one.

For example, the Mongols retreated from Europe's borders because their leader back in Mon-

golia died, Napoleon's abilities as a strategist were reduced by the stomach cancer that ruined

his health, the Japanese embassy in Washington blundered and delivered the declaration of war

after the Pearl Harbour attack, and so on.

I rarely design or play fantasy settings. The closest I come to fantasy are (pseudo-) historical

settings where some of the people's fantastic believes about nature and its magic are true.

To give an example, one of the settings I have used with several systems is Asornok. It is a

realm and culture of Inuit like arctic hunters in today's Nunavut region, mainly on Baffin Island.

Most of the Asor tribe's culture is based on the culture of the real world Inuit, with some ideas

which I consider both interesting and plausible added. The Asor believe in the magic of their

anganoka, their female shamans, but what they consider magic is mostly applied psychology

and applied knowledge of nature, and only the fact that they do not understand how it works

makes it "magic".

The neighbours of the Asor are the Greenlanders, the Norse settlers on Greenland, and the re-

lations of the two cultures are the focus of the game: Raids and skirmishes, but also cultural

exchange and occasional love affairs and marriages. The Greenlanders are as historical as I

can describe them with the informations available to me, including their belief in their own kind

of magic, both traditional Norse magic and Christian miracles.

What interests me in such a setting is the "What If", for example what happens when the cha-

racters enter this fictional world and influence it. I do not care who wins what fight or kills what

monster, except if it has consequences for the balance of the two societies and their near and

far future. In a way, I see a setting as a kind of "pseudohistorical experiment" where the indi-

vidual motives and decisions of the characters interact with the setting I designed and change

it one way or the other - I am obviously a simulationist.

I suspect this is why my fantasy settings are never "true fantasy" with all the flash bang magic,

the dualism of good and evil and all that. This is simply not plausible enough for my kind of si-

mulation, it has too many inbuilt simplifications and contradictions to feel real and to develop in

any way I could consider remotely realistic. Of all the published fantasy settings, only some few

were interesting for me, for example Harn and Tekumel, but also the Arthurian world of Pen-

dragon.

Do you have an writeup for the world or the universe yet?

Yep, I am currently at 16 pages of notes. I would post some of it here on BRP Central, but since

the material is in German, this would probably not make that much sense.

Does the Bloodtree Rebellion belong in the traveler "universe" or is it its own universe?

Bloodtree Rebellion is not a part of the Traveller universe, although there are some similarities.

Meanwhile I have started to work on the game system part of the setting, my usual mix of Call

of Cthulhu and BRP options.

I will introduce a few new traditional professions, mostly based upon the Tibetan professions

described in Mysteries of Tibet: Peasant, Caravaneer, Monk / Nun, Buddhist Scholar and Go-

vernment Official. Added to this will be Noble, as my Bothanta has some noble families and a

royal house. The modern professions will be the usual ones, from Craftsman to Scientist.

So far there will only be two new skills, Animal Handling and Survival, and a couple of new spe-

cialties based upon the culture of Bhotanta. However, I will modify some of the usual Call of

Cthulhu skills to prevent "skill creep", for example Electrical Repairs and Mechanical Repairs

will be combined into one Repair skill.

The invaders are they aliens or humans?

They are humans, mainly because alien invaders would make a lot of espionage and counter-

espionage plots too difficult. I considered very human looking aliens that would make a disguise

possible, but I think that this would have damaged the suspension of disbelief too much.

But also the upcoming Reign of Discordia. I think that Reign of Discordia is very promising. I was thinking of buying the TRUE20 version but i am waiting for the for the MGT version to be released.

Yes, indeed. I got Reign of Discordia as a part of the Haiti Aid package of Drive Thru RPG, it

is a good setting especially for more cinematic campaigns. It reminds me a bit of the Star

Frontiers setting, which is now available for free, and which seems to be converted to Tra-

veller by quite a number of people.

I intend to demo TX in Bacharach -- not too far from Augsburg, is it?

Far, but not too far - I will try to be there.

Why don't some Traveller GMs, that want a different background for their games than the Imperium, convert the backgrounds from BRP games (such as Ringworld, Future World etc) to the Traveller systems? Is it because the Imperium is such a good setting, and that it would take more work to fit Traveller scenarios to a different background?

I never used the Third Imperium setting for Traveller, for my taste it has far too many serious

plausibility problems, so almost all of my settings were "homebrewed". As far as I can see, this

is how most Traveller referees who do not like the Third Imperium handle it, although there are

a number of good commercial alternatives available, like the Traveller version of Babylon 5 or

Martin J. Dougherty's Far Avalon setting.

Ringworld would be very interesting, but this game is almost impossible to get nowadays, and

Future World is more a sketch of a setting than a real setting, it lacks almost all of the typical

"stuff" needed for a Traveller campaign, especially spaceships.

One big gripe I've heard about the original Traveller rules ( and the Mongoose Traveller rules) was that the characters had only training to improve, as there was no system of skill improvement from skills used in combat, which is what BRP has.

Yes, indeed. It is also the main reason why I convert Mongoose Traveller to BRP. Mongoose

Traveller has a very good lifepath character creation system, but once the characters begin

adventuring, it is much too difficult to give them experience and let them learn new skills -

they cannot adapt to their environment.

This makes a lot of plots almost impossible to play, for example my beloved "colony tales"

where the characters face an unfamiliar environment and have to discover and learn new

knowledge and skills to solve their problems - with the rules of Mongoose Traveller these

colonists would have died long before they "learned the ropes" of their new homeworld.

Any news on this one ?

Working on my Bothanta setting, I could well use some "Chinese ideas" to give the setting some

additional colour and depth, and from what has been mentioned so far I would very much pre-

fer Tian Xia to supplements like GURPS China ...

Sorry to say so, but Mongoose did indeed have serious production quality problems. Most of

it did happen in the years before Traveller was published, when Mongoose attempted to print

roleplaying material themselves, but the early Traveller publications also had some severe pro-

blems - severe enough to cause Mongoose to exchange the bad items for new ones for free,

an offer that still stands for at least one of the first print runs (of High Guard, if I remember it

right).

So, while most of Mongoose's new stuff is fine, they still have a (now mostly undeserved) re-

putation for bad quality, and if you look at the older Planet Mongoose entries, you will find a

series of explanations, apologies and promises to improve by Matt Sprange, who finally deci-

ded to give up the in house printing and search for a reliable printer - a move that became ne-

cessary to save what was left of the company's reputation.

Unfortunately reputations stick, and I know quite a few people over here who told me that they

would never again buy anything from Mongoose after their bad experiences.

Is Star Wars their mythical 'Holy Grail' then?

I am not sure, but I very much think so.

How could all of REH's work be public domain except for one word, a word which happens to be a common Irish name?

"Conan" could not be protected, but "Conan the Barbarian" could be a trademark, although

I have doubts that this would hold water in a court over here.

This looks great, and of course you have a PM.

That said, if Mongoose uses the resources it wanted to use on Conan to make a new Star Wars RPG (which could be a mix of Traveller and RuneQuest), I will be much happier than with a RQ/BRP Conan.

Matt Sprange of Mongoose has mentioned the idea several times and seems to be very interes-

ted in it, but at the same time very sceptical:

"There has been a lot of speculation about Star Wars and the Mongoose, on at least two RPG

forums. We have never made any secret about our love for the property (they are, frankly, the

finest six films ever produced) but as I said on our own forums, don't hold your breath. We

would want to do far more than just an RPG, and there are serious time constraints involved in

the licence that may make our plans impossible."

(From the latest "Planet Mongoose" blog)

Looks pretty good. Will you be running an adventure/campaign in this country?

Thank you.

Yes, I intend to use Bhotanta for a small campaign, although I am not yet sure what genre it will

be. With its location between troubled regions of China (Tibet) and India (Assam) and its rough

terrain Bhotanta would probably be well suited for espionage, counter-terrorism, smuggling and

similar adventures, and I think the Royal Mountain Rangers of Bhotanta could be a good back-

ground organization for player characters.

However, I am not yet sure, the very small size of the country could also make politics and di-

plomacy or trade interesting for player characters, or a combination of all this - for example the

role of local nobles who serve as officers of the Mountain Rangers, but also have to deal with

external and internal conflicts and whose families own trading houses or a part of the nation's

small industry ...

Meanwhile the first four pages of the Bhotanta setting are mostly finished, with notes on the

geography, flora and fauna, population, settlements, politics, military, diplomacy and economy.

Much of this is adapted from real world Bhutan, but some parts - like the military - are built

from scratch, in this case with the rules from GURPS Mass Combat, since BRP does not yet ha-

ve such rules.

The culture and religion will be a bit more work, since this is where the main differences be-

tween Bhotanta and Bhutan will be. The Cthulhu monograph Mysteries of Tibet is a good base

to start with, and there are also some other roleplaying materials with useful informations, but

most of the ideas will probably come from Wikipedia and other internet sources.

Later on I hope that Tan Xia with its informations on the Chinese culture and society will also

offer a few interesting ideas to add to my version of a Himalayan culture with an economy ba-

sed on the trade between China / Tibet and India, and which therefore could well have adopted

some ideas from their Chinese trading partners.

Once this part of the setting is at least sketched out, I will turn to the roleplaying system: BRP

options, available professions and skills, cultural skills and all that. For the equipment list the

Modern Equipment Catalog is a most useful supplement, and I hope that the second part of it

will be published soon ...

Oh, and Bhotanta now also has a flag:

Yes, that is interesting. You'd think that since Traveller is so well supported, there'd be BRP GMs wanting to convert to the Traveller systems. But BRP is a much better set of rules.

Well, while BRP doubtless is the better roleplaying system, there is not exactly a lot of BRP sci-

ence fiction stuff one could convert to Traveller ...

One of my projects is a series of "What If ?" settings that replace real world nations with fictio-

nal ones with a different history, society and culture.

For example, Asornok replaces the Nunavut region in the Middle Ages, Merasan replaces most

of the United Arab Emirates and San Ignacio replaces El Salvador in the classic Cthulhu period

around 1920, and now Bhotanta will replace Bhutan in the modern age.

I use a "BRP-enriched Call of Cthulhu system" for these settings, but otherwise try to keep them

as (pseudo-) historical as possible, so neither the Mythos nor its monsters appear in these set-

tings. The only exceptions are fantastical creatures that are a part of the folklore of the region,

so there may be Yetis in the remotest regions of Bhotanta.

While Bhotanta is mostly Bhutan "with the serial numbers filed off", I have changed the geogra-

phy somewhat, and also changed most of the names slightly, while trying to keep the "feel" of

the language. The government, economy, religion and culture will be modified according to the

country's new, different history, but these changes will not be radical - Bhotanta will remain a

Buddhist monarchy with a culture similar to that of Tibet.

I use these settings both as adventure locations for characters "from the West" and as opportu-

nities for the players to create and play native characters.

The adventures are usually connected to the fictional history of the setting, so in this case they

could have to do with the Chinese invasion of the neighbouring Tibet, with the war between In-

dia and China, with Indian rebels and terrorists hiding in the mountains of Bhotanta, with the

extremely difficult trade route from China through Bhotanta to India, and so on.

This is a first sketch of what my Bhotanta will look like: