rust

The picture does not show the 2.472 other trollkin only a few meters away from the scene ...

This looks like a very good idea to me. :thumb: I hope you did not delete EDU (or at least made it possible to re-introduce it without problems), many of my players' characters are of the "cerebral" kind ...

If your setting is of the "(almost) anything goes" kind, for example like the Planescape setting for AD&D, then sauce for the goose does not have to be sauce for the gander ... One possible approach would be to let the player characters come from a more "normal", comparatively well defined world with an equally well defined and comparatively narrow set of skills and options, but to use the "locals" (non-player characters) to experiment with all kinds of combinations of skills and options, allowing them to do things that seem bizarre and would be impossible for the player characters. In this way you could find out what works well in the setting without using the player characters as "guinea pigs", and once you have made up your mind about the skills, options and thelike you really want in the game, you can introduce a way for the characters to add or change the "set" they be- gan with - perhaps the setting's world somehow begins to transform the original characters into "locals" after a while. This could be an approach that would not force you to make too many de- cisions early on, especially not "binding" decisions. No matter what the cha- racters would start with, the setting would allow you to change it later on until it really fits the setting.

Over here we had that kind of court case not so long ago, with one role- playing games company accusing another one of plagiarism of parts of their game's background setting and rules mechanics. The court refused to handle the case because it considered most of both games to be "common content" of roleplaying games in general that did not have the "creative depth" necessary to become protected under our laws. As far as I know, the company that started the case then tried to convin- ce the court to deal with the case, but failed to prove that their game was something truly unique, and the story somehow ended out of court - both of the games in question are still available.

There are probably as many ways to write a setting as there are authors. I usually prefer the "top down" approach, going from the "big frame" to the "details". When I started to work on my current Merasan setting, a fictional Emirate on the Persian Gulf for a Call of Cthulhu campaign, I began with the sketch of a map and with notes on the history of the country. Geography and history have a huge part in determining what a region's cul- ture (and often even its religion) looks like. For example, desert people will usually favour cavalry and "mobile warfare" over infantry and fortresses, and people living in a "strategic" area are usu- ally more accustomed to warfare than those living in some remote neck of the woods. So, the Merasani of my setting are mounted warriors, wearing little armour because of the climate, and since they live on a peninsula they are also ex- perienced seafarers. My next step was to describe a few typical Merasani (a noble warrior, a sea- faring merchant ...) and to fit their "biographies" into the notes on Merasan's history: Which wars they fought in, which countries they had visited, and si- milar things. This gave me an impression of the skills and other abilities they should have, and then I began to try to "translate" them into the various rules and opti- ons of my "BRP-enriched Call of Cthulhu system". Finally I "fine tuned" these example characters until I felt comfortable with them as "(arche-) typical Merasani", with exactly the kind of skill sets and other characteristics that fitted my imagination of the people of the Emirate of Merasan and their unique background and culture. Well, and the rules and options that worked best for these "templates" are the ones I will use for all the characters of the campaign, although experien- ce tells me that some modifications may become necessary during the early stages of the campaign (what would be the "playtesting" for a commercial setting). Hope that helps a little, although the best way to do it may well be comple- tely different for you.

It seems that the link to Goblinoid Games (GORE) on the link page has become dead, all I get is an Error 404. The new link seems to be this one: http://www.goblinoidgames.com/ Since I did not now how to report this, I started this thread; you can delete it once the problem has been dealt with.

Yep, for a short moment, but then I spotted the differences in colour and font and got the right message. However, English being a second language for me, I often have to look twice before I recognize an English word.

Yes, indeed. :thumb:

"... become corroded", please ...

Unfortunately I do not know any English books of that kind, but perhaps one of the books mentioned in this Wikipedia article could be a start: History of ferrous metallurgy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A similar technique was used in Asia to create the famous Damascened Steel: Damascus steel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The "proofed" armour was mostly a myth. It gave some additional protection against shots fired at very long range, but otherwise was not much better than a "buff coat" of stiff leather, and its weight seriously reduced the mobi- lity of the soldier. Therefore from the Renaissance onwards most soldiers decided to wear no metal armour at all except a helmet, only those soldiers who expected to do much close combat with blade weapons continued to wear a breastplate or cuirass. The real improvements in metallurgy happened much later, after more of the chemistry of the various metals and alloys was understood, at the beginning of the Industrial Age. As far as I know, the first really "proof" armour was de- veloped during the American Civil War, and it was still a very thick and extre- mely encumbering breastplate that was rarely used.

In the case of a breastplate the differences between bronze, copper and iron would probably not be significant enough to justify different AP values. Besides, the BRP rulebook gives AP 7 as the average AP value of half plate armour, most probably made of steel, so there is not much room for values between the AP 6 of bronze and this AP 7 of steel. It would be different with weapons. Copper is too soft to make any useful weapons longer than knives. A good bronze sword is equal to an early iron sword, the main reason for the introduction of iron weapons was the avai- lability of the iron, not a difference in quality. Later iron weapons and espe- cially steel weapons are superior to bronze weapons.

What about "Silencing Touch" ?

I very much agree with RosenMcStern, about 20 foreign language terms seems to be the upper limit for me, too, especially for players with no pre- vious interest in China and the Chinese culture. In my experience roleplaying settings with lots of unusual / foreign langua- ge terms (e.g. Empire of the Petal Throne, Skyrealms of Jorune) have a tendency to frighten new players, because they feel uncomfortable with strange words whose meaning they do not fully comprehend - they often feel more "foreign" to the setting because of this. Besides, if you provide the long lexicon you mentioned, those players who prefer to use more Chinese terms to support their immersion can take the terms from there and replace the translations as they please.

Thank you very much - and sorry for the late reaction, I was abroad and offline for two weeks.

Thank you very much, I am really looking forward to my research on Montenegro's ... ah ... mountain colours.

Yes, indeed, and for any normal campaign this should work perfectly well. However, our campaigns tend to have a lot of "off time" between the cam- paign's adventures, sometimes even a couple of years, and I have yet to decide how to handle skill improvement for longer periods where the charac- ters just work in their professions, without real skill training or research. But this should not be difficult, the system is flexible enough for any ideas the players will find acceptable - I guess it will be something like 3 skill points for professional skills and 2 skill points for "hobby" skills per year.

From September 22nd until October 6th I will be in Montenegro on a fact fin- ding mission to find out whether the mountains there really are black. So, if I do not answer PMs and do not react to posts during that time, it is because I am doing hard research work at some beach bar ...

As I read the Aging rules, the character adds +1 EDU for every 10 years in play, but this additional EDU only improves his Knowledge roll and does not give any additional skill points. It seems additional skill points for an age higher than the campaign's normal starting age are only possible during character creation, not once the cha- racter has entered the campaign.

Thank you, perhaps someone could put it in the Wiki errata ?

I use the optional EDU characteristic, and there one gets +1 EDU = 20 skill points (normal level) for every 10 years above the starting age, so I think that any system between "2 points per additional year" and "20 points per additional 10 years" would do for a normal level game without EDU. The values for the other levels would then be 25 (heroic), 30 (epic) and 40 (superhuman).

This would be most welcome. My setting's cannons, both on the galleys and in siege warfare, are one of my major headaches, and I would jump at every opportunity to compare my real world research notes with BRP stats. If you find those notes and post them (thank you very much in advance ), could you please also mention the historical period for which you designed these guns - I might have to reduce both the damage and the rate of fire of Age of Sail cannons somewhat for my 16th century setting, I think.

Yep, this cow (or is it a dugong ?) is already on my list.

Yes, indeed. I use either boardgame rules (the ideas above are mostly borro- wed from games like "Wooden Ships and Iron Men") or tabletop rules, current- ly for example "Capitana" for galley warfare in the Mediterranean of the 16th century. The BRP rules are only used when the game "zooms in" to the actions of indi- vidual characters, for example during boarding actions and thelike.