rust

Because it is such a mess, it'll be difficult at times to weed out unneeded skills simply because the game world is an impossible mesh of everything.

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.

Hmm... Anyone else who did that looking at it the first time?

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.

Cool cover.

Yes, indeed. :thumb:

... bronze does not rust.

"... 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

One exception might be the comparatively good Viking swords of the dark ages / early medieval period, which used different grades of metal twisted and hammer welded in order to combine the elasticity of one with the hardness of the other. The resultant wave pattern also looks very nice, by the way - there's a lovely replica blade in the British Museum.

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.

It looks like for 17th century cannon. a correlation between weight of shot and weight of cannon(including carriage) can be worked out as:

Metric=800*sqrt(shot)

Imperial= 1175*sqrt(shot)

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.

Normal experience rules (skill checks, training, etc.) go into effect once the campaign has started, and should dramatically outstrip any small gains from age.

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.

Normal = 10 points

Heroic = 20

Epic = 30

Superhuman = 40

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).

I'll dig through my notes, I know I've got more info (including the SIZ and weights of the cannons themselves).

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.

I wish I could share more, but that would be giving away the milk, when you really should buy the cow.

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

Frankly, I have always used tabletop war gaming rules for stuff like mass combat, naval combat, etc. I think that rolegames that try and simulate mass warfare using skirmish rules (because this is what the combat rules of a rpg boil down to) are ridiculous.

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.

Any suggestions as to what to roll for cannon damage?

For a simple system, I would use the cannon from the equipment chapter of

the rules, divide the hit points of the ship that is hit by two (50 % rigging, 50

% hull), and then decide whether the gunner wants to demobilize the ship,

aiming for the rigging, or to sink it, aiming for the hull.

Once the rigging has lost half its hit points, the ship loses half its speed, on-

ce the rigging has lost all hit points, the ship is dead in the water. Likewise

for the hull, but when the hull has lost all hit points, the ship sinks.

Each hit, rigging or hull, should have a chance to kill a number of crew mem-

bers, too. An easy way to handle it would be to count each hit as 1 % of

the crew, so 100 hits would completely eliminate the crew - but you could

of course just as well use any other formula.

What happens when a ship, a sailing galleon for example, fails its chase rolls?

With a normal failure for the chasing ship, I would expect it to be something

with the rigging (a sail is ripped, etc.), and for the ship that is chased it could

be something like "stolen wind" (the ship chasing it blocks the wind with its

own sails).

A critical failure could be the same for both ships, for example the rudder

breaks or a major piece of the rigging comes down (potentially hitting some-

one).

It should not be difficult to find more examples of what can go wrong with a

little search on the internet - and you would get the right English termino-

logy, which I do not know well.