AikiGhost

Loving the Stross books and the RPG so far, just bought the Black Bag Jobs supplement and the scenarios therein seem like stuff I can genuinely use so far.

Looking forward to the Agents Handbook, any idea on an ETA for that?

This is great news, this is one of the two games I care about this year along with Fading Suns 3rd edition.

Ive quite happily managed to use Fates Aspects in my BRP Fading Suns game without issue. All I do is give basic Fate points = 1/2 POW and require a Fate Point Spend to activate an Aspect and get an appropriate re-roll. Compels allow me to force a PC to be played to its Aspects or spend Fate points to avoid it. I found Aspects worked quite well for more character defining things like "Haughty Hawkwood Nobleman" or "Lecherous Decados Duelist".

This sounds right up my street. Any further info on a release date?

30 playable races? That is one hell of a useful resource right there for any Sci Fi campaign.

I'm hoping it's Tales of New Crobuzon, the game based on China Mieville's Bas-Lag novels (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council).

Adamant Entertainment has the rights to the game. Adamant is Gareth Michael-Skarka. Gareth now works for Cubicle 7, and Adamant has so partnered with them.

Mieville has said himself in the past that his game of choice was Call of Cthulhu, so it would be a natural fit.

ToNC is supposed to have its own custom system though isnt it? Though I heard that China was a fan of CoC as well as D&D.

Looks good. has anyone played it yet?

How did it go? Being a rabid Barbarians of Lemuria fan right now I have to ask would this translate to BoL well or is the setting too grim to use with a super heroic S&S system like BoL?

I use POW vs POW for all tests. I don't want my casters constantly having to be misers with thie MPs just in case they get attacked with something that is a MP vs MP resistance.

Why take a system that is streamlined and works perfectly well as is and add unneeded complexity?

BRP is simple and to the point and that is one of the reasons its such a great system IMHO. Adding more rules to combat is a step in the wrong direction as far as I'm concerned.

Not that relavant but you should probably do a 303 Redirect for your old simplequest page, as a lot of people will have linked to that and if you do a 303 redirect you'll help maitain your google rankings.

Just add this to a .htaccess file in the root directory of your web server (assuming apache)

redirect permanent /simplequest /openquest

And that should do the job.

Luck,

Id like to see a bit on why you made any design decisions you did and what kind of "feel" each type of magic was designed to impart.

My generic shortened list

Athletics

Awareness

Bargain

Computer

Conversation / Whit

Cryptography

Disguise

Dodge

Drive

Electronic Design / Repair / Security

Film & Television

General Knowledge

Gunnery

History

Intimidation

Knowledge (Specific)

Languages

Law

Leadership

Lip Reading

Lock Picking

Magic (Specific Sphere)*

Medicine / First Aid

Melee

Natural World

Navigation

Perform

Persuade / Lie

Pilot

Play Instrument

Potions / Poisons

Ranged Weapons

Read

Ride

Sense Mood

Slight of Hand

Social Skills

Stealth

Streetwise

Swim

Unarmed Combat

If anything Id like to see the skills list in BRP reduced even further.

Remember that the core rulebook already has fate points (p176) if this monograph doesn't include them.

Yeah but those rules suck Jason.

But in seriousness I'll never understand why you decided to use MPs as the Fate Point resource. To me Fate Points should be a completely separate resource that isnt dependent on a stat of any kind.

EDIT: Just bought the hard copy, hope air mail isn't too slow.

Does this monograph include rules for more heroic spaghetti western style gunslinging?

How does it handle the fact that the good guys seldom get hit until neat the end of a film or of they do its a flesh wound? Is there some type of hero points mechanic?

Player (after missing several times): "I run up to the monster that is grappling with my friend, put the barrel of my gun to it and pull the trigger."

How would the BRP rules respond to this? How would you, as a GM, respond to this (if different from the last question)?

Ok Make a shotgun roll with a +30%

If that didn't kill the monster Id then let it attack him at +30% and without allowing him a dodge roll. After all whats good for the goose is good for the gander. Seat of the pants GMing, moi?

Another suggestion is Etherscope, which is wierd mix of victorian steampunk with an odd etherworld attached.

A review

The blurb:

"In 1876, Harold Wallace discovered something that changed the world: Etherspace. The might of Victorian industry drove forward, breaking down the frontiers of technology. Steam engines became smaller, weapons became more powerful, and cybernaughtics replaced limbs lost in bloody imperial wars. Then mankind learned to step into Etherspace itself.

Cyberpunk Victoriana

Now it's 1984. In this alternative world of out-of-control technology, Etherspace is the new frontier. Punk scope riders fight evil industrialists while occult investigators war against Etherspace demons. Mysterious System Agents lurk in the shadows as treasure hunters raid Lemurean ruins for lost secrets. Jack in, scope up, and get ready, because the options for an Etherscope game are endless!"

I am a big fan of both systems and love parts of both.

I like BRP/RQ combat but love D&D magic.

I prefer BRP/RQ skills but love class roles.

The bits of D&D you love (D&Ds vancian magic and Classes) are 2 fo the bits of D&D I detest, add feats and that my list complete.

I guess what I'm saying is I'll happily play a more heroic dungeon crawling version of BRP/RQ but I really don't want or need either D&Ds fire and forget magic or its Character classes. Both of which take away from RQs ease of use and connection to a game world and move the game more in the direction of a board game or "Pawn Stance" gamist way of playing an RPG.

All IMHO and YMMV.

Anyway all you really need to do to make RQ more heroic is Make HP = total of Con & Siz, and MPs= total of Pow & Int, then give players 3 hero points per session.

Spending a hero point allows:

A re roll of any dice roll.

A soak of 1d6 damage

A minor dramatic scene edit.

This is the reason it's a shame BRP isn't OGL. We'd have seen a ton of published stuff form 3rd parties by now if it was.

In FATE the "Aspects" you write down are actually the most mechanically significant parts of your character.

The coolest thing about aspects is the way they are Invoked, a player can invoke an aspect to get a bonus to an action, but by the same token the GM can also invoke an aspect to force a PC to do something not advantageous to the PC but within the spirit of the aspect. The Player must pay fate points to invoke an aspect bu so must the GM.

EG: If a PC has the aspect "Heart of a lion" he can pay some FATE points to overcome fear, enhance his combat rolls, resist torture etc, but by the same token the GM could invoke this aspect by paying the PC some FATE points to force the player to do something stupidly heroic or tactically dangerous like taking on the evil dukes personal champion in one on on combat even though he knows he is outclassed. The beauty of this is that the FATE points just payed to the PC can now be used to help defeat the dukes champion.

Merry Christmas and happy gaming to all!!

Ive use aspects in a d100 BRP like system and found they worked quite well, I allowed re-rolls on the spending of a fate point in an aspect related way.

As regards advancement on of the systems my group has been using with BRP for quite along time is the idea of definite progression. Basically whenever a skill gets a tick then the skill will definite advance at the end of the advanture. But the amount of the advance completely depends on ho advanced the skill currently is. See the chart below

Current % / Advance per tick

0-30% / +5%

31-50% / +4%

51-70% / +3%

71-90% / +2%

90%+ / +1%

Seemed to work well for us and avoided all that rolling at the end of each advanture.

I don't care what you think, ghost.

I started this for advice on what *I* want to do with the general setting material. Whether you approve or not matters not at all. That's not what this thread is about. If you don't have anything constructive to add, and you obviously don't, just stay away.

I have plenty to add. I just like the system provided with BoL. Also this thread isn't yours. Once you post it it becomes the boards to do with what it will, thats how the internet works.

But since you seem to have taken offense for some reason I shall bow out and leave you to it.

Shame on you!

I do think the mechanic is neat, but I prefer game systems that fit somewhere between rampant numbers inflation and ultra simplicity.

Im not a massive "Indie Design" fan, but I do ten to like systems that use things like FATEs "Aspects" and BoLs "Careers"

I just got my Barbarians of Lemuria POD book form LULU and the more I read it the more I think people should just use the Barbarians of Lemuria RPG since its actually perfect for this type of S&S gaming.

Yes, that is the game I am converting to SB1 rules. I would have thought it obvious from the post.

Sorry I thought you were talking about the book (which I haven't read).