rust

Thank you all for the comments, ideas and tips - and especially Dredj for the

many interesting links.

As for the female characters, I still hesitate to create a mixed knightly order,

but of course there could be an associated female order ...

While I am still not really working on the setting, I have begun to collect some

ideas.

For example, this is a "first draft" of how such a campaign could begin:

The order is in serious decline. It has lost its previous seat to the heathens,

and with it the order lost both its purpose and most of its prestige. There

are even rumours that the Pope intends to disband the order and to give its

property to the Jesuits.

Then the good news arrive: One of the great kings of Europe has died, and

in his will he gave a new seat and a new purpose to the order, a small island

on the naval frontier with the heathens.

The various priories of the order immediately send small groups of knights (one

such group are the characters) to the island to prepare it for the arrival of

the order's hierarchy and main force.

When the characters arrive on the island, they have to realize that this gift

is a very mixed blessing.

The island's population has been decimated by pirate raids, the only town of

the island has been burned down by the pirates and has only been partially

rebuilt afterwards, the island's fortifications are both outdated and ruined, the

island produces hardly enough food to feed the locals and has no trade con-

nection with the mainland - and the next pirate raid is likely to happen very

soon.

Moreover, the locals are not exactly welcoming, their religious practices bor-

der on the heretical, and the various national groups of knights from the dif-

ferent priories do not get along with each other very well - the French dislike

the Spaniards, the Spaniards dislike the Portuguese, Germans and Poles dis-

trust each other, and all of them maneuver for the control of the island until

the order's Grand Master arrives.

In short, there are more problems (and far more pirates in the area) than the-

re are knights on the island, and the characters have to decide and act very

quickly to prevent the situation from becoming a desaster.

Well, this is how I would imagine the beginning of such a campaign ... >:->

While playing the ruler of Malta in the Europa Universalis - Magna Mundi com-

puter game I had the idea that this background could perhaps be made into

an interesting roleplaying setting.

The characters would be members of an order of knights, which would provi-

de them with both equipment and missions.

The order's base would be a remote island, small enough to develop it in so-

me detail (maps, important NPCs), but the order would also have priories all

over an alternate Europe, giving the characters opportunities for travel and

various kinds of related missions (for example diplomacy, church politics, he-

resies and strange events in remote priories ...).

The order would of course also have an army and a navy, and its "frontier is-

land" would rather often be under siege by heathen invaders or under attack

by equally heathen pirates, to offer the characters more than enough com-

bat opportunities.

All this would happen in an alternate world in the period between about 1550

and 1650, the "Age of Musketeers", with early firearms, rapiers, and perhaps

some rather weak "evil" magic for the "bad guys" and probably some "scho-

larly" magic for friendly NPCs.

I think I would also use the personality traits option to encourage the play-

ers to play their characters "in a knightly fashion", not that much different

from Pendragon knights (misbehaving knights will reduce the order's income

from donations and make the grandmaster really grumpy ...).

A little problem are female characters, which do not fit into such an order

very well, and I do not yet know whether I could make them possible in this

setting.

I am not yet sure whether I will really turn this idea into a BRP setting ("so

many projects, so little time ..."), but just in case: Has anyone already done

some "BRP work" on the period in question (professions, arms, equipment and

thelike) that I could "borrow" - and that would prevent me from re-inventing

the wheel ?

Oh, and comments and ideas are of course most welcome.

Thank you.

But honesty Howard's magic, dark gods and creatures are already "Lovecraftian"

Yep, Howard wrote his Conan stories as his contribution to Lovecraft's

Cthulhu mythos, and one could therefore even consider them as a "ca-

nonical" part of the mythos.

But don't we already have some BRP Traveller conversion stuff in the downloads section or in the threads?

True, of course. I am just too lazy to work on a project when there is no

"deadline" for it, and without an Asornok campaign on the horizon and the

Mythic Iceland supplement unlikely to be published this year, I will hardly

be able to convince myself to work on a conversion - especially when it

includes a lot of translation (I used the German version of Mongoose Tra-

veller, but there is no German version of BRP ...).

Having (almost) finished my Asornok setting ("Inuit and Greenlanders", from

the point of view of a fictional Inuit nation) for Mongoose Traveller - begun

as an idea to demonstrate that this system can be used for fantasy, too - I

am now very much tempted to convert it to BRP.

This would enable me to use the Mythic Iceland supplement, once it is publi-

shed, for the Greenlander part of the setting. However, while converting the

background information would be very easy (it is already "systemless"), the

conversion of the game mechanics part would require some effort ... :ohwell:

I would second the old ad&d 2e Viking source book for another reason as well.

It seems a nasty case of bad timing that WotC has withdrawn the PDF of

the Viking source book from Drive Thru RPG only recently ... :mad:

Possibly a controversial choice, but I think there's much that's worthwhile in the old 2nd ed AD&D Vikings Campaign Sourcebook ...

These aren't roleplaying resources per se, but if you haven't already read them I would think they'd be hugely useful and inspirational for a flavour of Norse/Inuit encounters: (1) Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga, edited by William Fitzhugh and Elisabeth Ward, especially the chapters on America and Greenland, and (2) William Vollmann's extraordinary novel/mythic history/travelogue The Ice-Shirt.

Thank you very much, I will take a look at them.

I have also ordered a copy of GURPS Vikings, because most GURPS source-

books I know also contain quite useful material.

Are there any news about when - approximately - Mythic Iceland will become

available ?

I am currently working on a "reconstruction" of an old setting of mine, which

features a fictional Inuit like culture on Baffin Island, the Asor, and their en-

counters with the Norse settlers on Greenland.

While this setting will probably not use the BRP system, I would be most in-

terested in any good roleplaying information on the Norse culture of the time

around 1000 AD, and while the old Avalon Hill RQ Vikings box is doubtless ve-

ry good, it does not include much information on the Norse of the far west

- and most other Viking roleplaying material describes the Norse according

to the "cruel raider cliche" only.

It is now.

Thank you very much, it helps to give some structure to the culture's

description.

Having a little time to spare, I am currently working on a "comeback" of an

old alternate earth campaign that featured an arctic Inuit-like culture on

Baffin Island and its contact with the Greenlander northmen.

Unfortunately I have lost almost all of my old RQ material, and also most of

the old campaign notes, including the descriptions of the cultures of the set-

ting (Asor/Inuit, Canadian Indian and Northmen).

I seem to remember that at least one version of RQ had a kind of generic

"template" for the description of cultures that included all of the really im-

portant informations, and that it proved very useful for this campaign, so I

would like to use it again - but I do not remember what it looked like or whe-

re to find it.

Just in case that such a "template" really existed, could someone please give

me a hint where to find it ?

Thank you very much.

But, is anyone else thrown off by the fact that for your attributes you want to roll high, but for skill/combat you want to roll low?

I do not see it as a problem. The roll for attributes is a part of the character

generation process, while the skill rolls are a part of the roleplaying process -

they do not get in each other's way.

Ah, sort of like Los Angeles, then?

Yep, and thank you for reminding me - I need earthquakes, too, of course.

Well, I am quite confident that this will be the last desert world they will ask

for, because this time I intend to really torture their characters with all the

nasty things a desert has to offer ... >:->

They will be stranded, the supply ships will not be coming, their own starship

will be damaged beyond repair, the native life forms will be hostile and dange-

rous, the neighbouring aliens will be bizarre and incomprehensible, the Colo-

nial Office supervisor will be a walking blunder ... yep, I will have fun ...

For cars, and most wheeled vehicles:

MOV=Square root of (kW/mt) *21

For tracked vehicles (tanks, etc): use *15.75 (75%).

Thank you very much.

This should be precise enough for my purposes, I think. :thumb:

Well, Buridan's Ass has kicked me again ... :eek:

The players of my campaign obviously cannot decide what they prefer, a

water world setting or a desert world setting.

We started with a water world setting, Pharos IV, then moved to a desert

world setting, Enki II, and then to another water world setting, Anuira -

and now I have been asked to write yet another desert world setting.

To hear is to obey, with swiftness and kindness, and so I will indeed write

a new desert world setting, although this time a rather nasty one that is

intended to make the characters' life quite miserable (if I have to do the

work, I also intend to have the fun ...).

A side effect of this all is that I will once again have to change my equip-

ment design schedule: No more water vehicles for now, ground vehicles

instead.

So, perhaps you could tell me the latest version of your ground vehicle for-

mula, especially the version for all terrain vehicles (wheeled and tracked) ?

Thank you very much. :)

Congratulations !

From what I hear, the success is well deserved. :thumb:

Now, all we need to do is wait for the 5 page deluge of comments attacking/supporting Opposed Contests that is bound to follow.

No need to wait, you can have it all right now ...

http://basicroleplaying.com/forum/basic-roleplaying/1302-so-how-do-you-handle-contest-skills.html

Thank you very much again. :thumb:

I think I should name my setting's chief engineer after you for all the

effort you have put into providing the colony with useful vehicles.

The next time the players mention their airship idea, I will ask them

for a detailed description of the airship's payload and then give them

a copy of your design sequence to let them decide what exactly they

want - and how they plan to finance it.

Another thing I didn't realize is that the dirigible was largely a German baby. (...) Other folks tried to build 'em but the Germans started first and innovated most.

Well, they are still doing it, the Zeppelin saga is not yet over:

Zeppelin NT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I didn't think airships could get enough alititude to avoid nasty weather.

I suspect the players got the idea from the German version of this Wikipedia

page, which describes a project of a stratospheric airship - at least they

mentioned that project as an example of what their characters would like

to build or buy:

Stratellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW, do the people in your world have some sort of high tech material they could make the ship's "skin" out of? If so they could have a jet airship. But it probably wouldn't be as effiencent as a prop design.

Yep, the material would be no problem. However, I think that in this case the

endurance would be more important than the speed, so normal (hydrogen ?

- there are lots of it available ...) engines would do.

They will now.

Thank you very much indeed.

It seems "my" players are convinced that manned or unmanned airships would

be a nice alternative for both high altitude (too nasty weather at lower alti-

tudes) observation aircraft and satellites, because of their higher endurance

than aircraft (they can stay aloft for days) and greater versatility and lower

technology requirements than satellites (they are easier to move where they

are needed, instrument package modules are easier to exchange, and they

do not need a way to reach an orbit).

It seems that my campaign's players fell in love with the idea to have an air-

ship, so I wonder whether your aircraft formulas will also include airships ?

Your rule seems a bit tough to me. With a 50 % chance to be unable to sleep,

the character is very likely to suffer many strings of very bad luck and accor-

dingly low skill rolls - even five bad results in a row and a modifier of - 100 %

would not be extremely unlikely.

I would probably prefer a 5-6 result instead of the 4-6 result for a night of

very vivid nightmares, unless I wanted to make that character almost unplay-

able much of the time.

Rome is not my genre, but I have posted a note and links over on my German

"home forum" Fundus Ludi - I hope it will sell there, too.

I do not object to it, but my answer is a plain "No way". Depending on the

material in question I use either a PDF (easy to cut and paste, search, etc.)

or a print version (easier to read and to handle at the roleplaying table) for

my purposes, but only extremely rarely both versions.

Besides, for "slim stuff" like monographs I can just as well buy the PDF and

then have it printed over here, which is much less expensive than buying an

additional print version.

For me, Dustin could also have written "Buy 500 copies and we will be fine !"

- it is doubtless true, but it would not make any sense for me.