rust

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.

Both problems, in fact. To use 3D6 for INT would create a situation in my set- ting where a non-sentient dolphin would be more intelligent than almost 5 % of the colonists - the dolphin would indeed become an acceptable candidate for the colony's parliament. :shocked:

Well, you know, these are humans ...

All they can do is to call a tow sub ...

Indeed, but I decided to give them somewhat crab like walkers (the Partan Walkers of post 12 of this thread), because six legged walkers seemed more useful on the often rather broken ground of the seafloor.

Both BRP and Call of Cthulhu include stats for a Wolf, and the differences be- tween a German Shepherd / Alsatian and a Wolf are small: Alsatians have a bit more Strength than Wolves, Wolves have a bit more Dexterity than Alsa- tians.

This may be true, but I find it hard to imagine how to introduce them into my science fiction setting without having the characters visiting a mental hospital ...

Thank you very much indeed. :) I will think about it. I like the idea, but I would have to change a couple of things, for example the habitats would need some new kind of "wet lock / dry dock" for the cars, I think.

I still have my "dolphin problem" mentioned earlier: To roll 3D6 for INT does not make sense for human characters when a Hawk has INT 3 and even a Zombie has INT 6. Since even a dumb human should be more intelligent than an animal or a zombie, the roll has to have a result above 6, and I think a minimum intelligence of 8 is right - so in my view the 2D6+6 is a good deci- sion. An alternative could be "roll 3D6 and ignore results below 8", but this would seem somewhat strange to me, because it would turn out to be more com- plicated than "roll 2D6 and add 6".

I am still not sure how to handle this. Inside the domes they currently use ei- ther conveyor belts (I hope this is the right word) or small electrically powe- red vehicles (somewhat like golf carts, too small and slow to need any stats), and outside they use either diving hardsuits with small water jet backpacks, the Partan Walkers mentioned earlier or submersibles. Ground vehicles ... I have to think about it. Caught again ...

The stats are driving the plot, as far as there is a plot, because our setting is a "sandbox" without prepared adventures, where the players are free to decide what their characters are going to do next - which is one reason why I need a lot of NPCs to fill all the available "slots" instead of only the compa- ratively few NPCs a structured adventure would require. The "sandbox" concept of the setting is also a reason why I prefer not to choose stats for the NPCs, but generate the stats randomly and try to get some inspiration out of them - having to come up with that many interesting ideas would simply be impossible for me.

Since I needs lots of NPCs for my setting, I hope to delegate that task to my computer one day. Besides, I really prefer to generate most of my NPCs randomly, mainly to pre- vent them from becoming stereotypical and predictable, but also because the results are more realistic. Plus, this method also forces me to come up with interesting explanations why a certain NPC is in a certain position. For example, when the head of the physics department of the research insti- tute has a low INT, there has to be a reason why he holds this position: Ne- potism, a failed experiment that resulted in brain damage, a drug addiction ? - ideas I might never have considered if I had started by choosing the stats for a "head of a physics department".

They look very good, but as a science fiction player there is not much I could write about "archaic" ground vehicles.

For my setting a human INT of 3D6 would lead to a situation where the ave- rage trained dolphin would be more intelligent than a sizeable number of the colonists - in fact, the dolphin could begin to train those colonists.

In my case it is negotiations (diplomacy, politics, trade ...). While I feel able to improvise acceptable modifiers according to the situation and the ideas of the players, an opposed skill roll system provides a comparatively simple and fast system to determine the outcome of any negotiations, and it is transpa- rent and thereby prevents the players from complaining about arbitrary deci- sions.

Harshax, I tested your Opposed Rolls system this evening, it worked perfectly well and the players liked it - Thank you again.

Thank you very much, for me this is all I needed. :thumb:

I would be interested in this, too. My current campaign will soon begin to include a lot of diplomacy, politics and trade negotiations, and there is a very good chance that your ideas will prove more useful than my own system.

I use the BRP book as a toolkit to add various of its options to my homebrew system, which is a science fiction mix of GURPS (world building, some tech- nology) and Mongoose Traveller (lifepath character generation, trade, some technology - increasingly replacing GURPS) plus BRP with some ideas from the Ringworld RPG (our roleplaying system). For me, BRP has worked exceptionally well, enabling me to convert from the other systems to BRP with ease and leaving only very few gaps I had to fill with houserules for our newest "human colony on a water world"-setting and campaign. My only minor problem with the BRP book is that there are so many interesting options that it is sometimes difficult to choose the right ones for the setting and campaign, and to judge whether the ones that look best for any specific purpose will work together well enough.

I ... will ... not ... propose ... the ... name ... Discworld ... Whow, glad I could resist that temptation ... :innocent:

Thank you, it is quite useful.

index [basic Roleplaying Wiki]

Thank you for the tip. I just downloaded The First Book Of Things, I had been curious for quite a while, but found the price slightly high.

Thank you very much, it fits perfectly - especially because it gives the walker lots of "surplus" power for heavy construction equipment and the- like.