rleduc

I also have something I would put together as a submission.

For the record, I did a little paper on vakunja back in grad school and I’ve always felt they are a very beautiful animal.

I saw on Dustin’s blog that he is swamped and figured it would be better to ask here then hit him with yet another e-mail.

I do hope it floats to the top of the to-do list – even if mine doesn’t make the cut I still want that monograph.

Thanks for the news.

While the BRP adventure contest was under way, I keep thinking “gee, I would like to write one of those”, and then two weeks before the deadline – bang, I had an idea – wrote it up (my first ever attempt at writing an adventure for print), submitted it – and never heard another word.

Has anyone else heard if their submissions were accepted? Just wondering…

Me too – that’s why I came up with the work-around of giving everyone POW/2 points which could go for magic or skills.

I downloaded the PDF – it is a 36 page free-be for an Indy game called “Donjon” – I have never heard of this game myself, so I can not say anything about it. The module (on page 25) states that it is a “homage” to D&D’s Hollow Earth setting. It appears to be about talking plants fighting talking bugs – but maybe I’m missing something.

Although there is a little similarity between this and my mental image of your upcoming monograph – it seems to me that you are both just picking up the same underlying theme. I would think a simple change in the name and away you go.

I still plan on buying your monograph.

Minor Omission:

Page 48, the skill list by category table should list Perform as having specific specialties.

I hit on this problem from a slightly different angle a while back – basically as I read the Core Rules the balance for having Magic is that you start one power level lower; in a heroic level campaign your wizard starts as a normal level wizard (I’m looking at page 87 Powered Characters vs. Non-Powered Characters). This is a problem if you are running a normal-level game, as there is no lower level to drop the powered character to. I have been fiddling with this, and for my post-apoc game I have settled on letting everyone have access to the same laundry-list of powers, but adding to the list some “non-power” powers.

For Example: All PCs get POW/2 points to spend on the following:

[list of cool cyberware with point cost]

[list of biological modifications with point cost]

1 Point: +25% in one skill

1 Point: Expert: The character can raise one skill to 90% rather then the usual cap of 75% during character generation.

1 Point: Gifted, the character gains a +3% special bonus to one skill category (Combat, Communication etc.)

This way, if I do not want to run a cyborg or a mutant I can just dump my POW points into skills.

I am glad people like this – in my line of work the saying is “the third time you do something, automat it”. As I was porting all my old “house ruled” BRP games into the new system I just kept needing that doc.

By the way, there is an error on the table on page 48. The skill “Performance” should be labeled as “Performance (Various)”. It is just a little thing I stumbled across while putting the template together.

I like that -- thanks!

I am going to include a version of the transform spell that has a longer duration, but only allows you to transform to a single organism – and I (as the GM) will keep control over what versions are available.

Example:

Transform to Wolf: Subject maintains mental attributes and skills, but has the body (and fighting capabilities) of a wolf. No equipment travels with the subject. Duration is casters POW in hours.

Another version:

Transform to Orc: All the subjects’ attributes remain the same – he simply becomes, physically, an orc for POW hours. Note: Each time the spell is cast, the subject is recognizable as the same orc he/she was the last time.

This spell would allow the caster to explore a section of an old forest or sniff out a bandit lair without drawing too much attention – but in the game I run, a wolf is not likely to be a preferred form for fighting. Likewise, the orc spell could be used to infiltrate a group of orcs or even to create an alternate persona – but it doesn’t give the caster any combat advantages. The transformation becomes more of an information gathering spell.

Hello,

I wanted to draw everyone’s attention to something I have added to the download section. I call it the “game template” and it is a MS Word doc that can easily be edited to create a players handout detailing certain unique elements in your game. There is more detailed discussion about the template on my blog (look on the boring blog – a players handout for character generation is a useful thing, but it is boring).

Thanks,

Rich

I hadn't considered allowing for professional bonuses-- is this a house rule?

It was just what I thought was meant by EDU being affected by “background”. The only other thing I could think of was that each character story would get its own base EDU and that didn’t sound very BRP-like to me.

Yeah, you are right – this is an error. I had taken it to mean “…your character’s age (described in step 3 page 19) and profession.” I figured it was up to the GM to concoct a little table like:

[table]Age Range|Base EDU

15-19|7

20-24|8

25-29|9

30+|10

[/table]

[table]Profession|Bonus

Cop|+3

Scientist|+5

[/table]

Hopefully some of the more knowledgeable types on this forum will clarify this.

I can’t say if it is fair or not, but that sounds like something I would do. The one caveat is, given the extra points, I would worry about people dumping on a stat and really jacking up the others; but I usually handle that with gentle correction during char gen.

Have fun,

Rich

I wanted to add this to the record.

After following this thread, I went ahead and picked up a copy of “Vagabond Voyaging” – including shipping it was less then $10. I ride a train to and from work each day and was able to read the book in just a few commutes.

IMHO this is a great source book, not only for 1920’s and 30’s, but for classic Traveler. As I was reading the book it seemed to jive exactly with my impression of the typical Traveler adventure; a group of people thrown together on a ship having adventures. Of course, the author was suggesting much more mundane (particularly by 2008 standards) adventures, but the idea was there. Actually, I think even the tonnage of the ships was about the same – maybe a little smaller in Traveler.

I have gotten more out of this $10 book then from many supplements costing a lot more.

This is so funny – I just got to the battle of London tree this morning on the train, and here is a new thread about a world based partially on “Integral Trees” – I can’t wait!

The Encyclopedia of Arda does not have an entry for them (and it has a lot of entries), but they are still cool!

Encyclopedia of Arda: Search

You know, downloading stuff only encourages him…

Since no one has said anything particularly negative about my firearms upload, I thought I would try my hand at writing up some common weapons of WW-II. I hope people find this of interest.

Conversely, Stealth skills could be DEX+DEX-SIZ.

In past games I have done almost exactly the same thing you describe in your post, except for stealth I do DEX+10-SIZ. The “plus 10” (ten being the handier form of 10.5 which is the average roll on 3D6) normalizes the effect of SIZ – an average size person gets no bonus to stealth derived from Size while a size 15 gets -5% rather then -15% and a size 3 gets +7%.

Depending on how much detail you are looking for, you might be interested in some of the downloads available:

• Under “downloads:Game Aids” there is a document entitled “A Kick in Your Arsenal” that includes information on the damage from various modern firearms, and
  
• I have contributed my own firearm rules at “downloads:Alternate Rules:Modern_Firearms.doc”. Both of these would help you stat out various lever action rifles.
  

I usually run “hard SF” games set in the near future that have a gritty feel about them, and so they benefit from a fair amount of detail in firearms. Now there was a thread a little while ago about modern firearms in BRP, and that got me thinking that there may be others out there who would like to see my house rules on the subject. I have uploaded a document called Modern_firearms.doc to Alternate Rules, and I would invite anyone with an interest to have a look at it. Feedback is always welcome.

Post-apocalyptic gurus will recognize that the system I use is strongly influenced by the old FGU game Aftermath!

I will also point out that page-layout is not my strength and the weapons table is munged-up in several places – but I think it should be usable by anyone who cares.

TTFN,

Rich

Can I show my ignorance and ask what AT-43 is?

The website now lists the extension – I think it is official! (And boy did that save me…)

This is a very interesting approach. I usually write a skill list for a specific

setting, but allow the players to convince me to add a certain skill to this

list if they really think that their character concept requires it.

I also allow negotiation on closed skill lists – and since closed list skills are non-overlapping, they are easy to add – because they don’t affect any other skill.

In the above example if someone wanted to play a guy from an ICBM silo who would know how to launch them – I would make him take the appropriate amounts of electronics, computers etc and then allow a new skill of ICBM Launching. This new skill would only apply to launching big rockets. Now imagine this guy needed to use a computer to access security information, and he might argue, “While in the silo the PC did this all the time, so can I use my Launch ICBM skill?” I would say, no this is a computer use roll – but you have experience in that, so just use that roll.