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Examples would be the purchase prices and the sales prices of various kinds of goods, depending for example on the volume of goods traded, the distance covered by the trade route, the transport costs, and supply and demand at the origin and the destination of the trade goods, so that a merchant charac- ter could decide which goods to buy, where to find a market for them, how to transport them there, and how much profit to expect. To give an example from my setting, the Varunians can sell surplus crystals from their seafloor mines to buy foodstuffs on an agricultural world, but it could be more prudent to sell them to an industrial world, ship the industrial goods to the agricultural world, and trade them there for the foodstuffs. To find out which approach gets the most foodstuffs, one needs the prices on the various worlds, the transport costs, and so on.

True, and I am not yet sure how to handle this. The scuba divers in my setting all have rather high skill levels, because they get a 20 % cultural skill bonus to their Swim skill, which makes 45 % the lowest possible Swim skill for a Varunian, and for the professional hardsuit divers with their high tech equipment most routine tasks should be Easy, which would also give them a very good skill value for normal operations. Both should make failures compa- ratively rare. I think I will have to playtest this and see how often failures really happen, and then modify the rule if it seems appropriate.

For sea trading I once used the rules from the Pilot's Almanac for the Harnmaster game, and it worked quite well.

So my idea for a Diving Spot Rule for my setting now looks like this: A diver has to make a skill roll at the beginning and at the end of each dive. Additional skill rolls during the dive depend on the specific situation. Scuba divers use the Swim skill, hardsuit divers use the Hardsuit Diving skill. A Failure always leads to a result on the Diving Mishap Table.[and forces the diver to end the dive and to return to the surface - deleted.] Other conse- quences of a Failure depend on the specific situation. A Fumble always leads to a dangerous and potentially lethal result from the Diving Mishap Table. The problem can only be solved with the help of another diver, who has to succeed with a skill roll, for example Hardsuit Diving or Re- pair (Marine Systems). A Fumble makes additional dives on the same day im- possible. Other consequences of a Fumble depend on the specific situation. A Fumble at the end of a scuba dive results in the risk of decompression sick- ness. The diver has to succeed with a Stamina roll or has to receive medical care within 2D6-2 hours. If the diver arrives at the hospital in time, he will have to stay there for a number of days equivalent to the number of points by which he missed his Stamina roll. If the diver does not arrive at the hospi- tal in time, the number of days he has to stay at the hospital is doubled.

The reason is the weather. On a planet without continents to slow down and weaken hurricanes, storms can get both very common and quite powerful, and the surface region of the ocean - down to several dozen meters - is not a good place to be du- ring such a storm. Besides, with aquaculture, mining and most other activities happe- ning on the seafloor, it seems logical to have the habitat nearby, especially since a seafloor habitat also has the advantage to keep the most vital and dangerous parts, like the fission reactor, safe underground. As for decompression, I see the colonists' scuba gear as including sophisticated com- puters, HUDs for their face masks and short range sonar communicators, so that the diving computer can warn a diver with both acoustic and visual signals whenever he returns to the surface too fast. Therefore a mistake on the way back to the surface should be rare, the result of an equipment malfunction or a really serious diver problem, for example panic. So in my view a fumbled skill roll is a good way to simulate this, while a failure would mean a comparatively minor problem only - for example the lost tool Thalaba mentioned. I think that decompression sickness should be painful and disabling, but not lethal, given the medical equipment of the setting. Oxygen will be available wherever divers work, and a decompression chamber usually not very far away. I like the 2D6-2 to give the diver a "chance" for a cinematic collapse. And I think I will use the result of the failed stamina roll as the number of days the character has to spend under medical supervision (e.g. at the hospital), with each point the roll is missed by as one day in hospital, and if he is not delivered to the hospital in time (during the 2D6-2 hours) the number of days at the hospital are doubled.

My current idea of the consequences of a failed Stamina roll after a fumbled Diving skill roll for the return to the surface would be a time limit to take the diver to a medical facility with a decompression chamber, for example the 2 D6 hours used in the Call of Cthulhu rules.

I have meanwhile decided to use most of the CoC rules for scuba diving that Atgxtg mentioned (thank you again ). They include a skill roll for the safe return to the surface, and I think that a Fumble with this roll could force the diver to make a Stamina roll or suffer from The Bends. This could consider both the fact that he needs some diving skill to know how to handle desompression and the fact that someone with a higher CON is less likely to suffer severe damage from The Bends.

Thank you very much, it helps a lot. Reading through the many good ideas on this thread: - the risk for The Bends while scuba diving will be based on CON and not connected to the skill roll, - a Fumble with scuba or hardsuit diving will lead to a result on a mishap table, - the DEX penalty for the hardsuits will be reduced to -5 % / - 10 %. Yep, thank you all, now I have an idea how to handle this. :thumb:

Thank you very much for your ideas. I agree, but in my setting scuba diving will be somewhat rare, because the colony's facilities are about 200 meters below the ocean surface, which makes hardsuit diving the far more common form of diving. Therefore I am uncertain whether very detailed rules for scuba diving really are a good idea. A very good idea.

It seems that I will need some Spot Rules for Diving for my Varun setting, but I am still undecided how to handle this, and so I would be very interested in your opini- ons. For Scuba Diving I could use the Swim rules from the BRP core rulebook, perhaps with the addition that a Fumble includes a risk to get "The Bends" because of a too fast return to the surface. I am currently thinking of a chance equivalent to a failed Stamina roll (CON x 5). Looking at the diving rules from GURPS Transhuman Space - Under Pressure, such rules could obviously be much more complex (they cover several pages there), but I doubt that this would really improve the game in my case. For Hardsuit Diving, I have currently two different types of hardsuits in my setting. The Mk. I weighs 230 kg, costs 25,000 Credits, has 12 AP and is sufficient for a depth of 300 meters, the Mk. II weighs 280 kg, costs 40,000 Credits, has 16 AP and is sufficient for a depth of 600 meters. Both were designed with GURPS and then converted. Although both suits are powered, I think they should reduce the DEX based skills of the diver wearing them, but I am not sure about the size of the penalty. Currently I tend towards -10 % for the Mk. I and -20 % for the Mk. II. The next problem would be the Fumble for Hardsuit Diving. In my view it should be a very serious equipment failure, something that would kill the diver unless he is saved by his "buddy" (divers in my setting never dive alone), with the "buddy" ha- ving to succeed in either a Repair (Marine Systems) or Hardsuit Diving roll, what- ever is his better skill. Well, that are my thoughts so far. What do you think ? Thank you.

Just to let you know that the Varun setting is still alive and doing well ... Meanwhile it has reached a volume of 76 pages of text plus 12 maps and charts, but much of this are descriptions of spaceships and other items of technology or stats of nonplayer characters and creatures, the details of the planet Varun and the cul- ture of the colonists are still not complete. A couple of spot rules are also still missing, especially those for diving and activities under water, where I am still unable to decide how much detail these rules should have. On the one hand I want to give the players a feeling of what life under the conditions of a water world is like, on the other hand I do not want to make any ru- les so complex that they get in front of the story. I have started with the Campaign Plan, basically a description of the various back- ground events that will influence the situation on Varun, from "news from afar" to "strange visitors", and also sketched a few outlines for adventures the characters might get into during their work for the colony's council. As usual for my settings, this one is also a "sandbox", and the players are free to decide what their characters will do, so the adventure outlines consist mostly of descriptions of specific locations with the persons and / or creatures to be found there, but without a pre-planned plot. Yep, that's where I am at the moment.

Not really a bug, just an idea based upon the fact that I am somewhat lazy: If one could access the "What's New ?" page of the forum without having to log in, one could take a look at the new posts and then decide whether to log in ...

My Internet Explorer 8 has no problems with a reduced window.

Thank you very much, I will add it to the list.

What I see looks like this:

As I mentioned, it is a multiple choice poll, and I voted for both "Unhappy" and "Turtles" ...

Thank you very much, I will do so. Edit.: This here about Korea is also quite interesting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kisaeng

It seems that "caldaia" is a general Italian word for "cauldron".

I would have voted Pyraea, but did not because of the combination with Pyraxleflat, which is un- pronounciable or at least sounds terrible in German, so I went for Unhappy. And since it is a multiple choice poll I added Turtles, I really like them, especially the marine ones ...

Thank you very much for your ideas. The BoEF goes a bit too far in a "sexual direction" for my players' taste, I think. I intend to handle the Courtesan characters more like another character type with high social skills, many contacts and some indirect influence, but without an agenda like the Politician's political aims or the Priest's religious obligations. My setting is rather science and technology heavy, with lots of Engineers and Scientists and other "technological" professions and comparatively few profes- sions that are not focussed on such skills, so I think a plausible and colourful social profession could enrich it a bit.

Thank you very much for your ideas.

Apple-Beer :eek: I once used that word beyond the Hessian border. This is why there are those Wanted posters ("Preferably Dead - Otherwise torture before, during and after arrest.") in all Hessian towns, and their armed forces have this "Shoot on Sight" order ... :shocked:

This is what I have in mind for my setting, with the difference that prostitution there is also a profession that usually requires at least a basic training in some relevant non-sexual skills. Once prostitution is legal and a "honourable" pro- fession, as it has been in many cultures throughout history, there is no more connection with crime than in any of the other professions. However, at least in my language there also would be no more "red light districts", this term is strongly associated with crime in German. Thank you, a very good idea.

Welcome back, smilies, nice to see you again - I hope you are here to stay.

Cider is the specialty of our northern neighbours, the Hessians, who produce an excellent "Äppelwoi" (= "apple wine"), although for my taste many varieties are a bit too sour, bor- dering on apple vinegar.