Ian Absentia

I'm not really familiar with the rules of Elder Godlike - how closely do they track to SuperWorld? Because I developed stats for just about every popular character from the summer of '84 obsessive-compulsive detail and can probably dig them out if you'd like. !i!

No kidding. It was pretty much fire-and-forget fan service. I remember reading an otherwise well written Jack Vance novel (one of the Planet Tschai series?) and out of nowhere the book ended on "And later he made a woman of her." Okay, Late '60s, shine on you crazy, sexist diamonds, but really, more or less out of nowhere. Not even erotica -- just making a woman of her. Maybe the main character implanted a uterus in the woman and they were squeamish on the details. I'm willing to blame the editor. !i!

This can't be emphasised enough, particularly as automated recognition is being developed and employed in law enforcement and social facility (both assistance and control). To revive an early computer programmer's truism, GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. !i!

Another challenge to basing a game on the Known Space stories, I think, is that Niven's narrative tends to focus on scenarios intended to exhibit neat speculative scientific and technological wonders, not personal narrative so much. Neat things to marvel at, but not necessarily to play with. To be fair, he's not alone in this regard in the world of Sci-Fi of the era. I was once really eager to run an adventure set among the Integral Trees, until I realised that I didn't actually have an adventure to run. A game needs to be about What Will People Do, and not so much Where Will People Do It (or What Clothes Will People Wear if we want to include fantasy/supernatural). Which is why, so often, an "Old West Set in Space" scenario works in gaming -- "Space" is just the backdrop, while "Old West" is the recognisable action that the players will do. !i!

In the RuneQuest forum, we were just discussing the whip as a weapon, which brought up the Entangling rules from BRP (not present in RQG). I just added stats for the bola, which you can modify as needed for other BRP games. !i!

Elsewhere, there was a question regarding bolas, so, at the risk of reprinting other Chaosium sources in their entirety... Bola (1H) Base Skill 05 STR 9 DEX 13 Damage 1d4+1/2db (Special: Crushing/Entangle) HP 1 ENC 1 Range 15 Rate 1/MR On a special roll, the attacker may declare either Crushing effect or Entangling per the rules above, with minor modification (no STR vs STR roll to disarm the attacker). Modifications I'd make to my suggestion for the whip above: Unlike other entangling weapons, a whip may entangle at a range of 2 to 3 meters, not at a minimum of 3 meters. The whip is, after all, listed as only 3m long. At a range of 1m or less, a whip is functionally ineffective, except as an improvised club or garrote. See rules for those two weapons separately. If used as a garrote, the Entangling rules still apply. The adaptation from BRP's "combat round" to RQG's "melee round" in the Entangling rules probably needs some playtesting. The two are not 1-for-1 compatible. Do we equate a CR with an entire MR, or with a normal DEX strike rank within a MR? !i!

This is, I think, exactly where I intended to go with it. I still needed the rationale for developing an entirely new ability, and it didn't seem to jive with emerging Athena-like from a superlative result of a potentially unrelated ability. Consider this houseruled. !i!

I don't believe it would be particularly challenging, but upon further reflection I realise that it's effectively re-skinning XPs. Spend an HP for a bump to a Major or Complete victory? Put a check or tally on your character sheet. During bookkeeping at the end of the session or scenario, take an improvement for each check mark, then erase them. So, really, it's pretty simple, but yeah, they're still XPs. The joy is in how you earn the improvement, though -- not by conservative play and hoarding, but by bold play and actively directing the action. !i!

I read through @Ian Cooper's thread from last year about advancement/rewards, but sort of lost track through it. I understand the dilemma involved in spending Hero Points for either in-play bumps or meta-play improvement, splitting one currency between two different types of transaction. I also understand the drawbacks to introducing an additional currency in the form of Experience Points for improvement. Has anyone suggested that HPs, if spent in-play, can also buy an improvement at the end of the session/scenario? Not just getting a Major/Complete victory by virtue of a successful roll, but as a result of bumping up with HPs. It still doesn't necessarily address the rationale for buying a new ability at starting level, but neither do straight XPs. And it does create an added incentive for spending HPs in play instead of hoarding them for advancement. !i!

Wow, you're right. Not even the Entangling rules. So, digging into the BRP book... Whip (Other Type, 1H) Base Skill 05 STR 9 DEX 10 Damage 1d3-1 {Special: Entangle) HP 4 ENC 1 Length 0.2 / 3 SR 0 Entangle A whip may be used to entangle a foe on a special success. An entangling attack cannot be made from close range—it must be made with at least 3 meters of space between the attacker and target. A successful entangle immobilises the particular hit location and prevents movement or attack by the target for the rest of this melee round and into the next melee round. A successful Dodge roll or Grapple roll negates a successful entangle. A critical parry negates a critical entangle, but an ordinary parry success has no effect. On the round following the successful entangle attack, the entangled target can attempt a Dexterity Check to free him- or herself, or make a STR vs STR resistance roll to attempt to pull the entangling whip from the attacker’s hand(s). Alternately, if the entangled target is able to, he or she may attempt an attack on the entangling weapon itself, cutting through the whip. If the target's attempts to get free of the entangling whip are unsuccessful, the attacker can declare one of the following effects, based on hit location: Immobilise Limb, Disarm Target, Knockdown Target, Injure Target (roll damage again), or Strangle Target (see Drowning and Asphyxiation, RQG p.156), as appropriate by hit location. A target remains entangled until, during a subsequent melee round, a successful Dexterity Check or STR vs STR resistance roll is made to free him- or herself from the entangling whip, or the target or another individual succeeds in attacking the whip to sever it. During each melee round in which the target remains entangled, the attacker can again declare a special effect as appropriate by hit location. It could probably merit some polish, but there's a start. !i!

Personal preferences aside, the point being that there are many ways to skin BRP (e.g., not all Chaosium variants on the system allow 100+ skill levels while some do, some use Strike Ranks while others use simpler DEX-based initiative, etc.), and that its derivatives are largely compatible. We expect that level of interchangeable modularity within the BRP system itself, but it's pretty amazing when you find that compatibility outside the system as well. And since we're airing personal preferences anyway, I've long found Specials/Impales/Criticals too fiddly outside of RuneQuest and welcomed the Doubles/Specials with open arms for other BRP uses. Pop out one component, insert another, adjust accordingly. !i!

Some things were downright genius, and I've ported them almost directly to BRP. I'm hazy on the Unknown Armies terminology right now, but the use of doubles for a Special Roll was great. They always represent 10% of your total percentage chance (okay, almost always), and you get to assign "critical" results to each double (e.g., 11 = 1.5x damage, 22 = Target stunned, 33 = Specific hit location, etc.). Totally intuitive without having to explain the math. Boom, doubles! !i!

I'm not aware of any ready-made sources for Call of Cthulhu (which seems odd now, given the aquatic ties of quite a bit of the mythos), but I have two go-tos in my library for undersea adventure, regardless of system. You may have to do a bit of hunting, but they're still out there on the Internet. The Undersea Environment, for Traveller. Covering a range of technological levels, you'll find a broad treatment of the sort of diving suit you're asking after. Under Pressure, for GURPS: Transhuman Space. It actually treads a lot of the same ground as The Undersea Environment, but in more specific detail, and also at a much higher technological level. Probably less useful to you. Both books suffer from inclusion of simplified diving tables, with the bold disclaimer that these are NOT TO BE USED FOR ACTUAL DIVING. Really, though, they're generalised versions of real tables, so, yeah, they shouldn't be used for calculating actual dives, but are intended to explain what a diver's body will have to go through to dive at increasing depth for increasing duration, but I think the matter could've been addressed in a more abstract manner in-game. But that's picky, picky, picky. I've heard tell of Pagan Publishing's fabled underwater adventure, "Grace Under Pressure" from The Unspeakable Oath, but I've never actually laid eyes on a copy. From what I understand, it doesn't involve diving scenes, focusing instead on a deep-sea submarine. Bang for the buck? Keeping it simple, digestible, and cheap, I'd go for The Undersea Environment, though you might almost find it too simplistic. !i!

Usable only one at a time, of course. !i!

The flip-side is making sure that none of the PCs are inconsequential in comparison to the core characters. I've been the player of non-vital pregens at conventions where it's been acutely obvious, especially when awards for "best player" were handed out. While I didn't make it in under the We Are All Us wire, I've been working on an adaptation of Highwall Inn to the Mythic Russia character tropes instead of Glorantha, with a dark, mid-Winter "Gothic blood opera" one-shot in mind. I've been mindful to keep all of the characters in relative balance with each other, even if not all of them might see play. !i!

And thus we arrive at Cthulhu Rising -- essentially the Ringworld mechanics and the Traveller character concepts, married under the hallowed arch of the Cthulhu Mythos. There was an excellent interstellar marines supplement for it that was so derivative of Book 4: Mercenary, Aliens, and Halo it seems to have been run off the Internet for IP infringement. Bonus points for anyone who can find it again. Simon's comment above gets at the central frustration we've been voicing -- that the game as presented gave players an impossibly huge map and little to no focus. Were there to be any scenarios published for it, I'd like to see mini-campaigns set in virtually any corner of Niven's Known Space, not just the beneath the Great Arch. !i!

I apologise in advance for getting anecdotal and explicit, so I'll hide the following. In games, this is why we have GMs to make sense of these situations. And why, in RQ, there are precious few HPs associated with the head. !i!

Robots will do whatever we program them to do. As we program broader permissions to act autonomously and simulate individual initiative and/or sentience in the name of efficiency, they'll be increasingly equipped to act in support of their own welfare -- and presumably ours as well. We fear this autonomy because we've seen, historically, how abominably our species has been capable of treating servitors, and how violently those servitors have responded on occasion. I haven't followed the R.U.R. discussion, but I presume that someone has pointed out that the "monsters" in the scenario are the creators/overlords, not the robots. That is, after all, the underlying theme in most of the Cthulhu Mythos stories. !i!

B'uh...wait. You mean there are differences between communism, socialism, collectivism, distributism, etc? !i!

I'm referring to Asians, specifically Chinese. Just because he's particular about it -- or discriminating -- doesn't mean he's not a racist. But he still won't do business with them. I'm sure he has plausible enough reasons. Granted, had the show continued, there would've been plenty of opportunity for character growth in which Mal could've come to grips with his racism. Pity for lost opportunity. !i!

Weird how I forgot about that whole fiasco. However, Lucas' nomenclature aside, were the units of the Droid Army actually sentient, or simply autonomous? That's a worthwhile distinction. The who now? Were they the ones who actually built the Droid Army? Yeah, but honestly, what else might Jabba have planned on using him for? And that's hardly an institutional employment of droids. I'm increasingly fond of the idea that there are other, perhaps larger and more vigorous galactic governments out there, watching the Rebel/Empire - New Republic/First Order conflicts as contemporary Western governments watch conflicts in the Middle East or North Africa. We get hints of these other governments, but never actually see them on screen. !i!

Internally, I now explain lack of on-screen representation as an expression of the in-universe politics. The Star Wars movies essentially document the internecine conflicts among the human-dominated backwaters of the galaxy, and the white-dominated human backwaters at that. The big picture? What we're seeing on screen ain't the only game in town, and is presented only from the view of those embroiled in the conflict. Kind of like how in Firefly, in a 'Verse populated heavily by people of Chinese decent, there are none aboard Serenity. Why? Because Mal is a devoted Browncoat, vocally and violently opposed to the Alliance, which includes unification with Chinese-settled moons. He'll seemingly travel anywhere and take almost any risk if there's money involved, but in the whole series we never see him so much as speak with an Asian, much less set foot on a Chinese-dominated moon and parley with an Asian client. And why does he resent Simon and River so much, the only people with an even remotely Chinese-sounding name? See? Simple -- Rugged individualism aside, Malcolm Reynolds is a racist. This sort of thing has been incorporated into some games, such as Traveller's Third Imperium with the Solomani (South African-styled Apartheidists, not soviets) in which the sphere of influence is explicitly human-dominated and alien races are relegated to second-class roles in society. So, yes, what we're seeing on screen is exactly what's happening from the POV of the characters we're following. Which is why I'm (sort of) okay with the spin-off "A Star Wars Story" movies we're beginning to see. And while we're on this subject... You know, I think you're right. I can't think of anyone in Star Wars, aside from humans, who owns an artificially intelligent being. And, again, white humans. Even in Solo: A Star Wars Story, Lando Calrissian's relationship with L3-37 turned out to be, well, a relationship. And kind of a creepy one. !i!

Allow me to humbly submit, the Landmaster. Either that, or the Ark II, if you're not concerned about going off-road. Ha. If a terrorist faction (or freedom-fighters -- let's be fair to potential historical outcomes) has figured out a way of getting on and off the Ring without being obliterated by the automated asteroid defense system, that'd be a plot lure in and of itself. Actually, one could even co-opt the 1950s movie and '60s cartoon Journey to the Center of the Earth, with a race between rival factions to reach a McGuffin then get off safely. !i!

Not to be trite, but perhaps the more appropriate sci-fi media model for Ringworld (and Traveller, since I've been making that association), is neither Star Wars nor Star Trek, but Battlestar Galactica. Overarching goal for the campaign (find "Earth"), but each game session or two is an "episode of the week," and at the end of the episode, another tantalising hint is dropped to keep the players on the path toward the final payoff. In Ringworld, the default final goal is finding a means to safely escape the Ring, but whether or not you actually get to that point is almost inconsequential. Almost. It's the adventure along the way that counts. Galactica never got to Earth*, the Enterprise never completed its 5-year mission (on screen, at least), but we still enjoy the sense of mission. So, aside from escape, what's the mission for a Ringworld campaign? !i! [*Yes, yes, but let's not talk about Galactica 1980.)

By adding to the post count? We're practically setting this house on fire. You're too kind. !i!